Ep 5: Empowering Leadership for the Future of Work with Wagner Denuzzo

[00:00:00] Everyone is Bob Holver. Today I'm joined by Wagner Denuzzo, a former talent and transformation executive at IBM and Prudential, turned keynote speaker, startup advisor and author of the new book Leading to Succeed, Essential Skills for the New Workplace. Wagner and I discussed

[00:00:25] the importance of AI for transformation in the future of work. We highlight the need for HR to adopt proactive short-term talent strategies and become business capability partners, stressing responsible AI usage and the value of collective intelligence,

[00:00:39] curiosity and open source consciousness. As you'll hear in each episode I ask all my esteemed guests what they recommend to Elevate One's AIQ and Wagner's perspective as a talent transformation leader is really insightful. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Wagner.

[00:00:56] Thank you for tuning in. Hello everyone welcome to another episode of Elevate Your AIQ. This is your host Bob Holver. Welcome. I am pleased today to have my friend Wagner Denuzzo on with us. Wagner why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself. Thank you so much,

[00:01:15] Bob for having me. I think it's so exciting to start talking about AIQ because the realities we all need to take responsibility for that. I'm Wagner Denuzzo. I've been in mental health as a mental health professional. I'm a licensed psychotherapist but I move into executive coaching,

[00:01:34] leadership development, management development, HR strategy and five years ago I was the head of capabilities for future of work at Prudential Financial. So I've been exploring the future of work for the last six, seven years and it's very exciting what's happening so I'm glad

[00:01:51] that we're going to be talking about some of this stuff. Yeah I'm really looking forward to digging into this Wagner. You and I met, it was at IBM when we first met and one of the

[00:02:05] interesting sort of programs or initiatives that you and I were both involved in it wasn't even like core day-to-day stuff. It was helping the millennials which were at the time were the young just out of college 20-somethings so it does date ourselves a little bit but

[00:02:27] I thought the program itself was so impactful because it really energized this whole next generation of leaders and people who are, I guess I think of them as sort of change agents. They're the ones that are going to be willing to experiment and learn and push the envelope

[00:02:46] we did as you'll remember we did some design thinking exercises and it really got the attention of senior leadership of which you were a part of that and so any reflections on that? Bob I've been reflecting on that because I wrote a book recently Leading to Succeed and

[00:03:09] resonating a lot with university students, people who are graduating, people who are entering the workforce and it's interesting because that brought me back to the millennial core remember that's what we call them a community of very strong and ambitious millennials who

[00:03:27] want to have their voice heard and that doesn't change for the new generations. They want to have their voice heard because that is value in what they have to bring to us and that's the

[00:03:37] experience we created at IBM. General Maddy was very accepting in fact some of them the leaders would meet with the CEO of IBM a global company with 350,000 employees would take time and dedicate

[00:03:52] time to listening to millennials at that time and I remember one senior executive saying to me hey innovation doesn't happen in HQ it happens on the ground and it's amazing to me that

[00:04:05] that's still a recipe for the future of AI in organizations if you let the people who are really thirsty for innovation, for new thinking and new ways of working they will help us inform and

[00:04:19] co-create this new reality so I'm very excited about what's happening but I remember the millennial core and we still have connections right with some of them. Yeah absolutely yeah no and it's really rewarding to see you know some of the leadership roles

[00:04:34] that they've now taken on in HR and beyond right and so yeah there's a number of folks that I've stayed in touch with. I just thought and in just in terms of Ginny I mean it really showed where

[00:04:47] you've got an engaged leader who's really responding like you said you know good ideas can come from anywhere and so just to take that sort of approach and show that you're listening it means change can be driven you know not just bottom up but top down and

[00:05:03] yeah I think it was a really impactful program so when you left I forget when you left IBM I think we both may have left around the same time but when you went to Prudential and you were leading

[00:05:16] some of the transformation work there I mean what were some of the I guess what I'm curious what that transition was like for you and how they embraced you know transformation and the future

[00:05:28] of work. Transition is the key word because I think we are all going collectively through a transition right now and I want to point it out I was reading an article that distinguished the difference between transformations which is intentional strategic moves that we make with an upcoming mind

[00:05:47] and transitions transitions just sometimes is placed upon us and we have to adapt adopt new technologies and transition with the world and that's not an intentional strategy it's just an adaptation process and I love that because transitions are important and really leading

