Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Dr. Paula Cruise with Benedict Anthony. Welcome.

Dr Paula Cruise: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your firm, how you serving folks?

Dr Paula Cruise: Well, in a nutshell, I’m a I’ve spent my career helping senior leaders understand how work actually gets done, not in theory, but in the real interpretation layer where analysts, operators, managers turn information into decisions. My focus now is helping organizations redesign that layer for a human and AI world so leaders can scale judgment, reduce friction and create value with far more precision.

Lee Kantor: So can you share a little bit about your backstory? Were you working on before you started the firm?

Dr Paula Cruise: Sure. So my background spans leadership, psychology. I am an organizational psychologist by profession. I grew up and was trained in the UK, so I had a career stemming academia research as well as practice. I moved to the US a handful of years ago and now I’m practicing in consulting.

Lee Kantor: So how was that transition for you from kind of enterprise academia to being an entrepreneur?

Dr Paula Cruise: It’s colorful. In some instances, it’s exciting, in others, it’s, you know, quite intuitive in some as well as at other moments. It’s the whole founder journey. When I was in London, I did have my own practice for 14 years. So there is a lot of lessons from that that I’m able to incorporate here. But I am in a new market and I’m very conscious I’m in a new market. So tailoring my solutions to meet leaders in this space where they are. That’s the most exciting part of what I’m doing now.

Lee Kantor: Do you find that there’s kind of a business cultural difference between working in the UK versus America?

Dr Paula Cruise: I think the difference is more in terms of framing and design more than cultural. So in the UK, the operating model there is mostly or it’s predominantly a client focused. So solutions are designed with the end user in mind. In the US, it’s more market and commercially focused, where the objective is to have the business moving Efficiently and more effectively and succeeding. Not that the end user isn’t a priority, but the the workflow is different.

Lee Kantor: Now, what is kind of the typical pain point an organization is having right before they hire you?

Dr Paula Cruise: Oh it varies. It could be anything across the human spectrum. Uh, understandably, AI, for example, has dramatically changed how businesses are now operating. So it could be scaling, scaling logistical challenges, headcount challenges, operational challenges to going to that deeper layer within the organization from leadership development, learning, um, decision cycles, visibility. It could be anything. Um, usually though, when I am called, there is a crisis or something has escalated where there is visibility in metrics that show something’s dropped, something’s decreased, something’s accelerated. Um, an element has catapulted in a way that the business had not foreseen or planned.

Lee Kantor: So let’s just pick one of those challenges, say scaling. Um, so a company scaling or they like to scale and then a metric changes, like, is there a typical metric that the leader says, okay, something must be amiss? Um, or is it, it could be anything. And then they put their finger on, okay, this is we’re trying to scale and we’re running into some friction or some unexpected, uh, situations that are happening. And I need my leaders to kind of get on the same page here. Um, can you talk about like, what is that metric? Usually when it comes to scaling that they’re concerned about the metric.

Dr Paula Cruise: The metric could be internally or externally. So let’s use an external metric like customer NPS scores, for example. Um, customer NPS scores is usually the indicator to a business of the degree to which it’s meeting its, its market appetite, its market demand, and the response that a customer gives to a business lets the business know the level of engagement, satisfaction, orientation, and appreciation that a customer has towards the company or the business. So NPS scores are a really good litmus test of the level of just overall appreciation that A that a client or a customer has for the business and the value they leave that business delivering for them. When an NPS score drops suddenly, particularly visible over a quarter, The company usually has a number of problems on their hands. This could be sourced in different ways. So we could see this um, underlying layer in um, work for the workflow regarding how customer queries get addressed. It could be related to product quality and product efficiency. It could be related to supply chain, how soon or quickly that products are getting to two different customers, different customers in different geographical locations. There could be a number of reasons as to the underlying root cause, but as an external metric, the NPS shifting quickly, um, the NPS shifting, uh, not just in terms of speed, but also in terms of intensity and in particular product categories that also that’s a good indicator of, of where I would, I would come in, for example, from a behavioral science perspective. If the metric is internal, it suggests a human capital challenge. And that’s where we can also have, um, a number of root causes across the entire talent cycle, whether it be it from recruitment to onboarding to development to performance management to comp and benefits to employee relations and engagement. There are so many areas. So there needs to be a deep dive into that. Or at the very least, there is usually a flag on that at a functional level, um, a leadership level or a specific area of the business or geography of the business where it’s impacted now.

Lee Kantor: Is your work mainly dealing with internal or external challenges.

Dr Paula Cruise: At the moment? Most of the challenges I’m getting are internal and especially AI related.

Lee Kantor: So then they’re deploying AI or they’d like to deploy AI and that, um, kind of that transformation’s kind of not going as they envisioned.

