January 22, 2025 • 22 mins
What if Your Digital Transformation Was as Easy as Changing Your Mind?
In this episode of "What If? So What?" Jim chats with Brian Solis, a renowned futurist, author, and the Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow, to discuss the evolving landscape of leadership and innovation. Brian shares insights from his latest book, "MindShift," and explores the importance of self-awareness, cognitive bias, and explains how the beginner's mindset can drive business transformation. The conversation delves into the role of storytelling in leadership, the impact of Generative AI, and the future of work.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brain Solis (00:04):
So if you're telling the story of disruption
and generative AI is going tounlock new ways of work, you
can't just say this is what'sgoing to happen and this is what
the work is going to be, andthis is what people are going to
do and hope to scare someoneinto action or creating a
burning platform.
What you do is you inspiresomeone to be into the story of
what the new world is going tolook like and how people are
going to thrive, and you'rebasing the characters on the
(00:26):
people that you feel are yourstakeholders and you're turning
the story and how all thestakeholders can be successful.
It's a Disney-like approach totelling the future of your
organization in a way thatpeople feel inspired, that they
want to be part of that story.
Jim Hertzfeld (00:39):
Welcome to What If?
So What?
, the podcast where we explorewhat's possible with digital and
discover how to make it real inyour business.
I'm your host, Jim Hertzfeld,and we get shit done by asking
digital leaders the rightquestions what, if so what?
And, most importantly now, what.
I'm very excited today to haveBrian Solis on the podcast.
Brian is a real life futurist.
(00:59):
He's the author of over 60leading research publications,
eight bestselling books andcurrently the head of global
innovation for ServiceNow.
Brian, welcome to what If sowhat.
Brain Solis (01:09):
Thank you, Jim.
It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm excited.
I'm looking forward to ourconversation .
Jim Hertzfeld (01:14):
Great.
Thanks for joining.
So, Brian, we've been followingand inspired by your work for
years.
It's really informed a lot ofthe what and how we think about
digital strategies, CXstrategies for our customers and
some of our listeners, though,may not be as versed in your
story.
Could you give us a littlebackground on kind of your focus
and how you got here?
Brain Solis (01:32):
Yeah, it's a long road, but I think, for those at
a high level who haven'tfollowed my work I've been a
longtime analyst.
I've been a longtime digitalanthropologist, futurist I've
been a tech geek for my wholecareer, starting in Silicon
Valley in the 90s.
The big thing that all of thosepaths have crossed has been the
understanding of technology,technology trends, what's on the
(01:54):
horizon, how they affect humanbehavior in a variety of
contextual forms, likeconsumerism or influence or
employee experience, for example, and played those out over time
.
If we believe these things tobe true, then what could be next
?
How could that inspire products?
How could that inspire businesstransformation?
How could that inspire bettercustomer experiences?
(02:16):
How could that drive innovation?
And so that led to many reports, many books on the subject,
speaking all around the worldadvising CEOs and CIOs on these
subjects.
But now I am at ServiceNow asthe head of global innovation,
focusing on much of the sametype of work actually studying
the emerging trends and helpingcustomers understand how to
(02:37):
invest in those trends aroundbusiness transformation and
digital transformation, to notjust react but to get ahead of
them and to play out over timewhere they might go so that
they're building the business ofthe future, literally today.
Jim Hertzfeld (02:50):
Well, a lot of that is sort of the genesis of
this, even the title of thispodcast.
You know what if?
What if this could happen?
What if we could do this?
So what then?
What do you do about it?
So you know, I'd like to kindof dig in and get started by
understanding the motivation foryour latest book, Mind Shift.
For me, when I read this book,it was sort of I don't know how
you interpret this, but it wassort of a cry for help.
It was a kind of a plea for achange in leadership thinking,
(03:13):
which I was refreshing andwelcome.
I think a lot of the legacyleadership in IT, even in
business in general, sort ofneeds to be amended, you know,
in my mind, and I think someelements probably need to get
left behind.
But I kind of interpret this assort of this amendment and you
point out a lot of differentthings.
But what was sort of themotivation behind MindShift for
(03:33):
you?
Brain Solis (03:34):
So, many different motivations, but first, Jim,
thank you for reading it.
I vanished.
If you don't follow my work,it's not a surprise out there
for anybody watching this now.
I vanished for about three tofour years after our Altimeter
Group, the analyst firm that Ico-founded with some really
brilliant partners like JeremiahOuyang and Charlene Lee, I
decided that living the life onthe road of a published
researcher and author andspeaker was a little difficult
(03:56):
with young daughters at home.
So part of the motivation, Jim,telling you that, was to
actually see what was happeningin the world and recognize that
we weren't getting much beyondplatitudes to inspire new
leadership.
And if you think about the lasteight years alone, with
societal polarization, withclimate change, with COVID in
2020, with generative AIcompletely dominating the
(04:20):
technology and business scenesin 2022, all of these
revolutions and cycles thatcontinue to happen at breakneck
speeds, I realized that maybethere was a voice necessary here
to challenge leadership.
If you think about whereleadership has been over the
past let's just say decade withsome of those massive black swan
events, some of those massivedisruptions we saw semblances of
(04:44):
change.
We saw semblances oftransformation.
I noticed the opportunity tohelp leadership see
opportunities that they weren'tseeing.
So, for example, if youremember, in 2020, it was like
an overnight shift to acceleratedigital transformation for the
first time at that speed that ithad been since 2012, where it
really started to pick upmomentum.
And so overnight.
