Latest / Humanity Working / Humanity Working: Navigating the AI Revolution for Employers and Employees

Transcript

Humanity Working: Navigating the AI Revolution for Employers and Employees · Humanity Working

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: From the perspective of employees, um, what we've identified is that basically employees need to be at a very high level, they need two core capabilities.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: They need to be adaptable and they need to be resilient.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Resilient.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we define adaptable and as the ability to adjust rapidly to changing circumstances, and we define resilience as the ability to thrive in uncertain, ambiguous work environments.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you can think of almost like the first one as being like, am I um, you know, X has changed, am I able to adapt to this?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or my manager asks me to do something that is outside of my comfort zone, can I do it?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can think of resilience as if you like, the ability to remain sane and motivated and and and in many cases calm throughout that transition.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have both.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone, Matt here, and welcome to our new season.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: You might have seen we have a new name, Humanity Working.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: In the first episode of this new season, in addition to discussing the new name, Paul and I get into detail on how work is changing rapidly thanks to the convergence of AI and other important trends, what it means for decisions employers must make, and capabilities employees will need.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: We'll also talk a little bit about what to expect in this upcoming season.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by Billion Minds.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Billion Minds helps companies be ready for the future of work by developing adaptable and resilient employees.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: You can learn more about them on LinkedIn or by visiting billionminds.com.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and if you like this episode, please like us and review us on your favorite podcast app.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get on with it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: All right, well, here we are.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to uh season four of uh well, we'll talk about this, but we've got another name change, right, Paul?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: At some point you think we know what we are, but I maybe we do now.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We'll find out.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the official new name is Humanity Working.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me what's behind the new the new name change.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, um it's interesting.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's been uh a bit, uh I guess quite probably quite a lot of introspection and a lot of feedback, which we're absolutely totally grateful for.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Please continue with that.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Please always let us know what you think, um, good or bad or indifferent and how you think we can improve.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um so as you know, and maybe some of our audience know as well, um, we started this journey uh as an under the name of Way Too Busy.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that really was focused on just how tough getting through our busy lives is.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Umly focused on uh working people, but actually a lot of people that uh that were not working listen to it as well.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um it was really uh it was really good in terms of helping people understand how to be more productive on a day-to-day basis and get through uh get through their day really well.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then um as we moved along, we started to get super interested in and focused on uh specific ways of working in a particular remote and hybrid work scenarios.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so we did a rename and we and at that time we called it making remote work.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we got some great guests on uh that talked about that.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, myself, my co-founder Ryan talked about it a bunch as well.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but as we were kind of getting into those series, what we found was that a lot of the topics that we got into went way beyond just remote and hybrid work scenarios.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it kind of got into something a lot more fundamental, which is just how vital employees are and will be to companies that are going to succeed in the in the future of work.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the feedback that I was referring to was pretty strong.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of our listeners really, really liked that content.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we wanted to lean into it a bit and really, really focus in on the the human element of work.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the that that's what's behind the name change.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we think we're done with name changing now.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh uh never say never, but hopefully we are uh we are now done.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so for listeners, they should just if you're a current listener, you're already subscribed.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, obviously you found us because you're listening to this.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um but if not, you can just search for humanity working uh on your feed if you found us, for example, through search or through our website or something like that.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just search for humanity working, um, and you should find us there and you'll be able to carry on listening to all this content.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And billion minds also is in there, so that that'll pop it out as well, uh, which is great.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what does that mean for the new season?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: How's it gonna change?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: What what are we gonna get?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um there'll be some changes.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um people really do like the interviews, so we're gonna be focusing on that almost exclusively this season.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got some great guests lined up as ever.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it'll be a combination of um leaders in organizations, um, authors, academics, but really anybody that has got a viewpoint on the future of work specifically, specifically where it comes into the role of the humans in the workplace.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um so kind of like our our general thesis, if you like, um, is that humans are gonna be the difference.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that humans will be will be more important going forward.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's kind of why we're gonna be focusing on that.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um other you know, topics like AI and stuff will certainly come in, but it's from the perspective of the of the human beings in the organization.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh obviously usually on these we we have our uh our third partner here, Ryan.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh where's Ryan these days?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's still around.