Latest / Cutting Through with Natasha Plowman / Cutting Through with Louisa Loran

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Cutting Through with Louisa Loran · Cutting Through with Natasha Plowman

0:16
Welcome to Cutting Through with Me, Natasha Ploughman.
0:19
Today I'm joined by Louisa Loran.
0:22
Now, Louisa is one of the consummate corporate executives
0:26
that I've ever come across. We've met first when I think
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we're pretty fairly new babies in the corporate world of
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Diageo. But since then, Louisa's career
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has taken on new heights working in companies like Maersk and
0:37
Google. And now she is a corporate
0:40
advisor and we will get to talk about her book, which is
0:43
launching this year as well. Welcome Louisa.
0:47
Great to have you on cutting through.
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Give me a Whistle stop tour about who you are and what makes
0:51
you tick. Thank you so much, Natasha.
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It's lovely to be here and great to connect with you and your
0:57
audience of course. So who I am and what makes me
1:00
think, I think, well, as you said, I've had a very diverse
1:04
career in terms of industries, but what's been consistent is
1:08
I've always been curious about what drives change and what's
1:10
going to happen next. So see that opportunity out
1:13
there next. I'm quite, let's say go getter
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structurally saying what does it take to achieve that and how do
1:19
we need to reorganise, build products, segment, whatever it
1:23
may be to go after it. Then I think probably the thing
1:25
that differentiates me the most is I tried to find the courage
1:30
within leaders so they can go after it because the plans on a
1:33
paper are not worth much unless you can actually get people to
1:36
move towards it. So I've been fortunate to have
1:39
done that in very different industries for lots of different
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partners and customers. And yeah, loving sharing that
1:46
with the world so people can be more successful.
1:49
Brilliant. And it seems we are in such a
1:51
time of disruption at the moment.
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And a lot of the conversations I've been having lately, it's
1:56
likened in a way to reflect on the industrial revolution and
1:59
the changes that happened to particularly to goods
2:01
manufacturing and the jobs that changed and how people responded
2:05
to it. And where are we in this
2:08
knowledge technological revolution at the moment?
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What stage do you think we're at?
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Well, for someone who loves change and sees lots of
2:17
opportunity and it, I think it's an exciting time, but I think
2:20
there is no doubt that it is a structural opportunity we have
2:24
in front of us. That does not mean that the
2:26
change will come fast because we see a lot that technology can
2:29
move significantly faster than the human willingness to engage
2:33
with it. So just like people have to feel
2:36
the value of all the previous big revolutions, I think what
2:39
we're seeing now is that people are actually leaning in, playing
2:43
with parts of technology, but not truly understanding what the
2:46
drivers of decision making is in this space.
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So we will get, I'm sure, some form of a catch up effect.
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And for me, the thing I'm most focused on is that the people
2:55
who have the expertise and the knowledge lean in and help shape
2:58
that future, um. And it is shaping the future,
3:02
which, and I suppose this is where we get this diversity of
3:05
opinion with some people around shaping the future for who and
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how do we kind of make that more, I suppose, equitable and
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how do we bring the kind of the human element?
3:15
And so who's going to drive this change and to what ends?
3:18
I mean, there's big topics which I'm sure a lot of people are
3:20
speaking about. Let's take a little bit of a
3:22
step back before we get into that, because I'm sure we will
3:25
around some of the transformations and changes that
3:28
you have led over time. And what's what's taught you
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about the change that we're going to see in the future?
3:35
Yeah. Well, I think that I said I've
3:38
been very privileged to to look at many different types of
3:41
changes. I think the one that is an
3:42
interesting story for everyone to learn from is, is one that I
3:46
was part of at Maersk. I joined in 2014.
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It was a very traditional standardised operational company
3:55
in in traditional sensing. Yeah, very commoditized industry
4:01
as well. And I landed there with a
4:04
background from Diageo, lifestyle brands, consumers,
4:07
digital journeys, all these types of things, and started to
4:09
talk about customers and needs. And everyone was a bit like,
4:13
what is this language she's speaking and why do we even need
4:16
it? Fortunate for me, I landed in a
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very high IQ culture. So people were intellectually
4:23
curious, trying to understand what were these complementary
4:26
skills, even though there was not a clear benefit as to how to
4:29
apply it. And I think that there's,
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there's a lot of this of saying, OK, are we curious about things
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when we can't really see the relevance to us or not?
