Mike Ohata – Leadership and Building a Resilient Workforce - HR Data Labs podcast

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Announcer (00:01):
The world of business is more complex than ever. The
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(00:24):
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consulting for compensation andbeyond. Now here are your hosts,
David Turetsky and Dwight Brown.
Hello

David Turetsky (00:39):
and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm
your host, David Turetsky,alongside my co host, best
friend, comedian and salary.com,employee, Dwight Brown. Dwight
Brown, how are you?

Dwight Brown (00:50):
I'm great because we're having as much fun as we
are

And the dog is in the background, enjoying
himself.
If you guys only had a picture.

Did you just snort?

And the reason why we're having such a great
time is we have a very specialguest with us. Mike Ohata, Mike,
how are you?

Mike Ohata (01:17):
I'm doing fantastic and getting a chuckle. Actually,
you guys laugh. I should workthrough this.

Well, when you work with people who you love,
like, I love Dwight,

Exactly,

We laugh most of the day. I mean, we try and get
revenue as well from, you know,for our jobs. But every once in
a while, we got to be serious.
But yes, every once in a while,yeah. So Mike, how are you? I'm

Mike Ohata (01:40):
Doing fantastic.
Thank you so much for having meon the podcast here.

We We love having here, and so why don't
you explain to people who youare and how you got to this
moment in time?

Mike Ohata (01:50):
Sure, yeah. Thanks so much. So currently, I'm a
leadership coach, and I also doboard advisory work. Have a long
history working in Big Four andfortune 15 companies and and,
you know, my latest roles,before I transitioned into being
a leadership coach, I was reallya talent leader and chief
learning officer. And so one ofthe things that has given me a

(02:12):
lot of passion is just reallythinking about the development
of professionals over time. Andone of my my past experiences,
like, there was such greatcalibration around the
workforce, and I carry thatforward around, like, just that
expectation and that desire withpeople and so, so one of the
things I've done is I've reallyspent a lot of time thinking

(02:33):
about this, thinking abouttalent, what the implications
are and and I also, like, forexample, I am A talent
strategist and advisor to StCharles consulting, and that's
where we did some work onputting together a book that
called the Talent FilledEnterprise.

And we'll put a link to the book in the show
notes. So if any of the peoplelistening want to take a look at
your work, sure they'll have itdirectly to Amazon.

Mike Ohata (02:58):
Thank you.

If Amazon is your path of choice for selling
your book

Mike Ohata (03:03):
Absolutely. And there's, there's an audio
version for sure, and there's soyou can absolutely. Thank you.

I was thinking about having having my book
narrated by Morgan Freeman as anaudio book. There you go, but
it's a graphic novel, so itmight be very difficult. So
Mike, what we try and do forevery guest on our podcast is we
ask one fun thing that no oneknows about you. Yeah,

Mike Ohata (03:26):
the one sort of, I would say, nerdy kind of things
is I really enjoy learning aboutand reading about
paleoanthropology and reallywhat it means to be human and
like so, for example, one of theones that I looked at recently,
just I've been reading stuff andI watched some updated
documentaries on on Homo Naledi,which was found in South Africa.
And it just, you know, what theyshowed us around, you know, this

(03:49):
species that live, you know,330,000 years ago, actually
buried their dead. They took it,took their bodies down into this
really long, complicated tunnel.
And as they were finding thesebones, they were kind of curled
up in a fetal position in theselittle, kind of little ditches.
And so just really fascinating,and just raises all kind of
questions around what it meansto be human. And so I love it,

(04:11):
because it takes us back to kindof just thinking about who we
are as, you know, as humans, forsure,

it's definitely fascinating. You know, some
people, when they get to the onefun thing, some of them make us
laugh, some make us cry, andsome make us think that was
definitely one of the deeperones.

I know I'm I'm picturing the whole thing in my
head. It is fascinating.

Yeah maybe we'll get another podcast together on
the Paleo anthropology thingy.
But I think was what you said.
So maybe we'll have to saythingy in there. No, he didn't
say thingy. Yeah, you know,because I'm an idiot, Dwight,
I'm gonna go back to it and saythe Paleo anthropology thingy.
So thingy, there you go.

