Building More Human-Centered Leaders in the AI Era with Rasmus Hougaard

So how do we learn to do the hard things in a human way? And most people feel that that is a dichotomy like either I have to choose to be a hard leader that gets shit done or I need to be a nice person that people like. Those two have to and can go together and that is what it is to do hard things in a human way.

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspirations to to help you operate at your fullest potential by integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. In each episode, we will share insights, tips and stories from leading experts, company executives, and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge and find more success, joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. Hi friends. Welcome back to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Today's episode is truly special. I'm joined by my dear friend Rasmus Hugaard, founder and CEO of Potential Project, one of the world's leading voices on human centered leadership. He's the author of Compassionate Leadership and his newest book, More Human, which is one of the most important leadership book I've read in recent years. In this conversation we go deep, exploring how AI, when used intentionally, can actually enhance our humanity, not replace it. We touched on many topics, including how AI can help us augment the three essential qualities of future ready leaders, awareness, wisdom, and compassion. We also discussed simple ways to use AI to overcome our own biases and show up with more humility and presence. And finally, how to do hard things in a human way. Something that every leader needs today to navigate this highly volatile, uncertain and complex world. If you're a leader navigating rapid change, juggling performance and people, and wondering how to stay grounded while leaping ahead, this conversation offers not just insight, but a roadmap. Let's dive in. Rasmus. It is so lovely, my dear friend, to have you with us on our Happiness Squad podcast. Thank you for joining us.

My pleasure. Ashish, great to see you and looking forward to this conversation. It'll be fun.

Yeah. You know Rasmus, I have always been so inspired by you and your journey towards, you know, really creating more human centered leaders. And really that's, you know, if I go back to your the company you started 15 years ago, the Firm Potential Project, that's the mission to create a more human world of work. And you were such a pioneer so many years ahead of before human centricity became this big major buzzword everybody talks about. And I'm curious to just frankly start a little bit with that on, you know, what was a personal transformation or experience that so early on led you to embrace this compassionate human centered leadership in business? Something that 15 years ago we weren't talking about, we were Busy talking about Y2K and whatever else was going to come in the tech bubble. Like human was not on any business leaders. Lips, minds, hearts.

Yeah, that is very true. We were definitely ahead of the curve. And as you know, being ahead of the curve or behind the curve sucks because that needs you. You have to paddle much faster. But of course, the good thing is when the curve comes, then you're ahead of it and you reap its benefits. But there are probably two things that shaped this for me. And one is when I was quite young, as I've shared with you before, you know, I escaped to the places where you come from originally. So when I was 17, I kind of lost confidence in the Western model of getting a good education. You get a good job, so you get a good house, you get a good car and a good family, and then you get a better job and a better house and a better car and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It just didn't make sense to me. And so I ended up in Nepal and India and ended up spending quite a lot of time there in the first two decades of my adulthood, mostly in, in different Buddhist monasteries. And the experience of coming as a Westerner to a place where they have focused on inner technology, not outer technology. Like they don't have the same planes and as good chewing gum as we do in the west, but man, they have technology for training the mind and the heart.

Absolutely.

And that was just deeply, deeply, deeply mind blowing. And that became my path and has been for what now, whatever it is, 30 some years. So that's one thing that has really made me focus on the human. And the other thing is just a more, not more, but a very personal thing. My dad was a leader since I was a very young kid. And being brought up in Scandinavia, which is generally very flat, very equality, and I thought that was just like how it was everywhere. And seeing him at work, you know, I was often with him at work when I was sick or just in general, I was always welcome there and just seeing how he operated, which to me seemed not natural and normal. And then when I started to work with corporations, I saw that that was definitely not normal. But that general attention and care for the people that you work with that I had been brought up with and I thought was just, of course everybody's like that. And seeing that, it Wasn't like that made me see there's a major, major, major need for more humanity and humanness in companies. So I saw that even when I was very, very young. And potential projects just become a. Yeah. An expression of that.

