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Well, hello, everyone. I am really happy to check in with you here at the well towards the end of another year, another year where so many things have changed and happened. And who knew that beginning of 2025 that the end of it would look like this and we’re not really even near the proper end of it. But I’m joined today by Alon. And Alon, do you want to just do a quick introduction of yourself before we get on to our topic of the day?
Yes, of course. And happy to be here. you’re absolutely right. think 2025 ends nothing like how we thought it would be when we stepped into it. My name is Alon Alperovitch. I’m an organizational psychologist. I live in London, working a lot with leaders across industries, from financial industry to creative industries, a lot about sense making in terms of change.
Right. And we are going to try and make some sense because there is a big change. And part of making sense involves emotions. And we were doing a little bit of preparation literally before this call for our conversation. And we landed on the topic of, I guess, some of the emotional challenges, pressures associated. Or how would you say that? How do you think is the topic?
I that when we look at change or some transformations specifically, but also AI, there’s so much noise around it, from the constraints it will bring, the changes, the future. A lot of things we cannot control and I think we cannot tend to oversee the emotions it brings in organizations. And on a very personal level, my fear of losing my job or do I even understand what people are talking about? And I think when we look at it,
I would think about the emotion, kind of how do we deal with the emotions in organizations while going through these changes that are happening all around us, basically.
Yeah, so a little bit what we’ll explore is are the emotional constraints imposed on us or maybe we self-impose them, right? That they’re not imposed on us. That’s a whole nother topic. we also explored what are you seeing at the moment as far as leaders are concerned, how they’re reacting and either acting or emotionally responding or self-constraining or being constrained?
What I’m seeing is quite unique and I think it’s fascinating. think there’s a moment in the world when this AI thing together with geopolitics kind of changes is happening. And if I’ll be very honest, I think no one knows what’s really going on. And as a basic human element, if I don’t know, and this volume of uncertainty, it drives so much uncertainty. And what I’m seeing from leaders across different industries, from the tech industry, pressure to know something about it, pressure to do something about it, pressure to communicate about it. There’s a kind of little joking that they add, you add AI to everything. If you have, even if you have no idea what it actually does. And it’s such an interesting phase when you have this gap between the perceived pressure, what we know from team member, from news media, from boards that we need to deal with to the actual reality. Well, is there anything to actually do with AI?
in my organization and any organization. I think this gap is really fascinating because we’re right there in the middle of it.
We are in the middle. And I think then the question is, how do you navigate through it? And do you think there’s a difference in how we navigate through it from an, you know, particularly dealing with these emotional constraints or challenges we might personally feel? I think there might be a retinence to show emotional vulnerability, because that can be seen as weakness, etc. And then that’s my first question. And my second question is,
So are the tools that we would have used in the past outdated in this context because we now deal with AI or are we saying we’re just humans and no matter what we faced with, we’re just faced with a very huge shift and just use the old tools to cope.
I think you’re spot on. think that’s really interesting. question is, the question is you’re asking because, you know, we tend when I thought about it and when I’m working with a bunch of tech founders, there was a question, do we revert back exactly as said to the basic elements that we know we’re working in? Then the meeting with them, one of them said, wait, wait, but it’s AI. It’s different.
It’s much more scary. And think there’s something in the human ambition for a machine or the relationship with this transference of something that represents us. think there’s an extra layer of fear that is all around us. and, know, when we log off in the end of the day, and when we go to our phones or scroll or whatever we do to log off, it’s still there. And there’s something about the constant noise about this is going to change the world. Although, you know, in brackets,
It yet to change the world is just, know, it really helps with grammar, but it’s to really revolutionize the world. But that fear is so prevalent in everything that we’re doing. And so if you ask me, I do think there’s an element of just going back to the basics of, connecting to the grounds, the nature to think that we can actually hold our hand and saying, this is really happening. But yet we need to acknowledge these emotions are very much around us and impacting the way we work.
impacting the way our employees work, impacting the way teams are collaborating, impacting the way we as leaders feel comfortable to lead. One of the things I’m thinking, and I’m curious if you’re seeing it as well, is a lot of shame from leaders.
Yeah, I think there’s shame. And I think then also I would argue there’s more pressure not to show vulnerability now. What I’ve seen are two extremes of leaders and how they react to it. The one extreme of leaders are fearful, pure fear, because they don’t know how to engage with it, but they probably don’t show their fear. And then at the other end of the spectrum, I would say our leaders who say, I get it. I know what it’s going to do. So they’re almost acting into it.
Yeah.
And they still don’t know, right?
Yeah, which is, which is a very natural reaction. think if, if, know, specifically if we look at male characters, there’s the immediate kind of, no, no, I know what needs to be done. but eventually it’s a complex system. And I think we’re trying, we’re starting to acknowledge it. And I heard a beautiful saying of we need to change from a hero to a wise person. And I think when you think about that and the role of leaders, because I think the role of leadership is changing significantly. And what we see is that AI, even if it’s happening or not happening, is pushing everyone that I’m seeing around me, friends, family, coworkers, colleagues, leaders that I work with, everyone are kind of looking inside saying, what is the actual value that I bring to the table?
Yes, fundamental questioning of what’s right, because I’m my value for the first time, I guess, since the Industrial Revolution is again put at risk, because am I again going to be replaced? And I have a view on that. I don’t know what your view is. My view is much more optimistic than I think the prevalent view where in the media, we’re really being scaremongered into continuously questioning and re-questioning and doubting ourselves.
