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The future of human behaviour, with an APM Conference keynote speaker · Project Podcast

0:08
Welcome to the IPM podcast. APM has the chartered body for
0:11
the project profession. My name is Emma David and I'm
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the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host.
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In this podcast. I'm speaking to Timon Dieng,
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keynote speaker at PM's Navigating Tomorrow 2024
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conference. And who better to speak on all
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things future related than Timon, the founder of WETS and
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Strategic Foresight, a think tank specialised in future human
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behaviour and societal change and the implications for
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leadership and business strategy.
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His clients include Morgan Stanley, Vodafone, IKEA and
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Nike. He's also written a book, The
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Future Human Behaviour, Understanding what people are
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going to do next, which is a must read.
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Common also lectures at the social psychology department of
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Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
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He spoke to me in May, just ahead of the PM conference from
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his home city of Amsterdam. We covered really big ideas on
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where society and all of us are headed in the near future and
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what project managers and leaders need to think about when
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it comes to the people they're managing, the projects they're
1:12
running and your own mental well-being.
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It's the first time I've heard the term policy crisis, Which
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defines the times we're living through.
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Think climate change, mental health, trust issues, fake news,
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generational differences, and AI.
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Do you want to know what to do about all of this?
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Well, listen on. Timon gave me some really great
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pieces of advice to share with you.
1:36
Welcome Simone to the APM podcast.
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It's great to have you here. Thank you, Emma.
1:40
It's a pleasure. Let's start with you telling us
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a bit about yourself and how you've ended up doing what
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you're doing. So my name is Simon Young, 46,
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live in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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What I currently do is I'm a human behaviour expert.
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I I specialise in the future of human behaviour.
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My background is in social psychology and people researcher
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and what I try to do is based on academic research, try to
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predict when I'm doing now, the quotes in the air right now.
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How will people behave in the near future?
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35, sometimes 10 years. And what does it practically
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mean for organisations? I have my own think tank, small
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think tank specialised in, in scenarios topics, uh, around
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future human behaviour. We do keynote speeches,
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leadership training workshops and I lecture university social
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psychology masters students. So I'm a, I'm a people
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researcher. How do I did I get into this?
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I have an endless fascination and curiosity into why people do
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what they do and not specifically like individuals,
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but groups of people. I used to work for a long time
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way people research agency here in the Netherlands.
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And I was the one in the agency who had to do all the
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presentations because no one else wanted to do that.
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And I actually enjoyed it. And I've done that for many,
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many years until actually speaker agent from the UK picked
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me up at a conference from a client and said, hey, that was
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wonderful. You can actually do this for a
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living. And I became a full time keynote
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speaker, leadership trainer. And now I don't do that like the
3:16
hard research myself anymore. But the speaking and the
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training and the workshops, yes. Is there any particular areas of
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research when it relating to human behaviour that you're
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particularly interested in at the moment?
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Yes, so of course you can be. It's, it's so broad that there
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are a few themes that I very much enjoy reading as much as I
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can, speaking to experts as much as I can, obvious ones.
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Of course, everything around new technology also because you
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know, my clients asked me about this, but it's always
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interesting if new technology enters society, what happens?
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A second one is generations. So the different generations
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that are out there, how they interact, how they differ from
3:59
each other and how much they're also very much the same.
4:01
That's the second one. A third is we're getting a bit
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more philosophical. It's trust.
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So trust levels in society, what kind of information do people
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trust before they make a decision?
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What kind of people, what kind of experts is trust high in a
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society or low or specific groups in society?
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So that's that's a wonderful one.
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If we get more philosophical, the big question, what is real,
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what is fake, what is true and what is false?
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Sometimes call it the blurring of reality into place.
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Of course, with technology that's out there.
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That's a very interesting one. And most recently a topic that
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extensively been studying is the so-called state of the world,
4:41
the Poly crisis that we're in. But it seems that all these
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crisis are coming at the same time or rapidly following each
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other. Early crisis and the mental
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health crisis, which is, yeah, which is actually one of the big
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crisis of the policy crisis. So mental health and policy
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crisis, That's the newest one. I mean, they're massive trends
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and topics. So I I think I could spend 2
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days talking to you about all of this.
