Digital HR Leaders with David Green

If you knew you might live to 100, how differently would you think about the career you are building today? Lynda Gratton is Professor of Management Practice in Organisational Behaviour at London Business School, where she's taught for more than thirty years and leads the world's number one ranked programme in human resources. Lynda is also the bestselling co-author of the million selling The 100-Year Life.  Ahead of the publication of her new book, Living the 100-Year Life: How to build a career that lasts and a life you love, Lynda joins David to explore why longer lives are stretching the traditional education, work and retirement model to breaking point, and what this means for individuals and organisations. In this episode, David and Lynda discuss: The eight threads Lynda believes can help us build resilient and fulfilling working lives, and why calm is becoming increasingly important Why “amplification”, our relationship with technology and AI, is one of the eight threads we need to manage deliberately How AI is reshaping work at the level of tasks, and what that means for the careers we build Why career architectures, mobility and development models designed for shorter, more predictable working lives need to evolve How organisations can help people navigate repeated transitions across careers that could span 50 or 60 years Ultimately, this is a conversation about longevity, technology and human agency, and how individuals and organisations can make the extra years we have been given count. This episode is sponsored by HiBob.  HiBob brings HR, Payroll, and Finance together into a single platform that employees actually use. With AI throughout, you move faster, work smarter, and empower your people to power your business.   Sapient Insights recognises HiBob’s AI vision, citing the Bob AI Companion for making everyday work faster and easier. Fosway Group also names HiBob a 2025 9-Grid™ Core Leader, recognising the strongest AI vision among Core Leaders.    HiBob. All-in-one HCM for HR, Payroll, and Finance.   ​​​Learn all about HiBob’s modern HR platform hereResources:  Living the 100-year old Life: How to build a career that lasts and a life you love 

Should workforce transformation belong to HR? Bettina Dietsche, Group Chief People and Culture Officer at Allianz, doesn't think so. Bettina leads the people agenda for around 156,000 employees at Allianz. She came to HR after 25 years in IT and digital transformation, picking up the people function while serving as COO of Allianz Commercial during a company turnaround. That background shapes her view that HR's job is to challenge and push transformation onto the business agenda - not to own it.In this episode, David and Bettina discuss: Why she believes HR should challenge and nudge workforce transformation, while ownership sits with the businessHow 25 years leading IT and digital transformation, including a COO turnaround, shaped her approach to the CPO roleWhy she runs regular sessions with more than 60 CEOs across Allianz, and what that partnership actually looks like in practiceHer test for a healthy culture - what people do when no one's watching - and why she calls culture "the hardest currency"How Allianz builds daily AI habits into leadership, from "AI gem sessions" to asking each morning what AI can help with firstWhy she sees AI creating as many new early-career roles as it displaces, and how Allianz is reshaping graduate hiring around that This episode is sponsored by Valence.  Nadia, Valence's AI coaching platform, connects talent strategy to the work employees are actually doing — offering coaching from the frontline to the boardroom, and surfacing organisational insights that weren't visible before.As the most widely deployed coach in the Fortune 500, Nadia is already helping global leaders like Nestlé, Delta, CVS, and Kraft Heinz transform talent at scale.Learn more at valence.co/insight222

Do you know which of your people are wired to thrive in chaos, and which ones need certainty to do their best work? In this episode, David is joined by Mike Flannagan, Corporate Vice President, Customer & Commercial Success at Microsoft, and Paul Burgess, founder of Instinctive Drives, to explore Microsoft's recent partnership with Instinctive Drives and what it reveals about the human side of AI transformation. Together they unpack why the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn't the technology itself, but the mismatch between people's natural instincts and the roles they're being asked to play. Join the dynamic trio as they discuss: Why AI adoption is a people transformation How the Instinctive Drives framework explains why people react so differently to change What happens when the wrong people get pushed into high-experimentation, high-failure roles Why psychological safety is the real prerequisite for AI adoption at scale How a shared language around instincts can rebuild trust and speed up team performance Listeners can try their own Instinctive Drives assessment for free for a limited time (expires 31st of October 2026) - the link is in the show notes below. This episode is sponsored by Instinctive Drives.  As organisations invest heavily in AI, the people expected to deliver are often overwhelmed and working against their own natural wiring. Instinctive Drives' science-backed methodology reveals how each person is wired to work - which is why Microsoft chose them as their strategic partner for enterprise AI adoption worldwide. Try your own Instinctive Drives assessment for free at instinctivedrives.com/digitalhrleaders - available until 31 October 2026. Resources:  Instinctive Drives assessment - available until 31 October 2026 

