#055 - Beyond 2024: Preparing for the Jobs of the Future (with Margo Purcell & Greg Hart)

[00:00:02] How can we prepare for the future of work when up to 80% of jobs available 10 years from now haven't been invented yet?

[00:00:10] While AI is creating a lot of excitement, fear, uncertainty and doubt, Gen. AI is just one piece of the rapidly changing future of work equation.

[00:00:18] In today's episode, I'm joined by two brilliant thinkers who are leading the charge to help humans and companies evolve at lightning speed so they can prepare for the jobs of tomorrow.

[00:00:27] Welcome to The Working Well Podcast, the show that explores the rapidly changing landscape of work and wellbeing.

[00:00:32] I'm your host, Tim Borys. My guests today are Margo Purcell and Greg Hart, co-founders of Inception Youth.

[00:00:44] Margo, Greg, it's so great to have you on The Working Well Podcast. And we have a cool topic today.

[00:00:52] More about future work and how to prepare for jobs of the future. And this is something that we hear a lot about these days.

[00:01:01] There's a lot of excitement in certain areas. There's a lot of fear and doubt and uncertainty in others.

[00:01:05] And I'm excited to hear what you have to say.

[00:01:09] So, I guess, first of all, what's going on in your life right now?

[00:01:15] And what's the most exciting things that's happened for you this week?

[00:01:20] This week?

[00:01:21] This week.

[00:01:24] It is only Tuesday, so...

[00:01:26] It is.

[00:01:29] I would say the most exciting thing that's going on for us in our lives...

[00:01:37] I was about to say my last kid just graduated from high school, but maybe that's not as appropriate for the context.

[00:01:45] Although I guess now she has to worry about the future of work as well.

[00:01:47] But, yeah, no, I think the most exciting thing for us is that, you know, we're working right now on sort of expanding a lot of the work that we've been doing.

[00:02:00] So, into some different areas, some different programs that will launch starting in the fall or early next year.

[00:02:07] And so, doing that work is always really quite a lot of fun.

[00:02:11] And so, it's very exciting, but also goes quite to the heart of what we're talking about today.

[00:02:16] Because in some ways, we have to be predicting the future to some extent to be able to, you know, make sure that what we're offering up is relevant and important for people at a time like this.

[00:02:26] But, if you're asking what the most exciting thing is that's happening this week, then I think that's my answer.

[00:02:34] Awesome.

[00:02:34] Awesome.

[00:02:35] I'd say, too, that it's watching in the current programs that we've got going.

[00:02:41] We are seeing one, there's a couple of streams that are about to complete their process and learning projects with us.

[00:02:51] And we've also got some other groups that are midway.

[00:02:54] And it's watching what I find super exciting is where we watch them come out of the, they call it the pit of despair, watching them come out of the pit of despair in the learning.

[00:03:06] And it happens in pretty regular cycles during this project time.

[00:03:10] And I find that quite exciting and to watch what people are discovering about themselves and that they're discovering they have way more capability than they might have thought.

[00:03:18] And that they have the ability to figure stuff out.

[00:03:21] And that's an exciting thing to watch unfold.

[00:03:26] I love that.

[00:03:27] Pit of despair.

[00:03:28] Yeah.

[00:03:30] It's a real thing.

[00:03:32] Yes, it is.

[00:03:34] Seth Godin calls it the dip.

[00:03:37] Right?

[00:03:38] I like pit of despair.

[00:03:40] The dip just seems so minor.

[00:03:42] Yeah.

[00:03:43] It's a bad place to make decisions.

[00:03:44] That's the big takeaway.

[00:03:45] When you're in the pit of despair, it's a bad place to make decisions.

[00:03:49] Well said.

[00:03:50] Well said.

[00:03:53] When we hear about future work, and I know you have probably more insight than the average person into that area.

[00:04:02] One of the reasons we're having a conversation.

[00:04:04] But if you put your crystal ball in front of you, put your hands on it, what does, particularly with the rise of AI and automation, what does the job market look like over the next five years?

[00:04:19] Different?

[00:04:20] Go ahead, Greg.

[00:04:22] I was just going to say, different?

[00:04:24] Yeah.

[00:04:26] There you go.

[00:04:27] That's the brilliant insights that we're on here.

[00:04:33] What we also see, I mean, in terms of the trends that are happening in terms of career evolution and so on.

[00:04:41] So I've been doing career practice for longer than I care to say, a couple of decades now.

[00:04:47] And also in seeing that some of the patterns are consistent, the pace with which they're happening has changed.

[00:04:54] And so we used to consistently say that people had nine to 11 different jobs in their lifetime and three to five different careers.

[00:05:04] I'd actually say that the numbers have gone up.

[00:05:08] And I would say how quickly people rotate through has gone up because the work world is changing too quickly as well.

[00:05:15] So jobs that people will end with.

[00:05:18] So what does it look like in five years from now?

[00:05:20] Well, jobs that will be there in five years actually don't exist right now.

[00:05:25] So it's really difficult to answer that in terms of what the jobs will look like.

[00:05:31] What we can say is how people can equip themselves to be ready for those.

[00:05:34] And that's where we really focus on that future fitness.

[00:05:37] And we really focus on providing opportunities for people to equip themselves with different modes of thinking,

[00:05:43] with being able to, even if they don't know all the steps, they don't know how long it will take.

[00:05:49] They don't know exactly the path to get there.

[00:05:52] They know they're equipped to figure things out and that way they can recognize those best fit opportunities as the job world continues to evolve just as rapidly.

[00:06:02] I think what people ask, you know, like, will this device be the main device 10 years from now like it is right now?

[00:06:10] The answer to that question is actually really difficult because at the level of the device, who knows?

[00:06:16] But at the level of mobile computing, for instance, without a doubt, right?

[00:06:21] So there are deeper kinds of trends that we can identify with and know are going to be present regardless of what happens.

[00:06:28] So there's not going to be some reversal on people doing mobile computing.

[00:06:32] That's not going to happen.

[00:06:33] But, you know, the exact form that it follows and, you know, the degree to which, as you said, artificial intelligence is driving it,

[00:06:43] then those things are, you know, those are up for grabs and very difficult to predict.

[00:06:49] I was going to be the outlier and say that in 10 years, we're all going to be sitting on CRT monitors with dial-up internet again.

[00:06:56] And, well, if one were to take a dim view of some current world events, then that would be a great case scenario for 10 years from now.

[00:07:12] So, yeah, I mean, and there are always big currents operating that are not even technological that can, you know, have massive impacts on what the future of work looks like.

[00:07:23] And to Margo's point, you know, and really when we started Inception, this was the core thing.

[00:07:30] There's no doubt that there's going to be a lot of volatility.

[00:07:32] There's no doubt that, you know, things are more complex because of the networked way of the world.

[00:07:37] There's no doubt that there's higher levels of ambiguity and throw in, you know, misinformation and disinformation and all those things.

[00:07:45] So, you know, the notion that we used to have, which is, well, we build people with very specific technical skills to deal with very certain kinds of environments.

[00:07:56] There's still some of those environments around, but they're going away, you know, and they're being replaced more and more by these much more unpredictable situations that require rapid learning, responsiveness and adaptability.

[00:08:09] And so when we started doing our work, we just said, well, this is the thing that we need to build is something that helps people acquire that kind of competency, but also the confidence that needs needs to go with it.

