Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Why AI Spells the DEATH of Workplace “Coasting”: Jacob Morgan returns

Transcript

Why AI Spells the DEATH of Workplace “Coasting”: Jacob Morgan returns · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey it change Makers, and welcome to the Deck Show
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: with Tom mc grath. Let's get into it.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Hello, change Makers. It's a very special day whenever we
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: welcome back this guest to the Deck Show, which we've
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: now done, I'm proud to say three times, including today.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: He is one of them, I would honestly say, one
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: of the most influential thinkers and voices on the future
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: of the workplace of the last ten years. Easily he
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: has you know, if you if you look at his
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Ted talkner from I think about eight years ago, half
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: a million views, you know, they have best selling books,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: featured in Forbes, and at this point he's in danger
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of becoming a Deck Show regular. All the same, he
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: is Jacob Morgan. We're delighted to welcome you back. So
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: how are you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a while,
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: but I'm excited to be back.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Fab fab Last year, Jacob, we had it. It was actually
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: an event, but we we you were able to kind
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: of come on and guess for the next things ambassadors,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: and that was all about leading with vulnerability first of all. Actually,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: first of all, for anybody, anything I've missed or anything
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: anyone who doesn't know you somehow, I'm a quick introduction
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: and maybe bring us up to date on what you've
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: been working on since we last spoken.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's been a few years. The most recent
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: project has been this new book which is sitting right here,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: called The Eight Laws of Employee Experience. Yes, so I've
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: been spending a lot of time giving talks on that book.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: I launched a CHRO group, which I don't think I
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: had since the last time we spoke. So we have
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: thirty five chief human Resource officers in there. That's called
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Future of Work Leaders. I've been very active with my newsletter,
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: growing the podcast, so a couple of new things, but
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: some old things that I've been focusing on growing as well.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: The book stood out to me as one of the
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: reasons we had to to reach back out. And you
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: know what it reminds end me of, Right, reminded me
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: of a lot of your first appearance on the back
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three, and I had to set the
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: scene for that. You know, we were, I guess, starting
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: to come out of a pandemic and the kind of
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: workplace culture that the pandemic created and the expectations that
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: it created, Right, and we're lucky enough to, you know,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: have you on as a guest. And I did not expect,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I'll be honest, you know, I did not expect the
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: level of skepticism you had to what was the sort
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: of at the time.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Worse exactly what I want to know?
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: I want all your das so. But yes, so coming
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: out of COVID that dominant narrative it was it was
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: all about employee and power and flexibility well being and
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: you were already pushing back on it then. I mean,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I'm just curious, was that specifically the line of thinking
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: that developed into this this book or the precepts of
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the new work.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: It's definitely a theme, but I wouldn't say it's like
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: kind of a core foundational element of the book. The
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: main premise of the book is that a lot of
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: companies just lost their way over the past five years. Obviously,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: well being and creating an entitlement culture is certainly one
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: of the many things that are invested in there, but
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't say it's like a core or central theme
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: of the book. The broader theme is, like I said,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: just companies during in post pandemic they were pushed and
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: challenged in ways that they didn't anticipate, and so they
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: lost sight of the things that really matter at work.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: And so the whole point of this book is a
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: return back to basics for these eight laws, but it's
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: looking at these eight things not just from a present
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: day perspective, but also looking out over the next five
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: to ten years to see how these things are going
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: to evolve. So the you know, sort of it has
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: those themes in there, but it expands on a lot
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: of other stuff.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Very interesting, but I guess it's a different way of
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: a different angle of discussing that genealogy. Almost right of
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: the book is the way COVID impacted workplace culture and
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: employee expectations and leaving that behind, because I think we've
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: covered that in previous conversations. How do you feel things
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: who have played out since then culturally?
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: So I did an article recently on my sub stack
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: and I said that twenty twenty six is the year
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: of accountability and responsibility, and so I think now, rightfully,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: so we're seeing a massive pushback against all these things
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: that happened over the past five years. You're seeing organizations
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: who are reducing perks, they want employees back to the office.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: There are challenging employees to figure out and to be
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: able to demonstrate what did you work on, what impact
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: did you have, what value are you bringing to the business.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: So we're seeing a lot more of those types of conversations.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Other companies, I think, like Slack and Meta, etc. Have
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: come out and said that we no longer care about
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: your performative work. We want to know the actual work
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: that you're doing. So we don't care about the hours
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: you're putting in, how many meetings you've attended, how many
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: presentations you're doing. We want to know how you're actually
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: driving and sort of value for the business. So we're
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: seeing a massive reversal of what happened over the past
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: five years. I think it's actually a good and much
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: needed thing. But that you know, twenty twenty six is
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: definitely the big year of that, and a lot of
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: the HROs that I talk to you are grateful for it.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: They want that to happen.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Unpack for me, that concept performative work. It is something
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: that fascinates me, I have to say, in the modern workpace.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: So performative work is the idea that there used to
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: be a time when you got to look like you're
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: working without actually really adding value to the business. So
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: you look like you're online, you spend time working on presentations,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: you join meetings, you you participate in online you know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: you're leaving comments, you're sharing ideas, you are doing performative work.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: But at the on the back end, you're not actually
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: adding value to the business anymore. You're just kind of
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: you know, you're you're there and it looks like you're
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: are working, but you're not really And well.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: You're working, right, it's you know, I mean, the people
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: who always but it's performative, it's ending. It's not that
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: it's not that that coasting us say, yeah.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: No, it's kind of arguments, but yeah, but it's performative work, right,
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: I mean. So, to give you an example, even during
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: the pandemic, I had a lot of friends that were
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: working remotely, and like one friend in particular, he would
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: always work out it is at the gym, and he
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: would have his laptop next to him, and I would say,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: what do you do Why do you have your laptop
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: with you while you're working out? And he would say, well,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: because every like ten or fifteen minutes, I have to
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: wiggle the mouse so that my indicator says Green. So
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: people think that I'm online or I'm working, and so
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: that is kind of a metaphor for I think what
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: a lot of employees have done. Right, Like I said,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: you join meetings, you leave comments, you're you're doing things
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: to make it look like you're working, but you're not
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: actually adding value to the business. And so if you're
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: not genuinely adding value to the business, then what is
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: the point of the work that you're doing. And so
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: now what happened with AI is AI is removing a
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: lot of that performative work because AI is able to
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: do drafts, to do analysis, It's able to you know,
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: do a lot of these very basic, high level things.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: And if they get removed from your plate, then now
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: what are you left with doing? Now you have to
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: actually focus on the substantive aspects of work, so not
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: drafting things, not putting together power points. Right, AI can
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: do all of that for you. Now your job is
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: going to be actually, how do I make an impact?
