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256: Daniel Pink on the Human Skills AI Can't Replace · Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders

• 0:47
  Welcome back, revolutionaries, to another episode of the Customer Service Revolution Podcast.
• 0:53
  And today I'm so excited and pumped to have the Daniel Pink, author of seven best-selling non-fiction fiction books on a range of topics from human motivation to the science of
• 1:05
  timing to a graphic novel career guide.
• 1:09
  I need to know more about that.
• 1:10
  His books include The New York Times Best Sellers, The Power of Regret, A Whole New Mind, and When
• 1:17
  As well as the number one New York Times bestseller, Drive, and To Sell Is Human He's his deeply researched works have been translated into 46 different languages, have sold more
• 1:31
  than five million copies around the world.
• 1:34
  Daniel also has one of the 20 most popular TED Talks of all time.
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  He lives in Washington, D.C.
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  with his family, and he has been from afar.
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  A huge inspiration and mentor to me.
• 1:48
  welcome, Daniel.
• 1:51
  It's great to see you.
• 1:52
  You you in DC?
• 1:54
  I am in D C.
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  I'm in my home office here in Washington D C where it is outside dark and gloomy.
• 2:00
  Yeah, yeah.
• 2:01
  that's the weather, right?
• 2:03
  Not the um so uh love following you and one of your a recent posts that just is so topical is the the the key skills AI can never replace.
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  And I just think this is so important today.
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  I talk about service aptitude skills, which is
• 2:25
  short for soft skills and and how our how our society, thirty and under, are relationship disadvantaged and no fault of their own, right?
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  They've only grown up on technology.
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  I'm I know y you probably know about all the research, but just, you know, over fifty percent of young men, eighteen to twenty four have never asked a girl out in person.
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  you know, and people people say, Well what's that have to do with business?
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  Well, everything.
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  I mean, I don't know about you, but back in the day
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  in college I would, you know, go try some cheesy pickup line, get shot down, walk back with my tail between my legs, realizing I need a better approach.
• 3:01
  but that, as you know, skill set translated to interviewing, to sales, to to everything and and you know, every generation has a decrease in in people skills, but especially
• 3:13
  them.
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  So I'm I'm really curious for you to share the s the skills AI will never replace.
• 3:19
  Yeah, so I don't I don't have a definitive answer to this, John.
• 3:22
  It's something that a lot of people are thinking about and talking about it.
• 3:26
  Talking about.
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  So, you know, I produced a couple of kind of first drafts of answers.
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  I'll tell you what my latest draft s sounds like, subject to change without notice, perhaps even in this conversation.
• 3:37
  So so I think one one of the big ones is is taste.
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  you know, AI these these large language models are incredibly good at generating options.
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  but they but what they're less good at is is figuring out what's good and what's not.
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  you we see that we see it a lot.
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  So I can do a prompt for with for AI and and generate you know, a hundred options, say for let's say for an email, newsletter, subject line.
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  but I have to have the taste to know which is good and which isn't.
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  I have to know my audience to know, hey, my audience will dig that, my audience won't dig that.
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  And so this idea of the I
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  Taste of knowing what's good and what's not and why is incredibly important.
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  And taste is forged by doing stuff, by making stuff.
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  I mean, even your example of trying out those lines is in part an exercise in taste.
• 4:29
  Huh, that didn't quite work.
• 4:31
  Okay.
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  what you know, what's good, what's not, and why.
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  And what I what I think is what I think is challenging here is that the best way to build taste.
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  Is by creating stuff, not by consuming stuff.
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  The best way to build taste is by actively making and creating, not by passively consuming.
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  And so we have to your point about the, you know, I don't I don't want to be the old guy on the porch screaming at kids today, but you have a lot of a lot of young people are
• 4:59
  spending lots of time in passive, passive activities, not in active making activities.
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  And as a consequence,
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  they might not forge taste.
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  So I think that taste has become a big differentiator.
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  Taste is also the ability, taste requires the the courage to say no.
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  I mean, you have to people with good taste are in a meeting saying, no, that's not good enough.
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  No, that's not for me.
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  They're willing to say no, even when everybody else in the room is nodding yes.
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  And so so taste is a form of moral courage as well.
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  And
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  and and so I I really believe that that taste.
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  here's the other way to think about it, John.
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  It's like like right now, you know, it used to be for much of basically for much of human civilization, the the scarce resource was the ability to execute.
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  Okay, people might have had a good idea, but they lacked that the the tools and the technical know-how to make it real.
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  now basically anybody can create anything.
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  Okay?
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  A schmo like me can create a logo.
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  A schmo like me can create some kind of graphic.
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  I can make an animated movie, right?
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  So the barrier isn't execution.
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  The barrier is discernment.
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  Do you know what's good and what's not and why?
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  And I think that's gonna be a big factor because we have there's so much.
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  This is this is this is the the this is what we're gonna need in a world of AI slop where there's so much bad stuff out there that what what really matters is the ability to know
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  what's good.
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  I love that.
