AI Won’t Fix Your Messy Company. It Will Expose It Faster with Karen Zeigler

Most founders think AI will make their company faster.

It will.

But if your systems are messy, your workflows are unclear, and your team is running on workarounds, AI won’t fix that.

It will amplify it.

In this episode, we sit down with Karen Zeigler, CEO of HumanScore, to break down what actually happens when companies try to automate broken operations and why “faster” quickly becomes riskier if your business isn’t built to handle the speed.

We get specific about what needs to be fixed before you touch AI:

•  The workflows that look good on paper but don’t reflect how work actually happens 
•  Data silos that confuse even the smartest models 
•  Hidden decision-making norms that quietly run your company 

Because here’s the reality:
 AI doesn’t remove the need for strong leadership.

It raises the standard.

If your team is surviving on patches and workarounds, AI will scale every gap unless you redesign how your company actually operates.

We also go deeper into what human-centered leadership really means in an AI-driven world. Not perks. Not programs. But fixing the real friction that slows teams down and drains execution.

And we draw a clear line on what should stay human, no matter how advanced the tools get:

•  Critical thinking 
•  Real connection 
•  Creativity 

Karen frames this moment as a workplace reset. A shift as big as the printing press. One that can elevate people, if leaders stop managing through control and start co-creating how work gets done.

If you’re:

•  Planning an AI rollout 
•  Scaling operations that feel increasingly fragile 
•  Trying to improve employee experience without losing performance 

This episode will challenge how you’re thinking about growth.

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If you’re building a company that needs to scale without breaking, follow the show so you don’t miss what’s next.

And if this episode hit, share it with a founder or leader who’s about to “move faster” without fixing the foundation.

Transcript

Welcome And Big Question

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Scaling with People, your weekly playbook for turning chaos into compounding growth. Each week we go under the hood with battle test experts in all areas of business, from marketing to sales, operational finance, and people, plus product and leadership, to unpack the plays, numbers, and systems that turn chaos into compounding growth. Learn straight from founders and experts who've done it and continue to do it successfully. There's zero fluff, just moves that you can still immediately. This podcast is brought to you by Guide to HR. Human expertise, AI-powered impact. Welcome everyone to today's Skelling with People podcast. I'm Gwynabrier Quary, your host and founder and CEO to Guide to HR. So, what if the way you've been building culture is actually breaking your company's future? On today's episode, we sit down with Karen Siegler, CEO of HumanScore, to challenge everything you think you know about leadership in the age of AI and spark a full-blown workplace renaissance. From human-centered design to reimagining how organizations actually function. This is the playbook for leaders who refuse to let outdated systems cap their growth. If you're still skilling like it's 2015, this conversation will feel like a wake-up call. Super excited to have you on today's episode. Karen, before we get started, tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, so thank thank you so much, Gwenda Vegar, for having me here. Uh excited to talk with you and your audience. Um, I am the CEO, as you mentioned, of the Human Score. I've been doing this since all of last summer. Um, and uh, but I've been in the human-centered design and leadership space for quite a while now. And and I really love merging, you know, what's traditionally been used for designing products and services as a way to do uh to design high-performing teams. And quite frankly, it couldn't come at a more perfect time because Human Score is really setting itself up as the tool for organizations to use before they implement AI so that they make sure that people structure is designed in the right way before they begin adding on that layer of technology, which cannot do what the people have been adapting and doing for a long time.

Founder Lesson On Hidden Shortcuts

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Absolutely. And I mean, foundation is key to any success for anything, but especially when it comes to people and your AI tools and understanding what you really need, layering on multiple tools and spending lots of money isn't necessarily going to help you move forward. In fact, it could hinder you. So I think this is such a great and tool and timely as well. As we uh before we dive into our topic today, my listeners know I love putting my founders on the hot seat. I'd love for you to share a lesson learned as a founder, CEO. I know you just started your business. So maybe if you don't have one quite yet, maybe from your past experience as well, but just a lesson learned that our founders and leaders can hear from.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah. Um well, I I would say the the most recent is uh Human Score just was uh approved to be a research provider for Asure, the Society of HR Management. And um I was all gung-ho. We were ready to create a lot of content for HR leaders and professionals around what we do at the Human Score. And we we have an independent group of consultants that uh not only offer our Human Score dashboard, but also educate with us and do other things. And so uh we kind of learned the hard way and we jumped through a bunch of hoops in order to get something on the Sherm activity list when the consultant was already delivering it to a Sherm chapter, and so we didn't need to do all that work. So I would say understand your workflow and the process, especially when you're in partnership with someone else, because you may be jumping through hoops that you don't need to jump through.

