AI Can’t Replace This: The Leadership Advantage That’s More Human Than Ever | Part One

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Everything rises and falls on leadership.
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The ability to lead well is fueled by living your cause and purpose.
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This podcast will equip you with the tools to do just that.
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Live and lead with cause and purpose.
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And now, author of the book, The Anatomy of Leadership, and our host, Chris Comeaux.
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Hello and welcome.
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I'm so excited today.
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We have with us Dr.
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Andrea Hollingsworth, who's the founder and CEO of Hollingsworth Consulting.
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Welcome, Andrea.
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Oh, it's so good to be here.
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Thank you, Chris.
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It's great to have you.
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Let me introduce you to our audience.
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So, Dr.
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Andrea Hollingsworth is the founder and CEO of Hollingsworth Consulting.
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She's the author of the best-selling award-winning book, The Compassion Advantage: How Top Leaders Build More Humanizing Workplaces.
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There you go.
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Since 2008, she's been researching, writing, and speaking about the science of human emotions and relationships with more than a dozen publications in peer-reviewed journals, teaching posts at institutions, including Boston University, Princeton, and Loyola University in Chicago.
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Dr.
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Hollingsworth coaches executives and senior leaders who want to lead with equal parts, head and heart.
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I love that.
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That's why we actually have her here today, because hospice people would very much identify with that.
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She holds high standards for performance while prioritizing genuine care for others and for themselves.
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In her one-on-one work, she helps clients develop the inner grounding and the inner personal acumen that today's leadership absolutely demands.
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So they can stand steady, clear, and connected, even in seasons of intense pressure and change.
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And God knows those are the seasons that we find ourselves in right now.
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Amen, brother.
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Amen.
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What sets Andrea apart is her background as a trained psychotherapist.
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She is exceptionally skilled at going deep, helping leaders uncover and shift the long time limiting thought patterns that keep them stuck in cycles of toxic stress, overwork, and self-criticality.
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Clients describe her coaching as both rigorous, remarkably kind, and a space where honest self-examination becomes possible because compassion is always in the room.
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So it's hard to ask you this question because you may go, well, that was in the actual in my bio, but what is your superpower, Andrew?
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My superpower.
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Oh my goodness.
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You know, uh this may sound too general or too cheesy for some people, but I'm going to say love.
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Um you know, I, I have always said that when I get to the end of my life, if I can look back and say that I loved well, um, then I will have led a successful life.
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It's not to say that I, I love perfectly, um, but but when I don't love what love well, believe me, I don't all the time, um, I try to learn from it and do better next time.
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So, and I also view it as it's not so much something I like muster up.
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It's something I try to allow to flow through me from something larger than myself.
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And and I I've lived long enough to know and I've gone through enough hard things to know that love doesn't always have those good vibes.
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It doesn't always have the rosy cheeks and the happy clappy.
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You know, love's truest expressions sometimes come in the hardest moments when hard conversations need to happen, decisions, you know, need to be made that are right but are hard.
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Um, maybe it will disappoint people.
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And and I, I keep learning this over and over.
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And I again I'm imperfect at it, but I at the end of the day, I believe that's the most important thing.
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And I try my best every day to prioritize how I can love well today, um, personally and professionally.
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So that's so good, Andrea.
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And the the blessing of doing this show is I get to meet amazing people like yourself.
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And usually I'll well, you and I have never actually been in the same room with each other.
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So I think what I'm about ready to say feels even more profound.
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I sense that about you.
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Like the first time that I've met you, that energy that you and isn't it incredible, right?
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Like, you know, virtually through this medium that we're interacting with each other, that some kind of way that spirit pervades you, and we're probably a thousand plus miles apart, and that actually pervades you.
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And I hope and I do believe that through this show today, you'll project that forward to other people.
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And and I feel like this is a timely conversation.
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Thank you.
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So traditionally, so I have 30 years now in this space and in hospice and powder care.