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  And I think, I think Steve Jobs is probably the biggest you know, perfectionist and of taste, right?
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  I mean he just wouldn't accept, you know, anything but the highest standard.
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  And but on the flip side, what I think I'm hearing you say is you gotta be willing to stand up to uh everyone nodding their head because they wanna agree with the CEO or or or
• 6:51
  the top person in the room.
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  Yeah, and it's not o it's not, you know, it's it's it's really about n you know, knowing what's good and what's not, you know, and and and and that requires the experience, the
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  experience of making things, the experience of being exposed to a lot of different things.
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  And so and we see a lot of chatter now about taste in Silicon Valley.
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  I think some of it is some of it is garbage.
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  I mean, but but there are companies out there who are now sort of hiring on taste.
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  And taste is in some ways
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  you know, a form of aesthetic judgment too.
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  It isn't simply analysis.
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  It is judgment about what is beautiful, what is true.
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  and and so I I find that, you know, that it's a power you know, it's an artistic skill that is gonna be powerfully important for all of us.
• 7:35
  I like it and and you're also making me realize, you know, AI's making us all lazy.
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  It makes me lazy.
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  Cause I'll I'll first run it through AI to get some ideas.
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  And then when I get it, I'm like, you know what?
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  That's good enough.
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  And good enough is, you know, it's it's it's the enemy.
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  Right.
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  You know, I mean good enough is the enemy of like, you know what?
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  I I I could save an hour here by, you know, just accepting that and
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  Sending that out or that being the products of
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  somebody who came to a job interview and said, you know what, my j what I see what I see what I see is my role is just doing stuff that's good enough.
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  No way.
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  No way, no way.
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  The other thing that you know, the other like I'm not against AI at all.
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  I I think it's a I think it's a powerful tool, and I think it's gonna re it's going to reshape how we work.
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  There's no question about it.
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  But there are also some we have to use it, we have to use it wisely.
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  So
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  For instance, I mean there's all there's all there's emerging research now showing that if you have students who basically have AI have AI draft their essay for a class, and you
• 8:41
  have other students who then who write the first draft themselves and then use AI to help refine it, what you see is that the students who relied on AI only did pretty well.
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  And the students who
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  Wrote it themselves and used AI, did pretty well.
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  The thing is, is that the people who used only AI did not remember what they wrote.
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  They never learned anything.
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  You know, and so you know, I I fear what's gonna happen, you know, we've gone from this world you know, you know, where calories are we won't you know, we evolved in a world
• 9:19
  where calories are scarce.
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  And so all of us have developed the ability to store calories really well.
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  And then you find yourself in a world where calories are abundant and you don't have to do anything physical.
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  And big surprise, we have an obesity problem.
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  And so AI could ultimately create a kind of an intellectual obesity problem where no one is exerting any kind of inf intellectual effort.
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  and so you know, driving in everywhere is not bad, is you know, it's not bad.
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  It gets you where you need to go.
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  But driving is associated with incredible problems of obesity.
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  Because if you drive everywhere and you never walk, you're gonna have some health problems.
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  So, you know, there's some there I I'm not an AI alarmist at all, but there's some there's some issues here.
• 10:03
  All right.
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  Taste is number one.
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  What's the next one?
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  Let's go first here's what I'm experimenting Tell me what think about this.
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  Touch.
• 10:11
  I actually think that there's gonna be and and I mean it both physic I mean it both literally and metaphorically.
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  So, you know, there's a premium on physical presence.
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  So let's take massage therapists.
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  I find it hard to believe that massage therapists are gonna be replaced by AI.
• 10:26
  I I really do.
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  even by robots, I find that very, very hard to believe.
• 10:32
  maybe it's possible, I guess, but I so things that require when it comes to even certain things in healthcare, I think that I think that HR, A AI is gonna be powerful in
• 10:42
  diagnosis, but health healthcare requires physical presence too.
• 10:47
  It requires being in a room with a patient, it requires talking to them, listening to them, looking at them, sometimes comforting them in a way.
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  So those kinds of things that require physical presence and you know one.
• 10:59
  sliver, one slice of those soft skills that you talk about, things like empathy, I think will become you know in incredibly important.
• 11:06
  you know, there's a lot of people have said that that's things like the building trades are gonna be fine because you can't, you know, if I have to have my electrical wiring
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  system in my house replaced, I can't just ask I can't just like write an agent to do that.
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  I need a person to come in and like knock down walls and connect stuff.
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  Physically, in my house, right there, touching stuff.
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  And so I feel like like that kind of thing, touch both in the literal sense and in the metaphorical sense, is going to become even more important.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
• 11:39
  I agree.
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  Okay.
• 11:40
  Number three.
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  I'm again this is the first draft, so I'll give you here's what I got: Composition.
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  Here we go, composition.
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  All right.
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  So composition is that's what composers do, musical composers do.
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  They take all the notes, they put them all together into something bigger.
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  That's what visual artists do.
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  They compose a painting, they take different pieces and put it all together.
