Now, my focus is relationships at work, but these indicators of personal relationships seep into professional spaces. People are the same people wherever they are.

How true is that stat? I can’t say, but decades of evidence indicate that we’re perfectly primed for it. This priming alone is already damaging your personal success, and your company’s.

As Esther Perel put it: “We are becoming deskilled.”

True thriving (personal, professional, financial, organizational) requires healthy relational friction.

Where you can have disagreements and still value the other person.

What’s seductive about techno-relationships is zero friction.

And for nearly a century, our society has been systematically atrophying our capacity for relational friction.

The Slow Removal of Friction

It started, many argue, with the television.

When TVs arrived in living rooms in the 1950s, front porch culture silently disappeared. Literally. Architects stopped designing homes with front porches. Gone were the days when neighbors bumped into each other morning and evening, sharing small talk and watching kids run around.

Robert Putnam documented the long arc of what followed in his landmark book Bowling Alone. Combining half a million interviews over 25 years, he showed how Americans became steadily more disconnected from family, friends, and neighbors. As he put it, “People watch Friends on TV — they don’t have them.”

That book was published 26 years ago.

A quarter of a century.

TV gave us a way to feel all the relational feels without the messiness of actual humans. We emote alongside characters. We root for them and we feel connected…but we aren’t.

Then came social media. And the trend accelerated.

Social media gives us the illusion of being connected to real humans, not characters. But we all know we only see the curated parts. We can take our time forming the kitschiest response, rather than fumbling to react in seconds to someone’s face. We get dopamine hits from comments and likes, as small signals that we matter. But it’s void of the depth that actually builds self-worth.

But wait, there’s more! Social media gave us something even more damaging: the ability to hurt people without consequences. We can hurl an insult at a screen without the biological response that would have stopped us in person. We don’t feel the consequence of their shock, the tension in their body or look on their face. We don’t even feel the hesitation of anticipating it. We can be entertained into the worst versions of ourselves.

Interacting through devices has erased the feedback loop that teaches us how to disagree about important ideas, yet still value the other as human.

Do I need to tie the connection here to cancel culture, where different perspectives are known as evil before truly being pondered?

As if we need evidence: A sudden, steep rise in depression, anxiety, and self-harm among teenagers happened at exactly the same time they started getting smartphones and social media, as laid out by Jonathan Haidt in The Anxious Generation. And I don’t know a single person who thinks it’s a great thing for us grownups, either. Yet, most of us are still on social media every day.

Without true human connection, our bodies and brains erode. I’m no expert in neuroscience, but there must be a bilogical connection here to “reciprocity.” Reciprocity is the power of what happens biologically and neurologically when another human sees us, connects with us, cares for us. As Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk so expertly explains it in his seminal book The Body Keeps The Score:

“Our brains are built to help us function as members of a tribe. We are part of that tribe even when we are by ourselves, whether listening to music (that other people created), watching a basketball game on television (our muscles tensing as the players run and jump), or preparing a spreadsheet for a sales meeting (anticipating the boss’s reactions). Most of our energy is devoted to connecting with others.

…we find that almost all mental suffering involves either trouble in creating workable and satisfying relationships or difficulties in regulating arousal (as in the case of habitually becoming enraged, shut down, overexcited or disorganized). Usually, it’s a combination of both. The standard medical focus on trying to discover the right drug to treat a particular “disorder” tends to distract us from grappling with how our problems interfere with our functioning as members of our tribe.

…Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives… The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal and grow, we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities.”

When imitations of relationships happen more frequently than live connections, our number of friends and time with them both decrease, political divides increase, and even in schools kids are more on devices than interacting, how can we deny that we are losing our learning moments to handle relational friction and still care for the other, different human?

Paralysis by Psycho-Analysis

Ironically, a lot of this friction-removing is well intentioned, in the name of righteousness or mental health. Cancel culture: don’t let the evil people lie. Boundaries: don’t let toxic people control you. Mental Health: “I am an anxious person, I can’t do XYZ.”

There is a wise time to set boundaries, cancel and nurture our mental health. That’s the danger. The best lies have a degree of truth. And with relational tension, we’ve taken things too far.

“Gaslighting.” “Narcissist.” These extreme terms are becoming common even at work. And they conveniently remove our own autonomy and accountability in a relationship.