[00:06:09] transitions well is going to get you to that state where you can start growing again so to me was somewhat like that I moved from leadership development management transformations that IBM was amazing then I transformed the leadership in the consulting area at IBM which gave me a

[00:06:28] different flavor because then I restart building capabilities the whole idea that the business growth depends on critical capabilities that the organization is creating to be competitive that's a really important concept right now in this transition with AI because then they

[00:06:46] invited me to be the head of capabilities for future of work as curious that I am I of course I did it went I went because of the name of the title I said I want to do future of work work

[00:06:59] and it was amazing the capabilities that came to mind was immediately related to technology creating platforms for talent marketplace for example that was one of the first things we did it um creating the idea that people need to understand why skills is a currency people

[00:07:15] need to understand how to create their digital profile you need to understand what is the whole world turning into in the digital transformation so that was my transition trans trans transiting to actually creating technology enabling platforms with access to everyone so it's

[00:07:39] being it it was an amazing journey there too I'm curious how you approach it because I remember at IBM like some of the I don't know if deputizing is the right word but really looking

[00:07:50] for those those change agents those as we used to call them innovation catalysts like the people that could really sort of nudge people you know especially if you were like in a not necessarily a leadership position by title but just were someone that was influential with you know

[00:08:10] the boots on the ground so to speak or as well as with you know managers and young executives or you know early career um you know like uh you know director level kinds of people and they could really have a significant influence on your organization just because

[00:08:28] of where they almost where they sat within you know if you had them if you had the social graph kind of plotted visually they were like some of the most interconnected you know people and could have influence just through the relationships that they had built

[00:08:43] did you did you find that that was a part of you know what made your transformations successful at at Prudential as well this is interesting that you're talking about this because we can talk about organizational network analysis for example if you want to be a little

[00:09:01] more scientific about it there is organizational network analysis to identify those those nodes of information and influencing and who are the people who really are connected to all these branches of the organization that needs to come together to innovate however there's also

[00:09:22] the practical point and this is just me actually you have to really manifest with conviction what I mean is influencing is the manifestation of your conviction in your beliefs as a leader

[00:09:38] in a transformation is not enough just to gather data analyze data and go on and on and on because that process actually hinders the process of getting things done so in an agile organization you start bringing people together to co-create this is the difference great companies

[00:09:59] co-create new products new offerings and new capabilities companies they are really hierarchical in their ways of decision making what opportunities they give to their teams to do certain things they start blocking the process of coming to fruition right let's talk about

[00:10:20] coming to fruition you need to allow your teams to be the unit of value allow your teams to come up with the ideas and design thinking works really well co-creating with the clients

[00:10:33] I think that was the secret of my success was this my teams for example they had an open door policy and the open door would be very far open because they would come to me and just say

[00:10:45] I don't like what you just wrote hey I that doesn't resonate with employees this is not going to work let's work together to get it done I think my teams never felt that I was the smartest person

[00:10:57] in the room but they felt that I was the most supportive person in the room that would lead whatever idea we took and lead towards fruition and I think you need to work fast to be honest

[00:11:10] nowadays my transformation at Prudential for example I don't know if everybody agrees with that but within three months I already had the tele marketplace in place and we are piloting because you cannot wait for the whole process of a huge organization to come into an agreement

[00:11:28] on something because the consensus-driven organization is a very slow organization yeah no that makes total sense so I was talking to a recent guest about the the nature of like trying to upskill people with the latest sort of iterations of AI the ones that they actually interact directly

[00:11:53] with right and it's for the people who haven't you know tried it yet and experimented with it yet I think they've got plenty of toys to start playing with and experimenting and seeing you

[00:12:06] know how to interact with it and how to you know augment their own you know cognitive abilities or those of their team even but I'm just wondering your thoughts about like upskilling people on

[00:12:17] their journey on their AI journey compared to other you know tools and platforms and things that they used to have to upskill like it's not as complicated as learning to be an expert at like Excel

[00:12:29] yes it's it's I love that question too you know why because let's be honest with ourselves technology digital transformation of the early 2000s require you to understand the language of technology the all the languages that you have to use to code your platforms to transfer

[00:12:51] to do the apis everything was really like an specialized language today with generative AI what you're doing is combining your knowledge of functions expertise domains understanding data at the highest level possible understanding the strategy that you can use to combine things to

