Emily:
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Hi everyone.
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Welcome back to Re-Imagining
Work from within . I'm
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Emily and I'm glad you're here.
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If you caught me and Laurie in our
last episode that we recorded together
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a couple of years ago you'll remember
that we explored a big question.
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Can AI write your purpose and values?
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What we landed on was that while AI
might be able to mimic the language,
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it can't create the meaning or shared
belief that gives those words real power.
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That conversation led us to
the next question on our minds.
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Can AI help you decide where you're going?
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Can it support you in shaping a vision
or strategy, or is it still something
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that people have to create together?
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That's what we're digging into
today, and I'm joined by Laurie.
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Hi Laurie.
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Laurie: Hi Emily.
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Emily: We're exploring the bots.
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Laurie: I can't believe it's been two
years since we did that last episode.
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I think if you'd asked me before this,
I would've said that has, has chat
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PT even been around for that long.
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Emily: Yeah, I totally agree.
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it's crazy that it's been a topic
for us to discuss for that long.
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It's been in the workplace and there's
been some evolution behind it as well.
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since we last spoke, the use of
generative AI has increased from 33%
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in 2023 to 71% by the end of 2024.
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Wow.
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That's a pretty big jump.
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Laurie: That's a really big jump.
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I mean, I feel like
that's true though, right?
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I mean, of course it's true because
it's a statistic, but so many more
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people from clients to friends to.
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Even my family.
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Talking about it and using it, and it
just feels like it's kind of normal now.
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Whereas I think when we did it last
time, it still felt a little niche.
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People were still testing
the water around it
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Emily: I was still using
it on my desktop browser.
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I have since downloaded the app.
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I can now speak directly to chat GPT,
which has been a interesting experience.
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It speaks back.
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Yeah, and we, we could use it in our
personal lives and our professional lives.
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I wanted to say that 77% of
companies are using AI or expLaurieng
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AI use within their business.
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So it's no longer just a
small, part of our world.
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it's fully getting embedded.
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I wanted to take some time to explore
the evolution of AI in the workplace.
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a couple of years ago, we
explored whether or not AI could
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write your purpose or values.
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And we found that it could give us some
convincing words, but it couldn't give
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us meaning or that shared experience
of making those words come to life.
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I think we used a barbecue metaphor.
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Is that right?
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Do you remember Laurie?
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Laurie: I think you were
mostly responsible for that.
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that's true.
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If I remember rightly, we were talking
about the difference between the
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store-bought microwavable ribs that
you might enjoy versus that slow cooked
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smoker experience, and they're both ribs,
but there's a fundamental difference
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between the flavor and the taste and
what it means to eat one or the other.
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, Wri other.
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Writing your purpose and values with AI
kind of felt like a store-bought microwave
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version, whereas if you really want
those values and that purpose statement
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to really carry the meaning and the
intention and the inspiration that they
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should have in order to be effective.
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Tools in your culture, then
they need to be slow cooked and
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smoked up nicely with your team.
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Emily: Gotta build in that meeting,
gotta add in that dash of love.
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It's the only way.
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now we wanna take a moment and
ask if AI can mimic clarity,
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can it also mimic direction?
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Can it help you decide where you're going?
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Or is a vision and strategy something
that only people can create together?
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Before we dig into ai, I thought we
could take a moment to define what
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we mean by strategy and vision.
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What does strategy mean to you, Laurie?
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Laurie: Well, maybe I'll
start with vision actually.
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that's the order we tend
to think about them in.
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Having somewhere to go before you
think about how you get there.
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always a good way round to do things,
but I think in a vision for us, we
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describe as a picture of the future
that you want to move towards.
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a lot of time what we notice is that.
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Visioning becomes an exercise
in trying to predict the
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future, which isn't quite right.
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if we've learned anything from these last
few months and few years the future is
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so unpredictable we keep hearing, talk
about uncertainty and being able to cope
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with it surprises through our economies,
surprises through our political systems.
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Changes that we can't really
anticipate coming visions aren't
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really about trying to solve for that.
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They're not about pulling out our crystal
ball and trying to know and control
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what's going to happen in the future.
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They're much more about intention.
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They're about asking ourselves what
do we want most from the future?
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What's the kind of future
we would love to create?
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And being able to then have this picture
of the business we're trying to build
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of the impact we're hoping it's going to
make that means something and can guide
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the decisions we make moving forward.