Make it sound like a rubber band or something.

So. Our topic for today is going to be one
that's kind of fascinating,especially for people in the
talent management world, wherewe are dealing with a lot of
very complex issues on skilling,reskilling and keeping our
workforces modern. Today, ourtopic is leadership, building a
resilient workforce. YouOur first question, Mike is in

(05:26):
the Talent Filled enterpriseyour book, you emphasize that
traditional talent managementframeworks are really no longer
sufficient in today's crazy youdidn't say that. I did changing
business environment. Can youelaborate on what you see as the
primary shortcomings of thetraditional approaches and why
they fail to meet today'sorganizational needs?

Mike Ohata (05:48):
Yeah, you know, this is something that I do feel like
it's really important for all ofus, you know, as HR leaders, as
business leaders, to think aboutis, you know, the current model
around talent really is about 25years old now, and it's based on
this notion around that we'regoing to feed and kind of
promote, as it were, in terms ofdevelopment high potentials,

(06:11):
right? And there's a view aroundthat managers have a key role
and so forth. But what you know,we've all studied this, right?
You folks know probably betterthan me, right? If you when
you're looking at data, is thisaround what the generations of
employees and the workforce isactually looking for, and it
really has changed quite a bit.
You know, first of all, we starttalking about with millennials
and experience, right? Andthere's this current focus

(06:32):
around skills and kind ofrelevant work experience, and
then people move on right windback just a few years, and the
pandemic punctuated this wholesort of sensibility around, you
know, where people want to work,how they want to spend their
time, and if you even thinkaround like some of the really
current things that are going onwith employers who are asserting
their control over theworkforce, it's really kind of

(06:55):
fascinating. Because aside fromkind of the mandate piece of it,
it's really around to me, kindof a gesture around what they
what they understand. And it'scompletely sort of
understandable, sort of modelthat says, hey, we typically
work with you in person, so weneed you to be in person, right?
This is how we directed work andso forth. And really the change
up in our mindset has to be, islike, how do we partner with

(07:17):
people? How do we collaborate?
How do we engage the workforce?
And I would pause there, becauseif you think about it, what's
fascinating about this is, is weuse those terms all the time
today to talk about what we wantto do with employees. And I
would actually say has a verydifferent sensibility. They're
the right words. But I think inkind of this newer model, what
we need to really think aboutis, how am I going to work with

(07:38):
you to figure out what's thebalance around what I need you
get done, right versus what youwould like to get done? And if
we can figure that piece out,then we're going to have
actually have this totallydifferent relationship with the
workforce that's really morearound partnership. Are we 100%
focused on business results?
Absolutely, just like some ofyour comments earlier, like,

(07:59):
that's how we make money. That'show people get paid. That's how
that's how variable cost getspaid out. We absolutely have a
workforce that understands that,and they want something more.

Yeah, I think what you're hearkening back to
is the old contract we used tohave where we worked for an
employer. The employer hademployees that wanted to work
for that employer. And the modelwas the employer would employ
you for a period of time, andthere would be a very, very
close, trusted relationshipwhere the employee would invest

(08:33):
their time. They'd invest theirfuture. They would go on
trainings for the employer. Theywould learn, they would grow,
they would promise that theywould perform at a certain
level. And then the employerwould reward them for short term
and long term throughcompensation,

Mike Ohata (08:50):
Right

as well as, as well as rewards and as well
intrinsic training and extrinsictraining and and then the
company would be, be, you know,would benefit through the
productivity as well as thatgrowth that kind of stopped. I
mean, that trusted relationshiphas stopped. Thank you, Jamie

(09:11):
Diamond, as well as you know, alot of other business leaders
saying, I don't trust peopleanymore. As to your point, Mike,
I want to see them, I want tocommand and control them. And so
I guess where I'm going withthis is that model is definitely
old, and it's broken, and it'sgetting I mean, the pandemic

(09:31):
didn't break it. I thinkbusiness leaders are now
breaking it by saying, Look,we're going to lay you off
eventually. Anyways,

Mike Ohata (09:37):
Yeah, I think the pandemic was an inflection
point, wasn't it on somethingthat was already taking place,
and you're right, and so andit's understandable that
business leaders want to go backto what they've known
operationally, because they grewup in this operational kind of
scheme, right or system theyworked for them and and that's
not wrong, but I would just saythat it's not matched to what's

(09:59):
going on with employees. Use inthe workforce today,

Especially generationally,

Mike Ohata (10:03):
Generationally, yup

yeah, you know, the pandemic and the period
after, with the greatresignation and what that did to
the contract that you're talkingabout. You know, how much was
leading up to this versus howmuch was sort of the big bang
with this, would you say?

