Transforming Work with Sophie Wade

Brian Elliott is a veteran executive leader, advisor, speaker, and best-selling co-author of “How the Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to the Best Work of Their Lives”. After several years in leadership at Slack, he co-founded and was the Executive Leader of the Future-of-Work think tank Future Forum. Brian shares wide-ranging insights including: executive/employee trust issues, how executives feel disconnected if not engaging in the (virtual) spaces where their teams are, how productivity can be gamed, the disease of meetings(!), building for the future based on where we are now, and the need to create constraints to channel new ways of working.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   [02:38] Brian explores his desire to be a professor doing research and analytics as a case writer at HBS.   [05:02] Brian likes to put himself in situations where he has to learn and grow.   [05:41] Brian gets great feedback which helps him evolve and improve as a manager.   [07:25] Survival depended on culturally aligning people from different disciplines and backgrounds, sharing understanding of problems and solving them.   [08:35] Being transparent about the P&L was critical and treating people like adults.   [09:10] Getting to know each other was essential, regularly breaking bread together.   [10:33] Brian's resume redemption move—transitioning to Google doing product development.   [12:10] The first issue to address was mending culture—dysfunction across a diverse team.   [13:40] Establishing (early) protocols, enabling distributed teams to have effective meetings.   [14:50] Brian moves to Slack to help integrate a variety of partners.   [15:42] The origin story of Slack as a communications backbone.   [16:27] The impact of Brian’s team being 9 to 5 office-based but not co-located at HQ.   [17:49] Three things came together during the pandemic to create Future Forum.   [19:49] Brian repeatedly builds teams/departments and then moves on to something smaller.   [20:52] Brian leans into his experiences in external facing communications.   [23:15] Henry Ford experimented with five, six, seven, and even four day work weeks!   [24:17] We haven’t revisited our inherited systems of work, when offices initially did “factory” work.   [25:21] Why do we perpetuate past habits thinking they continue to be the “recipe for success”?   [26:40] Trust is the core issue, which wasn't questioned when we had to get through the pandemic.   [27:45] Trust is being questioned as executives to return to empty offices and they aren't where the conversations are happening.   [30:26] Disconnected communications across spaces are resulting in pushes to return to the office.   [33:35] Disparity in perceptions about transparency lead to discord, while planning without employees’ inputs.   [34:09] A consensus driven approach to decision making and anecdotal storytelling driving policy.   [34:40] Gen Z's are looking for a balanced approach—not all in the office or at home.   [36:07] If we get frustrated, we can't go backwards.   [36:37] Intentional design—who does the current office design actually work for?   [39:09] Feedback and the mediocre management problem.   [40:00] Productivity is easy to game.   [42:40] What date are we building from for our futures? Are we redesigning forward?   [43:54] Why returning to the office full-time is illogical and counterproductive.   [46:10] How to develop guardrails and prevent extremes.   [48:16] The “disease” called meetings which hinders offering flexible hours.   [49:22] Top reasons behind having too many meetings—including obligation and FOMO.   [50:54] Brian describes the need to put constraints in place to create new work habits.   [53:35] What worked for Brian at Future Forum for optimal teamwork.   [54:43] Brian’s hope for his children as we move further into the Future of Work.    [56:54] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Figure out what problem you are trying to solve, engage directly with a trusted group of your employee population, and listen to them.     RESOURCES   Brian Elliott on LinkedIn Brian’s book “How The Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to the Best Work of Their Lives”     QUOTES (edited)   “If there's a through line throughout my entire career, it's continuous learning and putting myself in situations where I am going to be a little—if not a lot—uncomfortable, but learn, grow, and develop.”   “The only way that we survived was figuring out how we got people from different disciplines and backgrounds aligned in moving together. Having a shared understanding of the problems we were trying to solve, and transparency about what was working and what wasn't in the business.”   “You hire adults, don't treat them like children.”   “It was about getting people who were more experienced to occasionally sit on their hands and listen to people who are more junior, who may have had a different idea of how to do things and giving them the space to bring those ideas forward.”   “We spent decades not questioning that even while technology changed really fundamentally, even while demographics changed fundamentally, even while the nature of the work itself became a lot less rote, and we still found ourselves in that rut.”   “As a leader, I experienced things as I was growing up that led to my success in the 1980s and the 1990s, and I believe that that's the recipe for success and therefore I think that the rest of you should follow my example.”   “I've had these conversations with a lot of people and the question often comes back to a couple things: What are you doing to measure outcomes in the business? What are you doing to see how the business is performing, how your teams are performing? What are you doing to train your managers to do that? But the other part is how involved are the executives themselves in where the work is happening?” “The challenge is those executives aren't where the conversations are happening. They're happening in Slack and they're happening in Teams. The executives are not where the team is.”   “If an executive says to their employees ‘I'm worried about productivity, so the answer is I need you back in the office three days a week.’ Everybody looks at them and says ‘what you're saying is you don't trust me.’ If an executive says ‘I think we have a problem with productivity and I think we have too many meetings.’ You know what happens? Everybody cheers because executives agree with this and so do their employees.”    

