Why Leaders Fail With AI and What Silicon Valley Gets Right | Victoria Mensch, PhD. - video Dailymotion

Workforce Alchemy

What are Silicon Valley leaders doing differently when it comes to AI, innovation, and leading through uncertainty?  In this episode, Victoria Mensch, PhD, shares the leadership habits that separate high-performing executives from those who struggle to adapt. With more than 25 years inside Silicon Valley, she explains why curiosity is one of the most valuable leadership traits, how AI is often misused inside organizations, and what it takes to build a culture that can actually handle rapid change.  This conversation breaks down the real reasons leaders burn out, where organizations go wrong with productivity, and how clarity can completely transform performance and engagement.  If you are a CEO, business owner, or executive trying to lead through disruption, this episode will challenge how you think about leadership, technology, and the future of your organization.  What You’ll Learn:  -The key leadership trait that drives adaptability and innovation -Why treating AI like a tool leads to poor results -The psychological blind spots that hold leaders back -How to lead with clarity in fast-changing environments -Why managing outcomes instead of hours changes culture -A practical way to future-proof your leadership team -How self-leadership impacts every level of performance  Key Takeaway: AI does not fix broken systems. It amplifies them. Strong leadership becomes stronger. Weak systems fail faster.  Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 01:24 Adaptability and Curiosity 02:34 AI Mistakes Leaders Make 04:54 Psychological Blind Spots 06:02 The VITAL Leadership Framework 09:07 Managing Outcomes Over Hours 12:42 The Power of Clarity 14:30 Leading Through Uncertainty 17:03 AI and Burnout 19:13 Building Curious Teams 20:49 People and Technology Adoption 22:05 Future-Proofing Leadership 22:41 Self-Leadership  About Victoria Mensch: Victoria Mensch, PhD, is the CEO of Silicon Valley Executive Academy. She helps leaders move from burnout and reactive decision-making to clarity, resilience, and aligned execution.  Connect with Victoria: https://svexecutive.academy  Connect With Workforce Alchemy: Website: https://workforcealchemy.com/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WorkforceAlchemist  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workforcealchemy/  X / Twitter: https://x.com/WorkAlchemist  #Leadership #AI #SiliconValley #Innovation #ExecutiveLeadership #BusinessGrowth #FutureOfWork #OrganizationalCulture #SelfLeadership #BurnoutPrevention

Transcript

00:05welcome to the mason duke check show and before we jump in this episode is brought to you by

00:12workforcealchemy.com helping leaders uncover hidden profit leaks inside their workforce

00:17dr victoria mensch is the founder and ceo of the silicon valley executive academy where she

00:25helps executives lead through the rapid transformation driven by ai and emerging technology

00:33with a phd in psychology an mba from university of california berkeley and more than 25 years of

00:41experience in silicon valley she brings a rare breed of human behavior insight and innovation

00:48strategy she's known for her vital vital leadership framework helping others and helping

00:55leaders move from burnout and reactive decision making to clarity resilience and transformative

01:02growth so welcome to the show thank you so much mason i'm so happy to be here so you've spent

01:08more

01:09than two decades inside the innovation culture of silicon valley what leadership habits in your

01:15opinion separate the executives who let's say adapt quickly to disruption from those who continue to

01:24struggle you mentioned adapt so adaptability is a very useful trade on its own when you think about

01:31innovation you obviously think about something new and i think what sets silicon valley apart and

01:36silicon valley companies apart is their ability to compete on innovation so sustainably introduce new

01:42products over and over and over again so there's something that's really embedded in that silicon valley

01:48innovation culture but the culture is made by people so one habit that or trade i would say that separates

01:56those who excel in this environment and those who struggle in this environment is curiosity ability to stay

02:04curious and ability to learn and the willingness to learn yes maybe i don't know all the answers right now

02:11i don't have all the data right now but i'm willing to learn and i'm willing to pivot

02:18so many leaders feel pressure to move fast with ai even if they are unsure about strategy what is in

02:27your

02:27opinion the biggest mistake that executives make when trying to implement meant to implement ai in their