[00:08:24] Well, yeah, a couple of things.

[00:08:27] First, Greg, you said your youngest or your oldest is just finishing high school.

[00:08:35] So I don't know.

[00:08:39] Being a high school student going out into a university or the workforce, depending on which stats you look at, some people say 50% of jobs aren't even created yet that will be available in the next five to 10 years.

[00:08:54] You know, that number can vary.

[00:08:56] But the fact is.

[00:08:59] Most people don't know what what the world is going to be like.

[00:09:03] It's changing so fast.

[00:09:04] So how do you decide what degree to choose?

[00:09:07] What education?

[00:09:09] And then on the educational institution side, I've been on the board at a couple post-secondary institutions, and I know how slow some of those institutions move combined with government grants and things like that.

[00:09:25] Only if you think 50 years is slow.

[00:09:27] I mean, well, yes.

[00:09:29] So how do educational institutions and government keep up to the pace of change in industry when businesses can barely keep up?

[00:09:41] Yeah, it's a real challenge.

[00:09:43] I also have one foot in the traditional world because I work at the School of Architecture at the University of Calgary on a graduate program.

[00:09:52] But, you know, my take on this is that those schools do move incredibly slow.

[00:10:00] They are anchored in a world that doesn't really exist and hasn't for a little while now.

[00:10:06] We're seeing things more and more complaints coming from employers saying that, you know, the skills, the fundamental skills that they expect people to have, they don't have.

[00:10:19] And so there's sort of a weird thing happening that I've seen, at least, which is that the fundamentals are not being taught.

[00:10:30] And yet those are the things that are – or they're not coming out with a competency around these fundamental things, even though we think those are the longstanding pieces.

[00:10:37] But instead, a lot of programs are also being distracted by new technology.

[00:10:41] So they actually cater to the students' interests.

[00:10:45] They're starting to add more and more of these things.

[00:10:47] The unfortunate thing is those things are kind of ephemeral, right?

[00:10:50] They come and they go.

[00:10:52] And the fundamental capabilities of being an engineer or an architect or a lawyer or whatever it happens to be are – because there's only so much time.

[00:11:02] It's a bit of a zero-sum game.

[00:11:03] And so that stuff is being stripped away.

[00:11:06] And, you know, Margo and I – Inception exists because of this, because we tried to work with institutions to see if they would shift the way they were doing things.

[00:11:16] And so it was difficult.

[00:11:17] So we created Inception.

[00:11:20] But it's a very challenging environment.

[00:11:25] And the best part about this, and I mean that very facetiously, is that after 13 years of school before you go into university and certainly leaving with a degree, you would expect that the most fundamental capability of all, which is the ability to learn and to understand how learning works and to be able to figure things out and everything, you would think that is locked.

[00:11:45] So you don't have to worry about that.

[00:11:47] And that goes to the heart of your question of what should you do next because if you don't have those competencies, then a person is completely dependent on a bunch of stuff that is not really that dependable and doesn't have a strong autonomous future set out for themselves.

[00:12:07] So at the heart of everything that we do, whatever program it is, you strip it all away, it comes down to that's basically the mission for us.

[00:12:14] How do we help people acquire those things, even though we could all argue we should have them by now?

[00:12:20] The reality is that most of us don't because the system has not been set up for that.

[00:12:24] It's set up for an industrial model that doesn't really exist anymore.

[00:12:31] I'll also add, Tim, that having worked with people at all ages and stages of career, what should they take and where should they go and what should their learning path be?

[00:12:42] We do a terrible job of helping people figure that out.

[00:12:44] We tell them to look outside.

[00:12:46] We tell them, look at the jobs of the future.

[00:12:49] Where are the trends?

[00:12:50] We tell them to look at all these external factors and add to that that things are evolving so rapidly.

[00:12:56] And one of the stats that we've seen is that 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 don't exist today, six years.

[00:13:03] So if I'm looking at the jobs of the future as my guide, then I'm setting myself up for constant chain, constant questioning.

[00:13:14] And what I watch happen to people is that they go and they internalize that and become self-doubt and erode their self-confidence.

[00:13:20] Rather, what we, and this is part of the work that we do at Inception as well, is foundational is self-knowledge and really doing some deep diving into through some guided processes as well.

[00:13:33] Because we can tell you to read a book.

[00:13:36] I read a lot of books on this stuff.

[00:13:37] And until I actually was guided through the work and made the time to do it for myself, I would read the books and I didn't know how to apply it in life.

[00:13:45] And so what we need to be doing is helping people do that deep self-reflection, finding what is that common thread that's in me and being able to articulate that to others.

[00:13:54] Hey, here are the skills that really light me up and that I'm really my best at.

[00:13:58] Here are things that are interesting.

[00:13:59] And here's what I need to be able to be when I show up at work.

[00:14:02] And these are the values I'd like to have aligned for me to be doing rewarding, fulfilling work.

[00:14:06] Once they can describe that, then we start generating ideas and opportunities.

[00:14:10] When it's based on that, they now have a compass and they have a guide for themselves that they're leading their careers rather than their careers leading them, which is absolutely foundational now to career success.

[00:14:24] And to doing that rewarding, fulfilling work, which, by the way, makes us healthier and sees that we actually produce better things and so on.

[00:14:32] And so from there, if you know and understand that and yourself really, really well, then from there you can lead your career.

[00:14:40] And then those decisions become ones that you have something to test against to say, ah, I know why I'm making this choice and not making that choice.

[00:14:48] And it's based on that self-knowledge.

[00:14:51] Yeah, that's a great point, too.

[00:14:55] And Greg alluded to something earlier as well as the people coming out of advanced degrees, not having even the basic skills because they haven't been, in my opinion, taught to think.

[00:15:13] I always thought I viewed an undergrad degree as learning to learn.

[00:15:20] Oh, you would hope you'd get that in high school.

[00:15:23] But generally, we won't go to that part of the equation now, but at least the post-secondary.

[00:15:31] Yeah, especially the arts degrees, it was learn to learn.

[00:15:35] Like, how do you find information?

[00:15:37] How do you make rational arguments?

[00:15:39] How do you question the information that you're receiving?

[00:15:45] Those skills are so much more important, especially now with these artifacts coming out of AI.

[00:15:54] You don't know if it's true or not, so how do you check it?

[00:15:59] How do you research that?

[00:16:01] Those are things that you would think are basic skills, especially for someone with a university degree.

[00:16:11] Well, and we also, I mean, we experienced this so many times.

[00:16:15] I mean, we have people with advanced degrees in our program all the time because, you know, they didn't get those things.

[00:16:20] My colleagues at the Foundation for Critical Thinking in the United States have a great term for this, which I wrote a blog post about some time ago, called the elite disabled.

[00:16:28] So, you know, you come out of these programs with elite degrees but are thinking disabled.

[00:16:36] In fact, the elite degrees in some regards make people even more susceptible to poor thinking because of the way that their thinking gets channeled.

[00:16:46] You get this sort of curse of knowledge and a belief that, you know, you don't notice your biases anymore, right?

[00:16:52] So to Margo's point about knowing yourself, which is such a central part of our work, if we're not aware of the biases that we hold and then we get exposed to AI,

[00:17:02] which frankly is like a Vulcan canon for misinformation and disinformation because it can take those biases that are common to people and then can just propel like a fire hose of stuff at people to rattle them in, you know, by attacking and twisting those biases.

