Creating a Better Model of Working with Steve Cadigan

Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
My guest today
calls it a work quakeand you are living in it.
Changing technology increased complexity,and a pandemic are all tremors
that lead to this quake.
And while we are now living in a moment,trying to create a picture of work
that is different than we have livedand worked in before, now we must face it.

(00:29):
And if you're going to be working for
two more years at least,this is a topic you must consider.
You must face and you must think about.
And that's exactlywhy we're having this conversation today.
Welcome to another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leaderslike you grow personally
and professionallyto lead more effectively

(00:50):
and make a bigger difference fortheir teams organizations in the world.
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(01:12):
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(01:32):
or remarkable podcast.com/linkedinto do that.
Today's episode is brought to youby my latest book, Excuse Me
Flexible Leadership.
Navigate uncertaintyand Lead with confidence.
It's time to realize
that styles can get in our way,and that following our strengths
might not always be the best approachin a world that is more complex
and uncertain than ever.

(01:52):
Leaders need a new perspective
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That's why flexible leadership is hereand what it provides you.
Learn more and orderyour copy today at remarkable
podcast.com/flexible.
And with that let me bring in my guest.

(02:12):
His name is Steve Cadigan andI will introduce him as he smiles at you
and then we'll dive in.
Steve is a top talent
strategist and leadership expertwith over 30 years of experience.
He famously led LinkedIn'searly Hypergrowth phase as his first Chro
building a world class company culturefrom scratch and scaling the organization
from 400 to 4000 employeesin less than four years.

(02:38):
His clientele spansall the way from Google
X, slack,the BBC, Intel to the city of Lisbon,
which hired him to helpdevelop the starter.
Excuse me, startup incubatorunicorn Factory.
His book work, quake,prompts our conversation today.
He has also written for Forbesand Inc and soon

(02:58):
will be writing for Business Insider.
He frequently appears on Bloomberg
and CNBCto talk about the evolving nature of work,
talent management, the big resignation,successful leadership and more.
It should give you a good reason to seewhy we've had him here.
Join us today.
His name is Steve.Pat against the welcome.
Great to be here, Kevin.
Glad to have you here.

(03:18):
So, I just spent a little bittelling the story
that your mother would like to tell,I suppose, about your life.
But I'd like to know a little bit more.Like how do you.
You didn't start out when you were,like, eight thinking.
I'm going to,
talk about the future of work.
Right?
And leadership, like,what sort of gets you,

(03:40):
what's sort of what's the journey
that leads you to doing this workand being and joining me today.
Yeah. Great question.
I would say, you know, I'm one of thosenon traditionalists in terms of
I went to college and had no planand I graduated college and I had no plan.
I still no plan. Yeah.
I still have no plan. No, I didn't.

(04:01):
Come back and hear this conversation.
Keep it down.
And so I, I raised in a home ofan Episcopal minister and a social worker.
My mom helped, you know,underprivileged community solve daycare.
And I looked around, andI didn't have any business role models.
So I went to college, majored in history,
and found myself in a job in San Franciscoafter graduating.

(04:25):
That was going to rotate me around
and, if I'm honest,I probably spent as much time in the gym
and college playing basketballpick up hoops as I did the library.
And I quickly after about a year,was rotated into a job doing recruiting.
And aftera few months I just fell in love.
I was like everything I love about sportstrying to identify which groups work

(04:48):
together, what environments producethe best outcomes, which coaches mass
match best
with which employees just became like,wow, they're going to pay me for this.
And I found out I was pretty good at it.
And, at least that'swhat people were telling me.
And so that was kind of thethe match for me was seeing that as a
not only as an athlete,

(05:09):
but as someone who loves seeinghow people handle different environments.
You know, how players handle being behind,how they go from being the star
to not being the star,and how that works out.
And observing human beings,I think, was a big part of my,
you know, light bulb going on,
if you will, to say this, this is a domainthat's really interesting for me.