So I love that story and so much resonance with our own. Right. The work we are doing now. Rasmus. I started two and a half years ago. I literally tell everybody I feel this is missionary work, which basically means, you know, on this topic, I fundamentally expect 90, 90 out of a hundred people are not going to get it, or they're going to get it here, but they won't get it here, which means they're not willing to go do anything. And out of the 10 that who want to do this work, you know, you, you think, you imagine a Taj Mahal and they think a hut, Right? Yeah, that's great. They can't even, you know, it's a little bit like they can't imagine that. And. And then you find three or four and then you start from there. So I'm like, it requires perseverance, persistent and real alignment which only can come from within, as in your case. Started very early to say, I know I'm on the right path. I'm going to speak my truth. I honor your truth of where you are right now. So I'm not doing it from a place of superiority. I honor your truth. And when we are ready, we go walk this path together. Meanwhile, let me find others who are ready for the message and are willing to walk their own journey. Right. So I love that. And you know, it's quite interesting to me. I'm just reflecting on your story you've shared with me before too. Growing up in Scandinavia, right. Growing up in a place that have some of the most happiest countries in the world, if you look at all the gross global happiness reports, et cetera, I grew up in such a different place. And so the path you started on at 17, 18, including as a role model as your dad, I only got there at 44 because literally, I'm not kidding, right? So it's quite interesting. A lot of people tell me India is the land of spirituality. You know, I grew up the India I grew up in, you know, especially because we were 30 years. Right. 74 is when I was born. So about 34 years post independence, at the point where the British had left us with pretty much nothing other than we couldn't even make a suing pin and there was a billion people and the economy wasn't there. So we grew up with A mindset of you have to fight to survive.

Yeah, yeah.

Right. Thriving is not something that is available. So think about how different our roles have been. Right. Like here, like, everybody is taken care of to a large extent. Here, it's like if you don't fight.

Yeah.

You're not going to make it. You're not going to make it unless you are connected, you're rich, et cetera, et cetera. And then, of course, all that gets augmented into the Western world. You escape the western world to east. I came from the east to the west and then fully bought the whole push yourself hard, be successful McKinsey. Da, da da, da, da. And only through Joe and Amy, you know, an amazing retreat in Portugal, did I actually connect back to kind of my higher calling and started that journey in 2016 to reorient my life. But I do find that so interesting. Right. Like, you think about, we can come from different worlds and be united on almost that kind of a mission. I find that quite beautiful.

Yeah. I think we're, you know, we're all human beings. We have the. The what. What. What Dalai Lama calls common humanity, which means we are all born, we all get sick, we all get fired, we all get, you know, lose people we love, we all have pain, we all have suffering, we all have that. That is common humanity. And we all want to be happy. None of us want all this stuff. And so how do we become happy people? That's really the big question. That's what I, you know, in what I found in Buddhist monastery is just very clear answers to that. You know, if you want to be happy, first of all, you have to take care of yourself. As in meditate, do yoga, like all the things that you need to sustain yourself. And then you got to take care of others.

Yes.

And at least not hurt others. But if you can be good to others, you're going to have a good life. It's just that simple. All unhappiness come from cherishing yourself and always thinking about yourself. It leads nowhere. Always put others first, always support others. Then you become happy. It's just that simple.

Yeah. And as you become happy, you become more successful in every other thing that you want. Right. It's this really powerful or reorientation, and it's not even an either or world. But it does require us to flip the script. Yeah. And you flipped the script so beautifully in your new book. I read it. I've read it twice now. It only came out not that long ago. So you're like Ashish, how the hell did you read that book twice? Three days ago. Exactly. There it is, beautiful. There it is, more human. And I've already, you know, there were so many elements of it that I marked it up because it's really, really beautiful. So talk to us a little bit around, you know, the premise. Talk to me a little bit about the research that you did. And I love, I love your. Literally the opening, right, where you say, AI can help us become more human. AI can help us become more human. So talk to us a little bit behind the premise and some of the research, and then I would love to dig into the model you outline here.

Right, so. So I'll just, I'll just add the backstory first because that cast some light, Light, light on your question. So as a, as the founder of a firm that's trying to create a more human world of work, the introduction of ChatGPT2 and some years ago now was a source of fear for me because what I could see was that AI was going to make the world of work more mechanic, more robotic, more digital, less human connection, less humanity, period. And then Harvard, who we are publishing our books with and doing research with, came and said, hey, we want you to write a book about AI and how that's going to impact leadership. And I was just, you're talking to the wrong people. We don't want to be part of that. But they were very persuasive and had some really good arguments. So we said, okay, give us a month or two to look into it. And so we started to interview a number of CEOs and CHROs and do some digging and finding some really good use cases of how AI can actually make humans more human. And so then we started to, then we agreed to do this work and have now been doing the research for the last two years. And unfortunately the book is out now. But essentially the whole paradoxical finding is this fact that AI can make humans more human. What does that mean? That means that humans, if we think about it, it's funny that we talk about being human as a human thing, because we as humans are not always very human. When we say being human, that means being compassionate, being kind, being humble, you know, all the good qualities, but with a hand and heart. Like, if we look around us, that's not generally how all humans are. But anyway, those positive qualities of compassion and so on, AI can help us to be more of that simply because we all have blind spots and biases that makes us act in ways that is not aligned with our intentions. And AI, if we Use it well can help us to be much more aligned with our intentions, as in helping to make sure that when we're going to have a difficult conversation, when I'm going to reach out to you and say, hey, Ashish, you did, you said this thing last week and make. I didn't really like it. If we use AI for the preparation of that conversation, we can make sure that that conversation becomes much more empathetical, much more direct, much more clear for both of us. So it's really incredible how AI can make us more human. And also in all these interviews that we did, we had some really good use cases from companies and I can share a few of those if you're interested to hear about.

