Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / EXCLUSIVE: Inside HBR’s New "AI Acceleration Gap" Report | Darren Wright

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EXCLUSIVE: Inside HBR’s New "AI Acceleration Gap" Report | Darren Wright · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello everybody. Tom here before we get into today's show,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and it's a good one. A quick plug for the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: latest AMA taking place over on the next Think subredit
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: ah slash Next Think Now. This one is a bit special.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: It's with author Kelly Monahan, former director of the Future
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of Work at Meta, and a repeat guest here on
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the Deck Show, really one of our favorite people to
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: talk to about DEX and AI transformation in particular this one.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It takes place live Wednesday, August twenty sixth, four pm Eastern,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: so that's tomorrow from where I'm sat. There's a link
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of the show notes. If you've got time to follow
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: it live, shoot your questions over to Kelly, etc. However,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: if you're hearing this and it's a bit too late,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: let's still be able to hop over to the chat
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and trace for fun. And if you haven't already, do
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: give that subredit a follow because it's fast becoming one
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of the definitive forums in which to discuss DEX. We
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: certainly you love it and we'll see you there. Okay,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: thank you so much, everybody on with today's excellent show.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Hey it change Makers and welcome to the Deck Show
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: with Toma gra let's get into it.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: My AI give it an identity crisis. It's an interesting question,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: and it's a question explored in a very interesting new
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: report by the illustrious Harvard Business Review. It's sponsored by
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: our own shows sponsor, Next Think. The report is called
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Bridging the AI Acceleration Gap. And although I'm recording it
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a few I'm recording this a few weeks in advance,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: a week or two in advance. I think you'll find
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that the report itself has just come out in the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: last couple of days, and you'll be able to click
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: to it and read it free of charge in the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: show notes. But in order to discuss it, to discuss
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: some of the findings, to discuss some of the fascinating
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: talking points that the report provocatively throws up. I have
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a wonderful guest. He is not a first time guest,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: if memory serves me correctly. He's a former VP of
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Information Technology at Honeywell and found that of Solo It
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Consulting Limited. Darren write, how you doing, Dan? You're not
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a first time DECKHRO guest, are you? I think?
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. I think I did one live
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: but experience once. So if that counts, then yeah.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: If that counts, you think that you would be the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: second attorney or oh no, you've never done the solo.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: I don't think I've never done one like this.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: No pun intended, you know, And look, as some might
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: not know, euro big star Wars found right, and that's
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: where solo it consulting comes from, does it look? It does?
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: Indeed you can thank my son for the naming of that.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: But yes, that was the origins of the naming.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, do you know what is? You know star trek
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: fans are called Trekki's what a Star Wars?
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: We don't know.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: That's a good question, elective.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: I'm sure there must be a name, but I don't
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: know what it is Star Wars is or something.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: It doesn't.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say it's got to be one.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I'll look it up afterwards.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: But yeah, so I can confirm that if anyone else
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: ever asked me that.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I think, I think we need to know. Star Wars
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: has been on heavy rotation in my house for a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: while now. My eldest is going for a big phase
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and I love to rewatch them. And we rewatched, speaking
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: of solo, Speaking of hands solo, we rewatched Empire strikes
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: back again first time in a long long time, recently
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: eleven out of ten movie first of all, and hand
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: is so unbelievably cool in it, right, And you know
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the movie starts, doesn't it. He's like, he'll just go
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: out into the ice cold to save Luke, doesn't doesn't,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't care what happens to him, saves Luke, and the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: movie ends with him like blowing a kiss. Is he's
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: as he's lowered down to be frozen in carbonite or
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: whatever's going on there? And I all that bookends like
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: the most heroic cool performance of any of any of
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: any action hero in my opinion.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Definitely there has it's aged, well, hasn't it. It's like
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: rocking on fifty years old. It's it's aging really well.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, as am I Darren more or less,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Well as as we all are. So maybe maybe there's
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: a thing.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: So yeah aging. I didn't mean to comment aging, well,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: but maybe you are at Darren because whatever congratulations are
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I hear in order you've recently added to your family?