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: How do I drive value in the business? How do
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: I get people to buy into the vision? How do
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: I see through a project from point A to point B?
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: How do I deliver a better customer or client experience,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: how do I sell and close the deal? How do
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: I come up with a new product or serve right?
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: So these are more value creative aspects of work, and
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: that I think is what a lot of employees are
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: being challenged to do. Right. So, I mean on my team,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: for example, I have a small team, but you know,
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: if I have somebody on my team doing social media,
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: I don't care like how many graphics they make, how
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: many videos they edit, Like that's great, But what I
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: care is how are these things performing? Are they making
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: an impact in terms of are we growing our audience,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: are we getting more people joining our chro group? You know,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: those are the types of things that matter, And so
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: that is analogous to what's happening inside of companies. You know,
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: I don't care how many meetings you attend. I don't
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: care how many powerpoints that you make. I don't care
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: if you sit in front of your computer for eighty hours.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I want to know what's the impact that those things
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: have had on the business, on the team, or on
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: the function. And so, like I said, AI is really
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: exposing all of that because it's removing this first layer
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: of like I said, performative work and it's kind of
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: revealing what are you actually doing? Beyond that, we're.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Going to get stuck into AI and O the implications
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: that flow from it.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: I'm happy to talk about AI all you want.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I'm sure I before we do, I just I just
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: love the concept of performative work so much. And I'll
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: tell you why because I think some of the aspects
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: of it that you describe, which are you know, worth
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: tying together with it, they kind of describe what used
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: to be called like what was it presentism? You know,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: there was a whole concept a few years ago it
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: was fashionable just talking about yeah, being on green, being
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: in front of your laptop, being in the office. And
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: then there's the kind of a quantity versus quality dynamic
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: as well, which we could you know, we could find
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: people talking about in previous years. Now, that's not to
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: say that those two trends haven't become more pronounced and
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: more relevant. But what performative work seems to introduce to
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: that and create a kind of triad with them, is
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: this notion of work as performance. It has no external impact.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: It's all the kind of internal performative, almost like a
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: former theater. And I'm wondering what you see as the
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: origins of that.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: I think it's always existed, you know, since the dawn
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: of time of the you know, the first organization that's
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: ever or existed, the first company that's always existed. There
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: are always times when there are people you know, you
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: have a job. You know, I was this person as
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: well in some companies that I had early on in
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: my career, where I wanted to always make it look
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: like I'm working. I want to Sometimes you don't actually
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: have substantive work to do. Sometimes maybe you finish work
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: that is not complicated and you finish it much earlier
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: than you're supposed to. Sometimes you don't really know what
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: to do when you're part of a team, and so
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: you make it look like you're working, and you hope
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: other people are going to pick up the slack. There
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: are lots of reasons for why this exists, but it
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: happens on team sports, it happens in organizations. It happens
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: all the time. That there are always just some high
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: performers who are able to really go bev and beyond.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: There are always people who are kind of in the middle,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: and there are always people who are going to be
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: you know, sort of the coasters and who are looking
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: for shortcuts. But even a high performer, it can be
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: doing performative work for a number of reasons. Like I said,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: sometimes the work is completed, Sometimes it's easy work, and
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: it's not challenging work, like a number of different reasons.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Sometimes maybe you're using AI. You get the work done quickly,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: much faster than you would normally. Now you don't really
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: have anything to do, but you want to make it
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: look like you are still kind of, you know, working
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: and doing stuff. So the origins is just kind of
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: it's just a human a human thing, right, It's just
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: the nature of the world. But also because you can
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: get away with it, right, So you can get away
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: with with doing this type of work. I mean, I've
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: talked to lots of employees in large organizations where you know,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: especially when you get to thousands and thousands of employees,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: there are lots of positions and roles where if you
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: can kind of hide and sneak away in a corner somewhere,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: people for the most part will leave you alone. And
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: you're still getting a salary, you're getting your benefits, you're
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: getting all that sort of stuff. But you're you're just
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: kind of like tucked away in a corner. You know,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: maybe you're just an individual contributor and nobody has direct
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: line of sight to you. Maybe you're a part of
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: a team, but you just kind of, you know, step
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: in and do certain projects here and there. And if
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: you can find those types of you know, the dark
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: corners and shadows inside your company where people leave you alone,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: you just coast, you don't really do anything. It's almost
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: like a Seinfeld episode, right. I don't know if you
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: remember that as a sign. I think there was a
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: sideful episode with the Penske files where basically what happens, George,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: you know, gets this this job, and then he gets
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: into this office, he sleeps for several hours, and all
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: of a sudden, the manager comes in and he says,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: let me take a look at these files that you've
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: been working on. And George hasn't actually touched the files.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: He doesn't know what's in there, he didn't read anything.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: And the guy skips through it really quick and he says, oh,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: this is amazing, this is fantastic. This is the client
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: that looks in. And then shortly afterwards, actually the boss
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: of the company of the firm where George is a
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: part of says what the hell have you been doing here?