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Yeah, So what's good to point out?
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So if you just take technology, so there are and within
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technology, of course there are all these different subtopics.
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So just let's say AI, which is like the hot trend right now.
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There are experts, they're writing whole books.
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But So what I do, I'm I'm more of a generalist and try to link
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the rise of AI with the Poly crisis to mental health and look
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how different generations doing so connecting the dots and
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seeing how everything is connected, because it's great to
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know what AI will bring. But if you don't take the
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polycrystal into account, if you don't take generations into
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account, if you don't take, let's say the geopolitical
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climate into account, there's so much at play.
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So to paint a full picture, you, you act a full picture.
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And that's what organisations need to do, which you just
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can't. You can't say I'm just focusing
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on arrow and I'll leave the rest out.
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No, you need all the other things as well.
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So connecting dots and seeing the full picture that that's one
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of the main things that I do. So when you have clients,
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business clients, large organisations, you work with
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some very big companies, typically what they asking you
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for insight on or direction on is it for the bigger picture and
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what they need to be focusing on right now in terms of business
6:15
strategy. I'm curious to find out what
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exactly they're asking you for and how you help them in that
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kind of business context. So actually the bigger the
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question of the better. So if you are, let's say, if you
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have a very specific question on the future of AI implication in
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logistics between the UK and South East Asia, that's that's
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such a specific needs question. That's, that's, that's not my
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expertise. You have all these specialists
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out there. The questions I get are from
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mostly from top leadership who are looking at the big picture
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more long term than all right, What's happening in our
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logistics IT right now, UK, Southeast Asia, uh, which is
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more short term, which is more specialised?
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So looking more long term, big picture and the leaders of
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organisations, they feel the pressure.
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The whole organisation is looking at them and saying, all
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right, we have this polycrystalline route.
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What are we doing? Where are we going?
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We feel the pressure of ESG, sustainability, climate crisis.
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What is our direction? Where are we going?
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HR departments, of course, very related to, to what I do.
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There's a new generation, Generation Z now entering the
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workforce. How do we attract them?
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How do we retain our talent? And yes, we see some multi
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generational friction. What is going on and what should
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our HR strategy, which is not for just today, but for the
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coming years, which you'd be. So the more long term and and
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the bigger pictures, yes. Yeah, I see.
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I, I mean, when it comes to big societal changes, which I'm,
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it's the first time I've heard the term Poly crisis, which kind
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of cleverly knits together many of the things you really talked
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about. So, and the, the, the kind of
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separate trends that you've mentioned.
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So tech, generational differences, this kind of crisis
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and trust, which has been around for some time now, especially
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within the corporate world, but accentuated even more by what's
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happening in politics and the rise.
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And you, you mentioned about what's fake and what's real,
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which is only accentuated this crisis and trust particularly
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political. So I guess what I'm getting at
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is this Poly crisis that we're living through and I think
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that's a very apt description of the society that we're living in
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now. How is that affecting human
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behaviour? So I guess what should you be
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doing as a project leader, as a as a leader of a team?
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What should you be doing and thinking about what?
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What insight can you give? It's very important to realise
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that it's something some managers, leaders have had some
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form of crisis management course.
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So there's quite a bit of knowledge I see in many
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organisations about how do people respond to a crisis
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situation, but the policy crisis something different.
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So it's it's good for people to realise this is a different
9:06
situation. People feel differently, the
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behave differently, they do their decision making
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differently. If you don't understand that,
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you're going to be frustrated, things will go slower than you
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think. So there are three things in
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human behaviour that stand out with directly would affect
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project professionals and and leaders as well.
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The first one is that people experience a mix of positive and
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negative emotions almost at the same time.
