April 29, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode, we sit down with John Winsor, Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School’s Digital, Design, and Data (D³) Institute, Open Assembly Founder and Author of many books including Open Talent: Leveraging a Global Workforce to Solve Your Biggest Challenges,
We dug into how the open talent revolution is transforming how we work. John unpacks why both companies and workers are shifting to portfolio careers, and reveals why "we own employees" is a dying concept being replaced by "I'm gonna make it so sexy and attractive that I'm gonna attract you into it." Adopting an abundance mindset can unlock new career growth.
Whether you are managing teams or building your own path, this conversation offers real strategies to thrive in the new world of work.
Listen for:
- Why talent hoarding is killing innovation and career growth
- How to shift from scarcity to abundance mindset in your career
- The three key pillars of the Open Talent model that drive success
- Why the future belongs to optimists with portfolio careers
- Simple ways to start "moonlighting" while keeping your day job
- The leadership shift from controlling talent to attracting it
Whether you're feeling stuck in a corporate role or managing teams, this episode gives you real tools to thrive in the new world of work where projects replace permanent positions.
Episode Highlights
⏰ 4:30 Open Talent Defined: John explains the system that's replacing traditional employment and why it works for both companies and individuals
⏰ 10:15 The Abundance Mindset: Why scarcity thinking is killing innovation and how abundance creates better outcomes for everyone
⏰ 15:40 "We Don't Own Employees": The shocking origin story of why controlling talent is a failed approach
⏰ 22:50 Internal Talent Marketplace: How smart companies are ending talent hoarding and unlocking innovation
⏰ 29:10 Start Now: John's practical advice for testing portfolio work while still employed (hint: "just go try some shit!")
About John:
John Winsor is a globally recognized leader in the future of work, open talent, and AI-driven workforce strategies. Recently appointed as an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School’s Digital, Design, and Data (D³) Institute, he focuses on the evolving intersection of work, technology, and talent. As the founder of Open Assembly, he has been instrumental in pioneering the adoption of open talent and freelancing models. His best-selling book, Open Talent: Leveraging a Global Workforce to Solve Your Biggest Challenges, cements his influence in shaping modern workforce strategies. When he’s not
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the things I could never figure out is like
leaders, where did the conceptof we own employees ever come
from?
It's such a crazy concept,right?
It's all my people.
I do the work that I amdemanding they do.
What the fuck?
That's so crazy.
Hey guys, I've got a coolproject over here.
I'm going to make it so sexyand so attractive that I'm going
(00:22):
to attract you into it, andthen I'm going to take you into
it, and then I'm going to takereally good care of you, and
that always seems to work outbetter, right.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome to your Work friends.
I'm Francesca and I'm Mel.
We are breaking work down, soyou get ahead, Mel.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
How are you doing?
I am doing excellent.
Thank you very much.
It is like 70 degrees, I can'tcomplain.
How about you Listen?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
it's good, Mel.
Do you know where your watermeter is?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
No, I have no freaking clue.
It's somewhere outside of myhouse, but I just get those ads
all the time about buyinginsurance in case the water pipe
breaks from the street to yourhouse.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, I came home from dropping off Enzo and the
city was outside, they'reflushing the fire hydrants, but
they couldn't find our watermeter, and so I was like, do you
know where your water meter is?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And I'm like if the city can't find it, what does
that mean for you?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
You're just shit out of luck.
Yeah, not stealing a lot ofconfidence from our friends?
Are you guys billing me?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah Well, we had such an amazing conversation and
just fun conversation with JohnWindsor.
Conversation and just funconversation with John Windsor,
the author of Open Talent.
For those of you who don't knowJohn, he's an entrepreneur,
he's a thought leader and he's aglobal authority figure on the
future of work.
He's currently the executive inresidence at Harvard Business
(01:59):
School's Laboratory forInnovation Science at Harvard
Lish.
Founder and chairman of OpenAssembly and, among many.
First, john founded Victor andSpoils in 2009, the world's
first ad agency that sourcedfrom the crowd.
He is the co-author of OpenTalent and also the author of
Flipped Spark Beyond the Brandand the co-author of Baked In
(02:22):
Just an all-around rad persondoing pretty amazing things.
How do you feel about thisconversation?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Listen, john's one of those guys you just want to.
Can I just talk to you aboutlife in general?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
The insights from this episode awesome, and we've
been talking about open talentfor years.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
If you don't know what open talent is in general,
it's basically thatorganizations will move to
having contract or gig like work, either sourcing those gigs
either internally in theirorganization so you can move
around and do more projects, asopposed to being decked to one
team and one boss for years andyears and years.
Right, you're going to movearound to different projects
(03:02):
based on your skills, or they'regoing to get that talent
externally.
