Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Digital Transformation Is Not Enough: Fear, Passion, and the Future of Business 💡 (w/ John Hagel)

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Digital Transformation Is Not Enough: Fear, Passion, and the Future of Business 💡 (w/ John Hagel) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome it, change Makers to the deck Show with Tim
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Hello, change Makers, Welcome back to the Deck Show, flying
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: solo once again today. Tim Flower will be back with
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: us shortly, but I'm extremely excited to welcome today's guest.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: He's one of my favorite writers in the space. Without exaggeration,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: he's John Hegel, well known Silicon Valley legend, entrepreneur, strategist,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: former Deloitte partner, and author of the Journey Beyond Fear. John,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: it's a pleasure to have you with us.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Looking forward to the nonversiation as
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: as am.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I particularly, I'm particularly keen to sort of hone in
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: on what you've written around digital transformation. John. I think
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: you bring something quite novel to that conversation, and we'll
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: dig into that in some detail momentarily. But first of all,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: if anyone doesn't know your work already listening out there,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: give us a quick introduction. Tell the listeners a little
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: bit about you in your career.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Wow. Okay, Well, as you mentioned, I've been in Silicon
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Valley now for over forty years, so a long journey,
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: A founder of two tech startups, a senior executive with
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Atari for those who can remember that far back, and
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: a partner with McKenzie and Company. I helped open their
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: e commerce practice back in the early nineteen nineties, and
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: then I was a partner with Deloitte, where I founded
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: and led a global research center called the Center for
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: the Edge. Retired from that about four years ago and
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: have been doing consulting to large leaders of large organizations
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: around the world throughout my career, and my focus has
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: been looking at emerging opportunities in the future and helping
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: leaders to see those opportunities and motivating them to address
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: them and to pursue the transformation that would be required
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: to address the opportunities. But over time, I've become more
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: and more focused on emotions because I've found that there's
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: been a significant barrier to addressing opportunities emerging, and that's
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: the emotion of fear. As you mentioned, My most recent
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: book is The Journey Beyond Fear, but I've actually written
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: eight books now, so it's a long career in terms
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: of writing books as well.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Indeed, and looking back across those forty years, Johan, I
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: mean you tempted sometimes to think it's been forty years
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: of perpetual digital transformation, perhaps the want of a better
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: term when we think about those earlier decades somewhat, But yeah.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: The digital transformation has become kind of a buzzword in
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: the business world. And I say that in my experience.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: If I go to any large organization around the world,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: they have a digital transformation program. But when I probe
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: into what do they mean, what is that program? What
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: is it doing? It's basically applying digital technology to help
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: everyone doing what they've always done faster and cheaper. And
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: my pushback on that is when we talk about transformation,
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I like to use the metaphor of the caterpillar and
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: the butterfly. If there's not a fundamental change in everything
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: we do, it is not transformation. If we're just making
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: the caterpillar walk faster, that's helpful to the caterpillar, but
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: please do not call it transformation.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: But across those forty years, we've seen categorical transformation, right,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: But I guess you've also seen people outpaced by that
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: process of transformation.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Would that be accurate? Yes? I think again it's a
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: question of large organizations and the degree to which they've changed,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: And frankly, I don't think they've changed nearly enough, and
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: there's a lot more ahead.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: So yeah, thinking about what's ahead, I mean we're hearing
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: verse of phrase AI driven transformation in circulation presently. I mean,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: do you look at that as a process of it's
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: potentially qualitatively different in its scale or potential impact of
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: the previous ways you've already lived through in a seen firsthand.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the challenge and I'm certainly accept that
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: artificial intelligence is a transformative technology, but I believe what's
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: happening is a convergence of multiple technologies, not just artificial intelligence.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: We've got the Internet of Things, We've got biotechnology, we've
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: got quantum computing. We've got a whole range of technologies
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: that are intersecting and amplifying the impact of each of
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: the individual technologies. So if we just get focused on one,
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: we're never going to see what the magnitude of the
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: change is.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And you've alluded to this distinction already, I think between
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: digital transformation and what you call business transformation. Maybe flesh
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: out that distinction a bit more and give some real
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: world examples of maybe successful business transformation.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Please, Well, it's fundamentally I've done research on long term
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: trends that are reshaping our global economy, and I've come
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: to believe that there is what I call a big
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: shift in institutional models that are going to drive our
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: large organizations around the world, not just businesses, but governments, universities, nonprofits.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: The institutional model that has driven the large organizations today
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: is what I call scalable efficiency. It's basically the key
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: to success is to do things faster and cheaper at scale.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: And it's hard to argue with that because I believe
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: for over a century that has led to the growth
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: and success of large organizations around the world. But in
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: a world of rapid change, scalable efficiency is becoming less
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: and less efficient, and I think the need is to
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: shift to a different model, which I describe as scalable learning.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: And here again I have to be a bit careful
