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:






Why Christine coined "compounded change" and why your workforce is carrying more layers of transformation than anyone is acknowledging







The ancient Egyptian precedent: when women held positions of finance, governance, and pharaonic leadership and what modern society lost when that changed







The critical AI adoption gap: organizations are deploying new technology without addressing the psychological and emotional responses of their people







How change resilience workshops create unexpected catharsis and build communities people didn't know they needed







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

Subscribe, leave a review at https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new/, and share this episode with five people who need to hear it.

Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources on intercultural leadership and global impact.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices (https://megaphone.fm/adchoices)