The Elephant in the Algorithm Podcast.
The Elephant in the Algorithm is a conversation about what AI is really doing inside organizations.
Not the hype, not the doom, the actual human and organizational reality. Matt Perry and Rob Cannon, PhD talk with leaders about where AI is paying off, where it is producing activity and cost instead, and what it takes to bring people, strategy, and customers back into one line. The technology is the easy part. The conversation is about everything around it.
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The Human Skills AI Can't Replace.
Eran Thomson spent his career in advertising, from copywriter to creative director at agencies including BBH and TBWA, and co-founded a Sydney agency that sold in 2014. Then he built PowerProv, which uses the fundamentals of improvisation to teach business teams the things nobody else teaches them: communication, connection, collaboration, creativity, confidence. In Episode 4, Matt Perry and Rob Cannon, PhD talk to him about what AI is doing to those skills. He describes watching a strategy director produce insights at remarkable speed, then being unable to explain any of the thinking when asked a single question. He names what he sees happening as cognitive offload and cognitive surrender, people defaulting to the tools before they do any thinking of their own. And he asks the question that lands hardest: the thing that used to take an hour now takes five minutes, so did you go for a walk, or are you just busier than ever?
Chapters
- 00:00Intro
- 02:56Improv, and the five C's
- 04:26PowerProv: soft skills as a business
- 06:15The engagement crisis
- 07:05Cognitive offload and cognitive surrender
- 08:34Colleagues messaging across a room
- 10:52Building the tool that drives your own obsolescence
- 13:10The advertising pyramid flips
- 15:13The myth of the loose brief
- 16:50The creator economy and the AI influencer
- 22:48Google Maps and instant answers
- 23:54The strategist who couldn't defend the thinking
- 25:02Showing your working
- 25:35Why we're called Average Robot
- 27:58The snowboarding exercise
- 29:29The ensemble mindset
- 30:54What did you do with the other 55 minutes?
- 34:22It's the we that makes it work
- 36:44The graph of human connection
- Guest
- Eran Thomson
- Matt Perry
- Matt Perry
- Rob Cannon, PhD
- Rob Cannon, PhD
#AIandWork #FutureOfWork #SoftSkills #HumanSkills #AIAdoption
From the archive.
Think you should be on it?
We are always looking for people to talk to. If you are leading AI work inside an organization and you have seen something firsthand, rather than a prediction about what might happen, we would like to hear about it. Start with a short call and we will work out together whether there is an episode in it.
The Elephant in the Algorithm.
The podcast extends the book. A practical, field-tested guide for leaders getting their teams ready for AI, written by your hosts.
Your hosts.
Matt Perry.
Matt has spent 25+ years in senior leadership roles at organizations such as M&C Saatchi in London, WPP in Sydney, Omnicom in San Francisco, and Genero, where he launched and led the North American business. He's worked on projects with companies including Google, Meta, Hilton, L'Oreal, PG&E, Michael's, and Fanatics. He has experienced change through four major technology transitions and has led teams through each one. In each one, he recognized that, while technology dominates the conversation, the impact on people and process is always more important. Without people in the center, technology-led change will often fail. He studied at the Kellogg School of Management, where he completed the 'AI for Business Application', before founding Average Robot, the change partner that closes the AI Profitability Gap™ for the teams doing the work, turning surface-level AI into real business return. He co-wrote 'Marketing Your Creativity' and co-wrote 'The Elephant in the Algorithm' with Rob Cannon, PhD.
Rob Cannon, PhD.
Rob is an organizational psychologist who has spent eighteen years guiding people and teams through change, usually the kind that arrives faster than the organization is ready for. His work centers on how people think, adapt, and hold their nerve when the ground under their jobs is shifting. He holds a PhD from the University of Sydney and a grounding in coaching psychology that puts building human-capability at the center of his practice. He has experienced transition from the inside, six years at Sony Music and BMG across New York, London, and Sydney, as the industry was remade by new technology and the human cost went almost entirely unmanaged. He is co-founder of Average Robot, co-author of Aha! A User's Guide to Creativity, and co-author of The Elephant in the Algorithm with Matt Perry.