Adapting Organisations For A Post-Industrial Age With Adaptologist Neil Harrison

Rob: 00:00:00

We all interact on LinkedIn, but you don't really know who's

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the person behind the profile.

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The idea is to meet you without knowing much more than what's on your profile

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and what's immediately observable.

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Just to get a sense of, where have you come from and how do you

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come to believe what you believe.

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If you can just give us like an overview of what you do of basically what's

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on your profile and like a ten second fit of what someone might know of you.

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I just, in January, stood up The Adaptologist with a fellow

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co founder, Amanda Greenwood.

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We provide integrated coaching and learning solutions for leaders and for

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teams so that organizations can adapt to the scale and pace of change that

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they face, that's what we're doing.

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We're helping organizations adapt.

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We're helping people become happier.

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That sounds great.

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So people being happier in the sense of everyone working together,

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so organizationally happier and individuals happier because they

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fit into it and, meets their needs,

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Amanda and I've had between us 50 years of, experience in change

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and in leadership and in coaching.

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And one of the things we've seen quite regularly is.

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What I've done, change programs that achieve what they set out

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to achieve, they're too slow.

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And escalating costs, for example, and things like that.

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And if we think about the world at the moment, when we think about how rapidly

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changing customer expectations are in technology development, particularly

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with AI, you've got organizations, I think, that are designed in a

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way that are not for this era.

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They're industrial age, ways of working and thinking.

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And the consequence of that, of course, is what happens is that you get

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this mentality of do more with less.

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So you've got this pushing down the organization to do more with less.

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And that has a huge impact on people of course.

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So that's why I think we're seeing burnout, we're seeing,

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poor engagement results, and we're seeing people vote with their feet.

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Over the years we've seen the sort of quiet quitting thing that went across

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LinkedIn and died off a little bit.

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And and the great resignation was another one.

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And I think a lot of this is a cause of organizations just not adapting, not

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being fit for today's world, really.

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That's been one of my themes.

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People stick with what works and we had the industrial revolution,

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hugely successful but that was about making, mining and moving stuff.

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And now it's about people, it's knowledge work

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and

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the organizations that we had for that are completely command and control.

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It didn't matter how someone felt back then, because all you had to do was

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press a button and keep the line going.

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And now it's critical how much return we get from the teams.

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It's dependent on how people feel.

Neil: 00:02:41

You asked me about what, what lies behind.

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Because I think I've just talked about the profile and what lies behind that for me.

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Because you'll see this, I'm sure, as well, that in our line of work, when

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we're engaging with people, particularly one to one I have a very strong desire

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to be inclusive and collaborative for, for reasons I can go into if

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you're interested, but and through that engagement, that collaboration

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with people and those one to one discussions, when you hear through

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that, you're the first person to ask somebody how they feel, for example,

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or what their opinion is you can really see almost a relief coming off people.

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And in some instances that has led to, people just bursting out in

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tears, frankly, because they're under so much stress and simply asking a

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few questions and showing concern and an interest in them, leads to,

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leads to that kind of breakdown.

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But by the end of the call, they're just so grateful for

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being asked for their opinion.

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And this is just about, being engaged and, seeing too many, had

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too many conversations that have resulted in that kind of response.

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It's sad, isn't it?

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People just want to be seen and heard and people have so much

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enthusiasm, passion and skills and most of it is never tapped into.

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Okay.

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So you help people to get more.

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So what exactly does that look like?

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So through through the experience of Amanda and I we've seen some common themes

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that have emerged in that inability to act in an agile way . And we've effectively

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identified four practices that we bed into organizations that make the difference.

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And so those four things, there's an overarching one around.

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an evolutionary approach to change.

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So this is recognizing there is no one size fits all cookie

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cutter approach to change.

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You need to understand what you're dealing with and choose the

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appropriate skills, mindset, and approach for the change at hand.

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And by doing that and embedding in a sort of collaborative problem solving

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approach in the organization, you can start to build the foundations.

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And then the three other things that underpin that in a way, are

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thinking and acting systemically.

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So the point behind that is, it's twofold really.

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It's to recognize that decisions and actions have consequences

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beyond your own silo.

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So you need to think beyond the silos that you operate within, break the silos down.

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And you also need to think in an organization, if you've got lots of

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initiatives going on, do they add up to the strategic goals of the organization?

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So thinking and acting systemically, big picture, breaking down,

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understanding the interconnections.

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And then we've got leadership with humanness.

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And I think this is a really critical one because this is about leaders acting

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with empathy, emotional intelligence, and empowering people to make decisions.

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So this is key to acting quickly.

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So if people are empowered and have a safe space, they can make decisions quicker.

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They're closer to the issues.

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They're empowered to experiment and learn from the experimentation.

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So much more iterative, continuous learning and adapting.

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So that's leadership with humanness.

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Then finally, there's dynamic and inclusive teams.

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So this is about not thinking about teams that are forever in existence,

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but bringing people together to solve particular problems and issues, design

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them with the purpose in mind and have common purpose, but embrace everyone

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in the team has a voice, embrace it.

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And through that, embracing that you get better innovation and creativity.

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But of course, you also get happier people.

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Those things combined, I think, lead to people feeling much more motivated

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in their work if they're empowered.

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To to act.

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So much more motivated engagement goes up, they're much happier.

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And also because you've built in those practices, the organization

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is more adaptable to rapid change and, ultimately it can grow.

Rob: 00:06:35

Interesting.

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Is that for a specific change or is that to create an organization that's

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ready and more agile for change?

Neil: 00:06:43

It's embedding an adaptable Capability in the organization,

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in that overarching one, every change needs to be looked at in the

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context that you're delivering it.

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Quite often you'll find, big consultancies will come in with a model, but that's

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pre predefined, change your name on the top of the PowerPoint and you've got

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this end step model to all your answers.

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But I think you can't do change without understanding the

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environment that you're working in.

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You, understanding the leadership teams and the people that you're engaging with.

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Embedding a capability into the organization that allows them to change

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themselves makes best use of the knowledge that you've got in the organization.

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They understand their organization, they understand their customers.

Rob: 00:07:24

Typically what size of organization are you working with?

Neil: 00:07:26

We're targeting medium sized organizations.

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So between 50 and 250 because I think that's a community at least

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initially that, that is more open, I think, to thinking about changing a

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different way and being more adaptable.

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And there's a sort of point in that 50 to 250 that you need to think about

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maybe operating in a different way.

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Thinking about how you grow and how you scale and how you see these opportunities

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how you find new and innovative value propositions and things like that.

Rob: 00:07:57

It's often the level where someone's growing quickly, where they

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can go from like 50 to 800 people.

