The Future of Work: What AI Can’t Replace in Great Leaders | Jared Deverna

As technology rapidly reshapes the workplace, the real question isn’t just what jobs will change, it’s what will last. This conversation explores how leaders can navigate innovation, adapt to evolving roles, and focus on the skills that truly set people apart. From embracing change to strengthening human connection, it’s a grounded look at what will matter most in the future of work. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to the Vander Bloom and Leadership Podcast, where we help you build, run, and keep great teams. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in. If you look at your team right now, there's someone sitting in a seat that won't exist in five years. There's someone doing something that will not need to be done in five years. And it's not because someone else will be sitting in that seat, it's because the role won't exist altogether. William, the future is a scary place, but it's also where we're headed. It is. I I want to hear from you as you look ahead and even considering AI, considering what's valuable in the workplace now, what are the maybe roles, responsibilities that won't exist in the future, and what are the separators, the needle movers, the differentiators of the high performers five years from now versus what's valuable in this current moment?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah. Yeah, that's so good. What's the old Chinese proverb? May you live in interesting times.

unknown 1:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

I think we are. I love studying history. And uh I used to think, how cool would it have been to be born during the Renaissance? When all this stuff's getting invented. And yeah, there wasn't social media, but I bet if Da Vinci was on social media, it would have been worth following. Look what I'm working on, and I'm gonna fly. And you know, like all these crazy things that were wouldn't it have been cool to live during the Renaissance? Yeah. Especially coming out of the dark ages. Right? You know, wouldn't that have been cool? I'm a nerdy kid, I guess. Uh we're living in an age right now that I think is gonna make the Renaissance look like a non-event. Wow. And I'm not just saying that to create drama. Uh I just it's just where we are. And maybe I'm getting older. Back in my day when we walked to school uphill both ways in the snow. Like, I don't think it's that. Uh we're living in a world where technological breakthrough is happening faster than ever. Yep. What's the old the there is no old line about AI. This is two years ago, so this would be an old line about AI. Yeah, yeah. If you don't like AI, just know that you're working with the worst version of it you ever will.

