There’s Nothing Artificial About It
Korn Ferry Gary Burnison explains why, even in the age of AI, nothing will replace people-powered intelligence.
Gary Burnison is CEO of Korn Ferry. For more career advice, read his latest book, I Need a Job!
“I don’t want to know what you do. I want to know who you are.”
With these words, I kicked off the conversation at a recent gathering of our firm’s leaders, including members of our board.
The first stories offered were lighthearted. Like the two colleagues who, to their amusement, discovered that they each have a 20-year-old child studying in Madrid this semester, and, mutually agreeing that this must be fate, immediately arranged for their children to meet.
Then it got serious—and quickly. Something started to shift as one person after another began to speak, opening up about parts of their lives they rarely talk about. These were defining moments … each account more emotional than the next.
In a quiet voice that radiated intensity, a colleague described a day he’ll never forget. In his twenties, he was grabbed by kidnappers in his neighborhood, taken to an ATM and forced to withdraw cash. They left him empty-handed, without a car or even his shoes.
Another recalled the anxious moments when a beloved horse ranch was seized by a crime syndicate, leaving the colleague’s mother and even the family dogs scattering for safety. After weeks of anxious searching, everyone was finally found, safe and secure.
And another colleague spoke with great fondness and respect for her mother who, while raising her in South Africa, spoke out against apartheid. Her mother not only espoused but also demonstrated an unwavering belief in equality for everyone—a fundamental value that our colleague said inspires her to this day.
“How do you top that?” someone asked in complete humility. And then she paused, gathered herself, and offered an emotional story that didn’t leave a dry eye around the table.
It was September 11, 2001, and our colleague was slowly making her way home. Near Lincoln Tunnel out of New York City, a stranger on foot noticed the colleague’s New Jersey license plates and approached her with a desperate request: His wife was in labor, and he needed to get to a hospital in New Jersey. Without hesitation, she drove him there. And so began a friendship that lasts to this day.
As those stories concluded, the feeling that reverberated in the room was palpable. You just had to be there to experience it. Like when someone tells you about a movie or the smell of a restaurant. Unless you are there, you will never really know.
Without question, AI is a transformational technology, but it is still a technology. Nothing replaces human touch. Not AI, agents, bots, systems, processes… or any other widget. When we tap into our humanness and shared humanity, it transcends all and reveals who we truly are.
This is people-powered intelligence. And there’s nothing artificial about it.
In Covid, we learned to be more human… more humane. We strived to be more transparent and yearned for connections. It seems like recently we have forgotten that.
It’s a fact of life and leadership: the more we open up, the more relatable we become. That’s when our interactions are much less transactional and far more relational.
I’ll never forget the colleague who, a few years ago, reached out to me “to share my story, which I have never shared with anyone in the corporate world before.” I was honored and humbled, just as I am whenever people tell me about their struggles, aspirations, and what they’ve overcome.
Early in my CEO career, I would have described a great leader as someone with vision, a growth mindset, confidence, charisma, courage. Then a board member called me aside: “Burnison, you need to be more vulnerable. You’ll be amazed by the results.”
That board member’s wise words are even more impactful today. Vulnerability is not a weakness. It’s actually a strength for leaders, who must admit that tomorrow’s answers won’t be found in the offices we hold or the positions we keep. Let alone the bot we ask, the algorithm we program or the model we prompt.
People will not be disintermediated. And there’s nothing artificial about that.