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: And you know you didn't actually go through any of
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: these files. You know, you have to watch the whole episode.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: George says, I'm penske material. He came in and said,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: I did a great job. And so there are lots
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: of those types of opportunities where people just try to
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: coast and it's just a human thing. It's a natural thing.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: People try to get away with stuff all the time.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: But it's you know, it's partially in some cases the
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: organization's liability as well, because sometimes you're not giving employees
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: challenging work. Sometimes you are not making sure that your
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: employees have things that they need to do all the time.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you're hiring too many people. And that's one of
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: the one of the things that I think we're seeing
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: now is most companies are ten to twenty to maybe
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: thirty percent if you listen to Mark Andrees, and he says,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: even fifty percent too big. And so the layoffs that
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: they're seeing has nothing to do with AI. We just
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: overhired and we brought in too many people, and so
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: now we're just kind of trimming it. And so if
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: you overhire you have too many people there, there's not
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: enough work to go around, so everyone's kind of just
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: doing a little bit of work and the rest of
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: the time you're just sort of floating. So mismanagement in
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: terms of hiring, prioritization, allocating resources, building team. I mean,
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: it's it's just a it's a traditional corporate hierarchical problem
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: where the bigger the organization gets, the harder it becomes
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: to track and to follow and to understand what everybody's doing.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: This problem typically doesn't exist in a smaller company. You're
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: in a startup because everyone is in go mode. Everyone
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: is hustling, and if you're not working, it's very, very
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: visible to everybody else in the company. But again, the
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: bigger you get, the more sort of cloudy and less
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: visibility everyone else has. And it's just one of the
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: natural consequences.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Why does it matter, Jacob, and I don't just mean
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: why does it matter for an organization who obviously you're
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: it's fantasify result is inefficiency? You know like that that's
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: obvious enough. Yes, why does it matter to societally? If
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: you know, why does it matter for us, all of
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: us together? If if there's a degree of kind of
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: of wastage and coasting and you know, and an almost
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: excessive opportunity, you know, in ordinate rewards in a way.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: You could look at that, right and you could think, yeah,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: you know, like why why does it matter for us?
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Well, it doesn't matter for you kind of on a
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: personal level, but if you want to have a job,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: it matters, right, So if you just look at it
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: from a societal lens of like, why why can't I
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: just have more time? Great, have all the time you
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: want read books. You don't need to work if you
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: don't want to, But if you want to have a job,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: or you're a part of an organization that's paying you,
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: if you have aspirations to get into a leadership role,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: if you want to be able to pay for your mortgage,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: if you want to have a family and to be
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: able to pay for you know, your kids, your spouse,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: your significant other, you need a job. And so if
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: you want to have that and you want to have
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: more opportunities for yourself than those around you, then you
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: can't get by by coasting. And it very much gets revealed.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: It's kind of you know, my daughter plays competitive chess,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: and my son and daughter are both going to start
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: playing competitive tennis soon as well, and so it's kind
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: of like, well, why do I need to prepare for
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: a chess tournament. You don't if you don't want to win.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: And you know, early when my daughter started playing chess,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: that has happened, like I would push her really hard.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: I really push my kids hard, and sometimes my daughter
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: would be like, I don't really need to prepare or
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: do much, and I'll say, okay, So she'll show up
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: to a tournament and she'll get destroyed and she'll lose
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: a lot of rating points, and I'll say, well, what
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: did you learn from this? And she'll say, I really
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: need to work hard. I need to prepare for the
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: tournaments that I'm doing, and I say exactly, And so
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: thankfully that doesn't happen anymore. But it's sort of a
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: similar analogy, like you don't have to prepare or work
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: hard before you go to a tournament. You don't have
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: to work hard when you show up to your organization
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: to do the job that you need to do. You don't.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: You don't, you don't have to do any of these things.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: But then don't be surprised when you get the consequences
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: of not doing that, don't be surprised if you get
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: laid off, don't be surprised if you don't get promoted,
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: don't be surprised if you're not given the opportunities that
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: those around you are given. So, you know, that's kind
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: of my general response. Right, everybody can do what they want,
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: but just be realistic with the expectations and the outcomes
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: that you're going to get. On the other side, and
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: there are certainly lots of people out there who don't
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: want to work fifty sixty seventy hours a week. They
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: want to work thirty two hours a week. That's fine,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: have that conversation with your boss, but then don't expect