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: because when I talk about learning, most executives say, oh, yes,
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: we do learning. We have training programs, we have everybody
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: learn in training programs. No, I'm talking about a different
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: form of learning, which is learning in the form of
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: creating entirely new knowledge that never existed before. Training programs
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: just have to do with sharing existing knowledge. Great, you
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: learned a skill that everybody had that other people had already.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Great learning in the form of creating new knowledge does
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: not occur in a training room. It occurs in the
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: work environment as you're confronting new situations that have never
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: been confronted before and finding ways to create value in
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: those situations. That's a very different form of learning, and
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: I believe everyone in the organization needs to master that
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: scalable learning. Not just people in the research departments or
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: product development, but every part of the organization, janitors in buildings.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Everyone has to be focused on this form of learning.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: How can an organization facilitate that What sounds like a
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: shift in mentality moving as much as a shift in practice.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Well, it's challenging. Again, I think it is a fundamental
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: change and it starts at the top. I mean leaders today,
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: the mark of a strong leader in organizations is someone
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: who has an answer to all the questions. No matter
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: what the question, you can count on the leader to
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: have an answer. But hey, you know rapidly changing world.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: This is why trust is eroding in all large institutions.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: If you have a leader who says they have an
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: answer to all the questions, there are two possibilities. Either
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: they don't understand how rapidly the world is changing, or
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: they're lying. In either case, they're not to be trusted.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: The mark of a strong leader in the scalable learning
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: world is a leader who has the most powerful and
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: inspiring questions and will freely acknowledge they don't have an
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: answer to the questions and ask for help. And it
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: sets in motion a totally different culture in organizations, which is,
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: questions are not only okay, they're absolutely essential, and asking
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: for help is not only okay, it's absolutely essential. You
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: need help. You need to come together to address the
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: questions that are merging on a daily basis.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds like what you're discussing has as
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: much as many implications for the way education should function
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: in society is for the way businesses should be run.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: And I was.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Wondering, based on that assumption, how does that break down
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: in real terms? I mean, how do you think schools
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: should be addressing this issue? How do you think colleges
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: and universities should be asking these same questions but their students.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Now that's a great, great observation I've done, and a
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: lot of study, at least in the US of the
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: emergence of the public school system, and the public school
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: system was designed to prepare students for the work environment
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: of scalable efficiency. Just listen to the teacher, memorize what
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: the teacher has to say, and show you that you
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: memorize it in the exams. I believe education is going
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: to have to fundamentally transform if we're really focused on
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: this new form of learning. And in this case, again
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: I go back to emotions. I've come to believe that
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: one of the keys to success in a rapidly changing
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: world is a specific form of passion. I call it
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: the passion of the explorer. And I believe that all
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: schools are going to have to be redesigned to fo
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: help students discover their passion. What is the passion that
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: really excites them to have more and more impact in
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: a specific domain, and help them then to pursue it
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  Speaker 3: and cultivate that passion earn faster in whatever domain is
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: most exciting for them. So it's a very different form
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  Speaker 3: of education, very different.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: And you know, is it is it realizable? Like do
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: you think it's it's an achievable aim? Perhaps when you
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: think about an organization, right you have a relatively small scale,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: it might be thousands of people, but still compared to
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: the millions of people the past. For education, the kind
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: of you know, centralized way that an education system has
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: to inevitably be run. How realistic is this? Is this
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: aspiration towards something It sounds so novel.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Well, I actually don't believe that education has to be centralized.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: It is centralized today, It can be highly decentralized.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: It could.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: In fact, what we're seeing today is the emergence of homeschooling,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: unschooling schools of all kinds because parents are increasingly realizing
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: that these centralized schools are not really helping their children.
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  Speaker 3: So I think it's going to be something that well
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: merge over time.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Because did you say, did you say, John, did you
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: say unschooling?
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: I never heard of it. Literally when they try and
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: deschool you what is it?
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Well, it's this notion that schools are as they're currently
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: designed or focused on just getting students to be, you know,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: following instructions, and unschooling is the notion. No, let's let's
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: free our students from our children from these schools and
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: let's just let them explore the world.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, unschooling sounds precisely what you're
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: advocating for in a sort of societal level, I would argue,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: but I mean, let's think specifically about the workplace context,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: and let's think about the employee, the ideal employee with
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: in a little bit more detail. What kind of attributes
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: would you be looking for. I mean, you've described it
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: to some degree, but I is it so open ended?
