What makes work work? With Vikki Pink
5 questions on productivity, AI, people, strategy, transformation and change.
In a conversation on What Makes Work Work, I sat down with Vikki Pink, a seasoned Chief People Officer, most recently holding the role at the 50,000-person project solutions firm, Worley, from 2017 to July 2026.
Our conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How do you overcome AI implementation challenges?
Viv: Vikki, we all talk about AI, but actually getting teams to use it in ways that lead to improved outcomes is the tricky part. What do you find are the biggest challenges to AI implementation?
How do you overcome AI implementation challenges?
Vikki: I heard this morning that around 70 per cent of people in workplaces are using AI weekly, but only around 10 per cent are using it to its fullest potential.
Although I think it’s improving, there are still things we can be doing as organisations to help. The first is making a deliberate choice about where in the organisation we’re going to apply AI and where we can get the best value, then being very clear with our people about why certain teams and people have been given access.
The next piece, and I think organisations often underinvest in this, is the human side of the change that comes with AI. Do we need to bring in capability? What skills do we need to teach our people? Who needs access to what tools? Actually helping people understand what we’re doing and walk them through the change. That limits the fear – and there is always fear with new things, we’re certainly seeing that with AI. But it also gives people confidence, capability and trust in what’s actually happening.
And the people we choose to implement AI in the organisation need to be really close to the work. They’ve got to understand how the organisation ticks and have the capability to bring about the change from within.
Viv: I like how you think about it from the top, the bottom and the middle.
We need people thinking deliberately about where our focus should be and what is required across the organisation. We need enthusiastic people – and I couldn’t agree more with you about fear, it just paralyses people from using AI. But equally, we need people walking us through the messiness: in theory, it’s one thing, but in practice, it’s actually harder.
How do you bring together the plan on a page, the enthusiasm, and the people who can translate between them? I love that top, middle, bottom framework.
Vikki: I think that word you use, ‘messiness’, is exactly how it feels. But that's exciting because organisations are taking different pathways to achieve good outcomes.
And, organisations are learning from each other more than we’ve seen with significant change or new technologies in the past. There’s so much sharing and openness, and AI itself is making that a lot more accessible. Organisations can avoid repeating the errors or failures of others because it’s often all out there to read and understand.
How do you tell a story that gives meaning and purpose?
Viv: Vikki, most recently you’ve worked at Worley. In a large listed company, how did you think about motivating a sense of purpose in people?
Vikki: The answer is simple, but how you do it is not that simple. As a leader, you have to care about your people, deeply know the business and understand the strategic decisions that the business is making. Then, you have to make it make sense to your people.
When you think about the teams I led, particularly in a large business like Worley, they all had such different experiences.
So how do you make that story make sense to everybody? The thing I’ve learnt is that you need to make sure your expectations of what people can understand stay high; you don’t dumb it down.
Then, it is the job of a leader, to turn that into a story, and tell that story over and over again.
Each time you talk about a particular task or a project, you link it to that story so that your people always understand why they’re doing something. That is relevant for the big tasks just as much as when you might ask somebody to do something small.
How do you tell a story that gives meaning and purpose?
Viv: I really like what you say about not dumbing it down, but still repeating something over and over. We are all human, which means we are all intelligent and we do understand things, but we forget. So you need to repeat, but not dumb down, which I think we sometimes underestimate as organisations.
How do you give people challenge and growth?
Viv: Vikki, you’ve worked in large organisations where it’s very easy to get stuck doing the same thing, rely on one way of doing things and become an expert. This can mean you don’t grow or innovate, both of which I know you would agree, are important. How do you make sure that people get the challenge they need?
Vikki: Each of us owns our own growth and career, and I think that’s an important place to start from. The role of the leader and the organisation is then to provide the stretch, the growth and the opportunities for people to grab hold of, so that they’re able to achieve that.
That’s a very active role that organisations and leaders need to play.
There’s something I’ve learnt through experience, and I try hard to practise it in the teams I lead, which is: push people early. We sometimes think, ‘She’s not quite ready. Give her another year,’ But, my goodness, they are so ready.
I’ve always believed that when we set the bar, people tend to rise to that expectation. Giving people opportunities early, and not waiting for them to be perfect, makes a huge difference for people in their careers.
How do you give people challenge and growth?
Viv: I couldn’t agree more, Vikki. I think of it like a spectrum. On the one hand, you need to be challenged and feel invigorated by learning something new. On the other hand, you need the safety of knowing that you are good at this job because you’ve done it before and you bring something to it.
While I think there’s diversity among people in how much they like those two things, I believe everyone should always experience some combination of the two. We sometimes forget that because we want experience; we want someone who’s done something before. The first bit can be a little bit painful and unknown, but we need to grow people for their sake as well as the organisation’s, because then we end up with more productive leaders.