Do you know which of your people are wired to thrive in chaos, and which ones need certainty to do their best work? In this episode, David is joined by Mike Flannagan, Corporate Vice President, Customer & Commercial Success at Microsoft, and Paul Burgess, founder of Instinctive Drives, to explore Microsoft's recent partnership with Instinctive Drives and what it reveals about the human side of AI transformation. Together they unpack why the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn't the technology itself, but the mismatch between people's natural instincts and the roles they're being asked to play.Join the dynamic trio as they discuss:Why AI adoption is a people transformation How the Instinctive Drives framework explains why people react so differently to change What happens when the wrong people get pushed into high-experimentation, high-failure roles Why psychological safety is the real prerequisite for AI adoption at scale How a shared language around instincts can rebuild trust and speed up team performance Listeners can try their own Instinctive Drives assessment for free for a limited time (expires 31st of October 2026) - the link is in the show notes below. This episode is sponsored by Instinctive Drives.As organisations invest heavily in AI, the people expected to deliver are often overwhelmed and working against their own natural wiring. Instinctive Drives' science-backed methodology reveals how each person is wired to work — which is why Microsoft chose them as their strategic partner for enterprise AI adoption worldwide.Try your own Instinctive Drives assessment for free at instinctivedrives.com/digitalhrleaders - available until 31 October 2026.Resources:  Instinctive Drives assessment - available until 31 October 2026

How do you bring AI into an organisation without losing what's made it work for 150 years? In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, David Green is joined by Eric Dozier, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at Eli Lilly, to explore what it takes for HR to lead AI and workforce transformation at enterprise scale.  Join them, as they discuss: Why HR has to transform twice over in the AI era, first as a function, then as an organisation  What prompted Lilly's AI journey, and how the friction points that came up shaped the approach going forward How the role of the manager is changing as AI becomes part of everyday work What separates AI capability from simply increased AI usage The principles guiding Lilly's approach to responsible AI, including where it supports leadership judgement and where it shouldn't How employee feedback has reshaped Lilly's AI strategy, and what Eric believes HR leaders should prioritise as they lead their own transformations This episode is sponsored by Valence.  Nadia, Valence's AI coaching platform, connects talent strategy to the work employees are actually doing — offering coaching from the frontline to the boardroom, and surfacing organisational insights that weren't visible before. As the most widely deployed coach in the Fortune 500, Nadia is already helping global leaders like Nestlé, Delta, CVS, and Kraft Heinz transform talent at scale.  Learn more at valence.co/insight222

What if the resistance you're seeing from your team isn't opposition at all? David Green is joined by Travis Hahler, who leads global strategy and transformation at Salesforce and is also the founder of Neurological Nomad, where he applies neuroscience and neuropsychology to how leaders manage change. Travis is the author of the new book Rethink Resistance, and his central argument reframes almost everything: resistance isn't personal, it's protective. Why resistance to change should be read as information, not opposition: The six neurological barriers to change, and why leaders need to understand each one How routine and old habits quietly pull people back toward what made them successful before, even when they're not against the future Why cognitive load and pacing determine whether people actually learn through a transformation, or just survive it What employees are really losing in change that's genuinely good for them, and why leaders often miss it How to apply these insights practically to workforce transformation and AI adoption Whether you're leading a transformation right now or preparing for one, this conversation will change how you think about the resistance you're seeing. This episode is sponsored by Valence.  Nadia, Valence's AI coaching platform, connects talent strategy to the work employees are actually doing — offering coaching from the frontline to the boardroom, and surfacing organisational insights that weren't visible before.  As the most widely deployed coach in the Fortune 500, Nadia is already helping global leaders like Nestlé, Delta, CVS, and Kraft Heinz transform talent at scale.  Learn more at valence.co/insight222  Additional resources: Rethink Resistance: Embracing Neuroscience to Lead Transformational Change

