Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / The DEX Leadership Guide with Jacob Morgan 🚀 (Exclusive Ambassador Live Event)

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The DEX Leadership Guide with Jacob Morgan 🚀 (Exclusive Ambassador Live Event) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome item change makers to the Deck Show with Tim
0:05
Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGraw. Let's get into it.
0:09
Speaker 2: So, Hello, everybody, Welcome to what we're calling Jacob Morgan's
0:13
Speaker 2: Leadership Guide, hosted by Tim Flower and myself. We are
0:17
Speaker 2: the co hosts of the Deck Show, as you may
0:19
Speaker 2: already know, and when our friends in the Ambassador's team,
0:25
Speaker 2: John and Charlotte invited us to host this event, we
0:29
Speaker 2: did immediately think of that theme leadership, precisely for the
0:32
Speaker 2: reasons that John just articulated that a leader is not
0:34
Speaker 2: just somebody who manages people, who runs a team, a
0:38
Speaker 2: leader of somebody who drives innovation in their organization, who's
0:42
Speaker 2: willing to implement change, take risks. And we absolutely know
0:46
Speaker 2: that the Ambassador community in total is a community of leadership,
0:51
Speaker 2: of leaders rather in that exact sense. And as soon
0:54
Speaker 2: as we thought of that theme and that topic, I
0:57
Speaker 2: immediately thought of our very special guest, Jacob Morgan. He's
1:00
Speaker 2: somebody whose recent work in particular is really synonymous with
1:04
Speaker 2: that theme of leadership. His most recent book, Leading with Vulnerability,
1:08
Speaker 2: Unlock your Greatest Superpower to transform yourself, your team, and
1:11
Speaker 2: your organization is out now and all of our value
1:15
Speaker 2: community members joining us today, you will all be receiving
1:18
Speaker 2: if you haven't already, I'm not up to date with
1:19
Speaker 2: where this is in the post, but a signed copy
1:23
Speaker 2: off that book. And happily, Jacob is also synonymous with
1:27
Speaker 2: theme of experience. He's written extensively on and brilliantly on
1:32
Speaker 2: employee experience and we've had him on the podcast before
1:35
Speaker 2: to discuss that, so we thought it would be an
1:37
Speaker 2: absolutely fantastic guest and we will welcome Jacob and get
1:40
Speaker 2: stuck in. Momentarily, we're going to chat for about thirty
1:44
Speaker 2: minutes about the theme of leadership, particularly and specifically within
1:48
Speaker 2: the technology space, and then we're going to have a
1:51
Speaker 2: bit of an open session where people can ask questions.
1:54
Speaker 2: They can turn their Microsoft, they can say hello, or
1:56
Speaker 2: they can put questions in the chat as we go
1:58
Speaker 2: and they'll be read out the end of the discussion.
2:01
Speaker 2: I just want to mention that we are looking forward
2:04
Speaker 2: to releasing this as a special Deck Show episode in
2:07
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. So if for any reason you don't
2:11
Speaker 2: want your name or your voice on the show, just
2:13
Speaker 2: let us you still have a question, just let us
2:15
Speaker 2: know and we'll make sure we edit you out of
2:17
Speaker 2: that final cut, but otherwise we hope for lots of
2:20
Speaker 2: engagement and we're sure of a fantastic discussion. So with that,
2:24
Speaker 2: After that prolonged intro, let me finally welcome Jacob to
2:28
Speaker 2: the presentation. Hi Jacob, great to see how you doing.
2:31
Speaker 3: Good, Thank you for having me. Good to see everybody.
2:34
Speaker 2: Excellent, excellent, and we're really delighted that you were able
2:37
Speaker 2: to do this. Thank you so so much. And let's
2:40
Speaker 2: start with your most recent book, Leading with Vulnerability. What
2:44
Speaker 2: inspired you to write it and what unique perspective do
2:48
Speaker 2: you feel it it brings to the wider discussion of
2:51
Speaker 2: leadership in general.
2:54
Speaker 4: Well, I think a lot of people are familiar with
2:55
Speaker 4: the concept of vulnerability.
2:57
Speaker 3: We've all heard about it, we all know what it means.
3:01
Speaker 4: The challenge that I noticed with a lot of leaders specifically,
3:05
Speaker 4: and this even came about when I was writing a
3:06
Speaker 4: previous book called The Future Leader, is that a lot
3:10
Speaker 4: of leaders, whether they're CEOs or mid level leaders inside
3:13
Speaker 4: of organizations, we're really trying to figure out, well, what
3:15
Speaker 4: kind of a leader.
3:15
Speaker 3: Am I supposed to be?
3:17
Speaker 4: Am I supposed to be the type of a leader
3:18
Speaker 4: who acknowledges challenges and failures and shortcomings, or am I
3:23
Speaker 4: supposed to be the kind of a leader that seems
3:25
Speaker 4: to have it all figured out, that has a vision
3:27
Speaker 4: and a plan and a strategy who leaders can come
3:29
Speaker 4: to or who employees can come to for guidance. And
3:32
Speaker 4: a lot of these people that I was interviewing were
3:35
Speaker 4: very conflicted because employees, on the one hand, were saying, well,
3:37
Speaker 4: we want you to acknowledge your failures and challenges, and say,
3:40
Speaker 4: I don't know, but we also want you to be
3:42
Speaker 4: strong and confident and competent. So how do you kind
3:46
Speaker 4: of combine both those things together? And so what I
3:49
Speaker 4: realized over time is that while a lot of leaders
3:54
Speaker 4: understand the concept of vulnerability, a lot of people fail
3:58
Speaker 4: to understand is that vulnerability in your person life is
4:00
Speaker 4: not the same as it is inside of your organization.
4:03
Speaker 3: Because in your.
4:03
Speaker 4: Personal life you're vulnerable to connect with your spouse, your
4:06
Speaker 4: significant other, friends, family. But inside of your company there's
4:09
Speaker 4: a different dynamic. You have a team, you have customers,
4:12
Speaker 4: you have a projects, you have deadlines, you're being paid
4:15
Speaker 4: a salary, you have leaders, maybe you have people who
4:17
Speaker 4: work for you, And so being vulnerable in that kind
4:20
Speaker 4: of a context is not the same as it is
4:22
Speaker 4: in your personal life. And the really interesting insight that
4:27
Speaker 4: I came about from all of this is what I
4:28
Speaker 4: tell everybody is, don't be vulnerable at work.
4:32
Speaker 3: Lead with vulnerability instead.
4:34
Speaker 4: And so the difference between those two things is that
4:37
Speaker 4: vulnerability is about acknowledging a gap that you have. It
4:39
Speaker 4: could be a gap in competence, it could be a
4:41
Speaker 4: gap in experience, a gap in knowledge, whatever it is.
4:46
Speaker 3: But if you simply show up to work.
4:47
Speaker 4: Every day acknowledging the gaps that you have a lot
4:50
Speaker 4: of people are going to look at you and they're
4:51
Speaker 4: going to say, well, maybe you shouldn't be in this job,
4:54
Speaker 4: maybe this isn't a good fit. Maybe you know you
4:56
Speaker 4: shouldn't be doing.
4:57
Speaker 3: The work that you're doing.
4:58
Speaker 4: Leading with vulnerability, on the other hand, is about acknowledging
5:01
Speaker 4: a gap that you have and then demonstrating what you're
5:03
Speaker 4: trying to do to close the gap. And that's a
5:05
Speaker 4: big difference because now instead of simply saying, hey, I
5:08
Speaker 4: don't know how to do this or I need help,
5:11
Speaker 4: you're demonstrating how you're trying to solve the problem, what
5:14
Speaker 4: you're trying to do to get better to close that gap,
5:17
Speaker 4: and When you're able to do that, the perception that
5:19
Speaker 4: other people have around you very much changes. So the
5:22
Speaker 4: really kind of the big the simple insight from everything,
5:25
Speaker 4: And the one thing that I hope everybody remembers is
5:28
Speaker 4: leadership plus vulnerability equals leading with vulnerability.
5:33
Speaker 3: Leadership plus vulnerability.
5:35
Speaker 4: So let me just give you a simple example and
5:36
Speaker 4: then I'll stop there and see if you have any questions.
