AI Saves You 2.5 Hours a Week. Most People Waste It

Welcome to The Flourishing Edge, the podcast where we share weekly tips on making flourishing your competitive edge. I'm Ashish Kothari, your host, and each week we'll dive deep with flourishing experts, changemakers, and executives to share best practices that can help you unlock higher performance through science-based interventions. Let's step together into the edge of what's possible and live, work, and lead with more joy, health, love, and meaning. Welcome to the Flourishing Edge podcast. Today I'm joined by Bonnie Davis, co-founder of Huwork and co-author of Still Human with AI. Bonnie has spent her career helping leaders and organizations create workplaces where people don't just perform, they truly flourish. And in this conversation, we explore one of the most important questions of our time, Will AI make work more human or less? Bonnie reminds us that AI is already giving people time back, but the real question is what we do with that time. Do we simply fill it with more tasks or use the productivity to replace people, or do we really use that time to deepen relationships, develop people, protect wellbeing, and reconnect work to purpose? In this episode, we explored the 7 flourishing factors from the book Still Human with AI. They range from purpose and values to relationships, growth, well-being, communications, and generative leadership. And we really discuss what it means to build a workplace where technology amplifies human potential rather than replace it. This is a conversation about AI, yes, but more than that, it's about the choices leaders must make now to ensure that the future of work remains deeply, beautifully, and powerfully human. Ashish Kothari, I'm so excited to have you on our Flourishing Edge podcast. Thank you for joining us.

Thanks, Ashish. I'm thrilled to be here.

Well, listen, my friend, you've spent a lot of your professional career in this field around flourishing and wellbeing. I wanna start with where you are today. How do you define flourishing and how has that definition changed over the years for you?

Flourishing for me, I, it's more of a, almost a feeling than words. And the feeling that comes to mind is energy, that there is an energy in your mind and body that feels positive. And it doesn't mean it's always perfect. And it just means that the moments that are difficult, 'cause that's what life is, life is always going to throw us difficult moments, but we have that inner energy to be able to overcome all of that. And that includes the resilience to overcome the hard stuff. That includes the focus to be able to do the things that we love, the things that bring us joy. There is an element of being healthy because none of this works if we're not physically and mentally healthy. And it means that we have a sense of impact, contribution, connecting, and learning. It's, it's not only an energy, it's not an energy that stays static, but it's a continuous movement in a way that feels like it is feeding our soul, not just now, but that it's a sustainable way to feed our soul.

That a way of being, an energy state that allows us and gives us a solid foundation to handle what might come our way.

Exactly. Because that's— we can't predict the what might come our way, but we can predict having the foundation that allows us to bounce back.

Yeah. How has that changed from your earlier days as a Deloitte consultant and then your whole journey that took you through Sun and Avaya into kind of, you know, doing your own work?

I think I was, I'll say raised in air quotes because it wasn't so much my parents. My parents didn't go to college. My mom went back to college when I was a little bit older. But, um, I, I, for some reason had it in my head, this sense that I think a lot of us do of achievement and being on a certain path. You get a certain job and then you wind up getting married and having kids and you keep going and it's this upward step. And so I certainly had that. And it's not that those are bad things. It's just that those can't be the only thing. So if that is what feels fulfilling, and for me, it was, it's been wonderful. I love learning and I learned so much in those jobs and those companies. I made work friends along the way. I had bosses who supported me. I was making an impact. So all of that is still great. However, you also learn that without the ability to slow down and enjoy life and tend to your health and your wellbeing, what's the point? Point, because I'm sure it's similar for you seeing people whose lives have been cut too short. You get to this point of this wake-up call that there was something more important than that traditional track, and we really need a well-balanced life to really feel fulfilled and flourished.

Yeah, I mean, that was the tipping point for me, Bonnie, right? I was at this program, and I realized that week that I was with 30 of the senior partners and partners at McKinsey who had these perfectly curated external lives, right? Successful, making money, really highly regarded by their clients and in the world, married, families, houses, things, all of these external markers. And yet, you know, internally they weren't flourishing. And I've seen the same experience validated, right, at so many people, senior executives. We were talking about this just in the podcast we had earlier today where Courtney said it beautifully. She said, I see so many people who are miserably successful.

That's a great term. Yeah.

