320: Why AI Amplifies Broken Work with Josh Levine

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:11]:

How should we be designing work in the age of AI? That is the question that we are looking to answer on today’s episode of the Happier at Work podcast. I’m your host, Aoife O’Brien, and my guest today is Josh Levine. And we get into very nitty-gritty conversation about what, what work actually means. What is work? What is value? We talk about AI, how it’s supporting us, how it’s getting in the way as well. Thinking about how do we rethink what work actually means in the age of AI. We have a lot of questions that we address. We don’t always have answers, but there’s a kind of burning things that we both think that you should be thinking about for yourself, for your team, for your organization. I would love to know what you think.

Aoife O’Brien [00:01:00]:

I do say to reach out to me directly if you’re wrestling with these kinds of questions. I’d love to hear from you. I’d love to hear what’s top of mind, what you’ve tried, what’s working, what’s not working. And you can reach out to me directly on podcast@happieratwork.ie, and I’d love to hear from you. Josh, welcome to the Happier at Work podcast. I’m so excited to have this conversation for so many different reasons. During my US book tour, we had the opportunity to meet in person. You are one of a handful of people I’ve been following up with since my book tour.

Aoife O’Brien [00:01:33]:

And it’s, it’s, it makes such a difference, I think, having met in person. And I’m so also so excited to have this conversation because I think both of our work is taking us in kind of parallel directions. Let’s say, I won’t say similar. I won’t say the same, but I think we’re kind of— seeing the benefit and the opportunity of AI. Do you want to let people know a little bit more about your background, how you got into doing what you’re doing?

Josh Levine [00:01:59]:

Yeah, sure. Of course. So I consider myself author, educator, and advocate for better work futures. I have been working in the culture space for almost 20 years. I actually started as a brand designer and a brand strategist early in my career because of some economic circumstances and what have you, had the opportunity to think about the brand promises that we were making, you know, at the agency I was at and how most employees weren’t delivering on those brand promises. And so I took my kind of brand strategy toolkit and decided to focus it on the inside and helping organizations tell that story to engage people on the inside, helping them make those choices and move in the direction just the way organizations try to you know, court their customers and have them make certain decisions, right? Convincing them and telling them a story. So that’s how I got into the culture game. Kind of a— usually most folks are from org design or HR, but I had a different path.

Josh Levine [00:03:08]:

I started Great Mondays, my consultancy, in 2008. I wrote a book of the same name in 2018. And I articulate 6 components of company culture because I felt like the conversation around culture was very obtuse and fuzzy. Most people did not understand and still don’t understand really what it takes to build a culture. They sort of find themselves wake up one day and their organization has a culture and they haven’t really thought about it. So that’s why I talk about designing cultures. Fast forward, here we are in 2026 and I am thinking a lot about how organizations are changing. And because of the— because of AI and the new technologies, watching organizations struggle with AI.

Josh Levine [00:03:57]:

And my hypothesis is that we need to be redesigning, uh, how we work. And well, I imagine we’ll get into that, but, um, I have, uh, a couple different projects going on now. Um, that is, I’m trying to kind of write my way through these questions. Um, so I launched a Substack called The Job Shit Show And it’s also a podcast. And I every week write some piece asking a question or pointing out some kind of shitty behavior or something that is happening around how to find work or how to do work. And really just kind of— I don’t have any answers necessarily, but I’ve just got a lot of questions around like what is happening and try to have deep empathy for the people that are actually working in this where their bosses are saying, hey, you need to use AI. And then Everybody’s going, okay, how, what, why, right? Like, and so people are feeling pressure and, you know, burnout, and then all of a sudden you’ve got this new thing. So that’s kind of the arc of, or that is the arc of my story.

Josh Levine [00:05:07]:

So I think we’ll probably get into a little bit more of the what we’re doing today, but there you have it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:12]:

No, we will. We’re definitely going to get into that. Can I just commend you as well, Josh, on this idea of asking questions? So you’re, you’re putting things out there. And it’s not necessarily an answer because I don’t think there are a lot of answers right now, but you’re asking better questions about how work should be done. And I do want to come back to this idea of culture and how do we actually define culture because it’s something that’s spoken about. It’s one of the pillars in my Thriving Talent Framework. It’s an entire section of my Thriving Talent book. And as I was doing the research for it, I was like, how do we actually define culture in a way that makes it kind of tangible.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:55]:

So I’d love to get your take on that, especially if there’s anything that’s changed in the interim in the 8 years since the book has come out, if there’s anything that, like, AI has had an impact on how we view culture, how we define culture, or how culture is actually perceived by people.