Yeah, no, I would love to. I would love to. It is a bit of a. I have to tell you, I never published this post, even though it was so clear and actually started with a little bit of what you just talk about, which is I literally, the post was going to say what's so great about being Sar. Star. Star. Human. Anyway, because I'm. I'm with you. Right. I think that there is so much talk about human centric. But fundamentally, if you look at evolutionary biology, you know, our brains have evolved to keep us safe, not happy. Right. We have a huge negativity bias. That means we focus on the negative, more on the positive. Very early on we pick up these structures of security, which means we get so connected on self and lose the nature of intervening with others. Right. We're solving for the here and now. And frankly, the qualities Rasmus and you and I are so aligned on this, the qualities that we say, quote unquote, that make us human are actually not human at all. They are shared by all sentient beings. Compassion. Trees send, you know, phytochemicals and they send nutrients to other trees further in the forest that are in the process of being attacked. Right. Rats and mice, you know, will help others get out of cages. So these properties that we are talking about that make us human are actually, you know, I think we forget that all living things, not just animal, but even plants, demonstrate that. So part of this work, unless we do it the right way, can make us, frankly, less human. Because, yeah, AI can. Fundamentally, you get cognitively lazy, you have biases, and now you're looking at biased kind of inputs that further augment or not augment. Right. So I think it's important that you think about this. Work carefully.

Yeah, yeah.

So I love that. So talk to us a little bit. You talk about these three key Qualities in the research that you all did. And I'm so glad you did it. And you said yes to somebody reaching out to you. Because I really, I mean this honestly. You know, I've talked to a lot of people, I know of a lot of firms, and I don't think there was a better firm than potential project. And you and Jacqueline, who are better positioned to write this book and to bring this to the world. So I'm really grateful that you spent the time and you did it, because everything else is from the mind. This book literally speaks from the heart, and that's what I love about it. So talk to us about those three qualities that you highlight that AI augmented leaders can really amplify if they embrace this the right way.

Yes. So the whole. The whole premise there is, AI is coming, whether we like it or not. AI is the future. And many people are asking the question, so will AI replace good leaders? And the answer from the research is very clearly, no, it will not. But those leaders that know how to augment themselves with AI will replace those that don't. So if you want to have a good future career, it's all about leveraging the power of AI and combining that with the inner human development you need to do to make those two go well together and to do that. So to think about this augmentation, which is always about, you take something, you add something to make it better.

Yeah.

We need to start with the human, because we are the humans that are going to this process. So we need to understand what's the operating model of the human mind. And the human mind, according to any neurological or psychological theory, basically has three qualities. We have the quality or the capacity of discerning or, sorry, of perceiving, then discerning and then responding. That means anything we experience, anything we do, starts with us perceiving something, then we're discerning it, and then we respond to it.

Yep.

So that's like the operating model of the human mind. If we then look at that from a leadership perspective and just translate those three terms of qualities into something more leadership relevant, it would be about having awareness. So having perception is to have awareness, awareness of ourselves or self awareness, awareness of others, and awareness of the systems that we are operating within. When it comes to discernment, it is about having wisdom. Wisdom, which is not knowledge, but which is that discerning wisdom that allows us to ask the right questions. And when it comes to response in leadership, the most important response, as we did in our previous study in the book called Compassion Leadership. Compassion is the most appropriate and important response in any leadership situation. And here I'm not talking about pleasing people, giving them what they want, being nice and all of that. Compassion is about doing hard things in human ways. Doing hard things in human ways. That's what compassion is in leadership. So that's basically what good leadership is. To be compassionate, to have awareness, and to have wisdom. And then the question is, how does that augment with AI? So in those three areas, when it comes to awareness, the role of a human leader in the future and already today is to set context and let AI deliver content. AI as we know, has like vastly more information and knowledge than any human being by now, and it's only getting better every second. But AI does not have context. AI simply doesn't understand the context. If I was to ask you, as she's to go into to ChatGPT or any other AI model and ask what is good leadership in McKinsey, because that's where you come from, it would give you very generic answers like, you know, use the sandwich model or be visionary or whatever, like general standard boiler template stuff that is not relevant for McKinsey context. But you, having been in McKinsey for many years, could give a much more clear answer because you have the context, which AI doesn't. So awareness leaders must set context and AI deliver content when it comes to the discerning quality or the wisdom. The role of leaders in the future is to ask the right questions to the right things and that AI come up with the answers, which we then must discern with our wisdom, of course.