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But but in this case, there was that openness and curiosity.
4:42
The situation was that that the industry as a whole was non
4:46
profitable, the entire industry performing low cost or below
4:51
cost of of operations and therefore a significant need to
4:55
change it. There was a chairman and CEO
4:58
change and they decided to say, OK, we're going to sell off a
5:00
large part of the business, oil and energy, we're going to
5:03
continue transport and logistics.
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But there was a need to fill that line with significantly
5:10
more detail. What are we going to be
5:12
something for? What are we going to offer?
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Why are they going to choose us? All these type of things.
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So what I came in and played the role of what was both
5:20
facilitating the conversations, both with the executives, the
5:23
organisation and the external world to say actually, what's
5:25
there a need for? What do we think we have of
5:28
propositions that we can actually package in a way where
5:30
it be relevant and can we deploy them in a new setting?
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For some people, this was significantly different to
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anything they'd ever been doing before because everything has
5:41
kind of been pursuing A narrow path and starting to talk about
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being an enabler of someone's supply chain, not just a cog in
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their wheel, but but truly enabling their growth was a mind
5:54
blowing conversation. What then happened was Maersk
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was hit by a significant cyber attack.
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And I would not wish this on my worst enemy ever.
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But the reason I'm telling you this is because all of a sudden
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you can imagine someone who is, let's say, a very, very
6:12
unnoticeable bot of most people's lives and supply chains
6:16
suddenly becomes very substantial when you have 20% of
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the world's goods being held by not being accessible because
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there is a cyber attack. So for 10 days, we moved 20% of
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the world's goods around the world without any tech.
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The CEO got calls from every single executive you could ever
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imagine basically saying, where are my goods, my factory
6:38
shutting down, We're out of stock.
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And suddenly it was an important change maker to help people
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internally understand how important they were.
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They were not just this, this small component.
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And at the same time, it also helped breakdown the barriers of
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saying how do we in such a change process become more open?
7:00
How do we acknowledge the fact that this is a difficult
7:03
situation? We can't carry the weight of the
7:06
world's businesses fully, but we need to give them adequate
7:10
information so they can make their changes.
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So it was both an external and an internal, let's say,
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infliction point that that truly transformed there.
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And coming out to that, a lot of hard work, a lot of details, a
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lot of, let's say, flipping the organisation because suddenly
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the people who knew the most were the ones out in the docks
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and the depots, et cetera, not the people in the executive
7:33
office. We spent quite a lot of time
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talking about what does it take of this change?
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And like any other business, of course, it, it takes people
7:43
wanting to change, it takes people wanting to engage in a
7:46
different way, take different responsibility for what they do.
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And in this context, we chose to actually send the signal out to
7:54
the world. We, we did a piece of columns
7:57
which was basically a depiction of someone's brain.
8:02
It was a dialogue of two individuals describing one side
8:07
of the brain and the other side. So change and the reptilian
8:10
brain of keeping habits and doing what you're used to, but
8:16
acknowledging the fact that we needed to change, our customers
8:19
needed to change and saying that we are choosing to do this.
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It had a lot of interesting comments and responses because
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people said, what does this have to do with logistics?
8:31
What does it have to do with shipping?
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Why are you telling me this? But we needed to unlearn and
8:36
signal a change before people were willing to go on that
8:39
journey with us. As you can hear, I can talk
8:42
about this forever. But the point of this is of
8:44
course that that some of those bold steps, some of those
8:47
capturing the moment, seeing what's happening and how can I
8:50
use this in my change journey meant that that suddenly Merck
8:55
was in a significantly better position to build different
8:58
relationships with customers. And had actually a pivotal
9:01
moment. I would say also helped by COVID
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where where suddenly you have a business that troubled in, in
9:09
share price value and actually at peak quadrupled as well.
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I mean, that is a fascinating story on so many levels.
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And the bit that I'm really interested in as well is we
9:19
often joke in Comm circles and particularly people who work on
9:22
crisis and issues, that sometimes you need a really big
9:24
crisis to get all the issues to the fore.
9:27
And that sounds like that's what happened here with Mersk.
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And like you said, and we're seeing these instances happen
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more and more of cyber attacks and technological breakdown that
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is making people rapidly think, rethink how they approach
9:42
technology and how they approach the way they do business more
9:45
broadly. And and I wonder, you know,
9:48
because at the same time, no one wants, how do we get to a point
9:52
of preparing more for it? Or is that sometimes just
9:56
impossible because people are so fixated on the status quo and
10:00
fixated on the now rather than where we might be going in the
10:02
future? Yeah.
