AI has enormous potential but it seems very early to be usable yet.
Rob:My interest in this was when Neil and I were talking, he was talking about
Rob:how what's going to happen with AI.
Rob:It made me realize the distinction that humans have is emotions and it's going
Rob:to be emotions that make decisions.
Rob:So what's going to happen is the emotional intelligence looks like it's going to be
Rob:more and more important because that's the element that humans can provide.
Rob:Neil is an adaptologist.
Rob:He's worked through change management and feels that organizations
Rob:need to be more ready for change.
Rob:I'm going around in my screen now, Giannis is a coach who is using AI
Rob:In merging tech and human coaching to help people gain more self
Rob:awareness and become better leaders.
Rob:Am I right there, Giannis?
Rob:Muhammad has more degrees than I have GCSEs.
Rob:And among his like nine degrees he led a tech company coming from an
Rob:entirely different field, not just content with leading, but decided
Rob:he was going to learn how to do it and did another degree in tech.
Rob:Muhammad seems to be across everything.
Rob:I thought he would be someone who would add something to the tech side,
Rob:but also in implementing the human side and initially I was thinking
Rob:of all people involved with tech.
Rob:And then I realized, hang on, we've got to adapt the human side to this.
Rob:Paula is a change manager.
Rob:I'm not sure how technologically advanced you are Paula, but I know that you're
Rob:very in tune with organizations and the way that they need to change in
Rob:order for change to be implemented.
Rob:That's really the the background for everyone to have an understanding of
Rob:what everyone else is contributing.
Rob:Neil I think you're have a strong opinion on this.
Rob:So I don't know if you want to start off.
Neil:Am naturally optimistic about this and in what I'm about to say,
Neil:I recognize there's always a tension isn't there in all good stories.
Neil:You've got light and dark, good versus evil and all that.
Neil:All that is at play.
Neil:But I, at an optimistic level, I think actually AI is going to help to remove.
Neil:a lot of those jobs for the human that we just don't like doing, frankly,
Neil:and the sort of mundane jobs that we tend to face day in, day out.
Neil:And through AI technologies, I think by removing that mundane activity for the
Neil:human at work, we can create a space that allows humans to really excel at
Neil:the things that are uniquely human.
Neil:AI isn't going to make, it's going to help you make decisions.
Neil:It's not going to make decisions for you.
Neil:It might help you with ethical decisions.
Neil:decisions, but it's not going to make ethical decisions for you.
Neil:And so if we can use AI in a way that frees up our time for those more human
Neil:traits, those cognitively challenging traits, actually, not only do we remove
Neil:the mundane we free ourselves to work on the innovation and the creativity.
Neil:Most people I think are going to enjoy it work.
Neil:So we find ourselves, enjoying work much more because of the creative and
Neil:innovative and the challenging work that we're doing, which is rewarding.
Neil:So in a nutshell, I think removing the mundane and freeing people to be
Neil:genuinely human at work, and I'll just quickly pick on up on the one point
Neil:you made in the introduction is that in doing that, and I think in building
Neil:innovation and creativity, what we need to do is recognize our emotions at play.
Neil:So we are cognizant of how emotions play into good dynamics, team dynamics.
Neil:So we're inclusive, we embrace diversity.
Neil:We're considering other people's emotions in the room, those sorts of things.
Neil:So we are giving everyone a voice in a way that allows for
Neil:that innovation and creativity.
Neil:And leaders, I think, forget.
Neil:This sort of concept of having all the answers, but pushing decision making down.
Neil:Again, very rewarding, but that allows for speed in decision making.
Neil:And so leadership roles, I think we can see evolve over time.
Neil:It might be harder for leadership to to make these kind of changes.
Neil:But I think I see a future when AI with AI, removing that mundane work, actually
Neil:will become a much more enjoyable place.
Muhammad:If I can add here to what Neil is saying I am in alignment,
Muhammad:Neil, what you are talking about.
Muhammad:I have a few additional points to that note, which slightly
Muhammad:deviates from what you just said in the end of the conclusion.
Muhammad:One is that even AI or call it artificial intelligence, it's us
Muhammad:as humans who actually built this in the first instance, right?
Muhammad:So there is a human behind this chat GPT or, whatever you call it.
Muhammad:Now I've seen both sides of it from the tech perspective, let's say AI has
Muhammad:really revolutionized certain industries.
Muhammad:And I'm going to just talk about my very own industry, which is hospitality.
Muhammad:And the first time when I came across that use of it was about five
Muhammad:years ago, when we realized that by using these clever algorithms, we
Muhammad:can optimize a delivery route for the driver to reach the destination
Muhammad:earlier, find the quickest route.
Muhammad:So we can connect with Google, we can connect with other street maps.
Muhammad:So it's like an integration through AI, which is a kind of huge plus.
Muhammad:Then there is another element which I'm part of or was part
Muhammad:of is the AI or voice ordering.
Muhammad:So before that, let's say you used to pick up the phone, let's say
Muhammad:your local pizzeria is Domino's or Papa John's, and you speak, talk to
Muhammad:a human and you tell them what you want and they will, sort you out.
Muhammad:Now with this AI voice ordering we are removing the human element because that's
Muhammad:like a robot is entertaining you and Even if you are saying, how are you?
Muhammad:It's just gonna say respond back in a robotic voice.
Muhammad:I'm fine.
Muhammad:And how was your day?
Muhammad:Again, that's fed some by someone there is a data So whatever ai tells
Muhammad:you even on chat gbt, you know ask a question There is a data source behind
Muhammad:and if you see on the screen, you know.
Muhammad:So i'm sure all of us have used chat GPT for various reasons.
Muhammad:But if you ask chat gpt about something, there's a cursor which is
Muhammad:like blinking and it starts typing.
Muhammad:The reason for this is that it's like a visual reflection that as
Muhammad:a user, you are expecting this chat gpt to answer you back.
Muhammad:And visually, it's when this cursor is moving slowly, It's actually, you're
Muhammad:getting some answers, but what it's doing in effect is behind the scene.
Muhammad:It's going through a cache of data source, finding the commonalities and
Muhammad:then forming up a kind of a sentence and throwing out the information back.
Muhammad:So AI has huge benefits, but I still believe that because I'm a strong
Muhammad:promoter of empathy, compassion, human interactions, human connections, but
Muhammad:the more we are getting into this, I think with the more further we are
Muhammad:getting away from the human connection.
Muhammad:We are detaching ourselves.
Muhammad:We are detaching our emotions.
Muhammad:And especially the most interesting part, which is still in its earliest days
Muhammad:is use of AI within the medical field.
Muhammad:I was reading an article the other day about not talking about robots doing
Muhammad:surgery, this already in that filing this they're making huge inroads in that,
Muhammad:but a differential diagnosis where you have a portal, you log in as a patient
Muhammad:or customer, we call it, You start adding like what symptoms you've got.
Muhammad:There's no doctor behind the scene.
Muhammad:It's just an AI engine.
Muhammad:It's evaluating your symptoms against a certain pattern or database and
Muhammad:it gives you or spits out what we say and information based on
Muhammad:differential diagnosis and then it's suggesting the next course of action.
Muhammad:Now at this moment in time, It's not suggesting you to go and, it
Muhammad:can't prescribe you, let's say antibiotics in UK, you still have
Muhammad:to have a human interaction there.
Muhammad:But I think the trend is getting there, and even as a medical
Muhammad:person, I agree, and I'm happy that we are moving that direction.
Muhammad:But what we are removing is that, for instance, during COVID, people
Muhammad:were really very much hoping to have, to talk to someone, being a
Muhammad:volunteer, I've seen that, when I used to pick up patients, from different
Muhammad:locations and they were really dying to have a conversation with a human.
Muhammad:So again, I think that's probably the negative side of things.
Muhammad:But yeah, that's my take.
Muhammad:We are going further and further away from human connections.
Muhammad:What
Paula:Muhammad just said made me remember something that I saw, I think
Paula:the other day, there was this one company that advertised its services
Paula:or rather its differentiator as We don't put you in contact with robots.
Paula:We actually have humans answering your calls.
Paula:And I thought it's just so interesting because we still think that
Paula:bringing AI is a key differentiator.
Paula:In fact, the way things are going, It's showing us that the opposite is true.
Paula:It's the human aspect that is becoming more and more of a key differentiator.
Paula:I thought it's just so interesting and in a way paradoxical.
Paula:It's interesting to look at that.
Paula:I'm also with both of you, Neil and Muhammad, and there are certain things
Paula:that, that you mentioned, which I took some notes of because They're
Paula:very interesting to look at, for example, the ethical aspect of it all.