Yep.

And when it comes to compassion, the role of human leaders is to bring the heart. So in that intention of supporting being a benefit for others, doing hard things in a human way. But then let AI's algorithms make sure that our intentions get aligned with the way that we actually act, as we talked about before. So awareness, wisdom and compassion, which is about setting context, asking questions, and bringing our heart. That's essentially the human part of the AI augmented leader in the future.

I loved, you know, there is a beautiful quote that was shared with me and when I read this beautiful articulation and we'll put this on the, you know, we'll put it in one of the show notes, this visual, because I think it's such a powerful visual. There's this beautiful quote that I'm trying to find now, but this notion of, you know, knowledge, it was something around knowledge. Is knowing something that you've known for a long time, but understanding it in a Different way for the first time. Right. It's something I've always known. I've all you've always. And I think that's a little bit of what I saw there is the simplicity in that model that just makes. Which is a very complex world. Right. Let's be clear. The model is simple. It's one of the hardest things to kind of really make that possible for someone.

Yeah, yeah.

And I would love to dig into.

It to get to that model. 1 1/2 year research before we crystallize the model. But.

Yes, but the beauty is it's spot on because it literally, I think it cuts to the heart of what needs to happen. Right. So let's talk a little bit about each one of them. These, by the way, show up so much in our work at perl, like the framework we have for flourishing. Let's talk about awareness. And I want to dig into an area here which is so important. Humans set context, leaders set context and let AI generate content. But Rasmus, as you and I both know, there is also a fundamental bias in humans around how we set context. And awareness of self and other requires us being able to actually first examine our own biases and our own lenses through which we are seeing the world. Right. And we are seeing what's happening right now. Not to go political, but we know what, you know, left versus right, meaning two different things can mean like, you know, like. I think very quickly we can get into those situations.

Yeah.

So let's start first on the context side, because I think that is the harder stuff.

Yeah.

How do we make sure that leaders are setting the right context? Right. Because they are more self and system and other awareness.

So first of all, the movements of awareness and context that we need to move into is what we call from perception to perspective. As human beings, we generally believe what we perceive in this moment. But for leaders that are not just responsible for themselves, but also for others and for systems, we need to move to always see things in perspective. That means we need to always question our assumptions, questions, how we see things, and so on. And one way of doing that is by leveraging AI. So when you are dealing with an issue, a difficult conversation, strategic planning, restructuring, whatever it may be, you come up with what you think is the right answer to what needs to be done. You put that into AI and you say, give me five reasons why I'm wrong, or give me five things that could go wrong in doing that, or indicate for me five biases I have in my way of approaching this. So you basically Ask AI to constantly challenge your way of thinking, which will force you to constantly see your own thinking from different viewpoints. It's super simple and it's super, super cool.

We hope you're enjoying this episode and would love your help in spreading awareness and furthering our mission to help a billion people Rewire for Happiness. Please consider leaving us a review and sharing this podcast with others in your personal and professional life who you feel could benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend and spread positivity. Also, check out Rewire, our proprietary offering to move you from knowing to doing. On the Happiness Squad website, www.happinesssquad.com, rewire uses the science of habit formation and the power of community to help you build happier habits in five minutes or less daily. Now back to the episode. Yeah, I love it. Right? You're basically highlighting. We talk about this work in leadership all the time. Fundamentally, one of the key qualities as a leader is to be able to ask, how can I be wrong? Or to be able to take multiple perspectives.

Yeah.