10:04
No, no, very, very good question and definitely something I've
10:07
also spent a lot of time with, especially when moving from more
10:11
of a traditional business world into Google, spending two years
10:14
in global product, one year leading an industry driving
10:16
strategic transformation for all largest customers, etcetera.
10:20
And I think the biggest difference is of course, that in
10:23
when you land in such a data driven world as Google naturally
10:26
is, you understand that every piece of knowledge, as we know
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by let's say when we talk about it, but not when we operate is a
10:33
piece of data. And let's say the foundation to
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have something where that data connects is the essential
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foundation of being change ready and transformation ready.
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The second step, because I said the first one can be a technical
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thing. You have a place.
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It doesn't mean one system, it doesn't mean a monolith, but
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just connect it. The second point is probably
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where most of the partners and customers I work with get stuck
11:00
because that is a data access culture.
11:03
Yeah. We will talk afterwards about AI
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and all the things that come on top, but if you don't have a
11:08
data access culture that enables you or a system or an AI to
11:14
actually look at is 1 department doing something that the other
11:17
one is then later reversing, then you will not be change
11:22
ready. You will not be disruption
11:23
later. All these type of things you
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need to make sure they have the foundation and a culture where
11:28
people can ask those questions. I.
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Yeah, really, I like the whole the culture piece because I
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mean, there were like things that you talk around, around
11:36
curiosity around connecting the dots around, looking at things
11:40
from other people's perspectives and empathy seem to be all
11:43
intrinsic to how you're approaching this change.
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And yet they're always seen a lot of ways as soft skills or
11:50
discretionary skills or things that aren't necessarily required
11:53
to drive business success in the future.
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But from what I'm hearing, they're not those human elements
11:59
to what makes us human are. Absolutely.
12:01
The integral to everything that we've got going on.
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So how can we shift to this human approach to technology
12:08
change a lot more central to everything we're doing?
12:12
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely.
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And you're so right. I think every single large
12:17
consultancy firm has some number of how many transformations
12:21
fails and they slightly disagree, but it's always north
12:24
of 80% that fail, all right. So it's not that efforts are not
12:28
being put in, money is being spent hours, all these type of
12:32
things. I think fundamentally it's
12:34
because many businesses are not aware of their core proposition
12:39
and what it is that they need to protect.
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So the tools that are available to us today are phenomenal,
12:46
whether it's accessing the data or querying information,
12:49
translating, whatever it may be that we have tonnes of
12:52
superpowers. But I've also worked with many
12:55
companies who inadvertently have commoditized themselves because
12:59
they didn't really understand what is it we do.
13:02
So let's say a large CPG company, are they winning
13:06
because they have a unique Rd department and they faster and
13:11
better than anyone else can develop a product, then that's
13:14
what you predict? Or are they actually just
13:17
really, really good at distribution, understanding
13:19
where it needs on demand forecast and having the right
13:22
placements? What I've seen in many
13:25
companies, they're like, oh, let's outsource because it
13:28
lowers our cost. But maybe you've actually just
13:30
given the gold of who you are a way to either an external
13:35
partner or to technology. So I talk a lot about like
13:39
understanding really what is your core proposition and, and
13:42
other things on the outskirts you use, you buy you partner so
13:46
you can stand on the shoulders and and accelerate faster.
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But if you don't know what that core is, then you are at high
13:52
risk of losing it. And honestly, that's no
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different from us as individuals.
13:59
Yeah. When people fear change, it's
14:01
typically because they can't see themselves in that different
14:03
future. And sometimes people do it well,
14:05
knowing because they can see they are not a part of it.
14:08
And instead of, let's say, taking the time and saying, if
14:10
I'm not part of this company's future, what's the legacy I want
14:13
to take with me? What do I want to learn?
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And why do I want to bring it? Instead, people hold back.
14:18
So all these, let's say, insecurities both on a business
14:22
level and an individual level suddenly become very, very
14:25
costly and get misunderstood as, let's say, tech questions.
14:33
Exactly. And, and it is fundamentally
14:35
those issues of fear that is driving so much conversation
14:39
we're having about technology at the moment.
