WEBVTT - “AI is the Stone That Allows David to Bring Down Goliath”: Rishad Tobaccowala 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:08.119 Welcome to possible Now. Some people predict the future, others 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:11.280 shape it. My today's guest has spent his career doing 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.760 both and is someone I not only deeply respect, but 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:20.800 also genuinely enjoy talking to, because every conversation with him 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.799 leaves you thinking in new ways. Richard Tobakowala has spent 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:29.360 decades shaping how we understand business, marketing, and the future 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.960 of work. He became a global key leader at Publicis 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.960 Group and lived through the massive transformation and the area 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:41.360 of mergers, consolidation and disruption of the ad industry firsthand. 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.479 But to call him an ad executive would be like 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.440 calling Da Vinci a painter. It barely scratches the surface. 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.680 What I love most about Richard is that he never 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:57.680 stops evolving, always questioning, always rethinking. Since twenty nineteen, he 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:00.880 has embraced a new role as the thought leader, advisor, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:06.200 guide and author, helping companies and individuals and navigate change. 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:10.000 His books Restoring the Soul of Business and Rethinking Work 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.800 offer deep insights. While his sub stack The Future does 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.840 not fit into the containers of the past and podcast 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.080 What Next are Must Follows. Risha has a rare ability 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.080 to make complex shifts in business and society feel clear, 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.200 even inevitable. He doesn't just talk about the future. He 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:33.160 helps us see it, understand it, and most importantly, navigate 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:37.360 this And today we get to tap into that wisdom. Risha, 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:39.520 my friend, Welcome to the show. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:44.280 Christian, thank you for that amazing introduction. Now hopefully we'll 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:48.040 have a conversation that tries to make that introduction somewhat 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.200 sane and not insane. I'm sure. 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.880 I'm pretty sure, Risha, and we always kick off this 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:57.000 podcast with a personal question and hopefully information to share 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.680 with our audience. In your case, you worked with some 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.680 of the biggest names in business, You advise leaders, you 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.360 wrote books that challenge how we think about work and life. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.679 But I'm couriers and I'm sure everybody else as well. 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:14.440 What's something small, maybe even ordinary, that brings you joy 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:15.240 every day? 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.720 Well, there are many, many things, And in fact, today 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.320 I was listening to a podcast that basically said, there 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.440 are three reasons people are happy. One of them happens 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.000 to be Oh, what a good life is, And it's 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:34.200 a combination of happiness, meaning, and new experiences, which is 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:36.960 kind of interesting. But in the happiness phase, which is 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.000 the question you have. Yeah, they basically say, there are 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.320 big things that make you happy, like when you get married, 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.320 you get promoted, But the things that really make you 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.680 happy on long term basis is not the intensity of 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.480 the happiness but the frequency. So if you can have 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.120 fine happiness in small things, which is very much what 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.520 you basically mention at any given day, I have a 0:02:57.520 --> 0:02:59.919 lot of small things, but the ones that seem to 0:02:59.919 --> 0:03:05.040 be every day is I love working out, so I 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:10.639 either swim or run or you know, do some weights. 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.680 It's become a daily habit. It's almost an addiction, but 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:17.840 it gives me, you know, great joy. I also, interestingly 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.239 love reading, and I set aside an hour every day 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.560 to read regardless, I call it my reading hour. And 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.280 the other thing that gives me a lot of joy is, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.120 you know, spending time with my family. So right now 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.720 I'm in New York. My wife is in India visiting 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.920 her mom, and I'm hanging out with our two daughters 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:41.200 in New York City. 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:43.160 And so those things, which is you. 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.320 Know, family, a little bit of keeping myself mentally sane 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.560 and physically saying so I basically talk about those three 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:54.000 as the physical, mental, and emotional operating systems, and I 0:03:54.080 --> 0:04:00.680 try to basically utilize or experience them daily, and that 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.800 makes everything else, even when things don't go right. When 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.360 I was like in real business and you had tough clients, etc. 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.360 It made you do okay. Yeah. 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.040 And you can also follow those kind of routines when 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.880 you're traveling because you travel a lot, you do for decades. 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:19.679 Yeah, okay, yeah. 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:21.680 I travel a lot. I keep track of my flights, 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:24.880 and as someone who is self employed and not working 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.960 for a company, last year, I did ninety five flights. 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.760 These are flight segments, not ninety five trips. And this year, 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:36.480 which is you know, we're five or six weeks, six 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.040 weeks into the year, I've already. 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:40.520 Done fifteen, oh man. 