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Reading the Room: the Power of Unstructured Data 📊 (w/ Tania Benade-Meyer) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome it, change Makers to the deck Show with Tim
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Hello change maker as welcome back to the deck Show.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I'm Tom McGrath flying solo this week because Tim Flower
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: is flying solo on his Harley Davidson. If you can
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: believe that, listeners, he has taken the most amazing motorcycle trip.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: He does it every single year across North America. And
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: we'll have to get a load down from his trip
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: on his trip from Tim once he's back with us
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: next week. In the meantime, I have an absolutely wonderful
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: and really really original guest to talk to today. She's
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Tanya Bernarde Meyer. She's Tanya. I've taken a quote from
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: your LinkedIn right, and it got me thinking an expert
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: because you have so you wear so many different hats,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: So this was this was my best way of I
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: thought of everything I saw of defining you from our
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: from our prior conversation, you're an expert instructured and unstructured data.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Would you say that that calls it pretty well?
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Yes, one hundred per thing. I would say that is accurate.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, I'd like to think I'm an expert, but I
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: think there's many experts are fully can tick that box.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I'd be an expert to Tarya, you know, come with
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: a podcast you know, be awfully awfully unfortunate. If you are, No,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: you definitely are. We've had We've had a good prior conversation,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: as I say, and I think there's an irony to
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: it as well. Right, like an expert instructed and unstructured data,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: you could we're obviously you know, the deck show is
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: obviously sponsored by next Thing, and you could describe next
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Thing because as an expert in structured and unstructured data,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: as I understand those terms, right, and maybe maybe for
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: my benefits, certainly for some listeners benefits, maybe we could
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: begin with a definition of these terms first of all
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: time and maybe a broader introduction in who you are
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and what you do.
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: Sure, so I'm the found of constructed We spatialize in
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: unstructured data.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Very evident in the.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: Name, and it started with social listening. So social listening
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: is going online and looking tweets, posts, videos, comments, anything
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: that is not a number, essentially, and that is how
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: you would define structure on structured data as well. Unstructured
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: data is in a nice form. It can be interpreted.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: You can't put a number to it, you can't count
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: it you want summit, you can't divide where structured data
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: is exactly that you can do mathematics with it. So
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: that's the kind of like the BES way to do it.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: Now you can structure unstructured data. You can count how
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: many tweets, what's the engagement on it. So there's some
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: structured data and it's essentially taking words that people say,
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: creating categories are whatever you want to get out of it,
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: So having hypothesis and testing it and then putting it
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: in a structured form so you can analyze it and
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: putting a dashboard. And I think that is what I
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: like about unstructured data is you can have a set
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: up tweets, post comments, videos, and depending on the question
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: I ask, I will get a completely different answer. And
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: so structured data is very flexible, fluid the painting on
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: how you look at it or how you define the question,
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: you can get a different answer.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: It sounds a little bit like a contrast you may
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: have become familiarized with in recent months, as we'll get
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: to shortly, which is the distinction between the SLA and
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: the XLA. Tanya are you familiar with these terms? And
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: because because the next thing, of course, it was known
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: for many things. One of the things it was known
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: for was the innovation around sentiment analysis in users, right,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: not just looking at the structured data at the endpoint,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: but actually figuring out the thoughts and feelings and the
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: feedback of individual users, both in spontaneous and in a
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: structured way with campaigns right exactly.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: It's really interesting because I think the whole world, even
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: in leadership, we're starting to see a change in the
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: METRICI that people are using. So there's SLAS, which was
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: exactly that numbers and even sees that scores if we
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: think of that as kind of a sla but it's
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: a number that we assigned to a feeling, and as humans,
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: it almost feels unnatural to say, are you feeling out
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: of a scale of team, It's not natural to think
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: about emotions in that way. So sentiment and analytics, if
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: you're asking people to use words to express it, there
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: are perhaps on a scale of one thousand different emotions
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: that people can place them. So the nu once and
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: the depth of information that you can get from just
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: people writing a sentence versus people choosing a number when
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: you're doing a survey and ask for feedback. That is
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: what makes XLAS is a concept so much more powerful,
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: and we're seeing that chift in leadership where previously as
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: leaders and still in most cases this is the case,
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: leaders are measured on metrics.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: You can manage what you measure.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: And it's really funny because everyone says, oh, we need
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: to move away from management and do leadership, but yes,
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: we still using metrics to measure people. And so when
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: we start moving towards experiences to measure people, that is
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: not something that you can put a number on. That
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: is like you have to constantly listen to what people
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: are saying and infer from that whether it's good or bad,
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: and use your intuition, previous experience and create a brand
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: new framework of how do we actually interpret what people
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: are saying and what does it mean for my business?