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If you look at a normal crisis, So thinking back, for example,
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the 1st wave of COVID or when the Ukraine war just broke out,
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you see that the whole society is going into the same emotion,
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shock, horror. Then they go into action mode
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and we're all going to collaborate and we're
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disappointed that it's not going fast enough.
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So we're going through the same emotions, which is actually easy
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because we're all shocked. We're all going to action mode
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and applaud the keyword. So that is everyone's moving
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through this. This is called the disaster
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response cycle for society. That's easy because the whole
10:00
team will be in shock. A few weeks, a few months into
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the first wave of COVID, everyone was in action.
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Remember that. We're all I say, all right,
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let's get a vaccine as possible with support each other.
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We're gonna collaborate. All these different parties in
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society that normally would not collaborate.
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The Pharmaceutical industry was suddenly embraced.
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Trust levels actually went up in government in the beginning
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because we saw these politicians start to act.
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And we all went through that. Generally speaking, there are
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always exceptions. What we see now is that people
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on one hand are like, hey, we're still here.
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Yeah, we're doing this podcast right now when we'll be at the
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conference. Like, great, we're having such a
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good time. But then you open your news app
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if you have a quiet moment at the conference or you do some
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doom scrolling, which we call that these days, you think, Oh
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my God, you know, the world is doomed.
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It's the end of the world as we know it.
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But then you have a great call again or a cup of coffee.
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You think it's great. We're still here and people hop
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from, hey, we're still here. We're doing the podcast.
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We're future focused professionals towards this is
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the end of the world. They look at this climate news
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and 80% of all fish in rivers, which are just read this morning
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has has has disappeared the past 40 years.
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I think it was. And I think, OK, I mean, there
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will be no life in our rivers anymore in another 20 years.
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What's the point? So people are all over the place
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with their emotions. And it might be that if you are
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a, a leader of a team, one of the things you have to do is
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find out where my people, what do they need?
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Someone needs a little bit of encouragement because they were
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not feeling well or, you know, their energy is low.
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You know, I might you give them these directions or encouraging
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them this way, but 10 minutes later, an hour later, the next
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day, they might feel different and the other way around.
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So one thing this needs from, from, from project managers
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where they have people involved in the project, which is
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virtually all projects. But if you're managing people,
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your empathy skills, your EQ skills should be a lot higher
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than in, let's say the good old days before COVID, before the
11:57
Poly crisis. You need to be consciously
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tuning in with the people around you.
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Where are you and what do you need?
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And you should be flexible in say, alright, you need no
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encouragement today, but tomorrow you feel bad.
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I, I need to adapt and, and work with you in a different way.
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And this is asking a lot of managers and, and they, they're
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in the Poly crisis as well. So this is one thing people are
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all over the place switching between positive and negative
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ones. That's the first.
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The second one is quite simple. People are tired.
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What you'll see in employee engagement surveys, in mental
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health research, it's a global phenomena.
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And, and, and yeah, here in this part of Europe, I'm, I'm sorry,
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I mean Amsterdam and you're in the UK, it's no different.
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People are tired and yes, people are at work, they're doing the
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best. But what you hear, and we hear
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that a lot in in a see a lot ensures that people say, it
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feels like I haven't had a break, a proper breather in
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months, in years. I'm just tired.
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I'm doing my best. So that's the second one.
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So we're going slower than we want because people are just
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tired and also a bit uptight, right?
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You see that society is under pressure.
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And if you look at politics, media, social media, the
13:00
Eurovision Song festival, people are just, there's just there's
13:05
just pressure. And that's just because people
13:06
are tired. And you know, if you had a bad
13:10
sleep for two nights in a row, you're a little bit more, you
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know, more more edgy, a little bit more touchy.
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You feel that in society. And that's because people are
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tired. Second, Poly crisis phenomena.
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And the third one is that when it comes to change, embracing
13:25
change, people say, really, I'm tired.
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Have you looked at, you know, what can we wait till we do we,
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you know, I next year, I just don't have the energy right now.
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So people actually reluctant when it comes to change, which
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is very different from first wave of COVID action mode.