And what you're saying is, look, rather than just say, hey, this is what I want to do. Tell me how. Share the broader story and say, hey, this is my perspective. What might be three other perspectives that would be true.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And then, and then, you know, that's just technically how you engage with AI. But what we found in our study is that while you need to upskill yourself in how you use AI or not, let's not say upskill. You need to experiment with and learn. I haven't taken any training in AI, but I've used AI a lot in this process to really understand it, and then you become really smart with it. But that's one thing. How do you use AI? The other thing is, how do you deepen your own qualities of awareness, wisdom, and compassion? In the case of awareness, it's really about meditation. The nature of the human mind is that it is clear, it is vast, and it is ever present. For leaders of the future, we need to tap into this vastness, this innate clarity of the human mind that doesn't come from constantly being on, that doesn't come from always trying to come up with quick answers. That comes from stepping back, moving into perspective, meditating, quieting your mind, and thereby allow for the greater context and awareness to arise naturally, which is what it does in meditation. So one of the core practices for leaders that want to be successful in the future of AI is to meditate. It is the Exact opposite of technology. And that is why we need to do it, because AI is going to take over so many parts of what humans do now. So we need to look at what is it that AI cannot do and that is to have vast awareness. AI can't do that. And then we can work together. So meditation is one of the cornerstones of practice in the age of AI for leaders.

Yeah, I love that. Right. And today more leaders will say, I don't have time to meditate. And yet in my own journey over the 10 years, one of my most transformative moments, or it wasn't a moment, it was many, many moments, was my 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat that I did and my regular meditation practice. Right. And it's so powerful. I mean, of course, once you are able to still your mind or get to a certain level of stillness, the clarity through which you can start to see your own self and the others, I think can be so transformative.

Yeah. And it doesn't take much, you know, in our. So of course now we are bringing all of the research and methodologies to our, our clients, as in training programs to upskill their leaders and so on. And, and a very simple exercise is when we come to the whole concept of awareness and setting context, we ask people very quickly, like jot down, you have 10 seconds to jot down. What's the main three priorities for you today? And people will write down, you know, the three things that top of their mind is most important. Then we ask them to sit still, close their eyes for five minutes, or even just for two minutes, just to breathe and feel their body and just to calm themselves down. And at the end of those few minutes, we ask what is the most important three things for you to do today? And it is often vastly different, vastly different. And it just comes out of two minutes of settling the mind. And imagine a leader at the beginning of the day. If you just spend two minutes to so ask yourself that question after having meditated, the direction for your entire day becomes completely different and thereby the results vastly different. That AI cannot do that for you cannot do that comes back to human awareness. That's why in the age of AI, we need to of course learn to do AI well. But more important, we need, we need to learn to do human better.

How have you been able, Rasmus, in all of the work? I mean, meditation has always been the foundation of a lot of the leadership work that you all have done. And I think you're very unique in that. Other people talk about kind of meditation and Mindfulness, but they almost do it in a very apologetic way. Or, you know, this might not be for you, but I think for you all, including, you know, this notion that everybody who works at potential project is a meditator. Right. You have that fundamental core, like we need to practice what we preach. What are some ways in which you've been able to get the reluctant to the promised land of finding that stillness, even if it is momentarity throughout the day to listen to the whispers of the universe and listen to the whispers of the soul.

Two things, Science, data, research. That's why we've always been science driven. Because the message is hard, like you have to meditate. Nobody wants to do that. It sucks, it takes time, it's boring. So nobody wants to do that. But everybody's data driven, outcomes driven. So if you can show the data why it works. And you know, from our previous studies we found that leaders who meditate generally rise faster and higher in rank in their organizations. Why? Because they have more clarity of thinking. It's just that simple. They also take better care of themselves because they meditate. They are more aware of what they need and they take care of themselves. Thereby they can sustain performance over longer time. Simple. The other thing is let them taste like this little exercise that I just talked you through. Like what's your three priorities?

It's so beautiful.

For a few minutes. It's just that simple. You have to experience it. Then you get hooked.

What is your meditation practice? Rasmus? What does that look like?

You know, I've from. I was around 17. That has been a daily journey for me and I go on many retreats every year where I meditate for many hours. So over the past years it's, you know, become many, many thousands hours of meditation. The practice changes with our life. The practice changes with the conditions within we are which within we are living. And we have to be very intuitive about what is right meditation for us in, in at any point in time. But having said that, what I always recommend people is it's more important to do it than to think about doing it. And it is very important to go on retreat once in a while because that's what's no nourishing and giving the practice the depth and the, the life, the juice that you're looking for. So I'm not, I can hear, I'm evading the question because generally when you meditate along, you prefer not to talk too much about it.

Yeah. Because people say, oh, that's weird, I could never do that. Right. But I Think it is important because. Look, I think it is important because in certain ways you run a consulting coaching, leadership development firm. There are many others like that, and I can tell you, 90% of them don't have that. And I fundamentally believe unless we are upgrading our own operating model, and from all the work I do and all the research, we know how transformative meditation can be in rewiring our brains away from that fear, that scarcity, that focus on self, to a focus on abundance, to a focus on bigger purpose and what we are here for, to a focus on inter being. I think it's so important, and it is not, you know, it is not something. We spend so much time on our physical fitness and somehow we feel even though we know from the science mind and body are connected, we have such an underdeveloped mental fitness practice.

