Curiosity, Empathy and Joy at Work | Michael Horn

In this episode, author and education expert Michael Horn shares practical advice on how individuals can stay ahead in a world where skills are constantly evolving. Drawing from his work on innovation and career development, Michael explains why upskilling is no longer a one-time activity but a continuous process tied closely to personal growth, energy, and purpose. He introduces the concept of a “skills balance sheet” to help people make more strategic decisions about what to invest in next. The conversation explores the importance of curiosity, the challenges of self-assessment, and how to frame learning as a source of joy—not pressure. Michael also weighs in on the role AI will play in shaping the future of work, and why those who learn to work with it, rather than fear it, will be best positioned to thrive. It’s a motivating look at how to stay adaptable and energized in an ever-changing world of work.

Chapters

• 1:16 The origins of a passion for education
• 3:53 How today’s workers can thrive amid skill depreciation
• 8:34 Upskilling as a career investment, not a one-time event
• 12:46 Building a skills balance sheet & rethinking self-assessment
• 24:11 The role of AI and curiosity in the future of work

Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to The SkillsWave Podcast, where we explore the challenges and innovations in corporate learning.

SkillsWave is redefining workforce transformation with its free AI-powered upskilling and education benefits platform.

Kathleen:

Hi, I'm Kathleen Carr, senior director of partnerships and product strategy at SkillsWave. I'm joined today by Michael Horn. Michael is the author of several books, including the bestseller Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career. Michael is co-founder and a distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, and he teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He co-hosts the top education podcasts, Future U and Class Disrupted. He's a regular contributor to Forbes.com and writes the Substack newsletter, The Future of Education. Michael, welcome. We're so happy to have you on The SkillsWave Podcast. 

Michael:

I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for having me, Kathleen.

Kathleen: 

Michael, I know that you are everywhere and somehow writing bestselling books in between being everywhere. But for the handful of people who may not have met you or encountered you somewhere else yet, can you share a bit about what inspires you to focus so closely on the future of education? 

Michael: 

Yeah. Well, I would say it emerged, right? Like I had a deep abiding desire to help make the world better on the heels of 9/11, that's when I was in college and took a job working for David Gergen for a few years, thinking about where I might want to apply that. Went to business school and then while there took Clay Christensen's class, and he had this opportunity to take his ideas on innovation and apply them to the public education system. And he was like, oh, it'll take a year to write the book, and then you can do whatever it is you want to do. And, you know, however many years later, 20 years later, I'm still working on these sets of problems just because education, upskilling, reskilling, right, the whole talent continuum of developing people, is such an incredibly difficult challenge. 

But it's something that eats at me every day of how do we build a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose? And what I think really gets under my skin and maybe makes me more motivated is so many of the systems we have today, the structures we have today, they were there for very good reasons when they were created, but they were not built to optimize human development and talent. And so, we sort of predictably get the results that we do. If we take a fresh set of eyes and rebuild as innovators, what might we put in its place? Obviously, that's the work you all are committed to as well. 

Kathleen:

Yeah. And I always appreciate that reference to Clay Christensen and disruptive innovation and, you know, we're both tied as friends to Scott Anthony, and so... 

Michael: 

Yes. 

Kathleen: 

...those teachings live on as so instructive in our lives. And I agree with you, what better cause to focus on than helping people live fuller lives? There's really nothing more important than that. So, I appreciate that. Kind of getting into a bit about working and skills. I know you've said that today's workers live in a world where they're always being told their skills are depreciating faster than ever, and constantly reminded that those skills are going to be out of date. 

Michael:

Yeah. 

Kathleen: 

All so much doom, around skills. And it's no wonder they're eager to keep moving, right, and to keep advancing. And how do you think today's workers can thrive ideally in the midst of that, in the midst of that kind of depreciation of the skills they have? 

Michael:

Yeah well look, I think the first thing is on the company side, on the Gen X and above side, right, all of us need to understand that the reason I think Millennials, Gen Z-Ers, etc, you know, they have this urgency. Right. We sort of like ah they’re so impatient, why won't they take their turn and so forth. Well, we're also shouting at them this message, right. Your skills are going to be out of date. And like of course they're going to be impatient and anxious and, right, wanting to get out there and doing the work that they feel like, well, I can do it now. I have it now. And so I think we have to first have some empathy for those individuals and sort of the environments that they've been brought up into and that they're entering as they enter the work world. 

