People.
image by peder 241 using Midjourney.
Everything is easy but people get in the way.
Every leader and every Board of Directors have strategy decks, PowerPoint slides and press releases about how they will forge into the future and transform themselves.
They will AI this and AI that.
They will re-organize this and downsize that.
They will buy this, divest that and merge this with that.
But the best laid plans fail to come to fruition
Because between the idea and the reality falls the shadow.
And the shadow are people.
People we define as employees, customers, partners, suppliers, stake-holders, users, members or audiences.
But they are people.
People like you and people like me.
And we sometimes forget to keep some things about people front and center.
An AI take on Pablo Picasso and Cubism using Midjourney
1. Companies do not transform people do.
Any transformation strategy that does not incorporate why the transformation is good for the various people involved is unlikely to succeed.
Just because it is good for the company does not necessarily mean it is good for the people. The change involved is often described as good when reality is that change that is imposed on anyone is scary and sucks.
The key questions that people ask is not how the strategy will allow the company to grow but how will it help them grow?
Grow their skills, opportunities, income, and options.
Spreadsheets are cool and calculating.
People are warm blooded and feeling filled.
People are messy and many folks do not want to deal with messiness.
But to transform a company is to transform people.
So aside from Strategies and M&A and Re-org plans the key are constant communication, aligned incentive plans where people are incentivized to do the new versus the old and significant training investment to close the gap from the skills of today to the skills of tomorrow.
Companies do not transform.
People Do.
Image by Vangardis using Midjourney
2. People will be the differentiator not the technology.
While technology is key to competitiveness and no company can remain relevant without embracing, adopting and incorporating technology very few companies have superior technology since most technology is developed by a few dozen companies that every one has access to and can utilize through licensing agreements.
AI is like electricity in that every company will need it to compete but it only a differentiator if one is competing with companies that do not use AI.
Just like no one goes around saying they are better because they have access to electricity since no company they compete with uses candlelight the same will be true about AI.
Having an AI strategy is not the point.
Determining how AI changes the strategy of the company including how to re-imagine itself in a world of new competitors and capabilities should be the focus.
That re-imagining unlike the efficiency and effectiveness deliverables that AI brings ( which every company must leverage to stay competitive and is primarily driven by technology) is dependent on the quality of the talent including that of the leadership.
The Internet required media companies to reimagine their business and very few of them like the New York Times crossed the divide. Most others moved slow and just ported their current business over to the Internet.
If the New York Times had decided to use the power of the internet only to gain subscriptions to the newspaper, find ways to make their printing presses work faster and used mobile to better manage the movement of their trucks they would not be where they are today. The future does need printing presses, trucks and paper and in such a world one had to reimagine.
In a world of AI and HI where HI is Human Intelligence. Human Inspiration. Human Interaction. Human Insight. Human Ingenuity. Human Imagination it will be people that will be the difference.
The impact of AI on people and organizations and leadership are key.
Every business may or may not be a technology business.
But every business is a people business.
Creator: Ralph A. Clevenger | Credit: Getty Images
3. People change slowly and therefore organizations need to start earlier to be ready.
Transformation is not like an expresso coffee but much more like slow percolating tea.
It takes its own time because it involves people and people adapt slowly.
To transform people go through a stage of transition like a caterpillar as it becomes a butterfly must go through the pupa stage.
Transformation are stages of transition, adaptation, and finding fit.
This takes months and often years and so a company that believes their industry might change dramatically two years from now should start adapting now.
Because people change slowly.
And if companies are to transform it can only happen when people do.
People.
They are what matter.
Avoiding Career Irrelevance.
The conflation of five major forces from 1)technology to 2) demographic change, to 3) the growing importance of marketplaces where one can access both resources or customers with minimal to no capital, to 4) the rewiring of work due to Covid and 5) the rise of an economy of free-lance workers and rise of the side hustle, will impact every job but particularly those of knowledge works very significantly.
The Career Implications.
While the future is often hard to predict one can be quite sure that in less than 500 days the current waves of change will grow into a tsunami, and everybody will be impacted in some way or the other.
1. We are now going to have 50-year careers: Extended life spans, limited government pensions, incentives for elder people to stay in the workforce, machine enabled work will have us working for multiple decades versus a 30-year career. Here is how to prepare for 50 year careers.
2. Life-Long Training and Education: Even three decades into a career well into the 50’s one may need to go back to school, re-skill and re-tool. And the days of saying “We will be retired before all these new things happen” will not be realistic. Investing in continuous learning will be key to stay relevant. Here is how to learn.
