Allyship in Action

321: The Future of Education in an AI-Driven World with Melissa Loble

In my new interview with Melissa Loble, Chief Academic Officer at Instructure, we discussed the evolving educational landscape. She made a few key predictions for the future of education in an AI-driven world: 1. The Blended Curriculum: Academic Content Merges with Human and Career Skills The traditional focus on purely academic content will radically shift. The future curriculum will be a blend that incorporates three critical components: * Academic Content: The core disciplinary knowledge. * Human Skills (Soft Skills): Due to AI handling entry-level technical tasks, there will be an increased emphasis on human skills like critical thinking, decision-making, problem-solving, confidence, and courage. Educators will need to explicitly teach and build these skills, moving beyond simply teaching the application of theories. * Workforce/Life Skills: Education will be directly connected to career and life trajectories, driven by learners (especially younger generations) seeking a clear return on investment (ROI) from their education and questioning the value of high debt. 2. Contextual and Experiential Learning Replaces Rote Memorization The age of simple memorization and regurgitation will end. The new focus will be on creating contextual, personalized, and experiential learning environments. * Focus on Context: Educators must shift from solely valuing content (like in research/peer-review) to emphasizing context—the "why" and "how" the content is applied in the real world. * Simulation and Application: There will be a greater use of simulations, case-based learning, and hands-on scenarios to help learners practice and apply human skills and technical knowledge, allowing them to fail fast and build competence. AI can assist in creating these complex, customized case studies and learning environments. * Practitioner-Academic Collaboration: Higher education will increasingly benefit from practitioners joining the faculty to bring real-world context, working alongside traditional academics to enrich the learning experience. 3. Corporate and Higher Education Learning Forge a Strategic Partnership The line between corporate learning and higher education will blur as both seek to adapt to the needs of the modern workforce. * Corporate Learning Shifts: Corporate training will move away from being purely compliance-driven toward a focus on developing human and career-track skills. Employees, particularly Millennials and Gen Z, actively seek employers who commit to developing them as future leaders. * Continuous Development: The "one-and-done" training model will be replaced by a commitment to lifelong learning and continuous development. This will include meeting people where they are and using retrieval practice and open coaching to reinforce skills and build resistance to change. * Joint Reinvention: Higher education and the corporate world have a significant opportunity to partner and reinvent themselves together to effectively address the blend of technical and human skill development needed for an AI-enabled future. Follow Melissa at https://www.instructure.com [https://www.instructure.com]/

320: Be Yourself at Work Through Agency, Emotional Health, and the Power of Compassion with Claude Silver

This week, I interviewed Claude Silver, the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX. Her new book, Be Yourself at Work, offers key insights into the role of authenticity in the workplace culture and its impact on retention. Here are my three key takeaways: 1. Authenticity as a Business Superpower for Workplace Culture The core message is to "be yourself at work," which Silver argues is today's greatest business superpower. This speaks directly to workplace culture, suggesting that genuine self-expression, rather than hiding or "code-switching," is crucial for both individual and organizational success. Silver makes the case that true authenticity is a proactive, offensive message that drives success, contrasting it with the "lazy" or "shrinking" tendency to hide emotions or true selves out of fear. A culture that embraces the "complexity of being human at work" fosters a space where people not only fit in but truly belong. 2. Prioritizing Emotional Health and Agency to Improve Retention Silver shares a powerful anecdote about an employee who was struggling with depression but felt safe enough to approach her, which led to a profound, empathetic exchange. This highlights the importance of addressing the emotional well-being of employees, a critical factor for retention. The takeaway is that leaders must be: * Receptive: Willing to step away from traditional, transactional HR responses to meet employees where they are. * Empathetic: Approaching conversations with non-judgmental sincerity and compassion. Furthermore, Silver emphasizes that employees always have agency and choice. For individuals, the first step is to get comfortable with themselves—to address shame, fear, and insecurity—to become the "CEO of you". This focus on personal agency and psychological safety is vital for building trust and creating a culture where employees feel valued enough to stay. 3. Cultivating a Human-Centered Leadership Approach for Retention and Culture Silver's role as Chief Heart Officer and her work embody a human-centered approach to leadership. For an organization to successfully promote an authentic workplace culture and improve retention, it needs to: * Identify and Utilize Culture Champions: Even without a "Chief Heart Officer," companies have highly empathetic, service-oriented people they can utilize to facilitate growth and change. * Lead with the Heart: The effective leader, or "coach," is one who is willing to show up for their team, shine a light on both their roadblocks and their triumphs, and operate from a place of trust and non-judgment. * Model Self-Awareness: Leaders must be committed to their own journey of self-awareness and emotional regulation to create a safe, supportive environment for their teams. This "give and take" approach, where both leadership and employees agree on a set of expectations and supportive behaviors, is what ultimately helps a company grow into an organization that is "whole for themselves." Follow Claude at https://www.claudesilver.com/.