Josh Levine [00:06:13]:

Yeah, so lots of different definitions of culture live out in the world. There’s kind of the traditional, like, quip around, you know, what we do when the boss isn’t in the room, or it’s the You know, it’s the worst behavior that we accept, which I think are all true. My definition, the way that I define it in my book, is the cause and effect of every decision that we make. And the reason why I state that is because ultimately, I want culture to be anchored in choices. I want to point out that culture is not about, you know, pizza and ping pong. I want to make sure that it’s, you know, people understand, leaders understand that we are talking about guiding choices and what does that vision establish? And the other element of this is cause and effect. It is a self-reinforcing cycle. So if you have a culture and it goes in a certain direction, it becomes more stringent or becomes more punitive or whatever it might be, it will continue to move in that direction.

Josh Levine [00:07:19]:

So cause and effect, every decision, big and small, We’re not just talking, oh, should we acquire this organization? It’s, oh, how do I greet my colleagues when we pop on Zoom or when I show up at work?

Aoife O’Brien [00:07:29]:

Love that. I love that it’s decision-based as well, because I think sometimes leaders struggle with what they should do. But if you bring it back to, well, what does the culture say we should do, whether that’s through the values, the behaviors, it’s already laid out and you know what you should do. And the decision should be— I was going to say easy. Maybe easy is the wrong word, but it should be more straightforward. now that you have a clear definition of what the right answer is, that you’re not kind of balancing the complexity of, I don’t know what to do in this environment because I’m not clear on the culture.

Josh Levine [00:08:05]:

Yeah, definitely. There are, you know, one of the tools that I help my clients with is establishing values that are actually actionable and discernible. And there are a small number of values, right? So my, my frame is really 3 to 5 most important things that you are going to move the needle, right, for you in the next year or 2. And the reason why I put it that way is because it’s about prioritization. Now, 3 to 5 isn’t going to answer all of the questions, what should we do now? But it at least gives you a framework for having a conversation around it. The other point I want to make, which I’m surprised is still so surprising, I make sure that and I try to have this conversation where your values are, should be about strategic decisions. And when I say strategic, I mean decisions where both choices are viable. Those choices are our options.

Josh Levine [00:09:04]:

Too often we see, do the right thing. Well, that’s not very instructive because do the wrong thing, right? You’re like, well, What, what I mean, am I, am I cheating? Like, if you’re, if you’re cheating, you’re using values to like try to catch someone and cheat. Like, you’re doing the wrong thing. Like, that’s an HR violation, right? Like, or, or whatever it might be. We’re really talking about opportunities like, do I want to, um, take my time and do the, do the research? Uh, is that more valuable than coming to an answer quickly versus organizations that are like, you know, shoot first, measure later, or whatever it is, right? Aim later. And there’s, you know, it’s someplace in between, right? And it’s like, how risk, you know, how much risk do you want to take? And there’s just a whole slew of those things. And when you have values that are not strategic, they become anodyne and platitudes and not useful. And where I come in, where it’s like, and honestly, if we were to zoom out, I don’t even care if you call them values, right? It’s just these principles around how leadership expects the organization to carry forward.

Aoife O’Brien [00:10:25]:

I love that. And what impact do you think AI is having on that? Do you think, you know, from stuff I’ve seen online, it’s exposing these maybe poorer decisions, poorer leaders in a way that they haven’t been exposed before?

Josh Levine [00:10:43]:

AI amplifies kind of what is. And so if the decision-making process is broken, it’s going to be more broken. You know, it’s— and we are outsourcing our decisions to AI. We— I think one of the big problems is that we think we understand that what AI is, and we think it knows everything. We’re kind of projecting onto it. In fact, we will call it a staff member and are frustrated or surprised when it doesn’t do something correctly.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:20]:

Hmm.

Josh Levine [00:11:21]:

We think that AI is magic. And the truth is it is, it is nothing of the sort. And so if we’re thinking about decision-making, where we are— we just say, hey, go and do this thing, and it doesn’t have the context, it doesn’t have—

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:39]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:11:39]:

Ethics, it doesn’t have any of those things. And so you’re outsourcing these decisions and the choices are not yours. I mean, maybe it happens to make the right choice, but the other, you know, the other aspect of this is Um, by not having to wrestle with the decision, you don’t have to think about the work. And you— it’s sort of this, this ruse of like output equals productivity. And hey, here it is, here’s the report. But like, one, it could be wrong. Two, you’re— you just— you assume that it’s the same thing that you would have done. And three, you don’t even understand what’s in it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:39]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:12:40]:

And so I think if I were to kind of rewind all the way back, you know, 60 seconds ago, I would say the big misconception and the big shift that we need to make Is that we cannot expect AI to make, to be the kind of, to be a substitute for a person. It is not your assistant. It is not a human and it will not be able to reckon with what you’re, what you’re asking it to do.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:15]:

And dare I say, well, I’m definitely guilty.