3. Jobs replaced by tasks: A job will not be a title, a position and a static role but a constantly changing number of tasks, outcomes and deliverables In a globalized and connected marketplace of unbundled and distributed work we will all become gig workers even if we spend long time in a firm since all firms will become increasingly agile and connected, looking to put the best people on the most appropriate tasks very much like the way Hollywood or TV production works.
4. We will be work in tandem with machines: Almost every job will leverage AI, and we will need to be comfortable with intelligent agents as co-workers. A company or individual working without AI will be like trying to compete without electricity and access to the Internet.
5. The trend towards “De-bossification” will intensify: The rapid delayering we see around us will accelerate as tenure, seniority and knowledge will give way to expertise, agility and ability to learn. More on De-bossification.
The keys to success will be a) what expertise one has, b) what do we make, create, build, and what outcomes do we deliver, c) how good are we at leading, training, and growing talent to unleash their potential and d) how rapidly can we learn and unlearn.
The big corner offices, the gauntlet of handlers, receptionists, and other awe-inspiring fear mongering scaffolding of the pre-2020’s will all be seen as the crutches of the insecure and the fearful causing most talent to rapidly re-route around such blockages and blockheads.
People’s “zone of influence” and “zone of impact” will be far more important than their “zone of control” or “size of kingdom”.
Three ways to ensure one remains relevant.
Here are three keys to thriving and remaining relevant.
1. Being in charge of our own career.
Today most people will work for 50 years while most companies last fewer than fifteen.
Even if your company has been around for a hundred years the talent team in any company is focused on serving the company you work for first versus you. They need to hire to their strategy, retain talent in some areas and exit talent in others, invest in skills the company needs now and for the future which might not be consistent with your career strategy, your continued need for income and different than the skills you need for now and the future.
Human Resource and Learning and Development teams are critical and important and can be a huge benefit to everyone, but the individual must decide how to utilize, leverage and strategically incorporate the resources of these teams.
Do not outsource your future to your company.
To oversee your own career is to have the optionality of leaving your existing company at any time with a high likelihood of improving your position and income.
Paradoxically when you do this you can focus on your job, stay long in your company and even adapt to soap opera drama at work because you know you have options.
Optionality will be the key to career power.
And your company by knowing that will also treat you well.
2. Thriving at our current gigs by operating like we are looking for one.
Too many people end up not being prepared when their company downsizes or their career stalls. They find that they do not have the skills that make them marketable, and their reputation and networks are deeply limited and often over indexing in their own industry which might be in secular decline.
a) Every individual should Google or ChatGPT themselves and work to improve the results by developing their own web presence, by being active on social channels, and participating in industry activities.
b) Begin another career while you are working on an existing career: There are many parallel careers one can run which are not in any way conflicted with or need to be hidden from your management.
These include writing, teaching, public speaking, advising non-profits or being active in industry or personal passions such as art, music and other civil or charitable events.
These help one build skills, create goodwill by helping others and giving back, expose oneself to new people and thinking which can help one’s current job and much more.
c) Build a reputation for expertise and generosity.
Leo Burnett taught us that relevance and likability are key to any brand.
Every individual should have relevant skills in transformative times and be known for their ability to help and work with others.
People known to have skills that are in demand and who are pleasant to work with tend to be the most successful
Expertise is essential and it is critical that one is known to be excellent in a few areas while being a generalist in many. Increasingly people will hire for tasks and needs and will not fill jobs and roles and it is far easier to fit if one is well positioned.
This 9 word exercise will help you discover what you should focus on and the skills you should hone.
Generosity is a great strategy for the following reasons:
1) being good to people who need help when we had a job will help us when we are in need
2) we should not make the mistake of conflating our company and position with our own reputation. People are genuflecting to our role not us, so we need to build our own expertise and brand in addition to the halo of our company.
3) If one focuses only on oneself without building one’s company’s brand or helping others build theirs it will backfire. We work for companies and if we do not keep them in focus they will note it. And our reputation is built on the quality of our work and relationships not just our postings.
Do the things you would do if you lost a job and had to find one.
Don’t wait.
Till it is too late.
