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AI as a Mirror: How Your Organization's Trust Culture Impacts AI Implementation (EP22) · The In-Between Tech and Trust Podcast

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  Hey, this is Eva, and you're listening to this week's episode
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  of the In Between Tech and Trust podcast.
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  The podcast when we dive into conversations with experts at
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  the intersection of technology and trust and look into their
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  mutual influence on each other and how we can build and foster
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  trust in a world when technology evolves faster than we sometimes
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  can. Follow up this episode we dive
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  deep into the intersection of how technology shapes
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  organization and how it also influences collaboration.
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  And for this relevant exchange, I have Doctor Zeman Baglam as a
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  guest with me in in conversation.
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  And Zeman brings many years of experience and background at the
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  intersection of strategy, organizational development, of
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  enabling teams at exactly the progress and sometimes even
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  friction points of how organizations need to evolve
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  need to be a cater to. Because, amongst others, Zeman
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  has founded the Accompany the Dive, which accompanies
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  organizations at their step into a new era when they look into
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  economical. Success at the.
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  Intersection of humanity and also moving exactly that
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  forward. And in our exchange, we dive
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  deep into what it means to incorporate technology into
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  collaboration, how stable or flexible organizations can or
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  should be, what organizational design is required and need to
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  be fostered, the six different lenses of intelligence.
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  And Zemon explains quite tangibly of how AI only caters
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  to one part of the intelligence that we as humans have 6 of, and
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  what the implications of it are. And we also exchange on how
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  trust is an anchor and sometimes also a design measure of
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  bringing and moving people together and organizations
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  forward. Hi, Zeman, and welcome to the In
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  Between Tech and Trust podcast. Hi everyone, thanks for having
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  me. It's such a like pleasure to
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  talk to you about the intersection of organizational
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  development, transformation and technology today.
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  And before we dive into our exchange on exactly that
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  intersection, I wanted to know that when I now throw tech and
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  trust into our conversation, what does it mean to you in the
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  context of organizational transformation in particular?
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  Yeah, well, I'm an organization developer with a pretty systemic
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  background, so I might refer to systems theory here and there
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  just as a reference. And I think system theory can be
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  quite useful to look at in two in two different dimensions.
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  A it can help to really define what trust actually means.
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  So what is our definition of trust?
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  And B it also shows us what trust in social systems actually
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  might be needed for. And if you if you read famous
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  Nicholas Lumen, so the the godfather of systems theory, he
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  basically says that that trust reduces social complexity.
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  Is that so? Yeah, there's, there's a book
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  which is actually called Trust As the Reduction of Social
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  Complexity or something like that.
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  So to, to put it in a simplified way, trust is, is from this
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  perspective, trust is necessary in order to be able to live your
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  life actually. So we have to to trust everyday
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  trust in other people, trust in, in social systems like
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  organisations or institutions, because our everyday experience
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  in our everyday life is so, so full of contingency and
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  unpredictability. And if you apply this to, to
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  organizational transformation, you could say trust in
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  transformation is something like the felt permission to stay in
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  motion under, under uncertainty. So without pretending that we
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  already know the perfect answer. So in complex environments, you
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  just don't get certainty first and then you act.
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  But it's rather that you act and you learn and you integrate and
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  you iterate and so on. And that's why I love this, this
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  stance, which we use a lot in our organization development
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  processes, this stance of safe enough to try.
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  So we are not chasing for perfection also not in in
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  transformation processes, but we are choosing the next step that
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  is responsible and that doesn't ignore essential risks,
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  including risks for people, for the organization and for the
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  future. And you said something so
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  tangible and that is to use it to stay in motion and what we
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  experience all of us, I guess, every day, but also in
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  particular for the past couple of years that there's so much
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  motion. And the interesting part at the
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  intersection of organization is that organizations are built to
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  provide stability, right? So you could also say that in
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  some sort you and your team, you provide building bridges between
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  those structures and like the motion and possibilities that we
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  want to throw ourselves into and provide the flexibility to
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  encounter them. How do you see sorry?