14:42
Because on the one hand we're seeing all these people kind of
14:44
saying all these things that can happen and you've got other
14:46
people saying, but what does this mean for us as individuals?
14:49
What does it mean for the skills that I've got now?
14:52
What does it mean for the skills that my kids are learning?
14:55
I mean, I know for me personally, I look at the future
14:57
and my daughter's only just starting high school.
14:59
I have no idea what's going to be in that future for her.
15:03
But I think it's a really interesting conversation to,
15:05
like you say, to enter into with openness rather than restriction
15:11
and entering into and, and not fear.
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But then the fear comes from, I think do we trust the people who
15:19
are leading some of this change? And do we trust that the
15:22
organisations, and it is organisations, because it does
15:25
feel like governments aren't looking into the future in the
15:28
right way, are leading this change.
15:31
And how do we, how do we look at this change with an openness
15:34
while there's a fear and distrust happening at the same
15:37
time? Because you talk about the
15:39
organisations that you've been part of, which seems to be a lot
15:41
of curiosity, a lot of empathy, a lot of humanity and a lot of
15:44
openness to change. But can you talk a bit more
15:47
about where you've seen fear translate itself into
15:51
restricting change? Yeah, I I think by nature I am
15:55
an optimist and I am curious. So trust me, I can tell you lots
15:59
of stories about the hard things in the companies I've been and
16:02
the partners I've worked with as well.
16:04
I think it is a, a decision to look for the opportunity because
16:08
as you say, like politicians, it's often logical.
16:11
I'm not saying always because there are clear, let's say
16:16
examples of the opposite, but it is obvious, often logical, why
16:20
people do what they do, whether it's in a business trying to
16:23
understand what KPIs are driving someone or what their personal
16:26
motivations are, or what the narratives they have in their
16:29
head from the past that has been holding them back are.
16:34
But I think the the public today are very fast to just accepting
16:40
the facts instead of saying, OK, the people who implemented this,
16:43
what are they trying to achieve? What will my contribution be
16:47
towards this? What is the value I get in in
16:50
return? Because I mean, you said it in
16:52
the beginning, quite briefly, some of these let's say future
16:57
views on on the world, whether it's let's say a Web 3 or a
17:03
crypto world or a distributed data world, in theory, they are
17:09
really, really cool. However, it is in theory because
17:13
that requires everyone to lean into a similar type of
17:16
respectful governance, which we know is not how humans act.
17:22
All kinds of reasons. But I think for me, what I do is
17:25
I simply just try to understand why people doing the what
17:28
they're doing or why business is doing what they're doing.
17:31
And then I have a more pure and conscious choice on whether to
17:37
lean in or not. And I completely agree.
17:39
For the next generation, it's an exciting time.
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It's also a scary time. And I think it's a time where,
17:46
let's say values become a anchor that enables you to act fast,
17:51
not, as you said, not a soft skill, not a pillow, but but an
17:54
awareness of where do I step in, where do I step out, and how do
17:58
I ensure that I play correctly in this field.
18:01
Yeah. And I think it's and and this is
18:03
where we need to kind of be focusing a lot of efforts around
18:06
training and education and also skills based kind of development
18:11
for the future of the current workforce.
18:13
Now is it, you know, we talk about doing values based
18:16
workshops and communications and internal comms professionals in
18:19
particular often lean into those those tools to kind of get
18:24
people to be engaged more in the workforce.
18:26
But do we need to be focusing a lot more on getting people to
18:30
understand who they are, what makes them tick as an individual
18:34
at all levels of a business? And when should we start doing
18:37
that? Because I was speaking to a
18:39
coach the other day and she's looking at often those, those
18:45
tools that people get access to, to really get to know who they
18:47
are. They get it when they're a
18:49
senior leader. Should we start doing that much
18:52
more when people in their early career?
18:54
So we're kind of just circumventing a lot of the pain
18:57
and the kind of mistakes that you make.
18:59
I mean, I'll go back at my, you know, my early career.
19:02
You know, the mistakes I made were generally based around how
19:05
I showed up because I didn't understand what I was doing and
19:08
saying and didn't understand myself well enough.
19:10
And it comes with age is that what we need to be focusing on
19:13
now is kind of really getting people to be much more own their
19:17
own, their own value system and and be able to articulate it in
19:20
a way that that that, that kind of drives that that curiosity
19:23
that you spoke about. I 100% agree.
