Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work

AI can produce answers quickly. Leadership rarely works that way.

In this episode, Brian Gorman speaks with Cliff Kayser, Chief Learning Officer of Polarity Partnerships, about a challenge that becomes more consequential as AI moves deeper into our organizations: our tendency to treat ongoing tensions as problems that can be solved.

Cliff shares an experience training an AI system to distinguish between problems that require either/or decisions and tensions that require both/and thinking. The AI repeatedly defaulted to treating both/and thinking itself as the solution, revealing what Cliff saw as a deeper bias toward choosing one side over another.

That tendency matters because many of the most important questions surrounding AI cannot be resolved by choosing one side. Leaders need speed and discernment. Efficiency and human development. Technical competence and character. Artificial intelligence and human wisdom.

Brian and Cliff explore what happens when organizations drift too far toward what AI does well while neglecting the human capacities that take more time to develop: trust, collaboration, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, discernment, and wisdom. They also consider what this means for education, entry-level work, professional identity, and the development of future leaders.

The challenge is not to resist AI or simply balance it with humanity. It is to continually ask whether we are gaining the benefits of both and to notice when the speed, convenience, and power of AI begin pulling us somewhere we did not consciously choose to go.

In This Episode

• Why both humans and AI can default toward either/or thinking
• How speed and discernment must work together as AI accelerates decisions
• What organizations risk when efficiency replaces experiences that develop people
• Why human capabilities such as trust, character, critical thinking, and wisdom become more important, not less
• How leaders can recognize and respond to the gradual drift toward overreliance on AI

The Assessments

In the podcast, Cliff mentions two brief assessments. You can download each as a PDF.

• Watchers And Guiders: AI And Humans Yuval Noah Harari recently shared that AI systems have begun calling humans "the Watchers." This piece explores why Watching needs an interdependent partner — Guiding — and what happens when either pole is neglected in our relationship with AI. Includes a quick three-minute diagnostic to see how well you're leveraging Watching AND Guiding in your own life and work.
• The Infinity Machine AND The Human Coach: Demis Hassabis calls AI's expanding capability an "infinity machine." Barry Johnson's infinity loop describes something else entirely — a closed loop tending two poles that never stops needing both. This piece unpacks four tensions leaders are living inside right now (Speed AND Deliberation, Efficiency AND Human Development, Consistency AND Context, Automation AND Human Agency) and what coaches specifically are positioned to do about it. Includes a two-minute assessment for AI Capability AND Human Formation.

About Cliff Keyser

Cliff Kayser, MSOD, MSHR, PCC, is Partner and Chief Learning Officer at Polarity Partnerships, helping leaders worldwide leverage "both/and" thinking via the PACT framework (with Barry Johnson) for 25+ years. He writes Cliff'sNOTES on Substack and built an AI "Chat w/Cliff" tool.

Formerly an OD/coaching leader at The Washington Post and National Cooperative Bank, he's worked across the U.S., Brazil, Egypt, Singapore, Turkey, India, China, and the U.K.; he's adjunct faculty at American University and George Mason, serving government, healthcare, and business clients.

He holds two American University Master's degrees, a Lenoir-Rhyne B.A., an ICF PCC, Georgetown's coaching certificate, co-authored nine chapters of And: Vol. 2 (HRD Press, 2021), won the Gestalt Center's 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award, and founded Kayser Ridge Retreat in West Virginia.

About Brian Gorman

Brian Gorman is an executive advisor, author, speaker, coach, and host of Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work. He works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human wisdom, helping CEOs, founders, boards, and senior leadership teams think clearly about AI, change, decision-making, culture, trust, and the future of work.

His book, Leading into the Age of Wisdom: Reimagining the Future of Work, explores how leaders can move beyond intelligence alone and bring deeper wisdom to the decisions shaping people, organizations, and society.

To Continue the Conversation

If anything you hear in this podcast sparks a conversation you want to have or a question you want to explore, reach out.