The End Of Command Control

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Oh, that's such a good lesson, too. And I would even think like part of me was thinking you were gonna go the route of like, and you spent all this resources, time, money, energy. I'm not sure if there's money, but time and energy on executing this. And then the ROI is not what you expected it to be. Sometimes that's hard to know, the ROI, right? You think it's gonna be one thing, and you just have to execute and try, test and see what happens. And sometimes if you just kind of do a little bit more research ahead of time, you might find, oh, that's definitely not worth whatever um resources you're totally using. So that's a great lesson. I appreciate you sharing that. So yeah. We, you know, we talk about leadership and or design culture. What's a belief about leadership or or design that you think is completely outdated, but is still widely practiced today?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Uh well, I would say that it falls under the umbrella of command and control. Leaders still think, you know, I'm the boss, they should just do what I tell them because I'm paying them. And that is so outdated. And, you know, even since before the pandemic, that was already falling apart. AI, of course, is making that fall apart faster. And so leaders are having to learn a new way to lead. And uh that involves co-creation, um, co-creating with their employees, how work is designed, how the structure works, how decisions are made. And it's interesting how AI is actually not only the tool for doing that, but it's also the teacher. I mean, if you think of your own experience with AI, individually we are already co-creating with AI. So that co-creation with AI is also teaching us how we can begin to co-create with our employees. Um, and so, you know, in the future, instead of just the board being at the table saying this is what we're gonna do, uh, you'll have everyone at the table, along with their AIs, co-creating what needs to happen next.

Human-Centered Leadership In Practice

SPEAKER_01 6:03

That makes a lot of sense. And I and I definitely see that transition, like you said, before the pandemic happened, but certainly during and after the pandemic, it was, you know, you're a manager, the employees basically have to figure out how to manage you. Now the manager has to figure out how to manage the employees. And with AI, it's the co-create piece. That's such a great perspective. So when we talk about human-centered leadership, how can we like make it practical? What does it actually look like in execution and not just theory from your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Human-centered design applied to leadership, human-centered leadership, human-centered design is all about meeting the needs of the individual. So when you it's easy to think about human-centered design when it comes to the customer, because obviously, if you don't meet a customer's need, they're gonna go buy somewhere else that does meet their need, right? Um, but what's happening inside organizations now is employees are doing the same thing. I have these needs, especially as it relates to getting my work done every day. And if you're not gonna meet them, uh then I'm gonna go find another place to work or I'm gonna work, you know, do my own thing. The gig, you know, economy is there for a reason. So it's really about what are the needs of my employees? And I'm not talking about perks and programs. I'm talking about, you know, I've spent three hours for the last five years doing a workaround because of the system issue with this workflow, and I've complained about it. I you've had your listening tours and I've told you about it, but you've still yet to do anything about it. Well, AI, of course, is forcing our hand there, but even with AI, it really becomes what are the needs of the employees so that we can address those in a way that restructures work design, structure, decision making, all those things. So it really comes down to what are the needs of my employee? You know, I I love philosophy, the obstacle is the way. If there are obstacles keeping your employees from doing their job efficiently and effectively, that's your way. Go find those obstacles, remove them, use AI to remove them, and you have met their needs and you have uh made a path that's going to be more efficient, more effective for getting the work done, which obviously impacts the bottom line of how you serve the customer.

Why AI Magnifies Risk

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah, I see that like a really great leader is one who knows the skills and experience of their teens and how their subject matter experts, and then gives them the tools to be able to execute, and then clears any roadblocks that they can't clear on their own. You know, sometimes leveling requires a higher level to clear something, right? And prioritization, I would guess, would be the next one too. So I think that falls so in line with that thought process. So talking about AI, people know I'm an AI junkie. What do you see as? Yeah, I don't know. I think eventually we'll have like AI Anonymous, like right, I'm going to bear own AI junkie. But what do you see? Like most companies that are layering AI on top of broken systems, what's the risk of doing that? Because that's what I'm starting to see is that they're just like, throw AI in and it'll fix everything. Like, what are you seeing as the risk for companies that are in that mentality right now?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah. Um, well, there's a lot of risks. Uh, and we can see it even with anthropic, the the AI, one of the AI models that everyone is using, and how their code was leaked yesterday. So, you know, when you layer on AI without having the humans operating system, is what I like to call it, in place and operating efficiently, you subject yourself to some pretty big risks to the point of letting your secret sauce as a business out into the public. Uh, that's just one example. But uh anyway, yeah, it you add a it's a layer of risk because you know, before AI, you had time to think about something or consider it or or whatever the case may be, uh, to evaluate risk. But if you don't do those things ahead of time with AI, it's gonna, you know, what may have cost you a hundred bucks, you know, before AI, it could cost you thousands of bucks after AI. It really just magnifies everything.