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Let's get this vaccine. So you have people that are all
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over the place where emotions they're tired and changed.
13:48
They say, please, sorry, you, you want the big change.
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Not right now. So this does not make you know,
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if you were your, your project involves innovation, AI, a big
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change, things will go slower. And and as a project leader or a
14:05
people manager, you should be empathy.
14:07
You realise that this is going on.
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And I have a lot of leaders that are insecure about themselves.
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They say, is it me? Is it my leadership style?
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Is it the strategy? Did we just picked the wrong
14:17
strategy? Maybe that might be the case,
14:19
but it's also the policy crisis working against you.
14:22
And that's unfortunately what it is.
14:26
We are APM, the only chartered membership organisation for the
14:30
project profession. When you become an APM member,
14:33
you'll receive the resources and support you need to make an
14:35
impact, delivering better projects with better outcomes.
14:39
Plus, you'll access exclusive training and benefits to support
14:42
your ongoing career development. Find out how we can help you
14:46
reach your potential by visiting apm.org.uk.
14:50
Because when projects succeed, society benefits.
14:56
A big theme in project management, APM just did some
14:59
research called the Golden Thread where well-being amongst
15:03
project management and stress management among project
15:06
managers is a concern. And lots of organisations, and I
15:11
don't know about where you are, but in the UK most corporates
15:14
are always talking about well-being, personal well-being,
15:16
employee well-being. People have greater flexibility
15:19
than they've ever had to, you know, work from home if they
15:23
wish. What can you be doing as an
15:26
individual and as a project team leader to maintain or improve
15:32
people's well-being? Yeah, there are few, so I can
15:34
give one is get people together. So working from home is a
15:38
disaster for your mental health. If you need to write a report
15:41
and you need some some deep work, some deep thinking, yes,
15:44
one day a week if you have to finish something very
15:47
complicated, yes, you need your own space.
15:50
But what is the one thing that makes 90%, nine, zero percent of
15:54
people have its social connection and we're connecting
15:57
virtually right now. It's great, but it does not
16:00
compete. This is better than no
16:01
connection at all or just emailing because you're seeing
16:03
each other virtually, but it's no comparison to actually being
16:07
together in the same room. So get your people together and
16:10
just give them a flexibility is great.
16:12
And if you're a young parent and you need that, some people might
16:15
say they want it, but what we know from Richard, this is not
16:18
good for your mental health. So give people one day a week
16:20
and say there you write your reports and the other days I'm
16:23
going to put you together. Of course, if you have a 2 hour
16:25
commute into London every day back and forth, you know, there
16:29
are other things that are bad that can be bad as well.
16:31
But generally speaking, get people to sit together.
16:34
And if they want to work remote, say do we have another colleague
16:37
that works in the same area? Can we at least put you together
16:39
in the same kitchen table? So you have somebody right
16:42
there, you can have lunch with us, etcetera.
16:44
So but a little bit of work from home is OK.
16:47
Yeah. So I'm not saying you should be
16:48
fully back, but the majority of your work.
16:50
So if you take a 5 day work, three days at least at the
16:54
office together with people and one or two days work from home.
16:57
So that's one. So the second is that mental
17:00
health cannot be outsourced anymore.
17:01
So the response I get most often is, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, this is
17:04
happening. HR, we need help.
17:07
So leaders say we need, we're going to get HR to help.
17:11
And then HR says, oh really? This is, yeah, this is
17:13
important. Let's get some outside coach,
17:15
coaches, counsellors, therapists, whatever you need.
17:18
So it's, it's the reflex of outsourcing of mental health.
17:21
We need to insource that meaning to share some research with you,
17:26
especially young people. And there was a wonderful global
17:28
study done last year among the younger generation in the
17:31
workforce. Jen said under 28 year olds, ask
17:34
them, what do you want from your manager?
17:36
Well, the number one thing is I want my manager to understand
17:39
me. I want mental health resources
17:42
at work. What's mental health resource?