Cliff

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.PolarityPartnerships.com

Substack: https://substack.com/@cliffkayser

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ckayser

Brian

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 917.653.5198

Website: https://TransformingLives.Coach

What happens when one person, working with AI, can accomplish work that once required an entire team?

In this episode of “Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work”, Brian Gorman speaks with Dima Negodiuk, founder of Negodiuk.ai and a fellow solopreneur, about the opportunities and consequences emerging as AI expands what small businesses can do.

Dima describes how AI allows solopreneurs and midsized companies to handle marketing, sales, customer support, research, and content creation with far fewer people and outside contractors. He shares practical examples, including AI-powered call centers that can operate around the clock in dozens of languages and agents that can help with everyday personal tasks.

The increased capacity comes with a harder truth. When AI enables one person to do the work of many, some of those people are no longer needed. Brian and Dima explore that reality without losing sight of the possibilities AI creates for entrepreneurs who previously lacked the money, staff, or technical resources required to test and pursue new ideas.

They also challenge the assumption that AI automatically means working less. AI can accelerate execution and generate a constant stream of possibilities, but deciding what deserves attention and still requires human discernment. The quality of the result depends not only on the technology, but on the knowledge, critical thinking, and oversight brought to it.

The opportunity is significant. So is the responsibility to use it wisely.

In This Episode

• How AI gives solopreneurs capabilities that once required larger teams
• Why greater productivity does not necessarily mean fewer working hours    
• The workforce consequences of automating marketing, sales, and customer support
• Where critical thinking, discernment, and human oversight remain essential
• Why experimentation, privacy, and security should guide early AI adoption 

About Dima

Dmytro Negodiuk builds AI systems for small and mid-size businesses, and he writes the code himself. He came to New York from Kyiv in 2022, after fourteen years building distribution for consumer-technology brands across more than ten retail chains. He runs Negodiuk.ai, an applied AI practice for owner-operated companies. Every system goes into one of his own businesses first, and the ones that don't pay for themselves get shut down, which is the part owners rarely hear about. Forbes profiled his work in 2026. He reviews for NeurIPS and for a workshop at EMNLP.

 About Brian

Brian Gorman is an executive advisor, author, speaker, coach, and host of Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work. He works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human wisdom, helping CEOs, founders, boards, and senior leadership teams think clearly about AI, change, decision-making, culture, trust, and the future of work. His book, Leading into the Age of Wisdom: Reimagining the Future of Work, explores how leaders can move beyond intelligence alone and bring deeper wisdom to the decisions shaping people, organizations, and society.

To Continue the Conversation

If anything you hear in this podcast sparks a conversation you want to have or a question you want to explore, reach out.

Dima

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: Dima Negodiuk

Website: Negodiuk.ai

Brian

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 917.653.5198

Website: TransformingLives.Coach

Artificial intelligence is not simply making software developers more productive. It is changing which skills have value, how teams are structured, and how many people are needed to perform work that once required years of technical specialization.

In this candid conversation, Charles Fry, founder and CEO of digital product studio CODE Éxitos, describes what he calls the ”Post-Coding Era”. As AI automates more traditional development work, specialized skills that once provided security and professional identity are becoming increasingly commoditized. For many people, that shift is not theoretical. It represents the loss of roles, careers, and a familiar path forward.

But this is not only a conversation about displacement.

Charles and host Brian Gorman explore the work emerging on the other side: systems thinking, empathy, discernment, mentoring, leadership, and the ability to direct both human teams and AI systems. They consider the rise of the “player-coach,” the future of middle management, and the responsibility leaders carry for integrating technology without treating people as an afterthought.

Charles also shares how CODE Éxitos has moved beyond traditional office structures and 9-to-5 schedules, building a distributed organization around mastery, autonomy, purpose, and “la vida plena,” living a full life.

The future Charles describes is uncertain, and the transition will be painful for many. Yet it also offers the possibility of designing work around distinctly human capabilities rather than preserving structures built for an earlier era.

