Host Mike Palmer connects with Monica Marquez, founder of FlipWork and founding director of the TIDE Center at UNT Dallas, to explore how humans can navigate the rapid disruption of AI in the workplace. Drawing from her deep background in human capital, diversity, and leadership development at industry giants like Goldman Sachs, Google, and Bank of America, Monica brings a deeply human-centered approach to the AI revolution.
Mike and Monica skip the standard AI hype to discuss why simply rolling out AI tools isn’t enough to drive real adoption. They dive into the psychology of AI integration, unpacking what Monica calls the “identity bottleneck” – the challenge workers face when shifting from a traditional mindset where “effort equals success” to a modern reality where “impact equals success.” Monica also introduces her “long division” analogy for AI, explaining why we shouldn’t ban the tool in classrooms or boardrooms, but instead require users to show their work and actively interrogate the AI’s logic.
Key Discussion Topics:
- The Identity Bottleneck: Why our traditional conditioning to reward “grit and elbow grease” is causing resistance to AI’s effortless outputs, and how to overcome the feeling of “cheating.”
- Measuring AI Fluency: A look at FlipWork’s psychometric diagnostic, which assesses “agentic velocity” (individual adoption) and “enterprise symbiosis” (organizational support).
- The Calculator Analogy: How educators and leaders can demand the “long division” of AI prompting to combat passive consumption (“work slop”) and prevent cognitive atrophy.
- Agentic Teams: Why AI isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution and how to orchestrate specialized models (like Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini) just like human team members.
- Democratizing Expertise: How everyday users can use AI as an accessible thinking partner to overcome biases, expand diversity of thought, and level the playing field.
Whether you’re an educator, an enterprise leader, or an individual trying to disrupt yourself before you get disrupted, this episode offers a practical blueprint for multiplying human genius in the AI age. Subscribe to Trending in Education on your preferred podcast platform, leave a review, and share this episode with your network. Visit TrendinginEd.com for more episodes and conversations on the future of learning and work.
Timestamps:
- 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
- 01:05 Monica’s Career Journey
- 03:57 Why FlipWork and AI
- 07:41 Enterprise Adoption Reality
- 13:45 Measuring AI Fluency
- 17:13 Identity Bottleneck Shift
- 21:56 Teaching Critical Thinking
- 26:08 Bias Trust and Agency
- 30:31 Guardrails and AI Teams
- 33:41 Final Takeaways
Palmer Media 2026-07-22 09:00:00
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