[00:17:25] And if we don't even know we have them for a starter, for instance, which you could go all the way through your entire schooling career and never ever have a conversation about sort of hardwired biases that are part of human nature, never mind culturally acquired biases.

[00:17:41] You know, if you don't even know they exist, what hope do you have of being able to be not a victim of people who seek to manipulate that, right?

[00:17:49] And then once you know that they exist, then it's like, what are the strategies that you have?

[00:17:53] How do you recognize when, you know, people are pushing at this?

[00:17:56] And what you say about AI is, you know, it's really one of the most foundational parts of that technology is that, I mean, Google admits they don't know how it really works.

[00:18:07] You know, open AI says the same things.

[00:18:10] We don't really know how it's producing the stuff that it's producing.

[00:18:13] And a study that got published the other day, maybe last week, showed that when they challenged ChatGPT to a deception test, ChatGPT would form what they termed Machiavellian deceptions 99.16% of the time.

[00:18:32] So, you know, so the humans who are interacting with this technology, as you say, if they don't have the fundamental capabilities to be able to see their own thinking and to be able to see how other people are trying to manipulate their thinking and their actions, it's a pretty tough go.

[00:18:48] And we're just like, we're just now dove into the deep end of this basically, right, as a civilization.

[00:18:55] So it's an interesting time.

[00:18:58] One other thing.

[00:18:59] Oh, go ahead.

[00:19:00] Go ahead, Margot.

[00:19:02] What I also find fascinating in speaking to our human nature is AI spit stuff out.

[00:19:09] That's very technical terminology, by the way, spit stuff out.

[00:19:13] It does that with incredible speed and confidence.

[00:19:18] And humans are very susceptible to confidence and certainty.

[00:19:21] And so if it could be dead wrong, if said and communicated in an AI way and in human whatever way, with confidence and certainty, humans will gravitate towards that because we are quite uncomfortable and ill-equipped for uncertainty and ambiguity.

[00:19:40] So that's one of the things that also makes us susceptible to AI.

[00:19:44] And this whole concept of people not being equipped for it in the current more traditional systems that we've had in place.

[00:19:55] Like Greg said, they were built for the industrial age.

[00:19:58] They were built for the industrial age.

[00:19:59] Dr. David Finch talks a lot with others about, you know, it's built to address mass illiteracy.

[00:20:04] Okay, we accomplished that.

[00:20:05] And it's so ingrained that we actually had to build into our programs on learning.

[00:20:10] Because people were like, tell me what to do.

[00:20:13] Tell me what I need to know.

[00:20:14] Tell me what I need to do to pass.

[00:20:16] Tell me what.

[00:20:17] And that innate curiosity that we have, we had to reignite that in people.

[00:20:22] We had to point out to them, your parents didn't give you, say, no, no, don't even try crawling.

[00:20:28] Don't.

[00:20:28] You need to know the biomechanical aspects of crawling before you try.

[00:20:33] No, you figured it out, right?

[00:20:35] And if you're a living, breathing adult human being, you figured a lot of stuff out without anyone having to teach it to you out of a book and that you passed a test before you were able to do it.

[00:20:48] And yet that's so ingrained.

[00:20:50] We really had to work at that because they'd say to us, I'm not ready.

[00:20:53] I'm not ready.

[00:20:53] We really conditioned people.

[00:20:55] They need to know everything first before they can do anything.

[00:20:57] And in the world of generative AI where stuff is going so quickly and with constantly advancing technology, needing to know everything and having to know everything before you even try, it's just not possible anymore.

[00:21:12] You will be completely stuck.

[00:21:15] And our aim is that people equip themselves to be able to get unstuck and unstuck quickly and to get that confidence back in their innate capability of figuring stuff out.

[00:21:26] I love how you mentioned curiosity.

[00:21:29] For me, that is something that's at the heart of learning passion, excitement about life and hiring people in my own business too.

[00:21:45] You can see the people that are curious and they stand out like they've got this light shining on them.

[00:21:51] And as you said, the people that are like, just tell me what I need to do to get that mark or whatever.

[00:21:59] And the system is just so set up for that.

[00:22:03] What are you seeing as employers that progressive companies can do to find the right people with the right skills at the right time?

[00:22:23] And go.

[00:22:25] Well, actually, to pick up on what we were just talking about, the companies themselves are kind of in this passive position.

[00:22:33] So just like the passive position that Margo was describing that so many learners have had sort of inculcated themselves in over the years, which is really, you know, gamification is going on all the time.

[00:22:43] School is a form of gamification, and it builds sort of a gaming mentality of what are the things that I just need to do to pass the test, right?

[00:22:54] And companies are hiring people who've gone through that process and they're hiring according to the credential that says they passed all the right tests.

[00:23:02] And we use that as a shortcut, right, for competency.

[00:23:06] And in some cases, it's totally appropriate.

[00:23:09] I wouldn't say that we should, you know, ignore people's credentials because, you know, some more than others are quite serious and need attention.

[00:23:17] But overall, a passive, you know, this sort of like, as a company, we're a bucket and we need to put some people in the bucket who are going to help us do, you know, a bunch of stuff.

[00:23:27] So you come along and show us why you should be in our, like, it's pretty passive.

[00:23:32] So I would say one of the things that, you know, that progressive companies ought to be doing is they ought to be getting more active.

[00:23:40] In other words, they should be conditioning the market of potential employees with the kinds of skills that they want to see and letting people know that these things are important.

[00:23:51] And then when it comes to their hiring practices, not falling into the trap of just welcoming a thousand resumes that are going to actually get parsed by some kind of machine learning algorithm or whatever, which does not do a good job of looking for curiosity, for instance.

[00:24:05] You know, so they claim that they want curious people.

[00:24:09] We hear this all the time, but then when you watch the actual process that they use to get these people, the process does basically probably weeds out all the potentially strange people who, let's face it, are the ones who are going to bring that kind of value.

[00:24:24] Like in a lot of ways, their resumes are going to be not like other people's resumes and they will have taken different paths and different journeys and whatever else.

[00:24:31] So I think part of the answer for this is that organizations need to get more active both before and after they hire people.

[00:24:40] And after they hire people too, they need to make this, you know, curiosity-based learning environment, which is vital for anybody who's doing any kind of innovation.

[00:24:50] They need to make that part of the lifestyle of the company and they need to take an active role in, you know, creating that kind of culture.

[00:25:00] That's interesting that you say that.

[00:25:02] I did.

[00:25:02] That's my experience from consulting in various companies over the years.

[00:25:08] And while we love the effort and the sometimes enthusiasm of HR, I find it can be a black hole in companies.

[00:25:24] It's interesting.

[00:25:26] The first job I had was the one I paid myself when I started a business 20-something years ago.

[00:25:33] So actually, I stock shelves at Safeway in Vancouver for a while.

[00:25:40] But I recently closed down a company and I thought, you know what?

[00:25:45] I need to apply for some jobs.

[00:25:46] I didn't quite know what I wanted to do.

[00:25:49] Good Lord.

[00:25:50] It's just a nightmare.

[00:25:52] And I'm like, how do people do this?

[00:25:57] The hoopsie, you have to jump through with these automated systems that are designed by software engineers from 1982.

[00:26:06] And it's interesting.

