In this episode of the SuperCreativity Podcast, host James Taylor interviews Marissa Afton, co-author of More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead. Marissa is a Partner at Potential Project, where she works with companies like IBM, Eli Lilly, and Amgen to create more human-centered workplaces.
Together they explore how artificial intelligence isn’t here to replace leaders—but to amplify their humanity. Drawing from real-world examples, global executive interviews, and practical frameworks from the book, they unpack how leaders can become AI-augmented by developing awareness, wisdom, and compassion.
If you're a leader navigating the rise of AI, this episode will help you avoid dehumanizing traps and unlock a more mindful, emotionally intelligent, and ethically grounded approach to leadership.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
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AI is an amplifier: It will magnify your leadership—for better or worse.
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Awareness, wisdom, and compassion are the three human capacities that will differentiate great leaders in the AI era.
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Time-freed ≠ time-used well: Leaders must reinvest AI-generated efficiency into more connection, creativity, and presence.
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Digital twins and psychometric AIs can help simulate and anticipate—but the human touch is still essential.
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Stillness enables awareness: The best leaders will use AI to create space, not just speed.
💬 Notable Quotes:
“AI gives us the time to be better leaders—but we often just fill that time with more work.” – Marissa Afton
“The leader of the future is not more digital—but more human.” – James Taylor
“Awareness happens in stillness. Creativity happens in stillness.” – Marissa Afton
“AI is an exoskeleton for the mind and heart. But we still have to drive.” – Marissa Afton
“We must ask not only what AI can do for us—but what it can do to us.” – Marissa Afton
⏱️ Timestamps:
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00:09 – Intro to Marissa Afton and More Human
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02:45 – How the book changed course due to generative AI
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04:40 – What leaders misunderstand about AI’s permanence
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06:28 – Why some leaders want AI to make decisions for them
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07:58 – How to use time saved by AI for more human leadership
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10:14 – Psychometrics, sales calls, and keeping the human in AI
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12:34 – The risk of outsourcing too much to AI
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13:31 – Avoidin
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
My guest today is Marissa Afton, partner and head of global accounts at Potential Project,a global research and leadership development firm helping companies like IBM, Amgen, and
Eli Lilly build more human workplaces.
Marissa is also a co-author of the new book, More Human, How the Power of AI Can Transformthe Way You Lead, a powerful and timely guide for leaders navigating the intersection of
(00:33):
artificial intelligence and human potential.
In More Human,
Marisa and our co-authors argue that AI shouldn't dehumanize leadership, but elevate it.
Drawing on interviews with over a hundred global executives and research from thousands ofleaders, they show how AI can help us become more aware, wiser, and more compassionate in
(00:53):
how we lead.
Today, we'll explore what it means to be an AI augmented leader, how to lead with bothheart and algorithm, and why the future of leadership is not about being more digital, but
being more human.
Marisa.
Welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast.
Thank you so much, I appreciate your introduction and it's so nice to be here.
(01:15):
So before we get into the depth of the book itself, what first sparked your interest inhuman-centered leadership, this field more generally?
Well, Potential Project, and as you mentioned in our introduction, Potential Project is aglobal research development and research firm, and we have been around for about 15 years
now, and our mission is to create more human workplaces.
(01:38):
Sounds simple, not necessarily easy, but the way we do it is we invite leaders to look attheir own, enhancing their own leadership potential by understanding their own minds and
their mindsets.
They're how mindsets enhance behaviors and how mindsets enhance action.
So we have for a very long time been very committed to looking at what are some of theresearch-backed outcomes of being a human-centered leaders.
(02:09):
And now we have kind of extrapolated the research we've already been doing for some timeinto how we support leaders in an AI-enabled world.
Now, probably when you were probably starting to think about this book with yourco-authors, we might have been just coming out of the kind pandemic period and everyone
was talking about distributed teams and virtual teams and working that way as well.
(02:33):
And I'm guessing you were probably thinking about going down one way of the book, but withthe AI, maybe things kind of changed.
How did this book kind of develop and did it become a different beast as you startedcreating it together?
It's so interesting that you're asking that question.
So in fact, we were already under contract with HBR and HBR has been our partner now.
(02:54):
This is our third book published with them.
And we were under contract for a completely different book.
It was going to be on selfless leadership on eagle-less leadership.
Stay tuned.
We're still under contract with them for that book.
But right when we were at the beginning stages of looking at that topic, they came to usand they said,
(03:14):
Hey, have you heard about this thing called generative AI?
And this is going back to about 2022.
And we thought, yes, we've heard about it, but why are you coming to us?
And they said, well, we understand that you're not experts in the technology.
but you are experts in leadership.
And we're really curious about starting an exploration on how AI can enhance leadership orto the point that you said in our introduction, could it dehumanize our leadership?
(03:44):
And that became very interesting for us.
So that's how we started and to be really transparent.
We weren't all in on AI.
I mean, we did have some skepticism about can AI actually elevate our leadershippotential.
Can AI help us be more human-centric at work?
(04:05):
And ah we were skeptical, but now we see that actually there's some real benefits that AIcan do for us in our leadership.
I saw Jeff Bezos being interviewed the other day and being asked a question on stage andsomeone said to him, the first question people are asking him as a leader is, what's gonna
(04:26):
change?
And he said, and that's an interesting question, it's a good question, what's gonna changewith artificial intelligence we're seeing?
said, but the better question probably, the more interesting question is, what's gonnastay the same?
Hmm.
as we go through these different changes, said, because you can build a strategy as aleader around things that stay the same.
(04:46):
In his case, he was talking about an Amazon, in 10 years time, people are still gonna wantfast delivery.
No one's gonna be saying, actually, could you just deliver it, but make it a little bitslower.
So said, we can build a business around that as well.
As you started talking to all these leaders about artificial intelligence, how it wasreshaping both their industry, their businesses, but also themselves as leaders, what
(05:08):
surprised you about some of those initial conversations?
What surprised us at first was the disconnect that some leaders had about how much AI ishere and it's here to stay.
And so we noticed that there was a bit of a gap between some leaders who were kind of allin, they were early adopters, they were really ready to leverage the benefits of AI, may
(05:29):
or may not have seen some of the risks of AI for their leadership, which we can talkabout.