Dr Paula Cruise: Well, that is also one of the biggest challenges that we are currently having in the space. However, I think most leaders prior to the deployment phase is they’re trying to strategize around what AI is actually doing for them. How do we make that transition from AI as a product to AI as a functional capability tool that enables us to redesign our work system so that we can actually create value. So that shift is what’s causing a lot of friction at the moment. Um, I think there is the general belief that AI is a product or another tool. And I think the moment we start to apply solutions with that framing, that’s when we start finding bottlenecks. Because it isn’t. Ai is like nothing we’ve had before.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you think that some of the deployment of it has been kind of they’re treating it as a blunt instrument. They buy a bunch of licenses and they give it out to their employees and they go at it. And then each employee. Well, first of all, I think there’s a level of distrust where the employees like, well, I’m going to just sit here and train my replacement. So there’s some level of that. But also you have that that they don’t know what they’re doing yet, and they don’t know how to best use it. And the organization holistically is just hoping that someone figures it out and they don’t really have clear direction on how to use it or why to use it.

Dr Paula Cruise: You’re not wrong on any of those points. In fact, you are absolutely right. I mean, what we are having at the moment is we have an old model of working and AI has completely challenged thought in the old model, we rewarded productivity, speed, output. You have mentioned a number of elements licensing. Um, what platforms are giving leaders or organizations best value for their money? What systems or tools need to be implemented? That’s the old model. And it’s not that we’re getting rid of the old model. The challenge AI has presented is that AI can out optimize any human now. So what it cannot do is create clarity, creativity, the human elements and the old ways of working are not yet tailored to meet that challenge. So organizations are now trying to identify the specific points of friction they’re having in their organization to be able to accelerate alignment and as well as keep up with the new developments in technology, the new developments in and capability. So it’s it’s quite a number. There are quite a number of balls that are being juggled at the same time in companies.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your playbook for that challenge?

Dr Paula Cruise: Oh, giving away the secret sauce. Um.

Lee Kantor: Or at least like what are some of the, what is, what are some of the, the questions you’re asking leaders or what are some of the kind of ways that you would assess the best way to move forward?

Dr Paula Cruise: Sure. Well, the first thing is any, in terms of any change direction or transformation direction is what’s happening now. Um, one of the key things I’ve been doing in the last couple of months is helping leaders identify what to look for in their specific functions as indicators of change or a shift or something could be going wrong. So what are the metrics that you’re currently using? What are those metrics telling you? So what are those metrics from the people side telling you? What is your attrition rate looking like? What is your engagement rate looking like? What is your learning up uptake looking like? What are the programs that are actively being pursued in your organization, and what level in the organization are most receptive to them or are adopting them at any significant rate? That’s the people layer. Then we can also look at we can go back to the, um, product layer. Uh, what are some of the bottlenecks in your product development? Which teams are struggling the most at the moment? At which stage of the product development cycle? Um, what metrics in terms of, uh, turnover, uh, in terms of product development, turnover in terms of scaling, in terms of, um, identifying product efficiencies. Um, how are those metrics manifested in your workflow, how we can look at the customer service layer. So there are a number of layers that we can look at, where we can see bottlenecks in the workflow, where we can see challenges to the work design, where we can see difficulties that the human element is having when it’s merged with the AI element to create that value for, for workers to create that value for, for the enterprise.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, in your research or the work that you’ve done, do you find that is anybody doing this well, or is this something that everybody is challenged by this to some degree?

Dr Paula Cruise: I think the fair the fair call is everyone is challenged to this by some degree, because there are a lot of unknowns at the moment. And in fairness to a lot of businesses, they are looking at multiple perspectives and multiple areas of the business functions of the business simultaneously, and the pace at which AI is moving from a product perspective. The organization cannot keep up, however, where the organization can anticipate changes and design infrastructure and architecture to meet AI in the way in which that’s beneficial to the business is in the human space. Because there are. The human element is the area where AI cannot compete.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I think this is where you kind of have a competitive advantage with your background being, um, so much psychology and behavioral science coupled with your knowledge of business and enterprise and academia, you are kind of uniquely positioned to be able to help a company maneuver through this dance between AI and humans in order, you know, because it’s one of those things where the genie’s out of the bottle, right? Like, we’re not gonna not use AI. So, so we’re going to be using AI and you better figure it out and your people better figure it out. Because if they, you know, put their head in the sand, they’re not going to be employed anymore.