[00:26:08] And then there are some new tech companies that have really unique hiring processes.

[00:26:15] But I'm like, it's not something I'd wish on my worst enemy through the hiring process.

[00:26:23] And so I'm like, I will stick to my consulting and coaching and do a bit of things on the side.

[00:26:30] I'm like, wow, this is crazy.

[00:26:33] Yeah, I'm going to stay outside that system a little bit.

[00:26:36] I just thought it would be fun to dabble in it.

[00:26:39] So I applied for a bunch of roles.

[00:26:40] And yeah, the questions I got, people were like, well, it was more about, oh, well, you don't have this degree.

[00:26:48] You haven't spent this many years in this industry.

[00:26:49] I'm like, I built a business.

[00:26:53] Multiple businesses over the years have done this.

[00:26:55] I can do every part of the business.

[00:26:57] But it's like, well, you don't have this specific thing.

[00:26:59] And I'm like, really?

[00:27:00] Come on.

[00:27:02] That's what we find interesting is that we hear that.

[00:27:05] We hear, we don't care where they learned it.

[00:27:10] You know, I think Greg says how, you know, as long as you put on pants when you come to work, I don't care if you did it in your basement.

[00:27:15] Like, whatever.

[00:27:17] And that's being said, and yet in practice, what we're seeing is different.

[00:27:21] And so I'll give you an example of one that we had.

[00:27:23] But so we have our, with one of our programs, we have demo days.

[00:27:27] We invite industry in.

[00:27:28] And there was someone who came and had selected three people that they wanted to interview.

[00:27:34] And then contacted one of our tech facilitators afterwards and said, you need to help me because I could see that they could do it.

[00:27:44] I could see it.

[00:27:45] And yet none of them could pass my gatekeeper interview.

[00:27:49] Help me figure out what I'm doing wrong.

[00:27:52] And when they looked at what this person was using as the gatekeeper interview, the, you know, go, no, go of whether or not you even start an interview or consideration process.

[00:28:01] It was all computer science theory.

[00:28:03] And what the tech facilitator said is, you know, the last time that I used that tech, that theory was when I was in my fourth year of university.

[00:28:13] If you're looking for, there are certain roles that will require that.

[00:28:16] Absolutely.

[00:28:17] Most of your roles will not.

[00:28:19] So the thing that says go, no, go is actually selecting out most of the people.

[00:28:24] That whole story as well was what, and it's part of the reason we have demo day and part of our overall approach and the principles we use is demonstrate what you're capable of.

[00:28:33] If you demonstrate you can, great.

[00:28:36] Next challenge.

[00:28:36] Let's go broader, deeper.

[00:28:37] If you demonstrate you can't, it simply informs all of us, including you, that we need to figure out with you what's your access point to the learning.

[00:28:46] And so when we're looking at progressive companies and what they're doing, they're actually incorporating demonstration of capability and competence.

[00:28:56] And that's not always an easy thing.

[00:28:58] And yet it's not as elusive and difficult as we might think.

[00:29:02] You know, I've seen different things like, you know, personality assessments being used.

[00:29:07] Okay.

[00:29:07] As part of a whole recruitment process, because there's lots of evidence that personality type, personality traits only can predict about 18% of their performance.

[00:29:19] So when we're looking at it, most of it is demonstrating what they're capable of doing.

[00:29:23] So incorporating some of that into your hiring process.

[00:29:27] And we've had some people who've come through that went to companies that didn't even ask for, never asked about their education, never asked about anything.

[00:29:36] That was the whole process, was a series of 12 demonstrations of what they were capable of.

[00:29:41] And they got hired.

[00:29:43] There was no resume pass.

[00:29:44] There was nothing.

[00:29:45] So those are the kinds of things that we're needing to see.

[00:29:48] It doesn't, it sounds hard and onerous and lots of time.

[00:29:52] And like Greg said, some of these credentials are shortcuts.

[00:29:55] We do need some kinds of things to help us figure it out and take that thousand pile of resume pile down.

[00:30:02] And having a really robust interview and selection process that allows the full person to show who they are, to see if they're a fit for who your organization is, as well as to demonstrate what value they can contribute to you, is actually more important than any of the resumes and the other tests and assessments you might do.

[00:30:21] There's a difference between articulating knowledge and being competent.

[00:30:26] You know, if you have a screening process that says, let me see how well you can actually execute something, how reliably you can execute something.

[00:30:35] That's a very different thing than saying, let me quiz you on the knowledge.

[00:30:39] Right.

[00:30:39] Right.

[00:30:39] And yet, you know, back to the game of school that, you know, quizzing people on knowledge is kind of what it's built on.

[00:30:46] But the competency doesn't operate like that.

[00:30:49] It needs knowledge in order to function.

[00:30:50] But if you ask somebody to recall knowledge out of context with the actual execution of the work, a lot of people can't do it.

[00:30:57] It's not that they don't actually fundamentally understand the theory in a lot of cases.

[00:31:00] It's just that they haven't acquired it that way.

[00:31:04] That's not the thing that they focused on.

[00:31:06] So we have to be really careful.

[00:31:07] I mean, at the end of the day, this is tough for humans to, you know, understand in a lot of cases, but the system always wins.

[00:31:16] So the number of companies that you encounter where you say, they say, all we have to do is just hire a bunch of A-plus people and we are going to rock.

[00:31:23] And it's like, well, no, actually, if you can talk some A-plus people into coming into your company where the system is not good,

[00:31:30] you're either going to grind them into the dust or they're going to bounce off your company because they're going to realize really quickly that an A-plus person

[00:31:37] doesn't want to be hanging out in that kind of system.

[00:31:39] And so, you know, that whole notion of that's what we're searching for, right?

[00:31:43] We want to put the shiniest rocks in our bucket.

[00:31:46] You know, we're going to go look for those people.

[00:31:49] And it's fascinating now, like you look at some companies that do open hiring, you know, like the body shop has done this and everything where they basically make a posting.

[00:31:56] And then they just do the most basic screen.

[00:31:59] And they say, you want to, great, take the job.

[00:32:01] And then you look at the turnover in those jobs, you know, when they start studying that.

[00:32:06] And the turnover is lower in open hiring situations than it is in places where they've spent, you know, done 15 interviews with people.

[00:32:12] So it's like, you know, what is really going on here?

[00:32:16] Whereas, you know, in that scenario where you know you're doing open hiring, it puts a lot of onus on the organization to say,

[00:32:22] we need to make sure we're developing and supporting these people because we're not doing it all ahead of time.

[00:32:27] We're not deciding who's great before they even come in the door.

[00:32:30] We're going to make them great by inviting them inside the door.

[00:32:34] It completely changes the way that a company can think about, you know, doing their work.

[00:32:39] And you're probably not going to do that when you're hiring a neurosurgeon, but it's, you know,

[00:32:45] but there might be parts of that approach that could still be applicable when hiring a neurosurgeon.

[00:32:52] You know, so yeah, that's the tricky part of the whole thing.

[00:33:01] A lot of companies these days are great at turning A players into C players.

[00:33:05] Oh, yeah.

[00:33:06] Yeah.

[00:33:07] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:33:08] I mean, I think about some people that I know who, you know, when I first met them were curious and strange in their approaches and, you know, really creative and whatever.

[00:33:20] And there's one in particular I'm thinking about right now.