And then there was another huge category which...
I think is shrinking a bit over time, but it's still there of some leaders who are like,mm, AI, do I really need it?
Is it really helpful?
Maybe if I just wait it out, it will be a fad that will pass.
So that was one of the first curiosities we had about those who were early adopters who weactually think are augmenting their leadership potential even more by using AI and those
(05:59):
who were kind of waiting for.
maybe the digital natives to use it for better efficiency but weren't seeing the benefitto themselves as leaders.
And for those that were probably in the middle, maybe the 80%, they weren't the outliers,they weren't the early adopters, but they also weren't the laggards as well.
What kind of questions were they asking of themselves, their leadership team, those peoplethat were reporting to them, ah advisors about artificial intelligence?
(06:28):
Well, I think one of the questions that we have noticed that has become a real theme forus is around leaders really asking the question first and foremost about what AI can do
for them.
And we know AI can do many, many great things.
It can make you more efficient.
It can help you with tasks.
It can help you with decision making.
In fact, there's some
(06:49):
pretty scary research out there, not our own, that ah up to 70 % of leaders would preferan AI to make the decisions for them rather than having to make their own decisions.
And it's simply because leaders are overwhelmed.
They've got so much going on and the pressure is continuing to increase.
And so while that's a good question for leaders to ask, which is what can AI do for us?
(07:14):
We also have invited the question, what can AI do to us?
And I think that that's the balance that we need for everybody to embrace is it has greatcapabilities, but it also has some risks.
And it's a line in the book where you say, AI gives us time to be better leaders, but weoften fill it with more work.
(07:37):
Why do you think we struggle so much with that?
know, I remember years ago reading books like The Four Hour Workweek, and I know a lot ofpeople that kind of really went all in, and all they ended up doing was just working even
crazier than they were probably before.
So they didn't end up working four hours.
You kind of use some of the benefits of ideas in that book, but they just...
(07:58):
they just can use, like with, yeah, so with those leaders, if let's say they are releasingthemselves from making some of the decisions and they're able to use AI to make better
decisions or think through things in a better way, they start to save some of that time,where do think they should be diverting that time?
How should they be using that additional time that they're gonna gain from this?
(08:20):
Yeah, thank you, James.
It's a great question.
And like to the first part of your question is like, why do we do that?
And that's kind of like an age old question.
I mean, I think nature pours a vacuum.
And so we see that space and we think about email was supposed to be the great time saver.
How well has that worked for us?
I mean, we just seem really, really prone to fill in time with activity, busyness, whichdoesn't necessarily equal impact.
(08:46):
And so what could
leaders or dare I say what should leaders be doing with that time saved and this is wherethat human centered approach really comes in.
If you can become more efficient with the AI tool, your AI agent, well could you just addmore work to your plate?
(09:07):
Of course you can or you can have uh make a different decision and
This requires some intentionality for leaders to determine what's the best way for me tohelp engage my people, to help bring them along with me.
And so really the invitation is if you're using AI to help you prepare, for example, for aperformance conversation, do you just cram in more time or more activities, or do you
(09:36):
actually create some of the mental space to think about how do you want that conversationto go?
where do you want that person to uh end up and land in the dialogue that you're about tohave?
Let the AI do all the data collection and the sentiment analysis and use the algorithms togive you the insights on where that person is in their journey.
(09:59):
And then you use your human head and heart to really make the space to determine what youwant.
that conversation to evolve into and what you want that person to get out of thatconversation as an example.
I remember when I, I I use AI before I get into, if I'm doing, I'm doing a sales call,let's say with someone.
And I'll use AI to analyze the psychometrics of the people I'm gonna do the call with inadvance of the call with, it's a board or whoever the board is.
(10:27):
And I remember doing it early on, this was, I've been doing it since like 2018, I think,as I started using very early tools, IBM was starting to make tools to be able to do this.
And I was just kind of playing around, it was great.
And, but it felt a little bit early on.
like it felt a little bit too um machine, almost like machine-like.
was kind of, and then it took me a little while to figure out, how do I blend that machinelearning, that what I'm learning from the machine to be able to do that and bring the kind
(10:55):
of the humanity bit back in as well.
It feels like that's where we are for a lot of people.
Everyone sees the potential, the AI and you saw it first, like customer service companiesrolling out chat bots and agentic AI and everyone then starting to go, whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, we're kind of losing sense of who we're serving and the human part ofthis.
(11:16):
But it's great that you had that insight and that you had it early.
And I think that not everybody has caught onto it, especially as the AI tools have becomemore more sophisticated.
sound like every day it's evolving.
It's constantly learning.
It's constantly growing.
It's capabilities to be more human-like and to have more of that human touch almost.
(11:37):
So you don't have that kind of machine robotic sense when you're interacting with itanymore.
And actually that's a bigger risk.
Because the more human it becomes, the less human we need to be in how we are interactingor how we're using the outputs of the AI.
It create this beautifully crafted communication.
(11:59):
And you think, ah, that's it.
I'm just going to cut, send.
without actually using your own discernment as a human to determine whether what it's putout is number one, is it a hallucination?
Is it like even giving you valid uh kind of facts or data?
And number two, does it sound authentic for you?
(12:19):
And this is where I see leaders have gotten trapped by letting the AI help inspire a newway of communicating.
but forgetting that they have to still put their human element on top of it as youdescribe that you do.
I'm also seeing it because so much of the training data for the AI was trained on Westernideas, actually, would narrow it even further than that, Western, often written by people
(12:47):
that probably look like me, white guys living in Bay Area, and there was certain biasesthat automatically go in when you're doing that.
And I was actually having a conversation with two very different groups the other day.
One was in the Middle East, where they're launching uh
series of AIs, Falcon is probably the most well-known in the UAE, because they said wewant AI that also reflects our culture and has more training data related to us.
(13:13):
And then the other one I had a conversation with one of the Native American tribes thatwere talking about this as well, but from a slightly different perspective, because he
said for them, they were worried more about things like credit, credit history, creditbiases that are kind of coming in from a finance and loan lending side of things as well.
So as we start,
we start looking at is kind of bringing back that human side into this, that human kind ofcentered leadership.
(13:38):
What structures have you seen companies start to use or leaders start to build aroundthemselves to ensure that they bring in not just from themselves individually as a
leadership, but across their whole leadership team?