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So don't worry.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: If anybody's worried about his health and welfare, no, he's he's fine.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but for anybody new, Ryan is my co-founder and we are often on these uh on these pods together.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um he's basically uh making the company work better every day, and he'll be on uh pretty regularly, actually.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm gonna be interviewing him in the next couple of weeks for the uh for the podcast.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so he'll be giving his unique perspective on uh on some of these issues and and uh we're really looking forward to that episode.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's all the admin out of the way.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I want to get right into and uh learn a bit more about this humanity working concept.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you talked about how vital employees will be going forward.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and I think obviously uh do you mean more vital?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if so, why?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because without humans, there are no employees and then there are no companies, which is the the big AI fear, right?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I think I think you have a good spin on on why that concept is is so important.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this is actually something that has been obsessing both Ryan and I for uh for quite some time now.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, um I looked back, Matt, um, I want to say maybe a week ago or week and a half ago at the original YouTube video that I put out when we first launched our uh launched our company.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was really interesting because it was really our focus back then as well.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: We started um thinking very deeply about not just artificial intelligence, but a what I would call a confluence of trends, specifically robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence altogether.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what has occurred to us and what we're uh what we're spending a lot of time thinking about is that these are technologies or categories of technology, if you like, that are extremely important in their own right, but they're also becoming highly democratized and highly available, right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not in some way interacting with artificial intelligence as part of your daily job, particularly if your job is sort of more unstructured and results driven, uh, then you're missing the trick because those those technologies are widely available and can be extremely, extremely useful uh right now.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's gonna happen more and more, and these technologies are gonna become ostensibly interconnected and more valuable as they become interconnected.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, with artificial intelligence, it's not just gonna be a question of going into something like Chat GPT and typing in a prompt and it giving you an answer and then you carrying on with your daily life.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be one piece of AI through automation, connecting with another piece of AI through automation, connecting with some other piece of technology, potentially connecting in some cases if you want to get more into the physical world with robotics capabilities, and the human being sort of being the in part the translation layer and in part the overseer of all of this or the conductor of all of this.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so as that happens, it's very easy to think of the humans being like a diminishing and diminishing and diminishing role, but that doesn't have to be the case.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um what is hopefully going to be the case inside a lot of organizations is that the characteristics of the human will be the differentiators between company A and company B.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you think about it, if all companies have equal access to robotics automation and AI, what is the differentiator at that point?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well the differentiator is uh the variable factor, which is the uh which is the humans.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so we do believe that the human beings will uh become more vital, but it's extremely important to understand that that means that the human beings in that equation are gonna be humans that are fundamentally using a set of skills in a different way than they've done historically.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, you're not gonna be um there's the thing we've referred to before on previous seasons of the pod, the the human router and Cal Newport refers to it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: That that role isn't important anymore.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just the the person that effectively is performing a set of activities which could very easily be automated, that role is not important.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that implies certain things for what companies need to do, and it implies quite a lot of things for what employees need to do as well.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I heard of this uh new job role that's starting to pop up now called AI prompt engineer.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: So literally the person who can ask the AI the right questions.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: That is the skill.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I run and ironically, it the the irony of this is that once you start to think about the artificial intelligence components as being almost like a member of a multidisciplinary team of which you are also a part, yeah.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes it's not that it's not that difficult.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: There are ways and but it but it is something that you can kind of leverage as a skill through practice, right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's it is all about, to your point, it's all about the questions you ask and how you ask them and the specificity with which you ask those questions.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then of course, to a certain extent, particularly now, given that there is you know a certain lack of reliability uh to the answers that you get.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um and um and not over-index or over-engineer in terms of what's uh of of of what information you're getting, particularly when it's involved in giving you information that you might make business decisions based on, for example, or something like that.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to see that, just spend, I don't know, an hour asking a whole variety of questions to something like Chat GPT and ask it questions about things that you know about.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And pretty soon you'll see um uh you'll see it make some really, really quirky, uh quirky errors.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just a reminder, yeah, this stuff is not perfect, yeah, right?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: What this stuff is, is something that can absolutely help and and speed up certain business processes.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: But but how you interact with it and what you do with it is gonna become extremely important.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a field broadly referred to as AI aptitude.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it is something that is gonna be extremely important.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you said something that I thought was really interesting in terms of like, you know, the people that are afraid of AI and all that.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you have sort of closed node narrow generative AMIs that connect to one another, you can have the mathematics expert AMI that doesn't need to get clouded with the whole of the internet or you know, the Python AMI that just sits there and knows everything about how to write and code in Python.