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And so traditionally, someone like you would have been very popular as a speaker 30 years ago when I first started.
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Like hospice was very much about the heart-centered nature of the care, which was crazy for me because I came from corporate America.
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Always joke that I was like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when she kind of walked out of after the house goes and she wakes up in Technicolor.
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I'm like coming from corporate America, we're data and all, and I'm like going, who are these people?
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It must have been so like just whiplash.
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Like, oh, look, this is an entirely different culture.
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Yeah, yeah.
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It was.
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But the cool thing about my own personal journey is I feel like we've both rubbed off on each other, the industry in terms of the heart-centered work, but bringing the data, the left brain into this work.
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Absolutely.
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Challenges, as I worry, has the pendulum either swung too far or the external pressures so great that oh my God, how are we going to keep the budget?
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How are we going to deal with the regulations?
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And it just forces you to almost want to not want to.
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It forces you to live in that left brain without you actually realizing that and losing that kind of whole-hearted person, which I would guess you're going to say is exactly the one that's needed for the journey.
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Absolutely.
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Left brain full heart.
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Does so does all that any comment you want to make to any of that?
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Oh, I just, I just second all of it, all of it.
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I mean, you know, one of one of my key phrases is compassionate agility, which just means basically leading with heart, leading with that connection that you were talking about, but recognizing that in today's fast-paced, ever-changing, ever more stressful uh context, um, especially in healthcare and in hospice, um, difficult decisions need to be made, efficiency needs to be maintained, um, and and you have to be able to execute and get things done and make wise decisions at the same time.
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And so I truly believe that both depend on one another, just as we have, you know, we have different parts of our brain that do the logic and the and the empathy and whatnot.
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And um, and and one without the other is is truly not going to get very far at all.
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Well said.
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Well, we're gonna unpack all of this.
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So let's the other reason why I felt this show was timely, a lot of people like Chris, you gotta do a show of artificial intelligence.
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And we've done some shows on artificial intelligence.
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My favorite podcast in the world is The Diary of the CEO, and they have these amazing people, ex-Google executives, and all the people that there's great technical artificial intelligence podcasts out there.
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I had a sense that I wanted to speak to someone like you.
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And so we're not just gonna talk about artificial intelligence, but my first couple of questions are at least in this realm.
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Oh, yeah.
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Because I think it's creating this urgency, this ethos, it's almost like you could feel this quickening of the time that we live.
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I got your amen when I was saying about like all these external pressures.
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Yeah.
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So here's my question.
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So as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly intelligent, many people fear we're gonna become less human.
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Yet your work really suggests the opposite that compassion may become our greatest competitive advantage, or maybe just still my word, a superpower.
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Yeah.
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Why do you believe compassion is becoming more valuable, not less, in this AI era?
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Oh, great question.
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Thank you for that.
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Um well, let's first start with the definition of compassion.
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I think sometimes people sort of throw it out as a synonym with empathy, and and it it is nuanced.
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Um, so compassion comes from the Latin roots cum and pati, and it means to suffer with uh and to do something to help.
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That's how it's defined in the literature.
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To suffer with and then to do something to help.
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Um so large language models are very uh they're amazing at so many things.
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Um they can help us solve problems, they can help us come up with solutions, they can help us with with our with creativity and with organization and with, I mean, so many things.
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Um but they can't, they're incapable of true compassion because they're incapable of true suffering.
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You know, like I, I work with Claude.
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Okay, I if I tell Claude, no, you did that wrong, you know, or you hallucinated a fact or whatever, Claude doesn't hurt.
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Um Chat GPT, you know what, I don't want to talk to you anymore because Gemini is better, you know, it's not gonna hurt its feelings.
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And so um, you know, AI doesn't have a body that can ache.
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And it doesn't have any existential crisis that it needs to move through.
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It doesn't have a nervous system, it's incapable of physical pain and emotional pain, right?
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You know, this in some ways that's always been the dream of humanity.
