Rob:

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.