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't need the other stuff.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you can sort of count on it.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, those those types of models, I think, uh plugged in to a series of things.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, the conductor of all these different AI models is really fascinating uh evolution.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and do you think it's as like I I the more I think about it, the more I think it's as big, important as printing press internet type level 100%, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the one thing I would say is that it is that confluence.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, I mean, yes, AI is extremely important.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think what a lot of people are missing is that it is it's it becomes order of magnitude more important once you start to think about the connections between those three things and some other technology uh changes that are coming down the pike, but specifically and most immediately, AI, robotics and automation.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Once you start to think about the confluence of those three things, I think I think it's really interesting.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Microsoft did a um work trends index um, I want to say back in May, something along those lines.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was mainly focused on AI and attitude towards AI.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And their finding in that was that actually many employees were kind of excited about how it was going to speed up their workflow and how it was gonna get rid of busy work and and and things like that, which is great and all true.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I think that um that the fundamental shifts in terms of the who, why, when, where, what of work, those are not really being well understood yet.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not being well understood from the perspective of the employee in terms of what do I need to be able to do?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they're also not really being well understood in terms of the employer.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, as in how do I need to stretch my organization?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need from my employees in order to be truly relevant in this new world?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what are employers, what do they need to be ready for this?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like how such a great point.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: If they're not thinking about it already, that they better get thinking about it.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: So what do they what do they do?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um there's actually quite a lot, and it affects, I think, a lot of areas.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there's obviously like the technology piece of it, um, as in how should I, you know, what kind of AI should I be evaluating?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what and should I be thinking about this as a series of tools?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love the point that you made earlier on, right?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Should it be a bunch of like specialized AI systems in a series of um that can be um you know connected together?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a set of like these LLMs that are being used alongside other um uh alongside those other things?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it probably is both, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be for more generalized work, you're gonna be using this these sort of uh LLMs.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and they're gonna be able to do that.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Fine LLM for just anybody that doesn't.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so yeah, so it's a large language model.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically a um it's basically the technology that underlies things like um uh like chat GPT and things of that nature.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so these um these types of of um AI um tools will be extremely important.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna continue to see other technologies that are built on top of those, uh, on top of those things that provide additional capabilities.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think that those are gonna almost become like the super virtual assistants, right?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so particularly as they get tied together with automation and so on, it'll just be something that we've been looking for for a long time, like a superpowered Siri or a superpowered Alexa or something along those lines.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very clear.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you actually look at the capabilities of things like GPT and compare them to where um Siri is today and where uh where Alexa is today, there's order of magnitude difference in the in the capabilities.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So those will will basically start looping under um the voice assistance.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the patent for GPT-5 was just released in this, uh in this, or the patent application for GPT-5 was was uh released in the last week.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's a lot in there about you know voice and and that's not surprising.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it'll become more along the more Star Treky, like computer, blah, blah, blah, and then it will, you know, just come up with a the response that we need.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's and so that will be that will be you know super, super useful and super valuable as like, as I say, the sort of Uber assistant for the different work, uh, for the different work that you're doing.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then some specialized usages that come up that are layers that sit on top of them.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then of course, that will be the fundamental sort of interaction mechanism with the more specialized AI forms.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll still be able to ask, ask all the natural language stuff, but of these more specialized, um, of these specialized AA models.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I think we'll see, um, I'm almost certain we'll see we'll see all of that um relative relatively quickly.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: So then the question becomes for employers, what does that what does that mean in terms of the areas that they need to focus on?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so that if the technology piece sorts itself out relatively quickly and you just are basically deciding what to buy and what to implement and how to implement it, as I say, that stuff more or less will take care of itself.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the more complicated questions, they're gonna come around that workforce that sits and works alongside it.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that actually is much like order of magnitude more complicated because what we're what you're really looking for is a set of employees that have certain human characteristics um that really suit them for this type of work.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for in some cases that's gonna affect recruitment.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So in other words, you bring people in that have this set of skills, largely soft skills, um, that are gonna allow them to thrive in this type of environment.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: How do you go about retaining the people that have those skills?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you go about, if you like, measuring that employees have these skills and they're implementing these skills really well?