So I'm now kind of talking about things like governance and having ways of just checkingsome of this stuff.
So one of our principles is always that humans need to stay in the driver's seat, right?
(14:01):
The human still needs to leverage the AI, not the other way around.
And one of the things that we notice, as you just said, the benefit of AI is it can giveyou unlimited perspectives.
The risk of AI is it can put you into an echo chamber.
And the echo chamber is based on whoever has taught the AI whatever it is that it's beingasked to do.
(14:27):
And when we don't use our own critical thinking capability, then we can get trapped in theecho chamber as opposed to, then reinforcing our own biases that we may or may not even be
aware of, rather than looking at what the potential is of having that unlimitedperspective taking that the AI, has unlimited.
(14:50):
uh knowledge like more knowledge than any human on earth can have but if we just allow theAI to be the expert instead of allowing ourselves to be the experts and Really checking in
and making sure that humans are in the driver's seat.
That's where it can be problematic But but the other thing I just want to say James is isthere's also a real opportunity and I love that you're bringing up, know different
(15:12):
perspectives from different cultures and I have a lot of leaders who
want to make sure that they are inclusive and that they are culturally appropriate.
And this has to do whether you're in a geographic, you have a team member who's in adifferent geographic culture, or even if you have a team member who has a neurodiversity,
(15:32):
for example, and they may approach perspectives or challenges in different ways.
And that's where AI can actually help us.
And you can use the AI as a little bit of a coach for you.
Like if I'm, you know, the white, middle-aged, female, American, and I'm speaking to myyounger digitally native colleague who's in India, for example, and what's a way that I
(15:59):
can approach this individual in this scenario in a way that they're going to be able tohear and feel heard at the same time as another way of looking.
Now one of the other lines you had in the book is you talk about AI as an exoskeleton forthe mind and heart.
Can you unpack that a little bit?
Just give us some of that in terms of practical terms for the leaders.
(16:21):
Yeah, so the idea of an exoskeleton is it helps strengthen our own capabilities.
And so when we're really looking at the AI and the leader, we're seeing the marriage ofboth ends.
We're seeing that the AI has some great strengths.
And as I've also talked about some risks, ah if we're just
(16:43):
uh over indexing on the AI making all the decisions.
And then the humans also have some great strengths and then some downsides as we've justdescribed.
And so the exoskeleton idea is that we take the best of both to enhance them together.
And so one way that we suggest doing this is it's a little bit of a dance.
(17:03):
And maybe just to step back, James, to illustrate this.
When we started doing our research, not only did we do a lot of data analysis andassessments with leaders, we had a lot of one-on-one interviews with leaders, but because
our area of expertise is in understanding the nature of the human mind, we really wantedto explore how to create this exoskeleton, this marriage of human and machine through the
(17:32):
operating model of the mind.
To explain that, I'll just say when we look at any model of the mind, there are basicallythree core things that we look at.
We look at how we perceive information, how we discern information, and then how werespond to information, anything that's coming up in our environment.
And then we overlay that perceive, discern, and respond with three key qualities of humanpotential, which is for leaders to become more aware.
(18:03):
So when you're perceiving, you're aware of your internal environment in your own mind andthe external world you're in.
And then you discern.
And to discern, you need your inner wisdom, your own ability to really tap in not only toyour intelligence, but every part of what you're bringing to the table as a leader.
(18:23):
And then the responsive capacity of the mind, we look at bringing heart.
And that's the compassionate piece.
So the human brings awareness, wisdom, and compassion.
And then the exoskeleton that the AI brings is this toggling of human setting context sothat the AI can give us content.
(18:45):
And as I mentioned earlier, where leaders go wrong is if they just say, there's thecontent, I'm good, I press send and I keep going.
But the exoskeleton says, no, I have the content.
Now I use my inner wisdom, my discernment to ask questions.
and make sure that I'm probing the content that I've just gotten from the AI to make sureit's exactly what I need and where I want to go.
(19:10):
And when I ask those questions, when I start to ask the AI, give me a differentperspective or how can I think about this a different way or tell me what could go wrong,
then the AI presents answers.
And then the last piece around the responsiveness with the compassion.
It's the leader's ability to respond in the moment with heart and let the AI bealgorithmic.
(19:35):
And so it's really this dance between context, content, questions, answers, heart andalgorithm that creates the exoskeleton, the best of human and machine.
So on that first one, perceive, perception, how we perceive things.
So we've had another guest on the show, Keith Sawyer, his episode will be coming up soon.
(19:56):
He just wrote a great book about learning to see and what those in any form of work thatthey do, what they can learn from those who work in the fine arts, uh architecture.
And he said, they interviewed over a hundred professors from the top arts degree programsin America.
And he said,
what many of them say, what we're really teaching, because most of these students arecoming in, they're already actually very skilled from a craft, from their skill, but what
(20:23):
we're really teaching them is learning to see, how to perceive things in different waysabout themselves, their own work, their identity, how it's expressed in their work, but
also how others perceive them and what they're doing as well.
So was there any, as you were talking to all these leaders, was there any examples thatcan have stayed with you on that?
(20:45):
perceived bit, that perception bit and how people were using AI to kind of augment them inthat way as leaders to help with the perception and the perceived part.
Well, I think one of the things that I've seen many leaders embracing is AI as a personalcoach.
And you can do so many creative things.
(21:05):
And I love that example that you just gave of being able to like see things from theinside and see things from the outside.
And we all have blind spots.
But what you can do is you can create and again, you know, within protected
uh systems and assuming that different leaders may have their own uh tools for AI thathave already been uh put into some data security uh system.
(21:35):
But you can feed the AI information about you as an example and the type of leader youwant to be.
And you can give it
so many different data points and you can teach the AI about the future you, the legacyyou want to lead, the values you have as a leader.
(21:57):
You can also give it some metrics about say your personality type, if that would be ofinterest and you're creating a profile of the idealized you.
And that coach can then be a sparring partner for you as the individual and you can go inand you can
invite it to give you ideas about how to move through different types of challenges tobuild your own awareness of what may be unseen in terms of the assumptions you might be
(22:26):
making or decisions you might be taking that may not fit for the type of leader you wantto be.