Fix Workflows Data And Decisions

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah, it really, I think, showcases how important keeping human in the loop is is critical to whatever it is you're trying to accomplish with AI. And even the fact of a lot of founders out there are telling me, oh, this is gonna solve all my sales. I don't need a sales team or my marketing team or I don't need HR or recruiting. And I'm like, oh, you need all of those things. Like you might not need as big of a team, right? Right. You you do still need the human aspect of it. So if you were advising a founder implementing AI today, what would you redesign first before touching the tech?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah, well, the the primary three that are coming out in the failures that are making news and then the research by folks like McKinsey and Ernest and Young are the workflow design. So workflows are broken. So how does work get done? And that can be as simple as you know, your marketing team from idea to delivery on social media. Um, you know, for customer service, it could be the intake of the order all the way to the output of the delivery of the order. So, you know, every company has multiple workflows, and at some point, a lot of those workflows connect to one another. And so if there's breaks there, that has to be fixed, or AI can't do it. The other thing is data silos, you know, companies have added digital transformation for decades, right? Every new tool is a digital transformation, so they got you know, this system and this system, multiple systems, and none of them share the same data in the same way. And that's an issue because AI can't connect, you know, if it's looking for Betty Smith over here, but it's BA Smith here and B Smith, yeah, is Agnes Smith over there, you know, it's not gonna know that that's all the same person, and so it can really mess up your customer service. And then the third one is um, you know, decision making. If the decision making has uh all these unspoken rules and different ways of doing things that, you know, this is what the policy says, but this is how we actually get the work done. That's not that's not gonna fly with AI. Um, so the all those, those are the three primary, but um, yeah, that that's where I would start. And that's part of what the human score identifies. Where are those things broken?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

That's so awesome because I think again, it goes back to foundation, what we talked about initially and what I've talked about in past uh podcasts as well. And it really does show where your business from a process tooling um operations perspective is broken. And I find that fascinating because they're, you know, it's like, oh, well, AI is gonna solve this, but actually you have to solve it before you can give it to AI and then AI can execute on it. But there's this like mind shift of like thinking like AI is gonna solve it without having to fix it first. So I think people are starting to kind of wake up now and realize, no, I got to have the SOP basically, every step by step, so that when AI executes, it doesn't execute incorrectly.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Yeah. And I do think AI can play a role. Like, like I said, everybody's around the table on the team, and you are bringing your expertise, but you're also working with AI. So it's not that they can't outline a better way, but actually implementation from outlining a better way to delivery is there's humans in that step, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Otherwise, we'd start getting the same product and services from every company if we just use AI.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yes, exactly.

What Humans Must Always Do

SPEAKER_01 14:22

So, where do you see AI taking over versus where humans should never be replaced?

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Ah, well, I mean, the three that stick out and are talked about the most are critical thinking, uh, connection, human connection where that's necessary, and creativity. And, you know, I think um, you know, what's missing in a lot of the decisions right now is the critical thinking. They're just thinking, oh, yeah, you know, AI is so smart it can do all the thinking for me. And yeah, that's only true to a point. Uh, you still need human discernment and wisdom in there, and not only human discernment and wisdom, but also direct experiences to what you do for your customers or with your customers. So there's there's a lot there. But I think probably the biggest area of growth for today's leaders is the creativity, because they historically have said, Oh, my people aren't creative, they don't know what to do here. Uh, when in fact they just kind of had job description, what I call job description blinders on, and they've not seen the real innovative and creative talents of their employees because you know, they have a task list to do, and that's that's what they do. Yeah. So they're gonna really have to open their eyes to see what creativity is, and creativity, you know, that it is a misnomer in and of itself. Every personality creates in a different way, and you know, you can't have you know 10 Steve Jobs in your company and expect to be this innovation genius because Steve Jobs didn't do it alone. It might have been his idea, but there was still a team that made that vision happen. And so, you know, but they're not even looking for the one Steve Jobs or the 10 Steve Jobs, and then how the others fit around that. But I think they'll begin to think about that more and more.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah, I like that. So, what do you see separates companies that use AI to amplify people from those that accidentally dehumanize the workforce? What do you see happens in those different company cultures and success of companies?

Talent Amplification And Workplace Renaissance

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah, amplify it, that's part of the three-part process for teaching in workplace renaissance. And amplify really is about amplifying the gifts and talents of the individual. So what's happening right now with AI is amplification is oh, you know, you write a hundred, you know, you can write a hundred emails now, we're gonna amplify that, and you can write 300 emails. Um, but that's not the type of application that's gonna have an impact, right? Because everything that we can produce more of eventually has a diminishing return. It's the things that we can't produce more of, that individual creativity or critical thinking or whatever it is, that's what we want to amplify. So, you know, if if I'm a writer, then how can I write more content for my company? Or if I am a critical thinker, where are my skills needed and how can I make decisions better and more educated? And you can use AI to amplify that critical thinking skill. So uh that is just kind of a couple of examples of what amplify means. It's it starts with the human and their innate gifts and talents, and then we layer on how can AI begin to support them so they can do more of that zone of genius, I like to call it. So you're talking about the workplace renaissance.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