5:38
Speaker 4: So a very simple example might be if you're your leader,
5:42
Speaker 4: your boss comes over to you and asks you to
5:44
Speaker 4: do something, a project, a task, whatever it might be,
5:48
Speaker 4: and you mess up, and being vulnerable in that situation
5:51
Speaker 4: would be going to your leader and saying, hey, I'm
5:53
Speaker 4: really sorry. I know how important this was. I screwed up,
5:55
Speaker 4: and I'm sorry. Now, we've all been in that situation
5:58
Speaker 4: where either you've been the person that has made the
6:00
Speaker 4: mistake or somebody has come to you and told you
6:02
Speaker 4: that you that they've made the mistake. And in none
6:04
Speaker 4: of those situations does everybody always say, g thank you
6:07
Speaker 4: for telling me. Everybody always wants to know, well, okay,
6:11
Speaker 4: what are you gonna do about it? You know, the
6:12
Speaker 4: customer is still unhappy, the project has still not been completed,
6:15
Speaker 4: We're still behind schedule. You know, like what you know,
6:19
Speaker 4: you're telling me you made this mistake, but what's the
6:21
Speaker 4: you know, what are you going to do? And so
6:24
Speaker 4: in that situation, uh, that's simply being vulnerable. Leading with
6:28
Speaker 4: vulnerability would be taking that same example and saying, Hey,
6:31
Speaker 4: you know, I know how important this was.
6:32
Speaker 3: I'm really sorry. I made a mistake. I screwed up.
6:35
Speaker 4: Here's what I learned from the mistake that I made.
6:37
Speaker 4: Here's what I'm going to do to make sure that
6:39
Speaker 4: mistake doesn't happen again. And here's some things that I'm
6:42
Speaker 4: putting into place to fix that mistake that I've made.
6:45
Speaker 3: Now, let me know what you think.
6:48
Speaker 4: That's very different than simply saying I'm sorry, I made
6:51
Speaker 4: a mistake. And and that is a very very key
6:57
Speaker 4: insight and a key differentiating factor between simply being vulnerable
7:00
Speaker 4: versus leading with vulnerability. And I think anybody in a
7:04
Speaker 4: current or aspiring leadership role, whether you're in it, whether
7:08
Speaker 4: you're in marketing or sales, whatever it might be, if
7:10
Speaker 4: you can simply remember that concept of not just exposing
7:14
Speaker 4: the gap, but demonstrating what you're trying to do to
7:16
Speaker 4: close the gap, I think you'll see a lot more
7:18
Speaker 4: success in terms of your personal career growth and also
7:21
Speaker 4: team dynamics.
7:23
Speaker 2: I wondered, Jacob if I could just chip in here
7:25
Speaker 2: before handing the questions over to Tim, who I know
7:28
Speaker 2: has a follow up there. I've heard in the past
7:31
Speaker 2: from two kind of very successful people in the course
7:34
Speaker 2: of my career the same adage, and it was never explain,
7:38
Speaker 2: never apologize, And I have to say, as an Englishman,
7:42
Speaker 2: that comes very unnaturally, Jake, we apologize six seven times
7:45
Speaker 2: a day at least. But I just wonder if that's
7:49
Speaker 2: indicative of a kind of an outmoded workplace culture. What
7:54
Speaker 2: you think that indicates and what you think has changed
7:57
Speaker 2: to make that kind of mentality outmoded in particular, you mean.
8:01
Speaker 3: Just simply apologizing and saying I'm sorry, just.
8:04
Speaker 2: The idea of that. It seemed to be more prevalent
8:06
Speaker 2: maybe in previous generations, but apologizing was a sign of
8:10
Speaker 2: weakness full stuff.
8:12
Speaker 4: Well, yes, yeah, So one of the things that I
8:15
Speaker 4: did for the book is I surveyed fourteen thousand employees
8:18
Speaker 4: around the world, and this was done in partnership with
8:20
Speaker 4: a leadership from called DDI, which some people might be
8:22
Speaker 4: familiar with, and we ask these fourteen thousand employees, what's
8:25
Speaker 4: the number one thing that keeps you from being vulnerable
8:27
Speaker 4: at work? And the number one response was I don't
8:30
Speaker 4: want to be perceived as being weak or incompetent, right,
8:34
Speaker 4: And so the way that you solve that problem is
8:37
Speaker 4: you add competence to the vulnerability.
8:41
Speaker 3: Got it right.
8:41
Speaker 4: That it's again, it's very different to say I'm sorry
8:46
Speaker 4: or I made a mistake versus demonstrating what you're trying
8:48
Speaker 4: to do to close the gap. And so the answer
8:52
Speaker 4: to that question is in the question itself. If you
8:54
Speaker 4: don't want to be perceived as being weak or incompetent,
8:57
Speaker 4: then add the competence and the strength to the vulnerability.
9:02
Speaker 4: And if people can focus on that, they're going to
9:05
Speaker 4: see that the perception that others have of them changes dramatically.
9:13
Speaker 4: So in a sense, yeah, so in a sense I
9:16
Speaker 4: agree with that. I mean, simply just saying I'm sorry
9:19
Speaker 4: I made a mistake, doesn't you know, in the context
9:21
Speaker 4: of work and business, doesn't do much.
9:24
Speaker 3: It doesn't help anything.
9:26
Speaker 4: I mean, it's good to have the psychological safety to
9:29
Speaker 4: acknowledge the mistake, but at the same time, simply acknowledging
9:33
Speaker 4: the mistake doesn't move anything forward.
9:35
Speaker 3: In the context of.
9:36
Speaker 4: Work, your team, your leaders, your peers, your customers still
9:40
Speaker 4: want to know what you're trying to do to close
9:42
Speaker 4: the gap, right, to solve the problem. If you've ever
9:44
Speaker 4: had any experiences with customer service representatives, if you have
9:47
Speaker 4: an issue with Amazon or Wayfare, whoever it might be,
9:51
Speaker 4: you never want the person on the other line to
9:52
Speaker 4: just say, I'm sorry the project, the product came late.
9:56
Speaker 4: I'm sorry it came damaged, Like thank you for calling. No,
10:00
Speaker 4: it's well, Oh, I'm so sorry that came late. Here's
10:03
Speaker 4: what we're going to do to solve the problem for you.
10:04
Speaker 4: We're going to give you twenty percent off your order. Oh,
10:06
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry it came damaged. We're going to reship
10:08
Speaker 4: it to you for free, and we'll give you a
10:09
Speaker 4: one hundred dollars credit on your next rule. Like, we
10:11
Speaker 4: want to know what is being done to solve the problem.
10:14
Speaker 4: The same thing is true inside of any organization for
10:18
Speaker 4: employees and Jacob, I think.
10:21
Speaker 5: That connects the dots really well. It's all about admitting
10:25
Speaker 5: that problem, admitting that mistake, but getting people to follow
10:28
Speaker 5: you as a leader to the solution. Here's what we're
10:30
Speaker 5: going to do to solve it. Here's what we're going
10:32
Speaker 5: to do to fix it. I'm curious. The new book
10:34
Speaker 5: obviously tackles some some new material, some very important material.
10:39
Speaker 5: How does it complement your previous work, particularly in that
10:42
Speaker 5: broader context of employee experience and leadership. How does this
10:46
Speaker 5: connect the dots for us to some of your previous work.
10:50
Speaker 3: I think it's very much related, you know.
10:53
Speaker 4: So the previous books I wrote one, the one right
10:56
Speaker 4: before this one, was The Future Leader. I have a
10:58
Speaker 4: new book that will come out next year. Doesn't have
11:01
Speaker 4: a title yet, but it's going to be building on
11:03
Speaker 4: the concepts of the Employee Experience Book, which came out
11:06
Speaker 4: in twenty seventeen. But a lot has changed since twenty
11:08
Speaker 4: seventeen when we think about employee experience. So I'm doing
11:11
Speaker 4: an update to that because it's been almost a decade.
11:14
Speaker 4: So they all kind of compliment on each other, because
11:16
Speaker 4: leading with vulnerability is how you create better leaders, right,
11:21
Speaker 4: And a lot of our experience at work, a lot
11:23
Speaker 4: of the engagement that we have at work, a lot
11:25
Speaker 4: of how we feel about ourselves at work comes from
11:28
Speaker 4: the leaders that we work with. And in the research
11:30
Speaker 4: that we did, we found that from all the leadership
11:34
Speaker 4: behaviors and attributes and characteristics that make a great leader,
11:37
Speaker 4: the things that leaders are most uncomfortable with and do
11:42
Speaker 4: at least frequently is acknowledge mistakes and failures and show
11:47
Speaker 4: a willingness to be emotionally vulnerable at work. So it's
11:50
Speaker 4: very difficult to work and I have friends like this.