Instead of building relationships, we’re reasoning ourselves into giving up on them.

You’re Finances Are Capped

Recently, I was with a group of HR leaders who used the phrase “Gen Z stare.” Do you know that term? I didn’t.

It describes something increasingly observed in workplaces: young people who struggle to hold a basic back-and-forth conversation. Not because they’re rude or don’t care, but because the skills were never built.

NYU psychology professor Tessa West researches workplace communication. Work, that’s her focus. Yet, she found a direct link between the decline in romantic relationships among Gen Z and how well they perform at work. More than any prior generation, Gen Z is socializing less, attending fewer gatherings, and engaging in fewer face-to-face interactions. The relational skills built in dating (negotiation, compromise, disagreeing and still caring), directly tie to how people navigate professional problem solving.

This is not a generational character flaw. It is what happens when friction is removed from enough of the interactions that build us.

And it’s not just in GenZ. Across the 171 million employees in the US, there are 212 million acts of incivility per day at work, according to the Society for HR Management. And it’s an increasing trend.

Can you see it? Look at the people you know who are filled with bitterness, or painfully afraid of making a new friend, or don’t take responsibility for relational wrongs. Are they thriving professionally? While they probably act differently at work, the underlying atrophied relational capacity pervades all spheres of their lives.

Bye-Bye Innovation

This makes echo chambers a guarantee. You only hear what you want to hear. Differences are seen as dangerous.

For business leaders, this better be alarming.

When markets shift, success only comes when we bring together the people who see different parts of the business, and navigate our divergent perspectives to invent something wholly new. Sales, product, research, etc. They have insight into varied constraints and possibilities. Tech advances, customer requests, supply chain shifts. Not one of them alone can tell you the path forward to the best new solution. Only together.

In other words: different people, with different perspectives and competing goals, need to be curious together. This needs to happen at the exact moment their neurology wants to shut down from the fear, urgency, chaos, uncertainty, and lowest amount of control they may have ever felt professionally.

They need to be able to value each other through relational friction. Regulate their nervous systems and choose curiosity, together.

AI is the greatest market disruptor, inciting the fastest speed of change, and the greatest threat to the human skills required for what every HR leader talks about: agility, upskilling, creativity, complex problem-solving, etc. Not to mention: relational intelligence.

We’re accelerating towards our greatest need for relationships at the moment we’re most surrendering the skills to create, nurture and navigate them.

I’d like to argue that’s the moment we’re already in, but all signs point to: it’s going to get worse.

AI: The Most Powerful Relationship Replacement, Yet

AI gives us the ability to create characters (not just watch them), interact with the curated parts only, and receive easy reinforcement whenever we want. It’s the best of relationship with zero friction.

As my favorite researcher on the subject, Sherry Turkle, put it: “Social media was a gateway drug to AI companionship. First, we talked to each other through machines. Now we talk directly to machines. We became accustomed to looking to a screen for attachment.”

Turkle has been researching human relationships with technology at MIT since the 1970s. Think about that. Since the earliest computers weren’t even yet in offices or homes. In her recent interview with CNN, she went on to say:

“Intimacy requires vulnerability — there is no intimacy without vulnerability. What AI offers is connection without vulnerability.

You are not getting a sustaining form of intimacy and connection. You are getting a non-nourishing combination that may give the sense of a quick fix, but is not sustaining.”

As we’ve seen with social media and mental health, I expect we’ll find that this fake substitute will leave us biologically worse off.

This isn’t just theory.

Research in Science Magazine found that “AI affirmed users’ actions 49% more often than humans, even when queries involved deception, illegality, or other harms… even a single interaction with sycophantic AI reduced participants’ willingness to take responsibility and repair interpersonal conflicts, while increasing their conviction that they were right.”

That’s dangerous.

They also found that people prefer these overly affirming AI tools over other options. Which means tech builders, who are incentivized by what drives usage, are continuing to build AI this way. The trajectory is anti-human-relationships.

Last year, Mark Zuckerberg, aware of how lonely people are, shared about how their AI avatars are getting better at feeling human, so people can have always-available fake friends.

He also commented that while some AI-relational choices, like creating AI romantic partners, might seem strange now, we shouldn’t judge. If people are finding value in something, it must be good for them.

Geesh. That’s ignoring a lot of psychology research about how we deeply damage ourselves by choosing what feels rewarding in the moment even when we know it’s against our true well-being.

