People and Projects Podcast: Project Management Podcast

Summary
In this episode, Andy sits down with Johan Roos, professor and executive advisor at Hult International Business School, Executive Director of the Peter Drucker Society Europe, and co-inventor of the LEGO® Serious Play® method. Johan is the author of Human Magic: Leading with Wisdom in an Age of Algorithms, and he has spent decades studying how people think, create, decide, and lead together.
Andy and Johan explore the two paths Johan calls erosion and amplification, starting with a question Andy has been wrestling with as he hands more of his manual driving over to Tesla's self-driving. You'll hear what an eroding project manager actually looks like day-to-day, why practical wisdom matters when the analytically optimal answer is not the wisest one, and how AI feeds one kind of curiosity, the laser, while starving another, the radar. Johan also explains the difference between becoming an AI concierge and practicing what he calls professional citizenship, and he shares what parents can do to help their kids hold onto the messy, hands-on curiosity that machines cannot supply.
If you're looking for a thoughtful, hopeful way to use AI without surrendering your judgment, this episode is for you!
Sound Bites
"Almost every good idea I've had was not in front of the screen."
"I know what to do, but I've stopped understanding why.".... The eroding project management can no longer explain the why."
"So in a sense, they argue that the better the system, the stronger pull down the erosion curve."
"So the message is really when the machines are taking over more and more of some of these subtle, very valuable capabilities we have, we have to climb the value creation ladder."
"So a complexity is exactly where our wisdom gets exposed."
"So every metric said fantastic, but nobody asked why, and is this right?"
"If AI can write a document that is important to you, the document was never where the value lived."
"But we just have to be careful to not sort of delegate too much of our brain power and sort of erode our jelly bean."
"When you lean back and you haven't struggled enough, you may be super smart and, and the best brilliant individual in the world, but, you know, friction is good."
"Are you able to argue for your case without holding on to the AI-produced slide?"
"Protect the wandering curiosity, unstructured exploration, questions with no immediate payoff, the freedom to follow something nowhere in particular."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:35 Start of Interview
02:44 Growing Up Inquisitive and the Power of "Because"
06:04 Self-Driving Cars, GPS, and the Erosion of Our Abilities
10:31 Becoming an Active Supervisor Instead of a Passive Passenger
13:55 What an Eroding Project Manager Looks Like Day to Day
18:52 When the Optimal Answer Is Not the Wisest One
22:03 Intuition, Gut Feel, and When Something Does Not Smell Right
25:54 The Laser and the Radar: Two Kinds of Curiosity
27:52 Creating Independently Before Consulting AI
30:44 What Happens in the AI-Free Time
35:18 Is It Intuition or Is It Ego?
37:48 Turning the Models Loose on His Own Book
40:00 Asking AI to Be Brutally Honest
41:02 AI Concierge Versus Professional Citizenship
45:51 Advice for Parents Raising Kids in the Age of AI
49:26 Staying Human: Theater, Walks, and Getting Your Hands Dirty
50:44 End of Interview
51:15 Andy Comments After the Interview
54:46 Outtakes
Learn More
You can learn more about Johan and his work at humanmagic.one.
For more learning on this topic, check out:
Episode 500 with Steve Brown. Steve is a former Google DeepMind futurist, and he has a unique perspective on where we've been and where we're going with AI.
Episode 479 with Matt Mong. Matt shares his take on the AI skills we need to stay relevant in the years to come.
Episode 463 with Faisal Hoque. Faisal helps us go beyond the fear and the hype around AI to a helpful way to think about the human-AI relationship.
Chat with PMeLa
You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.
Join Us for LEAD52
I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!
Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!
Talent Triangle: Business Acumen
Topics: Leadership, Project Management, Artificial Intelligence, Practical Wisdom, Curiosity, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Decision Making, Judgment, Professional Development, Human Skills, Parenting
The following music was used for this episode:
Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Music: Chillhouse by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Summary
In this episode, Andy sits down with Owen Fitzpatrick, a psychologist, speaker, and author of Inner Propaganda: Leading Hearts and Minds through Turbulent Times. Owen has spent close to 30 years studying how beliefs form and change, interviewing people everywhere from North Korea to Rwanda to Afghanistan. His thesis is unsettling: our brains do not simply take in facts and reach objective conclusions. They build a story we then experience as reality.