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: to get put into a leadership role, right. I mean,
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: if you want to work thirty two to forty hours
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: a week and you have aspirations of being a VP
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: or an SVP, not going to happen. I've never met
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: an executive in my entire life ever at any company
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: large or small, that became an executive by working thirty
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: two to forty hours a week. There was actually a
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: a study that came out, and I don't remember the
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: exact stats. I'm going to try to pull it up
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: right now. Where it said something along the lines of, oh,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: here it is. I think it was published in Fortune.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Gen Z is willing to give up five thousand dollars
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: in pay to log off at five o'clock every day,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: but they still expect to be able to get a
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: job working in the corner office. Meaning they're willing to
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: give up pay to not have to work. You know,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: they just want to work the minimum, the standard working hour.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: They're willing to even give up pay to do that.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: But their expectations are that I could still become a
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: sea level executive. And that is just a very misaligned,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: mismatched reality that does not exist in any way, shape
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: or form at any company that I've ever seen. And
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: so that mismatch, I think is a problem for a
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: lot of organizations and a lot of employees around the world.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Right we're not being on just about what it takes
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: to get to certain levels. We're not honest about the
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: type of corporate culture that our businesses are making. Could
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: I point out what I mean?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think it is a paradox, but I'm interested
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: in you fleshing out a little bit what is arguably
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: a paradox as it well or superficially could seem a paradox,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: which is this idea that there's this you're placing a
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: big emphasis on how much you work, and yet your
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: your your your book is about and your general thesis
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: is about quality over quantity. You know, which is you know,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: so disentangle that for me as I'm sure you're able,
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: Just yeah, I mean, it's I'm not making it sound
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: like it's the hours that you put in. It's obviously
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: the quality of work that you do. But to do
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: good quality work requires time. And so there are very
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: few people out there who can do great quality work
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: in a very short amount of time. And similarly, if
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: you are one of those people and you are able
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: to do great quality work in a short amount of time,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: and you have have more time, and you have aspirations
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: of getting into a leadership role, then you should use
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: that extra time to do more quality work. And again,
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: this is only, this is only if your expectations are
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: to get to a certain level in your life and
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: at an organization. I fully acknowledge that there are people
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: who don't care about that, and if that's you, then
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: this doesn't apply to you. This is specifically for people
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: who want to get to that C level, the VP level,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: the EVP level. If that is your goal and your aspiration,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: then yes, you're gonna need to work hard and you
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: are going to need to put in a lot of hours.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: That's just the reality of the world. If that's not you, you
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: can just you know, get by, do a good job
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: for whatever number of hours that you have to put
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: in and be content with where you are right that's
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: also okay. But again, you talk to any executive at
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: any organization around the world and they will tell you
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: that it's not just the hours that you put in,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: but it is also the quality of work that you're
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: able to do. But oftentimes those things go hand in
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: hand and by the way, putting in hours. So when
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: I talk about work as far as putting in hours,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: it doesn't just necessarily mean actually doing work. It's time
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: that you're putting in building relationships. It's time that you're
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: putting in being visible in front of your executives and
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: your peers. It's time that you're putting in understanding the
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: business like that requires time. And so if we're both
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: looking to get into a leadership role, let's say we
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: both finish our work. I don't know in thirty hours
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: for the week, you want to get into a C
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: suite role. I want to get into a C suite role.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: We both completed our project in thirty hours, and you're
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: of the mindset like, hey, I got thirty hours. I'm
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm going to chill the rest of the time.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I did a great job for the thirty hours. I
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: delivered a fantastic whatever sales pitch that I needed to do.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna chill and I'm like, great, I did the
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: same thing. I got a lot of extra time. I'm
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: gonna put in another twenty hours this week. What am
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: I gonna do for that twenty hours. I'm gonna go
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: through and I'm gonna build relationships. I'm gonna check in
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: on the on clients and prospects. I'm gonna try to
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: get in a coaching or mentoring session with my leader.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna make extra time to come into the office
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: to make sure that my leaders and my peers see me.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna get ahead and try to work on another
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: project for the following week. So I'm gonna be doing
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: things to consistently get ahead, because that's the aspiration that
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: I have of where I want to go?