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  and I think that's actually what most leaders are going to be doing now.
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  Because what they're gonna be doing is they're gonna be allocating resources.
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  They're gonna be allocating human talent and machine talent.
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  And they have to figure out how to compose all of those things together.
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  and so again, AI is AI is very good at generating the pieces, but putting it all together into something that is greater than the whole of the parts, that's what composition is.
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  and composition is is seeing the big picture.
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  It is having a s you know, being able to combine disparate things into something people didn't know that they were missing.
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  And certainly in terms of of leadership, allocation is gonna be as Dan Schipper at at Every ha came up with this idea, that allocation is going to be incredibly important
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  because you're gonna have all of these resources at your you know, right in front of you.
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  I mean if you if you think about, you know, I have a computer right here, I have a computer right here, I have another one over here.
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  All right.
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  So what am I doing here?
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  I have to make so maybe I can have this one running this agent, this one running that agent, this one running that agent.
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  Then I have two people who are field staff.
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  Then I have somebody who is assisting me over here.
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  How am I gonna allocate all of that machine talent and human talent?
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  That's what that's what composition is.
• 13:09
  I'm looking at some quotes that I grabbed from listening to this.
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  I'm making sure I wanna make sure this is part of it.
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  Yeah, I got the Dan Shipper quote, which I love.
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  which was you kinda said, in the knowledge economy you use you used to be compensated for how much you know.
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  In an allocation economy, you are compensated for how well you allocate the resources of intelligence.
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  That's better said than I said.
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  That's Dan Shipper.
• 13:33
  Yeah, no, I mean it.
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  It's how do you how do you allocate the resources of intelligence?
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  So what we have is we have these abundant resources.
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  but that that's nice, but how do you put them to use?
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  How do you figure out who does what, when, and where?
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  and that's a remarkably that that that and especially for leaders who are used to managing people, they're gonna be increasingly managing agents, they're gonna be increasingly
• 13:56
  managing smart machines.
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  When they think about their team, it's gonna be Fred and it's gonna be that AI agent over there.
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  And it's gonna be Maria and it's gonna be that AI agent over there.
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  And that's the team.
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  So how do you allocate those kinds of resources?
• 14:10
  I think that's gonna be profo I think that's profoundly important.
• 14:14
  You also talk about which I really like, stop managing time, start allocating talent, and you talk about what you should do with looking at your calendar.
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  Do you remember what you said there?
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  remind me that remind me what that what I what brilliant thing I said.
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  Look at your calendar for the past two weeks.
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  Circle every task that didn't require taste or yeah.
• 14:35
  yeah, that's that's that's what that's that's I I I think there's something I think there's something to that.
• 14:39
  Like you have to think about like, you know, how are you spending your time and and how are you allocating that the your your resour your your resources right now?
• 14:46
  My hunch is that many of us have delegated, assigned to human beings things that could have been assigned to AI or agents.
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  And that's a mistake.
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  It's a mistake on two different levels.
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  The first mistake is that it is a suboptimal allocation of resources because the AI or the agent can do that task faster and and cheaply, more cheaply.
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  But it's also a big mistake in that it's a bad allocation of that human talent.
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  Because what you're doing is you're wasting that person who can do other kinds of things extraordinarily well, who can use taste, who can use touch, who can compose, and you're
• 15:24
  you're not optimizing that either.
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  So it's a big, big mistake.
• 15:28
  And so actually having that kind of audit of how you're allocating your resources, I think can be a big, big difference.
• 15:34
  Most of us don't have a good sense of how we're doing.
• 15:36
  Most of us have no idea what our base rate is, what our baseline is or anything.
• 15:41
  All right, number four.
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  Fourth one is wisdom.
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  so with wisdom what I mean is that is you know what we once once again, intelligence and wisdom are different things.
• 15:54
  All right.
• 15:55
  Intelligence is I mean there are all kinds of different aphorisms about that particular concept, but you know wisdom is
• 16:04
  Sorry, give me a second here.
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  you know, wisdom is more valuable when intelligence is abundant.
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  So what is wisdom?
• 16:11
  Wisdom is intellectual humility.
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  It's basically, are you willing to be wrong?
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  The wh what w what do we know about wise people?
• 16:18
  Wise people are willing to say, hey, I'm wrong.
• 16:21
  Wise people are willing to sit in a room and say, tell me what I got wrong.
• 16:26
  Wise people are willing to say when
• 16:28
  They discover they're wrong.
• 16:29
  Wow, that's amazing.
• 16:31
  I'm so glad I learned something and discovered how I was wrong.
• 16:33
  They're not like digging their heels in, protecting their ego.
• 16:36
  That's what wise people do.
• 16:38
  The other thing that wise people do is they ask a lot of questions.
• 16:41
  and so again, AI is not as good at ask is pr it's pretty good at answering certain kinds of questions, but it doesn't always know the right questions to ask.
• 16:49
  And so human beings who can ask great questions with the w which is another hallmark of wise leaders.