Mike Ohata (10:22):
Well, you know, I don't know if I have kind of the
perfect answer. I do just, Ifeel like the pandemic was a
punctuation point, and it had todo with sort of this kind of
broadly experienced, sort oflife and death kind of
contemplation, right? And so,you know, when we're talking
about humans and what it meansto be human, what's really

(10:44):
fascinating is watching come tothe foreground this whole
consideration, I think, on somelevel, right, that felt like a
long time when we're goingthrough it. Like, what's
important to me? Like, what do Ireally want to get out of my day
job? What do I want to get outof my gig? And for, I think for
most of I would say corporationsand business leaders, etc, it

(11:06):
probably felt like this hugepunch. And I would just say,
yeah, no, it just accelerated.
Something was already happening.
And so to me, what's really,what I appreciate about kind of
this really unfortunate andtraumatic kind of time is it
gives us the opportunity to kindof rethink how we want to deal
with people or employees.

Sure.

Unfortunately, though, what a lot of employees
are seeing right now is notskill building, it's not
retraining. It's when theeconomy is shifting, and we see
retrenchment in certain sectors,that the first knee jerk

(11:47):
reaction of every businessleader is, I'm going to cut a
10% across the board. And I'mnot even talking about what's
going on the government rightnow. I'm talking politically,
sorry, apolitically, that thefirst knee jerk reaction,
instead of skill building,instead of reskilling, and
instead of being able to use aresource that you are familiar
with and are known quantity,you're just going to chop them

(12:09):
off.

Mike Ohata (12:10):
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, it's a really great point.
And, you know, there's sort oftwo, two aspects to the right to
that comment is, one is that wekind of get, we all get, it's
uncomfortable. It's disruptive.
It can, you know, some it may bemore disruptive for others, but
we, we get that like, there'sthis short term right, business
results focus, and so we'regoing to cleave off, you know,

(12:31):
say, 10% of the workforce, touse your example, and then later
on, we scratch your head and golike, Well, where did all the
talent go? Right? Exactly,right. And it'd be really
interesting, but this requiresan investment. So I'm not trying
to be naive here, but it says,Well, okay, we got to cut some
expense. And can we also investin our people for tomorrow?

(12:51):
Because it's, you know, businessdoesn't exist just in this point
in time of cost cutting. There'skind of a long term lifespan to
it. And so that's where Iwouldn't call it short sighted.
I would just say that we'reprobably optimized around the
short term results versus thelong term capability development
of the organization. And if wecan figure out ways to do both

(13:12):
of those, that'd be really good.
So let me give you an example,like, could you? Could you do
this? But also kind of say,okay, when we come out of this,
30 days from now, 90 days fromnow, what are the kind of the
set of skills that we need inour people? What are the kind of
the core attributes that weneed? Because they're gonna
actually need to be theworkforce that actually carries
us for the next three to fiveyears, or whatever the time

(13:35):
frame is. We're not asking thosequestions while we're doing the
cost cutting. And what I wouldwould ask, or kind of advise
news and say, Are there waysthat we can do this do both
right? Maybe not in everydepartment or every function
right? Maybe not in everysegment of the business, but the
long term bet is actually thecapability that's actually going
to get us to sustainable growthand so forth, right?