[00:33:23] And then seven years later after working in an organization, you could just see the trajectory of all that curiosity and strangeness just completely gone.

[00:33:34] And the person even becomes like they've become a less interesting person to even just have coffee with because they've actually been a lot of what made them special has really been reduced.

[00:33:46] And it's tragic, like absolutely tragic.

[00:33:50] If we work that hard to find great people and then that's what happens to them in the organization, that's an absolute tragedy.

[00:33:57] And that's a huge part of the consulting and coaching I've done in the past is to help.

[00:34:05] It's when you look at the engagement stats, the turnover, well-being in the workplace, people just are miserable.

[00:34:14] They just show up, put in some time, move a few papers around or click a few keys on the keyboard and go home.

[00:34:24] And there's not a lot of interest and enthusiasm.

[00:34:28] And in the great companies, they've created that atmosphere, the culture where people thrive.

[00:34:36] They're learning, they're challenged.

[00:34:37] They might be working hard, they might be putting in a lot of effort, but they love it because they're challenged, they're stimulated in their brain.

[00:34:45] They've got things to tackle and that are worthy of tackling.

[00:34:52] That's something that we see in so many companies where it's just not happening.

[00:34:56] Well, and actually this comment that you're making right now to me ties really strongly back to the AI question.

[00:35:02] Because you look at something like an app, well, an AI environment, Codestral, so like Codestral.

[00:35:12] It's got like 80 programming languages.

[00:35:15] The AI is able to operate with 80 programming.

[00:35:18] So if you were somebody who's going to become a software developer and you see that this exists, it's like, well, that's the end of being a software developer.

[00:35:26] I mean, if there are these AI apps that can work in 80 programming languages, there's no way in my life that I would be able to, you know, to get to that.

[00:35:34] What's the hope?

[00:35:35] But in most companies, software developers, you know, I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but in a lot of companies, software developers are kind of treated like the way the AI would operate, which is like how to write the code, maybe how to test the code, maybe knowing what code to write.

[00:35:54] But that's kind of like, that's it.

[00:35:56] So if that's your conception of a software developer, then absolutely AI is a massive threat to that thing.

[00:36:05] Because there's no question that AI is very close, well, not very close, in some cases capable of doing those three things.

[00:36:12] But, you know, there's like Matt Wensing came up with this idea of what he calls the 15 levels of developer autonomy.

[00:36:18] And the three that I described are just the first three.

[00:36:22] And like he would say, I don't even hire people in my company that can't get to level 12, which is like how users will value what it is that I'm building.

[00:36:33] So something that we talk a lot about at Inception is be meaningful, not mechanical.

[00:36:37] You know, anybody can learn to be a mechanical producer of stuff, which is, you know, just writing the code.

[00:36:44] But to understand when I write this code, the decisions that I make as I put this code together, what impact does that have on the product?

[00:36:53] What things shouldn't I code?

[00:36:55] You know, for instance, being, you know, a question.

[00:36:57] And so AI is going to be massively challenged when it comes to getting at those other levels.

[00:37:02] But if as an organization you see coding as a mechanical process, then for sure AI is going to take those jobs.

[00:37:10] If as a software developer you see software development, your work as being a mechanical job, then for sure AI is a massive threat.

[00:37:18] But at the end of the day, you know, most of us are paid for the decisions that we make, whether it's deciding what goes into your line of code or what strategy our company is going to follow or whatever.

[00:37:27] And we've already talked about the fact that AI is pretty crappy at making decisions, certainly massively unreliable at the best.

[00:37:35] And so, you know, so when people start using it to outsource their thinking, it's kind of like, what are you doing?

[00:37:41] You know, like this is the thing that makes you human.

[00:37:43] And if you're just going to get AI to do that stuff for you and it's not going to do it well, you know, what's the scenario?

[00:37:49] But it's an interesting idea about, you know, what we're actually asking people to do at work.

[00:37:57] I want to pick up to Tim on something else that you said about, you know, people who go and they clock in, they clock out.

[00:38:04] Versus the, as compared to the people who are in an organization that is really committed and invested in seeing them thrive.

[00:38:12] Because if they thrive, so does the company.

[00:38:14] And what we see as well, and it's a huge contributor to wellness or lack of wellness, is when there's purpose.

[00:38:22] And so Greg mentioned meaningful, not mechanical.

[00:38:25] We know that purposeful work and purposeful life, meaningful work, meaningful life contribute to whether or not we're well.

[00:38:33] And the healthier and more well we are, the, again, the more complex challenges we can actually really solve.

[00:38:40] And so when a company has a purpose that they, they can have all the declared purpose and all the declared culture on the wall that they want.

[00:38:49] The actual purpose and culture they have are the behaviors that they tolerate within their companies.

[00:38:55] And if their purpose is really shareholder value for increasingly large numbers of people, that's not purposeful for them.

[00:39:02] And so what we, if you really want to see people contribute to what you're trying to achieve in the world as a company,

[00:39:08] you need to have a clear purpose and a purpose that people can get excited about and then contribute by creating the conditions for them to help you realize that purpose in as many meaningful ways as possible.

[00:39:20] You know, that you're not sitting there telling them what they need to do and how they need to do it.

[00:39:24] And then getting upset that people aren't doing it so much as creating the conditions and giving them the authority to be able to figure out the how within some, within a framework of, hey, within this area, how you do it.

[00:39:37] Right.

[00:39:38] And let's see you and let's see what you can do.

[00:39:41] And then also being willing to be delighted and surprised because they may actually outperform what you might have given them prescriptively.

[00:39:50] And so having the trust in yourselves as an organization of the people that you've hired and the trust of the people themselves as well to actually be able to live that purpose and execute it alongside you.

[00:40:04] You've just nailed the biggest reason for disengagement is a company I have often said to executives and when I'm doing coaching consulting is

[00:40:19] you can say there's the advertised culture and then the actual culture and the further the separation between those, the more disengagement, stress, burnout in the organization.

[00:40:34] And I've gone into companies and worked with companies that are best places to work and they're on all the lists and they've got all, they've checked all the boxes for everything they're offering.

[00:40:46] And then it's a miserable existence in those companies because the actions on a day-to-day basis of the leaders in that organization speak volumes to the fact that this is the reality, despite what we say.

[00:41:05] I had a CEO, Margo knows the story.

[00:41:09] I had a CEO in a board meeting, so like with their whole executive present, who said to me, what do I do with somebody, a leader in the organization, who treats people extremely poorly and then always has some kind of excuse for why they had to do that?

[00:41:28] Yeah, I know we have this stuff on the wall, but I had to treat this person poorly because, and I was stunned.

[00:41:36] I was sitting there and I said, you're the CEO of this organization.

[00:41:40] This is not a small company.

[00:41:41] The CEO saying to me in front of everybody else, what do I do about somebody who is basically acting like an asshole?

[00:41:52] What do I do?

[00:41:53] And I was just, I was absolutely stunned.

[00:41:57] But it's a great example of exactly what you're talking about, where people would just be like, oh yeah, these places, they're all great places to work.

[00:42:04] But I mean, this is what passes for leadership in some of these cases, which I guess is why I shouldn't be surprised.

[00:42:09] When I saw an article last week, it said that some people are looking at, well, we could replace CEOs with AI.

[00:42:16] Because actually the AI might have known what to do in that situation.

[00:42:21] But, you know, yeah.