(05:04):
We're getting e-commerce, we'regetting curbside pickup and buy
online pickup in store, we'regetting remote work supported
All of these things that justtook years and years and years
to justify were finally beingdone.
But what wasn't being done wasthinking for the long term.
For example, we started to hearterms like next normal and new
normal, but now we're seeingthings like return to office and
(05:26):
we're not really seeing muchgreat innovation on the
e-commerce fronts like we did inthose first couple of years,
and so we find ourselves sort ofelasticized into this new
domain and then snapping backinto business as usual.
Not that there's anything wrongwith successful businesses
getting back to their core anddoing what they do best, but at
the same time, each one of thesedisruptions also are creating
(05:48):
opportunities that we're notnecessarily taking advantage of
or even seeing.
So the inspiration for the bookreally came down to what if we
had new leadership to push us innew directions?
What if we had people who arewilling to take the time or
invest the resources, hire thepeople to look at what was
happening, to look out into thefuture and to uncover those
(06:09):
opportunities to create a betterfuture, not just for the
organization, but for everybody.
If you think about generativeAI and then you look towards the
future, we know it's going tointroduce needs for new skills.
It's going to introduce newways of working.
It's going to create newopportunities beyond automation.
If we were to embrace andinvest in augmentation, as an
example, those are all areaswhere we could be making strides
(06:30):
and investments in to prepareourselves for the future today.
So it was all of my research,more so than the books.
Each previous book was an idea,but all of the research was
focused on transformation andinnovation and leadership, and
so I thought, gosh, I've neverwritten a book about these
things.
This is the time.
So, last but not least, Jim isbig question.
At ServiceNow, I spend prettymuch every day with customers
(06:53):
and they're all trying to figurethis out.
What does AI mean?
What does businesstransformation mean?
What could the future of worklook like?
And so we're having thesereally big, meaningful future
forward conversations and Ifigured the framework that's in
the book, the inspiring storiesthat were in the book, felt like
.
You know, I can't scale oneperson, but maybe through a book
we could scale a movement.
Jim Hertzfeld (07:14):
Yeah, that's great.
I really appreciated what youput to paper and, like I said,
it's sort of my interpretationwas a plea right, hey, we've got
to keep this going and here'show we're going to do it.
So it really resonated.
You know a couple of thingsthat really stood out to me.
I would love kind of yourpersonal take.
I love, by the way, reading abook and you know, you gosh, I
wish I could talk to this guy.
I need to have a conversationand here we are, so I really
(07:36):
appreciate it.
Well, right off the bat, youtalk about three things that
sort of by bundled togetherself-awareness, cognitive bias,
the beginner's mindset, and Ilove these concepts.
We talk about pragmatism, wetalk about scrappiness and we
have a phrase we love think big,start small, move fast.
But to buy into all thosethings, you really have to have
(07:58):
this initial mindset.
A lot of leaders, I think,maybe lack this.
So what would you share withorganizations, especially those
that are sort of had a trackrecord, they've had success,
they want to build on whatthey've done, but what got you
here won't get you there.
So is that kind of what'sbehind that thinking?
Brian Solis (08:22):
Yeah, absolutely, well first, thanks for picking
up on the key elements.
A mindset is how you see theworld, how you see opportunities
, how you see challenges.
Jim, I know you work withcompanies that are also trying
to invest in digitaltransformation, now business
transformation.
A mindset is what they see theyneed to do, and then what they
do is work with brilliant mindslike yourself to then bring that
strategy and those goals tolife.
But if the mindset is limitedto what it knows, then all it
can do is iterate.
Make tomorrow better than itwas yesterday faster, cheaper,
(08:45):
more scalable.
If you look at all of thedisruptions that are hitting us
left and right today, if weattack those with the same
mindset, the best we'll be isiteratively better, with chat,
GPT or generative AI, forexample.
So there are going to beorganizations that are going to
ask what if, or what about, orwhy can't we, and those, those
(09:06):
mindsets, are going to askdifferent questions that are
going to get different answers,of which then are going to
unlock different opportunities.
And what you're going to haveover time here, slowly but
quickly, is, if you think aboutthe linear path of organizations
that are constantly improving,incrementally improving.
Take all of these new innovativetechnologies.
It might do that faster, butwhat's also going to happen is
(09:29):
we're going to have people whosay, well, beyond automation,
what about augmentation?
What if we use, for example, AIto do things we couldn't do
before, to not just makeyesterday better, but to do what
we couldn't do yesterdaytomorrow?
Or if we get leaders who say,well, what are some of the
things that we just couldn't do,that we didn't think to do?
If we're looking to accomplishthese things, what else could we
accomplish?
And so what's going to happen isyou're going to create this
(09:50):
inflection point self-awareness,new mindsets asking different
questions, curiosity,imaginations where they'll still
probably do the linear things,but then they're going to break
into this exponential growthcurve, and the delta between the
two is really businessdisruption, competitive
disruption.
So the humanity of things likeself awareness, recognizing your
(10:10):
mind shift, recognizing whereyour biases limit your thinking
and your questioning today allof those will create white space
to explore curiosity, toentertain it, to dance with
imagination, to look at thesenew technologies, for example,
and to say what, if?
Why can't we?
Instead of we could never dothat, that's too expensive.
We have to take costs out ofour current implementations.
(10:32):
Today we got to look for threeto 10% out every year and
breaking that iterative mindset.
Jim Hertzfeld (10:36):
Yeah, that's great.
I'm glad to see some of thatcoming back and we're recording
this.