11:53
Speaker 4: I'm sure we all have friends like this where they
11:55
Speaker 4: just refuse to be vulnerable in any kind of way.
11:57
Speaker 4: It makes it very difficult to create any kind of
11:59
Speaker 4: connection or bond a relationship. And so the reason why
12:02
Speaker 4: you need both of those things, and how this builds
12:03
Speaker 4: on experience and how this builds on leadership is that
12:07
Speaker 4: think about kind of like an xy axis. Let's say
12:10
Speaker 4: you're really only good at the leadership the competence piece.
12:13
Speaker 4: You know, you're really really good at your job. And
12:16
Speaker 4: you know, I might come to one of your employees
12:18
Speaker 4: and say, hey, what do you think of so and so,
12:19
Speaker 4: And they'll say, oh, man, this person's just really great
12:21
Speaker 4: at their job. They're able to bring in money, they're
12:23
Speaker 4: super smart. But we just don't have that chemistry. The
12:27
Speaker 4: relationship is not quite there. I don't feel as engaged
12:29
Speaker 4: and empowered in the work.
12:30
Speaker 3: That I'm doing.
12:31
Speaker 4: But they're really good at what they do, but we
12:33
Speaker 4: just don't have that kind of chemistry. Similarly, let's say
12:37
Speaker 4: you are really good at the vulnerability piece, the connection piece,
12:40
Speaker 4: but you struggle with the leadership or the competence piece.
12:43
Speaker 3: And again, I go to one of your employees and say,
12:45
Speaker 3: what do you think of so and so.
12:46
Speaker 4: They'll say, oh, wow, we have this great relationship, we
12:48
Speaker 4: have this great connection, we're able to collaborate.
12:50
Speaker 3: You know, so and so is a really great.
12:51
Speaker 4: Person, but I don't know if they're the best leader
12:54
Speaker 4: for the job because they're not really able to demonstrate
12:56
Speaker 4: that competence piece. You know, they're not able to, you know,
13:00
Speaker 4: to bring in business, they're not able to kind of
13:02
Speaker 4: set that vision or anything like that.
13:04
Speaker 3: But I like working for this person. And so this
13:06
Speaker 3: is why you need both.
13:08
Speaker 4: You need to work with and for leaders who are
13:10
Speaker 4: both competent and are demonstrating that they're good at their job,
13:13
Speaker 4: and who also are able to create that connection and
13:16
Speaker 4: build those relationships with their employees. And that's where the
13:19
Speaker 4: leading with vulnerability component comes in. I mean, simply put
13:23
Speaker 4: leadership plus vulnerability. Think about it, competence plus connection the
13:26
Speaker 4: two most important aspects for any leaders, competence and connection.
13:31
Speaker 5: And leaders learn from other leaders. As Tom continues to
13:36
Speaker 5: remind me, I have a lot of years behind me
13:37
Speaker 5: in my career. I've seen a lot of leaders in action,
13:40
Speaker 5: both in public and in private settings. I've learned what
13:44
Speaker 5: to do and what to emulate from them, but I've
13:45
Speaker 5: also learned what not to do. You recognize bad leadership,
13:49
Speaker 5: sometimes even more than you recognize good leadership, and you've
13:52
Speaker 5: worked extensively on defining what makes a great leader? How
13:57
Speaker 5: do you personally define leaders sally in it because they
14:01
Speaker 5: don't necessarily have to be managers of people.
14:03
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, So there are a lot of different ways
14:07
Speaker 4: that you can think about how to define leadership. I mean,
14:11
Speaker 4: in my book The Future Leader, you're quizzing me here
14:14
Speaker 4: on my exact definition that I use something It was
14:17
Speaker 4: something along the lines of a leader is somebody who can,
14:21
Speaker 4: you know, paint a vision of, you know, a better scenario,
14:24
Speaker 4: can rally employees to move in the direction of that
14:27
Speaker 4: better vision or scenario that they've created, and do so
14:29
Speaker 4: in a human way. And so that's kind of how
14:33
Speaker 4: I think about leaders The visual that I use is
14:36
Speaker 4: a lighthouse And it might sound a little bit cliche,
14:38
Speaker 4: but if you think about the whole purpose of a lighthouse,
14:41
Speaker 4: it's to guide others to safety and to success. And
14:45
Speaker 4: so to be a lighthouse, what that means is that
14:47
Speaker 4: you need to build yourself up, right. You need to
14:50
Speaker 4: learn new skills, learn new attributes, embrace new mindsets. But
14:54
Speaker 4: if you don't have any ships in the water, a
14:55
Speaker 4: lighthouse is pointless because who are you guiding? So not
14:58
Speaker 4: only are you building yourself up, but most of the
15:00
Speaker 4: most important aspect of leadership is to guide those around you,
15:04
Speaker 4: to teach those around you the things that you yourself
15:07
Speaker 4: are learning. And this I think is a very very
15:09
Speaker 4: important aspect of leadership that sometimes we forget and so
15:13
Speaker 4: I mean, that's at least my favorite way to think
15:15
Speaker 4: about leadership. You also mentioned something else about learning, which
15:21
Speaker 4: I think is a very very important and important point
15:23
Speaker 4: to bring up too, because there's no learning without vulnerability, right,
15:27
Speaker 4: And if you don't acknowledge gaps that you have, you're
15:29
Speaker 4: basically saying that I'm perfect, and so you can't get better.
15:33
Speaker 4: You can't learn unless you acknowledge that you have a
15:37
Speaker 4: gap somewhere, right, And Again, I'm sure we all have
15:41
Speaker 4: friends or family members or coworkers who refuse to acknowledge
15:44
Speaker 4: any gaps that they have. They kind of assume that, like,
15:47
Speaker 4: I'm great, I'm perfect. It's very hard to work with
15:50
Speaker 4: those types of people, very hard to have relationships with
15:52
Speaker 4: those types of people. So if you want to become
15:55
Speaker 4: a better version of you, you cannot do that without
15:58
Speaker 4: first acknowledging, Hey, yeah, you're right. Do need to get
16:01
Speaker 4: better in certain areas, and here's how I'm going to
16:03
Speaker 4: get better in those areas. So an important part of
16:07
Speaker 4: learning and growing and developing in any kind of a
16:09
Speaker 4: way is vulnerability. You can't have that without the other.
16:14
Speaker 5: So we're actually in a unique scenario today. We've got
16:17
Speaker 5: a really robust audience consisting largely of technology leaders, people
16:22
Speaker 5: who may or may not lead teams, but certainly drive
16:26
Speaker 5: innovation in their organizations. I'm curious what trends in it
16:30
Speaker 5: you're seeing, and what do you think the most important
16:34
Speaker 5: trends are right now and relevant and align to those
16:37
Speaker 5: themes in your book.
16:39
Speaker 4: Well, I guess there's leadership trends and technology trends. Right
16:43
Speaker 4: when we think about leadership as a concept, I don't
16:46
Speaker 4: think it really matters whether you're in IT or sales
16:48
Speaker 4: or marketing. A lot of the behaviors, the mindsets that
16:51
Speaker 4: attributes the concepts of leading with vulnerability are the same
16:56
Speaker 4: regardless of industry, regardless of geography. I mean, we surveyed
17:00
Speaker 4: fourteen thousand employees, talked to over one hundred CEOs at
17:03
Speaker 4: companies around the world, and the themes were very consistent
17:06
Speaker 4: across the board. You know, I always say that I
17:09
Speaker 4: think the two coolest roles in ane inside of any organization,
17:13
Speaker 4: to their HR and IT, those are the two most
17:18
Speaker 4: interesting roles for a number of reasons, because I think
17:22
Speaker 4: when we think about the future of work, those are
17:24
Speaker 4: the two functions that are kind of powering all these
17:26
Speaker 4: things going forward. And they are also the two functions
17:28
Speaker 4: that I think need to spend the most time working
17:31
Speaker 4: and collaborating and talking with each other.