unknown 2:31

That's good.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So I uh you know, I hear your question where my mind goes is technological breakthroughs, automations, lots of jobs getting replaced, what's gonna happen? And you know, my job my job description is pretty simple here. If you're a leader of a large organization and you've done a nice job of getting people who can run systems, here's the job description Dave Ramsey give gave me years ago. He's been a friend and like a big brother for a long time. He said, Well, I'm gonna give you your new job description. You work on new things and broken things. That was so good. Because we've got a our COO does a better job of running things. Our search consultants are better at finding people than I am now. I mean, I I'm the like the church planter that had to set everything up. And now we actually have talented people that so uh new things and broken things. That's my job. New things. What in the world are we gonna do with AI? Yeah. So I spend uh I'm in a cohort for business owners that are studying AI. I'm reading books, a fantastic book for pastors to read, The AI Driven Leader by Jeff Woods, Jeff Wood G. Greg Mott, who's the pastor at First Baptist uh well, I should say Houston's First Baptist, I think is the right way to say it. Good friend, turned me on to it uh a year ago. It's wonderful because it doesn't talk about coding and what's gonna happen or not happen. It's like how do you be a strategic thinker when you have the tool of AI to go get stuff done? And that's great. You know, so I I've started down that path. And let me tell you, uh it's kind of ironic or providential that we're sitting in this set right now, because when I study AI and I spend an hour every day with no interruptions, and and that doesn't sound like very long, but you'd be amazed we can get done if you turn your phone off and an hour a day uh reading, learning, or practicing trying new things with AI to just try and understand if if I'm new things and broken things, this is a new thing, it's probably gonna be something we have to deal with. We don't know what so you you when I read, study, try things out, I I have a spectrum that my brain goes through. And here's the spectrum it's right here. Okay. Okay. Sometimes I experience AI and I say, This is amazing. We're gonna get so much done. Get me another cup of coffee, let's go take over the world. Awesome. Other times I read about AI or I practice with it and I go, the world is ending. Give me a red solo cup with something in it, and I will like that's that's kind of the spectrum I'm living in, right? And so the, you know, the the there's a little line in the Old Testament about the sons of Issachar, and they were really good at understanding their times. Yes. That's a prayer I ask God every day. Just help me understand the times. Help me. I'm gonna go preacher on you. Okay. Do it. We're one-year Bible people. Okay. Adrian and I are doing it chronologically this year at her request. I I usually do Old Testament, New Testament, Psalm, Proverbs, get through the whole thing. Yep. Chronological is kind of bad because you don't get to Jesus till like October. So we're in the we're in Leviticus. Oh. This is the graveyard of everybody who starts. It's gonna be awesome. But Leviticus is, you know, like so Leviticus starts out with all these offerings, right? Here's the offering that needs to happen, here's what you do when this happens, here's what you do when this happens. If this happens and there's guilt, if this happens, then do this, this person. By the way, pastors, Leviticus 4, let me give you a verse that will depress you and energize you at the same time. It says, if Jared should sin, then do this, if William should sin, then do this, if Alex should sin, then do this. If the priest should sin, and the formula breaks, it's not if they sin then do this. If the priest should sin and thus bring guilt upon all the people, let that sit for a minute. If you should sin, it brings guilt on others. Now that's a rabbit trail and it's free, but if you can get through the first nine chapters of Leviticus with all these different offerings and all this, before we get to the tabernacles, like the priests are actually the pit masters of the barbecue in the Old Testament. Like they know where the fat part is, and the one that's all that. You get through all that. You get to the first task of the priests that's not a sacrifice. And here's what it is You, I think it's Leviticus 10 10. It's the only verse I can quote in Leviticus. And it's something like this you, priests, are to determine what's sacred and what's not. That's great. Okay. So what does that mean? Sacred lasts forever. Things that aren't sacred go away. When we're looking at, oh my gosh, I need a solo cup because of AI, or oh, I'm ready to take over the world. Your job as a leader is to say what part of this is permanent and is going to last. That's good. And what is a passing fad. Yep. That's what God has anointed you to do. How do you tell apart? So this is way in the weeds from your question about five jobs that'll be here or won't. But but I think it's more fundamental than what's going to be here and what's not. It's the leader. You guys have to be as