AI Leadership, Polymathy and Collective Intelligence with Dr. Angela C. Meyers

What does AI leadership require when the technology is available to everyone? Dr. Angela C. Meyers joins Chris Hutchins to explore the human work of learning, listening and connecting knowledge across an organization.

Angela, founder of The Polymathic Method and author of Versatile: Human Intelligence in an Artificial Age, explains polymathy and collective intelligence. Her doctorate is in human and organizational learning. The conversation covers skill decay, cognitive burden, employee participation, premature certainty and the difference between technical expertise and people leadership.

Listen for practical questions about change: Are people resisting, or are they overloaded? What does frontline experience reveal? How can leaders learn before a deadline forces a decision? Angela closes by connecting organizational adaptability with the choices people make about their own learning.

IN THIS CONVERSATION
- Polymathy and learning across disciplines
- Using AI to reduce workload and support human capacity
- Collective intelligence and the risk of premature certainty
- Participation, trust and the people skills of leadership
- Connecting knowledge across silos while technology changes

CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome and Beneath the Signal
00:19 Meet Dr. Angela C. Meyers
01:19 What polymathy means
03:29 When automation weakens or frees human capacity
06:27 AI should reduce the burden
08:43 Leaders who listen
10:08 Learning through AI and data uncertainty
14:52 Keeping the capacity to learn
21:37 Collective intelligence and decision making
24:21 The warning sign: early certainty
29:15 Bottlenecks, human capacity and creative thinking
38:37 Participation in organizational change
44:13 Expertise and the people skills of leadership
49:54 Premature launches and realistic expectations
53:43 Rebuilding trust
58:49 Connecting knowledge across silos
01:02:48 Resources and closing

GUEST & RESOURCES
Books: Versatile and In Pursuit of Polymaths: https://www.drangelameyers.com/books
The Polymathic Method: https://www.drangelameyers.com/
Knower-Learner Assessment: https://www.drangelameyers.com/knowerlearner
Collective Intelligence Labs: https://www.drangelameyers.com/collectiveintelligencelab
Versatile Leadership Training: https://www.drangelameyers.com/versatileleadershiptraining
Angela on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drangelacmeyers

THE SIGNAL ROOM
Hosted by Chris Hutchins
https://signalroompodcast.com/

Transcript

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Chris Hutchins: 0:05

Quick thing before we start. I wrote a book. It's called Beneath the Signal. And it's about the human work behind trusted data and responsible AI in healthcare. Search Beneath the Signal on Amazon now and pick up your copy. Okay, here's our episode. My guest today is Dr. Angela Meyers, founder of the Polymathic Method and

author of Versatile: 0:23

Human Intelligence in an Artificial Age. Angela holds a doctorate in human and organizational learning with a doctoral research focused on polymathy. She has spent more than 15 years working in the Federal Service and leadership development, studying how people build versatility, learning agility, integrative thinking required to operate in complex environments. Today we're going to be applying the human capacity framework for clinical AI. It's not another conversation about whether the model works, so don't be nervous about that. It's a conversation really about whether humans working alongside of the model can actually remain capable of questioning it. Angela, welcome to the show.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 1:07

Thank you so much, Chris. I'm glad to be here.

Chris Hutchins: 1:09

Well, I've been looking forward to this. So I think right out of the gate, maybe talk to us a little bit about the Polymathic Method.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 1:19

Well, the word polymath, it's actually an ancient term from ancient Greece. Not a lot of modern people know it. It's only been used in English since like the 1800s. But polymath means many learnings. Poly, of course, means many, and the math is short for manthanein in Greek, which it is learning. So many learnings. And it's basically like being a renaissance person, someone good at lots of things, good at learning. And it's really in contrast to being a very narrow specialist, and we've lived in an age of specialization where the dominant ideology was everybody should specialize. And now we're kind of in a different world because AI is automating specialized knowledge tasks. And so the Polymathic Method is my answer to how to manage talent in the age of AI, because the tactics The management behaviors, the leadership approaches, the HR practices that worked for the age of specialization, working with specialized staff doesn't translate very well in the age of AI now, where we need humans who can be big picture thinkers and ask big questions and think in creative ways and connect the dots. And, you know, there's like a different profile of human we need for the age of AI. So the Polymathic Method is my services to organizations. It's an assessment tool called the Knower-Learner Assessment. It's the collective intelligence laboratories and it's the versatile leadership training based off of my book that just came out this summer

Versatile: 2:58

Human Intelligence in an Artificial Age. And this book was written for managers, supervisors, leaders, HR professionals, because I knew like even if humans are like ready to blossom and like take off the blinders and get out of their swim lanes and their cages of specialization. If management doesn't understand how to help that happen, it's not going to go very well. So this is for the gatekeepers in organizations who really control the culture and like create psychological safety and impact how humans show up.

Chris Hutchins: 3:29

So we know from like aviation and other high reliability environments, automation can actually create complacency and skill decay. What is the mechanism for you?

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 3:40

Yeah, I mean it can create skill decay. Like if I mean it's happened already, like for example, with GPS. Like as the masses have had GPS available, like our ability to memorize street names has waned. Like, but then again, the way I think about it is like our brain only has so much capacity, right? And so

Chris Hutchins: 4:06

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 4:06

We need to prioritize like what do we really want to spend our brain power on versus what don't we? And so that's really a really important question, I think, for all of us to look at, because we should use tools to alleviate drudgery if it's not useful, if it's not helpful, if we can't add unique human value to it. I'm fine to have fewer skills navigating because GPS has just always worked for decades.

Chris Hutchins: 4:33

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 4:33

Like it's not a new technology. So I don't need that brain drain. But yeah, so I think we have to be really discerning about where we lean on AI because our capacities may decline. But then it also opens up possibilities for us to use that bandwidth in other areas. And so yeah, skill decay is a thing, but maybe it's okay in some areas, you know.

Chris Hutchins: 5:04

Talk about how a capable professional becomes less capable when a system handles more of the cognitive lifting.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 5:10

If a system is doing some of the specialized tasks, like it's like I know your audience is mainly healthcare. And so like there may be doctors who or medical professionals who are spending a lot of time, I don't know what the right word is, like journaling, like doing their charting. Maybe that's what you call it, charting or something like that.