17:34
Speaker 3: But they don't.
17:35
Speaker 4: And so from the context of it, I'm sure everybody
17:38
Speaker 4: here would acknowledge that probably the big thing that your
17:40
Speaker 4: respective organization is thinking about is probably something related to
17:43
Speaker 4: AI or security, you know, things like chatch, GPT. Implementing
17:48
Speaker 4: these things inside of your organization. At least, this has
17:52
Speaker 4: been the most consistent theme that I have seen across
17:54
Speaker 4: IT professionals is really around security. It's really around driving
17:59
Speaker 4: these types collaborative tools and platforms, and of course it's
18:03
Speaker 4: really about how do we infuse AI into pretty much
18:07
Speaker 4: any and all aspects of how we get work done.
18:10
Speaker 4: Easier for some companies than others, right Some are regulated
18:13
Speaker 4: by the government, Some don't have the luxury of simply
18:16
Speaker 4: using something like a chat GPT. They have to build
18:18
Speaker 4: their own that creates its own challenges. Data and how
18:23
Speaker 4: do you make sure that you have accurate data that
18:26
Speaker 4: IT teams can use to make sure that these AI
18:29
Speaker 4: tools are useful to begin with is another challenge that
18:32
Speaker 4: I'm seeing inside of a lot of organizations. But I
18:34
Speaker 4: think it's actually a pretty cool time to be in
18:37
Speaker 4: the world of IT because the challenges are very complex,
18:40
Speaker 4: they're very big, and if they can get figured out,
18:43
Speaker 4: the impact is massive.
18:45
Speaker 2: I'm going to have to apologize, Jacob, because I think
18:48
Speaker 2: we structured this as we were going to leave some
18:50
Speaker 2: time for questions at the end, but we've had such
18:52
Speaker 2: a flood of interactions that I thought I would just
18:56
Speaker 2: drop a couple in as we go to make sure
18:58
Speaker 2: that none get missed. Out by the end, so that
19:00
Speaker 2: my solution to the apology. I hope I'm leading with
19:02
Speaker 2: vulnerability here. And the first question is where does from
19:06
Speaker 2: John Brooks, where does time fit into the equation? If
19:09
Speaker 2: you recognize there as a gap, then how long should
19:12
Speaker 2: you give yourself to prove that you can shrink the gap?
19:17
Speaker 4: Well, I guess it depends on what the gap is. So,
19:21
Speaker 4: you know, the gaps can be small, they could be large.
19:25
Speaker 4: You know, A small gap might be something like, you know,
19:28
Speaker 4: how you respond to an employee in a certain situation.
19:31
Speaker 4: A gap might be I'm being asked to do this
19:33
Speaker 4: really big project and I really I'm in way over
19:36
Speaker 4: my head. I have no idea how to do this,
19:38
Speaker 4: and I'm going to need a week or two weeks
19:41
Speaker 4: or several weeks to kind of get up to speed
19:43
Speaker 4: on what I'm supposed to be doing here.
19:45
Speaker 3: So I think.
19:46
Speaker 4: The the time should be in proportion to whatever the
19:51
Speaker 4: gap is. And again, these things can be small. These
19:54
Speaker 4: things can also be, you know, very large, Like I've
19:58
Speaker 4: had situations even with friends or even with UH, with
20:01
Speaker 4: people that I work with on my team where they
20:04
Speaker 4: might say, you know, they might give me feedback on
20:08
Speaker 4: how I communicate about something and say, hey, would be
20:10
Speaker 4: better if you did this instead of that. And so,
20:12
Speaker 4: you know, part of what I need to do is,
20:14
Speaker 4: you know, acknowledge and say, yeah, you're right. You know
20:16
Speaker 4: I didn't know that. That's how it came across, and
20:18
Speaker 4: I'm going to make sure to fix that going forward.
20:20
Speaker 4: So that's you know, a very quick thing. And the
20:22
Speaker 4: next time we're communicating or collaborating, I kind of change
20:24
Speaker 4: the process that I use. Right, that's very different then
20:29
Speaker 4: you know, if I'm in it and somebody comes over
20:31
Speaker 4: to me and says, hey, we want to implement some
20:34
Speaker 4: generative AI tool. Go figure out how to make it
20:36
Speaker 4: work inside of our company, and that's a huge gap
20:39
Speaker 4: that's going to take you know, weeks or months. So again,
20:43
Speaker 4: at the time I think is in proportion to what
20:45
Speaker 4: that gap is. But you know, that's probably the best
20:50
Speaker 4: answer I can give on that without.
20:51
Speaker 3: Knowing more understood.
20:53
Speaker 2: And yeah, the point was made for you know, on
20:56
Speaker 2: a technical level of responsibility, timing is quite important and
20:59
Speaker 2: that's going to quite often. So that's going to depend,
21:02
Speaker 2: isn't it, from circumstance to circumstance. We'll come back to
21:05
Speaker 2: those questions shortly do keep dropping them in the chat.
21:09
Speaker 2: Some really good ideas going there already. But so question
21:13
Speaker 2: about technological change, Jacob, what role do it leaders in
21:18
Speaker 2: your of you have in shaping workplace culture, particularly to
21:22
Speaker 2: align with new tools and workflows in today's environment of
21:26
Speaker 2: continuous change.
21:29
Speaker 4: So as far as how it specifically impacts culture, well,
21:34
Speaker 4: I think there are a couple of things there. One,
21:36
Speaker 4: it has this tremendous opportunity to collaborate with HR teams
21:39
Speaker 4: to shape culture, because part of creating culture inside of
21:44
Speaker 4: an organization is not just kind of on the leadership side,
21:47
Speaker 4: but it's also the tools that employees are using, right,
21:49
Speaker 4: the resources they have access to to do their jobs.
21:52
Speaker 4: And so if the tools that employees are using are
21:55
Speaker 4: enabling things like flexible work, they're enabling real time feedback
21:59
Speaker 4: and collaboration, that dramatically changes the culture of the company
22:03
Speaker 4: right as opposed to when employees are using tools that
22:06
Speaker 4: make it difficult for them to work and they have
22:07
Speaker 4: to log into multiple different places and information is getting
22:11
Speaker 4: lost and they're duplicating each other's work and it doesn't
22:13
Speaker 4: enable flexible work or real time collaboration and feedback, then
22:16
Speaker 4: the culture you can easily see changes dramatically. And we
22:21
Speaker 4: also need to remember that when people have a problem
22:24
Speaker 4: with technology, it's not just an IT problem. It's very
22:27
Speaker 4: much a human problem, right. I mean, if you're at home,
22:29
Speaker 4: or if you're at work and you have an issue
22:31
Speaker 4: with Wi Fi or you're trying to log into something,
22:34
Speaker 4: you get a human response, right. You get frustrated, you
22:37
Speaker 4: get angry, you get disengaged. And so although we typically
22:40
Speaker 4: assume of IT people as the ones who are supposed
22:42
Speaker 4: to solve those problems, the feelings that we get are
22:46
Speaker 4: human feelings. So it is very much a human aspect
22:50
Speaker 4: of work. It's not just about the technology piece. It's
22:54
Speaker 4: really about how we're impacting the lives of employees and
22:57
Speaker 4: how they're working because all of the work that we
23:00
Speaker 4: get done is as a result of technology. I mean
23:03
Speaker 4: any aspect of work pretty much at any company. I
23:07
Speaker 4: mean I always like to say that every company today
23:09
Speaker 4: is a technology company.
23:11
Speaker 3: Right.
23:11
Speaker 4: Anything that you do, the collaboration, communication, feedback, performance reviews, surveys, engagement, surveys,
23:18
Speaker 4: learning and development. You mean, anything is as a result
23:22
Speaker 4: of technology that employees are accessing. And so you can
23:25
Speaker 4: imagine if your experience is using some outdated, old piece
23:29
Speaker 4: of technology that's complicated, How is that going to change
23:32
Speaker 4: the culture versus if you're using something that feels like Zoom,
23:37
Speaker 4: or that you're using Google, or that you're using something
23:40
Speaker 4: you know that you might use in your personal life.