About a year later, Meta announced a Zuckerberg avatar, built to help employees “feel connected” to their CEO.

That, folks, is not connection.

If any of this sounds extreme, consider this: Workday’s Human Connection Workplace Index found that “37% of employees prefer brainstorming with AI rather than a human colleague for fear of judgment.”

Our friction avoidance is seeping into every aspect of work.

You’ve Got The Power

Humans are resilient and adaptable. We’ve made it through a lot. So let’s make it through this intentionally. Here’s where you still hold power:

1. First, observe yourself with people. How do you react when someone disagrees? Or brings new information that messes up what you’ve worked hard on? Acknowledging your reflex is the first step to adjusting it.

2. Practice curiosity. Curiosity is a discipline. It can be so, so hard. Take a deep breath (this literally “opens” your mind), and ask questions. Some phrases that help me open conversation instead of squash it with my opinion: “Help me understand…” “Thanks for sharing this, I’m curious about….” “That’s interesting that ____, it’s not what I expected. Can you share more insight into that?”

3. Observe yourself with AI. Hey, I’ll admit it, I like when Claude says “that’s a keen observation, you’re right to push that direction.” Microsoft AI recently published research that makes it pretty clear: when AI acts socially-emotional with us, we humans are already experiencing 3 dangers: emotional dependence, moral atrophy, and autonomy erosion. In other words: we emotionally bond with AI and rely on it to make our decisions. Be honest, you’re not immune to this. It’s neurological. Stay aware of it.

4. Challenge your AI. A lot of times when AI gives you an answer, ask it again “what did we miss?” or “under scrutiny, what is a valid disagreement with this?” It not only helps you find the truth, it teaches you, in a low-stakes environment, how to curiously consider different perspectives.

5. Do not use personified AI. If I could plea one thing to all business leaders: do not buy or build AI that has a name, gender or speaks as if it has emotions. The Microsoft AI research alone makes it clear. My day job is in AI Coaching and I am deeply concerned about all the AI Coaches that express human-like care, such as “I’ve been thinking about your promotion.” There is more than enough psychological evidence of the danger that poses to individuals and organizational innovation.

6. Do not personify your AI. The ickiest reference I’ve heard about enterprise AI: “My AI girlfriend is doing a lot of work for me these days.” Wow. You hear subtler references all the time, referring to Claude as “he” or Alexa as “she.” “My friend ChatGPT told me…” Before the research for this article, I thought personifying AI was odd, now I hope we all see it normalizes and advances our decades long trajectory towards relating with technology over humans.

I aim to write concisely, and this one needed a deep dive. If it was helpful to you, please subscribe, share, and leave a comment about what sparked your curiosity. It really helps me know how I can be helpful to you.

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37% of US adults have ended relationships with friends, family members, colleagues and even romantic partners over political misalignment. That’s two and a half times more cancelled relationships than just 10 years ago.

Can you imagine if the founders of this nation never spoke to each other again after those aggressive shouting matches? Literally, democratic liberty as it is experienced world-wide today, wouldn’t exist.

It was through stressful arguments with strong-headedness on both sides that key elements of the constitution were invented: states’ rights, representation, checks and balances. No one came up with these ideas easily. They were painfully arrived at through the necessity of negotiation. Compromise or collapse. Figure it out together, or lose all that was fought for to establish freedom. These wholly new ways of co-existing have since shaped nations around the world. “Nearly all of the national constitutions now in use bear the marks of the 55 men who met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to create the framework of the United States government.”

The USA is the longest running democracy, with the oldest Constitution still guiding a nation. That strength is due in large part to the expectation of conflicting opinions, and a structural design to be productive through misalignment.

This doesn’t just matter for our societal structure, it matters for our personal success. There is no professional innovation without competing viewpoints melding together to solve a complex problem. There is no depth in any professional or personal relationship without rupture and repair (some day I’ll write that article…). Amy Edmondson’s decades of research underscores this: teams willing to surface problems and disagreements openly actually outperform teams that appear harmonious. Harmony often just means people have stopped speaking up.

The home of the brave

On Saturday, as my country turned 250, I attended something I’ve never experienced before: a public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

I had no idea what was in that document. Highly recommend the read. It’s short.