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You know, it's interesting the how the pendulum
is swung. I was optimistic thatwhen the pandemic hit and we had
the great resignation, we had alot of remote work. And there
was, you know, the contract waschanging, and I was optimistic
that it was going to change forthe long term. But it's gone
back. And, you know, frankly, Icall it lazy leadership, when

(14:33):
the first thing that you do issay, All right, we're, we're
going to cut head count, it'stotal lazy leadership, as
opposed to what you're talkingabout with, Hey, how can we have
a plus and with this, you know,because we got to cut costs,
you've got to do something tosave the company. It's, you
know, but it's a matter of beingcreative, figuring out, as

(14:55):
you're talking about, where areyou going to invest in your
people, realizing that. That'sgoing to benefit your business
so much better when the pendulumswings again. And

Mike Ohata (15:05):
it's tough. It's tough, you know, to interject a
little bit of like, what I wouldsay, kind of an empathetic view,
right to the business leader andthe HR leaders, is that there's
just 100 things going on everyday, right during the pandemic,
coming out of it, and it's,it's, it's, you know, on one
level, like I kind of hear like,or have sensed and watched and

(15:27):
experienced, like, just peoplebeing exhausted with kind of
making all these changes. Sothere is, there is a sort of
this real desire to get back towhatever, you know, new normal
is. And we went through allthose terms right then and so
forth. But it's really where Ithink it's the focus. The things
that focus on are Dwight orlike, what you're saying is
like, how do you, how do you getsome creativity in there? How do

(15:47):
you get some courage in there?
How do you, how do you thinkabout a new equation for people?
Right? And the tendency is tokind of go with with what we
know now that might, you know,that might be interpreted as
kind of like, well, you know,you could do better. But I what
I would try to say, like, it's,it's not wrong, it's just that
it's kind of an obvious answer.

(16:09):
What else could we do, right,right, right to, kind of, to
give a little bit of space forfolks to, kind of, like, grow
into, like, like, we got a real,so, a real kind of opportunity
with talent. So here's kind ofthe thing that's going on,
right? That there's this wholediscussion that's coming, and
you're starting to hear it moreand more, right? This all this
talk about talent, I'm going,like, in everybody's guts, they

(16:30):
kind of know this people problemis one that they got to figure
out, right? And we, in the past,we kind of went through the
cultured conversations and allthat. And I was actually
listening to a podcast thismorning, and someone was talking
about all the culture work, andI said, and I was kind of
thinking, like, can we stoptalking about culture and just
get at the vibe? And I'm nottrying to be sort of like

(16:51):
simplistic about overlysimplistic, but vibe actually is
much harder work than culture,is what I argue, because it
actually has it's going to getdown to intentionality, right?
But think about all the thinglike, what do we really what's
your real intentions with ourpeople to create talent like
that and like and that's not,it's not just how much we pay
them. It's like, how do we workwith them, right? We're back to,

(17:13):
how do we partner with them?
Because we tend to think, right?
And kind of this, this notion ofcompensation is that, oh, people
just want compensation. It'slike, well, compensation is a
form of recognition,

yes,

Mike Ohata (17:25):
But people really want something more. So let's
focus on what that somethingmore is, and then compensation
is a great compliment to that.
But if you're only doingcompensation, well, there's no
set of dollars that are actuallygoing to ever fulfill what
everybody's going to want if youonly focus on money.

Well, the state of Colorado is actually trying
to step a little bit forward inthat thinking, forward thinking
in that which is that they'retrying to take on the the career
aspect of rewards. And so if, ifyou're familiar with the pay
transparency in Colorado, theyare requiring companies to have

(18:03):
a career framework where anemployee can see, where can my
career go? Where is my nextstep? What skills and training
do I need to get to that?

Mike Ohata (18:13):
There you go. That is very forward looking. And I
have heard about that. Andthat's absolutely what people
want. And it's like, that's whatI want to do. Well, I don't want
to do that

Well. And you know what's funny, Mike is, I
don't hear any resistance fromColorado companies saying this
is a dumb idea. It's a wonderfulidea. It's a phenomenal thing
that Colorado is actuallyrequiring companies have this.
We should have every companyrequired to have this, but it's
not. And when we start workingwith Colorado clients, they're
like, All right, so what do wedo to have to be transparent and

(18:44):
to be compliant with this? Andthe answer is, well, even if you
have operations outside ofColorado, use the same
frameworks. Just build aframework that works for your
organization. Care about thefact that employees now need to
be able to, you know, charttheir path. There you go. Now
you're creating an opportunityfor people to get rewarded for

(19:06):
their longevity as well as fortheir skill building, and be
able to see a path forward.