And then what I would say to them is, number one, yes, skills are constantly changing. Yes, they're rapidly evolving. But I think rather than having impatience for the role or for, you know, sort of I need to be seen as a leadership, you know, whatever on the org chart that tends not to bring happiness in life, nor does it necessarily bring success. And what I think you really want to do is a) have a learner's mindset show that you know how to constantly be learning, upskilling, staying up to date, that you can be a resource for those around you. Right? To navigate these changing, the changing world in which we're living. 

And number two, that you have a real sense of what does drive my energy. When am I in flow? What are the sorts of work that I do when I really feel like I'm contributing and I'm excited and I'm into it and work doesn't feel like work, and how can I do more of those things? So the focus should be less on the role and more of the actual day-to-day tasks and work that you get to do. When are you really in flow and how do you over time, because your career is much longer than you think it is, over time, how do you get to do more and more of the things that bring you energy and perhaps less of the things that really drain it or don't feel rewarding to you?

And then third, I would just say recognize that that also may change over time. Like I loved, loved, loved building teams and managing people when I was relatively early in my career. It's like the last thing I want to do at this point in my career is manage people. And so I think I still have that skill set, but that energy and drive that I get from it is just not the same. So it's okay to change over time. Just make sure you communicate that to those around you. You'll come off as sort of less demanding and a little bit more smaller asks. But they'll really know from what, you know, they'll really understand the root cause of what's driving you at any point. 

Kathleen: 

I appreciate what you're saying about both having a learner’s mindset and having some empathy. I think those of us in the Gen X realm, I can hear myself in you in thinking of just, you know, we're yelling at them. We're trying to create urgency, right? We're remembering how sometimes it was difficult for us, and it took a long time to move up a particular ladder. And so sometimes we don't appreciate that movement, or the kind of what others are doing along the way to want to move up faster. And so I think that learner’s mindset applies to us as well, right? We can learn from those who are, we are managing and who are looking to move up. And that drive is important,. right? And to your point, we're yelling at them to have it.,  and then when they have it,

Michael:

then we get annoyed. 

Kathleen:

We don't appreciate it, right? 

Michael: 

Yeah, exactly. 

Kathleen: 

We get annoyed. 

Michael: 

No, I think that's right. Like we want people who work hard, have skin in the game, are willing to do the dirty work. And if they show that, we should reward it in ways we, right, we should find ways to appreciate and signal we like that. And I think that's the best, also, advice to the, you know, the Gen Z-er who's maybe trying to climb that ladder quickly. I mean, one I would ask you, is it really a ladder you want to climb? But that's an internal question. But externally, look, if you do the work, if you put in the time, if you are constantly gunning, you will get noticed. People will appreciate that. People love people who, you know, aren't afraid of getting their hands dirty and getting real experience and contributing. 

Kathleen: 

Yeah, for sure. And I imagine, you know, we talked about this a little bit, but you see upskilling as a continued role in someone's personal career progress, right? It is not something you do once and you get that next move and then you're done. This is... 

Michael:

Yeah. 

Kathleen:

... a constant, a constant thing that you've got to do. 

Michael:

I think that's right. Like you know, the four and 40 is done, the four-year college, 40-year career, that's done. But I think the reality, frankly, is it's like maybe the every four minutes, like everything you're doing is constantly learning and viewing it that way. And if you fail, it's okay, that's how we learn. Like you learn through failure. And so that's okay, just reframe it. How do I build it into my learning step? What do I need to go out and do and figure out next, so that we're constantly learning and staying up with this pace of change? 

I think the every four that comes from the notion that skill sets seems to be depreciating every four years, at least in the technical fields. That's probably about right, and maybe a little bit more aggressive at the moment with AI. But these are great opportunities. You can use the AI as a companion to help you learn. It can ask you great questions and push your own thinking in many ways. So what I mean, what a cool opportunity to be constantly learning and upskilling. 

I know a lot of colleges and universities are scared at the moment about their futures. But I actually think in terms of education, learning, there's never been a better time to be an institution serving individuals or, frankly, an individual in the world, because you can learn in so many places. 

Kathleen: 

Well, I appreciate your mental framing of learning versus failure, right? If we really have a learning mindset, that means we'll be doing that continuously and it doesn't mean we've failed as we learn new things, right? That's actually what growth looks like. 

