339: How Human Skills Unleash the Real Power of Generative AI with Anthony Salcito
Release Date: 04/05/2026
353: Behind the Shiny Objects: Real Inclusivity in a Changing World with Katryn Wright
Allyship in Action
You might remember Katryn from episode 292, where we dove deep into the behavioral blueprint for inclusion. Well, a lot can happen in a year—or in our current case, since the wild ride of the 2026 election—and the DEI landscape is shifting beneath our feet. I’ll admit, when I first started this work ten years ago, I thought we could just shout from the rooftops that inclusion matters and everyone would just magically get it. But as we look at the headlines today, it’s clear that "shiny object syndrome" has left us with a lot of noise and not enough real, systemic change. Katryn and I...
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352: Better Leadership Starts with a Better Night of Sleep with Dr. Carlos Nunez
Allyship in Action
Sad to admit, after 350+ episodes, I have never dedicated a full show to sleep . I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been doing a ton of deep-diving into sleep lately. Between life changes, career shifts, and navigating perimenopause, my nights haven’t exactly been peaceful . In fact, coming off a rough night myself, I’m sitting here with a massive afternoon coffee, fully aware that I reached for a sugary lunch to get through the slump! We’ve all been trapped in that vicious cycle, right ? But today, we are busting the toxic, old-school corporate narrative that sleeping is lazy or...
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351: How to Speak Up and Get Your Voice Heard at Work with Daniel Newton
Allyship in Action
When I started my business, I wanted to create spaces where every single person felt seen, heard, and like they truly belonged . It sounds so beautifully simple on the surface, doesn't it? But as we all know, making sure people feel heard at work can get incredibly messy . This week, I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with a peer of mine from grad school, Daniel Newton, an Associate Professor at the University of Iowa, whose research on workplace engagement is quite literally out of this world . He’s spent years studying how people speak up and stay engaged, working with everyone from...
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350: How to Lead Values-Based Decision Making with Jenny Bates Heaton
Allyship in Action
Jenny Bates Heaton is the founder of Bates Leadership and has a brilliant new TEDx talk. What really blew me away during our chat was how Jenny used her personal journey facing a massive medical decision after a cancer-risk mutation diagnosis to completely rewrite the script on how we make choices. It got me thinking about my own life and how often we make decisions based on what we think we should do, rather than what aligns with our deepest values. For me, everything comes back to fairness, justice, and a whole lot of strength. When things feel off-balance in the world, my mental health...
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349: Driving Change from the Inside Out with Tara Jaye Frank
Allyship in Action
If you are feeling a bit battered by the cultural waves and political turbulence swirling around us right now, trust me—you are not alone. I’ll admit, when I woke up the morning after the 2024 election, I felt physically sick worrying about what the fallout would mean for our businesses and the hard choices ahead. That is why I love this conversation with Tara Jaye Frank. She met me right in that messy space with the ultimate reframe, sharing a beautiful story about how a simple grocery delivery from a man named Socrates gave her the title for her new book, You Are Before the World. It is...
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348: Why AI Is Not a Replacement for Human Talent with Christopher Lind
Allyship in Action
This week, we dive deep into a topic that’s been on everyone’s mind—and probably in every news alert you’ve received lately: AI. While the world seems to be split between AI will save us all, and AI is coming for our jobs, our guest and AI expert, Christopher Lind, brings us back to earth with a much-needed reality check. As Christopher points out, the real risk isn't just the tech itself, but the disconnect between leadership's lofty expectations and the actual human experience on the ground. He often jokes about AI being a hammer looking for a nail, but in our rush to be efficient,...
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347: How to Design Better Meetings for a Better Culture with Rebecca Hinds
Allyship in Action
This week, Rebecca Hinds, the brilliant mind behind what is officially my new favorite book, Your Best Meeting Ever, is with us at Allyship in Action. I’ll be honest—I listened to this one on Audible, and hearing Rebecca’s voice felt like she was sitting right there with me, narrating every meeting catastrophe I’ve ever lived through! We’ve all been there: trapped in a conference room (or a Zoom square) while someone reads slides at us, doing the mental math of just how much this hour is costing the company. But as I always say in my leadership training, a meeting is a snapshot of...