Owen and Andy work through what that means on real projects. You'll hear how a warning from a colleague can quietly harden into a conviction about a teammate, and how Bayesian reasoning gives you a way out. You'll learn Owen's five types of truth, how to tell courageous conviction from dangerous denial, and what leaders can actually make stable when they cannot promise a stable outcome. Owen also explains why pushing harder for buy-in is often the very reason people resist, and how an antifragile identity helps teams face uncertainty like AI without denial or panic.
If you're looking for a fresh way to think about belief, influence, and leading through turbulent times, this episode is for you!
Sound Bites
"We all live in that world where we think we're the one person that isn't the victim of propaganda, and my point or my thesis is we're all victims of our own inner propaganda."
"We're not necessarily just convinced by others. We convince ourselves."
"Because I think when we say, 'I'm no good at something,' we lock ourselves into it."
"Well, if you're not great at communicating with people, get great."
"Most of the time our beliefs just create a sort of a reality for us, and that reality can help us or harm us."
"So our brains are prediction machines."
"Whenever we talk about belief, believing in your ability to succeed in the future is critical if you want to succeed in the future, but that doesn't mean you deny the present."
"It, it's not that we think negatively, it's we believe negatively, and we see the world through those lenses."
"So I think we want to be able to challenge our beliefs and build a bit more and get more comfortable with uncertainty away from the table, but when we're at the table with our team, that's when we bring the certainty."
"We like the idea that we are making this decision of our own free will."
"And when you look at what a belief is, a belief is an idea we feel certain about, and that word feel is the most important word of that sentence."
"It's okay to believe less in certain things. It's okay to believe more in certain things. It's okay to believe better."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:29 Start of Interview
02:40 The Belief About Himself Owen Took Too Long to Update
05:56 A Sweaty Debate Speech and What Came After
08:28 Not Good at Something Is a Skill Gap, Not an Identity
09:45 The Belief Growth Mindset
12:55 The Sandra Story: When a Warning Becomes a Conviction
14:07 Why the Brain Craves Cognitive Closure
17:15 Using Bayesian Reasoning to Loosen a Belief
21:00 Melanie Perkins and Alan Mulally: Conviction or Denial?
21:36 The Five Types of Truth
26:24 Just Because It Is Your Truth Does Not Make It True
28:41 Where Objective Truth Actually Belongs
31:47 What "Leadership Is Propaganda" Does Not Mean
34:45 Why Change Management and AI Adoption Stall
36:30 Why Owen Chose Propaganda Over Self-Talk
37:57 Do I Believe It Because It Makes Me Look Good?
38:49 Answering the AI Question Without Denial or Hype
40:15 Building an Antifragile Identity
44:27 Certainty Is Contagious, and When to Change Course
45:20 What Leaders Can Make Stable in a Volatile Period
47:45 Control What You Can, Influence What You Can, Accept the Rest
51:01 When Pushing for Buy-In Creates the Resistance
52:45 You're Asking the Wrong Question About Persuasion
54:30 Reading the Person Before You Make the Ask
57:30 Helping Kids Hold Strong Beliefs Without Contempt
1:01:46 End of Interview
1:02:15 Andy Comments After the Interview
1:05:09 Outtakes
Learn More
You can learn more about Owen and his work at InnerPropaganda.com.
For more learning on this topic, check out:
Episode 370 with Chantel Prat. One of the smartest, clearest, and funniest books on the brain, and why all of it matters for how you lead.
Episodes 59 and 60 with Cathy Davidson. She explains how the brain science of attention changes everything.
Episode 32 with Brad Kolar. A look at the direct implications of neuroscience for leadership.
Owen's TED Talk, available here on YouTube.
Chat with PMeLa
You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.
Join Us for LEAD52
I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!
Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!
Talent Triangle: Power Skills
Topics: Leadership, Belief, Persuasion, Influence, Uncertainty, Change Management, Growth Mindset, Psychological Reactance, Buy-In, Artificial Intelligence, Resilience, Project Management
The following music was used for this episode:
Music: The Fantastical Ferret by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Music: Funny by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Summary
In this episode, Andy welcomes Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, founder and CEO of the decision sciences company Decisive and author of The Human Edge: Smarter Decisions in the Age of AI. Cheryl has spent decades helping people make better decisions, and her message here is a simple one: AI can gather, summarize, and compare, but it can't know what matters most unless we do the thinking first.