Yeah.

And so that's why I think in many ways that's the reason even why I asked that question. I think we need role models. We need people who can say, look, this is what I do. You might not do this, but do 10% of it. Start there.

Yeah, it is very true. It is very true. So specifically, what I do every morning, 30 minutes, it's the first thing I do when I get up before I brush teeth or do anything else, go straight from my bed and to my cushion, and I sit there for 30 minutes. And then during the day, I sprinkle in many, many, many short moments where. And it's generally just looking out the window into the sky. And sometimes it's for two seconds, sometimes it's for one minute, sometimes it's for maybe five minutes, but just those constant resets, those performance breaks, those moments where you allow the mind to settle, to open up, be more vast and more clear, is what allows me to constantly be on the ball, to constantly do what is the most important thing and always aligned with values. And I think if I was to count those many moments throughout the day that make sure that I stay on track with the right thing and that I have good energy, it's probably no more than 10, maybe 15 minutes during the day. But just think of the outcome of that.

It's transformative. Right. We know from the research post 90 minutes, our ability to focus attention, our stress accumulation, all start to kind of go in the wrong ways.

Yeah, yeah.

Hence, you know, one of the things we've included in all of our rebar programs is I invite people to say, hey, like, look, I would love for you to start in the morning with five minutes, but even if you don't do that. Spend your first five minutes mindfully. Right. Don't pick up the phone first thing in the morning. At least don't pick up your phone first thing in the morning.

Yeah, yeah, Right.

Just be with your breath. Brush mindfully. And then throughout the day, find three or four moments. You know, once in the midday, once at lunch, once, maybe lunch and afternoon, you know, before the. Before you end. And at the end, just find those to your point. 1 minutes, 2 minutes, 5 minutes to just tune inwards. Right. Close your eyes or tune outwards. Look outside. Just look away from a screen and a device.

Yeah, I think that's very, very good advice to give to your clients. Very good.

So I think that's beautiful. So let's slip into wisdom a little bit, you know, and you talked around this context of asking better questions. Now, I was quite blown away by this book. It's called A More Beautiful Question.

Okay. No, I don't know it, but it sounds beautiful.

It's all about, how do you ask. Beautiful question. The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. Yeah, but, you know, this is where. And I'm gonna mess up this. The. The exact details. But it talks about this notion, right, that as children, we almost ask. We are born with an innate curiosity, and we ask so many questions. And our schools first, our parents. I've done that. First we as parents, and then schools and colleges drum out, beat out of us our ability to ask questions. The number of questions kids ask as they go into kindergarten and further up continues to precipitously decline.

Yeah. So sad.

And frankly, people get into leadership roles, and somehow they feel, if I ask a question, I am stupid, I won't be respected, I won't be trusted. Right. And so I want to go into that space because, again, yes, we can ask questions to get AI to ask the answers, but how do leaders become better at asking questions? How do we relearn that curiosity and capacity for questioning? Erasmus.

So I think there's two things. One is that book that you just showed, like, go and read that. But I imagine it's possibly more about, like, how you ask good questions. But if we take it one step deeper, it's about the mindset that lies behind that. And that's why all leadership is about developing the right mindsets. But some of the mindsets that lies behind asking good questions is like humility, curiosity, and beginner's mind and beginner's mind, which is the most important one. And I'll start with a quote by the famous Zen master Suzuki who said, in an expert mind there are few possibilities, but in the beginner's mind there are many. Yes, to the point of kids. You know, if you give a kid a stone and ask, what can you use this for? The kid will come up with a million ideas. But if you ask any CEO, the CEO will, you know, not be able to really find use of a stone. So that sense of open mindedness, seeing potential, seeing possibilities, rather than being stuck in certain ways of seeing yourself, the people you're with, and the business that you're running or part of running, a beginner's mind is the most powerful way of constantly questioning your own assumptions and the given assumptions of a culture that you're operating within. So if you can develop beginner's mind, you'll always ask good questions. The other one is around humility, because as you said, leaders think that they are the ones with the answers. And we need to develop the humility to not have the answers, but rather that strength within to be the one that comes with the good questions.

Yeah.