[00:42:24] I mean, the notion that, and this is the thing, I mean, declared values, whatever you declare them to be, typically the things that people like to put on the wall are hard to do.

[00:42:32] And there's something about humans, which, you know, again, if we don't learn anything about human nature, we don't know this.

[00:42:37] But the reason that Homer Simpson resonates as a character for 35 plus years that The Simpsons have been on is because we're all Homer Simpson at some level.

[00:42:46] And we don't like to expend a ton of effort.

[00:42:49] And so when things like machine learning and AI come along and say, hey, you know what, all that really difficult stuff that you used to have to do on your own, we got that.

[00:42:57] And so, you know, and that's why outsourcing thinking sounds so great.

[00:43:04] Because it's like, oh, that's hard work, man.

[00:43:06] I don't need to do that.

[00:43:07] And humans are wired to conserve energy.

[00:43:10] Like, that's the way we are.

[00:43:11] You know, we didn't used to hunt at Safeway.

[00:43:13] We used to have to work a lot harder for stuff.

[00:43:16] So, but we still carry all of that evolutionary baggage and it's not going to change.

[00:43:23] So we're really susceptible for arguments for convenience and low energy and everything else.

[00:43:29] And I think in a lot of companies, it's much easier to play the game of getting on the top 50 list by filling out the questionnaire and doing all the things that you need to do than it is to actually have a culture that operates in such a way that it would attract the top 50 list.

[00:43:43] You know, it's a big part of the challenge that we're dealing with all the way around.

[00:43:50] So, well, that sort of brings us full circle to, I guess, back to where we started in the sense of if we have these technological tools, whether it's AI or some other technology that is going to take the grunt work or the repetitive tasks out of the equation, or at least to a large extent.

[00:44:13] And what does that leave that humans are best to do?

[00:44:20] And how does cultivating that in people new to the workforce and retraining for existing people?

[00:44:30] Yeah.

[00:44:30] So how would you sum that up other than learning to learn?

[00:44:36] Yeah, well, and I think we're big fans of getting rid of the grunt work.

[00:44:42] Because, you know, if there are some things that are highly repetitive and don't require a lot of real decision making to be done, then that is great that there are technologies that take that stuff on.

[00:44:55] Because if you're writing software, for instance, you know, let's say what does happen in that situation?

[00:45:01] Let's say AI does offload a lot of that kind of grunt repetitive work, including some of the tests and other things.

[00:45:08] Well, then that means that as a human, I'm freed up to do the things that are like thinking about, am I creating technical debt?

[00:45:18] You know, am I removing technical debt?

[00:45:20] Am I, how is this contributing to our product strategy?

[00:45:23] How is this, like it puts the human in a position where they can do the things that we're really good at.

[00:45:30] I mean, there is no general machine intelligence yet.

[00:45:34] And humans are the only ones who have it.

[00:45:36] And I remember many years ago, I was presenting at a conference in San Jose.

[00:45:39] And one of the guys who was there was in charge of what was called unmanned spaceflight at that time.

[00:45:48] So I don't know what they call it now, unpersonned spaceflight.

[00:45:54] But, and there was always this, you know, he told a lot of really great stories.

[00:45:58] But one of the things that was fascinating was, and this is like more than 20 years ago.

[00:46:04] So he said that people are always coming in and wanting to show like AI.

[00:46:08] They want to show artificial intelligence.

[00:46:10] It's 20 years ago saying, you know, we're going to do these things and here's some virtual reality environments.

[00:46:14] And here's all of these things that are part of our life.

[00:46:16] Now they were being talked about then.

[00:46:18] And he said, you know, artificial intelligence is strange to me because there are people now more than almost 8 billion people with actual intelligence that are on the planet and are able to contribute with their brains.

[00:46:32] He goes, I'm more interested in the other AI, which he called augmented intelligence.

[00:46:35] So this idea that we extend human capability.

[00:46:41] So extend actual intelligence that humans have through technology.

[00:46:45] So the Mars rover, for instance, is a really good example of that.

[00:46:48] As he said, they don't like putting people in space because people are heavy and they're fragile.

[00:46:54] So, but the Mars rover, we can put on Mars and extend, augment human intelligence by being able to use that.

[00:47:02] So this was, you know, 20 years ago, but this idea of augmented intelligence.

[00:47:06] Well, maybe AI in some way opens the door for us to really dive deep into augmented intelligence, gives us the opportunity to have these tools that extend our ability to do stuff by getting grunt work to happen faster.

[00:47:17] And in the background, it gives us more space for reflection.

[00:47:20] You know, Thomas Homer Dixon wrote a book many years ago called The Ingenuity Gap, talking about the fact that we made our lives so busy that we have compressed out of existence that ingenuity gap,

[00:47:30] that place where we get to be curious and we get to ask questions and figure out what's the best thing to do.

[00:47:35] Maybe if we're smart about this, we can take some of that space that AI is, you know, opening up by taking away grunt work so that we can be more ingenious, right?

[00:47:45] At least until the machines are able to have so many connections and so many parameters that they develop an emergent intelligence of their own.

[00:47:56] And in which case then the bets for the future are really off because who knows what that's going to look like.

[00:48:03] And then we're plugged into the matrix.

[00:48:05] Yeah.

[00:48:07] Maybe we already are.

[00:48:08] Isn't that the whole point?

[00:48:11] And if we are, that doesn't matter, whatever it is, this is so much.

[00:48:13] Yeah, exactly.

[00:48:14] We're all hooped.

[00:48:16] And building on what Greg said as well, I get excited at when people have equipped themselves to be able to think through these things,

[00:48:27] to be able to generate other possibility,

[00:48:29] and that they have the confidence and their own competence to build something that will actually work and bring value and so on.

[00:48:38] Then the losses from AI and generative AI actually become opportunity.

[00:48:44] Like Greg's saying, I get excited about what happens in that space when some of this other stuff comes off us.

[00:48:51] Along the lines, too, of what companies do with the culture and so on.

[00:48:57] And so many companies spend so much time, and the consulting work I did prior to Inception U, doing the work of the business.

[00:49:03] We're busy, busy, busy.

[00:49:05] And the most progressive companies and the companies I've seen outperform the other ones are the ones who also spend time working on the company,

[00:49:13] on the team, on themselves, on the individuals.

[00:49:16] And the creative potential that gets unleashed with the addition of things like Greg's saying as well,

[00:49:24] that augmented intelligence and the opportunity that comes from alleviating some of that grunt work.

[00:49:30] When we've done that other stuff, don't just think it's going to happen and leave that void,

[00:49:35] because the void will get filled by other garbage.

[00:49:37] So if you do it consciously and conscientiously, there's actually huge opportunity that comes with it as well.

[00:49:44] I love that.

[00:49:46] Yeah.

[00:49:46] We see that so often in companies these days where people are just, and they don't, like,

[00:49:52] they never take even a couple of minutes to sit up and, like, am I even going in the right direction?

[00:49:58] Yeah.

[00:50:00] And is what I'm doing mattering for our mission vision?

[00:50:05] Do I even remember what our mission vision is?

[00:50:08] Yeah.

[00:50:09] How connected am I with it?

[00:50:11] And so one other point I want to connect with that you mentioned earlier as well, Tim,

[00:50:16] and how many times, like, what can progressive companies do?

[00:50:20] Stop putting in programs.