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And suddenly everything's thrown up.

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And you can see, yeah, you're embedding a real culture there.

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That's ready for change.

Neil: 00:08:08

We quite often think about change as a one off thing.

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We're going to, we're going to have a transformation, you get the song and

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dance around that teams come in, they form, they do the transformation, it

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has a start and a middle and an end.

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the world is a different place and there are occasions where that's appropriate,

Neil: 00:08:24

but I think they're getting fewer.

Rob: 00:08:25

It's okay, we just need to get this done.

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It's the human fallacy, isn't it?

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If we just get this promotion, just make this amount of money, I'll be happy then.

Neil: 00:08:33

We'll get back to normal.

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There's a sense of, we'll get stability back again.

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And it's just a myth.

Rob: 00:08:39

Where's the biggest sticking blocks for an organization trying to

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change itself in, in, in this way?

Neil: 00:08:45

I think the four practices I've described are addressing

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the difficult areas in a way.

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Can ask ourselves, why haven't organizations changed, significantly

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since the Industrial Age?

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Why do we have this sense that leaders have all the answers and everyone else can

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just, I'm not saying every organization is like this and I'm cartooning for effect

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a bit, but you get the point, right?

Neil: 00:09:07

And I think there's something about first of all, just acceptance

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at a leadership level, that they can't have all the answers.

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You can't possibly predict the future.

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And when you think about AI, you can't predict the future of what AI is

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going to bring in 18 months from now.

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So any plans that set out a start, middle, and end that take you 18

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months, two years from now for that transformation are second guessing.

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And just, they're offering false hope in many ways.

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There's something around the leadership piece and then thinking about

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their role in a much different way.

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Servant leadership, empowerment, empathy, recognizing emotions,

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making the use of the people in the organization turning direction into

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questions and being inquisitive.

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How can I help?

Neil: 00:09:49

How can I unblock that issue for you?

Neil: 00:09:51

What do you think is the best approach to take?

Neil: 00:09:54

That in itself, I think is a big challenge because It requires leaders to almost give

Neil: 00:10:01

up some of the things that are innately human, I'm at the top of the organization,

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I feel that sense of, I'm at the top of the pecking order, we're social beasts,

Neil: 00:10:10

I have the control, I like the control.

Neil: 00:10:12

But it's unhelpful, I think, in a world that is, is hugely dynamic and uncertain.

Rob: 00:10:17

It is, that's where I was looking at where, you talked about silos

Rob: 00:10:22

and often silos come from fiefdoms.

Rob: 00:10:24

And the leadership I can see is going to make most of the people work, but

Rob: 00:10:28

there's often one person who likes to like they're used to how they

Rob: 00:10:33

operate, they like, it works for them.

Neil: 00:10:35

The fiefdoms point as well.

Neil: 00:10:37

This is, this sort of gets to the systemic thinking because If you

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think about budgets are delegated down in nice tidy packages and people

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may even well be, had clients where they've been empowered to operate

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within the constraints of the budget that they have in their organization.

Neil: 00:10:55

But then when you say, how much change can you affect with that empowerment.

Neil: 00:10:58

I say hardly any, because everything I need to do requires

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the buy in from somebody else.

Neil: 00:11:03

And I don't have that.

Neil: 00:11:04

So this is the thing about understanding the interconnections

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across the organization, but also forming teams around the opportunity

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or issue you're trying to resolve.

Neil: 00:11:15

We've created these silos because it's easier to look at an org

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chart and think, yeah, this is our organization but actually a much

Neil: 00:11:22

more dynamic approach to teamwork and breaks the silos down as well.

Rob: 00:11:26

So in terms of budgeting, does the budget follow with the teams or

Rob: 00:11:30

does a budget follow traditional?

Rob: 00:11:32

In your typically when you work with an organization, do

Rob: 00:11:35

they change how they budget?

Neil: 00:11:36

Typically they're fairly static delegations through, through the

Neil: 00:11:40

chain of command, if you like, in those hierarchical organizations.

Neil: 00:11:44

And of course those, but those are aligned to achieving, KPIs or or

Neil: 00:11:50

strategic goals of the organization.

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And those strategic goals are second guessing what the future is going

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to look like in a year from now.

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And I think this is where you get that that sense of do more with less because

Neil: 00:12:02

quite often now the goals are saying we need to be much more efficient.

Neil: 00:12:05

Or we need to increase productivity, but we're going to take some

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of your budget away and we're going to ask you to do more.

Rob: 00:12:11

And of course that isn't sustainable for any organization.

Rob: 00:12:14

It's what worked in the industrial revolution is that you could do that.

Rob: 00:12:18

It was like, was it like in 50 times more productive per person.

Rob: 00:12:24

But I think, but since 1970 that growth curve has dramatically fallen off.

Rob: 00:12:29

And it doesn't work in the same way because work is different.

Rob: 00:12:33

And I think what really made people productive in the industrial

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revolution was the leverage of technology to make specialization.

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So you could make one person output so much more.

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And yet in knowledge work, we don't make productivity the same.

Rob: 00:12:48

So if it was the same way people would have much less responsibilities, but

Rob: 00:12:52

they would just focus on whatever was zone of genius they had, and

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they would become so much more productive, but that's not what we do.

Rob: 00:12:59

We still use the industrial age one of, okay, you just got to fill more tasks.

Rob: 00:13:04

And that's where it hits into a block because there is a certain

Rob: 00:13:07

amount of time that stuff takes.

Rob: 00:13:09

Often in knowledge work, you're not making cars on a production line.

Rob: 00:13:13

And when you start thinking about organizations as machines, that's where

Rob: 00:13:16

you start to also think about, Leadership has the answers and sets the direction.

Neil: 00:13:21

Middle managers dangle carrots or sticks, depending on whichever, to get the

Neil: 00:13:25

productivity out of the frontline workers.

Neil: 00:13:28

Now that assumes, of course, you know what you know what the customers

Neil: 00:13:32

want, as long as you're black, your car, and that sort of thing.

Neil: 00:13:36

And of course the world, we think about the world over the last five years or so.

Neil: 00:13:40

Who predicted the implications of Russian, invasion of Ukraine, for example, in terms

Neil: 00:13:45

of, energy and wheat and food prices, who predicted Brexit prior to Brexit and,

Neil: 00:13:52

all those things that have affected, The outside world that we just can't predict

Neil: 00:13:57

we ignore, we set our plans on the basis that we are, we can predict the future.

Neil: 00:14:02

And I think that's flipping the dial and saying, look, if we can trust

Neil: 00:14:06

our people and build the skills.