And the greatest story that I know of, of a person that really mastered this was the. Was Bill Marriott, the son of the founders of the whole Marriott dynasty, who basically had like four words that he said was at the core of good leadership, which is, what do you think? And there's a backstory from it, which is basically, he met with the. When he was very young, he was with a lot of the big business leaders of America and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and they were at the Marriott estates out of D.C. and they were supposed to go hunting after lunch, but after lunch it was pouring rain and all these big business guys were standing there, should we go out or should we not go out? And Eisenhower turns to Bill and basically asks, what do you think? And he was so incredibly shaken by the fact that the most powerful man of the country would ask this young guy. And it just became his leadership mantra. So when he was at board meetings, he would always like bring up an issue that needs to be solved, and then he would go around the room and ask, what do you think? And at the end, he would take all the wisdom of the room, consolidate that in a simple, cohesive answer, and that was it. What do you think? And it's all about humility. And he saw the President being humbly not having the answer, but the question.

Wow, I'm just thinking to that practice how transformative it can be right now to leaders if they just ask their employees, what do you think? What do you think? And just listened not for right or wrong to just listen, even if it is such a contrarian point of view or like, stay there. Right. And I almost feel, you know, Rasmus, in your classic way, you said humility. Right. It is about humility. I think in today's world, where the only thing that we can stand on, the only solid ground I feel that we can stand on, is that the pace of change is only going to keep accelerating exponentially. Things are changing way too fast, Things are way too volatile, way too uncertain. Way like the speed has. We've never. Things have never sped up this much. Right. Never in our history, in our evolution. I think it's the obligation of leaders to ask those who are closest to the problem, because if they wait for those answers to bubble up in terms of a question of where should we go? I think you've lost the battle because your answers are going to be like, so far away from the reality right now. And we see that in engagement surveys and all this other cockabilloony. I think around. We listen to our employees. Yeah. But by the time you act, it's nine months. The situation has changed. The person who gave you feedback has probably already left.

Yeah, yeah.

Right. Or has lost any hope that you're going to do anything about it. So I love that, my friend, around humility. And I would just say, you know, I think it's an obligation. It's an obligation today.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's also something that's going to require a major shift in leadership population over the next years because many of the leaders that are in senior positions now doesn't have this mindset and won't be able to develop this mindset. And we are seeing that many of our clients are starting to look at this and see what changes need to happen in the mindset of leaders and the ones that need to be replaced because they simply won't be able to embrace it.

Yeah. So let's dive into the last element, compassion and compassion again. Right. Is so beautiful. Right. Dalai Lama, I love his words. Right. Compassion is my religion or something to the effect. Right. In many ways, compassion is not just about being human. It's something that all sentient beings have. Right. Compassion for the other. Apes, whales, dolphins, mice, trees, we've talked about. Everyone has this care for the other, but implicitly. And yet our hearts are so closed for so many people. There's so many people, because of their own journeys, their own experiences, have armored up where in not letting the darkness in, they're also not letting their light out. Obviously, this was a whole book you wrote on compassionate leadership. And hence I wanted to just touch on it a little bit. Hopefully we get another podcast together on that particular topic itself. But what are some ways. Rasmus, what are you seeing around that theme of compassion? And how are you. And what are some things that, if people are listening to this, say, you know, this is a good place to start if you want to really cultivate compassion in your leadership.

So the first thing is to understand that, as we talked about in the beginning, compassion is not about being nice and giving people what they want, but it's about doing hard things in a human way, and leadership is about doing hard things. That's what we get promoted to do.

Absolutely.

So how do we learn to do the hard things in a human way? And most people feel that that is a dichotomy, like, either I have to choose to be a hard leader that gets shit done, or I need to be a nice person that people like. But what we found in our study is those two have to and can go together. And that is what it is to do hard things in a human way. And there are four behaviors that in our research underpins that ability of doing hard things in a human way. And it's first of all, being caring depressants. Second, to have caring courage. Thirdly, to have caring candor, and finally, to have caring transparency. And so that thing of having courage, candor, and transparency are the hard things, and the care is the soft thing or the human thing. But what we found in a study is that the hard things are actually not hard. They're actually compassionate because it is a kind thing to others to give them tough feedback if they've underperformed. Because if you don't, they won't know. And at some point, they won't progress in their career because they are not, you know, mentored and. And given the feedback they need. And transparency is a very kind thing, because if people don't have clarity of where they stand and where the company is going, they can make their own decisions. So while transparency can hurt, it is still a kind thing to do. And if we then bring that into the age of AI, AI doesn't have compassion. It cannot have. AI can have knowledge about empathy. Like, what emotions do humans have? How do we bring those emotions forth in people when we are leader? How can we give feedback in a empathetic way? But AI cannot act with compassion because compassion is an intent. And intent can only come from a sentient being like, I feel for you as, and therefore, I'm going to do what I'm doing now because I know it'll be the best thing for you. AI can't feel. So the unique, the uniqueness of humans is to have the intent of compassion and then leverage all the algorithms of AI to set that in compassionate directions. So humans, we need to develop that compassion if we want to be relevant in the future. That will be more driven by AI and technology and data and so on than it is today.