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Is there an implication? Is there a dimension to this
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: we should be aware of that. Okay, So if you're
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: discriminating here between people who have very high aspirations of
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: those who don't or those who shouldn't, those whose aspirations
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: are maybe unrealistic based upon how much I'm willing to
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: get in? Is there a sense that with AI, another
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: impact of the technology is that it kind of puts
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: us all in the former bracket if we want to
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: have jobs at all. As in now, at this point,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to coast, the opportunity to be something of
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: a passenger, to be low aspiration, low output, to do
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: your job nine to five, and to you know, to
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: be the cog in the machine. Is that disappearing? And
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: therefore does the message that you're saying you're trying to
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: convey to the the highest achievers, the higher achievers, the
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: would be highest achievers, actually becomes a universal message for
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: anybody who wants to continue working per se.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: In a lot of ways. Yeah, And this is the
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: big debate that organizations are having internally. Now, this is
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: the big debate that's happening between AI and productivity. This
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: is exactly why a lot of organizations are starting to
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: let go of people and so, so, yes, that that
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: is right. I mean what I think what AI is
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: going to make it very apparent is that if you
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: are call it a low performer or somebody who's coasting
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: in the organization, it is going to put a spotlight
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: on you. It is going to shine a bright spotlight,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: a magnifying glass right on you, and the company is
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: going to be able to see that. Right, So, if
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: you are disengaged and you're kind of coasting, and you're
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: now one of those people that's hiding in the shadows,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: the lights are going to get turned on and the
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: company is going to say, ah, got you. You have
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: a choice. You can either come into the light with
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: everyone else, or you could not be at this company anymore.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: And so yeah, it's going to make it very very
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: visible who those people are inside of your organization. And
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: that is I think one of the things that AI
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: is seeing. It's one of the reasons why companies like Amazon,
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: like Meta are sending messages to a lot of their
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: leaders now and they're saying, we want tell us what
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: you've been working on. Right. I think it was I
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: it was either Amazon or Meto. Somebody can fact check
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: me on this. That basically sent out a memo to
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: all other leaders and said for twenty twenty five, respond
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: to the email and give us a five bullets of
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: what you've been able to accomplish last year? What impact
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: did you make to the business. And at first there
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: was a lot of backlash on this, Oh my god,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: how could they ask our leaders what they did? But
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: why shouldn't you be able to ask? I want to
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: know what impact did you bring to the business last year.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: I'm paying you. You have equity in the business that
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: I'm giving you. I'm paying for your salary, I'm paying
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: for the tools and resources that you're using, paying for
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: your bonuses. I'm paying for all of these things. I
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: want to know what are you doing? And so this
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: is going to cause a lot of changes. One of
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: the recent announcements that came out, I don't know if
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: you saw, Salesforce told all of their senior leaders, I
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: think it was director level and above that they're putting
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: a freeze on all salary increases as far as compensation,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: and what they're going to do instead is they're going
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: to give you equity bonuses in other words, they're gonna
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: give you more stake in the business. Why are they
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: doing that, Well, it's exactly for this idea to combat
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: performative work. So if you are a leader and you
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: are a quote unquote performing traditionally, you'd be able to
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: get by and you just get your traditional salary increase,
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: you get your salary bonus. Right, it gets split up
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: across everyone, and so you can kind of coast and
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: still get a salary increase. And now what Salesforce is
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: saying is we're going to give you more equity, which
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: means that if the business does well, you do well,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: you are now going to be forced to be an
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: owner inside the company. And that is going to force
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: all of the leaders inside of Salesforce to realize, hey,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: wait a minute, like, no more coasting. I have a
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: vested interest in the company doing well, because that's my equity,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: and that's you know, I am a part owner now
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: of the business that I'm operating in. And so what's
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: happening is a lot of organizations are trying to figure
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: out how do we get all of our employees to
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: think and be more like owners instead of just kind
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: of you know, to your what you said to be cogs.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: So it's a very interesting changing dynamic that's playing out
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: inside of organizations. I mean, if you think about like
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: during an even post pandemic, employees had a lot of
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: power where they could basically say, I want more money,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: I want more equity, I want more of this, I
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: want more of that. And by the way, I'm not
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: even coming to the I don't want to come to
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: the office anymore. And during the pandemic, yeah, but even now, yeah,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: but even post pandemic, they could still say I don't
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: want to come into the office anymore, and companies would
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: say what they would say, Okay, that's fine, uh, yeah,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: whatever you want, whatever you want.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: And now that bargaining chip no longer exists because if
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: an employee says that, the leader is going to say,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: that's fine, you don't need to work here anymore. I
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: probably can find a bot that can do most of
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: the work that you were doing anyway, and you know,
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: we don't need you. So the balance of power has
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: shifted very much back into the hands of organizations, and
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: I think it's actually a good thing. I think the
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: balance of power should be around you know, eighty percent
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: seventy to eighty percent organization and twenty thirty percent employee.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: And before that ratio was completely flipped around. And so yes,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: AI is making it's improving efficiencies ideally and productivity. And
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: so what companies are now realizing And again this was
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: even before AI. Companies were inflated. Their head counts were massive,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: and it was because for the past few years capital
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: was essentially free. It looked great to show that you
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: were growing and hiring people NonStop. And you know, that's
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: how that's how a lot of organizations thought and companies
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: are just too They were too big. It was not
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: necessary to have the size of the headcount that they had,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: whether it was through mergers and acquisitions, Block realized this.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: You know, they grew triple over the past four years.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: And now they're realizing, wait a minute, we have triple
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: HR teams, triple sales teams, triple marketing teams. We can
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: now let go of a lot of our workforce. We
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: don't need all these people here anymore. And so I
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: think the AI narrative for layoffs is a very very
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: tiny percentage of it. I think what companies are doing
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: is they're using AI's escapegoat to correct for bad hiring
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: and strategic business decisions that they've been making over the
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: past five years. And AI happens to be a good
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: excuse for that, because it makes you sound more forward
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: thinking and cutting edge, as opposed to saying, well, yeah,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: we made some pretty bad choices over the past two years,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: and we're going to make up for.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: It fas interesting and I'm gonna I'm going to bring
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: it back to the philosophical questions I've been circling in
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: a minute. But before I do, let's let's dig into
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: a an argument of yours in the book, which is
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: that so much that has been mishandled has been mishandled
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: through the prism or the or the the the incorrect
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: definition given to the notion of company culture. Yeah, culture,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: as as we've we've kind of pathologically utilized it has
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: denoted you know, like you know, a look, I feel,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: a vibe, a past, the kind of wherever a company
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: likes to go and drink and eat and so and
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: so forth, and and and and in fact, it should
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: be teeing you up page Jacob, what should culture? Didn't it?
