He survived a performance improvement plan by refusing to abandon himself

Peter Harrison is a Senior Technical Support Specialist who designs systems that let people tell the truth about how they actually work without paying for it later. His early career lessons came from restaurant and retail floors where he learned that systems aren't abstract but lived in daily hustle. Peter works at Zapier building AI workflows and reflection tools, and over the past year has transformed from a performance improvement plan into building systems rooted in self-loyalty rather than self-abandonment.

Self-loyalty means designing systems that don't require people to abandon parts of themselves to be productive. Peter realised his career choices were made to please leadership or important people in his life, abandoning parts of himself he wasn't ready to stand up for. Many corporate systems don't honour the people in them, lifting up external elements while not supporting the actual workers. Building from self-loyalty means creating processes that support how people actually work rather than forcing them to contort themselves into ill-fitting boxes.

Stop interpreting friction as personal failure and start seeing it as a signal that something isn't working or communication needs to happen. When Peter faced a performance improvement plan, the hardest thing he confronted was himself and what kind of worker he wanted to be. He realised he'd been trying to expertly fit himself into systems not built for him, like adjusting mirrors to make his work look like what they wanted. The breakthrough came when he understood friction wasn't about his failure but about misalignment that needed addressing.

AI reflection bots built as survival scaffolding during crisis can become powerful team tools for making work clearer and safer. During his PIP, Peter built audit logs, AI workspaces, and chatbots through Zapier that helped him externalise ambiguity and stay grounded without performing through burnout. When he finally shared these tools with his team and colleagues, they became useful not as productivity hacks but as ways to make work more honest. What starts as personal coping mechanisms can evolve into systems that help others navigate similar challenges.

AI fluency success depends on understanding that AI amplifies existing cultural patterns rather than fixing broken systems. Organisations built on control and extraction will see AI surface their brittle parts faster, while those built on trust and clarity will see AI deepen those qualities. The differentiator won't be prompts or templates but discernment, knowing what to trust, how to verify, where boundaries are, and staying responsible without becoming brittle. The future isn't AI-first but human systems that honour our nervous systems with AI as a collaborator in reflection, not a substitute for it.

🙏 Special thanks to our podcast producer James McKinven! (get in touch for all your podcast needs, he’s really great!)