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.159 And so I have a feeling that I might track 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:47.760 and break my record, which was Publicist. My record when 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.320 a particular year at Publicist was one hundred and twenty five, 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.520 and I think I will break it this year with 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.200 what I can see, assuming health stays okay. 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.440 Yeah, obviously this there's a good reason behind and quite 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.200 often I know from our previous talks, you know, you 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:08.120 try to combine business with some good private reasons, you know, 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.520 like you said, visiting your daughters in New York, or 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.040 do some troops as your wife. But mainly it's about business. 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.960 And I always interviewed once and I said, receiving so 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.039 many miles or points or whatever it's called, depending on 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.560 the airline, that's not an award because it means normally 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:24.440 you spend a lot of time on your own, yes, 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.400 sitting in airplanes and launches and hotel rooms, et cetera, 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:27.800 et cetera. 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:32.120 Yeah, and people know that I like dragging, like adding 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.920 stuff to every place I go, and I usually go 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:40.200 with one of usually with my wife, and so sometimes, 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.000 like recently, someone wanted me to come to Panama City 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.840 and they basically said, hey, we will fly you and 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:48.479 your wife. Will you come if we fly you and 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.720 your wife? So I said, okay, that's interesting, of course 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:52.520 I will. So I'm going at the end of this 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.919 month for three days to Patama City with her. So, 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:57.800 you know, it's kind of interesting, which is my whole 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.960 stuff is talk about sort of work life balance, and 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:06.000 it's really work life integration more than work life balance. 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.440 And in my particular case, it's become sort of a 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.560 passion about making things happen. And then you know, with 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.120 people I'm passionate about, and that doesn't have to be 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.040 my family. It's basically friends and lots of people. You 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.599 and I have known each other, and so I like 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.600 spending time with people, which you can also do and 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.760 meet lots of different people as you go around the world. 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.480 Yeah, thank you for sharing this, Richard. People Also, as 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.800 I described in my introduction, people call you a consultant, 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.000 call you a futurist, a strategist, and of course more 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.000 than that, and all of those fit. That's my impression. 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.480 But if you had to choose just one title that 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.120 describes what you're currently doing, what would it be. 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.880 So it's actually a sentence versus a word, and the 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.040 sentence is I help people see, think and feel differently 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.960 about how to grow themselves, their team and their business 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.400 or some combination of those. So the idea really is 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.960 it's about growth, but to help either an individual or 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.360 a team or a company grow. But the value I 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:18.560 add is I leave them feeling different about how they 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.480 were thinking about things, but not different in a way 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.760 that they're oh, I didn't think about it completely correct. 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:25.680 What am I going to do? 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:27.560 It's just say, if you look at it from this 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.960 particular angle, you might find a new type of solution. 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:34.720 And so what I try to basically do is sort 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:40.560 of give people a gift if that's what it is 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:45.200 of forty two years of my experience, and try to 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:49.320 do it in every interaction. And usually what that leaves 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:54.200 them with is I feel I have grown. So usually 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.520 when I talk to a company or a person or 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:00.280 a team, you know, my idea whether I have been 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.840 productive and successful is if they think they have grown 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.000 due to that interaction. 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.280 Right right, And obviously quite often this is just a 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.880 hidden kind of you know, issued solve or solution to find, 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:18.840 but you're definitely one who digs it out for them 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:20.640 in their individual case. 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:22.400 And if there was a word, if there was a 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.600 single word, yeah, you know I've had been forced a 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:28.120 single word, not a sentence, it would be reinventing, reinventing. 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:29.960 I like that. I like that. 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.120 I like that. So we definitely come to your recent 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.439 books and your key messages along with that in a second. 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.680 But you also spent decades in the ad industry, especially 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.760 with agencies. In the nineties and early two thousands, the 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:49.559 ad industry saw massive consolidations, mergers, acquisitions, everything shrinking into 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:54.240 a few players and it's history repeating itself right now? 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.400 Or do you see significant differences? I mean, especially when 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.520 we think about the agency world, the consultant the world. 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.800 You are self employed, you run your own business. Now, 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.520 is this so different compared to what you've seen years ago? 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:12.720 Well, what it is is consolidation has always happened, and 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:16.880 in some cases consolidation has happened and then there's been deconsolidation. 