It's the CES is going on andsome great announcements.
I was just chatting with acolleague today Like, wow,
there's some big announcements.
Of course you know they're inthe sphere, which is awesome, so
that amplifies it, but yeah, soI'm hoping this is maybe a year
.
Some of that mindset is takingplace and settling back in.
You know another thing youtalked about maybe you touch on
(10:58):
a little bit.
You are a great storyteller andyou touch on storytelling a
little bit.
I feel like it's sort of anunderappreciated skill set, an
underappreciated art form.
Again back to a mindset.
You know how do we communicateand identify with other people.
If you could just touch on kindof your perspective on
storytelling as a leadership ora mindset tactic.
Brain Solis (11:16):
Yeah, you know one real quick point on
self-awareness, because I thinkthat's really where it begins,
and you brought up a point thatI didn't touch on, which was
beginner's mind, and then I'llget into storytelling.
Yeah, sure, you know, abeginner's mind is someone who
brings a more open self to aproblem, any meeting, any
opportunity, just any moment,and to have a beginner's mind is
something I think we'd all liketo believe that we have, open
(11:36):
minds.
I don't know if you know thisor not, but one study showed
that only about 10 to 15% of ushave the recognition of
self-awareness and, in reality,rather than a beginner's mind,
we usually bring to a moment anexpert's mind you know where we
have ideas, we have experience,we have a gut hunch, whatever it
is, and those are essentiallycognitive biases manifesting
themselves.
It's also very human and normal.
(11:57):
Of course you want to bringyour best self, your experience,
that's who you are that's howyou got here to these moments.
And so the idea of having thebeginner's mind is challenging,
if not impossible, unless youintentionally try to do that.
And in that white space to helppeople get there, storytelling
becomes very important.
You can't just say to someoneyou're not self-aware, you're
not thinking as creatively aspossible, and so storytelling
(12:19):
becomes very important in everystep of the mind shift.
It's how do you give one toyourself and then how do you
give one to those who work withyou, so that you're inspiring
full imagination and creativityto tackle these opportunities in
ways that just weren't possiblebefore.
And that's a mind shift beforeyou even get to all of this
incredible technology.
But storytelling, one of mybiggest idols since I was a kid
(12:42):
probably true for many people isWalt Disney, and I think of
Walt Disney as an innovator, amaster storyteller, the original
Imagineer, if you will.
Yeah, so I was very lucky whenI came across the name of
someone who used to be a PixarDisney storyboard artist.
His name is Nicholas Sung andnow he is a storyteller at
(13:03):
Netflix, which is very cool towatch his career take off.
I had the opportunity to workwith him after meeting him when
he was doing storyboarding workfor Airbnb, and this is a really
famous story.
When Airbnb, back in the day,was going through its big
identity crisis, they hiredNicholas Sung to come in and
work with the data team,understand what the challenges
(13:25):
were, what guests were lookingfor, the problems they were
having, what hosts were lookingfor and the problems they were
having.
They were looking for theaspirations of each side, and
they were able to uncover thesestories that they just had
missed.
Why does someone put their homeopen to strangers, or why does
someone want to rent the homesor rooms of strangers rather
than going to, I don't know, theFour Seasons?
(13:46):
And they were able to put theseinto aspirational storyboards,
of which then they broughtdecision makers, investors, the
board together around thesestories to then invest in the
change that was necessary forAirbnb at the time.
I had always thoughtstoryboarding was about
capturing stills and puttingthem into a linear format to be
(14:06):
able to tell the story in aninexpensive way, before you
started investing in all of theanimation.
It turns out that's partly true.
The reality of it is a way oftesting the ability for the
story to become believable.
Do you see yourself in thestory?
Do you see yourself in thecharacters?
Because you're not just lookingat the board.
People are acting out the boardin front of you and they're
(14:28):
making changes to it in realtime.
So this believability aspect ofthe storyboarding process is a
very different approach thanjust simply telling a story.
So if you're telling a story ofdisruption and generative AI is
going to unlock new ways of work, you can't just say this is
what's going to happen and thisis what the work is going to be
and this is what people aregoing to do and hope to scare
(14:48):
someone into action or creatinga burning platform.
What you do is you inspiresomeone to be into the story of
what the new world is going tolook like and how people are
going to thrive, and you'rebasing the characters on the
people that you feel are yourstakeholders and you're turning
the story and how all thestakeholders can be successful.
It's a Disney-like approach totelling the future of your
organization in a way thatpeople feel inspired, that they
(15:10):
want to be part of that story.
And learning from Nick andworking through the
storyboarding process with himhe even worked on this book with
me it's life-changing becausenow you realize that the story
is bigger than just your work orwhat you feel is important.
Because of the research you did, you're now making it a story
of transformation and a humanconquest towards greatness, of
(15:31):
one of which people want to bepart of, and that, for me, was
probably the most important partof the book is recognizing kind
of coming back toself-awareness, and a beginner's
mind is that you're not youraudience, and to become part of
your audience requires empathy.
Storytelling is built on empathyand then building up from there
.
Jim Hertzfeld (15:47):
Right, that was a great connection.
I didn't see that coming andstoryboarding and storytelling
is a design process.
You didn't mention what I heardand I love about good design
processes.
It just sort of reveals thetruth, right, it reveals the
need, and I heard a lot of that.
Tell us a little bit aboutwhat's going on at ServiceNow.
Where you're kicking off theyear, what are you seeing?
What's sort of the vision thatyou're seeing with ServiceNow?