• 16:56
  are going to be more valuable.
• 16:58
  The same thing is true with you know basic just basic integrity.
• 17:02
  If you think about, you think about what is a wise person.
• 17:04
  A wise person has integrity.
• 17:05
  A wise person tells the truth.
• 17:07
  And so when we think about being able to question more than you know, being asking smart questions rather than being a vending machine for right answers, when we think about
• 17:16
  having integrity rather than taking the low road, when we think about
• 17:21
  Being curious and having intellectual humility rather than having false certainty all the time.
• 17:26
  and the other thing about wise people is that, I mean, this is a bigger point, and it goes to the integrity point, is the wisest people in the world have empathy and compassion, not
• 17:36
  only for the people right around them, not only for their tribe, but for a wider circle of people.
• 17:44
  And I think that's one of the things that's missing there.
• 17:45
  And think it's a profoundly I think it can be a profoundly important leadership tool.
• 17:50
  So asking good questions, being intellectually humble, and sh showing integrity all the time and widening your circle of compassion.
• 17:57
  I mean, i y you show me a leader like that, I'll show you somebody people want to work for.
• 18:02
  I love this I love this topic.
• 18:04
  I love your take on questioning.
• 18:10
  right.
• 18:11
  But no no like other things you said in your your video about questioning, right answers still matter, but smart questions now matter a hell of a lot more.
• 18:20
  Think about it.
• 18:21
  We used to have search engines, now we have answer engines.
• 18:25
  I love that.
• 18:25
  I love that.
• 18:27
  I taught when I talk to you know, young
• 18:30
  professionals, account executives, you know, kids basically fresh out of college, and they they're worried about establishing credibility.
• 18:39
  you know, I tell them it's not in the answers you give, it's in the questions you ask.
• 18:44
  And when you ask someone questions, no one's ever asked them before, and you get them to think about things, pain points, whatever, that no one's ever asked them.
• 18:54
  All of a sudden you become, you know, really, really intelligent to them.
• 18:59
  Absolut absolutely.
• 19:00
  And there are I mean there are all kinds of techniques for asking better questions.
• 19:04
  I mean, there's a great book that I re in the video you're referencing, there's a great book that I that I recommend there called The Book of Beautiful Questions by Warren
• 19:11
  Berger.
• 19:12
  it's just a a really great way to sharpen those or strengthen those those questioning muscles.
• 19:16
  And there's an old technique.
• 19:17
  I wrote about this technique in in in Tassell as human, you know, ten years ago, which is a technique called the five wives.
• 19:24
  you probably know it from you know, from
• 19:26
  From sales and customer service, that where when when someone comes in with a problem, you you say why five times.
• 19:33
  And that often will get you to the root of what is actually what is actually going on.
• 19:39
  and so so asking those kinds of asking those kinds of questions is enormously important.
• 19:44
  But it also again, all these things work together because questions work with taste.
• 19:47
  Once you ask those questions, then you have to have the taste to be able to sort out the answers.
• 19:51
  Once you have the taste to sort out the answers, then you have to be willing to have the allocation and composition skills to put them all together and deploy them in in in in in
• 19:58
  in smart ways.
• 19:59
  Once you deploy them in smart ways, you have to also disp deploy them in wise ways, ways that are right, that are true, that are just.
• 20:06
  and and also approach anything you have with wisdom, knowing that you might have gotten it wrong the first time and you want to have the intellectual humility to say that you got
• 20:14
  it, that you got it that you got it wrong this time.
• 20:17
  But you can iterate and do another one and do it again.
• 20:19
  And iteration is a big part of composition as well.
• 20:22
  I mean, any kind of comp it's it's not like a composer of a musical score sits down and she goes, got it.
• 20:28
  I mean, they're they're just iterating and iterating and iterating and iterating and iterating.
• 20:32
  And again, this works, this also works with taste because the, you know, the th the reason that artists and designers have taste is that they've trained on their work.
• 20:44
  All right.
• 20:45
  AI trains on other people's work.
• 20:47
  They've trained on their work, which means that they actually have a much more muscular sense of taste than AI ever will.
• 20:55
  I love that.
• 20:56
  There's a couple things.
• 20:57
  One iteration you just made me think of like a and I know you're the same way.
• 21:02
  My latest book is done when I have to turn the manuscript in.
• 21:08
  If you give me another day, I'm gonna keep on editing it.
• 21:10
  My my keynote speech is done when I have to, you know, literally take the stage.
• 21:17
  Like you don't want, and I know you've been asked this too.
• 21:20
  Please send us your your presentation three weeks before.
• 21:24
  And I'm a and I'm like, and I won't remember three weeks later what I'm saying.
• 21:30
  I go, where you want me is where I'm I'm I'm I'm editing it on the way over.
• 21:34
  All right.
• 21:35
  Not making it, but editing it.
• 21:37
  Then in the middle of the night, you know, at the hotel room, I wake up because something comes to me and I run over and write it down because I want to.
• 21:44
  That's the space the iteration space.