(05:30):
And then over my journeyworking in six different industries,
living and working in Singapore
for two years, Canada for four years,I sort of sharpened my sword.
If you will, and, and,found out the places
in arenas where I like to doand can do some really good work.
So back with that first company,did you tell them stop the rotations
and leave me here,

(05:50):
or did you go throughthe rest of the rotations
and became even more convincedthat this was the right place for you?
Yeah, I did,I did what you exactly what you said.
I said, yes, I found my destination.
And then I think I was thereabout four years.
And that's when I said, I thinkI want to do this for the rest of my life.
Let me go try this in another company,
because it was a really small organizationand there was a small team.

(06:11):
I think there were six of us.
And, you know, just by the way, there'sanother super lesson which I share with,
students who are looking to sort offigure out their first step.
I was like, man, I really think the smallorganizations give you the benefit of,
very wide breadth of learning,you know, and you can
you're doing everythingin a small company.
And then when I went to a bigger company.

(06:33):
So my H.R.
Team at, at Esprit,where I started was maybe nine,
and the team at the insurance companyI went to was like 300.
And so now I've got expertsand who can coach me and teach me.
Right. And that was reallythat was a great move for me.
So the pandemic hits,
and, and lots of people started thinkinga lot more about

(06:58):
or in different ways about whatthe future of work would look like.
Not you, you included.
And so you wrotethis book called Work Quake.
Embrace the AftershocksEmbracing the Aftershocks of Covid
to create a better Model of working.
What led you to write the book?
I think honestly, Kevin, it was just a
a lifetime of

(07:20):
observing growing dissatisfaction
between employers and employees,like both parties are like,
this is just not producing an outcomethat's motivating me.
We're seeing,you know, increases in attrition.
We're seeing increases in,
you know, disengagement.
And so I'm like, let me try to reverseengineer this and think of this

(07:42):
differently and see if we can builda more satisfying world of work.
And interestingly enough, I finishedthe draft of my book before Covid hit
and then Covid hits and I'm thinking,
oh gosh, I don't know
how long this is going to be, how dramaticor how deep it's going to be,
but I can't publish a bookabout the future of work
that has no mention of Covid.
So I sat on itfor about nine months and I started to,

(08:07):
address every
chapter in in contemplatingwhere I thought this was going to go.
In Covid terms, so to speak. Correct.
And even makes the subtitle of the book.
Right. So,
That was a big challenge for us.
Like do we don't know how longthe legs are of Covid.
And my publishers, like,are you sure you want it in there?
Because if this is just like SARS,which is three months and done,

(08:29):
you know, it's it'sgoing to limit potential interest
in the long tail in your book. Right?
100%.
And I want to talk about the long tail,because I will admit
that when the book was first pitch to usand I first got a copy,
and, you know, now a little bitabout some of what
we've done around long distance and,and those sorts of things that I looked
at the front,I looked at the back, which I always do.

(08:50):
And then I spent a little time insideand I'm like, yep,
this is somebody I want to have on.
I mean, I,
I dipped in and read various places,and it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago
that I realizedthat it was actually published in 22.
So I want to come back to,
you know, what you're thinking today.
We'll get to that later.
But I want to start withwhat's in the book,
which I think certainly is very, cogentand very applicable.

(09:13):
Still, you sort of talkabout two ways of looking at it,
and I think it's the same two waysthat everyone who's listening
or watching ought to be thinking about it,which is as, excuse me, as an employee,
which as a leader, even if you'rethe owner, you're an employee, right.
And but also as an employer.
So I'm going to ask us to think about thiswith three hats on as an individual

(09:37):
employee, as an employer,and even as a leader,
which is slightly,maybe a slightly different take.
So what are a couple of things
eitherfrom the book or you would say today
to us lovingly as employees,that we ought to be thinking
about as we continueto live through the tremors,
of an uncertain and changing work world.