02:33organizations there is a lot of fomo going on so you're absolutely right mason people are looking at all the

02:40hype

02:41around the ai all the news that is being blasted from each and every corner and there is a lot

02:48of

02:48that fear that oh i missed out on something so you're right there is a lot of pressure to do

02:53something with

02:54ai anything with ai the danger here is really to treat ai as a tool yes it is a tool

03:01but more than that

03:03it's really the transformative force so how do you want what do you want to get out of this you

03:09know

03:09looking at the outcomes rather than at the process that one actually going to help with the ai effort

03:16it's within your technology it's just i is so powerful that really multiplies the noise and

03:21mistakes and amplifies those so if you have a broken workflow applying ai to the broken workflow just

03:28makes more workflow that's broken is really the opportunity to step back and look at these things

03:35the way you do them now and actually ask a question so if i started to do something today

03:40how would it look differently instead of just looking at the processes that you currently have

03:45and just applying ai to automate those processes see it's it's interesting to me to have this

03:52conversation with you about the culture of the community that where you work because there are by

03:58contrast there are obviously other parts of the country where it's not the fear of missing out it's

04:02complete resistance to change and like what does this mean to me and they're afraid of innovation

04:07and they're afraid of acceleration and drag their feet intentionally to protect the sense of security

04:13they have with the world they know and understand and i get it but i think that one of the

04:19reasons i was

04:20really looking forward to this conversation is because the mindset of the people in your area is very

04:25much fear of missing out and innovation and how do we accelerate and amplify and it's it's it's a nice

04:32contrast

04:32and i mean i talked to folks from all different perspectives but i'm very very fascinated and

04:36excited to learn more from you today so you often talk about the intersection of human psychology and

04:43innovation what psychological blind spots in your opinion hold leaders back when their industries

04:50start changing quickly or rapidly well one of the things i think you touched upon right so there is a

04:57little bit not a little bit there is quite a bit of identity crisis if you wish so i have

05:02that identity

05:03and it's on the personal level and it's on the company level if you're leading a company your company

05:09is doing something well right so there is a core business there that you want to protect you've done

05:15something to take your company to this level so you want to protect that now when we start talking about

05:21innovation one of the one of the fear that that we're talking about is really well how do i change

05:27without breaking what's working for me right so and that's that identity crisis this is what's working

05:32for me so i want to control everything around this so that control that identity and holding on to that

05:39identity that what can derail your innovation effort uh the other one is maybe if you're a leader in the

05:47sector there is overconfidence right so i know how things are done um and that kind of inability to be

05:54open

05:55to uncertainty and taking on new information that does not necessarily feed into your current frameworks

06:02interesting so you created the vital and v-i-t-a-l leadership method what problem were you seeing

06:09repeatedly among executives that led you to develop this framework and can you tell us a little bit about it

06:14this framework really helps with um on the individual level right so one of the things that

06:21i noticed that you know i have this background in psychology but i spend all my time really in

06:26silicon valley and high tech companies and the reason for that was that um i went through a couple of

06:32cycles of burnout before i knew what burnout was so i you know became a psychologist because i thought

06:37that was my passion and then i started working as a psychologist um only to realize that um i don't

06:43like it

06:44i made a mistake i invested all this time to become a psychologist but i made a mistake

06:49and then i pivoted into into corporate world only to go through that cycle over and over again before i

06:56realized that there is a constant in this and not constant is me so no matter how much i want

07:02to change

07:03the external environment maybe it's a maybe it's a job maybe it's a career maybe it's a place to live

07:10maybe it's a company no matter what i take myself with me so this vital method is really about that

07:16how do i take control of how i react um and how i interact with the situation around me so

07:24this is

07:24all about reclaiming your energy and really developing those burnout proof strategies protecting

07:31the asset that you have the most important asset that you have and that's you and that's that's for

07:35vital right so vital energy management that's to be part of it so how do i protect my energy so

07:43that

07:43i can perform under all that stress and under all that pressure and we we came up with this