They're so successful and they're so miserable and they just don't know out because they're so successful that they just believe that, well, that is the only, you know, that's the price. And am I willing to be happy but unsuccessful? And so there's these polarities that people play with, but we know that actually if you invest in creating that flourishing foundation, you can actually achieve higher results, but it does require you to stop. It does require you to change and shift the place from which you lead and place from which you create outcomes. Easier said and done, right?

For sure. Life is often about trade-offs, and I had this moment in my own career, and I, and a lot of my coaching clients have this too, when, when we realize that next level, when you look at how much money comes with it and you look at the downside of what it takes away from your lifestyle and from your family, and if you have children, they're only gonna be those ages for so long. You say, well, what does the money matter? What am I gonna do to have more savings, go on a better vacation? Ultimately, it's really usually that next level, whatever it is, it's not going to meaningfully change your lifestyle. And so it's a trade-off. We're often faced with trade-offs in life. And sadly, often the trade-off between the traditional path and the flourishing is one that we have to think about. And it's like a lot of things in life, we have choices and these are ours to make.

Yeah. And I'm off late swimming a lot in polarities where I'm almost like, you know, trade-offs are here and can we actually operate from a higher plane? Can I have both and? Why do I have to live in a world of either or, right? And that's why I actually, when I discovered this body of work and I read your book and you outlined many of the factors, these factors, you don't have to choose between profits and people.

Exactly.

In fact, investing in your people can drive higher profits.

Absolutely.

If it is in line with a bigger purpose of service that you wanna create. If it is only to kind of not fall behind or not get fired, then yeah, then there is a choice between profits and people. You're operating from a different place, I think then there is magic. So look, I have a question for you. Your book, the new book that came out, it's beautifully written. You talk about still human with AI. And so I want to ask you this question. Are you seeing AI helping or hurting flourishing in the workplace right now?

Well, of course, favorite answer is it depends. AI absolutely has the potential to have us flourish and be our very best selves. I'll start with a statistic, which is that on average, it's giving us back 2.5 hours a week. What would you do if you had an extra 2.5 hours in a week. Well, most people are putting that back into just doing more work. Oh, good. I have a to-do list. I'll just do the rest of my to-do list. And that is okay. There's definitely part of that. But when you think about the things that actually make you flourish, the connections, the people, the relationships, maybe it's more exercise, more time in nature, just generally slowing down and not living your life at a breakneck pace. If you took even half of that time, and that you got back from using AI, that, that efficiency time, and you put it towards those things that help you flourish, then absolutely bring it on. Who wouldn't want that? And for a lot of people, it feels like a miracle. That's the upside. The downside is that we have higher digital loneliness. You, I'm sure you know about all the loneliness data and how it's an epidemic. And we have opportunities where we feel like the trust is lower. Am I— that way to go, great job email from my boss, was that written by my boss? Was that written by AI? So our trust is lower and our sense of person-to-person connection. So some people already have bots as colleagues. There are bots on org charts at companies now. And if I'm spending less time connecting with humans and more time with bots, yeah, I do think that can knock into our flourishing. So for me, whether it's, it helps or hinders our flourishing, whether AI does. It's all about the choices that we make in humans. We have the agency to be really thoughtful and intentional about how we spend that time and not letting AI take over our ability to flourish.

Yeah, you know, your conversation brings me back, reminds me of this conversation I was having with one of the partners at a consulting firm and said, you know what, I'm loving AI. It used to take me 4 hours per candidate between, like, obviously writing all the— like, looking through all my notes, writing up my memo, cleaning things up, like, submitting it. Once we had the discussions, kind of then rewriting it with kind of the feedback I had. And, you know, I have 10 people I am responsible for evaluating, and I've gained back 40 hours, you know, because I can do this in like an hour now because this thing just does all of it, and I just edit it, and then I'm like, we're good to go. And I asked him, And so what are you doing with those 3 hours per person that you just freed up? Are you using that time to maybe— you had a 30-minute conversation, but now you can have an hour-long conversation with the person. And he paused and he said, actually, no. I'm just— I'm using that to get more of my stuff done. Because— and I think that is the invitation you are highlighting as well, is there's an invitation to actually take that time both individually, but also if you're an organizational leader and you're looking at the productivity gains that you can get, think about how you can take that. And rather than just say, let's do more, give space to people to take care of themselves, but more importantly, for leaders to develop the next level. One of the most common issues you hear is, I don't have the time to develop others. Well, here's time. Use that to develop others and scale your human capacity.