Brain Solis (16:07):
Absolutely.
We have an incredible leader inBill McDermott and he is all in
on AI, business transformationand at ServiceNow.
You might know us as one partof your organization, largely
built in foundationally in ITSM,right.
But what a platform does isconnects work, and AI helps you
to automate that work, helps youput agents to work, it helps
(16:30):
you take your organization andmake it more optimized and
efficient, but what it also does, it allows you to reimagine
work, so you're connecting thedots across the organization.
If you think about what powersAI, well, it's data.
Data doesn't work well whenit's in silos.
So when you're connecting work,you're actually connecting your
organization.
You're building the foundationfor more intelligent enterprise,
and so the leadership underBill especially here in 2025, is
(16:56):
really going to help ourcustomers unlock the future of
work without having tocompletely control, alt, delete
their businesses, and I thinkthat's a pretty special value
for opposition.
So a lot of the lessons that aretaught in the book.
For those who didn't know, billMcDermott also wrote the
foreword to the book and it'svery inspirational.
It's very Bill, and in fact,I'm actually rereading my book,
as you can see.
I enjoy it and one of thereasons I'm rereading it to your
question is we're going tospend 2025.
(17:17):
I work in the innovation officeat ServiceNow and our big
charter is to be the voice ofinnovation, not just for
ServiceNow, but for ourcustomers and helping them see
(17:45):
these opportunities, thestorytelling aspect of it,
understanding where they arewhere they're trying to go, and
helping tell the story of whereelse they can go.
What else they could do.
And helping them acceleratethose aspirations of that type
of transformation for thoseleaders who want to build the
business of the future today.
Jim Hertzfeld (17:51):
I'm glad you're there, Brian.
I'm excited about what you guysare going to do and a mind
shift that you're going tocreate, I think, both within the
organization and with yourcustomers, and I hope we connect
over a project someday.
Brain Solis (18:01):
Jim, anything to help you and help our customers.
That's what I'm here for and Ireally appreciate one the time
you took to read the book andthen also the time to invite and
host me on the show.
It means a lot and we caninspire new leadership.
You said earlier at thebeginning of the conversation
something that I meant to touchon that it was like this cry for
new leadership, and it'sexactly how I described it when
(18:21):
we were finishing the book andthinking about how we were going
to market it.
It was literally the words weuse was rally cry for new
leadership, because leadershipisn't management, and I think,
if you look at organizationalevolution, management is
important and companies have toscale and they have to save
money, they have to make money,but they also have to innovate.
I had an opportunity to spendtime with Mark Randolph about a
(18:42):
month ago and Mark Randolph isthe co-founder of Netflix with
Reed Hastings, and we weretalking about, a lot of people
don't recognize this.
They just sort of take forgranted, like, what's Netflix
releasing now, because I've gotan insatiable need to stream a
series today?
But Netflix started out, asthose who may remember, as a DVD
mailing company, Then the DVDmailing company at the time,
(19:06):
e-commerce was becoming a thing,so they had to shift towards
e-commerce.
Then the internet became evenmore powerful and they shifted
towards streaming.
The story that isn't as popularas Mark was sort of alluding to
is that every one of thoseevolutions was a foundational
business transformation exercise.
Every one of those evolutionswas a foundational business
(19:27):
transformation exercise.
They were profitable in eachone of those segments of their
life but decided that becausethey were a small company, it
was all or nothing.
They couldn't stay in DVDswhile investing in e-commerce
and stay in e-commerce whileinvesting in streaming.
And so they made really toughbusiness decisions and
transformations to let go oftheir core businesses.
Each time they would move tothe next stage of their
(19:47):
transformation.
And those are big stories.
And I asked Mark you know what'sthe mindset that business
leaders need today?
Understanding that they'reessentially facing the next
thing.
We know that Netflix would lookat the next thing by going all
in on it, but business leaderstend to invest more in the core
rather than let go of the core,and it really was a mind shift
(20:08):
moment where he was talkingabout that.
This is that moment for allcompanies to at least invest in
what is next.
Keep your core, nurture yourcore, but don't abandon the
future.
And it was really inspiring,relevant and timely story to
share with those.
And so, coming back toleadership and closing out,
leadership isn't just a title.
(20:28):
If you believe in something, ifyou make the case in something,
if you tell the story insomething, that you believe in
what you're seeing whereeverything is going, it's
generative or AI orneurocomputing or spatial
computing or whatever it is thatyou're passionate about.
Leadership is a way of life,it's a way of thinking, it's a
way of acting, and leaders cancome from anywhere.
And that was really the rallycry is that we're not just
writing a book for existingleaders, we're writing a book
(20:50):
for those around existingleaders.
We're writing a book for thenext leader, the emergent leader
, the next entrepreneur, torecognize that there is a
mechanical process tounderstanding what something
means and breaking it down sothat you can take the what to,
so, what to the now, what levelsand move people with you, so
that you're making the rallyingcry towards that transformation.
So the book helps well,hopefully inspires your story,
(21:12):
but also gives you the toolsnecessary to become either the
leader and the leadershipenabler, the CEO whisperer or a
leader yourself.
Jim Hertzfeld (21:20):
That's awesome.
Brian, thanks for theconversation.
I really appreciate it and Ihope you have a great future
this year.
Brain Solis (21:26):
Oh, thanks.
Jim, happy New Year and wisheveryone the best, most
successful, brightest futurepossible, but recognize that
it's all ours to shape
Jim Hertzfeld (21:34):
Awesome Thanks
Joe Wentzel (21:46):
Perficient with Jim Hertzfeld.
