106: Dr Michael "House" Housman: The Culture of Agentic AI: Why Technology Is Easy and People Are Hard

Kathy Waller joined Coca-Cola as an auditor in 1987 and left as CFO. She now runs the Atlanta Committee for Progress and sits on the boards of Delta Air Lines, CGI and Beyond Meat. She talks to Paul and Garrick about the power of the second question, building a pipeline of women leaders, why trust is operating infrastructure at airline scale, how Atlanta is changing a child's odds six miles at a time — and why you must own your own story, before somebody else tells it for you. #CuriousAdvantage Subscribe and keep exploring curiously. We're curious to hear from you — leave a review on your preferred channel and tell us what you took from this one. #CuriousAdvantage 🤳 Find Kathy Waller on LinkedIn 🎧 https://www.curiousadvantage.com/podcast ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@TheCuriousAdvantage

AI is a contact sport: you learn it by playing with it, not by watching. Andy Baldwin, Senior Vice President of Offerings and Growth at IBM Consulting and Chair of the IBM UK Board, explains why this technology shift is bigger than any he has seen in 30 years of consulting. Garrick Jones and Paul Ashcroft talk with Andy, formerly Global Managing Partner at EY, about what AI is really changing for organisations, for consulting firms and for the people inside them. He explains why most companies are "using a Ferrari to fetch the milk", how outcome-based pricing and digital labour are reshaping professional services, and why IBM expects everyone, from graduates to board members, to build real AI literacy. He also shares why he now has a 25-year-old coach who teaches him the latest AI tools every week.

Most organisations have adopted AI faster than they can govern it. Among the companies Duke CE works with, close to six in ten have embedded AI into their operations, but fewer than one in five have the governance to match. Sharmla Chetty is chief executive of Duke Corporate Education, which works with leaders in more than 80 countries. She joins Garrick Jones and Simon Brown to argue that AI readiness is not a technology test. It is three tests: capability, trust and governance and organisations keep failing on the last two long before technology becomes the problem. She makes a claim that sits at the centre of this show's argument: when machines hold all the answers, the human edge moves to the questions. The defining question of a career is no longer what you know, but how fast you can learn what you don't. In this conversation:

What makes a great question, and why might asking better ones be one of our most important human skills in the age of AI? In this episode, Simon Brown and Garrick Jones are joined by award-winning author and innovation advisor Larry Robertson to explore the power of questioning, curiosity and intellectual humility. They discuss why we are born questioning, how great questions help us navigate uncertainty, what humans need to retain as AI becomes more capable, and why sometimes the simplest way to go deeper is just to say: “Tell me more.” A conversation about curiosity, AI, uncertainty and why the questions we ask may shape what happens next. Learn more about iVentiv: https://iventiv.com/curiousadvantage

Paul Ashcroft and Garrick Jones are joined by Markus Bernhardt, founder of Endeavour Intelligence, to explore what is really changing as organisations adopt AI. Drawing on his background in particle physics and his research into AI strategy and organisational transformation, Markus argues that the biggest shift isn’t simply the arrival of new tools. It is the quieter rewiring of how work gets done, how decisions are made and where accountability sits. The conversation explores the difference between the visible “surface wave” of AI adoption and the deeper organisational undercurrent; why AI capability should not be confused with autonomy; the shift from AI literacy to AI fluency; and why human judgement may become more valuable, rather than less, as machines take on more execution. They also discuss agentic AI, governance, the limits of large language models and why organisations may achieve more by redesigning one workflow well than launching another large-scale AI transformation programme. Ultimately, Markus offers a practical starting point: don’t begin by asking where you can add AI. Look for where AI has already quietly changed the work, and redesign from there. Find out more about Markus work: Markus LinkedIn Page https://endeavorintel.com/ https://endeavorintel.com/diagnostic/ The Curious Advantage explores curiosity and its growing importance in the digital age. From history, neuroscience, and anthropology to business and culture, it takes the widest possible view of curiosity. At its heart is the ‘Sailing the 7C’s of Curiosity’ model, a practical framework to help individuals harness curiosity as a power skill for growth and transformation. The Curious Advantage Podcast is executive produced by Jessica Wickham and Aliki Paolinelis. Audio editing by Danny Cross and video editing by Jessica Wickham.