Carolyn Ford: The organizations that are really winning right now are the ones that have figured out that human connection is a competitive capability. And their leaders—the ones that are going to be the most successful—are going to be able to work in an AI-enabled environment and have that hybrid intelligence, right? So they can leverage both human as well as AI and be fluent in the human dynamics of an AI workflow or workday.


Today, I'm talking with Arika Pierce Williams, CEO of Piercing Strategies, about why so many AI initiatives are struggling and even failing in the one place that actually determines whether any of this works: the human layer. Erica's a leadership strategist who lives inside this tension every day, sitting with CHROs, CEOs, and frontline managers who've invested millions in AI tools only to watch adoption stall because people are anxious, exhausted, or just checked out. The tech is racing ahead, but the human connection that makes teams feel safe enough to use it is slipping, almost by accident.


In this episode, Erica makes a deceptively simple case: human connection is now a competitive capability. The leaders who will actually get value from AI are the ones who can do both at once: build trust, clarity, and psychological safety while helping their teams navigate change and see AI as something done for them, not to them. We get into drift, change fatigue, sabotage, and the very real risk of forgetting why we're using these tools in the first place. So, I asked Erica to start with that core idea. What does it really mean to build a human-first leadership culture when everything around us is screaming AI-first?


You're a remarkable woman. You have built your career around leadership development. I've come to you many times for advice, and now you're bringing that lens into this AI transformation conversation, which is so desperately needed. So, talk a little bit more about your work and the focus of it right now.


Arika Pierce Williams: Sure. So, our firm, Piercing Strategies, is a leadership development firm. I started the firm about six years ago, but my background is in growth and strategy—that's the work that I did for many years. And so, the approach that we've always taken at the firm is to really look at the most important asset an organization has, which are their people, and how to connect that to their growth. It's the human capital of it all, right?


And so, I would say as we looked at the work that we've been doing—especially over the past two years—and the conversations that I was having with CHROs, CEOs, COOs, the leaders all around, it was really around how do we lead through what's happening with transformation around technology, AI, and how do we really get our people to understand and to really leverage these tools. This is a different conversation than we were having in the beginning, right? In the beginning, people were literally using AI on their phones because they were told not to use it at work.


Carolyn Ford: Right, that's right.


Arika Pierce Williams: And so, with this kind of pivot in strategy where organizations are now saying and investing millions, billions of dollars in these tools, the people part of it is really key. A lot of the conversation in the beginning was around the technology. You went to a conference, and it was all about AI agents, acceleration, and how we can use them across every part of the organization. But what we're seeing now is the people part is a key portion of the adoption, and that really boils down to the leaders.


So, that's become a real key part of our focus in terms of how we're helping our clients lead through this, help their leaders through this, and at the end of the day, really get a return on their investments that they're making in AI. Because I haven't met an organization in the past couple of years where AI wasn't a part of their growth strategy.


Carolyn Ford: Mhm. So, not long ago, just like you said, we had a big shadow AI movement. And I'm not with this company anymore, so I can admit I was one of those. Like, I had my computer right here with AI because it was just such an amplifier, right?


Arika Pierce Williams: Yeah.


Carolyn Ford: Um, and so it was kind of this underground, bottom-up movement. Now, leaders—and this is true at my company—are saying we have to use AI. I'm seeing there's fear of job loss. There's anger towards AI because of the job loss and because of the environmental impact—so, all of the things. How do you—what do you say to leaders, and how do you manage? Or maybe I'm going down the wrong track, like, are you helping leaders figure out how to get their people to adopt AI, or is this something else?


Arika Pierce Williams: So, what we're helping a lot of organizations with right now is how they can ensure that their leaders are equipped with the right tools and the right strategies to lead through what is a pretty large transformation in an organization when it comes to AI. And there's lots of other stuff happening as well, right? But to everything you just said, it's bringing a lot of uncertainty, a lot of anxiousness. It's bringing people starting to check out or even resent how their organization is approaching AI.


You're seeing headlines one day that say we're letting 30,000 people go because of AI—that was Oracle—and then you see another headline that says we are bringing in a thousand new people, and we're going to actually focus on them being human-centered leaders through AI. So, it's hard to know where you're going to fall within an organization. Is AI going to take my job? Is it going to help my job? You know, what's happening?


