Is a Digital Twin Coming for You & Your Job? - Allen Kamin - #178

[00:00:13] Hello friends of the podcast and welcome to Directionally Correct, a People Analytics Podcast with your host Cole Knapper and today's guest, Allen Kamin, Practice Leader of Organizational Effectiveness at Oracle. In this episode we will cover, is a digital twin coming for you and your job? And so I attribute this idea to you and when you guys, when you were at Google back in the day, talking about this concept of a digital twin.

[00:00:42] How every HR department doing its job can still add up to an organization that failed. So you wrote an article, every department within HR is doing its job and that's the problem. The day after problem of People Analytics, why faster, shinier dashboards may actually be making the field less impactful, not more. That is the day after problem for just creating the dashboard.

[00:01:09] And Allen's career spanning Google, Oracle, GE and APT Metrics. Working for APT Metrics and GE and then was recruited to go to Google. So at that time I moved. Now let's get down to business. Hey Directionally Correct fans, this podcast is dedicated to you to help democratize people intelligence for the world of work.

[00:01:31] If you're looking to support the podcast, please make sure to listen weekly, subscribe to the Directionally Correct Substack newsletter, sign up for the Data Driven HR Academy at datadrivenhracademy.com, purchase Cole's book, People Analytics or check out everything else at colenapper.com. Before we get into it, a quick word about HR Bench, the company powering this podcast.

[00:01:58] You know, when we all started in people analytics, we wanted to do strategic work, building predictive models, workforce planning, advising the C-suite and most of all, quantifying the impact for the business. Instead, we spend months building dashboards and reports that should already exist. HR Bench eliminates that entire phase. Your HRIS connects, your metrics calculate, your benchmarks populate. This is not novel. This is day one, not quarter two.

[00:02:27] That means skipping straight to prescriptive analysis, storytelling and taking action for the business. Want to learn more? Book a demo at hrbench.com slash Directionally Correct. Find out more about the company powering this podcast and building the future of people intelligence. As always, all opinions are our own and thanks for being a listener. Well, Alan, thanks for joining me today. Hey, no problem. I'm happy to be here. It's a long time coming, I think. It is.

[00:02:56] Like it's, it's, you say that it is a very, very long time coming because, uh, I originally saw you speak about the concept of digital twins way back in the past. Back in the day, about 10 years ago. And at the time it really kind of, we didn't know each other then. Uh, but it, it had always stuck in the back of my mind. And then we actually did meet. I mentioned that to you. And even that has been a long time coming. Cause I was like, I want to talk to you about this on the podcast. You were like, ah, I'm not sure.

[00:03:26] I don't know if I want to talk about this or, you know, the classic Alan lines, but I appreciate you being willing to join me today. And I'd love to hear that. So I, I attribute this idea to you. And when you guys, you were at Google back in the day, talking about this concept of the digital twin, how did you envision it back then? And what do you think about it now and how it's kind of manifesting in the world? Yeah.

[00:03:52] So just for context first, it was before my time at Google. I was at GE. Oh, sorry. Yeah. I think you were representative, but maybe it came from before then. Even before I was still at GE when I presented. Sorry. It's okay. It's 10 years ago. Yeah. And I don't expect you to remember everything about my career for sure. Yeah. Um, so, um, GE was going through this transformation.

[00:04:21] It was moving from, um, um, an industrial process oriented company was going through its digital revolution transformation. And I was sort of, you know, heavily involved in some of that work. Um, and one of the things that I noticed at the time was that they were putting sensors in all of their equipment. Uh, so, you know, imagine, uh, putting sensors in a locomotive. Yeah.

[00:04:48] With the idea of how can you use, um, machine learning and AI to improve the efficacy of the locomotive? Like, should it go, should you let less gas when you're going downhill? Yeah. And these really marginal improvements, uh, could produce, you know, millions of dollars of benefit for organizations. And at the time they talked about like creating a digital twin of this technology. And that sort of resonated with me.

[00:05:18] It was more than just a digital footprint at the time. Yeah. Which is, I think the language that we were talking about. And this is like circa 2016. Mm-hmm. And, um, I was getting the first time I delivered the presentation. Uh, it, I was going back to grad school. They invited me to come back and give an address. And I thought this would be really interesting to sort of talk about with students because it was, it felt like it was just so out there.

[00:05:43] Um, but the idea was, um, there was like digital transformation. There was, um, AI, there was behavioral data and our expertise around industrial organizational psychology and like how all of that was going to come together. And this really at the beginning, it's sort of, uh, registering an alarm like for the tsunami. Like I don't, I agree with you. I don't think too many people were seeing it or appreciating it, um, at that time.

[00:06:12] And I, I really am, uh, I really do appreciate that you, uh, you sort of recognize and, and give me some credit for seeing it. So, so early on giving voice to it. Um, uh, but yeah, so, so there were things like white, like at the time there was a lot about like, uh, routine process automation, but, but I sort of foresaw like white collar jobs were going to get impacted.

[00:06:38] And there was all of this ambient data that, uh, digital exhaust that we were creating. Um, and what could we do? What were the implications for our field? How was that going to disrupt, uh, what we were going to understand about people? Well, what did we, what did we do? What did you learn then? And then how has it evolved now? That's a great question. I mean, I think, I think there were some things that I was right about and, and, you know, it's so early.

[00:07:08] It's like, um, it's, it's blossomed in and had so many different tentacles in unexpected ways. Yeah. But I do think, uh, I, and there were some. Um, enhancements to the technology and, uh, that, that I never foresaw. Like, uh, I never understood that there was going to be these sort of generative chat. Uh, engines that you could interact with.

[00:07:37] Um, and how fast that could really, uh, take hold, um, and, and sort of disrupt like, you know, internet searching. I, I don't know how many people just do internet searches anymore. Um, and I, I did, I, uh, I think I got the timeframe a little bit wrong. Like I thought maybe it was like a five to 10 year transformation, but it's, it's clearly going to take longer than that. Yeah.

[00:08:02] Um, the other thing is, um, more recently is like a gentic AI and, um, and having AI co as coworkers. And what is that going to mean for how we make decisions within organizations? How do we trust? How do we manage? Um, and so, um, yeah, I think that's sort of some of the things that I, there was a lot I got right, but there were importantly, some things that have evolved since then that,

[00:08:30] um, that have importantly shaped the direction of where we're going. Well, let me tell you a story then. Um, so this is probably, this was early on in the podcast is when I first started accepting sponsorships. Uh, this company reached out to me and they said, Hey, we, uh, we are a people analytics tool and we primarily sell into it. And I was like, Oh, that's interesting. I've never heard of that. And they said, but we're trying to expand into more of the HR market.