We want to thank our proficientcolleagues JD Norman and Rick
Bauer for our music.
Subscribe to the podcast anddon't miss a single episode.
You can find this season, alongwith show notes, at perficient.
com.
Thanks for listening.
So if you're telling the story of disruption
and generative AI is going tounlock new ways of work, you
can't just say this is what'sgoing to happen and this is what
the work is going to be, andthis is what people are going to
do and hope to scare someoneinto action or creating a
burning platform.
What you do is you inspiresomeone to be into the story of
what the new world is going tolook like and how people are
going to thrive, and you'rebasing the characters on the
(00:26):
people that you feel are yourstakeholders and you're turning
the story and how all thestakeholders can be successful.
It's a Disney-like approach totelling the future of your
organization in a way thatpeople feel inspired, that they
want to be part of that story.
Jim Hertzfeld (00:39):
Welcome to What If?
So What?
, the podcast where we explorewhat's possible with digital and
discover how to make it real inyour business.
I'm your host, Jim Hertzfeld,and we get shit done by asking
digital leaders the rightquestions what, if so what?
And, most importantly now, what.
I'm very excited today to haveBrian Solis on the podcast.
Brian is a real life futurist.
(00:59):
He's the author of over 60leading research publications,
eight bestselling books andcurrently the head of global
innovation for ServiceNow.
Brian, welcome to what If sowhat.
Brain Solis (01:09):
Thank you, Jim.
It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm excited.
I'm looking forward to ourconversation .
Jim Hertzfeld (01:14):
Great.
Thanks for joining.
So, Brian, we've been followingand inspired by your work for
years.
It's really informed a lot ofthe what and how we think about
digital strategies, CXstrategies for our customers and
some of our listeners, though,may not be as versed in your
story.
Could you give us a littlebackground on kind of your focus
and how you got here?
Brain Solis (01:32):
Yeah, it's a long road, but I think, for those at
a high level who haven'tfollowed my work I've been a
longtime analyst.
I've been a longtime digitalanthropologist, futurist I've
been a tech geek for my wholecareer, starting in Silicon
Valley in the 90s.
The big thing that all of thosepaths have crossed has been the
understanding of technology,technology trends, what's on the
(01:54):
horizon, how they affect humanbehavior in a variety of
contextual forms, likeconsumerism or influence or
employee experience, for example, and played those out over time
.
If we believe these things tobe true, then what could be next
?
How could that inspire products?
How could that inspire businesstransformation?
How could that inspire bettercustomer experiences?
(02:16):
How could that drive innovation?
And so that led to many reports, many books on the subject,
speaking all around the worldadvising CEOs and CIOs on these
subjects.
But now I am at ServiceNow asthe head of global innovation,
focusing on much of the sametype of work actually studying
the emerging trends and helpingcustomers understand how to
(02:37):
invest in those trends aroundbusiness transformation and
digital transformation, to notjust react but to get ahead of
them and to play out over timewhere they might go so that
they're building the business ofthe future, literally today.
Jim Hertzfeld (02:50):
Well, a lot of that is sort of the genesis of
this, even the title of thispodcast.
You know what if?
What if this could happen?
What if we could do this?
So what then?
What do you do about it?
So you know, I'd like to kindof dig in and get started by
understanding the motivation foryour latest book, Mind Shift.
For me, when I read this book,it was sort of I don't know how
you interpret this, but it wassort of a cry for help.
It was a kind of a plea for achange in leadership thinking,
(03:13):
which I was refreshing andwelcome.
I think a lot of the legacyleadership in IT, even in
business in general, sort ofneeds to be amended, you know,
in my mind, and I think someelements probably need to get
left behind.
But I kind of interpret this assort of this amendment and you
point out a lot of differentthings.
But what was sort of themotivation behind MindShift for
(03:33):
you?
Brain Solis (03:34):
So, many different motivations, but first, Jim,
thank you for reading it.
I vanished.
If you don't follow my work,it's not a surprise out there
for anybody watching this now.
I vanished for about three tofour years after our Altimeter
Group, the analyst firm that Ico-founded with some really
brilliant partners like JeremiahOuyang and Charlene Lee, I
decided that living the life onthe road of a published
researcher and author andspeaker was a little difficult
(03:56):
with young daughters at home.
So part of the motivation, Jim,telling you that, was to
actually see what was happeningin the world and recognize that
we weren't getting much beyondplatitudes to inspire new
leadership.
And if you think about the lasteight years alone, with
societal polarization, withclimate change, with COVID in
2020, with generative AIcompletely dominating the
(04:20):
technology and business scenesin 2022, all of these
revolutions and cycles thatcontinue to happen at breakneck
speeds, I realized that maybethere was a voice necessary here
to challenge leadership.
If you think about whereleadership has been over the
past let's just say decade withsome of those massive black swan
events, some of those massivedisruptions we saw semblances of
(04:44):
change.
We saw semblances oftransformation.
I noticed the opportunity tohelp leadership see
opportunities that they weren'tseeing.
So, for example, if youremember, in 2020, it was like
an overnight shift to acceleratedigital transformation for the
first time at that speed that ithad been since 2012, where it
really started to pick upmomentum.
And so overnight.
(05:04):
We're getting e-commerce, we'regetting curbside pickup and buy
online pickup in store, we'regetting remote work supported
All of these things that justtook years and years and years
to justify were finally beingdone.
But what wasn't being done wasthinking for the long term.