leaders at the tip of the learning for your organization on this. And uh because no one else is gonna do it except for people Jared's age. And then unless you have exceptional people Jared's age, no one's gonna listen to them. So to me, we're living in something that is way bigger than the Renaissance. And they and we will not know what works and what doesn't for a while. Yeah. I mean, look at golly, uh history is full of a cycle of innovation that brings unbridled expansion and then some regulation. Yes. Yes. I'm not for government regulation, but if you watch the Ken Burns documentary on the Roosevelts, which by the way is phenomenal, uh you'll you'll start to understand why we have some regulation, because we had a phenomenal industrial revolution, and then we had nine-year-olds working in factories. Not good. And there needed to be regulation, right? So we're living on that front edge of Wild West. You can be really careful with how you're using AI or this, that, and the other. Um, but but regulation will follow and everything will settle down, right? I I if we're in the front end of the Terminator movie, who cares? That's pretty liberating. We're not gonna win. We'll all be with Jesus soon. And so, okay. I don't think that's what's happening. I think what's happening is distinguishing between the sacred and the unsacred, the eternal, the temporal, what's gonna last, what's not gonna last. How do I do this in a way that makes me want to go here and say we can do more for the kingdom than ever and put the solo cup away and say we'll feast in heaven with Jesus?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Let me let me ask you this too, and in terms of noticing you talking with AI of what's gonna last, what won't last. When you look at the people who will be joining said organizations, the people who will be having a seat at that table of where um you're on the team, what are the things and maybe the characteristics and traits of people that you're saying, oh, this is something that that I that I think is really gonna last. This is something that I think this skill is not gonna be, we're not gonna need that in five years.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that Leviticus 1010 is such a great verse for pastors. I mean, I I uh when I was a senior pastor, it was back during the worship wars, where are we gonna do traditional or contemporary or whatever you want to say. That's all over now. But it was the you know, the thing that Andy Stanley, your pastor Ed Young, said all the time the message stays the same, the methods have to change. Yes. So it's this that's Leviticus 1010. Yes. Keep the eternal, shift and change with the other things. And so when you've got new people coming in, uh the job of the leader is to say, what's the eternal part? And then let them try a new way. Let them try a new thing, let them figure out a new method. What's the difference between what's eternal and what's not? On the AI side, if you're not leaning into younger people, you are toast. I I was telling Jared and Alex, our producer, uh, before we came in, I was showing them on my phone. Uh last yesterday, I spent my hour in AI and and Claude, we're recording this in uh February, what's day, the 20th. Yep. So because you have to date it, because in a week this will be dated uh with AI. Um Claude is hot this week and Claude coding, which is you know, so I built an app last night while Adrian was at a mahjong party. Uh it took 20 minutes. I talked to Claude. Um I'm trying to add five miles an hour back to my clubhead speed when I hit the driver. Not eternal, very temporary, but nonetheless, I'm at home. She's in Mahjong. Let's figure this out. Yeah. And it's not anything proprietary, so I don't care if AI knows about my golf swing and tells the whole world about it. So we'll build an app. 20 minutes. And the 20 minutes was Claude interviewing me saying, tell me about your golf swing, tell me about your physique, tell me about how do you work out? What do you do for workout? Wow. And to ask all the questions, and and I you have to know the right, uh, they call it writing crit, I guess, when you're when you're asking AI things. There is a little bit of a trick still of that. It'll probably go away pretty soon. But if you ask the right crit, it'll interview you and figure out, you know, exactly the right thing. And my crit was here's the context, here's your role, here's you interview me, 10 questions, one at a time. And and then it gets, and here's your task. Build an eight-week fitness plan for me through an app that will show me exactly the workouts I need to do to get that extra five to seven miles an hour, and it's built. It's done. So there are jobs that will go away. Yes. Now, what am I looking for in the middle of all that? What's eternal, what's temporary? Leviticus 1010. I can't believe we're talking about AI and we're sitting in Leviticus with it. But this is this is where we are, right? Uh in it what's temporary, what's not. When I'm looking for humans that are good that I'm gonna recruit now, that I hope stay with me for five years, the number one thing I'm looking for is their relational skill. Why is that? Uh all AI can see is coding.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