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Like, oh my gosh, success, productivity, achievement, and intelligence without all that emotional and spiritual stuff that gets in the way of us, you know, moving forward.
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You know, oh wow, what if we could be all that we can be without the mistakes and without losing people we love and without having to face face hardship or disability or any of the painful things we have to face in life.
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So what you know, what does this have to do with compassion at work?
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Well, I mean, working people today are suffering.
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They're suffering.
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And I think especially in healthcare, especially in palliative care, you know, these are suffering people who are working working with suffering people.
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Um, new research out of Limra that I just saw shows that 75% of workers are saying they've experienced at least one mental health crisis during the past year.
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And with Gen Z alone, that figure jumps to 90%.
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And so all of this to bring it home, it is a culture of compassion in the workplace that enables um working people to still perform when they're suffering.
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Um, you know, it's that sense of I see you, I feel and I understand you, I'm here to help you.
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Um, AI can simulate that.
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And actually, I will say I'm not anti-technote, I'm not a Luddite at all.
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Um, I have a wonderful AI tool that does help me emotionally regulate in difficult moments.
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Um, but it doesn't replace that nervous system reset that I get when I connect with someone who I know sees me and empathizes with me and is there to help me.
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People can tell between real and fake.
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And at the end of the day, I think for most people, um, AI just isn't gonna do it in some in the in the the sense of getting the support we need to get through the hardships and the stresses and the struggles of modern day life.
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We need we need one another.
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At the end of the day, we do.
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So when leaders can be compassionate, they create a culture that that feels where people walk in and even even subconsciously, even before they realize it, they're like, oh, I'm safe here.
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I can take risks here.
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I, you know, I can I can I can be the best person that I can be here.
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Um, I can make a mistake and and grow from it here.
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And um that I, I truly believe that's something AI can't can't replicate at all.
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That's so wonderful.
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One of the um we've wrestled quite a bit with like the challenges that we're facing as a hospice empowered care industry.
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We've come to the conclusion there are eight, we've done a podcast on it.
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But one of them is technology, of course.
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And yeah, especially in this space of hospice empowered care.
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Like I listen to what you're saying and go, my gosh, this is so critical, timely, needed right now in the workplace.
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But at the end of life is one of the most sacred and critical times in someone's life.
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It's it's why what makes this work?
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Sacred, uh fallen in love with it 30 years ago.
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So many of the people that work in this space, we fall in love with it because it is sacred work.
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And what came out of that technology challenge is we said it's gotta be able to enhance what we do, never remove that human, that compassion component.
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Yeah, how do you how do you bring the two together?
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And I love because you're I feel like you're saying that about the workforce at a time.
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And the other interesting thing I was thinking about, I was watching a movie with my wife the other night.
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I can't remember the name of it, it was Bradley Cooper, and he takes this drug and it is like unlocks his brain, and he's like this brilliant person, and he figures out like all these different industries, and there's something about that appeal.
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Like we want to be like AI.
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I want to know everything.
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Yeah.
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But yet when we when we step back and say what makes us uniquely human, the whole human experience, it's more what you're poking on.
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Um, it's well, I should say more than what you're poking on.
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It's what I think you're revealing, you're bringing us back to again at a time that I think is pretty critical.
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So we there's it feels like there's this important distinction of your work.
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You're you're not just simply a leadership coach.
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I would imagine you probably don't, if someone said, like if I said that in your bio, I hope you probably would push back on me.
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Because you approach leaders through this lens of your training as a therapist.
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And I think that's pretty unique.
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How does that change the conversation?
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Um, what are you seeing beneath the surface that maybe traditional leadership coaching misses?
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And I just want to add this and then want you to answer, Andrea.
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We've brought an incredible friend, David Sachsenmaier.
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He's ICF certified coach.
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We actually make him available to a lot of our members.
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I've grown up in this space, as I said, 30 years.
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Typically, if someone has a challenge, they refer them to EAP.
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Yeah.