That, as you're saying that, it's reminding me of two things.
One is Marshall Goldsmith, the coach, business coach, where he has someone call him, Ithink what his coach calls him every day at a certain time of day with the same three
(22:48):
questions.
So it's like a prompt.
So he's basically has to reflect on the day.
And in Buddhism, in Tibetan Buddhism, they have a thing, I've forgotten the name of it, itessentially means five times a day.
Where five times a day you have to pause, stop,
and just be present and think about what am I doing just now?
How is this?
What is it?
(23:09):
And so I guess the AI can almost, as you're saying, it can fulfill part of that function,like helping that leader pause five times a day, for example, very briefly and just say,
what is this doing?
How does this reflect the leader that you want to become and the potential that you have?
And also the objectives that you have for yourself and your organization.
(23:29):
I love that you're bringing in that pause as well because that's something that, andagain, the awareness only comes when we give ourselves the space to pause.
Usually awareness doesn't happen when we're just moving from meeting to meeting oractivity to activity and our brain is simply full.
Awareness happens in moments of stillness.
(23:49):
And you you talk about creativity, creativity also happens in moments of stillness.
You know, we have these great
creative breakthroughs when we're in the shower or on a run or whatever it is.
And so for leaders to be able to embrace that pause and be really purposeful andintentional and allow the AI to help you with that is another great tactic to be able to
(24:12):
enhance our awareness and our perceptions.
Now, as we're get moving to this more, you talk about as the AI augmented leader.
So let's imagine, let's contrast two leaders.
Let's contrast a non-AI augmented leader and an AI augmented leader.
How would they perform something differently?
(24:33):
How would they react to a situation in their organization as a leader slightly different?
Well, I think you just use one of the key words right there and that's react.
So the non-AI augmented leader, first of all, is probably just running on a lot ofhabitual behaviors, uh potentially also habitual mindsets.
(24:54):
So they may be a little bit rigid on how they approach a particular challenge, aparticular situation, which may not be a way to uh creatively think through and problem
solve.
uh they're probably much more in reactivity mode.
They're probably feeling like they are putting out fires all day.
(25:17):
They're just uh moving from activity to activity and they may get to the end of the dayand simply feel like I've been active, I'm tired, but what have I actually gotten done?
Have I been able to move the needle on what my big goals are and what I'm trying toachieve?
And I will say, I hope that there are not a lot of leaders who are in that extreme of thatcategory, but leaders who are, are probably not feeling great about themselves or their
(25:47):
impact.
Where we want to be able to move to with AI augmentation is to be more thoughtful and moreresponsive to the day-to-day pivots and really look at how we're leveraging AI, yes, to
make us more efficient, but also to make us more.
thoughtful, to make us more compassionate, to be able to leverage AI for preparing for bigdecisions, for even having brainstorming sessions with our team, to be able to create more
(26:18):
team cohesion, even more of a sense of connection and belonging, right?
The risk is we're all going to ask all of our critical questions to AI.
We're not going to talk to other humans anymore because we don't want to admit or beembarrassed by our silly questions.
AI never judges us for having the silly questions, but actually the opportunity is, yes,of course, leverage AI for those questions, but leverage the human connection as well.
(26:45):
So using AI to help us brainstorm how to be more connected with one another, to be morecreative with one another.
I have used uh AI in so many group brainstorming sessions where each
member of the team is using their own AI, which of course is going to give you differentresponses, even with the same prompts, depending on how we use it.
(27:10):
And that helps us generate a lot of collective energy and a lot of collective creativeproblem solving rather than us each individually working in silos with our AI agents.
I saw a CEO the other day she was talking about, I forgot the name of the CEO in thecompany, but I think she was one of the big US banks, if I remember right.
(27:32):
And she said what she's done is she's created digital twins of each of her board members.
And uh so she said as she's prepping for her board meetings or board conversations, she'sessentially doing the pitch, doing the presentation for the digital twins first.
And she said what's been interesting, said they will
(27:52):
it knows those individuals quite well, the digital twins, it will then know the kind ofquestions that person is likely to ask.
And that's interesting, but she said what's even more interesting is that because you'reable to recognize those questions, you automatically then build it into your presentation.
So the questions then the humans in the room actually are asking end up being like fivelevels higher in terms of the quality of the questions than you would normally have had,
(28:15):
because you've already kind of dealt with lot of the simpler questions that they wouldhave had.
I love that and it's such a great example and we've done something similar in potentialproject within our own leadership team and again, you know that leader hopefully I assume
has asked the permissions of her people to create those digital twins just you know,that's a good best practice.
(28:35):
But you know, why wouldn't you get that kind of buy-in for exactly the type of impact thatyou just said?
Isn't it great to have a leader and have a group where you can level up, raise your gazeon the type of questions
that you asked, you can get there that much quicker because all of the basic questionshave already been vetted, if you will, by your AI agents.
(28:56):
Love it.
What a great example.
So as we start to finish up here, if someone's listening to this and they're leading ateam and they want to become more human, basically, they're deploying AI, they're
implementing AI, they have all these things, but they're getting a sense, it's kind ofgetting away from them a little bit and they're kind of losing a sense of the humanity in
(29:18):
the organization.
What is one thing that you could tell them to do, to think, to question as they're goingthrough this?
So one of the things that we have noticed is a lot of companies that have decided toembrace AI, they put a lot of their focus on the tool and the technology, and they have
(29:41):
their whole technology team making sure that everybody has access and that's great andgood.
But what some have lost focus on is that not only do we have to train in using the tool,we have to train the human as well.
And so really making sure that there's a balance for leaders and teams to not only trainon the technology, but to train on the human aspect is one of the ways that we can help
(30:10):
people leverage it more effectively.
ah So James, I don't know if that answers the question.
I think one of the things you mentioned in the book, the analogy used in the book is AI islike a Ferrari, but it doesn't matter if you don't know how to drive, but if you have that
really powerful machine there, and if you don't know the basics of how to drive, you canget into some trouble pretty quickly in that situation.
(30:35):
And remembering that AI, unlike a passive tool, right?
So you think about a hammer, for example, a hammer doesn't become dangerous if nobody'stouching it.
It only becomes dangerous once you're picking it up.
But the AI is constantly active.
It's in the background.