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:24.520 There were these big, massive conclomerations of like General Electric, right, 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:29.600 which then deconsolidated. There was the original Travelers, which included 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.560 City and a few other places, and they deconsolidated. On 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:39.120 the other hand, because of global markets, because of the 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:44.800 cost of technology, because of the importance of data, the 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:49.800 need for the buyer to have scale based pricing cost advantages, 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:55.160 there has been, I think, definitely in the marketing services industry, 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:59.959 a major drive to consolidation. And I was just reading 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.520 a statement which I believe is true because I not 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:06.920 only read the statement, but the option to speak to 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.520 this gentleman in person when we were together about two 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:18.480 three weeks ago. And in the advertising business in the 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.440 I think a lot of twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.040 ninety percent of all the pitches were won by the 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:30.720 top four companies, and in the last quarter, and I 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.040 don't define, I don't exactly what the last quarter is. 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.120 Maybe it was a fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:40.080 one hundred percent were won by the top four. I'm 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.120 talking about the bigger pitches, not like you know, the 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:47.439 local store, et cetera. And now those four are becoming three. 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.400 And you used to even remember among big holding companies 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.760 used to have. There used to be like seven and 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:59.400 you would have names like Havas and then so and 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:03.679 now look like it's going to be an omnicopg WPP 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:08.240 and publicists world. But that's one way of looking at it. 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.080 But at the same time, because marketing services has become 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.760 very broad, I would say it's also an Accentia world 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:20.320 and a Deloittte world, right, And on the edges you 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:24.440 might say it's a Google and Meta world too. 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:26.600 So we're back to the seven. 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.720 But the seven are no longer necessarily the agencies holding companies. 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.320 Three of them are agency holding companies that have survived, right, 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.480 And there are four other providers who work and deliver 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.000 a whole bunch of marketing services to clients. 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.840 Okay, my impression was similar. But at the same time 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.200 I also felt that the independents, which the bigger independent 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:51.080 agencies stag Wold for example, Yeah, Horzon and many more, 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.439 are more visible than ten twenty years ago. 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.360 Yes, So what basically happens is the way I defied 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.000 them is you have these and it's a chapter in 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.200 my book, not specifically to the advertising industry, but where 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.679 things are going to go. I basically say that what 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.840 we're going to have is the ecosystem of most industries 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:16.720 is going to be whales and plankton, and then occasionally 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.800 there's going to be a squid. So the way I 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:25.880 describe a whale in a plankton is YouTube is a whale. 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.640 If you think about it, the creator who makes money 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:34.160 and uses YouTube is a plankton, and the ecosystem feeds 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:38.400 off each other. The wheel takes thirty percent of the 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:43.880 revenue of the plankton. The plankton could not be global 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.160 without the whale. And then once in a while there are, 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:51.440 like is a squid. So while there is this consolidation 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.840 at the top, to your point, there also happens to 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.200 be a little bit different. But what happens is the 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.319 reason I call it a squid, and I don't. It's 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.760 something in between a wheel and a plankton, like a 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.600 half wheel half blankton is Being in the middle without 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:11.960 differentiation is death, okay, because you neither have the scale 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:16.120 based advantages of the large players nor the agility and 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:21.200 expertise of the two three ten person company. So if 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:27.400 you see it today, Stagwell s for bran Tech, those 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:32.160 are three companies, right, so off the three from outside. 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.200 And again I'm no longer in the industry, so I'm 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.640 not one hundred percent sure what I'm saying. Sometimes I 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:42.680 don't pay that much attention. It appears that S four 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.880 try to be a scale based player without scale and 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:51.440 has suffered deeply because of it, and Stagwell has tried 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.440 to be more like a squid and has done okay 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.240 because of it. And I'm not sure exactly where bran 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:01.920 Tech is. But what you're basically seeing is often what 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:03.840 a client might ask. 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:08.559 Is or in any particular company, can I get. 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:13.320 The smart people who are available in small places at 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.640 independent and can I then bundle them with these large players? 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.320 And so then if you're a middle player. 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.280 You have to explain what you're doing in the movie, right, 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.200 and so I think what you're going to have is, yes, 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.320 there will be continued there will be the middle level. 