(09:58):
I think the biggest thing, honestly,Kevin, is the fact that
the marketand the universe needs new skills
faster than any time in history,and that your superpower
to make yourself more vitaland more valuable in the future,
wherever you sit,whatever industry, geography,
level in the organization,your superpowers, your capacity

(10:21):
to learn new things.
And I know it sounds cliche.
I know it
sounds like we're all sick of hearing thebe a lifelong learner, but truly,
I feel like we're heading towards a worldwhere
in the next, I believe in the nextten years, you're going to be hired
as much bywhat you can learn than what you know.
Because I need to know that you can growand adapt and learn new things,

(10:43):
and my business is going to be facingnew challenges faster than ever before.
And so I need to know that you canequip yourself and yourself, study,
an, a self-starter, and you've got the,you know, the, growth mindset.
And you're curious.
That's probably the biggest thingthat I would say if I,
if I'm an employee sitting anywhere,it's like, well, the whole world's coming.
And then I'm going to add on tothat sort of one be which is, you know,

(11:06):
you haven't said those dreaded wordsthat are in every conversation right now.
I yet but what I as.
You went first,I think you have an internal bet
with myself how many minutes we will gobefore it shows up.
All right. Okay. About ten minutes.
And but listen, what I say serves us
is the opportunity to double downon on our differentiator as a human being.

(11:30):
You know, our capacityto connect dots, our capacity
to see things in the datathat AI doesn't see,
because we've got context,and we know more about the realities
and the nuance and leadership stylesand the practices of our team.
And so that those two thingsdoubling down on your capacity to learn,
you know, I call it sort of learning
via high learning velocityand also your innately human skills.

(11:54):
In the book, you use another phrasearound this learning piece,
which is which is learning agility.
So you really talked about willingnessand rate,
but talk about that word agilityjust for a second, because I think it
it adds another layerto what you've just said.
Yeah, I think, gosh,we need to do a better job

(12:16):
coming up with some better names, right?
Like we all suffer
from like transformation, wordfatigue or agility or adaptability.
But if you know, I look, a lot of,you know, sorry,
I do a lot of reading every morning,if you will.
And one of the things that cross my radaracross it
consistently is that most executives feel
that the most important skillthat they want is agility.

(12:40):
Like, what is agility, right.
So I think agility is,you know, if we want to expand on,
you know, high learningvelocity is sort of the comfort
and the openness to go to different placesand learn new things and move around.
And why this is particularly important,Kevin, is because
the world of workwasn't built to facilitate that.
The world of work was built

(13:00):
to keep you and your joband your job, family and your department.
Because the longer you do that,the more confidence we have.
We've designed an architecture, and we'veinherited an architecture of work
that wasn't builtfor the speed and velocity
of change that we need to realizeas an organization.
And so we're started.
We're in the what I call the recognitionphase of a right now.
And I don't see many organizationsacting on,

(13:22):
you know, moving people around,multiple assignments, multiple projects,
so that you are getting greatperipheral vision and experience.
And that's building musclein your organization.
Spotify did something a few years agobefore the pandemic.
They had a big problem with turnover,of the their younger workers
and they said, okay, everyone move around,you know, let's move around.

(13:45):
And then they realized that the, leadersproclivity
to sort of say, well, I hired you.
You're really important to me.I don't want you moving around.
I like the idea of moving aroundas long as it's not my people.
Right.
I'm sure none of you have ever beenin those places
where the manager saysyou don't work for the company.
You work for me.
And so.
So what he did was, it was a brilliantwith Daniel X, the name of the CEO.

(14:06):
He said, I'm requiring everyoneto move every two years now.
Not everyone, but most people,because we don't require
PhD, you know, knowledge based, expertise.
And so that opens up.
It's called sort of the fluidity of workinsurance policy.
If I've got more peoplewho've done more things,

(14:26):
if someone leaves, have Kevin Lee'sSusan knows how to do what Kevin did.
I've got
you know, we think about that at theat the very simplest level,
like people who leaderswho are actually truly willing
to delegate and delegate effectively,you're building organizational capacity.
All you're talking aboutis that at like several levels,
higher of an idea that we're buildingorganizational capacity,

(14:48):
as well as you, as you said,peripheral vision.
It's a really important piecefor us to consider.
And I love that we have towe as individuals have to be open to that.
And then we as leaders and,
or as employers have to think abouthow are we going to do that?
You know, it's interesting
that you say that world, the world of workwasn't built to do those things.
But you know what, the world of workall changed in a weekend five years ago.