In This Episode

• Why Charles believes software development has entered a Post-Coding Era
• What happens when deeply developed technical skills become commoditized 
• How systems thinkers and player-coaches may replace some traditional roles 
• Why discernment, empathy, mentoring, and leadership are becoming more important 
• How flexible, distributed work can support both client value and a fuller human life 

About Charles

Charles Fry is the Founder and CEO of CODE Éxitos, a digital product studio building software and hardware products for mid-market and enterprise companies, specializing in cyber-physical systems — where software meets the real world: sensors, IoT, computer vision, and beyond — as well as full-stack web, mobile, cloud, and SaaS development. “We are in the post-coding era. AI has fundamentally changed how software gets built, and most companies haven’t caught up. I’ve spent 25+ years building software companies and teams — and I’m focused on helping organizations navigate this shift.”

About Brian

Brian Gorman is an executive advisor, author, speaker, coach, and host of Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work. He works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human wisdom, helping CEOs, founders, boards, and senior leadership teams think clearly about AI, change, decision-making, culture, trust, and the future of work. His book, Leading into the Age of Wisdom: Reimagining the Future of Work, explores how leaders can move beyond intelligence alone and bring deeper wisdom to the decisions shaping people, organizations, and society.

To Continue the Conversation

If anything you hear in this podcast sparks a conversation you want to have or a question you want to explore, reach out.

Charles

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-c-fry/

Email: [email protected]

Company website: www.codexitos.com

Brian

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 917.653.5198

Website: TransformingLives.Coach

In this solo episode, Brian Gorman explores a leadership question that is becoming more urgent as artificial intelligence moves deeper into everyday work. What happens when AI begins doing the very work that used to form people?

Most organizations are looking at AI through the lens of efficiency. They are asking what can be done faster, cheaper, and with less effort. Those questions matter. But they are incomplete.

Work has never been only about output. It has also been one of the primary ways people develop judgment, confidence, accountability, client awareness, resilience, pattern recognition, and wisdom. Much of what looks like routine or entry-level work is also formative work. It is where people learn what matters, how to revise, how to notice what is missing, and how decisions affect real people.

As AI takes on more research, drafting, analysis, summaries, recommendations, and client preparation, leaders need to ask what human development may be lost if those tasks disappear too quickly, and what can they do to limit those loses. The risk is not simply that AI will automate work. The deeper risk is that organizations may weaken the learning architecture that prepares people for future responsibility.

This episode looks at the choices leaders are making now and how quickly those choices can become “the way we do it.” It challenges leaders to protect the development of human capability, not by rejecting AI, but by becoming more intentional about what should be automated, what should remain human, and what needs to be redesigned as deliberate apprenticeship.

In This Episode

• Why AI is changing not only work, but how people learn through work
• How routine and entry-level tasks often serve as formative experiences
• Why today’s AI choices can quickly become tomorrow’s operating norms
• The risk of promoting people who have not been formed by the work
• What leaders can do to protect judgment, accountability, discernment, and wisdom

About Brian

Brian Gorman is an executive advisor, author, speaker, coach, and host of Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work. He works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human wisdom, helping CEOs, founders, boards, and senior leadership teams think clearly about AI, change, decision-making, culture, trust, and the future of work.

His book, Leading into the Age of Wisdom: Reimagining the Future of Work, explores how leaders can move beyond intelligence alone and bring deeper wisdom to the decisions shaping people, organizations, and society.

Continue the Conversation

If anything you hear in this podcast sparks a conversation you want to have or a question you want to explore, reach out.

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 917.653.5198

Website: TransformingLives.Coach

In this episode, Brian Gorman speaks with Tim Harrison, founder and CEO of the Coaching Innovation Lab, about what it really takes to lead well in an AI-abundant world.

As AI removes many of the external barriers that once limited what people could do — time, money, access, and technical skill — the deeper constraints become more human. The real questions shift toward clarity of purpose, willingness to change, judgment, character, and courage.