It's listening.
It's learning.
It's an active agent.
(30:57):
And so that's why, again, humans have to be in the driver's seat.
We have to be the ones who learn how to best leverage it before it's
starts to leverage us.
So yes, the Ferrari is another great example.
So Marissa, this book, More Human, How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead isout now.
(31:17):
We're have links here to the book as well.
But if you wanna learn more about the work you're doing yourself and uh the PenetralProject, where's the best place for them to go and do that?
people are welcome to come directly to our website, which ispotentialprojectalloneword.com.
We also share a lot of our insights on our website, but on our LinkedIn channel.
(31:39):
so we frequently will, the research is constant, it's ongoing, even though we have thebook.
The book was published in March, 2025, based on data that was probably already severalmonths old by then, and it's continuing to evolve.
So go to our LinkedIn channel.
potential project and you can reach out to me individually on LinkedIn as well.
(32:02):
Marissa Afton, thank you for being a guest on the Super Creativity Podcast.
Thank you so much, James.
What a pleasure.
My guest today is Marissa Afton, partner and head of global accounts at Potential Project,a global research and leadership development firm helping companies like IBM, Amgen, and
Eli Lilly build more human workplaces.
Marissa is also a co-author of the new book, More Human, How the Power of AI Can Transformthe Way You Lead, a powerful and timely guide for leaders navigating the intersection of
(00:33):
artificial intelligence and human potential.
In More Human,
Marisa and our co-authors argue that AI shouldn't dehumanize leadership, but elevate it.
Drawing on interviews with over a hundred global executives and research from thousands ofleaders, they show how AI can help us become more aware, wiser, and more compassionate in
(00:53):
how we lead.
Today, we'll explore what it means to be an AI augmented leader, how to lead with bothheart and algorithm, and why the future of leadership is not about being more digital, but
being more human.
Marisa.
Welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast.
Thank you so much, I appreciate your introduction and it's so nice to be here.
(01:15):
So before we get into the depth of the book itself, what first sparked your interest inhuman-centered leadership, this field more generally?
Well, Potential Project, and as you mentioned in our introduction, Potential Project is aglobal research development and research firm, and we have been around for about 15 years
now, and our mission is to create more human workplaces.
(01:38):
Sounds simple, not necessarily easy, but the way we do it is we invite leaders to look attheir own, enhancing their own leadership potential by understanding their own minds and
their mindsets.
They're how mindsets enhance behaviors and how mindsets enhance action.
So we have for a very long time been very committed to looking at what are some of theresearch-backed outcomes of being a human-centered leaders.
(02:09):
And now we have kind of extrapolated the research we've already been doing for some timeinto how we support leaders in an AI-enabled world.
Now, probably when you were probably starting to think about this book with yourco-authors, we might have been just coming out of the kind pandemic period and everyone
was talking about distributed teams and virtual teams and working that way as well.
(02:33):
And I'm guessing you were probably thinking about going down one way of the book, but withthe AI, maybe things kind of changed.
How did this book kind of develop and did it become a different beast as you startedcreating it together?
It's so interesting that you're asking that question.
So in fact, we were already under contract with HBR and HBR has been our partner now.
(02:54):
This is our third book published with them.
And we were under contract for a completely different book.
It was going to be on selfless leadership on eagle-less leadership.
Stay tuned.
We're still under contract with them for that book.
But right when we were at the beginning stages of looking at that topic, they came to usand they said,
(03:14):
Hey, have you heard about this thing called generative AI?
And this is going back to about 2022.
And we thought, yes, we've heard about it, but why are you coming to us?
And they said, well, we understand that you're not experts in the technology.
but you are experts in leadership.
And we're really curious about starting an exploration on how AI can enhance leadership orto the point that you said in our introduction, could it dehumanize our leadership?
(03:44):
And that became very interesting for us.
So that's how we started and to be really transparent.
We weren't all in on AI.
I mean, we did have some skepticism about can AI actually elevate our leadershippotential.
Can AI help us be more human-centric at work?
(04:05):
And ah we were skeptical, but now we see that actually there's some real benefits that AIcan do for us in our leadership.
I saw Jeff Bezos being interviewed the other day and being asked a question on stage andsomeone said to him, the first question people are asking him as a leader is, what's gonna
(04:26):
change?
And he said, and that's an interesting question, it's a good question, what's gonna changewith artificial intelligence we're seeing?
said, but the better question probably, the more interesting question is, what's gonnastay the same?
Hmm.
as we go through these different changes, said, because you can build a strategy as aleader around things that stay the same.
(04:46):
In his case, he was talking about an Amazon, in 10 years time, people are still gonna wantfast delivery.
No one's gonna be saying, actually, could you just deliver it, but make it a little bitslower.
So said, we can build a business around that as well.
As you started talking to all these leaders about artificial intelligence, how it wasreshaping both their industry, their businesses, but also themselves as leaders, what
(05:08):
surprised you about some of those initial conversations?
What surprised us at first was the disconnect that some leaders had about how much AI ishere and it's here to stay.
And so we noticed that there was a bit of a gap between some leaders who were kind of allin, they were early adopters, they were really ready to leverage the benefits of AI, may
(05:29):
or may not have seen some of the risks of AI for their leadership, which we can talkabout.
And then there was another huge category which...
I think is shrinking a bit over time, but it's still there of some leaders who are like,mm, AI, do I really need it?
Is it really helpful?
Maybe if I just wait it out, it will be a fad that will pass.
So that was one of the first curiosities we had about those who were early adopters who weactually think are augmenting their leadership potential even more by using AI and those
(05:59):
who were kind of waiting for.
maybe the digital natives to use it for better efficiency but weren't seeing the benefitto themselves as leaders.
And for those that were probably in the middle, maybe the 80%, they weren't the outliers,they weren't the early adopters, but they also weren't the laggards as well.
What kind of questions were they asking of themselves, their leadership team, those peoplethat were reporting to them, ah advisors about artificial intelligence?
(06:28):
Well, I think one of the questions that we have noticed that has become a real theme forus is around leaders really asking the question first and foremost about what AI can do
for them.
And we know AI can do many, many great things.
It can make you more efficient.
It can help you with tasks.
It can help you with decision making.