Vikki: Yes, and I think it’s just as pertinent for people inside the organisation as it is for people we bring in from the outside. Often leaders have a list of 45 things they want in a new person, and they’re not prepared to consider somebody unless they’ve got all 45 things. That’s just not realistic.
In actual fact, the things that make the difference are those human factors you need in the business, because that’s what builds and drives your culture.
What don’t we talk about enough in the workplace?
Viv: Vikki, I’m a fanatic for clear, direct and kind communication. What’s something that you think we don’t talk about enough in the workplace?
Vikki: There are two things that come to mind. The first is failure. We don’t talk easily about what went wrong and what we’ve learnt from that failure.
The second thing we don’t talk about is those really hard conversations around accountability, and around decisions that are made that will have significant consequences. These are the tough conversations that ultimately build trust and resilience in an organisation.
What we tend to do is skirt around issues. We’re too careful with egos or people. And yes, we should be kind in how we communicate, but we have to be straight.
Viv: I always say that kind is very different from polite: they are not synonymous. Polite is: I want to make you feel good in the moment by avoiding the conversation. But kind is: I’m going to say what you need to hear, whether it’s positive or negative, but I do it with the best intent.
Vikki, when you say both that we need to talk about failure and that we need to hold people accountable, are those two things in contradiction with each other?
What don’t we talk enough about in the workplace?
Vikki: No, I don’t think they are. I think the way that we talk about failure is critical. Rather than failure being bad or naughty, and people feeling shame around what has happened, it’s about putting that failure on the table as a normal business activity and consequence, and being very clear without pinpointing the person who might have been accountable for that failure.
Then there might be another conversation with that person, but as leaders we need to manage both conversations while keeping the person intact.
What have you changed your mind on over the years?
Viv: Vikki, you’ve been in the corporate sector for many years now, and you don’t become a senior leader without having strong views. What is something that you’ve changed your mind about over the years?
Vikki: The thing I have changed my mind about most, and it’s quite freeing actually, is where the best solutions come from for your business opportunities and challenges.
Today, I strongly believe these come from the people in your business who understand the work and customer. It’s at our peril to bring in a solution or decide something without really listening to those people who are close to the work.
And even more so, Viv, I’ve always thought that, as human beings, we know a fairly significant percentage of what the right answer is. If you believe that, then you listen, you bring the right people to the table, you throw around some ideas. And, you must not lose the ability to learn, because you would be at risk if you only ever worked with the ideas embedded in your business. But one of the loudest voices at that table should be those who are close to the work.
That’s something I’ve learnt through experience.
And so today, as a leader, I’m a huge advocate for making sure that the majority of decisions for the business are not made by the executive, but they are well informed by the people who are embedded in the business.
Viv: And not made by people like me, Vikki! So does that mean I’m out of a job?
Vikki: Ha, ha! No, the learning piece is important. The role of a consultant is absolutely critical. I think where we’ve gone wrong in the past is that we’ve made decisions in a room, and there have been some empty seats from the people who actually understand the work. So let’s fill those seats first, and then decide who else needs to be sitting around the table.
Viv: I tease you, Vikki! You make an important point about not bringing in “best practice” that doesn’t apply.
The other problem with external comparisons is that it means you can only be at the bar, you can never be higher than it. It doesn’t enable you to innovate, think outside the box and dream big.
Vikki: That’s right. One of the terms I have typically used is ‘right practice’. We need to understand best practice, but actually choose the right practice for the context of the business at the time.
One thing I’ve learnt and experienced in recent years, particularly as we’ve been making decisions, is that when somebody close to the work says, ‘That won’t work,’ … dig into that. Where is this coming from? Is it resistance to change? Or is it, more often than not, something they understand about the business or the operation that you don’t, which actually means what you’re looking at won’t work.
Viv: I think that’s such an important point as a senior leader, because as you get more senior, it’s very easy to think, ‘I’ve been around the traps. I’ve seen this many more times, and I know better,’ and to quickly assume away a problem.
That might help you make decisions quickly, but it can also lead you to make the wrong decisions. Sometimes there’s a bias towards quick decision-making because it takes time to see the outcomes. But ultimately, you should also care about the longevity of an outcome.
Viv: Thank you, Vikki. As I said to you the other day over coffee, I love our conversations, and it feels selfish not to share them. So it’s been generous of you to share your thoughts with us today.
Vikki: Thanks, Viv. I really enjoyed it.
Vikki Pink is former Chief People Officer at Worley.
Vivienne Groves is Managing Director of consulting firm, Ero Co.