For example, we started to hearterms like next normal and new
normal, but now we're seeingthings like return to office and
(05:26):
we're not really seeing muchgreat innovation on the
e-commerce fronts like we did inthose first couple of years,
and so we find ourselves sort ofelasticized into this new
domain and then snapping backinto business as usual.
Not that there's anything wrongwith successful businesses
getting back to their core anddoing what they do best, but at
the same time, each one of thesedisruptions also are creating
(05:48):
opportunities that we're notnecessarily taking advantage of
or even seeing.
So the inspiration for the bookreally came down to what if we
had new leadership to push us innew directions?
What if we had people who arewilling to take the time or
invest the resources, hire thepeople to look at what was
happening, to look out into thefuture and to uncover those
(06:09):
opportunities to create a betterfuture, not just for the
organization, but for everybody.
If you think about generativeAI and then you look towards the
future, we know it's going tointroduce needs for new skills.
It's going to introduce newways of working.
It's going to create newopportunities beyond automation.
If we were to embrace andinvest in augmentation, as an
example, those are all areaswhere we could be making strides
(06:30):
and investments in to prepareourselves for the future today.
So it was all of my research,more so than the books.
Each previous book was an idea,but all of the research was
focused on transformation andinnovation and leadership, and
so I thought, gosh, I've neverwritten a book about these
things.
This is the time.
So, last but not least, Jim isbig question.
At ServiceNow, I spend prettymuch every day with customers
(06:53):
and they're all trying to figurethis out.
What does AI mean?
What does businesstransformation mean?
What could the future of worklook like?
And so we're having thesereally big, meaningful future
forward conversations and Ifigured the framework that's in
the book, the inspiring storiesthat were in the book, felt like
.
You know, I can't scale oneperson, but maybe through a book
we could scale a movement.
Jim Hertzfeld (07:14):
Yeah, that's great.
I really appreciated what youput to paper and, like I said,
it's sort of my interpretationwas a plea right, hey, we've got
to keep this going and here'show we're going to do it.
So it really resonated.
You know a couple of thingsthat really stood out to me.
I would love kind of yourpersonal take.
I love, by the way, reading abook and you know, you gosh, I
wish I could talk to this guy.
I need to have a conversationand here we are, so I really
(07:36):
appreciate it.
Well, right off the bat, youtalk about three things that
sort of by bundled togetherself-awareness, cognitive bias,
the beginner's mindset, and Ilove these concepts.
We talk about pragmatism, wetalk about scrappiness and we
have a phrase we love think big,start small, move fast.
But to buy into all thosethings, you really have to have
(07:58):
this initial mindset.
A lot of leaders, I think,maybe lack this.
So what would you share withorganizations, especially those
that are sort of had a trackrecord, they've had success,
they want to build on whatthey've done, but what got you
here won't get you there.
So is that kind of what'sbehind that thinking?
Brian Solis (08:22):
Yeah, absolutely, well first, thanks for picking
up on the key elements.
A mindset is how you see theworld, how you see opportunities
, how you see challenges.
Jim, I know you work withcompanies that are also trying
to invest in digitaltransformation, now business
transformation.
A mindset is what they see theyneed to do, and then what they
do is work with brilliant mindslike yourself to then bring that
strategy and those goals tolife.
But if the mindset is limitedto what it knows, then all it
can do is iterate.
Make tomorrow better than itwas yesterday faster, cheaper,
(08:45):
more scalable.
If you look at all of thedisruptions that are hitting us
left and right today, if weattack those with the same
mindset, the best we'll be isiteratively better, with chat,
GPT or generative AI, forexample.
So there are going to beorganizations that are going to
ask what if, or what about, orwhy can't we, and those, those
(09:06):
mindsets, are going to askdifferent questions that are
going to get different answers,of which then are going to
unlock different opportunities.
And what you're going to haveover time here, slowly but
quickly, is, if you think aboutthe linear path of organizations
that are constantly improving,incrementally improving.
Take all of these new innovativetechnologies.
It might do that faster, butwhat's also going to happen is
(09:29):
we're going to have people whosay, well, beyond automation,
what about augmentation?
What if we use, for example, AIto do things we couldn't do
before, to not just makeyesterday better, but to do what
we couldn't do yesterdaytomorrow?
Or if we get leaders who say,well, what are some of the
things that we just couldn't do,that we didn't think to do?
If we're looking to accomplishthese things, what else could we
accomplish?
And so what's going to happen isyou're going to create this
(09:50):
inflection point self-awareness,new mindsets asking different
questions, curiosity,imaginations where they'll still
probably do the linear things,but then they're going to break
into this exponential growthcurve, and the delta between the
two is really businessdisruption, competitive
disruption.
So the humanity of things likeself awareness, recognizing your
(10:10):
mind shift, recognizing whereyour biases limit your thinking
and your questioning today allof those will create white space
to explore curiosity, toentertain it, to dance with
imagination, to look at thesenew technologies, for example,
and to say what, if?
Why can't we?
Instead of we could never dothat, that's too expensive.
We have to take costs out ofour current implementations.
(10:32):
Today we got to look for threeto 10% out every year and
breaking that iterative mindset.
Jim Hertzfeld (10:36):
Yeah, that's great.
I'm glad to see some of thatcoming back and we're recording
this.
It's the CES is going on andsome great announcements.
I was just chatting with acolleague today Like, wow,
there's some big announcements.
Of course you know they're inthe sphere, which is awesome, so
that amplifies it, but yeah, soI'm hoping this is maybe a year
.
Some of that mindset is takingplace and settling back in.