Paula:We could probably do an entire session just on that, but thinking about
Paula:innovation and creativity, it's true.
Paula:And I really liked that expression, removing the mundane.
Paula:It's true that innovation and creativity have more space to
Paula:grow when we use AI wisely.
Paula:The question is, does everybody's job involve innovation and creativity?
Paula:Because it can be argued that some people, yes, they need to be innovative.
Paula:They need to be creative because that's what their role is about.
Paula:For some people, it may not be the case.
Paula:And then for speed and decision making, I think that's a really
Paula:interesting point because at least in the change management world, and Neil
Paula:and I have exchanged on this topic.
Paula:The quality of decision making and the type of decision making around
Paula:various types of organizational changes leaves no room for people involvement.
Paula:In other words, it doesn't really enable people to co create.
Paula:So much so that a lot of organizational changes, at least in my experience, most
Paula:of them, are made in a top down manner.
Paula:They often leave people thinking that they've been made quite hastily.
Paula:So I'm wondering, do we want more speed in decision making or do we
Paula:want more quality in decision making?
Paula:There are a lot of questions that we can raise when it comes to the
Paula:quality of decision making around organizational decisions and
Paula:organizational changes in particular.
Paula:But if speed comes at the cost of quality, which is already
Paula:questionable in many instances, I don't know if I'm as optimistic.
Paula:I wish I was, but I don't know.
Paula:And yes, like Muhammad said, a lot of people are just dying to
Paula:have a human to find a human on the at the other end of the line.
Paula:Just think about the many times that we call our banks for them.
Paula:Usual with usual questions, and we find ourselves having to repeat
Paula:the same thing three times over in the simplest of terms, and it's
Paula:messages, just doesn't get through.
Paula:And sometimes you actually get disconnected altogether because
Paula:you haven't supplied your query in language or in a way that
Paula:the algorithm can understand.
Paula:So there's a lot of that.
Paula:And one last thought whenever and also to Muhammad's great point on how humans are
Paula:getting removed from a lot of things more and more in my experience with projects
Paula:with organizational changes that aimed precisely to have certain humans replaced
Paula:by let's call them generically machines, because that's the general perception.
Paula:There is one pressing concern.
Paula:I would say the number one concern of the stakeholders I've been
Paula:working with and for, and that is our jobs are going to get cut.
Paula:And while that sometimes is true, sometimes it's not.
Paula:But the fact that the leadership team does not have a clear vision for how
Paula:these people's jobs will evolve for precisely what Neil was saying, the
Paula:extent to which their jobs are about to become more innovative, more creative,
Paula:that leaves a lot of room for fear.
Paula:And so there's a lot of resistance that builds up.
Paula:As a result of this concern, this very legitimate and important
Paula:concern being left unaddressed.
Neil:I've got quite a lot to say about that, but I'm
Neil:conscious that, you might want to
Giannis:yeah, I think give me a great pass because I've been writing code
Giannis:for the last 15 years, and the last one year there is a great tool out
Giannis:there that can create write code faster than me better structure than me.
Giannis:Because I'm a lead data scientist and there's always two sides of the coin.
Giannis:The first one is I write code faster, so I have a better, a really good
Giannis:help and supporter to get my job done.
Giannis:But on the other hand where is my creativity?
Giannis:Where is my emotional intelligence enhancement in order to write,
Giannis:the correct words in order to think out of the box in order to
Giannis:enhance my problem solving skills.
Giannis:I read recently, an article about the top tech company, and they stopped the
Giannis:access, Chat GPT, to all of the employees for a month, and the productivity
Giannis:dropped by 65 percent for a month.
Giannis:And I'm really wondering, is it because those people cannot live without GPT,
Giannis:or, for example, GPT is part of our lives, or GPT has already replaced our,
Giannis:some human skills, like creativity, like problem solving efficiency, like
Giannis:speed, like way of thinking or something.
Giannis:And from my side, I really want to say that I'm not afraid of AI.
Giannis:It's something that as Neil said before, it's like a great tool to
Giannis:automate things to make them faster.
Giannis:This is super amazing, also in medicine, also it can be applied in every sector
Giannis:around the world but I'm really afraid of how people are going to use AI.
Giannis:And and I think this is an open question.
Giannis:Are we really afraid that the robots are going to replace human beings?
Giannis:Or that we are getting closer to robots with our behavior, meaning that, this is
Giannis:what Muhammad said before, it's like a super common question in the workplace.
Giannis:How are you?
Giannis:And if you ask, how are you, it's going to reply, great, thanks.
Giannis:How about you?
Giannis:Who you see ourselves in this reply at the workplace nowadays is like, are we
Giannis:becoming more robots in our relationship?
Giannis:How are you?
Giannis:I'm great.
Giannis:This is it.
Giannis:And the discussion is over.
Giannis:Thanks for asking.
Giannis:How are you?
Giannis:No, not bad.
Giannis:Okay.
Giannis:Where are the emotions?
Neil:I think there's quite a lot in that.
Neil:Let me see if I can unpick some of the key points that seem to me in that.
Neil:I think we're, we live in an environment predominantly where
Neil:I talked to Rob, we talked about industrial age ways of working.
Neil:For the most part, we work with organizations.
Neil:Leadership is expected to make the decisions.
Neil:Middle managers are seeking out efficiencies and productivity gains.
Neil:And then, front end workers work in their socks off.
Neil:And I think so that, that is the context in which we are introducing
Neil:technologies as they stand today.
Neil:So if we look at digital transformation, we have consultancy
Neil:firms IT providers, that implement.
Neil:digital transformation, usually born out of a single product.
Neil:And the driving factor for those things tends to be cost optimization,
Neil:greater efficiency or effectiveness.
Neil:So that driver isn't thinking about what can we then do with
Neil:the time that we're saving.
Neil:So quite often what is digital transformation means we can
Neil:save headcount, reduce cost.
Neil:Now that's fair enough, that makes good commercial sense.
Neil:Where AI makes a difference is the we are seeing a pace of change in AI.
Neil:I think that we haven't probably seen for quite a while.
Neil:And in organizations that are hierarchical strategic decisions,
Neil:big technology programs taking 18 months you're investing millions of
Neil:pounds in a solution that, Might not be as relevant in 18 months from now.
Neil:So I think actually thinking about this in the context of the
Neil:pace of technology development.
Neil:And you think about also actually customer demands and the much more tailored and
Neil:personalized expectations of customers, I think requires a different thinking.
Neil:So standard solutions in digital transformation programs probably
Neil:aren't going to cut it if you're not getting that until 18 months from now.
Neil:So in order to make the most of AI and develop some of that
Neil:technology, I think we just need to think differently about the role of
Neil:leaders, differently about Great.
Neil:the cultures and the behaviours in which we operate in organisations,
Neil:and definitely about the timescales with which we operate to improve the
Neil:productivity and and efficiencies, but there's another thing I think, and to
Neil:me, it seems like AI starts to introduce concepts we've not even thought of before.
Neil:So new products and services, new U.
Neil:S.
Neil:P.
Neil:S.
Neil:For organization even change the market.
Neil:I was thinking about my mobile phone the other day.
Neil:I can remember when, I've got a filter on, so I look a lot younger than I am, but
Neil:I remember when mobile phones came out.
Neil:I thought, why would I ever want a mobile phone?
Neil:If I'm at the house, Yeah.
Neil:Why would I want to be contacted?
Neil:And we think about how we use mobile phones now.
Neil:I only make a call online.
Neil:So I think we couldn't have dreamt about some of this stuff, 20, 30 years ago.
Neil:I think AI has a potential to reinvent what it means to be at work.
Neil:But of course, that's not going to happen with today's
Neil:thinking about how we operate.
Rob:It seems to me as I'm listening it seems qualitative change.
Rob:So I'm looking at what really drove the industrial revolution.
Rob:Was specialization and specialization hasn't really happened in knowledge work.
Rob:We've taken the structure of industrialization and, but we haven't
Rob:really specialized and broken up.
Rob:So if someone is creative, like advertisers or analysts
Rob:or whatever, still do much the same that they did 50 years ago.
Rob:So if you're a writer or whatever, I don't think we've really broken the elements of
Rob:writing, the elements of different tasks.
Rob:And I think that is the key breakthrough for the industrial revolution.
Rob:Where I look at computers haven't really made us any more productive
Rob:in terms of the way that machinery made us 50 times more productive,
Rob:computers haven't had that impact.
Rob:And it's really because what we've done is.
Rob:Ford and Taylor and all of those people who said, okay,
Rob:let's look at how it's done.
Rob:Let's break it up.
Rob:Let's look at how can we make it much more efficient.