19:28
This is important. I, I also really agree with what
19:30
you're saying that that most of us have been privileged with
19:33
experience and can look back and say, well, that was not too
19:36
smart, but I learned from it. And of course there's a part of,
19:40
of sharing more of that perspective and, and my career
19:42
choices have been driven by seeing the world from different
19:45
sides. So because I know there's not
19:47
one truth and and and learning faster in that way that that
19:51
said, I do think that that we we need to be clear that this is
19:55
not knowing ourselves for the sake of knowing ourselves or
19:58
knowing our products or businesses for sake of doing
20:00
that. It is to be sharper and more
20:03
effective. And I think that's what's really
20:06
difficult when you in many companies, you go, OK, we're
20:09
going to do in a way day. We're going to have, we're doing
20:11
an exercise. It's going to be fun.
20:13
And then. Half of the room is thinking, Oh
20:15
my God, I'm going to be behind with everything I could have
20:18
used this day at my desk. When reality is, it's that
20:21
awareness that allows us to better, let's say, deselect
20:25
what's not relevant and move with pace.
20:28
That combination I think is not talked enough about because we
20:32
need to be honest, we need to be sharp, we need to be ambitious,
20:35
we need to do all these things because otherwise there will not
20:38
be a role for us in the future. But it has to be grounded in an
20:42
awareness instead of a fear or a disillusion where one at some
20:47
point maybe realises I shouldn't be here and therefore it's easy
20:52
for someone to plough over you as a business or as a person.
20:56
Yeah. And I think this is the, and
20:58
this is the essence for me around why I like these
21:00
conversations and why I kind of started cutting through is that
21:04
the interconnectedness of communications and individuals
21:09
and reputation of businesses and where transformation is going
21:14
into the future as fundamental questions for for all businesses
21:18
going forward. And so could you, if you had a
21:22
crystal ball and kind of looking, reflecting on all the
21:25
experience you've got, where do you see kind of some of the big
21:29
legacy and you've worked for big legacy businesses?
21:32
And I think Google kind of straddles both now as being both
21:35
a legacy business and also looking to innovation in the
21:38
future. Do you see some of those big
21:41
legacy businesses really being able to change like Mersk was or
21:46
like they're like they often coined as super tankers and they
21:50
took so long. So what do you think is going to
21:53
be their catalyst to really make the the changes they need to
21:57
have besides the crisis? Because that's.
22:01
Well, well, I, I hope so and I believe so.
22:06
It will of course be dependent on the individuals in control,
22:09
the owners, the CEOs, the board members, et cetera.
22:13
Um, one of the reasons that, as you said, I've, I've written
22:16
this book is because I've sat in so many executive rooms, in
22:19
boardrooms, et cetera, had these conversations behind closed
22:22
doors and I've shared perspective and I've seen people
22:25
listen and reflect, et cetera. But we need a momentum of this
22:30
out there. So I was like, OK, let me not
22:33
limit this to those who have the high pay tracks and happen to be
22:36
in those rooms, but let's get it out in a book.
22:38
Let's get leadership, anatomy in motion, empowering you to lead
22:41
through technology and people out with as many people as
22:44
possible. And for sure, I believe there's
22:49
a willingness, there's definitely a lack of courage and
22:52
confidence in this space. And hopefully that can be the
22:55
nudge for many to do so. And I think for sure it has to
22:58
be a combination of leaders on the top who are seeing a train
23:03
running faster than than they've been on in the past.
23:06
Not thinking, let me retire before this happens, but let me
23:08
be part of the legacy that changed it.
23:10
And a lot of people underneath who are willing to lean in and
23:13
try it and take responsibility at the same time.
23:16
Because I do see this split between, let's say, over
23:20
responsibility on the top and I can't because I carry all this
23:23
legacy. If I would, it would be a
23:26
decline before it would go fast. And on the bottom part of many
23:29
organisations, people being, sorry, slightly naive thinking,
23:33
but I can do da, da, da, da. And normally there's a good
23:36
reason why we're doing something different.
23:38
So let's talk about what responsibility will you carry if
23:41
we also drive this change? And you mentioned something
23:44
which I think is really important and something that
23:46
I've kind of spoken a lot about is around trade offs, being
23:49
really, really open and upfront about the trade offs that
23:53
sometimes need to be made. And then like sometimes there
23:56
will be a dip. And how do businesses deal with
23:58
that? But how do stakeholders,
24:00
particularly investors and governments and regulators as
24:03
well as consumers see those trade offs that businesses are
24:07
making and be able to build that trust in the future that it
24:10
will, it will come good, I suppose, in the future.