And I'd say, ask yourself, what does flourishing mean to me? And you asked that as an opening question, and I was— general, but you could be a lot more specific and say, well, I'd like to, I'll just make things up. I'd like to learn a foreign language and I'd like to spend more time playing pickleball and I'd like to develop my team and I'd like to sleep 30 more minutes a night or take a walk every day. Be clear about what those goals are and then allocate that time. And it's not to say you can't allocate some of it to getting more work done. If that's going to de-stress you and if that's going to mean that you're not working on the weekends, I'm all for it, but don't give it all away. If you came into money, all of a sudden winnings, you probably, maybe you'd give some to charity, but you wouldn't give it all away. So similar with your time. Don't give it all away.

Beautiful.

Be really clear about what will help you flourish. And my favorite, it's very simple, but put it on your calendar. Otherwise it doesn't happen. Allocate the time, block out the time to do the things that will help you flourish.

So look, we are at this really pivotal time. You know, I think we have been in these pivotal times at many places, but I think in particular right now, there's a very pivotal time of this shift as the technology matures and scales and adoption happens. We can either create a world where humans flourish, or we can either create a world where we massively amplify suffering. So play a little visualization game with me. It's 2026. Imagine it is 2036. It's 10 years from now, and everything has gone in a way that we really leverage this technology to amplify human flourishing. Honey, what does the world look like? What is, what are we doing out there? What are our lives at work?

We are solving what felt like unsolvable problems. And we think, let's start with medicine, for example. If we could have AI understanding gobs and gobs of databases and all of the research out there, and then to overlay that with you personally and your own body and your own needs and what works for you. I mean, We'll start with, we're healthier if we're really doing this right. And then there's so much that's possible from there. What's that equivalent across industries of problems that felt unsolvable? It's going to go in 10 years way beyond efficiency, way more than I have a few hours freed up because I don't have to do performance reviews. Poor me, those were so burdensome. That would be nice. But we are going to be solving problems that were unmanageable. To solve. I mean, it could be, I don't know, traffic problems. Maybe there's things around hunger and what are the true underlying causes of poverty. Like, you literally think about the world's biggest problems, and now we are able to cross-reference the absolute world's best experts and truly understand root causes. Because a lot of problems in life, we just put Band-Aids on and we don't really understand root causes. To me, that is our best-case scenario. I don't know if it's 10 years. I don't know if it's 5 years. I don't know if it's 20 years, but that would be my hope.

Yeah. I mean, you know, you're describing, and I'm with you, right? I think a lot about that question, and I think about humans with Iron Man suits, right? Really, you know, leveraging technology to amplify our humanness. We become more human. We become more capable. It allows us to really use our core skills and amplify in ways that were not possible, right? Like, I can write well, but I could only write so much. And now I can actually leverage and build something that allows me to think about an idea and to write a lot more prolifically, right? To be able to connect across all the different fields and solve problems that literally would not be possible before with just one person. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. What would it look like? If we went down this the wrong way?

I don't really want to think about that truthfully, but I think we need to. It's really the question of what does the wrong way really mean? Because I think the worst case is, or is the robots take over and something happens catastrophic. So short of that, let's think of it more less terrible than that. I think it's this idea of the loneliness, the disconnection, the fear, the lacking meaning in our lives that just gets more intensified when we're spending— when, when we are— work is about fear of losing jobs. And that only escalates when we have less connection, less meaning, less feedback from humans that are telling us, helping us learning and growing. Losing that sense of meaning and connection is how I would sum it up. That phrase that we use in the book is, is life feels hollow, not human. And I think that sums a lot of it up. There's just an emptiness and a hollowness. You know, you're, I'm guessing your very best moments in your entire life, you were not sitting scrolling on your phone or your computer. And I fear that we lose some more of those very best moments of our lives if we don't now take a pause and we're super intentional about how we're using AI and other technology. Yeah.