17:44
My manager and my colleagues. So mental health research, not a
17:47
therapist that as our department can refer you to, that's
17:51
actually you manager for managing a leader seeing
17:53
themselves as a mental health resource.
17:55
And I'm pointing at myself because I'm a 40 plus year old
17:57
male. That's mental health has a bit
18:00
of a negative connotation, but it doesn't have to be to young
18:03
people. Mental health is.
18:04
Yeah. It's like talking about your,
18:07
your physical health, right? I broke my arm.
18:09
Young person will say I had an anxiety attack this weekend,
18:12
right? The the total breakdown.
18:14
That is very much a generational difference.
18:17
So teaching yourself, if you're a bit older and 35 plus to talk
18:22
about mental health, just like talk about physical health and
18:24
having actually conversations about this.
18:26
You don't have to become a therapist, but a simple
18:29
question. And then of course, but how do
18:31
you do that? One of the simple questions we,
18:33
we, we teach leaders is Monday morning.
18:36
You say, all right, I like to have a conversation about mental
18:38
health. How are you doing?
18:39
Let's start with the simple question and I'm going to ask
18:42
ask you now, Emma, this question.
18:44
What do you do to stay mentally healthy these crazy Poly crisis
18:47
times? I, I meditate every day.
18:50
I've learned that that's really good way to stay focused and
18:54
push out all the anxieties you might have, including some of
18:58
the stuff that you're talking about.
18:59
Or be sure to, well, just to meet up with friends really and
19:04
give attention to the people you love and you like.
19:08
Because just thinking about what you said before, everyone's on
19:10
their phone and giving their attention to their phone.
19:12
And I see a bit of a backlash now where it's like, hello, I'm
19:16
here. Can you give me your attention?
19:19
I feel as so that's what's needed.
19:22
If I would be your manager, you've given me three things.
19:24
So the first is, you know, meditation.
19:28
Would you like this at work? If it's a full day, there's a
19:30
deadline. Is there a place, for example,
19:32
in our office building, say for an office together, Is there a
19:35
room where you could actually go and reload?
19:37
Can I give you 27 minutes halfway today?
19:39
If I know it's deadline day or deadline week, we have to make
19:43
some extra hours. Maybe I should say halfway
19:45
today. Alright, Emma, you take 27
19:48
minutes. You know, we'll, we'll see you
19:49
back here. Would you like that?
19:51
Yes, that would be amazing because feels as though you're
19:56
taking my well first, like quite a selfish demand quite seriously
20:01
and realising that I would be more productive if I am able to
20:04
do that. Yes, and there were other people
20:06
like, ohh, that'd be great because then I could do a bit of
20:08
stretching because I have to sit in a car for two hours when
20:12
we're done. OK, I could do half an hour
20:14
stretching at the end of the day of that room.
20:16
So there might be people will pitch in.
20:18
So that's the first thing. The second one is a phone
20:20
policy. Then I use I use it.
20:22
People are on their phones all the time.
20:23
And now we could say, do we actually do that in meetings?
20:27
And then you might say back to me, Timon, you've looked at your
20:30
phone three times already during this podcast, right?
20:32
Are you really paying attention? Do we do that in meeting?
20:35
So we could say, hey, that's a good point.
20:37
Shall we do some phone stacking in our next meeting?
20:40
Which means that you stack your phones at the beginning of the
20:43
meeting and we have a proper meeting for 45 minutes and then
20:46
people grab their phones again instead of do we need to discuss
20:49
it? That's the second thing you
20:50
giving me. And the third one, she said
20:52
friends. So you get motivated by friends
20:54
and you could ask yourself, are we are we friends or could we do
20:57
something so we get to know each other a bit more, You know,
21:00
would you like that? Do we spend enough time?
21:03
You know, do we need a A-Team BBQ or shall we go go karting
21:07
together this weekend just so we get to know each other better?
21:10
Because that's maybe what we need.
21:12
You can have a discussion. What do you do then?
21:15
What? What keeps you mentally well
21:18
that you do everyday or regularly?