Rob:I don't think we've ever done that in clerical work.
Rob:I don't think we've ever done that in creative work.
Rob:And, but that is the thing.
Rob:When you say that AI is going to take away some of the menial tasks,
Rob:it means that people can really focus on in whatever work you do.
Rob:There's stuff that you really enjoy where you really get in flow.
Rob:And then there's the drudgery tasks that you have to do to be entitled
Rob:to do that work that you love to do.
Rob:So I can see where AI has that impact.
Rob:What we need to be doing is looking at organizational structure, and
Rob:I don't think it's just a change.
Rob:I think it's a revolutionary change.
Rob:I also think it's a change in what it means to be human.
Rob:I think when we were nomadic.
Rob:There was a distinct change to becoming agricultural.
Rob:There was a complete change in the way of life.
Rob:And some people chose not to be like that.
Rob:There were still tribes that were still nomadic.
Rob:When we were agricultural, there was a change in to become industrial.
Rob:And some people chose, opted out of that.
Rob:Some people stayed in the country.
Rob:Now, I think there's a change from industrial to digital.
Rob:And what that means is that we have to change what it means to be human.
Rob:And not just in person, but how do we make connections, find our tribe digitally?
Rob:How do we interact?
Rob:How do we form connection?
Rob:So I think there is a dramatic change in that we have to look at technology.
Rob:Because what I can see is there is so much fear and there is so much frustration.
Rob:I can remember there's a couple of instances where I've been stuck in
Rob:some AI help desk and I just need to speak to someone because it
Rob:doesn't fit into any of those boxes and there's no one to speak to.
Rob:And you just roll around in one loop to another when it becomes so frustrating.
Rob:For people who aren't technologically adept, literate, whose work doesn't
Rob:involve that, I can see, I can really see that there's the fear of losing jobs.
Rob:And I see a very much a analogy with the Tolpuddle Martyrs,
Rob:where people were wrecking it.
Rob:And when I see films like The Matrix, 1984, Divergent Demolition where you
Rob:can see movies tend to play out the fears that people have, and it used to
Rob:be, like, way back, it was the fairies and the trolls in the forest, and then
Rob:it was aliens and then it was zombies and now, what we, tendency is this
Rob:kind of surveillance and this AI is going to become, they're the enemy.
Rob:So I think organizations are really going to need to manage that change,
Rob:but also whenever there's a change, like we've had the capability to change
Rob:online shopping 20 odd years ago.
Rob:And it took COVID for remote work, for online shopping to really take off.
Rob:So there often needs to be an event.
Rob:Even though the possibilities of AI are there, the what it takes for people
Rob:to take it up often needs a trigger.
Rob:In order for them to accept it.
Rob:Yeah, there's lots there, but it's about how do we navigate this new
Rob:world and become digital and how do we not leave other people out?
Rob:And deal with the fear of what it means I can remember since, when I
Rob:was about age to enter the workforce where there were fears where there
Rob:isn't going to be jobs for everyone, there's, manufacturing is dying and
Rob:there's going to be no jobs for anyone.
Neil:My sense in the short term, at least that there will always be jobs
Neil:that can be replaced with technology.
Neil:Largely what's driven digital transformation programs for quite
Neil:a while, but I think the event that will that will make a difference is
Neil:in the main for knowledge workers.
Neil:It won't be AI that replaces them.
Neil:It will be people that are interested in exploring.
Neil:what AI can do will replace them.
Neil:So when you get that augmented, human AI collaboration working together,
Neil:you actually get the best of what that can bring, I'm interested in
Neil:Muhammad's view on this because from the things I've read around how AI
Neil:is, and not a great deal, but AI is implemented in the health sector.
Neil:I've seen some great stories around how AI is able to sift through lots and lots
Neil:of data and spot particular, calls or symptoms to problems that wouldn't have
Neil:otherwise been picked up by very busy.
Neil:doctors and nurses.
Neil:So an ability to use the capability in that way that frees people's time to then
Neil:have that more personal touch, actually.
Neil:The personal touch, I've been to hospitals a few times myself, so
Neil:it, I've seen how busy they are.
Neil:If we can remove a lot of the busyness, And improve efficiencies,
Neil:actually, don't we create more time for that human interaction and things
Neil:that actually really matter as well as improve diagnosis and so on.
Paula:Perhaps this sounds a bit conservative and maybe even old
Paula:fashioned, but I think that to make good use of any tool, including AI,
Paula:if you want to look at it like that.
Paula:One has to have a solid intellectual foundation, I would say, which is
Paula:why we need people with good critical thinking, people with solid decision
Paula:making in, of course, key positions.
Paula:Because as Muhammad said, there's always a human behind these tools, right?
Paula:That's why we keep hearing and maybe reading about how AI works on the
Paula:basis of garbage in, garbage out.
Paula:And for us to be able to do our jobs better using AI, first of all,
Paula:we need to be better about certain things that we need to do because
Paula:AI will not fill those gaps for us.
Paula:AI will not come in and make those decisions around ethics that Neil
Paula:talked about very rightfully called out in the beginning of our conversation.
Paula:AI will not fill in those critical thinking gaps, at least I don't think so.
Paula:And not to mention the emotional intelligence aspect of all of that.
Paula:So yes, I also believe that a human without AI can be replaced by a human
Paula:with AI provided that the human with AI uses it in an intelligent and a wise way.
Paula:And I'm saying that because as a change manager, I have to think
Paula:about AI from two perspectives.
Paula:One perspective is, of course, that one that has to do with the
Paula:people who are going to embrace "AI" and their perceptions and
Paula:their potential resistance.
Paula:In other words, that's the perspective of the people that
Paula:I'm serving as a change manager.
Paula:But the other perspective that I need to be mindful of is how
Paula:AI gets used or is likely to get used more and more in the change
Paula:management world by change management practitioners and change management
Paula:is still full of misconceptions.
Paula:We still talk excessively about models and processes, a number of
Paula:steps to take a fixed recipe to follow, and boom, you have the change.
Paula:It doesn't work like that.
Paula:So we are still fixated on these things instead of talking about more useful
Paula:aspects of change management, such as behavioral science neuroscience and
Paula:a lot of other useful things, more useful things than a fixed recipe.
Paula:So my concern is that we superpose AI on this foundation of misconceptions
Paula:or incorrect assumptions, incorrect approaches to change management.
Paula:And what do we end up with I've been looking at interchap GPT
Paula:and another type of GPT that is specific, that was specifically
Paula:developed for change management.
Paula:And I really wanted to understand, and I'm still interested in this aspect, how
Paula:does AI really amplify change management?
Paula:I'm again, left with the conclusion that if you put in garbage,
Paula:that's what you get out of it.
Paula:Of course, AI is very helpful on certain levels, but if you lack the the
Paula:foundation and if, in other words, if you are not let's say well developed
Paula:to the point that you are able to make the difference between something that
Paula:makes sense and something that doesn't, you are just going to be tempted to
Paula:take whatever your chat GPT or whatever change management GPT gives you.
Paula:You are going to take it for granted.
Paula:And there's a lot of I'd say inappropriate, ineffective content
Paula:that chat GPT or any GPT for that matter can provide you with.
Paula:That's why I fully resonate with what Neil said.
Paula:A human with AI is likely to be more effective and less easily replaced
Paula:compared to a human without AI, provided that the human with AI is able to use
Paula:it in an intelligent, competent and wise way, not as a tool for cutting corners.
Giannis:Also, I think has AI replaced busyness?
Giannis:In reality, okay, probably it has replaced a lot of tasks and it's added a lot of
Giannis:automations inside, so we can save a lot of time, but I think has increased
Giannis:the feeling of depression to people and also to leaders as well, and has
Giannis:increased the feeling of I'm not enough.
Giannis:I'm not enough to lead.
Giannis:I'm not enough to find solutions, and I'm not good enough to lead the team.
Giannis:I'm not good enough to find a solution because everyone can
Giannis:ask for, a fast solution to chat GPT probably better than mine.
Giannis:So what kind of role am I playing here as a leader?
Giannis:And and just to continue this email of Neil before about 20 years ago
Giannis:that We didn't have mobile phones.
Giannis:It was like industrial revolution.
Giannis:And 15 years ago, GPS gave me, and it was like a second industrial revolution about
Giannis:nowadays, because I'm thinking I cannot go anyway, without a GPS, even in my city.
Giannis:And before 20 years ago, we had maps and we say, okay, I'm approximately
Giannis:here or there, blah, blah.
Giannis:And now the first move before going out of home is to take our phone.
Giannis:The first move entering our car is like we enable our GPS.