Oscar Trimboli is a marketing and technology industry veteran who consults to multinationals with a quest to create 100 million Deep Listeners. Over 28,000 people have contributed to his research about listening. Oscar describes how he learned to listen deeply and consequently improve organizational performance including shortening meetings. He shares useful insights and questioning techniques, demonstrated as he prompts Sophie to hone her own skills. Oscar is the author of “How to Listen”, and host of award-winning podcast “Deep Listening.”     KEY TAKEAWAYS   [03:01] To avoid drawing attention to himself, Oscar starts to ask people questions and be very curious.   [04:10] Oscar learned to watch and listen for signs playing cards with international students at school.   [06:58] Following his father’s advice, Oscar becomes an accountant, but his boss steers him to coding.   [09:17] “Which customers have you listened to?” Oscar asks engineers when developing new products.   [11:40] If people want to join Oscar’s team they are tasked to bring back a new insight about customers.   [14:11] Before becoming CEO, Satya Nadella was in a Microsoft division which was customer-focused.   [14:54] A concerning interaction with Oscar’s VP ends up with him being asked to code how to listen.   [16:45] Oscar audits a meeting starting to encode his observations and build his research database—now at 27,000--and listening materials.   [18:29] Researching non-therapeutic listening, Oscar discovers no commonality of approach.   [19:13] Observing interactions, Oscar starts counting the number of questions, types, and length.   [20:37] Good meeting hosts have empathetic curiosity to understand other people’s perspectives.   [22:48] Deliberate listening and questioning techniques can shorten meetings by several hours a week.   [23:55] Assessing appropriate use of open-ended questions and biased questions.   [26:00] Oscar believes many leaders operate from a place of unconscious bias vs dialogue and outcome.   [26:55] Oscar notes that Sophie’s question is long and complex and advises her to break it down to improve understanding.   [28:44] Oscar answers Sophie’s reworded question, explaining the five levels of listening.   [30:10] People only voice 14% of their thoughts, so the most important elements may be left unsaid.   [32:02] The importance of silence—appreciated more in indigenous cultures and Asian countries.   [33:45] The Bias Assessment: Oscar says 3 is half of 8 and shows he is correct!   [35:16] Using the Harvard Association Bias Assessment to help combat our assumption filter.   [37:40] Interrupting skillfully and elegantly—but not cutting someone off—can be a powerful listening technique.   [39:19] The question to ask at the beginning of a conversation to create common direction and shorten the meeting.   [43:15] How referring periodically to the question acts as a compass and tracks progress.   [44:08] How this listening compass gives permission for adjustments and shortens meetings.   [45:14] Oscar wonders if Sophie could shorten her question to one sentence.   [46:01] Sophie’s second question is short and direct, possibly too direct?   [47:03] Oscar shares the 1:25:900 rule, Sophie incorporates context, revising the question a third time.   [48:34] How leaders can hone their question skills, recognizing different orientation and perspectives.   [51:57] We have a listening battery with finite capacity. Ensure you recharge it or postpone the next meeting.   [53:29] The importance of carving out time between and before virtual meetings.   [55:05] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Before you go into a virtual meeting, use three minutes to charge your listening battery by listening to music. The music tempo should match the outcome you want. At the same time, get out of your chair, go for a walk.     RESOURCES   Oscar Trimboli on LinkedIn Oscar’s website Oscar’s book “How to Listen: Discover the Hidden Key to Better Communication” To explore your listening barriers www.listeningquiz.com     QUOTES (edited)   “Which customers have you listened to to form your opinion?”     “When you are the speaker, quite often what you say and what the listener hears is at the intersection of what's going through their mind. What you said and what you say may not be heard by them because they're processing this in a completely different way.”   “A good host will get everybody to listen to them. A great host will get everybody to listen to each other.”   “It's about empathetic curiosity to go “Can I seek to understand their perspective just a little longer?” because when I do, I may see horizons, I may see opportunities, I may see perspectives that I've never envisaged before and this only happens when you explore through questions.”   “If you ask questions with more than eight words, typically it is going to be a biased question. If you ask questions with less than eight words, typically it is going to be more open-ended.”   “So the five levels of listening: first is listen to yourself, next, listen to the content, what they say, what you sense, and what you hear.”   “So typically someone will speak in a range of 125 to 150 words per minute, but they can think nearly nine times faster. They can think of 900 words per minute. So the very first things they say is 14% of what they think and what they mean. So it means that most conversations have 86% of the conversation not said.”   “In high context cultures….silence is a sign of wisdom, respect, and authority. Silence is a magnet that draws out what's missing in the conversation.”   “If we're conscious of silence, we can draw out more of what's unsaid, because silence is that great universal cross cultural magnet that helps all of us listen.”   “What would make this a great conversation?”   “Hanging on every word doesn't make a good listening. Interrupting skillfully, professionally elegantly can be as powerful a listening technique. Most people confuse listening with therapy, where you have to be silent the whole time.”   “Managers get results when they're present. Leaders get results when they're absent.”  