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And I always wince because I've never seen someone come back from EAP and had a life-transforming experience.
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So I also feel like there is a time and space for incredible resources like you.
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I've got a friend, get an ICF coach.
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We've actually referred some team members who've had transformative experiences, but have always believed we also need someone like you in our camp that has the has the therapist's uh competency as well.
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So I sell that to set the table on that question.
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So I'd love to hear what you say.
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Yeah, no, thank you.
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Um so I the work that I do, uh I describe it as therapeutic leadership coaching.
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So it's a mixture of therapy and coaching because many of today's, you know, workplace issues deal with a combination of personal and relational and professional topics and challenges.
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And those are really hard to separate.
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So, you know, I, I do I do help clients come up with goals and come up with solutions.
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That's the stuff of coaching, right?
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Even while they're receiving some of the resources that come from therapy, which is much more focused on like healing.
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Um so, you know, I think a lot of leaders do need emotional healing, um, especially when they're going through a stressful change process.
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And I know across healthcare and hospice that especially with AI and all these new technologies, it's like there's always a new, a new change and a new um direction, you know, that we're going, or um something we need to learn to implement and utilize very quickly.
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It's very stressful.
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So, you know, I had a coaching client not long ago.
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His name was Dave.
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Um, he wasn't in healthcare, he was uh CFO of a mid-sized uh company that was acquired.
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And, you know, it was a long, drawn-out change process.
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This acquisition was very slow.
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There would, there was uncertainty about like who would lose their job, who would be kept, changing roles, changing titles.
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And he was really struggling with um not simply the logistics of change, um, but with some of the emotions he was feeling in the midst of the stress of the change.
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So especially um he had a lot of insecurity, he had a lot of self-doubt.
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He would get on Zoom meetings and you know, he would sort of perform.
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Um, but he but under the surface, he would just be racked with feelings of you know, inward criticism and anticipatory grief of losing, losing some of his colleagues that he'd been with for years, you know, and and so therapeutic leadership coaching for Dave meant, you know, addressing his leadership goals and progress through the change, but it also meant exploring some of the trauma in his past that had his personal history that had made his inner critic so loud, telling him, like, you can't get through this.
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You're not gonna be able to lead people through this.
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Like, you don't have the chops, you don't have what it takes, you know, you didn't even know your role.
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And whatever it is, you're probably not gonna be able to live up to it, you know.
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So we found practical tools to help him soothe himself in the face of those, you know, those um inward beliefs and that inner critic uh when he felt overwhelmed with anxiety.
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Um we helped him, you know, learn to trust and let go in the face of uncertainty.
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We have so much uncertainty across all sectors today, but I think especially in healthcare, um, and letting go of things he couldn't control.
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And that just helped him be so much more grounded and regulated.
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Not that he still didn't struggle sometimes, but um but it gave him the resilience that he needed in that moment to get through this year and a half long process that was so excruciating for everybody.
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So, you know, something I often say um from stage, I'm a keynote speaker as well.
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Wounded people wound people, we've all heard that, but transformed people transform people.
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And so therapeutic leadership coaching for me is is something that can transform people because we're all wounded.
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And, you know, the healing that makes for greatness in leadership at work in life does require a compassionate, strong, wise companioning.
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That is where the transformation happens, and that's what I offer.
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Oh, that is so good, Andrea.
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I, I didn't share this with you when you and I met.
00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:58.480
I don't know if it'll ever become a book, but I'm working on my second book.
00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:06.400
Um, you know, writing a book today with AI, right, is like, well, you could write a book with AI.
00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:10.160
And so I'm envisioning maybe it's something different than a book, but we'll see.
00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:14.000
But we just had a leadership development institute with all of our organization.
00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:17.119
Um, the book's title is It's About Time.
00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:28.559
And the concept is to go back in time travel back into those transformative low points in life that scarred us trauma, little T trauma, sometimes big T trauma.
00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:28.799
Yeah.