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in in the individuals and the leaders and the teams, actually what we can

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do is we can use their knowledge and trust them to, through their passion,

Neil: 00:14:16

through their motivation, find the right answers, collaborate in ways

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that if they don't have the answer that they're finding the people that does.

Neil: 00:14:24

You think about the time I think about the times I've worked late at

Neil: 00:14:28

night or over weekends, it's because I've cared passionately, usually

Neil: 00:14:32

sometimes it's because of a big sticks.

Neil: 00:14:33

But it's because I've cared passionately about what I'm doing,

Neil: 00:14:36

I've been so motivated by it.

Rob: 00:14:38

And yet, everything organizations do, like you say

Rob: 00:14:41

not seeing and hearing people.

Rob: 00:14:43

People just feeling like they are just a cog that they don't matter.

Rob: 00:14:47

All of that, it takes it away.

Rob: 00:14:49

Okay.

Rob: 00:14:50

So the implication then is if you're going to have this collaborative problem

Rob: 00:14:54

solving groups and you're going to empower make decisions lower down.

Rob: 00:14:58

That means that the leaders then have to upgrade their leading.

Rob: 00:15:03

They need to create the place where people belong.

Rob: 00:15:07

They need to be much more focused on getting across the big picture

Rob: 00:15:11

message of what is the purpose?

Rob: 00:15:13

What are the values?

Rob: 00:15:15

How do we operate?

Rob: 00:15:16

And they need to make much more intentional about culture.

Rob: 00:15:19

So I'm guessing that is probably what you do in the humane leadership.

Neil: 00:15:24

There's two core pieces of that for me.

Neil: 00:15:27

One is this, ability to recognize that we all as human beings have emotions.

Neil: 00:15:32

We're not leaving them, at the door or wherever, when we jump on a call, we have

Neil: 00:15:36

emotions that affects our decision making.

Neil: 00:15:39

We know from neuroscience, the implications of operating in, in fear

Neil: 00:15:43

versus operating in reward, right?

Neil: 00:15:46

So threatened reward, we understand the implications, what that means.

Neil: 00:15:49

So when we are feeling threatened, it reduces our cognitive ability.

Neil: 00:15:53

It reduces our creativity and our innovation and actually

Neil: 00:15:57

our social interaction.

Neil: 00:15:58

That's not a good place to be.

Neil: 00:16:00

So recognizing that people have these emotions that don't go away and then

Neil: 00:16:05

building an environment that aligns the whole self to be at work, actually,

Neil: 00:16:11

you're creating that safe environment to operate in, you're embracing the

Neil: 00:16:14

diversity, you're unblocking the things that are getting in the way as a leader.

Neil: 00:16:19

And allowing people who are closer to the issues and opportunities

Neil: 00:16:23

that exist to feel free to collaborate and work with others.

Neil: 00:16:28

I have a particular thing around inclusion and just because for lots of

Neil: 00:16:33

reasons but in particular, because I genuinely believe if we are inclusive,

Neil: 00:16:40

not only do you get better ideas, more innovation, actually people are happier

Neil: 00:16:44

as a consequence of having a voice for the conversations I was talking about.

Neil: 00:16:49

At the very beginning, the impact of not asking what people think, who

Neil: 00:16:53

just happen to be doing the job for five years it's really important.

Rob: 00:16:56

Okay.

Rob: 00:16:57

Think as you've brought up we need to go into that, what, so if you were going to

Rob: 00:17:01

give a TED talk, would it be on inclusion?

Neil: 00:17:03

That's a good question, I don't know, I'd need to think about it, but I

Neil: 00:17:06

want, you've asked about, I've given you a lot of things that are on my profile,

Neil: 00:17:10

and I think it is, as I said, I think it's important to understand the whole person.

Neil: 00:17:15

Let me share why I care passionately about inclusion, because I think that

Neil: 00:17:19

will, that'll help cement that thinking.

Neil: 00:17:22

When I was when I was six, The family moved to the States lived in a poor area

Neil: 00:17:28

town and we moved to the States and I was really worried that that they were

Neil: 00:17:32

going to, they were going to speak a new language I didn't, I was, I'm not going

Neil: 00:17:36

to make new friends and all the rest of it, but obviously I didn't have a choice,

Neil: 00:17:39

so we went and in my first week at school the kids said to me, Oh, you're going to

Neil: 00:17:44

come and, Play after school and I said no, I can't I've got to go home for tea And

Neil: 00:17:48

of course they all just laughed at that.

Neil: 00:17:50

Why are you having a cup of tea?

Neil: 00:17:51

And I was like no, it's just my dinner, and so I didn't get off to a good start.

Neil: 00:17:55

And I don't know if you know this in schools in America, but they pledge

Neil: 00:17:59

allegiance to the flag in the morning.

Neil: 00:18:00

My dad he was this very proud Yorkshireman.

Neil: 00:18:03

Very proud Brits at Royal, pledging allegiance to the flag sort of thing.

Neil: 00:18:08

And spent most mornings early doors at school sitting on my, while

Neil: 00:18:11

everyone else is pledging allegiance.

Neil: 00:18:13

I had this separation ingrained in me from quite young.

Neil: 00:18:17

And actually when those things to sort of bed in, but actually when I

Neil: 00:18:20

started work, I noticed, I don't quite think the same way as a lot of people.

Neil: 00:18:25

And subsequently, actually, my, both of my kids have been diagnosed dyslexic.

Neil: 00:18:30

And when I talked to them about that, and they were late in

Neil: 00:18:32

life, when I talked to them about that, I see some of those traits.

Neil: 00:18:36

I think the way that showed itself at work was feeling like I didn't

Neil: 00:18:40

quite understand why we were getting the direction we were getting when

Neil: 00:18:43

to me, the answer was quite obvious.

Neil: 00:18:45

I just had this way of connecting dots, so I would ask lots of questions

Neil: 00:18:49

to understand what's behind that decision, and of course the rest of

Neil: 00:18:53

the team would just be nodding dogs.

Neil: 00:18:55

For me, I felt I've, In my past, I've felt excluded for, slightly

Neil: 00:19:01

odd reasons, especially with coming from a, middle aged white man.

Neil: 00:19:04

But I felt excluded and I felt the impact of what that exclusion can do.

Neil: 00:19:09

In work, I felt excluded and saw the impact of how that's sending actions

Neil: 00:19:15

in on different paths, basically not necessarily solving the right problem,

Neil: 00:19:20

not thinking about innovation and creativity, not thinking about bringing

Neil: 00:19:24

people's ideas to the table, but this sort of, this is what we're doing now,

Neil: 00:19:29

crack on, so I've seen the impact.