John Lee is the CEO and Founder of Work From Anywhere and a serial entrepreneur. John describes his experiences living and working in multiple countries and the complexities of intercultural communication across large multinational organizations. He discusses the opportunities and issues for employers who seek to offer employees options to work remotely internationally and increase their international hiring, which his company helps with. John shares his expectations about the Future of Work and the advantages for employers of accessing a broader talent pool.   KEY TAKEAWAYS   [02:48] John studies accountancy — the “language of business” — to support his desire to become an entrepreneur.   [03:50] John was inspired to create something bigger than himself and leave an imprint for the better.   [05:00] John develops his natural language gift.   [05:45] John explains how learning other languages enables deeper human connection.   [6:10] John picks his worst skill to work on in college which propels him internationally at Deloitte.   [07:10] How John's language skills are useful working on performance improvement initiatives around Europe.   [07:35] Plant managers share many more issues when communicated with in their own language.   [08:20] John built strong relationships and learned much about the international businesses thanks to his communications and cultural sensibilities.   [08:55] A transition moment to leave the corporate world, catalyzed by John's mentor.   [09:18] John's wife, Dee, conceives of the first business concept focused on intercultural training.   [10:12] They launch a travel well-being community to foster and share travel related soft skills.   [11:20] John and his wife noticed their Lonely Planet guide didn't share information about countries’ cultures and people.   [12:14] Intercultural research was a core resource integrated to offer culturally-focused local videos and information.   [13:12] CultureMee wins a prestigious award for best business travel technology product.   [14:36] Dutch and Irish cultural differences had interesting repercussions when John worked at CRH.   [16:28] A yes/no Bulgarian example of communication differences!   [17:18] John has a deep curiosity about people, their cultural and other identities.   [18:20] The shift from studying national differences to encompass diversity, inclusion, and more.   [19:14] Pivoting to a business travel API, they have major growth opportunities in the US.   [20:00] The pandemic hits at the worst moment—John takes time off to regroup.   [21:55] What is the No 1 obstacle preventing internationally distributed working for millions of people?   [22:50] What is the right solution for your next international remote hire?   [23:51] Companies are exploring distributed work: temporarily working in different countries and structurally hire people in different jurisdictions.   [25:00] Key reasons include accessing a deeper talent pool or getting closer to customers.   [26:45] Cities are assessing the visitors they attract—from cruise passengers to digital nomads.   [29:45] Digital nomad visas—which had gaps initially—are accelerating the future of international remote work.   [30:39] Local economies benefit by encouraging new visitor types.   [31:16] The second accelerating factor is the “employer of record” arrangement.   [32:00] How businesses can expand internationally easily using new options.   [33:43] John on the recent partnership with Mercer.   [34:38] Some companies are adjusting better than others to new working options. John feels we are still working it out.   [36:25] John’s own preferences, perceived benefits, and balance.   [38:31] What are the implications for income tax?   [39:24] What will the impact be on traditional education systems?   [40:00] John is intrigued by Plumia, a venture trying to create a country on the Internet!   [42:02] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: If your company is interested in offering international remote working options, review useful white papers for benchmarks about global mobility, chat with a tax or immigration provider, and a good employment lawyer about new international working models.   RESOURCES   John Lee on LinkedIn Work From Anywhere SIETAR Europa Running Remote   QUOTES (edited)   “A lot of the talks I’d been to from entrepreneurs, those that didn’t have a finance background said they felt it held them back. They kind of described accountancy as the language of business.”   “I loved the fact that when you speak in somebody’s language, you connect with them on a much deeper level.”   “I was at the 10-year-point in my career and I still had a burning desire to be an entrepreneur. My mentor at the time said to me, ‘John, you have a great career here, but if you do want to become an entrepreneur, do it now. You can always come back but if you stay here for another five or 10 years, you’re gonna become institutionalized. It’ll be much harder.’”   “The Dutch tended to discuss things democratically but were very direct in their communication. Whereas, Irish people tended to decide hierarchically, but were indirect in how they communicated. And what ended up happening was there was a lot of intercultural friction because you’d have some misinterpretation.”   “And so that’s what we've built with Work From Anywhere, a platform that automates the ‘how.’ It tells you what the risks are. It tells you if you can or cannot do remote.”   “In Barbados, a year after they launched digital nomad visas, they had over a hundred million generators for the local economy. You can imagine they had a huge drop off in cruise passengers because of COVID-19. So obviously, launching this helped mitigate the shortfall from cruise passengers.”

Nina Bhatia is the Executive Director, Strategy and Commercial Development at the John Lewis Partnership (JLP). Nina discusses the business shifts that she and the rest of the JLP executive team are navigating during this period of economic and technology-driven change. She explains the characteristics and strengths of their employee ownership model including the power of transparency in cultivating an internal democracy and a culture of sharing and trust. Nina describes their approach to evolving work arrangements and their emphasis on diversity and inclusion in the workplace.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   [02:39] Nina starts out as a consultant rather than a lawyer by chance.   [03:10] Nina gets a great range of experiences as at McKinsey.    [04:05] Nina finds herself drawn to integrative problems that don’t have easy solutions.    [05:01] Consulting was a new sector and the apprenticeship model shaped Nina’s experience and training.    [06:50] Nina learned to be resilient as she developed more understanding about her strengths.   [07:53] After years advising companies, Nina really wants to run a business with scale.   [08:35] Nina explores a wide range of opportunities as she chooses to transition to an operating role.   [10:01] It was initially hard for Nina to transition to a gritty business fixing plumbing and appliances.   [11:20] Nina accompanies the engineers and learns how to diagnose her own washing machine.   [11:42] The strategy work that led to building a tech-led business with a customer acquisition advantage.    [12:30] Transitioning to Hive was a steep learning curve, finding ways to make decisions quickly.   [13:22] By focusing on the functions that matter most, Nina can meet customers’ needs—even with limited resources.   [15:06] Nina joins the John Lewis Partnership in Feb 2020—very new in her role as the pandemic starts.   [15:59] Nina’s context when the business and its customers are going through significant changes.   [17:08] Difficult strategy work is involved when changing the modes of selling, delivery, and customer interaction all at once.   [17:40] Nina was challenged and inspired, experiencing the essence of JLP’s DNA. [19:01] JLP's employees own the business, so it's personal and change initiatives require care.   [19:30] “Love” and “trust” are words frequently associated with John Lewis and Waitrose brands.   [21:04] Employee co-ownership has three important dimensions: knowledge, power, and profit.    [21:34] Partners’ right to transparency has a powerful  effect on the organization in many ways.   [24:13] Founded in 1864, the Partnership has a surprising purpose that encompasses partners’ happiness.   [25:08] The purpose was recently expanded to include customers and communities with 12,000 partners actively contributing to the internal democratic process.   [26:26] Social mobility was very important to the Founder, John Stephen Lewis.   [27:06] How talent mobility works at JLP enabling partners to develop breadth in their careers.   [27:36] Considering the challenges facing the retail sector globally and exploring greater diversification for a well-trusted brand.    [28:42] Diversification to ensure continued quality earnings leads to exploring the JLP’s large asset base while the UK is experiencing housing shortages.   [30:45] JLP’s two existing successful retail businesses must be sustained while creating options for the future.   [31:31] The development of a cohesive employee ownership culture during and post pandemic.    [32:20] JLP’s general approach to workplace flexibility.   [33:36] JLP has no return to the office mandate, respecting teams’ different needs and letting them figure out what works.   [34:08] Nina observes experimentation and tensions during this transition as people change their lifestyles and work habits.   [36:05] Nina wonders if their least experienced employees can learn well in hybrid configurations.   [38:20] John Lewis’ purpose must be considered when developing strategies and making decisions.    [39:07] John Lewis spent $56 million pounds on UK farmers in the last year as a purpose-driven decision.   [40:03] The housing business being developed is also purpose driven, creating community for residents.   [40:30] Other initiatives also reflect that the driving force is not simply to maximize profit.   [40:59] Customers don’t just want to buy products from businesses, they want to know what a company stands for.   [42:00] With a distinctive standpoint, diversity at John Lewis sends a signal about what is possible.   [42:54] ‘It’s Not Okay’ partner-created film highlights the conversation about greater diversity and inclusion.    [43:45] Nina feels strongly about inclusion, growing up in the UK during the ‘70’s and experiencing ‘otherness’.   [45:06] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Transparency—the sharing of information and access to senior leaders—is very powerful, using an internal democracy to improve what you choose to do and how you do it.     RESOURCES   Nina Bhatia on LinkedIn The John Lewis Partnership  It’s Not Okay     QUOTES (edited)   “We're not just sharing the proceeds, we're actually sharing knowledge and information about the business and the ability to influence it.”   “There's a balance between happier people, happier business, and happier world. We've got to hold all of those in balance in making decisions.”   “I feel very strongly that we're able to do these things because we've put purpose at the center of what we're doing. And then, in terms of decisions we're able to make, we're not driven simply to make maximum profit.”   “Customers don't just want to buy products from businesses. They want to know what you stand for. And I think what we stand for is very motivating for customers.”   “When we deploy our internal democracy well, we can absolutely improve the quality of what we choose to do and how we choose to do it.”    

Alicia Serrani is a rising Millennial leader and serial entrepreneur. Alicia started at RBS and Morgan Stanley and got a law degree while launching several new ventures—spanning art, politics, artificial intelligence, and fashion. Alicia explains why her first boss had such an impact on her approach to leadership and business, why she deliberately chose the entrepreneurial route as a woman, and how working remotely supercharged her ability to innovate. She shares how she guides and mentors her employees while also trying to remedy some of Gen Z’s detrimental pandemic experiences.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   [02:22] Alicia goes for political science as a means to enact practical philosophy.   [02:52] Being in NYC allowed Alicia to explore a wide range of early internship experiences.   [04:01] Fashion is Alicia’s family business.   [04:38] Banking was a fluke development at the start of Alicia’s career.   [06:10] Alicia discovers her banking colleagues lead rich personal lives.   [08:20] A hit and run causes brain trauma and it takes the first six weeks at Alicia’s new job to recover.   [09:23] Physically incapacitated, Alicia pioneers a remote finance career in 2014 doing data remediation.   [11:33] The contrasting office environments of RBS and Morgan Stanley.   [12:10] Alicia learns about good and bad bosses from her first boss.   [13:44] Contemplating the next career move—potentially venture capital.   [14:30] Alicia moves into a startup role after meeting her founding partner at a party.   [15:10] What New Hive is and how digital art, blockchain, and NFTs evolved.   [17:11] Alicia and Zach develop “survivable disagreement” to collaborate with parties that are at odds.   [20:01] Law school becomes Alicia’s pathway to enhance her business credibility.   [22:24] In the midst of her law degree, Alicia and Zach launch a second startup, Guardians.ai, and why the model wasn’t sustainable.   [23:17] They start tracking misinformation and narrative influence regarding voter fraud in 2016.   [24:41] The strange dynamics of a misinformation operation, and uncovering it.   [27:27] Third Web – Alicia and her business partner’s brain trust.   [28:03] Alicia’s philosophy on work—using a graduating lawyer as an example.   [29:34] Some of Alicia’s classmates from law school are already taking less traditional routes.   [31:08] Alicia shares her plan for her law degree.   [31:55] How Alicia thinks technology will elevate the importance of industry level expertise.   [33:09] Alicia discusses entrepreneurship as a way to embody your values and stimulate change.   [34:36] In entrepreneurial overdrive during the pandemic, Alicia speaks of her approach for developing new projects and ventures.   [36:50] How hard fashion businesses are which “hoodwinked” Alicia into actively running T.W.I.N..   [38:56] A boss of many Gen Z’s, Alicia explains her approach to onboarding after the pandemic.   [40:10] Isolation during the pandemic impacted aspects of Gen Z’s social comfort and professionalism.   [42:06] How Alicia sets clear expectations, identifies goals, and fosters ideas.   [43:42] Mentoring is a mutual investment for Alicia and extends beyond her companies.   [45:24] Diversity and inclusion requires keeping yourself in check.   [46:10] Alicia counsels young employees to recognize the difference between working in a small company and expectations in a large corporate environment.   [48:04] Building diverse and inclusive organizations has been a recurring conversation for Alicia.   [48:55] How organizational structures can evolve to support effective decision-making, engagement, and creativity.   [50:00] Alicia wants to balance and benefit from both physical presence and remote work.   [51:00] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: If you’re on the entrepreneurial path, don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. Sketch it out, try it out, don’t spend a lot of money doing it. Don’t get in your own way. Be intentional about getting it started and sharing it with people.   [52:23] Alicia shares how she has been able to fund and grow T.W.I.N..     RESOURCES   Alicia Serrani on LinkedIn Alicia on Instagram Alicia and her twin sister’s shop T.W.I.N. IWR     QUOTES (edited)   “And when they offered me the amount of money they offered me, I responded with ‘you know, I don't know what I'm doing, right!?’ And they were like ‘Yeah, nobody does!’.”   “And I realized at that point you don't have to be your job.”   “A shaved head at an investment bank at 22 was a look.”   “Having someone who's totally different like a middle-aged man with kids just sit with me and teach me and talk to me like I’m an equal was so pivotal for me.”   “That's when I learned that I didn't want to be the smart person all the time. When you're working at as a consultant you have to be the smart person every single time. When you are the product the wear and tear is very intense.”   “I think the traditional idea that you are going to grow up, go to university, go to law school, become a lawyer, be a lawyer, and become a partner at a firm is just not the reality anymore. It's not my reality.”   “I think I saw that the way forward for myself as a woman, as someone who values collaboration, as someone who values partnership, as someone who values diversity and inclusion, that running your own business is the only way to create that.”   “The pandemic allowed all of my instincts around entrepreneurship and distributed work to absolutely go crazy, because it meant that I could be in one place and be intellectually or professionally everywhere.”   “I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad about being young, but if there's a lack of professionalism and performance, if I see somebody not doing something that's of a professional ethic or standard, I will say, for the record ‘If you did that somewhere else where there was more hierarchy and oversight, it would be questionable.’”

Elias Baltassis is a Partner and Senior Director at the Boston Consulting Group. He has deep expertise in AI- and data-enabled strategy, data operating models, data governance, responsible artificial intelligence and ethics, and new data-driven business development. Elias is passionate about data and analytics and the transformative impact of artificial Intelligence on business and society. He shares his insights about generative AI and LLMs, their potential effect on business, productivity, and relationships, including our necessary attention to ethics and far-reaching implications of AI in the workplace and on the Future of Work.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   [03:42] Elias starts trading bonds after studying math, econometrics, and computer science.   [04:17] From notation calculators to basic spreadsheets to nascent AI, Elias sees patterns in tool evolution.   [05:17] Elias moves to consulting, always involved in quantitative fields.   [06:20] The significant AI break throughs since 2016-17.   [07:12[ Why self-supervised learning was one critical advance.   [07:50] New architectures--enabling much larger models—were a second step, leading to generative artificial (GenAI) models.   [08:55] What the “language” of Large Language Models (LLMs) covers.   [10:00] After training ChatGPT by absorbing the internet, “hallucinations” need to be eliminated.   [11:06] “Red teaming” to eliminate hallucinations.   [12:11] The next refinement step is “reinforcement learning from human feedback”.   [13:00] The issue of “jail-breaking” models to circumvent “blocked” answers.   [14:32] Data embedding or fine-tuning: using private data to train GPT.   [16:02] Why did ChatGPT stop data accretion in 2021?   [16:30] The considerable cost of topology, training, and refining AI models.   [17:43] User input in ChatGPT serves to refine the model more so than to teach it.   [19:37] The Future of Jobs: Will generative AI lead to mass job losses? If so, when?   [21:37] Why the impact of GenAI will be delayed in some areas.   [23:00] GenAI is impacting certain areas faster—such as coding and customer service—generally enabling significant productivity gains.   [24:35] Career progression must adjust as corporate pyramids’ bases shrink.   [26:00] Knowledge management will change appreciably, with new jobs created and new tools and processes invented.   [29:14] Different professions and companies try to codify their “secret sauce”—what can GenAI take care of?   [30:30] What will remain? How people show empathy, interact, and give emotional support.   [32:05] Many existing articles about GenAI contain factual inaccuracies.   [33:19] Training to understand applied technologies is becoming much more important.   [34:40] In a time of exponential curves, doom predictions are imprudent and never verified.   [35:18] What Elias is most excited about—especially leveling up the playing field.   [36:30] Likely effects: huge productivity improvements depending on the country’s social contract and a reduction in work time.   [37:40] Elias explains why timelines relating to GenAI are difficult to circumscribe and more than five years is now considered “long-term”.   [38:50] How Elias anticipates the dynamics of change over time due to GenAI.   [39:39] Why the “truth function” matters.   [40:26] AI may be capable of a kind of informed creativity, as humans do.   [40:44] The beneficial mix of technology, regulation, and internal company rules and the emerging need for a Chief AI Ethics Officer role.   [44:01] Misinformation is a major concern for Elias.   [45:22] The possible negative impact of generative AI on kids.   [47:02] We need a definition of what it means to be “human” and “intelligent”—remembering the movie “Her”.   [48:06] Comments on the open letter written by Musk, Wozniak, Harari, and others.   [49:47] What Geoff Hinton has achieved and what he has to say about GenAI.   [51:33] Fellow Turing Award winner Yann LeCun has a very different opinion about the potential impact of GenAI.   [52:25] Discussion on GenAI is something that will change at a fast pace: Elias will be back!   [54:04] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Leaders must drive the change—identifying what impact gen AI will have at their company and articulating the vision of what the changes will look like--for change processes, teams, and more. Leaders must make it real with a roadmap and commitment to new behaviors, new skills and making them stick.   [55:08] As at other critical juncture points when so much is changing, many companies will need to rethink what they are doing and how they are doing it.     RESOURCES   Elias Baltassis on LinkedIn Boston Consulting Group’s website Boston Consulting Group newsletters including the one specifically on AI Geoffrey Hinton Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter “HER” the movie     QUOTES (edited)   “People are often confused by the word language. They think only speech or text, but actually everything is language—code is language, music is language under certain constraints, an image is language.”   “If you’re talking about scientific questions, under the assumption that science is “true”, it’s very easy to say “Yes, this is true”. But when you arrive at political or, tomorrow, ethical questions, who determines what is true?   “What will remain, especially for client-facing professions, at the highest intellectual level or a lower intellectual level, will be how you interact with your client, with your customer. How do you show empathy and real interest, and how do you offer him or her emotional support?   “We live in an era of exponential curves. Everything evolves so rapidly that it's very difficult to predict when, how, and what the time horizons are. I’ve read some things about what AI will do in the next five years that I’m ready to bet will not happen.”   “If you ask an AI something about Galileo you can check in books if the answer is correct. But if you try to do prospective science, if you try to say “Build me a molecule that has these characteristics” and it comes out with a molecule, you will need to test if this is a real molecule.”   “Now, it’s another of those occasions. So many companies will need to rethink “What are we really doing? How are we doing it?”