(15:11):
And, and, you know, 100 years from now,they're going to be writing.
They're still going to be writing casestudies about the last five years,
about how we change the societalview of work in a in a weekend
that took us 80 years to get to. Right.
We 100 and 160 years ago,work was six days a week, 12 hours a day.
And then 80 years ago, ish, Henry Ford,maybe a little a little longer than that.

(15:33):
It was 45 days a week, 40 hours a week.
And if you didn't workthat you told people what you did.
Like. That's how we thought about work.
That's not the waywe think about work anymore.
And yet so many leaders,so many employers are sort of trying to
claw us back to 19 to 2019.
What what are your thoughts about whatemployers.

(15:56):
You've just hinted that at thatin terms of rotating people around, but
what are the other big lessonsthat we as employers need to be thinking
about in this, now that we're still
in the tremors of the workweek?
What should we really beseriously considering?
Well, I think the first one islet's just call out

(16:16):
the thing that everyone's debatingright now in the break room
or at home is the pajama revolution,which is, you know, this real tension
we have between, let's just call themlegacy leaders and a workforce.
That said, for a year or so, hey,
when I work at home, not only am I moreproductive, my life is more productive,

(16:38):
and I have richer relationshipswith my kids, with my family,
with my community, and I work to live.
I don't work, you know,I don't live to work.
And then employers are saying, Holy cow,you know,
we don't know how to buildgreat culture in a more remote world.
We don't know that teamwork is betterwhen more people see each other less

(16:58):
like we're nervous.
We're really nervous about our capacityto create and innovate
in a more distributed world.
And so both parties have really, reallylegitimate perspectives on this one.
Right.
And I think.
Now here's the thing. Both can be true.
Correct.
We've done is we've saidwe've got to choose.
And then and we're pitting each otheragainst ourselves.
That's right. And that'swhat we've been living in for four years.

(17:20):
That's right.
And so I think we you know what thisand there's several other things
we could talk about.Let's just stay on this one for a second.
This notion of, you know, great workcan be done in different ways.
That ends up with a questionI always get asked.
And I'm sure you do, too.
Hey, Steve. Hey, Kevin.Should we be in-person?
Should we be remote?And should we be hybrid?
And my favorite answer to that one is yes.

(17:42):
And like, no, no, no.
We asked you which one.
And I said, yes, it's all of the aboveand you don't know.
But this is what's really uncomfortable.
And what I love about this momentis it's forcing experimentation.
Some teams in your organizationare going to be great at certain
ways of working, and some will needa different way of working.
And so that one size fitsall talent strategy, which I've worked in.

(18:06):
You've worked in,
you know, we were many of our leadershipschool business schools are teaching.
It doesn't work and it's not sustainable.
And it can, like you say,everyone in the office.
And that's who we are.That's what we're about.
And, you know, JPMorgan is a great exampleof like flip flop.
You know,Jamie Diamonds is a really brilliant dude.
And when he's struggling

(18:26):
to go and going back and forth, you know,this is a legitimate complex problem.
And so I don't mindwhere you land as an organization,
but I think you need to be really openand honest about having a conversation
with your people.
And if you say we're all in the office,that's great.
But you're limiting your accessto superstar talent.
I think you're,
you know, you're making a choicethat's going that has implications.

(18:47):
That's right. You know, I think the,
the otherinteresting thing is even organizations
and this this gets at an important pointto even organizations.
And there's lots of researchin the last year
or two that says this, that,and it's not changing. Right.
We got all these organizationsthat are saying,
hey, we're going back, or let's saywe're going back three days a week.
And the data says people are backtwo days a week,

(19:09):
or let's say we're going backfive days a week.
And the data set, we're backthree days a week.
So there's one thingabout having a policy,
but what we really
and I've been saying this for a long timeback during the pandemic is okay.
It's not about pilot policy.It's about pilot.
It's about continuing to pilotand try things.
And to your point, Steve, being
willing
to have different answerseven within your organization.