Giannis:And now the first move having let's say a problem is to ask the GPT,
Giannis:probably in 15 years, the first move going out of home is to take
Giannis:together, our dog robot, the pet robot.
Giannis:With us, this is the future.
Giannis:Yeah, but in general, I think it's like super, super nice in mind to think about
Giannis:how our lives were before GPS, how our lives were before chat GPT and all of
Giannis:these algorithms in general, and if in reality AI has really replaced busyness
Giannis:and we have increased our free time with loved ones, with our family, everything
Giannis:that it's really beneficial with us, or in reality, we feel, more alone than
Giannis:ever, or more not enough than ever, especially in the leadership field.
Paula:Yeah, that takes me back to Neil's point about, okay, we are saving time.
Paula:What do we do with that time?
Paula:Do we use it to spend to, do we spend it with our loved ones or do we engage
Paula:in more meaningful activities or do we just like to say, Oh, we've saved
Paula:time for the sake of saving time.
Paula:That's a great point, Giannis.
Giannis:Yeah, it's, and again, it's same thing with the LinkedIn that
Giannis:Rob said in the beginning with AI commenting is do you leave a comment
Giannis:just for commenting for the sake of commenting or because, blah, blah, blah.
Giannis:Or have you just read something insightful, meaningful to you
Giannis:and you really want to leave your opinion below this content?
Paula:My theory, but of course I don't have any proof.
Paula:That's why I just call it a theory.
Paula:And even that is a bit too much, that people who use AI to post comments
Paula:on other to other people's posts do so for a very simple reason, which
Paula:comes to us from behavioral science, which has to do with reciprocity.
Paula:In other words.
Paula:We comment because we know that person, if they work based on the normal rules that
Paula:humans work based on will reciprocate.
Paula:But, of course, the quality of the content, the quality of the input they
Paula:provide that that we can comment about.
Neil:It's a really interesting example of Where we see a distinction between
Neil:what we can do with digital tools, AI, and where we need the human interaction.
Neil:So if I read a post that it looks to me like it's been copied and pasted from GPT
Neil:into a post and somebody hits go, actually my trust in that individual drops.
Neil:That's not a value add activity.
Neil:And if you see comments, which I think is even worse with comments, frankly,
Neil:but what we're seeking, I think some of us, if we think about the outcomes
Neil:we're trying to achieve, some of us, everyone on this call is seeking to gain
Neil:insights, relationships, thought provoking engagement, learning and sharing.
Neil:But you can spot that through the engagement.
Neil:Other people that are posting through GPT comments are not adding
Neil:those things and you can spot that.
Neil:So what outcome are they achieving?
Neil:It's certainly not the human dimension of interaction.
Neil:Actually it for me reduces my trust in those people, which is
Neil:counterproductive to my mind.
Neil:But I think there's a macro point here, which is around what
Neil:is it we're trying to achieve?
Neil:I love this idea of being less busy.
Neil:If we're constantly driven to use AI in a way that is seeking to
Neil:remove headcount from organizations.
Neil:That's probably not the organizations that are going to survive in the long
Neil:run, to my mind, because I think digital technologies have been around a long time.
Neil:What I think we need now are people that can imagine a future,
Neil:a different future, to create that revolution in how we operate.
Neil:To my mind, that's got to come from humans.
Paula:That's why I'm really concerned about the fact that digital transformation
Paula:programs that are designed for executive leaders approach the topic of AI
Paula:almost exclusively through this lens of how to outcompete others using AI.
Paula:And so it's not about what you said unfortunately.
Paula:How do we imagine a different future?
Paula:How do we leverage technology to imagine a different future?
Paula:Actually, that's what they think they are doing.
Paula:They are imagining a different future for their business using AI, but
Paula:not necessarily for the people that are making that business successful.
Paula:And that's what I find really troubling.
Neil:I think that's what will make the people leave.
Muhammad:Just want to add what Neil said and what Paula was just saying.
Muhammad:My personal view is that.
Muhammad:AI is also obviously a technology and we have become slaves of that anyways, good
Muhammad:example being iPhone or smartphone, right?
Muhammad:And I believe that this is my kind of take on AI, which has a positive
Muhammad:element and a kind of a not so positive.
Muhammad:So if I speak about positivity about Neil, you mentioned an example
Muhammad:that, somebody got diagnosed better because, the GPs have more time
Muhammad:and, it's data driven, obviously.
Muhammad:That kind of connects to what Paula mentioned about speed versus
Muhammad:quality, so you have a good example.
Muhammad:It's one of the example of quality decisions, right?
Muhammad:Having said that, what is implicate happening now within the NHS
Muhammad:sector is because NHS now is aware that this tool can be utilized.
Muhammad:So what they are doing is obviously our NHS is in crisis, which I'm sure
Muhammad:can do a separate podcast on that.
Muhammad:But a number of GPs within the surgeries are actually getting reduced
Muhammad:further, which is quite alarming report that is coming out quite recently
Muhammad:because of the AI stuff coming in.
Muhammad:On the other side, I would say that we as humans are equally guilty
Muhammad:of bringing AI into the equation.
Muhammad:Why?
Muhammad:Because when there is a need, a demand builds up, then somebody
Muhammad:has to supply that demand.
Muhammad:And I'm going to link it to the likes of the big players like
Muhammad:Amazon, for instance, right?
Muhammad:I've got literally their, one of their dispatching unit, about
Muhammad:10 miles from where I live.
Muhammad:And it's all AI driven, it's all robotics, and obviously there's a headcount
Muhammad:reduction, and I think probably Paula, you mentioned about it's about the business
Muhammad:take, and I've got good example of a business I know of, where they have this
Muhammad:used to have a door production facility, and there are 30 odd people, but now
Muhammad:they have robotics, and there's only one person who supervises, where the
Muhammad:rest either made redundant, or, shifted elsewhere, and also have some companies
Muhammad:or businesses I know of, They're using AI to free up the time and I think that's
Muhammad:what Giannis mentioned is they deploy, in their customer service team, right to
Muhammad:enhance their customer experience they have more bodies to actually physically
Muhammad:call up the customers So they're like good and not so good element to it.
Muhammad:When you're hiring people, And this is my personal opinion on that you can teach
Muhammad:anyone anything, you know about product service, but you can't teach an attitude.
Muhammad:So I personally look for attitude in a person.
Muhammad:And as humans, we will never be able to teach AI the attitude
Muhammad:and the emotional intelligence.
Muhammad:So that's my kind of a bit of resistance and to the point of change management.
Muhammad:And I think big companies, and I see more and more leaders who are
Muhammad:not, trained enough to accommodate or to take everyone on board.
Muhammad:Why?
Muhammad:Because they don't know what the heck is going to happen in 10 years time.
Muhammad:So what is happening in fact is, yes, the workload is decreasing,
Muhammad:but so as the moral of the team, people tend to leave the businesses,
Muhammad:people are either disengaged.
Muhammad:So it's another issue, toxicity and all these shenanigans
Muhammad:start building up, right?
Muhammad:Politely, I will disagree about the AI is not freeing our time, actually.
Muhammad:It's creating more issues, which we at this moment in time, we're
Muhammad:not understanding that more issues.
Muhammad:If I am a business owner, I've got 50 employees.
Muhammad:I have put in invested money and I've brought robots and everything.
Muhammad:And I believe that my process will be efficient and everything.
Muhammad:But the biggest asset I'm losing is my people.
Muhammad:And I'm not looking into that element.
Muhammad:I could be utilizing their time, the free time they might have.
Muhammad:and allocate into a different vertical of the business.
Muhammad:In essence, or in short, what I'm saying is that it's human
Muhammad:greed that has driven everything.
Muhammad:And now we are debating about the pros and cons of it.
Muhammad:I'm in from that school of thought that whenever we want to push through
Muhammad:something, We create an environment or we create a space for it.
Muhammad:Because end of the day, you, me, everyone on this call is end of the day is a
Muhammad:commodity, a number for big business.
Muhammad:And they're just collecting this data.
Muhammad:And very good point from Giannis.
Muhammad:He said about the GPS.
Muhammad:Yes, exactly.
Muhammad:But have we lost our Freedom to certain extent, yes.
Muhammad:Have we lost our privacy?
Muhammad:Yes.
Muhammad:Anyone employed in Google knows exactly when I'm leaving home and when I'm
Muhammad:reaching to a destination, right?
Muhammad:So we've lost that control.
Muhammad:Which we had, the A to Z maps.
Muhammad:I used to love, open up the map on the bonnet and I'll figure, okay
Muhammad:I'm stranded in somewhere in Sicily now how I would reach Palermo, but I
Muhammad:managed to drive those times as well.