I love those. Courage, candor, transparency and caring. Right. Like, truly done from that place. Yeah, couldn't agree more. I think one of the biggest disservice that we can do to people is not tell them. Right? And most organizations, most leaders don't tell them. We just let people go. We don't tell them. We don't. And we hold them from being at their fullest potential because we want to be kind, we don't want to hurt. But I think again, it's an obligation of a leader to be able to, in a compassionate way, in a caring way, but be able to share, right? And hold like this is, hey, I might not be right here, but I'm going to offer you something because I want nothing but the best for you. I want you to be at your best. Right?

Absolutely. One of the really great leaders that I have worked with and so on in this research was actually your former managing partner, Kevin Schneider. So former managing partner of McKinsey, who, you know, was a great, is a great human being and amazing, great leader. He had, like, in this whole context of having courage and candor and transparency, he had this simple rule for when he was going to have really difficult conversations, especially when it was about partner nominations or senior partner nominations, and your people that have worked for your firm for like 10 or 20 years and they're up for election, will they make it or not? And those people that didn't, he had a very simple rule which was he always prepared the first sentence of the conversation and the last sentence, and the first one would always be something along the lines of, I'm happy to see you today, even though the conversation we're going to have is not what both of us would have wanted, because. And then he would say, you didn't make partner. And that's literally how he would start the conversation, rather than what most leaders would do, which would be, oh, how are you doing? How are your parents? How was your last vacation? And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. By the way, you're not promoted to partner, shitty way of doing things. Because people know it's Coming, people know it is coming, so you better serve it up front. And also his philosophy was then he would leave the space open for people to get emotional, to get angry, to ask questions, rather than him having prepared whole a lot of stuff. So their agenda was driving a very difficult conversation rather than his agenda. And I found that just genius. Wonderful.

Yeah. I had a chance to work with Kevin on a couple of things. So yeah, I mean he's genuinely one of the best leaders that I have. He used to lead consumer. I did a lot of consumer work. So I've seen him, I've had a chance to see him up front and center right on clients and our work. Look, I'm given, we are at the end of the time. I'm just gonna end with this Rasmus and a question for you. This book, when I read it, you highlight a roadmap and a pathway that somebody who is at a high state of consciousness, who already is a pretty evolved human leader, can really take this and go, truly make this a reality, overcome this fundamental thing that you talk about in your book, that as humans we've always been good at inventing tools. We've been terrible users of those tools to actually push our world forward, whether it's the Internet and the fact that we've become dopamine addicts, the atomic power and the bomb and what did we make with it and basically put the world into a cold war rather than infinite potential for energy. I think we are at a similar precipice with this and our external capitalistic short term market systems don't help. So I want to end with what advice do you have for leaders as they are navigating AI in their workplaces, AI for their businesses, what advice would you leave them with to make sure that they actually use this? That can be the biggest gift for humanity to not become its biggest curse.

Yes, and it's such a good question because AI has that potential literally to kill us all. It's that simple. But let's not go there. My advice to any leader, any level, any employee, if you want to be relevant in the age of AI, you need to recognize the nature of your mind, which is clear, vast and kind. And that comes through meditation. If we want to be relevant, we have to meditate. It's the only way we can learn to think slow, not fast. It's the only way we can learn to be really seeing things in perspective, not in perception. It's the only way we can learn to ask the right questions and not just give dumb answers. It's the only way that we can learn to always lead with heart and always act according to our intention, meditation and just generally any tool that will help you to connect with your greater self is going to be so important. So while there's the outer technology of AI and you need to understand that, there's also the inner technology of becoming human. And that's what we need to focus on in leadership development and any any leader needs to do that. Period.

Simple Rasmus thank you. This is literally one of my favorite conversations. Hopefully it's the start of a much bigger dialogue. My friend. For the you and I, we find time together. Thank you for really being a pioneer in this field and for now bringing us this beautiful book More Human how the power of AI can transform the way you lead. I'm grateful to have you in my life and call you a friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Thanks so much.

Ashish.

Thank you so much for the conversation.

Take care.

You too.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider leaving us a review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care and see you next week.