AI's never set foot in the world. AI, you know, the number one use right now of Chat GPT is counseling, which is really scary. Wow. That's staggering. Number one use. Uh but that you're talking to something that's never been a human and never had a feeling. No. They're just making you feel better. So so to me, the thing that's eternal in us, we were created in God's image. AI was not, and you can't code it. Maybe it takes over the world, but it's still not in God's image, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

And and and but when it says we were made in God's image, well, what is God's image? We mentioned this a few shows ago, but the beginning of uh creating man when he created us in his image, he said in Genesis, let us create man in our own image. Yep. Our own image. Well, who's us? Maybe he was talking to the angels that are subordinates, but most theologians think this is a great example of the Trinity has always been here. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are in constant communion. That's what makes Easter so hard. It's the only time in all of eternity that the Trinity was broken. God turned his back on his son and said, Yes, go away, you're not in the club anymore.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Nope.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Because you got all the sin of all the people on you. It's a pretty Yeah. We're moving toward Easter. See the purple, so my mind's there. But uh, as I'm looking for people that are gonna make it in five years, it's not are they good at a thing, it's can they relate to people? Yep. Now let me give you a real-time example. If you've got a kid, uh I I attend a thing uh not every year, but it's called Praxis. Okay. So it's a it's a program, it's a wonderful program for helping entrepreneurs who are believers uh build their business. And so they go through a program, I don't know if it's a year or two or what have you, but when they finish building their business plan, I got this great idea, but I don't have a plan. So these Christian business people are like, we'll teach you how. So at the end of all this learning in praxis, they have a uh a convocation, a gathering, yep, and it's basically Christian Shark Tank. Oh, wow. So I go as an investor. Yes. And they all give their pitch. That's awesome. And they all talk about, you know, like what this idea that they have, and do we want to fund it? And you can buy in and fund it. It's a really cool thing because you get to see some stuff is happening. Well, that all happens in the evening, and that's fun. We got to fill the day with breakouts just to fill the tool. Sure, sure. So they had a breakout, and this was in 2021. So think about AI that far back, five years ago. Okay. So we're just beginning to hear about ChatGPT. They had a breakout, and the title of the breakout was What do we title this breakout? Which is a pretty cool title for an AI. That is funny. And so they they only let 50 people in. I must have gotten lucky because I was one of the 50 that got into that breakout. And it was all coders and me. And the panel discussion that we were listening to was the head of AI for Google, uh, head of AI for a group that works with uh defense systems, and the guy who'd built three or four AI companies already all the in 2021. So I just listen, they talk a little bit, and it's mostly QA. Well, most of the QA is like, well, in Python, blah, blah, blah, and on the back end coding of blah, blah, blah, and they might as well have been speaking Greek. I didn't know anything. I mean, whatever. So I just sat and listened and tried to learn something. And toward the end of the time together, uh, one of the women on the panel looked at me and said, 'You haven't said a word. You have a question. And I said, 'Yeah, I got one question. Okay. And I'd been thinking about it a little bit, but I said, uh, so I got a high school senior, right? He's applying to college and such and getting ready to go off on his track. What should I tell him not to major in? In other words, what jobs are going to be gone? Yeah. And they would not answer the question. They dodged. And it was a great dodge. Well, I don't know about what not to study, but I'll tell you what, I would have my kids study if they're going to college right now, and everybody leaned on liberal arts. Isn't that interesting? And it's it's even more the answer now if you talk to people who are really into like go get a liberal arts degree. What happened to STEM? What happened to well, coding is over. Just ask, yeah, my app that's gonna get five miles an hour. I'm gonna be faster. I send it to my teaching pro. He's like, oh my gosh, I need to build one of these. So yeah, you know, so it the ability a liberal arts degree teaches you enough about a little bit of everything that you can have a real conversation with nearly anyone.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

