In this episode of Executive Connect, Brian sits down with Nikki Barua, serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and co-founder of FlipWork, to talk about what agentic AI really means for leaders. Nikki explains why most companies are getting AI adoption wrong, how human and AI teams should actually work, and why culture change matters more than buying the latest tools. She also breaks down what leaders must unlearn, how 90-day operating cycles can help teams move faster, and why the future belongs to people who can orchestrate both humans and intelligent systems. If your company is trying to use AI without losing trust, clarity, and human judgment, this episode gives you a smarter roadmap.

Chapters:

(0:01) Why agentic AI matters now
(1:21) From prompting to autonomous systems
(4:50) Leading hybrid human AI teams
(7:07) Why culture drives AI adoption
(11:20) The mistake leaders keep making
(15:35) What leadership looks like now
(17:05) Reinvention in the age of AI
(18:22) Why people squared wins

Bryan

(0:00) The important thing for leaders and companies to focus on is that there’s too much focus on shiny object syndrome. (0:07) Let’s get the latest AI tools, let’s give it to everybody, and then let’s mandate that everybody needs to use it. (0:13) And all that does is increase the resistance because people don’t understand why, they don’t know what that means for them personally, and they haven’t been given the environment and the safe space within which to experiment and build those skills.

(0:27) So think about, you know, how do you shift your culture to go from linear certainty to exponential change? (0:36) We’ve spent years talking about digital transformation, but what happens when AI stops being a tool and starts acting like a teammate? (0:44) Today’s guest believes the future of work isn’t humans versus AI, it’s humans plus agentic AI working as one system.

(0:54) Nikki Barua is a serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, and CEO of Flipwork. (0:59) For more than 25 years, she’s helped global brands reinvent how they think, operate, and compete. (1:05) Welcome to the show, Nikki.

(1:09) I’m so thrilled to be here, Brian. (1:10) Thanks for inviting me. (1:13) Hey, so agentic AI is becoming a buzzword.

(1:16) How do you define it in a way leaders can actually use it? (1:21) Yeah, when we had more people adopt AI, you know, a couple of years ago, what everyone first got access to was something like ChantGPT, right? (1:31) It’s generative AI where you prompt it, it needs your instructions, and then it does what you ask it to do.

(1:39) Agentic AI is the next level from there, which is you don’t need to, once you set up the system, it works autonomously. (1:48) You don’t need to keep giving it instruction. (1:50) It just works as if it’s its own being, right?

(1:54) And so the power of having agentic systems is it’s real leverage. (1:59) We’re all comfortable now with using our favorite chat bot and getting research insights, or having a draft an email, or write a LinkedIn post, or what have you. (2:12) But imagine having a virtual chief of staff that does everything you need to do, does the research, competitive intelligence, looks through all of the emails in your inbox, goes through project folders, extracts the most important things for you to focus on, and gives you the top three decisions you need to make.

(2:31) And all of that happens every single day. (2:34) That’s the kind of agentic system that truly frees up leaders to focus on higher value work and not be stuck simply giving low-level tasks and low-level instructions.

Nikki

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Nikki

(3:01) Right. (3:02) Yeah, no, I think that most of the folks that I know of have adopted all the chat bots. (3:08) And one of the things that I’m fond of doing now is I’ll give instructions for a prompt on one chat bot because another one will actually do the work better.

(3:18) And I’ll say, well, what should I feed this one? (3:21) So I think what you’re describing with agentic AI is not that, but it’s basically almost this meta construct where it’s going to be able to the orchestration layer or the orchestra conductor for what I’m describing. (3:35) Is that how people- Exactly right.

(3:37) Right. (3:38) Yeah. (3:38) Think of yourself as the leader of the team and your team, instead of having humans on it, has different AI agents with different roles that they’re supposed to do.

(3:48) Maybe one is the researcher. (3:50) Maybe one is great at analytics. (3:52) Another one is a great writer.

