What if the blueprint for thriving in the AI era has been buried for centuries, inside the civilization that built the pyramids? Organizational psychologist Christine Mikhail (https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-mikhail-odconsultant/) joins Lori Adams-Brown live from the Transform Conference in Las Vegas (https://transform.us/conference/program-overview-2026/) to unpack one of the most urgent (and under-discussed) challenges in the modern workplace: we're racing to implement AI, but we're forgetting the humans doing the work.
In this episode, you'll discover:
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Why Christine coined "compounded change" and why your workforce is carrying more layers of transformation than anyone is acknowledging
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The ancient Egyptian precedent: when women held positions of finance, governance, and pharaonic leadership and what modern society lost when that changed
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The critical AI adoption gap: organizations are deploying new technology without addressing the psychological and emotional responses of their people
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How change resilience workshops create unexpected catharsis and build communities people didn't know they needed
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How to frame AI as a tool that elevates human capability, and why that framing is the difference between adoption success and workforce anxiety
Christine Mikhail (https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-mikhail-odconsultant/) is a master's-level industrial-organizational psychologist and founder of Mikhail Consulting Group, a consultancy specializing in work design and change management. With roots tracing to ancient Egypt, she brings a uniquely global lens to how humans navigate transformation at work.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Welcome from the Transform Conference, Las Vegas
02:17 – Egypt, cultural identity, and a heartbreaking lesson in gender inequality
05:00 – Ancient Egypt's golden era: when women were pharaohs, financiers, and leaders
08:59 – What excites Christine about the future of work and the human-AI relationship
10:59 – The overlooked gap in AI adoption: where is the human change strategy?
13:24 – Upskilling in the AI era: we promise humans will be needed — but for what?
15:49 – "Compounded change" — why this moment feels like a tsunami, earthquake, and ripple at once
18:09 – How change resilience workshops are building community and catharsis
20:27 – AI adoption success: framing technology as "for" people, not a replacement
22:40 – Where to find Christine and Mikhail Consulting Group
Find Christine Mikhail at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-mikhail-odconsultant | Mikhail Consulting Group (https://www.linkedin.com/company/mikhail-consulting-group/) on LinkedIn
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