3) Investing in four key skills.
a) AI: Whether we are an intern or a CEO we should allocate a few hours a week to keep honing our understanding of AI. This is too important to outsource completely to “experts”, “consultants” or someone else. Of course, many companies will need strategic advisors, technology consultants and more but unless one uses and builds AI muscle we will not be able to direct them or truly understand why AI even now is still under hyped. Read AI is Under-hyped and Upgrading our AI Quotient for more.
b) Communication Skills: Forget learning Mandarin or Coding but rather learn how to hone writing skills and become a great presenter in one’s native language. If the future is AI +HI a big part of HI will be world class communication skills. It can be learned, and it will make a difference. When everybody has the same knowledge it will be how we convince and inspire that will make the difference.
c) Making/Creating/Imagining/Building: Sooner rather than later all knowledge will be free so much of our existing expertise will matter less. Quantify how much of one’s job is about allocating, measuring, monitoring, delegating, and researching. These tasks which often are the majority of many jobs, but all these will be be done 100 X faster and 10X cheaper by technology.
We should ask how much time we spend making and creating things or asking questions to re-imagine our business and ourselves or building other people or our clients business versus processing stuff and sitting in meetings watching the same PowerPoint updated with new numbers every month!
d) Continuous Re-Invention: The day one believes one is a Master is the day one begins the road to disaster.
A key skill will not just be learning constantly but also unlearning and detaching from some past ways or beliefs. There is no going back but only moving ahead. Imagine if we came out of school today, would we act and behave the way we do or are we doing what we do because we believe 1) we will retire before change hits us, 2) we cannot learn new things because they are complicated or 3) because we do not have time.
We should not sell ourselves short.
Everybody regardless of age can re-invent. The ability to learn is cheap and there are many real world and online resources to tap.
Finally, growth and learning is key to life since the day we stop learning is the day we start dying.
Unless we plan to end our career in a year or less, we will have to begin future proofing right away whether we like it or not.
Repairing Ourselves.
“Everything that has a shape breaks”- Japanese Proverb
But…
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places”- Ernest Hemingway
And…
“Repair is the creative destruction of brokenness” - Elizabeth Spelman
Paths to repair.
1.Poetry.
2.Water
3.Wabi-Sabi
4. Kintsugi
5. Gardens.
6. Untying
1. Poetry
Poems restores us to what is deepest in ourselves.
Poetry finds the perfect words in the perfect order.
CK Williams in his Pulitzer Prize winning collection “Repair” writes how
‘Self-doubt is almost our definition” as we move forward with the “hesitant music” of our lives
“If I can create myself, I’ll be able to amend myself.”
“Re-establishing myself in myself like this always comes to pass”.
He celebrates “Invisible mending”.
The minds procedures of forgiveness and repair.
The greatest poetry is written at the borders of what can be said. As this stanza on persevering and resurrecting and restoring oneself through the ups and downs of life while never losing your internal melody …
“Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream. Have faith in its course. It will go its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the groves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it. Never let it out of your sight. It will take you”. Sheng-Yang
The photograph above is from an amazing oasis in Chicago is the Poetry Foundation library which holds the largest collection of poetry books in the United States. You can have the library on your phone by downloading the app from here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/mobile-app
You can access poems by topic, by mood, by author and much more and it is all free.
2. Water.
Moving water is often symbolic of power and life. It can reputedly heal the sick and the lame, restore youth, confer fertility, dissolve sin, and so on.
It is an alchemy of thermal simulation that leaves one clean and pure and reconciles mind and body.
Flowing water whether it be rainfall, a stream, a river, or the tides of a lake or ocean has a certain timelessness to its biological rhythms.
P Walton wrote in the philosophy of water:
The three key lessons that can be drawn from this are humility, harmony and openness.
Humility: water stays low in the river, yet it is a life-giving force.
Harmony: water does not fight against its surroundings, it works with them to find a course.
Openness: water is open to change: gas, liquid, solid. It adapts and alters its form accordingly.
3. Wabi-Sabi
Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things that is unconventional.
It is a philosophy of repair and therefore real life for it does not have perfection or ideal as a goal
Wabi refers to a way of life, a spiritual path, the inward, the subjective, a philosophical construct. It is about “space”.
Sabi refers to material objects, art, and literature, the outward the objective an aesthetic ideal, it is about “time”.
4. Kintsugi
Kintsugi is a Japanese repair technique that takes ceramic destruction and makes a broken object into a new entity. It leaves clear bold visible lines with the appearance of solid gold. A kintsugi repair speaks of individuality and uniqueness, fortitude and resilience, and the beauty to be found in survival. Kintsugi leads us to a respectful acceptance of hardship and aging.
Kintsugi has in it the Wabi-Sabi philosophy and its belief of beauty, knowledge and humanity arising from the scars and the repairs is sung by Leonard Cohen…
Ring the bells that can still ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in…
And the philosopher Rumi…
“The wound is the place where the light enters you”
5. Gardens
In the Charlevoix region of Quebec there lies a private garden which covers more than 20 acres and is called Les Quatre Vents ( The Four Winds). It is considered amongst the finest private gardens in the world (it is opened a few times a year to the public).