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Is that right? I did?
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, so yeah, a little bit a little bit of
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: an age gap from my eighteen year old but yes,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: there is a new addition to the Klan and Ank
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: and I don't know whether I should be pri or embarrassed,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: but there is a there is a Star Wars theme.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: There as well. Tell me, tell me what is it?
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: His name's Cassian, Cassian.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: You have to remind me yea and or.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Have you seeing the spinoff?
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: And or I haven't seen the spin off? Okay, all's
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: using these Star Wars production.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's so of all the spin offs?
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And or is is it one? Okay? It must be good.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: It must be good. It's it's made, it it's been
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: imprinted upon your child.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, I love the name anyway, but great spin off,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: great character, great name. What else do you need?
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So for people Darren who don't already know you, but
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: now I know you're a big Star Wars fan with
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: an eighteen year old and a six monthold or something?
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, rocking on six months?
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Five?
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just over five?
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Anything else we should know about it? Any more information?
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm sure there's lots of more to tell. But
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: like Star Wars e theme, No, no, not really.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I think about your time at Honeywell and what that's
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: led to professionally for you presently. So yeah, about.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Two years ago, I decided to take the leap of
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: faith and leave corporate world that I've been in since
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: I was the ripe old age of nineteen So been
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: there a man and boy, been there a while. But
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I kind of figured if I don't do I don't
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: do something different now, I'm probably never going to do
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: it and I will will stay for stay forever. So
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: very different world I left with. The plan was not
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: to have a plan and just kind of see see
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: where it goes and see where it see where it
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: takes me. So but very different. I don't like there's
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: things I miss about corporate world. I had big teams
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: of people and I always used to enjoy the the interaction.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: And I had a lot of a lot of people
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: in my team that have been with me for many,
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: many years. So you know, I still keep up with them,
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: but I work that I miss. Sorry, I missed that
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: day to day working with them. So you know, solo
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: by name and solo by nature is like a little different.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: You know, I kind of I'm more of a get
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: my energy from those around me and you know, rather
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: than working solo. So but you know, I'm starting to
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: make some really good connections with my good friends at
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: Next Thing and one or two other places as well.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it's very it's it's very it's very different,
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: but it's nice that I can sort of my real
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: passion areas, particularly around decks and things like that, you know,
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: I don't have, you know, I can focus more on
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: those and a bit less on some of the things
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: that I didn't perhaps enjoy quite so much in the
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: corporate world. But yeah, it's different, but no complaints. I'm
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: enjoying it. It's very, very different and learning every day,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: so I can complain.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: And see if you're flying solo, right, I like the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: name of the firm more and more, you know.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well you can thank my son and like he
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: had a like you know, sometimes I'll ask him to
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: do things and you know, like usually I'm can be
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: disappointed in the response or the you know whatever. But
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: I my question to him was like, help me name
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: the company. I don't mind if it's a Star Wars theme,
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: but if it is, it can't be like completely ridiculously
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: in your face, like you know, jabbering.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: So I'm like, if you're going to do it, it
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: can be subtle. But that's that's it. And within about
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: five seconds he was like, so how about solo. You're
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: going off on your own, You're doing your own thing,
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: you know, And I'm like, perfect, So, yeah, that was good.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: If he now reminds me every now and again and think,
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: I think he thinks there's some sort of royalty required.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. That was good. That is good.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: That is an excellent name. And okay, so so from
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: inside corporate life to now outside of it per se,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: how have those distinct perspectives changed the way you think
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: about present day decks there, I'd.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Say probably one of the biggest changes, and maybe like
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: completely statement of the bloody obvious. Like when you're in
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: in the corporate world, when you when I'm in the
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Honeywell world, you're very often heads down focused on the targets,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: the objectives that you know, the important things of the moment,
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: and and that's what you're making sure that everything you're
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: delivering is against I think my new world. Whilst I
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: used to enjoy talking to peers in different organizations and
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: you're always always thinking that it was always a bit
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: scary that everybody was leading very very parallel lives, you know, whatever,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: challenge I was trying to overcome. I could bet money
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: that if I spoke to three peers in different organizations,
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: they're all either overcoming or trying to overcome you know,
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: same same challengesn't it.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I'd say.