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  That's sorry that that's one of the great paradoxes which
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  organisations always have to solve because we, I mean, we
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  sometimes have the illusion that we, that we live in somehow
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  stable environments. But of course, if you really
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  dive into the texture of life, you will find out that there is
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  no such thing like general stability.
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  There's only temporary stability against the background of a
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  general instability. So that's life.
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  If, if, if there wasn't instability wouldn't be life, it
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  would be death. And, and at the same time, of
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  course, that's where the paradox lies in.
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  At the same time, organisations of course have to create
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  clarity. They have to create alignment,
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  they have to create accountability.
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  And this is exactly what, what, what I would say substantial
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  organization development is about to to bridge this paradox
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  between staying in motion, between being adaptable, between
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  dealing competently with complexity, dealing competently
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  with the complexity of life, and at the same time, of course,
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  creating clarity, creating accountability, creating
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  structure, knowing that it's always only a temporary
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  structure and that it will be a subject to change in six months,
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  in eight months, in 12 months. And if you're now an
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  organization that has built a heritage over some time, and if
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  you're faced as we all are with the like task changing
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  developments of technology and don't, let's not go into the
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  politics kind of route, but stay with technology for a little
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  while. How can we also make sure that
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  we include the OR translate the heritage that we come with into
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  the futures that we still build? Is there an approach that you
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  can recommend to encounter it with?
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  Yeah, it's a it's a big question.
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  It's especially in the times we live in.
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  So I I often describe this space as a space between the the not
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  anymore and the not yet. And, and sometimes this is more
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  paradigmatic or more more fundamental and sometimes it's
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  just the next step to take. But this is the, the I would say
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  this is always the space where the the old logic still runs.
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  The old recipes are still applied, feeling and sensing
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  that they just don't make much sense anymore and that they're
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  not helpful anymore maybe. And at the same time, the new
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  logic is still forming. The the new logic is not not
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  there yet. And, and she could have the
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  hypothesis that we, we live through these kind of times
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  quite a lot these days where old recipes are crumbling and old
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  systems are crumbling and falling apart and the new
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  systems are just not built yet. And in this space, coming back
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  to trust, trust, of course, is, is kind of a rich material, I
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  would say on various levels, actually, maybe, maybe, maybe on
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  at least 4 levels. So it's it's trust in the
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  process, which is directly connected to trust in emergence,
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  I would say, which is connected to trust in intuition,
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  individual, but also collectively.
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  And the fourth level is maybe rather about maintaining
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  confidence as a sign of self trust.
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  So in these in between situations, we are always asked
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  to change the rules while still playing the game, right.
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  And this is kind of a again, a paradox situation because there
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  there is no pause button, there is no master plan.
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  So we, we have to rebuild and we have to apply new rules to
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  invent new rules while still playing the old, the old game.
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  And, and that's of course very can be very exhausting.
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  So trust, I would say on the first level, trust, trust in the
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  process. Trust is the capacity of the
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  capacity to, to keep going anyway and, and to experiment
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  responsibly and to stay in dialogue and not to collapse
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  back into control just because uncertainty rises, rises,
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  because uncertainty will be, will always be there, right.
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  And then secondly, in those in between spaces, answers do not
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  pre exist. So they they emerge in the
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  process. That's pretty related to to the
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  first level level, I would say. So we have to dare to to stay
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  present long enough. And you could say that that in
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  these situations, you maybe you need an extra portion of trust
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  in the assumption and the hypothesis that answers will
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  show themselves while moving forward.
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  And and this also points to the to the level of trusting your
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  intuition. I think the the intuitive muscle
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  is is 1, which is highly needed in in these days.
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  And as I said, it's not only about individual intuition, but
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  but about something which you could call collective intuition.
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  Maybes the management thinker Peter Couzer.
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  He once was asked how how do people deal with deal with
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  complexity and he differentiate differentiated 4 four ways of
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  dealing with complexity. First, ignoring complexity, just
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  pretending it's not there. The second, trivializing
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  complexity. So just to break it down into
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  simple linear cause and effect chains again, the third way
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  would be trial and error, which is already slightly better just
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  to to iterate to learn. And the fourth way he, he said
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  in, in his point of view, that's the the most promising 1 is
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  actually using your intuition. And then he said, but not your
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  individual and intuition because this is prone to, to failure
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  again, but to create social spaces and social fields where
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  something like a collective intuition can emerge.