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:35.680 But everywhere, including in the world of Germany, and Germany's 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.200 industrial base was really built on the middle, the middle 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.960 stat is having big problems because you have to be 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.960 big or you have to be small. Anything in between 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.120 doesn't seem to work. And I think that's what you're 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.800 basically seeing is one of the reasons, by the way, 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:56.280 that you're seeing a lot of middle sized companies being acquired. Okay, 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.400 so just in the last year, among many things, you know, 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:05.560 Public has acquired firms like Mars and Influential, and each 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.120 of those were not small companies. There were five hundred 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:13.920 plus companies, five hundred employees, two thousand employee companies. I mean, 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.040 Mars was very big. And so what happens is people 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.200 are beginning to realize that they have to be stay connected. 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:20.920 And that's one of the things I've sort of learned. 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.320 Even me, who I works like, I'm a one person 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.480 quote unquote company, if that's me, But if you see 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:28.800 who I work with and how I work, I'm a 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.400 plank and I stay very close to the whales, including 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.360 the clients who are whales, because by myself I wouldn't 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:35.160 be able to survive. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.360 And the fun part is that we know that the 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:41.360 next wave, the next development, the next change, is ahead 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:43.560 of us. So maybe just the beginning of this wave 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.560 with this type of consolidation, but it will change again 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:48.360 in a couple of years time. This is what we know, 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:50.920 but maybe not know exactly how it will look like then. 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.400 Yeah. And in fact, if I were to basically say 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.400 where the advantage is going to go, yeah, I think 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.440 the advantage is going to go to the small players. 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:05.760 Sometimes, would you agree shifts just shifting priorities and shifting opportunities. 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:09.080 Well, there's a reason, and the reason basically is is 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.120 because the small players. And it's one of the things 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:16.400 in my book that between twenty twenty March and twenty 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.120 twenty three March in the United States, all the net 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:24.720 employment growth was in companies with less than a thousand people, 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.680 all of it okay, And today apparently in a matter 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:31.760 is going to lay off five percent of its non 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:36.240 productive players. The demand for software engineers has fallen, and 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.840 so what you're basically beginning to see is AI is 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:44.280 now the stone that allows David to bring down Goliath. 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:50.040 And what people don't realize is AI is actually an 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.320 advantage to the small versus the large. Yes, you need 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:58.800 the large scale en videos and Taiwan Semiconductor, but I 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.280 can prove to any com company that I have better 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:04.600 AI than a Fortune five hundred company. Who is it, 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.200 you know, either Google or someone like that. And that's 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.479 primarily because it's only cost twenty dollars a month two 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.199 hundred dollars a month to access world class technology. 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:16.960 So you've mentioned AI, You've mentioned the potential benefits for 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:19.400 the smaller and not just the bigger. So let's talk 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.760 about this. In your first book, which I think you 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.960 published during COVID, Restoring the Soul of Business, you argue 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.639 that companies thrive when they balance data and technology with 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:34.360 human intuition, creativity, and empathy to create meaningful growth and innovation. 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.760 In today's AI driven world, do you think businesses are 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.720 getting better or worse at striking that balance? 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:48.160 So I believe what will happen is businesses were getting 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:53.720 better at striking that balance and then recently have sort 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:58.399 of gone backwards for a variety of reasons. But they 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:00.520 are now waking up in one of the reasons they 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.520 went backward is because a they believed that they could 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:10.000 use AI to replace people. They began to believe that 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:17.040 the labor capital or labor to people who hire employee 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.400 to company balance of power was going back to the company. 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:25.560 And they basically began to believe that for a variety 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.440 of reasons. Even before the recent elections in the United States, 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:32.199 it's pretty prevalent all over the world that DEI was 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.840 a bad word. Okay, So the whole idea was power 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:39.199 is coming back to me. AI will let me replace you. 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:42.840 DEI is a bad word, and so there was this 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:47.560 tendency to go back to the bad ways or old ways. 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:49.680 It may not be bad ways, I ins them bad 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:54.960 ways when we're old ways. I think every single company 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.280 who's doing that is going to get the shock of 0:18:57.320 --> 0:18:59.720 their lives in twenty twenty five. I'm not even saying 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.479 twenty six, twenty twenty seven. They are going to get 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:08.520 a shock because almost no senior management, no very few 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:12.159 senior management know what's about a hit him, okay, in 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.719 the world of work, and including in the world of AI. So, 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:16.760 for instance, here are three things that they say which 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.560 are absolute crap crap, Okay, and they go around saying 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:22.680 it and my whole stuff is like, someone's going to 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.040 stop you. So Number one, I am going to have 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:30.840 an AI strategy to succeed. That's number one. Number Two, 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.199 I am going to use AI as a differentiator. Number three, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:36.680 everybody come back to the office five days a week 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.639 or you're fired. So okay, thank you very much. Now 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.040 let me understand this simple questions. 