00:18:28.799 --> 00:18:33.200
And then ask ourselves is it possible you misremembered the story?
00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:35.440
And is there a different interpretation?
00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:36.640
Like rewriting.
00:18:36.640 --> 00:18:38.960
And so that's the concept.
00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:44.000
And um I did the presentation, but I did not um get to rehearse it.
00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:45.519
So it could have just been so busy.
00:18:45.519 --> 00:18:49.519
So, like I performed this presentation totally raw in front of our team.
00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:58.720
And I told a very vulnerable story about when I was four years old, that um very traumatic experience, and kind of the takeaway is that you're not courageous.
00:18:58.720 --> 00:19:04.319
But yet when I time traveled, it was incredibly courageous what I did as a four-year-old.
00:19:04.319 --> 00:19:09.200
Um, stood up to a situation that most adults wouldn't stand up to that situation.
00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:17.759
But I'm like bawling in front of our whole team because I just not anticipate the the just raw emotion of like going back there.
00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:18.160
Yeah.
00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:20.480
But it it did something.
00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:28.960
I felt something internally shift that not only had I, I wrote about it, and then I kind of I performed it or I shared it is a better way to say it.
00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:31.680
I shared it with our team, and I felt something.
00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:36.079
And the number of team members have come back to me now and said, that was a gift.
00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:43.119
And you're, you know, first off, that you would be that vulnerable made me go back in my own story way beyond anything I anticipated.
00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:47.119
It's one of them said it may, it may be the most transformative thing you've ever done.
00:19:47.119 --> 00:19:52.559
Now there's a side of me that thought, well, damn, after 30 years, there's a lot I've done if that's the most transformative.
00:19:52.559 --> 00:19:55.759
But I think it just puts an exclamation point on what you just said.
00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:57.599
Well, I thank you for sharing that.
00:19:57.599 --> 00:19:59.599
I, I mean the feelings are mutual.
00:19:59.599 --> 00:20:06.559
I, I do feel this natural like connection and and a similar, we're we're coming from a similar lens.
00:20:06.559 --> 00:20:12.720
And the more I get to know you and listen to you know how you approach leadership, um, I just so admire you.
00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:14.799
And there's such synergy.
00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:20.240
That story really highlights how important vulnerability is in leadership.
00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:22.079
And this is something I talk about a lot.
00:20:22.079 --> 00:20:33.599
You know, it's so scary to and of course there's a difference between being appropriately vulnerable, which it sounds like you were, and like dumping on your team, you know, your your trauma and stuff.
00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:38.880
And you have to get to a place where you're very clear that it's the former and not the latter.
00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:50.720
Um but when leaders can do that and when they can show that, hey, I'm human too, um I I have I have hurts that have taught me things, important things, and you do too.
00:20:50.720 --> 00:20:52.079
And we're all in this together.
00:20:52.079 --> 00:21:00.960
And let's really dig deep and figure out what makes us strong and and where the pain is and and and where the strength might be.
00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:08.000
Um I, I just I don't know that there's anything more needed right now than the exact thing you just described.
00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:09.519
So wow.
00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:10.720
Oh, well said.
00:21:10.720 --> 00:21:13.200
And you know, it's you're making me reflect too.
00:21:13.200 --> 00:21:17.519
If I've not written about it and like, you know, we're wrestling with this whole concept.
00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:23.119
I mean, I'm trained as an accountant, I'm not trained as a psychotherapist, but I've studied under some incredible folks.
00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:23.519
Dr.
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:32.880
Lee Thayer was my mentor, he was Stephen Covey's mentor, he knew Peter Drucker, Deming, so like all the pantheon of leaders that I admire, but he was also trained as a psychotherapist.
00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:33.119
Yeah.
00:21:33.279 --> 00:21:35.039
And and he had a degree in chemical engineering.
00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:37.200
So I mean a guy was totally person.
00:21:37.440 --> 00:21:37.680
Interesting person, Wow.
00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:38.079
Yeah.