And I think that the mistake or the misdiagnosis that's happening with a lot of organizations is that they're so focused on the technology piece. Do people know how to use the tools? AI fluency training—all of these things—and they aren't thinking about how do we ensure our leaders know how to talk to their teams about what's going on. How do they address the fact that there is anxiety as it relates to AI?


So, how do I make sure as a leader that I'm not just saying, "Go use these tools," and we're tracking whether or not you use it because some organizations absolutely are tracking it? But how do I make sure that they understand the 'why' behind it, right? They trust that it's to their benefit, that it's not going to lead to them getting that pink slip or being on that phone call where they're letting thousands of people go all at one time.


So, I think that's the really key part of it, and that's what our focus is: really looking at AI adoption through the people lens and ensuring that the leaders are well-equipped to lead through what's happening really fast in a lot of these organizations.


Carolyn Ford: Right. So, you've identified three critical gaps that leaders need to diagnose before AI adoption can happen and can work: the knowledge gap, the importance gap, and the action gap. You want to walk us through those?


Arika Pierce Williams: Yeah, absolutely. So, the knowledge gap is when leaders don't fully understand what AI transformation actually requires. So, like, they've sat through the town hall, they received the email, but they're not really equipped, right? They don't actually have the knowledge to lead through that challenge that they're facing as a leader.


And then the importance gap is when a leader, intellectually, understands why it matters, but it's not really connected to their personal urgency or the reality of what's happening on their team.


And then the action gap, which is really, really important, is the leaders know, they may care, but they don't know what to do differently as a result of it.


And so, a lot of programs are really focused on knowledge, right? "Let's just give the information, let's have someone watch a video or, again, come to the town hall, or we have the email explaining how to use the Claude tools or the Co-pilot tools, whatever it may be." But what we are seeing is that the organizations that are really winning when it comes to AI transformation, they are solving for all three, right? They are focused on the knowledge, they're focused as well on the action, and as well as the importance.


And so, that's what we do when we're looking at working with our clients, and we're helping them diagnose what's going on. We're helping them to identify where those gaps are because, again, a lot of times what we're seeing, it's not so much the technology, it's these gaps that are really causing some organizations to have less-than-expected adoption rates of their AI technology.


Carolyn Ford: Yeah, I've experienced that personally. I think that this probably resonates with most of our listeners, at least on some level. Let's talk about human-first, and we can even talk about like, I took my team through your Trust Lab, which I believe is part of your human-first program. So, what does it mean to build a human-first leadership culture, and tell us about the program in general?


Arika Pierce Williams: Sure. So, human-first is our framework at Piercing Strategies that we use for all of our programs, but we are absolutely really focused on using it in terms of helping organizations as they're going through these AI transformations. And it's built around five practices—five that you have absolutely heard before: Hear, Understand, Motivate, Amplify, Navigate.


So again, these are not brand new concepts, but for a lot of leaders, these are concepts that they have drifted away from—or I should say, capabilities they've drifted away from, especially in the era that we are going through right now. And what we have found, both through our research and the work that we do with organizations, these are the leadership capabilities that are absolutely crucial, especially right now when you're asking your leaders to lead through transformations, lead through uncertainty, lead through org changes, all of those things.


And I think where a lot of tension has been happening is some say, "Is it human-first or is it AI-first, right?" And I think that that's a false choice. I think you can't see it as being polar opposites, right? You can't see it as being AI or the human. And our perspective—or I should say my perspective personally—is that the organizations that are really winning right now are the ones that have figured out that human connection is a competitive capability, and their leaders—the ones that are going to be the most successful—are going to be able to work in an AI-enabled environment and have that hybrid right intelligence, right? So they can leverage both human as well as AI and be fluent in the human dynamics of an AI workflow or workday.


So, what I would definitely say, especially to your listeners, the question isn't about whether you invest in AI—everyone's obviously doing that—but it's not, "Do I invest in AI or invest in my people?" It's whether you have leaders that can bring your people through this investment. And that's why our human-first framework is really important in terms of providing the conditions that we believe are missing if you want to see those AI adoption numbers be higher.