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346: The Five Stages of Male Allyship with Shawn Andrews
Allyship in Action
In this episode of the Allyship in Action podcast, Julie Kratz connects with Dr. Shawn Andrews to discuss the critical intersection of leadership, gender, and emotional intelligence. Allyship is not a one-time declaration but a continuous practice of small, intentional behaviors that bridge the gap between good intentions and real impact. Core Themes for Inclusive Leadership Allyship as a Sustainable Practice. Effective allyship flourishes when it aligns with an individual's natural strengths rather than feeling like a forced performance. "Allies can start by asking, ' How can I do this in...
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345: Finding the Human Connection in Mental Health with Alexis Redding
Allyship in Action
I recently sat down with the brilliant Alexis Redding, a developmental psychologist at Harvard who is doing the heavy lifting to help us understand what’s actually going on with young adults today. Alexis shared how we often look at the "kids these days" and think they’re living in a completely different world, but Alexis’s research shows that while the hashtags have changed, the big, messy feelings of figure-it-out-ness are the same as they were 50 years ago. Whether you’re a parent to an almost teenager like I am, or a leader managing a Gen Z team, this episode is all about...
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344: Stop Being a Crumbudgeon and Start Playing at Work with Kelsey Kates
Allyship in Action
It was such a treat to sit down with my friend Kelsey Kates and really geek out over a topic that we often leave at the playground: play. I’ve felt that slow boil in my own career—trading my personality for steel-toed boots and a suit just to fit the corporate mold until I didn't even recognize myself in the mirror. Kelsey is here to remind us that we don't have to lose our joy to be high-performers. She brings this incredible blend of Google leadership experience and MIT neuroscience to show us that playfulness isn't about being childish; it’s about a state of being that lowers...
info_outlineIt is such a wild time to be in the world of training and development, isn’t it? I’ve had this persistent hunch—call it a "zag" when everyone else is "zigging"—that as much as we’re obsessing over AI, the real secret sauce is still our human intuition .
I recently sat down with Anthony Salcito from Coursera, and it turns out my hypothesis wasn't just wishful thinking. We’ve all seen those robotic AI outputs that sound like they’ve never actually lived a day in their lives, and while I’ve certainly fumbled through my share of prompt engineering, the data shows that our soft skills are more critical than ever .
We’re navigating a world where we have more data than we know what to do with, and the magic happens when we decide how to use that information to lead with empathy and culture .
Key Conversation Themes
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The Symbiotic Rise of AI and Human Agency. While technical enrollments are skyrocketing, they are being matched by a demand for leadership and critical thinking to ensure these tools are used ethically and effectively .
"Humanity will always become more valuable when the technology is more pervasive or used in a sort of a paradigm-shifting way, like what's happening with AI."
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The Critical Need for Discerning Truth In an era of deepfakes and advanced data models, a core human talent is the ability to separate reality from generated content and prioritize what truly matters for an organization .
"Discerning reality from what is created by Gen AI is certainly a core talent... that's really where that human is super critical."
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Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset Internally. Organizations are looking for intrapreneurs—people who use AI tools to think bigger and pivot quickly without being constrained by historical technological limits .
"You want an entrepreneurial mindset to exist inside of learners in an organization that think differently about using these tools."
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AI as a Safe Space for Human Growth. One of the most exciting applications is using AI for role-playing, allowing employees to practice difficult conversations and gain confidence without the fear of being judged by a peer .
"It's hard to roleplay with a human, because you're worried about being judged... I can see it being much safer to do with a robot."
Actionable Takeaway
Audit your AI prompts for Human Activation. The next time you use a generative tool, don't just accept the first output. Apply your unique lived experience to pivot the prompt, asking the tool to provide a multi-perspective view or a specific organizational culture lens to ensure the result has the humanity required to drive real business change .
Follow Anthony's work at Coursera at https://www.coursera.org/.