[00:08:58] I'm like, okay, well tell me, tell me more about your tool. And they say, yeah. So what we do is we track all the mouse movements of employees and we track their video camera. And we, you know, basically anything that is on someone's screen, we use that. And I was like, cause I had heard of it tools that do this type of thing, but for security purposes and, and try to not have like IP leakage and all this type of stuff. Um, but I'd never heard of it for analytics.

[00:09:27] We're like, yeah, we find ways of like quantifying it and optimizing it, but don't worry. We're the ethical company doing this work. And I was like, wow, that's super creepy. And I was like, I I'm going to tell you right now, this is why, uh, HR hasn't bought your tool. Um, cause, uh, this, they're not going to be down for that. Then fast forward to this moment, that company has rebranded themselves as a digital twin tool. And I think they're doing fairly well.

[00:09:54] And I think we've even seen instances in the news lately of certain, you know, brand name companies utilizing that type of, you know, tracking people's mouse movements and all this type of stuff. Not just for during COVID when they were trying to see if people were still working, but actually to try to create again, digital twins of folks at work. Yeah. Was that what you envisioned Alan? Alan? I, that I think that yes, I think I did envision some of that.

[00:10:23] And I mean, maybe not exactly the way you were describing it, but certainly, um, there's all sorts of ambient data, digital exhaust that gets created in the course of us doing our job. So at the time it was probably, I was thinking about it in terms of, uh, web like searches and iterations that you might be doing, um, as an indication of, um, job search, um, or, um, or

[00:10:49] some of what we've seen from sort of passive data where you could be like, are you lucky? Are you tending to work outside of normal business hours? Who are you collaborating with? Um, um, but unless I think you're right, there is a big issue and especially through COVID that came up through surveillance and there were some companies that, you know, would sell things that would, um, jiggle. I think they're called like something.

[00:11:16] So they'd make you seem like you're at your desk, even if you're not at your desk. Um, and, uh, I, I think there's been some, you know, articles in the New York times several years ago about, uh, uh, about this particular issue. Um, and then you go back to like higher, I think even in the same conference where I did the digital disruption, uh, presentation back in 2016, 2017. Uh, that was when higher view was talking about using facial micro micro expressions to help,

[00:11:45] uh, augment the information available for structured interviews. Yeah. That was Ben Taylor. He was a prior guest of the podcast and Alexa being put together that the side bleeding edge consortium back then, who's been a guest on the podcast. We finally got you on the podcast, Alan. Yeah. You know, what was weird about that for me is I, and even preparing for this, this podcast has been helpful is like 10 years ago.

[00:12:11] That, well, my takeaway from that conference is I was really the outlier that there were a lot of people there who were talking about. HR reporting. Mm-hmm . And, um, and, and you know, there's still a lot of people who associate people analytics with HR reporting and that analytics, uh, side of things. And, and I think that I was talking about something that was a lot deeper and more substantive than, than, than that was.

[00:12:41] And, um, it's all, it's, it's almost as I reflected on it. It's also made me like a little more reluctant to accept people analytics as the brand of what I do or where I focus my attention, which I think was probably, uh, as I've reflected on it for this podcast, probably like the wrong, the wrong impression. Like I should have been more embracing all of that and seeing it as a, a continuum. Or maybe you shouldn't have.

[00:13:10] I mean, I actually love and sort of resonate with that perspective. And recently I wanted to, first of all, say, thank you so much. You have started kind of writing publicly again, and you've been hearing some really, really great stuff. And I think that's a, it's a decent segue to the first article that I wanted to cover with you today about people analytics as a day after problem. Right. And I think this actually gets to the point that you were making, uh, about, you know, am I a people analytics person at all?

[00:13:40] Should I have embraced it? Should I have not? Can you, can you talk about kind of the thesis of that article really quick and maybe share it with the audience? Yeah. So, um, and we're going to get into this later, you know, there are like things in my life that happen, uh, that I sort of, you know, draw a connection to, um, to what I do in work.

[00:14:02] And this, this is what, you know, this was right at the time, um, when the war with Iran was breaking out or being contemplated. And, um, you know, I lived through 9-11. I lived through the Iraq war. I lived through it, you know, Afghanistan and all of that.

[00:14:22] And, you know, what became clear going back to those is, you know, the easiest thing is, uh, for the military to make significant progress against their targets. What's harder is the, to actually create the foundational change, the transformation within those countries that, uh, the political leaders are hoping for. And that connected to me with respect to like a people analytics lens.

[00:14:50] And that's why it's called like people analytics as a day after problem, because that's sort of the way they talk about what happens after the airstrikes and the military goes in.

[00:14:58] And so to me, it was, uh, there are lots of things that I seeing and hearing and reading about with respect to all of these new, uh, tools like Claude AI and other tools that are making the creation of dashboards just like infinitely easier and infinitely better than what we might've been able to do historically.

[00:15:22] And, and, and what I was thinking was like, that's great, but that's not the problem we need to solve. The problem we need to solve is does that lead to better decisions? Does it, and, and that is the day after problem, uh, for just creating the dashboard is how are you, how does that actually matter for the people who are making decisions?

[00:15:47] And if you're bringing better data faster to people who aren't paying attention to the data anyway, then what have you really accomplished? Yeah. I mean, it sounds like it's almost like we've graduated from doing that type of work and moving on to something else. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that, so your new company, HR bench, right? Yeah.

[00:16:12] I mean, when I was at Cerner and we were in the process of like spending an inordinate amount of time of building dashboards. And I use, again, using metaphors and talking about things. I was like, for us, we were spending so much time building like, and so if I was using like an analogy of the car, like we're just trying to get the wheels on the car. We're trying to get the windshield wipers to work. We're trying to make sure that it can drive five miles down the road.

[00:16:42] Those are not really interesting things to know about a car. Like, wouldn't it be great to know how fast, how long does it skid in rain or how fast can it take a corner or what's its acceleration from zero to 60? We were spending so much time building that we were preoccupied with that and not able to get to the deeper level insights.

[00:17:06] And so I really like these fit for purpose tools and think that there's huge advantage to doing that because as the developer, you're never going to get to the place of these fit for purpose tools as fast and as effectively. And why are we spending so much time on these really tactical, difficult issues that prevent us from scaling and influencing the decision makers?