And the currency of human value in the workplace going forward is gonna be human-to-human relationships. That's good. Already, the newest versions of AI models, whether you're talking about anthropic or chat GPT or what have you, the AI is building the next version of the AI. They're not even using as many human coders as they used to. So that is gone, right? Yep. Uh, there are a lot of jobs that'll be gone. Like it are I remember when I was in a Presbyterian church and we had to learn to use PowerPoint to make slides for this new kind of music we were singing. No. Even now, you gotta build it to match, you gotta brand it, you gotta that's over. You don't need anybody to do that. We're we're restaffing uh part of our marketing department right now. It's a real question. Like, how much of this is gonna be, how much do you need somebody who knows the blocking and tackling of marketing versus somebody who can just see trends, see things coming? So human relations are the single asset I'm looking for in people moving forward for the next five years. Human relations. That sounds so rudimentary, but when we studied, um, golly, has it been six years now since we did the study that led to a book called Be the Unicorn? Was it like, let's look at the super performers we've seen over the years, who are the very best of the best, and and do they have anything in common? And and they did. It was amazing. They had a really clear set of congruencies, and it wasn't anything I thought of. Uh I thought it would be good-looking people or um smart people or wealthy people, or uh, it's been a few years now, but there was a point where my girls were singing this song, looking for a man in finance, six foot five, blonde hair, blue eyes, right? I thought that was who the unicorns would be. Like did a good job of being born. I don't have that skill. Congrats. Yeah. You did nothing, but you're used. Exactly. No, that's not what they had in common. What they had in common were 12 habits. It's in this book, Be the Unicorn, which is selling better now than it was five years ago. It's amazing. Um, but the 12 habits that they practiced, that's not traits, traits you're born with, these are habits. The habits they practiced, all 12 of them, were pretty much human-to-human interaction. Do you get back to people quickly? Do you ask good questions? Are you with people? Yeah. Are you, you know. So what I walked away from is basically the back half of the great commandment. Doing to others is you want to be done. Do you like that's the human value I'm looking for? Because the the what's eternal and what's gonna change, everything's gonna change for job skills. Yes. What's eternal is the part of us that looks like God that's able to relate to other people. Yep. And I'm watching for that. And if they have those 12 habits, then we'll be fine unless we're not fine and it's the terminator, and then we're all dead with Jesus, and so who cares? That's great. So I, you know, and it's little things, Jared. It's like um can I give you one that's a hack? Please. Are you with me when I'm talking to you or not? Now that sounds easy. You're with me right here. But uh let me just ask you. Uh I'm with you, right? I saw a Simon Sinek talk, most people have probably seen it. You you I'm here talking to you, right? Yeah. Okay. How how much do you feel like I'm here now? Not as much. Yeah. And now. Even less. Yeah. And with laptop open. Even less. Yeah. Because if you're smart and you're talking to somebody who has laptop open, you know, oh, I'm just taking notes from our meeting. No, you're not. You're answering a text from your kid who forgot their lunch. Emailing. You're emailing this one, the somebody just won gold in the Olympics and you don't want to wait till the night to see it. Like it it endless distractions. Even if you're just taking notes, the message you're sending people is, I got a little bit. You're like a timeshare. You're fractional for me. That's great. So we've moved. I'm actually new things and broken things, is what I work on. This is my new thing. This is amazing. It's uh it's called Remarkable. I don't get paid to do this. Nobody, you know. So remarkable is remarkable, you'd like to. It should be remarkable if you bought one, but I'm not going to get anything out of it. Uh, and I'm a sucker for gadgets. So it might not be something that lasts, it might be something that's temporary. Yep. Uh I tell people all the time if I had been in the Garden of Eden and the Lord said, Don't eat the fruit, I'd have made it. Yeah. No problem. Just give me some protein, which they weren't doing. But but if he had said Don't eat the apple. I'd have been fine. If you just said don't eat the latest apple product, dead. So I like gadgets, but Remarkable is basically a notebook. You're even more analog than I am. But I think if you can move more analog with how you're dealing with people, they'll feel you more present. All this does is allow me to write. And somebody just screen grabbed it. You get to see Jared's recordings and uh two notes that say earwax and oysters. So you'll have to figure out what that means. But there are no secret formulas here. It's just my gibberish, but it makes sense to me. And and the cool thing is, this goes to the only thing it can do is go to the cloud. It just uploads everything. That's amazing. Adrian said when I sold the car that I had before we got married, I gave away six sermon series because it was on post-its scattered all through the car in the love compartment or whatever. But this keeps it formed. But I can't do anything except write on it, which makes me go slower. I can type a lot faster than it write. It makes me be here present. If you'll go a little more analog, people will feel you in the room. That's great. And uh, you know, one other little hack, if you want to really feel like you're in the room, you do this, and I maybe you're just natural. Um look people in the eye. I I've said this, you may have heard this on a podcast before, but it's really interesting. Uh, have you ever been around somebody and you talk to them and you go, you walk away, they made me feel like I'm the only person in the room. Yeah. Uh I I've been around, like it I've had the chance to be around several presidents of the United States over the years, and every one of them left me with that feeling. It's like you led the free world. What are they doing? Here's one thing that most people who make you feel like you're the only person in the room do. They look you in the eye. Oh, I look everyone in the eye. No, you don't. No, you don't. Where are you looking right now? You are doing it right. Most people look at the bridge of the nose, like uh, or or they go back and forth between eyes, or they kind of look at the face, or what have you. Here's a biological fact. We are all dominant in one eye or the other. Yep. 90% of everyone is right-eye dominant. Yep. Think about rifle scopes, think about nearly everything's made is made for a right-eye dominant person. Yes. Okay. So take a gamble, guess that who you're talking to is right-eye dominant, and look just into their right eye. You're doing it to me right now. You're the only person. You maybe I'm the only person in the room. You don't even know Alex is over there. You know what I mean? She doesn't exist. She isn't even here. That's right. So if you can learn these little relational hacks and focus on being the image of God that you were made to be, you're going to be leaning into the eternal part of who you are. That's great. That will never be devalued. That's great. The skill stuff you're going to have to figure out. Yes. And I wish I had a great answer. I can I can give you a red solo cup. I don't get anything for saying that or selling them, but it can be a little unnerving. Maybe you live in interesting times. But I think that uh if you'll boil your work at work down to how do I be more present? That's why I've got remarkable now instead of taking interview notes on my computer. Uh yeah. Be more human, be more present. That may sound rudimentary, but if you go back to Leviticus 1010, our job is to figure out what's eternal and what's temporary. There is nothing else in history, no code, no AI, no nothing that is called the image of God except you and Alex. I'm looking in your right eye now, you and you. It's the most eternal thing you own. And if you'll focus on being that for other people, the chairs are going to shuffle. Who knows where this is all going to land? It's actually a pretty cool time to live. But you'll still be valuable if you can practice that image of God. That's great. I'm feeling a little preachy. Can I give you one last thing for we go? Okay, listen, here's here's something uh you've had to listen to me talk about history too many times, history of doctrine, history of this, history of that. Uh one one mega trend I noticed years ago, and I've said it a bunch of times, is if you look at the seismic shifts in church growth, not the, oh, we're using drums now, you know, or or we have liturgy, or right. Not not little things, but like the serious growth spurts of the kingdom. Because growth doesn't happen like this, it happens like this, right? Everywhere you go. So the serious growth spurts of the kingdom always happened right after the kingdom breakthrough always happens right after a communication breakthrough. That's good. Every time. So interesting. Paul planted the churches in the New Testament. Well, he didn't he wouldn't have been able to do that if Rome hadn't built the roads.