• 21:46
  The other thing you brought up, which I love and
• 21:49
  guilty of doing the opposite is in conversations, two things I love.
• 21:54
  Listen like you're wrong, which is so hard, right?
• 21:58
  Because whatever side you're taking, sports, politics, whatever, most of the time, you know, we're biting our tongue because I want to wait for you to come up for breath to tell
• 22:08
  you why you're so wrong.
• 22:10
  Instead of thinking, all right, wait, Daniel's a pretty smart guy.
• 22:15
  Maybe there's something, he might not change my mind, but I I I need to understand why he thinks like he does and not be so sure.
• 22:23
  So the which goes to don't defend your ideas, explore new ones.
• 22:28
  Love those.
• 22:29
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:29
  There's a great line.
• 22:30
  I mean, it's not my line, it's I think it's from Karl Vike, the like from seventy years ago, he was like an organizational psychologist, y you know, argue like you're right and
• 22:41
  listen like you're wrong.
• 22:43
  And that's a that's just that's just that's just great guidance.
• 22:46
  I don't mind
• 22:47
  I I mean I like to hear people with strong points of view you know, strong points of view loosely held.
• 22:52
  I mean I that's what I'm doing right now.
• 22:54
  You know, I'm giving you my but if if one of your listeners emails me and says, Hey, I think you got this wrong or you think you're I'm total I like great, I've just learned
• 23:02
  something.
• 23:02
  You've made me better.
• 23:04
  No, I yeah, I heard this before, you know, I love it, is you know, I I I disagree with myself.
• 23:10
  Like if if everyone agrees with me, I'm a little worried.
• 23:13
  You know, I mean that's not
• 23:15
  rather than have people y you know, passively nodding agreement with the boss.
• 23:18
  you know, that's a big that's a big i that's a big issue for
• 23:20
  for for leaders is that if you talk to leaders at the ver as you do, you know, the very, very, very top, one of the things that they will say, which I think surprises people, is
• 23:29
  that they fear that the good ones, they fear that the people around them aren't telling them the full truth.
• 23:37
  it's not that they're lying to them.
• 23:38
  It's not like they're being deceitful to them.
• 23:39
  They just don't want to come with bad news.
• 23:41
  They don't want to come with harsh feedback.
• 23:43
  And so leaders have to actually design around that, which is again is a form of
• 23:49
  which is a form of wisdom which is a form of which is a form of intellectual humility
• 23:53
  Well and yeah, think talking last helps.
• 23:56
  you know, 'cause if you go in there and say, Hey, we have a problem, I think we should but what do you guys think?
• 24:01
  Well, you just dropped an anchor in the room.
• 24:03
  All right, I wanna get your opinion on this.
• 24:07
  Well, you know, 'cause so I have ten service aptitude skills.
• 24:10
  and I'll run through really quick.
• 24:12
  One is empathy.
• 24:13
  Two is friendly, kind, and caring.
• 24:16
  S that's all two.
• 24:18
  C three is curiosity.
• 24:20
  Four, ability to make a connection, build a rapport.
• 24:23
  Five is happy, positive, optimistic.
• 24:26
  Six is good listener.
• 24:28
  Seven is genuinely like others.
• 24:32
  Eight is problem solving when it comes to customer experience, diffusing an upset customer, making a brilliant comeback.
• 24:39
  Nine is enthusiasm.
• 24:41
  And ten is energy slash charisma.
• 24:45
  So here's my question, and this is what I teach, and I want you to poke holes at it.
• 24:49
  I say of of those ten, six of them can be trained.
• 24:54
  Now that's what I was gonna go with.
• 24:56
  And then the four, I don't think ten thousand hours is gonna move the needle in it.
• 25:02
  Empathy.
• 25:03
  And I don't know about you, but you know, when I was younger, I didn't have empathy.
• 25:09
  If you were overweight, depressed, you know, w like, you know, suck it up, pal.
• 25:13
  Like, you know, I I didn't understand until you have life experiences.
• 25:17
  That, you know, you realize life is a hell of a lot harder than you realize.
• 25:21
  tra we're doing training.
• 25:23
  Curiosity.
• 25:25
  I wasn't curious.
• 25:26
  I was if you when my wife would tell me, you know, John, we're going out with my friend from work and her husband, I'm like, no.
• 25:33
  Because her husband doesn't like what I like about.
• 25:36
  You know, I want to talk about baseball and you know, maybe business.
• 25:39
  And if he didn't like those two topics, that was two hours of pain.
• 25:43
  Right.
• 25:44
  Now I'm I'm excited about someone that you know doesn't have my you know same topics because it's a learn.
• 25:51
  It's it's it's an education event.
• 25:52
  Tell me why you like, you know, fly fish or whatever.
• 25:55
  Okay, ability to make a comeback, problem solving.
• 25:59
  I'm sorry, no, no, wrong question.
• 26:00
  I'm sorry, ability to make a connection, build a rapport.
• 26:03
  Um, good listener.