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  Highly interesting questions how to build spaces and how to build
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  social fields where collective intuition emerges.
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  And you've now developed a new method called the Stellar
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  approach, also for organizational development,
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  where you look into systems humanity, but also the
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  regeneration part. It's like this intuition part
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  across teams moving away from the individual to like an
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  organizational view. Is that part of that?
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  And like in general, could you walk us through of how you like
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  approach to come up with that method and how you apply it?
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  Yeah, of course. Yeah.
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  I mean, we founded our company, The Dive with the purpose that
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  with all our activities we want to to contribute to an economic
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  system or to an economy which which serves life like life as a
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  whole process. And of course there are various
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  dimensions connected to that. But but one dimension actually
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  is of course the question of how are how do we deliver our
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  services and how are our business models designed and to
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  which extent are we really able to deal competently with
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  interdependence? Because we are all
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  interdependent not only from human beings but also from from
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  non human beings. Is that where the intuition part
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  then comes into play again of where we how we encounter also
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  these in betweens or connectiveness?
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  Partly it's an it's, it's not an either or it's, it's, it's a
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  both end. I mean, I don't want to
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  devaluate cognitive intelligence or rational intelligence.
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  It's also needed, but it's not the only thing which is needed.
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  So I sometimes differentiate between and that's a model which
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  which I haven't invented, I just developed it further.
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  I sometimes differentiate between 6:00 plus one
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  intelligences or 6 plus one ways of knowing and four of them
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  apply to every human being, which is cognitive intelligence,
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  emotional intelligence, intuitive intelligence and
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  somatic intelligence like the embodied intelligence.
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  And then this is still pretty much human centered, to be
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  honest, these these are still pretty much like human
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  intelligences. And then there's also, of
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  course, something which you could call ecological
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  intelligence. So also the non human beings,
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  like the living non human beings, they also are
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  intelligent. They just speak another, a
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  different language. And then there's the sixth one,
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  which would be something like a relational intelligence, like
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  how do we relate to other human beings, but also how do we
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  relate to to other non human beings.
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  And the cognitive intelligence is one part of that.
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  And that's very, very important. But it's like I said, it's not
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  the only one. And of course we have developed
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  cultural patterns during past centuries and decades, decades
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  and centuries, which kind of emphasizes our rational muscle
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  and our cognitive and that it's pretty pretty much and over
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  emphasizes that, that part of yeah, of how we, how we proceed.
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  And of course then there is like the, that's where I said 6 + 1.
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  Then there's the artificial artificial intelligence.
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  And now we're coming to technology.
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  And that's interesting to map kind of the artificial
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  intelligence to the six intelligences, which I mentioned
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  before, because actually, if you really look closely to what
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  artificial intelligence does, it only plays a role in this field
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  of rational and cognitive intelligence.
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  And all the other intelligences are just emulated.
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  It it doesn't have a proper emotional intelligence or
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  intuitive intelligence. If you asked HGPT or or Claude,
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  are you able to to apply emotional or intuitive
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  intelligence, it it most probably would answer, I can
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  emulate this, but please be aware I'm a technology, I'm a
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  technological system. So it's not kind of a proper
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  feature which which I can deliver like, yeah.
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  So that that was kind of an excursion.
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  Your question was, are we applying these ideas also in the
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  stellar approach? And yes, we do.
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  It's, it's not the main thought of the stellar approach, but of
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  course, if we want to end up in a, in a more competent way of
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  dealing with interdependencies, it makes a lot of sense to to
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  not only use our, our cognitive brain.
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  And can you tell us a bit more about the seller approach in
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  particular and also what benefit it can bring to apply it overall
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  in like organizational development or transforming
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  transformational situation that an organization might be in?
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  Yeah, of course. I mean the, the, the approach
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  itself is, is just an organizational development
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  framework. So it's a development part which
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  helps organization to move from more conventional ways of, of
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  doing business to more regenerative ways of doing
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  business. So from, from just do less harm,
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  doing less harm towards net positive contribution.