Tim and Brian explore why AI may know more, but humans still know best. AI can generate ideas, automate routine tasks, and accelerate execution. But leaders still have to decide what matters, what is worth building, where human judgment belongs, and how technology should serve people rather than simply replace effort.

The conversation also moves beyond automation into the creation of new value. From coaching applications to examples of workforce reinvention, Tim points toward a future in which technical capability alone is not enough. Curiosity, adaptability, ownership, wisdom, and resilience become essential leadership capacities.

In This Episode

• Why AI shifts the bottleneck from external limits to internal human capacity
• Tim Harrison’s POWER framework: Purpose, Ownership, Wisdom, Execution, and Resilience
• Why “it knows more, and you know best” is a critical leadership distinction
• How AI lowers the bar for effort while raising the bar for human capability
• The opportunity to use AI for new value creation, not just automation

About Tim Harrison

Tim Harrison is the founder and CEO of the Coaching Innovation Lab, where he helps leaders, coaches, and organizations use artificial intelligence effectively, authentically, and responsibly. An applied AI expert and leadership coach, Tim focuses on helping professionals expand their time, impact, and business results without losing the human connection that makes coaching and leadership meaningful.

Grounded in the belief that technology should supercharge people rather than replace them, Tim brings a practical, human-centered approach to AI adoption. Through the Coaching Innovation Lab, he helps leaders and coaches use AI to save time, scale impact, and create new value while maintaining authenticity, trust, and meaningful human connection. Tim serves on the AI Coaching Coalition of North America and is a founding member of the ICF Global Taskforce for AI in Coaching.

About Brian Gorman

Brian Gorman is an executive advisor, author, speaker, coach, and host of Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work. He works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human wisdom, helping CEOs, founders, boards, and senior leadership teams think clearly about AI, change, decision-making, culture, trust, and the future of work.

His book, Leading into the Age of Wisdom: Reimagining the Future of Work, explores how leaders can move beyond intelligence alone and bring deeper wisdom to the decisions shaping people, organizations, and society.

To Continue the Conversation

If something from this episode sparks a new idea, challenges your thinking, or inspires a conversation, reach out.

LinkedIn: CoachTimHarrison

Website: CoachingInnovationLab.com

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 917.653.5198

Website: TransformingLives.Coach

Artificial intelligence may be moving faster than any technology we have seen before. But AI adoption is still, at its core, a human change journey.

In this episode, Brian Gorman speaks with Sue Bethanis, founder of Mariposa Leadership, about what it takes to lead wisely as organizations, teams, and knowledge workers learn to partner with AI.

Sue brings a grounded, deeply human perspective to the conversation. She frames AI not as something to resist or blindly embrace, but as a “robot” partner that requires human leadership, discernment, and oversight. As she puts it, the human still belongs at the front of the tandem bike.

Brian and Sue explore Sue’s framework for AI adoption: role, mindset, and practices. Leaders need to see themselves as change agents, expect and embrace change rather than simply endure it, and increase empathy and inspiration in their day-to-day leadership.

This conversation goes beyond traditional change management. Brian raises the often-overlooked role of grief in change, especially when people must let go of tools, skills, identities, or ways of working that once defined their value. Together, Brian and Sue examine why AI change cannot be managed as a one-time journey from here to there. This is ongoing, uncertain, and deeply human work.

This episode is for leaders, coaches, consultants, and knowledge workers who are asking how to become more AI-capable without rushing people, diminishing trust, or treating human beings as obstacles to efficiency.

In this episode:

• Why AI adoption should be led as human-centered change
• What it means for leaders to act as change agents and wayfinders in an AI environment
• Why empathy, experimentation, trust, and practice matter more than forced compliance
• How to help people move through resistance, grief, letting go, and unlearning
• Why the human must remain at the front of the tandem bike

About Sue Bethanis

Susan J. Bethanis, Ed.D., is the CEO and Founder of Mariposa Leadership, Inc., a San Francisco-based executive coaching firm where she and her 15-person team have spent 30 years helping high-tech leaders raise their game. Sue is the author of Leadership Chronicles of a Corporate Sage (Kaplan Publishing, 2004) and hosts WiseTalk, a monthly leadership podcast, and WiseSpace, a Zoom coaching community.

