Go Flux Yourself: Navigating the Future of Work (No. 14)

TL;DR February’s Go Flux Yourself examines fairness as a business – and societal – necessity. Splunk’s Kirsty Paine tackles AI security, Harvard’s Siri Chilazi critiques DEI’s flaws, and Robert Rosenkranz applies Stoic wisdom to ambition, humility, and success in an AI-driven world …

Image created on Midjourney with the prompt “a forlorn man with his young son both with ski gear on at the top of a mountain with no snow on it (but green grass and rock) with a psychedelic sky”

The future

“To achieve anything meaningful, you must accept that you don’t have all the answers. The most successful people are the ones who keep learning, questioning, and improving.”

Robert Rosenkranz has lived the American Dream – but you won’t hear him shouting about it. At 82, he has little interest in the brash, performative ambition that defines modern politics and business. Instead, his story is one of quiet, relentless progress. 

Born into a struggling family, he worked his way through Yale and Harvard, then went on to lead Delphi Financial Group for over three decades. By the time he stepped down as CEO in 2018, he had grown the company’s value 100-fold, overseeing more than $20 billion in assets.

Yet, Rosenkranz’s real legacy might not be in finance, but in philanthropy. Yesterday (February 27), in a smart members’ club (where I had to borrow a blazer at reception – oops!) in Mayfair, London, I attended an intimate lunch to discuss The Stoic Capitalist, his upcoming book on ambition, self-discipline, and long-term success. 

As we received our starters, he shared an extraordinary statistic: “In America, there are maybe a couple of dozen people who have given over a billion dollars in their lifetime. A hundred percent of them are self-made.”

Really? I did some digging, and the numbers back him up. As of 2024, over 25 American philanthropists have donated more than $1 billion each, according to Forbes. Further, of those who have signed the Giving Pledge – committing to give away at least half their wealth – 84% are self-made. Only 16% inherited their fortunes.

The message is clear: those who build their wealth from nothing are far more likely to give it away. Contrast this with Donald Trump, the ultimate heir-turned-huckster. Brash, transactional (“pay-to-play” was how American political scientist Ian Bremmer neatly describes him), obsessed with personal gain, the American President represents a vision of success where winning means others must lose. Rosenkranz, by contrast, embodies something altogether different – ambition not as self-interest, but as a long game that enriches others.

He is also, tellingly, apathetic about politics, latterly. Having once believed in the American meritocracy, the Republican who has helped steer public policy now sees a system increasingly warped by inherited wealth, populism, and those pay-to-play politics. “The future of American politics worries me,” he admitted at the lunch. And given the rise of Trumpian imitators, he has reason to be concerned. To my mind, the world needs more Rosenkranzes – self-made leaders who view ambition and success as vehicles for building, rather than simply taking.

This tension – between long-term, disciplined ambition and short-term, self-serving power – runs through this month’s Go Flux Yourself. Because whether we’re talking about AI security, workplace fairness, or the philosophy of leadership, the real winners will be those who take the long view and seek fairness.

Fairness at work: The illusion of progress

Fairness in the workplace is one of those ideas that corporate leaders love to endorse in principle – but shy away from in practice. Despite billions spent on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, meaningful change remains frustratingly elusive. (Sadly, this fact only helps Trump’s forceful agenda to ditch such policies – an approach that is driving the marginalised to seek shelter, at home or abroad.)

“For a lot of organisations, programmatic interventions are appealing because they are discrete. They’re off to the side. It’s easy to approve a one-time budget for a facilitator to come and do a training or participate in a single event. That’s sometimes a lot easier than saying: ‘Let’s change how we evaluate performance.’ But precisely because those latter types of solutions are embedded and affect how work gets done daily, they’re more effective.”

This is the heart of what Harvard’s Siri Chilazi told me when we discussed Make Work Fair, the new book she has co-authored with Iris Bohnet. Their research offers a much-needed reality check on corporate DEI efforts.

Image created on Midjourney with the prompt “a man and a women in work clothes on a balancing scale – equal – in the style of a matisse painting”

She explained why so many workplace fairness initiatives fail: they rely on changing individual behaviour rather than fixing broken systems. “Unconscious bias training has become this multi-billion-dollar industry,” she said. “But the evidence is clear — it doesn’t work.” Studies have shown that bias training rarely leads to lasting behavioral change, and in some cases, it even backfires, making people more defensive about their biases rather than less.