[00:17:32] I mean, that's been my experience and something that I really learned and used to talk about. Yeah, absolutely. I love that perspective. And I actually think it's a decent segue into one of the other things that you wrote around HR systems being optimized for approval, not for use. Yeah. And so they're not necessarily fit for a solution. They're fit for sale.

[00:17:59] There was something you wrote about in here I thought was very clever, a line I'd never heard before. Where is it? Let me see if I can find it. And it was like they're optimized for what can be sold, not for what they can do or something like that. Oh, yeah. It's like HR systems are designed for people choosing them. They're not designed for people using them after a long day. And I thought that was so clever. But I don't know. What did you think about this one, Alan? Yeah.

[00:18:27] So, again, this is something that sort of landed on me after I sort of started thinking about it. And even as I was writing it, you know, I've been in the position of purchasing systems. Like, you know, I ran some employee listening programs at some pretty big companies.

[00:18:52] And, you know, we used to interview and review submissions of RFPs. And, you know, importantly, it was me who was looking at these proposals and evaluating their proposals and making decisions about them, including, you know, some other people who would come in. But importantly, it was me and, you know, what are the things that I want from these systems? What are the things that I'm looking for?

[00:19:18] That became, you know, an overrepresented piece of the pie with respect to how the decision was making. And I was like, wait a second. Shouldn't I have had managers at the table? Because I'm just one user, maybe the super user of the system who might need to go in there and do things as well as some of my, you know, colleagues throughout the company. But this isn't for us. This is for them.

[00:19:47] Like, if you think about the value proposition of a listening program is to make change in the company, in the employee experience. And yet those people aren't at the table, aren't helping to influence the decision.

[00:20:00] So it's being optimized for me as a technical super user who wants all of these bells and whistles, which may be maximizing outcomes and features, which the manager or the HR business partner or any other stakeholder who's using the tool isn't isn't getting an opportunity to weigh in on.

[00:20:22] And I was like, boy, if I had to do this again, those in, you know, in whatever system it is, those individuals need to be at the table or we at least at a minimum.

[00:20:37] We really need to understand and empathize deeply with what our users experience and and and develop that over time to be able to really make the best possible decisions. I think so much of what we do, regrettably.

[00:20:59] Is we design from the inside out instead of the outside in and it creates and then, you know, there's other articles that I wrote about like validity. Without utility. I've I somehow joke that my superpower is complexity. OK, you know, not in just the sense that if I'm an IO psychologist, there are lots of things that are important to me that I want to see in a system.

[00:21:30] And yet that gets in the way of it actually being usable. Yeah. And and so, you know, the best that I can do is surround myself with people who are different than myself, like multidisciplinary teams. It's critical to push back and collaborate on these ideas and also really be very clear about who are the users of the system and who are you designing for and and how are you solving their frustrations and challenges?

[00:22:00] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I have a big thank you to say to you, you actually made a few key introductions to prior guests of the podcast. I'm thinking of folks like Alan Colquitt, which is just one of our all time great episodes. I mean, it's just amazing. And and so I see you as one of one of these like low key hyperconnected people in the psychology community. So first of all, I wanted to say thank you.

[00:22:25] But I also wanted to ask, you know, what's been your involvement with PSYOP and like why do you stay involved over the years? Yeah. You know, thank you. I appreciate that. And I remember being shouted out as like a friend of the pod back in the. You're still a friend. I listened. I listened. I listened to Alan. I listened to Harold and Charles talk about the NFL. And, you know, there are other people, you know, even James Gallman. Yeah. I know you knew him, but, you know, helped. And I think it's it's great.

[00:22:55] I mean. I. I'm passionate about. What we do. And I love talking about what we do. I'm also a little bit for whatever reason, restless about what we do. And through my career, I've been able to work as an external consultant. I've been able to.

[00:23:19] And, you know, through that, meet, meet clients, meet other vendors, have practitioners who I was able to work with. And then I've spent time working in with with in industry association groups. So like the Mayflower Group or SIOP, for example. And, you know, my my experience with SIOP goes back to the early 90s. You know, I I went to grad school in 1992. I met my wife.

[00:23:48] You know, the best decision I ever made in my whole life was, you know, meeting meeting Susie and, you know, asking her to marry. I mean, that's, you know, pay dividends. Well, that's a lady. I'm so sorry for her. You're not the only one who thinks that. But and so, you know, I've been going to SIOP not every year, but, you know, pretty regularly and consistently and been able to meet people.

[00:24:18] You know, in most of the SIOPs that I go to, I try to present something. And that invariably involves some collaboration with people, sometimes new people, sometimes people who I don't really know really well. And that's fun. And I enjoy that. Put piecing together the ideas. You know, I don't always love the outcome of the reviews, as I'm sure you know. It can be a little bit sketchy. And but, you know, it's been a great organization.

[00:24:45] I've been able to meet lots of people, connect with people. I would, you know, have it's it's over time. It's become much more of a social thing for me and the opportunity to see people and reconnect with people. In fact, you know, it was just in New Orleans. I had the opportunity to go there. I was able to go and connect with former colleagues at the APT Metrics Party and say hello to John and Kathleen.

[00:25:12] I was able to go to the Akron Party and and Gerald Barrett was there. I don't know if you remember Dr. Barrett or if you know of him, but, you know, he's pretty prolific, accomplished accommodation. He he and practitioner. He was my wife's advisor. And, you know, it hasn't hasn't been at the last number of sites. But it was, you know, amazing. Why sage? I just saw my title. You're welcome.

[00:25:41] But, you know, it's been a really enriching opportunity to to connect with people and nurture those relationships over time. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's it's that's why people go back year after year. You know, I think about. When you and I, I guess, was that the first time we met? Maybe it was. I'm not sure. But Alexis had invited me out to speak to her team out in San Francisco.

[00:26:05] And, you know, I had always had in my mind in the people analytics community that there was really like two kind of key hubs. It was like New York. And then but really it was San Francisco back in the day, because that's where all the heavy hitters were. And I just assumed because there's such a vibrant community. They're like everybody knew everybody else. So I flew out there. I hosted this dinner. You were there.

[00:26:28] It was Alexis, a bunch of other like really key leaders at some of the top companies and nobody knew any anybody else. And I thought that was so strange. And I was like, I assume that you guys were like the cabal, the Illuminati of, you know, the people analytics community and you're scheming behind the scenes. No, complete strangers. And I thought that was so funny. That was a you're right. That was how we met.