00:21:38.079 --> 00:21:47.920
And so, but anyway, the point is this is that because I had done some wrestling, like if that was like the first time ever shared with that, yeah, I'm not quite sure how that would have actually impacted our team.
00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:48.400
Right, yeah.
00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:59.839
Because at some level, I had done some wrestling and some processing and some reinterpretation, but yet also it was still raw because, like, literally, I'm kind of you know traveling back and like I was feeling that four year old.
00:21:59.839 --> 00:22:02.160
World as I was kind of sharing it with our team.
00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:06.799
But I did fear feel something shift, which might be an interesting segue.
00:22:06.799 --> 00:22:10.400
You said this earlier, and it's the first time I met you.
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:12.960
That phrase just was like a brain tattoo.
00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:16.000
So you use the term compassionate agility.
00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:18.559
Most I've never heard that term.
00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:20.240
So love that lexicon.
00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:21.039
What does that mean?
00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:28.559
And why do you believe organizations need both compassion and agility if they're going to thrive in this crazy time that we live?
00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:30.000
Yeah, yeah.
00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:36.640
Well, I already uh went over the definition of compassion, to suffer with and to do something to help uh alleviate the suffering.
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:46.319
Agility comes from the Latin roots um uh one root, a gere, and that means uh to do or to drive or to effect.
00:22:46.319 --> 00:22:56.960
And so um, you know, in a change-filled and stressful context like today's today's organizations, um, and and uh on into the future.
00:22:56.960 --> 00:22:59.599
I mean, the future will be nothing if not more change.
00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:21.599
Um, prioritizing the this care and connection, the compassion, while at the same time, you know, as I said earlier, being able to execute bold decisions with efficiency, with wisdom, um, you know, it's staying emotionally connected to the human toll of like the change and the stress while still doing what's necessary to drive excellence within the organization.
00:23:21.599 --> 00:23:26.319
One of my key compassionate agility mantras is care, don't carry.
00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:30.319
Care, don't carry.
00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:33.279
Anyone listening, just let that sink in for a minute.
00:23:33.279 --> 00:23:35.599
Write it down if you if you want.
00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:46.160
Um, what that means is yes, create a safe container for your team to process the hard stuff, but do not yourself become that container.
00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:47.200
Don't take that on.
00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:54.400
Because no one will be helped if your compassion as a leader results in you drowning under under the weight of other people's distress.
00:23:54.400 --> 00:24:04.000
So, you know, care, don't carry involves just really a lot of radical acceptance of what you can and can't do in a context full of change, full of stress.
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:16.160
Um so, you know, let's let's say, let's say you're leading a hospice organization and you're you're just you're facing a lot of budget cuts and like once again needing to do more with less.
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:25.759
What what what can you do in what is a compassionate agility look like in, let's say in a meeting with with some of the other leaders in your organization?
00:24:25.759 --> 00:24:28.640
You got to identify what's within and outside your power.
00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:30.960
You know, what what can you do?
00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:32.480
You can relay facts with candor.
00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:33.200
Here's what we know.
00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:35.839
I'm gonna keep you informed, as informed as I can be.
00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:36.960
Here's what I don't know.
00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:38.720
We're just gonna have to sit with that.
00:24:38.720 --> 00:24:40.720
You can create a case for change.
00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:49.839
You know, let's say you're implementing a new technology or something in your company, um, or you're needing to um, you know, again, do more with less.
00:24:49.839 --> 00:24:53.359
You can say, hey, if if we don't find a way through this, here are the implications.
00:24:53.359 --> 00:25:05.200
If we do, here's what's possible for us, you know, and drumming up a vision with people of what's possible in the midst of this difficult change or this, you know, needing to do more with less.
00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:09.759
Uh, you can listen and ask and tend, you can say, hey, what's the hardest part of this?
00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:12.400
How can I help support you through this?
00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:17.440
You can understand what your team needs and build that empathic support.