Neil: 00:19:31

And of course, when you When you talk to people around organizations

Neil: 00:19:35

that operate like that, the real human impact that has on well being.

Neil: 00:19:40

That's quite important to me that we're taking that being

Neil: 00:19:42

thing seriously in organizations.

Rob: 00:19:44

Okay.

Rob: 00:19:44

That's interesting.

Rob: 00:19:45

Where in the states did you go to?

Neil: 00:19:46

I was just north of DC washington.

Rob: 00:19:48

And how long were you there for?

Neil: 00:19:50

I was there three years.

Neil: 00:19:52

So it was, early 2000s, was it 2003, I went as a kid actually, but I went back I

Neil: 00:19:59

went back as I worked out there as well.

Neil: 00:20:01

So as a kid, I was there in the 70s.

Neil: 00:20:03

I went when I was six.

Neil: 00:20:05

I actually went back and worked in early 2000s.

Rob: 00:20:08

And how was it settling back in England after being there?

Neil: 00:20:11

As a kid, you mean?

Neil: 00:20:12

Funny enough, I had a strong American accent.

Neil: 00:20:14

I came back as a weird kid that had a funny accent again.

Neil: 00:20:17

Was lucky that I was quite good at sport.

Neil: 00:20:19

That kind of weird kid thing didn't last too long cause if you're good

Neil: 00:20:23

at football, apparently that's a good thing for making friends.

Rob: 00:20:26

Yeah.

Rob: 00:20:26

Until you fall out and you get too competitive.

Rob: 00:20:28

All of that leads to a big change for the leaders.

Rob: 00:20:33

I'm wondering about how generally leaders respond to that.

Rob: 00:20:37

Do they struggle?

Rob: 00:20:38

Does it need need new leaders or?

Neil: 00:20:40

No, I don't think it needs new leaders.

Neil: 00:20:43

I think it needs an ability to help them understand what is happening.

Neil: 00:20:47

The consequences of actions, the net result of what is

Neil: 00:20:51

happening and why perhaps they operate in the way that they do.

Neil: 00:20:55

So I think it's about shining a light on some of these things.

Neil: 00:20:58

From a leader perspective, we can think about, that thing about control,

Neil: 00:21:03

a natural human trait to, to want to be in control, to not like.

Neil: 00:21:07

Uncertainty to want autonomy, all those things we know from neuroscience,

Neil: 00:21:12

actually, that lead us to feel more comfortable in what we're doing.

Neil: 00:21:16

And then so there's something about understanding the physiology.

Neil: 00:21:20

Of what is going on through uncertainty and complexity.

Neil: 00:21:24

Why is humans react as we do.

Neil: 00:21:26

So exposing that bringing that to the surface so so it creates

Neil: 00:21:30

a broader awareness of what is actually happening, but also the

Neil: 00:21:34

environment that kind of action.

Neil: 00:21:37

The behaviors that lead to that kind of culture of perhaps lack of trust or

Neil: 00:21:43

lack of empowerment or, that sort of industrial age approach to business.

Neil: 00:21:47

It's quite, it is quite a difficult task to get leaders to think about a

Neil: 00:21:52

different way because we've had so long.

Neil: 00:21:54

in that many organizations have had so long in that kind of way of working.

Neil: 00:21:59

So I think that is, demonstrate the physiology and just, demonstrate or

Neil: 00:22:03

shine a light on what the implications of that kind of approach are in today's

Neil: 00:22:08

uncertain, dynamic world in terms of how people respond to that use data.

Neil: 00:22:13

So we have a set of assessments that we use for diagnostics.

Neil: 00:22:18

So actually because there is no one answer when you go into an organization, we run

Neil: 00:22:23

a series of diagnostics and interviews.

Neil: 00:22:26

That test various things adaptability, emotional intelligence,

Neil: 00:22:30

teamworking and that kind of thing.

Neil: 00:22:32

And that allows us to then play back information to the leaders.

Neil: 00:22:36

And this is what the data is showing one to one interviews.

Neil: 00:22:39

This is what your people are saying about how they operate.

Neil: 00:22:44

And I just think through, I suppose in broad terms, shining

Neil: 00:22:47

a light on the situation they are currently in and why that might be.

Neil: 00:22:51

And then asking them to look in the mirror, what why are

Neil: 00:22:54

people resisting change?

Neil: 00:22:56

Why what actions are you taking where it may be that people are resisting change?

Neil: 00:23:00

Let's start with that and then we can, work from there.

Neil: 00:23:03

It's not easy by the way, this kind of thing, but absolutely critical, I think.

Rob: 00:23:08

It's I think leadership is very difficult.

Rob: 00:23:10

It's it's a journey of growth.

Rob: 00:23:12

And by definition, you're not ready to lead what you're leading.

Rob: 00:23:18

And so you have to grow to increase your capacity and competence.

Rob: 00:23:22

And part of that is the awareness.

Rob: 00:23:24

So mostly there's so much, we're able to focus on one kind of area.

Rob: 00:23:28

And you talk to different people who focus on different areas, but a

Rob: 00:23:33

leader has to be across all of them.

Rob: 00:23:35

And just by the nature of that, there's so much that they're unaware

Rob: 00:23:39

of, which is where they can get their productivity rise by becoming aware of it.

Rob: 00:23:44

What also comes to mind when you're talking about that is they're

Rob: 00:23:47

talking about, okay, here's how you deal with resistance to change.

Rob: 00:23:51

And what you immediately get is their resistance to change because

Rob: 00:23:55

their people aren't changing because they're not changing their style.

Rob: 00:23:59

It's like the, The old adage, isn't it?

Rob: 00:24:02

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.

Rob: 00:24:04

And so the onus becomes on the leaders to change.

Neil: 00:24:07

In my opinion, resistance to change is a misnomer because

Neil: 00:24:11

if you reframe it, then it becomes a helpful signal in the system.

Neil: 00:24:16

If you reframe resistance as something's happening over there

Neil: 00:24:19

that I need to go and inquire about.

Neil: 00:24:21

What you end up doing is through those conversations, through that dialogue,

Neil: 00:24:24

you learn about why they're resisting.

Neil: 00:24:26

Actually, if you think you have all the answers without first

Neil: 00:24:30

understanding other people's perspectives, that's going to end badly.

Neil: 00:24:34

And it comes back to this thing about, it's my job to set the tone.

Neil: 00:24:36

Set the direction and to, predict the future and to move

Neil: 00:24:40

everyone along towards that goal.