We snuck in late, as the national anthem was ending. Surprisingly, I found myself tearing up at the final line: “and the home of the brave.”

My kids frequently hear me say: “bravery isn’t the absence of fear; it is still choosing strength when we are afraid.” (They give me an eye roll about it these days.)

I worry that we’ve lost our relational bravery. Our ability to dislike someone’s ideas and still value them as a human. Our ability to be curious when we’re afraid of a direction we might be headed in the conversation or work or politics.

I, like 62% of my fellow Americans, worry about the direction of my country. Yet, I am bound to people who vote for leaders I would call catastrophic. These voters aren’t evil. I see their whole lives. They are nuanced, and they have their logic.

We can’t right this ship with only one set of beliefs. Trying to do so is what’s so calamitous right now. We need space for contrasting value systems and perspectives. No one side sees the whole domino effect.

Hope is always available

Are we more polarized than ever? Apparently, a third of folks in the colonies wanted to stay with Britain. They opposed the revolution. Today, a third of Americans are happy with our country’s direction. They’d oppose a major shift.

According to Ken Burns (who’s made around 3 dozen documentaries that largely explore US history), maybe we’re more divided than ever, maybe we aren’t, but either way there’s hope:

Be brave, friends. Wade into conflict with care. Represent your side, seek to understand, and hold the other person as just as human as you are. Imperfect, yet with all the opportunity for growth.

The easy thing to do is write people off. But that robs you of the opportunity to find your inner fortitude, discover wisdom, and grow the capacity upon which our freedom and democracy was invented.

And, as cancel culture and “boundaries” trends have swung our pendulum too hard away from relational curiosity, work has remained the only place you kind of have to try at difficult relationships. If your boss is a jerk, you can’t cancel her. But maybe, just maybe, you can interact with her enough to see she’s still human, and has good intentions.

But. We’re losing that. Because AI.

I’m not one for fear-mongering hot takes. And I’m pro-AI…I mean, it’s my job and the company I’ve built. But the data is coming out loud and clear.

Hallam Bullock @ Business Insider just called it "the antisocial workplace."

Y'all. THIS is the part of AI I worry about most.

Not that it takes our jobs. That it takes our relationships.

It'll draft the message so you don't call. Summarize the meeting so you skip it. Answer the question so you never ask the person two desks over.

Faster? Absolutely. And more alone than we've ever been.

Even worse: it's just easier than talking to a person. No personality differences, no confusing different perspective, no pushback. Your sycophantic reinforcer. Echo-chamber on steroids.

Which means we're not only losing our capacity for relationships; we're also losing critical thinking capabilities and key information sharing. Work slop to the extreme. It's not just bad for humanity, it's terrible for business.

Here's what I believe after almost a decade of building AI coaching: this is a choice. Ours. We are setting the precedent right now for what AI at work does to people.

It can pull us apart. Or it can hand us exactly what we need to show up for each other.

That's the whole reason our AI Coach will NEVER have a name, a face, or a "hey, I've been thinking about you." We don't want you bonding with a bot. We want it to help you understand the actual human across from you, and then push you right back toward them.

AI cannot replace a relationship. But it can equip us for one.

The connection that used to happen by accident? We have to build it on purpose now.

She was standing at the door to his office. Her new boss. Half her age. A total stranger.

What would you have done, were you the new boss, in that situation? Attacked by a “subordinate” disrespecting you before you even knew her name? To be met with complete judgement, assumptions erasing any sacrifices you’ve made or positive ambition within you?

I would have frozen. Been kind but flustered, and overthought it for hours after.

But he did a genius move.

Before I get to that, let’s dig into why the woman acted this way, why most of us would react poorly, and why this is representative of all the problems we get stuck on at work. Yes — ALL of them.

What the heck is happening in our brains?

Ah, the brain.

Behavior confounds us (“why would that crazy lady think it would be good to start her relationship with her new boss that way??”), yet when the brain is explained, our intuition gets it.

So let’s dig into some simplified neuroscience.

May it empower and free you to understand why you do those things you regret, or why you think of the perfect response 3 hours too late.