Josh Levine [00:13:18]:

Oh, we all, it’s easy. Yeah, we all are. We all are for sure.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:23]:

You know, and it’s not even the helping decide. I think brainstorming, that’s fine. And looking at the pros and cons, that’s fine.

Josh Levine [00:13:31]:

Yes.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:31]:

And analyzing something that you’ve given it, that’s fine. But when you say, can you tell me what to say? Or can you make a decision for me? Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:13:42]:

Yeah.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:42]:

Because it feels so easy to do that and you’ve effectively outsourced your human judgment.

Josh Levine [00:13:48]:

Yeah, yeah, make dinner, but all you end up with is, uh, cotton candy and popcorn, right? Like, it has made food, but it didn’t do the job.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:58]:

So Josh, before we started recording, one of the things that I was really interested in was the kind of the parallel journeys that our careers, businesses have taken. And maybe it’s this philosophical question of like, what actually work is and how do we define what work is in this age of AI, moving away from this idea of we have roles already, we have jobs, there is jobs to be done, and we’re trying to bring AI into that. And I’m noticing this in my own business. I’m like, where can AI help with this? Rather than questioning, should this be done at all? Or should we be rethinking how we’re actually creating value? At all. So I’d love to understand a little bit about your thoughts and maybe we get into a bit of a debate, maybe philosophy, you know, philosophical debate about what work actually is and how we should rethink work for this age of AI. Right.

Josh Levine [00:14:58]:

I think if we’re to zoom way out, it’s every kind of evolution. Um, and let’s narrow it down to technological evolution or, or innovation. revolution has enabled humans to kind of level up, right? To move to the next most valuable layer, crops, right? So we’re planting and harvesting crops.

Aoife O’Brien [00:15:29]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:15:30]:

And it’s sort of all that we talk about work as like a bundle of tasks, right? Okay, so then you’ve kind of got this industrial revolution, and you have machines that can actually plant the crops. And humans are then moving to factories, and they’re still using their hands, and we’ve sort of split up tasks in a way. And the displacement, right? So it’s sort of like the industrialization of this. And so then you have, you’ve kind of got the managerial class and you’ve got, so the managers are actually telling the people what to do, but eventually those people are replaced by machines. And so those people can then be freed up over generations to do the next highest level thing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:24]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:16:24]:

There are always, there’s always something else to do as a human being.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:30]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:16:30]:

And I think that is part of the dialogue that we’re talking about with AI. But what you’re— the question that you asked is, do we need to know how to do the thing, the basic thing first? And I think the answer is it depends. So as a classically trained graphic designer, I can become the creative director.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:54]:

Hmm.

Josh Levine [00:16:54]:

And as long as I have enough tokens and I don’t time out, I can have Claude do infinite revisions, right? Give me 10 versions of this.

Aoife O’Brien [00:17:04]:

Mm-hmm.

Josh Levine [00:17:05]:

Um, and I can use the language and I know what looks good, right? Just so someone who isn’t— hasn’t done the work can’t just come in and say, here’s why, like, here’s what I want you to do. Like, Claude can get you to a certain point. What I wonder is how good this new technology is, how good it will get, and how much of that information do we need? We don’t need to know how to— let’s talk about, like, go back to kind of like assembling things in a factory, right?

Aoife O’Brien [00:17:41]:

Mm-hmm.

Josh Levine [00:17:42]:

So it’s like, you, if you have a machine that punches out the parts of an automobile, you’ve already programmed that. That’s one person, you’ve scaled it. And so I just need to be able to pull the lever. And I wonder if, like, at this point, I need to be able to go, here’s how I want the design. But eventually Claude design gets so good that it’s like, hey, you know, make it look like this. And it’s like, you know, it gets there, it’s pretty good. And so then the question that we go back to is, what is now my job and what does it enable me to do, right?

Aoife O’Brien [00:18:16]:

Right.