Chris Hutchins: 5:31

Yes. Exactly here.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 5:34

Like I I doubt many people just love doing charting, you know. But that's the kind of thing where AI can really be a huge reliever of that unpleasant burden. And

Chris Hutchins: 5:46

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 5:47

Does it mean humans might become less effective at charting the old-fashioned way? Well, that may be the case. But then again it opens up more energy and space for them to connect with the humans they're working for and with and the patients they're trying to help. And so I don't know. I just I think there's a tremendous opportunity with AI to relieve us from routine drudgery.

Chris Hutchins: 6:16

Yeah, right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 6:16

You know, we Don't have to be so robotic now that the robots are here, now that the AI is here.

Chris Hutchins: 6:22

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 6:25

Did that answer your question?

Chris Hutchins: 6:27

Yeah it's essentially I'm just curious what your experience has been you know with organizations as they're starting to put together their game plan to implement something. How often do you see this whatever the duty is falling on to the same people that actually

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 6:44

Mm.

Chris Hutchins: 6:44

Have full time responsibilities already?

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 6:47

Yeah, like here's two jobs now instead of one. Like

Chris Hutchins: 6:51

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 6:51

Just making more work. If anything, AI should be relieving burden off of humans, not adding more. Yeah, so I think that the thing is the AI tool, like a lot of executives and leaders, managers, supervisors, like a lot of the people shaping organizations have been really focused on getting the tech, like implementing the tech tools. And they haven't been as focused on the human side of that transition. And that's where the real game changer is actually. Because we're all going to

Chris Hutchins: 7:22

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 7:22

Have access to the same tech tools. Like you and your competitors are going to have access to the same AI tools. The real differentiator is the humans using those tools and how empowered they feel. Like, is there enough psychological

Chris Hutchins: 7:35

Hmm.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 7:37

Safety to ensure that you know that there's room for experimentation? There's, I mean. If you just keep adding responsibilities onto people's plates, that like that's not a good formula for employee engagement, retention, employee satisfaction. Like it's just, it's not good. The goal should be to create an environment where people can experiment. Like, okay, I've got all this on my plate, all this work needs to be done. How can we think differently about some automation, some AI workflows? You know, even agentic AI now to relieve the burden off of humans. And then the role of the human now really can be like the orchestrator. Like you see the big picture, and you get AI to relieve burden, not just keep piling more on humans and expecting them to do it all the old fashioned way.

Chris Hutchins: 8:31

Right. Yeah, I mean we

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 8:32

There's already enough overwhelm, I think.

Chris Hutchins: 8:35

It's not actually improving things because there's way too often not the right clinical perspective offered in the room when the

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 8:42

Mm.

Chris Hutchins: 8:42

Designs are occurring.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 8:43

Yeah. I think it's so important for leaders to really listen. Like the best leaders are the best learners. They don't just sit on

Chris Hutchins: 8:53

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 8:53

High at their top of the org chart and go do this and do that and just command what they think is best. Because our world is way too complex for one person

Chris Hutchins: 9:02

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 9:03

At the top who's not even on the front lines, not even dealing with patients

Chris Hutchins: 9:06

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 9:07

To understand what's really happening. So the best leaders are going to be listening to their staff, to their patients, to any stakeholders really, and trying to understand like how what's going on and how can we use our own intelligence, our own creativity, and AI tools to make everything smoother and better for our patients and you know, and for the staff who are working there. Because you should want to have staff who are energized and excited to be at work, who love what

Chris Hutchins: 9:38

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 9:39

They're doing. You know, who aren't feeling burned out and overwhelmed. And in healthcare, that's a challenge because you may be dealing with life and death situations. So anything you as a leader can do to make things easier on the staff, because it's already going to be hard. It's already going to be like intense and potentially overwhelming. I think that's the role of the leader is how can they, you know, remove roadblocks, simplify, streamline, alleviate, support, that kind of thing.

Chris Hutchins: 10:08

Well, if we can just kind of double click on this just a little bit. The things that people are most concerned around in the public arena anyway are you know the protection of the data, keeping it safe, you know, not letting it go places it shouldn't go, those types of things. But I think there's probably some things that are going on. I think you and I have talked a little bit about the whole concept of shadow AI. It's basically shadow IT but a whole nother set of risks attached to it, I think. You talk a little bit about what that looks like and how do you go about assessing you know where things are at in an organization and just trying to get to that very first point where you know that you can actually make some progress with it and help to get them along in at the same time, hopefully get some additional buy in from the executive teams.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 11:01

For data protection.

Chris Hutchins: 11:03

Well both data and AI, honestly.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 11:05

Yeah. Well, it's a learning journey. Like AI's gonna, you know, advancing on an exponential curve, which a lot of people don't understand this. And this is so important. And I'm not saying you don't understand it, but just like out there in the world. Like tech advances on an exponential curve. So what that means is tech builds off of itself. It's it doesn't just sort of advance in a slow linear fashion. So keeping

Chris Hutchins: 11:32

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 11:33

Up with AI changes and data protection and the shadow AI IT stuff. Like that's a real part of our world now, like just keeping up with quickly advancing tech. And in healthcare, there are unique issues because health information does need to be protected and private. At the same time, we live in a world where there's more and more surveillance and more hackers.

Chris Hutchins: 11:59

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 12:00

And yeah, so. It's a tricky world to be swimming in, which is why we got to keep learning, why we gotta keep phoning a friend, you know, belonging to communities of practice, perhaps. Making space on people's workloads to learn about these kinds of issues so they're not, you know, sort of moving blindly and maybe making mistakes or harming people inadvertently. So yeah, keeping up with tech is like a major. Core competency for us modern professionals.

Chris Hutchins: 12:35

For sure. Yeah. Well something that's always been the top of mind for me is when they when we're implementing something, historically it's the same small group of people who are driving implementation. I mean you know let's get Bob to do it because you know Bob's he's a smart guy. Has he done it before? Well, no, but I trust him. And it's only trustworthy because we keep verifying it over and over again.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 12:59

And we keep learning. Yeah. I mean, I think what you just said about the like, you know, people being expected to do work without the proper training. This, like, if you zoom out to sort of a societal level, this just shows like, you know, often we have a pipeline problem where we need professionals with a certain skill set, but

Chris Hutchins: 13:17

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 13:17

Our educational system really didn't prepare them for that. And the world is changing so quickly now. It's not enough just to go get a degree. 20 years ago and think that's gonna last you, and that's all the learning you need to do. Like we all have to keep learning. That and that's part of why I love polymathy as a lens for understanding human potential, is that it basically is lifelong, life wide learning. And by life-wide, I mean not just a narrow field. It's great to become a specialist and go deep and become really masterful, but it may be the case that's not enough in the new world, in the AI tech driven world where we gotta keep learning beyond our specialties and maybe become multi-specialists. And I think that's

Chris Hutchins: 14:02

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 14:02

That's one of the unique things about healthcare is that it's intensely specialized, at least historically, which has some benefits and some drawbacks. And but it's also like profoundly human and often human in like a difficult time for patients, right?