[00:26:52] Actually, it was through a it was through a psyop collaboration that I had met Nicholas Bremner. Yeah, that's what it was. And he and and he recommended that I come. I had known Alexis. And Nicholas, also a friend of the podcast, previous guest. Totally. And and, you know, that was an that's an amazing thing that you do.

[00:27:15] You know, I was really impressed that you, you know, not just for your job, but I think even on a personal basis, there's these events that you like to hold, which bring people together and just sort of get to know each other and talk and about things we have in common. You know, I notice I haven't been asked back. But you're out there telling my secrets. I don't talk about these things most of the time.

[00:27:37] But for me, it was, you know, I had lived in Connecticut for 20 years working for APT Metrics and GE and then was recruited to go to Google. So at that time, I moved to California in 2017. So that was really my first opportunity to interact with people. Really, some of the more senior, highly visible people in the Bay Area, like Kevin and Sarah. Great.

[00:28:07] And that was that was I still see Kevin. I see Sarah around. We've gone out. Sarah and I had lunch together a few months ago. So, you know, thank you. I really benefited from that meeting. Oh, that was it was fantastic. It was a great group of people. I try not to name people who haven't been guests on the podcast. I don't embarrass them unless they're, again, friend of the podcast level like you are, Alan. So thank you so much for being who you are. I guess.

[00:28:37] I don't know. Do you want to talk about any of the other articles that you wrote or would you like to move into Cole's Corner? Well, what I'm easygoing. What's your preference? Yeah, I guess I did want to hit on one more just because I've got you here and I just, you know, I would kick myself if I didn't. You wrote this one about I just love these. You mentioned you're like a like a really complex thinker. You're like addicted to complexity.

[00:29:04] And it's when you get to this kind of systems thinking approach, you come up with some of these interesting conclusions. And so you wrote an article. Every department within HR is doing its job. And that's the problem. And so you sort of diagnose this from a systems lens that, you know, every team in HR can be doing the right things and we can still come to kind of the wrong outcome as a business. And so I want to give you a chance to just talk about that really quickly because I love findings like this. Yeah.

[00:29:33] So, I mean, I'm Canadian. I don't know if you can see the Canadian flag or in the background. So I adapted the analogy to hockey. But actually, the first time I heard it, it was about a soccer team. And the idea was if you show people the striker of a soccer team, they're going to ask them what is the goal of this person's or what's their role? They'll say, well, their job is to score the goal.

[00:30:01] And if you ask the defense and you say, well, what's their job? They say it's to, you know, stop people from shooting the ball. And if you ask what's the goaltender job, they'll say, well, it's to stop the ball going in that giant net. And then if you show them a picture of the whole team and you ask what's their role, they'll say. And then it's like there's like a light bulb that goes off. And it's like, oh, it's not about any one of those individual jobs. It's about winning. That's what the team is there for.

[00:30:30] And, you know, what I've sort of experienced more over my career is the HR as an HR function. And, you know, my experience is definitely biased towards, you know, big global companies, you know, 24,000 to 300,000 people companies. But what happens is, is every individual department in HR is like trying to maximize what they can do.

[00:31:00] And, you know, as an IO psychologist, we're like also restless. So even when we're not, even when something's the same, we've still tweaked it some way to make it different the next time it goes around. So because we are always like on this continuous improvement journey. But all of that creates a tax or a load on the people who need to use it.

[00:31:25] You know, when we were at GE, there was an expression that we used to talk about, which was, you know, corporate would cough and the businesses would catch pneumonia. You know, like, oh, we're just doing one simple thing. But the businesses were responsible for sort of implementing that and landing it. And so what occurred to me is in these big companies, what you need is someone who is like the governor of the system to say, we are doing too much.

[00:31:54] And what would be the five most critical things that the HR function should go after? And let's work to maximize those things. So, you know, like when these leaders sit around the table and think about who is your team, they're likely to say, if you ask the CHRO, who's your team? They're going to say, well, it's the HR function. And if you ask the CIO, they're going to say, well, it's the technology organization. But those individuals are actually a team.

[00:32:24] That C-suite or any direct reports to a leader are themselves a team. And that team needs to trade off and share ideas and support each other, even if it means Alan doesn't maximize what's best for him. What might be because that is what's best for the team. And so I think we need to see more of that.

[00:32:48] And that part and that is absolutely critical in today's like world, which is I mean, it's like VUCA on steroids as far as I'm concerned. Like we used to use VUCA, but now it's just the and. The methods that we adopt or that we learned about and try to apply to organizations are no longer relevant. Like there's a sort of mentioned this, maybe alluded to it earlier.

[00:33:16] We we the those techniques of how we have implemented things in the past are no longer effective, given the bandwidth that the average manager and employee has inside of an organization. And so to me, that's a design problem. And I think the way I've seen people try to hack it is by saying it's a change management problem.

[00:33:45] But it's not a change. It's a design problem. We need to be more rigorous in how we're designing our tools. We need to work in the real world. And evaluate ourselves based on the extent to which they do or don't. I love that. That there's so much wisdom in there from the wise age. Why say Yoda? I need a Yoda. You need like a little Yoda emoji, I guess.

[00:34:15] Well, Alan, you want to join me in Cole's Corner? Yes. Cole's Corner. Let's go. Welcome to Cole's Corner. All right. Let's start out with some rapid fire. If you weren't doing what you're doing today, so I was psychology, people analytics. What would you have done with your career? Yeah. This is one of your favorite go to questions. Yeah. I ask it in every guest. So, yeah, I guess you could say that.

[00:34:45] I think it's a sort of it could be two answers. So one is I love skiing. It's been a passion of mine throughout my life. So and in fact, between undergrad and grad school, I actually spent a season skiing in Whistler. So I think that there's something about like being in the mountains, maybe a ski patrol. That would be one.

[00:35:08] The other is, I think, maybe building houses or something like having like working through the motions to like have been like a day laborer sort of thing to then maybe some sort of trade to then figure out how to like, you know, build a house and keep it and do it according to code and so on. And I think that, you know, those could be two different things. Maybe it's building homes in the mountains. Yeah.

[00:35:37] I think we can make this happen. I feel like there's a feedback loop there that's positive. All right. Well, I mean, we haven't said this yet. And by the way, this is like a coming out, right? Because, you know, with all of the changes that's been going on in the world and the big downsizing that's happened, you know, unfortunately, in the beginning of April, I was one of the twenty nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine people who was let go from Oracle.

