Summer Reading Recommendation
More Human, How the Power of AI can Transform the way you Lead by Jacqueline Carter and Rasmus Hougaard
If you are involved in any way shape or form with leadership I would strongly recommend this highly digestible, thought provoking, and robustly researched read.
It’s not their first rodeo by a long shot, Rasmus and Jacqueline have been exploring how leaders can create the mental capacity and human qualities to lead well for more than a decade, and ‘More Human’ is the latest step in that exploration.
I’m not a particularly fast reader but managed (with a little skimming) to nail it in a weekend. If you prefer to listen, it’s available as an audio book and you can find several podcast interviews with Rasmus who was nominated by Thinkers50 as one of the 8 most important leadership thinkers in the world!) I would particularly recommend episode 126 of the The Workplace Podcast.
The question at the heart of the book is…
“How can AI augment human leaders so they can become better at leading?”
Rather than focussing on what AI might replace, the authors invite us to consider what it might help us become. Both AI and humans have significant strengths, and significant limitations. Used wisely, each can compensate for the limitations of the other.
Achieving this “both/and” comes down to mastering what the authors call the art of toggling, moving intentionally between the qualities humans bring and the capabilities that AI provides.
The book explores how we can do this by developing and augmenting 3 distinctly human leadership qualities;
- Awareness: of ourselves, of others and the wider systems in which we operate.
- Wisdom: distinct from knowledge, the ability to discern, exercise judgement and see from an elevated perspective.
- Compassion: not pleasing people or avoiding difficult conversations but doing hard things in a human way
Each quality is then broken down into 5 foundational mindsets that can be most fully developed with an and/both approach to leverage the unique qualities of AI and being human.
What I love most about this book is the invitation to embrace both technological advancement and ancient wisdom.
AI has the potential to transform the way we live and work possibly more significantly than any other technological advancement in my lifetime, it can give us back precious time, time to develop other people, develop ourselves, be with those we love, create, reflect and perhaps make the world a better place.
The authors present us with an important choice.
Will we use the time AI can give us to become more human, or will we simply fill it with more e mails, more projects, more activity, more stuff!
If that question makes you pause for thought, I think you might find that More Human is worth a few hours of your summer.
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