I mean, you know, there's so many of these, you know, doomsday scenarios that are possible, right? Like we can have mass displacement of people. And in the end, it's a serpent that eats its snake because if we use AI predominantly for efficiency and treating humans just as a cost, people as just a cost to be minimized, in the end, it's humans who actually spend money to buy things. And so at some point, right, you do that at scale, you actually fundamentally cut off revenue streams long-term. You also create a further amplification of the haves and the have-nots, right? Like significantly higher levels of poverty. Yes, we solve very hard problems, but the value disproportionately even more goes to those who have access versus those who have not. And I think you highlighted this other piece, which is, you know, in a nice dystopian world, the world looks like WALL-E, right? Where everybody got enough income and people are floating around just eating and like kind of lost. And in a worst-case world, they look like Ready Player One, where, you know, I think our houses and our environments have become so broken. And people are constantly living in a make-believe escape world putting these things in, right? And I'm not sure I want either of those worlds. And hence, I think this moral imperative to leverage this technology to really use that for human good. And I think that's what I loved about your book, because you talk about the 7 factors of flourishing, but have really specific ideas that companies can think about to actually amplify human flourishing versus take away from it. And you also highlight some key watchouts. So I wanna like go into those, some of those factors together with you.

Yeah, let's do it.

So let's just start with just a quick overview of the 7 factors, right? So you define these 7 key factors that help us flourish. Let's start with that and then we'll go into a couple of them.

Well, it's part of an assessment that we call the Human Edge. And I think a lot of us have struggled with this idea of soft skills, and we use that term soft skills, and we just call them human edge skills., and we created this framework back in 2020. So I say we, because I wrote the book with my business partner, Bijal Choksi. And when we created it, it was about taking our life's work on what we know it takes to make a great culture and a great organization and strong teams and great leadership. And that was based on our experience having over 20 years. We both have background in organizational psychology and in HR and consulting. And then as we started writing the book in 2025, and we noticed AI coming onto the scene, it really started feeling like this idea of having these 7, what we call flourishing factors, they really felt like more of a need to have and less of a nice to have. And they've always been a need to have, let's face it. You and I know this from the work that we do, but all of a sudden it felt like when we talk about, for example, purpose and values, if people don't understand that there is a, that humans have a purpose at work, and it's not that the robots are going to take over. Then that's something we never had to think about before. Or if we have to think about growth and recognition and how are we truly learning and growing as people, what are the things that about us as humans, the technology can never take away? Now that knowledge and intelligence are abundant, we all went to school, we got all this training. Does it matter anymore? Of course it matters, but we need to be really clear on how it matters. So the flourishing factors are really about the choices that we make every day, all the time, the choices that we make to show up with this human edge, the fact that we have the agency to make those choices. And then it comes with a free assessment. And the assessment is intended not to have some more data to have to worry about, am I doing well or not? The assessment is number one, a conversation starter, because more than anything, our vision is to have organizations, teams sit down. And have really meaningful conversations about, are we flourishing or not? What's going well that we can celebrate? Because we always need to know the strengths. And what do we need to work on? And then have really honest conversations where they're committed to working on those together.

Yeah. So I love the 7, right? So purpose and values, we talk a lot about that. Process and rituals, relationships and community, growth and recognition, wellbeing, communication, and generative leadership. So let's take a couple of them. Let's start with purpose and values.

Yeah.

So I love in your book, you know, you've organized it around, you know, these building blocks. And I'm gonna start a little bit with building blocks. If you really wanna lean in and choose to lead with purpose and values, what are the building blocks that allow you to do that?

Well, I'd say that first of all, having a clear purpose beyond profit, and not only having it, but living it. So too many organizations, it's, it looks nice, it's on a poster, on a wall, maybe it's on a website, but Truly being clear about purpose beyond profit and technology and storytelling is so important in our organizations. What are those stories that show that it was lived? The stories that show that somebody was trusted to do the right thing because it was connected to purpose and values. And that's both the purpose and the values are declared, they're understood, people buy in, and they're, they're lived and they're obvious. And that people have, along with that, generally that it's an ethical organization. People are doing the right thing. But with this is the AI layer is also ethical and responsible use of AI. So a lot of organizations, they may have a policy about that, but they're not actively talking about how are you using AI in an ethical and responsible way. So one small way to do that is, is having just saying, disclosing when you've used AI, you know, when you get an email and you go, I don't know if AI wrote that or a human wrote that. So having ways to, in your culture, to be clear about that. And the last thing is that leaders become the stewards of human value. And that means that leaders are actively protecting and encouraging human strengths. So leaders are, when they see empathy and judgment and creativity and connection, first of all, leaders are role modeling those things, but they're also bringing them out and encouraging them. In other people. So those are some of the core building blocks of purpose and values.