Michael: 

That's exactly right. And seeing it as a part of a process, right, as opposed to a “oh, I failed, end of story,” right. At the time we're recording this, just off a crazy French Open final for those who watch tennis between Yannick Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. And you can imagine Sinner easily could frame that as failure. I suspect that's not how he's going to see it. He's going to reframe it as, “wow, I took a big step. I didn't quite get there, but what do I learn from it? How do I come back stronger?” Absolutely. Perspective. Yes, exactly. It's hard. It's hard, but I think with distance we can try to do that. And if you do that, you really, you know, you develop what Carol Dweck wrote about the growth mindset. And look, accomplishment and achievement are important parts of your life. But that continual growth mindset that you can learn new things even as you get older, I think is a really cool thing. It's something I've had to work on personally, but I just love showing my kids that I can try something I've never done before and learn and grow with it. It's just a really cool thing to, I think, to be able to have those opportunities as an adult. 

Kathleen:

Yes, I agree. My, my most recent in that realm was, hula hooping with my niece.

Michael:

There you go. 

Kathleen:

I thought, I assumed, of course I can do this. And, it turns out I could not. And so some YouTube videos later, and I was a professional. 

Michael:

That's awesome. That's very cool. Now you're giving me hope. My kids were showing me an exhibit of hula hooping on their hands and necks and all sorts of throwing it back and forth, and I was like, wow. Okay, I have some work to do. 

Kathleen: 

It's the way we injure ourselves to impress the children in our life.

Michael: 

Exactly right. Yeah, yeah, that's the other side of it. 

Kathleen: 

And so, just thinking about the role upskilling plays in job moves. And, you know, I was obviously assuming this is part of your third step in the 9 Job Moves where you're required to list your skills and experiences. And after you do that list-making, forcing you to be realistic about the next steps and what I need to do to upskill to map and to make the moves I want to make. And in thinking about this, I also started thinking about self-assessment, right, and how I may assess myself differently than my manager would or my colleagues would, and perhaps even differently than, my industry might assess somebody with my title. I guess I'm wondering, how do you think about first, you know, how does upskilling play a role in those moves you make? But also, how do we think about assessing ourselves? 

Michael:

Yeah. So, let me frame what you just said about the, you know, the list of skills and assets that you have. So in our book, we talk about first, understanding what drives your energy, what drains it, and a set of themes around that. And then the other axis, if you will, is the capabilities or assets you bring into the workforce. And these are your skills, your knowledge, your experiences, credentials, things of that nature. And we recommend that people think about this as a balance sheet. So you have assets, right? All those things I just listed and those are things that will bring you material gain, right, in the future. And then you have liabilities, which is the time and money it takes to keep those things up-to-date, right? Because they have useful lives just like any other asset on a balance sheet. 

And so if you know, you say, gee, my Python skill set, this maybe feels outdated in the world of AI, but say it has a four-year shelf life, right? So then there's a certain amount of time and money that I'm gonna have to put in to continue to refresh that coding ability right as I go forward. And the reason to have that view is, otherwise it's just way too easy to be like, oh yeah, I'm going to be a master coder, master manager. I'm going to be amazing at communication. I'm going to be amazing at data analysis, listing all these things. It's like the proverbial person who's like, oh yeah, I'll learn five foreign languages next year. Well, those take time, money, effort. What are you going to trade off on? What's going to drop? And so we sort of force you to say, okay, these are the things I'm really going to invest behind because this reflects what I want to do in my next role or my next roles as I think about my career arc.

And so you're exactly right, then, as we understand that upskilling is inserted right there of the how do I get, to those assets, right, that I want to see on my balance sheet as I move forward in my career, both preserving but frankly growing and changing that mix over time because it's not static. We are never static. And that's the other reason I think we like this framework is it's not sort of a strength-based view of viewing the world, which is static, or personality trait view or Myers-Briggs, where you're sort of the static being. No, your skills, your assets, those are something that can change over time as you make learning decisions throughout your life. So that's exactly where the upskilling comes into the equation and being purposeful about it, saying, okay, I'm going to choose to invest time and money in this, and maybe I'll let the skill set atrophy, because I think it'll be less important in my next role. Or, you know, I actually really want to be managing people, and so being an individual contributor who's great at coding is relatively less important. I'll invest relatively less in that, so that I can, you know, maybe spend a lot more time on something else. And so these trade offs, I think, are absolutely imperative. But then investing in the skill set to get there is what really makes this framework, you know, come to life. Otherwise, if you don't do the work of upskilling, sort of just words on paper, right. 