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  And, and the way we do that is always iteratively step by step
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  by step by step by step through teams and, and also anchored
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  pretty much in, in daily practices and in daily
• 14:52
  decisions. To give you just an overview, we
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  work with three different layers or, or dimensions, which we call
• 15:00
  principles, practices and virtues.
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  So the, the four principle, the four principles, they are kind
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  of our guiding stars. They are kind of a northern star
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  where what's, what could be a regenerative direction as an
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  organization to go to. And then the, the seven
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  practices, they kind of translate those principles into
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  real behaviour and practices. How can we better understand
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  interdependence? How can we use our own circle of
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  influence? How does regenerative decision
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  making look like? How can we make progress
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  visible? And, and those questions.
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  And then the the virtues, they are more kind of inner
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  capacities which help that the people do not burn out in these
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  kind of long term transitions. And usually we work with teams
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  like team by team by team by team.
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  And we just help teams to become more aware of how they could
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  possibly contribute to a more regenerative outcome or impact
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  in the overall organizational picture.
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  And again, there's a paradox, of course, because that's why I
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  said rewriting the rules or changing the rules while playing
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  the game. Of course, we are all still
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  pretty much part of this neo capitalist or neoliberal finance
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  and asset capitalism. Maybe that's that's a way to
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  describe it. And of course we need, we
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  urgently need change on a systemic level, like the
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  economic system as such has to change.
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  But then you end up with a question of agency, like who is
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  God? Who is going to change it?
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  And of course, I mean at least like to, to, to simplify a
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  little bit, at least I would differentiate between three
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  players which, which should be taken into account, which is
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  politics and regulation, which is civil society and which is
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  the economy itself. And what we can, what we can
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  observe, you said in the at the very beginning, let's do not
• 16:45
  slide away into politics. But now we aren't in into
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  politics a little bit. What we can observe these days
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  is that political decisions, like global political decisions
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  are not really pointing towards the future, but they rather show
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  any like different kind of rollbacks pointing into the
• 17:03
  past. So we can't expect politics to
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  save us and to to kind of really deal with those urgently needed
• 17:12
  systemic shifts. But the main thing is if
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  politics doesn't act wisely, the problems are still there.
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  They do not disappear. We are still overheating and
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  burning the planet. We are still contributing to
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  hilarious social inequality and and all these kind of kind of
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  things. So if politics is is not the,
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  the area to look at, the agency pretty naturally goes to the
• 17:37
  civil society and to the economy itself.
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  Why? Because if you don't act upon
• 17:41
  these these challenges, there won't be a successful way to do
• 17:46
  business in the in the future, because you just can't do
• 17:48
  business on a, on a depleted planet with exhausted societies.
• 17:52
  So. Yeah.
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  And don't get me wrong, I would want to dive right into politics
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  and discuss of how we can also move things in that regard.
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  But that would be a different kind of episode and conversation
• 18:05
  that we would be having. And it's probably going to
• 18:08
  derail because there is so much to talk about.
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  And so coming back to the economical aspect, so currently
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  like technology is one of the main drivers for economic
• 18:20
  growth. And you've now also highlighted
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  earlier when you differentiated between the six like layers and
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  then again artificial intelligence and mapped it
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  against it. What do you think does economy
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  do right and what does it do wrong currently when integrating
• 18:38
  AI into organizations or also including it in a responsible
• 18:43
  way? And how does it also move things
• 18:47
  forward so that we can anticipate it to be state?
• 18:51
  Yeah. I mean, I think we have to
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  acknowledge that we use AI and technology pretty much not free
• 18:59
  of context. So the way we use every
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  technology always has to be seen in the context of, in this case,
• 19:06
  the economic system we live in. And of course, also the way we
• 19:10
  apply technology these days has the purpose of contributing to
• 19:17
  the rules of today's. Yeah, I would say this is
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  definitely, definitely something to to keep in mind.