You can sum up the human experience in 3 segments of the brain:

1. Brain Stem - we’re born with this. It regulates the stuff we don’t think about like breathing and digestion.

2. Limbic System - evaluates our surroundings for danger, reward, and social meaning, shaping our sense of safety and connection. The limbic system develops in the first 6 years of life, then morphs (typically slowly, though dramatically in trauma) through life experiences. Here’s where you’ve seen it in action:

   • When a baby cries, how a caregiver does/doesn’t respond teaches the baby—at a nervous-system level—if the world is safe or dangerous and if needs will be met or not.

   • When a teenager compliments an attractive peer and receives a flirtatious or humiliating response, their limbic system learns about social status and belonging.

   • In a meeting, if a colleague belittles your suggestion, it is your limbic system that triggers shutdown or an impulsive comment you may later regret.

   • The limbic system and brain stem work closely together. For example, together they initiate the Fight-or-Flight response that causes immediate bodily reactions, such as in tension our muscles or shallow breathing. You know this well, it’s why anxiety about a big presentation can cause nausea or sweating.

3. Prefrontal Cortex - develops last, age 2 on. Many call this the “rational” brain where executive function happens. Basically, it gives us what we need for “successful” behaviors:

• Language and communication

• Complex problem solving skills: abstract thinking, imagination, creativity, planning, envisioning domino-effects into the future, attaching meaning to immense amounts of information

• Positive relational capacity: empathetic understanding, perspective-taking

• Choice, our free will

  All of art, culture and technological innovations are only possible thanks to our prefrontal cortex.

OK, I knew this is nerdy, almost text-book-ish. You’re doing great sticking with me. I have just 2 more critical insights to share about your noggin:

First, the order of development is significant because it reveals the order of prioritization. When a situation happens, the information first hits our limbic system which triggers our brain stem, then takes a few extra moments to hit our prefrontal cortex.

In other words, when triggered, your body reacts before you make a choice. Uh-oh. That’s right.

Lastly, If the trigger is significant enough, your prefrontal cortex “goes offline” so that your entire focus can stay on survival.

These two facts are helpful when a stranger lunges at you and you find yourself sprinting away before you rationally have a clue as to what is happening.

But…not so helpful when you can no longer remember your speaking points in a presentation, or intelligently respond to a surprisingly irritating comment.

What’s sabotaging me?! Is it…me?

Have you ever wondered “why can’t I get it together?” or “what was I thinking?!” “What is wrong with me?!” “Why can’t I be as ____ as that awesome person?”

It’s neuroscience: when you feel a threat, you react before you think.

For all of us, work is a field full of threatening land-mines. You never know when you’ll step on one, but you’re vigilantly aware of dangers.

Why does work heighten our senses? Two reasons:

1. Our paychecks are how we provide for ourselves, our loved ones and our deepest dreams.

2. Our jobs are a key outlet of how we find meaning and purpose (or lack thereof) in our lives and our identities.

In other words, when challenges pop up at work, subconsciously (or consciously) we feel a threat to our survival and our value as a human.

So yeah, work is a field of limbic-system-landmines. When we step on one, our ability to think open-mindedly, creatively, sifting through complexity with hope and curiosity — that all vanishes. Boop. Gone.

It’s not hard to think of triggers looming over us all:

• budget cuts

• missing goals

• uncertainty in the market / economy

• low trust in leadership

• feeling unheard or discouraged from speaking up

Basically - scarcity. Loss of resources, options, autonomy.

We are swimming in an environment of scarcity. Think of all the things you don’t have enough of at work: not enough time, not enough resources like teammates or budget, not enough influence, not enough respect.

This has us teetering on the edge of our limbic system throughout our workday. Like that task you almost finished but didn’t have quit enough time before your meeting started where you don’t have enough information nor enough rapport established with your boss’ boss.

Then drop in conflict. Conflict isn’t just from behaviors that offend; it’s sparked by competing departmental goals (i.e. sales = quantity, engineering = quality) compounded by macro-economic conditions (i.e. tariffs), technological disruption (we’re all behind on using AI), and our own internal beliefs-from-past-experiences (“no one listens to me around here”).

Whew…

It’s a lot.

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Ok, but the problem isn’t me - it’s my circumstances.

Fair.

You could argue many of our biggest problems happen to us, out of our control: layoffs, budget cuts, surprise challenges like regulation changes, etc.

It’s true.

But those things are all decisions made by others, and I’m willing to wager that the worst of decisions are made in their limbic brains, too.

Sometimes you can influence those powerful decision makers. Most times, you can’t.