I agree. I agree with your view of, uh, uh, but I also think we need to acknowledge, you know, the, the, the, geopolitics and the social media and everything we’re seeing has an impact because we’re seeing so much war and noise and changes around the world. There’s a term of secondary trauma when we are all kind of really trying to hold on to what is safe and limit kind of our risk. And I think we’ve seen it. We see it.
all over the place and there’s something interesting in how do we allow vulnerability in those spaces, although it’s uncomfortable, although it seems like the wrong thing to do. And what you said earlier, the pressure is to project manage it or to be, you know, to write a spreadsheet or to have a plan or to own it. But actually the ask is the exact opposite. The X is to, to be in this uncomfortableness and allow things to happen. And also I think as leaders,
providing this space to our team members. Because of the emotion level is so high, they need a safe space to actually contain some of these things that are happening and it’s tough. It’s a big, big ask in a world that is very, very quantitative almost in its demands.
And I think what you’re saying there is something I haven’t thought about, is, you know, it’s scary, et cetera, et could be, depending on the mindset choices we make, but especially in a world where your macro environment is so uncertain, this change, it’s much easier, frankly, to default to the negative as opposed, and the fearful side of the spectrum as opposed to seeing the opportunity because everything feels unsafe.
And here’s just another thing that could feel unsafe.
Yeah. And, and, and in a sense, you know, there’s, I think it’s a mixture between the pressure to provide results to the, the acknowledgement of almost a, I’m reading a beautiful book about grief now, and there’s something about acknowledging. let me open it and I put it, but it’s, by Francis Weller and I’m more than happy to send you the name of the books you can post. But it’s all about acknowledging that we’re going through a process of grief currently. Yeah. No AI.
What’s the code?
The one thing that we hear is that the world of work will change and our, what we make meaning of will change. And that’s a big how we make meaning of it. Yeah. And then what comes next is the question of value. So if I’m doing one thing and I know computer will replace it in X amount of years, what does it mean to the value I bring to the world to the value that I provide to my family, to the value that I, know, all of this thing that had how we make meaning of it.
made sense of what we’ve done before. And then I think it’s a new sense making as we started this conversation, I think that is needed.
But maybe we’re also saying goodbye to ourselves. There’s element of grief in that as well, right? So I’m grieving who I was because what I was and who I was and who I thought I could be for until I retire is gone. And similarly, if I’m at the start of my career, who I, you know, I’m uncertain as to what I should be aspiring to, because I can aim for one thing, but it can change so quickly and be a completely different.
And who will I be, you if I’m in the start of my career? And, you know, it’s funny enough, I started my career writing, when I started organization psychology, I wrote a dissertation about identity changes in career changes. And this is what you’re seeing. So we’re absolutely, you’re absolutely right. think there’s a, there’s a grief on losing an identity of what does work mean? And then how do we allow time to embed a new one? And it takes time and work and support and everything, you know, going back to what you said earlier, we need to almost provide spaces for organization and leaders to go through it. You know, the next step.
Sorry to interrupt you Alon, think just like with grief, then there’s the phases that one has to go through. Exactly. You know, and at the end, there’ll be the anger, there’ll be the etc, etc. But hopefully at the end, you know, when one moves through it, I think it’s the old Elizabeth Kubler-Ross models probably.
Yeah, there’s the club of roles and there’s the David Kressler writer a lot about it. there’s a new but the question is, do we allow it and.
Or do we think we have that we probably think we should allow it, but we don’t because we think I don’t have the time. And also I think in today’s world, I think we’ve lost the ability to really feel anyway, there’s a whole, there’s a whole.
I would say there is real pressure. think the board is pressuring, stakeholders are pressuring, team members are pressuring. There’s a real pressure there to provide answers quickly as it always has been for leaders. But that is an unprecedented kind of fear at the horizon that we’re not yet feeling. So how do we support leaders in kind of providing this space? I think that’s a really interesting kind of question. Because it’s kind we know the answers,
Can we even allow the time to go through these steps? Elizabeth Cobler model or David Kestler’s approach. How do we allow the time to go through what we need to go through in a world that is demanding quick high-pass tick tock kind of solutions all the time?
And I think we have to. Right. So anyway, our time has run out so quickly. We’ve got a lot to talk about and we can maybe pick up again, but I’d love to hear what would your advice be, whether to leaders leading through this transformation or just anybody trying to make sense about the emotional constraints that they might perceive are real or, you know, just.
I mean, advice and maybe the one thing I would recommend and to end on an optimistic note, think we need to acknowledge we live in a complex system and a complex world. And it means we need to spend time to understand the complexity and the different elements that come to play, but also to acknowledge the difference between everything that’s happening to what’s within our control.
And if we just spend that time one hour a week, two hours a week, an hour conversation with someone, it will be a game changer to any decision we make in our ability to contain the emotions as we’re going through these steps until things will become clear.
Okay. So Alon, I think we’re going to talk about this again. I hope so. Yeah, I enjoyed this quick interaction. Lots of content, lots of reflection for me, certainly in the conversation and to think about afterwards. And please do send me the title of what you’re reading. Everyone knows I love reading. I think I think that would be super particularly in this context. I’ve not thought about it from that perspective until now that we’re actually all saying goodbye to something but always out with the old in within you and hopefully with hope. So thanks for your time and take care.