[00:50:22] Start doing the real work.

[00:50:24] How many decades of employee engagement programs have we seen,

[00:50:28] and employee engagement is still as low as it's always been?

[00:50:31] You can call it something else.

[00:50:33] You can tie it up in another bow.

[00:50:34] We continue to try the same things and getting the same effect and then wondering what's going on.

[00:50:39] So progressive companies, this is where you need to go.

[00:50:43] You need to go down into the mental models that are underpinning your company,

[00:50:47] the beliefs that are underpinning your company, and it's not an easy place to go,

[00:50:51] and it's where we have to go.

[00:50:53] And so go there and see what transformative potential you can unlock by really going down deep.

[00:50:59] The companies that do that create the conditions for people and their companies to thrive.

[00:51:06] Yeah.

[00:51:07] Preaching to the choir here.

[00:51:09] I hear that.

[00:51:12] The one gap I've seen, and I'm curious to hear your opinion on it,

[00:51:17] is I've met a lot of senior leaders that do that.

[00:51:22] They take the time, they're here, but then there's a disconnect between rolling that out through the organization,

[00:51:30] having it make the impact on people across all the divisions.

[00:51:36] What have you seen be successful to make that happen?

[00:51:39] Well, we like to talk about design a lot.

[00:51:42] And when people hear that word, I think they immediately have something in their head about what that means.

[00:51:47] We make it explicit.

[00:51:49] Design is creating the conditions for success.

[00:51:52] So you need to know what success looks like.

[00:51:54] And then you need to know what conditions you need to create for.

[00:51:57] And I mean, I was lucky enough I got to spend some time with Peter Senge, you know, back in the day as he was doing,

[00:52:03] you know, I mean, Fifth Discipline.

[00:52:04] It was one of the top business books.

[00:52:06] There you go.

[00:52:06] And so, of course, that book was selling hundreds of thousands of copies,

[00:52:12] and everybody wanted a piece of Peter and Innovation Associates.

[00:52:16] And so he talked about the fact that he'd go into organizations with the executive,

[00:52:22] and they would all be, yeah, let's do this, let's do this, and then it would just die,

[00:52:26] like as soon as you got one level below the C-suite, basically, right?

[00:52:30] He hit into middle management.

[00:52:31] But he also told me, he said, you know, sometimes he'd go and they would talk about,

[00:52:36] you know, trying to balance out the way that the company was operating.

[00:52:39] And he said, but the secretary was still parking three miles from the office,

[00:52:42] and the CEO still had this double-sized parking spot right next to the front door.

[00:52:48] And so, you know, it really illuminates the fact that it's not a communication issue.

[00:52:55] It's an infrastructure issue.

[00:52:57] It is a way in which you build and defend the conditions in an organization.

[00:53:03] And then going back to the point that that's hard work.

[00:53:05] But the reality is that everything that wasn't created in nature is designed.

[00:53:10] We just either don't pay attention to the design we do, or we do a really crappy job, you know.

[00:53:15] But if we're very intentional about it, and at the same time humble about the fact that

[00:53:20] we're not going to get it all right the first time or whatever,

[00:53:23] but if we have good principles we can operate from, then we're going to build good things.

[00:53:27] So I think to us, that question you're asking is very much rooted in, okay,

[00:53:34] if this is the kind of behavior you want from your company,

[00:53:37] and the best thing I ever heard, best description I ever heard of culture is it's like your shadow.

[00:53:42] Like you can't tinker with it.

[00:53:43] Your shadow just does what you do.

[00:53:45] So if you want to change how your shadow shows up,

[00:53:48] you have to change the behaviors that you're exemplifying, right?

[00:53:51] So that's the hard work that needs to be done there.

[00:53:56] It's like it's not a communication issue.

[00:53:58] It's not like, hey, we have this great idea, and now we just roll it out over the company.

[00:54:02] I've watched companies, and we've all seen it,

[00:54:04] where people basically just put their heads down and wait for the wave to cross over top,

[00:54:08] and then they put their head back up when it's safe, you know.

[00:54:10] But entire departments, like HR departments, forget about why they are,

[00:54:15] like what their connection to the value creation in the business is.

[00:54:18] They forget about what their connection is to the mission and instead become interested in developing their own activities

[00:54:23] as a way of saying, this is why we're here.

[00:54:26] We matter because we're producing all these activities.

[00:54:29] But they tend to be activities in a lot of cases that are either counterproductive

[00:54:32] or at the very least not, you know, contributing to anything.

[00:54:35] And so it's a design question, fundamentally.

[00:54:40] I mean, leadership is about design.

[00:54:42] It's about creative conditions.

[00:54:43] And, you know, we talk about the story, Stephen Covey used to say this all the time.

[00:54:46] When he was doing his workshops, he'd ask people, you know, you think about a ship on the ocean,

[00:54:50] and he would ask people in the workshop, who do you think the leader of the ship is?

[00:54:54] And, of course, everybody would say the captain is the leader of the ship.

[00:54:57] And Covey would be like, no, the person who designed the ship was the leader of the ship.

[00:55:01] The captain can only manage within the envelope of that design.

[00:55:04] So this is, I think, an important, very important thing for people to be thinking about

[00:55:11] when grappling with this stuff is these are questions of design.

[00:55:14] What does success look like?

[00:55:16] Can I describe it?

[00:55:20] And how do I create the conditions to make that come about, right?

[00:55:24] That's the big question.

[00:55:25] It's not a communication issue.

[00:55:27] It's not a rollout issue.

[00:55:28] It's a, you know, redistribution of infrastructure issue.

[00:55:35] The most transformative business reorganization and leadership tool is Amir?

[00:55:43] Yeah.

[00:55:47] Beyond the inside the front cover of every book?

[00:55:51] Yeah.

[00:55:52] Well, that's, I mean, critical thinking is the core of a lot of, well, everything that we do.

[00:55:57] And, you know, going to Margo's point about getting to know yourself,

[00:56:00] I mean, that's the fundamental of critical thinking.

[00:56:03] If you ask somebody, you know, what does critical thinking mean?

[00:56:05] And then people will say, oh, it's about making better decisions or whatever.

[00:56:08] But critical thinking fundamentally is about metacognition.

[00:56:11] It's about holding a mirror up to your own thinking, to be able to see the quality of that thinking,

[00:56:18] to be able to see the parts that are working well and are not working well,

[00:56:22] to identify the biases, the mental models that are, you know, filtering all of what you do.

[00:56:28] There is no shot at autonomy and there is no shot at a culture that's going to be autonomous and successful

[00:56:34] without a fairly widespread adoption of using the mirror as a leadership tool,

[00:56:41] because otherwise we're forever caught in our own web, right?

[00:56:45] So it's, I totally agree.

[00:56:49] With the executive coaching work I do, it's still, I've fallen prey to it myself.

[00:56:56] And it still shocks me when you meet with C-suite executives and you're talking about something

[00:57:02] and you're like, and the blind spots that we have, when you talk about a topic and they're just like,

[00:57:08] you see the light bulb go off and they're like, oh, wow, okay.

[00:57:13] But we all have our blind spots and when we're not aware of them, that's the idea of coaching

[00:57:20] and being able to learn and grow is to be able to shine some light on those dark corners

[00:57:27] that we might not have seen.

[00:57:30] But it takes work.