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  Because if I compare it for example, to climate change
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  discussions, which we had like decades ago or which we didn't
• 19:30
  have, there are some comparable dynamics when it when it comes
• 19:33
  to AI at this point. Because if we took our time
• 19:37
  right now and if we really thoroughly thought about where
• 19:41
  could technology in general and AI in particular help us to
• 19:45
  really progress as a society and to to come up with a system
• 19:50
  which really fosters something like thriving coexistence.
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  So that that's maybe that could be an interesting guiding
• 19:56
  question. So how, how to build an economy
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  and economic system that fosters thriving coexistence,
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  coexistence of humans and coexistence of humans and and
• 20:04
  non human being living beings. So if if it took this, if it
• 20:08
  took our time right now to answer these questions?
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  Of course, then we might end up with very different ideas
• 20:13
  compared to how technology is used today.
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  We don't do that because again, we are caught in market
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  dynamics. So there's a huge market
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  potential, there's a huge business potential.
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  So we have to move, we have to be fast.
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  The economic system and the way it is created today doesn't
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  allow for for reflection. And also, of course, another
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  question is where would those kind of spaces be where we can
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  have this kind of? Who has the agency to call them
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  together? Exactly.
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  So who does that? But yeah, I think compared to
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  climate change, again, we are just caught in this kind of
• 20:45
  acceleration trap, which is pretty much fueled by how the
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  economy is run. Somebody would have to stop that
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  in order to take a little bit more time.
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  And this is what we just do not do.
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  So we'll all find out as a society and as as human beings,
• 20:59
  as a human race, where we end up.
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  And if we like now keep that in mind and look back into the way
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  of how we structure organizations and potentially
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  also intersect with new paradigms that we find ourselves
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  in, in work or also at the intersection to technology,
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  there is often tension as well. And there's tension between like
• 21:19
  the technological systems and the human agency or so any other
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  responsibility that we would want to use in order for us to
• 21:28
  design collaboration. And I mean, in the end,
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  collaboration also means trust. How do you see the interplay and
• 21:36
  how do you also approach it when you collaborate with your
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  clients also ecosystem partners in designing it for a
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  regenerative organization? Yeah, I think we, we really, and
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  and this is again a reference to systems theory.
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  We, we really have to differentiate here between
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  living systems and non living systems.
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  And I think this is really like from a theoretical point of
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  view, this is very, very important that talking about
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  trust and this this is the the main theme of your your podcast,
• 22:02
  a series. Trust is a property of living
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  systems. Technology is first and foremost
• 22:08
  a non living system which does not run on trust, which emulates
• 22:13
  trust maybe but but which does not run on trust, but it runs on
• 22:16
  probability, runs on probability and on things which can be
• 22:20
  measured. And that's that can be a problem
• 22:22
  if you contrast it to life, because life actually emerges in
• 22:27
  the the spaces in between which are not measurable.
• 22:31
  If we try to measure everything in life, like I said before, it
• 22:34
  wouldn't be life, it would be rigid and it would be dead at
• 22:36
  some point or dead at some point.
• 22:39
  I think it's a little bit like if you know, for example, the
• 22:42
  the the ideas and the books and the theories by by Nora Bates
• 22:45
  and she differentiates between warm data and cold data.
• 22:48
  And I like this expression when warm data is, is all, all the
• 22:52
  data, which is like data quote, UN quote, which which is
• 22:56
  produced by by living beings. Whereas cold data is, is our
• 23:03
  pretty close to to what we usually refer to when we talk
• 23:05
  about about data. And I think this is something
• 23:08
  which you have to keep in mind also when it comes to designing
• 23:11
  organizations. And also especially when it
• 23:13
  comes to to the question of agency, because I think talking
• 23:17
  about agency, this is maybe the main difference between the
• 23:20
  older digital technology and the, the newer like AI related
• 23:26
  technology. And technology has always been a
• 23:28
  catalyst for change. So until here, nothing is new
• 23:31
  with AIAI technology and technology drives change.
