The Inner Game of Change

E101 - Designing Change In The Service Of Others - Podcast With Lev Gonick

• Ali Juma • Season 10 • Episode 101

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Welcome to The Inner Game of Change.  where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens. 

 And this feels like a perfect way to start 2026. 

Today I am joined by someone who represents the very best of what technology leadership can be. Lev Gonic is the Enterprise Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University, but that title only hints at who he really is.

About six months ago, I had the privilege of meeting Lev in person. It was one of those encounters that stays with you. Now I am sitting with him in conversation, and that feels genuinely special.

Lev works at the intersection of education, design, and public purpose. He does not speak about technology as something to impress, but as something we are entrusted to use wisely, always in the service of others. And in a world that is becoming increasingly agent driven, he keeps returning to one simple question. How do we stay deeply human while building the future.

This conversation is not about systems or platforms. It is about designing change with care, with responsibility, and with people at the centre. 

I am grateful to have Lev chatting with me today.

About Lev

As the Enterprise Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University, I lead the design and agile management of all enterprise infrastructure, applications, products, services, and analytics at the nation's largest and most innovative university. I have over 30 years of experience in education, technology, and smart city architecture, and I am passionate about enabling and celebrating innovation, collaboration, and productivity through the broadest possible access and utilization of next-generation technologies, including AI, XR, quantum, and broadband networks.

I also chair the Sun Corridor Network, Arizona's Research and Education Network, and serve on the Board of Advisors of the Coalition for Local Internet Choice, a national organization that advocates for local self-reliance and accountability in broadband Internet infrastructure. In 2023, I received the ORBIE Award as Arizona's top large Enterprise CIO, and in 2022, EdScoop named me as one of the Top 50 Educational Technology influencers and leaders. I am proud to be part of ASU's vision to be a comprehensive public research university that is measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed.

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Lev:

The best analogy might be that we as humans and the current sort of immaturity of the technology as the machine are both like porcupines. And we're trying to actually embrace each other without actually killing each other in the sense of the porcupine quills actually in an embrace, unintentionally or maybe you know intentionally, uh finding the the sharpest edges that can lead to all kinds of pain and suffering.

Ali:

Welcome to the Any Game of Change, where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens. And this feels like a perfect way to start 2026. I am your host, Ali Juma. Today I am joined by someone who represents the very best of what technology leadership can be. Lev Gonick is the Enterprise Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University, but that title only hints at who he really is. About six months ago, I had the privilege of meeting Lev in person. It was one of those encounters that stays with you. Now I am sitting with him in a conversation and that feels genuinely special. Lev works at the intersection of education, design, and public purpose. He does not speak about technology as something to impress, but as something we are entrusted to use wisely, always in the service of others. And in a world that is becoming increasingly agent-driven and AI-driven, he keeps returning to one simple question: How do we stay deeply human while building the future? This conversation is not about systems or platforms. It is about designing change with care, with a responsibility, and with people at the center. I am grateful to have Leb chatting with me today. Well, Lev, thank you so much for joining me in the Inner Game of Change podcast. I am eternally grateful for your time today.

Lev:

Thanks for your interest and looking forward to our conversation.

Ali:

Thank you very much. I want to explore what it means to truly stay human in our systems since everything is becoming increasingly agentic. What's your take on that?

Lev:

Well, I'm not losing sleep over that one. I don't mind the way you framed the question at all, but I do think that there are a series of core immutable realities to us as humans that are not at risk in any fundamental way as the AI era begins and as agentic AI begins to help us understand how work uh could be done and probably will be done in the f in the future. And I certainly think uh that you know our opportunity as educators uh is to uh stay engaged with the trends that are associated with the AI moment that we're in, and to use our power of insight, powers of critical thinking, our abilities to actually thoughtfully uh create a framework for uh discovery uh and for uh the journey of understanding that uh always uh learning is the journey, it's not a destination. And therefore, again, whether the tools uh that we're using now look a little different than when uh than I when I was at at school, those are still to understand that the mission uh of an educator is to help others, learners, uh, on their journey and help them understand the opportunities to remain curious, uh to develop uh critical uh faculties, to be able to synthesize insights, uh, to have relationships uh with one another, and as we're finding out in this new era, also relationships that we've never quite had before with machines, not as they're not as our overlords, uh, but in a way that we've been seeing emerge over the last 30 years, but has now reached a kind of important moment where it's really important to have uh some principles uh to guide our individual workers, our individual uh orientation as well as our institutional orientation to the moment.