All the time, what you can influence is your strength of response; shaking yourself out of your own fight-flight-freeze response so that you can bring back your imagination, complex problem solving, creativity and relational capacity.

Life will always happen to us.

My sincere hope is that these words inspire and equip you to find your inner strength.

How do we come back?

Let’s revisit our opening scenario of new boss with pissed-off-employee.

We can imagine this woman was solidly operating without her prefrontal cortex. She was threatened, she was fighting (not flighting). She was impulsive and certain (two classic characteristics of a limbic system takeover). Certain that this new boss was no good and certain that he wasn’t going to respect her.

Unexpectedly, his response miraculously brought her executive functioning back online. She entered his office, sat down, shared valuable information, and built deep mutual trust before leaving.

How?!

What could possibly flip such an offensive situation in so toxic an environment?

A simple response:

“You’re right, I probably have a lot I can learn from you.”

In that one statement, he met her where she was, validated her, respected her, and invited her into a positive social connection. This lowered her sense of threat, relaxed the tension, allowing her prefrontal cortex to “wake up.” Positive social interaction sparks activity in this executive functioning part of the brain.

In other words, sincere human connection revives our ability to make choices, operate in ambiguity, practice curiosity, and resolve complex issues.

We know this. It’s so obvious in toddlers. Think of how they are lost in their imaginations, exploring nature, giggling with friends at a park. One falls. Immediate screams. All imagination, social play and curiosity are gone. He runs to his caregiver, who swoops him up. The safety of that embrace soothes his heart, body and mind. It doesn’t take long for him to wiggle out of the arms and back into exploratory fun.

While we don’t scream or embrace at work, hopefully we’ve all experienced when someone believes in us, gives our voice a space, or truly sees us in the midst of a challenge.

Warm relational interaction.

That’s how we can hack our brain out of fight-flight-freeze and back into ideation, complex solutioning, making lemonade out of lemons.

Put it into practice

If you’re a leader - this knowledge is a superpower. It’s how you melt away the tension to bring back executive functioning in your team.

If you have no authority, you still have influence. I’ve seen an intern flip the atmosphere with a simple curious question.

The secret is relational curiosity.

The courage to let the "new" and the "different" make you smarter, not smaller.

It’s the discipline of staying open to people who aren’t like you, recognizing that their differing strengths complete the picture, not overly complicate it.

It’s kindness, creating space despite scarcity, asking inviting questions.

Honoring the intrinsic value in each other.

There are so many tactics and nuances to practicing relational curiosity. It’s what this substack is all about. Upcoming articles include how to win any argument, flipping territorial internal politics into collaboration, why conflict is good, and AI’s power to destroy or enhance human connection.

Please leave comments on what is helpful, request upcoming topics, and ask questions! I sincerely aim to make this empowering to your relational influence and joy.

Everyone works with at least one jerk. My friend in higher ed was explaining his. We’ll call this jerk Jason.

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“We all have to protect our resources.

“But I couldn’t ignore him. My job is to build cross-campus connections. And of course, he emailed me.”

What to do?

“And so, you know, I take the meeting and actually… we had a great conversation.

“I learned a ton after two or three sessions where we really hashed some things out.

“And everyone was all, ‘You talked to Jason?! Why’d you do that?!’

“But I explained what I learned. And everybody's like, ‘oh, that's actually not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. That's actually very logical.’

“It wasn't that complicated. Just show up and listen.”

Does Culture Own You…Or Vice Versa?

All action comes from what you believe.

People believed Jason was a jerk who would impose on resources, so they chose actions of self-protection and warning others.

What is culture but the amalgamation of every individual’s actions?

What you believe forms what you action which forms culture. Multiplied by everyone.

Culture then informs what we believe, by what we see others doing. It’s a cycle.

Had my friend followed culture, he would have known Jason was a jerk and acted in ways to reinforce the cultural truth.

But he chose curiosity. He opened his beliefs. Then acted differently. And reshaped culture.

The whole group believes differently now.

Grow Your Resources: Money + Influence

I spent last week with executives from Deloitte to Warner Music and a few dozen others. They all agree: as AI takes over technical skills, it’s the human skills that matter. Google’s CLO said it really all comes down to courage.

Even pre-AI, Harvard just published a study of 70 million job transitions from 2005-2019. “Foundational skills” like cross-functional collaboration and communication (aka Relational Curiosity) got promoted way more than specific technical skills.