23:43
Speaker 4: And so I always say that the three things that
23:45
Speaker 4: employees care about most when it comes to technology, it's
23:47
Speaker 4: the acronym ACEE A, which is accessibility to everybody. CEE
23:52
Speaker 4: is consumer grade instead of enterprise grade. And let me
23:56
Speaker 4: unpack what that means when I say consumer grade versus
23:59
Speaker 4: enter price grade. So there used to be a time
24:01
Speaker 4: and I'm sure a lot of uh you here on
24:06
Speaker 4: the Zoom call can remember or technology. Enterprise grade technology
24:10
Speaker 4: was kind of like the standard that we always talked about,
24:13
Speaker 4: And really that meant it's big, it's clunky, it's super secure,
24:19
Speaker 4: it's bulletproof, and it's very difficult to use. That's how
24:23
Speaker 4: a lot of consumers employees think of enterprise grade technology.
24:27
Speaker 4: Consumer grade is something that's so useful, so beautiful, so
24:31
Speaker 4: valuable that you would consider using it in your business life.
24:35
Speaker 3: If it existed. So think of Zoom, Google Chat, GPT, Dropbox, Facebook, LinkedIn.
24:42
Speaker 3: These tools are so easy to use, they're so valuable.
24:47
Speaker 4: That if something like that existed, it work. You would
24:50
Speaker 4: love to use those types of platforms, And how many
24:54
Speaker 4: employees are frustrated, you know, not to rag on you know,
24:57
Speaker 4: necessarily SharePoint, but that used to be back in day
25:01
Speaker 4: the default platform that everybody would make fun of. Right,
25:04
Speaker 4: SharePoint information gets lost, I can't access.
25:07
Speaker 3: It, like what right.
25:08
Speaker 4: It was so complicated and cumbersome to use some of
25:11
Speaker 4: these technologies and platforms that it you know, it hurt
25:15
Speaker 4: the culture of the company. So consumer grade is really
25:18
Speaker 4: something that models the tools and platforms that we're using
25:23
Speaker 4: in our personal lives at work, and the e stands
25:27
Speaker 4: we're focusing on the employee needs instead of the business requirements.
25:31
Speaker 4: This was a very common challenge and I think it
25:33
Speaker 4: still is where oftentimes, when when companies want to employ
25:38
Speaker 4: technology platforms, what do they do? They put together a
25:42
Speaker 4: checklist and they send the checklist over to it and
25:45
Speaker 4: they say, you know, help us find something or build
25:47
Speaker 4: something that has these things, and we kind of go
25:50
Speaker 4: through that checklist. The problem there is that we're not
25:53
Speaker 4: actually understanding how employees are using those tools. And there
25:56
Speaker 4: were lots of situations where technology or where companies would
26:02
Speaker 4: deploy technology tools. They would meet the requirements as far
26:06
Speaker 4: as the checklist goes, but it would be so complicated
26:09
Speaker 4: and so cumbersome for employees to figure it out that
26:13
Speaker 4: the checklist was meaningless. In other words, we get so
26:15
Speaker 4: obsessed sometimes on the checklist and the requirements on the
26:19
Speaker 4: business side that we forget about focusing on who's actually
26:22
Speaker 4: going to be using those.
26:24
Speaker 3: Tools and platforms.
26:25
Speaker 4: And so this is why it's very very important for
26:27
Speaker 4: IT professionals to pay attention not just to the checklist
26:31
Speaker 4: and the items that are required, but also how are
26:33
Speaker 4: employees actually going to use it? And I think that's
26:36
Speaker 4: a very very important component on the technology side that
26:39
Speaker 4: impacts culture.
26:41
Speaker 2: Great answer, Jacob, and I'm sorry, who is that? So
26:45
Speaker 2: someone want to chip in, They're very welcome to Sorry
26:49
Speaker 2: maybe if somebody's just off me accidentally for a moment.
26:51
Speaker 2: But so a couple of really great questions in the
26:53
Speaker 2: chat for you, Jacob, I want to just do them
26:55
Speaker 2: as a pair because I think they're related. First, it's
26:57
Speaker 2: from David Pool. I'm a leader with ADA and neurodivergent brain.
27:01
Speaker 2: I found that it is more common to find neurodivergent
27:04
Speaker 2: people in IT. Have you ever looked at how neurodivergent
27:08
Speaker 2: people lead and how neurodivergent people need to be led.
27:13
Speaker 2: It is certainly different than the other ninety five percent
27:16
Speaker 2: of the neurotypical population. What an interesting question puts you
27:19
Speaker 2: on the spot, jac It's a a bit off topic,
27:21
Speaker 2: but it is a good one.
27:23
Speaker 4: I was actually diagnosed with ADHD as well when I
27:25
Speaker 4: was younger, so I can relate to that very much.
27:30
Speaker 4: So I'm not specifically looked at that area. No, So
27:34
Speaker 4: I don't have a lot that I can share on that.
27:37
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously, I think for leaders, it's important to
27:40
Speaker 4: know who's on your team, and I think it's important
27:43
Speaker 4: to know who you're working with and how different employees
27:46
Speaker 4: prefer to communicate and engage and interact.
27:49
Speaker 3: I think if you.
27:50
Speaker 4: Treat all of your employees as kind of a one
27:52
Speaker 4: size fits all approach as a leader, you know that's
27:55
Speaker 4: not very effective. So the most that I can say
27:57
Speaker 4: on that is that get to know your employees if
28:01
Speaker 4: they have things like ADHD. You know, I have those
28:03
Speaker 4: open conversations and dialogue with them and say, okay, well
28:06
Speaker 4: I understand that. What's you know, what can I do
28:08
Speaker 4: as a leader to help make sure that you're more
28:12
Speaker 4: effective and successful, like what do you need from me?
28:15
Speaker 4: I think that's the right approach from leaders, is figuring
28:17
Speaker 4: out how do I serve my employees instead of assuming
28:20
Speaker 4: that employees are going to be there to serve them.
28:22
Speaker 4: But as far as the research side on how to
28:25
Speaker 4: be led, unfortunately I didn't look you know that specific.
28:29
Speaker 2: It's a great new book. The perhaps jac but perhaps
28:32
Speaker 2: related question from another good one from John Brooks. In
28:35
Speaker 2: your research, did you find there were differences in how
28:38
Speaker 2: vulnerability is perceived across different industries, regions, or cultures, and
28:44
Speaker 2: does a good leader, of course acknowledge these differences in
28:48
Speaker 2: the context in which they function.
28:51
Speaker 3: There's actually a lot of similarities.
28:53
Speaker 4: So from fourteen thousand employees who looked at pretty much
28:55
Speaker 4: every industry that you can think of, most geographies around
28:59
Speaker 4: the world, and a lot of the data was very,
29:02
Speaker 4: very similar. As far as the perception, I mean, there
29:04
Speaker 4: might have been some minor differences. I mean, off the
29:08
Speaker 4: top of my head for some reason, what's coming out
29:11
Speaker 4: as like the construction industry, manufacturing, I feel like they
29:15
Speaker 4: and I'd have to double check my big Excel spreadsheet here,
29:18
Speaker 4: but I believe that in those industries, vulnerability was a
29:21
Speaker 4: little bit more scarce than in other industries, not necessarily
29:27
Speaker 4: by like huge, massive gaps. There were some minor differences there.
29:31
Speaker 4: As far as around geographies, the difference there is in
29:35
Speaker 4: terms of the perception of vulnerability, but on how vulnerable
29:39
Speaker 4: people might be. So for example, if you go to
29:41
Speaker 4: a place like Japan or China, it's not that vulnerability
29:44
Speaker 4: there is not accepted or understood, but how vulnerable you
29:48
Speaker 4: might be and what you might be vulnerable about might
29:51
Speaker 4: be different as opposed to what you might be vulnerable
29:55
Speaker 4: what you might be vulnerable about in Australia or the
29:57
Speaker 4: United States. So it's kind of a yes and no.
30:01
Speaker 4: Consistency across our geographies and industries is that vulnerability is important, acknowledged, respected, understood,
30:09
Speaker 4: is lacking, should be practiced more people see the value
30:12
Speaker 4: of As far as what you're going to be vulnerable about,
30:15
Speaker 4: that is a little bit different. That's why in the
30:17
Speaker 4: book I have these five vulnerable leader superheroes where it
30:21
Speaker 4: kind of goes through and breaks down. You know, some
30:23
Speaker 4: people are comfortable being vulnerable about different aspects. So there
30:27
Speaker 4: was a lot of consistency, which I was pretty surprised.