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  Speaker 3: The big difference though, is like when I was in
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: the corporate world, like I used to enjoy that peer
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: connection and understanding what others are doing, but I did
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: it was always like the priority, you know, number nineteen
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: on a list of twenty. It was like I did
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: it when I could, but there was always something better,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: not better, there was always something more important to do,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: higher priory. In my new world, so much of my
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: interaction now is with customers of Next Thing, hosting leadership circles, leaders,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: and so I'm getting so much more other perspective of
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: decks and what's going on in the decks world. Decks
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: are So that's fascinating to me because I think, yeah,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: I you know, I think we did a good job
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: of what we did at Honeywell, and we went about it,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: you know, a good way and everything else. But now
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: I talk to you know, handfuls of leaders every month,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: and so I'm hearing about different things they do and
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: different priorities. So that kind of just in of itself
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: gives me a whole different different perspective and kind of
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: helps me build on as I say, like, I think,
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: you know, what we did and how we did it
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: was really good. But you know, you talk to you
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: talk to people, and you you know, there's new ideas
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: and new new sinking every you know, every week.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Practically we're going to get into the HBr Report in
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: a second, but before we do, Darren, based upon perhaps
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to some degree, some of us come stations you've been having,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: what do you think the biggest challenges were changes for
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: IT leaders in AI adoption? Sorry, let me try you.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: What do you think have been the biggest changes for
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: IT leaders with regards to AI adoption since you left Honeymoon?
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, I mean it's very I mean it's
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: notable to me just anecdotally, like two two and a
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: half years ago as I was leaving, and I think
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: we were just just kind of getting started with AI
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: and people were using it to refine their email or whatever,
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: and that was about it. And I think there was
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: kind of I can remember there was a little bit
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: of like Okay, there's a big buzz around this but
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: what else are we going to do with it? You know,
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: you can you know, do these basic things. I think
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: what's really really noticeable for me is just that over
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: such a short period of time, like I can notice
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: anecdotally with what I do, how I work, and the
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: conversations I have with other leaders in organizations, just in
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: terms of what they're trying to do now and what
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: they're you know, in visiting doing in a relatively short term,
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: seems like night and day in terms of, you know,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: where things were just a couple of years ago. So
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: I'd say, like as I left, it was, I don't know,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: it's really felt like it was in its infancy and
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: people really didn't know what, you know, what it was
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: going to be. And I guess to some extent they
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: still don't. But it's shaped our a heck of a
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: lot over a very very short period of time.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Let's get a tief into the report a little bit,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: bridging the ai AI acceleration gap. Great title, and I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: forgot to mention at the top of the discussion that
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: you were interviewed for the report, right, So tell us
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: a bit about it, Darren. The interview itself. Maybe I
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: don't know, but what are the key themes and findings
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: of that have a business review of bringing to the
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: world here.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I mean then that was I mean, that
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: was interesting in of itself because, as I say, I
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: kind of left like that that that that regular job
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: kind of just as things were starting to change. But
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: such a topic of conversation when I'm doing the leadership
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: circles and we're talking dex ops and everything, you know,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: AI is you know, front and center of you know,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: like pretty much every every conversation. I mean, I think,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: you know, the main theme I think that I saw
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: was really around there's this, I mean, and I guess
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: a great title, you know, acceleration gap.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Like I mentioned like.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: Two years, like I've seen change that I previously might
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: have been ten year change. And you you know, so
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: you're seeing that super super condensed and it organizations are
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: still trying to figure out what the heck does this
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: mean and what do we do and really quite importantly,
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: how do we govern it? So I think that's that
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: kind of starts that one of the main themes I
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: think is like that gap between you know, we don't
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: want to we don't want to stop it, we don't
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: want to block it. We don't want to slow it down,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: but how the heck can we move fast enough to
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: actually make sure that we're keeping up with it enough
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: to be actually be able to govern it, to orchestrate
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: it in a really effective way, to actually deliver on
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: you know that the promises that that it's you know
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: that it's purported to be able to do. So I think,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: you know, that's one of the themes. I think the
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: whole there's multi dimension around the whole risk part of it.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, the thing again, it's like like the unknown,