Mike Ohata (19:10):
Yeah, and transparency does all kinds of
de risking, right? It de risksthe folks leave right because
now, for example, in a de risklitigation saying, Well, you
didn't give me what I was goingto get out of my job, or a site,
or you put me in a role that Ididn't sign up for, you know,
and all those kinds of things.
Because now it's all kind of outthere. And then I believe over
time, it starts to solve thismacro economic thing around how

(19:34):
people move around in themarketplace, right? So like
you're saying, Well, I'm I havethese skills, but I want to go
into these other skills, and Iwant to go learn these skills,
and you can kind of pursue itlike so now the market's
starting to sort out this basic,like onboarding training problem
that we've been dealing with fordecades, right? Because now
you're like, systematicallysaying, like, no, these, all the

(19:56):
things that we expect you tohave, these all. Things we're
going to do, work with you anddevelop right? And if that's not
what you want to do, you can godo something else, but at least
the system now of yourorganization can kind of deal
with people coming in.

Isn't it fascinating when you're giving
people the tools they need tomake decisions about their
career and their future?

Mike Ohata (20:17):
Yeah, they're going to make they're going to make
great decisions.

Well, at least they're going to make informed
decisions. They may still makedumb decisions, but at least
those dumb decisions areinformed by real information
that you know enables them tomake. People don't make mature
decisions. They make decisionsyou know. They they kind of knee
jerk sometimes, like I just hada crappy discussion with my
boss, and so I'm going to quitforgetting about the fact that

(20:42):
I've got long term incentivesthat are going to vest next
month, and, you know,potentially make me rich. Yeah,
people make stupid mistakes allthe time.

Mike Ohata (20:50):
Yeah, I would say it's a great decision because
it's informed, like you said,but it's one that the person
owns,

yes,

Mike Ohata (20:56):
Right? And if you can get that ownership in there,
like, that's huge, right?
Because one of the things right,we've all experienced in the
workforce is a sense of sort ofhelplessness, or like, kind of
being disempowered, right, orbeing disengaged. And if that
provides agency for theworkforce and employees, that's
a good thing that then they canmake it may not be a the perfect
decision, but it's good, and atleast the starting point that

(21:18):
they own it.

And it's a good long term it's good long term
play from the from two angles.
Number one, from the angle ofbusiness, because you're
investing in your people, andyou're going to have the natural
ebbs and flows and and, and whenit is time to make the decision
to do a reduction in force, thenpeople are better positioned and

(21:42):
better cushioned to be able tomove into jobs at other
companies, you know, as opposedto, you know, all of a sudden my
job is gone and I'm going, Ohno, what? What am I going to do?

Mike Ohata (22:01):
Yeah, and this takes us right back to that kind of
early part of the conversation,that if you have this discipline
as an organization, and you havelike an enterprise skills,
either mindset and framework inplace, so to speak, then when
you're doing like thisreduction, you're actually
having this whole conversationlike, what are the ones, what
are the skills I absolutely needto retain? Right? Not

exactly,

Mike Ohata (22:22):
And they have to go beyond the technical and the
superficial things. But what arethose longer term ones, right?
They're going to make ussustainable, capable, right? And
so forth. So, like, who, who arethe people that have the burst
best kind of ability to learn,right? Who are the people that
have the best sort of sense ofadaptability? You know, I use, I
often use kind of that, that theattributes by by divinity, like

(22:45):
he talks about, like in theseals, like the person has to
swim across the pool holdingtheir breath. And there's a
person that, a candidate, thatdrags himself on the bottom of
the pool because they don't,they don't know how to swim.
It's like, I can't teach youthat level of tenacity, but I
can teach you to swim like, wecan teach you to swim, and we're
like, but that kind of core sortof characteristic that's like,

(23:06):
what do you need there fortomorrow, right, while you're
taking out costs over here, andit might be tough right on those
people that may like, maybe notbe showing up 100% but that
could also be a good messagetoo, like, As you go
transparently right to Colorado,State of Colorado, we're looking
for this in our workforce.