[00:13:20] give you meaning so today I think we're talking about creating meaning honestly because data we didn't solve the problem let's be real why CEOs are fed up that people are not adopting AI I saw a

[00:13:35] document a document the other day there is a research done psychologically speaking humans love to contribute and that's one of our motivations we work we contribute and we want to see the outcomes of our contributions so take just that a person prefers to start

[00:13:56] perform and complete and conclude their tasks even when the tasks could be automated that's what they found the problem is that humans like to start what they know complete what they can and challenge themselves to get to the finish line they love it we love that

[00:14:18] before we move on I need to let you know about my friend Mark Feffer and his show People Tech if you're looking for the latest on product development marketing funding big deals

[00:14:29] happening in talent acquisition HR HCM that's the show you need to listen to go to the work to find network search up People Tech Mark Feffer you can find them anywhere now we need to be a

[00:14:47] little more humble because mostly the journey through AI is going to be a discovery discovery we're not going to know where we're going to end up we're not going to know what Genitive AI can produce to us think about as consultants leadership development folks

[00:15:04] learning everything's transforming now we are using Genitive AI to start our thought process we have one idea we transfer the idea into a prompt that prompts generates incredible ways of seeing your idea and then is your judgment that's going to make a difference so humans

[00:15:26] don't think ever that Gen AI is going to replace your ability to be creative and bring thoughts together because at the end of the day you still have to be discerning to understand the contacts to understanding the the level of maturity of your organization and understand how much

[00:15:43] you can push the envelope so all this is very human but the AI quotient that you talk about is essential is essential but it's a little easier to be honest you're upskilling reskeeling in AI

[00:15:57] is a matter of courage curiosity and exploration yeah I love it I love it so we jumped we jumped a little bit ahead because I usually ask my you know what do you think of when you think of

[00:16:10] AIQ at the end of the at the end of the broadcast but um but no that's good now I think what you're saying makes complete sense and I think I think this is part of the experimentation is seeing how

[00:16:25] it can augment your your thinking this is not about just you know automating things that you didn't want to do in the first place I mean frankly you don't need AI for that um but I

[00:16:37] recognize that people are sort of just using AI these days in a in a very broad sense of anything that anything that's not done by human hands or with exclusively with the human brain everyone is

[00:16:51] just calling AI but I do recognize that you know people are coming from different starting points I mean you may be in a relatively technical role and that could include you know data data roles you know data scientists data engineer and analyst it could be product

[00:17:06] people who are involved in you know the the design and development and testing of solutions and gathering feedback and repeating that process and so um but there's a lot of people

[00:17:19] who are affected by AI or will be affected by AI and they haven't either you know realized it yet but those are the folks that probably should start thinking about and experimenting with

[00:17:30] with how it can help them either maintain the the path that they're on in a more effective way maybe they want to consider you know doing something different and I think it's up to us

[00:17:42] collectively to you know help people figure out what their potential new path you know might be but we can't stick our heads in the sand and think that it doesn't affect me because

[00:17:55] I provide such you know empathy and creativity to the world and it's just not that simple yeah but I have to say Bob it's not too late I know the highway is speeding up everybody's

[00:18:07] speeding up on this highway towards gen AI but it's not too late you know why because the beginning of the journey everybody accelerated using the most common thinking um how we can automate tasks how we can create content codes and all that but that's the basic

[00:18:27] value of AI AI has an incredible potential that's much is like exponential value so it's not too too late to start because I've seen a lot of startups to be honest I've been advising some

[00:18:42] of them a lot of startups are just putting the kitchen and the kitchen sink all together and throwing there and says hey now you have access to everything having access to everything is not a strategy

[00:18:57] you know having access to what you need to have access to is a strategy that's why organizations they give people and I come from talent talent strategy this is very important you have to enable people to understand why why it's important to have a mindset like this

[00:19:18] because it's impacting your career your career growth why we are asking you to own your career because you're the only one who knows what are your aspirations and what are your ambitions

[00:19:29] of course managers are there to quote you through but at the end of the day organizations have to be accountable to give you the opportunity to see what's ahead to see what are the skills of the

[00:19:41] future are organizations have to really give you that permission to explore what's available you start exploring what you can do for yourself and how much of skill and risk in you can do and how fast and that combination of mutual accountability creates value

[00:20:00] I think people are very misguided when they think the organization has to give you everything or the individual has to do everything by themselves no it's a it's a shared accountability let's put it that way