Dr Paula Cruise: Yes, you’re absolutely right. The genie is out of the bottle before AI transitions, for example, were episodic. So promotions, restructures, crises, leaders had time to adjust to grow into the new identity. Now transitions are continuous. Ai is accelerating, role shifts, decision making, organizational expectations. Every transition now is an identity negotiation. And I think one of the biggest challenges that leaders are facing is how do they rise to that moment? The question is who am I now? Previously, the leader was the master in the room. Well, not so much anymore. You know, we have AI now. You have an app and accessibility to an app that will enable you to answer questions on your to your fingertips. So what does the leader do when they’re no longer the master in the room? And the key, the key differentiating capability going forward is translation of meaning. Because AI does not do that. Ai struggles with nuance. It struggles with qualitative data. Llms are good, don’t get me wrong, but it struggles with the interpretation and attributing meaning to cross functional insight. It struggles with escalating or anticipating governance and risk requirements at its true form. What does a crisis truly mean to the deployment and the engagement of the business with thousands of people? Ai can’t do that. So that’s where we’re going to need our leaders to step up and really offer differentiated value. So again, leaders, what part of my old identity no longer fits? The big question of the day for them.

Lee Kantor: And it also is how can they use whatever it was? Their superpower was in concert with AI to make that superpower even more super. Um, it’s one of those things I think AI doesn’t do a great job of unexpected, unexpected consequences. Unintended consequences. And if you can be good at predicting that or getting ahead of that, I mean, that becomes a competitive advantage. But you’re going to have to use AI to do what it does best is kind of analyze data and leverage that superpower of AI and have a memory that lasts forever that yours doesn’t have. As a human, you know, use that, but you’re going to have to be the driver. You can’t just turn it on and hope it figures out, you know, a better way to do something. You’re going to have to kind of nudge it in the right direction.

Dr Paula Cruise: Exactly. I mean, I think one of the challenges with, um, the, let’s call it the introduction of AI to the market is that leaders are many people are, have embraced AI from a tool perspective. Um, it’s a new toy. Uh, are you create prompts on it and you ask questions and you now, um, get these answers that you never anticipated before. And there are creative ways of doing this. However, it’s what do we do with the answers now that we’ve asked the question? So that in and of itself is now where differentiation exists. Ai has shifted gears from a time where knowing the answer was premium. Now the key is are we asking the right questions? Right. It’s the wisdom.

Lee Kantor: The wisdom part is the thing the human is going to be able to do.

Dr Paula Cruise: That is correct. That’s absolutely correct. We are now stepping into a phase where we are no longer just crystallizing intelligence. We are actively, um, embedding it, um, moving forward. This is particularly going to be a key feature in the psychological elements of work. So for example, psychological safety previously was a cultural aspiration, a nice to have often misunderstood as comfort. Now it’s a strategic requirement because leaders make better decisions when they have one place where they Don’t have to perform where their thinking can be unpolished. Their uncertainty can be voiced and their identity can recalibrate. They don’t have that space in them anymore, because organizations now need to really redesign work to enable a leader to have that space. Ai accelerates decisions, we know that, but it also amplifies consequences. And leaders need a space where the internal noise can settle. They’re now going to need more time to effectively and look more at what are the consequences of an AI output. They’re going to need teams that are going to be able to translate for them the risk. Complete risk assessment of the implications of the the recommendations for AI. And one of the I’m working with a client who, um, is currently developing different AI agents. And one of the things I’m helping them with is how can we make the AI fail? Not because we don’t want the AI to be doing well, but understanding the points or the potential points of where the AI is likely to fail. And what challenges that failure is likely to present for businesses, for leaders. So if we know that, okay, if I have a situation that is multifaceted, multifunctional, nuanced, both qualitative and quantitative, the AI may give me a very prescriptive output, but I need more tailored responses. I need more tailored insight to be able to make a business decision. That’s what we’re now looking at, not just where AI is failing, but when AI does fail. How can we equip leaders with the capability to actively navigate that and respond accordingly?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, and it’s not just asking AI, you know how to do it or do it for you. Like you really have to keep the humanity as part of the process. You can’t just delegate that or abdicate that. It has to really be still human driven.

Dr Paula Cruise: And that’s one of the biggest challenges I think leaders have had to make that shift. So if we looked at before AI performing as a leader was the stunt, right? The expectation organizations rewarded performance, the polished version of leadership. Leaders learned to communicate well, manage well, present well. Presence was optional. Now AI can perform. It can generate the polished version. So what can a leader do that AI cannot? What it cannot replicate, what AI cannot replicate is presence. The grounded, coherent, internally aligned human at the center of the room and the humans in the room who understand this, translate this, interpret this not only for themselves, but for others, are going to be the game changers going forward.

Lee Kantor: So now, any advice for the organization, um, that would like to create an environment of psychological safety, um, in their organization? Is there some baby steps they could be doing in order to, um, at least begin conversations around this?