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: And only then do we really seniorship from I'm a
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: leader an enlightened leader in the case of some researchers
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: we've done recently in understanding how we can drive things
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: forward and create change in a business and drive a
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: business forward, it moves away from the metrics and it
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: moves towards behaviors and feelings and driving actual change that
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: ultimately leads profits is what we're finding in our research.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: And yes, you've already kind of aggressed a foretaste of
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: what we'll be talking about, which is enlightened leadership in
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: more detail before we do, though, maybe to circle that back,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: because you got a very compelling, I think illustration there
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: of the way these these different forms of data analysis
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: of a different approach to meaning, I suppose in the
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: context of leadership, but what about in the context of
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: research specifically, So what do you feel that as a
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: social listening specifically, why is that such a powerful tool
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: for understanding trend's behaviors and sentiment today?
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: So people go to social first, that is our go to. Now.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: News agencies will go on to Twitter when something is
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: happening and use user generated data to report our news.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: That's where we go first.
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: It's rapid, it's unstructured, it's unsolicited, and it's filled with
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: human emotion. If you're angry because GPD didn't deliver your
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: parcel on time, you're going to go to social media
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: to complain about it. And all of this content and
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: words and emotions that people are putting online is telling
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: us about people's perceptions, and so in this case, the
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: trooth actually becomes irrelevant because the truth becomes.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: Whatever your perception of the truth is.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: And it's really interesting because one research slidy that we
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: did was for Starbucks, and what we found is they
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: wanted to get more people in their stores in the afternoons, like, oh,
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: we don't have enough people coming to our stores in
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: the afternoon. How why? And what we found when we
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: analyzed social media conversations of people talking about Starbucks in
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: the afternoons was a lot of people didn't go to
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Starbucks because they had a perception that Starbucks didn't have
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: glutant free options. Now, if you're with a group of
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: ten people, you're going out a lunch of colleagues, you're
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: not going to go to a place even if one
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: person in a group of ten is gluten free, because
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: there's no options for them. People try to be inclus
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: and presenting this data back to them, They were very
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: upset because they say, we do have gluten free options.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: But what was actually happening is they didn't make it apparent.
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: It wasn't very apparent on the branding that they used
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: on the packaging or even in the stores, they didn't
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: talk about gluten free products, and so people's perception was
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: that they didn't have it and it was super easy
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: to fix put up a big sign here's all of
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: get and free food. But again they felt that in
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: the sales numbers that had a direct impact on their sales.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: And this is where the merging of structure on structured
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: data becomes really powerful. Is when you say, this is
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: a perception that people have. Our hypothesis is people don't
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: come because of this, Let's do something about it, and
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: let's then measure the numbers to see if it has
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: an impact. So the two of them working together is
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: really where it adds value for businesses. Having them in
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: isolation will create silos, which we are trying to break
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: down every day in terms of how people work. All
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: people interpret things, but on structured that there's almost like
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: your first point to go to to bold that perception
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: of what are people saying and what are they doing
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: and what are they intake. So if we tilet it together,
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: we can say if this is what they say today,
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  Speaker 4: we can see in our structured data that this is
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: what they do tomorrow.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: So it helps us a bit more predictive in people's intent.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Incredible commendation for for the the sort of holistic approach
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: of dex in general time. Somewhat ironically, I think, but
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: very interestingly as well. And look, you have been working,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: as I say, specifically with I think the Xila Institute,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: right on this concept that we've I think we had
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: alan nance from the XIL Institute on the third ever
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: podcast we've recorded discussing this concept which you've already mentioned
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: of being enlightened Leader four or five years ago. So
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: we'll need we'll need our memories refreshed, maybe tell us
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: about this project and this collaboration and and what that
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: concept means and why it matters and the work place today.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: Sure so again, using social listening data a couple of
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: years ago, what we did is we analyze conversations that
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: employees was having on class stoors, so reviews, if they
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: were leaving up out businesses. We looked at customer conversations
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: or social media to understand the experiences that they were having.