Chris Hutchins: 14:26

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 14:27

So it's a good proving ground for practicing versatility with AI because if AI can relieve some cognitive burden off of healthcare practitioners, then it allows them to sort of show up more as a human because

Chris Hutchins: 14:46

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 14:47

They're not having to like spend so long doing their charting or whatever.

Chris Hutchins: 14:52

What are some of the signs that there's atrophy kind of going on? Will you talk a little bit about that and what you see there?

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 15:01

Yeah. So learning like any other skill can atrophy. Like if you don't use it, you can lose it. Like the act of learning

Chris Hutchins: 15:10

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 15:11

Can become more difficult. If you stop stretching and exercising your brain, it can lead to some cognitive decline, even for professionals. If you get stuck in this rut where you're just going through the same motions every day for year after year, it can make doing something differently feel really just exhausting somehow. So that's why, especially for people who value health care and wellness, like we should care about our own brain health. I think studies have shown even doing crossword puzzles can help stave off cognitive decline because it's just giving yourself some challenge that asks different questions of you. So signs of atrophy, yeah, like if it's if it feels like really exhausting to have to change. That's a sign like someone's doesn't want to learn, doesn't want to grow. I think part of what can lead to that kind of atrophy as well is if, you know, if changes are imposed from on high onto professionals and they had no say, then it could just be easy to resist the change. So in that case, it might not even be that they're you know, they're Ability to learn and stretch and change and grow as atrophied. It may just be like, I'm gonna resist this change because I don't agree with it, or I feel not

Chris Hutchins: 16:29

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 16:29

Included in the decision making. Yeah, so I think what else would be a sign of atrophy? Yeah, just you know, not being as with it, not being as adaptable, not being as versatile. That's why it's so important to just practice that skill, even outside of work. Like It may be that you have some routine and stability at work, but why not go take up pottery or karate or just keep trying new things outside of work? Actually, Robert Root-Bernstein, he's one of the preeminent polymathy studies scholars in academia. And he wrote this really interesting article years ago where he studied Nobel laureates and he found that, Like he looked at Nobel laureates that were nominated, and then what was the difference between who won and who didn't win the Nobel Prize? And he found that the people who had that extra edge that helped them win tended to have hobbies outside of work, in the arts, and

Chris Hutchins: 17:29

Interesting.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 17:30

Things that you would think are totally unrelated.

Chris Hutchins: 17:33

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 17:34

But it just it like helped keep their brain more alive, I think. And There's also sometimes unexpected inspiration. You might get an inspiration, you know, I don't know, from your pottery class and then realize that it could be useful in your work as a medical doctor somehow. I don't know. You

Chris Hutchins: 17:54

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 17:54

Never know the cross contamination for ideas that are that can spread, the thought viruses that can spark inspiration. Cause nowadays a lot of the innovations we find are at the intersection of multiple disciplines. Specialization worked for a long time. It allowed us to develop deep knowledge and different areas of expertise. But now where a lot of the payoffs really come is when you combine different disciplines. And I think it's also important in healthcare in particular, because sometimes, you know, practitioners are so specialized that they don't really see the whole person. And there could be major downsides in healthcare because of the fragmented. Specialized thinking. It could be a great strength to have a specialist, but it can also mean that they're only seeing things, you know, through a cardiologist lens or a, you know, whatever their lens is. And so they may miss the bigger picture and the bigger interconnections. So this is, you know, I think an opportunity where AI can maybe help with more integration of those specialized lenses and healthcare.

Chris Hutchins: 19:01

But the other piece of it is the staffing component of it, which you mentioned too. Is there is a shortage of primary care physicians is shortage of nurses. It's not a just a US problem, it's a global problem. So I mean for me, and I mean I'd love to hear how strongly you land on this one as well, but I don't want to touch anything until I've sat down and listened and understood what the pain points are for our clinicians and our nurses, because if we don't do that, we are going to miss the mark.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 19:32

Yeah, this is where I think about how like government could do a better job, like the pipeline problem. We need more primary care physicians, we need more nurses,

Chris Hutchins: 19:43

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 19:43

we also Need more electricians, and that there's just certain jobs that we're short on, like as a people.

Chris Hutchins: 19:48

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 19:49

And AI is also changing the world of work drastically. And when robotics are fully implemented, it's really gonna change things. So I think we as a people need to do a better job about looking. Looking at where are we now, where are we short, like how can this inform education or grants that the government's giving away or policy or marketing about opportunities to young people who need to, you know, pick a major and wanting to know what will what's in demand. So I think where there are shortages, we should not just keep that to ourselves in our discipline. Like that should ripple out and inform the key players who can help alleviate that issue, right? So that it doesn't persist. And we shouldn't just be looking at where we're at today. One of the thinkers I really love is a guy named Ray Kurzweil. He's a futurist. And so for more than 30 years he's been predicting with something like 86% accuracy what tech we will have when. And so you know robot we're gonna have robot surgeons. Like that's gonna come, that's gonna happen. So it might behoove us, especially in healthcare, to look at what advancements can we anticipate and expect that are coming from AI and robotics and how can we pre-plan and pre-strategize so that we meet the moment where it's at, not lag behind and have problems because we didn't look to the future. And this is not like, by the way, woo-woo psychic predictions. This is like tech predictions. And so yeah, I just in general across all industries, I wish more people would pay attention to what we can expect of tech and what that means for how we prepare for the future.

Chris Hutchins: 21:37

Do you need a chief AI officer, or is it another role or title? And I don't know that there's a one size fits all in that space, but I mean you know, what are your thoughts and how you see organizations, you know, working through this and hopefully changing the pace that they're moving?