Dr Paula Cruise: Definitely. Um, I think one of. I read somewhere a company, um, initiated with AI with a small experiment, and I thought that was definitely the way forward. Given the pace of change of change and AI, those. That’s the first step I would recommend. Rather than attempting to scale AI across your organization, large scale and try small. Pick a function. Pick an area of the business that you’re most challenged by, right? Look at how work gets done currently. Where are the bottlenecks to your workflow? What are the most frequently identified challenges your teams are facing? Where are the bugbears your team keeps stressing on? What parts of the system keep breaking down? Substitute those elements for AI one at a time, and then track the metrics for the next quarter for the next two quarters. What’s the speed of deliverables after that? What’s the number of complaints that you’re getting from your team? How is productivity improved? Are your teams working or collaborating more effectively as a result of this, um, you know, intervention? How are your teams then creating new ideas for the business? How are they solving new problems for your customers, for your clients? Start small, go the experimental route and peel back the layers of the onion. That way, after you have that data, you’ve got your proof of concept. You can then start the process of scaling. I think one of the challenges with AI at the moment is that it seems to be all coming at us in a mass as a rush of wind, and everyone’s trying to keep up to pace, trying to get everything done at the same time. Start small. The experimental approach is going to be your advantage going forward.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I agree. I think that that’s a great advice and that that’s I think that there’s so much fear that people are falling behind. So they’re just deploying it haphazardly and then just hoping that somebody figures it out. I think that that’s a mess. And, um, you’re, you’re asking for trouble by doing it in that manner. I think your way is a lot more prudent and you’re going to get a better result in the long term. And, and, and that fear of being behind is not I don’t think that’s accurate. I just think that’s the way the AI people sell you more AI.

Dr Paula Cruise: Well, the thing is, if you are worried that you are behind, yet you are an organization with a really severe risk appetite, um, you are going to end up with more trouble if you deploy without the necessary steps and gateways in place and before leaders were already struggling. Right? You know, misalignment pressure to perform. Um, the pace was slower before AI cracks took longer to show that’s not the case now. So AI has removed that buffer. So we do need more prudence. We do need more oversight. We do need more governance. Leaders are now more exposed than before. Um, their interpretation patterns, their internal architecture, their signals under pressure. Right. Leaders are more exposed than any than any other point in organizational frameworks. Brilliant leaders are failing, not from lack of skill, but from outdated internal ways of processing information. So the experimental route is going to be the friend of many organizations going forward on this?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. You have to move slow to move fast. I mean, it’s better to test it, figure things out, learn and then iterate and then deploy. Now is there a story you can share maybe that illustrates how working with you can be beneficial? Don’t name the name of the organization, but maybe share the challenge they had when they connected with you and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Dr Paula Cruise: Um, I can share a small, a small story. Um, I, a CEO came to me, um, he was very much interested in understanding how to tailor his approach for negotiating. Um, he was on the cusp of a, um, an acquisition and, uh, to expand his business and he wanted to understand how to negotiate AI capability as part of that acquisition. And so I worked with him to not only flesh out the different strategies and key points of the acquisition itself, but the added value of where AI in the process could give him substantive value relative to the human element. And the key here is looking at AI as a partnership. So AI isn’t like a calculator, for example, where the calculator was a discrete product. Ai is an operation, a partnership tool. And the points of the decision making journey where you can leverage AI is different. And at the forefront where you have the analytical elements, the crafting of the competitive intelligence, the business history of the of the firm, the historical context of the financial reports and annual reports. You can do that quite easily with AI. The human partnership pieces come in after that, um, making sure that you’ve got experts in place to interpret that data relative to future strategy and translate that data really relative to service and product specialization and build the go forward strategy based on those three elements, all three elements. So it isn’t just about what AI agent or platform you’re using, it is when to deploy it in the decision making process. What output to trust versus override? As part of that decision making process and then leveraging that capability to strengthen your negotiation position.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a niche that you work in? Do you have a sweet spot in terms of your work?

Dr Paula Cruise: Well, prior to moving to the US, I, I headed up the behavioral science team at Barclays in London. So I do tend to get a lot of people from finance still. Um, and while I was in the US, I was um, a human capital leader at Deloitte. So I do have that, that professional services background as well. So I tend to get, um, a lot of leaders who straddle those spaces.

Lee Kantor: So if there’s somebody out there that wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you, is there a website? What’s the best way to connect?

Dr Paula Cruise: Definitely it’s www.benedictanthony.com. It’s Doctor Paula Cruise. I am very active on LinkedIn. I create monthly newsletters helping leaders understand the challenges of AI and the metrics to look for in their data so they can get the ball rolling to do different audits and get a better picture of where they’re at to move forward.

Lee Kantor: Well, congratulations on all the momentum. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Dr Paula Cruise: Thank you very much for having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.