07:49a fantastic exercise that i call it the joy list a micro joy list when the idea there is really

07:55to

07:56intentionally bring that joy back into your life so that what will allow you to re-energize over and

08:01over again so you have that motivation you have that willingness to continue with your effort the

08:07i stands for inner mastery and that's um how you you lead others the way you lead yourself so are

08:16you

08:16holding on to the things that you can't control so are you are you are you controlling too much around

08:22you so i'm not delegating so true is the the true success redefined so when you stop measuring your

08:29input in terms of hours there's a limited number of hours in a day right then you start actually

08:36measuring in the value uh and in outcomes so that makes a dramatic shift in the way you lead and

08:44the way

08:45you become a role model for people around you and then obviously based on all that how you take

08:53aligned action and how you take people with you so you lead by design you really become that role

08:59model that allows others to follow you much easily and with more motivation and with more loyalty

09:07is it and i guess l is the loyalty part correct yes okay i just want to make sure i'm

09:12keeping up there

09:12i really like what you said about managing to the outcomes because i had a conversation a few

09:18probably around december with a former hollywood executive named steven puri and he was talking about

09:24how their industry wasn't affected by covet that much as far as working together because they had

09:29always worked remote and i he said it was it kind of freaked people out who weren't in his industry

09:35because they're like well how do you know people are working how can you make sure that they're putting

09:39in the hours and he said we aren't worried about how many minutes there are on a time clock and

09:44if

09:44they're in constant motion all the time we're looking to see if the outcomes that we're after are

09:49happening on time and that was it was old hat to them in their industry but folks outside of that

09:54not so much so i mean there's a lot of folks that still manage to constant state of motion between

09:59the time you clock in and the time you clock out i'm not saying there's not a space for that

10:02in some

10:02areas but in a in a land like what you're talking about where innovation and speed and

10:07acceleration are all important worrying about where someone is on time clocks not that big of a deal

10:12of all of that stuff you shared with me that that jumped out absolutely and that's a big shift

10:16and some companies are doing this better than other companies well especially when you're a leader

10:21you're on top right so i i was on both sides of the table i was an employee and i

10:26was an employer as

10:27well as an employer yes there's definitely fear of you know what is it that people are doing when you

10:33don't see them and that's the practice you know from from a personal um again from the individual

10:39leadership qualities that's a practice as well to have that level of trust what it also means

10:46is that there is a responsibility on the leader to organize their work based on the outcome and

10:52measure those outcomes so you need to help people your organization and your processes to really set up

11:00those expectations for outcomes and let go of the way people get there so that the delegation piece

11:08right so how do you relinquish unnecessary control and still get the results so now when we're

11:15talking about ai for example in some companies that have that culture of measuring value in hours this

11:23actually can backfire on people so you start automating a lot of tasks and then there's still

11:29expectations that people now will perform at the speed and at the quantity quality of the outcomes the

11:39same way as machines would and you completely dismiss the the human element in this right so if you can't

11:45automate all those processes why would you want people to keep up with this pace right so now you

11:51actually want to put a little more thought and create an environment where people can create value for you

11:59not necessarily in the amount of hours but the value that's unique to them so there is definitely

12:05some of that going on in companies you know and not just non-silicon valley companies and silicon

12:10valley companies as well i think collectively we're trying to figure out what's the best way to

12:15implement ai and make sure that it actually helps us to improve our processes improve our life and not just

12:24completely exhaust people and burn them up so you've worked with senior leaders across large organizations

12:32and scaling companies what is one leadership decision that you have seen create a dramatic turnaround in

12:41culture or performance i think the decision on the leadership side that makes a big difference

12:47is a commitment to clarity clarity okay clarity yes when um especially when we're talking about major

12:56transformation effort it's very important to have as much transparency as you can to give as much

13:04transparency as you can to people within the organization set that clear goals set the expectations and

13:13provide updates over and over and over again and over communicate so that clarity and that transparency

13:21what will help people to understand where the company is moving toward and also will help them to

13:29contribute in a meaningful way so a lot of companies they make a decision in the top of the organization