[00:20:12] you know well there's a lot to unpack there but one of the things that came to mind was like this obsession with productivity metrics right like if that's the ultimate goal then you really run into you sort of trap yourself in this in this mentality and

[00:20:33] you're missing the whole point of what motivates people to get satisfaction from their work and to to provide that you know to create that value for themselves for their team for their organization and I especially when I see metrics all around just measuring like individual productivity

[00:20:53] I mean if we're just trying to make things more efficient and speed things up then first of all have you taken into consideration that you need to do things responsibly you can't just grab any shiny object and think that you're being you know responsible because you know somebody's

[00:21:13] said so how are you really creating value and so of course I think of talent acquisition like moving people through the funnel faster and then they get on boarded and then there's a revolving door because you weren't measuring you know you know quality of hire or you weren't

[00:21:29] measuring the things that matter that are going to help you long term you know find and retain the right people to collectively move the organization forward then like what's what's the point on top of the fact that you're just going to automate you actually are going to have

[00:21:47] AI and automation replace people instead of moving them up helping to make them better or moving them up the sort of value chain so that's a lot to unpack there too but I say three things one is just because you can't shoot you organizations are enamored with

[00:22:04] the shiny new objects and just because it's there available should you put your effort there then the other thing I would say is efficiency let's not forget okay of course we need to be

[00:22:16] efficient but of course we need to be effective too so some people get confused efficiency with effectiveness efficiency reduces your focus to specialization to a silo thinking about making that function that process the most efficient but that sometimes disregards the collective

[00:22:40] and the whole so be careful because your efficiencies might lead to silos that might be detrimental to cross functional collaboration number one that number two and number three is I think we need to start rethinking how do we assess talent the nine boxes

[00:23:02] the all the assessments that we have everything combined does not amount to what a person is because I was just in a listening to another podcast recently and experts are I agree with them the famous KSAs right knowledge skills and attributes we're not paying much attention to

[00:23:25] attributes and if you think about gen AI if it's not about the knowledge and the skills about using gen AI because they can acquire the most valuable piece that you need to assess is the attributes of the individual can the individual be resilient through situations that are

[00:23:42] difficult can the individual lead teams with a less egocentric approach to decision making can you hire the right people the attributes of collaboration culture contribution there's so much that we can explore that we are not exploring because we're focusing skills the skills becomes

[00:24:01] the efficiency of the blind because the skills can be automated you can let gen AI telemarket places are all AI enabled if you're only measuring skills and identifying skills and finding skills that's very my optic so I love where we are because there's so much human capability that

[00:24:24] we need to introduce in the equation that I find very fascinating exciting to be honest yeah absolutely I think that's one of the things that I found interesting about some of the work that I've spent a lot of time with like behavioral assessment

[00:24:39] you know vendors and really thinking about I guess I've come to from a terminology standpoint you know we used to call them soft skills and some people call them human skills or power skills but Antonia Minnicherry from from Lumen I told me that she uses term durable

[00:25:04] skills which I've sort of latched on to because they really are in this day and age I just feel like to your point AI can take on more and more of the you know whether it's a technical

[00:25:17] task or just even some of the administrative tasks that can really be done with different types of automation you know it's it really is those human skills that are going to

[00:25:28] be the most durable I think we've seen that with different types of surveys up to you know the world economic forum that looks out to you know what are some of the skills that will be most

[00:25:39] in demand in 2026 and 2030 yeah but those are just the ones that we know for sure today right there is more coming in my book I talk about the cards if you play your cards right and

[00:25:51] you show your cards with authenticity you will be successful the card stands for cognitive mastery the idea of the emotional intelligence and awareness is not enough it's not enough to have self-awareness what you need is a process of consciously understanding our beliefs your values

[00:26:09] how you come across and understanding that your self-limiting beliefs might be interfering with your potential to succeed and the triggers the emotional triggers I feel very empathetic towards executives today because they're being triggered left and right because they don't know

[00:26:25] how to respond yet to what's coming at them from public you know public recognition of the company's positioning in everything that's happening in the world and employee needs and and the business needs and all that I think cognitive mastery is a really important concept

[00:26:48] you have to use your cognitive capability in the mastery of understanding triggers and not react so this reactive mode that we are in is not helping us but then you have adaptive resilience you have to be adaptive it's not being resilient because I'm a resilient we're