Muhammad:I used to reach Palermo on time, I would say.
Muhammad:Yeah,
Neil:I understand what you're saying.
Neil:But I think these Instances are driven by old thinking.
Neil:And I actually think AI creates an opportunity to be more human because
Neil:those unique traits are the things that are going to make a difference.
Neil:So you and I, all of us we're customers of service centers.
Neil:I absolutely can know which I prefer when, a robot at the other end doesn't
Neil:understand me saying yes or no.
Neil:Now, I think that the driver for that, of course, goes back to the
Neil:sort of what outcomes you want.
Neil:The driver for that is we're trying to reduce costs by putting,
Neil:chatbots at the front end.
Neil:But imagine other companies.
Neil:That we're freeing their time through other things, automated note taking
Neil:in meetings, things like that.
Neil:And they've got more time.
Neil:They can have more time with human interaction on your service center.
Neil:Which of those companies are you going to use the individual at the end
Neil:who demonstrates empathy and passion and cares about facts happened to
Neil:me just the other day, find a bit of plastic in my in my bun from the shop.
Neil:I'd rather talk to another human being about that because I'm concerned about
Neil:the production line over trying to, convince a robot that there is an issue.
Neil:I think it's the companies that start to spot the opportunities where
Neil:we get, it's really is that more human centric approach, isn't it?
Neil:How can we add value through our, through being more human
Neil:for our customers and clients?
Rob:On that point, often when I've had a problem, often the way custom services
Rob:dealt with particularly in the NHS is everything is driven by rules, when
Rob:it's a NHS or it's a large organization, everything is driven by rules.
Rob:And you can often talk to someone and they're inhuman.
Rob:It's a human being, but they're inhuman.
Rob:Like I've had to take my dad to the hospital.
Rob:And there's literally no one to complain to, there's no one to talk to
Rob:and sometimes humans are constrained by the rules of a big organization.
Rob:So sometimes that's as bad.
Neil:Yeah, those rules.
Neil:So when in service centers, those rules are put in place because it's
Neil:they're trying to reduce the complexity for, the entry level, if you like,
Neil:for the employee, if you make it simple and you've got a set of rules
Neil:to follow, that makes it simple.
Neil:Actually, in, in the simple cases, you could develop AI.
Neil:And I think there's a separate thing here about how you train AI
Neil:to be more human, even at those very basic levels of chatbots.
Neil:But if AI develops in a way that allows you to take care of those
Neil:straightforward cases, I bought this product at the shop as well as I was
Neil:talking about that, and it's out of date.
Neil:We'll take it back to the shop.
Neil:Okay in more complex cases, you need humans, and I think if we can Again,
Neil:free time that allows for the simple cases to be dealt with, actually those
Neil:more complex ones where you need to understand context and the human emotion.
Neil:I think it frees time to allow a deeper and richer exchange
Neil:with with other people.
Rob:But I think that again, that is dependent on a certain skill level
Rob:and autonomy in their decision making.
Rob:Yes.
Rob:Yeah.
Rob:I think it
Paula:also matters where the question is coming from, because I completely
Paula:agree with Muhammad's point that it's greed that is driving everything, and
Paula:I can't help asking myself if there's this little group of ours, and I'm
Paula:sure other people as well, Asking or considering the opportunities
Paula:to become more human and humane.
Paula:Is it any good if those who are actually in the position to make
Paula:decisions, don't ask these questions, if they only focus on speed.
Paula:Saving time, saving money, reducing count, head count, and all of that.
Paula:I feel there's, a lack of balance there.
Paula:As always, what we're taught in sociology is who asks the question or
Paula:who sets the agenda changes everything.
Paula:It really does matter.
Giannis:This is exactly what we discussed.
Giannis:I think it applies to coaching AI, for example, because recently there are
Giannis:a lot of companies who have created chatbots with coaching to, to create
Giannis:some small coaching sessions for people, et cetera, because especially
Giannis:here in Greece, for example, there's a lot of hesitance against coaching,
Giannis:it's not like a trend or something.
Giannis:People are not so familiar with coaching like in UK or us, for example.
Giannis:And again, I think they are good only from the sense that, they're there to
Giannis:give access to people, to coaching.
Giannis:It's not accessible, like for example, in countries or in or just like
Giannis:Africa, really poor countries in Latin America, in Asia, et cetera.
Giannis:So those chatbots probably are super interesting for those people to have
Giannis:a first glimpse about, what coaching is and how coaching looks like, for
Giannis:example, but I think they will never replace the empathy, the compassion,
Giannis:the trust and safe environment that the coach or a therapist, let's say,
Giannis:can create for the client, et cetera.
Giannis:It's just, a first view of, how probably a coach is going to help you.
Giannis:And again, with leadership, because, this is what we talked before about,
Giannis:there are a lot of leaders, into a leadership position without being trained
Giannis:enough, without being, skilled enough.
Giannis:And skilled, not experience, not age, not gender, nothing of all that.
Giannis:It's mostly about human skills.
Giannis:Yes, mostly about, all the skills that every leader, should have.
Giannis:And and this is the way, there's a super big battle between, the AI
Giannis:aspect of the leadership and the human aspect of the leader as well.
Giannis:And there's a big battle inside them about, where should I go to my team?
Giannis:To the results, because business is like result driven.
Giannis:This is, will never change.
Giannis:Of course, it's money driven.
Giannis:Every business is money, and the leader is okay, where should they go?
Giannis:Should they focus on results where everyone wants or should they focus on
Giannis:my people, on emotions or something?
Rob:I think that's really interesting, those two points.
Rob:What comes to mind is Marx at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Rob:When Marx talked about anomie and alienation we were separating
Rob:people from the means of production.
Rob:We were taking away meaning, we were taking away purpose.
Rob:And Marxism has been taken as dogma and it's been used, obviously, as communism.
Rob:Actually Marx had a lot of, Interesting points, and he was true about some of the
Rob:elements and in what Giannis is talking about and what Paula has talked about it,
Rob:AI as I understand it, it needs I think a lot of the fear mongering about AI
Rob:is going to control us and AI is going to want our bodies for its energy and
Rob:all this kind of thing is that we're ascribing human emotions to AI and AI
Rob:is going to be power hungry and greedy.
Rob:But actually AI is just does what it's fed to do.
Rob:It's a tool.
Rob:It doesn't have a goal of itself of its own.
Rob:So it has to be used by a goal.
Rob:When we're looking at companies, the real problem that we have
Rob:with companies is pure greed.
Rob:And it is because the whole premise of a business is to make money.
Rob:In the industrial age, this was fine because the industrial age was to
Rob:move us from a time when people had no money, literally you were one crop
Rob:failing from starvation and dying.
Rob:Or being put in a poor house.
Rob:Survival mattered because we didn't have any resources, apart from the chosen few.
Rob:What the industrial age did was at the cost of our freedom.
Rob:And to some extent, our happiness and health we sold that out
Rob:for wealth and security.
Rob:But what's happened now is in the last two, 300 years, we
Rob:mostly have a welfare system.
Rob:When you look at the experiments of universal income, we don't need to work.
Rob:We can work from pleasure.
Rob:What's happened, that idea of greed, survival has become something that
Rob:we're driven by and is creating burnout, is creating the mental
Rob:health problems that we have.
Rob:It's creating disengagement and it's creating emotional problems.
Rob:So I think the real question is, it really is a revolution in terms
Rob:of, we need a change in government.
Rob:As in not move from one political party to another.
Rob:But the idea of democracy is, basically you have caricature
Rob:people that you vote for.
Rob:And it's simplistic ideas that aren't really solving problems.
Rob:When you look at the NHS, when you look at care, when you look
Rob:at policing, they're chronically underfunded in the UK, at least.
Rob:They're really on the verge of collapse.
Rob:One incident could probably.
Rob:make many of them crumble because we live in this facade that some political
Rob:manipulator can make magic out of nothing.
Rob:We don't have to pay any more taxes and yet we can have the
Rob:service that this dream service.
Rob:And it's not true.
Rob:We need to recognize that if we want more service, we need to pay more.
Rob:And which means that we need to have, but no politician is going to say,
Rob:okay, we're going to put up your taxes.
Rob:We're going to give you a fairly decent service.
Rob:And so it's all built on lies.
Rob:And until we as citizens see through those lies and we're willing
Rob:to really confront the issues.
Rob:We've got an aging population.
Rob:We can't afford to pay pensions for everyone.
Rob:We can't afford to pay care home fees.
Rob:We can't afford to treat every disease that we're trying to treat
Rob:unless we're willing to pay more.