13:36and then they almost forget to to to make sure that others understand they would just you know push out

13:44the workflows and orders for people to implement and that does not help especially everything that's

13:51related to technology adoption so the clarity and the transparency and within that clarity and

13:58transparency it's okay to change the goals as long as you're transparent about that and it's also okay

14:04to not have all the answers and say well these are the decisions that we made based on these assumptions

14:09and that's how we're moving now and if the assumptions change then we'll change our direction and you will know

14:14fair enough many executives because you're talking about clarity so and i know many executives today

14:19feel overwhelmed by the pace of change how can leaders maintain that clarity and still make high quality

14:26decisions when everything around them is just accelerate yes that's that's true there is a lot of

14:34information a lot of information a lot of data a lot of complexity we live that we have to accept

14:43it we have to

14:43accept it that the complexity is increasing and our human brains are not built to deal with that complexity

14:51on so many levels right so i'm understanding that and accepting that you don't need to have all the

14:58information all the time to make a decision to accept that there is uncertainty and the only thing that's

15:04certain is that there is uncertainty that there is a disruption that disruption can come at any time

15:10in any way and you have a set of tools to react to those unexpected changes now how do you

15:19develop

15:19that set of tools you develop that set of tools with a strategic thinking right so you prepare for

15:25the uncertainty so you run those scenarios you you get into room and you look at the future you look

15:32at the um you know what's going to happen in a year what's going to happen in three years what's

15:37going

15:37to happen in five years in ten years you run those scenarios and you run those um those um tactics

15:43and

15:44response frameworks in the end of the day what what's going to make a difference is that clarity around

15:51the reason why you're doing this right so that's what's gonna um be the north star so this is the

15:58north star that we're we're we're we're holding dear whether it's the mission of the company whether

16:04it's a personal mission your purpose how do you serve so your why right so this is why i'm doing

16:11this what this is why my business is doing this this is why my company is doing this and you

16:16hold

16:16on to that and that will help to understand what's important and what can be let go there was a

16:22i had a

16:22gentleman on recently his name was john melora and he was a engineer and he'd worked with nasa and one

16:28and

16:28we were kind of talking about the same topic and and i think what he shared was the other side

16:32of the

16:32coin of what you did where you talked about accepting that there's some uncertainty and it's

16:37still moving forward he just said he had gave me a quote that i thought was brilliant he said one

16:41test

16:42is better than a thousand opinions try it out see what happens and it just thought that was a nice

16:47bookend to what you're saying i know you've also said in the past that automation can sometimes

16:53increase burnout rather than reduce it what are organizations getting wrong about the relationship

17:00between ai productivity and human motivation well first i want to to um to comment on that quote

17:06then your guest gave it before that's absolutely true so one of the kind of pages from silicon

17:11valley innovation book that we like to talk about is that bias toward action right so which means

17:17running experiments you run experiments you collect data and then you peel it based on that

17:21and at the same time uncertainty is still there so there's a limited number of data you can collect

17:27anyway and there are some scenarios that you won't be able to run but i think it's a beautiful quote

17:32so

17:32thank you for sharing that now in terms of productivity and ai and efficiency i think when

17:39we look at ai and the possibilities of ai and opportunities that ai can bring it's easy to start

17:45applying this to basically do things faster and hopefully cheaper though i know a lot of companies are

17:52running into realization that it may not be cheaper but it will definitely be um faster and more

17:58efficient in terms of automation so now the question is whether this is actually what we want

18:05if this is the best way to use this technology because the best way the ai has that transformational

18:13power the best way would be to make things better so there is an opportunity and that's the mindset

18:19shift that we're talking about in terms of leadership there is an opportunity to not only improve your

18:25pnl right now in this quarter i don't know the customer service department or you know increase a

18:31decrease the number of drivers in the cars but there is an opportunity to actually elevate the uh the work

18:39that we do really transform those business processes and bring up that creativity and that judgment that's

18:46uniquely human and bring that online and to get better results not necessarily faster results and