Is your HR function organised the way employees actually experience it, or just the way it's always been done? In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, David Green is joined by Tony Truong, VP of People Strategy, Operations, Technology and Analytics at Chime, to unpack why most HR functions are still organised in silos, by specialty, while employees experience work as a series of moments: getting hired, being onboarded, going for a promotion. Tony has spent the last two years closing that gap, rebuilding Chime's people function from the ground up as the company has scaled into a public company. In this episode, David and Tony discuss: Why the real limitation holding HR back is fragmentation, not ambition What it's taken to rebuild a people function from the ground up at a newly public company How AI has reshaped recruiting at Chime, cutting a process that used to take days down to hours Tony's three-stage framework for thinking about AI's role in the business: assistance, automation, and orchestration What it actually looks like to move people analytics from the periphery of HR to the centre of how a business makes decisions This episode is sponsored by Valence.  Nadia, Valence's AI coaching platform, connects talent strategy to the work employees are actually doing — offering coaching from the frontline to the boardroom, and surfacing organisational insights that weren't visible before.  As the most widely deployed coach in the Fortune 500, Nadia is already helping global leaders like Nestlé, Delta, CVS, and Kraft Heinz transform talent at scale.  Learn more at valence.co/insight222  Additional resources: Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2026 Report

How do you tell the difference between AI that's genuinely transforming HR and AI that's just a slide in a vendor deck? In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, David Green is joined by Parker Mitchell, Founder and CEO of Valence, the team behind the AI coaching platform Nadia, to discuss what it really takes for HR to prove value in an increasingly crowded AI market. Join them, as they discuss: How to separate genuine AI capability from marketing claims in an increasingly crowded marketWhy AI budgets are increasingly coming from the C-suite rather than HR, and what that means for how HR shows up in these conversationsWhat CHROs should be asking before choosing between an AI-native provider and a legacy platform with bolted-on AI featuresHow the best people analytics teams are proving ROI from AI coaching, beyond adoption metricsWhat it looks like to make performance management continuous rather than a once or twice-a-year processWhy frontline and operational workers need a different approach to AI coaching than knowledge workersValence's recent partnership with Microsoft and what it signals about where AI coaching is heading This episode is sponsored by Valence.  Nadia, Valence's AI coaching platform, connects talent strategy to the work employees are actually doing — offering coaching from the frontline to the boardroom, and surfacing organisational insights that weren't visible before.  As the most widely deployed coach in the Fortune 500, Nadia is already helping global leaders like Nestlé, Delta, CVS, and Kraft Heinz transform talent at scale.  Learn more at valence.co/insight222

What would your organisation look like if it worked more like an octopus — distributed, adaptive, and capable of sensing and reacting without waiting for instructions from the centre? In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, David Green is joined by Phil Lebrun and Jana Werner, Executives in Residence at Amazon Web Services and authors of The Octopus Organization, to explore why so many transformations fail to stick — and what a more adaptive, human approach to change actually looks like. Join them as they discuss:What the octopus organisation metaphor is, and why it offers a different model to the traditional, hierarchical "Tin Man" organisation The three themes — clarity, ownership, and curiosity — that separate organisations that adapt well from those that don't Why transformation can no longer be treated as a one-time event HR's evolving role in driving and supporting transformation How to measure whether change is actually working, beyond vanity metrics Real examples of leaders and organisations putting these ideas into practice This episode is sponsored by Valence.  Nadia, Valence's AI coaching platform, connects talent strategy to the work employees are actually doing — offering coaching from the frontline to the boardroom, and surfacing organisational insights that weren't visible before.  As the most widely deployed coach in the Fortune 500, Nadia is already helping global leaders like Nestlé, Delta, CVS, and Kraft Heinz transform talent at scale.  Learn more at valence.co/insight222Resources:The Octopus Organization by Phil Lebrun and Jana Werner