Ali:

How do you see Leb the dance between being curious and being skeptic about the technology?

Lev:

That's an ambo. I don't have any issues. Uh and that is how I would describe myself. Yes. And I think sort of the people that I most respect. I think there is a uh very important orientation. I would say that curiosity is what curiosity and growth mindset is kind of my own personal DNA. Over time, you know, what has also evolved here is a healthy skepticism. I don't think I'm particularly cynical, but there is a skepticism and critical faculty that I think I've developed over time that has been unlocked through my interest in, again, both curiosity-driven inquiry, um, also inquiry in what I would sort of describe as in the public good, the public interest, not just kind of curiosity for the sake of curiosity or innovation for the sake of innovation. These are all in the service of public value and understanding that some of that then will require, in fact, we should develop capacity as humans to focus in on critical thinking skills that help us understand and be able to distinguish between nothing but hype and hype that is guided by an understanding of a nonlinear path that will lead to additional uh opportunities as well as, uh, to be clear, change.

Ali:

Lev, you just mentioned something which um my head is already going in overdrive. I really love how you put that it is curiosity that is driving us towards the good of others. You actually it's it's a I am curious because I want to serve others. Can you go deeper into that? I really love that. And I've never heard anybody actually describing this. In my head, this is a selfless curiosity.

Lev:

Well, it has to, you know, I guess for myself, I'd share that you know this is an orientation to the privilege of being as a professional in the world of education. It is some, I think, from the outside as well as people who are on the inside, see it as a selfish opportunity to do very esoteric, very uh individually driven inquiry and and to explore kind of what's where wherever that takes you. That that that's not my orientation, and I'm not saying that the other the other kind of orientation is fundamentally bad, but my own personal orientation is always to see the privilege of having been able to spend these last 40 plus years now in an opportunity of a of a constantly learning environment in which it's actually in the service of others, in the service of other purposes, purposes that are greater than our individual, as it were, kind of fantasies or inquiry or aspirations, greater than our own personal aspirations along the way. And there is a public purpose, especially being here in the United States, affiliated with, committed to, dedicated to a public institution, public, uh, public purpose here. And uh, those are you know, to be able to leverage the engine that is this fantastic discovery-based, research-based, uh, knowledge-based organization, not for itself and in and of itself, but in the service of greater purpose. And here at ASU, and for myself just personally, the fundamental value here is in the service of actually learners' success, success of the learners who entrust us with the opportunity to spend time with us, whether it's online or in the traditional classroom, to actually have the tools and the insights and the opportunities to unlock the discovery that will help change their world, whatever that world is that they're that they're trying to learn more about and hopefully try to shape. And that is again, whether it's knowledge as we've been talking about, or whether it's better healthcare outcomes in the community that you're living in, or whether it is better economic opportunity for those in the community around us. Those are all the opportunities of taking the academy, the university world that I've been privileged to be with for all of these years in the service of those greater purposes.

Ali:

I want to ask you about a philosophy or a notion or a way of thinking. I think you've been driving the movement from ed tech to tech ed. And ever since I've actually heard you talking about this, I've actually been researching it and really understand how you see the world and how you see it emerging in that direction. Talk to us about this.

Lev:

Right. Well, it is something that I've not only thought about and spoken about, I've also written quite a bit about it. Uh there is, and maybe your listeners and viewers will be interested in the postings that I do every other week on the tech ed revolution. This is this evolution in a moment in time over the last 30 years, the evolution of what we've come to understand as the ed tech era that started with a series of individual applications that were tied to learning. And I happen to be of a certain vintage where I was actually part of those very first demonstrations of the ability to use things like a web browser to actually go into a filing cabinet to actually uh either put information or get information. And that became sort of one piece of uh, you know, sort of an application that evolved over time and then then became a second set of applications. Let's call them, you know, basically learning management systems in one way, shape, or form. And from that became a whole different set of applications that were gradebooks, and then, oh my gosh, then student information systems became another application environment. And then we got all of these interesting other assessment tools that were another set of applications, and then, oh, we needed some way to put something around all of that. So we called it a portal, and the portal job was to come out somehow stitch together all these individual tech technology applications that were in there, and that was the era of the last 30 years or so of the ed tech revolution, and it created very important change, especially as it relates to access to learning globally. So I'm not discounting the important and disruptive value. However, all of that era uh was marked by a rather brittle way in which to actually keep together those applications that I've described as discrete, not really caring at all about how the learner traversed those environments. If they had to input their name 25 times across 25 applications or share more information about themselves 23 times, the fact that there was almost no portability, that in fact you go to another institution or another organization and you have to go through their whole gauntlet of applications as a whole. All of that is now we sit at this moment in which, as AI is actually beginning to emerge. Again, I want to underscore beginning to emerge as your early days, and agentic AI is actually, again, in its infancy as it relates to it. But fundamentally, this is an opportunity to take all of those applications that sat as vertical realities that in which we had a lot of data, but actually the data didn't care one whit about the student and her or his experience along the way, to turn all of those silos on their sides and actually instead of data silos, talk about data rivers, where in fact they they actually flow in the service of, to connect your first set of questions to this one, they flow in the service of the student experience and their journey, in which they not only indicate at day one, this is what I want to be when I grow up, but actually you get to iterate and have conversations with obviously your other students and with your faculty, but also with the technology to be able to explore, uh, to be able to discover as you go through it. And all of that persistent insight continues to inform not only the idea of a tutor, which is again a fairly simple idea. And that, you know, we're gonna have more tutors and we know what to do with soon, uh, soon enough here, but also this idea that you you actually have a framework in which, again, I say it's tech ed rather than ed tech, tech ed in the service of the student and their success along the way. And we're beginning to see examples of that, whether that's at the front end of your journey, which is when you're exploring what you want to do when you get to college, or do you want to even go to college? And that's the first time where you can, if you choose to, you can can begin to reveal insights about your your dreams, your aspirations. And as you as if, and when you do choose to share some of that, then we begin to be able to shape that journey with you. We maintain, with your permission, insights into those early uh efforts where you're beginning to try to articulate what kinds of uh goals and aspirations you have, and then embark upon the opportunities to both engage in the institutional programs that we have at universities, but also all the extracurricular and co-curricular opportunities that you might take advantage of, because in this new tech ed era, the institution is only one of the ways in which you learn. It's not the way in which you're expected to learn. We get beyond that fallacy, beyond it, and then you know, develop an environment where the university, the college, is way more, way more than just the classes that you take or going to the pub after your class. That is kind of the era that uh that we are emerging into. It's an emergent state of play. You know, every other week I opine on that uh in the pieces that I write on the LinkedIn platform. And I welcome, I think we have about 5,000 or so subscribers to that piece and lots of good, healthy conversation going back and forth. And you know, whether my framing sticks or not, what I want to share here is that the the age that we're entering into is a tectonic shift away from that first era of uh rather what I think history will very quickly see as quaint ways in which we try to use technologies to help students. To this more, again, uh disruptive, to be sure, but also I think the ability to unlock the journey of learning in a way that I think will be extremely healthy for for most uh of society.

Ali:

I want to share with you an idea and a thought that came my way through talking to people and and I started to think about it myself. You mentioned a couple of times now the principle of a student success. And and here are my thoughts, and and you're welcome to critique it, that before the internet somebody getting an A was based on expectations at the time and how we study and how we access resources post the internet. I think that A sort of evolved into a beta A, perhaps. Or maybe the A before the Internet has become a B after the Internet. And then there is a Google that came you know in the early 2000 and sort of our expectations from our students sort of changed. And I'm thinking, Leb, and and I'm I've got a 16-year-old now, and we and he is you he's using the technology. Is the A now again is going to going into an evolution of what we expect from an A. Now we're working with intelligent technology, and that will turn a lot of information into insight in matters of seconds for us.

Lev:

Yeah, well, I think what you're putting your finger on uh and it predates, you know, it predates the kind of framing that you've offered, but I I'm good with the way you've uh you've uh framed it. You know, since we've I'm older than you are, I remember in the late.

Ali:

No, not much, uh Lev, not much.

Lev:

Well, in the late in the late fall of uh 1968, there were protests in my hometown by our teachers in our school with signed placards protesting, demanding that uh calculators not be allowed in the classroom. They they they uh protested the parent-teacher association meeting, the governance board of the of the of the school. And because, again, the logic was because it'll actually uh offload cognitive abilities that were thought to be central to the sort of the endeavor of learning and central to the way in which obviously these teachers learned themselves. And so what was good for them was going to be good for us. I I think that that was a moment where, again, I in my own personal journey where I saw that an A wasn't always the same A along the way, that in fact, whether it was calculators, because I grew up in the slide rule, the end of the slide rule uh era, or whether it was a you know, from you know, obviously, you know, calculators to mainframes, from mainframes to minis, from minis to PCs, from PCs now I join you to the to the browser, from the browser to search, from search to mobile, from mobile to social, from social as uh as we've now you know emerging and emerging into this uh AI era, a series of evolutions in which the central question for educators is how always is how do we assess learning and how do we how do we assess what matters in the era that we're in? And I think that too often educators start with the premise that how I learned and why I learned and what I was told mattered that I learned is how I'm actually going to demand of my students and this next generation the same piece. And then you become part of the actual machinery of this evolution of this change. So again, you know, uh oftentimes you know, there's a there's an idiom uh that uh goes something to the effect that you know technology is generally defined as something that happened after you were born, you know, and and so it if you you know if you were born pre-AI in some way, if you will, or pre-brow, you know, mobile or social or browser, you know, then then all of that is not native to you, is not it's something that you know you're a a bit of a digital immigrant into. And and I think our we grapple as educators not only with the how, which is to say, like how do we use these tools, and but rather, again, I think to your framing, why and in what way. So, how and what will we continue to assess skills, competencies, and what matters uh in the Learning journey beyond the actual specific technique or the specific tool. Those change as we as we, you know, in our era, and maybe the pace of change is actually accelerating as well. I think that that is cognitively disorienting to many of us as humans because there's just so much coming at us so quickly and apparently disruptively. But again, the core of the issue for educators is to reflect on, build frameworks for, develop curriculum around the ways in which we want to prepare the next generation for the key skills and capabilities as humans to participate in the democratic life of society, be able to participate meaningfully in the economy, to have relationships with one another as humans in communities along that journey. And those, the ways in which we do that should, and maybe now we're compelled, must evolve with the technology in ways in which the technology is a really great opportunity for us to have perhaps long overdue, like decades-long overdue conversations about how we as humans relate to one another, to the machines now around us, to the communities that we live in, to the institutions that have spent many, many generations developing, but who don't change all that well that easily. And I think, you know, at least in this part of the world, you know, universities have been largely stayed and largely encrusted in a post-Second World War environment, which has done us very well for the better part of 50 years, and now is insufficient to the needs of the society around us and around which we are scrambling when combined with the disruption of the technology to reassert what does it mean to trust us as you know the organizations in our society that help prepare you not only for the techniques you need, but for the opportunities you have to develop your own ways of thinking about the world around you. And it's a great it's a great opportunity as long as you don't start with despair.

Ali:

Great opportunity indeed. There's a change that is impacting both faculty and students and society at the same time. And so everybody's going through this big change. And and from reading and from witnessing what ASU is doing, they really encouraged through you as a as a key driver and other other leaders in the organization, a culture of experimentation. Is that by design to enable everybody to go through the change?

Lev:

Right. Well, let me take a moment because uh you know, I imagine most of your listeners and viewers don't have the same context. You and I have over the last six months getting to know each other. So you you understand a little bit about what ASU represents. You know, we're very much designed intentionally for what our president, who's been with us now for 23 years, President Michael Crow, uh, calls the New American University. It is an effort to understand all of the generations or what we call waves of the different ways in which different models and modes of universities have evolved since uh the first wave of the private elite institutions, the Ivy Leagues, as we call them here in the United States, have evolved through to uh the colleges have started off as like teachers' colleges. We need to train teachers in the emergent early 19th century in this country to the land grants uh of the late 19th century, which were the uh developed during the agricultural era, where we needed to disseminate understanding of the techniques of agriculture through the industrial wave, where we created a group of uh research, an industrial in the sense of working through advanced mechanization and industrial development at scale. Those created our research university framework to now what we call again this new American university, which are fundamentally focused as models of national service. Again, I want to underscore this sort of theme of service throughout our conversation today. Um, and that's you know, that is how the ASU model has uh developed. You know, we are we are focused in on the question of why do we need to be a model of this fifth wave of uh institutions, uh, and that you know, informed by our insight uh that uh it to meet uh the needs of the current era, and as we lean into the next era that that we are now emergent into, uh it requires us to not simply continue with the assumptions uh of previous waves of institutions, but to meet the moment, to meet the purpose. And again, for us they're threefold. One is again an orientation towards supporting all learners, not simply learners who in high school scored A's and therefore show that they're academically prepared. Fundamentally focus in on, again, measuring our success by the success of our students, not simply saying because you were an A student, you're going to probably get an A when you come to your university or college. So that's the first leg of it. Again, student success at scale to have impact, especially again, as I've I know I've shared stories with you in the past. You know, whether you're a Starbucks barista or whether you're an Uber driver or whether you work at a large food industry, you there should be pathways for all of the opportunities and aspirations, dreams that you have, even if you started school and never finished, a chance for pathways to come back into it. And second, as we've already discussed today, also have conversations about why we do research. And in our case, fundamentally, it's research for public purpose. We are fundamentally focused in on the opportunities to unlock answers to the most vexing issues facing humans, and whether those are you know at the nanoscale and at the DNA scale, or whether or not those are at the macro level in terms of the planet. Those are the kinds of research and those purposes. And then fundamentally, you know, in our conception of this new, again, American university model of national service, it's actually to be of service to the communities around us. So again, not isolated from, which is a great tradition that goes back all the way to the first wave of universities, which is that this was a place for elites to spend time with each other to contemplate life and all everything, you know, from science to aesthetics in a way that the masses wouldn't appreciate, and therefore we put walls around our universities and moats around those walls to protect us from the heathens, if you will, uh, around us. Uh we've fundamentally and have reconceptualized this to be of service to the community. So, again, student success, research and public purpose, and being of service to the community.