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 21:54

Well, as a general rule, whenever there's like challenges we have, or like we just we don't know the answer to some like, do we need a chief AI officer? Do we need that? The way we get from where we're at now to a world where we've answered that question and we feel confident in that answer, the way we get from here to there is through learning. And it's not through

Chris Hutchins: 22:15

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 22:16

My own solo learning and I figure it out for all of us. It's we have to co-learn. We have to Engage in collective sensemaking. Things are way too complex for some leader at the top to know it all and do it all. So I think that's like a paradigm shift we all need to engage in is the world is complex, it's advancing exponentially, it's going to continue, it's actually going to speed up. Change will speed up even more from AI and robotics. And so what we humans need to do is. Get together and figure out how we're going to learn our way through this as a group, as a networked collective. So collective intelligence. That's why I created the collective intelligence laboratory. It's one of the offerings as part of the Polymathic Method. It's because I could see like we don't really have a very good way in organizations of tapping into the intelligence of a networked collective. We have email. We have meetings, we have Slack channels, we have direct messaging, but it's still clunky. We need some method to really understand diverse viewpoints. We don't need to jump to conclusions and decide what the answer is. We gotta co-learn together and land on the answers through informed collective sensemaking. And that's a totally different mindset than you know. The age of specialization where we deferred to experts and we deferred to leaders on high, and you know, and that worked okay and didn't lead to too many disasters. But now we're in a world where we have to learn our way to new solutions and new answers because we're in new territory. We've got issues we've got to face that we've never dealt with before. So learning is the key competency.

Chris Hutchins: 24:06

But what would you tell a CEO that he needs to be on the lookout for so he can help to support the teams to get what they need without having to basically recreate the wheel?

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 24:20

Hmm. I would be on the lookout for early certainty to complex issues. Like if

Chris Hutchins: 24:25

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 24:26

There's something really complicated happening and they're just like, okay, here's what we're gonna do, maybe

Chris Hutchins: 24:31

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 24:31

Maybe that needs a little bit more exploration and learning, co learning. And I don't like I don't think it's a good idea to rely on AI without oversight. Like, we need to keep our own mental faculties really working.

Chris Hutchins: 24:45

Yes. Right. Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 24:45

It can augment It, you know. But we need to verify, and at the end of the day, we humans are accountable for our own judgment calls. AI can't

Chris Hutchins: 24:54

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 24:54

Be held responsible, at least not now.

Chris Hutchins: 24:58

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 24:58

So it's not that like every healthcare professional needs to become a genius renaissance polymath. But the goal really is to just like how can you just keep learning? How can you expand your range? How can you expand your understanding? How can you remain curious? And how can you collaborate better across disciplinary boundaries? How can you remain agile and adaptive? Because the environment is changing quickly. Right. So

Chris Hutchins: 25:27

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 25:27

Yeah, I think it's a real AI presents a real opportunity for us to think more holistically. To collaborate differently, to have relief off things we don't want to do, and to bring more of our human selves. I think it's a tremendous opportunity in healthcare because you're dealing with humans, right? Who might be going through something

Chris Hutchins: 25:48

Right. Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 25:50

Difficult. And not everybody has had great bedside manner in healthcare, right? Like some people are great at that, some people aren't. Some people just don't have the energetic bandwidth to give that to people because they're just trying to survive their workload and get through their charting. You know, without having

Chris Hutchins: 26:05

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 26:06

To work 60 or 70 hours a week. So there is a tremendous opportunity, but the leaders inside the organizations need to create space for this transition to happen intelligently and humanely. And so how they support staff, how they create a culture of continual co-learning, empowering people, you know, to experiment. Cause there's maybe some experimentation needed too. As we begin working more with AI tools, we may try things and then realize, this isn't working so great. We need to pivot. We need to modify. This isn't working as well as we expected. So just creating a culture where learning is central is really important for organizations and for leaders to be doing now.

Chris Hutchins: 26:55

So you know, I think the tendency that we have is to trust a lot sooner than we should.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 27:00

Hmm. Yeah, that's one thing about tech. Like, imagine if you're driving on a somewhere and GPS tells you something like, keep driving up this gravel road that's thinning and narrowing. And before you know it, there's not even a road

Chris Hutchins: 27:16

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 27:17

And you don't even have room to turn around. Like, at what point do you say, yeah, I remember tech isn't perfect. This could be wrong. There's room for improvement with the tech.

Chris Hutchins: 27:23

[Brief indistinct interjection.]

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 27:26

Now Humans aren't the only flawed things in the world. Tech is also imperfect sometimes. And so we gotta

Chris Hutchins: 27:34

[Brief indistinct interjection.]

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 27:34

Use our human judgment. We gotta keep our own critical thinking skills alive. Practice that, you know, don't just blindly refer or defer to technology because it can lead you astray.

Chris Hutchins: 27:47

Like Is what we're talking about gonna actually enable a different decision? If the answer is no, then probably it's not as urgent as we think unless there's something else underneath that we think is going to be necessary. But

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 28:00

Yeah, exactly. Well, I think one of the most powerful things people could do is just ask a really smart question. You might not know the answer, but just the asking of it can be a game changer. So just, you know, keep your mind active. Keep exercising it even outside of work. Keep and it doesn't have to feel like work. It can feel like following your curiosities, following your passion. Just staying in a fully alive, vibrant. Being, you know, and question, like even asking, you could ask yourself a question. You could ask someone else a question. You could ask AI a question. Like question is how we stretch and how we explore. So keep wondering, you know, keep being curious.

Chris Hutchins: 28:43

But the barriers that we have traditionally are people barriers. And there's somebody that has control of a database, can give you can provision access. This is just a it's much different than that because of the fact that it isn't evolving. I mean there's a reason we still call it practicing medicine, which is kind of funny when people are wanting to pay doctors less. They want to not do certain things because it's gonna, you know, maybe impact their job in a way that they're not comfortable with. But the reality is it's gonna change for everybody. I mean it already is.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 29:15

Yeah. Well, you mentioned people barriers. And this is one of the things I'm hopeful about with AI is like I've had my own experiences inside organizations where things break down because we were relying on a human to remember to do it and to do it on time and to do it competently.

Chris Hutchins: 29:35

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 29:35

And like if We follow up that they do it quickly, you know, and then because people are stretched thin and maybe distracted or maybe sick or maybe on vacation or you never you know, it could be any

Chris Hutchins: 29:44

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 29:44

Of those things. But there are opportunities to automate manual processes or even to connect databases so they're more holistically intelligent and integrated.