What does that actually mean and why now?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, the workplace renaissance. Well, if you think about the original Renaissance in history, it started with the printing press. And when everybody got access to information in that renaissance, uh, creativity, innovation, all those things just blew up, and that's what created the whole Renaissance movement, right? Uh, it was tipped off by the printing press. AI is that printing press moment. Everyone's getting access to so much information that they never had before. And from that, creativity can flourish, innovation can flourish. And so, you know, I believe it's uh it's an excellent opportunity for companies not to eliminate employees because of AI, but to, you know, elevate them and the skills that they have and the talents and the gifts, that creative piece of things that they right now don't see because of the job description blinders.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yeah. So if a founder is listening right now and realizes they built something that's misaligned, what's the first move they should make this week?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Uh well, if they realize they have found something misaligned, then the first step obviously is to go back and correct the alignment, right? Because things will not work as succinctly as they can if they're not aligned. And, you know, we've depended on employees really for so long to figure that out alignment out or to do a dance around the misalignment. Um, but just like employees doing that has, you know, led us to where we are now with problems with retention, problems with mental health, problems with well-being, all those things that have been amplified from from humans doing the workarounds of all those things, um, not only are important for humans to find that alignment, it's also it's imperative for AI to have that alignment.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Oh, yeah, for sure. Because uh if it doesn't, it's gonna go off track real quickly, right? I mean, you can actually amplify going off track even worse than a human does in that example. So yeah, having to definitely, I think you actually have to focus your time and attention even more so on alignment with AI and people versus, I mean, you obviously should do it with just the people, but now you're you're gonna put this tool that's just gonna amplify that misalignment very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. If you think about it, a human who's making adjustments for alignment, misalignments, you know, they're doing so to really CYA. You know, I want to look good to my job, I want to look good at my job, I want to be promoted, I want to be have expanded opportunities. AI doesn't have that, you know. I'm just here to do this faster, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, yeah, that's so true. So I'm curious, what's a shift that someone could implement immediately if their people experience in the company starts to go sideways?

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Ah repeat that because I I I I'm not sure I I have an idea, but I I'm not sure I'm going in the direction you want it to go.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Okay, no problem. Um so what's one shift or activity a founder or leader could do immediately today to help improve their people's experience within the company in a positive way?

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah. Uh actually not only listen, which a lot of today's surveys are about, but take what you hear, because this is where Steve Job was a genius. He could observe a situation, he could listen to what was going on, and he knew automatically, even though the customer may have not known what was needed. And so leaders have that opportunity, even though my your employees may or may not know the answer, by listening to them, especially in a Consensus fashion, you can see what the needs are. And it's in the removal of those needs that they can begin to excel. So not only does it make allow your employees to be more creative and innovative, it allows you as the leader to be more creative and innovative. Because whatever that obstacle is that you notice, then you can begin to co-create those solutions together. And that's where the real fun happens.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

I love that because co-creating, like you might see the problem differently than they're experiencing it because they're at the front of it, right? So to be able to co-create with them and give them, empower them, but then actually be able to give something that's going to help them execute and make lift them up. Just like, wow, that's a win-win in my mind.

Final Advice And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah, absolutely. And the cool thing about that co-creation process is it be goes beyond their job description blinders, or you know, if an employee could say, you know, these are the tasks I do. So they may know from an experience standpoint of how to rework it, but they also may know from an innate talent perspective what would make that work. And so they begin to expand and grow in ways that are not only impactful to the company, but very meaningful to them in their jobs and roles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Well, as we wrap up today's conversation, do you have one warning or one piece of advice that you like to give leaders in regards to skilling in the age of AI? What would that be?

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Um listen. Listen. Um, and listen with empathy, not empathy in trying to understand their emotions, but empathy in trying to understand the need. Once you understand the need, it is the lock that unlocks everything.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Great advice, Karen. Appreciate you coming on today and talking about AI and culture and how to execute it within your business. For those listening, I hope you got great tidbits and tricks and tools to take to your office and start implementing right away. Thanks for joining us today, and we'll see you on the next podcast. Have a great one. Thank you, Gwynaby. That's a wrap for today's episode of Scaling with People. If you got value from this conversation, do me a favor, share it with someone building something big. And hey, I'd love to hear your take. Drop a comment, shoot me a message, or start a conversation. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss the bold, unfiltered strategies we drop every week. I'm Guinevere Quary, founder and CEO of Guide2HR, where we help high growth companies scale smart with people for strategies and AI powered systems that don't just keep up, they lead. If you're building fast and want your HR to move faster, head to guide2hr.com and let's talk. And remember, scale isn't just about speed, it's about people. Until next time, have a great one.