Experience Starvation

A recent Wall Street Journal article, "We All Hate Busywork. Now It’s Disappearing—and We Really Miss It," highlights a growing challenge managers are grappling with: "experience starvation." Managers realize a lot is lost when people don't get practice. Are we losing the ability to learn by doing, connecting, and collaborating? Is our tacit knowledge quietly disappearing with our reliance on AI for our busy work?  

As a talent and leadership development professional, the idea of AI replacing the "doing" is concerning. I’m not an AI doomer, but I do worry about the future of learning. Humans learn by doing, asking questions, building relationships, and working through problems together. What we often dismiss as "busywork" actually helps us encode knowledge in our brains—not just store it on a server. It sparks curiosity and creates opportunities for shared experiences.