Yeah, I love that, right? Truly using your bigger why. I mean, nobody starts a company— if you go back to origins of any company, very few people started just to make money. Often it is to solve something, to provide something of service, something that's missing, right, in the world. But somewhere along the way, we forget that and we start chasing growth, recognition, money, profits. And I think I love the orientation of going back. And I've seen, you know, in my— on my own work, purpose-driven organizations, right? If we can actually lead with that, there is a way to mobilize the people to achieve and go beyond something greater than themselves.

You know, if you go to a hardware store, people aren't necessarily buying a hammer. They're buying— or a wrench. They're buying the bookshelf that they're able to make with those tools, and then the books that go on that bookshelf and the knowledge they get from those books. Similarly in your own work, what is that bigger thing that people get? I do a lot of work with Apple and when you think about what becomes possible, the music that you have in the palm of your hand, and then the celebrations you have with family because of that music and being able to talk to out-of-town family members on FaceTime. So it's people really being clear, cuz I think too many people just spend their days day in and day out. They don't see that bigger why of their work and the impact that it's having.

So powerful. You know, what I loved about in your chapter on purpose was also this concept of a human value proposition versus just an employee value proposition or a purpose statement. So talk a little bit about the human value proposition.

I was— first read about this. You and I both have history at Deloitte. I first read about this as at a Deloitte, in a Deloitte article. Employee value proposition has been around for a long time. And it's basically, what do employees get from working here? They get compensation, they get flexibility, they get perks, we treat them well, we give them career growth, they get benefits. That is all really important. But it doesn't really call out specifically humans are needed here in addition to the bots. Literally, human value proposition is about that we actually need and value human beings, that they will grow, contribute, no matter what the technology is, we will always find ways to bring out the strengths and the meaning that only humans can bring, and we can never get out of technology. So it's things like people wondering, will I still matter? Will I still develop? Will relationships disappear? Will AI take over all the pieces that make work and, and my life feel valuable? So it's being clear that no matter where the technology goes, humans will always have a place here.

Beautiful. Can you tell a story of one of the clients you've served, maybe it's Apple, maybe another client, where you really saw purpose act as kind of the lightning bolt that enabled the organization to achieve extraordinary outcomes for their customers, shareholders, and their employees?

Yeah, I can think of a nonprofit that I work with, and they created, uh, I'll call it a model, a framework. One thing they were noticing was they, like a lot of organizations, they went remote. So they had huge growth. And went remote all at the same time. And so all of a sudden, when you can look to your left and look to your right and see people, and, and everyone had that sense of the company's purpose, the, the nonprofit's purpose and why they existed. All of a sudden they were hiring people they never saw. And so they created a model that is 5, I'll call them pillars that are really, this is who we are and what it means to work here. And they brought me in to not just have that on paper, but to bring it to life. So some of the things that I did with them were to, we, we meet quarterly and we're on now year 3 of meeting quarterly where we have interactive workshops, 3 workshops for their executives, for their supervisors, and for their individual contributors. So safe space, we call them learning labs because it's not, it's not training. It's when labs, you're experimenting together, you're hands-on, you're experimenting. And so that's the model that we're using. They also have an assessment to And this is just for themselves and their supervisor to look at, not for the performance review, to understand, where am I strong and what can I work on when it comes to these pillars of their purpose? And then, in the training that we're doing quarterly, these learning labs helps them get better at those skill areas. And also they have a really nice acknowledgments. They're using an online— I forget which Google tool it is— but where they call each other out and they acknowledge and they really put a spotlight on seeing each other live. Of their purpose. And it can be in a small moment in a meeting. What they do, they work with schools. And so it can be those moments that they're working with their stakeholders or communities that could be in a meeting. And so it's just a really lovely way that people feel acknowledged. When you acknowledge work, you get more of it. But also other people go, I can do that too. You know, when you see a shining, a story and you realize, wow, that's a thing that I can do. So. It was just a multipronged approach to keeping it alive.