30:29
Speaker 2: By fantastic And of course you've you know, as I
30:33
Speaker 2: mentioned at the top of the discussion, a lot of
30:35
Speaker 2: your work has been around experience employee experience sort of
30:38
Speaker 2: more broadly. And how have you seen the dynamic between
30:43
Speaker 2: DEX and EX evolve in recent years? And how do
30:46
Speaker 2: you see AI as potentially accelerating that interplay between them,
30:53
Speaker 2: and what advice would you have for the community here
30:57
Speaker 2: in terms of how to anticipate, embrace, and deploy AI
31:01
Speaker 2: in this kind of very conscientious fashion.
31:04
Speaker 4: Okay, so there were a couple of questions there. What
31:05
Speaker 4: what was the first part of that one?
31:07
Speaker 2: More about the dynamic first of all between DEX and
31:10
Speaker 2: employee experience more generally. How have you seen this dynamic
31:13
Speaker 2: evolve in recent years?
31:15
Speaker 4: So when you say DEX, what's the acronym digital employee
31:18
Speaker 4: experience you might not know?
31:19
Speaker 2: Sorry, So that's that's kind of our specialism as an organization.
31:22
Speaker 2: So it's one of the reasons we're sort of taking
31:24
Speaker 2: on that. So that's about the digital component of the
31:26
Speaker 2: employee experience are large effectively?
31:28
Speaker 3: Ah, got it?
31:29
Speaker 4: Okay, so you're talking about digital employee experience for employee
31:31
Speaker 4: experience in general, Yeah, I mean digital employee experience is
31:35
Speaker 4: a part of the overall employee experience. I you know,
31:37
Speaker 4: employee experience is a combination of three things culture, technology,
31:41
Speaker 4: and space. The tools and resources that employees have access
31:43
Speaker 4: to to do their jobs, the spaces in which they work,
31:46
Speaker 4: whether it's in an office or whether it's you know,
31:48
Speaker 4: in a hybrid.
31:49
Speaker 3: Environment, and.
31:52
Speaker 4: In how employees feel doing the work that they're doing.
31:55
Speaker 4: So the digital aspect of that, you know, sits within
31:57
Speaker 4: that realm of those three, those three environments. And you
32:02
Speaker 4: can't have a great employee experience unless you are considering
32:06
Speaker 4: the digital aspect of the employee experience, because, as we
32:09
Speaker 4: talked about earlier, the digital part is how work gets done.
32:13
Speaker 4: Without the digital aspect of employee experience, you don't get
32:16
Speaker 4: hybrid work, you don't get any of the stuff that
32:19
Speaker 4: is a part of what we call the future of work.
32:21
Speaker 4: So it's very much intertwined. I would definitely put the
32:25
Speaker 4: digital side within those three environments kind of the connective
32:28
Speaker 4: tissue of the overall employee experience.
32:32
Speaker 2: And what was the second part of the question is
32:33
Speaker 2: about the influence of AI on that dynamic and on
32:36
Speaker 2: the workplace in general, and particularly as it's deployed by
32:39
Speaker 2: it professional.
32:40
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it's interesting that AI think.
32:43
Speaker 5: So.
32:43
Speaker 3: I have a private CHRO group that I run.
32:46
Speaker 4: We have thirty five chief human resource officers from some
32:48
Speaker 4: of the world's top companies in there.
32:50
Speaker 3: And we actually had a.
32:51
Speaker 4: Meeting a few weeks ago around AI specifically, and the
32:55
Speaker 4: general consensus and feedback that everybody shared is that everybody
32:59
Speaker 4: is still very much in the early.
33:00
Speaker 3: Stages of AI.
33:02
Speaker 4: They're still trying to figure out where it fits, where
33:06
Speaker 4: it makes sense, how reliable and accurate it can be,
33:10
Speaker 4: what are the dangers of it, you know, how at
33:13
Speaker 4: what scale should we deploy should we be deploying it,
33:16
Speaker 4: what impact can it have? So it's it's a very
33:21
Speaker 4: very interesting time to be playing around with AI, and
33:25
Speaker 4: I hear both good stories and bad stories. You know.
33:27
Speaker 3: I've heard some stories of companies who use AI.
33:30
Speaker 4: To screen resumes, to predict the to predict how successful
33:35
Speaker 4: an employee might be.
33:36
Speaker 3: In a certain role.
33:37
Speaker 4: But I've also heard other stories of companies that use
33:40
Speaker 4: AI to do those same things, only to find that
33:42
Speaker 4: AI did a really poor job at predicting those things.
33:46
Speaker 4: And the big challenge is that these AI tools are
33:49
Speaker 4: only as good as the data that we feed into them. So,
33:52
Speaker 4: for example, in the context of work, the big challenge
33:55
Speaker 4: is that employees are learning all the time, right. You
33:58
Speaker 4: might learn a new skill, you might learn how to
34:02
Speaker 4: code or program or develop something in your own personal time.
34:05
Speaker 4: You might read a book where you learn something new.
34:07
Speaker 3: Your tools at work don't know that, right.
34:10
Speaker 4: They don't know the new data, the new skills, the
34:14
Speaker 4: new things that you're learning that you can apply at work.
34:17
Speaker 4: So the big challenge is how do we keep a
34:20
Speaker 4: real time, up to date database of all the stuff
34:24
Speaker 4: that's happening inside of work so that AI can make
34:27
Speaker 4: sense of that and give you the right recommendations and feedback.
34:31
Speaker 4: And that is something that I think is a far
34:33
Speaker 4: bigger challenge to try to figure out than how to
34:36
Speaker 4: deploy AI, because that is, you know, as everybody on
34:40
Speaker 4: this colon knows, the systems inside of organizations are so outdated.
34:47
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of organizations out there don't even
34:49
Speaker 4: have an accurate real time headcount of how many employees
34:52
Speaker 4: work there, let alone the skills, the roles, the preferences,
34:57
Speaker 4: the career aspirations, the engage scores, like what everybody's working
35:02
Speaker 4: on where they want to go inside the company. So
35:05
Speaker 4: without having all of that, you know, having an AI
35:09
Speaker 4: tool that's trying to predict things based on data that's
35:12
Speaker 4: not up to date is very very hard, and so
35:16
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know what the solution to that
35:19
Speaker 4: is going to be.
35:21
Speaker 3: I think where a lot.
35:22
Speaker 4: Of people are seeing help with AI is kind of
35:26
Speaker 4: on the surface level stuff for now. So for example,
35:29
Speaker 4: you know, I'm going to go into a performance review,
35:31
Speaker 4: I'm going to be interviewing so and so employee. Give
35:34
Speaker 4: me some great questions that I might be able to
35:36
Speaker 4: ask this employee to create a better relationship.
35:39
Speaker 3: Or you know, I'm in.
35:40
Speaker 4: This kind of a role inside my company, so and
35:43
Speaker 4: so wants to move to this kind of another role.
35:45
Speaker 4: Help me develop a six month training roadmap of skills
35:49
Speaker 4: and courses of a timeline of what this employee should
35:52
Speaker 4: be doing to transition from I don't know, sales to it.
35:56
Speaker 4: So it's good at giving you know, those types of
36:00
Speaker 4: that type of guidance and feedback in general direction, but
36:04
Speaker 4: as far as how accurate it's going to be at
36:07
Speaker 4: some of the deeper aspects, you know, I know there
36:10
Speaker 4: are a lot of case studies and things that are
36:12
Speaker 4: floating around outside from different vendors. But when I ask
36:15
Speaker 4: the actual ctros who are responsible for this, a lot
36:19
Speaker 4: of them. In fact, I can't think of any of
36:20
Speaker 4: them who are like, oh yeah, with you know, massive success.
36:23
Speaker 3: We're all in on AI.
36:25
Speaker 4: Everyone is cautiously optimistic because they see that it's not
36:29
Speaker 4: quite as easy as we're making it sound.
36:33
Speaker 2: Gotcha, We've got some brilliant questions come in, Jake, But
36:35
Speaker 2: I know we haven't got so much time left, so
36:37
Speaker 2: I want us to get to those. And I'm going
36:38
Speaker 2: to begin by grouping two of them together because I
36:41
Speaker 2: think they both invite you to speak on the same theme,
36:45
Speaker 2: which is effectively confidence and at times a lack of confidence,
36:48
Speaker 2: as we all feel. So Alan klatonrosques, do you have
36:51
Speaker 2: any guidance around hope?