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:42.640 Simple thing. 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.920 You as a company go running around saying your personalization 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.440 agile and flexible, and now what you've just basically done 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:55.160 is you've forced everybody with a one size fits all 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.359 model to come back to the office regardless of the 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:03.080 client needs. It's regardless of the seniority, regardless of their 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:07.479 life issues, regardless of what actually it is. So the 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.080 fact you're basically saying you're going to be agile, flexible, 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:12.960 and personalized, but you're not going to do it for 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.119 the people who actually create all those agile, personal and 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.040 flexible that's BS, which meant you don't know what agile, 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:23.919 flexible and personalization is. Number two is this whole idea 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.240 of I'm king and my whole thing or queen, my 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.639 old stuff is, Hey, ladies and gentlemen, the issue is 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:32.520 not that people don't want to come back to the office. 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.879 I'm a big believer and in person interaction. It doesn't 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.200 have to be in the office, says I remind people. 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:39.680 When I was in the company, when we wanted to 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:44.280 creative brainstorming, we'd go to off sites. When we wanted 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.880 to learn and network. We've got to things like possible 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.840 or bars and network and restaurants. So none of the things. 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:53.320 And by the way, there's no water coolers. Also at 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:55.320 these places. This whole idea of people running around to 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.919 a water cooler, those also don't exist. So this is 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.639 total bs, total bs. Right, So my old stuff is 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:05.359 that that isn't happening. So that's the other the city 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:07.800 thing that doesn't matter. But here's a problem. It's not 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:10.600 the place that they're not coming back to. They don't 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:13.560 want to come back to you, lady and gentlemen, because 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:15.520 we've entered an age of de bossification. 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:17.080 Nobody wants you. 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:20.119 That's your issue if you're if you're not in the office, 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.760 people will come back, right, which is which is one 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:23.760 of the interesting things. 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:27.119 So obviously, boss, how do you describe is not the 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:29.320 best thing in the world. Being a typical boss. So, 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:32.320 but let's talk about leaders. I've heard recently a great 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.960 interview where do you make the point between those two 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:38.240 groups of people and a boss and a leader and 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.160 senior executives. That's called it like this, So please explain 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:43.520 this in a way that everybody really understands. 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:45.000 Okay, So here's what happens. 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:51.240 So a boss is somebody who at the core operates 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.040 through a zone of control. And by a zone of control, 0:21:54.400 --> 0:22:01.880 they basically monitor, measure, allocate, delegate and check it. That's 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.440 what they do. And by the way, you need every 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.080 leader needs to have some of those boss like tendencies. 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:11.600 You can't operate a company without some of those. But 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:14.320 many of these things, people who are bosses spend seventy 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:18.040 eighty ninety percent of their time doing that. What does 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.879 the leader do? Yes, the leader needs to do some 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.159 of that, maybe twenty five to thirty percent of their time. 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:33.600 A leader bills, creates, solves, sells, inspires, guides. Okay, So 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:36.640 my basic belief is if we had a few more leaders, 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.280 people would go to where the leaders are, whether they're 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:41.280 in an office or in a cave. But you can 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:45.080 basically be a boss, give free food in an exotic 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.520 office somewhere and people won't come. The problem simply is, 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:51.840 and that's one of the examples I give is the 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.480 animals have left the cage. Regardless of what meat you 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:57.280 put in there, they're not coming back. 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.160 Okay, so get over get over it. 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:03.560 The whole idea is it's a rejection of the old way, 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:04.800 So just get over it. 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:07.320 And then you're saying it's independent from the size of 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:10.400 a company, you know, with more reporting and controlling. 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:12.280 Its incompletely independent of the size of a company. 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:13.160 Yeah, exactly. 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:15.439 And by the way, I've done so much research with 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:18.719 so much data, including modern what's going on? So let 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:21.240 me give you three pieces of information which everyone's hiding 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:21.960 from everybody. 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:22.480 Yeah. 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:26.119 Number one, many of these companies who are forcing people 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:30.800