unknown 26:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

We canonized the New Testament in somewhere in the fourth century or early 300s. Uh guess what? That's right when Alexander had sort of taken over the world and there was one common Greek. Yep. There were endless dialects of Greek, but for the first time ever, we had one common language, and the New Testament gets canonized and the church takes off. The printing press gets invented. Martin Luther puts a Bible in everybody's hands. Major seismic shift. I believe big kingdom breakthroughs happen as soon as a communication breakthrough happens. Now, answer me this. Have we ever lived in a time where there's been a bigger communication breakthrough than the last 10, 20 years? So, you see, I think a kingdom breakthrough is coming. Come on. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. I I mean, the Bible will be translated into every language on the planet within five years. Might be sooner than that. It will. That's going to happen. And Jesus said, watch out. When that happens, we're getting close. I think we're getting close. Yep. And if that means we go through, I mean, we all argue about how the world's going to end, but everybody agrees the end of it's going to suck before it gets better. So maybe we're about to live in the suck part. Yeah. But that's right before the better. Yeah. And so I would say embrace the times. Yes. Maybe keep one of each on hand. I don't know, whatever your theology allows. And just realize there's some eternal things that God made in you that coding will never replace. That's correct. And there's some temporary things that are going to shift a lot quicker than you ever thought. And if you can just realize that and take on the priestly job of discerning which is which and leaning into the right thing and not the wrong, you're going to be fine. And no matter how the chairs change, you'll be able to fill them. That's great. So look people in the eye, dead in the right eye, and tell them that.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

That's awesome. That's so good. Well, Pastor Leader. I'm looking you in the eye right now, and I want to say thank you for joining us. Hope that you're able to glean something from this conversation and notice the human-to-human relational traits of the people on your team. We'll see you next time. Thanks again for joining us on the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you're looking for more leadership resources, you can find us at Vanderblumen.com and on socials at Vanderblumen. We'll see you again next week where we continue discussing how to build, run, and keep great teams.