Nola Simon is a strategic futurist, and we discuss the evolving landscape of remote work, the importance of trust and connection in the workplace, and the integration of AI with her. Nola shares her insights on building engaged remote teams, the significance of asynchronous work, and the necessity of measuring trust within organizations. She emphasizes the need for strategic foresight in navigating rapid changes in technology and society, and discusses the role of narrative intelligence in leadership. The conversation concludes with practical advice for CTOs on fostering a culture of trust and engagement in distributed teams.

Chapters

00:00 Intro to Remote Work & Flexibility

05:34 Creating Connection in Remote Teams

10:55 Async workflows, documentation, and AI

13:31 Earning trust for knowledge sharing

15:16 Measuring trust via outcomes & psychological safety

29:04 Strategic foresight: scenarios and adaptability in AI turbulence

44:35 Playbook for first-time distributed CTOs

About Nola

Nola Simon is a strategic futurist and a steady voice for leaders navigating the messy, human moments at work. Her keynotes are part mirror, part map—reflective, insightful, and grounded in the lived experience of leading when the future isn’t clear.

What sets Nola apart? She blends sharp systems thinking with a warm sense of humour and a love of pop culture. Whether it’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to a classic sitcom, a playful callback to a viral meme, or a story about the unexpected lessons of a Zoom mishap, Nola uses levity to spark connection and make big ideas stick. Her sessions are as likely to include a laugh-out-loud anecdote as a breakthrough leadership insight.

As host of Hope & Possibilities: A Love Letter to the Future of Work, Nola brings lived experience, quiet power, and a knack for making people smile to every stage. She adapts to the moment—remote, hybrid, or in person—always with clarity, presence, and deep respect for the space she’s in.

Nola invites audiences to question assumptions, explore new perspectives, and leave with a renewed sense of agency, possibility, and optimism about the future of work.

Where to find Nola

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolasimon

• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@nolasimonsayings

• Website: https://www.nolasimon.com

Hi everyone and welcome to the CTO Compass podcast. Today we're joined by Nola Simon. She's a strategic futurist and a steady voice for leaders that are navigating the messy human moments that we have at work. She spends 20 years inside complex systems, finance, civic infrastructure and high-stake corporate environments and now she helps visionary leaders rethink their presence, identity and influence, especially, and we're going to get into this, remote, async and the AI-shaped worlds that we live in today. Nola, welcome. Please give us a little introduction.

Thank you so much. I'm really impressed with how well You really absorbed my profile.

So I'm like, everything I want to convey is coming through. So Mark and I haven't had the pleasure of meeting before.

So this is our first real introduction. And that really summarizes it really well.

So thank you for that. It's good feedback.

Okay, thanks. And let's get right into the remote work. I think for a lot of CTOs in IT, it's a big thing. You call yourself a hybrid native because you were running remote pilots, and that was from personal circumstances back in 2012. What did you learn then? And I mean, the world has changed quite a bit. We've had COVID since. What have you learned then that still applies today?

So hybrid, remote, whatever kind of flexibility you're talking about, it's very flexible and it's very cyclical, right? So I started advocating for... Work from home, as we called it back then, because I had young kids, right? And so it took me a year. Back then, we only had desktops. I had to actually change jobs and switch teams so I could even get access to VPN so that I could remote log in. I had to buy my own laptop to even do the project.

So what I've learned is that it goes in peaks and valleys. Right at the moment, we're in a trough with everybody and their brother-in-law trying to convince us that return to office is mandatory. But. Optimism is always warranted because I don't see a future where there's less flexibility in the world or less need for flexibility. And what COVID taught us was... That people like it. And there's... A really strong demand for.

It. Yeah. And I agree. And personal confession, I've built, I've actually started my company and built my company to go all remote so that I have that, personally have that flexibility as well. I'm a big believer in all remote work. And for my personal future, what I want to do, it's a big thing.

Yeah, definitely. And that's the thing. Most companies, when they're actually starting fresh now... Majority of them, depending on what the work is, they're starting remote. Because why have that cost up front?

Of an office and people traveling and travel expenses indeed.

Exactly.