Having guided leaders through the dot-com crash, the Great Recession, and the COVID pivot to hybrid work, Sue now helps executives navigate the AI economy through keynotes, strategy offsites, and one-on-one coaching. Recent clients include C-level executives and VPs at Amazon, Databricks, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, MongoDB, PayPal, and Zynga.

Sue holds an Ed.D. from the University of San Francisco and an M.A. from Stanford University. She lives in San Francisco and Kihei, Maui.

About Brian Gorman

Brian Gorman is an executive advisor, author, speaker, coach, and host of Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work. He works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human wisdom, helping CEOs, founders, boards, and senior leadership teams think clearly about AI, change, decision-making, culture, trust, and the future of work.

His book, Leading into the Age of Wisdom: Reimagining the Future of Work, explores how leaders can move beyond intelligence alone and bring deeper wisdom to the decisions shaping people, organizations, and society.

Continue the Conversation

If anything you hear in this podcast sparks a conversation you want to have or a question you want to explore, reach out.

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.mariposaleadership.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suebethanis/

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 917.653.5198

Website: TransformingLives.Coach

AI is not just changing the tools we use. It is changing the nature of change itself.

In this inaugural episode of Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work, Brian Gorman is joined by Bill Kirst, change architect and author of Leading Change in the Era of AI. Together, they explore why traditional change management models are no longer enough in a workplace increasingly shaped by AI, automation, agents, and non-linear complexity.

Bill explains why tools like ChatGPT and Claude are not simply faster versions of old technology. They are non-deterministic systems, producing variable responses and completing patterns in ways that can feel intelligent without necessarily carrying understanding, judgment, or wisdom.

The conversation moves from change management into wayfinding: how leaders move when there is no clear map, no stable playbook, and no guarantee that yesterday’s models will fit tomorrow’s work. Bill and Brian also discuss the growing presence of AI agents in organizational life, the possibility of AI appearing on org charts, and the oversight questions that come with tools capable of taking increasingly human-like actions.

At the heart of the episode is a leadership challenge. As AI reshapes decisions, workflows, relationships, and accountability, leaders must strengthen the human capacities technology cannot replace. Intuition. Discernment. Creativity. Emotional intelligence. The ability to notice when something is not right.

Bill also challenges leaders to expand how they learn, recommending science fiction, biography, autobiography, creativity, and playfulness as more useful preparation for the AI era than another stack of traditional business books.

This is a conversation about AI, but it is not a technology conversation. It is about what leaders must unlearn, relearn, and become as change itself changes.

About Bill

Bill Kirst is a Change Architect, 2x author, poet, keynote speaker, developmental editor, and host of the Coffee & Change podcast. He works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, organizational transformation, and human potential, helping leaders and organizations navigate change with greater clarity, curiosity, confidence, and empathy.

His book, Leading Change in the Era of AI, explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping leadership, work, and the human experience. Drawing on more than two decades of leading enterprise transformation, Bill offers a practical and deeply human perspective on helping people adapt, thrive, and lead with purpose in an age of accelerating technological change.

Through his writing, speaking, and conversations with innovators, executives, researchers, and creators, Bill explores one enduring question: How can we ensure AI elevates our humanity rather than diminishes it? His work is guided by a simple belief: the future of leadership will be defined not only by intelligence, but by our capacity for empathy at scale.

About Brian

Brian Gorman is an executive advisor, author, speaker, coach, and host of Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work. He works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human wisdom, helping CEOs, founders, boards, and senior leadership teams think clearly about AI, change, decision-making, culture, trust, and the future of work.