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: but there's so many dimensions, whether that's regulatory, whether that's legal,
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: whether that's security, whether that's data dealer, there's so many
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: dimensions to to just that part of risk. Notwithstanding like
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: this whole how do we orchestrate it, how do we
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: govern it? What role are we going to play, et cetera. So,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: so I think that's that's that really came through just
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: in terms of that, and I think it is it's
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: as much as anything, it's just all about that gap
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: in terms of like, right, how do we, you know,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: how do we get the best out of this, how
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: do we how do we get it to fulfill on
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: its promises? And do it in a safe, effective way
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: and reimagine what it need to do to keep on
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: top of on top of this as we've got this.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: I think one of the other themes I think was
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: a little bit about probably historically most most technology changes
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: over the years has really been it lead. So it's
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: kind of like we're doing this is a This is different.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: This is almost kind of much more organic, much more
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: bottoms up. No one's waiting for it to godaddah, let's
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: deploy this. People are just in there doing it. So
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: I think that in of itself is this whole, you know,
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: whole major difference that we're seeing right now.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: One hundreds. And on that point, do you see AIS
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: primarily a threat, a challenge, an opportunity, or something else
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: entirely when it comes to it's traditional role as technology
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: leader or expert?
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's a really it is really interesting
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: it I could. I think it's kind of all of
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: those things and more. You know, I think, you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: is it a threat to the traditional way of it
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: and it leadership? I would say yes, if you want
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: to not change, if you think the way we do
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: things today is the way it should be, then yeah,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I would argue, yeah, it is a it is a
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: threat to that it's going to it's going to be
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: you know, is it is it therefore like challenging. I
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: mean it has to. I mean, if it's if to
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: get them get what we need out of AI and
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: it to deliver on the business outcomes, it's promising everything
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: that has got to challenge, you know, that's got to
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: challenge the way we're doing things today fundamentally. And then
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: I think the opportunity is I think it's not It's
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: not that AI is going to do away with all
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: things IT and IT are no longer needed. I think
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: it's kind of you've got to think of it like
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: this is going to redefine what it is. And I
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: think I used the word earlier. It's like the orchestration.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, it's not like we're going to
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: you know, plan something. We it going to plan something
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: and deploy something and everything else. It's it's it's orchestrating
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: something that is happening anyway. It's happening. You know, it's
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: happening organically. So I think that's the opportunity is is
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: that it need to work differently because this is the
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: you know, this is driving change, and it's not. We
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: can't just hold on to the past and say we
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: are it and this is what we do and this
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: is how we do it. We got a we got
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: a change. So I think you could say, you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: is it a threat, is it a challenge? Is it opportunity?
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: It's a transition. Really, it's we've got to move from,
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: you know, from how we used to do things to
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: how we do it in the future. So that's I
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: kind of think of it as all of those, all
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: of those things, but we've got to embrace it. It's
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: not I don't think it's going anywhere.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Maybe that is just incumbent upon a career in technology, right,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you can't pursue technology and then be the person who's like, actually.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Like if we could, Yeah, No, I mean absolutely. I
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: mean I think the difference the difference now is I
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: think it's so fast and so radical. I mean, like
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: I say, I've been in it since I was nineteen,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: and you know, yeah, you see changes and everything, but
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: it feels it's felt a little bit more like, Yes,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: it's to your point, if you're in it, you got
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: to break you know, you embrace it because things change
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: and things move on. The main difference now, I think
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: is that pace of change that accelerate is Yeah, it's
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: just it's different. It's it's something that we haven't really
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: seen quite the for but but yeah, it's nothing ever
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: in technology spaces sect and.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: What do you think the principal risks are? I mean,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: AI is all about that balance of risk and opportunity.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: But focusing on the former, where where are the main
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: risks that it team might reasonably associate with AI transformation
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: not necessarily to its own stability as as an entity,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: but in terms of risk it has to manage for
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the organization, for its usos, et cetera.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is, it's I mean, there's so many
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean and I mean that it's just
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: because and I think it just goes back to it's
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: so fast, it's so unknown, it's so new. Therefore with
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: that come you know, unknown equals risk. You know, any
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: any walk of life, you know, you mitigate risks through
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: you know, understanding things better. So where do you even start?