36:52
Speaker 3: Sorry, just lost the question.
36:54
Speaker 2: Do you have any guidance around balance, around risks of
36:57
Speaker 2: balancing lots of confidence, if taking vulnerability too far or
37:01
Speaker 2: approaching in a way that's not compatible with a specific group?
37:05
Speaker 2: And John Brooks asks the individuals struggling with imposter syndrome,
37:10
Speaker 2: the idea of being vulnerable might reinforce fears of inadequacy
37:13
Speaker 2: or of being found out, So how would you explain
37:16
Speaker 2: to them that vulnerability on its own does not make
37:18
Speaker 2: someone a great leader, and they strike that balance between
37:21
Speaker 2: openness and demonstrating their own competence.
37:24
Speaker 3: Okay, I see this question here. I'm just going to
37:26
Speaker 3: quickly reread it.
37:29
Speaker 4: So, okay, Yeah, imposter syndrome is and I talk about
37:33
Speaker 4: that in the book as well.
37:36
Speaker 3: I think it's abounds between openness and demonstrating their competence.
37:39
Speaker 4: So how would you trying to get to the word
37:42
Speaker 4: of the question, which is, how would you explain to
37:44
Speaker 4: them that vulnerability on its own does not make someone
37:46
Speaker 4: a great leader, and how they can strike a balance
37:49
Speaker 4: between openness and demonstrating their competence. I mean, I would
37:54
Speaker 4: simply explain it in the sense of that vulnerability equation, right,
37:58
Speaker 4: kind of the X and Y matrix that I talked
37:59
Speaker 4: about earlier, And I would explain to them and say,
38:02
Speaker 4: you know, it's great to be vulnerable at work, that
38:04
Speaker 4: you have that psychological safety to do that. However, if
38:08
Speaker 4: you only focus on that aspect of work, you know,
38:11
Speaker 4: people might perceive you as being weak or incompetent in
38:14
Speaker 4: that role. So here's what you can do to still
38:17
Speaker 4: use vulnerability, but to also make yourself look better, to
38:22
Speaker 4: change the perception that people have of you. Why don't
38:24
Speaker 4: you try adding this leadership piece, you know, give examples,
38:27
Speaker 4: tell stories. You know, the book has tons of that
38:30
Speaker 4: stuff in there. I mean there's crazy stories from CEOs
38:34
Speaker 4: that you know, you'll be very surprised. I know everyone's
38:37
Speaker 4: getting a copy of the book that you'll be very
38:38
Speaker 4: surprised when you read them and see them. But it's
38:42
Speaker 4: really about getting to that message of combining competence with connection.
38:46
Speaker 4: It's helping people understand that as a leader, those are
38:49
Speaker 4: the two most aspects, the two most important aspects of
38:52
Speaker 4: any leadership role. And it's also really interesting because it's
38:58
Speaker 4: hard to talk about this with out mentioning in some
39:01
Speaker 4: way the impact that the last three four or five
39:04
Speaker 4: years has had on work, especially during in post pandemic.
39:08
Speaker 4: And you know, at that time, I would say that
39:11
Speaker 4: vulnerability was you know, up to a you know, a
39:14
Speaker 4: scale of one to ten. Vulnerability was a ten, right.
39:16
Speaker 4: We we were very good at checking in with each other,
39:19
Speaker 4: being vulnerable, being open.
39:21
Speaker 3: But as we moved out of the pandemic and as
39:24
Speaker 3: we you know.
39:25
Speaker 4: Got back to a more normal speed of work, we
39:31
Speaker 4: kind of put the vulnerability up and the leadership down right.
39:36
Speaker 4: We for a lot of people, and I've seen this
39:38
Speaker 4: in many organizations. The vulnerability went up, right, the connection
39:41
Speaker 4: went way up, and the competence took kind of a
39:43
Speaker 4: side seat inside of most organizations.
39:46
Speaker 3: So it's kind of getting leveled out a little bit now.
39:49
Speaker 4: So I think twenty twenty five is going to be
39:50
Speaker 4: a big year where we see a return and a
39:53
Speaker 4: big push towards the leadership, toward the competence piece. But
39:58
Speaker 4: I mean, the way like I said that I would
40:00
Speaker 4: talk about it is I would explain to any leader
40:02
Speaker 4: the two most important aspects of your job are connecting
40:06
Speaker 4: with your people and demonstrating your leadership capabilities.
40:09
Speaker 3: You should not do one without the other.
40:11
Speaker 4: And I would talk about that leadership equation of the
40:14
Speaker 4: leading with vulnerability equation. Yeah, and here, so there was
40:19
Speaker 4: they the inadequacy of being found out. There's if you
40:24
Speaker 4: add the competence to the vulnerability, you're not being found
40:28
Speaker 4: out about anything, right, If you if you only talk
40:31
Speaker 4: about the mistakes and challenges, then yeah, maybe there's a
40:34
Speaker 4: little bit about you know, being found out piece. But
40:37
Speaker 4: if you're demonstrating in front of your peers, in front
40:39
Speaker 4: of your leaders and in front of your coworkers, that
40:41
Speaker 4: you're learning and growing and developing.
40:44
Speaker 3: What's there to be found out about?
40:46
Speaker 5: Now?
40:46
Speaker 3: I will say that there is an aspect.
40:49
Speaker 4: Of this where and I again, we did a big survey,
40:53
Speaker 4: asked a lot of CEOs. At some point, vulnerability will
40:57
Speaker 4: be used against you. It will and again I have
41:01
Speaker 4: ridiculous stories in the book, But at some point somebody
41:03
Speaker 4: will take something that you share and they will use
41:06
Speaker 4: it against you, either personally or professionally. Does that mean
41:11
Speaker 4: that you should never be vulnerable at work?
41:12
Speaker 3: Again?
41:13
Speaker 5: No?
41:15
Speaker 3: And this is very much true in all aspects of
41:18
Speaker 3: your life.
41:18
Speaker 5: Right.
41:20
Speaker 4: You know, at some point you have or will ask
41:23
Speaker 4: out somebody on a date and they're going to tell
41:24
Speaker 4: you no. Does that mean you should never do it again?
41:26
Speaker 4: At some point you're going to ask for a higher
41:28
Speaker 4: salary or a promotion at work and you're going to
41:30
Speaker 4: be told no.
41:31
Speaker 3: Should you never do it again? No?
41:33
Speaker 4: Same thing when we think about vulnerability, Yeah, at some
41:36
Speaker 4: point somebody will use it against you. The important thing
41:40
Speaker 4: to remember in that situation is what did I learn
41:43
Speaker 4: about the person? What did I learn about the situation,
41:46
Speaker 4: and what did I learn about myself?
41:48
Speaker 3: So yes, there.
41:49
Speaker 4: Always is a little bit of that, Well, I could
41:53
Speaker 4: say this, and maybe somebody's going to use it against me.
41:55
Speaker 4: But the alternative is that you never do any of that,
41:59
Speaker 4: and you fix yourself into a place of not developing
42:02
Speaker 4: and learning and growing and becoming a better version of you.
42:05
Speaker 4: That to me sounds like a much scarier place to
42:07
Speaker 4: be than dealing with potential repercussions of somebody might useing
42:12
Speaker 4: vulnerability against you.
42:14
Speaker 2: Superb and I appreciate we're really running out of time, Jacob,
42:17
Speaker 2: if we can just get a last couple of questions.
42:19
Speaker 2: There's some really good comments from my friend Mike Kenny
42:22
Speaker 2: and from Matthew Butler here in the chat, but a
42:25
Speaker 2: couple of questions remaining as well. Alan Klackner says he's
42:28
Speaker 2: a huge fan of failure as an experience accelerator. With
42:32
Speaker 2: thoughtful review, there's rarely a delivery that doesn't have some
42:35
Speaker 2: room for improvement. However, the approach can be extremely fatiguing
42:40
Speaker 2: for a team, but continually moving of goalposts. Do you
42:43
Speaker 2: have any suggestions to celebrating progress in those areas of
42:47
Speaker 2: our team's area of vulnerability?