21:20
Ohh yeah, I play music so so I play before the recording
21:23
started. I play bass guitar.
21:25
So that really clears my mind. I mountain bike and open water
21:29
swimming. So that's both in nature sports.
21:31
So I I want to be in a proper forest, open water swimming in a
21:36
Big Lake or river and then that works very well.
21:40
So if you would be my manager, I would have some water nearby.
21:43
It's like, all right, maybe you can do that, you know, take an
21:46
extended lunch break and go for 1/2 an hour little swim.
21:50
That sounds great. What what?
21:52
What about if you have temporary teams?
21:54
Because lots of projects bring together people for an intense
21:58
amount of time. But then still so a phone policy
22:02
for meeting, you would bring this up.
22:04
And if we would have a group of eight people right now, I assure
22:08
you that four or five people say I hate that when people grab
22:11
their phone or laptop halfway meeting because this is 5
22:14
minutes not about them. And then they start typing away
22:17
or start scrolling, the attention goes away.
22:19
It it I hate it when the couple grabbed their phone halfway and
22:22
then we might have a phone policy.
22:24
Now, the interesting thing is to bring this up, if you just say,
22:27
all right, Monday morning, let's go through the, you know,
22:30
progress and let's put the goals.
22:32
And he say, sorry, I I just like to talk about how, yeah, just,
22:36
you know, James grabbed his phone for the first time already
22:39
and we've been 5 minutes. But if you say, all right, you
22:42
know, mental health, how you say, and suddenly these things
22:45
come up and you can just set a few even in temporary teams, you
22:48
can say, all right, sometimes with temporary team, say, all
22:51
right, if we finish the project, then we'll go out for a drink,
22:54
right, to celebrate that we finish the project.
22:56
Now what we need right now, first we go for a drink and then
23:01
we do the project. So it's often like the reward
23:04
comes, the bonding comes at the end, and now say if you want to
23:09
finish the product, you need to have some bonding first.
23:11
So in the policy crisis, I would actually advise people to do the
23:15
opposite. So increase happiness first,
23:17
then the project will will run instead of with the project run
23:20
and will become happy. What about thinking about the
23:25
Polly crisis? There are many projects that are
23:28
run in in the thick of it. So projects that you think about
23:33
big infrastructure, projects that are directly affected by
23:38
politics or other changes. That adds an extra level of
23:44
complexity to a project. And the mood, I guess the
23:49
national mood everywhere aren't that great.
23:51
What advice would you give to project managers who are working
23:55
in that area? How to keep their kind of
23:58
motivation, their energy up? To take care of yourself first,
24:02
it's a bit like it here comes a awful cliche.
24:05
It's like the the aeroplane put the oxygen mask on yourself
24:09
before you help others. So I had to CEO of an insurance
24:13
firm when we're talking about this with the leadership team.
24:16
And he said, I've never said this to my team, but I always
24:18
work at 95%, which is not a common thing for CEO to say
24:22
because they often brag that they work 110% or 200% right,
24:26
which is not possible, but doesn't matter.
24:28
He said the 5% energy or time I needed when the phone call or
24:35
the e-mail comes. And that always comes Saturday
24:39
morning when I'm, you know, with the kids having breakfast.
24:42
Then the phone call comes. The phone call comes when I
24:45
thought we had, you know, an OK on the budget and everything was
24:49
finished. We celebrate already.
24:50
And then I get the OHH, but no, sorry, you need to change.
24:54
It's always, he said it always comes unexpected.
24:57
It always comes when you really thought everything was going
25:01
well. And then and he said so
25:04
unexpected things happen more and more.
25:06
And he said one thing I realised as I've become older, I
25:09
shouldn't work 100% because when something unexpected happens and
25:13
you, you, you're painting the picture about the times we're
25:15
living in another crisis comes. If you work at 100%, you can't,
25:19
you can't handle that phone call or that e-mail in the middle of
25:22
the night. So this is actually, how can you
25:25
make sure you have, I sometimes called this mental surplus do
25:28
this. And this is for all the older
25:31
males like myself. So if you work out, you know, I
25:34
can, you can't see, but I'm sitting now behind the desk.