Chris Hutchins: 29:55

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 29:56

So even just being aware, like where are things breaking down? Where are processes very slow? Where are the pain points? And this is where we have to be vulnerable and open as professionals. Like, what parts of your job do you hate doing?

Chris Hutchins: 30:09

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 30:12

What parts of your job do you suck at doing?

Chris Hutchins: 30:13

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 30:15

Where could

Chris Hutchins: 30:15

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 30:15

We automate those things and relieve your burden and make you love your job more and then use your brain power to add new value and stretch? There's a really interesting model, actually, organizational model called organizational ambidexterity. And it's basically talks about like these two main things that all organizations should do. One is exploit what they're already good at. Like just you keep what you're good at going. Right? Your bread and butter, the basics, the core mission, you keep doing that. But if that's all you do and the environment around it is shifting, then you may go out of business because you lag behind your competitors. So you also have to, in addition to exploiting what you're really good at and just keep doing it, we also should be exploring what we could do differently, how we could grow, how we could innovate, how we could modernize processes and databases. And so if we can automate more of the exploiting, it gives us more energy and mental bandwidth to do more of the exploring, which I'm guessing a lot of people will probably find that more interesting rather than just doing the same grind. Some people enjoy doing the same thing. They like that predictability and that routine, but not everyone does. Some people actually that can contribute to their cognitive decline. There's some value in continuing to learn. And since we each spend like a third of our lives, you know, a third of our days at work, at least five days a week out of the seven, you know, we're spending the majority of our waking hours at work. So wouldn't it be nice if we could find ways to enjoy it, to explore, to use our creative capacities, to add unique value that wasn't there before because we're relieved of drudgery and routine that we don't want to do. So, and that's better for our sense of vitality. It's better for our brain health. And it could bring people together in new ways if we're like experimenting and exploring together. So, AI presents this unique opportunity to be relieved of some of the exploiting tasks and to use

Chris Hutchins: 32:25

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 32:25

More of our human capacities. And, you know, one of the questions that comes up a lot now is well, what is a distinctly human capacity and it's things like our critical thinking and our judgment and our people skills and our ability to look big picture and connect the dots and our ability to ask smart questions and understand ripple effects and the whole cascade and the whole system. Like that's all true. But I think maybe an even more important question is what unique perspective can you bring? Not as

Chris Hutchins: 32:56

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 32:57

A human, as you. How can your background from 20 years ago where you learned about X, Y, or Z, inform what you're working on today in a really creative, original way? That's called analogical thinking, where you apply a tool, a modality, an approach from over there, and you use it over here. And that can be a tremendous opportunity to create innovation, which adds new value, which means you've explored, you've contributed in a new way. And it's because of your unique background, not because you're human. Like the human element is important. We live in a world dominated by humans, right? Like we're humans ourselves. Obviously, we're gonna care about the human perspective, especially in the context of artificial intelligence now, tech intelligence. But I think just as important as being human is being you. And I think we all want to be able to bring our authentic, full selves to work. It can feel really It can cramp your style, right? If you feel as if you've got to fit in this box and conform and live up to the standards and just do what you're told and like, you know, that can feel like a cage. And since we're spending the majority of our waking hours at work, who wants to feel like they're in a cage? So I really think it's time for us to become more human, to become more fully ourselves, to let our unique expression and our unique value as who you are based on your unique path to come to the fore and add value.

Chris Hutchins: 34:32

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think the pandemic was a really great example of what we can do if we are disciplined about what we're gonna spend our time and energy on. We learned how to actually manage that in a very different way. But much like on most any historical event we go through, six months later, it's like we never actually went through it. We've kind of got slipped backwards into the same way that we've always done things.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 34:58

Hmm. Yeah. I think that yeah, the pandemic did sort of force us, it forced us to adapt. It forced

Chris Hutchins: 35:05

[Brief indistinct interjection.]

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 35:06

Us think differently.

Chris Hutchins: 35:08

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 35:09

And yeah, one of yeah, I think it was a time when we all had to show that we were still adaptable, that we could still

Chris Hutchins: 35:17

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 35:17

Learn, that we could change, that we could pivot, that we could think differently, sort of wake us up. Now it's sad that so many people struggled and lost. Lives and you know, even jobs and kids missed out on school and like, you know, there were sad parts and definite losses during the global pandemic and we're still experiencing some ripple effects, I think, from that. But it was it

Chris Hutchins: 35:44

Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 35:45

Was a shakeup and it was a reminder that we've got to stay agile and on our toes and not lose that capacity. Our bodies change, where we live changes, our

Chris Hutchins: 35:52

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 35:54

jobs change, and now we're In a world with exponential change. Like We're at

Chris Hutchins: 36:00

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 36:00

Like the knee of the curve. It's starting to speed up and it's gonna get real fast. Like, and also the healthcare advances that we're going to see, the lifespan. I mean, there's reverse aging that's going to be possible. Like some of the biggest changes that are going to happen because of artificial intelligence will be in health and wellness. Our ability to live well. Healthfully and longer. And so there's going to be so many changes. It's only just started really. And so we've got to stay agile, willing to change.

Chris Hutchins: 36:43

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 36:43

That's why it's so important to just think of yourself as a continual learner because you're going to have to keep learning. The world is going to keep changing.

Chris Hutchins: 36:49

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 36:50

And if you want to be safe and stuck, you might put yourself at risk from that.

Chris Hutchins: 36:57

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 36:57

But and when we have loss and when we have mistakes and when we have hardships, we should all be asking ourselves, well, what did this teach me? What is this here to teach me? And use our life experiences and even our traumas to learn from. Because then it then no matter what happens, if something great happens in life, if we get like great advancements and great opportunities and great relief, well, great, you win. And if something difficult happens and there's loss and trauma. If you learn from it, then it's not such a loss because you're gaining something from it. So we have to keep

Chris Hutchins: 37:32

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 37:33

Learning from the life experience, even from what's not working. It's a tremendous opportunity to learn. We learn the most from when we mess up or when we have loss, when something

Chris Hutchins: 37:46

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 37:46

Goes wrong. It's the richest way to learn. But if you have something go bad and you don't learn from it might happen again. You know, you might go through that. Trauma or

Chris Hutchins: 37:55

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 37:55

That mistake or that loss again. So we got to keep learning. I know I keep harping on it. My doctorate's in education.