So what does work? Chilazi and Bohnet argue that structural interventions — the kind that make fairness automatic rather than optional — are the key to real progress. “If you want to reduce bias in hiring, don’t just tell people to ‘be more aware’ — design the process so that bias has fewer opportunities to creep in,” she told me.

This means:

• Standardising interviews so every candidate is evaluated against the same criteria
• Removing names from CVs to eliminate unconscious bias in early screening
• Making promotion decisions based on clear, structured frameworks rather than subjective “gut feelings”

The companies that have done this properly – like AstraZeneca, which now applies transparent decision-making frameworks to promotions – have seen real progress. Others, Chilazi warned, are simply engaging in performative fairness. “If an organisation is still relying on vague, unstructured decision-making, it doesn’t matter how many DEI consultants they hire – bias will win.”

Perhaps the most telling statistic comes from a 2023 McKinsey report that found that 90% of executives believe their DEI initiatives are effective, but only 40% of employees agree. That gap tells you everything you need to know.

This matters not just ethically, but competitively. Companies that embed fairness into their DNA don’t just avoid scandals and lawsuits – they outperform their competitors. “The data is overwhelming,” Chilazi said. “Fairer companies attract better talent, foster more innovation, and have stronger long-term results.”

Yet many businesses refuse to make fairness a structural priority. Why? Because, as Chilazi put it, “real fairness requires real power shifts. And that makes a lot of leaders uncomfortable.”

But here’s the reality: fairness isn’t a cost – it’s an investment. The future belongs to the companies that understand this. And those that don’t? They’ll be left wondering why the best talent keeps walking out the door.

NB I’ll be discussing some of this next week, on March 4, at the latest Inner London South Virtual Networking event for the Federation of Small Businesses (of which I’m a member). See here to tune in.

Fairness in AI: Who controls the future?

If fairness in the workplace is in crisis, fairness in AI is a full-blown emergency. And unlike workplace bias – which at least has legal protections and public scrutiny – AI bias is being quietly embedded into the foundations of our future.

AI now influences who gets hired, who gets a loan, who gets medical treatment, and even who goes to prison. Yet, shockingly, most companies deploying these systems have no real governance strategy in place.

At the start of February, I spoke with Splunk’s Geneva-based Kirsty Paine, a cybersecurity strategist and World Economic Forum Fellow, who is actively working with governments, regulators, and industry leaders to shape AI security standards. Her message was blunt: “AI governance isn’t just about ethics or compliance – it’s a resilience issue. If you don’t get it right, your business is exposed”.

This is where many boards are failing. They assume AI security is a technical problem, best left to IT teams. But as Paine explained, if AI makes a bad decision – one that leads to reputational, financial, or legal fallout – blaming the engineers won’t cut it.

“We need boards to start thinking of AI governance the same way they think about financial oversight,” she said. “If you wouldn’t approve a financial model without auditing it, why would you sign off on AI that fundamentally impacts customers, employees, and business decisions?”

Historically, businesses have treated cybersecurity as a defensive function – protecting systems from external attacks. But AI doesn’t work like that. It is constantly learning, evolving, and interacting with new data and new risks.

“You can’t just ‘fix’ an AI system once and assume it’s safe,” Paine told me. “AI doesn’t stop learning, so its risks don’t stop evolving either. That means your governance model needs to be just as dynamic.”

At its core, this is about power. Who controls AI, and in whose interests? Right now, most AI development is happening behind closed doors, controlled by a handful of tech giants with little accountability.

One of the biggest governance challenges is that no single company can solve AI security alone. That’s why Paine is leading cross-industry efforts at the WEF, bringing together governments, regulators, and businesses to create shared frameworks for AI security and resilience.

“AI security shouldn’t be a competitive advantage – it should be a shared priority,” she said. “If businesses don’t start working together on governance, they’ll be left at the mercy of regulators who will make those decisions for them.”

One of the most significant barriers to AI security is communication. Paine, who started her career as a mathematics teacher in challenging schools, knows that how you explain something determines whether people truly understand it.

“In cybersecurity and AI, we love jargon,” she admitted. “But if your board doesn’t understand the language you’re using, how can they make informed decisions?”

This is where her teaching background has shaped her approach. “I had to explain complex maths to students who found it intimidating,” she said. “Now, I do the same thing in boardrooms.” The goal isn’t to impress people with technical terms but to ensure they actually get it, was her message.