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: I'd say, you know, there's some obvious ones. I think
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: I mentioned mentioned earlier. There'scurity, data exposure, regulatory compliance, intellectual property.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I think there's still very very open questions about you know,
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: AI and you know what it does, how it's used,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: so trying to put some guardrails around that. In of itself,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: those sort of four things are you know, are significant
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: for any for any organization. But but we you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: we've got to we've got to figure it out. I
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: think another element is just the how do organizations keep
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: the visibility and control if control is the right word
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: over how AI is being used. So kind again, it's
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: very bottoms up, it's very organic, which is kind of great.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: But the flip side to that is if you've got
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: thousands of your employees kind of let loose and you
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: don't really know what they're using it for, and you
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: know that in of itself is a risk, so you
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: know you've got to You've got to get some better
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: under get some better understanding with that. I think there
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: is a a over reliance risk. So I think that
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: you know, you can now do things that you know
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: might have taken you hours, days, weeks, whatever, and now
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: you can do it immediately. You haven't necessarily gotten Now
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: now you've created something that you wouldn't have done before
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: because you didn't have the time to do it, but
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: you also haven't got the time to verify it properly.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: So the you know that that breeds are sort of
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: an assumption and an over reliance, which is a risk.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: So I think that's a you know, so you know,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: if it's if it's creating you know, data analysis for
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: you or whatever, and you haven't you know, you're getting
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: it done that way because you haven't got the time
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: to do it yourself. Then how you verify and it's
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: you know, it's that that that that's a risk. And
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: then I think just is the kind of going back
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: to the sort of bottoms up kind of organic approach.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: It's like, I think there's a risk for organizations about
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: like uncontrolled complexity. So I think you know, at a
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: point in time, you know, we and it were very
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: if you're a problem solver, you don't you know, you
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: don't let things get in your way. So it means
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: that if you haven't got something that comes out of
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: a box to do a job, you can cobble a
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: few things together and you know you're going to make
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: it work. But you never wanted to be the person
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: that would support it, you know, because you know afterwards,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: because you're you know, you've got bits of wet string
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: holding everything together. I think AI could be a bit
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: like that as well, because so many people can go.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I can create this, I can create this, I can do.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: This and everything, and you don't know what other people
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: are doing, you don't know how that's all been had,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: So you're kind of creating.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: You're creating, or you.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: At risk at creating complexity if you haven't got the
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: governance around it. So I think that's that's another consideration.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I'd say the last one, again I touched on, is
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: the the the ability to deliver on the value or
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: the business outcomes. I think AI is front and center
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: of senior leadership agenda. There's money being you know, invested
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: hugely in it, but I'm not sure at the moment
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: that organizations have quite got their arms around what's the
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: return on investment? How do we actually you know, like
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: because you know these things, don't you know? There's not
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: zero cost to it. There's cost, there's but how are
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: we making sure that we're getting our you know, our ROI,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: How are we making sure we get our investment on that?
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: And again I think that's again without that and I
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: don't want to use the word control. Without that orchestration
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: and that governance, it's a bit of a free for all.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: So I think again, that's a you know, that's a risk.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: And of the things that the report picks up on
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: is that DEX offers meaningfully a way of kind of
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: mitigating or managing this dimension of risk with AI. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: it is something I encounter talking to you know, organizations
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: committed to decks and I imagine you do too. What
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: other ways that it that it can do this and
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: what difference does visibility make in an environment that's being
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: transformed by AI more generally?