In fact, there's some
(06:49):
pretty scary research out there, not our own, that ah up to 70 % of leaders would preferan AI to make the decisions for them rather than having to make their own decisions.
And it's simply because leaders are overwhelmed.
They've got so much going on and the pressure is continuing to increase.
And so while that's a good question for leaders to ask, which is what can AI do for us?
(07:14):
We also have invited the question, what can AI do to us?
And I think that that's the balance that we need for everybody to embrace is it has greatcapabilities, but it also has some risks.
And it's a line in the book where you say, AI gives us time to be better leaders, but weoften fill it with more work.
(07:37):
Why do you think we struggle so much with that?
know, I remember years ago reading books like The Four Hour Workweek, and I know a lot ofpeople that kind of really went all in, and all they ended up doing was just working even
crazier than they were probably before.
So they didn't end up working four hours.
You kind of use some of the benefits of ideas in that book, but they just...
(07:58):
they just can use, like with, yeah, so with those leaders, if let's say they are releasingthemselves from making some of the decisions and they're able to use AI to make better
decisions or think through things in a better way, they start to save some of that time,where do think they should be diverting that time?
How should they be using that additional time that they're gonna gain from this?
(08:20):
Yeah, thank you, James.
It's a great question.
And like to the first part of your question is like, why do we do that?
And that's kind of like an age old question.
I mean, I think nature pours a vacuum.
And so we see that space and we think about email was supposed to be the great time saver.
How well has that worked for us?
I mean, we just seem really, really prone to fill in time with activity, busyness, whichdoesn't necessarily equal impact.
(08:46):
And so what could
leaders or dare I say what should leaders be doing with that time saved and this is wherethat human centered approach really comes in.
If you can become more efficient with the AI tool, your AI agent, well could you just addmore work to your plate?
(09:07):
Of course you can or you can have uh make a different decision and
This requires some intentionality for leaders to determine what's the best way for me tohelp engage my people, to help bring them along with me.
And so really the invitation is if you're using AI to help you prepare, for example, for aperformance conversation, do you just cram in more time or more activities, or do you
(09:36):
actually create some of the mental space to think about how do you want that conversationto go?
where do you want that person to uh end up and land in the dialogue that you're about tohave?
Let the AI do all the data collection and the sentiment analysis and use the algorithms togive you the insights on where that person is in their journey.
(09:59):
And then you use your human head and heart to really make the space to determine what youwant.
that conversation to evolve into and what you want that person to get out of thatconversation as an example.
I remember when I, I I use AI before I get into, if I'm doing, I'm doing a sales call,let's say with someone.
And I'll use AI to analyze the psychometrics of the people I'm gonna do the call with inadvance of the call with, it's a board or whoever the board is.
(10:27):
And I remember doing it early on, this was, I've been doing it since like 2018, I think,as I started using very early tools, IBM was starting to make tools to be able to do this.
And I was just kind of playing around, it was great.
And, but it felt a little bit early on.
like it felt a little bit too um machine, almost like machine-like.
was kind of, and then it took me a little while to figure out, how do I blend that machinelearning, that what I'm learning from the machine to be able to do that and bring the kind
(10:55):
of the humanity bit back in as well.
It feels like that's where we are for a lot of people.
Everyone sees the potential, the AI and you saw it first, like customer service companiesrolling out chat bots and agentic AI and everyone then starting to go, whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, we're kind of losing sense of who we're serving and the human part ofthis.
(11:16):
But it's great that you had that insight and that you had it early.
And I think that not everybody has caught onto it, especially as the AI tools have becomemore more sophisticated.
sound like every day it's evolving.
It's constantly learning.
It's constantly growing.
It's capabilities to be more human-like and to have more of that human touch almost.
(11:37):
So you don't have that kind of machine robotic sense when you're interacting with itanymore.
And actually that's a bigger risk.
Because the more human it becomes, the less human we need to be in how we are interactingor how we're using the outputs of the AI.
It create this beautifully crafted communication.
(11:59):
And you think, ah, that's it.
I'm just going to cut, send.
without actually using your own discernment as a human to determine whether what it's putout is number one, is it a hallucination?
Is it like even giving you valid uh kind of facts or data?
And number two, does it sound authentic for you?
(12:19):
And this is where I see leaders have gotten trapped by letting the AI help inspire a newway of communicating.
but forgetting that they have to still put their human element on top of it as youdescribe that you do.
I'm also seeing it because so much of the training data for the AI was trained on Westernideas, actually, would narrow it even further than that, Western, often written by people
(12:47):
that probably look like me, white guys living in Bay Area, and there was certain biasesthat automatically go in when you're doing that.
And I was actually having a conversation with two very different groups the other day.
One was in the Middle East, where they're launching uh
series of AIs, Falcon is probably the most well-known in the UAE, because they said wewant AI that also reflects our culture and has more training data related to us.
(13:13):
And then the other one I had a conversation with one of the Native American tribes thatwere talking about this as well, but from a slightly different perspective, because he
said for them, they were worried more about things like credit, credit history, creditbiases that are kind of coming in from a finance and loan lending side of things as well.
So as we start,
we start looking at is kind of bringing back that human side into this, that human kind ofcentered leadership.
(13:38):
What structures have you seen companies start to use or leaders start to build aroundthemselves to ensure that they bring in not just from themselves individually as a
leadership, but across their whole leadership team?
So I'm now kind of talking about things like governance and having ways of just checkingsome of this stuff.
So one of our principles is always that humans need to stay in the driver's seat, right?
(14:01):
The human still needs to leverage the AI, not the other way around.
And one of the things that we notice, as you just said, the benefit of AI is it can giveyou unlimited perspectives.
The risk of AI is it can put you into an echo chamber.
And the echo chamber is based on whoever has taught the AI whatever it is that it's beingasked to do.
(14:27):
And when we don't use our own critical thinking capability, then we can get trapped in theecho chamber as opposed to, then reinforcing our own biases that we may or may not even be
aware of, rather than looking at what the potential is of having that unlimitedperspective taking that the AI, has unlimited.
(14:50):
uh knowledge like more knowledge than any human on earth can have but if we just allow theAI to be the expert instead of allowing ourselves to be the experts and Really checking in
and making sure that humans are in the driver's seat.