Rob:So it seems to me really like what you're talking about when you said we
Rob:need to be better before we try and automate processes that aren't working.
Rob:I remember Elon Musk and the mistake he made was he tried to
Rob:automate everything straight off.
Rob:And then he realized he had to go back and go, okay, we've got to get make the
Rob:process working, then we can scale it.
Rob:And we're trying to scale Let's not talk about business.
Rob:Let's talk about a society that's on the verge of collapse.
Rob:When more than half of marriages are failing, when we're NHS's, social
Rob:care police all of these systems are on the verge of collapse.
Rob:How can we scale that?
Rob:We're just going to create more chaos.
Muhammad:Quick fix to the NHS on a lighter note, we should make the
Muhammad:likes of Boris Johnson's to pay the 300 million a week back into the NHS
Muhammad:coffers, and may hold him accountable.
Muhammad:I'm sure everything will be sorted.
Muhammad:Just a quick one on the process you mentioned Rob here.
Muhammad:And I just recall once I drove around about seven McDonald's
Muhammad:and three KFCs in my county.
Muhammad:I'm sure all of you have used those kiosks, you walk in and you can order
Muhammad:from that kiosk and you don't have to talk to any human because, I don't want to
Muhammad:speak to anyone and I will just be like, pick my seat and one robot, supposedly
Muhammad:a human, will walk to your table with a fake smile and, throws your tray on
Muhammad:the table and, eat and bugger off right?
Muhammad:I intentionally wanted to change from a meal and on six McDonald's
Muhammad:and one KFC I failed because they didn't acknowledge my request.
Muhammad:They have this process and this kind of mindset.
Muhammad:You're not this can't be changed Chaos is not programmed even though
Muhammad:and i'm sure Giannis can confirm It's very easy to program that feature.
Muhammad:You can tweak a basket.
Muhammad:You can edit it but not that feature available on that.
Muhammad:I tried, there was like last try, I was just probably very close to Milton Keynes.
Muhammad:I walk into the KFC and I did this intentionally, ordered something and
Muhammad:then I walked to that counter and I asked this lady, can I, can you change that?
Muhammad:And she with a smile and she said yeah.
Muhammad:What would you like?
Muhammad:And I said I can't drink this.
Muhammad:Can I have a Diet Coke?
Muhammad:And he said, yeah, with pleasure.
Muhammad:And I was like shocked that she's saying this with pleasure, because
Muhammad:this word I didn't hear from the six prior McDonald's, right?
Muhammad:And then we started chatting.
Muhammad:And when I realized that this person actually, he's talking to every customer
Muhammad:who's walking to pick up., the environment in McDonald's or KFC, it's it became very
Muhammad:lively and everyone is like cheering.
Muhammad:It's not some people are just standing in the queues and just,
Muhammad:it's like an experience everyone wants to get over it quickly.
Muhammad:When I walked out, I looked at the reviews and I was shocked
Muhammad:that this place as opposed to others have very decent reviews.
Muhammad:And I actually left a good review as well because I felt human connection there.
Muhammad:And on the other side, what we all know, and I think probably Paul or
Muhammad:Neil, you mentioned like you pick up the phone and talk to, let's say, O2
Muhammad:network, it's minutes and hours on wait.
Muhammad:There was a issue two months ago when I had a dispute with O2.
Muhammad:So I was spending considerable time on my phone.
Muhammad:And on average, once I had, wasn't put on hold for an hour and a
Muhammad:half, but then I thought, okay, let me do something about it.
Muhammad:So I tried to dodge the systems, this automated human, our
Muhammad:friendly O2 bot trying to help us.
Muhammad:So I tried to give wrong answers.
Muhammad:And when I realized after fifth time, the more answers I'm giving wrong,
Muhammad:the quicker I've been put to the.
Muhammad:Then I started doing the same.
Muhammad:So the other day I had to talk to BMW guys.
Muhammad:And first time on 19 minutes, I said, no, I don't have time.
Muhammad:I canceled the call.
Muhammad:Redial it.
Muhammad:What's your security, digits wrong.
Muhammad:What's your data birth wrong.
Muhammad:Thank you.
Muhammad:We'll connect you to a person off the go.
Muhammad:Hello.
Muhammad:How can I help?
Muhammad:So that's, the workaround I've found.
Muhammad:But again, why I'm doing this, dodging the system, shouldn't do
Muhammad:it, but I need to talk to someone.
Muhammad:I cannot have somebody telling me, press one, press two, press three, and you miss
Muhammad:putting a star next to your NI number and it throws you back in the queue, right?
Muhammad:And I think we are not ready for this as humans.
Muhammad:I like what Rob mentioned about processes, polish the processes, then replicate it.
Muhammad:There are great mind like Giannis and the great developers sitting out
Muhammad:there, they can code wonders, give them a benchmark that guys, we need this.
Muhammad:And I think what Paula mentioned earlier, garbage in garbage out.
Muhammad:And it's not necessarily we have to put in garbage, we can put, some lovely
Muhammad:rose flowers and daffodils and whatever, and in the end it becomes a bouquet.
Muhammad:That's all we need.
Neil:At the start of the conversation, I talked about light and dark,
Neil:and I think that's always going to be the case with humans, right?
Neil:I absolutely recognize some of the things that Rob is talking about, and
Neil:this drive for profit and, at any cost.
Neil:But if we think about That is going to max out and it probably is already
Neil:starting to in some organizations.
Neil:And I think there are two things that have a real impact.
Neil:So the wellbeing or, and the burnout of the people in the organization, I don't
Neil:think it's sustainable to carry on.
Neil:We talked about more with less last time.
Neil:I don't think it's sustainable to continue in the way that we're driving people to
Neil:try and, we're trying to reduce costs and increase efficiencies and so on.
Neil:And we say escalating burnout escalating effects around wellbeing, people leaving
Neil:organizations, all those sorts of things.
Neil:How do we fix that through the uniquely human skills we have that can engage
Neil:with people, that can empathize and understand people, and really Start
Neil:to demonstrate concern and empathy and emotional intelligence that improves
Neil:life at work and almost certainly at home through, through that human touch.
Neil:Firstly, I think through being more human at work, having more time to
Neil:be more human at work with emotional intelligence and so on, you build
Neil:your employee value proposition.
Neil:That's the first thing.
Neil:If we look at some of the early, the people going into work at the moment,
Neil:just starting work for the first time, they want purpose, don't they?
Neil:And they don't want to be driven to that.
Neil:We all want purpose.
Neil:Frankly, we're all human beings.
Neil:We all want purpose in our lives.
Neil:And I think the more we can't see purpose, the more we're likely to really
Neil:consider what is our future look like.
Neil:So I think there's something about the important human skills.
Neil:That that improves well being of individuals and therefore
Neil:employee value proposition overall.
Neil:So the organizations.
Neil:that are focused on improving EVP and being for individuals are going
Neil:to be more attractive to work for.
Neil:That's the first thing.
Neil:We've talked about customer expectations.
Neil:We absolutely want that human touch in our customer interactions.
Neil:I think customer engagement with organizations that are
Neil:providing that human touch are going to have a a proposition.
Neil:That those other organizations don't have, and therefore will become more attractive.
Neil:Where I think we've been hampered in the past is how do you reduce
Neil:costs if you're not, implementing solutions that reduce headcount.
Neil:And that's where I think AI comes in.
Neil:So if we can use AI in ways that allows, that frees up People's time.
Neil:We can spend more time with the people in our organizations, bringing that
Neil:emotional intelligence, thinking about people's well being, making sure
Neil:they see real purpose in their work and improving their lives at work.
Neil:But we can also improve the experience for customers and clients.
Neil:And I think what we've seen in the past, we talk about service
Neil:centers and things like that.
Neil:Yeah.
Neil:I suspect a lot of this is around what large consultancies offer.
Neil:Large consultancies offer an answer or they present an answer.
Neil:And Paula talked about, behavioral change and human responses.
Neil:It sounds appealing.
Neil:Somebody's got this answer.
Neil:There's five steps to your success.
Neil:It'll take 18 months and 15 million quid.
Neil:That sounds quite appealing, doesn't work, and it won't
Neil:work in future, I don't think.
Neil:And I, and so I believe the light versus the dark.
Neil:I believe the light will shine through in organizations will grow because
Neil:they're caring for their people.
Neil:That improves EVP, people are more likely to stay or want to work there.
Neil:And I think the human touch at the customer client side will actually drive
Neil:demand through, through customer growth and those organizations ultimately,
Neil:I think will grow and it creates more work purposeful work for people
Neil:where they're engaging other people.
Neil:That's I said that at the beginning, I'm an optimist, right?
Rob:I can see that.