Chris Hutchins: 38:01

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 38:02

So I guess I come by it honestly. But yeah I really that's the upgrade mechanism is learning. That's how like I've always been really passionate and really interested in like how do I become my best self? How do you become your best self? How do we become collectively our best civilization, our best society? And it's through learning. I that's my conclusion. We have to learn our way into our better expressions individually and collectively.

Chris Hutchins: 38:30

But how do you get people motivated to Do the things that need to be done in order to successfully transform.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 38:37

How do you get people motivated to transform? Well, a few things come up for me. I think it's really important

Chris Hutchins: 38:44

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 38:45

If you're trying to drive a change agenda inside of an organization, if you just say, This is my opinion, this is how I want to optimize, this is what you must do, you're probably gonna experience resistance. So I

Chris Hutchins: 38:57

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 38:57

Think there's a number of strategies that leaders can harness in order to get buy-in and participation in the change effort. For example

Chris Hutchins: 39:06

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 39:08

Really listening to people and taking their perspectives in, like letting them be involved in the decision making, actually. So moving away from like, this is what I want, to really having the whole system, a whole networked intelligent collective informing the changes. And this is the type of thing where it like if a leader Has a meeting with diverse staff and makes it psychologically safe to share all your opinions, even the ones you think I'm not gonna like. And you can like record it, like get the language, get the verbiage, get the text. This is the kind of thing where AI can be a huge help in taking what everyone says and making sense out of it and helping all of that inform the plan. So the plan isn't just one person command and control, but it's really about enabling. The team and learning collectively and creating psychological safety so we can understand the fuller picture. And I think executives can engage in storytelling and sense making like why do we need this change? What are the benefits of this change? How will your life get better once this change is implemented? And what have we taken into consideration that you've contributed as part of the plan? It's not just me, it's us. That's how you drive successful transformation. But that has to involve collective co-learning. It means the leader gives away their power to some extent to the collective. So it's more about we, not what I want. And that will lead to better results, better employee engagement, a better likelihood the change effort will succeed. So many change efforts in organizations do not succeed. There's resistance. And people may be intellectually resistant. They may be emotionally resistant. They may be resistant because they don't even have bandwidth. And you don't understand that they don't have bandwidth. You know, like so understanding the team is really important for leaders who want to ensure that their organizational change efforts succeed. They've got to work really hard to understand what's going on the front lines and all. Levels so they can make sense of it and really empower networked collective decision making that's better informed than any one human can make in this complex world.

Chris Hutchins: 41:27

What are some things that a leader should be thinking about and what are the key areas from your own experience that are probably not getting the level of daylight they should be getting? Given what lies ahead.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 41:40

Hmm. If a leader wants to help make progress, I think they need to ask really great questions. Be really good at listening and

Chris Hutchins: 41:53

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 41:54

Record and analyze with AI. Like

Chris Hutchins: 41:56

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 41:56

Really study what people are saying. Because if you just listen once, it could go over your head and you but study what people are saying. View your job

Chris Hutchins: 42:06

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 42:07

As to understand the whole system, not just

Chris Hutchins: 42:09

[Indistinct] Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 42:11

Your level of the organization or your vantage point, but to really understand the whole complex system. You could do skill surveys, you know, like find out like what are people good at? Are they able to use the things they're good in their job? Are there any unhidden talents that are here and we don't even know about? Because AI can relieve. Some of the burden off of people, which means they could bring other skills that maybe they haven't in the past. So uncovering those hidden treasures is like really good if you want

Chris Hutchins: 42:42

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 42:42

To enhance organizational performance. Really promoting continual learning and making space and resources. So much learning is free now too or cheap. I know in the past, you know, organizations would have to make whole budgets for training. But nowadays with AI, man, learning can look it doesn't have to look like going to a class or a certificate program or a degree program. Learning could look like, you know, you get so many hours a month to just work with AI and explore questions, like to really have time to think and learn and adapt. So yeah, there are a number of things leaders can do to sort of harness the collective intelligence and empower it. And that's really, I think, one of the most important things that a leader can do, especially in a time of rapid change where they want their change efforts to be successful.

Chris Hutchins: 43:35

And more often than not I see us put people into a managerial or supervisory level role and we don't actually teach them all the things that they should be equipped with going into that role. But I think those things are Certainly some challenges and I'd love to hear your you know, what your experience has been when you're talking about trying to get the upskilling done, trying to make sure that beyond the design session there's still an ongoing involvement that we're putting out, whether it's future leaders or just highly trained technicians.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 44:13

Well, this is very common where someone is great at their job on the front line, and so they're advanced to a

Chris Hutchins: 44:19

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 44:19

Supervisory role, and it's a totally different skill set to lead people. That you really need to have good people skills and be a good communicator

Chris Hutchins: 44:29

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 44:30

And be a good listener, and be good at strategizing, but not just from your vantage point, from understanding the whole system, right? This is why polymathic generalists can make really great leaders, by the way. Like when you promote a narrow specialist to a leadership role, they're gonna see that the world mostly through their singular lens, through their specialty, but especially in healthcare, where you're looking for like interdisciplinary understanding and whole person service to patients. I think, you know, some generalists or people who have been in different specialties over time can be uniquely positioned to be in a leadership role. But in terms of upskilling, yeah, I we've got to move beyond just being narrowly specialized now because of AI. All of us, even people who aren't in leadership, like we've got to keep learning. And more, I think more what we're gonna find is that it's those soft skills, as people call them, like the people skills, the human skills. The communication, the psychological safety, the willingness

Chris Hutchins: 45:42

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 45:43

To really listen to diverse viewpoints, those are gonna become the critical edge to like who's performing well in the new world versus who's not. I think one of the most valuable skill sets we're gonna need is not only the ability to keep learning and staying adaptable, but like the ability to be a human who works well with other humans. Especially if you're a manager. Like people who

Chris Hutchins: 46:09

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 46:09

Get promoted to supervisory positions who don't have good people skills do so much damage inside organizations. Like that may be one of the biggest sources for turnover. People don't leave their jobs, they leave their supervisors. So selecting supervisors. Not just for technical competence. Because technical competence to some extent, you know, we can lean on AI more and more, for help with the technical competence, but especially for supervisory positions, you gotta pick people who are good with people because that's the role. Overseeing other humans. Yeah.