That's where it can be problematic But but the other thing I just want to say James is isthere's also a real opportunity and I love that you're bringing up, know different
(15:12):
perspectives from different cultures and I have a lot of leaders who
want to make sure that they are inclusive and that they are culturally appropriate.
And this has to do whether you're in a geographic, you have a team member who's in adifferent geographic culture, or even if you have a team member who has a neurodiversity,
(15:32):
for example, and they may approach perspectives or challenges in different ways.
And that's where AI can actually help us.
And you can use the AI as a little bit of a coach for you.
Like if I'm, you know, the white, middle-aged, female, American, and I'm speaking to myyounger digitally native colleague who's in India, for example, and what's a way that I
(15:59):
can approach this individual in this scenario in a way that they're going to be able tohear and feel heard at the same time as another way of looking.
Now one of the other lines you had in the book is you talk about AI as an exoskeleton forthe mind and heart.
Can you unpack that a little bit?
Just give us some of that in terms of practical terms for the leaders.
(16:21):
Yeah, so the idea of an exoskeleton is it helps strengthen our own capabilities.
And so when we're really looking at the AI and the leader, we're seeing the marriage ofboth ends.
We're seeing that the AI has some great strengths.
And as I've also talked about some risks, ah if we're just
(16:43):
uh over indexing on the AI making all the decisions.
And then the humans also have some great strengths and then some downsides as we've justdescribed.
And so the exoskeleton idea is that we take the best of both to enhance them together.
And so one way that we suggest doing this is it's a little bit of a dance.
(17:03):
And maybe just to step back, James, to illustrate this.
When we started doing our research, not only did we do a lot of data analysis andassessments with leaders, we had a lot of one-on-one interviews with leaders, but because
our area of expertise is in understanding the nature of the human mind, we really wantedto explore how to create this exoskeleton, this marriage of human and machine through the
(17:32):
operating model of the mind.
To explain that, I'll just say when we look at any model of the mind, there are basicallythree core things that we look at.
We look at how we perceive information, how we discern information, and then how werespond to information, anything that's coming up in our environment.
And then we overlay that perceive, discern, and respond with three key qualities of humanpotential, which is for leaders to become more aware.
(18:03):
So when you're perceiving, you're aware of your internal environment in your own mind andthe external world you're in.
And then you discern.
And to discern, you need your inner wisdom, your own ability to really tap in not only toyour intelligence, but every part of what you're bringing to the table as a leader.
(18:23):
And then the responsive capacity of the mind, we look at bringing heart.
And that's the compassionate piece.
So the human brings awareness, wisdom, and compassion.
And then the exoskeleton that the AI brings is this toggling of human setting context sothat the AI can give us content.
(18:45):
And as I mentioned earlier, where leaders go wrong is if they just say, there's thecontent, I'm good, I press send and I keep going.
But the exoskeleton says, no, I have the content.
Now I use my inner wisdom, my discernment to ask questions.
and make sure that I'm probing the content that I've just gotten from the AI to make sureit's exactly what I need and where I want to go.
(19:10):
And when I ask those questions, when I start to ask the AI, give me a differentperspective or how can I think about this a different way or tell me what could go wrong,
then the AI presents answers.
And then the last piece around the responsiveness with the compassion.
It's the leader's ability to respond in the moment with heart and let the AI bealgorithmic.
(19:35):
And so it's really this dance between context, content, questions, answers, heart andalgorithm that creates the exoskeleton, the best of human and machine.
So on that first one, perceive, perception, how we perceive things.
So we've had another guest on the show, Keith Sawyer, his episode will be coming up soon.
(19:56):
He just wrote a great book about learning to see and what those in any form of work thatthey do, what they can learn from those who work in the fine arts, uh architecture.
And he said, they interviewed over a hundred professors from the top arts degree programsin America.
And he said,
what many of them say, what we're really teaching, because most of these students arecoming in, they're already actually very skilled from a craft, from their skill, but what
(20:23):
we're really teaching them is learning to see, how to perceive things in different waysabout themselves, their own work, their identity, how it's expressed in their work, but
also how others perceive them and what they're doing as well.
So was there any, as you were talking to all these leaders, was there any examples thatcan have stayed with you on that?
(20:45):
perceived bit, that perception bit and how people were using AI to kind of augment them inthat way as leaders to help with the perception and the perceived part.
Well, I think one of the things that I've seen many leaders embracing is AI as a personalcoach.
And you can do so many creative things.
(21:05):
And I love that example that you just gave of being able to like see things from theinside and see things from the outside.
And we all have blind spots.
But what you can do is you can create and again, you know, within protected
uh systems and assuming that different leaders may have their own uh tools for AI thathave already been uh put into some data security uh system.
(21:35):
But you can feed the AI information about you as an example and the type of leader youwant to be.
And you can give it
so many different data points and you can teach the AI about the future you, the legacyyou want to lead, the values you have as a leader.
(21:57):
You can also give it some metrics about say your personality type, if that would be ofinterest and you're creating a profile of the idealized you.
And that coach can then be a sparring partner for you as the individual and you can go inand you can
invite it to give you ideas about how to move through different types of challenges tobuild your own awareness of what may be unseen in terms of the assumptions you might be
(22:26):
making or decisions you might be taking that may not fit for the type of leader you wantto be.
That, as you're saying that, it's reminding me of two things.
One is Marshall Goldsmith, the coach, business coach, where he has someone call him, Ithink what his coach calls him every day at a certain time of day with the same three
(22:48):
questions.
So it's like a prompt.
So he's basically has to reflect on the day.
And in Buddhism, in Tibetan Buddhism, they have a thing, I've forgotten the name of it, itessentially means five times a day.
Where five times a day you have to pause, stop,
and just be present and think about what am I doing just now?
How is this?
What is it?
(23:09):
And so I guess the AI can almost, as you're saying, it can fulfill part of that function,like helping that leader pause five times a day, for example, very briefly and just say,
what is this doing?
How does this reflect the leader that you want to become and the potential that you have?
And also the objectives that you have for yourself and your organization.
(23:29):
I love that you're bringing in that pause as well because that's something that, andagain, the awareness only comes when we give ourselves the space to pause.
Usually awareness doesn't happen when we're just moving from meeting to meeting oractivity to activity and our brain is simply full.
