The End of Why

00:00:01: Hello and welcome!

00:00:04: Before we get into this episode, I want you to listen something.

00:00:09: Daddy why can't see the stars during day?

00:00:13: Because sun shines so bright that we cannot see them anymore.

00:00:17: But where do they go?

00:00:19: Honey...they don't go anywhere.

00:00:21: They're still there.

00:00:23: We just cant'see them.

00:00:25: Why not if their's are still there?

00:00:28: because sunlight is stronger.

00:00:31: But why is sunlight stronger?

00:00:33: Because the sun... ...is much closer.

00:00:35: Closer than

00:00:36: what?!

00:00:36: Ha ha!

00:00:37: Closer then other stars…

00:00:39: The Sun as a

00:00:40: star??

00:00:41: Yes, yes it

00:00:43: IS!!

00:00:44: How close is

00:00:44: the

00:00:45: Sun???

00:00:46: You know what sweetheart?

00:00:47: That's really good question.

00:00:49: I don't know the answer but you made me curious.

00:00:53: Let me find out and i'll tell later okay?

00:00:56: Promise?

00:00:57: I promise.

00:01:11: Did this conversation sound familiar?

00:01:15: I'm sure many of you recognize yourselves either as a child or the parent.

00:01:21: Isn't it fascinating, The kind of questions children ask when they're exploring the world?

00:01:28: It's that genuine curiosity That can be a pure delight but equally annoying When we either don't have the knowledge Or the time to answer them and when life gets in the way That's promise to find out the answer can easily be broken.

00:01:47: And when that happens, The child maybe forgets about a question or Maybe she learns that curiosity is not really rewarded.

00:01:57: I've been thinking A lot About this lately because although we know that Curiosity drives exploration learning innovation and development We are making it harder and Harder for people To stay curious.

00:02:12: Curiosity vanishes in a world that's focused on certainty, outcomes and answers.

00:02:18: And the implications of that are rarely acknowledged – not in our educational systems, not in business….

00:02:26: …and in particular NOT in current race for AI adoption!

00:02:31: But when curiosity is gone, OUR motivation to learn follows.

00:02:36: Knowledge today... ...is just a prompt away.

00:02:39: Learning is judged by how fast it pays off.

00:02:43: Both turn into a transaction.

00:02:45: It's not the same kind of learning that happens when we really want to explore our problem, When curiosity is driving us to extend learning beyond obvious outcome.

00:02:56: But this exactly where continuous improvement connecting different ideas new perspectives and adaptability come from.

00:03:06: Isn't what we call innovation?

00:03:08: When people lose curiosity about their work, it doesn't happen overnight.

00:03:14: It's driven by the environment we give them when we focus on executing instead of thinking delivering Instead of developing and performing.

00:03:23: overgrowing.

00:03:25: Gallup has been measuring this for over two decades in global engagement surveys.

00:03:30: The results are not encouraging And while some people take the drop in human engagement as a signal to question the work environments we've created.

00:03:42: Others use it as an excuse, to replace humans with AI.

00:03:47: This connects my previous episode called The Confidence Trap because It is overconfidence at large To believe that anyone can foresee the implications of scaling the use of AI... ...to a degree most human works becomes redundant I would even say its complete arrogance and ignorance of the human capabilities that got us to this point.

00:04:11: Now, does it mean I'm joining the AI fear narrative?

00:04:16: Certainly not!

00:04:17: Because fear is never a good teacher –I prefer curiosity- so just few weeks ago i built myself a work stream & project planner.

00:04:28: It's a web app to organize my entire work running only on my laptop.

00:04:36: I'd read about vibe coding before, but now i wanted to see whether someone like me without a technical background could actually build something real with AI.

00:04:46: And my curiosity despite some frustrations and the serious learning effort was highly rewarded!

00:04:53: The app runs on over four thousand seven hundred lines of code.

00:04:56: it does exactly what i needed to do... ...and finishing it just felt amazing.. ..and almost unbelievable.

00:05:04: What I did not expect was that building it would also take me over thirty years back in time.