Carolyn Ford: And I find it fascinating. I've seen on a lot of LinkedIn profiles where it says "AI First," and I'm like, "Oh, AI wrote this for you then."


Arika Pierce Williams: Right, right.


Carolyn Ford: I mean, and what does that even mean? Out of business, right? And until we fully enter the Matrix, we are human-first, and AI is a tool, and it's a really powerful tool, and I like it a lot.


So, I think it is easy to lose sight of why we're using it, though. And I've talked about this with other guests—about AI just making us go faster, faster, faster. And I mentioned that my team went through your Trust Lab training, and it was computers down, it was analog, we were writing on paper, we were looking at each other, we were all in a room together, and it reminded me how much I have stopped using some of those muscles. I didn't even realize it because we get going at these breakneck speeds, and we don't stop and say, "Wait a minute. What is our objective here? What are we really doing?" And everything that we came out of that training with, it didn't have anything to do with AI; it had to do with each other, and it's made us a stronger team.


Arika Pierce Williams: Yeah. Well, you know, thank you for trusting me with your team. I thought that was such a great session because the conditions that you want to create in any team, but especially right now, are really around trust, clarity, and psychological safety. And I think, certainly, those were the areas that we focused a lot on in that room. And what you said, and I appreciate your honesty just now, is what I'm seeing with so many leaders, right? It's the drift, and the drift is silent until it's not—and so that's what happens.


And I think that's one of the things that we can't ignore, especially, again, going back to all of the investments that are being made into going faster, acceleration. And when we do that, that's sometimes where we drift away from these core human capabilities that actually will allow us to be more effective leaders. And so, that's the call out.


And I think sometimes as leaders, it's important to take a pause and to say, "Who was I as a leader maybe a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, and where have I drifted away?" Was I making more time for connection? Was I making more time to understand my team? Was I motivating them—all of those things? Was I amplifying them? And if you're drifting away, especially right now in this era that we're in, then that is going to impact so much.


And what we're seeing with AI especially—and this is some data that was recently from Korn Ferry—is that three in 10 employees are actively sabotaging their company's AI rollout. And what's especially interesting about that stat in that report is that they said that 44% of Gen Z workers—who, you know, you would think are the ones that are kind of leading the charge—they're undermining the initiatives. And then also, only 33% are using the formal AI training, right? So that's a pretty low number.


So again, if you as a leader, if you're not noticing any of those things, if you're not checked in, if you're drifting because you're so busy on other things, that's where these investments, all of the time that's being spent on AI, organizations are not going to see the return. Someone said the other day, and it just stuck with me, they said, "It's like buying Lamborghinis for people that don't have licenses."


Carolyn Ford: Right. All right, we're going to take a quick break right now, and then we're going to come back to that. We're going to take a quick pause to thank the sponsor who makes these conversations possible.


This episode is sponsored by Owl Cyber Defense, a pure-play cybersecurity company delivering Made in the USA data diode and cross-domain solutions. Trusted to protect some of the most sensitive government and commercial networks worldwide, Owl enables secure, near-instant collaboration across network boundaries, helping military, federal, and critical infrastructure organizations make faster, safer decisions. To learn more, visit owlcyberdefense.com.


This is Tech Transforms, and I'm here with Arika Pierce Williams, CEO of Piercing Strategies. We've been digging into why AI transformation keeps failing at the leadership layer, or why it might be failing at the leadership layer. And just before the break, you brought up a stat, Erica, that three in 10 employees are actively trying to sabotage the AI efforts of their organizations, and a high percentage of those three in 10 are Gen Zers. So, I want to pick up there because I am fascinated. Do we know why they're trying to sabotage, and why Gen Z?


Arika Pierce Williams: So, the report again from Korn Ferry cites a couple of things, but one of the things that they say is that employees feel like AI is being done to them rather than for them. So, they're worried about their jobs, right? They're worried about job security. So, again, you see these headlines about jobs being replaced by AI agents, and that doesn't make me feel encouraged as an employee to be the max user in something that could potentially replace me.


I also think that Gen Z is a generation that's very mission-driven, and they want to understand the 'why' behind things. So, an email saying, "We are now mandating everyone in the company use Co-pilot," is not going to cut it, right? What's the why behind that? How does that connect to the work that we're doing, and what does that mean for my career growth? And so, those are some of the things that Gen Z is looking for more answers behind in order for them to, of course, be higher-level adopters.