Minter Dial and the podcast’s host, Sophie, discuss empathy at work in the new technology-driven era of business and work. They both draw from their books—Minter’s rerelease of Heartificial Empathy: Putting Heart into Business and Artificial Intelligence and Sophie’s second book Empathy Works: The Key to Competitive Advantage in the New Era of Work. They explore and debate how to integrate empathy effectively as well as bring a human-centric approach to the AI-infused business and working landscape. Minter shares his insights about the importance of companies’ having an ethical framework that incorporates empathy as they integrate more AI.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   [03:48] Minter’s journey into empathy was by the “back door”.   [05:45] Recognizing the benefits of teaching empathy to sales people, l’Oréal initiates a program for those contracted to sell their products.   [06:30] Minter finds the approach ironic and reflects on authentic leadership.   [07:05] Assessing yourself for empathy skills and how to connect with somebody else's experience.   [09:22] Why haven't we been working with more empathy?   [11:20] Other factors elevating the need for empathy at work—now.   [12:56] Has our empathy—and deeper understanding of each other—generated during pandemic times all evaporated?   [14:35] What is behind the high levels of unhappiness and unfulfillment at work?   [15:10] The significant shift in the US in people’s views about their working lives.   [16:12] What drives empathy that isn’t intentional and authentic.   [18:30] How does empathy and flexibility improve business results?   [20:15] The pros and cons of having choices.   [21:00] Can you engage people individually in a traditional company that has 10,000 employees?   [22:02] Focusing on the needs of individuals within a unit.   [22:40] How the pandemic helped us understand different approaches and methods.   [23:45] Aligning empathy with the business objectives and all the players across the ecosystem.   [23:45] The “why” of any company is central to making the organization work.   [24:22] Minter believes empathy is a pre-condition for an ethical framework.   [25:29] AI is something to bring your humanity to. Minter shares examples of how AI can be used.   [27:22] Are we thinking sufficiently about why and how we are introducing generative AI?   [29:19] Bettering people’s lives at Redken—connecting people along the value chain with purpose.   [32:20] How gen AI search results reflect our collective consciousness—good and bad—elevating the need for an ethical framework.   [35:15] Minter gives permission to be imperfect, pushing out and trying.   [37:25] Empathy doesn’t mean always being nice—but making tough decisions. [38:18] What standard are we holding ourselves to? How well do we understand ourselves?   [39:15] Minter calls for more self-awareness, especially to understand our reasoning and flaws.   [40:49] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Do something for others and reconnect with the ordinary things in life.     RESOURCES   Minter Dial on LinkedIn Minter on Twitter Follow Minter’s Substack DIALOGOS — Fostering Meaningful Conversations Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch       QUOTES (edited)   “I do feel that the level of unhappiness and unfulfillment at work is about as high as it gets. And perhaps the lingering element is ‘What is this all about? what, what are we doing, Sophie, on this earth? What is my life for?’”   “I feel that empathy is a precondition for your ethics, but it doesn't mean you’re good. At the end of the day, what are you trying to achieve? Who are you? If you use empathy with manipulation, you’re going to have manipulative ethics.”   “If we want to call AI a step change like the printing press, I think it’s possibly the right call. But I would wish that we would be more focused on the meaningfulness of our business as opposed to the technology that’s going to drive the numbers.”   “This notion of having a purpose that resonates inside and out is really key. Being customer-centric is lovely — It’s probably a sine qua non. However, make sure that it’s congruent with what you’re trying to live as an employee in the organization.”   “The permission I give with AI is to push out and try stuff. And if you accept that you are flawed, then it becomes easier to understand the imperfection that comes out, because that’s what we’re trying to do. The intention is right.”