00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:23.920
But, and this is maybe even more important, this is where you got to not carry, you got to let go of the things outside of your control.
00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:28.319
You cannot control the big feelings that might be present within the organization.
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:31.680
The anxiety, the grief, the frustration.
00:25:31.680 --> 00:25:33.519
You gotta let it go.
00:25:33.519 --> 00:25:38.079
As Mel Robin says, you gotta let them, let them, you know, feel what they're gonna feel.
00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:40.880
You gotta let go of conflicts that may arise.
00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:48.640
I mean, of course, we want to uh lead well through conflict, but they are going to happen in the midst of any stressful or change-induced situation.
00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:54.960
Um, and and actually, conflicts can be really good when there's something new we need to navigate because you get different perspectives.
00:25:54.960 --> 00:25:59.119
And um, sometimes the best solutions and innovation come through conflict.
00:25:59.119 --> 00:26:00.319
So let them be there.
00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:01.200
Let it go.
00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:07.359
Um, let go of ongoing discomfort, you know, like it there's going to be ambiguity and disruption and loss.
00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:11.440
You got to let go of your fears about like how is this going to impact me and my career?
00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:17.759
And and and it just um so to sum it all up, a compassionate agility means many things.
00:26:17.759 --> 00:26:23.599
But I think one of the core components of it is this care, don't carry.
00:26:23.599 --> 00:26:39.039
Stay connected to the human toll of whatever change or stress is happening in the organization, but really let go of the emotional burden of carrying other people's overwhelm because you've got enough overwhelm on your own plate.
00:26:39.039 --> 00:26:42.720
Um, you need to move forward with the things that need to happen.
00:26:42.720 --> 00:26:45.279
And to not do so is not compassionate.
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:54.960
To stay too long in the pain with people and not make the decisions and not move forward actually stymies whatever it is that needs to happen.
00:26:54.960 --> 00:27:01.440
It is compassionate to make those hard decisions, but you can do it in a way I call it doing hard things with heart.
00:27:01.759 --> 00:27:03.119
No, that's actually incredible.
00:27:03.119 --> 00:27:08.880
And it's actually occurring to me, listening to you, this is applicable not only to leaders, but also the people by the bedside.
00:27:08.880 --> 00:27:17.599
Because the people that do burnout, they they just take and they take and they take, and they don't know how to to do that compassionate agility.
00:27:17.599 --> 00:27:19.440
I mean, it's exactly what you just described.
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:24.880
So I see this at a leadership level, but also by the bedside, the people are actually delivering the care.
00:27:25.039 --> 00:27:25.200
Yeah.
00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:28.799
Um so on this first segment, I have one more question I want to ask.
00:27:28.799 --> 00:27:33.519
And so AI seems to invoke two very different reactions in people.
00:27:33.519 --> 00:27:41.200
Some people see this enormous opportunity, while others are like just so fearful, like I'm gonna be replaced, I'm gonna be irrelevant.
00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:43.200
You know, you study human behavior.
00:27:43.200 --> 00:27:48.400
What do you think AI is really changing, not just in our jobs, but maybe in our identity?
00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:50.160
Ooh, I like that.
00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:54.079
Um So let me start with a story.
00:27:54.079 --> 00:28:03.920
I was uh at at one of my doctors last week, and um I sat down and you know, she she asked me, you know, uh, what brings you in?
00:28:03.920 --> 00:28:07.599
And and I was there for a second opinion on a medical issue.
00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:18.079
And I started talking to her, and she was looking into my eyes, and she was nodding, and she was listening to me, and she's asking questions, and I realized she's not typing any notes.
00:28:18.079 --> 00:28:26.880
And um it's because she had asked me at the beginning of the visit, is it okay if I have my AI tool listen in on our conversation so I don't have to be typing, you know?
00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:35.200
And um, you know, this was impossible before for healthcare providers to be able to, I think they all tried.
00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:44.000
I think I think most of them tried really hard to to stay connected to the patient while they, you know, while they're getting all the electronic stuff done.