(3:54) Another one is a great organizer. (3:57) Now, when you connect all of them to work together as a team, they’re doing that seamlessly with no human intervention. (4:04) You don’t need to tell them what to do.

(4:06) You don’t need to prompt. (4:07) You don’t need to give instructions. (4:09) Once it’s set up, it just continuously keeps doing what it’s instructed to do.

(4:13) And that’s the real leverage. (4:15) And so, as you can imagine, what is the most important skill that you then bring to the table? (4:21) It’s thinking about role design.

(4:23) It’s thinking about the right kind of… (4:26) It’s pretty much like the way you would onboard a new hire. (4:29) You have to be clear what the outcomes you want out of them, what their responsibilities look like, and how you evaluate their performance and course correct when needed.

(4:39) And so, you have to start thinking about AI agents the exact same way. (4:44) Yeah. (4:44) I think the distinction here is that these things, in theory, could work 24-7 too, right?

(4:50) So, how do leaders need to adapt how they’re thinking about what you described for managing that virtual team, or I don’t even know what you call this, like V Team? (5:00) Well, I think of it as a new kind of hybrid team. (5:02) We got used to the idea of hybrid teams in context of remote work, right?

(5:07) The people that are on site versus working remotely, and that was the concept of hybrid. (5:13) I think there’s a new definition of hybrid that goes beyond location, and it’s about humans and machines working together. (5:20) And so, the leadership skill necessary for leading those kinds of teams also have to evolve, because now, you’re not just dealing with humans, you’re dealing with machines, and you’re dealing with the interaction between humans and machines.

(5:35) And where does accountability lie? (5:38) Where are the guard rails? (5:40) What’s the governance layer within that?

(5:42) When things go wrong, where’s the human in the loop to catch that? (5:46) There are all these considerations that we never, frankly, had to deal with even a year or two ago. (5:52) And these are all entirely new challenges that are emerging, and it requires reinvention by the leaders themselves in order to prepare themselves for it.

Bryan

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Nikki

(6:38) Okay. (6:39) Well, talk to us a little bit about Flipwork. (6:41) And you described that as a human plus agentic system.

(6:46) What does that look like within a real company? (6:49) And what are leaders thinking about in this? (6:52) I know that governance is a big issue in some of the conversations that I’m having.

(6:58) How do people think about their data and how they set everything up? (7:01) A lot of the guardrails conversations you’re talking about there probably apply to this as well. (7:07) Yeah.

(7:07) Well, Flipwork was founded on a core belief that the true path forward is one of making people exponentially capable rather than replacing them. (7:20) AI is changing work faster than people can change how they work. (7:25) And within that, there is a growing divide where technology is racing ahead and humanity is getting left behind.

(7:30) And that’s not the kind of world that’s good for our civilization. (7:35) The challenge though is to close that gap, it takes more than just AI training. (7:40) If you simply tell people, here’s a tool you now need to be using to do your job, you get very superficial level adoption or frankly, pretty poor adoption in that.

(7:49) Because what you’re not considering is the identity and mindset and behavior shift that the individual has to go through to start thinking about co-creating with AI as their colleague. (8:02) And most people have learned to do their job a certain way over years. (8:08) So whether you’re a marketer or you’re in HR, you’ve kind of figured out a certain way you do your day-to-day job.

(8:14) You go in, you follow a certain process, use a certain system, you have communication methods, that’s all ingrained in us. (8:23) It turns into autopilot behavior. (8:26) What AI is doing is completely ripping that apart.

(8:30) So when you have to reimagine everything, not just who you are in context of AI, what parts do you keep to yourself? (8:39) What parts do you shed and let AI do the heavy lifting? (8:43) How do you reimagine your day-to-day workflow?

(8:46) What are the new systems and tools to use? (8:49) That’s a tremendous amount of transformation to go through. (8:51) In fact, that’s why I call it reinvention, not just transformation, because it’s rewiring everything.