[00:27:04] always going to do this this way we're all it's like that's rigidity it's not resilience so adaptive resilience require maturity experiences that show your vulnerability as well but then one important one that I've found to be very important is this reciprocity alignment

[00:27:23] how do you create reciprocity in relationships in an organization has to be aligned to the other know you what I need from you if you gave me a cake I give you a cake back no it's about understanding what's important to the other what's important to the customers

[00:27:41] stakeholders and align your reciprocity processes your behaviors accordingly and then you have digital fluency of course we all need that because without that you're not going to be successful but the last one is my favorite sense making how much do we spend time

[00:27:59] making sense of the world understanding the context understand your inner subconscious level behaviors understand the behaviors of others this psychological dynamics pattern recognition I talk about pattern recognition people don't pay attention to that pay attention to the pattern recognition of what's happening in your organization culturally that's very

[00:28:22] important so these cards I think is your success profile if you really ace them you're going to be successful but you need to create that's the thing you need to cultivate leadership skills from the beginning of your career there is no excuse for you anymore everybody

[00:28:43] has to be accountable for cultivating leadership skills from the beginning of their career I think that's the solution for the future to be honest you know everyone's brains work differently right and sometimes you meet resistance when people are just like listen

[00:28:58] I'm a tactical all that's great but we've got tactical objectives we've got customers to support we've got you know things to to get done and we're measured you know in a much more you know

[00:29:12] short term you know sort of you know outlook and you know I guess some would argue you have a better perspective on this than maybe based on your leadership experiences but it just seems like

[00:29:24] there's always an excuse for just focusing tactically without picking your head up once in a while and just looking at what's coming because that's how you get blindsided exactly but let me let me tell

[00:29:37] you this because I think this is very interesting right let's talk about this corn fairy just wrote recently embrace the short term I agree with that because they are talking about the new

[00:29:49] workforce the new workforce as I said my 5d is they are distributed they're dynamic they are diverse they're digital and they're discerning but this idea of dynamic talent strategy is what

[00:30:01] I'm trying to convey to my clients as well in HR I asked this simple question how come when we talk about performance everything short term when we talk about talent strategy everything is

[00:30:13] long term it doesn't make any sense if you're going to embrace embrace the short term across the spectrum of an organizational capability and performance we are not agile enough in HR we talk about nine blocks talking about three to five years we talk about succession planning we

[00:30:32] talk about things as if they are stable for the next five to ten years they're not can we obscure ourselves to be dynamic as dynamic as the business needs us to be I agree quarterly returns

[00:30:45] if you're in a public company you have to so how can you really activate short term measures but activating short term talent strategies that move people quickly enhance their capabilities quickly and creates teams they are formed quickly and access talent quickly not only

[00:31:06] hiring because hiring takes three months for some skills it's taking a lot go tap out in different talent pools bringing people who are independent fractionals people who are not going to be your your long term employees you see HR has to change how we become from a function

[00:31:25] to a business capability partner we are not there yet and I hope that's what we need to do I'm in your camp as you know it can be frustrating at times to be honest and part of it is the siloed

[00:31:41] nature of many organizations right if you're not paying attention to what other teams are doing or how those other teams are part of the same sort of engine that's moving this organization forward you don't know you don't necessarily know what to fix what to change if you don't

[00:32:02] have shared metrics then you know what you're striving for could be detrimental to to another team I absolutely agree with you I mean your whole talent ecosystem needs to be dynamic and agile

[00:32:15] and that means you can't just throw money at you know programmatic job advertising and and just seeing you know who who comes through the door you know net new or whatever what about your

[00:32:26] alumni what about your candidate rediscovery from people that you talked to a few months ago what about what about your internal workforce who to your point with the the talent marketplace I mean

[00:32:37] do you even know what your people are capable of do you even know what they want right so if you're not looking and collecting all of this data and validating that data through the

[00:32:48] appropriate you know mechanisms you're just the talent you need might be right in front of you use the term myopic before I mean I do think it's just so uh short sighted and siloed from a

[00:33:02] mentality standpoint if you're only looking in one direction I mean you're not you're not a horse running a race around a circular track I mean there's this stimuli and and data points all

[00:33:16] around you if only you had the the means and the you know the wherewithal to to try to connect those dots yeah I totally agree but it's interesting you see there's so much