Josh Levine [00:18:16]:

If I can just have it crank out, because everything I do, I try to, I try to infuse it with design. I believe in the power of design. And I think it can be magic when it’s great, right? It’s really good communication tool. But I’ve been playing around with it. I’m like, hey, I’m doing a presentation, a workshop next week. And like, okay, build this deck for me. And, um, I mean, you know, it— instead of starting with blanks or with templates, it gets me another like, I don’t know, 30 to 20% forward. But it’s still not very good.

Aoife O’Brien [00:18:51]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:18:51]:

Because it doesn’t have the thinking in it. Well, that’s why I think we’re, you know, it’s dangerous to be like, oh great, it’ll just do this thing. And it’s like, eh. It’s, it’s missing the thinking. And so what I hope is that it gives me more time to do the thinking behind the creative thinking behind what I want to say and how I want to say it. That is, to me, that’s the work, right? Like I’m synthesizing. And I guess the other element of this, as I’m thinking about it, is like the value. So we talk about the bundling of tasks and the unbundling of tasks.

Aoife O’Brien [00:19:24]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:19:25]:

And what this conversation, I hadn’t really thought about this, but it’s like, there is, I think, a value in that the tasks are bundled, right? Like you can’t, you can try to unbundle tasks, but to be more efficient, but the result isn’t as good, I think.

Aoife O’Brien [00:19:49]:

Okay. Yeah. It’s kind of, if I can share an example from when I worked in corporate. A decision was made by head office and this was happening globally. So we were account managers in effect, we were managing a client account and they divided the role into 3 and they said, okay, so one part of the role is sales and we’re going to create an entirely new team around sales. Another part of the role is analytics where you’re analyzing the data, you’re delivering presentations to clients. That’s another part of the role. That’s going to be another team.

Aoife O’Brien [00:20:24]:

And then a separate team again was to deal with all of the day-to-day queries. So that was going to be servicing the client on a day-to-day basis. And by dividing the team, it just meant there are more handovers. There are, you know, there’s more fights about ownership and all of that kind of thing. I think for me, the opportunity here is not the bundling or unbundling of tasks. It’s to start from a blank page and say, What do we actually do here? What work needs to get done? And how are we going to rebuild how that work gets done? And I was going to say, so it’s in the most efficient way, and it’s not really thinking about that, but it’s thinking about how are we getting the most value from what we have? How can we unleash the capabilities that we have already within the team? How can we pair that up with the capabilities of artificial intelligence?

Josh Levine [00:21:16]:

Yeah, I do think we’re going to have some, have to have some very hard conversations around what it is. Like you said, the question is, what is work? What is valuable? What, what are we trying to get done? And how, what role does AI play in that? What does it give us the ability to do? Just, I mean, I do think there’s, and I kind of, recently been obsessing around the kind of the analogs around like when innovation shows up, right? So Roman concrete or the electricity replacing the steam engine or even the internet, right? Like those things are disruptive and change everything, but we don’t know how to change in order to take advantage of it. And what AI is doing is It’s like forcing knowledge workers to change, I think, for the first time really how we work. I mean, maybe we could argue that the pandemic forced us to or accelerated that distributed work and we’re still coping with the effects of that and what worked and what didn’t work, right? So we’re still struggling with that one stupid thing of like in the office or not in the office.

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:39]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:22:39]:

Right, together, physical or not. And like, this is like everything. This is like, you know, every question. Like, I’m excited to continue to watch and experiment with how work gets done. And I think where it is most— where you’re going to see the most movement is some of these new, um, AI startups, um, or startups now in the age of AI, right? Even if they have nothing to do with AI.

Aoife O’Brien [00:23:05]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:23:05]:

They kind of all do now, because those people have no history to protect, and they’re going to do things in entirely new ways, right? So you’re going to have a team of AI agents, and what does that mean? And where does it fail, right? We’ve already seen big companies like, okay, we’ll just replace all of our, our, you know, quote unquote dumb, you know, tele, you know, teleagents, service agents with AI. And it’s like, you didn’t quite work, right? Because they did— they misunderstood what the job of the agent was, right? Like, it’s not get this person routed because then otherwise—

Aoife O’Brien [00:23:42]:

It’s not even answer the questions. It’s reassure them that you—

Josh Levine [00:23:46]:

That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. It’s like, I would like to— yeah, yeah. And in fact, you know, Zappos figured that out, uh, a decade and a half ago, right? So Zappos original, the founder Tony Hsieh decided that he was going to invest a ton in his— the people who answered the phones at zappos.com. And where everybody else was, their goal was to take as many calls as possible, right? To rip through the calls. He rewarded how long they were on with these people.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:18]:

Wow.