(8:58) And the challenge that people face in going through that experience is it feels threatening. (9:04) It’s very uncomfortable. (9:06) You’re letting go of the thing that gave you safety and security and certainty.

(9:11) And suddenly it’s like a question of like, well, if this machine can do everything, then who am I? (9:16) What if I start, can I really trust it? (9:19) What if I start depending on it?

(9:21) Will I just get replaced? (9:23) There are all these concerns that come up, and the solution to that is not investing in more AI tools. (9:29) And that’s why Flipwork’s focus is really helping companies reinvent their people and culture, rewire their processes and their workflows, and prime the environment such that AI adoption actually increases.

(9:46) And we’ve been able to deliver 80% to 90% adoption in just 90-day cycles. (9:53) And the first thing we do when we engage with a company is we start with a diagnostic that helps to identify the archetype of each individual in the company. (10:00) Where are they in terms of their baseline AI readiness?

(10:04) Because no matter where they are, they all have to become orchestrators. (10:07) But they can become orchestrators if you don’t even know where their current state is, if you don’t know what’s holding them back. (10:14) Is it what specific challenges they’re concerned about?

(10:18) Once you know that, you can then create a personalized pathway for each person to become an orchestrator. (10:23) And then from that diagnostic, we take them through 90-day sprint cycles where they’re going through the actual work of reimagining workflows and processes and systems as a team. (10:34) And that’s why the results are so extraordinarily successful, because we’ve primed the individual for change.

(10:43) Yeah. (10:44) Let’s talk about that a little bit, because I would assume that there might be some role blurring as part of this process too. (10:53) I guess AI doesn’t really care that there’s these departments that are set up a certain way.

(10:59) So how should people be thinking about that right now when the tools are available for more of this cross-department stuff that’s cutting through departments sort of work? (11:14) I can understand how that’s threatening for some folks, but how are people thinking about that generally? (11:20) Well, one of the most common examples where this role blurring is showing up is who should even own AI transformation?

(11:27) I’m sure you come across that too, because is the right answer the IT department? (11:33) Is the right answer the HR department? (11:34) Is the right answer the Chief Operating Officer?

(11:37) Who actually owns it? (11:39) And the reality is that you can’t think of AI as something that sits in one department. (11:46) It’s a capability.

(11:47) It’s like the internet. (11:49) I mean, you don’t put it in the hands of any one department. (11:53) It fundamentally changes how we think, how we work, how we lead.

(11:58) And if you consider AI like electricity, it’s an infrastructure requirement that is going to change every single person. (12:08) You really need a cross-functional approach to this. (12:11) It can’t just be any one leader owning it.

(12:14) And so that’s one of the biggest challenges we’re seeing come up is literally companies don’t know whether they should hire a Chief AI Officer who doesn’t understand their business, but will implement AI, or is it like giving the responsibility to any one single person? (12:30) And over time, we’re going to start to see that kind of blurring in even how work gets done. (12:37) And ultimately it’s about finding out where are the areas where you need humans to lead and where are the areas that you can get massive leverage by using AI.

(12:50) Okay. (12:51) Well, for those looking to hire, what are leaders getting wrong about workplace transformation right now? (12:57) Or maybe it’s not even hiring.

(12:58) Maybe it’s like, how should they be training their people? (13:02) How should they be thinking about how to leverage things? (13:05) Because to your point, people can only adapt at a certain rate, no matter what speed the technology is moving at.

(13:12) How should people be thinking about that right now? (13:16) Think beyond training and tools and really think of it as culture transformation. (13:21) The most important thing for leaders and companies to focus on is that there’s too much focus on shiny object syndrome.

(13:31) Let’s get the latest AI tools. (13:33) Let’s give it to everybody. (13:34) And then let’s mandate that everybody needs to use it.