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: We were looking at employees talking about the digital workspace
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: and environment. And what we found when we analyze all
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: this data is that we found this equation which is customer,
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: good customers well. Good employee experience is equal to good
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: digital experience that employees have having the right tools and
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: systems to help them do a better job, and that
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: ultimately lead to a really good customer experience, which ultimately
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: lead to profits. So we had this really good equation
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: to say that all of these are equally true.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: And eventually what.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: We uncovered was that this is true, but this is not.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: This doesn't just magically happen by itself. There's a trigger
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: point or a catalyst for all.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Of this happening.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: And what we found is that the enlightened leader, not
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: just any leader, but the enlightened leader is really the
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: catalyst to create this equation to make it happen. So
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: enlightened leaders are the ones who are constantly talking about experience.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: They are consistent in their approach, they don't take no
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: for an answer, but they learn how to create the pathways.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: And they are not the ones that's standing on a
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: stage and talking about how great they are and all
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: the change they're through, and they are the ones who's
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: essentially clearing the pathway for teams to create a beta
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: experience for employees and customers. So they're removing those barriers
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: and almost like pushing people from the back rather than
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: standing in.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: The front leading.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: So this is the kind of a change that we're
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: seeing in leaders where they are putting themselves alongside their
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: team members to help drive the change rather than leading
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: from the front. But they do it through consistency, and
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: that consistency ultimately builds trust where people go this person
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: is doing the right thing. They're doing it consistently. They
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: believe that it's the right thing, and therefore I also
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: believe that buses is the right thing to do to
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: help customers, to help employees have beta experiences. And that's
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: ultimately what the enlightened LEATA is. It's someone that people
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: trust to clear the pathways for them to drive forward
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: experience in their business, whether that's beta customer or employee experience.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And what kind of data were you analyzing? Social data,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: we assume, but what was your interpret interpretative approach and
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: tell us more about that.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: So we kind of took a bit of a hybrid approach.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: So we looked at LinkedIn later, so we analyze conversations
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: of the top one hundred CIOs in the US, and
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: we looked at what they were talking about online, So
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: what were they posting about, what were they or were
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: they engaging with people? What were they saying when they're
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: engaging who were they engaging with? And what we found
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: is that only around twenty percent of the full sample
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: that we looked at can really be classified as enlightened.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: And these are people who were always talking about they
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: tease and their people and experiences that they were having,
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: and whereas the other eighty percent they were mostly talking
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: about business. Our business growth was during that the metrics
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: we've acquired this business and very much traditional in their
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: approach where they're focusing on the metrics in their the
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: iss A lads, if we can call it that, whereas
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: the enlightened executives were all about the experience of things
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: that is hard to measure, what is having a really
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: significant impact two people. So that was one part of
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: our analysis and that's where we had where we bold
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: hypothesis and had some qualitative and quantitative insights. We then
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: surveyed and had conversations with people that we know are enlightened.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: We've made them through our journeys. Allan knows them quite
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: well and we know that they display behaviors that defines
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: and Enlightened Leader to really get into date of how
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: do they bold their teams, how did what was their
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: you need to hear, what resistance to their face, and
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: what is the perception of what good leadership looks like.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: And so it was really interesting because we could see
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: how we could identify what people were saying to us
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: in terms of how they view leadership and how they
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: drive their teams forward. It's also what we notice other
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: people online we're talking about, so we could really validate
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: our data from multiple approaches to say that we hear
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: what you're saying and we can see how that translates
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: in online conversation. So that match between talking to people
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: get the real world data and also what people posting
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: social media again validates how strong of a source social
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: media is and helping us to identify trends in human
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: behavior and changes over a period of time and how
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: that is evolving.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Interesting, really interesting, And so I guess you know, Alan
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: raised the Enlightened Leader with us of the first time
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: few years ago. How how do you think the concept
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: has evolved in more recent years and what are the
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: sort of specific qualities of behaviors are emerging at the
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: moment in twenty twenty five in your.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: View, So previously, I think we've just completed more research
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: around the journey that people have gone on and kind
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: of how we've gotten into their enlightened leadership. And previously,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: when people were talking about experience, leadership is not something
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: that they mentioned at all. People don't see leaders as
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: the drivers behind changing experience. It's again tools and metrics.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: It's something that is very metric focus. And recently what
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: we're seeing is there's been a very small group of
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: people that has created that consistency about talking about experience
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: constantly and in large organizations, they have started creating teams
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: where they are actively driving pilot programs, talking internally and
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: creating awareness about what a excel A.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: World looks like.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: And through that we are starting to see people become.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: More aware of it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: So I think the journey five years ten years ago
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: has been educational and creating awareness, and we are actually
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: still on that. This is still actually a very early
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: days concept, even though people like I don't have been
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: talking about it for five years.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: It's still very.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: Unknown actually now this concept of an enlightened leader, But
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: because of this very core group of people, they are
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: the catalysts to create.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: They are gone from kind.