• 26:05
  Uh ability to make a comeback, aka diffusing an upset customer.
• 26:12
  Or I'm sorry, problem solving.
• 26:14
  a diffusing upset customer and energy charisma is the sixth.
• 26:19
  Now the four that I think you gotta find on the hiring and is friendly, kind and caring.
• 26:26
  I don't know if I can make you, you know, you or your your s your daughter, you know, friendlier a little bit, but I mean if you don't care about others, right?
• 26:35
  you tell me.
• 26:35
  happy, positive, optimistic.
• 26:38
  I don't know if I can change your outlook on life.
• 26:40
  Genuinely like others.
• 26:41
  If you don't like others, doesn't mean you're wrong.
• 26:43
  It just probably means you need to be in a cubicle or work from home or you know that.
• 26:48
  And then enthusiasm.
• 26:49
  Yeah.
• 26:50
  Like one of my favorite questions to ask someone is, you know, Dan, w with with your free time, nights, weekends, vacations, what's your most favorite thing to do?
• 27:01
  And provided it's legal, I don't care what your answer is.
• 27:06
  I just want to see if you get excited about talking about if you don't get excited about your most favorite thing to do, you're not gonna get excited about anything.
• 27:14
  So so pick a part.
• 27:15
  where am I where where am I off?
• 27:17
  Well, I mean I think a lot of these qualities kind of collapse on each other.
• 27:21
  I mean, you know, connection and listening and empathy, uh yeah, I mean those those things all I mean, yeah, and energy like I don't sure I understand the difference between energy
• 27:31
  and enthusiasm.
• 27:33
  but so I so I think that they're all I think they all grow from from from roots.
• 27:37
  I I think that my my take on this is that all of like for most of these kinds of human traits, some of it is innate.
• 27:43
  And some of it and some of it is learnable.
• 27:45
  And and so you want to move people to the highest level of where they of of where they are.
• 27:51
  So for instance, I'm with you on I'm with you on empathy.
• 27:53
  I think some of empathy is innate, but I think we can get people to the higher end of their empathy range.
• 27:58
  Curiosity, I think, is
• 28:00
  I think curiosity i is trainable up to a point.
• 28:03
  I think there are there I think there are people out there who are just not that open and therefore just not that not that that curious.
• 28:10
  I think connection is trainable.
• 28:11
  I think listening is definitely trainable.
• 28:13
  100% on on that.
• 28:15
  I think diffusing problems, you know diffusing upset customers, problem solving totally.
• 28:20
  and I think that energy I'm not sure that it's you know if you think about energy and enthusiasm, I'm not sure that it's necessarily trainable as much as it is putting people
• 28:28
  in the right positions.
• 28:29
  Yeah.
• 28:30
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:31
  Just I you know
• 28:31
  so the thing is it's so the thing is that like if you love if you get if I ask you that question that you you know that you ask people and you start talking and you and you start
• 28:39
  talking about, you know, yeah y Yeah, so so it's so what d you know, it's so so you could start talking about baseball and I see enthusiasm there, but if I put you in a situation
• 28:49
  where you were talking about ruta where you had to deal with the rutabaggers and you don't give a shit about rutabagas, you know,
• 28:56
  So so I think that I think a lot of the the enthusiasm is about putting people in the putting people in the in the right in the right role.
• 29:04
  so I th so I think all these things are val all of them are valuable and I think they s they sit in sort of the boundary line b they they sit on the spectrum between trainable
• 29:11
  and innate.
• 29:12
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:13
  I agree.
• 29:14
  all right, I'm sure you've seen or heard a lot of the commencement speak speeches, and as soon as they bring up AI, they get booed off the stage.
• 29:22
  Have you have you seen those?
• 29:25
  So, which brings up a good question for our listeners who are leaders.
• 29:29
  How do we invite the younger generation to have a better open mind to AI and not be so threatened by it?
• 29:40
  That's a good one.
• 29:41
  I mean I'm not sure I have a I'm not sure I have a great answer to that.
• 29:44
  I think part of it is kind of making a realistic promise.
• 29:50
  I mean if you have people
• 29:51
  especially at these tech companies, who in some ways are just talking their own book, saying, it's gonna obliterate all white collar jobs.
• 29:57
  Half of white collar jobs are gonna disappear.
• 29:58
  I mean that makes well I better get in on this new technology.
• 30:01
  I better invest so there so there's a little bit of BS there's a little bit of BS there.
• 30:05
  But there is going to be disruption.
• 30:06
  And so I think what we what you wanna do is you wanna do things like be open about, hey, you what you need to start thinking about is what you can do that a machine can't.
• 30:16
  Or even better,
• 30:17
  what you can do with a machine that it's that's impossible for a machine or a human to do by themselves.
• 30:22
  And that's how you should be thinking about that's how you should be thinking about your career.
• 30:25
  And as your boss, as your parent, we're gonna try to help you get there.
• 30:29
  but it's not gonna be easy.
• 30:31
  And you're gonna have to work at it too.