So, okay, I want to get in before we go more into remote work, I want to get a bit about the future of work as well, something that you talk about quite a bit. A lot of leaders, they talk about the future of work and it's about going back to the office, but about productivity or costs or even AI is a big role right now. Instead, you talk a lot about connection and trust when it comes to the future of work. Why is that?

Because trust is what fuels everything that we do. Even if you look at AI, a lot of it is how do we trust that the system is going to work the way we think it's going to work when we don't actually know for sure? Even the way AI is actually being constructed and trained, there's lawsuits going on right now about how LMLs were created and trained.

So how do you trust that? The system, And how, as employees and employers, do we actually trust each other to build off that when there's a lot of concern about how that's really going to impact? Jobs and how lives are going to be financed. Trust fuels everything that we.

Do. I want to hear a little more about that, but I want to start a bit with a technology question. First, get into technology and we'll get back to the trust part, which I find very interesting.

That's why we're here. So, In IT, right, in technology, we often work, we have either fully remote outsourced teams that are somewhere on the other side of the world, or we have fully remote developers that are even living scattered across the world, across different time zones, continents. And I know that a lot of CTOs that I personally know as well struggle to build highly engaged teams.

I mean, it's very transactional and they can get all the work done, but building engagements in teams like that is really hard. So what does it actually take to build a culture? Where does people feel engaged instead of just another outsourced remote developer?

Well, and it's what really motivates them personally. How do you create that sense of belonging? And so, you know, some of it is reward and recognition, but... But like if you're hiring freelancers, you know, that looks differently, right?

So what really motivates that individual beyond compensation? Right. What do they value? What do they value personally? And why are they working with you instead of somebody else? Right.

So understanding what their purpose is, understanding why they value the relationship, Right? Is a really great place to start. And having that individual connection really matters, right?

So this is where it concerns me when you start seeing that middle management section really kind of decreased. You know, there's a real instinct right now to really kind of de-layer and get rid of headcounts and simplify the... The structure of organizations, but my concern is, that structure is doing something. Right. And so, those individuals are connected, if you start removing layers, what happens to that connection? Right. And it's true for people that you hire and actually work directly for your company. But if you work with freelancers and like you said, contractors, how does that work and how do they interact and how does that trust run?

Because I was taught that an average team lead, a manager should lead. All the size of two pizza boxes, right? A team of five, seven, maybe 10 people and no more than that. And I think with that kind of size team, you can still build that individual relationship, understand their motivations and build trust. Do you see that that's now... Going away or the people with removing that middle management, they're building much larger teams, or maybe you don't have that connection anymore with your.

Manager? To be quite honest, I came from large corporate.

So like the company that I worked for was one of the oldest insurance companies in Canada. And we were remote. Most of my clients were actually in the U.S. And I never worked on a team that was smaller than 20. For like the last 17 and a half years.

So the whole two pizza box thing, I laugh at. I've always laughed at that because it's like maybe in an ideal world, my thing is about capacity. Right.

So work has done nothing except increase. And COVID actually made that worse because of the constant meetings. Again, that whole lack of trust. People wanted to be real time. They wanted to be face to face. They wanted to be on Loom. They wanted to see people working.

You know, that you add in that surveillance part, that part about productivity and whatnot. And it just actually gets worse.

So. I'm really concerned about that.

So no, I don't think teams are necessarily going to... Gets smaller until AI has the capacity to really absorb a lot of that work. And we make the decisions to get rid of the work that doesn't matter.

Some of that is learning to let go and unlearn and subtract what we think is valuable.

And decide to actually put the human first and create those smaller teams.

Yeah, absolutely. That's right. But the thing is, if you're creating those smaller teams, you have to let go of some of that work.

So what's the busy work that isn't actually adding to the bottom.

Line? Makes sense. Okay. And I think building a trusting relationship, that's one point of the job that we have as leaders. The other one is to make sure that we keep people aligned without actually going for micromanagements or... Even worse, installing surveillance software. I know that happens. I hate it, but I know that happens.

So how do we keep our remote teams safe? Close to us as well, keep them involved and engaged in everything that's happening in our teams.