24:12
And, but, and for employees. And I often find that that
24:16
conversation around trade offs is just so limited because of
24:20
fear and because we're not able to navigate the conversation
24:25
around trade offs effectively. So is there a way that we can
24:28
kind of bring people with us on some of our journey and
24:32
discussion? And I acknowledge the dips in
24:34
the, in the kind of it's cyclical and it will go up and
24:36
down. So we can move a lot quicker
24:39
without the pain and the reputational pain that so many
24:43
businesses are facing at the moment when they try and do
24:45
something different. Yeah, No, I think the the, the
24:48
let's say the universal rule is talk about it, right, Because
24:52
getting into a room with the white board saying, OK, you want
24:55
this? I want this is a approach to get
24:59
closer to comparing apples in Paris.
25:02
But I'll give you a quick example.
25:03
When I was at Google, I was privileged enough to work with
25:06
the Lufthansa group and on Swiss airlines.
25:09
They, we partnered on this amazing project where they
25:13
wanted to both have of course happy customers, quick turnover
25:17
on their flights, low cost on fuel, et cetera, et cetera.
25:21
But these were all like apples and pears and different
25:24
departments were trying to optimise their operations and it
25:28
was impossible to, to juggle all of them.
25:31
But but the, the Google research team came in and helped them
25:34
actually scenarios and see how these things could be optimised.
25:39
And they did that by not saying, OK, what are the outcomes?
25:42
How do you make decisions today? But how do we go back and look
25:44
at what the input is? Because people have made
25:47
business rules and assumptions throughout this that shaped
25:51
whatever they were then trying to debate in that room.
25:54
But by uncovering those assumptions and saying, OK, what
25:57
are the real constraints here, the data was able to give
26:01
different recommendations that actually enabled Swiss Air to
26:04
have one of the most profitable airlines in the world post the
26:08
deployment of this. That's of course a very, very
26:11
complex challenge, but the principles behind it can be done
26:15
by anyone at any point in time. Something that I've kind of
26:18
spoken about in the course that I'm also launching is around
26:21
leaning to the assumptions you've got, but they're not the
26:24
end point. And often you find that as so
26:27
many decisions are based on assumptions that have just
26:31
become truth rather than kind of why they came about.
26:34
So I think it's a really interesting perspective to kind
26:36
of get people to go deeper. And it's that whole thing of
26:38
yes, end, yes, end, rather than yes, but which obviously is a
26:42
big way that kind of constrains people.
26:44
And, and I would also say just having that mindset of venturing
26:47
into something really ambitious that no one knows the future.
26:50
The many of us have grown up in a world where we look to a boss
26:54
and the boss said this is where we're going.
26:55
And we thought that was the end, right?
26:57
But both because of, let's say, the potential of leveraging the
27:02
complete collective intelligence within or outside of our
27:04
business and because of the pace of technology, we need to
27:08
acknowledge no one knows the future, but someone sets the
27:11
direction. And I think that's also what I
27:13
learned from these different types of businesses where
27:15
traditional businesses are very good at saying this is where
27:18
we're going to be. This is what what it is, which
27:21
let's say, put a ceiling on the opportunity many of the younger
27:25
companies have all this exponential thinking, but no
27:28
direction, right? So how do we combine these two
27:31
and say, OK, we don't know exactly what it would look like,
27:34
but we're going this way and we're inviting everyone to
27:37
contribute towards that journey. And that's where executives also
27:41
get positive surprises from their teams to say, OK, I
27:44
thought you could do this, but it turned out you could do more.
27:47
And I'm willing to turn 2° on my direction, not completely change
27:51
it, but but based on what you've done, actually we are better off
27:54
than before. That's a fascinating kind of
27:58
opportunity for the future for the optimists of the world and
28:00
be able to really lean into what we possibly can be doing
28:05
differently. And and then like we said before
28:08
around how do we ensure that the losers and the people who aren't
28:12
going to benefit, what do we do with them?
28:14
And I think that's a question that we always need to come back
28:16
to to make sure that, you know, there is more evenness around
28:20
the benefits and the opportunity that we've got for both kind of
28:24
generations as well as people now.