Neil: 00:24:43

Actually, if you, if we engage more and we listen to what people are saying,

Neil: 00:24:46

actually, they've got good ideas.

Neil: 00:24:48

If they feel safe to articulate what they see every day in their job, you're

Neil: 00:24:53

more likely to be able to respond to the right issues or opportunities.

Neil: 00:24:58

If you're not talking to people who deal with the customers every single

Neil: 00:25:02

day about how you might change your how you might keep up with customer

Neil: 00:25:06

expectations, there's probably something quite wrong in that.

Rob: 00:25:09

It seems that most problems are really just because someone

Rob: 00:25:12

hasn't dealt with something.

Rob: 00:25:13

There is a signal, like you say and they've just ignored

Rob: 00:25:16

it or judged it as being wrong.

Neil: 00:25:18

Again, we think about and again, this comes back to the

Neil: 00:25:21

sort of physiology of change.

Neil: 00:25:22

And we think about the needs humans have.

Neil: 00:25:24

To be in control, to to have autonomy, to have their status respected.

Neil: 00:25:29

And we think about it in those contexts, when you work on ERP, big technology

Neil: 00:25:34

programs, some of those programs that have this mantra of adopt, not adapt.

Neil: 00:25:39

In other words we're going to give you this solution effectively out of the box.

Neil: 00:25:45

We're not going to do loads and loads of changes to this because

Neil: 00:25:48

that makes delivery slower.

Neil: 00:25:50

But the message that sends is, I don't really care what

Neil: 00:25:53

you think that your job is.

Neil: 00:25:54

The people that built this technology know better and that's

Neil: 00:25:58

the process we're going to use.

Neil: 00:26:00

So actually adopt not adapt, which is a mantra you do see in some change programs.

Neil: 00:26:04

It's removing autonomy.

Neil: 00:26:06

It's impacting people's status.

Neil: 00:26:08

It's taking, that lack of control, that there's uncertainty there because you

Neil: 00:26:12

don't know what that system actually does.

Neil: 00:26:15

It really gets to, how people actually feel about change in

Neil: 00:26:20

a way that This is the point.

Neil: 00:26:21

It's not about delivering tech solutions on time.

Neil: 00:26:25

It's about the value that those things bring.

Neil: 00:26:27

And if you haven't got your people on board, you're not going to get the value.

Rob: 00:26:31

Which comes to the crux of leadership is bringing people along.

Rob: 00:26:35

Yeah.

Rob: 00:26:35

If people aren't following, you're not leading.

Neil: 00:26:37

It's interesting because one of the things on the leadership point

Neil: 00:26:41

is actually, if you ask somebody.

Neil: 00:26:43

What were the actions of your best boss?

Neil: 00:26:45

If you thought about the best boss you've ever had.

Neil: 00:26:47

How did they, in what way did they act?

Neil: 00:26:50

I can remember being in an organization where you're having a bit of a crisis

Neil: 00:26:53

going on and a board member came up to me, I was leading a particular piece of

Neil: 00:26:57

work, and a board member came up to me and he said Neil, and I thought, oh no,

Neil: 00:27:00

I'm in trouble, I've done something, I'm going to get shouted at, and I

Neil: 00:27:04

went over, head down, bracing myself.

Neil: 00:27:06

And he said, what can I do to help?

Neil: 00:27:08

I thought, oh my goodness, that is just so powerful.

Neil: 00:27:11

I remember that was years ago, and I remember that behavior.

Neil: 00:27:14

What can I do to help?

Neil: 00:27:15

I think if we ask leaders to think about who influenced them through their

Neil: 00:27:20

careers, what behaviors did they have?

Neil: 00:27:23

It will be things like that.

Neil: 00:27:24

How can I help you?

Neil: 00:27:25

How can you, how can I help you grow?

Neil: 00:27:27

How can I help you progress?

Neil: 00:27:29

How can I help you learn about new things?

Neil: 00:27:31

How can I connect you to people that you can learn from and work with?

Neil: 00:27:35

How was the weekend?

Neil: 00:27:36

Those are the things I think make a big difference.

Rob: 00:27:41

We respect the people who respect us.

Neil: 00:27:44

Yeah, that's good, yeah.

Rob: 00:27:45

And we tend to reciprocate.

Rob: 00:27:48

We can all see that, and we all know it, if you stop and

Rob: 00:27:51

think about it consciously.

Rob: 00:27:52

But we all operate on a model, there's like the great man theory and I don't

Rob: 00:27:57

know if it's films or stories, but somehow we've built up these people

Rob: 00:28:02

like Alexander the Great, or Napoleon, or people like that, and you get this

Rob: 00:28:07

kind of like Donald Trump caricature of I'm a self made man and I did it.

Rob: 00:28:11

I'm a great man and there is a level of immaturity that I think leaders

Rob: 00:28:18

probably have to go through that first you want to be the great man.

Rob: 00:28:21

And then then you reach like the Yoda level where it's removed of ego and

Rob: 00:28:27

it's about helping people, giving people what they need to be what they can be.

Neil: 00:28:32

That point about ego resonates quite a bit.

Neil: 00:28:35

We create environments and cultures where, you know that sort of the egos

Neil: 00:28:40

are playing a bit large, aren't they?

Neil: 00:28:43

And it's, this comes back to a point you were making earlier about

Neil: 00:28:46

genuine purpose, what is the purpose?

Neil: 00:28:48

What are we actually moving towards?

Neil: 00:28:51

My sense would be that what is success the views of what is success for

Neil: 00:28:56

people is probably shifting, the sense that actually I wanna be fulfilled.

Neil: 00:29:01

I wanna, I wanna do a job I love.

Neil: 00:29:03

I want to add value in my work.

Neil: 00:29:06

One of the questions I ask quite a lot when I'm one on one with

Neil: 00:29:09

people is, what motivates them?

Neil: 00:29:10

What is it that gets you out of bed?

Neil: 00:29:12

Or, so many people say, I want to do a good job.

Neil: 00:29:16

I want to do a good job and be recognized for it but that says a lot, I think,

Neil: 00:29:20

and we spend so much time working.

Neil: 00:29:22

To feel motivated through doing a good job, getting recognized, being asked for

Neil: 00:29:28

our opinion and bringing our expertise to bear, I think it's such a powerful

Neil: 00:29:32

way of moving an organization forward.

Rob: 00:29:35

The sad thing is that mostly that has to go in voluntary work or it has to go in

Rob: 00:29:40

hobbies because often those people can't find an expression for it in their work.

Rob: 00:29:46

If we are able to, make leadership more.

Rob: 00:29:49

If we're able to involve people in the problem solving they feel

Rob: 00:29:53

they belong they feel valued.

