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A Mirror, Not a Map: What AI Can’t Do for Your Strategy
Episode 5114th August 2025 • Reimagining Work From Within • Within People
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Two years ago, we asked if AI could write your purpose and values. Our answer: It can mimic the words, but not the meaning.

In this episode, Emily and Laurie pick up where they left off — this time looking at AI’s role in creating vision and strategy. With 71% of companies now using or exploring AI, it’s no longer niche. But can it really give you direction, or does it just reflect back what you already know?

We talk about:

  • How AI can act as a “mirror” for your existing thinking
  • The risks of skipping human participation in strategy-making
  • Why collective buy-in matters more than a perfect plan
  • Practical ways to use AI as a starting point, not the final word
  • Creative and collaborative approaches to building a vision your team owns

We leave you with two questions to reflect on:

  • Would your team recognize themselves in an AI-written strategy?
  • Are you aligned in belief, or just in language?

Don’t let a compelling plan distract you from the conversation that should have shaped it.

Transcripts

Emily:

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.

373

:

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

375

:

reading it is fundamental.

376

:

Emily: Yeah.

377

:

I have a quote here that I wrote

while we were taking notes that AI

378

:

can help us write about a strategy,

but it can't help us create one.

379

:

We have to be the people in

the room doing the creating.

380

:

And this is a little bit of a sidebar,

but I just have to ask, out of all The

381

:

activities, the physical, you said?

382

:

it was a combination of

preschool and what was

383

:

Laurie: Business school.

384

:

Emily: What would be one of your

favorite, strategic or visioning

385

:

activities, like hands-on creative

activities that you've done?

386

:

Laurie: Yeah.

387

:

I love doing a couple of

things around visioning.

388

:

I think the challenge with visioning is

getting people outta thinking about today.

389

:

And also getting them away from thinking

about how do we make this happen?

390

:

'cause those tend to be full of

limiting beliefs and assumptions that

391

:

are shaped by our experience of what's

going on in our business right now.

392

:

Totally.

393

:

And it's too easy to kill a dream by

wondering how it becomes real before

394

:

you've had the opportunity to have it.

395

:

to dream, I love using exercises around.

396

:

Visualization helping people imagine

this future place and describe what they

397

:

see there, rather than trying to predict

what change is going to happen over that.

398

:

And then how do we visualize that

place can be super powerful and can

399

:

be really abstract and effective

in that if people take away.

400

:

Visual anchors from their vision, they

tend to be really powerfully held.

401

:

Like I remember us doing a vision

for within, I dunno, must have been

402

:

nine, 10 years ago now, and I still

can picture this magazine cutout of

403

:

a bird, which was flying across the

top of it and kind of representing the

404

:

desire for us to push the boundaries

and move into clean skies around

405

:

conversations around culture and growth.

406

:

That still stays with me now and it

still shapes the way I think about what

407

:

it is we're trying to do in creating new

blueprints for growth for organizations.

408

:

Right.

409

:

So that kind of thing AI can't

do, but it's starting to.

410

:

It's not gonna be able to find that

meaning, but it's quite fun to feed

411

:

in a bunch of things we're thinking.

412

:

Make me a picture of that.

413

:

Instead of write me a.

414

:

Four point roadmap of that, which

I think can start to harness some

415

:

of the creative powers that it's

starting to come up with now.

416

:

Emily: Yeah, absolutely.

417

:

We did a similar visioning exercise

in my time during, within, and

418

:

one of the ones that I really

remember is a magazine collage,

419

:

We had a big image of ripples.

420

:

that always comes into my

mind when we're talking about.

421

:

Like speaking to the work

within people's doing anyway.

422

:

Yeah.

423

:

those moments, of connecting to the vision

in a more tangible way, really stick with

424

:

you and help align a group of people.

425

:

Laurie: Yeah.

426

:

I think the same goes into

the strategy creation as well.

427

:

That tends to be, and I think a

lot of time that turns itself into.

428

:

Talking about goals and trying to

build a roadmap for where we're going.

429

:

so often strategy is described as

a roadmap, and I find that a little

430

:

bit challenging because I think quite

often people think that the purpose

431

:

of that roadmap is to give them

one road, so that focuses them and

432

:

moves them in the right direction.

433

:

When I think.

434

:

That's how strategies used to work.

435

:

It used to be this is the way from A

to B and here's what we're gonna do.

436

:

And you would work your way

through getting it done.