Awareness happens in moments of stillness.
(23:49):
And you you talk about creativity, creativity also happens in moments of stillness.
You know, we have these great
creative breakthroughs when we're in the shower or on a run or whatever it is.
And so for leaders to be able to embrace that pause and be really purposeful andintentional and allow the AI to help you with that is another great tactic to be able to
(24:12):
enhance our awareness and our perceptions.
Now, as we're get moving to this more, you talk about as the AI augmented leader.
So let's imagine, let's contrast two leaders.
Let's contrast a non-AI augmented leader and an AI augmented leader.
How would they perform something differently?
(24:33):
How would they react to a situation in their organization as a leader slightly different?
Well, I think you just use one of the key words right there and that's react.
So the non-AI augmented leader, first of all, is probably just running on a lot ofhabitual behaviors, uh potentially also habitual mindsets.
(24:54):
So they may be a little bit rigid on how they approach a particular challenge, aparticular situation, which may not be a way to uh creatively think through and problem
solve.
uh they're probably much more in reactivity mode.
They're probably feeling like they are putting out fires all day.
(25:17):
They're just uh moving from activity to activity and they may get to the end of the dayand simply feel like I've been active, I'm tired, but what have I actually gotten done?
Have I been able to move the needle on what my big goals are and what I'm trying toachieve?
And I will say, I hope that there are not a lot of leaders who are in that extreme of thatcategory, but leaders who are, are probably not feeling great about themselves or their
(25:47):
impact.
Where we want to be able to move to with AI augmentation is to be more thoughtful and moreresponsive to the day-to-day pivots and really look at how we're leveraging AI, yes, to
make us more efficient, but also to make us more.
thoughtful, to make us more compassionate, to be able to leverage AI for preparing for bigdecisions, for even having brainstorming sessions with our team, to be able to create more
(26:18):
team cohesion, even more of a sense of connection and belonging, right?
The risk is we're all going to ask all of our critical questions to AI.
We're not going to talk to other humans anymore because we don't want to admit or beembarrassed by our silly questions.
AI never judges us for having the silly questions, but actually the opportunity is, yes,of course, leverage AI for those questions, but leverage the human connection as well.
(26:45):
So using AI to help us brainstorm how to be more connected with one another, to be morecreative with one another.
I have used uh AI in so many group brainstorming sessions where each
member of the team is using their own AI, which of course is going to give you differentresponses, even with the same prompts, depending on how we use it.
(27:10):
And that helps us generate a lot of collective energy and a lot of collective creativeproblem solving rather than us each individually working in silos with our AI agents.
I saw a CEO the other day she was talking about, I forgot the name of the CEO in thecompany, but I think she was one of the big US banks, if I remember right.
(27:32):
And she said what she's done is she's created digital twins of each of her board members.
And uh so she said as she's prepping for her board meetings or board conversations, she'sessentially doing the pitch, doing the presentation for the digital twins first.
And she said what's been interesting, said they will
(27:52):
it knows those individuals quite well, the digital twins, it will then know the kind ofquestions that person is likely to ask.
And that's interesting, but she said what's even more interesting is that because you'reable to recognize those questions, you automatically then build it into your presentation.
So the questions then the humans in the room actually are asking end up being like fivelevels higher in terms of the quality of the questions than you would normally have had,
(28:15):
because you've already kind of dealt with lot of the simpler questions that they wouldhave had.
I love that and it's such a great example and we've done something similar in potentialproject within our own leadership team and again, you know that leader hopefully I assume
has asked the permissions of her people to create those digital twins just you know,that's a good best practice.
(28:35):
But you know, why wouldn't you get that kind of buy-in for exactly the type of impact thatyou just said?
Isn't it great to have a leader and have a group where you can level up, raise your gazeon the type of questions
that you asked, you can get there that much quicker because all of the basic questionshave already been vetted, if you will, by your AI agents.
(28:56):
Love it.
What a great example.
So as we start to finish up here, if someone's listening to this and they're leading ateam and they want to become more human, basically, they're deploying AI, they're
implementing AI, they have all these things, but they're getting a sense, it's kind ofgetting away from them a little bit and they're kind of losing a sense of the humanity in
(29:18):
the organization.
What is one thing that you could tell them to do, to think, to question as they're goingthrough this?
So one of the things that we have noticed is a lot of companies that have decided toembrace AI, they put a lot of their focus on the tool and the technology, and they have
(29:41):
their whole technology team making sure that everybody has access and that's great andgood.
But what some have lost focus on is that not only do we have to train in using the tool,we have to train the human as well.
And so really making sure that there's a balance for leaders and teams to not only trainon the technology, but to train on the human aspect is one of the ways that we can help
(30:10):
people leverage it more effectively.
ah So James, I don't know if that answers the question.
I think one of the things you mentioned in the book, the analogy used in the book is AI islike a Ferrari, but it doesn't matter if you don't know how to drive, but if you have that
really powerful machine there, and if you don't know the basics of how to drive, you canget into some trouble pretty quickly in that situation.
(30:35):
And remembering that AI, unlike a passive tool, right?
So you think about a hammer, for example, a hammer doesn't become dangerous if nobody'stouching it.
It only becomes dangerous once you're picking it up.
But the AI is constantly active.
It's in the background.
It's listening.
It's learning.
It's an active agent.
(30:57):
And so that's why, again, humans have to be in the driver's seat.
We have to be the ones who learn how to best leverage it before it's
starts to leverage us.
So yes, the Ferrari is another great example.
So Marissa, this book, More Human, How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead isout now.
(31:17):
We're have links here to the book as well.
But if you wanna learn more about the work you're doing yourself and uh the PenetralProject, where's the best place for them to go and do that?
people are welcome to come directly to our website, which ispotentialprojectalloneword.com.
We also share a lot of our insights on our website, but on our LinkedIn channel.
(31:39):
so we frequently will, the research is constant, it's ongoing, even though we have thebook.
The book was published in March, 2025, based on data that was probably already severalmonths old by then, and it's continuing to evolve.
So go to our LinkedIn channel.
potential project and you can reach out to me individually on LinkedIn as well.
(32:02):
Marissa Afton, thank you for being a guest on the Super Creativity Podcast.
Thank you so much, James.
What a pleasure.
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The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!