Manager Mentor
How not to be replaced by AI: Re-place yourself instead.
How not to be replaced by AI: Re-place yourself instead.
The title of Kari Zeller’s new book, Re-Placed: Answering the Call of Leadership in the Age of AI, makes you think.
For the better part of the last two years, one of the common themes of discourse in almost every corner of the world has been the impact of AI on jobs.
Readers of this newsletter know I believe the biggest impact of AI on society centers on the death of the corporate ladder — and the predictability it brought to career-building for boomers and most of gen-x.
But what does a post-corporate ladder workplace look like for millennials and gen-z? How should people approach career planning? How does a manager hold a career conversation, especially a first-time manager likely with little or no training?
Kari’s a big thinker, and her book takes on this challenge. What I loved about the book is the deep questions it asks. “Are you managing the work or are you managing the meaning of the work?” Kari tells me in the first 60 seconds of our conversation.
As someone who cares about the future of managing, she had me at hello.
In the era of the corporate ladder, the meaning of work often came down to, “did I get promoted?” Looking back at the boomer generation, and thinking about what Kari said, I can see how the corporate ladder was all about “managing the work.” Everyone’s future was pre-determined by the rungs on the ladder.
I have to admit, I remember many situations at Cisco where someone’s sole goal at work was to get promoted to the director title — the entry point to leadership at the company. The focus often became so intense that it overwhelmed any meaning or sense of purpose from the job itself.
“We undervalue what work means to us,” Kari says. “It is where we find our place, our place of contribution, of identity, of belonging — and it's a place in which we invent our future."
Amen.
What I really love about what Kari is saying is this: meaning is a human experience.
At some basic level, Kari’s telling us that the one thing we control is who we are — and encouraging a purposeful effort to see ourselves as a future version of ourselves.
It’s one of the most interesting things I’ve heard about navigating and building a career in the age of AI since I started writing this newsletter. It’s right up there with what I learned about storytelling from Patti Sanchez.
As a manager, I always tell my team that I believe everyone has a source of greatness — it’s up to them as individuals to find it at work.
That’s why in my conversation with Kari I started to think to myself: does she have some sort of secret sauce? Something to bring this to life for my readers?
For Kari, it starts with something most of us think we already understand.
WHAT: “Let me give you some context….”
I found Kari’s point of view about context fascinating. Context is a way of framing something. We’ve all done it ourselves: “Let me give you some context…”
But Kari tells me that most people treat context as description — the background info about a situation. To her, context is construction — the frame you build that determines what actions even seem possible to you.
“Most people don't realize we are ‘context creators,’” she tells me. “They assume context is just inherited, something that happens to you, when it's actually something you have the power to construct.”
I’ll admit it, I was a little dazzled by these thoughts. I was born an optimist, I believe in empowerment. I believe anything is possible. As a manager, one of my favorite things to say to people is: “why not you?”
That’s why Kari’s perspective landed so strongly with me. It hit me in the moment: She’s cracked the code on the new career conversation.
In short: knowing your context is your new true north.
HOW: Context is the new career conversation
Re-Placed is a deep thinker’s paradise. It leans on history, creative original fiction, human psychology, and a few clever thought experiments.
For this newsletter, I want to focus on how all of this relates to career conversations—as millennials and gen-z are talking to their managers right now about the impact of AI on work.
For first-time and early-in-career managers in these conversations, Kari offers the following advice: “Context cannot be dictated; it must be generated newly by each individual person.”
How do you do this as a manager of people? Here’s a direct quote from the book:
“When the ground is shifting—when people wonder whether they’ll be replaced, whether their skills will matter, whether there’s a place for them at all—they need more than a plan. They need to see themselves in the future you’re creating.”
To that end, she suggests managers focus on what she calls the four elements of a co-created future:
Fundamental cares: Not just people’s stated demands, but the deeper things underneath — dignity, belonging, advancement, security, meaningful contribution, mattering.
Meaningful contribution: Not just filling a role. People need to see that what they uniquely bring is genuinely needed — that the future can’t happen without them.
Recognition: People won’t commit to a future where their impact goes unseen. Their contribution has to be acknowledged, not invisible.
Identity: People need to see that this future lets them become someone they’re proud of — more of who they aspire to be.
It’s co-created because these elements operate within the work of a team, which I love.
The four elements reach deep into how people think about work. As I said, Re-Placed is going to make you think.
For managers, I developed some questions based on the four elements to ask in your next set of 1:1’s with people that report to you — to kick-start what could be the most important conversation about someone’s career plans and aspirations.
Fundamental cares: What matters most to you right now — not just what you’re asking for, but what’s underneath it? Dignity, belonging, security, feeling like your work counts?
Meaningful contribution: Where do you feel like what you bring is actually needed — not just filling a slot, but something the team genuinely can’t do without?
Recognition: When your work makes a real difference, do you feel like people actually see it? What would it look like if they did?
Identity: Is this work helping you become someone you’re proud of? Are you growing into who you actually want to be?
Want to know how you score on the behaviors that earn respect? Take the free Six Drivers self-assessment:
My favorite passage from the book: “Creating our own place.”
It’s a single paragraph in chapter three of the book, but it reads like a poem to me:
“If you’re worried about being displaced by AI, bear in mind that you’ve ‘created place’ before and you can do it again.
“You and I, we are place creators, meaning makers, context inventors.
“We have agency here.
“Through the power of language, we can create ‘place’ through the stories we tell about what matters to us and why.
“We can make ‘meaning’ through the value we give to things and the interpretations we choose.
“We can consciously invent new contexts through declarations and commitments that redefine who we are.
“To date, none of these uniquely human capabilities—creating place, making meaning, inventing context—have yet been recreated in AI agents.”
How to be a Great First-time Manager: The Culture Platform
The only purpose-built learning and development system for first-time millennial and gen-z managers.
The corporate ladder has been dismantled rung by rung by AI. For millennials and gen-z, the predictable career path has vaporized — and most managers are navigating it alone, without any formal training.
I’ve managed about 5,000 people in my career, and was consistently ranked in the top quartile of all managers at Cisco, one of the world’s best places to work. I’ve walked in your shoes as a manager.
I left Cisco to answer one question with research and evidence: what does the manager of the future look like?
My research — conducted with thousands of young people at companies like Amazon, Google, Disney, and DoorDash — identified Six Drivers of Consistency that separate great managers from the rest, with a 95% confidence interval.
That research became The Culture Platform: a complete learning and development system — Framework, Feedback, and Tools — purpose-built for first-time managers who want to separate themselves and be a great manager of high-performance teams.
ManagerMentor • All Rights Reserved • The Culture Platform, Inc. • 2026
Thank you so much, Ron. Great information.