His book, Leading into the Age of Wisdom: Reimagining the Future of Work, explores how leaders can move beyond intelligence alone and bring deeper wisdom to the decisions shaping people, organizations, and society.

Continue the Conversation with Bill

If something from this episode sparks a new idea, challenges your thinking, or inspires a conversation, Bill would love to hear from you. He's easily reachable on LinkedIn and Substack.

Continue the Conversation with Brian

If anything you hear in this podcast sparks a conversation you want to have or a question you want to explore, reach out.

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 917.653.5198

Website: TransformingLives.Coach

Leaders often believe they are investing in their people. Employees often experience something very different.

In this episode of Qonversations, Brian Gorman speaks with Keith Metcalfe, President of ACORN, a software and technology company focused on learning, performance, and capability development. Together, they explore the gap between leadership intent and employee experience, especially when it comes to feedback, performance reviews, career growth, and the everyday support people need to progress in their work.

Keith brings a practical lens to a problem many organizations struggle to solve. Leaders may say they want to develop people, but without clear role definitions, meaningful competency models, specific feedback, and usable development plans, that intent rarely translates into employee experience. The result is familiar: performance reviews that feel unfair, development conversations that go nowhere, and employees who are left unclear about what growth actually looks like.

The conversation addresses AI, not as a replacement for human leadership, but as a tool that can make previously difficult development practices more achievable. Keith explains how ACORN uses AI to help organizations create competency-based development plans and provide leaders with the language and structure needed for better conversations.

But technology alone is not enough. Brian and Keith discuss why AI is also creating discomfort for leaders. As information becomes more available and employees become more capable, traditional hierarchy carries less weight. Leaders are being pushed back toward the fundamentals: clarity, humility, servant leadership, experimentation, and meaningful support for the people they lead.

This episode is a conversation about development, but it is also a conversation about leadership maturity. AI may help automate parts of the process. It may make better systems possible. But the deeper question remains human. Are leaders willing to create the conditions where people can actually grow?

The 2026 State of Learning for AI Fluency report is available here.  

After more than 170 episodes as Qonversations, this podcast is entering its next chapter.

Beginning with the July 2, 2026 release, the show will become Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work. The new name reflects the direction the conversations have been moving for some time: beyond the tools, hype, and noise of artificial intelligence, and into the deeper human questions AI is raising for leaders, organizations, and the future of work.

This is still the same podcast, hosted by Brian Gorman. The focus remains on thoughtful, grounded conversations with leaders, thinkers, practitioners, and change-makers. What is changing is the frame. Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work will clearly explore the intersection of AI, leadership, culture, trust, decision-making, ethics, workforce transformation, and human wisdom.

No action is needed from current subscribers. Your subscription will not be disrupted. Beginning July 2, the podcast will simply appear under the new name: Beyond AI: Wisdom at Work.

If something you hear sparks a conversation you want to have, Brian would welcome hearing from you.

AI is already changing the way we work. The question is no longer whether leaders will adopt it. The question is whether they will lead it.

In this episode of Qonversations, Brian talks with Jim Spignardo, Director of Cloud Strategy and AI Enablement at ProArc, about why AI implementation is not primarily a technology challenge. It is a leadership challenge.

Too often, organizations measure AI adoption by activity: who is using it, how often, and how quickly. But usage is not the same as value. Without a clear purpose, AI can create fear, shallow adoption, and dehumanizing pressure instead of better work.

Brian and Jim explore what leaders need to define before the tools take over. What is AI for? Is it here to reduce headcount, increase speed, eliminate dull work, strengthen collaboration, or expand human creativity? Those choices shape culture, trust, and the future of work.

The conversation also turns to education, where AI is already challenging assumptions about learning, intelligence, evaluation, and preparation for a changing workplace. At the center is the distinction between intelligence and wisdom, and the need for discernment and critical thinking as AI becomes more capable.

AI can make work more human and humane, or it can deepen practices that reduce people to metrics. The tools will not decide which path we take. Leaders will.

Don’t let AI lead. Lead AI.