28:26
Yeah. I mean, I, yes, I, I
28:29
acknowledge, I choose to be an optimist and I will continue to
28:32
do that. I believe the winners are also
28:33
optimists. That doesn't mean you don't see
28:36
the risks. It means you are very aware,
28:38
you're very conscious about is this something we're willing to
28:41
do or is it something that we are willing to release and
28:44
enable them to do something different.
28:46
I think it's a very honest conversation of saying you will
28:49
not be part of the future here, but actually what could you be
28:53
doing instead? I think the point of saying we
28:56
are all ambassadors for each other, whether they're in a
28:58
business or in a network or whatever it may be, and
29:01
acknowledging that we passed the baton on to others is very
29:04
important. I also think that there is a,
29:09
the reality of, of people will find work if you don't tell them
29:13
what to do. Alternatively, so if you have
29:16
people on staff and you, let's say implement a project, but
29:21
don't fast enough, either give them something different to do
29:24
or invite them to go somewhere else.
29:27
Of course they will stay. Of course they'll find something
29:29
to do. That's how we are.
29:31
So I, I definitely do not think it's about losers.
29:34
I think it's about redeployment, and there are many things in
29:37
this world that could be helped by effective redeployment.
29:43
I like the language of it and I think it's a really important
29:46
one for us to to reflect on as we move forward because I think
29:50
the, you know, the status quo is, doesn't exist anymore.
29:53
So how do we look forward to the future differently?
29:56
I'm, I'm really pleased to have had you, Louisa on, on the
29:59
podcast on cutting through today.
30:01
I mean, we've talked about the role of technology and I think
30:04
all the things that you talk about are fundamental to all
30:08
good communicators. So I'm so pleased that hopefully
30:12
more communications people in my network will hear you and hear
30:15
and get to understand the businesses they support and get
30:18
to understand, you know, how their business makes money.
30:21
I love the way you talked around being really, really clear on
30:25
the, the, the, the superpower particular businesses have and
30:29
not trading those off. And because sometimes we make
30:32
these decisions with very little information or very narrow
30:37
information around profit and loss.
30:39
And actually there's different areas we need to lenses we need
30:41
to be looking at before we close out.
30:44
Just give another plug for your book, which is available for
30:47
presale now, when's it actually going to be on the shelves?
30:51
And if you can tell us a little bit more about where people can
30:52
get it from? Of course, 21st of October is
30:56
the big day, but you can already go and preorder it on pretty
30:59
much any channel you can think of.
31:01
Amazon, of course, yeah, and any bookshop, WH anywhere in the
31:06
world. So I'm very excited about that.
31:08
It is storytelling from my experience.
31:12
It is bringing lots of perspective, lived experiences,
31:15
bringing you into the room and it basically covers 4 different
31:18
areas. How do you vision ambitiously
31:22
see those opportunities out there?
31:23
Once you've seen them, how do you then expand and breathe air
31:28
into those through partnering, collective intelligence,
31:31
standing on the shoulders, tech, all these things.
31:33
And once you've seen that opportunity, you clearly need to
31:36
steer, prioritise, etcetera. So that's the fourth, third
31:39
section. And last but not least is then
31:42
empowering because empowering with presence is what enables
31:46
you to step into that future and not just see it and get scared
31:48
by it. So hopefully people will be
31:51
inspired and motivated and let's say it will give them that power
31:56
to achieve what they are looking for themselves.
31:58
And hopefully also a few laughs in there.
32:01
Brilliant. Sounds like a fascinating book
32:03
and if this conversation is any indication of the energy and the
32:06
passion and the drive and optimism that that you will get
32:10
in that book, I think it's quite clear it'll be a really sought
32:12
after publication for people. Again, thank you very much for
32:16
joining us on Cutting through Louisa and I look forward to
32:19
hearing from you soon. Thank you for listening to
32:27
Cutting Through with me, Natasha Ploughman and brought to you by
32:30
Spinning Red. Cutting Through spotlights the
32:33
people solving business problems.
32:35
Spinning Red exists to help you from strategy setting to
32:39
advisory and tactical communications delivery based on
32:42
what your business needs to say and what your audiences need to
32:46
hear. We bring commercial acumen,
32:49
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32:52
seemore@spinningred.com and don't forget to like, subscribe
32:55
and share. Cutting through Season 2 is
32:58
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33:00
to take part.