[00:33:28] opportunity for us using AI you're focusing on AI I think we need to step back don't create more content try not to try to create connections connections are better than content

[00:33:45] that is an excellent excellent point so your book I mean just to just to go back to that I know you've sort of made reference to a few times but I mean your book is about leadership but to your

[00:33:56] point I mean it's it's not necessarily about that leaders by title are your audience it's really about you know leadership principles that everyone can embrace is that fair it's fair because I think it's it's my hope that this new generation knows how to regain the sense of agency

[00:34:16] self-determination because there's so many opportunities for them to choose who they want to join how they want to start working and they need to start fighting those little self doubts that we all have

[00:34:32] and I think they're ready but they need guidance and I hope my book can give them guidance anything leadership to be honest leadership if we overestimate I think our leadership capabilities competencies that is a research from Harvard right the managers executives think

[00:34:52] that they're much more self-aware than they really are and they are much better leaders than they really are there was a manager of research showing that 90 percent of managers think that the top 10 percent manage best managers in the organization how can that move 90 percent think that they're

[00:35:08] the top 10 percent that can be so we need to be a little more use humility allow people to co-create with you and that's why elevating everyone to the level of leader allows people to feel a

[00:35:23] little more comfortable expressing their themselves and I even talk about the leadership expressions I summarizing three consciousness knowing who you are what you believe in your values where is your context being conscious of where you are where you are and why you are there is very important

[00:35:43] curiosity to lead others if you're going to be in a diverse environment because we are you have to be curious about other people's point of view you have to be curious about others capabilities and the courage comes as the third expression when we start leading

[00:35:57] organizations because you need to have the courage to step up and take steps with conviction so consciousness curiosity and courage will shape your successful professional life I truly believe in that so one of the things that you kind of triggered in my mind around I guess confidence

[00:36:20] self-confidence bias in that in those surveys you know there's dozens of human bias but I do think it's funny everyone's going crazy over you know the bias in AI the AI itself is not bias it's bias as a result of the bias data that it's been

[00:36:40] bad and it's it's the perpetuation of those human biases that are now you know essentially embedded in a lot of our historical data and that's why we even have some of the

[00:36:53] situations that we have with some of the AI tools so I guess when we think about you know upskilling one of the things that I that I think about is well if AI is on everybody's device now and trust

[00:37:07] is such an important element of of using any of these these tools you know how do we how do we make sure that people are using using these tools you know responsibly I mean I know we

[00:37:20] could say that about any advanced or emerging technology but with with this one that's attempting to think like humans and and where it's involved it's actually involved and playing you know a prominent role in decision-making you know processes going forward you know like how do we

[00:37:37] handle that Bob we're coming back to HR we have been making decisions about talent the last thing right for years thinking that we have best judgment the nine blocks the performance and

[00:37:49] potential first of all very few people know what potential means and how to measure but we pretend that we do know then I talk about the policies processes in programs we create policies because we believe policies are going to control the environment they don't then we create processes

[00:38:10] because completion becomes the metric of success think about performance management we finish the annual cycles and people get so excited 96% completion completion of what what is the value what is the quality of those conversations and then programs oh no they need

[00:38:31] development so we don't accelerate minorities into positions of challenge they put them in programs we develop people for what there is no end game so the whole idea that AI is really changing how ethical behavior happens I think Zeronius of course we need to appeal to

[00:38:55] responsible usage we always had that now ethical it becomes a personal value system that we need to foster from the individual that's why I believe that we need to focus on individuals consciousness and work with them because they themselves find the way to be more

[00:39:19] ethical you're not going to force people to be ethical just because you told them to be ethical let's value who they are and be interested in who they are personalization means respecting

[00:39:32] every individual and help them see that collectively we need to be ethical collectively we need to make better decisions it's a collective consciousness that I believe is emerging that I really like what's happening because most of us are letting go of these practices they are not working

[00:39:50] in focusing on more personalization of the experience with their focus on getting humans to be a little better about themselves and with each other yeah for sure some of this is just you know general sort of empathy and and other human attributes as we were talking about before

[00:40:13] but even if you layer on another module of compliance training right you're annual you're onboarding and annual compliance training just like we did with data privacy and cyber security and things like that even if you have a module on responsible AI of course it's up