Bonnie, what's an example of a for-profit? Because, you know, not-for-profits, often meaning is very high, right? The whole reason for them to exist. But I think this notion of purpose driving higher results is equally, if not more important for for-profit organizations. So are there certain purpose-led organizations that come to mind for you that you find inspiring?

One that we often hear about is Patagonia, that they really do so much to help the environment, that they really are about truly helping the world. So that's one that comes to mind for me. Another one that I just received a shipment of this morning is Chewy's, which is the, the pet company. They will do things like they will, if your pet passes away and you've purchased food or medication or whatever, they will first of all, refund you, no questions asked, whatever it is that you don't need to use anymore. And they will send a sympathy card. So they really are about the, the care, not just the providing, but the care of the humans to knowing that how important pets are to our life.

This conversation is brought to you by Happiness Squad, where we help leaders build new mindsets, new habits, and transform their ways of working to truly flourish. If you're ready to unleash the untapped human potential in your organization and operate at your best, come visit us at happinesssquad.com and start your journey today. I've seen purpose so mobilize. So I had a chance to work with $3 billion packaging company. And we did this purpose cascade across 30 different plants across different countries around these simple questions around why do they exist, what drives them, and then connecting that purpose to individuals to just talk about how do you see yourself in this purpose and what actions can you take to live into that. And they were about 3 years into a transformation. Like exhausted and the level of energy that it was able to create just through those dialogues of, you know, this is not just about work, this is not just to earn a paycheck, but it's actually about our way of how we're making the world better. You know, it's something that was, that was so transformative. And so, I mean, you talk a lot about the research in the book around purpose, and I think it's, it's something that every company has a purpose statement, but when the rubber meets the road? Is it front and center day to day for people who are doing the work? And I think that's where the big gap is. And this is one of those opportunities that, I mean, it takes a little bit of time, but it's free. You don't need another tool, another technology. I think it is something right there. We are all meaning-making humans, and we can actually leverage this power and connect purpose to make such a big impact.

It takes often leaders providing that line of sight because the truth is a lot of people's jobs, they don't see that on a day-to-day basis. On a daily basis. They are not seeing the frontline stories. They are not customer-facing. So it really requires the people who are to provide that line of sight.

Yeah. So look, I want to go to a second pillar, which is the one on relationships and community, because I think both because of the loneliness epidemic, 1 in 10 people find— report loneliness at work, loneliness in the world, but also at work, and AI is making people feel even more lonely. Kind of alone and not seen. Talk to us a little bit about relationships and community and what are some of the building blocks that allow us to really harness this in the workplace to increase flourishing.

There's a foundational piece here of what, where do people meaningfully already build relationships and community? Because a lot of people are not finding that today. So they used to have the break room at work and now they're like, oh, I got on Zoom or I get on Teams and I'm not feeling it. So pull out the shiny spots of where people are feeling the connection to each other and they are able to build relationships and community and then grow that. Find ways to connect so that it matters. And a lot of that just means simple things like creating white space on agendas, not filling up agendas end to end, finding ways to make sure that people can share meaningful experiences with each other. One of my favorites is volunteer work so that you can, ideally, if you get your team together, if you are not in the same place and you get together a few times a year, make sure that you are spending at least some of the time in the community because that will be meaningful. That will build memories. That will build the connection with each other. But these meaningful shared experiences, things like that, and being intentional about not only getting the project done, but what did we learn from the project? How did we help each other? So really calling out ways that relationships made a difference in the work and making sure that technology is supporting relationships and that it's not taking over. So being really clear, asking the question as a team, how can technology support our relationships and how can it not take over? What are we noticing about what's working and what's not working? How can we thoughtfully use tools? Some of that is also like being intentional about picking up the phone sometimes or, or picking up a Teams video and not overrelying on digital communications. We do so much messaging. It's like, can you just have a conversation? So making sure that we're not overrelying on our digital tools, but then also checking in with people about do they have a sense of belonging and psychological safety? And ironically, AI can help with this. There are tools now that can, you can get reports at the end of a meeting to say, were people hesitant? Were people not speaking up? How engaged were people? So if you're a company, if those tools are working for you in that way, take advantage of those kind of reports. And obviously that's also the human component of checking in with people and asking, what's feeling good about being on this team? What can we do different? For me, at least quarterly, having those open conversations so that people have the safe space to share and to make recommendations. And then most importantly, the recommendations need to be followed up on, because we've all had the situation that people ask and nothing changes. So don't be that manager that nothing changes.