(13:37) And all that does is increase the resistance because people don’t understand why they don’t know what that means for them personally. (13:44) And they haven’t been given the environment and the safe space within which to experiment and build those skills. (13:51) Think about how do you shift your culture to go from linear certainty to exponential change and what’s it going to take to get there.

(14:05) And in that context, support your people and create faster operating cycles. (14:11) That’s why we recommend working in 90-day sprints. (14:14) The three-year plan, five-year plan, or the annual operating cycle is dead because AI is changing every week.

(14:21) If you have such long operating cycles, you’re not going to be able to respond to change. (14:25) So you really want to build that adaptability and agility within your culture. (14:28) And the only way that’s going to happen is if the people in your culture are able to shift themselves.

(14:33) So the number one challenge is getting people to unlearn and shed old behaviors. (14:40) And only then can they embrace something new.

Bryan

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Nikki

(15:35) So as AI becomes more autonomous, what changes about leadership? (15:44) It’s really understanding that it’s not about command and control. (15:50) It’s not about the industrial age hierarchical model of a pyramid of the boss at the top who’s directing people to get work done.

(15:59) And it’s really about being an orchestrator that provides context. (16:04) The why matters more because the clarity of outcome and the why of that outcome is really important. (16:14) And from that, it also requires leaders to shed a lot of their old beliefs and approaches.

(16:21) Transparency matters more. (16:22) There’s a lot of data that’s like now accessible to everyone, no matter how you look at it. (16:28) So you really have to think about your job is to curate the right environment, have clarity in that environment, set the right guardrails in that environment, provide context of what you want in that environment, and bring speed and agility in that environment.

(16:46) So your personal story is rooted in resilience and reinvention. (16:51) How has that shaped the way you build companies and lead change? (16:58) Yeah, I feel like every chapter of my personal story has been about another type of reinvention.

(17:05) And for me personally, what it gave to me was comfort with change. (17:11) In fact, I seek it out, and I’m really comfortable with uncertainty and change. (17:17) And each time I’ve seen that when you face greater obstacles, you just have to become bigger than that obstacle.

(17:23) And each time you do that, the reinvention gives you an opportunity to figure out a new identity, the next version of you that emerges, what kind of thinking, confidence, strategies you’ll adopt. (17:39) And being able to do that over and over again has filled me with the belief that it’s possible for anyone to do it. (17:47) It’s simple, doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it is simple.

(17:51) There’s a formula to making it happen, and that’s a lot of what Flipwork enables in the workplace. (17:57) But the point is that anyone can achieve anything they want if they simply know how to reinvent themselves into it. (18:08) Okay, all right.

(18:09) Well, transformation isn’t about chasing the newest tool. (18:13) It’s about redesigning how humans and intelligent systems create value together. (18:17) And it sounds like that’s a lot of what you’re trying to do with your work.

(18:22) Did you have any final parting words for our viewers out there that are going through this transformation right now? (18:30) Well, the way I think about it is that the future is about people becoming people squared. (18:36) That when we co-evolve with machines, that human-machine collaboration is what makes us exponentially more capable.

(18:44) And that’s the power of using AI, the scale and speed of AI to amplify our creativity, our wisdom, our judgment, and our uniquely human skills. (18:58) Because that’s the real power of what makes us original, what makes us stand out, and what makes us truly irreplaceable. (19:06) All right.

(19:07) Well, thanks for taking the time and being on the podcast, Nikki. (19:13) How do folks reach out to you? (19:16) How can they get in contact with you?

(19:18) Through my website, NikkiBarua.com, I have a weekly newsletter called Reinvention Roadmap that provides incredible reinvention strategies that thousands of leaders around the world trust. (19:31) So I’d invite people to check that out. (19:34) And if you’re interested in learning more about Flipboard, go to Flipboard.ai. All right. (19:39) Thanks so much. (19:39) Well, thanks for being on the podcast. (19:41) And that’s our time for today.

(19:43) And thanks, everybody, for joining. (19:46) Thanks, Bryan.