The Soft Skills Aren't Soft: Relational Intelligence, Workplace Culture, and What AI Can't Replace

What does it mean to do meaningful work? And what happens to that meaning when AI enters the picture?

This week we're joined by Valerie Morris, co-host of the podcast Inside Work and Relational Intelligence chapter lead at Culture First. Valerie works with employees and organizations navigating the human side of AI adoption, and she brings both an organizational psychology perspective and a practitioner's honesty to a conversation that gets personal quickly.

We talk about why so many employees feel they can't voice real concerns about how AI is being rolled out, why the skills that create meaning at work (connection, relational intelligence, the ability to just be present with another person) are exactly the ones being sidelined in the rush to automate, and what it looks like to push back on that, quietly and practically, even when you can't change the culture around you.

Woven through all of it is a question the three of us keep circling: What are we  willing to give up in the name of efficiency? 

None of it is anti-AI exactly. It's more like a case for paying attention to what you're trading away.