THE NEW WORK PLAYBOOK

Most of what we consider to be leadership is about managing resources, not leading humans. AI is about to make that impossible to ignore.

The leadership practices that would actually make work better for us are not new. They've just never been trained and practised well enough. Instead we focused on efficiency, control and output. That's management. Now AI can handle all of that much better. What's left for us?

I think this is the defining question of our time.
Instead of asking if AI will replace leaders, we should ask whether we'll finally build the kind of leadership that deserves to stay.

The New Work Playbook is a weekly podcast for anyone who believes that work gets better because people matter.
Monday episodes explore why something matters for leadership in the age of AI. Friday reflection episodes give you something practical to try.
Hosted by Annett Burger, a leadership practitioner with twenty years of experience in executive search, leadership development, and consulting.

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Latest episodes

Daring to Care

‧ 26m 31s

Do you know the difference between empathy and care?
Many leaders don't. And it's costing us more than we realise.

Most of us have been trained on empathy and assume care comes with it.
But empathy and care don't even activate the same areas of the brain.
And empathy without care is what's been draining leaders for years, without the results we hoped for.

In this episode I take you on the discovery journey that changed how I think about both.
From psychology to neuroscience to philosophy, research has been pointing at a clear distinction for decades. And the difference...

Rebuilding Trust in Yourself and with Others

‧ 15m 52s

What moral value would most people say they live by?
Across cultures, the answer is honesty.
So why do we pass on the small daily moments where saying something honestly costs hardly anything?

This is the reflection episode following The Broken Spine.
I tell the story of a stranger who once spared me a real embarrassment,
and what that moment taught me about kindness.

We move through two practices for self-trust and two practices for trust with others.
The practices are small.
Their power is consistency.

Trust starts with us.
As trust and care go hand in hand, the next...

Trust: The Broken Spine

‧ 20m 37s

What happens when trust collapses at every layer of our world?
When companies replace thousands with AI, when politicians are serving their personal interests, and the AI race runs faster than the questions it should answer first?

In this episode I look at why trust as the spine of our society is broken.
Why even the right kind of leaders are subject to the pressures that make trust collapse.
And why the answer to bringing trust back may not start where most listeners expect.

I tell the story of the people who walked away from OpenAI in 2021 to build...

Reclaiming Our Curiosity

‧ 17m 0s

We were told humans now have shorter attention spans than goldfish.

That's a myth turned into popular knowledge.
The story has been useful to industries that profit from us believing we are smaller than we are.
This reflection episode looks at how diminished beliefs about us shape the environments we accept,
and what curiosity has to do with rebuilding them.

A private reflection on the times you were certain and turned out to be wrong.
The practice of "Keep Asking" when AI hands you the surface answer.
And two ways leaders bring curiosity back into their teams.

When did you...

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