Josh Levine [00:24:19]:

And that created loyal customers because they wanted to— they were connected with— I mean, not everybody, but like, hey, I’m a real person. I don’t wanna just rush you like, who the fuck are you? It’s like, We really wanted to know who you are. And right. So Klarna tried to do this last year and replace 800 agents, and then they had to hire them back because it failed. And I don’t know, technologically it’s a problem, but I think they fundamentally misunderstood the problem.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:46]:

That brings us back to the more philosophical question of what is work and where is the value? Because, you know, the assumption of Klarna is, well, the value is in how many people we can get through how many questions can be answered. But from a customer perspective—

Josh Levine [00:25:01]:

Like true/false, right? Like, it’s like a very like, how can we answer? How can we get people the information that they need the quickest? Right? That was what they assumed.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:11]:

Yeah. Yeah. And that’s not it. I think, you know, I’ve been on the receiving end, let’s say, of AI conversations and human conversations and a human who is overloaded and is given 16 people to deal with all at the same time. So, you’re just kind of waiting to get a response from someone in a chat box rather than on the phone or anything like that. Because I don’t think that, you know, there was no phone option. They don’t make it easy to get in touch at all. But whereas if, you know, if there was an AI solution where it’s just looking for information, that might be something different again, where I just need to get this information.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:46]:

I can’t find it easily. Can I just get access to this information? Can you just point me in the right direction versus I need to feel cared for as a customer that you—

Josh Levine [00:25:55]:

That’s right.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:56]:

You actually give a shit about me, that you’re not just taking my money.

Josh Levine [00:25:58]:

Yeah, it’s a, it’s a question. I think what we haven’t said is it’s, um, what is work? What is, what is white-collar work?

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:07]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:26:07]:

Right. Like, I think that’s— we have to be explicit about that. Right. What is knowledge work?

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:13]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:26:14]:

And, you know, there is a— I think there’s going to be a whole, I don’t know, epic of discussions around what a manager is. So we have everything from the Jack Dorseys of the world saying, well, we can just get rid of all the managers. But that’s assuming that the manager’s job is simply just routing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:38]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:26:39]:

Routing tasks.

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:40]:

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Right.

Josh Levine [00:26:42]:

And if that were the case, then yes, but that is not right. And so if you think about it in kind of this super nerdy way, right? Where we assume the human brain is just a computer, right? Like there’s, it’s like, that’s a mistake. It’s not what that, that’s not what they’re good at. That’s not what a manager is. And even if you create this neural network of all the data things and all the like, and which is going to be really hard to do anyways, because your data is unstructured and it’s, you know, it’s the tagging is incorrect and all that stuff. But let’s say we get to that point. That’s still not going to do the job of the manager, right? Like the inherent knowledge, right? the hard-earned wisdom of who’s the who’s and the what’s in the organization, right?

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:28]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:27:28]:

Like, that’s— I even wrote that, you know, I wrote about that in the book, right? It’s like, do you know the who’s and what’s, right? Like, that is like, that is the job, like, of these people. And I don’t know, I think the fantasy is replacing everybody with bots, and that’ll be much more efficient. But Yeah, there is just a lot that we’re not realizing what the value is. And I think we’re going to see that it’s going to highlight— AI is highlighting what’s broken because it makes it more broken. And we’ve never been— I was having a conversation with another colleague who is like, your processes have been broken for a long time and now you want to speed them up, right? Like, yeah.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:13]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:28:14]:

So you’re going to have to go back to basics and, and, and who’s got the time for that? Right? Like, it’s going to be a really difficult thing for existing organizations to crack.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:28]:

Yeah. Yeah. There’s so much I want to say about what you’ve just shared. So, the first thing is I think on the managers, for me, the managers are the ones who show they care, or at least they should be showing that they care for their people. And that’s what makes people want to stay in the organization. And then on the other side, I think they can elicit information from people because they’re the ones who are doing the vast majority of the day-to-day work. They’re the ones who are dealing with the clients. They’re the ones who are seeing the issues in all of the grunt work that gets done.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:59]:

So they can surface that information to the manager. So they’re, they’re almost like a repository of all of this stuff. And then on the other side, on, on the work side, yes, there is a job to be done. I hadn’t probably appreciated it. I’m, you know, I’m encouraging people to go—

Josh Levine [00:29:17]:

I don’t think anybody has. Yeah. Yeah.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:19]:

And say, let’s define what is getting done here. But I’d love to share an example if I may. Again, I’m thinking back to my corporate days where we worked in a market research agency. And so if you think about what the job is, the job is to take a brief from the client. And with a bit of luck, the brief is decent or you’ve had a conversation and you’ve—