Kate Lister, President of Global Workplace Analytic and seasoned expert on distributed work, returns for Part 2 of her interview about hybrid and remote working. In this episode, Kate describes how to deploy remote options successfully—how we need to update management and work practices. She explains what claims and complaints about remote working research confirms and counters, what we need to be productive and to innovate, why surveillance is not managing, and how important remote options are for supporting sustainability.     TAKEAWAYS   [03:59] Prior to the pandemic preparations for new work practice deployment took months.   [05:08] Even with preparation, establishing new practices as routines takes time and attention.   [08:00] New tools, asynchronous communication, and documentation are improving work experiences and effectiveness.   [08:41] Who can manage to break through hybrid meetings and how?   [09:42] Making better decisions about the practices and processes of meetings.   [10:41] Managing remote workers requires a shift in approach—to coach.   [11:28] The growing issues of surveillance, work breaks, and stress.   [13:20] Monitoring is babysitting not managing—why not manage by results instead?   [13:53] The four things remote working is supposed to be negatively affecting.   [15:09] How to nurture culture intentionally.   [16:32] Telework doesn't create management problems it reveals them—such as low trust, weak culture.   [18:05] How Capital One communicates layoffs transparently—very differently from other companies.   [19:08] Survey design is critical when trying to find out how employees are (really) doing.   [20:47] Deciding the key (new) norms of effective work.   [23:10] After agreeing norms, trust and empathy can build, reducing potential conflict.   [25:52] How can middle managers build trust, stuck between return-to-office and work-from-home tensions.   [27:05] Innovation’s two components: (1) creativity—best done alone; (2) vetting—best done in a group.   [28:21] Addressing the decrease of weak ties which are important for innovation and growth.   [30:15] Goals should cascade down internally to connect employees with purpose.   [33:04] Onboarding was not working before the pandemic, how can we redesign it?   [33:58] Mentoring, training, skills, and access combined with appropriate tools and equipment are critical for success.   [34:45] Dealing with the “sludge of work” to improve results.   [36:46] The importance of transparently sharing the managerial “why”.   [38:07] Sustainability is a key benefit of reducing traffic to the office through use of remote work options.   [40:46] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To modernize your workplace and ways of working, listen to your people. Listen to your customers and suppliers. Listen to the investment community. Don’t make assumptions. Also lift your foot off the gas sometimes or people will get burned out and leave.     RESOURCES   Kate Lister on LinkedIn Kate on Twitter Kate’s company website GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com     QUOTES (edited)   “Working remotely is something that's gonna take a lot of practice, and you're gonna have to keep each other honest on it.”   “Culture is about people, and we were using an office as kind of a proxy for culture when it wasn’t.”   “Is there anybody that doubts that if somebody is happy and feeling good, they’re going to perform better? And yet what do we do to help them with that?”   “The research shows that people who are brainstorming face-to-face feel more productive. They’re not! They come up with more ideas, but fewer commercially viable ideas.”   “When it comes to onboarding, 50% of people quit in the first six months, this is before the pandemic! How was that onboarding going before? I don’t think that’s one of those things that we want to replicate! This is about practices and processes.”

Kate Lister is President of Global Workplace Analytics and a veteran advocate of remote working—or teleworking as it was previously called. Kate brings almost two decades of experience making data-based business cases to employers to convince them of the financial merits of offering remote working options. She discusses the catalyzing effect of the pandemic which substantially increased the awareness and acceptance of new work arrangements. Kate highlights the long history of employees’ desire for flexibility over their work location and schedule. She also warns of significant downsides for corporations if they do not integrate hybrid or remote work models.   KEY TAKEAWAYS   [03:34] Kate starts as a banker, becomes an entrepreneur, and is about to retire when the Great Recession hits.   [04:14] With her husband, Kate builds and runs a vintage airplane ride business for 16 years!   [05:10] They sell the business—which they had run from home—and research their next home-based venture.   [06:40] Kate’s daughter gets scammed by home-based work, so Kate and her husband write their third book revealing the “naked truth” about making money from home.   [07:56] Researching for the book, Kate notices no one has made the business case for “teleworking”—trying to quantify the benefits.   [08:40] “Show me the money!” The financial benefits are clear—saving 52 mins of commuting time and 3 hours of distracted time at the office every day.   [09:07] Kate has built up a database of over 6,000 research documents studying workplaces and quantifying telecommuting/remote working effects and benefits.   [09:32] Making the fact-based business case to the C-suite, quantifying why productivity and or retention would increase. A calculator is available online.   [10:20] Benefiting people, planet, and profit. Employees also saved money—employees’ desire to work remotely or not is not considered (pre-pandemic).   [11:02] A champion typically brings Kate in to persuade the (rest of the) C-suite depending on the pain point(s) for the particular company—such as saving money, talent or office space.   [13:59] Contingent labor typically goes up and down signaling the start and end of a recession, but that does not happen at the end of the Great Recession—and reasons change.   [14:54] Reported remote workdays grow 10% a year pre-pandemic, but from a small base.   [15:41] Census data (questions) is not capturing accurate data about remote workdays.   [16:57] Kate is surprised by how quickly people adapted to working remotely during the pandemic.   [18:31] Remote work becomes more humanized and egalitarian, people feel more trusted.   [20:59] 2021 is Kate’s busiest and most polarized consulting year to date as employers and employees had conflicting desires about returning to the office.   [21:59] Time-shifting work is even more popular with employees than remote working options, but meets more resistance from employers.   [23:12] If people working from home get their work done, why do you care what else they do?   [23:37] The percentage of people wanting to work fully-remote and hybrid is increasing.   [24:02] 18 years ago, 90% of people already wanted to work part of the week from home.   [26:26] Kate shows CEOs and CFOs the business costs if they were to force people back to the office.   [27:13] The business case often involves reducing real estate costs, also recognizing workplace issues.   [28:27] Research shows people want the ability to have privacy at the office.   [29:00] Activity Based Working was building prior to the pandemic to provide better office workspaces.   [30:18] Kate shares the likely stable office- and home-based working percentages going forward.   [31:35] Remote working is one choice in a palette of flexibility to give people autonomy.   [33:52] Trust hindered telework taking off in 1973—leaders are babysitting, not managing by results.   [34:40] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To hire the best and the brightest, the work has got to be where they are, as well as to achieve levels of engagement necessary to be successful and to attain the kind of trust that will support innovation. So double down on integrating remote to benefit.     RESOURCES   Kate Lister on LinkedIn Kate on Twitter @FutureWorkforce Kate’s company website GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com Hybrid and remote work costs and benefits Workplace ROI and breakeven calculators Undress for Success: The Naked Truth about Making Money at Home by Kate Lister and Tom Harnish     QUOTES (edited)   “The C-suite talks in numbers. ‘Show me the money!’ and it just seemed easy to me to look at.”   “At the end of the day, we showed that you could save $11,000 per halftime remote worker per year.”   “They could offset the cost of the entire office space with an increase of productivity of less than one minute a day.”   “I know a big part of the reason, from the data I've collected, that people didn't want to come back to the office is because we've made them so awful.”   “We're also starting to see that it's just one choice in a palette of flexibility. We wouldn't just be doing a telework program or remote work program. It would be a suite of programs so that everybody had a chance to participate.”   “Nobody's telling you how to do it or when to do it. We’ve known since the fifties that it's the best way to manage people anyway. And we just ignored the science.”   “Managers didn't trust their people, it’s why telework didn’t take off in the 70’s.”