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Is it so much about that openness to learn, that
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: open in this to experiment that you can't even put
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: a fine point on it, or of a certain attributes
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: and outlooks which can be inculcated and encouraged and to
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: a degree nurtured.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: No. Well, again, I think the key to success in
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: the future for large organizations and for the employees is
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: to focus on the passion of the explorer. One of
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: the interesting things that I've discovered in my research is
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: I've yet to find a single large organization which measures
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: or seeks to identify the passion of their employees. Nobody
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: is looking at passion. In fact, passion is viewed as
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: deeply suspect. Passionate people ask too many questions, they take
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: too many risks, They deviate from the script. You don't
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: want passionate workers. You want workers who will follow their instructions.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: So they focus on engaged workers. What's worker engagement. That's
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: what they measure. And again I don't want to be
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: too contrarian, but broadly, engaged workers means do you like
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: the work you do, do you like the people you
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: work with, you respect the company you work for. That's
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: an engaged worker. Okay, let's imagine one of those engaged
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: workers and go to them and tell them that their
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: work is going to have to fundamentally change. WHOA wait
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: a minute. I like the work that I do. I
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: don't want to change. I want to keep doing what
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I'm doing. I love it, I like it. So I
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: think engagement is a challenge in a rapidly changing world,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: and passion is somebody who's excited about change. They want
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: more change, They're seeking change all the time. So that's
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: the key is how do we cultivate that passion? And
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: I could go on a long time, but one of
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: the shifts that I see is again when we talk
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: about learning, it's about learning new skills, and again, semantics matter.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: Skills in my view are things that are valuable in
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: a specific context. So a skill on how to operate
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: a machine that's very valuable when you're in front of
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: that machine. Skill to do a certain kind of calculation
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: in a process that's valuable in that process, but they're
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: not valuable anywhere else. To me, the key is to
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: shift our focus from skills to what I call capabilities,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: things like curiosity, imagination, creativity, collaboration, reflection. Those are capabilities
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: that are valuable in every context and essential if you're
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: really focused on learning in the form of creating new knowledge.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: So how do we cultivate those capabilities and draw those
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: out in people?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as I said, oh sorry, Junker.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I just wanted to add one other thing.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: I get a lot of pushback from people saying, oh,
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: come on, John, some of us are capable of passion,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: but most of us just want to be told what
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: to do and have this curity of an income. And
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: you know, my response to that is, Okay, let's go
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: to a playground and let's look at children five or
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: six years old. Show me one that isn't really excited
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: about exploring new areas and coming together with others to
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: explore those areas. What happened? They went to school and
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: they were taught to just listen to the teacher, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: they lost that passion. But it's in there. It's still there.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: I believe in all humans waiting to be found and
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: drawn out. So that's the opportunity that I see.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: It's interesting because you're a dendum there. It touched upon
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: precisely what I was going to ask you about, which is,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: you know, as I say, I genuinely enjoy your writing
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: and your ideas, and but one of the things I
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: often find myself quite forcefully thinking is a kind of
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: counterpoint of them. Is like you're kind of describing in
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: your ideal employee depiction or your depiction of employee of
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: the future, you're just describing what I would think of
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: as an ideal founder, as an ideal entrepreneur. And I
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: think that there's a lot of logic to the idea
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: that we all need to become entrepreneurs, you know, to
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: some degree in the modern economy. But this is what
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: you've just touched upon, right, that dynamic between people who
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: who do see more passivity more regularity. You know, we've
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: always defined the entrepreneur as the person within capitalism willing
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: to take for risk, right, And it's that willingness which
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: we acknowledge societally is a kind of is a rarity,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: you know, and is the thing that, in its rarity
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: is becomes well rewarded because it has a general utility,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: a general broader utility. And I guess you've already touched
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: upon it by sort of you know, unearthing that passion
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: that everybody has, maybe in many cases more smothered in
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: the kind of concept of unschooling. But yeah, I wonder
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: if you you know, is there is not everybody's going
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: to be able to achieve this And what is the
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: place for people who don't have that autonomy within themselves
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: in the future economy?