Josh Levine [00:29:44]:

Right, right, right, right. Let’s just start there.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:46]:

I think anyone who’s worked in an agency side will—

Josh Levine [00:29:49]:

Right, right. Yeah, I know. Like, so you don’t get the brief right, which is good to begin with.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:55]:

But essentially what we used to be used as is a pair of hands rather than the thinking that we were capable of. And so if you’re redesigning that work and I, you know, I kind of touched on this on a solo episode that I recorded this morning but will be out the week after this is released, but the idea of rethinking exactly what that work is. So the client is trying to make a decision and the typical work model is brief goes to agency, agency does analysis, agency delivers presentation, client makes decision. Agency has usually no visibility about the decision or the outcome or anything like that. As far as they’re concerned, the job is done because they’ve delivered a presentation. They may or may not get feedback. And these are all multimillion euro contracts that I’m talking about. And they have contracted time and all sorts of things.

Aoife O’Brien [00:30:51]:

But if you’re going back to basics on that, you can just have a blank sheet of paper and say, what is it? What value are we adding as an agency to the, to our customers? And whether it’s asking the customers and getting them involved in the conversation and building it back up like that.

Josh Levine [00:31:10]:

Yeah.

Aoife O’Brien [00:31:10]:

If you can do a change project, if you can do a reorg, very much like the one I mentioned earlier, where the account manager role was essentially divided into 3. So instead of handling everything yourself, now you’re dealing with 2 other counterparts who are also trying to kind of own the client relationship as well. And the client is like, I don’t know who I need to speak to about what, and you’re telling me I need to speak to a different person. Like the whole thing—

Josh Levine [00:31:37]:

It becomes—

Aoife O’Brien [00:31:38]:

I didn’t stay kind of too long after that change happened. So I didn’t really see the outcome and whether it went back to the way it was previously. I know there’ve been substantial changes in the business since I left, but all of that to say, you know, if you can do it at that scale, then why can’t we just stop and think about how can we redesign work now for allowing us to deliver value? That’s essentially what any business is there to do is to deliver value to its customers.

Josh Levine [00:32:11]:

Yeah, right. I mean, that’s back to basics. So, I’ll add a little bit of, I think, another ingredient to this conversation, which is I’m a consultant.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:23]:

Right?

Josh Levine [00:32:24]:

Like I’m selling my experience, my brain. I try not to sell my time, right? That undervalues what I have. So that’s the old, old way to build.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:35]:

But no, right there with you. I totally understand. Increasingly, I’m seeing clients saying, I’d love your brain on this, which I think is a different model too. I’d love to bring you in for an hour. Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:32:47]:

Well, so what I say, so the headline is that the process is the product. And that’s what I tell my clients. I could come up with an answer, a solution, a design, a story, a strategy, and so could AI now. But it doesn’t, and it could be, it could be totally right, which you can’t assume with AI. But let’s say, you know, let’s just handicap everybody to be the same. Like, It could be amazing if the right people weren’t in the room, if the right people weren’t involved, if the right people weren’t along for the ride. They may or may not understand and agree with what direction you’re going to. And that is the work that I try to do.

Josh Levine [00:33:39]:

We try to get it to be the most compelling. So We just finished working, or are working with a large global manufacturing organization, and we were asked to help them redevelop their employee value proposition. And the reason why it took 6 months is because, yes, we wanted to get it right, but at every turn, like, I started by building the trust of the executive team. Here’s what we’re doing and here’s why. And then we brought in, we worked really hard to bring in key members across the organization that were not executives, maybe even junior folks. And those people had a voice in the process that were, they were nominated and identified by the leaders to say, hey, these are people we really care about. These are the people that we think have a good perspective and opinion. Using all that information and then running it by those people and then bringing it back and then offering some suggestions.

Josh Levine [00:34:41]:

you know, suggestions and here, what do you think about this? And then ultimately being able to get the work approved, even though there were some unconventional choices, right? Anybody who’s worked in an agency knows that at the end of the day, the decision makers are going to go, oh no, no, that sounds scary. I might look like an idiot to my, you know, my colleagues. Is this the right thing to do? And we give them— that whole thing is built so we give them the opportunity to understand where this came from. And then they said yes, and I’m really proud of the work. And that to me is not something that AI can do. What is work? What is the highest value work? That to me is to my clients the highest value of that work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:35:31]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:35:32]:

And I have the experience to know, you know, oh, I can tell that person’s kind of slipping. Like they’re not really thinking about, you know, I think they might be, or like they don’t care. or who do we need to get back in? Or, right, like those things. That’s what I would, you know, it’s like—

Aoife O’Brien [00:35:49]:

That’s why we need people.