18:53more efficient results but better results the way that may not be may not have been possible before

18:58okay so you mentioned a little bit earlier you were talking about the importance of curiosity

19:04how can leaders cultivate curiosity inside of their organizations that maybe have become

19:11a little bit risk averse yeah so curiosity really um cannot live in places where you cannot know

19:19something or you you cannot make a mistake so what we when we again talk about silicon valley and those

19:26lessons from silicon valley companies there's this understanding that failure is inevitable when you're

19:32doing something new so that culture of embracing failure that's kind of the other side of that curiosity

19:37that you're not punished for a failed effort now when we talk about failure nobody sets up to do

19:44something new to fail this is not a desired outcome but how can you make the best out of those

19:51failed

19:51efforts again not acceptance so we talked about experiment a little bit so that's how you treat it you treat

19:58it as a lesson um and the failure only becomes a failure when you don't learn out of it when

20:04you all all is left

20:06as regret so within the organizational structure the allowance the acceptance the certain failure rate

20:13you did your best you collected all the data your assumptions you did the best with your assumptions

20:18you did the best effort but then it did not work out so why did it not work out what

20:23did we learn

20:24from it how can we keep it what can we do to move forward yes there is a kind of

20:31the individual

20:31character traits to keep trying new things but there is a an organizational structure that needs

20:38to be there to support this okay so looking back at your career what experience most shaped how you think

20:46about leadership and innovation today for me you know working in it and in the technology companies

20:53and seeing the implementation of technology and impact of the technology on other businesses and people's lives

20:59at the end of the day for me the biggest aha moment and the biggest insight was how important people

21:07are

21:07and personalities are and no matter how powerful the technology is at the end of the day it comes down

21:14to

21:14how people are going to use it how people are going to adapt it how people are going to adopt

21:20it

21:20and how people are going to accept it and that's the psychology part of me that's very interested in that

21:28how you bring people with you how you create that joint goal to move forward how do you

21:35create that clarity and understanding that people would actually want to adopt your technology

21:41so no matter how big the technology is no matter how transformative or how advanced and how fantastic it is

21:48at the end of the day it can easily fail because people were not on board with that

21:55so if the ceo asked you for one practical action that they could take this quarter to future proof their

22:03leadership team what would you tell them to do so i would tell them to put their executive team together

22:09and run through future scenarios so not only what have you done today what's your um what's your goal

22:17this quarter but what else did we not account for what are the assumptions that we did not think about

22:23how can we do this differently so if we were to start this company today how would it look like

22:30so if there

22:30was just one piece of advice that you could give to people who are watching or listening today

22:36what would be the most important advice that you could offer them and why so what i would say

22:42is that leadership is not a place on the org chart leadership leadership starts with self-leadership

22:50so wherever you are in the org chart whether you're on top of the org chart whether you're at the

22:54bottom

22:55the org chart leadership starts with self-leadership wherever you are you can make an impact you can make a

23:01decision you make your own choices so there is a lot of power in that we're all empowered to make

23:07that

23:07difference and lead um on any role at any place within the organization it's i i i paid my way

23:14through college with army rotc and i remember my instructor telling me something i've never forgotten

23:19and i've heard others say it since but it's very relevant to what you're discussing he said you can't

23:24expect anything from anyone else that you're not willing to do yourself so when you're talking about

23:29leadership starts with yourself very applicable if people want to know more about you and the work that

23:34you do and how you help companies what are the best ways for them to learn more and to be

23:38able

23:38to connect with you if you like the themes that we talked about today if you like these conversations

23:44and you want to continue this conversation and learn more the best way is really to sign up for

23:48our newsletter at svexecutive.academy the newsletter is called innovation insights we push it um every

23:56week so that would be the best way to learn more about this awesome it's been a pleasure having you

24:01it thank you so much for joining i hope everyone else learned as much and had as much fun as

24:04i did

24:05thanks so much for joining us thank you meson

24:09you

Why Leaders Fail With AI and What Silicon Valley Gets Right | Victoria Mensch, PhD.

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