So, I mean, personally, I'm a big fan of asynchronous work, right? So especially if you're working across the globe and you've got employees and contractors and freelance staff all logging in from different places, you don't have that overlap in terms of time zone. How do you connect? You need to have asynchronous workflows where that communication is happening. And, you know, it can't be work all the time.

So what are you building in to have, like, you know, nice to have, get to know you kind of, you know, activities as well. But really investing in that online communication.

I mean, we do it personally on social media. We have communities. Both Mark and I are part of Generalist World. These are examples of how we can build that type of connection. Without actually having to be logged in at the same time, without having to be face-to-face. Right.

So more of that. Within organizations would be lovely to.

See. And I was thinking of a podcast that I was listening to yesterday. This was very much an AI podcast. I listened to quite a few of those. And she was really talking about AI is very much about, right, making sure that everything is documented, that the AI has access to all the documentation, to all the decisions that were made, and that plays right into the, asynchronous work. Do you think that asynchronous work is going to become bigger because of AI?

Yes, but the funny part that I want to tie in is flexibility has always been better because of asynchronous work and documentation that fuels that. So this is the interesting part is if readers had really adapted to the requirement for documentation that really existed during COVID when we thought it was going to be temporary. We would have had a head start on five years and that would have better prepared us for the adoption of AI. Right.

So, I think that we have to really commit to that documentation piece. Knowledge management is extraordinarily important. But again, where is all that knowledge currently stored right now? A lot of it is actually in the heads of employees, right?

So you start having turnover issues. You start reducing headcount. What is walking out your door that you haven't actually documented that's actually critical to the way you work? And the other thing we have to consider is AI doesn't necessarily work the way that humans do. Right.

So if you've ever actually analyzed, you know, how computers play chess versus how a human plays chess. Computers do things in a very different capacity than humans do, right?

So there's different technical capability that is complimentary. Right?

So The best way forward really is for humans to really work in conjunction with technology and to get the bow strip done. The best out of both worlds. Right.

So, yes, I do think asynchronous will go, but I think we have to build that in.

And that means actually storing what's in your head. In documentation or somewhere else so that you can actually work with the AI.

Right. But how do you get your employees to trust you to share that information? Because, you know, they're probably seeing all the headlines where like, you know, AI is going to take your job.

So right at the moment, what's valuable to an employee is, you know, how do I maintain my job? How do I maintain my value? And to just hand that all over to AI, not knowing what your commitment is to sustain me personally going forward, that's a real trust issue.

So how do you build that trust that they're not going to get fired after they hand over their knowledge?

Well, I'm actually seeing moves towards collectives and like different compensation structures where, you know, employees start to have equity. Right. And now. That's just like a beginning signal that I'm kind of seeing on the edges. The thing is, if you are personally invested in a business that you feel will sustain you well past what your actual job. Itself is worth? Then you have start having commitment as an owner. Right.

So, I don't know how that will go. As I said, it's just kind of like rumblings that I'm seeing on the edges, things that I'm tracking. But yeah, so that's the thing. You start having to reinvestigate the compensation model. What's in it for you? What's in it for.

Everybody? Less of a nine to five and more. Actual co-ownership commitments to the company you're working for. That is just, I work 40 hours a week and then I get my paycheck at the end of the month. And that's it. That's the transactional relationship.

Yeah, but employee collectives, I mean, I've seen them a lot more in the U.S. Than I have in Canada, but they already exist, right?

So how do you build off that existing experience and make it into something that's... On a scale at a much larger level.

That's a very good question. Okay, I want to get on to the trust as well, the trust part a little bit.

So one of the powerful lines and it's a question that you ask quite a bit it's measured trust and not time right and we work in environments where trust i've worked in environments i said that before where trust has been an issue so this one Really interesting. What does it look like to work in an environment where you do have trust and you measure trust and not just the time that people work?

So I come from an environment where I was monitored. You know, we were a lot... It was a call center, right?

So we were checked when we logged in, we were checked when we logged out, they monitored, they knew what we were doing every single second of the day. They could remote log into our screens, they could look at what we were doing, what phone numbers we were calling, etc.

Yeah, it's intense, right? So I've worked in an environment where you're not trusted. The way that you work around that is you start having to look at outputs. Versus... The transactional things, right?