The garden was created by one person, Francis Cabot, as his life work that blends creativity and passion and it is simply the most breathtaking places one can imagine.
Francis Cabot believed that gardens are like art and have the power to change you. And unlike other art, which may affect you differently over time, because you have changed over time, a garden is itself always changing. Francis designed his garden to lift the soul of people who walked through it. To help them grow and repair and heal.
He wanted us to come out different after the experience.
Here is a peek at Les Quatre Vents…
One prescription for the pressures and challenges we face is to take a walk in a garden.
Regardless, it is key to remind ourselves of Francis Cabot’s belief that every individual is creative and we have a garden within ourselves that we need to tend to so that we can heal, self-repair and always bloom…
6. Untying vs Cutting.
Sometimes we cause damage to ourselves and our relationships by making hasty decisions, or having litmus tests with which we judge an entire person based on a single opinion or act. In doing so we cut harshly, end abruptly, or shut down angrily.
If something has to end it is better to untie then to cut.
When we cut both sides of the string or rope get frayed but when we untie things both sides remain intact.
And in the gradualness of the act we may find that we did not want to untie in the first place or we leave things in such a way that they can be retied in the future.
Sometimes repair means not creating situations that need repair.
Grace.
The most updated and advanced versions of foundational AI models from Anthropic, Google and Microsoft, as well as a seasoned version of human intelligence (HI) were asked the same question about grace.
Query to OpenAi (GPT 4o): What does it mean to have grace?
Having grace often means embodying qualities of kindness, empathy, and composure, especially in challenging situations. It's about responding to people and circumstances with patience, understanding, and an open heart rather than reacting with anger or judgment. Grace can also mean carrying oneself with dignity and humility, even when you have reason to feel wronged or superior.
In interpersonal situations, grace might involve forgiving others, letting go of resentment, or acknowledging others' perspectives, even when they differ from your own. It’s about being resilient without becoming hardened, and compassionate without seeking anything in return. Grace is often thought of as a strength that is quiet, gentle, and profound.
Query to Claude (Sonnet 3.5) : What does it mean to have grace?
Grace can be viewed as having several interconnected dimensions. At its core, grace involves both internal qualities and how we interact with others.
In relating to others, grace manifests as showing kindness and understanding even when it may not be expected or "deserved." It's extending compassion to others in their moments of weakness or failure, and offering forgiveness rather than judgment. A graceful person might gently correct someone's mistake without making them feel small, or maintain their composure when treated poorly.
Internally, grace often means accepting imperfection - both in ourselves and in life's circumstances. It's about moving through difficulties with dignity and poise, not by being perfect, but by responding to challenges with patience and wisdom. This might mean accepting criticism constructively, acknowledging our mistakes without harsh self-judgment, or adapting to unexpected changes with flexibility.
Query to Gemini (Advanced with 1.5 Pro): What does it mean to have grace?
Having grace is a multifaceted concept with interpretations spanning social, theological, and personal realms. Here are a few key facets:
1. Undeserved Kindness
At its core, grace often refers to receiving something positive that you haven't necessarily earned. It's about kindness, forgiveness, and understanding offered without any expectation of repayment or reciprocity.
2. Divine Favor
In many religious traditions, grace is seen as a divine gift from a higher power. It's the unearned love and mercy bestowed upon humanity, often leading to salvation or spiritual enlightenment.
3. Elegant Movement
Grace can also describe physical movement that is smooth, balanced, and aesthetically pleasing. Think of a dancer, a gymnast, or even a gazelle – their movements exude a sense of effortless beauty and coordination.
4. Social Etiquette
In social contexts, grace involves behaving with politeness, tact, and consideration for others. It's about navigating social situations with ease, showing respect, and making others feel comfortable.
5. Handling Difficult Situations
Grace can also be demonstrated in how you respond to challenges and adversity. It's about maintaining your composure, dignity, and compassion even in the face of difficult circumstances.
Key Aspects of Grace:
Forgiveness: Letting go of resentment and offering understanding to those who have wronged you.
Humility: Recognizing your own limitations and acknowledging that you're not always right.
Empathy: Putting yourself in someone else's shoes and understanding their perspective.
Gratitude: Appreciating the good things in your life, both big and small.
Resilience: Bouncing back from setbacks and maintaining hope in difficult times.
Ultimately, having grace is about living with kindness, compassion, and a sense of balance in all aspects of your life. It's about extending understanding to yourself and others, navigating challenges with composure, and appreciating the beauty in everyday moments.