What comes to life for me is, look, today with AI tools, if we deploy them the right way, right, we can actually literally look into the Losado ratio, the ratio of positivity to negativity in our communications in our organizations, right? We can actually abstract the data and be able to see overall, are a net energy-creating workplace, right? It's— we use a framework for flourishing called PEARL— Purpose, Energy, Adaptability, Relationships, and Life Force. And we can actually use technology to be able to say, are people experiencing work as a net positive energy-creating thing, or is something that is draining? How much of our conversations are about positive emotions versus stress and frustration and conflict and blaming? And I think that awareness earlier, it was, it'd be very hard, but today, right, with all of the kind of AI things listening to our conversations, I think it's a very, it's not that hard to be able to look at that and just say, wow, if we are actually moving one way or the other, how do we consciously make a choice? So that's a really powerful way to actually intervene to increase relationships and community.

Yeah.

Right? What are some ways you're seeing, what are some, what would be your advice of if you're a leader who's actually rolling out an AI program on some things not to do that will actually significantly take away that relationships, that trust, that community that can be very hard to build once it starts to break.

Well, in the book, we talk about 3 zones, the connection zone, the precision zone, and the transformation zone. And what you're talking about is the connection zone. So that is where you have been clear to say, I will not use AI for these things. And so an example of that would be performance feedback. Now, sure, use AI to sum up and understand what's been going on around performance, but don't take an AI-generated summary and copy and paste it and send it to somebody in an email and say, here's your feedback on how you did that thing. Engage the person in a conversation, ask them coaching questions, use really good listening skills. So to answer your question, what should not, I'd say that's different. There's gonna be a list of things like performance feedback that would hopefully resonate with everybody, but to be really clear, and one of my favorite ways of using AI is to ask it, how do I be smarter and how do I use AI? Tell your, whatever AI tool you're using, this is my job, these are the things I do, these are the kind of interactions I have. What do you recommend that stays human only, that stays in the connection zone that I never use AI for? Ironically, AI can tell you when to not not use AI, and then of course compare that with your own meaning. And the last thing I will say is think about your values and be really clear, and then align your values to the actions that you're doing. So if you have value around, um, let's call it listening, then double down on your listening skills, knowing that we have so many distractions. So maybe it's 3 core values that you want to make sure that state you stay true to, and you ask yourself, how do I make sure that AI does not intervene with those values? Beautiful.

Your 7th pillar is one called generative leadership.

Yes.

Talk to us a little bit about what is generative leadership and what are the underlying blocks that help us really harness this to amplify human flourishing?

We knew that leadership was going to be part of this model because how can you have 7 aspects of a flourishing workforce and leadership is not part of that? But where we struggled was, what do we call it? We wanted leadership on its own, felt a little bit generic. For a little bit, we called it intentional leadership. And yet there felt like, mm, you can be intentional about things, but maybe not necessarily successful. And so as we continued our thinking and our researching and our brainstorming, generative leadership is about sustainable performance. It's about being a champion of innovation. It's about developing people. I, I keep doing this with my hand, like this forward motion. New ideas, generates new thinking. And so there is a very active element of generative leadership that also includes self-awareness and prioritizing long-term value. Right now, we can be making decisions about AI that feel super efficient, but are not about the long-term. And so it's these, about these deliberative choices about thoughtful use of AI that will help the care of employees, but also create resilience and innovation and all the things that we need for long-term success because self-awareness Sadly, a lot of organizations are not set up for long-term success. I think we're gonna see more and more organizations that just couldn't get through this phase, frankly. They either overinvest in AI and, and don't see the return on it, or they underinvest and other companies are more innovative and get ahead of them. So I don't know exactly what that sweet spot is, but to truly be generative and to set a company up for success for the long term, those are gonna be the companies that are still gonna be around in 10 years.

Yeah, I mean, in other ways, right, you highlight, is your leadership scaling and helping amplify the human magic, or is it fundamentally taking and driving burnout, right? Like, how do you show up? How do you actually balance performance and people? And I would say purpose, right? How are you leading to make this be a force for good? How are you becoming more self-aware? How are you leading more from creative versus reactive? Structure.