And then there's also the environmental piece of it. And again, going back to just what we know about the Gen Z generation, that's something that is probably more top of mind for them than other generations. So, as leaders, these are conversations that you really want to be having with your team members to understand—even just asking the question, "How are you feeling about the AI adoption that's going on?" Connecting it to their growth, doing those types of things can really accelerate those adoption levels.


In the recent Gallup workplace study that came out in April 2026, it said that when managers talked to their team members about AI adoption in terms of how it could help their career, how it could advance their career, they were 7.4 times more likely to see higher levels of adoption. And also, organizations that were more likely to see successful AI transformations had more engaged managers. So, the manager, the leader, is really, really key in terms of what that looks like. It's the human infrastructure that's going to make the technology work, and so you can't just ignore that piece of it.


Carolyn Ford: I have found, so anecdotally to the Gen Z topic especially, it's always shocking to me when I talk to a Gen Zer—and I've got a couple on my team, and they're fun and they keep me young—but I've been surprised that they have been the slowest to adopt. So, I'm going to share with our listeners things that I've done, and I enjoy doing this, so it's not a...


Well, my newest Gen Zer, I was showing her how to—or asking her to edit a video, and there's a pretty slick way to do it in a tool. And I shared my screen with her, and I said, "Watch, you do this and this and this and this and this." And she's like, "Wait, wait, let's record this." And then I said—and I use, in one of my... well, Perplexity is one of the tools that I use, and you can create Spaces, right? So if there's tasks that you do over and over and over, like create a discussion guide for a podcast, I have very specific instructions, and the AI helps me get to my discussion guide a lot faster. A discussion guide used to take me hours, and now I can usually get to a good discussion guide in about an hour. So it's not nothing, and it's a game changer.


Anyway, I'm showing her how I use this Space, and it blew her mind. And I'm like, "Yeah, it's a really powerful assistant."


Arika Pierce Williams: Yeah.


Carolyn Ford: And so my whole team's on board—my whole team—and like I said, I've got a few Gen Zers, and they all have embraced AI. And I love the way they're using it because they use it as an assistant; they're not outsourcing their brains to it. And when I see that happening, we have a conversation about that where I'm like, "Hey, you're not really thinking about... did you even read the report that you had AI generate something on?" Because that's not okay. You need to understand what it is you're asking AI to help you with. So...


Arika Pierce Williams: So, I would say you're absolutely being a human-first leader through the AI era. Because I think you're absolutely hearing where your team perhaps may have some reservations. You're understanding where they could go a little bit wrong with AI and maybe overuse or over-index it. But all of that requires being present as a leader and really making sure, again, that you are tapping into those core capabilities and even navigating through change, right? Just explaining like, "This is what we're using, this is why we're using it. It used to take me this long, now it takes me this long." Those are just details that can help someone better understand, "Okay, that makes sense now." And this is how we can elevate; we can go a little bit faster, but we can still retain the core human pieces of putting together a discussion guide for a podcast or things like that.


So again, that's the core piece that we are helping a lot of organizations through: how do we get the leaders back on board with being human-first leaders in this era? So it's, again, not an AI or human-first choice—it's how do we really collaborate those two together.


Carolyn Ford: I find it really important, too, that I'm using the same tools that I'm asking them to use and that I can show them where it makes sense to use it and where it absolutely doesn't make sense to use it.


I want to go back to—I just want to share with our listeners from the Trust Lab that we did as a team. One of the things that we identified that we could do better at... first of all, let me just say my team is an incredibly strong team. We are tight, we really like each other, it is joyful for us to work with each other. And so, my team actually questioned a little bit of, "Why are we doing this training? We already trust each other." And I really appreciated that going into the training, we did a pre-survey so we could get a baseline, and we did see improvements on these human measures—the acronym for HUMAN. We saw those improvements, but one of the things that we identified that we could do better as a team is to amplify each other on a regular basis. And this is one simple step: so every week on our weekly meeting, we start the weekly meeting with what was our win from last week, who are we amplifying, and then what are our focuses for the week? And every single one of us on the team goes around and shares that. And it has made a difference, and it's made us even stronger—like, it's kept us as a strong team.