• 30:33
  And so I think that that's I think that that's what it is.
• 30:35
  We have this kind of like completely binary way of looking at it.
• 30:38
  It's like, my God, you know, we have this we have this view that it's gonna obliterate all white collar jobs or it's gonna lead to
• 30:46
  you know, endless leisure and and it's it's not gonna be either one of those things.
• 30:50
  I mean it's pretty it seems pr it seems pretty clear.
• 30:52
  There's never been a technology in the history of human civilization that has quickly obliterated huge numbers of jobs.
• 30:59
  It hasn't happened.
• 31:00
  There every technology has slowly reconfigured jobs, and that's what I that's seems like what's gonna happen that seems like what's gonna happen here.
• 31:10
  And so there's a lot of I mean, this reminds me a little bit, it has sort of the echo, the aroma of, you know, twenty years ago, I wrote a little bit about the early days of
• 31:19
  offshoring, where there was white collar work going to places like India or the Philippines and it was like, my god, this is the end of American l end of the American
• 31:28
  labor force and a lot of companies got on the bandwagon and they sent all kinds of work overseas.
• 31:32
  And then a couple of years later they said, You know what?
• 31:35
  We gotta bring some of it back.
• 31:37
  We gotta figure out what the right what what the right mix is.
• 31:40
  So I have a feeling right now is you have this kind of perverse thing going on where companies like Meta, how about that for a name?
• 31:47
  I mean he bet big on the metaverse and now it's suddenly disappearing.
• 31:50
  companies like Meta are firing eight thousand people and using that as a way to using that not only as a way to cut headcount, but also as a way to scare remaining headcount, that
• 32:00
  they're gonna be replaced by by AI.
• 32:03
  There are other companies that are mismanaged that then at firing people and say they were firing because we're gonna move things to AI because they want to impress investors.
• 32:09
  So there's just a lot of B there's a lot of BS around there.
• 32:12
  So in my in my view, in my view, you're like you shouldn't be booing AI.
• 32:16
  that's like booing electricity, you know?
• 32:19
  but you know, I'm not sure you whether you want to be, you know, necessarily applauding it.
• 32:22
  I think you want to say it's like, okay, there's this new technology here.
• 32:25
  Some of it's really cool.
• 32:26
  Some of it's gonna make a lot of it's gonna make my life a lot easier.
• 32:29
  Some of it is gonna is gonna make my work life a little more challenging.
• 32:33
  I better step up.
• 32:35
  Yeah.
• 32:35
  Well I think I think it's the doom and gloom that the the college graduates are hearing that they won't have a job to, you know, go walk into.
• 32:43
  But we are talking to Daniel Pink, author, New York Times best selling.
• 32:49
  Daniel, what are you what are you working on?
• 32:51
  What what can we look forward to hearing about in the next the rest of twenty twenty six?
• 32:55
  Well, I've been spending you know last year or so really doing a lot of experiments on YouTube, making videos.
• 33:00
  I I think that YouTube is is one of the most interesting sources of media media outlets today.
• 33:06
  it's just remarkable how much stuff is on there.
• 33:08
  There's a lot of really bad stuff, but there's a lot of pretty amazing stuff.
• 33:12
  And I think what's c incredible i I mean, this is a good example for the from the AI.
• 33:17
  If you said, you know, no.
• 33:21
  There's gonna be video cameras on people's phones.
• 33:25
  That is going to destroy the livelihoods of camera people.
• 33:29
  And it reconfigured the livelihoods of camera people and it turned hundreds of millions of people into video makers at the same time.
• 33:38
  So, you know, give give me a break.
• 33:41
  We're gonna see this.
• 33:41
  We're gonna see this with software and the the ability of agents to write software.
• 33:45
  There's gonna be an explosion.
• 33:48
  of new software because it used to be that you had to have basically a CS degree or this deep experience writing code.
• 33:55
  Now if you can think it, you can execute it.
• 33:58
  And so we're gonna have this expl just like we have now, you know, I'm old enough to remember, you know, w when there were when there were like three networks on television
• 34:08
  and that's all you had.
• 34:10
  Yeah.
• 34:11
  And so now and so so now you have more video
• 34:15
  Being created in the time that you and I are talking than existed in the world cumulatively when we were kids.
• 34:25
  All right.
• 34:25
  There's gonna be a lot again, there's a lot of bad stuff, but it's turned a lot of people into creators, which is pretty freaking amazing.
• 34:32
  and the the the the downside of that is that some of the stuff is garbage, which is why, coming back to what we were talking about before, you need taste to know what's worth
• 34:43
  making.
• 34:44
  What's worth spending your time?
• 34:46
  Well he you know, he got me think about another question.
• 34:48
  I will get sh before I ask this.
• 34:50
  You can find Daniel Pink and this will be in the show notes on YouTube at Daniel Pink TV.
• 34:57
  Daniel Pink TV.
• 34:59
  f great follow.
• 35:01
  highly recommend it'll be in the show notes.