• 23:34
  What is somewhat new is the fact that AI is able to decide so to
• 23:39
  to take its own decisions if you let it, and that it's even more
• 23:44
  and more able to execute its own decisions when, when it's when
• 23:48
  it comes to, to agentic AI. And if you want to design for
• 23:52
  collaboration. And then coming back to your
• 23:53
  question, if you if you want to design for collaboration between
• 23:56
  humans and technology, you should be very precise in
• 23:59
  differentiating decision making. Humans only humans aided by AIAI
• 24:04
  only question mark. And also the same of course
• 24:07
  applies to execution like coming, coming back to agency,
• 24:09
  like who runs the decisions, like who executes the decisions?
• 24:14
  And the more you leave decisions or even execution to AI, the
• 24:19
  more of course, you also would have to integrate technology
• 24:21
  into the governance of an organization, for example, the
• 24:24
  org chart. So AI as a colleague, for
• 24:27
  example. So if, if you really say like
• 24:29
  this is a domain where humans are not involved anymore, then
• 24:34
  the, the consequence should be in, in order to be transparent
• 24:37
  and to, to really take conscious decisions when it comes to orc
• 24:40
  design, for example, to really display where are the domains
• 24:45
  where we have the feeling that AI could or should take over.
• 24:49
  But again, we should beware if, if we do so, we should very
• 24:52
  beware, very much beware that the decisions and the execution
• 24:55
  run, the technology will never be based on warm data, will
• 24:59
  never be based on trust. But like I said before, just on
• 25:02
  the emulation of trust, which is based on measured, measured
• 25:06
  probability. And that's something very
• 25:08
  different. And, and we, we tend to not
• 25:11
  differentiate it because it feels so human and it feels, so
• 25:14
  it's, it's so perfectly emulated that, that we, that we kind of
• 25:18
  forget that these are two different operating modes.
• 25:21
  What's the consequence of forgetting about that?
• 25:25
  And do you think that there's ever going to be a choice for
• 25:29
  either or or will they coexist going forward?
• 25:32
  I think they, they certainly will will coexist.
• 25:35
  I mean, I don't see any path. I mean the only option I see
• 25:40
  that we kind of rewind is that we are just come to a point
• 25:44
  where we where we don't have the energy anymore to to fuel those
• 25:47
  systems. I mean, we all know that they
• 25:49
  need a lot of energy and we all know about the energy dilemma we
• 25:52
  have to face on this planet. And of course it could happen
• 25:56
  and it's just kind of a very dark scenario, but it could
• 25:59
  happen that that we have to face any kind of energy problems in
• 26:02
  the future. And, and then of course, all
• 26:04
  those technological systems would be under pressure.
• 26:07
  Speaking of energy and you also being quite deep in the
• 26:10
  intersection of building up regenerative organizations, do
• 26:14
  you have a point of view of how or what a regenerative
• 26:19
  technology stack could look like and also potentially one that
• 26:23
  emulates trust in a way that we can definitely also follow
• 26:27
  rather than be uncertain about it?
• 26:29
  Yeah. I mean following the the main
• 26:32
  thought in regenerative economics, I would say
• 26:35
  returnative technology would be technology which is in service
• 26:37
  to life like the greater process of life and and this effects
• 26:41
  again different layers. First layer would be like how is
• 26:45
  the technology itself designed? Which which problems does it
• 26:49
  solve and how inclusive how, how privileged sensitive is it and
• 26:54
  so on. The second layer is rather
• 26:55
  rather about the business model. So how is the business model
• 26:58
  designed? What happens with the data, what
• 27:00
  system, which kind of system is fed by the technology?
• 27:03
  And thirdly, of course, coming back to the energy question,
• 27:07
  what kind of context condition does the technology need in
• 27:10
  order to be to to be run or to be to be deployed?
• 27:13
  So what about the energy consumption?
• 27:15
  What about the water supplies for cooling and so on?
• 27:17
  So I would say regenerative technology would be rooted in
• 27:20
  regenerative principles. It would be very aware of right
• 27:24
  relationship. That's how John Fullerton always
• 27:26
  puts it. Like what's a helpful relation
• 27:28
  between humans, amongst humans and, and between humans and non
• 27:32
  human human beings? And how can technology shape
• 27:35
  this this relation? I guess regenerative technology
• 27:38
  would rather be about reconnecting instead of hunting
• 27:42
  for our attention and making us more lonely essentially.