And this, ultimately, is the hidden risk of AI governance: if leaders don’t understand the systems they’re approving, they can’t govern them effectively.

The present

If fairness has been the intellectual thread running through my conversations this month, sobriety has been the personal one. I’ve been talking about it a lot – on Voice of Islam radio, for example (see here, from about 23 minutes in), where I was invited to discuss the impact of alcohol on society – and in wrapping up Upper Bottom, the sobriety podcast I co-hosted for the past year.

Ending Upper Bottom felt like the right decision – producing a weekly podcast (an endless cycle of researching, recording, editing, publishing and promoting) is challenging, and harder to justify with no financial reward and little social impact. But it also marked a turning point. 

When we launched last February, it was a passion project – an exploration of what it meant to re-evaluate alcohol’s role in our lives. Over the months, the response was encouraging: messages from people rethinking their own drinking, others inspired to take a break, and some who felt seen for the first time. It proved what I suspected all along: the sweetest fruits of sobriety can be found through clarity, agency, and taking control of your own story.

And now? Well, I’m already lining up new hosting gigs – this time, paid ones. Sobriety has given me a sharper focus, a better work ethic, and, frankly, a clearer voice. I have no interest in being a preacher about it – if you want a drink, have a drink – but I do know that since cutting out alcohol, opportunities keep rolling in. And I’m open to more.

I bring this up because storytelling – whether through a podcast mic, a radio interview, or the pages of Go Flux Yourself – is essentially about fairness too. Who gets to tell their story? Whose voice gets amplified? Who is given the space to question things that seem “normal” but, on closer inspection, might not be serving them?

This is the thread that ties my conversations this month – whether with Kirsty on AI governance, Robert on wealth distribution and politics, or Siri on workplace fairness, or my own reflections on sobriety – into something bigger. Fairness isn’t just about systems. It’s about who gets to write the script.

And right now, I’m more interested than ever in shaping my own.

The past

February was my birthday month. Another year older, another opportunity to reflect. And this year, the reflection came at a high altitude.

I spent a long weekend skiing in Slovenia with my 10-year-old son, Freddie – his first time on skis. It was magical, watching him initially wobble, find his balance, and then, quickly, gain confidence as he carved his way down the slopes. It took me back to my own childhood, when I was lucky enough to ski from a young age. But that word – lucky – stuck with me.

Because here’s the truth: by the time Freddie is my age, skiing might not be possible anymore.

The Alps are already feeling the effects of climate change. Lower-altitude resorts are seeing shorter seasons, more artificial snow, and unpredictable weather patterns. Consider 53% of European ski resorts face a ‘very high risk’ of snow scarcity if temperatures rise by 2°C. By the time Freddie’s children – if he has them – are old enough to ski, the idea of a family ski holiday may be a relic of the past.

It’s sobering to think about, especially after spending a month discussing fairness at work and in AI. Because climate change is the ultimate fairness issue. The people least responsible for it – future generations – are the ones who will pay the highest price.

For now, I’m grateful. Grateful that I got to experience skiing as a child, grateful that I got to share it with Freddie, grateful that – for now – we still have these mountains to enjoy.

But fairness isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about responsibility. And if we don’t take action, the stories we tell our grandchildren about the world we once had will be the closest they ever get to it.

Statistics of the month

📉 Is Google search fading? A TechRadar study found that 27% of US respondents now use AI tools instead of search engines. (I admit, I’m the same.) The way we find information is shifting fast. 🔗

🚀 GenAI is the skill to have. Coursera saw an 866% rise in AI course enrolments among enterprise learners. Year-on-year increases hit 1,100% for employees, 500% for students, and 1,600% for job seekers. Adapt, or be left behind. 🔗

⏳ Job applications are too slow. Candidates spend 42 minutes per application – close to the 53-minute threshold they consider excessive. Nearly half (45%) give up if the process drags on. Businesses must streamline hiring or risk losing top talent. 🔗

🤖 Robots are easing the burden on US nurses. AI assistants have saved clinicians 1.5 billion steps and 575,000+ hours by handling non-patient-facing tasks. A glimpse into the future of healthcare efficiency. 🔗

💻 The Slack-Zoom paradox. Virtual tools have boosted productivity for 59% of workers, yet 45% report “Zoom fatigue” – with men disproportionately affected. Remote work: a blessing and a burden. 🔗

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