(19:30):
What's the work say?
What does the group want and need?
Where are they physically located already?
You know, if everyone has an hour commute,that's what that's a different thing.
And if everyone lives within five minutes,like there are big differences
in contextthat all matter for us to be considering.
And we're not going to get it rightwithout conversation.
That's what I really love about.
That's right. And let's be honest,what would what are we solving for here?

(19:52):
We're solving to we're solvingfor creating great value.
We're not solving for treating everyonethe same.
Let's that's not the right.
Solve the the right, solve for me.
Or to be comfortable as a leader.
Because this is whatI this is what I'm used to.
Correct?
Correct, correct.
And that, by the way,
let's swing this back to I that's I thinkthe biggest barrier with AI right now
is that the first question we all ask ishow can I use AI to do my job better?

(20:16):
That's the wrong question.
You've already limited
what I can do for you, sayingthis is the only way this can be done.
Take recruiting.I have so many friends to do recruiting.
I have all these buddiesasking me like, hey,
how can I help us do recruiting better?
I said, this is the wrong question.
The right question is
how do I solve what I'm solvingwith recruiting differently with AI?
How might I?

(20:36):
And we're also limiting ourselvesby saying, by thinking about AI
like it's all about cutting costs,going faster and reducing expenses.
And that is an outcomewe can realize with AI.
But there's an even greater outcome,which is new markets, new new values,
creating things differently, making jobsmore brilliant and amazing, you know.

(20:57):
And that's we're not talking about that.
All the headlines this likeoh yeah we're going to replace the Klarna
came out of the gates.
Swedish based fintechcompany said we're going to replace
600 customer service jobswith AI three months later.
How'd it go?
Yeah, not so good, because it turns outlike if you want to build customer
loyalty, it's not doneso well with the AI.

(21:18):
The the the the avatar is not good enough.
As an example. Right.
So you're right,the question and, you know, and and so
here we have with us,ladies and gentlemen,
a guy with a degree in history,or at least that's where you started.
I don't know, that's where you ended.
And history tells us
what you just said.
But long
before we even ever put the two letters Aand AI together, except in a word.

(21:41):
Right.
And that is the questionswe asked to determine the outcomes we get.
And you're suggesting and you'renot talking about writing a better prompt.
You're talking about thinkingabout the question differently,
asking a better questionwill get us better results, whether we're
trying to figure out where, where and whenpeople work, how we use a technology,
how we solve a customerproblem doesn't matter.

(22:02):
Yeah, yeah.
And we're limited by our own human desireto feel safe.
It's very, very uncomfortable to say,how can you,
think about doing my job differently?
Because now you're putting on the lineall my education, all my experience,
all my CV, all my credibility could be,you know, not as valuable.
So why would I invite that?
And that's really the frictionI think a lot of us are facing right now.

(22:26):
And that's why we all, as humans,will then get scared
and we worrywhat's behind the green curtain
when all it is, is a little dudewith a megaphone. Right?
Some of you might not be old enough
to remember The Wizard of Oz,and I just get the punchline.
But, that's a key and important thing.
One of the things you talk aboutin the book that I think
we ought to talk about a little bit,is that there are different models,

(22:48):
different models for how we
manage our talent,how we think about our talent.
You talk about seven in the bookand we don't have time
to talk about seven, but give peoplea couple of ways to think about
the talent on our teams differentlythan perhaps we've done in the past.
Okay.

(23:08):
I think that the greatest amount of reliefand I think excitement I can give you as
a leader is to stop thinkingabout your talent in terms of only
the ones that work for you now and expandit and think more of an ecosystem caring
about the people for their entire career,not just when they work for you.
The biggest problemmost of my clients have is Steve.

(23:31):
People aren't saying as long.
And I said, okay, do you think inthe future they're going to stay longer?
And the answer is, yeah,probably not. Okay.
So how many of your policies, practices,
rewards, design for your talenthave been built
to expect that people are going to stayless, let's say, 3 or 4 years?
They ten years ago it was five.