00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:51.599
But but now AI makes it possible for for this listening and this tending, and and and this is AI at its best.
00:28:51.599 --> 00:29:04.720
Like this is where we have an opportunity where where wherever AI is able to maximize the things that make us human, first and foremost, our capacity for safe, authentic relational connections, I am all for it.
00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:06.000
I'm all for it.
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:12.400
Um I do have some concerns about AI in terms of changes to our identity.
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:22.000
Um, early on when Claude first came out, I experimented with having Claude write some of my social media posts and newsletters.
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:24.960
And at first, it was brilliant.
00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:27.599
I was saving all this time and whatnot.
00:29:27.599 --> 00:29:34.799
Um, but the luster quickly died off, not just because I wasn't getting any reactions on my posts, but I mean everybody could tell I was using AI.
00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:43.039
Because of what it was doing to my own ability to trust my own mind, my own creativity, my own problem solving, my own thought leadership.
00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:46.319
Um, because we need friction to grow as humans.
00:29:46.319 --> 00:29:48.559
This is how we have developed, how we've evolved.
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:52.559
But you know, we need to struggle to come into our best potentials.
00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:58.559
And when the friction is taken away because AI is doing the work for us, I think we lose something fundamental.
00:29:58.559 --> 00:30:03.759
Um, the philosopher Paul Ricour talked about the capable human being.
00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:09.599
You know, he wrote in French, and I'm not gonna try to, I don't speak French, but that's what it translates to, the capable human being.
00:30:09.599 --> 00:30:21.279
He defined human identity through our fundamental powers to speak and act and narrate and hold ourselves responsible for the actions that we take in life, what we do.
00:30:21.279 --> 00:30:27.519
And I worry that the more that we rely on robots to do these things for us, the less human we become.
00:30:27.519 --> 00:30:29.039
And that does worry me.
00:30:29.039 --> 00:30:48.160
And so I think the question that we always need to be asking is how am I utilizing this technology to grow my muscles of being connected, of being creative, of solving problems, and and using it to enhance my ability to trust myself.
00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:53.440
Um, otherwise, I yeah, it's that malaise of like, oh, I I guess I can't.
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:55.039
AI can do it for me.
00:30:55.039 --> 00:30:58.400
That that is a very scary future for me as I think about it.
00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:00.640
So brilliantly stated, Andrea.
00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:03.759
We're gonna figure out how to get in the same room with each other at some point in time.
00:31:03.759 --> 00:31:04.960
So that guy, Dr.
00:31:04.960 --> 00:31:20.319
Lee Thayer, who I mentioned to you, who is my mentor at the age of 93, somewhere in that ballpark, 92, 93, which would have been at this point in time, probably 12 years ago, one of his last blogs that he wrote was The Robots Are Coming, Oh My.
00:31:20.319 --> 00:31:22.160
And the punchline in that blog.
00:31:22.160 --> 00:31:24.079
So think about that, like 12 years ago.
00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:24.400
Yeah.
00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:29.599
And this he said what you just said, and and his lexicon was the competent individual.
00:31:29.599 --> 00:31:32.880
Um, so it sounds very c similar to the capable.
00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:38.000
And he was all about virtuosity, that you should be trying to become virtuosic.
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:46.000
And you know, usually virtuoso is used in the arts, like a virtuoso dancer or a virtual violinist, but he took it into the workplace.
00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:54.880
And like, so basically he's like, if your job can be replaced by a robot, it should, because you're basically performing your role in screensaver mode.
00:31:54.880 --> 00:31:59.279
But if you're trying to figure out how to be masterful, no robot can replace that.
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:02.960
Then it's it's like an instrument in your hands, not kind of the opposite.
00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:05.599
So I feel like he said very similar to what you said.
00:32:05.599 --> 00:32:07.279
I love the way you phrased it.
00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:09.440
Um, it's just awesome.
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:14.240
Don't miss part two of this episode coming this Friday.