Karen Sergeant joins the pod to discuss misplaced fears about AI. These new tools can be scary, sure. But they can also make leadership miscommunication utterly visible and surprisingly reparable.
A tree falls at work…does it make a sound?
The question is partially inspired by a personal story. My family’s front yard Norway Maple fell in a winter storm just before New Year’s. Thankfully, nobody was in the yard when it fell, but we definitely heard the whoooooooouuuumph the tree made as it hit the ground.As we chainsawed it into firewood, piled up the brambles, and ground the stump, I kept wondering:
Was there anything we could have done to keep this tree from falling?
This sad tree story is also a parable for struggling workplace leadership.
The winds at work today are gale-force. We’re enduring political storms (who can stop thinking about Alex Pretti and Renee Good?). We’re blown about by digital overwhelm: so many shiny new tools, so few trust-building encounters. And to make things gustier, there’s Hurricane AI.
These storms are real. But today’s Mode/Switch guest, Karen Sergeant, redirects focus from external forces to root problems. Last summer, I started reading her Substack Human in the Loop to benefit from her indispensably fresh takes on AI and work culture. Now, I’m so pleased to have her join the Mode/Switch to show how the windstorm of generative AI could transform the workplace for the better if it’s a “forcing function for better leadership.”
But (you ask), how could all those sycophantic chatbots force leaders to recognize patterns of mis-communication? Our 30-minutes podcast will show you how. So, pull up to the roundtable!
I confess my opening question above was a little misleading. I’m not suggesting that you’re about to fall like that tree in my front yard. I’m more worried that, if you don’t communicate clearly, your team will.But improve your internal comms, and you’ll improve the whole ecology.