[00:40:30] to everyone else to to actually you know hold themselves you know accountable we talk about human in the loop but there's just too many things happening you know simultaneously too many steps and tasks and processes all over an organization to think that that can be you

[00:40:46] know sort of governed and and policed in a meaningful way I think just humans will always find a way you know around that or but I do think that incentives need to change like we're

[00:40:57] talking about you know efficiency being guided by efficiency means your metrics are tied to you know throughput and and volume instead of you know equality excuse me quantity over over quality and I mean long term that's just that's a huge mistake especially when it comes to human impacting

[00:41:18] decisions like you know hiring and promotions but that brings me to one last thought ambidextrous leadership remember this is from the 90s even earlier the military used a lot of idea that teams of teams you know giving people the opportunity to lead and this co-creation depends

[00:41:37] on your trust of each individual on the team but ambidextrous leadership is a little higher maturity level because you have to manage for efficiencies in business effectiveness but you also have to manage for cultural motivators or what creates the value in your ecosystem and

[00:42:02] leaders have to be ambidextrous it's very hard to be a leader right now because it's sometimes you get binary in your thinking I think you know this is not only sexuality

[00:42:13] non-binary but I think that is becoming part of how we should see the world in a non-binary way so we can understand where people are coming from understanding each other without these preconceived ideas which leads to unconscious behavior sometimes in discrimination you know

[00:42:34] it's very complex what's happening but I'm hopeful oh I am definitely uh an optimist I would say a cautious you know optimist I think I think the upside of all this is too great to ignore

[00:42:49] we certainly are not putting the toothpaste back in the tube as they say and so yeah like it or not here here we are um yeah the legislation I mean that's going to continue to evolve and

[00:43:02] hopefully we'll come to some agreement or whatever but you know trust underpins you know all of this because you know like any technology it can be used for good and it can be used for nefarious

[00:43:15] you know basically hold each other accountable in some ways Wagner what do you think of the acronym you know AIQ like what what are some of the top things that you think of that come

[00:43:27] to mind just to summarize it you know I like to be spontaneous and after our conversation what comes to mind really is that AIQ is a process of no attachment I usually says

[00:43:41] I say to people be engaged fully engaged put your energy into what you're doing but try not to be emotionally attached to the outcomes emotionally attached to what you're doing because AI is a discovery AIQ is about becoming an explorer of capabilities and possibilities so what comes to

[00:44:02] mind is opening up discoveries with no attachment and I think is going to be a very good recipe for most of us yeah I agree I think you've got a everyone may have preconceived notions of

[00:44:19] you know what AI means or they think about some specific you know technology or use case or whatever and I think you're right I mean you've got to be open-minded I mean frankly it comes back to

[00:44:32] some of the principles in your in your book right I mean just the curiosity aspect is certainly one that comes to mind it sounds like what we are creating honestly what I say is collective intelligence we are creating collective intelligence so let's use the terminology open source

[00:44:51] to be part of this consciousness that we are creating so open source community open source consciousness open source intelligence I think that will really help us all you know I absolutely great collective intelligence is something I've been evangelizing since since our IBM

[00:45:10] days yeah I mean it almost takes on new meaning these days I was talking to this futurist and author Ross Dawson about that as well it's like we talk about humans you know AI augmenting you know humans

[00:45:23] but a lot of times we are focused on like an individual you know human brain and then you can get into a whole debate about well shouldn't if AI has absorbed you know the internet and

[00:45:35] all this other stuff well then doesn't AI hasn't AI already subsumed collective intelligence and the answer is definitely no because of the sources that it used and because of you know the fact that it it doesn't actually think it doesn't you know it doesn't have consciousness

[00:45:52] or anything so so the collective intelligence having the cognitive diversity of a group a knowledgeable group of people that can bring in all of those different perspectives and add their you know creativity and all these other elements it's still an AI plus individual human

[00:46:10] intelligence and then AI plus collective human intelligence and I think that's that's an ambitious but important goal right how do you take the best of humanity and human you know cognition you know and as Ross would say amplify that with artificial and augmented intelligence yeah

[00:46:29] fascinating stuff. Wagner as always it's great to talk to you thank you so much for spending some time with me and I'm sure our listeners will get a lot of value from this

[00:46:43] conversation so thank you so much. Thank you so much Bob for inviting me I always love these conversations because it triggers new thinking so thank you my pleasure anytime all right we'll talk again soon thanks bye thanks everyone for listening.