00:05:11: It was nineteen ninety-five.

00:05:13: As i wanted to improve my English,I had convinced my parents to finance a school year abroad and went into the UK.

00:05:21: Their A level system allowed me pick specific focus subjects.

00:05:25: So alongside economics & French ,i picked computer science.

00:05:33: Of course I had used it primarily to play games, but i was also interested in how it worked.

00:05:39: Signing up for that class simply meant following my curiosity.

00:05:44: so while I was still fascinated by how well my app worked... ...I was taken back to my first day and class.

00:05:52: The moment of entering the room is still a scene burned into my memory.

00:05:57: It was looks that got from teacher & other students.

00:06:02: Yes!

00:06:02: I was the only girl, and the whole room communicated something immediately.

00:06:08: You do not belong

00:06:10: here.".

00:06:11: The teacher even said this is a computer science class!

00:06:15: Are you sure in your right room?

00:06:18: Not very inviting or

00:06:19: encouraging...right?...I'm

00:06:21: sure that you can imagine how well classes went.

00:06:25: It's easy to exclude someone from learning but i am NOT someone who gives up quickly.

00:06:31: Calling Germany from the UK in nineteen ninety-five wasn't cheap, but my uncle had studied information technology and was quite computer savvy.

00:06:41: He was one person able to help me understand what I wasn't getting in class.

00:06:47: So i called him not just once Every time would very quickly explain What is working on write down everything he said go back to study room work on it called again if I still didn't get it.

00:07:02: I was eager to stay, but it was certainly tough.

00:07:06: so one day we had to present homework.

00:07:09: i don't really remember what it was exactly a number We have figure out or some kind of logic problem.

00:07:16: But What?

00:07:16: Do you Remember vividly is this with the help Of my uncle i'd come up With A Number that Was Different from Everyone Else's and It Was The Correct One.

00:07:27: I was the only one in class who got it right.

00:07:31: For a moment, i felt some hope but the looks on everyone's faces quickly destroyed again.

00:07:38: So if you think that is just a moment things shifted That getting it right would somehow change how we were seen and treated.

00:07:45: It didn't If anything made thing worse After two months of receiving this continuous message because it was the only class with a space left.

00:08:00: So definitely not my choice, and I had a hard time developing strong enough interest in The Ottoman Empire to get a decent grade!

00:08:09: In the confidence trap we looked at what happens when reward performative confidence too much but i deliberately left something out of that episode –the way confidence gets taken away from others.

00:08:23: Curiosity builds our drive but we also need encouragement to sustain it.

00:08:29: Without it, the courage to keep going is easily

00:08:32: destroyed.".

00:08:33: What I experienced in nineteen ninety-five was not unusual.

00:08:38: The same certainty that inflates the confidence of some people Is being used to tell others they are not enough and at worst to exclude them.

00:08:48: This happens in classrooms In teams And entire workplaces.

00:08:54: Go back in time yourself now.

00:08:56: Think of the best teacher you ever had, someone whose influence you still carry.

00:09:02: Just hold that memory for a moment and let's look at what curiosity actually is.

00:09:08: Considering our childhood nature and how we learn I would say it's a fundamental part of human nature A trait we all carry when we enter this world.

00:09:19: It certainly holds an intrinsic motivation And from an adult perspective, we may be inclined to say that some people have more of it than others.

00:09:29: But just let me guess a little bit what your teacher was like?

00:09:33: They probably didn't just give you facts and figures... ...and didn't hand-you the answer!

00:09:39: I'm sure they asked questions….

00:09:41: …that weren't focused on one solution.

00:09:44: Rather, they made not knowing feel like the start of something—something you wanted to explore and figure out yourself.

00:09:52: They inspired you to think across subjects and connect the dots.

00:09:56: That is, The best form of teaching!

00:09:59: It's the ability to empower our innate curiosity.

00:10:03: So Curiosity isn't just a trade.

00:10:06: If it gets nurtured by great teachers... ...it becomes A skill.