[00:36:06] So I'm primed and ready for a second career or, you know, a continuation of my current career. So I don't know how many people in the building industry watch your podcast, but if they do. Call Alan. He's looking for, you know, the summers to be building homes and in the winters being a ski instructor. So there you go. There you go. What's the place you've never been to that you most like to go and why? I mean, there's so many places.

[00:36:34] It's actually one of the biggest regrets that I am so poorly traveled. So I would love to go to Italy. I'd love to go to Scotland and like spend a night in a castle. I'd love to go to Vietnam and Thailand.

[00:36:55] And, you know, I think that's one of the things that I've really when I look back on my life and my career, there's sort of two things that I wish I had been doing more. I need to do the more. One is when I was a little kid, I got to go to overnight camp and I stopped going there too soon. I should have continued to go to overnight camp because it was an amazing, wonderful experience. And the other is is is like travel.

[00:37:22] I think there's nothing more enriching and wonderful than going to other places, seeing what their people are like, seeing what the history is like. So absolutely. There's just too many places I'd like to go to name. See now. Now we have to know why you quit going to overnight camp. This is going to sound funny, actually. All right. Another another reveal. Well, so I failed grade nine math and French and had to go to summer school.

[00:37:51] Yes, I was a dumb kid. Or at least my self-impression is I was a dumb kid. And I don't know how I found my path to what I've been able to accomplish. But maybe that was the awakening that I needed to better focus on school. But I always felt like there's the ability to get information in your head. And then there's the ability to get that information out of your head and do well on a test.

[00:38:17] And it took me a long time to figure out how to go from what was in my head to doing well on a test. And that was really challenging. But I think I was all, you know, coincidentally, when I reflect back on it, I was like all about mastery performance or mastery and less about performance. So I knew and had confidence that I was learning this stuff, despite the fact that my grades weren't showing it.

[00:38:45] And so once that clicked, I think things got a lot better. But so that I skipped a year of camp and then never went back and just continued to work. Yeah, I guess you had to get out of that mastery mindset and you just got to kick it somehow. But no more overnight camp for Alan. So sorry. Sorry. I'm so fascinated by that.

[00:39:10] If you were if you were a character in any book, TV show or movie, who would you be and why? But I think I'd like to be Larry David. OK, I think. Yeah, I think I there's there's a part of me that enjoys being a little grumpy. Yeah. Guy affiliated with two of the funniest shows of all time. It's not a bad guy to want to be, you know, affiliated with. But did you see that? He's I just was watching HBO and there was like a tease of something where he's doing something with Obama.

[00:39:40] I don't know. That's something I saw. I watched too much TV. OK. Is that an interview show like David Letterman or something? Or like, what is it? It wasn't clear to me based on the teaser. OK, interesting. Yeah. Larry David's a good one. So do you resonate more with writer Larry David from Seinfeld or the actor Larry David from, you know, Curb? Curb. Curb. Definitely the Curb. Yeah. No, that's awesome. I love it. That's anyone.

[00:40:09] Has anyone else ever given Larry David their answer? No. That's a good one, though. I love it. All right. Well, I got one big question for you. I'm kind of going full circle back to the digital twins. Do you think the digital twins will ever get good enough to actually replace a knowledge worker in their entirety? And if so, why? If not, why? Yeah. Can I ask?

[00:40:38] Can I answer a slightly different question? Which is. I may ask you again. But yeah. All right. The different question is. Like, where are we with all of the angst around digital disruption and AI agents and what's happening there? And how are we progressing in that path? Okay. Is that a rhetorical question or you actually want me to answer that? I have a, I mean, I have an answer to it.

[00:41:08] I have a different question for you. But, but I'm, I'm interested in your answer to that because I know you, it's a question you've asked a lot of people. So I've been talking so much. Why don't you take a turn and answer what I think. I still want to get your answer to this too. Not that I'm trying to pin you against the wall or something. I just think that very few people are uniquely qualified to talk about this as much as you are. Yeah.

[00:41:30] But the way I think about it is there's like some kind of like karmic damage that is done to a human being when they have to like, and this, this didn't just exist because of AI. Like where you like train a person who is like cheaper than you to do your job and then they fire you. Like there's something karmically harmful about that. That is just like, so, I don't know. It's like unforgivable in a way.

[00:41:54] And I find a lot of folks are now like being asked to essentially train at AI to do their jobs for them. And the, I think there's a lot that's overblown about that because, and this is why I asked the question in the first place. I don't think digital twins right now can do a full job. I just don't think they can. I think they can do aspects of a job.

[00:42:14] And I think it's fully within the organization's rights and the people who it's being trained to do that because honestly, most of the stuff that a digital twin can do right now is pretty inane, boring, transactional stuff that a human being probably shouldn't have ever had to do in the first place. Right? Yeah. And so it's not, it's not the worst thing ever.

[00:42:32] But the reason I asked the question is because most every job has a mixture between the transactional and the strategic high cognitive type of work that you need to be able to do effectively. And so I just wonder if we ever think that a digital twin is going to be able to do all of that. And then there's kind of this aspect of mimicry. Like, is it a digital twin that's training on the role or is it a digital twin that's you?

[00:43:00] You know, that it is trying to mimic and be you. And I think that sort of creeps people out a little bit. But I actually don't think that they're, most of the time they're training to be the role, not training to be you. Yeah. That's a great answer.

[00:43:16] I think the way that we are approaching the issue now is we're trying to automate very specific aspects of a value stream or workflow. Yeah. And so AI can help with a very little part of our work, but it can't do the whole soup to nuts of what needs to be done. Yeah.

[00:43:45] And it requires context and the ability to navigate issues that are outside of its awareness. So currently now, there's no way a digital twin can replace a knowledge worker. It's a problem.

[00:44:13] We're not solving the problem end to end. There's also a part of me that feels like the problem, the way we're solving problems may not even maximize the outcomes that we're intending. Yeah.

[00:44:27] You know, like if what we're doing is so much activity that under these rituals that we think lead to these outcomes, but they don't, then the augmentation of AI into this system is only going to create more complexity and the wrong outcome. Yeah. I mean, it's like your soccer example from earlier, right? Like we're as a team, we're trying to win the game, not just trying to optimize any individual task.