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Emily: Do you think that people
sometimes confuse alignment on language
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with actual alignment and direction?
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Laurie: Yeah, definitely.
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I mean, a lot of the time when we are
working with clients that already have
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a vision statement and that vision
statement in most cases has, arrived
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before many of the people who work there.
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it's really interesting asking people
what their vision means to them and
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starting To understand the difference
between being able to remember what
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that phrase was that you saw on the
website with really having a felt sense
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of what the organization that you work
for is trying to achieve in the world.
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Emily: Yeah, absolutely.
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really good thinking there, Laurie.
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So what do we think about AI's
involvement in this world?
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Did you have an opportunity to
play around with it as well?
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Laurie: I did.
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We've been writing within two
year vision and strategy, and
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I've been playing with it.
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I'll admit, I've been.
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Leaning on what we call a droid,
to help us with some parts of that.
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Emily: what do we think?
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Have we been impressed with the droid?
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I personally was a little impressed.
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Laurie: What did you ask
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Emily: So let's take a look.
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we have to give it a good
base of info to get it going.
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I, took chunks of texts from our website,
speaking to our services who we are and
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what we're doing along with a couple
of plans we've had internally after
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feeding it all of that information,
I asked for it to come up with,
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vision and direction and
some strategic priorities.
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So I thought I could read you just the
intro that it gave me, 'cause I thought
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that itself was pretty well done.
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We founded within people to reimagine
how businesses grow, putting people and
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purpose at the heart of transformation.
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Over the last 10 years, we've seen that
dream take shape in many forms in the
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cultural shifts of our clients, in the
ways our own partnership works, and in
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the growing community of leaders who
are building the companies they love.
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Now as we look ahead to the next two
years, we're stepping into a new chapter,
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one that deepens our impact, sharpens our
focus, and supports us to grow sustainably
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as a business and as a partnership.
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This strategy is an invitation to
align around shared priorities, to
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invest in the future of our work
and to stay grounded in the within
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way as we expand what's possible for
ourselves and the leaders that we serve.
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Laurie: Oh, I can just imagine you.
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On the team, all hands, CEO, Emily
saying that and people going,
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yeah, gosh, that sounds great.
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It sounds
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Emily: so good.
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It's a lot of beautiful words, but it
didn't really give us a lot of anything.
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Did it?
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Laurie: Just don't look behind the words.
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It's like a movie set, isn't it?
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It's fantastic from the front,
but if does it actually mean?
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What are you actually trying to say?
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Emily: yeah.
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I mean it is a really great mirror.
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it did a really good job on reflecting
back what I've already shared with
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it, but in terms of coming up with a
new direction or a new way of thinking
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based off of what I fed it, that's
where I feel like it's really lacking.
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Laurie: that's cool.
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I didn't even, catch bits from
our website and paste it in there.
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I just said, go look at our website
and On the basis of that, start telling
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me a little bit about the risks
and opportunities that you see for a
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business like us over the next few years.
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where do you think we're under
threat and where do you think
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we have opportunity to grow?
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it was remarkably interesting
and compelling, the stuff
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that it came back with.
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It was really cool inviting it to explore
kind of what our industry is gonna be
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going through, the kinds of things our
clients are going to increasingly need.
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Obviously, one of the things that
I try, I always think of AI sitting
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there and then realizing that.
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It is one of the major threats
and opportunities to our business.
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it always comes up on the list.
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But for forecasting and scanning
and getting a feel for what's
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going on outside of our immediate
bubble, it's a really good tool for
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sparking different thoughts in space.
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I don't know that we would ordinarily
do the landscape scan and then
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consolidate that and come up with our
insights, and that would take us a week.
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this is happening in a matter of seconds
and it's presented beautifully and
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it gives you a really great headstart
into the kind of conversations
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you've gonna be wanting to be having.
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Emily: So what did we learn?
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Do we feel like we came away
with some guidance from the bot?
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Laurie: Definitely.
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Emily: Great.
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Laurie: Definitely.
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And you know, as you did there, kind of
even asking it to translate that into
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statements of vision and a storyline
of where you're going, it does an
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eerily plausible job of doing that.
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I have, read a lot of visions
written on company websites and
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places, and it's right there with
all of those in terms of how.
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Convincing, it can create a picture of a
kind of future state of your organization
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or what's gonna be most important
for you to be thinking about as you
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move forward over the next few years?