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: Of advocates of it to know ambassadors of it, and
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: they're kind of spreading the news and they now have
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: case studies and proven their pidologies of what they have
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: done to enforce that change in their organizations. And this
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: proof that they now have, this data that they have
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: and the stories that they can tell is now helping
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: to get more people on board to believe in the
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: concept and to believe that this is actually what we
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: need to do in order to drive change. And so
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: what we're seeing is still there's still lots of education
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: it needs to happen, but definitely this year we are
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: seeing people getting excited about it and large organizations are
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: starting to talk about it. So the awareness has increased
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: rapidly and now adoption is starting to take place and
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: there's less resistance and more curiosity towards it, which is
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: a great place to be because through this more people
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: is going to adopt and become less and liking leaders
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: for drive experience forward.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know your research for yourself of course, right,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: did you ever take a note When you look at
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: it late, think what was that?
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I have a note and it was when I was
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: rereading the fact. I'm quite sure what this was referring to.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: But you've emphasized the shift, according to my nose, Tania,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: from from leadership to readership. Yeah, okay, good, you're not
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: doing everybody. He's nothing. It's not my bad handwriting. Tell
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: us about what that means in a context of this discussion.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: So I cannot alluded to it earlier.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: But lead ship is in the traditional sense what we
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: have always viewed it as lead by example. I will
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: show you, and you've fallen. And that is shifting, especially
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: because we can't measure whether it looks like anymore because
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: it's becoming fluffy, and lots of the eighty percent of
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: people is not enlightened. They don't like blucky, they don't
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: like that. I can't put this on a dashboard. And
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: so the readership is reading people. That is actually a
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: core skill that a leader needs to have. They need
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: to be able to read the room, read the dynamic,
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: read someone's emotions.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: What is going to happen? How do we de escalate
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: the issue. How do I make an employee.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: Trust me to really let the guard down and talk
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: to me. So one of the enlightened leaders that we
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: interviewed had a great analogy of what this looks like,
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: and he says that trust is not about what people
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: say in a meeting about me. It's what they say
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: at the in the table when they go home. And
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: so his goal is to when people go home instead
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: of the dinner table, say I had a great day
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: to day, I've had a great experience.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: I've worked today.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: And if he can enable that and get people to
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: have and talk about work in a positive way when
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: they get home, he feels like he's achieved. That is
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: not something that you're going to see in a boardroom
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: on a dashboard. And so leadership has traditionally being that
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: here's my data, this is what it means. But actually
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: leadership readership is make me sit back up, sir, take
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: that in and install what that actually means. And the
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: result is happening in places where.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: You might not even have insight into it.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: That's so interesting. Do you feel that there's maybe a
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: central change here that's creating that that that that very
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: kind of concept you just described, is that respecting previous
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: generations of work was much more hierarchical, like it was,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: it was a pre given regardless of hierarchy, it has
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: to be earned, like it's a bit like social A
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: company is a bit like social media. There's a kind
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: of democracy of reputation at play and you have to
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: be engaged with that.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we are, Oh, we're definitely seeing that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: So part of our resource was looking at what gen
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: Z's are talking about in God's leadership and what does
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: the future of workplace look like and so the future
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: of leadership. They are going to be the future leaders.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: And when we define the characteristics of an life and leader,
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: gen Z already taking eighty percent of those boxes. They
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: are already in light. They are the ones where there's
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: no hierarchy. We see lots of videos online on TikTok
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: CEOs where they go out or drinks with their people
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: and they show up on Fridays all being hungover. Like
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: it's that I'm in the trenches with them. I am
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: living the life with them. I am not at the
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: top of the chain, I am right there alongside them.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: They don't care about hierarchies. They also don't care about
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: corporate talk. They just want to have natural conversations with
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: people to get stuff done. And they very much where
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: they take the back seat and let people lead and
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: so gen Z's is really interesting because they are they
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: are enlightened theaters. So the more they step into leadership roles,