And then in regards to your point around assessment, really, I actually think this is one of the reasons that skills-based hiring probably won't ever fully take off, because we have such divergent views of what a skill is and how we are on it relative to someone else and so forth. But what I think we also have this notion of in the book is sort of the career balance audit, where you have other people in your life, mentors, managers, take a look at your career balance sheet that you've compiled about yourself. And they might say, like, hey, Michael, you didn't have project management on there. You're really good at project management. I see that as a key asset you bring in to work, and these are the sorts of things that's enabled you to do, you know, put some experiences behind it. That sort of back and forth with someone in real time around what you're bringing to the table, I think is incredibly important. Because it does do that reality check, helps you see how others see you and sort of calibrate you, if you will, to understand. Okay. Am I a good or bad fit for maybe this next thing that I'm desiring on my career map? 

Kathleen:

Yeah, I think I agree with you. I think the conversations you have around skills and skills assessment and around your own career are so important in addition to, you know, making the checklists, right, and filling out forms, to hear from somebody how they perceive you and how they perceive your strengths and your skills can be really powerful. And to your point, you hear things from those you've worked with and had relationships with that you might not know about yourself. And, at a minimum, it's rewarding to hear that. Right? And I guess at the other extreme of that, it's instructive, in terms of what you might think about doing differently. 

Michael: 

Yeah, I think that's right. And it also a way, a great way to stamp on the field, right. So if you have some skill set that's really important to you, you feel like at my current level, it's got a six-year shelf life of being useful and someone's like, I don't know, Michael, that field is actually changing really rapidly right now. I think it's like, you know. Yeah, you're an all star right now. But if you don't keep investing the time to keep those skills up to date, I think it atrophies in two years from now. Oh, wow. Okay. So this is a way of staying up with the field and then asking the next logical question, which is, okay, well, how do I upskill or reskill or learn that, you know, to stay on the cutting edge? What do you do? And I think it's through these social conversations that we can really keep up on the state of the field and frankly, help our managers and mentors as well. It's sort of a two-way street. 

Kathleen: 

Yeah, absolutely. So I have to mention on another podcast, I heard you say that there will be some elements of suck in every job. 

Michael:

Yeah, yeah. 

Kathleen: 

And, if we can get to a percentage of joy, up to 50%, we'll all be much more engaged. And so that just had me thinking, what role do you see upskilling play in that building of joy? And how can companies foster joy by empowering their workforce with skills? 

Michael: 

Yeah. So I love the question. Because what I think the book we wrote and the research we did does not suggest that there is a magical dream job where every single minute of your day is going to be perfect. Like ask the CEO of the, you know, hottest company if they don't have elements where, you know, that are not great, and I guarantee you that they would be lying if they didn't say that there's trade-offs. And that's the big point, right, is we all make trade offs. And I think the ideal for an individual in their career is that you're constantly trying to increase the level of joy, if you will, or energy drive versus energy drain. Bring that down over time and get the ratio ever higher. And I think that's how you know, one way in which upskilling plays a role in that, which is, wow, I really love, you know, whatever it is.

I'll go back to the managing example. I really love managing people. It really brings me energy to lead a great team meeting to, you know, mentor that person who's struggling in their career. Whatever it is. And yet I need skills, right, to do that better to maybe understand where they're coming from, speak the language of, you know, how they use AI in their jobs to offload certain things, whatever it is, right. And so how am I using learning and upskilling to increase the things that drive my energy to make me a more attractive candidate for those roles in which I can be more in flow, if you will? And so I think that's a critical ingredient. 

I think a second thing, frankly, like if you're getting to learn the things that really drive your energy, that's also enjoyable. Like, you can be in flow around those things. And it stinks when you have to do the compliance training around something you don't really care about, right? That's super draining. And so that's the other piece of this is how can companies really actually make you feel like these roles are growth-oriented roles where you get to grow, I won't say fully in accordance with your goals, but more in accordance with your goals? And I think that's the conversation we'd love managers to be having with their employees is not assuming that the employee wants your job, but understanding like what drives their energy? What do they want more of? What do they want to go stretch into? How do I create opportunities where they get to skill in those areas so that they can start to do those things usefully for me, and they also get closer and closer to their goals over time for what their next job and jobs look like over time? 