So like the magic that I brought, like when I finally left that job that I'm talking about, it took 14 people to replace me. Right? And The relationships that disturbed, a client, like a vendor value relationship. That was over like one and a half billion dollars. And they would come to me And they would introduce me to people like when I actually traveled down to the States, they would be like, this is the most important person in the company.

Right? So you start looking at the reputation that you personally build, the impact that you bring, and how that translates into...

You know, how do you drive business, but how do you retain business? And you don't do that by monitoring like how many clicks or, you know, how many calls you make or how long those calls are and, you know, don't. What word did you choose? And, you know, would you have been better to say something differently in a different way? Right. If your impact is to build relationships where people like 10 years later are still referring you business because you exist. That's impact.

Nice. And I think that applies very much to those CTOs that I talked about that have remote development team. I know that there are companies that indeed do that desktop monitoring, that install desktop see what people work on. And I just don't believe that works.

So measure up. No, it doesn't. But Even if you're doing that right now, how does that work with AI? Because do you actually understand what your AI is doing?

Like the majority of people don't really understand what AI is, how it works on a regular basis. So if you're your average mid-level manager, you might understand what the job. What that person is doing looks like because you've done it before. That's how you got promoted because you were a good individual contributor. You understand and the way that you train and you manage your coaches to do things the way that you used to do it. Right. But how does that look if the job gets redeveloped so that part of the skill that the human is bringing is the curiosity, the integrity, the judgment, and then they have AI agents working with them to do the repetitive transactional things that. Computers do better than humans, right? Are you going to monitor the computer? And how are you going to assess and monitor the humans? Right. Because that's going to look different. And how do you 100% monitor judgment. And assess that in a way that's quantifiable. Right.

So it's whatever you're doing right now, you have to reimagine. For what that might look like. With an AI.

Factor. And that's exactly one of my next questions, actually. You talk about measuring trust. Is it... Possible? How do you measure trust within a team or with your employees? Can you actually put that into numbers and make it quantifiable? Or is it still more qualitative.

It does tend to be qualitative. Trust is reciprocal, to get the best out of people Often you have to trust first.

So I think with that question, you have to really determine what it is that trust is doing for you and how you actually function in a way where... What happens when trust is high, but what is the impact when trust is low? Right.

So do people tell you what's wrong in your company? Like if you start looking at things that happen, like at Boeing, nobody, everybody knew that there was a problem. But nobody wanted to convey it because they were afraid of the individual impact it would have on their community. Job, their compensation, their family. And. There's just not that psychological safety to actually say, hi, this is a problem. And that is a really big reputational risk.

So you have to consider that If your instinct is to micromanage and to monitor, What are you sacrificing? And how much does that you can quantify that gives you a start.

Cost? In terms of. And if I think Boeing is a great example of what happens. And I think we had one or two people that did come out and that didn't end very well. - Yeah, for them. - No.

Exactly. And that's the thing, like there's a real risk to be a whistleblower.

So. It takes a certain type of personality to have the... The guts to do that. And But honestly, when you're building systems, I don't think you should trust the fact that people are going to be brave enough to do that. I don't think you, if you're building any kind of reputable brand... Especially if you're in an industry that, affects people's Health, well-being, safety?

Like Boeing? You know, literally your product could fall out of the sky, right? How do you trust that process is going to run the way it is if it's it all hinges on The one person being brave. That's not a good But you know what?

System. Better if everyone feels comfortable just reporting something when something is wrong.

I was in a situation once. There was actually somebody in an inter-office affair. They were both married.

Yeah, it was really interesting. I came across it by accident. Right. But she was a manager.

Right? And so did I report that? No, because for one, I didn't know what impact it would have on me. But two, He was the son of the executive assistant who worked with the CEO. Did I really trust that they were actually going to take action because she was the manager, he was extremely well-connected, a nepo-baby, the corporate version, right? Do you trust that anything is going to change if anybody's actually going to take any action? Right. And. I didn't report it because I didn't think that it was going to get anything done, but it might have blowback. And, you know, they had young kids and. How do you make that choice? Right. I didn't do it. I changed jobs.

Is a good example where maybe there is some trust but not enough for you to be able to report that out in the open to your manager or HR or someone else.