00:10:11: A skill that defines whether we consider learning something finite or infinite And thats what most organizations get wrong.

00:10:20: they treat like a trait instead of a skill.

00:10:23: Research on learning consistently shows that people become more curious when they're given problems worth thinking about, When their questions are taken seriously... ...when they feel safe enough to make mistakes and keep learning.

00:10:38: Curiosity needs a gap – something we don't know yet but want to know!

00:10:43: That gap is the engine of learning.

00:10:46: If we close it too fast by handing people an answer by punishing mistakes and questions, and leaving the thinking to whoever speaks the loudest.

00:10:57: We kill the very thing that makes learning

00:10:59: possible.".

00:11:00: And we have built entire environments that did exactly that long before AI arrived.

00:11:07: AI is in many ways just amplifying the conditions that are already given, and it's striking to see people building something.

00:11:20: History is full of inventor and tinkerer stories that show us exactly why curiosity has a skill to be nourished and developed.

00:11:28: In the eighteen forties, Ada Lovelace looked at a mechanical calculating engine... ...and saw something others were missing.

00:11:37: She didn't just see a tool to calculate faster she asked what else could be done with it.

00:11:43: Eventually she described what computers can do a century before they existed At the age of twenty-seven, with no formal scientific position but with a question she couldn't let go off.

00:11:57: Nikola Tesla did not invent things by following a plan.

00:12:01: He played with ideas compulsively without knowing where they were going Most.

00:12:07: what he tried didn't work –he kept going anyway.

00:12:11: The alternating current that powers most world's electricity today came from someone who simply wouldn't stop asking what electricity could do.

00:12:22: Neither of them was chasing a deliverable or optimizing for output, they were following their curiosity.

00:12:30: so leaders building environments where learning is only valued by its direct impact on performance are hollowing out the organization The pattern.

00:12:40: I've repeatedly seen that when profits drop And the reasoning is almost always the same.

00:12:50: It's the hardest to connect with immediate return, and easiest to explain away.

00:12:56: But every time it happens curiosity and learning take another hit.

00:13:01: The message to employees is quiet but clear Your development costs not investment.

00:13:09: The organizations that will sustain know something different.

00:13:14: They know that investing in people is the future and That investment is not only about training and development budgets But about an entire culture built on the genuine belief,that People are The reason the business exists.

00:13:29: It's a culture where curiosity Is valued Where someone can say I don't Know yet safely while learning happens daily And Not because it's In the calendar.

00:13:41: It's an environment and leadership culture that continuously supports it.

00:13:46: So the way curiosity is being treated in an organization eventually tells us way more than any cultural statement on a company website.

00:13:56: Two companies got this right long before AI was making headlines.

00:14:00: In two thousand five Delta Airlines filed for bankruptcy.

00:14:05: The US airline industry was on its knees after nine eleven.

00:14:09: pressure to cut everything was enormous.

00:14:12: Delta cut costs too, but they did not cut the belief that their people were the reason their business existed.

00:14:20: so CEO Ed Bastian then still in the role of CFO didn't just look at the numbers.

00:14:27: he got curious about the people running the business.

00:14:30: So you started gathering up to three hundred employees a time for listening sessions called Velvet Velvet as in behind-the-velvet rope.

00:14:41: Twenty years later, those sessions still happen.

00:14:44: A thousand front-line employees still come behind that rope every year and he didn't stop at listening.

00:14:51: Delta also runs a program called Behind the Wings.

00:14:54: Senior leaders volunteer to do the frontline jobs themselves.

00:14:59: They sit behind baggage drop desks At ticket counters they deal with frustrated customers And cold mornings on the ramp.

00:15:09: Delta rebuilt its career framework.

00:15:12: Apprenticeship programs, internal promotions before external hires A talent architecture that lets people see what they could become next.

00:15:23: All of it driven by a CEO who was genuinely curious about What is People needed to do their best work?

00:15:30: Take care of your people and They take care of customers And happy customers reward you with loyalty.

00:15:38: delta has been building that for twenty years and it is now rated the number one airline for passenger service in the US.