Query to Rishad (seasoned version); What does it mean to have grace?
Grace is a tapestry that interweaves:
Generosity. Humility. Empathy. Kindness. Elegance. Poise. Acceptance. Resilience.
To be a person of grace might be a goal and in some ways a quest more likely to lead to fulfillment than power, wealth or fame and its pursuit does not need power, wealth or fame to achieve.
And it may be rarer than power, wealth or fame.
A good life might be one where aims to be a person of grace.
On Technological Change: 3 Learnings.
Image using Midjourney using prompt “On technological change”
For four decades my career at Publicis Groupe has been deeply intertwined with technology, allowing me to observe its changes across several industries including the communications industry.
The communications business has always changed as technology shifted. The company was first a print-based business and then a print and broadcast business, with radio initially and then television dominating it. In the early ’90s with the advent of the internet, a team of us began some of the first digital marketing and digital media companies, and in the past three decades, the entire business of marketing, media, and communications has restructured itself around the internet. Wave after wave of technology, from search to e-commerce to social to mobile to now AI and Web3, have shifted every aspect of all businesses.
Having observed all of this firsthand, I’ve come to three conclusions that apply to all organizations experiencing this technological evolution.
1. Technology does not care about anybody’s business model or way of working.
Nearly fifteen years ago, I spoke to leaders at a major newspaper conference, imploring them to rethink their business in the light of search and mobile technology. I warned them that every aspect of their business model, from local monopolies and distribution routes to auto, classified, and other advertising, would disappear unless they embraced the internet, stopped thinking about their paper publication as central, embraced multimedia with continuous publishing, and attracted new talent. Essentially, I was suggesting that they rethink every aspect of their organization.
Most papers did not adapt, and the newspaper industry is a shell of its former self.
Just as technology rendered many newspapers obsolete, it’s having the same effect on a wide range of industries and functions today. Business models cannot be sacrosanct. “Adapt or die” is a good adage for an age of rapidly advancing technology.
2. Technology can be used as an accelerant, but its real power is often the capacity to reinvent.
Companies may invest deeply in technology to automate and upgrade their way of working, but they still fail.
This is because they often do not change their way of doing business.a
Procter & Gamble invested deeply in technology to automate its manufacturing plants and be a leader in digital marketing. They leveraged search and mobile and video to reach people as their habits changed.
But what technology really enabled was not just better ways to communicate but new ways to do business, giving rise to a range of competitors.
For instance, social media leveraged YouTube video’s cost effectiveness and ease of distribution. The advent of e-commerce made it possible to sell without Walmart or Walgreens, and companies like Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club were born and ate into Gillette’s market share, despite Gillette having a superior product, brand, distribution, and spending. The new media allowed for direct distribution, subscription services, word of mouth, and sampling, and customers recognized that the new blades were good enough but much cheaper and much more convenient.
Similarly in the age of AI it is not just increased efficiency (more for less) and greater effectiveness (higher impact) that companies should focus on but also existential risk and opportunities. Running your current business model more efficiently and effectively will not save you if others are using AI to rethink your business model.
Digital marketing reinvented the newspaper business versus making printing presses faster or truck delivery more effective.
The really smart firms are not just thinking about how to make their businesses more efficient or effective using new technology such as AI but have teams who are reimagining their businesses.
They behave as if they were beginning the firm again today with access to modern technology, new ways of working, changing demographics and new market places, but without any constraints except how best to satisfy changing customer needs and expectations in a world of new competition.
3. It is not the technology—it is the talent.
As technology is widely distributed it helps individuals as much as it does institutions, and every advance in technology places a premium on superior ability.
AI will be like electricity. Few companies differentiate on their use of electricity because all their competitors use electricity. Similarly when every company utilizes AI often accessed from the same firm it is highly unlikely that an AI strategy will differentiate the company.
In some cases it may be proprietary data but in every case it will likely be talent.
Remind yourself that the typewriter did not write A Farewell to Arms; Hemingway did. If I had a word processor and ChatGPT and Hemingway had a pen, he still would write better. Of course, if Hemingway also had ChatGPT, he would be that much better than me. Hemingway with a Substack would have scaled amazingly better than most.
As talented individuals do with TikTok.
Today, streaming and the internet make the popular courses on justice at Harvard and on happiness at Yale available to everybody for free. It’s not the technology that makes these courses great, but the talent of professors Michael Sandel and Laurie Santos, respectively.
From Rethinking Work which is at the printers and available for pre-order everywhere. More here: https://rishadtobaccowala.com/rethinking-work