Yeah. And I mean, you do these experiments, right?

So you give them something low stakes to see how they behave, what they do with something that isn't actually that truly important. And if they blow it, then you don't bring them the bigger, more important things that do have reputational risk or, you know. Financial risk, whatever it's going to be, right?

So at any given point, You're risking a lot if you don't have trust within your Everybody has.

Organization. I've seen that a little since.

Every single person who works for an organization that's larger than maybe five people has seen that.

Yeah, or trust is lacking, or there's politics at play and personal interests, and people don't always want the best for the company or their team or their employees.

Or it might even just be you're in a small company, but you're in a bigger industry, right? And then, like, it's not even just, like, what's in your organization. It's, like, how does that fit into your community? How do, you know, municipal politics play into it?

You see that with the return to office. And, you know, everybody wants to go back to the city.

Like, in Toronto, our subway systems have really had a financial impact because they haven't had as many riders, right? So there's a lot of pressure there. Governments are putting a lot of pressure on organizations like banks and insurance companies that have large amounts of employees because those are the riders who take the... The transit. Right.

So this is whole impact of, you know, how do your choices that you make in an organization affect not only your employee, but the your location and the city and community around it.

Yeah. That makes sense.

Something else that you talk about quite a lot is strategic foresight. What do you mean by that?

Strategic foresight is, You start monitoring signals, you start monitoring trends, and you start looking at how this could potentially play out five, 10 years from now. What do you see on the edges?

And then you sort of develop that into scenario planning, right? So it's basically like peeking. Into the future just based on, you know, what could possibly happen.

So, for example, I was part of a simulation with the futurist company that I learned futurism from, and they did a scenario basically about... Alpha-gal syndrome. I'm not sure if you've heard about it. It's really kind of like on the edges as well still. And so it, alpha-gal syndrome is, sort of like an anaphylactic type allergy that people develop to meet but it comes from a tick that's mostly in the U.S. Right now, but it is actually worldwide. There have been instances of this specific type of tick. And so one of the things that came out of looking at...

Like scenario planning and that strategic foresight is, how does that impact consumer choices, right? Because... It's all meat.

So what are the byproducts, right? Even just looking at like gelatin, which is derived from animals to glue things together. Toilet paper. You wouldn't be able to use toilet paper the way that it's currently manufactured. Because you'd be deathly allergic and it could actually kill you. Right. But it's like the scent of meat cooking.

So you couldn't go to family barbecues. You couldn't go to community barbecues. And like it has a huge impact. But one of the biggest things that actually I noticed that personally, I paid attention to is how does that impact your relationship with. Animals. Right.

So like I have a dog, for example, you know, we're careful to monitor for ticks and whatnot. But if this tick in particular that's in the U.S. Really kind of spreads, which it is, you know, we're going to have to be careful. In 10 years, would you actually have animals living in your house? Because the risk of alpha-gal syndrome becomes so large.

So that strategic foresight is, what do you see on the edges of that Could possibly play out into something that actually affects how you live, how you do work, how you make choices and decisions, right? And right at the moment, I mean, if you told me about this and told me I wouldn't be able to have my dog in 10 years because I might develop anaphylactic issues. Disease, I'd be like, what are you talking about? Because I've thought about, that's the interesting thing about strategic foresight and scenario planning is, There's a lot of evidence that because you've thought about it, when you actually have to live it. It becomes easier for you to make those decisions.

Instead of just looking at it on paper, going deeper and actually understanding what it means.

And yeah, because you've thought through it. It's actually interesting that organization is called Institute for the Future. They actually did a scenario back in, I think it was 2008, a disease like COVID. Right. And they knew from the beginning because of that scenario that the rituals were going to be the most difficult thing that people struggle with.

So... That proactive type of thought really can help you adapt. It really has impact on your adaptability. And.

I think what I struggled with when I was reading this, I think in my world, in technology, this was... Doable, I think. And now it feels like it is all going so fast. We get so many AI models and platforms and tools and It seems like the world is being... Put upside down almost every six months when something new comes out. How do we actually apply strategic foresight in this world today.