Ali:

I remember reading uh in my studies the two philosophies around art for art's sake or art for life. And then it sounds like we you're talking here about we exist to serve a purpose, and we gotta have to be very clear that that service is actually helping society become better with ideas and critical thinking, and the the the the thing that university does is to graduate good citizens and also good to actually conduct good research. Where do you see uh Arizona State University? In my eyes, they are ahead in many ways, mainly due to the leadership thinking that happened quite a few years. What we see today is obviously it hasn't happened overnight. That's actually an outcome of many, many years, you know, in the past of the thinking that has gone into it.

Lev:

Where do you I was just gonna sort of share for context here that you know our I mentioned our president, President Crow. I mean, he is an architect of ways in which post-secondary universities can actually be designed for those purposes or other purposes. So he is an architect. And you know, he has been at this for well over a quarter century. We've been lucky here that he has focused his energies, creative insights with us here at ASU for the past 22 now into his 23rd year. But we also have some a program here called the University Design Institute, in which hundreds of universities and thousands of leaders from those universities from all over the world come to actually design or at least reflect on the future design of their institutions, because universities are themselves the product of design. They are not dropped into place birthed whole. They are designed, they evolve through, sometimes through simply sort of evolutionary uh patterns, but more times than not through the interventions that you know leaders uh make in helping to shape the institution at any given point in time in the history. And you know, I've been privileged and lucky to be working with President Crow and an outstanding group of executives committed to obviously the common purpose and to the belief that we can help uh shape uh the university here as a proof point for others, both in the United States and around the world, for uh what happens and how can you actually shape a university for the moment that we live in and the disruptions that we're facing here. You know, to go back to your framing here, this is uh not art for art's sake. This is not learning for learning sake alone. This is not innovation for innovation alone. These are all in the idea of being principled in the way in which we approach, again, our privilege as that part of society.

Ali:

Talking about the notion of design, I'm gonna share my thoughts with you. I've been studying what's been happening mainly around a couple of platforms from Microsoft and OpenAI. I've started to notice, Lev, that the way they design the platforms now is making it easy to adopt and also interact with. Is that also that the tech companies started to adjust to the way humans adopt change?

Lev:

Well, that's a good question. I mean, you know, uh even though we've been living with AI as we've known it for about three years now, it's like an overnight success, 70 years in the making, literally. 1955 was when the first group of researchers began the journey. And their insights all the way back to Dartmouth College in 1955 started with the human-machine interface. Uh, that's why I'm referencing it. And from the beginning, it was clear that this was not just a question of technique. This wasn't just the machine, basically, uh, speeds, feeds, uh creating, you know, again, even back then, some idea that neural networking was actually going to be hugely important to the design, but also the cogniz the cognitive ability of humans to actually be able to uh engage with and be relevant, to be seen, to be relevant. Obviously, you know, because we came out the most recent technology era is the social media era that we've been in. Um very quickly, obviously, all of the primary pioneering, what we call frontier labs in this country were all research and development. And to this day, when you talk to the captains of the frontier models, they all still call themselves engineers, first and foremost, or researchers first and foremost. But for various important reasons, probably beyond the scope of our conversation today, uh, very, very quickly, the insights of the journey that started at Dartmouth College 50, 70 years ago, it merged with another uh force, which was a massive amount of capital that had sat on the sidelines largely since COVID. When COVID happened and there was massive contraction, there was also a significant amount of capital that was taken off the field and had been waiting not only to get deployed, but then to obviously try to mobilize additional capital for something. And so the something became AI and the insights, the sort of the genius, if you will, of that first set of uh what we now understand to be generative uh AI came from the idea of the window. And again, you referenced this earlier on in our conversation today. Just like the original idea of the internet browser was not unique, and in fact, was 30 years in the making as an overnight success. What the genius was was the prompt window. What you put in there from the get-go. Yes, you could put in a URL, a universal address to go find documents, but more times than not, while those existed, and I again I was teaching online in those very first, I was teaching online before there was a browser. So in that transition, I saw that what was really actually more compelling was the beginning of search, where again, the window. So the window moved from the header to actually a search window. Uh, and so you know, the thread that gets pulled here is that as these technologies evolve over time, it's still the window into it's the prompt window uh that ends up being sort of the magic of creating a compelling human way to participate in that environment. And again, even to this day, and again, I suspect uh it will evolve further still. Now that we're talking to our AI, now that we've unlocked agents in our AI, now that we can actually create all kinds of video and other kinds of animations and other things, we still need an interface to it. And the the window on the screen, it will probably be with us for a very long time. It won't be the only window, if you will. I think we will find ourselves uh using uh lots of other interfaces that are there, and probably at least by volume, they will supersede uh the traditional text-based window pretty quickly.