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Really good.
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Emily: Well that's all fine.
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it sounds like, there might
still be something missing.
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from what AI is able to create.
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And I think it's something that we
touched on in our last podcast, but I'd
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love to dig into it a little bit here.
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The words are beautiful, the strategy
it's putting out or the predictions
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that it's putting out are very helpful.
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But I would say that, when others
aren't a part shaping the energy,
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they might not feel ownership over
it, even if they agree with it.
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So without participation from your team
or leadership, there's less of that
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natural alignment we've been talking
about and less energy to implement it.
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And maybe even a higher risk of
strategic drift or passive resistance.
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I think that we're missing that element
of collective buy-in, but maybe we could
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speak to what that element would offer.
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Laurie: I think that's a conundrum, right?
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Because.
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There's some real advantages as the
leader of an organization to be able
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to get a vision and strategy pulled
together without intruding on the time
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and energy of my other senior leaders
who are super busy and probably, you
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know, don't have time just available
to be having these kinds of deep
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and meaningful conversations with me
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Then the downside of not having
those kinds of conversations, if
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creating a vision and strategy were
an exercise in efficiency, then chat,
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GPT could do a really great job.
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AI could create something plausible
that would help move it forward.
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But in an ideal world, creating
a vision strategy is not that.
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It's how we.
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Meaningfully understand the
direction we want to move in,
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the impacts we want to make.
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the strategy piece there is really
about what are the choices that we're
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gonna make and sometimes the hard
choices that we need to make in order
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to move ourselves in that direction.
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And you can't usefully shortcut those.
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Discussions 'cause it's so important
for the people who are going to
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be responsible and accountable for
helping a business travel towards that
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vision or execute on that strategy
to feel what it means to them and to
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understand that accountability in their
bodies, not just in what they read
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Emily: absolutely.
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Something that I've been thinking about
are the moments of tension or charge that
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you might not actively be thinking about
in your day to day that don't get dug
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up without those types of conversations.
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Even with that great input, you're
gonna miss those edge cases or the
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lived realities, or even signals
that other people are noticing.
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So little bits of tension that are
bubbling under the surface or something
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that just hasn't been articulated in
the right way because you haven't had
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the space to work it out and process it.
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I think that creating that space and
allowing space for a little bit of
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positive conflict and a little bit of,
creative friction, it's going to allow you
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to work through those conflicting views
or those moments of tension and charge and
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come to the other side with resolution.
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And again, that collective
buy-in feeling like we were all
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a part of creating the solution.
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Laurie: Yeah, it's really hard to have
people feel like they can commit behind
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something if they haven't argued it.
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To voice their dreams and fears around
what it represents for them, and then
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work through that as a group, as a
aligned leadership team, you need to
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hit those moments of misalignment.
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You need the individuals there to
speak to the concerns they have, the
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desires they have in that space, and
find your way through that together.
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In order to arrive at a place where
you can feel really committed to what
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it's, you're, you're trying to work on.
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Emily: Yeah, absolutely.
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And I am just thinking of like, if
there's something that you think needs
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to be changed in terms of internal
communications, for example, but you
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don't get to speak to your reasoning
behind that, then it might just feel
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like a really shallow suggestion
versus the experience that you're
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having, and adding depth to that.
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Laurie: Yeah, it totally does.
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if you can have something that sounds
beautiful and works really well, but if
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behind that, everyone's kind of nodding
along but deep down they don't really
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believe in it, you're not going to have
people feeling committed to delivering it.
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You're gonna have people going well.
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I didn't really, that wasn't
really my idea in the first place.
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I didn't think that was the right
decision for us to be making.
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And you'll start to, whenever you meet
challenge on the road to that vision,
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which you're gonna do, the kinds of
choices that have been set out for you
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if you haven't been involved in some way
in understanding what they represent.
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We talk about strategy as an
exercise in making bets Like,
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where do we wanna place our chips?
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What gambles are we gonna take?
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What are the choices that we're gonna
get behind that are gonna allow us to
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move towards the vision that we have?
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And if a bot writes your strategy,
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Who owns the consequences?
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Emily: Owning the consequences is huge.
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just being able to connect to and
relate to the thing that you're trying
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to accomplish, is really important.
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and there's an element of feeling
like you got to help build the thing
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versus just being told what to do.
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If you open the door for emotional
investment, it's only going to.