Andy and Cheryl talk about why "AI first" can quietly turn into AI only, and why a poor answer from AI is actually useful feedback about your own thinking. Cheryl explains why separating the what of a decision from the why can change the path forward, shares her vision of success question, and walks through how human bias and AI bias reinforce each other. You'll also hear a practical way to use AI personas to pressure test your thinking before a big stakeholder conversation, plus what parents can do to help kids strengthen their decision-making muscles instead of letting them atrophy.
If you're looking for practical ways to make smarter decisions in the age of AI, this episode is for you!
Sound Bites
"AI is about patterns, but we're about purpose."
"We need to be the chief deciders in our own life."
"We need to make sure that we actually have a way to push back and check the veracity of what it's giving us because it's a known liar."
"And so the authenticity of human interaction is what actually builds trust, strengthens relationships, and really gives us a lot of the connections that are important to us in our home life and our work life."
"You don't need to have a perfect prompt for AI."
"AI is going to give you other people's answers."
"'Knowledge is power' isn't as true now. It's what you are able to do with the knowledge, and it's why you want to collect the knowledge in the first place."
"I almost never would accept AI's first answer."
"We tend to have evolving hypotheses unless we really build an audit trail of our thinking."
"So in the world of medicine, a fever tells you something is wrong, but it tells you nothing about what is wrong or where to look."
"So first we know AI's a sycophant, right?"
"If it's 99% accurate in its conclusion, but its underlying data is the wrong data set, you've got the wrong answer."
"I would say the more that I've studied these cognitive biases, these mental shortcuts, the more I realize that we see the world through a dirty windshield."
"Our brains are muscles, and just like we exercise to strengthen our muscles, if we don't exercise, they atrophy."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Start of Interview
02:12 Growing Up Surrounded by Questions
04:30 What Leaders Should Watch Out for in "AI First"
07:07 When AI Confidently Makes Things Up
09:04 How AI First Turns into AI Only
09:20 Why Polished Doesn't Mean Authentic
11:59 A Prompting Problem or a Problem Definition Problem?
14:37 The Vision of Success Question
15:45 Why a Bad Answer Is Useful Feedback
19:06 Separating the What from the Why
20:32 Research: More Information Isn't Better Judgment
24:35 Progressive Prompting and Never Accepting the First Answer
25:18 Fabricated Quotes and the Trouble with Attribution
26:50 Documenting Assumptions and Building an Audit Trail
29:25 Committing to Your Own Thinking
32:29 How Human Bias and AI Bias Reinforce Each Other
34:55 Knowing About Biases Doesn't Make You Immune
36:51 Using AI Personas to Challenge Your Thinking
40:20 AI and Stakeholder Management
42:42 Helping Kids Become Better Decision-Makers
44:25 End of Interview
44:51 Andy Comments After the Interview
48:13 Outtakes
Learn More
You can learn more about Cheryl and her work at AREAMethod.com.
For more learning on this topic, check out:
Episode 460 with Joe Sutherland. It's an interesting look at the intersection of AI, data, and decision-making, and a great follow-up to this discussion.
Episode 381 with Jim Loehr. One of Andy's favorite conversations about decision-making, from a remarkable figure in the human performance world.
Episode 99 with Mike Roberto. A conversation about his book Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer, recorded long before ChatGPT showed up, and still insightful today.
Chat with PMeLa
You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.
Pass the PMP Exam
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Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!
Join Us for LEAD52
I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!
Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!
Talent Triangle: Power Skills
Topics: Decision Making, Artificial Intelligence, Leadership, Project Management, Critical Thinking, Cognitive Bias, Problem Solving, Stakeholder Management, Judgment, Curiosity
The following music was used for this episode:
Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Summary
In this episode, Andy sits down with Gustavo Razzetti, culture consultant and author of Forward Talk. Gustavo makes a case that surprises a lot of leaders: fear is only part of why people stay quiet at work. The bigger driver is what he calls the pointlessness paradox, the belief that speaking up will not change anything.