You know another thing youtalked about maybe you touch on
(10:58):
a little bit.
You are a great storyteller andyou touch on storytelling a
little bit.
I feel like it's sort of anunderappreciated skill set, an
underappreciated art form.
Again back to a mindset.
You know how do we communicateand identify with other people.
If you could just touch on kindof your perspective on
storytelling as a leadership ora mindset tactic.
Brain Solis (11:16):
Yeah, you know one real quick point on
self-awareness, because I thinkthat's really where it begins,
and you brought up a point thatI didn't touch on, which was
beginner's mind, and then I'llget into storytelling.
Yeah, sure, you know, abeginner's mind is someone who
brings a more open self to aproblem, any meeting, any
opportunity, just any moment,and to have a beginner's mind is
something I think we'd all liketo believe that we have, open
(11:36):
minds.
I don't know if you know thisor not, but one study showed
that only about 10 to 15% of ushave the recognition of
self-awareness and, in reality,rather than a beginner's mind,
we usually bring to a moment anexpert's mind you know where we
have ideas, we have experience,we have a gut hunch, whatever it
is, and those are essentiallycognitive biases manifesting
themselves.
It's also very human and normal.
(11:57):
Of course you want to bringyour best self, your experience,
that's who you are that's howyou got here to these moments.
And so the idea of having thebeginner's mind is challenging,
if not impossible, unless youintentionally try to do that.
And in that white space to helppeople get there, storytelling
becomes very important.
You can't just say to someoneyou're not self-aware, you're
not thinking as creatively aspossible, and so storytelling
(12:19):
becomes very important in everystep of the mind shift.
It's how do you give one toyourself and then how do you
give one to those who work withyou, so that you're inspiring
full imagination and creativityto tackle these opportunities in
ways that just weren't possiblebefore.
And that's a mind shift beforeyou even get to all of this
incredible technology.
But storytelling, one of mybiggest idols since I was a kid
(12:42):
probably true for many people isWalt Disney, and I think of
Walt Disney as an innovator, amaster storyteller, the original
Imagineer, if you will.
Yeah, so I was very lucky whenI came across the name of
someone who used to be a PixarDisney storyboard artist.
His name is Nicholas Sung andnow he is a storyteller at
(13:03):
Netflix, which is very cool towatch his career take off.
I had the opportunity to workwith him after meeting him when
he was doing storyboarding workfor Airbnb, and this is a really
famous story.
When Airbnb, back in the day,was going through its big
identity crisis, they hiredNicholas Sung to come in and
work with the data team,understand what the challenges
(13:25):
were, what guests were lookingfor, the problems they were
having, what hosts were lookingfor and the problems they were
having.
They were looking for theaspirations of each side, and
they were able to uncover thesestories that they just had
missed.
Why does someone put their homeopen to strangers, or why does
someone want to rent the homesor rooms of strangers rather
than going to, I don't know, theFour Seasons?
(13:46):
And they were able to put theseinto aspirational storyboards,
of which then they broughtdecision makers, investors, the
board together around thesestories to then invest in the
change that was necessary forAirbnb at the time.
I had always thoughtstoryboarding was about
capturing stills and puttingthem into a linear format to be
(14:06):
able to tell the story in aninexpensive way, before you
started investing in all of theanimation.
It turns out that's partly true.
The reality of it is a way oftesting the ability for the
story to become believable.
Do you see yourself in thestory?
Do you see yourself in thecharacters?
Because you're not just lookingat the board.
People are acting out the boardin front of you and they're
(14:28):
making changes to it in realtime.
So this believability aspect ofthe storyboarding process is a
very different approach thanjust simply telling a story.
So if you're telling a story ofdisruption and generative AI is
going to unlock new ways of work, you can't just say this is
what's going to happen and thisis what the work is going to be
and this is what people aregoing to do and hope to scare
(14:48):
someone into action or creatinga burning platform.
What you do is you inspiresomeone to be into the story of
what the new world is going tolook like and how people are
going to thrive, and you'rebasing the characters on the
people that you feel are yourstakeholders and you're turning
the story and how all thestakeholders can be successful.
It's a Disney-like approach totelling the future of your
organization in a way thatpeople feel inspired, that they
(15:10):
want to be part of that story.
And learning from Nick andworking through the
storyboarding process with himhe even worked on this book with
me it's life-changing becausenow you realize that the story
is bigger than just your work orwhat you feel is important.
Because of the research you did, you're now making it a story
of transformation and a humanconquest towards greatness, of
(15:31):
one of which people want to bepart of, and that, for me, was
probably the most important partof the book is recognizing kind
of coming back toself-awareness, and a beginner's
mind is that you're not youraudience, and to become part of
your audience requires empathy.
Storytelling is built on empathyand then building up from there
.
Jim Hertzfeld (15:47):
Right, that was a great connection.
I didn't see that coming andstoryboarding and storytelling
is a design process.
You didn't mention what I heardand I love about good design
processes.
It just sort of reveals thetruth, right, it reveals the
need, and I heard a lot of that.
Tell us a little bit aboutwhat's going on at ServiceNow.
Where you're kicking off theyear, what are you seeing?
What's sort of the vision thatyou're seeing with ServiceNow?
Brain Solis (16:07):
Absolutely.
We have an incredible leader inBill McDermott and he is all in
on AI, business transformationand at ServiceNow.
You might know us as one partof your organization, largely
built in foundationally in ITSM,right.