Yeah, it's really challenging because it is moving so fast. And it's which models are actually going to have that sustainability or going to have that. They're actually going to survive more than 18 months, right? I think the answer is you have to focus on that adaptability, right? And making quick decisions, right? And making determinations about what indicators you really follow and what you trust. Right. And I think that's a challenging thing because I don't think there's consensus. And I don't think we've been here before, so we're developing it as we go. Everybody trusts somebody, though. Trust never dies. That's the interesting thing about trust. It shifts forms. It's like energy, right?

So Who do you trust? What do you trust? Is it in the data? Is it in the user reaction? Is it in the revenue? What is it that you're really going to trust? And what about the leaders who are leading those companies, right?

So you look at something that happened at a Coldplay concert, thinking that company that you've never heard of before is an interesting thing. But you don't trust that leader because of personal choice they make, regardless of the company might be sound. Their leadership isn't.

No, that's... And I think that that's an interesting question. You talk about foresight in the future. And I think a lot of leaders spend 99% of their time on today. And it's a lot easier to trust the data that you have today and knowing what's out there today, because you can look at today. Tomorrow is doable, but the future is very hard. What's your advice to leaders? How can they make this a part of their work and the way that they lead their teams.

The best way to really kind of adapt to, Futurism is actually in your personal life, right? And then you start building the habits that allow you to kind of trust your skills to move that into like a professional capacity, right?

So she's like, I want to be... She actually quit her job to be off with him for a year so that, you know, she could help him make the decision. He actually ended up enlisting.

And then she went back to work. The same company hired her back. But that conversation was really pivotal for me when my kids were little, because I'm like, how do I? Position myself so that when my kids are like 17, 18, 19, I'm present. And my kids actually just went to university, so I have achieved the goal. Of what I wanted that to look like. But I started with how do I make this happen so that I can be home to drop my kids off at school, pick them up, And, you know, actually be present in their life. And it's how do you build off those little transactional moments, but with like the ultimate goal of how do you really transform? And I didn't have the answer when my little one was three. But They don't even remember me commuting and going to an office anymore.

Like their memories. That's not part of it, right? And So if you can start doing small, tiny experiments like that in your personal life and seeing how those translate, then you don't have to wait 15 years, obviously. See how that goes and what mindset shifts you have to do to be able to accommodate those and then trust that you're building skills that will allow you to translate into professional. AI is honestly a great It's going to be a great test for everybody.

And what do you mean by that? How?

That adaptability? Right. Can you imagine what your work is going to be like?

You know, try imagining two months from now, Right. Are you experimenting with it right now?

Like, do you use it at all? Right? How do you adapt that? What daily things can you just kind of do? I know somebody online, she runs like this test kitchen, she calls it, and she just created like a Look at. An AI agent that really kind of just sorted you out into like which Harry Potter sorting out are you like, which house are you? Right.

So little tiny experiments that you can then build off, like, because do you understand how to create that? Do you understand how to make that fun, enjoyable, engaging? Right.

And then what else does that make you curious to do? Right.

And then if you expand that, just kind of like keep expanding the scenario time periods. What does this look like 18 months from now? And look at different perspectives, too.

Like, how are kids using it? How are... Seniors using it, right?

Like it's not just about you know, adults, you know, 20 you do. 60. What are the other aspects in life? What are those people using it for?

And if I read the predictions on AI, they're literally all over the place. They go from In a couple of years, we're all going to be out of work and we'll be on social benefits or universal income or whatever to part of our work is going to move to AI. But there will be new work and we'll be perfectly OK and continue to work 30 to 40 hours a week. Maybe four days a week, maybe five days, nobody knows. Where do you see, how do you see that and how should we deal with that? I.

Think personally that There's a lot of resistance and humans in general are resistant to change. I come from industries where fax machines are still a thing.

So digital transformation has taken at least 25 years to get to this point. So, A lot of these people are talking Really fast timelines that I don't know are likely to produced because I start to think about how long it's taken us to get rid of fax machines.

That's true, but I'm not. Yeah. And from my perspective, I'm seeing this new digital divide. Maybe I work with a lot of startups that are like completely bleeding out, choosing all the AI models and moving at extreme speeds. They're vibe coding and everything's done with AI. And I see the corporates that are maybe playing around with it a little bit, not sure what to do and not much is happening there. And that gap seems to be widening continuously.