Chris Hutchins: 46:52

But there's got to be a couple of things that we do deliberately. And one it's First do no harm. I mean, the doctors took the Hippocratic oath, right? But this is a time where it's really a much higher risk for you if you don't start thinking about that differently and really bringing forward your clinical voices, whether it's nurses, physicians or some of their support staffing.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 47:17

Mm-hmm. Yeah, do no harm. That's a good motto for all of us, not just people in healthcare. Although I know with the Hippocratic Oath, it's very like that's definitely like a core tenet of the medical field.

Chris Hutchins: 47:30

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 47:31

I think we have an even greater opportunity than just do no harm. Is how can we reduce suffering? How can we enhance human thriving more generally? And I know healthcare has been associated

Chris Hutchins: 47:42

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 47:43

A lot, and I'm not meaning to shame the industry, but You know, we treat illness, but what about preventing illness? What about focusing on human thriving and human potential? Like what an amazing field. And that may include not just

Chris Hutchins: 47:55

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 47:55

You know, physical health, but also like psychological health and really understanding the whole human. So yeah, do no harm's great, but I'd love to see reduced suffering and enhance thriving added to that.

Chris Hutchins: 48:08

I love that. It's a very different perspective and we're that's definitely some this is the time. I don't know if there'll ever be a better one, to be honest with you. Ten years ago actually would have been also good, but that we can't go back. [Brief indistinct phrase.]

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 48:23

Yeah, that's a good point too. Is now is a good time across many industries to reimagine what's possible. I heard Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, recently say, like, AI is gonna be like a genie where you can it can grant wishes. And I know that's like an extreme analogy, but even if it's partly true that AI can help us achieve what was unimaginable before, how can we reimagine? Our industry. And how can we not just think about where we're at and how we can modify what we have, but how can we just imagine if we were starting from scratch, if we were just starting over from scratch, building our industry, our organization, how would we build it from scratch now, knowing what we know and having the tools we have access to now? How would we totally reimagine it? There's a word I like to say is imagineer. It's like Putting together the word imagine with engineer, and know, which implies a creation. Like, how can we imagineer a whole new better way of doing our work? Learning from the lessons of the past, the difficulties, the pain points, the mistakes, even, and also the things we've done well. How can we put it all together and use our human creativity, our care for our fellow humans, and really make what we're doing totally better and smarter and more humane and more ethical and better than it's ever been?

Chris Hutchins: 49:45

And I've actually seen projects launch from that standpoint that really weren't ready.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 49:54

Hmm. Well, regarding like products launching before they're ready, this is why it's so important for leaders to listen. You know, rather than just deciding an arbitrary deadline when this deliverable has got to be sent and done, you know, that might not be realistic. Like arbitrary deadlines a leader decides, which are totally connected from the scope and the work and the demands and the difficulty and the complexity. Like arbitrary deadlines could be a costly mistake. So I think it's really important to check in with the team who's boots on the ground, who's running the project and get their feedback and be open to hearing about difficulties that you don't want to be true, but which may be true. And take that into

Chris Hutchins: 50:38

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 50:38

Account when you're making sense and guiding and, you know, giving deadlines or requirements for the project. Like really listen to the people working through it. Boots on the ground.

Chris Hutchins: 50:50

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 50:51

So yeah. Listen, learn.

Chris Hutchins: 50:54

What are some of the things that you see that are more effective where you see leaders actually execute some things in their organization? What are some of those things that you see in common between the ones that you've actually worked with yourself?

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 51:11

Hmm. One of the leaders I've observed, he had this philosophy of like walking around. You know, you mentioned earlier the drive-bys. And sometimes it could be a really rich source of learning, just talking to

Chris Hutchins: 51:20

Right?

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 51:23

people, just walking around and like seeing what's going

Chris Hutchins: 51:23

Yeah. Yep.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 51:26

On and just taking in different viewpoints that's unscheduled and like not formal, but just really being curious, walking around. Or maybe connecting, you know, connecting people who wouldn't normally be connected, connecting. Someone from one department to another and creating some connectivity between those domains. Encouraging people to be human and to not be robotic. To leverage AI, to don't be threatened by it. Like leverage it. It could be a great resource. Creating an environment where it's okay if you mess up. That's a mistake some leaders make. Like if someone messes up, they shame the person.

Chris Hutchins: 52:10

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 52:11

You know Maybe we gotta make it safe to like have a pilot, have a test, give something a try and using it as a learning opportunity is a great strategy rather than punishing people for trying. Like that's if you punish people for trying to make improvement by doing something new they haven't done, if you know, if you expect them to just know how to do something without granting them the opportunity to learn that's not a good strategy. Just keep

Chris Hutchins: 52:41

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 52:42

Asking really good questions. You know, like healthcare and all of the industries are really entering an era now where the machines can know a lot of facts, but the facts alone aren't gonna heal a person or lead a system. Like we still need humans who can.

Chris Hutchins: 53:01

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 53:02

Look at what's going on and interpret and care and question and keep learning. And so

Chris Hutchins: 53:08

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 53:09

It's not really like how can you make the staff more robotic and controlled and efficient? It's really how can you free them to become more fully human and more fully themselves, and so that you can co-create an intelligent organizational system that keeps learning, that doesn't just learn once and then get stuck, but that keep staying adaptive and agile. And if anyone's interested, there's lots more ideas and tips in my book.

Chris Hutchins: 53:37

Yeah, no, I'll be sure to put a whole bunch of content in the episode notes when we publish this. But you talk about the human trust thing if you wouldn't mind. Particularly the dynamics that exist between some of the frontline people, whether it's the admitting office or you know, the person sitting at the reception desk or whoever it is, what are the things that you think we could actually focus on to make sure that we don't lose track of that? And what should a leader be doing from a messaging standpoint? Because I think all of them are hearing to some degree there's a there's been an erosion of trust in human relationships. But I would love to hear your thoughts on What are some of the things that they can be doing that can actually hopefully reverse the course of that?