Andy and Gustavo talk about conversational debt and how it compounds over time, why silence is so often mistaken for alignment, and the subtle signs that a team is drifting into avoidance, blame, or groupthink. Gustavo unpacks the difference between backward talk and forward talk, offering practical ways to turn an objection into a question that opens possibilities. You'll also hear about conversational agency, why the second person who speaks up matters more than the first, and how the CPR approach of courage, perspective, and responsibility plays out under pressure. Along the way, Andy shares stories from Alfred Sloan at GM and Alan Mulally at Ford, and Gustavo shares a memorable one about his son and a crashed car.
If you're looking for a more confident way to raise the issues your team keeps avoiding, this episode is for you!
Sound Bites
"However, fear only explains part of why people don't speak up. At some point, people feel nothing will change."
"I like to say that agreement happens in the room, alignment happens after the meeting."
"When you become the team leader, the number of people giving you feedback reduces, and when you become a senior executive, no one gives you feedback.  Or if they do, it's not honest."
"But what you want is people to challenge your perspective, to show you what you're missing, to see the things you're not seeing or maybe you stop seeing."
"The problem is when we put being accepted, being respected over the outcome."
"So forward talk is when can we frame that objection into a question."
"So you're not being difficult. You're being realistic, but trying to find a solution, and you're giving the other person options."
"Most people don't regret the difficult conversations they had. What we regret are the ones that we never had."
"There's research that shows that the person who speaks up first is not the most important person. The second person who reciprocates is actually the one that creates the change. That moment when two people are talking about the same issue, it gives permission to the other people to jump in and also participate."
"Staying silent also backfires, not only because it hurts the company, but if you're seeing the problem and you're staying silent, you become part of the problem."
"It's not the absence of conflict that makes us a good team. It's that we can do it and we can work through it."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:05 Start of Interview
02:17 Growing Up in a Family of Nine in Argentina
05:18 Learning New Ways Beyond Your Family Culture
06:16 Why Fear Is Not the Whole Story
09:06 Why Waiting for Perfect Psychological Safety Backfires
10:37 Explaining the Pointlessness Paradox
11:37 Mistaking Silence for Alignment
13:35 Alfred Sloan and the Value of Disagreement
15:32 Subtle Signs You Are Drifting Into Groupthink
17:58 Backward Talk vs. Forward Talk
19:43 The Way to the Sun Is Through the Storm
21:05 How Organizations Quietly Reward Avoidance
23:08 When Speaking Up Gets You Labeled
25:09 Alan Mulaly, Ford, and the Power of the Second Voice
27:39 Alignment Debt, Belonging Debt, and Collaboration Debt
29:11 Why Conversational Debt Compounds
30:05 Surrendering Conversational Agency
32:40 Complaining, and the CPR Approach
36:31 You Get What You Tolerate
37:42 Applying These Ideas at Home
40:06 Conflict Is Fuel When You Channel It
41:07 End of Interview
41:37 Andy Comments After the Interview
45:10 Outtakes
Learn More
You can learn more about Gustavo and his work at GustavoRazzetti.com.
For more learning on this topic, check out:
Episode 284 with Peter Boghossian. He wrote a book about how to have impossible conversations, and it's full of ideas Andy still uses almost every week.
Episode 148 with Daniel Shapiro. Dan is the author of Negotiating the Nonnegotiable, an insightful guide to dealing with difficult conversations and influence situations.
Episode 371 with Amanda Ripley. Her book High Conflict offers practical guidance on navigating even the most challenging of conflicts in an empowering way.
Chat with PMeLa
You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.
Join Us for LEAD52
I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!
Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!
Talent Triangle: Power Skills
Topics: Difficult Conversations, Conversational Debt, Psychological Safety, Groupthink, Team Culture, Leadership, Project Management, Conflict, Alignment, Accountability, Communication, Speaking Up
The following music was used for this episode:
Music: Summer Morning Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Music: Tropical Vibe by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Summary
In this episode, Andy welcomes back his friend Stuart Taylor, a PMO leader and PMI PMO Awards judge, author of Becoming the Project Manager. Most of us didn't grow up dreaming of leading projects. We drifted into the role, and then discovered it's far less about plans and methodologies than it is about people, pressure, and learning to lead while you yourself still feel unsure.