• 27:45
  And it also would apply and this is also one of the regenerative
• 27:48
  principles, it would apply long term thinking.
• 27:50
  So. So how can technology be a
• 27:52
  bridge for future generations for example?
• 27:54
  And if you rethink technology in this way, you might come up
• 27:58
  interestingly enough with not that much the high tech
• 28:01
  applications, but rather the low tech applications like low power
• 28:04
  environmental sensors, minimalist and low spec software
• 28:07
  like these, these kind of things which are maybe not the main
• 28:11
  focus of where technology is heading these days.
• 28:13
  And it's interesting that you look at it from an
• 28:16
  infrastructure, but then again, also from the collaboration or
• 28:19
  human interaction kind of way, because like AI is also rapidly
• 28:23
  entering the way of how teams collaborate or also how it
• 28:28
  becomes not only a tool, but a sparring partner.
• 28:31
  And that people trust in the way of how they share their
• 28:35
  thoughts, their ideas, also their interactions.
• 28:37
  So do you, I think that AI will amplify or expose an
• 28:41
  organizational existing trust culture and also how can we as
• 28:47
  leaders be consciously aware of any of those interactions and
• 28:52
  shape it in a way that it serves us going forward?
• 28:57
  Yeah, I think, I mean it will be pretty much acts or is already
• 29:01
  acting like a mirror. So if an organization runs on
• 29:05
  low trust, AIA will most probably get deployed as
• 29:09
  surveillance or or speed pressure or political weaponry
• 29:14
  like prove your productivity. And on the other hand, if trust
• 29:17
  is is high, it becomes more something like an augmentation,
• 29:22
  like people maybe can use AI to learn faster, to prototype their
• 29:27
  ideas to, to collaborate better. I think like the question, how
• 29:31
  can, how, how can this be driven in in one or another direction?
• 29:35
  Of course it it has yeah, it's, it's pretty much related to the
• 29:39
  to question of transparency like and, and having a transparent
• 29:43
  intention. So what do we use AI for and
• 29:47
  what do we explicitly not use it for?
• 29:49
  To be to be very clear and transparent about that again, to
• 29:52
  use a safe enough to try approach like how can we start
• 29:57
  with small pilots? How can we at the same time
• 30:00
  apply clear safeguards? How can we keep decisions
• 30:02
  revisable because they are not set in brick and mortar for for
• 30:06
  years? And how can we also involve
• 30:07
  multiple perspectives? I would say like this idea that
• 30:12
  we all constructing reality and every person sees a different
• 30:15
  slice of reality and of course this drives a different
• 30:20
  technology if you really integrate these thoughts into
• 30:23
  technology development. And you just ended with
• 30:26
  technological development. And I mean, that's one of the
• 30:28
  main questions of how it's also going to be evolving.
• 30:31
  But if you now got the chance to look ahead and also from what
• 30:35
  you reflect upon at the intersection of organization and
• 30:40
  technology, what would be 1 structural shift that you
• 30:44
  believe will be essential and critical for organization to
• 30:49
  remain trustworthy? And initially, I thought I could
• 30:52
  ask you about five years. I'm not sure how far like future
• 30:55
  forward, we want to dive into the answer in that question.
• 30:59
  So I would leave the time span up to you to choose.
• 31:03
  But what would be this one shift that you proposed to take?
• 31:06
  Yeah. I would say maybe 2 shifts come
• 31:08
  come to mind. One is again about the the basic
• 31:12
  idea of complexity and living systems.
• 31:13
  And I think 1 is to to shift the governance from optimizing for
• 31:17
  certainty to optimizing for uncertainty.
• 31:20
  So I think every, every organization is well advised to
• 31:23
  optimize itself for uncertain environments, meaning to
• 31:26
  acknowledge that life is and always will be messy and finding
• 31:30
  ways to, to navigate through this, this mess instead of the
• 31:35
  illusion of of solving problems once and forever.
• 31:38
  And and the second thought would rather be around shift yeah,
• 31:42
  your governance and maybe also your culture from looking at
• 31:46
  siloed components to interdependence by design.