Rob: 00:29:55

It gives them the chance because striving then makes you feel more valued.

Rob: 00:30:00

And for me, there's three things that people need is to belong, to be valued

Rob: 00:30:06

where they belong and to feel that group is doing something meaningful.

Neil: 00:30:10

Yes.

Rob: 00:30:10

All of that, what you're talking about can create that, which then

Rob: 00:30:14

means that people have an outlet.

Rob: 00:30:16

People will want to do more.

Rob: 00:30:18

And I don't think burnout is about hours.

Rob: 00:30:20

I think burnout is about the environment and the stress that people are in because

Rob: 00:30:25

most people have got to spend that amount of time anyway, even if they, they go

Rob: 00:30:29

to work, then they've got to go home and look after kids and manage the house and

Rob: 00:30:33

all of that stuff, which is all work.

Rob: 00:30:35

It's not about how many hours you work.

Rob: 00:30:37

It's about how you feel in those hours.

Rob: 00:30:40

Exactly right.

Rob: 00:30:41

You've given us a glimpse into where inclusion is so important for you.

Rob: 00:30:46

Did you say you were six when you moved to America?

Neil: 00:30:48

Yeah.

Rob: 00:30:49

Okay.

Neil: 00:30:50

Four years.

Rob: 00:30:50

For four years.

Rob: 00:30:51

Yeah.

Rob: 00:30:51

A formative four years.

Rob: 00:30:53

I've never been to America what was America like for a six year old?

Neil: 00:30:56

In all honesty, my early years in school were quite painful.

Neil: 00:31:00

I felt different.

Neil: 00:31:02

I didn't really fit in.

Neil: 00:31:03

I have a certain personality that is not particularly gregarious I'm more inclined

Neil: 00:31:07

to take a backseat and all those things.

Neil: 00:31:10

But on the other hand, what it did is it allowed for opening

Neil: 00:31:15

my eyes to new cultures, new people, new ways of thinking.

Neil: 00:31:19

We traveled loads.

Neil: 00:31:21

So I'm youngest of youngest of four siblings.

Neil: 00:31:25

We did a lot of travel, camping around the States.

Neil: 00:31:28

And so that's great.

Neil: 00:31:29

So much about that I love.

Neil: 00:31:31

Being able to make the most of our time in the States and just see a

Neil: 00:31:35

bit of a bit of the world, really.

Neil: 00:31:36

I think that gave me a bug to want to travel throughout my life.

Neil: 00:31:41

The other thing I take away from my childhood in the States

Neil: 00:31:45

is how different everyone is.

Neil: 00:31:47

And I think I posted about this recently, but we have a tendency to want to label

Neil: 00:31:54

and categorize and those sorts of things.

Neil: 00:31:57

This is another one of my particular bugbears really.

Neil: 00:32:00

You might have a character, which I'm sure you do have a character in your head of

Neil: 00:32:04

what Americans are like, can actually, it's a really diverse group of people.

Neil: 00:32:09

I met guys that were really into their sports and that sort of full on, painting

Neil: 00:32:13

the chest kind of in the stands way.

Neil: 00:32:16

And I met other guys that hated sport and, were really interested

Neil: 00:32:20

in, And traveling the world.

Neil: 00:32:22

My sense was it was a it was a it was quite a confusing sort of culture

Neil: 00:32:27

in many ways to me because people are so different and there are

Neil: 00:32:30

obviously regional variations of, North and South and things like that.

Neil: 00:32:35

It's a big place that has a lot of people, and they're all quite different, I think.

Rob: 00:32:39

It's huge.

Rob: 00:32:40

We've, pretty much each state is different, isn't it?

Rob: 00:32:43

Because each state is equivalent to a country.

Rob: 00:32:45

Yeah you get the Texan, and you got the New Yorker, and you've got the Midwest

Rob: 00:32:50

and all of these kinds of things.

Rob: 00:32:51

Where I'm interested now is why has change been so important to you?

Neil: 00:32:55

I've always been a bit of an explorer, my mum used to say I

Neil: 00:32:58

used to get lost in shops because I'd be running off and I'm just

Neil: 00:33:02

fascinated and I love just exploring.

Neil: 00:33:04

When I started work, you've got your day job and back in those days, you'd have

Neil: 00:33:09

a side of the desk sort of activity.

Neil: 00:33:12

And projects would be run and they'd be looking for volunteers.

Neil: 00:33:15

My hand would always go up.

Neil: 00:33:17

I'm like, oh, shiny new thing.

Neil: 00:33:19

I got to get involved in that.

Neil: 00:33:20

And of course those projects were for the organization I worked in, we ran

Neil: 00:33:24

a lot of Prince2 projects back then.

Neil: 00:33:26

Within Prince2 project management, you have a senior user.

Neil: 00:33:29

So somebody representing, if you like the business similar

Neil: 00:33:32

to change managers these days.

Neil: 00:33:34

Because I volunteered for everything, I would be senior user on the projects,

Neil: 00:33:38

quite a lot of them, actually, and I love that, probably more on my

Neil: 00:33:42

actual day job and I think that doing that a lot got me noticed.

Neil: 00:33:47

And when the organization put in place program management, it

Neil: 00:33:51

recognized the need for formal formal business change managers.

Neil: 00:33:55

I was selected to join the first business change management

Neil: 00:33:59

team in the organization.

Neil: 00:34:00

There was, I think it was three of us, one very senior person who

Neil: 00:34:04

just signed everything I wrote.

Neil: 00:34:05

And then two of us that did some real work and and that, that got

Neil: 00:34:10

me into thinking about the world in a slightly different way, really.

Neil: 00:34:13

And we did some training around managing successful programs, program management

Neil: 00:34:18

methodology that is related to PRINCE2.

Neil: 00:34:21

And what that taught me was this thing about, actually boards are investing

Neil: 00:34:25

in the benefit, not the technology if you're in a technology program.

Neil: 00:34:30

One of the key things that instilled in me quite young was or quite early

Neil: 00:34:34

in my career was this focus on the benefit, focus on the activities.

Neil: 00:34:38

I'm also very interested in people.

Neil: 00:34:40

So there is that kind of put my hand up and exploring new

Neil: 00:34:44

shiny things all the time.

Neil: 00:34:45

And just an interest in people got me started in change, I think.

Rob: 00:34:50

What are your influences?

Rob: 00:34:51

Was it from doing it or did you learn formally?

Rob: 00:34:55

So I'm interested in how you deepen the learning.

Rob: 00:34:58

So you're actually involved in from the start.