[00:44:57] And I think you have, you run the risk of running afoul of that under the current model for sure. Yeah. And sort of like if I was 10 years ago saying, and you know, everything is accelerating, you know, the, I'm sure I can't be the first person who say on your podcast who has said today is the slowest that technology is going to move for the rest of our lives.

[00:45:18] But, you know, I had a vision 10 years ago where we were going to be and we've moved there, but there's been far less progress than what I had ever entertained in important ways and in entirely different progress in other ways.

[00:45:38] And I don't, I mean, I think the tech companies are taking advantage of an opportunity to let go of people because they're, you know, not so many as a generality, not so good at getting rid of talent and like managing out lower performance and whatnot. And so I think they're taking advantage of this current environment to lean out their workforces more than anything.

[00:46:06] I don't think it's, I don't think AI is helping as much as they think in terms of improving the overall productivity of the workforce. Couldn't agree more. And I remember I wrote an article a few years ago now called workforce planning and tech layoffs. And essentially there was only one kind of tech company that hasn't done a whole bunch of layoffs since because they actually manage their talent effectively and it's Apple. Right.

[00:46:33] And every other one just was kind of cowboy, loosey goosey, hire on a whim, scale up, throw money at a problem. And then lo and behold, it's like, oh, now we got to overcorrect. And I just always saw it as a lack of good workforce planning foundations. And so, you know, it's not surprising. Have you had people from Apple on to talk about like their effectiveness in terms of being able to manage talent or manage people out of talent?

[00:47:01] We had Amit Mohindra who used to leave workforce planning at Apple back in the day and he didn't mention it, but that was years ago now. So, yeah, we could probably say they were he thought that they were good at managing our talent. I think he was saying that they have a very judicious process and I'll I try not to name my former employers, but I think this makes them look in a positive light. When I worked at Toyota, they had a very similar philosophy. You just don't hire new positions unless you absolutely have to.

[00:47:29] And therefore, you can never have too much slack in the rope of the organization. And so I think Apple maintains kind of pretty similar philosophy. And that's why they never get to this point where they just have this excess of tens of thousands of people to let go. Welcome to the Hire Her Podcast, where women and talent call all the shots. We know another recruiting podcast, just what the industry needs. OK, but hear us out.

[00:47:53] You ever spend hours sourcing that perfect candidate, but they end up ghosting you harder than your hinge date? Or finally, you get that hiring manager feedback only for them to, of course, say, can we see more candidates? Lame, right? But let's talk about what's really lame in the industry. How is it that 65 percent of recruiters are brilliant women, yet most of the decision makers look like a convention for middle aged dudes named Brad? That's where we come in. Hire Her isn't just another podcast about hiring trends.

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[00:48:53] So subscribe now, because middle management Brad sure as hell isn't going to do it for you. Yeah. But let's do some what am I reading? So the first one I've got for you is from Chris Martin, who is a senior economist at Glassdoor. And so he made a post about Glassdoor satisfaction ratings, which I thought was interesting. It says, hate your job, find a new one.

[00:49:21] I know it's easier said than done, but this is your best shot at falling back in love with work again. And so what they did is they analyzed all the one and two star ratings. So on a five, five star scale of people who moved jobs within the same employer and then switch jobs to a new employer to see how those star ratings of satisfaction changed over time.

[00:49:47] And so within the same employer, very few people from a one and two star rating moved up to a three, four or five star. However, upon switching employers, the one and two star ratings were almost equivalent between five, four, three, two and one star. So essentially, you kind of have more of a luck of random chance, essentially, when you move to a new job of how satisfied you're going to be in between employers. And I thought this was interesting.

[00:50:17] I've never kind of seen this type of research at scale from a company like Glassdoor. So I thought this one was fairly interesting. How did you react to this one, Alan? I think the results are sort of intuitive or makes it, you know, as most survey results should, they should resonate. So if you if you don't like your job and you go to a new place, you're more likely to like your job.

[00:50:42] And if you don't like your job and you you stay in the same place, you're likely to continue not to like your job. I also think, though, like having the benefit of doing. You know, large scale employee listening programs, you know, you can look at the key drivers, you can look at key drivers by segments and, you know, what you can. Which I think is actually a little. I like that data better than exit data.

[00:51:11] Exit survey data. But one of the things you see is like, you know, for the average individual contributor, the things that they're looking for is meaningful work and career development opportunities and trust and confidence in senior leaders. And when you look at more senior leaders or executives, what they're looking for is, you know, they want to buy into the strategy of the company. And I think that, you know.

[00:51:36] Glassdoor can only go so deep in terms of what it can see based on and based on the data that they looked at. And I applaud them for trying to mine their data and distill critical insights. But I think the magical recipe for any individual company might be a little bit different. And I think those companies that are using their engagement surveys and can look at, you know, proxies for predictions of turnover or retention might be able to see some more meaningful, different things that are important to the company.

[00:52:06] Oh, absolutely. The thing is funny is like people always say, you know, you don't quit a company or you don't quit a job. You quit your manager. Right. And this actually says the opposite, which is even if you switch your manager, even if you switch your job, you're at the same company, you're still going to be miserable. And I thought that was just sort of funny that I really haven't seen that in the research out there about this type of stuff that maybe you don't hate your role. Maybe you just hate where you work.

[00:52:35] And if you switch places, you know, again, it doesn't ensure that you're going to move up and be satisfied, but it at least gives you a random chance of being satisfied, which sometimes is good enough. Right. Yeah. Well, I think the key is like this is something that another aspect of it that sort of resonated with me was and this is something maybe that I look backwards on my career a little bit, which is, you know, why did I leave the companies that I left?

[00:53:02] Because most of the companies that almost every company I left that I left, I really enjoyed working with the people and I really enjoyed the work. You know, I was looking to for career development and other opportunities. But fundamentally, as I look back at my career and think about what I'm looking to do next, it's like the opportunity to do meaningful work with great people is the magical recipe.

[00:53:30] And so, you know, don't take for granted because I think it's risky. The real message is it's risky. If you like your job and I'm interested to hear how many people you come into contact with that actually like their current job. But if you like your job, the chances of you finding a better job in today's world is risky. Yeah, it is risky. And but luckily, every person I talk to likes their job. So I would I would never tattle on anyone.

[00:53:59] But let's move on to the next one. Again, I just I have to give personnel psychology credit. They're one of the few academic journals, in my opinion, that is always doing research that has an impact on the real world. And so this is a recently published article from Teresa Wellborn and a few other folks came out in February of this year. And it's called Optimizing Human Resource Conditions for 20 Year Initial Public Offering Survival.