And do you have change fluency? And you and I did a lot— I'm sure you've also done a lot of change management work. And for me, it's beyond that. It's really this fluency being almost like a language of change, because the rate of change in general and disruption in organizations is just so over the top. AI capability keeps doubling every 6 months or something like that. So, generative leaders also are very adept to change themselves and to helping their teams get through change instead of letting this get— this fatigue of change really let it bring them down because that's no longer an option.

Yeah, no, I'm with you. And, and that's in our frame. That's why we actually use adaptability as a whole pillar in itself. That was the research I was doing just in the last 2 years before I left McKinsey. And it is, yeah, I'm with you. We're so People think about change, but that assumed the era where I'm running something that will more or less stay stable for 4 years and we need people to adapt. In a world where what's changing is actually, in weeks and months, things are looking different, fundamentally, we need to create adaptability at scale. And there are certain leaders who can do that, and they themselves are adaptable, and those that are not. And I can't agree more. Adaptability is going to be so key. In fact, it actually takes me to kind of this core Charles Darwin quote, you know, where he said, "It is not the strongest or the largest that survive. It's the one that is the most adaptable," right?

Yeah, that's absolutely the truth. Yeah. And another piece in all of this is the idea of learning agility. It's the people that can continually take what they already know and apply it to the next thing, to the next thing, to the next thing. Change no longer looks like a start date and an end date and phew, we got through that change. Now it's stable. There is no stability. So to be able to, you yourself as a leader, constantly apply what you're learning and coach your team to do the same is really, really critical. And that's a core part of generative leadership.

I love that. And I wonder, you know, what it invites for me also is We used to talk about the 20%, right? The 20% to go do your own project, to be innovative. I wonder if in this world that we are living in, I haven't heard a lot of people talk about this yet, but I wonder if the ability to actually create 20% capacity and give it to people to just learn versus, you know, learn in your off days. And yes, I need you to, I mean, especially today with AI, if you want really people to learn, you gotta give them time to learn. Otherwise the learning is is significantly hampered. And if you fundamentally believe your future of business are AI-native, AI-forward organizations, and it's the at-scale adoption, and this becomes, with learning agility, a fundamental requirement. So if you're not creating 20% free space for people and you're not creating an environment that is psychologically safe, that enables people to experiment and learn together, I think you know you're kind of playing a losing game.

And that's why we have a whole chapter on growth and recognition. Learning needs to be a team sport. Briefly, the days of attending webinars are over. The fact that we can't design a course on AI, because by the time it's ready, it's going to be outdated. Very ironic. Everything we've always known about learning and development. Organizations have to become micro-universities. They need to capture that learning in the moment and then scale it and get it out to people really quickly. We need to also, leaders need to, I think, spot when the learning is happening to reward and recognize people for that. They need to be rewarded for results, but I think that the more that leaders can recognize it and reward and recognize, then they'll get more of it. Yeah.

Well, my friend, listen, thank you. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your book. Highly recommend it to our listeners to get a copy. You know, I love how, as I would expect from a former consultant, highly structured, very practical. Um, and, you know, something that everybody can apply and use to truly use AI to help us become more human, really unlock the full potential of your people and yourself. So I'm grateful for the work that you and Bijul are doing and, um, doing this in the world. Thank you.

Appreciate that. It was— the end of each chapter has reflection questions for leaders, for employees, for HR, because we know often HR is at the frontline of this. So, reflection questions and end of chapter summaries. So it's also written intended that people are busy and you may not have time to read a whole book. I know, Ashish, you read a ton of books, but we also made it, uh, those quick hits so that people can jump in, look at the flourishing factor that's most relevant for their organization, and then pull out the tips and the reflection questions that are most meaningful. So that is our hope is that there's more conversations about flourishing workplaces, about building the human edge. It's not about being right and wrong and judging and having more actions. It's about opening the dialogue on your teams. So I hope that that's what the book does. I hope that that's what this podcast does. And I love the overlap between my work and your work and our love of having more flourishing workplaces and more flourishing lives out there.

Well, thank you, my friend. Lovely to have you. Have an amazing weekend.

You do the same. Thanks, Ashish Kothari. Take care. Thanks a lot.