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: the more we will see there's actually a salaried. Another
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: interesting thing that we observe when we analyze them was
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: that they if you don't give them what they ask for.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: So if you don't give them, it's funny. And if
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: you don't give them the freedom to make to be innovative,
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: auto make changes, or you kill them with corporate jargon,
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: they will leave very easily. They have very little loyalty
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: to organizations, and they won't just leave to go to
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: another organization. They will leave to start their own business.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: They will become your competitor. They are super entrepreneurial because
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: they they don't have time for corporate and so we
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: see more and more of that happening, where I think
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: there's going to be more entrepreneurs thin go before and
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: under thirty years old, and especially with AI, it's becoming
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: a lot easier for people. And so I think if
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: corporates aren't adjust to their language, the way that they
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: run their organizations, the way that they lead, they're going
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: to lose a very young workforce and they're going to
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: have competitores. That's very innovative, and it's leading the way
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: in terms of driving experience forward because they already have
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: the behaviors that just naturally enables that to happen.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very interesting. Let's get into harmful leadership. Let's enough
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: of the good stuff. Let's talk about the bad stuff
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: that's always quite entertaining as much as anything. What does
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: what is ineffective or indeed harmful leadership look like in
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five? What are the main red flags?
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: I think what we are seeing is when people say
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: they do stuff, but they.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: Don't really do it. And I think this is not
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: just leaders, this is anyone in an organization.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: Way we want to drive change. Are we going to
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: change this policy? We care about experience, but yet you're
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: still measured on a number. You're still measured on a
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: profit margin or a revenue number. So what you're saying
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: and what you're doing doesn't map up. And with enlightened leaders,
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: what we're saying is what they say and what they
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: do matches exactly. And so the opposite of that is
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: true for ineffective leadership or harmful leadership is when we're
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: hearing the things but we're not seeing it. And again,
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: thinking about the people, the younger workforce that we have
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: entering now going into leadership positions, the moment they take
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: that very early on day out, you're going to lose thing.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: You're going to really struggle to get them on site
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: and the concept of working together as a teamwork will
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: be very hard because they just won't buy into. So
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: I think it's very important for leaders if this is
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: something that they want people to trusting. Your words have
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: to match your actions or words.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I suppose there's a there's a psychological concept I can't
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: remember the name, but it's about that that difference between
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: how you see yourself and how others perceive you. Like
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I think it's the idea of it shouldn't be too
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: much that you don't perceive that others can see too glaringly.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Obviously that's relevant in any context of life, but that
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: you would think particularly so among leaders. And do you
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: see that that kind of gap existing in the in
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: the ineffective leader in particular.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: Perception what I mentioned earlier, Perception is critical. One thing
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: we noticed when we were doing social listening research in
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: terms of people reducing their common footprint was when we
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: looked at it over a three year a three year
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: period looking at souchial media conversations, we notice the exact
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: same behaviors of people adopting EV vehicles as people switching
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: to meat free or vegetarian eating. Is there's this kind
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: of spike in adoption where people early on, early adopters
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: really want to get in on it. They want to
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: switch to EV cars, they want to switch to meat
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: re eating. But if the industry isn't ready to adopt it,
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: the infrastructure isn't there, there's not enough charges, there's not
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: enough good tasting vegetarian meals, it drops, and those early
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: adopters then, instead of becoming advocates, become detractive really fast,
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: and their perceptions is kind of in shape by lad
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: and to get them back on that curve becomes really
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: difficult to change their mind because they were like, I've
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: tried it already, it didn't work, so why would it
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: work now? And we are going to see the same
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: thing with AI. We're already seeing the same thing with AI.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: It's the early adopts of AI. Maybe the accuracy was
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: five out of ten when people were using it. Now
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: they are after their opinion oh, it's bad quality. It
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: gives me wrong answers. Now it might be seven or
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: eight out of them, but because that perception has been
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: shaped very early on, it's actually harder to change it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: And it's the same with leaders.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: If you lose someone's trust or if someone has formed
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: a perception of you as a leader, it's very.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Hard to change that.