[00:54:27] So essentially, they went back to 1996 and studied a cohort of longitudinal archival data based on companies that went IPO in that year to study what are some of the factors that go into whether a company who goes public actually survives into the future and what what what you know, what doesn't impact that.

[00:54:51] And so they found that prior research looked at objective measures such as the company structure or the compensation systems and use that to predict post post post post IPO survival. But one of the things that they looked into is the executives values and how much that imprints on the organization as to whether or not the company is successful post IPO. And what they found is that there's support for this.

[00:55:19] So essentially, the value of the executives values on and kind of the human resource condition is what they called it does have an impact 20 years later. And so I thought that this was fascinating. Again, really cool research going into into this subject. But what did you think about about this one, Alan? Well, first, kudos for getting me to go back and look at a peace psych article. You're welcome. Long overdue.

[00:55:49] And congratulations to you for, you know, keeping that within the repertoire of of things that you like to continue to keep top of mind. So I like the article. I thought, you know, the idea that sense of urgency and valuing employees are both both things that are exist within organizations and how do those play out over time. And that both end up being important.

[00:56:19] I actually thought. My impression was, what about like outcome oriented? Like that to me would have maybe that sort of rhymes a little bit with sense of urgency. But, you know, you can be running off and doing lots of things with a sense of urgency with focused on the wrong thing. Yeah.

[00:56:41] So but to the you know, so there was a little bit of like I was that's what really made me wonder is like, isn't there was probably an alternate value whether or not it could be coded or not? I'm not sure. Yeah. But that to me was was probably more important than sense of urgency. I also thought that there was an interesting if I if I read it correctly, there was an interesting role of the HR business partner, which was or the human resource executive, which was both needed to be there.

[00:57:09] And they were both largely set by the executive. But the human resource executive sort of played a role in making sure that the company was not overly employee centric. Interesting. And I didn't know that.

[00:57:27] Yeah, I think that may have been a part of it, which so there's like that, you know, I always think about like a footprint analysis, like a footprint analysis where, you know, what is the there can be too much employee centricity. There can be too. And so how do you how do you make sure that that they stay within the right balance? Great. Great. That employee centricity is in there.

[00:57:53] I love that because I've I've I would love to feel that more. Yeah. In the organizations today that they do care about their employees. Yeah, they are. And then they're not just paying lip service to the employee experience. And in today's environment, it just it feels like it's, you know.

[00:58:15] So business performance and quarterly earnings is what dominates every every aspect of the organizational life. And I think that is. Yeah. So let me get my theory on this. I don't think I've ever spoken about this publicly. People who know me or close to me realize I have like theories on everything. I don't necessarily share them all the time. But I have this theory that leaders of HR and I think it's related to what we're talking about.

[00:58:43] Like CHROs don't actually work in HR and they don't lead HR. And and it's because their direct reports are what responsible for kind of the key pillars of HR. So there's a VP of talent management. They do talent management. They control that for the organization. Talent acquisition does the same thing. Compensation does the same thing. Yada, yada, yada. There's multiple usually multiple leaders of different segments of the HR business partner community. They lead for their respective functions.

[00:59:11] And the CHRO manages the relationships amongst the executive team. And so it is not really within their remit even to be employee centered or not employee centered because frankly, their job is doing something completely different because it's actually their direct reports who are running HR for the organization who would dictate whether or not they're employee centered or not. And so I don't know, I don't think I've ever shared that publicly before. But what do you think about that, Alan?

[00:59:42] I think there's a you know, that's a nice it's a good it's a good framework. One of the things that I've maybe to complement it that I've also observed is some of the best HR, the people who I've seen rise the ranks and become among the best HR business partners. Actually started in finance.

[01:00:07] And they had a deep, you know, and then they they realized they had a foundational knowledge of that and then they became really interested in the people side of how the organization was running.

[01:00:18] But I think there's something that there's something about like understanding how the business runs, what makes the business successful from that C-suite CEO lens and this and the CFO lens that and then leveraging that to also understand what that means from a human capital point of view. And it's a super challenging job. You know, they have to be they can't just be the employee advocate. They're the business advocate first.

[01:00:47] But there's this tension between them and and they can't show up in that environment and being like, you know, the they lose all credibility if they're only talking about things from the employee's point of view. So it's not an easy job.

[01:01:06] I think some of the things that you were saying are correct, that they they do play this important role in helping the executive team operate. And I actually see that in my wife, who's a VP of HR for a startup here and the types of things that she gets involved in. But I also think that they deeply wear a business hat and think about the business.

[01:01:33] And I think about like when CHRO is used to give updates at employee meetings or in their all hands. The very first thing that they do is they talk about the state of the business. Exactly. Yep. And and and and and I think just one other thing is going back to this point that we made earlier around. The technical rigor that specialists and people in COEs tend to impose into their processes and products and systems.

[01:02:01] I think that one of the things that people who have been in those CEO or see COE roles who then progress into the CHRO role is they they find a better balance between how to how to manage the key elements of what's required within these systems and to still want to be pragmatic about it.

[01:02:24] Right. Like they've had to they've had to wrestle with that and come to terms with that, which I think is a place where I think our whole you know, I would like to see our whole field sort of get better at. Yeah, absolutely. Well, hopefully that doesn't also mean that we become less employee centric. I agreed on that point as well. Yeah. Let me hit you with the last one really quick. You know, I guess I could call him friend of the podcast. He's been nice when I've reached out to him.

[01:02:51] I keep thinking maybe I'll invite him someday, but he's not doesn't really do HR. But Ben Stansell, he's the founder of a company called Mode. He just posts the best stuff. I love his sub stack. I love his LinkedIn posts. We've covered a few of them on here before. Alan, have you ever used Cloud Code? I have not. I haven't done any. I mean, I have some friends who have been doing like vibe coding and whatnot, but I feel I should.

[01:03:18] No, I don't necessarily think you should. I'm just curious. Like I'm not using Cloud Code. I've been using Cloud Cowork, which is kind of like the more user friendly version, I guess you could say. And I've actually got a session coming up that I've been promoting about how to that and Notion is kind of changing my life and sort of related to the data driven HR Academy that I run. But Ben Stansell, so he comes from kind of the coding world. And essentially this post, it's called Something Good. It's on his sub stack.

[01:03:45] It's talking about how tools like or the tool Cloud Code has made it fun and even addicting to do your job. Right. And so, you know, historically speaking, tech companies have made their tools addictive to be used, but not necessarily to do work. But it was like, you know, they algorithmically are getting you addicted to using TikTok or Facebook or what have you.