• 31:50
  So I think this is what we are what we as humanity are are
• 31:54
  forced to learn in one way or the other that we are dependent
• 32:01
  from other entities other like I said before, other human beings,
• 32:06
  but also non non human beings. So decisions must explicitly
• 32:09
  include the effects on all relevant stakeholders just as a
• 32:13
  prerequisite for our own existence and for our own
• 32:16
  survival. So we can't separate the the
• 32:19
  organization survival from the health of its environments.
• 32:24
  And this is maybe something which more and more it's not
• 32:27
  mainstream thoughts, I would say, but more and more it comes
• 32:30
  to our attention. And if, if I look ahead for the
• 32:33
  next like talking about time spans, maybe the next 5 or 10 to
• 32:36
  10 years, I think either we will have managed to kind of navigate
• 32:41
  more wisely or the pressure is very, very high, urgency has
• 32:47
  risen quite a bit. But in any case, we will have to
• 32:49
  deal with with this issue. We're about to enter the end of
• 32:53
  our conversation and before we end, I want to dive into some in
• 32:56
  between moments, and I want to start with the first one, which
• 33:00
  is what trust feels like to you. I would say trust feels tender,
• 33:06
  gentle, warm somehow. Yeah.
• 33:09
  I think it's the feeling of, of being reassured that we can stay
• 33:13
  in relationship and in relation even if we have conflicts to
• 33:16
  solve and even if we have maybe different ingredients we, we, we
• 33:20
  bring in, but still that there's relational basis which is not at
• 33:23
  all questioned. And if you now take that feeling
• 33:26
  and translate it into organization, what does trust in
• 33:29
  organization feels like to you? To move forward with without
• 33:34
  pretending to have all the answers.
• 33:35
  And according to you, what is one of the most overlooked
• 33:38
  assets in transformation? Rhythm and understanding of
• 33:41
  rhythm, understanding that that living systems are rhythmical
• 33:45
  beings, so sometimes they can go fast and sometimes they need to
• 33:49
  slow down and to rest. And every transformation process
• 33:53
  needs this understanding of rhythm.
• 33:55
  You can't just push for speed if the system is is not ready.
• 33:59
  And if you now look into the way that technology is included into
• 34:04
  organization, what does technology for organizations
• 34:08
  mean? Well, I think that means a lot
• 34:09
  of things. It can be great help.
• 34:12
  Technology can be great help, but technology also can be pain
• 34:14
  in the ass, as we all know. It's it's, it's, it's often, I
• 34:18
  would say it's, it's mostly an amplifier of all the gifts, but
• 34:21
  also of all the shadows which are alive in an organization
• 34:24
  anyway. And based on that, what does
• 34:27
  tech need more of? Purpose Inquiry.
• 34:29
  So what's the purpose of this technology of this particular
• 34:34
  technology? Interdependence, literacy.
• 34:36
  Again, transparency and honestly speaking, regulation because we
• 34:40
  live in really in, in, in the wild, Wild West these days
• 34:43
  concerning not, not even, you don't even have to look at AI,
• 34:46
  but but for example, if you look at social media, I think in a
• 34:49
  decade we will look back at what we do right now and we, we will
• 34:53
  be very surprised by how, how we thought that something like this
• 34:58
  could, could lead to kind of a prospering and successful
• 35:03
  society. And if we now conclude with one
• 35:06
  thought and that is at the intersection of tech and trust,
• 35:10
  what is it at this the intersection for you?
• 35:13
  I think it it comes with the idea of less black box and more
• 35:17
  transparency. So to really understand what
• 35:21
  tech, how tech is coming to its conclusions and how tech is
• 35:24
  coming to its ideas and decisions and so on.
• 35:26
  And, and the second thought would be around the question,
• 35:29
  does it increase agency like a human agency or does it replace
• 35:33
  it with control? So I'm ending with a question
• 35:35
  here. I thought about if we now want
• 35:38
  to jump into that question and unpack it, but I would leave it
• 35:42
  open and for the listeners to take it with them.
• 35:45
  And thank you so much Simon for sharing all these jump off
• 35:49
  points into probably a lot of further food for thought and
• 35:53
  continuous conversation. Thank you very much for the
• 35:57
  conversation.