[00:57:32] And it's discomforting.

[00:57:34] Yeah.

[00:57:35] And people want to be comfortable.

[00:57:37] Yeah, they do.

[00:57:38] And this isn't how you have it or you don't.

[00:57:41] And I think that's an important piece for people to know about.

[00:57:44] These are capabilities, competencies that can be built.

[00:57:47] And they can be built and you can do them in a way that still allows you to be you.

[00:57:52] Because humans are very good at recognizing if they're being techniqued.

[00:57:55] And so going back even to where we started with all of this as well is

[00:58:00] we come from systems that reward the right answer, the smart question, all of that.

[00:58:06] And so even what you're referring to with your executive coaching work, being able to see the blind spot,

[00:58:12] I have a vested interest and I don't mind to acknowledge I've got them or look at them.

[00:58:15] Because what if I give the wrong answer?

[00:58:18] What if there's so much pressure on that?

[00:58:20] And Greg was talking about that vulnerability and that intellectual humility is absolutely key for people to actually get to that transformative level of learning for themselves.

[00:58:31] And then as they're doing that, it's bringing it to their teams, to their organizations and so on.

[00:58:37] And so what can your company do to foster that?

[00:58:40] With the humility and the understanding in yourself and across your company of, and we're not going to get it perfect.

[00:58:46] We're not going to get it right.

[00:58:48] We're going to make mistakes and we're going to learn from those.

[00:58:51] And that way it's a mistake.

[00:58:53] It's not a failure.

[00:58:54] And instead of just telling people fail fast, okay, how?

[00:58:57] Instead of telling people change is the new or normal, okay, how?

[00:59:00] We need to provide opportunities for people to equip themselves with the capabilities to work through all of this.

[00:59:06] And then organizationally that this is part of the culture we build is that we have leadership, we have autonomy, we're operating within this area, and we're all learning with and from each other at the same time.

[00:59:21] Exactly.

[00:59:21] And if you don't have that mindset that you're open and vulnerable, it doesn't make sense to learn new things because you know all the answers already.

[00:59:34] And no one else in your company is going to be willing to be vulnerable either.

[00:59:38] Yeah.

[00:59:39] Everybody is going to stay in a narrower and narrower space to avoid making a mistake.

[00:59:44] And so that's the challenge for leaders.

[00:59:47] And especially as we go into this age of generative AI and so on, the leadership becomes in real adaptive response of leadership becomes even more crucial now than it's ever been.

[01:00:02] So we have to do another podcast.

[01:00:05] There's so much more topics we should talk about.

[01:00:08] But if we wrap it up with a little bow on it, what are the most popular programs right now that you're seeing the most traction with?

[01:00:20] And how can leaders and companies access them?

[01:00:28] Well, I mean, a couple of things that I would say.

[01:00:35] One is that, you know, I mean, traditionally the stuff that we've done in software development is still quite popular.

[01:00:43] Also design work that where we've actually we do things like user experience and user interaction design and that sort of thing.

[01:00:51] But we also tie a very strong level of strategic design in, which is kind of what we've been talking about a little bit is this strategic design, because it doesn't matter how good you are at that specific design competency, whether it's graphic design or interface design.

[01:01:06] If it's not connected properly to strategic design considerations, it's one of the reasons why a lot of stuff just kind of sucks.

[01:01:15] And so, you know, that's something that that is expanding for us in terms of the work that we're doing with that.

[01:01:23] And in fact, we have a new program that we're working on right now that kind of goes directly to what you're talking about, which is called leadership by design.

[01:01:32] So actually helping people build inside capabilities of leadership with the outside competence of design.

[01:01:40] So to be able to deal with those challenges that you're talking about, like how do we get an entire organization to change or whatever, and to help people see that these things are really synonymous in a lot of ways, leadership and design.

[01:01:53] It's the primary requirement for a leader.

[01:01:55] And then the other thing I was just going to say is that, you know, we look at the work that we're doing as something that's a conversation with the world.

[01:02:04] You know, we have to make decisions about what program we're going to run and how we're going to run it and everything.

[01:02:08] But we review our program execution on two week intervals to be able to see are we responding in the right way?

[01:02:16] Is the group that we have in the current cohort, do they need something different?

[01:02:19] Is there, you know, and we kind of take that agile approach to learning quite seriously internally, but also to the point where we're always looking for people who want to experiment with us, who want to make a contribution to the work that we're doing.

[01:02:33] So when it comes to the question of, you know, how can people do things with us?

[01:02:37] I mean, yes, you can certainly sign up for programs by, you know, coming to the website and all that.

[01:02:43] But we're always looking for more than that, for a conversation with people who are trying to solve some of the same problems that we are and reach the potential that, you know, we see for people in the world.

[01:02:55] So, yeah, that's another way to look at it instead of, you know, it's not just a program transaction for us.

[01:03:01] We're actually looking at, you know, how can we enter into relationships with people?

[01:03:07] And one of the things I'll add to what Greg shared as well is the how we do it is quite different as well.

[01:03:12] That you don't take a program with us.

[01:03:15] And you were mentioning earlier, Tim, that, you know, you take a program, then you try and apply it, and you just can't.

[01:03:20] And so rather than doing it as separate things, learning is not an event.

[01:03:25] What we do is we have it, and it's been well received.

[01:03:29] We have it fully integrated, bring your work into this learning.

[01:03:32] So you're actually learning how to apply it to something you have to work on anyway.

[01:03:35] So it's not the separate thing you have to make time for that you don't have time for.

[01:03:40] It actually accelerates and propels what your organization perhaps is stuck on, perhaps is working on,

[01:03:46] and allows you to build those capabilities applied to something real.

[01:03:50] That really sees that things take off, and that continues to be applied even after the learning with Inception.

[01:03:56] You may have come to a close at that point.

[01:04:01] Oh, well, it's been a pleasure.

[01:04:03] Absolutely.

[01:04:05] Where can people find you online?

[01:04:09] InceptionU.com.

[01:04:10] Okay.

[01:04:12] All right.

[01:04:13] You're both on LinkedIn.

[01:04:15] We're both on LinkedIn.

[01:04:16] LinkedIn.

[01:04:18] We're a little less active on some platforms.

[01:04:21] You'll see us on Instagram mainly, and LinkedIn a lot.

[01:04:24] And then our website.

[01:04:26] And be watching for some more things to come, because we're pretty excited about the year ahead.

[01:04:30] Excellent.

[01:04:31] I'll make sure those links go in the show notes.

[01:04:34] Wonderful.

[01:04:35] And it has been an absolute pleasure.

[01:04:37] Margot, Greg, thank you so much.

[01:04:39] Thanks, Tim.

[01:04:40] A lot of fun.

[01:04:41] Thanks.

[01:04:41] And we'll have to do this again.

[01:04:44] No problem.

[01:04:45] We love to jam.

[01:04:46] So, yes, absolutely.

[01:04:49] And pop down to the space anytime.

[01:04:51] Yeah.

[01:04:52] That wraps up another episode of the Working Well podcast.

[01:04:56] If you enjoyed the show, please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

[01:05:02] Now, which guests or topics would you like to see featured on the show?

[01:05:06] Message me through LinkedIn or on the contact page of TimBoris.com with your ideas.

[01:05:11] Thanks for tuning in.

[01:05:12] I'm Tim Boris with Fresh Wellness Group, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.