Rob:I can see that when you look at the eight hour work week about when Henry
Rob:Ford realized it was popularized when Henry Ford realized there was diminishing
Rob:returns to working past that and it was more mistakes and that kind of thing.
Rob:So I can see it's going to become more and more important where the
Rob:early days of human resources were about help people be at their best.
Rob:And I can see that there's going to be a real shift to health helping people
Rob:sleep better, all of these things that can increase their productivity, reducing
Rob:work hours to maybe six hours, so that you're getting the six best hours.
Rob:The part, the sticking block, Is the fundamental driver is always going
Rob:to be in the current structure is always going to be greed and it's
Rob:going to be greed because and there can be justified if you look after
Rob:your workers better, you'll get more profit and you can be more attractive.
Rob:But the sticking point is we have fundamentally separated
Rob:ownership of companies, of public companies from the execution.
Rob:And because ownership is amongst share funds, pension funds they don't care,
Rob:like they have to have a return, which is based on our greed, what we want
Rob:in our pension, what we want in our share price So they don't care about
Rob:anything other than profit because that's the way their business works.
Rob:And they're not the ones who are actually dealing with the people.
Rob:They're not the ones who actually have to make it work.
Rob:They're just looking for who will bring the best reward.
Neil:Yeah, I don't see those things as mutually exclusive.
Neil:If you care for the people, if they're performing at their best
Neil:because they managing their wellbeing.
Neil:If they're motivated, if their bosses care, if you've got all those human
Neil:interactions taking place in a way that creates safety, interesting work, all
Neil:those things, you will be profitable.
Neil:I don't seem as
Rob:just to give an analogy, I worked in education for a while.
Rob:And in education, it's fundamentally about results.
Rob:And so the head teacher's career depends on results.
Rob:So when I went to school I was told, If you don't get anything, I don't care.
Rob:It's up to you.
Rob:And the responsibility was purely on me.
Rob:Later, when I was in schools, the responsibility was on the teacher, and the
Rob:teachers were like, and the kids were like if I don't get anything, it's your fault.
Rob:And so the children had no responsibility for their own results and everything
Rob:in a school judged the teachers politically because politicians
Rob:says we've got bad teachers.
Rob:We need to change, we need to punish teachers, we need
Rob:to change teachers are lazy.
Rob:And it is all because politicians get voted in by saying, I'm
Rob:going to change education because there's a problem with education.
Rob:And that's because education is politically driven.
Rob:It's no longer about teaching them.
Rob:It becomes factories where you train them.
Rob:So year seven, they would come in, have a GCSE test.
Rob:They hadn't been taught the curriculum and it didn't matter because they
Rob:were going to be drilled year seven when they came in the summer.
Rob:in year eight, in year nine, every time they were taking GCSE papers because
Rob:they were being taught to, to reach a test primary schools drill for one
Rob:month, one term, two terms just to pass SATs, because that's how they're judged.
Rob:They don't care about educating the child.
Rob:And so the quality, what we learn is all driven by political dogma.
Rob:And in the same way, yes managers will care.
Rob:What I'm seeing is there's a tension between keeping my job depends on
Rob:keeping the shareholders happy, but what the compromise is, I
Rob:have to keep the employees happy.
Rob:And so we've got two conflicting employees want to be treated as humans.
Rob:Shareholders want money.
Rob:They're never going to come into contact with the employees and they don't know
Rob:or care because they're just a statistic.
Rob:So what's the bit in the middle is how do we resolve this conflict?
Rob:Yes, I agree that managers will care.
Rob:Managers will learn that they have to care, but it's a compromise solution.
Neil:I find this fascinating conversation because it's interesting.
Neil:But, one of the things that strikes me and people have talked about
Neil:it but in effect, we, before we do anything, we need to create the
Neil:right conditions in the organization.
Neil:And for a conversation that is about the future of AI.
Neil:We are talking a lot about creating the right conditions.
Neil:And I think that is very telling around the importance, actually, of
Neil:what we humans need to do in order to achieve, value and success through AI.
Neil:In effect, it suggests to me, this is not really about the technology.
Neil:This is about the human dimension, the conditions we're building as human beings.
Neil:To make the difference one way or the other and it's human.
Neil:It's human emotion, it's human cultures driving the things
Neil:that you're talking about, Rob.
Neil:Absolutely a standout thing for me is, really got to get that
Neil:conditions, those cultures and behaviors, through in particular
Neil:leaders but yeah, big challenge.
Muhammad:Rob is mentioning this, and this is my opinion here, AI can't fill that
Muhammad:cap, because there is a conflict for sure.
Muhammad:I personally have been to certain such experiences where the
Muhammad:shareholders demand your neck, your employees demand your love.
Muhammad:find the balance, right?
Muhammad:So you give them the neck and this blood will flow to them, right?
Muhammad:And they will find probably love.
Muhammad:It's a very hard balance.
Muhammad:But if you are a determined person to what Neil, you're saying, if you know exactly
Muhammad:that you will not compromise your values, you can be a little bit diplomatic, you
Muhammad:can keep Providing results what results are based on your team effort, right?
Muhammad:So from that school of thought, you know Your employees are your biggest asset.
Muhammad:They are going to produce results for you so the more you engage with
Muhammad:employees the more empathetic you are with them the better results
Muhammad:and your Investors are happy.
Muhammad:However in certain Scenarios what i've also realized or found the experience
Muhammad:is the bigger the organization get, The bigger, the wider this distance
Muhammad:becomes from the ground to the top and the less empathetic you become when
Muhammad:even you're sitting in that boardroom.
Muhammad:You can then use AI because there's a tool, for instance,
Muhammad:you it's similar to chatGPT.
Muhammad:You put a question there, okay, what will my P& Ls look like, from,
Muhammad:as opposed to from last month to last year in the same period, and
Muhammad:it will give you instant answer.
Muhammad:So You can make a decision based on data.
Muhammad:So data is available within seconds.
Muhammad:Literally you don't have to call your accountant or anyone.
Muhammad:It's readily available on the screen.
Muhammad:And now the next thing is, okay, why my cogs are higher?
Muhammad:Why my labor is going through the roof?
Muhammad:So we're not looking at the families.
Muhammad:We're looking at the numbers.
Muhammad:Okay.
Muhammad:Mr.
Muhammad:XYZ, you've got 50 people in your team, you don't need 20 of
Muhammad:them because we can do this and you reduce the head count by 10.
Muhammad:In this five minutes of discussion and debate, we've reduced 30.
Muhammad:people headcount, our P& L would look healthier.
Muhammad:Yeah, of course, we can raise more funds.
Muhammad:So what Rob is saying, and what I mentioned earlier, it's again,
Muhammad:the human greed comes, it's greed comes back, we want more and more.
Muhammad:So unless we as individuals, we as individual leaders, look after
Muhammad:our own greed, minimize it, filter those through to our team members.
Muhammad:A few days ago, there was a LinkedIn post, a very good one that there are specific
Muhammad:soft skills we need to teach our kids.
Muhammad:Absolutely.
Muhammad:Kids are into these they're far clever than we are at the moment.
Muhammad:My, my nephew is probably four or five years old, knows more
Muhammad:about iPhone 13 than myself.
Muhammad:So they know everything.
Muhammad:But one thing which is lacking is they don't understand the human connection.
Muhammad:You go to again, KFC, right?
Muhammad:They're young kids, like probably 18, 16 to 18 or 20
Muhammad:years old working on the front.
Muhammad:But they lack empathy.
Muhammad:It's not their fault.
Muhammad:Their managers, leaders didn't teach them.
Muhammad:They've been brought in, showed the process.
Muhammad:We are inadvertently making more robots out of these kids.
Muhammad:It is a far bigger problem in my view which needs to be addressed.
Giannis:It's more different from my side about these interesting battle
Giannis:between having the shareholders satisfied and your team happy because
Giannis:I've been there three years ago.
Giannis:Because if you are an emotional leader in general, and you really care about
Giannis:your team not only about their emotional side or, but everything in general.
Giannis:In reality, this cost me kidney metaphorically speaking, but in reality,
Giannis:this is how I got my autoimmune syndrome because if you are a too nice guy about
Giannis:having everyone pleased about something about, priorities caring, empathy,
Giannis:everything is like the balance in the bottle is super tough to manage it.
Giannis:At least this is how I felt it back then.
Giannis:Now I found my balance, et cetera.
Giannis:And I think my personal secret is to say more no's, not to
Giannis:other people, but mostly to me.
Giannis:I think if AI is going to replace a lot of stuff and daily tasks,
Giannis:et cetera organization will have more time about everything.
Giannis:I'm also an optimistic person, but because business are super money driven.