Rob: 00:35:01

Did you then formalize that?

Neil: 00:35:03

The first formal training I did was this managing successful programs.

Neil: 00:35:06

That was 1999.

Neil: 00:35:08

I did that.

Neil: 00:35:09

And so bedding in my head, the need to focus on the benefit that the

Neil: 00:35:15

project or program achieves rather than delivering a thing, an output, that sort

Neil: 00:35:20

of instilled in me a recognition that if you're going to deliver a benefit,

Neil: 00:35:24

you need you need the technology.

Neil: 00:35:25

If it's a technology program, you need data or information.

Neil: 00:35:28

You need new processes probably to operate effectively and you need people.

Neil: 00:35:33

And over many years, I recognize that people got left out of the equation.

Neil: 00:35:39

I sort of champion this people aspect of programs with armies of, program directors

Neil: 00:35:46

and managers and all that sort of thing.

Neil: 00:35:48

And draw that back to where you don't get the benefit unless

Neil: 00:35:51

you have the people on board.

Neil: 00:35:53

That would be my main sort of mantra.

Neil: 00:35:55

And then I did after, and because I was so interested in the people,

Neil: 00:35:58

I'd heard about this ProSci AdCar thing quite a few years ago.

Neil: 00:36:02

And that got me, I drank the Kool Aid on this approach to change management.

Neil: 00:36:06

So AdCar is Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement.

Neil: 00:36:11

And the idea being that you, if you take people through awareness, desire,

Neil: 00:36:15

knowledge, ability, and reinforcement you'll get the benefit of the change.

Neil: 00:36:19

I drank the Kool Aid on that for a few years, loved it, and then

Neil: 00:36:22

realized it wasn't that simple.

Neil: 00:36:24

Because you can't define change in the vacuum of a project, which is

Neil: 00:36:29

what in effect a lot of projects do, is they define their scope.

Neil: 00:36:33

It ignores how that's going to land, in an organization that's

Neil: 00:36:37

really quite messy and dynamic.

Neil: 00:36:39

And actually through realizing that Proton might not be the problem

Neil: 00:36:42

to every solution in change.

Neil: 00:36:44

It's useful.

Neil: 00:36:45

Not a solution to everything.

Neil: 00:36:47

I started exploring lots of different other things.

Neil: 00:36:49

We've talked about systems thinking, how is this decision here affecting

Neil: 00:36:54

these people over there kind of stuff.

Neil: 00:36:56

Really interested in neuroscience, the physiology of change, what happens

Neil: 00:37:00

when people go through change, the fight or flight you mentioned earlier,

Neil: 00:37:04

what's going on, actually in the brain.

Neil: 00:37:06

Why do we do the things we do?

Neil: 00:37:08

What's behind all this bias and heuristics?

Neil: 00:37:11

So really got fascinated by that and started to become more interested in

Neil: 00:37:16

things like design thinking, which are much more iterative approaches and

Neil: 00:37:21

collaborative human centered change, if you like, collaborative approaches.

Neil: 00:37:26

All of a sudden I realized change management in some quarters is

Neil: 00:37:30

defined as, in effect, a structured process to go from A to B.

Neil: 00:37:34

I wasn't doing any of that.

Neil: 00:37:35

I was doing lots of other things.

Neil: 00:37:36

And I wasn't reading any books about change management at all.

Neil: 00:37:39

So I today, if you asked me if I was a change manager, I'd probably

Neil: 00:37:43

say no, because I don't recognize, that in the context of that sort

Neil: 00:37:48

of structured approach or a Prosci methodology or whatever else.

Neil: 00:37:51

That's not really what I do.

Neil: 00:37:53

I have done.

Rob: 00:37:53

So it's more about creating the fertile soil for so that when you do

Rob: 00:37:59

make a change and you plant new things, they're all going to grow better.

Neil: 00:38:02

Yeah, there's a small community that I'm connected to that are talking

Neil: 00:38:06

more about change enablement, which is quite a nice way of reflecting it,

Neil: 00:38:10

so enabling people through change.

Neil: 00:38:12

It gives that sense of engaging people in their change, seeking co creation,

Neil: 00:38:18

collaboration, I think I have this sort of aversion for labels, as I've mentioned I'm

Neil: 00:38:24

less keen on defining things in a tightly constrained box, but I prefer enablement

Neil: 00:38:32

to management in change, change management versus change enablement, but actually, I

Neil: 00:38:37

think it's more for me about that thing.

Neil: 00:38:40

I mentioned up front the need to be adaptable to, who

Neil: 00:38:43

cares what we call ourselves.

Neil: 00:38:45

Do you have the skills, the mindset, the ability, the approaches to

Neil: 00:38:50

apply to a particular event, a particular opportunity or issue?

Neil: 00:38:54

I think that takes time to develop, but there are some guardrails.

Neil: 00:38:58

There are some things you can put in place to help to build

Neil: 00:39:01

that muscle in organizations.

Rob: 00:39:03

It's interesting that you mentioned about explore.

Rob: 00:39:05

Because I look on your website, it says explore, evolve, prosper.

Rob: 00:39:09

I can see throughout your story an interest in exploring and going

Rob: 00:39:13

beyond and now what you're helping people to do is to evolve, to be

Rob: 00:39:18

more enabled and more adaptive.

Rob: 00:39:21

What made you the Adaptologist is where you shifted from traditional change

Rob: 00:39:26

to what you're specializing in now.

Rob: 00:39:27

How did that come about?

Neil: 00:39:29

I think it was two things really.

Neil: 00:39:31

So three years ago I had cancer.

Neil: 00:39:33

And that, obviously quite a tough period.

Neil: 00:39:35

I'm fine now.

Neil: 00:39:36

I'm through that.

Neil: 00:39:37

But what that made me realize is that I can't keep doing these

Neil: 00:39:42

approaches to change that don't work in a way I think they ought to.

Neil: 00:39:47

Actually, it comes back to purpose, right?

Neil: 00:39:49

So I thought about my life in terms of Ikigai, what I love, what I'm

Neil: 00:39:55

good at, what the world needs, what I might make some money out of.

Neil: 00:39:59

Those first three things were born from wanting to fix a lot of the issues

Neil: 00:40:05

that I'd witnessed in change delivery, the impacts on people in particular.

Neil: 00:40:11

I hated those conversations where people would break down in tears

Neil: 00:40:14

because they weren't being included.

Neil: 00:40:16

And about a year ago, I was talking to Amanda Greenwood, fellow co founder, and

Neil: 00:40:21

we found, whilst we are very different people, we actually shared a lot of

Neil: 00:40:26

common thinking and thoughts and values in terms of what the world needed.