I’ll share more wisdom on career stuff from these execs in another post…

My Plea

I don’t need to tell you what happened last week in Utah, or that political violence is on a steep rise, from 300 acts between 2021-2024, to 150 so far this year.

But I do need to tell you this: You can reroute culture.

Please believe it.

If all 7,000+ of today’s readers choose curiosity even just once, 21,000+ people will have their minds opened and inspired. Every share of this post multiplies that possibility. The ripple effect can go on for good, exponentially.

When that jerk at work does that thing - you can complain to a peer, or see the jerk as human like you. In the first scenario, you get to be certain. In the second, you get to grow. In both, you are choosing the contagious culture.

I know, without a doubt, that choosing relational curiosity at work will make you more money. And it will ripple into healing our global culture, one relationship at a time.

I’m no Catholic. Yet this quote says it all:

January of ‘23, Cody and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary from Mumbai. We were there with his work. He runs ops for The Aruna Project. They help trafficked women escape, heal, and gain dignified work making premium athleisure bags. (Looking for a backpack, belt bag, tote, or meaningful gift? Check ‘em out.)

The factory was my favorite. Survivors, full of joy and hope. I watched them become so sad when given the day off - turns out the factory was also their favorite. Being together, supported and working.

The head counselor was a calming presence, walking kindness and patience. Wisdom.

One challenging conversation permeated our trip: How to better prepare the women for joining the factory. You see, the training facilities were strategically located near the brothels, to reach women in them. But in effort to help them leave all the brothel trauma and people behind, the women were being sent from training to the factory too early. Upon arrival, they’d become overwhelmed by their inability. There was relational tension growing, with those running training and the factory both having a different perspective on what was best for the survivors.

The head counselor summed up her perspective in a sentence my mind often replays:

“The most healing thing for these women is to make a bag, to see what they are capable of.”

Simple. True for us all.

To see what we are capable of - that is the healing power of work.

May you be enjoying rest from your labor today - and may your labor become a place where you help those around you grow more into what we’re each uniquely capable of.

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The CEO was sitting next to me. Facebook pulled up. Scrolling. Talking at me as if I obviously must agree with his political views. And his views of farming. The food system. Climate change. Family values. Gender roles, implied.

By the way, this meeting was (supposed to be) about partnering our tech tools together.

Anyone could guess the rest of this guy’s value system. Cliché.

Except, they’d be wrong.

He was salt of the earth. Non emotional. Grew up mucking stalls in the back country. Keep your feelings out of work. Or so I guessed.

But - he employed a company therapist. All of his people had free, on-the-clock counseling.

I asked why.

“The older I get, the more I realize we’re all just walking out our childhood wounds.”

The older I get, the more I realize we assume way too much about each other.

It’s causing stress at work and division in society.

3 out of 4 people watch their colleagues blame each other. The same amount report mistrust throughout their organization. 4 in 5 people avoid tough conversations, and 27% of the time it’s because we worry about what will be used against us in the future.

I’m finally launching this substack to share two things:

1. Inspiring stories of people who transformed their divisive assumptions into curiosity that changed a relationship and, in turn, changed their work and their lives.

2. Industry trends in how AI is on track to help us resolve workplace people stuff, or threaten it.

Some posts will be short stories. Others will be deep dives into the wild news of AI in HR. My hope is to inspire you to be more human and to equip you with the tools to create more human workplaces.

Who am I?

I’m Kirsten. Cofounder of the world’s first and only AI coach backed by personality science. It’s currently used worldwide by some of the biggest brands. For 10 years, my cofounder Darrin and I have built a team and culture we’re deeply proud of. We’ve learned lessons the hard way.

I spend my days talking to:

• everyday people who work

• leaders in HR, Learning & Development and Talent Management

• Executives - CEOs, CFOs, Global Head of Sales, etc.

Gallup would say my top strengths are all about taking in disparate data points and tying them together. There is much to tie together these days. How we work, AI, culture, HR tech and HR departments are all changing at unprecedented speeds.

Gallup would also say I can grow in communication - hence practicing here with this substack, Linkedin, and public speaking.

I would be so honored for you to follow along the journey, share posts that are helpful to you with others, and leave comments on both what you appreciate and what else you’d like to hear about.

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