Giannis:I don't know if they're going to invest back those money from AI generated
Giannis:tasks to employees, or they're going to keep it as profit, meaning that I feel
Giannis:that they're going to fire some people because they are not needed anymore.
Giannis:Instead of, investing back in them and they, being six hours days
Giannis:or four days work week or, more flexibility with remote working, etc.
Giannis:More leaves, everything that sounds really, perky in general and not benefits
Giannis:like ping pong tables, free fruits and coffee with I'd say politely weird.
Giannis:I'm from this side of AI in companies and in organization in general.
Giannis:I'm not so optimistic but because I dislike the generalization point of view.
Giannis:I feel that there are a lot of companies out there that, really care about their
Giannis:employees being burnout to predict it, to find it out, to prevent it, which is
Giannis:most more important than even predicted.
Giannis:And I thought those companies will be a compass for other companies.
Giannis:Not just to copy, but mostly to help, this working behavior that, I know that
Giannis:this works so I can really, implement it, started implementing it to my own company.
Neil:I think we're in a very interesting time, aren't we?
Neil:I think it was Accenture reported last month.
Neil:They're estimating around 40 percent of working hours could be augmented by AI.
Neil:That's that's guesswork, obviously.
Neil:But, born out of some research.
Neil:So we're in a, we're in a very interesting time.
Neil:But If we thought about 40 percent of savings in organizations although that
Neil:is actually augmented work, so that's human AI interaction there's going
Neil:to be some big decisions to be made.
Neil:Isn't there by companies that are driving the.
Neil:that sort of, industrial age ways of working to drive up profit.
Neil:There's going to, really quite big political and social
Neil:questions that are raised as a consequence of that huge saving.
Neil:If everyone ends up walking out the door, what does that look like?
Rob:I think the big change can't come from companies.
Rob:I don't think it will because muhammad said it earlier, we become slaves
Rob:to technology, but we've also become slaves to the system, to the structure
Rob:of societies that we've created.
Rob:It's us that chooses the pension fund that brings the most return.
Rob:It's us that chooses to invest our money where we get the most return
Rob:and in doing so we become the boss that we hate that's driving us for
Rob:pure greed and doesn't care about us.
Rob:And so I think fundamentally we have to look at it as citizens.
Rob:It's when we make more conscious choices, when we stop buying child labor, slave
Rob:labor, when we stop perpetuating and it's all because We have a societal
Rob:operating system that's based on greed, but it's based on that we
Rob:prioritize money over everything else.
Rob:We might say that in our individual choices, we don't, but when we vote for
Rob:the politician that says that they're going to lower taxes, when we've put our
Rob:money into the hedge fund or the mutual fund that brings the most return we're
Rob:doing that and there is I agree totally, I am ultimately optimistic Neil, but
Rob:I think everything you say is right, I think we are reaching breaking point,
Rob:but it's burnout, it's the frustration with unhappy emotional health, with
Rob:unhappy relationships, with unhappy work life, that's ultimately gonna create it.
Rob:It's the, the great resignation and the quiet quitting that are the things
Rob:that, you know, Eventually, there's so many people who believe in corporate.
Rob:What we see on LinkedIn is there's so many of us that have opted out from day
Rob:to day working for someone to be our own boss because we want that autonomy.
Rob:We are the cause, trapped in our own system and I don't think any of us can
Rob:see the way out, but it will happen when you look at how society changes.
Rob:It's when we decide where we put our attention and value.
Rob:This is, this has been a fascinating conversation, but
Rob:I'm aware we're overrunning now.
Rob:Thank you for everyone for being here.
Rob:I'd like to finish these with just going around what are your thoughts,
Rob:feelings, anything that came to mind what comes to mind, anything shifted.
Rob:For me, I came into this and I was thinking about AI, I don't really
Rob:know that much about the technology.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:I can see it's going to make some changes.
Rob:What I see is you can't add technology to a system that doesn't work.
Rob:And that's very clear that we have to be much more clear.
Rob:The reason we've created so much burnout, so many problems for ourselves emotionally
Rob:is because we've overvalued the whole economic, we've been manipulated from
Rob:our food choices, like food manufacturers is all about how much sugar can we
Rob:get to make people addicted to certain foods, drink, gambling, all of these
Rob:industries are built on human weakness.
Rob:And we need to change that mentality.
Rob:Before we scale it because otherwise we're just creating more social problems.
Rob:I think
Neil:at one level, I think there's a lot of what we've talked about,
Neil:there's a lot of systemic issues.
Neil:that are driving, behaviors of today and systemic issues at a sort of
Neil:micro level that the implications take a long time to resolve.
Neil:So there's something about the culture that we're in at the
Neil:moment, if I generalize around this sort of, industrial age.
Neil:There's a lot of systemic issues that are a consequence of the way in
Neil:which a lot of organizations work.
Neil:I think we need to start addressing that.
Neil:That won't be fixed in, in, by next week.
Neil:And I think the way we fix that is through the recognition of what makes us human.
Neil:The human traits that drive those systemic issues, why is the
Neil:environment is such a bad state?
Neil:Quite often, politicians are making short term decisions for
Neil:Whether or not we're going to get voted in at the next election.
Neil:And we need long term thinking to address issues like the environment.
Neil:And I would suggest like AI.
Neil:So lots of big systemic issues.
Neil:The only way we'll fix them is through humans, I think within work we see
Neil:the burnout and the well being issue.
Neil:The way we address that is through humans, human empathy and caring and emotional
Neil:intelligence that really is concerned about the well being of of our colleagues
Neil:and other human beings in the workplace.
Neil:Fixing that is a human job.
Neil:If we fix that, we might improve Employee value proposition
Neil:become more attractive company.
Neil:We've talked about human engagement at a customer level.
Neil:We fix that as through humans.
Neil:I think a lot of what we talked about requires human beings
Neil:to be uniquely ourselves.
Neil:The things that AI can't do in order to start addressing the systemic issues, the
Neil:wellbeing, the improved, customer service.
Neil:How do we change the system?
Neil:We need more time.
Neil:We need more time to be human.
Neil:I think we, we let the machines do the mundane to free our time,
Neil:to allow us to address the big issues or the human issues.
Muhammad:I think AI is the future.
Muhammad:Being a very optimistic person, I do believe AI has tremendous
Muhammad:benefits for humanity, as long as we, the gatekeeper of AI, tend to
Muhammad:be more humane in our approach.
Muhammad:And I think I still believe that we create a demand, we create a vision that this
Muhammad:is what we need by a minority and we majority just start working towards them.
Muhammad:One example of being bought these electric cars.
Muhammad:I have no issue with that.
Muhammad:I do have an issue.
Muhammad:Come 10, 20 years later, where are we going to dump those batteries?
Muhammad:If we are saying about the eco friendliness, nobody's talking about this.
Muhammad:Everyone is talking about the short term benefits.
Muhammad:And I think this is again, should be our own conscious choices.
Muhammad:And one of the thing which I do believe in is creating my own legacy for my
Muhammad:generation to come, whatever I will be facing now, at least they won't
Muhammad:faces, they have clarity in mind.
Muhammad:And the best thing is to teach them how to be human, regardless that it would
Muhammad:be AI or MIS, XI, whatever will come, in future, we just have to adopt it.
Muhammad:And Use it towards our advantage rather than making it thinking it's
Muhammad:as a competition, make it an ally.
Giannis:I'm also an optimistic person.
Giannis:So I think AI is like the past, the present, the future.
Giannis:But at the same time I feel like we are in a hamster wheel that we have created,
Giannis:but, and we are trapped inside this.
Giannis:And we are running to be on time because AI is like is moving super fast.
Giannis:On the other hand, it's some that will never change because
Giannis:AI is changing all the time.
Giannis:Some that never changes like human emotions.
Giannis:And it's like behave humans as humans.
Giannis:I think it's like the bare minimum in organizations in
Giannis:leadership, in everything.
Giannis:And if you really want to be, let's say a leader that, you wish you had,
Giannis:for example, you don't have to be, to master AI, but you have to master the
Giannis:human psychology and human emotions AI is something that can be taught
Giannis:like every other skill or something.
Giannis:What I really like to say is don't try to be a carbon copy leader
Giannis:of advices and AI, what you read.
Giannis:On or what you hear, but, be the best leader version of yourself.
Giannis:And go out there and be unique.
Rob:That's a motivating call to action.
Rob:Great words to finish with.
Rob:Thank you all for being here.
Rob:It's been an enlightening and Interesting and thought provoking conversation.
Muhammad:Cheers.
Muhammad:Bye bye.
Muhammad:Bye.