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, I mean, yeah, it's an interesting one
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: because I think this is where I don't know, like
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: the decks and the AI world are going to collide
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: a little bit because I think to the point of
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: pretty much most of the risks I talk about, visibility
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: begins to kind of at least shine a light on
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: what's going on. You know, does it fix you know,
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: does it fix the risks? No? Does it begin to
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: mitigate them? But through visibility yes, So I think that's
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: part of it. I think with BEX, with your telemetry
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: data and you can see what's going on if you're
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: employing like sentiment data, so you can understand, you know,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: what the workforce are doing with it, how they feel
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: about it, and things like that. You're starting to then
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: build a picture of knowing what's going on and being
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: able to see how it's being used and also get
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: a sense of the sentiment that's associated with that. So
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: I think that that really begins to like, as I say,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: like surface some of the or at least like mitigate
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: some of that risk so that you can now see,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: see and understand how things are being how they're being used,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: how people feel about it, whether they're getting benefit out
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: of it, whether they getting frustrated out of it, is
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: it actually working as expected, is it causing different friction?
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: You know, I think all of those, all of those
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: things come from that dex lens, and I think, like
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: I say, I feel like most of those most of
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: those risks can be you know, begin to be mitigated
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: if you've got that that visibility and understanding of what's
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: being you know, what's being used, how it's being used,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: and how it's how it's changing people's how they how
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: they interact, and how they work day to day.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: And I wonder, Darren, if it isn't something very powerful
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: about the kind of core principle of DEX when when
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: applied to AI transformation. You mentioned earlier the sort of
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the qualitative risk of AI, meaning the quality of work
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and you know, the output of an employee. One thing
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: that strikes me about decks is it could offer that
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: kind of potential antidote to that excess of technology. Right,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: if you keep your employees and their experience at the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: center of an AI transformation journey, you don't get overwhelmed
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: by technology. You know. Is that something you can relate
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to when you think about what you were able to
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: implement during your time at Honeywell and that visibility infrastructure
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: that can now buy your successors or what not be
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: leveraged during what is presumably a very challenging period of
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: workplace to change there.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely, And to your point by far, this
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: is not unique to AI. I think whatever it is
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: in our it DNA, I think I can you know,
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: think of many many initiatives where we may go spend
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: you know, many millions of dollars on a new technology platform,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: but we won't do anything like nearly the investment in
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: terms of how do we make sure people are using
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: it effectively? Are we going to train them, are we
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: going to do the chain? You know, we're going to
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: do the change it just you know, we're great at
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: buying the software, buying the platform, taking the shrink wrap,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: installing it, configuring it, doing all the technical stuff, and
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: then I don't want to stay hoping for the best,
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: but we just don't do a very good job of
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: the rest of it. So I think to your point,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: then yeah, I would say the decks lens has been
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: very much a kind of try and let's not just
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: keep talking about all these things as technology. They're more
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: than technology, and AI is that you know, AI is
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: going to be the same as that. So we can
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: look through we can look through that different lens and
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: kind of, like you say, like it's sort of like
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: that begins to be the antidote because now you can see, Okay,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: you're not just treating this as a technology, do you
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: you know, are these people having a good experience, are
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: they being effective? Are they being productive? You're you're looking
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: so way beyond just the technology for the sake of
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: the technology. You're now looking at it from you know,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: the usability through the lens of the employee. But we're
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: also looking at it from the lens of the business
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: because at the end of the day, the businesses want productive,
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: effective people doing a really good job, you know, doing
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: doing a really good job and achieving the business outcomes
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: they need. So again I think, you know, certainly not
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: unique to not unique to AI, but this sort of
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: almost like great great use case for for decks for
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: dex ops just to think about, Right, we've got to
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: look at it this way, and we've got to understand
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: this is way, you know, way more than way more
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: than a technology.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: And one thing the report doesn't really look at but
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: it sort of focuses on the employee experience of AI.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: And but the other side of the coin is that