437

:

right now the world

doesn't let you do that.

438

:

The number of times you are

driving down that road on your map

439

:

and suddenly the road's blocked

and you gotta find another road.

440

:

unless the map shows you what those

other roads can be or helps you.

441

:

Understand the way that you're going

to make a decision or what is most

442

:

important to you when you come to

having a choice and a hard choice,

443

:

that's a kind of an even over choice.

444

:

Like we would rather continue to make

this kind of impact even over making

445

:

this kind of profit, or we're going

to keep that kind of margin in our

446

:

business, or we're going to invest

in people in this way even over.

447

:

Opening up this new part of our business

starting to work around the concepts of

448

:

what's gonna help us make great choices

and decisions that's gonna keep us

449

:

focused, but allow us to be flexible.

450

:

That's gonna keep us.

451

:

on the path towards our vision, but

allow us to be more resilient to

452

:

changes that come along our way.

453

:

I think that becomes, if not a creative

process, a collaborative process

454

:

between a leadership team who need

to look each other in the eye and

455

:

go, what are we gonna choose between

if we get to this kind of situation?

456

:

Or how do we.

457

:

Make decisions as a

group in these scenarios.

458

:

What is going to be most important to us

as we walk this journey that allows us to

459

:

know that when the inevitable uncertainty

hits, we're on the same page with, how

460

:

we're going to work our way through it.

461

:

Emily: It's almost like we keep calling

it road mapping, but it's more like.

462

:

A compass with checkpoints, you know,

or really that north star, the direction

463

:

can remain the same, but the way we

get there, we need to be able to adapt.

464

:

if we think about two years ago

recording this AI podcast and how much

465

:

has changed and how fast AI has grown

in that time, that's a perfect example

466

:

of how quickly the road can change or

be under construction, so to speak.

467

:

Laurie: Yeah.

468

:

And you know, so often when that does

happen, the strategy kind of gets

469

:

torn up and Abandoned or mistrusted

as opposed to it accommodating for

470

:

those things as we work through it.

471

:

And so I don't think AI's going to.

472

:

Do a really good job of understanding

yet how a group's gonna make decisions

473

:

around these things and make choices.

474

:

I think again, it can offer scenarios

and ways of thinking, but to understand

475

:

the kind of cultural dynamic of

a group of leaders and be able to

476

:

create a system by which that group of

different people kind of share meaning.

477

:

Land decisions and things, you know,

that's all still has to happen here.

478

:

AI still gets to be the

assistant in that space.

479

:

It doesn't get to be the leader.

480

:

Emily: I had a couple of questions that

I wanted to invite our listeners to think

481

:

about as we're closing up this episode.

482

:

Would your team recognize themselves

in an AI written strategy?

483

:

Are you and your team aligned in

belief or just in language, something

484

:

for you to consider and reflect on

:

485

:

as you're getting ready to look at your

vision for the year ahead definitely

486

:

takes some time to consider these moments.

487

:

Don't let a compelling plan

distract you from the conversation

488

:

that should have shaped it.

489

:

Anything else that you'd like to leave

our listeners with or you'd like for

490

:

our listeners to consider when thinking

about AI and visioning and strategy?

491

:

Laurie?

492

:

Laurie: No.

493

:

I think just, who's leading?

494

:

Is it the bot or the leader.

495

:

And let's remember that this is

a creative process and really

496

:

try and keep it in that space.

497

:

if you are experimenting and playing

around with this as we know, 70%

498

:

of businesses are, I'm sure it's

the leaders that are doing this.

499

:

sometimes with curiosity,

sometimes with desperation.

500

:

But if you are.

501

:

Trying this and finding ways to use AI

to contribute into that creative process

502

:

of visioning and strategy development.

503

:

We'd love to hear how you're

doing it and what you're doing.

504

:

So reach out to us and

let's talk about it.

505

:

Emily: All right.

506

:

Well, that's about it

for our thoughts on ai.

507

:

Thank you for listening, everyone.

508

:

We hope that you enjoyed this discussion,

and like Laurie said, we'd love to hear

509

:

your thoughts on AI in the workplace.

510

:

So please don't hesitate to reach out.

511

:

You can tune into our podcast every month

for more episodes on what's happening

512

:

in the culture and leadership space.

513

:

What's on the minds of leaders committed

to change in our community and other

514

:

future of work content you crave.

515

:

Re-imagining work from within is

available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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