Neil: 00:40:31

We got together, we explored our backgrounds, our history, what made us who

Neil: 00:40:36

we are, what our values were, All those sorts of things and what the world needs.

Neil: 00:40:41

And that, I think that what the world needs peice what I

Neil: 00:40:44

love doing started to combine.

Neil: 00:40:47

So this sense of building a capability in organizations that empowers

Neil: 00:40:54

people that recognizes emotions, that makes people happier, and healthier

Neil: 00:41:00

and more motivated in their work.

Neil: 00:41:03

Those are the things that I get up in the morning for.

Neil: 00:41:06

It just happens.

Neil: 00:41:07

Those things also lead to greater adaptability in organizations

Neil: 00:41:11

and prosperity and growth.

Neil: 00:41:13

I might have adaptable and prosperous organizations before happy and engaged

Neil: 00:41:18

people in the profile, but I think actually you get the, adaptable and

Neil: 00:41:22

prosperous organization if people are empowered to make decisions,

Neil: 00:41:27

if they're happy in what they do, if they're prepared to explore, to

Neil: 00:41:31

evolve and that's what makes me happy.

Neil: 00:41:33

That's what makes me want to do what I do.

Neil: 00:41:36

It's removing that feeling of fear in the workplace so that people can

Neil: 00:41:42

be free to do a good job as well.

Neil: 00:41:44

What they always told me, I just want to do a good job.

Neil: 00:41:47

Let's help people do a good job.

Neil: 00:41:49

Yeah.

Neil: 00:41:49

And the world will be a better place.

Neil: 00:41:51

I absolutely guarantee it.

Rob: 00:41:53

Sounds wonderful.

Rob: 00:41:54

And it makes perfect sense.

Rob: 00:41:56

What kind of person company would be reaching out to you and what would they

Rob: 00:42:01

like what would be the right fit for you?

Neil: 00:42:03

So we talked about the size earlier.

Neil: 00:42:05

Medium size organization, but, I'm thinking about in particular

Neil: 00:42:09

the implications for AI for businesses at the moment.

Neil: 00:42:13

I have this hope, actually, that in a perverse way the adoption of AI starts

Neil: 00:42:20

to force a need for greater adaptability.

Neil: 00:42:24

So all those things I talked about in terms of empowering people, all that

Neil: 00:42:27

I think the only way to keep up with the pace of AI and changing customer

Neil: 00:42:32

expectations is to be adaptable.

Neil: 00:42:35

And a way to be adaptable is to empower people and motivate

Neil: 00:42:38

people and all that sort of thing.

Neil: 00:42:39

Actually the advent of AI and in particular the pace that is

Neil: 00:42:42

developing starts to force the pace for a need for adaptability.

Neil: 00:42:47

And it also, I think introduces an interesting concept around how

Neil: 00:42:53

you might reimagine your future.

Neil: 00:42:55

So there will be a lot of focus at the moment on AI in terms of

Neil: 00:42:59

efficiencies and productivity, because that's low hanging fruit.

Neil: 00:43:03

And I suspect that's where a lot of the fear comes in terms

Neil: 00:43:05

of the people side of that.

Neil: 00:43:07

People losing their jobs, fear about that.

Neil: 00:43:10

But actually the real value, I think, is in how you can create and reinvent

Neil: 00:43:15

your your value proposition in the market and reinvent the market itself

Neil: 00:43:19

in ways that we just haven't thought of.

Neil: 00:43:21

And I think that requires that requires actually a sort of human AI collaboration

Neil: 00:43:27

that makes the best use of both of those machines, crunching lots and lots of data.

Neil: 00:43:32

Doing lots of things that take humans a lot of time and humans

Neil: 00:43:36

doing lots of things around what makes us uniquely human, creativity,

Neil: 00:43:40

innovation, empathy motivating others.

Neil: 00:43:44

And you can extend that, of course, into things like ethics.

Neil: 00:43:46

You're not going to ask AI to develop your ethics strategy.

Neil: 00:43:50

How do we train AI?

Neil: 00:43:52

What makes AI human?

Neil: 00:43:53

You need humans to help AI understand what that looks like.

Neil: 00:43:56

So I see a future where there's lots of jobs and opportunities developing that

Neil: 00:44:01

we just haven't thought of at the moment.

Neil: 00:44:03

And lots of opportunity to create new products and services and processes that

Neil: 00:44:08

break the mold from, the industrial age.

Neil: 00:44:12

If organizations are open to adapting to that I think the organizations

Neil: 00:44:17

we're aiming at will be inquisitive about what the future will look like.

Neil: 00:44:22

Whether using AI or not, but I think in particular AI as a driver and

Neil: 00:44:25

being open to thinking about ways of working in in new, breaking the

Neil: 00:44:30

mold from this sort of hierarchical, industrial age approach to what work is.

Neil: 00:44:35

And those that do that, I think those that are prepared to think differently,

Neil: 00:44:39

we can help them to, to bed in a capability that allows them to adapt at

Neil: 00:44:46

that pace of AI development and reinvent their future in many ways, I think.

Neil: 00:44:50

And that, and I think that is what will make the difference between

Neil: 00:44:54

organizations that are around in five or 10 years and those that aren't.

Rob: 00:44:58

That's really interesting.

Rob: 00:44:59

I hadn't really considered aI in that context.

Rob: 00:45:02

So the speed of replication is going to rapidly evolve.

Rob: 00:45:07

So the speed of evolution is going to evolve, which means that we, humans

Rob: 00:45:12

need to focus on emotions and a lot of the other things that you've talked

Rob: 00:45:15

about, which means that humans need to raise their self awareness which means

Rob: 00:45:21

that we need to become more human.

Rob: 00:45:23

That means that organizations need to change to enable that.

Rob: 00:45:28

That's another talk all in itself.

Rob: 00:45:30

Okay.

Rob: 00:45:30

This has been great.

Rob: 00:45:31

Thank you for your time.

Rob: 00:45:33

I think AI is another one that we need to talk about.

Neil: 00:45:35

Yeah, I enjoyed it.

Rob: 00:45:37

I can see your journey to here make you ready to help people be

Rob: 00:45:44

more enabled and be more empowered and be more emotionally intelligent.

Neil: 00:45:48

Thank you for the invite.

Neil: 00:45:49

And also I think what you're doing is really important because stripping back

Neil: 00:45:53

what it says in the profile to the human behind the profile as you described.

Neil: 00:45:59

I think it's really valuable, important to do that and to set to set the tone

Neil: 00:46:03

really for how we all ought to be thinking in work as we move forward.