00:15:48: Lego, The Danish Toy Company went through something similar when Jürgen Knutstorp became CEO.

00:15:55: In two thousand four ,the company was on the brink of bankruptcy a victim of overexpansion And lost brand identity.

00:16:04: He wasn't outsider A former McKinsey consultant and the first CEO not from the founding family.

00:16:12: The first thing he did was get curious, He walked through the organization asking questions what does it actually mean to work at Lego?

00:16:22: What is that we do better than anyone else?

00:16:25: why does this company exist ?

00:16:28: He sent his designers to live with families for a week just to watch how children played .He wanted to understand.

00:16:38: With this approach, he turned the company into one of the most valuable toy brands in every leader already playing the headcount reduction with AI game.

00:17:13: Organizations are spending ninety-three percent of their budgets on AI technology, just seven per cent on people expected to use it and only ten per cent of organizations say that they're seeing meaningful return on that investment.

00:17:29: so I'm wondering is there overconfidence in AI technology or underestimation human capabilities?

00:17:39: Most likely it's both because the math clearly shows, It doesn't add up and its not as if leaders haven't been told.

00:17:49: BCG is just one consulting company which advises the opposite.

00:17:54: When companies undertake AI transformation they need to focus two-thirds of their efforts on people related capabilities And even more interesting The companies that actually lead an AI adoption Follow this rule.

00:18:10: Ten percent of resources on AI models, twenty per cent on the infrastructure and data to run them And seventy per cent On people and how they work with it.

00:18:23: Most organizations however stick To high investment technology.

00:18:28: low invest in People approach.

00:18:31: That is current reality Of AI adoption at organizational level.

00:18:36: But what happens to us individually?

00:18:39: Do we have a choice of how much we use the new shiny tools?

00:18:43: According to some headlines about companies forcing employees to use AI for higher productivity, probably not.

00:18:51: Earlier this month Time Magazine published research on nearly two thousand working adults.

00:18:57: The study was not asking whether people used AI.

00:19:01: It was asking how they used it.

00:19:03: People who accepted AI outputs without questioning them who took the first answer and moved on, reported lower confidence in their own thinking leading to a weaker sense that work was still theirs.

00:19:18: People who pushed back—who edited, questioned, rejected —who stayed at the driver's seat—reported the

00:19:24: opposite."

00:19:25: More Confidence, Stronger Ownership And most important detail.

00:19:31: The people most likely to pushback on AI were once with existing expertise which means the people most at risk are the ones still developing.

00:19:42: The junior team member who does not yet have the knowledge to recognize when AI is wrong, a new hire doesn't have sufficient background on their company or the person who never really was encouraged to think for themselves.

00:19:59: We've already stripped entire generations of experience by figuring something out.

00:20:08: We're handing them tools that will not only kill their curiosity entirely, but take their confidence and ambition right with it.

00:20:17: So the risk of what we are losing now can hardly be ignored.

00:20:22: still The race for artificial general intelligence continues at full speed.

00:20:29: Consider OpenAI's definition of AGI Systems That Will Outperform Humans At Most Economically Valuable Work.

00:20:38: It comes as no surprise that people are already fighting AI adoption.

00:20:43: Why would anyone want to make use of something, That will eventually make them redundant?

00:20:48: The idea that people will adapt... ...that we'll find purpose in other things and universal basic income will provide is one the most reckless assumptions being made today.

00:21:01: it's clearly overconfidence In light of power dynamics and wealth accumulation already running this world.

00:21:09: And the people most confident we can handle are not even ones who built technology.

00:21:15: Joffrey Hinton, one of the founding figures for modern AI left a senior position at Google in twenty-twenty three years ago.

00:21:24: The reason?

00:21:25: He wanted to be able speak freely about what could go wrong if the use is focused on mere profit extraction rather than extending human capabilities.

00:21:37: Yoshua Benjo, another key architect of deep learning has spent years advocating for safety measures.

00:21:44: He also asks for slowing the race down – for looking at second and third-order consequences before they become irreversible.