[01:04:11] But he's saying that it's actually becoming quite addictive to using Cloud Code to do your work and it's making it fun. And I think he's somewhat, you know, already getting sad for the day that maybe this will go away and he hopes that it doesn't. So I see this as somewhat of an opus of sorts to his love for Cloud Code, which I thought was sort of funny. But what did you think about this one? Yeah. So I sort of extrapolated it to just my experience of using Gen AI tools.

[01:04:40] I mean, maybe that's OK. And, you know, there's clearly an element of them. I think I think the way people describe them is they're sycophantic. I might not be mispronouncing that word. But my impression of that is, is that they tell you how great you are and how special you are and what. And and that itself creates this, you know, shot of dopamine that makes me like feel like I'm going to, you know, the best problem solver in the world. And and it creates engagement.

[01:05:09] So I think he made he might have made another point in the article, too, if I understood it, which is that. But. Not just. Are we enjoying work more, but are the organizations that we're working for getting more out of us because of that? Yeah. And and I thought that the answer could be both and like it, you know, it is engaging.

[01:05:35] Like, I mean, I've got generative AI has made me better at what I do. There's no question. Is it going back? Like I can go in and, you know, one of the things I'm really good at is, you know, I think arraying a set of issues that may be involved in a particular process. But when you need to communicate that, you can't communicate 10 things. You need to communicate three things.

[01:06:02] So how do you bucket those 10 things to talk about them? And, you know, you can put those into Gen AI and click your fingers and it will help you organize them into, you know, some rational way that you can then play with. Like that's easy benefit to me that helps in an area where I see I see that there's an opportunity for me to get better at or, you know, an unknown weakness or.

[01:06:29] But what it's not doing just to go back to like, is it actually getting more out of employees? I mean, I think locally on individual tasks, but it's not. I don't really know how much the organizations are benefiting it from because we're not solving the whole workflow problem. And so I think there's a tension there.

[01:06:51] And when CFOs are going to look at all of their investments in AI and be able to say, for all of the money that we're spending on bringing this technology into the organization, is it actually delivering the benefits that we expected? I'm not sure that they're going to be able to see it.

[01:07:10] Yeah, I've been hearing these stories of what they're even calling like AI psychosis, whereas like people are so addicted because they're having so much fun doing these types of tasks that they essentially like can't sleep anymore. And they're like, oh, my my token usage limit is finally lifted. Now I can start working again.

[01:07:33] And it's just turning into like true, you know, psychosis in people, which is just funny, but also sad. Yeah. Yeah, no, agreed. I'm not going to start using code because of that now. You've cautioned me. I'm not I treasure my sleep. Now he's got his excuse for not doing it. That's good. That's a good why, Sage. Well, did you have any questions for me, Alan? I did.

[01:08:02] Yes. So I proposed a session at SIOP this year and miraculously it got accepted. And it was about. Yeah, thank you. One of these crazy ideas that you never really know how it's going to land through reviewers. But it was about. You know, as. I.O. Psychologists, I think there's a few things that are challenging. One is.

[01:08:34] We don't do a good job explaining what it is we do. Two. Even people we love. Are very confused about what we do. And three. It's not until sort of time has passed in your academic training that you actually get it. Like I chose to do I.O. Psychology before I ever took an I.O. class.

[01:09:01] Like I fell in love with like human motivation and decided and was interested in, you know, I.O. Psychology because of that. But really was sort of blind to what it was. And it took me longer probably than it should have to figure out what it was. And so my question for you and what the PSYOP session was about is. How can we use I.O. In the real world. To help people connect to what it is we do.

[01:09:27] And so I was interested from your point of view, if you have any examples of where you see, you know, aspects of I.O. Play out in the real world. Like I talked about it in some of my blogs with it's like. The microwave oven or being at the mall and being lost. And so, you know, where have you seen it? Yeah, I don't know if I have as good an answer as the microwave.

[01:09:53] I will say like the typical answer is like office space. You know, people always say like the bobs and stuff like that. But yeah, I will say probably answer that most people wouldn't be expecting. You ever watch the Devil Wears Prada? I did. Just recently I watched it because my I watched the original one because my wife was going to go see Devil Wears Prada 2, which came out. And that's what I'm referencing. I haven't seen the second one. I think it's come out now. But that's actually one of my favorite movies.

[01:10:22] And people don't usually expect that. But it is such an interesting view into corporate culture. Yeah. And how, especially like the socialization of a human into corporate culture. And Andy has her friend group that's outside of work, which you might call like this utopian bohemian group of people. They're, you know, just doing whatever they want and following their passion.

[01:10:50] And then she goes into work and it's like people who are also following their passion, but in a very rigid hierarchical structure where you're, you know, having to deal with all these kind of crazy aspects. And I think between like just knowing the study of things like organizational culture, but also the practice of actually living it is like how those two things can be somewhat.

[01:11:15] I guess there's like a shock that comes from when you study a particular thing and when you experience that same thing. And I think that's something that Andy, the main character, goes through. Not that she's an organizational psychologist or anything like that, but I just thought it was a fascinating movie. And it's a really kind of like almost like a coming of age tale of sorts, but I don't know. What do you think about that answer? I mean, I don't think there's a right answer. Yeah. I think. There are wrong answers.

[01:11:44] No, there's no wrong answers. I mean, if that's what you, if you see that and you can connect aspects of what you studied, like what is it, Eggershine and the ASA model of socialization. Am I pulling that out? So attraction, selection, attrition. I love a good reference. Yeah. That's what you, that, it strikes me that that, that's the type of thing that you're trying to connect the movie to. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you for, for that.

[01:12:12] And, um, thank you for being a friend of the podcast, Alan. You, you, uh, embody that probably more than almost anybody out there. And so I wanted to say thank you again. And gosh, people out there listening, go hire Alan, not just to be a general contractor in Colorado or something like that. Hire him. He he's on the market and he is just a brilliant mind in this space. And so I appreciate you having been a friend of the podcast, but if people do want to reach out to you, Alan, where can they find you?

[01:12:40] Yeah, I would say, uh, you know, LinkedIn, um, is probably a great place. Um, well done. Um, you've been listening to direction and correct a people analytics podcast with your host, Cole Knapper and today's guest, Alan Kamen. Thanks for joining me, Alan. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you, Cole. A lot of fun.