Josh Levine [00:35:51]:

That’s why we need people. And that is the level of work. Now, I used AI to do some of this work and it’s really interesting and it’s like some of the places where it succeeds and some of the places where it fails. But, you know, I am, there are some boons to this. But The work pretty much by and large didn’t change.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:13]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:36:14]:

The work is the people part.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:15]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think what I’m hearing from what you are saying is you have the judgment to know what’s good and what’s bad and what it can do and what it can’t do. And I think an underlying issue that we’re seeing is with people joining, and I don’t know what it’s like in the US, but they’re saying in Ireland that it’s exaggerated, that there are still roles available at that kind of entry junior level. But if people are not getting that experience to know the difference between good and bad, what does that actually make?

Josh Levine [00:36:50]:

This is an existential question for the next generation. It really— this is how do you build that task? How do you get it? That skill that, you know, it’s like, how do you build that judgment? Here’s what I will say is I do have some hope, which is I have my daughters, twin daughters. They’re sophomores in high school, and their teacher, one of their English teachers, essentially we read the syllabus and it’s like, you’re going to be doing most of your work by hand. You’re going to be writing it out. And I was like, Oh, I don’t, I don’t know if that’s the right answer, but like, I really appreciate that that’s, that’s what’s happening right now. Like, that was like, I was like, oh.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:34]:

Take me back to my high school days.

Josh Levine [00:37:36]:

I know, everybody’s talking about things out by hand. I know, I know, I know. Yeah, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, yeah, anyways, it’s, it’s, uh, let’s say it is possible, right? And but what are the skills that we’re going to need and the experiences? How do we gain the experience that we need. And maybe it’s just all going to be, you know, fuel for all the startups and the small businesses. Maybe in a generation we aren’t going to be dominated by, you know, 5 big tech firms. Maybe it’s all, you know, maybe they will be the undoing of their, you know, their own success. And it’ll be more about you know, networks and individuals and what they do, what they learn from this, how they experience themselves.

Josh Levine [00:38:32]:

You know, I don’t want to bemoan, I want to be the adult that bemoans, you know, I can’t believe the kids can’t write in cursive. You know, it’s like, I don’t know, you need that? Like, I, you know, I’m not sure. Like, it’s so it’s like, what does what, what still is what is still relevant?

Aoife O’Brien [00:38:49]:

Hmm.

Josh Levine [00:38:52]:

And what, what do we need to emphasize, right? Like, I do, I do think that one degree that I think that, you know, when we’re thinking about higher degrees, right, like the, the in university, think of liberal arts, like structured thinking, rigorous thought.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:15]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:39:15]:

Like that is going to become more valuable than ever.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:18]:

I think so. And that’s what I was just thinking. It’s that teaching people how to think and how to think critically. But then of course, I’m thinking of, you know, the university students have access to AI as well. So are we bringing it back that they now need to write things out by hand? And even if you do do something using AI, are you physically copying everything? If it’s in a document, an online document, you can just copy paste it straight from AI. But if you have to write it out by hand, Are you copying everything exactly, or are you querying what you’re writing and deciding whether it’s good enough? Because we can obviously use AI at work as well. So—

Josh Levine [00:39:58]:

You gotta learn the basics. You know, you gotta learn how to, how to think for yourself first so you can be like, oh, that’s not the right answer. So I don’t know. I don’t know. But it’s a great question.

Aoife O’Brien [00:40:07]:

We, I mean, we have access to AI at work, so it’s not about knowledge anymore. It’s about thinking, discernment, and judgment. Yeah, that’s true. And testing those kinds of skills instead. And so when someone starts, they have a better sense of that. And I think one of the things going to university like that, the whole point was you’re kind of spoon-fed when you’re in school and then you go to university and you have to do a bit more of the thinking. Maybe it’s just elevating that a little bit more so that when people enter into the workforce, they have more of those kinds of thinking skills. You know, for anyone who’s listening in today to this candid conversation, Answers on a Postcard, podcast.happieratwork.ie.

Josh Levine [00:40:48]:

There’s 2 directions we talked about, right? Like, it’s very seductive. It’s very easy to just be like, do it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:40:57]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:40:57]:

So I think there’s 2 directions that we can go. One is to allow it to kind of slide in that direction or to actually you need to kind of use more brainpower and say and be more diligent about when it is appropriate. And what I think we will find is that it may not be the huge boon to productivity. It is only going to help us be more thoughtful if we use it correctly, right?