• 35:02
  w here's another question, like people ask me, you know, about if you know, if I'm gonna read another book at and eight, I really don't want to if unless I'm forced to, shelf
• 35:12
  life.
• 35:12
  But
• 35:13
  Kinda along all what you're talking about, taste and and AI, do you feel that the sachet of writing a book is is gonna be watered down?
• 35:21
  Because now everyone can write a book.
• 35:23
  Literally everyone can write a book and do it in a tenth of the time it took us, without doing the research that, you know, we and yours are are way better than mine, but mine I
• 35:33
  still had a lot of pride in.
• 35:34
  But now I feel like any Joe Schmo can put something out tomorrow.
• 35:38
  think you're exactly right.
• 35:39
  I mean there's a there's a there's a paper out just a couple of weeks ago that looked at between twenty twenty two when Chat GPT first appeared and twenty twenty five the the
• 35:50
  number of published newly published books tripled.
• 35:54
  And the qual the average quality went down.
• 35:59
  So what we have is this is this is the slot problem.
• 36:02
  Quantity going up, quality going down.
• 36:07
  Bingo.
• 36:10
  Bingo.
• 36:11
  You know, and I I I you know and I also think it's like I also think there there's a there's a there's a pretty I mean as someone who's been a writer my entire life, there's a
• 36:18
  there's a tough and challenging question about whether.
• 36:24
  A book is necessarily the best form of conveying a set of ideas today.
• 36:30
  I think sometimes it is, but I don't think it always is.
• 36:32
  And I think it's it it is that is less the case than it was ten years ago, than it was twenty years ago, than it was thirty years ago, than it was forty years ago.
• 36:40
  And I think that you're right.
• 36:41
  I think I think you're also right.
• 36:43
  I think it's a very astute point too.
• 36:45
  Sort of the other side of the the other side of it is that when something becomes
• 36:51
  Plentiful, it becomes cheap.
• 36:54
  And when it and so and not only cheap in terms of price, but as you said, cheap in terms of cachet.
• 37:01
  Because you got a little bit of gold dust because you put in the hard work of writing a book and not everybody could do that.
• 37:08
  And now
• 37:09
  That gold dust might disappear.
• 37:11
  All right, sorry, one more you brought up another one I've been dying to know and I ha I haven't found anybody that's done it, but it may be out there.
• 37:17
  So I'm sure like you, twenty-five years ago, thirty years ago I was I was just getting into this, I meet, you know, popular speakers like yourself, y they all would tell me, You
• 37:30
  gotta write a book, right?
• 37:31
  You know, and and and and they were right.
• 37:33
  They a and someone once told me having back in that day, having author after your name.
• 37:38
  i l is like having D in in in the speaker.
• 37:41
  And it was right.
• 37:42
  I wrote my first book, it changed everything.
• 37:45
  Now and I've told that to anyone that was getting involved for the past, you know, twenty five years.
• 37:50
  But now I'm not like to your point, I'm not so sure.
• 37:53
  Can you be a subject matter expert?
• 37:56
  Because with with all the different mediums today, I don't know of anyone that is like a Gary V or you know, I I don't know of anybody who but there has to be someone
• 38:07
  that is just wicked smart c considered an expert that hasn't written a book, but I don't think writing a book is is a has to to be that that authority.
• 38:18
  wha what do you think influencers are?
• 38:19
  Influencers haven't written books.
• 38:21
  You know?
• 38:22
  I mean, yeah.
• 38:23
  I mean a lot most podcasters haven't written books.
• 38:26
  I mean, you look at some of the most popular podcasters out there who are who are extraordinarily influential in getting their ideas out there, whether it's political ones
• 38:33
  like Candace Owens or or Megan Kelly, they haven't written books.
• 38:36
  at least I don't I don't think they have.
• 38:37
  you know, and if you look at like
• 38:40
  some of the e some of the, you know, more left wing podcasts, I don't think many of them haven't written books.
• 38:45
  that's not, you know, it it's it's kind of interesting.
• 38:47
  In s in some ways, people might be writing books as is a as a kind of a brand extension, or as a kind of you know, I I think it becomes in a way for certain people, it becomes an
• 39:02
  artifact, a badge.
• 39:05
  that your followers and adherents can use, can can can have.
• 39:09
  So it's like, I really believe in this cause and I have the book to prove it.
• 39:14
  Correct.
• 39:15
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:17
  All right.
• 39:17
  Daniel Pink.
• 39:18
  You can find him on YouTube at Daniel Pink TV.
• 39:23
  thank you so much for inspiring me for so many decades.
• 39:27
  I love listening to you, learning from you, working with you.
• 39:30
  really enjoyed our conversation as always.
• 39:32
  right, well I'm looking forward to seeing the Nationals and the Guardians in the World Series.
• 39:38
  Although although we've we we our latest World Series win is much more recent than yours.
• 39:43
  Not to r not to rub it in.
• 39:45
  A little bit.
• 39:49
  All right.
• 39:49
  We'll see ya next time.