And who are the clients, though? And this is the thing, like, what are you selling? Right. And who is actually going to buy it? And what are those users really going to be attracted to? Right. Because you could build the most beautiful thing that functions in a fantastic way. But if you can't get anybody to use it because they don't understand it or it doesn't really.

Solve a real problem in their life. Why are they going to use it? Why are they going to continue using it? And how do you build a sustainable income off it, right?

So the large corporates... Have a challenge where they have a business model that's working because they're, they are earning what they're earning, but. Is it going to remain like that? Right, so their issue is, When do they pivot? Right. And knowing when to let go of what was and move into what is going to be is, you know, the biggest challenge ever. Look at Netflix and Blockbuster. Right. Kodak, you know, all of the, you know, standard business cases that we love to pull up about, you know, having that, making that right decision at that right time is really challenging. Right. Startups have an issue where. They don't necessarily know who their clients are going to be. Right. Or how that's going to change.

True. Both have serious challenges, but that's the whole part of running a business, which is the fun part of it as well.

Yeah. But, you know, it's how society changes, right?

So like, you know, within five to 10 years or whatnot, the, you know, as baby boomers start to, Bye. Pass away and inheritance translates, you know, it's due to It's expected that, you know, trillions of dollars are actually going to change hands and actually go to women.

So if women become this powerhouse in terms of how many assets they have, and they tend to be the consumer who makes the choices for the majority of purchase that are done for households, how does that really impact? How... Products are built and targeted, especially when you've got something like AI, which is actually built off the past, which was.

You know, frequently biased and trained off of outputs from men who tended to be of a certain age and white. I don't know how that's going to translate. Right.

So it's not just what you're doing in your company, but it's how society shifts and molds and.

Adapts. And those are some big changes happening indeed. - Let's see, that'll be interesting for sure. One other thing that you often talk about is narrative intelligence, right? Yes. Reframing the stories that leaders tell. What does that mean? What are their stories?

What are their stories? You know, a lot of it is, you know, Especially when it comes to hybrid remote and whatnot. If you've got a leader who's trying to mentor staff or trying to encourage them to do things more in person or whatever, the story that they trot out is how they were successful because they happened to be in a right location, the mystical water cooler where all of the connection ever happens, you know. Going to bars or meeting up at conferences or, you know, business travel, whatever happens to be their magic. That tends to be what they like to mentor and coach. Right. How do you reframe that story when the water cooler is gone, the conferences aren't happening?

You know, you've got a distributed team. That doesn't actually meet more than once a year. How do you translate that leadership expertise when your story really has lost relevance? Right. How do you reframe that?

So I have a theory that place isn't the magic that most people think it is, that the real gift of the coaching and the mentoring that people can pass along is how they manage to communicate, how they've managed to persuade, how they've managed to convey their expertise in a way that translates and is resonant. Right. It's more about communication than it is about the magic of place. Place has been doing the heavy lifting. Right. Because there's a certain expectation that goes along with how you behave and at specific places, right? And how that how work gets done. Dope. How do you reframe the stories? Of the past success to be useful for the future. That's really what narrative intelligence is. It's how do we adapt? Brilliant. That's what it comes down to. It's, again, adaptation.

Make sure we don't just tell the same stories from the past and just keep repeating those. Because they used to work in the past.

Yeah, exactly. That's right. It's like we're not sitting on the porch drinking lemonade and, you know, just talking about things the way things used to be. Right.

You know. You're just going to get people who are not going to trust that you know what you're talking about. Because the world that you're talking about doesn't necessarily exist Right.

Anymore. It's changing all around us. And especially right now, it's going really fast.

But it's probably not going to slow down, right? So... It's adapt or don't. What are your choices?

Okay. One of my last questions, I think one of the beautiful questions that you ask or that you actually publish, what if everyone felt truly seen and heard at work?

Yeah. I love that picture, that image of... Everybody feeling truly seen and heard at work. Et. I've honestly, I don't think I've ever seen an organization where I could actually say that that's true, but I love that aspiration. How can we do that? How can we achieve that, especially in a distributed environment?