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Increase people's desire
to help you accomplish it.
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Okay, so let's see here.
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We've talked about what AI can do.
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We've talked about the missing piece,
but how can we bridge these two?
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How can we bridge the gap?
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How can we actually use AI and
still get that emotional and
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collective buy-in from our team?
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Is there a way that we can still use it
in the workplace or is it just a no-go?
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Laurie: we need both.
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I think definitely.
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it's like having the most amazing
assistant you could ever want as a group
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of leaders working towards something.
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It's not going to remove the
responsibility, the burden of
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being a leader in that moment.
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You still need to be able to step up and.
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Share your hopes and fears.
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You've got to find ways of thinking around
and through some of the challenges that
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your business faces in the coming years.
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You've gotta really be on board
with contributing to the decisions
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and choices that need to be made
to navigate those and to exploit
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the opportunities you got there.
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I don't think AI can replace those things.
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And if we use it to, it's a challenge.
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But to get the ball rolling
on those conversations and to
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inform them so much more quickly
and so much more intelligently.
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some of the things that we played
around with Jeff and I as we were
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thinking through the within strategy
were just, once we had a sense of what
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we think some of key opportunities and.
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Gifts that we would want to be stepping
into as an organization over the
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coming years would be, we could feed
that back into chat GBT and ask it
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to play through a bunch of scenarios
for us, for example, of what happens
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if we were really more concerned
about the impact that we want to make
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The profitability of the
business, fascinating.
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What would change, what sort of
things would you work through there?
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What if we wanted to take certain
kinds of investment or think about
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opportunities for us to form better
strategic partnerships and think about
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mergers and acquisitions as opposed
to, bootstrapping and investing in
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ourselves as we go through this?
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What would change in our approach
around those things it doesn't
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give you the perfect answer but it.
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Always gives you a great starting point
for a conversation that feels like
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it's already worked through a bunch of
variables for you that you can then take
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and inform the conversations we needed
to have around, well, which of these
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things does feel more important to us?
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You know, when we hold these up
against our own vision of where
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we want to go, which approach
is moving us there more closely?
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What sort of.
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Sacrifices trade-offs, focuses are we
being invited into in these different
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scenarios, and how do they feel for us?
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And does this create an interesting
potential pathway forward for us?
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Emily: fascinating,
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Laurie: that ability to create
insight and information to
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consolidate a whole bunch of data.
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Into some useful insights and then to be
able to play through different scenarios
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really quickly is super valuable.
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Absolutely.
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And it transforms the ability to
spend our time and brain power on the
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aspects where those are best deployed.
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Emily: and honestly, we should all
be thinking about AI and having
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expectations around AI what can we be
using this tool for that will help.
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Enable us to do the work we really
love or the work that's most impactful.
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This is a computing device, and while
it's fun to play around with its
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creative possibilities, I think that
as humans we should be holding on.
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To the creative outlets as much as
possible and passing on that busy
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work, to the robot to do the computing,
to do the evaluation part for us.
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That thing that would take
just hours of tedious tasking.
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That's, I personally think what, chat
and other AI should be utilized for.
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Laurie: Yeah, and I think you bring
up a really important point which is
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that this should be a creative process.
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I think normally when you talk about
vision and strategy, people don't
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see that as a creative process.
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They see it as an analytical process.
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And you know, when we work with
clients around visioning, it's
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a invitation to dream, right?
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It's create a, create a picture.
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Of the world that you see.
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And we do that often in a thing
that I like to call a kind of bridge
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between business, school and preschool
in terms different creative ways
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That super analytical space where
we're inclined to try to predict the
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future and make good decisions rather
than tapping into what we want most,
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what we're most passionate about, what
most meaningful to us in these spaces.
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So I think if you see vision creation
and even strategy development as
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creative processes, it really helps
to stop you falling into the trap of
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just delegating all of this to a bot.
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Which is incredibly good.
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at analysis, but doesn't give us that
same creative output and way of stepping
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into these conversations that causes us to
create that sort of infrastructure in our
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business that doesn't just feel like an
Excel spreadsheet with some numbers on it.
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telling us the important but
kind of boring and motivating
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to some but not others.
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Story of what needs to happen
over the next little while.
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You know, that people don't
rally around a spreadsheet.
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They don't rally around an algorithm.
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They rally around a story that's
crafted by leaders they trust.