Hey, are you listening to this and thinking
to yourself, Man, I wish I couldtalk to David about this. Well,
you're in luck. We have aspecial offer for listeners of
the HR Data Labs podcast, a freehalf hour call with me about any
of the topics we cover on thepodcast, or whatever is on your
mind, go tosalary.com/hrdlconsulting to

(23:49):
schedule your free 30 minutecall today. Let's transition to
our next question, which is wetalked about some of the
interesting things that we'veseen happen. Why are some
companies sticking with outdatedsystems that that really are
causing problems for theiremployees, and really are going

(24:11):
to, going to set them back,probably a ways, um,

Mike Ohata (24:15):
You know, I think it's, it's kind of on them, on
the theme of, like, people focuson and organizations focus on
what they know, right, andwhat's sort of worked over time,
and get that things like thefocus on high potentials, and
mostly the brand investment goesto high potentials, you know, is
built into the performancemanagement systems, right? So

(24:36):
then it's built into the tools.
And so, like, systemically,it's, actually, it's actually
sort of kind of brittle, likeit's built in, so it's hard,
it's really hard fororganizations to step away from
some of this. Now, I think thethere's sort of this retort that
would say, like, hey, you know,like, well, we're not only
focused on on high potentials.

(24:58):
We're going to make adifferentiated. An investment.
And I think that the concept ofdifferentiated investment is the
saying, like, we're going tofocus on high potentials, they
get leadership development, andeverybody, everybody else gets
training. And I'm like, how doesthat work? And so, like, one of
the things I would ask leadersto do is go back and talk to
your talent and learning teamsand take a really hard look at

(25:21):
your leadership developmentprograms, how much of that is
remediation, and that's actuallyone of the things when I was,
when I was Chief Learningofficers, is the leadership
development team came to me andsaid, like, we've done this
whole analysis, like, and theseprograms are all about, you
know, the recognition. There'snot a lot of development going

(25:41):
on here. These things are alllike, remediating, kind of like
go to market skills that ourleaders should have and, you
know? And so their point was,like, the systems kind of
busted, right? So this is onething. And so you're constantly,
you know, leaders are kind ofstuck in this remediation
program with leadershipdevelopment, because they
haven't actually spent the timeto go and build in this

(26:02):
leadership development thatactually works across your
organization. Now, the peopleare more conservative fiscally
was saying, well, that's a hugeinvestment. I'm going like, no,
it's a trade off decision.

Yeah,

Mike Ohata (26:12):
That's really what it is like. Are you going to
spend millions and millions ofdollars with this small group,
or are you going to try tospread some of that across so
actually, by the time they getto these leadership roles,
they're a much better place. Andthat's mindset. I mean, that's
really a mindset piece of it,and it's, it's, and here's where
I would say is one of the thingsthat keep people stuck in this

(26:32):
model is that we think that highpotentials deserve more, right?
And I think in a merit basedsort of mind frame that's, you
know, that's kind of where we goto. And again, I would say, and
what can we do to develop allpeople, right? And so instead of
kind of excluding folks, islike, what, what can we do to

(26:53):
kind of actually create this,this framework that actually
does more for the development ofour people, so that they can
kind of come up and actually bebetter leaders and over time.
You know, the theory would workwould be as it you know, the
workforce is actually stronger,more capable.

Do you think your answer changes in a world
where Gen AI and AI is moreprevalent, where maybe getting
individualized assistance forthe mass would be easier,
because we can use models tofigure out what the gaps are,
that each person might have highpotential or not,

Mike Ohata (27:30):
yeah,

and and actually use more use assessments to be
able to figure it out, and thenuse the AI to help train those
away,

Mike Ohata (27:40):
yeah, I would say that The short answer would be
yes. Like, if you take kind ofthe long history of automation,
right? And to AI, it's around,you're going to displace work
that sort of task space, right?
That's like some of the lowhanging fruit, which kind of
frees you up to focus on otherkinds of work and so forth,
which then drives other skillsand so forth. I know there's a