(23:51):
Now it's fourand the demographic 25 to 35.
It's two and a half yearsin Silicon Valley.
A software engineer, as you know,stays about a year and a half.
Okay.
So and oh, by the way,Silicon Valley has some of the greatest
creativity and innovationin a most fluid world of work.
So something's goingright in a high fluid world of work.
So so what I would say isI would build to expect

(24:13):
shorter tenure college basketball, collegefootball are great examples.
Players used to stay four yearsin a college.
Now, you know your best playeris only going to stay a year.
So what. Is that?
Unless unless you're a Boilermaker.
But that's a whole other story.That's a different conversation.
You look at.
Look across that look,look down the freeway.
Indiana has not a single playeron the roster in basketball that was there

(24:38):
last year and the year before,and it was super interesting.
But listen, if you have high turnover,I think what we need to do
is lean in and say, how can I create valuewhen people don't stay as long?
Well, I can make a simple teach,a simple offense and a simpler defense.
If you have a job that takes someonethree years to learn,
you're shooting yourselfin the foot in today's economy.
Yeah.
You know, and so the and that's part of,you know, all of us were taught

(25:01):
that the teams that win or the teamsthat stayed together, the longest.
And what we're starting to see rightnow, especially in technology
companies, actually,it's the teams that don't stay together
the longest that are inviting new ideasand new ways of solving problems.
That is a superpower in a marketthat's changing really quickly.
It turns out that extent,
you know, long taildomain expertise can be a limiter for you.

(25:24):
It can be a blocker for your creativity.
And that's really uncomfortable.
Becomes how do we how do we get peopleto a level of cohesion
that's valuable quicker because we may nothave them as long, right?
Correct.
Yeah.
I did a great exercise, with a groupI was working with the other day.
I said, what's your biggest problem?
You know, people leave.
And Steve, I said, okay, let's doan exercise, break out in small groups.

(25:47):
And here's the here's the mandate.
The government has just declaredthat nobody can stay in a company
more than three years.
It's illegal.
Build a talent strategythat optimizes for that.
And you know what happened, Kevin?
The ideas started flying. Why?
Because it was no longersomething that they could resist.
I have to accept it.
And so what did theydo? Faster onboarding.

(26:08):
And then someone got really smartand said, I'm going to build a
shell company so I can move my best peoplebetween my various companies,
and they won't have to leavelike that. Yes.
Let's start thinking. Like, that's right,
I love yeah, I love that. So,
I said we'd get back to this,
and I want to spend a couple minutes herebecause, like I said,
I was already sold on the bookbefore I saw the copyright date.

(26:31):
Right. And so,
you know that there's forget,forget your situation of writing it
and then sitting on itand then deciding for love.
But even, you know, when you're workingwith a publisher like you or I, you.
Right.
And then there's a windowafter that before it comes out.
And in your case,we're talking about something that's been
has been a little longer in a worldis fast, fast paced, changing rapidly.

(26:52):
Lots of complexity, etc..
So what would you say today
that isn't in the book, or thatwe really ought to be thinking about that?
You really weren't talking about a lotthree years ago.
Gosh. So much.
And what's really great is, and I'm sureevery author says this, I really feel,
like my book is

(27:12):
more valuable now than when I,when I put it out, because the awareness
that I need to really think differentlyabout about about a talent strategy.
So I would say probably the onethat's really jumped out at me
the most is this hybrid notion of work.
I didn't contemplate that, in the book.

(27:32):
It was it was really
a, you know, and where I startin my thinking about that, Kevin is like,
listen, every organization ever workedwith had a Salesforce that was remote.
So we know because and those peopleare bringing in the bacon.
We know how to do that with a reallycritical dimension of our team.
Now they're not making new products,but they're
feeding their information back to product,into marketing and into engineering.