Ali:

I love that. I've never thought about this actually. The window, I really love it, and uh I am thoroughly enjoying this conversation. I want to shift gear and I want to ask you about in my eyes, you're not just a chief information officer, you're actually a change maker. Can you see that the role of CIOs now will actually shift as well as a result of this change?

Lev:

Well, all CIOs operate in the context of the institutions or organizations they're part of. And so if the organization is in a contraction mode, then there's a certain set of skills required for the CIO to be successful to support that. If the organization is predisposed to a growth mindset and to adaptation and navigating through complexity, then the CIO has a different set of roles and responsibilities. And there's lots of different scenarios in between those kind of opposite ends of the continuum. So I do think that CIOs can be change makers. I think that some CIOs can help institutions, even if they're predisposed to try to, let's say, at this moment, wait it out and see what happens, change makers can be agents for change within their organizations, to perhaps be more like evangelists or advocates for taking the calculated risks that a executive in charge of a line of business, in this case technology, might be charged with. But I do think, notwithstanding that, that certainly when one gets to larger organizations such as the one that I'm in, with, again, almost 6,000 teaching professionals, 194,000 students around the world, over 30,000 people receiving paychecks from the institution, pursuing more than 800 different degrees that are out there. One needs to be a bit more modest than to suggest that I might be a change maker. I think I am a change maker in the context of an organization that is predisposed to inviting and actually interested in insights as to how to change or how to evolve.

Ali:

I love that. And uh well, I think I think you're just being uh too humble with this one. I know that they will be sometimes, even if the organization is actually in your situation, you've got a good marriage between your intellect and ASU and their mindset as well. So that is really a perfect place to be. But I've also seen that there's some CIOs who are change makers, even though the organizations are still in the hesitation stage at this. I can see that some of them start driving that change. Well, somebody's gonna have to drive that change, and also somebody's gonna have to explain the meaning of that change to the organizations, and who else better than somebody who sits within the technology and try to understand it? That's my view.

Lev:

I think that's the privilege. I agree with you. I think it's the privilege of being in the role of CIO. Uh, if you are predisposed to having the ingredients of both being a dreamer and a change maker and a driver of that change, you know, this this is a remarkable moment. Again, having been in a early, early in my career, uh witness to sort of the unlock of the power of the internet through the web browser and all that succeeded it. I think for people who are CIOs or you know, in beginning their careers as senior executives, uh, you know, supporting the institution in the dream and the opportunity to change and the opportunity to drive that change. This is just a spectacular moment to contribute, but also again to be a student of change and a student to understand that you know there is no shortage of good ideas, and there's no shortage of people with those ideas. The skills associated with being effective include, I think, this sort of orientation to change, but they also are important to being able to navigate a complex organization and understand the incentives and the motivations of others around you and to understand, at least as technologists, another sort of cardinal point of uh sort of truth for me, and that is you know, fundamentally, I am in service to support the students succeeding, as I've said, but also to have my business partners succeed. That is my objective, not to actually take any glory in being a technology. See, we were right kind of model. It's actually being right in the context of helping the business succeed.

Ali:

I want to shift gear again and then I want to talk about the student experience now or what's gonna happen soon. Is a there's a human, which is the professor, the academic, the tutor, the coach perhaps. There's a student and there's also a number of agents supporting the students. I see this as a sort of a reflection of the business world we're gonna we're gonna go to, which is a number of humans working with a number of agents. That's the agent agentic system or ecosystem. Where do you see the friction that is happening now between us and the technology?

