Incredible piece! It reinforced the idea of going slow and intentional with learning. There is such importance in the wriggling of the brain, the discomfort of “I don’t get it yet”.
One thing I’d like to ask though: how should entry level’s approach this though? I’m observing that now more than ever, entry-levels are pressured to “deliver, deliver, and deliver”. What should entry level professionals focus on then to balance the need for autonomy and curiosity with the requirements in a workplace that demands SPEED?
Thank you, Gerson—I’m so happy that the letter resonated!
Your question is a good and important one, and something that—wearing different coats, but carrying the same umbrella—has been coming at me in different directions recently (even before I published the piece).
I’ve been thinking about your question for a couple days, and here’s where I’m landing with it…
First, let me say that it has been a minute since I was in any kind of entry-level position in someone else’s organization. And when I was, the world was pretty different from what it is today. As such, I don’t feel, strictly speaking, qualified to give any kind of definitive answer here. Especially considering that the conventions on the technologies creating these conversations haven’t gotten anywhere near “solidified” yet, and so it’s all just conjecture, anyway.
But what I will say is that the more I dive into this new world, and contemplate how humans are affected (both positively and negatively) by its growing ubiquity, I am realizing that the things that have always kept a person strong in mind, body, and spirit are more important than perhaps ever before.
Your line about wriggling of the brain and staying with the discomfort of not knowing is something I keep top of mind all the time now in my own work.
And I think that is the key, right?
That at an individual level, a person makes the continual choice to pause and sit with the uncertainty of not knowing long enough to have better questions, want more information, and make better decisions moment-to-moment.
And until you are the decision-maker in an organization, an entry-level person has to be a leader in their own position, and do what they can with what they have to establish a standard of how to approach the work that maintains the human judgment aspect as much as possible.
Also, I’d note that as companies better understand how AI systems and technology can be best used to help the organization and its employees, the “deliver, deliver, deliver” idea may balance out against the need to maintain “organizational knowledge,” whose maintenance comes from the experienced employees mentoring the entry-level employees, and the entry-level’s ability to maintain a sense of internal leadership.
We are all still stumbling our way through this moment in time. As humans, we crave certainty, but the reality is that we’re still making it up as we go along.
And I think the answer, at least from a high-level perspective anyway, is that we as individuals need to be better at cultivating—and being comfortable with—the pause as well as practicing both internal (of our selves) and informal (of our spaces) leadership.
That way, whichever way all of this goes, we have the capabilities to make calls that serve humanity at all the levels the moment requests, and the capacity to lead the technology requires, and keep the tools subordinate to human purpose, which ultimately is to grow and thrive.
What do you think is a good answer to the problem of maintaining judgment, curiosity, and autonomy and while keeping a company’s need for speed in the marketplace in balance?
@Stacy Thank you very much for taking the time to pause (hehe see what I did there) and answer my question.
What I got from it that I can apply as an entry-level individual is to honestly take it slow intentionally to build my experience. For example, I work as a project manager right. And in my field, it's easy to let AI do the work of scheduling meetings, creating summaries, organizing transcripts. So easy to let it overtake the essence of being a PM which is driving the project to completion by bridging together different sets of stakeholders.
My reflection is simple. To take my time in understanding the organization, the stakeholders, and the work I have to do. When I understand what my work entails, whom I can contact, and the overall business flow, that's when I can onboard AI.
Without this understanding, using AI will be beneficial short-term, but not long-term. It's like making it write my emails for me, making me lose the skill of communicating professional in the long-term in exchange for short-term professionability.
I got to this conclusion also because even at higher-levels, decision making becomes important, and I don't think that level of decision-making is accessible is AI becomes the default for every single task. So to get to that high-level, we need, as entry level professionals, to address that by going slower, rather than faster.
Incredible piece! It reinforced the idea of going slow and intentional with learning. There is such importance in the wriggling of the brain, the discomfort of “I don’t get it yet”.
One thing I’d like to ask though: how should entry level’s approach this though? I’m observing that now more than ever, entry-levels are pressured to “deliver, deliver, and deliver”. What should entry level professionals focus on then to balance the need for autonomy and curiosity with the requirements in a workplace that demands SPEED?
Thank you, Gerson—I’m so happy that the letter resonated!
Your question is a good and important one, and something that—wearing different coats, but carrying the same umbrella—has been coming at me in different directions recently (even before I published the piece).
I’ve been thinking about your question for a couple days, and here’s where I’m landing with it…
First, let me say that it has been a minute since I was in any kind of entry-level position in someone else’s organization. And when I was, the world was pretty different from what it is today. As such, I don’t feel, strictly speaking, qualified to give any kind of definitive answer here. Especially considering that the conventions on the technologies creating these conversations haven’t gotten anywhere near “solidified” yet, and so it’s all just conjecture, anyway.
But what I will say is that the more I dive into this new world, and contemplate how humans are affected (both positively and negatively) by its growing ubiquity, I am realizing that the things that have always kept a person strong in mind, body, and spirit are more important than perhaps ever before.
Your line about wriggling of the brain and staying with the discomfort of not knowing is something I keep top of mind all the time now in my own work.
And I think that is the key, right?
That at an individual level, a person makes the continual choice to pause and sit with the uncertainty of not knowing long enough to have better questions, want more information, and make better decisions moment-to-moment.
And until you are the decision-maker in an organization, an entry-level person has to be a leader in their own position, and do what they can with what they have to establish a standard of how to approach the work that maintains the human judgment aspect as much as possible.
Also, I’d note that as companies better understand how AI systems and technology can be best used to help the organization and its employees, the “deliver, deliver, deliver” idea may balance out against the need to maintain “organizational knowledge,” whose maintenance comes from the experienced employees mentoring the entry-level employees, and the entry-level’s ability to maintain a sense of internal leadership.
We are all still stumbling our way through this moment in time. As humans, we crave certainty, but the reality is that we’re still making it up as we go along.
And I think the answer, at least from a high-level perspective anyway, is that we as individuals need to be better at cultivating—and being comfortable with—the pause as well as practicing both internal (of our selves) and informal (of our spaces) leadership.
That way, whichever way all of this goes, we have the capabilities to make calls that serve humanity at all the levels the moment requests, and the capacity to lead the technology requires, and keep the tools subordinate to human purpose, which ultimately is to grow and thrive.
What do you think is a good answer to the problem of maintaining judgment, curiosity, and autonomy and while keeping a company’s need for speed in the marketplace in balance?
@Stacy Thank you very much for taking the time to pause (hehe see what I did there) and answer my question.
What I got from it that I can apply as an entry-level individual is to honestly take it slow intentionally to build my experience. For example, I work as a project manager right. And in my field, it's easy to let AI do the work of scheduling meetings, creating summaries, organizing transcripts. So easy to let it overtake the essence of being a PM which is driving the project to completion by bridging together different sets of stakeholders.
My reflection is simple. To take my time in understanding the organization, the stakeholders, and the work I have to do. When I understand what my work entails, whom I can contact, and the overall business flow, that's when I can onboard AI.
Without this understanding, using AI will be beneficial short-term, but not long-term. It's like making it write my emails for me, making me lose the skill of communicating professional in the long-term in exchange for short-term professionability.
I got to this conclusion also because even at higher-levels, decision making becomes important, and I don't think that level of decision-making is accessible is AI becomes the default for every single task. So to get to that high-level, we need, as entry level professionals, to address that by going slower, rather than faster.