(27:54):
So I think that's an areaand we covered it a little bit.
That's requiring real experimentation.
Like to your point,like being in the office, everybody like
if I look at my whole career,I sat in the Cuban office 90% of the time.
I was sitting in front of a computer.
Right now, I was available.
I was there for, you know, unplanned,

(28:16):
you know, conversations and brainstorming.
But I think we've got an opportunity herewith this
hybrid to really build somethingamazing and special.
And what we had
wasn't all perfect, you know, let'sjust take a zoom, a zoom meeting.
What's great about a zoom meetingis that person that drowns everybody out.
Can't do that on a zoom call.

(28:38):
When we're in the office, you know,and when we're online, everyone.
No one can hear what I was saying.
When multiple people are talking,that's a beautiful thing, right?
Greater participation and engagementin how we communicate
and how we can be productive.
So it's not a one or the other.
I, I love the way that you framedthat earlier, Kevin.
It's, Yes.
And, you know, and I thinkthe more we lean into new ways,

(29:01):
I think the more ability,the greater our ability to be creative.
Is there any oneother thing that we haven't talked about?
I'm confident, Steve, that
you and I could have a long conversation,whether it was on camera or with a beer.
We could have.
You and I could have a longand enjoyable conversation.
But that's not the purpose of the podcastin this particular moment.
So is there any one other thing we didn'ttalk about that you wished we had?

(29:26):
You know, I think I,I think we hit the big ones, Kevin.
You know, the the
if weif we put all this together right now,
you take higher turnover, you take thethe believe, the shared belief
that we're not going to havepeople stay longer.
You take the understanding that we neednew skills faster than ever before.
I think the the victoryand the spoils are going to go to people

(29:47):
who are rethinking their talent strategy.
And and let me say it in a way that, Ihaven't said so far in this conversation,
the educational institutions
of the world are not equippedto build skills as fast as we need them.
The businesses of the worldare not equipped
to build the skillsas fast as we need them.
We are not going to see an increasein supply of qualified talent.

(30:10):
Businesses are going to needto become business schools.
That is a big one.
The first team to go in a downsizingthese days is a learning development team.
That is a self-inflicted bad decision.
Right now it is.
We need to build the capacity to learnand grow our people fast.
And that doesn't meansend all our people to schools.
That means new projects, new assignments,

(30:30):
you know, new opportunitiesand new challenges for our people.
And here's the block.
The block is most business plans.
Most investors are building a modelthat says 95% of the time
you're delivering something
they've not built in a reality that, yeah,but someone leaves.
Then we've got like six,nine months of empty space.
I would rather have three months to trainsomeone inside and get them up

(30:53):
and running, then spend the nine monthsto, you know, try and find someone.
So that's probably a, you know,
connecting the dotsthat we've already talked about,
but maybe taking ina little different direction.
So Steve, we've I'mgoing to take a slightly different tack
for the last little bitof our conversation.
And you've hinted, a couple of times,something about being in the gym,

(31:13):
liking sports.
And we even bantered a little bitabout college basketball,
which is another thing that you and I,I'm confident,
could have a really interestingconversation about,
what do you do for fun, Steve?
Oh, gosh, I, I play a ton of tennisand I, I've coached my kids
basketball, so you can probably guessI have three boys.
One is graduating from high school
in two weeksand is going to play college basketball.

(31:35):
So I'm so full of joy that I can be
that dad in the stands and still followone of my kids and the other son is,
started his club team at his universityclub basketball first time ever.
So that I mean, that's what I do.
And, you know, and on the goofy side,my wife is teasing me about this.
I am getting into birdwatching and identifying birds, too.
Yes, I am one of those guys.

(31:56):
You are the third personI've talked to in one week
that has said that to me literally,and I don't remember
someone telling me that in yearsI it must be.
Let me nerd out on this for just a second.
There is an app that Cornell Universityhas produced called Merlin,
and if you are boredand you're going for a walk like I do,
and you're walking the dog, whatever.
Open up. Merlin.

(32:17):
Merlin will identify birdsbased on their sound.
And I have had morningswhere I've had 15 new birds, identified.
And it's justI can't even describe the joy.
Merlin, the bird watching appwill be among the things,
in the show notes, including,
how you can get Ahold
of Steve's book work quick,but I'm curious, Steve.