Arika Pierce Williams: Yeah, recognition is so underrated in terms of the power of it. I think, again, we are all moving so fast right now that—and also sometimes just relying on those automated things to recognize people—there's nothing better than just amplifying and saying to someone, "The work that you do is really important," or "I appreciate how hard you worked on this," or "Wow, you hit it out of the park." These are small things.


And again, when it comes to a team—teams that are moving fast, teams that have change fatigue, teams that are undergoing transformations—taking that time just to amplify each other, to recognize each other, that can go a long way. And when we do our assessments, especially around human-first, that is usually one of the drifts—because we kind of diagnose which of the drifts our leaders are seeing in themselves the most. Amplify is usually one of the top ones where they're like, "You know what, I think in my head my team's doing good, or this is happening, but I just move on to the next deliverable because I gotta keep it moving." So, I love that. I loved on the post-assessment you guys were five out of five on it, how you rated yourself. So that was...


Carolyn Ford: We improved, we improved there. You mentioned this change fatigue—I feel it, man. I can't keep up with AI. At first in my company, I would say people looked to me as a leader in AI adoption; now I don't even scratch the surface of what it can do. I mean, I have it help me word-smith stuff, and I feel some anxiety that, "Oh, I need to be doing more," and I'm feeling this change fatigue. And I think you've already said how to deal with this, but say it again: how do we manage this change fatigue that's coming at us faster and faster by the minute?


Arika Pierce Williams: Yeah, change fatigue is real. There's some stats that have come out of Gartner that have said that the average employee experiences—I believe it's six times more change in a year now than they did five years ago. And change happens when there's just constant, wave after wave of, "This is going on, this is happening." It can be AI, it can be org changes, it can be all of the external as well as internal things that are happening.


And what I think is really important for leaders is to look for the signals of change fatigue, especially on your team. Are people resisting change, or are they just resisting the experience of constant change, and are they feeling depleted as a result of it? Because if they're feeling depleted, then they're not going to adopt anything well, right, including the AI tools that are supposed to make their life easier.


So, I think that's the really key piece. And a lot of times, the organization doesn't even realize that they're causing change fatigue amongst their team members, amongst their employees. And so that's where it's really important to have some coaching conversations and to really make sure that the leader has that level of awareness in terms of what is the cost of all of the changes that are happening. Because healthy resistance, of course, is fine, but when it becomes real resistance to these massive transformations that organizations are going through, that's where, again, there's some real risk and some real—I would say, just to be honest—dollars that are going to be impacted as a result of investments not being adopted.


Carolyn Ford: It can feel like these changes are not really to make our lives better as an employee, but really to make us do more with less.


Arika Pierce Williams: Mhm.


Carolyn Ford: And not only that, you know, we've mentioned these concerns that the Gen Zers have—and it's not just Gen Zers. I have the same concerns about AI taking our jobs, the environmental impact, and just the whole sci-fi... you know, we're headed towards that Matrix cliff. Like, I have all of those same fears and anxieties, and I think they're legitimate. And so, do you address—or do you help leaders know how to address those fears and not just gloss over them?


Arika Pierce Williams: Absolutely. And that is part of, for example, the coaching techniques that we teach leaders to have, the pauses, the levels of self-awareness that we want them to have and them to also be creating within their team culture. So those are exactly the things. Again, these are not new capabilities, and our human-first framework—they're not new, and I think that's really important because the last thing that leaders need right now is a new framework, right?


Carolyn Ford: Right.


Arika Pierce Williams: And I just was talking to a client last week that we're doing some human-first work for, and she said, "I'm so glad that we're just taking some core capabilities and we're helping our leaders get back to them, as opposed to saying, 'Here's something brand new on top of everything that's going on.'" But yes, again, that's what we're focused on is helping those leaders first have higher levels of self-awareness around these core capabilities in themselves, and then helping them create that team culture across their employee base, across their team members, so that they're also having human-first teams full of human-first leaders.


Carolyn Ford: I think that's a really excellent point. It's not anything new. And it was more of a, "Hey, take a pause, remind yourself why you're really doing this."