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You know, The difference between
creating that story and simply
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reading it is fundamental.
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Emily: Yeah.
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I have a quote here that I wrote
while we were taking notes that AI
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can help us write about a strategy,
but it can't help us create one.
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We have to be the people in
the room doing the creating.
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And this is a little bit of a sidebar,
but I just have to ask, out of all The
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activities, the physical, you said?
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it was a combination of
preschool and what was
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Laurie: Business school.
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Emily: What would be one of your
favorite, strategic or visioning
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activities, like hands-on creative
activities that you've done?
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Laurie: Yeah.
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I love doing a couple of
things around visioning.
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I think the challenge with visioning is
getting people outta thinking about today.
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And also getting them away from thinking
about how do we make this happen?
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'cause those tend to be full of
limiting beliefs and assumptions that
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are shaped by our experience of what's
going on in our business right now.
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Totally.
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And it's too easy to kill a dream by
wondering how it becomes real before
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you've had the opportunity to have it.
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to dream, I love using exercises around.
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Visualization helping people imagine
this future place and describe what they
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see there, rather than trying to predict
what change is going to happen over that.
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And then how do we visualize that
place can be super powerful and can
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be really abstract and effective
in that if people take away.
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Visual anchors from their vision, they
tend to be really powerfully held.
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00:24:28
Like I remember us doing a vision
for within, I dunno, must have been
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nine, 10 years ago now, and I still
can picture this magazine cutout of
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00:24:37
a bird, which was flying across the
top of it and kind of representing the
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00:24:41
desire for us to push the boundaries
and move into clean skies around
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conversations around culture and growth.
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00:24:49
That still stays with me now and it
still shapes the way I think about what
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it is we're trying to do in creating new
blueprints for growth for organizations.
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00:24:59
Right.
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So that kind of thing AI can't
do, but it's starting to.
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It's not gonna be able to find that
meaning, but it's quite fun to feed
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in a bunch of things we're thinking.
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Make me a picture of that.
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Instead of write me a.
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Four point roadmap of that, which
I think can start to harness some
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:
00:25:20
of the creative powers that it's
starting to come up with now.
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00:25:24
Emily: Yeah, absolutely.
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:
00:25:25
We did a similar visioning exercise
in my time during, within, and
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one of the ones that I really
remember is a magazine collage,
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We had a big image of ripples.
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00:25:35
that always comes into my
mind when we're talking about.
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:
00:25:38
Like speaking to the work
within people's doing anyway.
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:
00:25:41
Yeah.
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those moments, of connecting to the vision
in a more tangible way, really stick with
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:
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you and help align a group of people.
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:
00:25:51
Laurie: Yeah.
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00:25:51
I think the same goes into
the strategy creation as well.
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:
00:25:55
That tends to be, and I think a
lot of time that turns itself into.
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:
00:26:02
Talking about goals and trying to
build a roadmap for where we're going.
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00:26:09
so often strategy is described as
a roadmap, and I find that a little
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:
00:26:13
bit challenging because I think quite
often people think that the purpose
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:
00:26:18
of that roadmap is to give them
one road, so that focuses them and
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:
00:26:22
moves them in the right direction.
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:
00:26:24
When I think.
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That's how strategies used to work.
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00:26:28
It used to be this is the way from A
to B and here's what we're gonna do.
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00:26:33
And you would work your way
through getting it done.
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00:26:36
right now the world
doesn't let you do that.
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00:26:40
The number of times you are
driving down that road on your map
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00:26:43
and suddenly the road's blocked
and you gotta find another road.
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00:26:48
unless the map shows you what those
other roads can be or helps you.
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00:26:52
Understand the way that you're going
to make a decision or what is most
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:
00:26:58
important to you when you come to
having a choice and a hard choice,
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that's a kind of an even over choice.
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00:27:06
Like we would rather continue to make
this kind of impact even over making
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:
00:27:12
this kind of profit, or we're going
to keep that kind of margin in our
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:
00:27:17
business, or we're going to invest
in people in this way even over.
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:
00:27:22
Opening up this new part of our business
starting to work around the concepts of
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:
00:27:29
what's gonna help us make great choices
and decisions that's gonna keep us
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:
00:27:34
focused, but allow us to be flexible.
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:
00:27:37
That's gonna keep us.
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:
00:27:40
on the path towards our vision, but
allow us to be more resilient to
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:
00:27:43
changes that come along our way.