319: Courage Over Fear, Leadership Lessons from Tesla and the Marines with Kristen Kavanaugh

Kristen Kavanaugh is the author of Courage Over Fear and the founder of The Agency Initiative, working to connect people's work with meaning in alignment with their values. Previously, she was the vice chair of the Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity & Inclusion and the senior director of inclusion, talent & learning at Tesla. Here are my key takeaways: * Values Dissonance Drives Talent Away: The conflict between personal values and the actions or culture of a company—especially at the leadership level—causes significant personal distress and ultimately leads to attrition. Kavanaugh described experiencing anxiety and physical symptoms, including panic attacks, that her body was trying to communicate to her before she left her role at Tesla. She emphasized that listening to those internal signals is crucial and that her health immediately improved once she made the decision to leave the toxic environment. For organizations, this highlights that failing to align with and uphold core values will physically and mentally harm employees, particularly those with less privilege, leading to the loss of valuable talent. * Courageous Leadership and Psychological Safety are Key to DEI Success: DEI work thrives when leadership models courage and takes a clear stand on inclusion. Kavanaugh, who led the DEI team, noted that when the CEO began making public statements that were antithetical to the work they were doing, it caused deep pain and was the "start of the unravelling" of DEI at the company. This demonstrated that leadership's visible choice of "courage over fear"—especially by those with power and privilege (the "decision calculus" factor)—is necessary to foster a culture where all employees, particularly underrepresented groups, feel safe and valued enough to stay. * Retention and Growth is Built on Small, Consistent Acts of Agency (The 5% Approach): The concept of the "Agency Loop" highlights that a healthy professional life is a cycle of authenticity, intentional decision-making, and growth. The key to starting and sustaining this cycle is the "5% more courageous approach," which breaks down intimidating acts of courage into small, manageable steps. For workplace retention, this means that cultural change and a sense of agency aren't just about massive, high-risk confrontations; they are built through everyday choices, such as a manager creating space for honest dialogue or an employee simply dressing in a way that feels authentic to them. These small, consistent actions compound over time to build resilience and a stronger, more authentic leader and employee. Follow Kristen at https://www.courageoverfearbook.com/.

318: The Bold Move for Higher Ed: Why Onboarding is the Key to Unlocking Women's Leadership Potential with Shanna Hocking

This week, I welcome Shanna Hocking to the podcast to talk about her new research in higher education and what's holding women back in university advancement. You might be surprised that the answer is disturbingly simple. Here are my favorite takeaways: * The Crisis in Higher Education Leadership: A shift is needed from a scarcity mindset focused only on fundraising to a focus on leadership and culture as the key to success. The profession is at a crossroads, needing to re-evaluate what has historically worked versus what is needed for the future, especially post-pandemic. * Structural Barriers for Women Leaders: Despite being the majority of the advancement profession, women hold fewer than 35% of Chief Advancement Executive roles at top universities. The biggest barrier to success for women in these roles isn't personal inadequacy but organizational structures and systems that weren't built for their success. * The Critical Gap in Onboarding and Inclusion: Over 70% of women Chief Advancement Executives report no formal onboarding support (coaching, training, professional development). This lack of intentionality contributes to lasting stress and negatively affects their view of the organization. Furthermore, unconscious biases manifest in subtle ways, such as being excluded from informal, powerful "in-group" conversations. The solution isn't to "blow up" the system but to focus on small, intentional, and consistent acts of inclusion and systems change. Connect with Shanna at hockingleadership.com.

317: Why Now is the Time to Uncompete with Ruchika Malhotra

I have to admit, I was nervous to do this interview. I met Ruchika Malhotra by chance years ago, and have been in awe of her work ever since. She is the visionary author behind the new book, Uncompete. Building on her viral conversation about imposter syndrome, Ruchika delves into the core thesis of her latest work: the necessity of rejecting a destructive culture of competition to unlock true, sustainable success. She challenges the ingrained notion that scarcity and cutthroat individualism are the only paths to achievement, arguing instead that collaboration, abundance, radical generosity, inclusion, and solidarity are the keys to professional and personal fulfillment. Ruchika shares powerful insights on how modern, profit-driven systems push us toward fear-based competition—a behavior that fundamentally runs counter to our human need for community and connection. The conversation explores how this cultural "default" impacts everything from the workplace to personal health and even major life decisions like starting a family. Here are my favorite takeaways: 1. Competition is a Short-Term Fix, Collaboration is the Long-Term Strategy: The current societal and corporate default toward competition often stems from a fear-based, scarcity mindset, but this approach only yields short-term gains. True, sustained success comes from moving away from a "winner-take-all" mentality and intentionally fostering environments built on collaboration, where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. 2. Micro-validations matter: Genuine allyship is not a passive title but an active, conscious effort to uplift others, especially those who have been historically overlooked. Ruchika emphasizes that simple "micro-validations" of support, such as personally advocating for someone or giving credit where it's due, can significantly change the trajectory of a person's life and foster meaningful connections. 3. Redefine Success: It's About Connection, Not Capital: When asked to look back on their lives, people's measures of success overwhelmingly center on the time they spent with people they love and the strength of their community, not their financial accumulation. The practice of Uncompete challenges listeners to redefine what success means to them, prioritizing community and well-being over the pressure to constantly compete for money or status. Celebrate Ruchika's new book Uncompete at uncompetebook.com.