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Uh So, one of the things that I believe, and
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: I actually talked about this with Patrick LENCIONI we did
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: a podcast together. I'm trying to remember when it was.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: In the past few months, we've talked about this idea
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: of culture being more exclusive instead of inclusive. And so
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: what I mean by that is during in post pandemic,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: a lot of organizations try to create a place for everybody,
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: and that's not what a company culture is. A company
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: culture is a very specific organization with a specific set
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: of values in a specific direction, and you only want
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: to hire people who are aligned with those values and
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: with that direction and with you know, the goals of
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: the business and what the company does. And so companies
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: have been too inclusive. And when I say that, I mean, oh,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: we don't care about what you believe in. We don't
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: care about what your values are. We don't care if
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: you believe in the vision or not. We need people
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: everybody come on in, you know, everybody, blah blah blah
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: blah blah. And that created a lot of problems and
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: so compass for me, corporate culture is a very exclusive
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: alignment between the organization and the people who work there. So,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: for example, you take a look at an organization like
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: SpaceX that is not an inclusive culture, SpaceX is not
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: going to hire anybody. You care about work life balance,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: you care about well being, you care about you know,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: I want thirty two to forty hours. I want to coast.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Not for you. SpaceX is very clear. We want somebody
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: who is going to work like a crazy person. We
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: will pay you extremely well. We want somebody who's able
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: to work on some of the world's toughest problems and challenges.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: We want somebody who's going to do whatever it takes
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: to solve a problem. We want somebody who when they
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: meet a problem, they don't say no, or they don't say,
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: you know, we can't figure it out. They will make
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: it work. That's the culture of SpaceX. If that's not
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: for you, that's fine, and it's very exclusive. And that
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: to me is what corporate culture is. And so the
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: problem that organizations, I think IF had over the past
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: few years as they were struggling to attract and retain talent,
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: they forgot that and they just tried to get whoever
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: they could to join the organization. And I think now
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: post pandemic, you know, twenty twenty six, we're getting back
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: to accountability, we're getting back to responsibility, and we're getting
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: back to creating more of an exclusive culture, or we're
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: trying to identify very specific people that we want to
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: be here now and now. As a result of AI,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: we can be more more specific, more judicious with who
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: we're bringing in instead of just bringing in sort of everyone.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: So that is to me how I think of corporate culture.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: It's a very exclusive alignment between the people and between
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: the organization.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Excellent definition. I'm interested in your thoughts on the question
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: of means and ends, Jacob. I mean not to take
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: two wide a lens, but the history of work and
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: technology workplace specifically is arguably a history of increasing efficiency.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: You know, everything driven towards extrapolating efficiencies, right, and AI
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: seems to be the latest efficiency multiplier. And of course,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: the more efficient you get, the less people you need.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of tacit in what we're discussing today
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: about individual workplaces. All well and good, and I would
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: never contest what you are arguing about, I guess the
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: question of personal virtue and the value of personal virtue.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I want to push back on something that
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: you're saying, because I don't think efficiency necessarily means less people.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: I think efficiency means more opportunity to go into other areas.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: And so what I mean by this is so Jensen
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Huang recently gave a great interview with Jim Kramer on
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: this debate around AI and impact of jobs, and so
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Jim Kramer asked Jensen Huang the sea over and video,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: he says, what do you make of all these companies
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: who are laying people off as a result of AI.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: Jensen said that these companies just lack imagination. And so
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: he said that today Nvidia is forty five thousand employees.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: By twenty thirty six, they want to be seventy five
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: thousand employees, but they also want to have one hundred
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: agents per employee who works there, and so meaning they
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: want to have seventy five thousand employees and almost eight
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: million agents agentic bots who work in the organization. Now,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: that is an extremely efficient business. But because of their efficiency,
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: they're able to grow and expand and create new products
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: and services and to go into other areas other opportunities. Right,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: so they're talking about building data centers on the moon.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: So as a result of their efficiency, they're now able
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: to think bigger. They're able to reach for goals that
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: would have seemed insane a couple of years ago, and
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: so the idea that efficiency has to result in fewer people,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think efficiency
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: can lead to growth because you have new opportunities to expand.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, look at a company like Walmart. They have
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: two point one million employees around the world, one point
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: six million employees in the United States. They're one of
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: the few companies that have come out there and they
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: said we're not going to cut as a result of AI.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: So you see different kind of paths forks in the
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: road that are emerging. There are some companies out there
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: who want to use AI to become more efficient without
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: meaning they're trying to become more efficient and they lack
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: the imagination, so they're just focused on their own bubble
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: of how do we cut as many people as we
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: can and just focus on our business. So they're using
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: AI to cut. But there are other organizations who are
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: using AI to grow. And so the decision that every
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: business leader out there needs to make is are you
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: going to be a leader who's going to use AI
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: to grow? Are you going to be a leader who's
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: going to use AI to cut? So Jensen's point was
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: that the forward thinking companies are using AI to grow,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: not to cut.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Final two questions for you, Jacob, thank you so so
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: much for doing this again. It's been fascinating. Just something
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: else to stood out in your recent writing is the
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: risks of over reliance on AI. And I guess what
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: I've been talking about a lot is that the risk
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: of kind of some kind of poisonous mediocrity entering work
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: entering organizations through AI. Do you see do you see
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: a threat of organizations making poor decisions by substituting something