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:
00:27:45
I think that becomes, if not a creative
process, a collaborative process
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:
00:27:51
between a leadership team who need
to look each other in the eye and
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:
00:27:54
go, what are we gonna choose between
if we get to this kind of situation?
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:
00:27:58
Or how do we.
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:
00:28:00
Make decisions as a
group in these scenarios.
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:
00:28:02
What is going to be most important to us
as we walk this journey that allows us to
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:
00:28:10
know that when the inevitable uncertainty
hits, we're on the same page with, how
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:
00:28:14
we're going to work our way through it.
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:
00:28:16
Emily: It's almost like we keep calling
it road mapping, but it's more like.
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:
00:28:20
A compass with checkpoints, you know,
or really that north star, the direction
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:
00:28:24
can remain the same, but the way we
get there, we need to be able to adapt.
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:
00:28:28
if we think about two years ago
recording this AI podcast and how much
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:
00:28:32
has changed and how fast AI has grown
in that time, that's a perfect example
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:
00:28:38
of how quickly the road can change or
be under construction, so to speak.
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:
00:28:43
Laurie: Yeah.
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:
00:28:44
And you know, so often when that does
happen, the strategy kind of gets
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:
00:28:49
torn up and Abandoned or mistrusted
as opposed to it accommodating for
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:
00:28:55
those things as we work through it.
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:
00:28:57
And so I don't think AI's going to.
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:
00:29:02
Do a really good job of understanding
yet how a group's gonna make decisions
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:
00:29:09
around these things and make choices.
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:
00:29:11
I think again, it can offer scenarios
and ways of thinking, but to understand
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:
00:29:17
the kind of cultural dynamic of
a group of leaders and be able to
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:
00:29:24
create a system by which that group of
different people kind of share meaning.
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:
00:29:31
Land decisions and things, you know,
that's all still has to happen here.
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:
00:29:36
AI still gets to be the
assistant in that space.
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:
00:29:40
It doesn't get to be the leader.
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:
00:29:41
Emily: I had a couple of questions that
I wanted to invite our listeners to think
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:
00:29:45
about as we're closing up this episode.
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:
00:29:48
Would your team recognize themselves
in an AI written strategy?
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:
00:29:55
Are you and your team aligned in
belief or just in language, something
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:
00:30:00
for you to consider and reflect on
:
2026
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:
00:30:06
as you're getting ready to look at your
vision for the year ahead definitely
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:
00:30:09
takes some time to consider these moments.
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:
00:30:12
Don't let a compelling plan
distract you from the conversation
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:
00:30:15
that should have shaped it.
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:
00:30:20
Anything else that you'd like to leave
our listeners with or you'd like for
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:
00:30:23
our listeners to consider when thinking
about AI and visioning and strategy?
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:
00:30:28
Laurie?
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:
00:30:29
Laurie: No.
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:
00:30:29
I think just, who's leading?
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:
00:30:32
Is it the bot or the leader.
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:
00:30:34
And let's remember that this is
a creative process and really
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:
00:30:38
try and keep it in that space.
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:
00:30:40
if you are experimenting and playing
around with this as we know, 70%
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:
00:30:45
of businesses are, I'm sure it's
the leaders that are doing this.
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:
00:30:49
sometimes with curiosity,
sometimes with desperation.
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:
00:30:52
But if you are.
501
:
00:30:54
Trying this and finding ways to use AI
to contribute into that creative process
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:
00:30:58
of visioning and strategy development.
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:
00:31:01
We'd love to hear how you're
doing it and what you're doing.
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:
00:31:03
So reach out to us and
let's talk about it.
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:
00:31:07
Emily: All right.
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:
00:31:08
Well, that's about it
for our thoughts on ai.
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:
00:31:11
Thank you for listening, everyone.
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:
00:31:13
We hope that you enjoyed this discussion,
and like Laurie said, we'd love to hear
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:
00:31:17
your thoughts on AI in the workplace.
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:
00:31:18
So please don't hesitate to reach out.
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:
00:31:21
You can tune into our podcast every month
for more episodes on what's happening
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:
00:31:25
in the culture and leadership space.
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:
00:31:27
What's on the minds of leaders committed
to change in our community and other
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:
00:31:30
future of work content you crave.
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:
00:31:32
Re-imagining work from within is
available wherever you listen to podcasts.