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: AI sort of changes it itself, right, like internally, how
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: are you seeing that in the customers who speak to
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and what are your expectations for how it starts to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: look very different in the next two to three years
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: because of AI.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's and that's an interesting one in
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: of itself as well, because I think for the longest time,
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: the you know, you had like a pretty defined career path,
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: you know, unless you were lucky enough to go in
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: at a in a particular area, you sort of grew
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: up through like the support roles.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: So you'd start on the service desk.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Then maybe you did like a level two role, and
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: then maybe you got a more dedicated technical role that
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: maybe you came an architect. Whatever there was, it was,
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: it was quite it was quite defined. I think this
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: does disrupt that because I think there's so many of
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: those lower level roles in support, Like I started on
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: the service desk, Like would you know if I was
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: starting my career today, Like, there's not going to be
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Maybe today there's still quite a lot of jobs on
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: the service desk, but given another six months, year or whatever,
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: there's not going to be. We don't need to. That's
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: the easiest thing for us to to automate and and
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: do you know, predictive preventative resolution at scale. So so
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: that that in of itself is going to change. I
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: think the other.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Part is.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: That there was historically a lot of focus on the
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: technical capability of individuals, and I think that's where AI
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: is going to be the strongest. And I think so
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: your pure, pure technical capability of a human is not
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: going to be you know, it's not going to carry
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: quite the same stakes tomorrow as it did yesterday. Because
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: that that that's going to be disrupted, I think, and
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: I think that there is Again it's kind of go
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: all the way back to you know, your first question
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: about you know, about threat or opportunity or or risk
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: or whatever. This there's opportunity there as well, because this
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: type of the type of orchestration that needs to be
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: done and the sort of oversight and everything is not
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: something that really exists today. We are had to do it.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: So so whilst there's some some roles that are going
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: to change and maybe some that are going to go away,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: there's going to be some that.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Are going to be new skills, new new new.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: Roles that are needed just to be able to you know,
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: just to be able to oversee it. So so I
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: think again there is no doubt in my mind that
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: is gonna that is going to drive change. But with
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: changed come you know, you know, is there is there
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: a threat, yes, but is there opportunity there?
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: I I think as the as the organizations evolve, as
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: as the technology gets gets further and further.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Matured, wonderful stuff done. Wonderful to have you back on
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: the show. Next time I see you in person. May
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: at this point in the year be the experience in Orlando.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Listeners who haven't booked their ticket yet still all can
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I think, So we'll have a link in the show
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: notes hop over there, sun Sea, sand and decks, Darren,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: what what do you what?
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: You don't don't say that too quickly.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Don't say I just learned that in real time decks
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: on the beach.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: You might say, I was just about to say that
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: sounds almost like a cocktail. Now I can see someone's
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: going to pick up on that.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: In the happy hour indeed. Indeed, and there are some
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: happy hours out there as well. So well, I'll be
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: seeing you there hopefully. What do you what do you?
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: What are your plans and experience? You will be seeing
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: me there.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: So, got a couple of things going on. So I'm
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: doing some sessions in Leadership Forum that we that was
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: a new thing from last year, the Leadership Track, So
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: I'm hosting some sessions there, which is great and also
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: a really new thing for me is we've been developing
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: some training all around, so I will be leading the
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Strategist training session and experience as well. So a lot
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: of a lot of stuff going on in the in
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: the world of dex SOPs. So that's a that's going
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: to be a new and exciting thing.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Exciting stuff, the first solo experience event, you know. To
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: bring it full circle there, Darren, it's the first first
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: time experience is happening only in one place, only in
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: one country. So wherever in the world you live, if
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: dex is important to you, make sure you get out there.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: We will see you there and I will see you there. Darren.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: It's been a great pleasure to have you back on sir.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: And you as always tom a pleasure. All right, thank you.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: That's it for this week's Deck Show. We'll be back
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: next week, and if you don't already, be sure to
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: follow the show so you don't miss an episode until
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: next time.