(28:01):
lot of focus on, you know, AIusing for like, sort of routine,
sort of, like training andcoaching, like AI can develop,
you know, the content, forexample, a lot of times, you
know, organizations get reallyhyper focused on, like, the
quality of a training, right?
That's, that's kind of one ofthose big learning things. And I

(28:21):
just said, like, again, what areyou trying to get get done here?
Like, you know, is good enough,good enough to get us through
the skills that we need right?
And then kind of move on. Andthen, again, to your point,
like, use AI to kind of like, upthings like, like, yeah, to what
point can we review a person'sset of work? What's in their in
their CV, what's what's been intheir projects, to actually

(28:43):
understand, well, hey, we thinkyou have these skills, and we're
looking for you to do thesethings like and I think right
now we just, we don't haveenough of the data, I think, to
kind of go after those things.
But so then it's like figuringhow kind of organization we
begin to sort of instrumentourselves right into kind of

(29:03):
operating with AI that way. Sothis, I think the opportunities
will continue to grow, but we'rejust getting started here.

It's it's interesting, the the footer of
my email is something that I sawthat really resonates with this,
AI won't replace people. Peopleusing AI will replace people not
using AI. And I think

Is that your quote, or is that somebody
something?

No, I stole that from someone. It was some
someone much more brilliant thanme, but I liked it so much I put
it on my email.

There you go,

Because I think it gets to exactly the point that
you're that you're talkingabout. And it really kind of
weaves into this topic and andwhether it's AI or other, uh,
sort of people, replacementpieces of things, it's it. The
theme is always the same.

Dwight, go back 20 years and we are having the
same conversation aboutcomputers in the workforce,
right? Yeah. You know, I tellthe story all the time about how
to I went to a corporateheadquarters of a large
automobile manufacturer, andthey had one computer in the
center of the room. And I said,where's mine? And they said it
we share that departmentalcomputer, right? And I and I

(30:19):
said, what? I just finished myfour years of college using a
computer. I'm not going back.
And they're like, well, that'sthe way we work. And I was like,
No, it isn't. I'm not going tobe there. So I mean, but Mike,
we've kind of gotten spoiled.
And to Dwight's point, it's nowgoing to become a new tool in
our belt that we have to figureout how, and just like that,

(30:44):
it's another skill, right thatwe either make use of. Or, you
know, yeah, find yourself on thecutting room floor

Mike Ohata (30:52):
Absolutely. And I do, I do see like in, in the
discussion, right is that thereis this awareness, right? Is
around, really, AI should reallybegin to highlight what the role
of humans are in all of this,right? And, and, and that's,
that's been even true of justthinking about how robotics have
worked, right? Because it's,it's, it's not an elimination of

(31:15):
humans. It's around, well, howrobots work. And I, I often
think around, like AmazonLogistics, like, I just they
spend so much time. And it'sactually people were worried,
well, you're gonna, you're gonnaeliminate workers. Actually,
there's more employees workingin logistics today than there
were before. And there's,there's, there's many more
robots working at the same time,right?

Don't watch Galactica,

Mike Ohata (31:34):
But I love Battlestar Galactica though

I love because Cylons wanted to eliminate us
after a while, because we were,we were really mean to them,
but, but I mean to your point,though, it starts other
industries that other peoplehave to focus on different
things and re skilling, thenbecomes not just one company's
problem, it becomes everycompany's problem, right?

Mike Ohata (31:58):
And then add your transparency to that, and now
the whole market actuallystarting to work in
coordination. And that's, youknow, I, you know, we're all
capitalists on some level, so tospeak, right? And I said, like,
that's good for everybody.
That's good for business, yep,

Mike, we could talk about this forever, but
unfortunately, we were runningout of time, so we're going to
have to ask you back and talkabout how the Cylons are going
to take over. But thank you somuch. It's been a pleasure
having you on the HR data labspodcast.

Mike Ohata (32:36):
Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

And Dwight, thank you. Thank you. We appreciate
you being here. Always, alwaysgood talking with you, and like
David said, we'll have to haveyou back.

And thank you all for listening, take care and
stay safe.

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Mike Ohata – Leadership and Building a Resilient Workforce

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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;}Mike Ohata – Leadership and Building a Resilient Workforce