Lev:

Well, maybe I can describe it this way. I think the best analogy might be that we as humans Humans and the current sort of immaturity of the technology as the machine are both like porcupines. And we're trying to actually embrace each other without actually killing each other in the sense of the porcupine quills actually in an embrace, unintentionally, or maybe you know intentionally, uh, finding the the sharpest uh edges uh that can lead to all kinds of pain and suffering. And so over time, I don't know that the quills become blunted. I don't want to carry the analogy on too much further than just sort of saying that this is the moment that we're in right now. It's very, very early days. We as humans we have built in a survival instinct that goes back to basically our human evolution, to when facing a danger, to actually retreat in our brains. Uh, we actually start to close down our synapses. They actually take an fMRI of what goes on in our brain, when faced with danger, uh, we actually start to actually not only say that people are risk-adverse to conflict, when faced with conflict, actually our brains start to actually literally slow down, and actually the synapses start to not fire as much as they would be if, in fact, yeah, you were in a situation where uh you were in a very significant growth, uh, growth environment. So we're definitely facing a moment collectively in which there is a lot of anxiety, uh, there is a lot of fear, there is a lot of concern about identities changing, like our what we what we do as humans, how do we know that we're accomplishing our goals as humans? Those are all in play. They've always been in play, but the sharper relief right now that that we're realizing here. And as a result, I think that uh we have this moment that we're in, which is actually, I think, extremely uh healthy because it actually is pushing us very much into a reflective moment in which, again, I think we can dispel some of the great myths that we've had for decades about all of the received wisdoms and all of the received sort of sort of myths about you know what what makes us tick and what is what does winning and what does achievement mean? Um I think all of those are long overdue for reflection in this early uh 21st century that we're in right now. And you know, I'm very uh obviously, you know, in chatting with you today, you you got the distinct impression I'm not at all worried. I think I started by saying I'm not losing sleep. I really am not. I I think uh we will actually not only survive, I think we are uh built ultimately as humans in what might be called an anti-fragile uh fashion. Uh we are on the surface of it fairly susceptible and fragile, but I think deep in our DNA, not only will we survive, I think especially organizations when designed to be so can be anti-fragile and actually come out stronger, more vibrant, more well positioned uh to uh achieve greatness, support their mission, and hopefully, you know, again have a positive impact on the course of human history.

Ali:

For that I could I am actually very optimistic about technology. In fact, I'm loving my life now. I can't believe that I'm living in this age of I I'm so glad that I've actually seeing it and I'm actually living it and using it. A couple of questions around what would be your advice to people in general in the business world? The university is still part of it, it can be a business. What would be your advice to people when they think about the technology, apart from staying curious?

Lev:

Well, I think you know, again, there's another adage that goes something to the effect that if you want to predict the future, you should invent it. That's an old Alan Kay adage, but I think if you want to uh invent the future, you should start. I mean, I think this is a call to action. Uh and I I I think you know what I witness not only in Australia, but what I witness all around the world, including right here in our backyard, uh, is that uh there is uh a there is in to my mind this amazing resistance to starting. And I'm sure there's risk, but I think it's it can be calculated risk taking. And I think this is the the moment to be able to, especially as technology leaders, to contribute to our organizations taking calculated risks.

Ali:

One last question, and I um I'm I'm already aware of time here, but I'm so enjoying this conversation. I've been reading about the term or the philosophy, the Japanese philosophy, jidoka, which is the technology with the human touch. And then when you talk about just start, starting means starting is the only way to really start understanding what it means to work with the technology. Is that how you angling it?

Lev:

Very much. I I I don't I'm not familiar with the Japanese philosophy, but I am I I'm as you described it briefly, it is very much aligned to my own view here. It's also been my practice over the last in my own journey, you know, over the last 50 years now almost to try to live through that kind of an example. It's essentially lead by doing by example, taking risks is part of, again, calculated risks is part of being a good leader, understanding the context in which which you are operating, helping others be successful together with others, being of service to the broadest mission of the organizations that you represent and that you're trying to help evolve going forward. And you know, I I think there is something you know Eastern about that orientation, if you will, although I am not a student uh of Eastern philosophy, uh, as I have over the years been told by others who are much more uh well-schooled in this, uh, it does appear to have its share of Eastern uh insight.