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Well, again, I would push back and say, we are
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: all capable of it. We all have an aspiration and
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: need for it. It's within us waiting to be discovered,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: waiting to be cultivated and pursued. And we need to
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: create environments that will encourage people to find their passion,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: what really excites them, what is it that really drives
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: their desire to have more change and more impact in
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: the world, and help them to pursue it. So I
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: believe that we all have it. Just again, where an
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: environments that crush that passion, that are hostile to it,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: and it's not surprising. I did as survey of the
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: US workforce, and in the US workforce, the survey indicated
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: that at most fourteen percent of US workers have passion
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: about the work they're doing. Fourteen percent. And I'm actually
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: surprised it's as much as fourteen percent, because in environments
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: that are hostile to this passion, they've somehow found ways
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: to pursue it and you know, maintain it. And so
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I'm I believe again we're going to need to find
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: ways to make it one hundred percent of people who
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: have passion and are pursuing their passion.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: It's a it's a compelling proposition. John, can't deny it.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Let's look at sort of macro trends a little bit.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: You know, the specter of global competition is presumably driving
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: the urgency around this need for kind of you know,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: leaching the workforce effectively. I think as you describe it,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: and what would you say about that backdrop and about
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: the exigency of tapping this passion in terms of the
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: future for global economy and the future of since America
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: of the West.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's essential, and I think again, I've done
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: a lot of research on what I call the Big Shift,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: the forces that are changing the global economy and society.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: And on one side, the Big Shift is creating mounting
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: performance pressure. It is intensifying competition on a global scale,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: it's accelerating the pace of change. Those things we thought
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: we could count on are no longer there. And then
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: because of all the connectivity we've created around the world,
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: we have extreme disruptive events that come in out of
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: nowhere and disrupt our best laid plans and actions. So
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of pressure. Any one of those things
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: would be pressure, but threed together. And I think it's
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: the reason why we're seeing around the world the increasing
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: emotion of fear, because it's a response to that pressure.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: But here's an interesting paradox, and I love paradox. The
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: same forces in this big shift on the global economy
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: that creating mounting performance pressure are also creating exponentially expanding opportunity.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: We can be a far more value with far less resource,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: far more quickly than would have been imaginable a few
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: decades ago. But if we're driven by fear, we can't
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: even see those opportunities, much less be motivated to pursue them.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: So it's one of the reasons I've become more and
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: more focused on how do we acknowledge and address the
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: emotion of fear and help people to move beyond the
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: fear and find their passion and pursue it.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's particularly pointed at the moment with the
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: fear of AI replacement effectively right of jobs. And I
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: suppose I mean, when you look at coverage of it,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: when you look at the way it's communicated and discussed,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: do you see just the proliferation of fear as a
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: post of a proliferation of opportunity? And how much opportunity
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: do you see at this present moment for people who
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: are willing to push past that kind of nervousness and hesitation.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: No, I believe it's huge opportunity for people. But again,
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: I understand the fear. When I talk to executives about
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: artificial intelligence, they only have two questions, how quickly can
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: I automate and how many jobs can I eliminate? I'll there,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: you go here, that's scalable efficiency and employees, even if
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: the leaders don't say those out loud in their speeches,
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: they know that's what's driving Most of the leaders of
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: large organizations around the world. So again, the fear is
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: very understandable, but I think again it just drives the
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: notion of Okay, what can I do to continue to
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: work and create value in a rapidly changing world. And
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: that's about finding passion and pursuing it.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Any thoughts on the sort of paradox which that mentality
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: that you just described among executives presents for the economic
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: system potentially, right, I mean putting aside you are you
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: are offering solutions, you know, potential solutions. I see that.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: But when you think about this notion of okay, you
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: can replace the workers with technology, you can have more
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: scalable efficiency in organizations, but guess what, you're also going
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: to be collectively damaging your own customer base as an economy,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: right there as an irony ore as you say, paradox
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: to that, And I was wondering what your reflections are
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: on the realness of that, of that threat to the waive.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: The system functions, as you know, having having consumers and
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: workers and and and a circularity in the economy itself.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Again, the challenge is scalable efficiency is becoming less
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: and less efficient over time because in a rapidly changing world.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: You can't just focus on doing the tasks you've always
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: done faster and cheaper. You have to fundamentally change those
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: tasks and address the opportunities that are emerging. So I
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: think it's it's something that is going to have to happen,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: and I'm an optimist and I believe it will happen
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: as more and more people realize that what's required in
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: this world is not efficiency, scalable efficiency in the traditional model,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: but this notion of learning in the form of creating
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: new knowledge and pursuing it.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So I think.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: We're going to see it happen, but it's not going
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: to be easy.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Are you familiar with something we discussed a lot of
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: the show over the last few months, the theme of
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: digital adoption, you know, of facilitating the adoption of new
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: technologies among employees. Kind Of you could say it's a
