hr world summit: a recap

🇵🇹 Just wrapped HR World Summit.

The mood was… honest. 🥴😅 There’s mild trauma-bonding even among seasoned People leaders: anxiety around AI, as everyone works out how to match the speed of the technology, + the push from higher up, with the slower realities of how orgs adopt it.

Trust is a legit barrier and this challenge goes beyond our respective company walls: when politics + permission structures “reward” big-name companies for making sudden, drastic cuts, it ripples through our collective consciousness, and our People teams are left to rewrite these narratives from the inside.

My thoughts + favorite takeaways for impact right now:

➤ DEFAULT TO TRANSPARENCY: We may not be able to promise that no one will lose their job. Yet my take is we can be clear about what we’re doubling down on and what we’re not.

And now that AI can track and analyze every prompt, click & scroll, we can be just as clear about what data we hold, why, and what we will never touch. Almost our own internal GDPR declaration.

Thanks to the leaders who highlighted themes of trust & transparency on the main stage in their talks and panels and our 1:1 convos in the coffee line, esp Michelle Winestock, Alize Hofmeester🎯🌱, Prof. Dr. Anja Schmitz & Jolanda Grob.

➤ VALUE > SKILLS: Sergey Gorbatov, Ph.D. highlighted that we’ve spent years trying to quantify skills. Yet AI is largely agnostic to both the team member and the skill, so the bigger unlock might be mapping where VALUE flows through a process and planning around that, instead of starting from “what skills do we need?” Sergey is quite the sage (I’ve felt 10% more educated after each of our chats over this past year).

➤ HELP PEOPLE SEE THEMSELVES IN THE CULTRE: Stan Slap, who opened the conference, spoke about winning hearts by giving people a place where they can live into their values, so that protecting the company becomes something they want to do. That’s close to my heart (and reflected in my own programming: AI as a partner to help teams identify their values, vision, goals and rituals, the core of my P.A.T.H. framework).

Of course, the real highlight is ALWAYS the people at these conferences, including a great dinner assembled by Andy Storch. So nice to connect with Bryan Cassady (Professor and Keynote), Amanda Austin, Clémentine Calvier, Rita Ribeiro, Mario Butterling, Inga Staniune, and Artem Ivanenko over some great local food + our candid thoughts on The Eurovision Song Contest. 💃🏻🪩🕺🏻

And, esp. a pleasure to connect with Severine Riviere-Gerstner, CPO at Sportradar, whom I had the privilege of sitting across from at dinner and whose talk I caught on Day 2. Always great to meet leaders who hold the whole complex system in view + connect just as deeply one-on-one. Her team is in expert hands. 🙌🏻

Thank you HR World Media for another great confrerence! 💫