00:21:54: They are not outsiders And just two of many critical voices among those who built their technology….

00:22:02: …and clearly aren't saying full speed ahead.

00:22:05: However, their voices sound more and more alarming.

00:22:09: And maybe that's necessary to reach the people holding the strings?

00:22:13: But it doesn't help learning!

00:22:15: The attention economy pulls them into the fear narrative... ...the more alarming the headline….

00:22:20: ..the more clicks.. …the more followers….and revenue.

00:22:24: A whole content industry is now using these voices to profit before that revenue stream is also done Instead of raising awareness in educating.

00:22:34: They're running on drama and fear, but fear does not inspire curiosity.

00:22:40: It leads us into paralysis.

00:22:43: if you genuinely believe AI is coming for your job regardless of what you do Why would you stay curious about how to work with it?

00:22:51: Well why would you invest in learning?

00:22:54: What any organization invests in developing its people?

00:22:59: And it is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

00:23:03: Fear creates paralysis.

00:23:05: Paralysis lowers engagement, disengagement hurts performance and then companies see replacing human workers as the only way out.

00:23:15: So what we actually need is the opposite.

00:23:19: We need people curious enough to ask the hard questions Engaged enough to care about the answers And willing to stay in the discomfort of not knowing.

00:23:29: yet The complexity of our brains is still being mapped.

00:23:34: We don't even have a full definition of human intelligence, yet we behave as if we know everything!

00:23:41: What we seem to have forgotten... ...is that we got this far by refusing to accept….

00:23:47: …that the answer in front us is the final

00:23:50: one.".

00:23:51: So how much overconfidence does it take?

00:23:54: To think that can hand out thinking to machines without looking carefully at what we're trading away.

00:24:01: Why do we talk about capabilities, growth and innovation when we don't even understand the conditions that made those things possible in the first place?

00:24:11: Just think about what we actually see in most companies The person who has a better idea of doing something but doesn't say it because they are too far down in hierarchy... ...the new joiner full of ideas Who learns within few weeks to keep their head down.

00:24:28: Someone tells them, that's just the way we do things here.

00:24:32: And the experienced manager who used to ask great questions but stopped when told to focus on cutting costs.

00:24:41: none of them chose to stop being curious.

00:24:44: The environment made curiosity too costly for them and When we introduce AI into such an environment We certainly don't bring it back Instead.

00:25:00: So what should the playbook for empowering humans with AI actually look like?

00:25:06: I would say we need leaders, With courage to hit pause button.

00:25:11: To sit in second and third order consequences before we race past them.

00:25:17: Leaders who see people as reason.

00:25:19: their business exists And AI is a tool to expand our capabilities not replace them.

00:25:26: And we need organizations and leaders we can trust.

00:25:31: Errogance, an overconfidence don't build trust.

00:25:35: curiosity in care about people do.

00:25:38: In the reflection episode on Friday I will give you the practices that drive your own curiosity And help you inspire it in others.

00:25:48: If you found this episode a bit more provocative Good!

00:25:57: But seeing it vanish more and more, sometimes even deliberately destroyed is something I'm willing to fight against.

00:26:06: Not by going against technology but against the fear narrative... ...and against a promise that AI will eventually help us solve our problems….

00:26:15: …that we haven't tried to solve without them!

00:26:19: We have to bring back our curiosity – Our willingness to learn & grow And The humility To accept that we don't know everything.

00:26:29: We should consider, that we got this far with way more capabilities than what AI is currently built on because it's build a fragmented idea of human intelligence and maybe its time to become curious about humans again.

00:26:45: so stay curious Stay tuned!

00:26:48: Feel free to connect with me Hit the subscribe button & return for reflection.

00:26:53: episode Friday.

00:26:55: Let me close this episode by continuing the story with which it started.

00:27:02: My friend the little star.

00:27:26: Honey, do you remember that question about the stars today?

00:27:30: Yes!

00:27:30: You promised to find out how close the sun is.

00:27:34: I did and can tell an amazing story.