42:51
Speaker 4: So recommendations for how to celebrate progress in areas of
42:54
Speaker 4: vulnerability is that I'm kind of scroll up who asked
42:58
Speaker 4: that question? Alan, and of player's appear with alf of you,
43:02
Speaker 4: there's really delivery that doesn't have some room for improvement.
43:04
Speaker 3: This approach can be extremely fatiguing for a team.
43:08
Speaker 4: How to celebrate progress in those areas of our team?
43:11
Speaker 4: I mean acknowledge, right, I mean they don't need to
43:15
Speaker 4: be formal things, you know, like if you have kids.
43:19
Speaker 4: For example, I have a four year old and an
43:20
Speaker 4: eight year old. Whenever they exhibit behaviors that I think
43:24
Speaker 4: are worthy of praise, I see, I say, a great job.
43:26
Speaker 4: I'm really proud of you for doing that. So same
43:29
Speaker 4: thing inside of any organization. I mean if you have
43:32
Speaker 4: an employee who comes to you and says, hey, Alan,
43:34
Speaker 4: you know, I know I made this mistake, but look
43:35
Speaker 4: here's what I learned from it. Here's what I'm going
43:37
Speaker 4: to do next time. And then Alan can simply go
43:39
Speaker 4: to his team and say, hey, everyone, I just really
43:41
Speaker 4: wanted to acknowledge. You know, Tom on the team had
43:44
Speaker 4: some challenges in this project that he did, but he
43:46
Speaker 4: came to me with some great solutions and I really
43:48
Speaker 4: love his initiative.
43:49
Speaker 3: I love that he was able to.
43:51
Speaker 4: Feel safe to come talk about this with me, and
43:53
Speaker 4: also that he was able to come up with a
43:55
Speaker 4: plan for how we can avoid this going for how
43:58
Speaker 4: we can avoid this situation going forward.
44:00
Speaker 3: This is the type of behavior I love.
44:02
Speaker 4: And I would love it if everybody on the team
44:04
Speaker 4: can model after you know, you know, Tom's example or
44:07
Speaker 4: something like that. So just acknowledging, you know, highlighting those,
44:11
Speaker 4: telling stories around those, the impact, the outcomes of those,
44:14
Speaker 4: and most importantly, if you're a leader of a team,
44:17
Speaker 4: do that yourself. You lead by example, right, I mean,
44:20
Speaker 4: you'd be the one that goes out there and acknowlogies
44:21
Speaker 4: and says, you know, hey, guys, you know, that's a
44:23
Speaker 4: really great question. I'm not really sure what the answer
44:26
Speaker 4: is or what the best course of action is going forward,
44:29
Speaker 4: but here's what I'm going to try to do to.
44:30
Speaker 3: Figure it out.
44:31
Speaker 4: Let me get together with these people, let's regroup in
44:34
Speaker 4: three to five days, and I'll have.
44:35
Speaker 3: Some solutions and answers for you. Does that work for everybody? Great?
44:39
Speaker 4: So lead by example, demonstrate the behavior that you want
44:41
Speaker 4: others to have yourself, and then when those behaviors do
44:45
Speaker 4: come up, acknowledge, celebrate, reward and talk about.
44:48
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. We still have questions coming in and
44:50
Speaker 2: to Jim and Matthew, I'm so sorry for skippers. I'm
44:53
Speaker 2: going to return to sort of the discussion point because
44:56
Speaker 2: I think I'd like to end on a sort of
44:57
Speaker 2: general piece of advice and ask you one more question, Okay, Jacob,
45:02
Speaker 2: just as a general piece of advice, we've got aspiring
45:05
Speaker 2: leaders in the digital employee experience base, are of us
45:09
Speaker 2: what opportunities should they sees and what skills or traits
45:13
Speaker 2: do you think they need to focus on developing as
45:16
Speaker 2: they plan the next stage in their career. Maybe outside
45:18
Speaker 2: of the vulnerability competence nexus that we've been discussing.
45:23
Speaker 3: So outside of that, there's you can google.
45:27
Speaker 4: Let me actually google this and see if I can
45:29
Speaker 4: put this in here. So outside of that, there's a
45:32
Speaker 4: framework that I put together called the Notable nine and
45:37
Speaker 4: if you just google Notable nine Jacob Morgan and I'm
45:40
Speaker 4: going to try to put this in the chat here.
45:42
Speaker 4: This is from the previous book that I wrote called
45:44
Speaker 4: The Future Leader, And in that book I talk about
45:48
Speaker 4: the four mindsets and the five most crucial skills that
45:52
Speaker 4: a lot of the world's top leaders identified as being
45:55
Speaker 4: the most crucial for current and aspiring leaders. So if
45:58
Speaker 4: I were to go through something else, it would be
46:01
Speaker 4: that notable nine framework. And here I just found the
46:05
Speaker 4: article with the image, so I will put that into
46:08
Speaker 4: the chat here.
46:11
Speaker 2: Fantastic, and we will put that in the show notes
46:13
Speaker 2: for anybody listening to this podcast, and so.
46:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, that would be the one, and you can google
46:18
Speaker 4: it and probably even find a better image than this
46:21
Speaker 4: one here, because we had a couple different versions of that.
46:23
Speaker 3: But those four mindsets.
46:24
Speaker 4: And five skills outside of the leading with Vulnerability piece,
46:28
Speaker 4: this is what one hundred and forty of the world's
46:29
Speaker 4: top CEOs said are the most crucial mindsets and skills
46:34
Speaker 4: for current and aspiring leaders for the next five to
46:37
Speaker 4: ten years.
46:38
Speaker 2: Superb And if anybody, we also put in the show
46:41
Speaker 2: notes and in the chat here links to your LinkedIn.
46:43
Speaker 2: Maybe if people tag you with a question, maybe that's
46:45
Speaker 2: another way they could follow up with this great discussion.
46:48
Speaker 2: And of course everybody in this seminar with us today
46:53
Speaker 2: will be receiving a copy of that book where I'm
46:55
Speaker 2: sure you go into some of these ideas and hopefully
46:57
Speaker 2: answer some of these questions in the course if you're writing,
47:00
Speaker 2: just remains for me to say thank you so much
47:03
Speaker 2: for leading this fascinating seminar. Jacob really really appreciate you
47:08
Speaker 2: making the time. It was absolutely wonderful to have you.
47:11
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I'm pretty easy
47:14
Speaker 3: to find.
47:14
Speaker 4: If anybody has any additional questions that they want to
47:16
Speaker 4: reach out, I can put my email here Jacob at
47:20
Speaker 4: the Future Organization dot com. Anybody is more than welcome
47:25
Speaker 4: to reach out to me, and I'm pretty easy to find.
47:28
Speaker 2: Superb. Thank you so much. And I should just say
47:31
Speaker 2: for listeners to this podcast version for recording as it were,
47:37
Speaker 2: if you're thinking, what is this Ambassador's program? If you
47:40
Speaker 2: happen to be a Next Thing customer and this is
47:42
Speaker 2: something you'd like to get involved with as a as
47:44
Speaker 2: a opportunity to to to get to know people in
47:47
Speaker 2: your sector, to share knowledge, to build your personal profile,
47:50
Speaker 2: and to participate in wonderful events such as this exclusive
47:54
Speaker 2: leadership seminar with Jacob Morgan. We will put a link
47:58
Speaker 2: to the Ambassador's page in the show notes. If you
48:00
Speaker 2: follow that, you'll get in touch with our wonderful Ambassador's
48:03
Speaker 2: team and you can certainly join this thriving community. And
48:07
Speaker 2: just remains for me to thank all the ambassadors who've
48:10
Speaker 2: joined us today and who are maybe listening to the
48:12
Speaker 2: recording at a later date. We really really appreciate your
48:16
Speaker 2: dedication and willingness to share your knowledge, for all your
48:19
Speaker 2: commitment across the course of twenty twenty four, and perhaps
48:22
Speaker 2: of some of you far before event. So I'm going
48:27
Speaker 2: to hand it back over now to Charlotte and John
48:30
Speaker 2: to sign us all up. But thank you for having
48:33
Speaker 2: me as well, and thank you for tuning in if
48:36
Speaker 2: you're listening to the podcast, and thank you Jacob once more,
48:39
Speaker 2: that was a wonderful discussion.
48:41
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
48:45
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49:07
Speaker 1: Until next time,