Let’s be honest, most CHRO groups out there are bad. They are expensive, filled with vendor pitches, and loaded with “fluff” resources that are outdated by the time they are published. That’s why I put together Future of Work Leaders. A CHRO group for people leaders who are moving beyond traditional HR to focus on the future of work and employee experience. No pitches, no selling, no fluff.
The community is focused on discussions, candid Q&A sessions, and sharing of resources and insights. Members include Lego, Novartis, PwC, Saks Global, and dozens of others. I’m just in the process of planning our annual in-person forum which will be at the end of March. if you want to learn more and request an invite go to Future of Work Leaders or email me directly Jacob[at]thefutureorganization[dot]com.
Many leaders look at a century-old company and see a legacy that is too heavy to move. When a business faces a declining stock price and massive debt, most people look for a “magic button” in the form of new technology. They buy thousands of licenses and wait for the company to change on its own. But the real magic is not in the code; it is in the people.
In this episode, Ana White, Chief People Officer at Lumen, shows us how they are blending culture transformation with AI literacy to drive a massive business turnaround and build a future-ready workforce.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
AI is 70% Culture and 30% Tools
It’s easy to get distracted by shiny new apps, but software is only a small part of the puzzle. According to Ana, for AI to actually work, the people using it must change how they act every day. If the company culture is stuck in the past, even the best AI will fail. Focusing on how humans interact with the tech rather than just the tech itself is the new challenge for people leaders.
“AI is 70% people culture and 30% tools.” – Ana White.
AI adoption is a leadership challenge, not an IT project. The real work for CHROs is building trust, transparency, and clarity so employees feel safe enough to experiment with new tools without fearing for their jobs. Instead of just buying licenses, the goal is to double down on the human behaviors, like courage and a growth mindset, that allow a workforce to stay resilient during a massive digital change.
The Rise of the “Learn-It-All” Leader
In the old corporate world, the best leaders were the ones with all the answers. Today, AI can give answers in seconds, so the goal for leaders must shift. Ana White highlights that the most valuable skill now is learning agility, or how fast someone can learn and pivot. The best leaders are now “learn-it-alls” who stay curious instead of trying to be the smartest person in the room.
“It is more important to be a learn-it-all, versus a know-it-all.” – Ana White.
Skills are expiring faster than ever, so CHROs can’t just hire based on what someone already knows. This means people leaders must rethink what it means to be a “high potential” employee.
Instead of just looking at past experience, it’s better to measure learning velocity, the speed at which someone can pick up a new tool and put it to work. This is now the most important criteria for performance and promotions in an AI-driven world. Moreover, when looking at performance and promotions, CHROs must reward the people who are the best at pivoting and staying curious.
Scaling AI Literacy for 20,000 Employees
True transformation cannot happen if only a few people in the engineering department understand AI. We must move beyond “tech caves” and teach every single worker how to use these tools. Ana White shares how Lumen created AI Literacy programs to do exactly this. By using videos and certifications, they ensured that their 98% utilization rate on Copilot actually led to deep value instead of just basic use.
For people leaders, the big lesson here is that handing out software licenses is not the same as driving a transformation. Success isn’t measured by how many people have the tool, but by the “deep utilization” of how they use it to solve problems. As CHROs, we need to focus on embedded learning: making sure AI training isn’t a separate, boring task, but something that is a natural, easy, and even fun part of the daily job. Our goal is to turn “users” into “experts” who know how to pull real business value out of the technology.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
Mandating Courage During Massive Change
A business turnaround is scary and requires resilience. To help with this, Lumen made “Dare to Lead” training mandatory for all people leaders. This gives everyone a common way to talk and the courage to be direct during tough times. Building courage is just as important as building software when we are trying to change a company’s “North Star”.
Culture transformation is what actually saves a company during a crisis. We cannot just hope that people will become brave or resilient on their own while the business is changing. As CHROs, we must be willing to mandate cultural behavior training to ensure every leader has the same toolkit for “rumbling” through difficult conversations. When we align the “human operating system” with the new business goals, we create a workforce that can handle any digital shift.
Fighting “Work Slop” with Human Judgment
When people rely too much on AI without checking the results, quality drops. This is called work slop. To prevent this, Ana White encourages employees to stay accountable for what the AI produces. Critical thinking and subject matter expertise are the only ways to catch small errors before they take the whole company off course.
High-tech tools require high-touch expertise. Every people leader must ensure that AI should never work alone. We need to teach our managers to move beyond just accepting an AI-generated plan or report. Instead of asking “Is this done?”, we should be asking, “What context is missing?” or “What did the AI get wrong?”.
As CHROs, we must ensure that our subject matter experts are used to “cross-check” and “overlay” their unique opinions on everything the AI creates. Our job is to make sure AI saves time without lowering our standards for excellence.
Managing a Hybrid Workforce of Humans and Agents
In the future of work, we’re going to see more humans and AI agents working side-by-side, making the human-agent talent mapping more crucial to see which tasks belong to people and which belong to agents.
By “splicing” roles, agents can handle the boring data work, while humans do the strategic work that needs empathy. Leaders must now learn the new skill of managing both people and autonomous agents at the same time.
For people leaders, the job is changing and leaning more towards designing the way work happens. CHROs now need to look at every job and break it into small tasks to help find where an agent can help the most. This is about making work better for your teams, not just saving money. Transparency and empathy are now highly important so your people know that agents are there to help them, not replace them. The goal is to keep humans in charge of the big, strategic ideas.
The New Rule: Culture is the Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI
We are entering a world where the “human touch” is a massive competitive advantage. In an age of autonomous agents, qualities like empathy, judgment, and critical thinking are more valuable than ever before. The transformation at Lumen proves that while AI provides the power, it is culture that actually advances the company. Let’s stop believing the myth that AI will take our jobs and start seeing how we can use AI to make our work more human.
As agents become a normal part of the team, every leader must ask one question: Are we training our people to compete with robots, or are we training them to lead them?
Check out the full episode here:
Organizations around the world have lost their way. It’s time to get back to basics and focus on what really drives people and performance. This is why I’m so very excited to share that after 2 years of research and writing, my new book The 8 Laws of Employee Experience: How to Build a Future-Ready Organization is finally available. Grab a copy at 8exlaws.com