Stuart shares the story behind the book, including the university project where he publicly chastised a teammate and the response from his dad that changed how he understood leadership. He and Andy dig into the real value and limits of PM certifications, why AI can help you communicate but can't replace the human part, the stakeholder questions younger Stuart was afraid to ask, what his mentor Wayne taught him about proximity and follow-through, and why a new sponsor has to be sold on your project rather than assumed into it. You'll also hear the 30-minute CV rule and the trouble it once caused him.
If you're looking for an honest, human look at what it actually takes to become the project manager, this episode is for you!
Sound Bites
"Well, now that you've reprimanded that person, you do realize you've got to go and pick them back up again?"
"So going out into the world with this as my toolkit, and I thought it was a toolkit, but actually it turned out to be more like a life raft because I ended up clinging onto it without reasoning at an early point in my career."
"There's an awful lot that falls between the processes, and that's what the early part of the book is really exploring."
"I don't believe there's great value in repeatedly recycling the same learning over and over and over again. I think there's much greater value in taking that energy and going to learn something about your industry, the, actual industry that you're working in."
"And also, I should add, you will have greater value to them by being there too, because you're the interesting change person in the room then, rather than one of another 200 change people walking around all talking about the same methodologies."
"So be the person who is not avoiding hearing about challenges, but actively seeking them out, and cataloging them, and managing them."
"Something else I've learned: they don't like you tiptoeing around them."
"But if anybody's having to go into the office more frequently now, go and spend some of that time sitting with the people whose world you are changing."
"But if your own leader, the person who's supposed to be championing you in the organization just doesn't get it, then you've got an impossible task on your hands."
"When your sponsor goes or leaves and somebody else comes in and replaces them, don't just assume that, that because they've now been told they're gonna have to be the sponsor of your project, that they understand it and they can see the value in it."
"Every project that you work on, the benefits, they are your accomplishments."
"There is no point in being loyal to organizations. Be loyal to people."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:56 Start of Interview
02:15 Growing Up in Walsall and Learning Leadership from Dad
07:15 Drifting Into Project Management
09:06 When the Methodology Becomes a Life Raft
10:14 Why the Playbook That Worked Elsewhere Fails Here
11:49 Will AI Create PMs Who Look Prepared but Aren't?
13:37 Using AI to Understand a Difficult Stakeholder
15:31 The Value and Limits of PM Certifications
17:44 The Talent Triangle and Learning Your Industry
19:34 Stakeholders Are People, Not Org Charts
20:46 Curiosity and Asking Better Questions
21:54 Stop Tiptoeing: Busy Stakeholders Want the Point
22:55 What Wayne the Mentor Taught Stuart to Notice
25:47 Go Sit With Operations
28:19 The Power of Proximity
29:33 Sponsorship and Why PMOs Collapse
34:18 Earning Support and Managing Up
35:07 When a New Sponsor Takes Over
37:08 Keep Your CV 30 Minutes From Ready
39:39 When the 30-Minute Rule Got Stuart in Trouble
41:28 Project Lessons That Carried Into Family Life
43:23 End of Interview
43:58 Andy Comments After the Interview
47:08 Outtakes
Learn More
You can learn more about Stuart and his work at InfluentialPMO.com.
For more learning on this topic, check out:
Episode 474, which is an earlier and pretty candid conversation with Stuart about LinkedIn, careers, and AI.
Episode 429 with Bill Dow. Bill and Andy talk about the signs that your PMO is going to fail, and you don't have to be in a Project Management Office to get value out of that discussion.
Episode 441 with Michaela Flick. A discussion on the human side of project management that resonates with much of what you hear from Stuart.
Chat with PMeLa
You can chat directly with PMeLa, ;the podcast's AI person, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.
Join Us for LEAD52
I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!
Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!
Talent Triangle: Business Acumen
Topics: Project Management, Leadership, Stakeholder Management, Sponsorship, PMO, Mentoring, Career Development, Certifications, Artificial Intelligence, Communication, Influence, Professional Growth
The following music was used for this episode:
Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license