The Future Of Work Isn’t About AI. It’s About Us., with KeyAnna Schmiedl and Dr. Kelly Monahan
Share
Subscribe
What does the future of work really demand of us — more AI fluency, or more humanity? In this episode, Sarah Feeley and Laurel Donnellan sit down with two of the sharpest voices in the future-of-work space: Dr. Kelly Monahan, bestselling author and former Director of Future of Work at Meta, and KeyAnna Schmiedl, Chief Human Experience Officer at Workhuman. Together they unpack why career fluidity is now the norm (not the exception), why "good AI adoption" should be measured by whether it gets us back to connecting with other humans, and why curiosity — not certainty — is the leadership skill this moment demands. The conversation moves from career transitions and the economics of AI, to power, education, and what it means to lead with compassion when the rules of work keep changing.
Sarah Feeley and Laurel Donnellan host Dr. Kelly Monahan and KeyAnna Schmiedl for a wide-ranging conversation on AI, leadership, and the future of work. Laurel opens by tracing how dramatically career patterns have shifted across generations — from one job for a lifetime to a future where Generation Beta may hold 20-30 jobs across 7-10 career chapters — and frames CLC’s evolving focus on helping people find not just "lovable work" but "lovable transitions."
Monahan and Schmiedl agree that organizations remain structurally mismatched to this reality: businesses are wired for quarterly shareholder returns while treating people as a cost rather than the asset that creates value. Both push back on the dominant AI narrative, arguing that headlines about job cuts have created a self-fulfilling prophecy and that the real story is an economic one — inflation, market pressure, and years of disruption — for which AI has become a convenient scapegoat.
On leadership, Schmiedl argues that leaders need to "show up more human," trading the myth of having all the answers for authenticity, humility, and a willingness to crowdsource genius from the people closest to the work. Monahan adds three leadership shifts she sees as separating the leaders who get this right: suspending self-interest, getting curious, and sharing power rather than concentrating it.
Monahan offers a practical, three-part checklist for evaluating any AI use case: does it help you work faster, does it improve the quality of the output, and — most importantly — does it free you up to spend more time connecting with other humans in the physical world. Both guests caution against outsourcing critical thinking to AI and stress the importance of remaining "in the driver’s seat" of one’s own cognition.
The conversation closes with reflections on agency, the value of trades and caregiving work alongside knowledge work, and each guest’s life and leadership lessons — Monahan on staying in your lane and "sane leadership," and Schmiedl on the idea that the people we struggle most to understand often have the most to teach us.