Kathleen: 

Yeah. I just love allowing for the thinking around joy. I had a manager who said to me at a one-on-one, one of our first one-on-ones, are you happy? And I thought it was just, it was a little disarming, right? I was there with my with my data of performance and my charts and graphs and was asked if I was happy. And I thought, what an amazing, wonderful thing to be asked by someone who's really in control of my career and what I do here. 

Michael: 

Yeah, I think right, like, there's certain questions like that that I think really can unlock growth on both sides of the equation. Another one that I really like is, frankly, very early on asking what someone wants to do next. And that can also be off-putting because you're like, I just got here, you want to send me away. But it's actually for the manager to not assume that they understand. Oh, you know, Kathleen just wants to climb the career ladder and do the next logical step. Maybe you actually want to go laterally, right, and do something. Maybe you want to climb, but your path looks very different from the one that the manager took. And so by having that transparent conversation, I can help, I can better understand these are the stretch assignments I should be giving her. These are the skilling opportunities I should be giving her. She doesn't want the exact MBA program. She wants the bite-sized this, right? Whatever it is. And then I'm also fitting that into what helps me as the manager hit my goals for the group, for the company, right, so I can deliver. And how do I think about putting together the team? So that we are an awesome team. But that only happens when your individuals are also in flow and engaged. And so it's sort of like you have to see it from both sides, I think. 

Kathleen: 

Yeah. And all of that just creates investment. Right. Both sides of that investing in each other. I know we've mentioned AI a few times during the course of our chat. And so, wondering what role you see AI playing in the future of work? Obviously, a huge question. 

Michael: 

Yeah. 

Kathleen: 

But maybe thinking about it in terms of somebodies own upskilling and trajectory. 

Michael:

Yeah.  Well, I mean, I think the truism that's being repeated a lot right now that I think is correct, though, is AI might not take your job, but the person who knows how to use AI is probably going to take your job. And so I think it's learning how to use AI effectively. Where are you, you know, calling it out for being wrong? Because it makes a lot of mistakes, at least in my experience, it's getting worse at the moment, not better. And so I think, you know, you still have to have a lot of deep content knowledge and expertise, to be able to have wisdom around how you use it. But curiosity, as you do so to be able to interrogate it and figure out ways that it can really help you be a super, sort of be your superpower. It can be a great research assistant, I think, for a lot of individuals, right, sort of turbocharge them. So I think that's one big bucket of how I would think about AI in careers. 

I think the second thing I would say is, look, there will be some efficiency gains, right, from it. We may see roles go away from it and so forth. And I'm personally not in the camp that thinks it's going to completely wipe things out, because I think there's a lot of pieces of it that are unreliable, that do make mistakes and so forth, and that human judgment and knowledge along side of it are going to be really, really important as a result. And so to me, it's going to be that classic case of like finding the complements between machine and human to do more. And so I think people, rather than be scared and paralyzed by it, actually figure out how do I use it best to accomplish my goals. And frankly, as a learning coach, alongside of you as well, is probably going to be the better orientation to AI in your career. 

Kathleen: 

Yeah. Perfect. Well, I think we've talked about a few topics that I'm particularly interested in. I think for me, what stands out is our talking about curiosity and empathy and joy. And I'm wondering for you, what's a takeaway that that you're thinking about that you want learners to, or listeners to, remember when thinking about upskilling in their career? 

Michael:

Well, I think you named the number one, which to me is like the superpower in the age of AI is curiosity. I think that is going to be the most important skill set historically or habit. We can debate what it is. But, like curiosity, I think is going to be the most important thing people have. And that's everything from being curious about themselves and where they can grow to not taking AI, the AI model’s word for it, being curious and interrogating it to make sure that it's not leading you astray or having questions about it. But I think curiosity is going to be that power skill that that really drives us throughout the rest of our careers at the moment. And it's one that I think historically we haven't done a great job of instilling in people. We've learned how to beat it out of them in a lot of places in our schooling. But I think the, the winners in the future will be those that really learn how to embrace it and see it as a superpower. 

Kathleen: 

I love that. Thanks, Michael. Thanks so much for talking with me today about the future of work. It's been a pleasure having you on The SkillsWave Podcast. Thank you so much.

Outro:

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