This is part two of Ray Zinn’s conversation about balancing tech efficiencies with empathy to keep teams motivated and loyal. Plus, more on why you should embrace change.
Rob Artigo: I’m Rob Artigo. I’m a former radio personality, writer, and entrepreneur in California. This is human-centered leadership in an automated age. This is part two of our discussion. It went on a little long, so we split it up into two. I’m glad to have you back, to listen AI and robotics advancing rapidly in 2026. Many leaders worry about replacing people instead of empowering them. And in our first podcast on this topic, we discussed how to deal with that. Ray, it’s nice to be back to discuss this again. Your company was consistently profitable for 37 years. You put people first, but I think what we’ve been learning in this podcast, part one and now part two, is the fundamental truth that change is the one constant, right?
Ray Zinn: I’m part owner of a small software company, what they call software as a service, SaaS. I was talking with the CEO of the company. He was saying that he’s able now to create his software with one engineer and AI versus 10 engineers before. So he’s reduced his headcount by 10 by using one engineer who is the program manager or developer along with AI. That book, again, Who Moved the Cheese, you got to know when the cheese is moved, you better find a new route. So as I said, I have two grandchildren that are currently looking for work. They just graduated this year and they’re frankly concerned because they got educated in an area which is now being taken over by AI. So in fact, my one granddaughter is a speech therapist, but you can do speech therapy now through AI. So she’s got to find another way now to get a job where AI may have taken over her function.
Rob Artigo: Well, maybe it’s coaching somebody through fewer sessions and using AI for practice.
Ray Zinn: Right. Exactly.
Rob Artigo: And what I found, Ray, we’ve done this here in this podcast. We have perfected it here. It takes fewer people to do… Because of technology, it takes fewer people to do what we do here in this podcast than it used to. I mean, you used to have a producer, a writer and all these different people doing things. We do it. The two of us do it. And that’s basically what it comes down to is it just takes fewer, I think, and tell me if I’m wrong, but basically what AI and technology have done by 2026 in the course of history is it just takes fewer people to do certain jobs. And then somebody has to do maintenance on milking the cows, which you mentioned. Somebody has to do that. So a person’s going to do that, but you don’t need all the people milking the cows and you don’t need the farm hands out there picking up the lettuce or picking grapes. So you just have some people instead of 20.
Ray Zinn: We have to be cognizant of that. I mean, AI will put a lot of people out of work or put a lot of people in the mode of having to find another way of making a living. That’s the way it’s always been. When I was a kid, I worked on a ranch and so I did a lot of ranch work, but then I went to school and I got a degree in engineering and master’s in business and I don’t do any more cattle or any more farming type work except here at the ranch. So things changed for me even as a kid. I used to deliver papers on a bicycle. Now everybody reads the paper online. So the guys that are out there delivering paper, the boys riding their bikes, delivering paper, I have to find another way to make a living. So we’re all going to be facing change.
Change is permanent. It’s going to be with us forever and we have to adapt like the book says Who Moved the Cheese. We got to find out where’s the next hole for the cheese. And so whether you’re a doctor or whether you’re a lawyer or whether you’re school teacher or whatever, you got to learn to adapt. The medical field’s changing dramatically too because of AI. The legal system’s changing dramatically. We need far less paralegals because the AI can read the paralegal information and come up with a report much faster than the paralegal can. So I think almost everyone to some degree is going to be affected by change, whether you’re a stage coach driver or Pony Express rider or whether you’re an engineer driving a train or you’re a pilot flying an airplane. I heard recently that the AFAA is looking at now being able to fly airplanes automatically and will need fewer pilots because AI or the technology is allowing airplanes to fly themselves.
I have an airplane that can almost land itself. So we put it on an autopilot with a program in it and it takes over all the flying. Now I have to operate the radio, but I think even that’s going to get changed. I think ultimately there will be no need to operate the radio because it’ll all be done automatically. We used to get our weather report and what we call the ADIS, the automatic transfer information service, used to get it through a real person. Now it’s all being done automatically by AI. All the weather’s coming in by AI now. We don’t need weather forecasters to the degree we did in the past because that’s all automated. I don’t know. Maybe we’re going to be doing podcast automated now. I think we could. I think we can do AI podcasts. Right, Rob?
Rob Artigo: Oh yeah, sure. I mean, you can get topics from the AI. You can have scripts written by AI. You can do tons of things. And me, when I do my work as a criminal defense investigator, I do use it if I get into a jam on certain paperwork. If I get backed into a corner, I’m not supposed to do much paralegal work because I’m not a paralegal, but sometimes I have to draft something and write it up and AI has helped me figure that out. But that’s where I want to go next is think about the fact that there are people out there who’ve spent their lives the last 20 years building a reputation and a source of information on websites and they pay for their websites. Maybe they do commerce there, they do other things, advice, they do cooking, they do other things. I mean, even exercise or health or fitness, they have those websites.
But if I use AI to search for something instead of going out on the internet in general, I’m not navigating to those websites.
Ray Zinn: Yes, that’s true.
Rob Artigo: AI is skimming that information and delivering it to me and saying, “Here’s the answer.”
Ray Zinn: Exactly.
Rob Artigo: So now the traffic I would imagine on those websites is going down because of the use of AI. AI, I use Elon Musk’s Grok. It will give an explanation of something and then it’ll give you a link to click on the source. So if you wanted to verify it or look at it further, you could do that. But typically you’re getting enough information just by the aggregation of the question you’ve asked and then that aggregation comes from all those websites. So there’s commerce that’s going to go down because of AI.
Ray Zinn: Well, I mean, Rob, this has been going on forever since Adam ate the apple. I mean, this is going on. I mean, this is nothing new and so it just seems like it’s happening faster because AI is making things change quicker. And so anytime we see a rapid change, we get concerned. We have to be aware of that. We have to understand the dynamics of the changing world and adapt. So adapting is the key and we could debate this for another two hours and we wouldn’t really cover anymore.
Rob Artigo: Right. But I guess the idea that you’re trying to convey to people is it’s here to stay. What you have to do is fear not and forge ahead, pivot if you have to and deal with it.
Ray Zinn: And don’t fret about change because if you’re fretting about change, you’re going to be fretting forever.
Rob Artigo: Yeah. And you’ll drive yourself crazy.
Ray Zinn: Right.
Rob Artigo: Listeners, pick up Ray’s books, The Essential Leader in Tough Things First, as well as the Zen of Zinn series. For more practical guidance on these fundamentals, visit toughthingsfirst.com for episodes, blogs, and links to Ray’s social media. So what are your thoughts on leading people in an AI driven world? Share your comments. Remember, do the tough things first.