Jeffrey Shaw has never had a traditional job. He started his entrepreneurial journey as a teen, grew a successful business for 25 years, then became a coach for those who want to be or are self-employed. Jeffrey founded the Self-Employed Business Institute and authored “The Self-Employed Life” and “Lingo”. He discusses the fundamentals and key rules of engagement for entrepreneurs that he learned along the way and how he helps people transition to self-employment and build their own businesses. From recognizing your value to finding your customers, and “deprogramming” your corporate mindset Jeffrey shares his insights for the swelling ranks of the self-employed. KEY TAKEAWAYS   [03:15] Jeffrey has never had a traditional job.   [03:35] Started his entrepreneurial journey at 14 years old, Jeffrey wants to be independent.   [04:18] Jeffrey's father's words were pivotal.   [06:17] After receiving multiple awards for his photographs, Jeffrey decided to become a photographer.   [06:49] Jeffrey focuses on buildings then falls in love with portrait photography on location.   [07:33] At 20, Jeffrey has to make it work to support his wife and life.   [08:34] Jeffrey realizes his value/offering and target audience do not match.   [10:15] Jeffrey works out who his audience should be and where they are.   [10:40] Three months should be all he needs to figure it out!   [11:34] How to learn critical intelligence about your target audience.   [12:55] A saleswoman at Bergdorf Goodman shares critical nuances about customer behavior.   [14:05] Jeffrey's book “Lingo” is about his clientele’s secret language.   [14:42] The power of asking questions and seeing things in others that we don't see in ourselves.   [15:40] Achieving success in his business, Jeffrey decides he wants to do more.   [16:25] Jeffrey discusses self-doubt and starts to pursue the idea of coaching.   [18:22] Why did Jeffrey hire his first business coach at the peak of his success?   [19:30] Why had the business plateaued?   [20:25] After 9/11, Jeffrey thought everything was at stake.   [21:33] With every major struggle that business owners go through, there is a shift in values.   [24:15] Crises speed up the process of change.   [25:15] Jeffrey's older clients want to transition quickly to have more freedom through self-employment.   [27:29] To gather useful insights from prior experiences, Jeffrey asks what compliments people have repeatedly received throughout their life.   [28:44] Most people want to set up a business to optimize what they have been doing--there's a catch.   [29:38] How does Jeffrey help people shift from the corporate mindset?   [30:31] The self-employment ecosystem has three components.   [32:35] How Gen Z’s can pursue the self-employment.   [33:34] What Jeffrey thinks the Future of Work looks like. Jeffrey encourages employees to push corporate America to offer a better way to work.   [34:10] What percentage of people are solopreneurs who Jeffrey works with?   [36:10] Is the cycle of contracting, over-hiring, layoffs, and re-contracting changing at last?   [39:10] We shouldn't overlook the fresh perspectives and creativity that come with hiring self-employed specialists.   [39:50] Jeffrey learned how to employ and questions the effort many companies put into hiring.   [41:10] What it means to be self-employed, from real-estate agents to sales associates.   [43:30] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To speed up a typical 12-month transition to self-employment from a corporate job, identify your passion first and build a side gig to test it. You want to know if you have enough passion for what you want to create that’s going to keep you going and get you through the frustrations.     RESOURCES   Jeffrey Shaw on LinkedIn Twitter @JeffreyShaw1 Jeffrey’s websites www.jeffreyshaw.com SelfEmployedBusinessInstitute.com  Jeffrey’s book “The Self-Employed Life” Jeffrey’s book “Lingo” Jeffrey’s podcast “The Self-Employed Life”     QUOTES (edited)   “I used to say, I never had a real job. And then anybody else that was self-employed would look at me and say, you need to stop saying that because there's nothing more real than running your own business.”   “I think you can change everything in life in three months.”   “I didn't know if I could handle having a traditional job because I would live in fear of the rug being pulled out from underneath me. And I always felt like the advantage of being self-employed is that it would at least get slow painful death, but it wouldn’t be sudden.”   “You get to a point in life where you want to get to where you want to go quicker. We all felt like we had all the time in the world in our twenties and maybe even our thirties. You get in your forties, fifties, and sixties, and you're like: ‘Give me the goods so I can get to where I want to go because I don't wanna figure this all out on my own!’”   “I think everybody wants the agency of self-employment, but not everybody wants the burden of responsibility that comes with business ownership. Therefore, let's also make it feel that way in traditional jobs.”