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do you go about developing those skills?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you might need different approaches for people that are early in career and people that are later in career.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So because you probably need these people that are later in career, they've got a whole bunch of other skills and capabilities and wisdom and so on.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they may not be good at this.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've got to figure out how to make sure that they're good at it and that they're temperamentally adjusted for it as well.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some people are gonna find it pretty uncomfortable to be spending a good proportion of their time, if you like, talking to non-human entities versus talking to human entities, right?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then how do you go about measuring success?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we've spoken about this a little bit um previously on the podcast, but for example, does it really make sense to measure success in terms of in quotes how many hours somebody puts in in this new world of work?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or does it make more sense to gain a deep understanding of the impact that the humans in your organization are able to generate using the tools that are available to them?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's quite that's quite different.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so, and then there's also this question which we kind of alluded to here, but it's it's about how do you go about identifying, if you like, the hidden talent in your organization as well.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: There may be people that with just a tweak and a push in a certain direction, you can unlock 10x capability within that person in your organization.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we've already, with the companies that we've been working with and the individuals that we've working we've been working with, we've already seen that.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, case where it's just a slight adjustment to management style or something like that.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of moving it a human being from like, Like you know, X to 1.1 X or something like that in terms of their output, you're moving from X to 10X because suddenly they've unlocked a way of working that was different.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the last thing I would say is that that even though we're focusing on human uh on human skills, it's a very specific type of humans uh of human skills that are gonna be that are gonna be useful here.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not and so measuring it in your traditional way is probably not gonna be the appropriate way to measure it.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: What about the employees?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: What about you know that their well their side.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the employer side, I think, is is more complicated in one sense, which is just that there's so many different things that the employers have to think about.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we've just outlined a few of them here, right?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there are more.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: The employees, um, in a sense, it's much more simple, but you still got to do it, right?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: From the perspective of employees, um, what we've identified is that basically employees need to be at a very high level, they need two core capabilities.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: They need to be adaptable and they need to be resilience, resilient.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we define adaptable as the ability to adjust rapidly to changing circumstances, and we define resilience as the ability to thrive in uncertain, ambiguous work environments.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you can think of almost like the first one as being like, am I uh, you know, X has changed, am I able to adapt to this?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or my manager asks me to do something that is outside of my comfort zone, can I do it?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can think of resilience as if you like, the ability to remain sane and motivated and and and in many cases calm throughout that transition.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have both.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about it, for example, that's not the case in all environments.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um if I I could use baseball as an example.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Baseball players play 162-game season, 162, is that right?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think it is.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, yeah.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they need to be very resilient because they've got to work their way through that entire season.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do they have to be that adaptable?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not so much, right?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a shortstop, you're a shortstop, you're a shortstop.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be able to do your skills well.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: But they're probably not going to suddenly move you to left field.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, and and you got a skill that you need to perform at high level, but you don't have to like suddenly go from being a bait, uh from being a baseball player to being around.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hit catch throw.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hit catch throw.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hit catch throw.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: So there are fields in which you can be one or the other.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: There are obviously fields where you have to be highly adaptable, but you don't necessarily have to be that resilient.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here, in order for employees to thrive in this future of work, the change will be so rapid and life is so complicated, and life throws you so many curveballs that resiliency is also a key characteristic.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so for employee, so for employees, it means focusing on those things.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the focusing thing is important.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we did some research around this, Matt.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was really interesting.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we looked at things like, for example, do people put soft skills like adaptability and resilience or capabilities, if you like, like adaptability and resilience on their on their resume.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Almost nobody does.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if they do, it's like one word.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a highly adaptable, highly resilient employee.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: But they don't they don't do anything to really show that, right?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: To demonstrate that in any way.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yet, these are the characteristics that are sort of more important than anything else.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in the vast majority of cases, um, because of all of the automation and AI capabilities that are coming into organizations, you know, highly honed technical skills will be important for some people, highly specialized skills will be important for some people.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the most important skills are gonna be these.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so there just needs to be a bit a bit of a shift because people label themselves as these things, but they don't necessarily actively work on these things.