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: like human judgment, human discernment, Yes, too readily, too easily.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's one of the big concerns that
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: I have. And this was even with my HRO group
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: earlier this week. We were in Atlanta and some of
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: us came together and this was a big topic of
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: conversation with some of the big ros there that I
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: don't think a lot of leaders are thinking through the
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: longer term implications of AI. They don't think about it
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: from the future of work lens. They think about it
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: purely from the cost savings or revenue generation lens. And
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: so yeah, I mean, if you run a company of
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: let's say fifty thousand or one hundred thousand people, and
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: you give everyone access to these AI tools, you really
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: should be thinking through what you're doing to how work
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: gets done, and to the brains of the people who
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: are using it, especially if you're mandating it like Accenture
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: is doing in Meta and Amazon and all these other companies.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: And so I think one of the challenges is how
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: do you make sure that employees don't become so reliant
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: on these AI tools that they remove human judgment and
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: discernment and decision making. And this is why I think
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: one of the most important leadership skills going forward that
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: nobody's teaching and talking about is human prompting. And so
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: what I mean by that is that if you want
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: to get a good prompt from chatch Ept or from Claude,
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: if you want to get a good response, you give
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: it a good prompt, right, So you give it something
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: specific and tangible, and the better you're able to describe
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: what you're looking for, the better the output will be. Now,
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: as leaders and as humans, we're going to have to
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: be able to do that on a human level with
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: each other. And so if we're on the same team
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: and I come to you and you deliver a project
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: room and I say, hey, Tom, did you use AI
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: for this? And You'll say yeah, I did, And I'll say, okay, great,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: What was the prompt that you used for AI to
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: get this information? They'll tell me the prompt that you used,
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: and I'll say, do you think that Claude missed anything
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: in its response? Do you think that did you agree
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: with everything that Claude said? What? What would you if
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: you had to challenge Claude and disagree with it?
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: What?
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: What? What points do you think Claude made that are
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: weakest and and what do you think you know, what
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: would you add to them? And So what I'm trying
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: to do now is I'm trying to pull out your judgment,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: your creativity, your discernment, your critical thinking. And leaders don't
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: know how to do that from their employees because this
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: was never a skill that we had. This is never
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: something that we needed to do because work was done
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: fundamentally by you. And so if you presented a project
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: and you didn't use AI, I would know that you
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: did it. Now, if I know that AI is doing it,
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to pull Tom out of it. Right, I'm
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: trying to pull Tom's brain out of the work that
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: was done. This is a new skill that leaders have
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: to learn. I don't think that anybody is talking about
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: and this is going to be an article that I'm
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: going to put up fairly soon, but I think it's
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: very important. It's a very important skill for leaders. So yeah,
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: that's what I worried about, is eventually you're going to
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: basically create the borg from Star Trek where everybody's walking around. Yeah,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: everyone's got chat, yeah, and so it's gonna happen as
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: any email, any message, any text. And I've seen this
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: even with friends in a WhatsApp group. I saw somebody
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: like put in something into WhatsApp and they copied it
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: and pasted something from Chatgypte and put it into WhatsApp,
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: and we're all like, what the hell did you just do?
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: Like you can't just be a person and respond, like
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: what's the matter with you? So, yeah, I worry about
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: what happens when you remove humanity from everything, because work
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: is not supposed to be perfect. You should get offended,
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: you should get upset, you should disagree, you should debate,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: you should look stupid sometimes, Like that's what it means
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: to be a person. And so if you have to
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: filter everything through AI to get the perfect response, the
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: perfect tone, the perfect x y Z, you are not
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: a person anymore. And so I worry that AI tools,
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: by especially mandating it, you're going to teach employees that
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: they have to strive for a level of perfection that
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: is simply not possible to achieve, and you're gonna shut
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: off their brain. Even recently, an article came out on
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: chat GPT that basically said, it does rewire your brain,
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: specifically with chat gpt, because it'll agree with you. So
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: you'll ask it something and unlike a coworker like you
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: push back on some of the things that I'm saying
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: and we have a conversation about it. But if you
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: were chat GPT, you would say, oh my god, Jacob,
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: that's such a great point. Yes, you're right, it's magnificent.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: And if I would go further with you, you would
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: just keep agreeing and agreeing, and you become the sycophantic,
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: you know, trying to build me up, and there's no
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: challenging or critical thinking. And think about what that's gonna
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: do to my brain and to my psyche and how
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: I engage and interact with the world and my coworkers
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: and peers. I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna walk around. Yeah,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: I know everything, And I don't think that's good. So
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: we're not doing a good enough job of thinking through
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: the future of work consequences of these AI tools.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's never been it's like, as you say, like
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: it's like a masque that if we let it will
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: fix itlf to all of our faces, you know, eliminating
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: our individual features like from.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: The movie Alien, Right, you're making me think of those
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: what were those aliens called that? Like the face hugger
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: is yes, so yeah, so that's what it's reminding me of.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: And so given that, moving to our final topic, which
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: is of course the main theme of the deck show,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: which is digital employee experience. So in many organizations, the
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: experience of work is the experience of technology. How do
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: you how can it How can the people in charge
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: of this tooling rip those masks off and get back
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: to the individuals. How can they make sure that this
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: technology is properly regulated, not overused, not underused. What should
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: be the guiding philosophies of the people in charge of
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: overseeing these transformations and all these different organizations through a.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: Well, it's funny that you said it, because this is