I think that we have to consider like, It doesn't necessarily take an awful lot to really make somebody be seen and valued. It really just takes a little bit. Right.

So, you know, somebody who says hello to you in the morning. Right. It's part of their routine. They just. Make sure that you're there, how you're doing, what your day is, what you might be working on, right? It could be...

You know, like when my dad retired, he had a really hard time because he lost all of the people that he would talk to on a regular basis. And so he started going to the mall and he would go and talk to the muffin girl and she would recognize him and give him his favorite coffee. Right.

So it's how does that filter into our organization so that, you know, we know that you showed up to work today and we appreciate the fact that you did, but the impact that you have. We're happy to see you, right?

So how do you convey that in such a way that isn't dependent on presence? Right, physical presence, but still makes you feel valued. Right. And I think it takes less than we think it does. It doesn't have to be some big, important thing. It could just be like an emoji in Slack that's just for you.

Right.

Somebody recognizes that you showed up today. Yay. Okay. And they check on you when you're missing.

So maybe one day you don't show up. What happens?

Yeah.

Okay. I think that, yeah, I think it probably is that easy.

So something good for everyone to keep in mind.

I think people are different, right? So I think it's about communicating what it is you need to. Right.

So it's a two-way street.

And if you, I think to wrap it all up, to bring it all together, if you were advising a CTO that's just starting maybe fresh with a distributed team today, or like they're building their first team, hiring their first team members, what is the first step? A couple of practical steps that I really should take to just build their organization for trust and engagement like from day one so that it becomes an integral part of their whole team.

So I think that as a CTO, you really have to consider the fact that you are really working across teams. Silos. And E. Everything is interconnected. And so the first thing that you want to make sure that you understand and you have a connection with is the people.

So Can a CTO really operate, especially in an AI future without their chief people officer. Right.

And then how is that all funded? So your next best friend is going to be the... Chief Financial Officer. Because whatever you want to do, you want to make sure that you know, the people are on board and it can be funded.

Right? So you have to start understanding how your department really functions within, the organization itself and who are the, who the networks, right? Because usually it's not the people who you expect to that are going to be the bridges of information between those departments, right? That, at unexpected network, the people on the edges, it's usually about 3% that can really influence the rest of the 90.

So get to know your informal network because everybody is connected to somebody, but usually the super connectors are the people who a lot of people trust. And if you can identify your informal network and those super connectors, those are the people that are going to help you. Build out your team and make it successful. And it's all about how that information flows, but how that trust flows. Right.

So I would. Observe and ask a lot of questions about who trusts, in what context, and when.

Thank you. - And thank you for all the information that you shared. What is it? I think this is something I should have asked you in the beginning, but what is it that you actually help yourself businesses with? What is it that you do and where can people find you?

So it does tend to be cyclical. So the idea is that you want, I want to make, help organizations make work, where their businesses thrive and the people thrive.

So far, I've been doing that, advising, you know, companies on how to do that with hybrid remote. But I think it's wider, right?

So like I'm looking at developing into like how that impacts leadership, right? And how do you adapt for that cyclical, right?

So I'm starting to look at, you know, how do I develop a speaking business so that I can influence? Because a lot of times... The influence has to be done at such a high level. That thinking has to be done before you can really kind of implement, right?

So, Truly, I'm creating a portfolio career that allows me to adapt as things change.

To influence people. At the point of the decision-making instead of after they've already made the decision in them implement.

Exactly. That's right. And often like what happens is, you know, it tends to be somebody kind of like middle of the tier who doesn't have, they have the ability to influence, but they don't have authority. Right.

So they don't have budget. They don't have final decision-making. They don't have the ear of the CEO. And this is really organization level. It can't be done. Unless you have that strategic decision-making. Ability.

So if you don't have the ability to get in front of the people who actually make the final decisions, you're dead in the water. So that's where doing podcasts like this, is strategic.

No, I understand. And I hope that people that are listening or they're listening to this episode are seeing it online somewhere. Know where to find you. Of course, we'll put your website and all your contact details in the show notes so people can find you. Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a pleasure having you.

Thank you, Mark. I appreciate it.