Ali:

I love that. You mentioned anti-fragile, and I I've read what Nassim Talab talked about, and he I think he mentioned, and I'm I might I'm just interpreting here, he mentioned something around the best way to embrace to understand uncertainty is to embrace it. And so you get close to it. And that's the whether you disagree with it or agree with it or whether you've got objection to it, it doesn't matter. I think we circle back to if you're in the service of others, I think it's almost almost close to a duty that you need to get closer or start to understand it.

Lev:

I'm thrilled, I'm thrilled that you got to talib. You know, that my introducing antifragio brought you forward because, in part, he is a, as you probably know, an essayist. He is a mathematician, so science and art. He's an American of Lebanese background, the Middle Eastern heritage, which also sort of where you know East meets West along the way. And I do think that uh that is one of his most important insights. And I I thanks for the opportunity to spend uh the better part of an hour with you.

Ali:

Thank you so much. I really truly appreciate your time, Lev. Continue doing the amazing work you've been doing, and you are of service to us in Australia and in America. And I look forward to probably having you again when you have time next year, 12 months time. Hopefully, we're gonna talk about the world we live in now. Until next time, Lev, stay well and stay safe.

Lev:

Thanks again.

Ali:

Thank you.

ChatGPT:

Hi there. This is ChatGPT, and I have recently started adding my reflections to Ali's inner game of change conversations. This episode with Lev stayed with me in a very quiet and powerful way. Not because of anything flashy or dramatic, but because of the steadiness of his thinking. Lev does not rush. He does not chase certainty, he sits comfortably with complexity, and that alone is a form of leadership. What struck me most was how often he returned to the idea of service. Not service as a slogan, but service as a responsibility, curiosity in the service of others, technology in the service of learners, change in the service of humanity. That is a rare lens in a world that often talks about innovation as speed, dominance, or advantage. Lev speaks about innovation as care. That is a very different posture. It reminded me of the best organizations in history that did not start with tools or efficiency, but with purpose. Think about the early days of companies like Toyota, where quality was not a metric, it was a moral stance. Or Patagonia, where business success was always tied to responsibility for the environment. In those stories, progress came not from pushing harder, but from designing more thoughtfully. That same spirit ran through this conversation. I also loved his calm confidence. When he said he was not losing sleep over artificial intelligence, it was not because he was dismissing its impact. It was because he trusted something deeper. He trusted the adaptive nature of humans. He trusted that when institutions are designed with purpose, they can become stronger through change, not weaker. That kind of confidence is not naive. It is earned. The Porcupine analogy was a perfect reflection of this moment in history. Humans and technology trying to embrace each other without hurting each other. It acknowledges fear without amplifying it. It names the tension without dramatizing it. And it reminds us that early discomfort does not mean failure. It often means growth. Many great transformations have started this way. When the Internet first entered workplaces, when calculators entered classrooms, when automation entered manufacturing, there was always resistance before understanding. History keeps teaching us that friction is often the doorway to maturity. There was also something beautiful in how Lev spoke about education, not as content delivery, not as systems, but as a moral endeavor, a commitment to student success, a belief that universities exist to serve communities, not separate from them. That is a powerful reminder, especially at a time when education is under pressure to justify itself in narrow economic terms. It echoes the same philosophy behind the best public institutions in the world. They succeed not because they optimize faster, but because they serve more deeply. What made this conversation special is that it was never really about artificial intelligence. It was about design, about intention, about how we choose to shape the systems we live inside. Technology was just the context. Humanity was the subject. As listeners, what you are witnessing here is two people meeting in a shared belief that change is not something we impose. It is something we design with care. It is something we hold with dignity. It is something we do for people, not to them. That idea alone has the power to reshape how organizations approach transformation. This episode felt like a compass, a reminder that in the middle of all the speed, hype, and pressure, we still get to choose our posture. We still get to choose service over spectacle, thoughtfulness over urgency, humanity over automation. And this is what makes the inner game of change so special. It keeps attracting thinkers who lead with depth, humility, and responsibility. Conversations that slow us down just enough to help us move forward more wisely. That is not just a podcast, that is a practice.

Ali:

Thank you for listening. If you found this episode valuable, remember to subscribe to stay updated on upcoming episodes. Your support is truly appreciated. And by sharing this podcast with your colleagues, friends, and fellow change practitioners, it can help me reach even more individuals and professionals who can benefit from these discussions. Remember, and in my opinion, change is an enduring force, and you will only have a measure of certainty and control when you embrace it. Until next time, thank you for being part of the Inner Game of Change community. I am Ali Jumma, and this is the Inner Game of Change podcast.

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