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: another big debate that's happening in the space right is
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: who should be owning these things? Who should be owning
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: these tools? And one of the things that I presented
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: for my HR group is I said it has to
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: be the chro a camp it because right now what's
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: happening is that the decision making of AI tools is distributed.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: Like finance is thinking about through the cost trade offs
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: of productivity and efficiency, Operations is thinking through workflow design.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: The CTO and CIO are thinking through kind of the
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: workforce decisions, you know, vendors, technology, deployments, Legal is talking
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: about governance and compliance. And so what that means for
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: HR is HR basically has to be the executor of
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: other people's decisions. And so for me, HR leaders have
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: to be thinking of themselves as future of work leaders
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: like chief Future Work officers, and they need to think
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: more broadly and they have to own all of this.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: But as far as the second part of your question
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: was kind of a almost like a governance approach. So
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: this is another article that I'm working on. And do
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: you remember did you ever watch an I robot with
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: Isaac Azamoff. Yes, okay, So if anybody who's read yes,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: well the movie, the book, it doesn't matter. But what
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: people will remember from that is that there are these
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: the three laws of Robotics. And so I've been thinking
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: through the kind of the five laws of AI in
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: the workplace, and this is kind of an article that
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: I'm you know, still working on trying to flesh out.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: But I think every organization there needs to be the
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: laws of AI in your company. So the five laws
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: that I put together, and granted they're not perfect, and
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: you know, it's still kind of a work in progress.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: Alat Number one should be transparency, meaning that employees should
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: know when AI is involved in a certain decision that
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: affects them. So whether I'm applying for a job, whether
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: AI is helping decide a training program that I should take,
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: whether somebody else gets promoted and I don't, I should
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: have a level of transparency with understanding how did AI
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: make that decision and why, and.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: From what you were saying, management should also have that
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: trans should transparency tools management?
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, right now, that doesn't exist. We did a black box.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: Nobody understands how these things are being done. Second is
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: human primacy long number two, meaning that humans remain primarily
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: accountable always. AI can assist, but you can't do something
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: and then say, oh, the AI made me do it.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: The AI decided this. I didn't know AI told me.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: Humans have to remain accountable. Number three is honest attribution,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: meaning that the credit and the blame is correctly assigned
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: between human and AI and so so you really need
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: to understand. So again, the human remains primarily accountable, but
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: if there's sort of a decision that gets done, you
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: really need to understand where did AI make a mistake,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: Where did the human make a mistake. Ultimately, the human
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: is still accountable, but you have to understand kind of
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: the role that everybody played in there, see if they
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: have attribution to decisions that were made, to how certain
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: things were done, because both people play a role. A
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: third one is true cost accounting, which also doesn't exist.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: And true cost accounting is understanding what is the true
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: cost of AI ROI? How much are you actually spending
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: on it, what is the actual value that it's bringing. Again,
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: there's no clarity on this. You know, most people think
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: that when you use AI, you give employees a license
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: for twenty bucks a month. Yes, that works for a
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: lot of people. But for example, if you're a developer
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: inside of an organization. So the way that these AI
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: model charge that a lot of people don't realize is
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: through tokens. And a token is basically a very small word.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: It's like three quarters of a word. And so anytime
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: you type something in to an AI tool, it's costing tokens.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: And anytime an AI tool gives you a response back,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: it's costing tokens. And so a lot of these models,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: especially Claude, if you're using the latest, the Opus four
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: point six model, it'll throttle you after you've exceeded a
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: certain number of tokens. It'll say, oh, no, you've exceeded
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: your bandwidth. You got to wait five hours, and you know,
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: and you can opt to pay more to buy more
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: tokens or not. Now, if you're a developer and you're
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: working on something complex, you want to build an app,
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: you want to review code a database, what's happening is
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: that these agentic AI tools are working twenty four to
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: seven NonStop, and they're going through tokens like nothing. And
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: so what's happening is now you're spending thousands of dollars
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: all the time cycling through code, reviewing, code checking, code
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: debugging code per employee that's potentially using it. And so
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: now you're not only paying for the employee to review it,
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: you're also paying a lot of money for the usage
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: of the AI tools. And a lot of people don't
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: understand the cost of that, right, So what is the
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: true cost of using these AI tools when you're bringing
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: in the people, when you're also bringing in making accounting
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: for the tokens. And the last lot should be reversibility,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: meaning that any decision that affects a human being should
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: be able to have a human override path. So in
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: any situation where AI is making a decision that impacts
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: a human being, another human being should be able to
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: override the decision that the AI tool makes. And I
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: think that is a good high level five laws of
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: AI in the workplace that companies can tweak and it
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: just and and do as they need. But we need
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: to have something like that because it doesn't exist in
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: any organization it companies around the world that that path
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: just doesn't exist.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to find out the hard way of
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: what works this right.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're just kind of you know, winging it, so
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: to speak.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Jacob, thank you so much for coming back on
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: the show. It was one of the most enjoyable chat
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: we've had yet to memate and really really loved hear
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: in your latest sports great five rules at the end
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: there as well. Thanks to that I think sneak peak.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, my pleasure. It's always fun to talk fantastic.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: That's it for this week's Deck Show. We'll be back
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: next week, and if you don't already, be sure to
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: follow the show so you don't miss an episode until
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: next time.