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: form of training, which is, you know, one of those
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: things that you kind of, you know, scour out a
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: little bit in your work. But you could also say that, look, Visa,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: the tools that currently we're trying to encourage adoption too
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: are very open ended tools, right, They're tools that can
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: expand or contract. According to your imagination. That's the nature
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: of these AI tools, argue, and I was wondering what
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: your thoughts are on digital adoption per se and on
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: adapting to these tools specifically.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Again, I'm a bit of a contrarian. When I hear
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: digital adoption, it's the message from the leaders is adopt
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: these tools. Use these tools to do what you've always
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: done faster and cheaper. Actually it's not. Adopt the tools
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: so you can fundamentally reimagine what the work is and
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: what value you can create and deliver to the stakeholders
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: that you have. I have to tell you one little
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: example or story that gives me some inspiration is there's
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: a clinical laboratory company that was experiencing increasing customer churn
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: rates in their marketplace and finding that the frustration of
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: customers was with their call center operations, and the call
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: center operators were resigning at an accelerating rate because they
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: were frustrated. The leader of the call center went to
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: the department, called all the people together and said, here's
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: one thing I'm promising. None of you are going to
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: lose your jobs. You will all continue to work, but
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: your first assignment is go work with the IT department.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: To find out how you can take it and automate
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: the most routine calls that you get that are consuming
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: all your time and attention. And then once you freed
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: up that time that's been consumed with the routine calls,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: focus on the calls that you've never had before and
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: that you have no answers for, and come together in
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: small groups he called them pods, to problem solve and
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: figure out how you could address those problems and come
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: up with creative answers. Customer churn rates went way down.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: The call center operators became much more passionate and excited
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: because they were making a difference that nobody else could
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: have made, because they're coming up with solutions and answers
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: that nobody had ever had before. So I think it's
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: an interesting example of a way to adopt the technology
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: but in the process of fundamentally changing how you operate
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: and preserving work, not just firing people, but keeping the
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: people focused on more and more change around you and
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: the problems and opportunities that need to be addressed.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Fascinating, and it anticipates the next question as well, which is,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: you know, the traditional silos for modern corporation, the traditional
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: departments the phenomenon of departments per se, presumably in one
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: of the ones we discussed, for instance, the old silo
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: between IT and HR. You know, as the workplace becomes
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: increasingly digitized, who owns what? I mean, that's a very
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: real question at the moment when you look at the
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: structure of the future organized what structure if any to anticipate.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I believe the silos are going to have to
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: be blown up and disappear. So the key to me again,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: I've done a lot of research and work on if
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: you really believe in the need for learning in the
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: form of creating new knowledge, how do you organize to
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: pursue that? And in my experience, the most effective way
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: of learning for those people is coming together into small
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: groups and it's typically anywhere between three to fifteen people
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: who share a real passion for an excitement about having
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: more and more impact in a certain area. I call
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: them impact groups. And they're diverse people within the group.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: It's not just people all from one department or one
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: you know, educational system, whatever. They're very diverse people because
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: they realize that they're going to learn faster if they
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: are diverse perspectives that are being brought together into the
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: small group, and on the one side, they're constantly supporting
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: each other in a challenging time. But on the other side,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: they're constantly challenging each other, say why can't we have
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: even more impact? What would we need to do? How
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: would we learn to have more impact? And because they're
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: driven by this passion, this excitement about having more impact,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: and so the core unit I believe of large organizations
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: in the future will be a small group of three
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: to fifteen people, and they'll be connected into networks that
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: will connect them with other small groups, both within the
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: organization and outside the organization. I think increasingly this notion
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: of silo organization silos is going to have to be dismantled,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: and we focus on networks that bring people together across
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: organizations so they can learn faster.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Brilliantly said John, and a fantastic note to conclude on it,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I think. But it's been a real pleasure to get
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: to talk to you for the first time. As I said,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: I've been reading you for a long time. Really enjoy
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: your work, and we'll continue to keep a close eye
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: on it. Anything you would like to tell the listeners
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: about where they can find you read you connect with you.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, well it's I have a website, Johnhagel dot
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: com and would welcome any feedback on what I've said.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: And I do a lot of activity on social media.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: I'm active on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Twitter x now,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: and as I mentioned, I've written quite a few books,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: and again I would encourage people, particularly today in a
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: world of increasing fear, to look at my most recent book,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: The Journey Beyond Fear, and I would welcome feedback on that.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Does it really address the need and what can I
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: do to make the concepts even more effective and compelling
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: to people?
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: John Hagel, thank you so much. We will have co
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: for those links in the show notes. Hope to have
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: you on the show again in the future.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Lovely to me. Thank you very much.
• 30:08
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• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Until next time,