But what a platform does isconnects work, and AI helps you
to automate that work, helps youput agents to work, it helps
(16:30):
you take your organization andmake it more optimized and
efficient, but what it also does, it allows you to reimagine
work, so you're connecting thedots across the organization.
If you think about what powersAI, well, it's data.
Data doesn't work well whenit's in silos.
So when you're connecting work,you're actually connecting your
organization.
You're building the foundationfor more intelligent enterprise,
and so the leadership underBill especially here in 2025, is
(16:56):
really going to help ourcustomers unlock the future of
work without having tocompletely control, alt, delete
their businesses, and I thinkthat's a pretty special value
for opposition.
So a lot of the lessons that aretaught in the book.
For those who didn't know, billMcDermott also wrote the
foreword to the book and it'svery inspirational.
It's very Bill, and in fact,I'm actually rereading my book,
as you can see.
I enjoy it and one of thereasons I'm rereading it to your
question is we're going tospend 2025.
(17:17):
I work in the innovation officeat ServiceNow and our big
charter is to be the voice ofinnovation, not just for
ServiceNow, but for ourcustomers and helping them see
(17:45):
these opportunities, thestorytelling aspect of it,
understanding where they arewhere they're trying to go, and
helping tell the story of whereelse they can go.
What else they could do.
And helping them acceleratethose aspirations of that type
of transformation for thoseleaders who want to build the
business of the future today.
Jim Hertzfeld (17:51):
I'm glad you're there, Brian.
I'm excited about what you guysare going to do and a mind
shift that you're going tocreate, I think, both within the
organization and with yourcustomers, and I hope we connect
over a project someday.
Brain Solis (18:01):
Jim, anything to help you and help our customers.
That's what I'm here for and Ireally appreciate one the time
you took to read the book andthen also the time to invite and
host me on the show.
It means a lot and we caninspire new leadership.
You said earlier at thebeginning of the conversation
something that I meant to touchon that it was like this cry for
new leadership, and it'sexactly how I described it when
(18:21):
we were finishing the book andthinking about how we were going
to market it.
It was literally the words weuse was rally cry for new
leadership, because leadershipisn't management, and I think,
if you look at organizationalevolution, management is
important and companies have toscale and they have to save
money, they have to make money,but they also have to innovate.
I had an opportunity to spendtime with Mark Randolph about a
(18:42):
month ago and Mark Randolph isthe co-founder of Netflix with
Reed Hastings, and we weretalking about, a lot of people
don't recognize this.
They just sort of take forgranted, like, what's Netflix
releasing now, because I've gotan insatiable need to stream a
series today?
But Netflix started out, asthose who may remember, as a DVD
mailing company, Then the DVDmailing company at the time,
(19:06):
e-commerce was becoming a thing,so they had to shift towards
e-commerce.
Then the internet became evenmore powerful and they shifted
towards streaming.
The story that isn't as popularas Mark was sort of alluding to
is that every one of thoseevolutions was a foundational
business transformation exercise.
Every one of those evolutionswas a foundational business
(19:27):
transformation exercise.
They were profitable in eachone of those segments of their
life but decided that becausethey were a small company, it
was all or nothing.
They couldn't stay in DVDswhile investing in e-commerce
and stay in e-commerce whileinvesting in streaming.
And so they made really toughbusiness decisions and
transformations to let go oftheir core businesses.
Each time they would move tothe next stage of their
(19:47):
transformation.
And those are big stories.
And I asked Mark you know what'sthe mindset that business
leaders need today?
Understanding that they'reessentially facing the next
thing.
We know that Netflix would lookat the next thing by going all
in on it, but business leaderstend to invest more in the core
rather than let go of the core,and it really was a mind shift
(20:08):
moment where he was talkingabout that.
This is that moment for allcompanies to at least invest in
what is next.
Keep your core, nurture yourcore, but don't abandon the
future.
And it was really inspiring,relevant and timely story to
share with those.
And so, coming back toleadership and closing out,
leadership isn't just a title.
(20:28):
If you believe in something, ifyou make the case in something,
if you tell the story insomething, that you believe in
what you're seeing whereeverything is going, it's
generative or AI orneurocomputing or spatial
computing or whatever it is thatyou're passionate about.
Leadership is a way of life,it's a way of thinking, it's a
way of acting, and leaders cancome from anywhere.
And that was really the rallycry is that we're not just
writing a book for existingleaders, we're writing a book
(20:50):
for those around existingleaders.
We're writing a book for thenext leader, the emergent leader
, the next entrepreneur, torecognize that there is a
mechanical process tounderstanding what something
means and breaking it down sothat you can take the what to,
so, what to the now, what levelsand move people with you, so
that you're making the rallyingcry towards that transformation.
So the book helps well,hopefully inspires your story,
(21:12):
but also gives you the toolsnecessary to become either the
leader and the leadershipenabler, the CEO whisperer or a
leader yourself.
Jim Hertzfeld (21:20):
That's awesome.
Brian, thanks for theconversation.
I really appreciate it and Ihope you have a great future
this year.
Brain Solis (21:26):
Oh, thanks.
Jim, happy New Year and wisheveryone the best, most
successful, brightest futurepossible, but recognize that
it's all ours to shape
Jim Hertzfeld (21:34):
Awesome Thanks
Joe Wentzel (21:46):
Perficient with Jim Hertzfeld.
We want to thank our proficientcolleagues JD Norman and Rick
Bauer for our music.
Subscribe to the podcast anddon't miss a single episode.
You can find this season, alongwith show notes, at perficient.
com.
Thanks for listening.
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