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:31]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:41:31]:

To get more of the better better thinking. It’s going to challenge you, right? So it’s gonna actually, I think, make it give us more work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:41]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:41:41]:

And if we start thinking about it—

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:43]:

More thinking work, is that what you mean?

Josh Levine [00:41:44]:

More thinking. Yeah. So that’s, that’s where I think we might need to start, like, reframing, which is, all right, I’m going to use AI, and it’s not to make it easier. Like, there are some things that go research these things. But now instead of finding that one article that I used, you know, I found with Google, I found 3, and then I have to ask it to kind of summarize them, but it’s like, is that really the right summary? And then, right? And then you’re down this rabbit hole. And so it’s like, it is amazing, but it isn’t amazing in the way that we, we have thought about it working up until now.

Aoife O’Brien [00:42:23]:

And if you could advise someone who’s living this right now, like I am, like you are, What advice would you give someone to kind of get started with thinking a little bit more and doing a little bit less? Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:42:38]:

So, um, I was talking with a guy who was a little more, who’s, who’s deeper into it than I am. And he said, you know, the question, the best question you can ask is what AI is, what am I not thinking about? And, and uncovering your blind spots. And if you just— everything is exactly— I do think everybody needs to experiment every day with, with AI, and you can learn for yourself where it works and where it doesn’t. Like that moment of like, crap, I just wasted an hour. Like I had that moment and you’re like, oh, that’s not gonna happen again. So everybody needs to learn that, right?

Aoife O’Brien [00:43:15]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:43:15]:

But, um, as you’re working through something, what am I not thinking about? And I’ll bonus, you know, kind of bonus boost. So one of the things that I do now is I will feed the transcript from from a client call into AI and say, what did you hear? Um, how should I be thinking about this? What am I not thinking about? And then see what it comes up with. You know, I’ll correct it when it’s wrong, but you got to correct it as soon as possible. But the transcripts, that’s a great kind of way to, uh, utilize its power that you wouldn’t have before.

Aoife O’Brien [00:43:50]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:43:51]:

You give it all that information and that, um, but again, it doesn’t It will learn, but you need to ask it the right questions. And it’s like, where, you know, as I’m building this proposal, what am I not thinking about, right? Like, what have I missed? That’s when it becomes really useful.

Aoife O’Brien [00:44:08]:

And Josh, the question I ask everyone who comes on the show, what does being happier at work mean to you?

Josh Levine [00:44:13]:

Creativity. Productive creativity, maybe sometimes unproductive creativity, but I feel good about what I’m doing when I’m creating. And this is just a very Josh thing, right?

Aoife O’Brien [00:44:32]:

Yeah.

Josh Levine [00:44:32]:

Like writing, designing, creating this, you know, workshop I’m doing next week, pattern finding. You know, it’s like that— those are the things that make work worthwhile for me. And if everything falls in line, I get paid for that as well.

Aoife O’Brien [00:44:50]:

And if people want to find out more about your work, if they want to reach out and connect with you, what’s the best way they can do that?

Josh Levine [00:44:54]:

Yeah, if you love podcasts, well, I’ve got one for you. Great Mondays Radio, uh, released twice a week, an interview and, um, a second shorter episode called The Job Shit Show, which is also on Substack. You can find me. I am always looking for new exciting people to, to connect with on LinkedIn. That’s where I lurk and hang out. You can find me at, uh, on LinkedIn at, uh, AKA Josh Levine. Just say that you heard me on Aoife’s podcast and we’ll, uh, you know, that way I know you’re not a bot. Um, and, uh, yeah, and then we can, you know, go from there.

Josh Levine [00:45:32]:

I’m definitely excited about folks, uh, who are interested in this work and really appreciate any, uh, any, any answers. If anybody’s figured it out, let me know. Message me immediately.

Aoife O’Brien [00:45:46]:

Thank you so much for your time. It was great to connect after having the opportunity to connect in Portland. And, uh, thank you.

Josh Levine [00:45:53]:

Thanks, Aoife. Appreciate it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:45:54]:

That was Josh Levine from Great Mondays Radio talking all things work in the age of AI. And I really hope you enjoyed that conversation. We got into the nitty gritty, the deep, the wrestling with these big philosophical questions about what work means right now. And I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you want to reach out directly, get me on podcast@happieratwork.ie.