(32:38):
What else? What?
When you're not watching birds, shootinghoops, watching hoops, coaching hoops.
What have you been reading lately?
Listen, two, two things.
I am going crazy on audible.
I'm reading a book right now
called God in the woods,but I would say that's side hobby.
The biggest content that I'm consumingis probably for an hour every morning.

(33:00):
I'm looking at all kinds of articleson artificial intelligence
and the future work.
I feel like a kid in a candy store.
This is a thing that's changing every day.
And it's so it's so interesting and so funfor me to kind of see how it's going.
And it's the biggest thing on the mind ofmost people I'm talking to today.
So, you know,there's not a specific, you know,

(33:21):
you know, magazine or publisherthat, let's.
Just say yes, there is there a placethat's the hub that you're finding
that's been specifically helpful?
No, I've done I've donea, you know, I query,
I and Google to give me a feed
every morning on future workand AI and workplace implications.
So you're going to get every daymaybe 75 to 100 links.

(33:45):
And then here's the thingthat I would say on this topic,
Kevin, I think it's really importantfor all of us right now.
We all have to be students of AI.
And so it's delivering a class on thisin, in, in, Lisbon a few months ago.
And someone asked a great question,which I didn't have an answer to, which is
I said, be wary of big techtelling you about AI, okay?
Be wary of being educated by Big Techbecause they've got a real, you know,

(34:08):
they got a reason. Foryou got a stake, right? That's right.
They got a stake.
So then someone said,so who should we be listening to?
And I go, oh, I need to have a list.
So I'm in the process of building,you know,
list of academics and researchersand thought provoking people,
who can sort of help inform mehow to think about this.
I had most of a Suliman on there.
Now he's over at Microsoft.

(34:28):
Connor Grennan is already on my list.
And just sort of, like,
really, like, introduce me to stuffthat I wouldn't be thinking about.
And I think we all need to have that
in our pocket right nowis someone who can educate us on this.
Would you be willing toand never done this, live like this?
I mean,
would you be willing to share 2or 3 of those with me
that we can put in the show notes?

(34:49):
Yeah, I would, I.
Will have that in the show notes for you.
Okay, great.
Before we go, any anything else, any place
you want to point people,anything else you want to say
to people about how they canconnect with you while you do that?
I'll hold the book up for people to. Yeah.
Thank you so much, Kevin.
Yeah, you can get my book anywhere.
Steve Catty Inc.com is my website.
I have a TikTokchannel which has a stream of,

(35:11):
TikToks called the, two storiesfrom Corporate America.
They're all true.
And if you want to reach out directly tome, it's Steve at Cardigan ventures.com.
Awesome.
Steve at Cardigan Ventures,dot com, Steve carrigan.com.
BeforeI say goodbye to Steve and goodbye to you,
I've got to do what I doevery single episode.
It's the question that I ask.
Some of you know it.

(35:32):
You can say it with me
now what?
What are you going to doas a result of this?
None of this matters.
I mean, it might have been entertaining.
You might have enjoyed it.
You might have likedthe sound of Steve's voice.
All of that might be true.
But what really matters is what actionyou take as a result of being here.
And so, I have a bunch of notes.
I'm sure that you do.

(35:53):
And if they're just mental notesand you've been
multitasking listening to thiswhile you're doing something else,
do yourself a favor and stop and say,what's what's the one thing
I'm going to do as a result of this,whether it's by book or.
But more importantly, my what it might beis what action am I going to take today?
What question I'm going to amI going to ponder?
What step am I going to take now?

(36:13):
It's those things that will changethe future of you
or your success as a leaderand the success of your organization.
So I hope that you'll do that, andI hope that you'll come back next week.
Steve, thank you for being here.
It's a pleasure to have you.Thanks for having me.
And like I said, we'll be back next week,so hope you all will be too.
If you enjoyed this,make sure you subscribe

(36:33):
wherever you're listeningso you don't miss any future episodes.
And invite someone else to join usnext week.
Because we'll be back with another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Creating a Better Model of Working with Steve Cadigan