25:36
I'm strong enough to lift this desk, but I, I don't have to.
25:39
I, I lift the desk once a month. If I move something, I lift this
25:42
pen every day, but I'm strong enough to lift the desk.
25:44
So if you compare to physical health, you should be mentally
25:47
so fit that you can lift the desk because that happens once a
25:50
month or once a year when you have to move something.
25:52
But you, you should train yourself or be in such medical
25:55
state can just handle ohh, a crisis, Hey, a colleague with a
25:58
burnout, alright, a deadline being moved, the budget being
26:02
cut at at, you know, a policy legislation change overnight.
26:06
I can handle that. And I don't, you know, on rare
26:11
occasions I meet professionals, whether it's in the project
26:14
space or other space that say, you know, I'm in a good place, I
26:17
can handle that. So we need to take care of
26:18
ourselves more and often, many leaders say.
26:21
I take care of my people and they forget themselves.
26:23
What about what advice would you have about your attitude towards
26:28
change and the unexpected and risk and everything like that?
26:31
So change is constant, you know, all the cliches, but change can
26:36
be very stressful, especially if it's continuous.
26:39
And right now, the whole world of work and business has been
26:43
battered by worries around AI and what you should be doing and
26:48
how you should be taking advantage of it.
26:50
And there's excitement, but also a lot of concern and all these
26:54
things that you should be worried about and doing
26:55
something about. So that's not going away.
26:58
It's only going to get worse. What advice have you got to
27:02
project managers or leaders around the way you see the
27:05
world, the way you should think about change?
27:09
It's interesting that you say the, the AI is both excitement
27:12
and concern. It's quite extreme, like AI is
27:15
going to solve all world problems versus it's going to
27:18
be, you know, it's, it's going to wipe out the human beings
27:22
from the face of the Earth, right?
27:24
Is that extreme? And this is actually the
27:25
positive and negative and the interesting thing we have right
27:28
now compared to, let's say other waves that we had, like the big
27:32
data, the IoT, the social media, we saw the the silicon valleys
27:36
of this world where super positive, right?
27:38
Social media would be wonderful to bring freedom of expression
27:41
to all. You had the, the Facebook
27:43
revolution in what was it Tunisia, I think the Arab
27:46
Spring. So it was good news, good news,
27:48
good news. Of course, there were some
27:49
critics, but it's like, why are you so creative?
27:51
You know, it's Iots, great sensors and everything was
27:54
smooth. Smart cities, everything be
27:55
smooth. But now even the people who
27:57
developed this technology are both positive and negative about
28:01
it. So they, they, they say, hey, we
28:03
have this wonderful thing right here.
28:05
It's wonderful to buy it, but beware, it might wipe us all
28:08
out. And that's actually new.
28:10
So we're not used to the inventor something saying, hey,
28:12
wait, but this is this might be a disaster.
28:15
And this brings us in this positive and feeling happy and
28:19
sad, positive and negative at the same time.
28:21
Very polite crisis behaviour. Actually, now if you zoom out
28:26
and take one step back where we are right now, it might wipe us
28:30
out in 20 or 30 years that that might be, there might be some
28:32
science fiction doom scenarios, but it's just a tool.
28:35
It's just a tool helping you to do your work a little bit
28:38
better, a little bit faster. But it's not that there are
28:41
whole groups of people being fired as we speak.
28:44
It's not like the miners in the 1970s and 80s where you close
28:48
the mine, you have thousands of people at the that's not
28:51
happening, but it's being brought us.
28:53
All right. So you should brace yourself
28:55
because you might be fired tomorrow.
28:57
If that will happen, it will be a gradual change.
28:59
But what we most likely will see that let's say you have 100% of
29:04
you, that 20% of your work will be done maybe by AI, but then
29:08
what are you going to do? Will you fire 20% of your
29:11
people? Now probably that will be filled
29:13
in with other tasks that are now you don't take enough time for.