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: It takes a long time. And having to build history
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: or consistency, you have to be consistent in what you
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: do in order to rebuild that trums. People have to
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: see what you say is what you do consistently over
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: time to rebuild that trus. But if people have a
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: per certain perception, it takes a long clime to change that.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree with that. And were there any
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: sort of counterintuitive findings. There's always an interesting thing to
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: ask about if your studies anything you're expecting to encounter
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: and you didn't, or anything you weren't expecting to encounter
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: that caught you unawares.
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: Yes, so, I think we always expect the loudest voices
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: in the room to have the biggest impact, but what
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: we actually found is the quiet leaders that had the
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: biggest impact. So they're not really out there pushing their
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: personal brands or shouting about themselves. It's the ones who's
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: kind of working in the background to get their teams
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: in line, making sure that they build that trust, building
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: that consistency, and they repeat that over and over and
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: over again to get that And those are the ones
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: that really is building systems that's going to last because
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: the ground work is done and there's a good place
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: to start from. So I think that is what we
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: expected to see. Oh, look how great people are, look
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: at how high the engagement is. But it actually wasn't
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: that at all. Was the people with kind of low
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: engagement that was having the biggest impact on what they
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: were achieving and driving the results internally in their business.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I'd be surprised if this hasn't come up already.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: But if somebody was a new leader stepping into a
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: sort of digital, very modern workplace, what's the one thing
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: they should stop doing and the one thing they must
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: do if they want to not just seem but to
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: be enlightened.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: So stop waiting for the structure to change in order
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: for you to drive change. I think people are like,
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: once I am in a leadership position, or one time
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: I'm a manager, or once I get promoted, then I'll
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: do this, or then I'll have the authority to do this.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: What we're seeing from people who's coming through the ranks
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: who aren't even in a leadership position, is they already
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: doing it.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: They're not asking for permission.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: They are going out and they're saying, I want to
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: drive a change, and I am going to go and
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: do whatever it takes to do this. One of the
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: people that we interviewed in our research was she is
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: the lead at a calf enter for a mobile company,
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: and she started talking to people on the ground, speaking
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: to every single person every day, going and making sure
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: they okay all their family doing and just those relationship
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: with people, and eventually she started seeing patterns where she
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: started repeating stories to people and it both trusted the
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: team and it actually resulted in change in terms of
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: how they manage the entire team. How she evolved as
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: a leader, winning awards because of the changes that she
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: was able to implement by just not asking for permission.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: I need to be a manager of the team to
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: have conversations. She did that from day one, and so
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: you don't have to have a formal structure to do that.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: You can go and drive that change irrespective of what
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: a role is. So don't wait for the promotion.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Got it?
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: Got it?
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: What Tony isn't or did we Yeah? Yeah, So absolutely
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: wonderful conversation. And I just love for different layers of relevance,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: both in your entire approach to data, which feels to
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: which seems to resonate so deeply with the concept of
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: exit over concept of decks, and then this brilliant kind
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: of analysis of the modern leader and the relevance of
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: that also to this kind of more holistic approach to
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: employee experience and technology provision. It's been wonderful. Thanks for
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: coming on. If people want to read your research or
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: get in touch with you for another project, where should
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: we direct them.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: You can reach me via email Tanya, anstructured dot co
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: LinkedIn constructured page, or my personal LinkedIn page, or on
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: my website unstructured dot co, so multiple places where you
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: can get this.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: It's not hard, it's not hard, and they'll yeah, absolutely
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: fantast We'll have some links to the research and to
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: your own website in the show notes. No, thanks so
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: much for coming on time. Your pleasure to meet, your
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: pleasure to talk to you about this interesting subject.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Really been great, awesome, thanks much for having me, really
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: enjoyed it.
• 30:54
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• 31:15
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Until next time,