Arika Pierce Williams: Yeah.


Carolyn Ford: And it's, like I said, it's definitely worked for my team.


We're going to go to Tech Talk questions right now. So, I'm pausing because I'm like, I want to talk for another hour, but I also love the Tech Talk questions. So, we're going to go to our rapid-fire questions where you just answer from the gut.


Arika Pierce Williams: Okay.


Carolyn Ford: I know you have a two-year-old, and she's beautiful. What quality does your two-year-old have that you wish every leader navigating AI transformation has?


Arika Pierce Williams: Good question. Radical honesty, right? We're in our "No" and "Why" stage. "Mommy, why? Mommy, no." And also just curiosity. I think don't stop asking questions—especially of your leaders, of yourself. Just that curiosity will take you so far, especially when everything feels uncertain.


Carolyn Ford: I love that. And going back to this—this human-first framework is basically what you learned from your two-year-old.


Arika Pierce Williams: Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. I mean, we cover all five capabilities before 8 o'clock in the morning. We've covered them all.


Carolyn Ford: All right. You have 60 seconds to explain the human-first framework to a robot. Go.


Arika Pierce Williams: Oh, okay. So, human-first: it is Hear, Understand, Motivate, Amplify, and Navigate. And this is how you don't just adopt AI—it's how you thrive through it. So, don't skip over any of these capabilities; they're not new. If you don't have these capabilities, what's going to happen is it's going to become very expensive shelf-ware.


Carolyn Ford: All right. Science fiction loves the idea of AI that goes rogue. In your world, what does a leadership culture that goes rogue look like?


Arika Pierce Williams: A leadership culture that goes rogue is where there's a lot of conversations happening in the hallway that are very different from the conversations happening in the meetings. Where people are disengaged, they're checked out, and there's no trust.


Carolyn Ford: Right. You know what it brings to mind for me is that old movie Office Space.


Arika Pierce Williams: Oh yeah, it's a good one.


Carolyn Ford: The Boss, right? Yep, uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay. Finally, you have always been a go-to for my reading list. I need a new book. What are you reading?


Arika Pierce Williams: So, I'm actually rereading for work purposes right now a book called The Thin Book of Trust. It's about 120 pages. It's a great book for teams, for leaders, around just building trust. It's a fan favorite of Brené Brown—that's how I heard of it. And then the other book I'm reading, which I can't think of the title, but it's very controversial right now by Emma Grede. It's the book about... Starting with You, I think, and it's essentially about how, especially as women, it's very difficult to have it all, and so... that's... okay.


Carolyn Ford: I will find the title and drop it in the show notes.


Arika Pierce Williams: Okay, please. I should have had that right. Start with Yourself—that's it, that's it.


Carolyn Ford: Google is an amazing tool. All right, thank you so much for joining Tech Transforms today.


Arika Pierce Williams: Oh my goodness, thank you so much. This is a full-circle moment, as you shared from when we kind of started just talking about podcasts many years ago and people were like, "Podcasts?" So, I'm so thrilled to be your guest. This is a lot of fun to be on the other side of it, so thank you for having me.


Carolyn Ford: And one of the best ideas and tools that I've had in the marketing world is the podcast. And guess where it came from? From your meat computer, not from AI. So, you know, the best ideas that I've had always have been with the human connection.


And finally, where can our listeners connect with you and learn more about your work?


Arika Pierce Williams: So, they can always check out our website, which is piercingstrategies.com. I'll move there, but I'm very active on LinkedIn. So if you just look me up there, my name is Erica with an A. So, Arika Pierce—Arika Pierce Williams. I got married, so I have to remember that last name. But definitely look me up on LinkedIn, and come along on this journey that we're having in terms of human-first.


Carolyn Ford: Yes, your LinkedIn posts are fabulous. I encourage everybody to follow you on LinkedIn, and I'll drop all of this in the show notes, too. Thank you so much.


Thanks for tuning in. If you found this episode valuable, be sure to share it, leave a review, and smash that like button to help us reach more people who could benefit from the conversation. I'm Carolyn Ford. Tech Transforms is produced by Show and Tell and sponsored by Owl Cyber Defense. Until next time, stay curious and keep imagining the future.