29:17
And, and you know, there's more than 100 years of research on
29:20
this. If a new technology comes,
29:21
people say, oh, but this is now people will be automated away
29:24
and we go to a four day, a three day, 2 day work week.
29:27
And at the end it will be like Wally where people just sit in a
29:30
chair and a I will do everything.
29:32
It's the same thing all over again.
29:34
And then then people say, yeah, but this time it's different.
29:37
But this time it's different argument.
29:39
We've heard that also 400 years because every generation with
29:42
every wave of technology, people say, but this is different.
29:45
You can't compare this personal computer to, let's say the
29:49
automation we saw in the manufacturing process in the in
29:52
the in the, in the 1800s. So I would say take a step back,
29:56
do a bit of historical research into how people emotionally
29:59
respond to new technology. Look at what actually happening
30:02
and you see it's, it's there might be some big promises in
30:05
the air, but there is a lot of hype right now.
30:07
And I'm actually not too worried about this.
30:09
I see there's a tool, but a little bit like a calculator in
30:13
the hands of a mathematician. Has it replaced mathematicians?
30:17
No, it just made them work better, faster and moved the
30:19
world of math to a whole new level.
30:22
So for project professionals, it will make you, you know, work
30:25
better and faster. And the first academic research
30:28
into this actually shows that yes, you get more productive,
30:31
you get more efficient. If you use AI for daily work
30:35
tasks, wonderful. But we also see that the
30:37
benefits end up with the least experienced people.
30:40
So if you are just starting out in your career, AI can do
30:44
wonders. If you are in your 40s and 50s,
30:47
your seasoned professionals super expertise.
30:50
AI brings marginal to 0 benefit. I guess finally what I wanted to
30:56
ask you would be how you feel about all of this change
30:59
happening because though detects a certain sense of excitement,
31:04
optimism, because if you put things into that historical
31:07
perspective and you get the bigger you, you deal very much
31:11
with the bigger picture that actually the Poly crisis might
31:16
not be so bad. I, I worry about polycrystal
31:18
more the societal tensions that we have.
31:21
So the, the, the fact that mentally we're not doing well.
31:24
I worry about the cost of living crisis, the rise of populism
31:27
and, and, and geopolitical tensions.
31:30
I think that's more worrisome than AI.
31:33
I think we're going to wipe each other out way before a I is
31:37
going to do anything to us. But that's that's that that's my
31:41
personal perspective. I think with a I, it's a bit
31:44
like asking in 1997, All right, we have the Internet now.
31:49
What will the impact on the world be?
31:50
So in 1997, we we couldn't say right?
31:54
Social media came, you know, the early 2000s.
31:56
What will the impact be if you asked that question in 2007, you
32:00
know, 2006 be that we we don't know yet.
32:03
So I feel there's a lot of hype and I've seen the hype with big
32:07
data, the IoT, social media, when the Internet came, I'm
32:11
enough for that. And it's always not that big of
32:15
a deal as we thought before, but it's going in different
32:17
directions and brings wonderful things and bad things.
32:20
Smartphone wonderful connects us all, but we're all addicted and
32:24
it this has as much downside as it has upsides.
32:27
And I think with AI, we're going to see the same.
32:30
Thank you, Tyrone, thank you so much for your time.
32:33
And if people want to find out more about your work, how should
32:36
they find out? If you Google me, Timon Deyoung,
32:40
then you'll find my LinkedIn or my web page and it will take you
32:43
take your places. I have a book out.
32:46
And what's the title of your book?
32:48
Future human behaviour, understanding what people are
32:51
going to do next. That's the full title.
32:54
OK, I recommend everyone gets hold of a copy, but it just
32:57
leaves me to say thank you so much for your time and your
33:00
thoughts. It's been a pleasure.
33:01
My pleasure. Thank you, Emma.
33:11
Thanks again to Tim On for joining us and to you for
33:13
listening to the APM Podcast. Don't forget to look out for
33:17
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