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 54:27

Making people feel like what they think matters, that their labor that they're giving matters, is seen, is appreciated. Like we all want to matter. You know, even

Chris Hutchins: 54:40

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 54:41

Even though we're exchanging our labor for pay and it's a barter and it's a trade, like we still want to feel like you see me, you value me. It's like a fundamental human need to have, you know, to matter. But I want to circle back to something you said earlier. Which is, you know, we need people who can help manage the risk and see what can go wrong. And it's not that they're being negative. Actually, there's a field called neurolinguistic programming, NLP, and NLP has a really interesting model where it describes like two primary ways of thinking. One is called away from. And away from thinking is when you're like, if we do this, then all these things can go wrong, or if we make that change, here's all the reasons that's going to be a problem. And then there's towards thinking where you see the goal, you see the change, and you're like, how exciting! We're gonna have all these benefits. It's gonna be so great. It's gonna be better. And actually both matter. You need

Chris Hutchins: 55:38

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 55:39

To do if you skip the away from thinking, you might make a mistake or have an

Chris Hutchins: 55:44

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 55:44

Unintended consequence that you didn't think through ahead of time. Or if you just do towards thinking, you know, you got my point is you gotta have both. You gotta think about what could go wrong. And how can we learn from that before it's a problem and prevent issues

Chris Hutchins: 55:58

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 55:59

That will be problematic? And how can we also look towards possibility and get excited for what we can do better and improve processes and improve jobs and improve patient outcomes? And so when you listen to both, like any group of humans, is gonna have a mix of people. Some will be primarily oriented away from, and some will be primarily oriented towards. And everybody wants to be heard and everybody wants to matter. And so it's really important if you want to manage risk, if you want to get good results, if you want your change efforts to succeed, like listen to people and that will build trust. Even listening to the people who may sound grouchy and negative, they may have a really valid point that's

Chris Hutchins: 56:41

Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 56:43

Super helpful.

Chris Hutchins: 56:44

And just as we kind of wrap up, maybe you could just talk a little bit about what you see and what you would tell people to they could be doing now. Some of the things that are needed are not that complex excuse me, not that complicated.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 56:58

Yeah, sometimes you just gotta let people be human and listen and care.

Chris Hutchins: 57:02

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 57:04

That can make all the difference. You mentioned like you came in and you know, people had histories and expectations, and

Chris Hutchins: 57:12

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 57:12

You know, there might be rich information there that's worth knowing.

Chris Hutchins: 57:17

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 57:17

And I Think it can engender a sense of trust and camaraderie and team cohesion if you just take the opportunity to listen to people, even if they're your subordinates. Especially if they're your subordinates. And it allows for you to make better sense of what's happened before you got there and to understand the climate a bit better just by listening and learning. And you know, the thing I'm most passionate about at my core is like human potential. How can we make the world a better place? How can each one of us contribute something that helps make something else better? You know, and I think working inside organizations with other humans, we're social creatures and it gives us an opportunity to not just understand our own vantage point, but to really listen and learn from people who have had totally different experiences. And when we do that, it positions us to better understand reality as it actually is, not just from our particular position and our particular experiences. So Yeah, I think we'll make the world a better place when we can let people have their experiences and listen and learn from them. Yeah.

Chris Hutchins: 58:30

One of the things that I had a nurse tell me is like when you go take a walk on an inpatient floor and count the sticky notes around the terminal that their nurses are using. I mean geez, I think that is a big deal.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 58:44

Mm.

Chris Hutchins: 58:44

We didn't get the workflows right if that's the way that they actually have to deal with it.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 58:49

Yeah. Well, I think a big part of the reason why we've organized businesses and organizations more generally into divisions and hierarchies is, you know, because in a complex system you do need to like sort of decentralize information. But if the information stays decentralized and fractured and separate, it can create chaos. So we need to reintegrate. Like we need decentralized

Chris Hutchins: 59:17

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 59:18

Thinkers, decentralized actors, but we also need to reintegrate that decentralized intelligence. And we do that by continuing to listen and learn.

Chris Hutchins: 59:28

I'm getting the this thread about listening and learning. Am I getting that right?

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 59:32

Yeah. Listening and learning. Yeah. I think that's I mean,

Chris Hutchins: 59:36

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 59:38

we can also use our eyes and you know our other senses. It doesn't have to be just listening, but just the idea is

Chris Hutchins: 59:45

Right.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 59:46

To keep taking in information from not just your own perspective, and caring and continue learning, continue watching the environment, continue scanning reality for what it is now, not what it was a year ago.

Chris Hutchins: 59:59

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 1:00:00

And staying up to date with what's happening and keep your mind flexible. And that may also mean, by the way, that as what you know and as what you do professionally changes, that you gotta leave room for your own identity to morph. And that can be hard for people who've become so identified. A lot of people become identified with their job titles, actually, and they think they are what they do. And you know, if you zoom

Chris Hutchins: 1:00:26

Yes.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 1:00:27

Out a little bit farther on the horizon, it may be the case that humanity reaches a point where we have so much automation, so much AI, so much robotics, and a universal income. It may be the case that someday humans don't actually need to work like we have done for so long. And so then our ability to like have an identity that's not our job becomes even more important. And that's why hobbies are important and Pursuing your own self-actualization, which we do through learning, is so important. Why having people skills and relationships with other humans is so important? And polymath is a lens for understanding all of that. You know, one of the interesting things I learned from my doctoral dissertation on modern-day polymaths as well is that when you have a broad toolkit, when you've done a lot of different things, it actually makes it easier. To connect with other humans. Like you can find something in common. And so it's important that we have, you know, diversity of thought, diversity within our own personhoods, that we can be more than one thing, we can be more than our job. But it's also important to find that ability to connect with other humans. And by being more broadly exposed, more versatile, more adaptable, you can understand more different audiences, different types of humans, because you've become A diverse human yourself. So the journey, the life journey really is a learning journey, as far as I'm concerned. And learning may be experiential, it may be academic, it may happen at work, it might happen at home, it might happen with friends, it might happen on YouTube or a book or a podcast or any different ways.

Chris Hutchins: 1:02:11

Yeah.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 1:02:11

Learning is something we are each Responsible for. We're responsible for our own learning journeys and engaging with the learning and not just, you know. Passively like letting it flow, but really like analyzing it, being critical. Do I agree? What do I think? What questions come up for me? How can I keep learning beyond what's fed to me? And how can I really create my own personhood through what I pick to learn? And I think that's more and more the world we're entering now is how can we become unique expressions, unique people based on what we've learned?

Chris Hutchins: 1:02:46

Absolutely.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 1:02:47

[Brief vocalization.]

Chris Hutchins: 1:02:48

Thank you so much for joining me today and thank you for another great conversation. I've learned a lot. For listeners, definitely plan to take a look at the episode page when it goes up. So that's all for now in The Signal Room, and I will see you next time.

Dr. Angela C. Meyers: 1:03:03

Thank you so much, Chris.