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we've realized that through our work that actually this is non-optional and you need to be working on these things literally on a day-to-day basis in order to ensure that you are adaptable and you are resilient.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's different, like adaptability five years ago is different to adaptability today.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a classic example that we give people is that if you think about what what did adaptability mean in the 1970s?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, adaptability in the 1970s might have meant you need to report to a new boss or you need to start working out of a different office or something like that.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Adaptability recently has meant uh you need to work from home because there's a pandemic, right?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Adaptability in the future might be uh and is increasingly um you need to get used to this new member of your team that is AI.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Those are so the the core things in terms of what they are are evergreen.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: The way in which you um sort of like stress those muscles or build those muscles is constantly changing.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that implies that you constantly need to be working on them.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're not just I'm done being I'm now adaptable.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work that way.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then and then of course, if you can pull those together, you could kind of thrive wherever the business goes, right?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: You could you could uh make your way.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's really that's a great insight.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: So do you think that employers get this?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're seeing now tons of layoffs, particularly at tech companies.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um are what what's missing in this equation?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, how I don't do they get it?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Are they seeing this?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll tell you my observation on this.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I've you know, I'm ex-Microsoft, and I've got a lot of friends who've been impacted over there, and and uh I've got other friends who've been impacted in other in other tech companies.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, across all of the uh companies that we're talking about here, there are a huge number of highly, highly skilled, highly adaptable, highly resilient people um that are being impacted.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the silver lining for those people is that they are highly resilient and highly adaptable.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll almost certainly land on their feet somewhere great.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: I one thing I will observe is that in most cases, particularly in the larger tech companies, um they're looking at this from a very macro perspective.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, they're not looking at it from the perspective of like, has Bob got the skills that I want inside my organization?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're typically looking at it from all right, we're gonna reorganize our organization around some strategic goals.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: That means we're eliminating this department and this department and this department, and it's okay.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Those people will figure it out.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we're hiring, we'll even hire some of those people back.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of well, I think what a lot of people don't realize, particularly around large technology companies, it's pretty darn common to get laid off in a large tech company and then six months later to go apply for and get a job in that same in that same technology company elsewhere.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: They don't think about layoffs in exactly the same way that a lot of other companies do.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: But that said, they're losing a lot of great talent when they uh when they do approach it that way.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Can they get away with it?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, they can get away with it.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: They can get away with it in part because of their profitability, the profit margins, and so on.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: But also they can get away with it because there's never any shortage of people that want to have Microsoft on their resume or Apple on their resume or or even Meta on their resume or whatever.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that that will always be something that really talented people will want.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's never a shortage of really strong talent inside those organizations.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that allows them to get a to get away with very broad brush, very arbitrary, if you like, um hire uh hiring and firing decisions, but particularly firing decisions.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Smaller companies and companies with less of a reputation, if you like, they really can't, right?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're if you're a smaller organization, you are in a war for talent.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the talent that you need is adaptable, resilient talent.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's generally way cheaper to grow what you have than fire and hire uh in order to be able to do it.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: As we've discussed previously, with the shift of, you know, with the geographical shifts that are going on, your and the ability for employees to work from anywhere.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Top employees are going to want highly flexible working arrangements and they and their target companies, the number of companies they can work for just sitting from their own home is order of magnitude higher than it's ever been.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so for smaller companies, um, it becomes super, super important to do those things that we're talking about, right?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Having adaptability and resilience as core values, um, and really getting good at the recruitment, retention, employee development, measuring these capabilities um inside your organization.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let's leave it there for now.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Lots to come in this new season, I'm sure.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh this is a good chat, Paul.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's good catching up with you again.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks a lot, Matt.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, we'll be throwing um episodes in the uh in the feed pretty much weekly going forward.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: So look out for us um uh round about the middle of the week and uh and pretty much every week uh for the foreseeable future.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Paul.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Humanity Working is produced by me, Matt Neal, on behalf of Billion Minds.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you like this podcast, please subscribe, review, and recommend us to others as it helps us reach more people.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to learn more about how Billion Minds gets companies ready for the future of work by building adaptable, resilient employees, look for them on LinkedIn or visit their website at billionminds.com.