You and I have been working inthis way, mel, for the last 10
years with Deloitte.
We worked with this all thetime.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You.
We had what was called adaptiveorganizations, where you had a
core of full-time folks thatwere really geared towards strat
and relationship and we hiredout right when we needed to for
the projects.
We did this all the time.
This is something that's goingto become more and more the norm
, especially with AI, especiallyas organizations are getting
(03:36):
really focused on only havingfull-time workers that serve
their core competence or, quitehonestly, it makes sense
financially for them to carryfull time.
It has massive benefits to anorganization.
It has really interestingbenefits to employees that want
to live a portfolio type of life.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It's also a huge retention play for that core
group if they can get it rightinternally.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Listen, if you're going to learn about this topic
from anyone, you're going towant to learn about it from John
.
Not only has he lived this withVictor and Spoils, with Open
Assembly and with Harvard, hesees this all the time.
Plus, he just gets life Greatperson to learn from.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
With you on that.
Listen, get the book.
Get the book, go to his website.
We'll include all the socialshere so you can follow him,
because you absolutely shouldand with that here's Jon Windsor
(04:42):
.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
All right, jon, we're here to talk about open talent.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, which is very exciting.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I loved reading this book.
It actually brought me back tomy Deloitte days because and you
mentioned Deloitte in the book-multiple times.
Yeah, yeah, and you've livedthis life with Victor and Spoils
and Open Assembly.
This has been your world.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
It has been how would you define open talent.
Open talent is just an operatingsystem.
Where you have it depends onthe side of the situation,
though.
From a company perspective,it's really relying on variable
costs.
Talent right From an individualside, it's having a portfolio
career and having the confidenceto do that.
It's hard because I think we'veall been taught at work there
(05:24):
are all these rules andregulations and you can't step
over the line and you might haveto do something that breaks
some kind of unsaid culturalrule or legal rule, whereas when
you're on your own, you got topay attention to everything.
You've got to be way moreoptimistic and way more
aggressive, and that's a hugeshift for a lot of people.
It's really been difficult forpeople to shift.
(05:44):
So for us I use the term becauseI was trying to figure out a
term that certainly born out ofopen source software.
That, to me, was the firstthing, but secondly, it's like
how do you think about opentalent externally, building
external talent clouds andinternally, like how do I create
a system that allows everybodyin the company to participate in
a way that helps the companyget to the outcomes they need
(06:08):
but yet gives the freedom topeople for them to explore and
be a part of advancing theircareer.
It could be a software engineergoing.
This stuff sucks.
I want to be in marketing.
What's the opportunity?
Most people have to leave theorganization to do that and how
do we create an internal talentmarketplace that allow for that
exploration.
And then my history is morearound the idea of crowdsourcing
(06:29):
ideas and we built a bunch ofstuff at Harvard with NASA,
around the Center of Excellencefor Collaborative Innovation to
solve really hard problems.
And over again we see thatcrowds always trump experts and
it's because of the adjacentknowledge and the ability to not
be encumbered by tried and trueways of doing things that are
very linear.
It's very much throwing cautionto the wind and trying new
(06:51):
things.
So those are the three legs tothe Open Talents Tool and I
tried to use a term that builtoff some history, played to the
idea of open and then laid somegroundwork that you can use it
anywhere.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Organizations.
In my experience, they'll startwith the external marketplace.
Oh, we're going to start hiringfolks from open assembly or
Upwork or something like that.
They'll do an externalmarketplace where they're trying
to bring in folks to doproject-based work or at the
most basic level.
One of the things that's beenso interesting to me is, to your
(07:26):
very good point, I find mostorganizations lag on the
internal marketplace.
My entire career has been intalent development and it's so
interesting that mostorganizations are sitting on
such raw talent that careerdevelopment is the number one
thing people want, more than payyour rear, and that mobility
(07:48):
internally is such a key thing.
Have you found the same thingthat most people feel like it's
easier to go external than it isto queue that up internal?
Do they do it at the same timeand why?
Yeah, I love compound questions.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
No, it's great.
I think that the issue reallyis the managerial level and it's
really talent hoarding.
If you've got a really greatteam, you're like, oh, I can't
have them, instead of going hey,you guys, in the context of my
team, you guys are all hiredguns, like you're working here
because you want to on this team.
You're working here because Ineed you.
If I do something wrong, youmight want to jump off the team.
(08:23):
So need you.
If I do something wrong, youmight want to jump off the team.
So why not start from the basisof just hey, come if you want,
leave if you want, if you needsome help doing something else,
totally fine.
But if you're not passionateabout it, you're like life's way
too short.
But I think it's that change inthe leadership and the
bureaucracy and the allowing.
One of the things I could neverfigure out is like leaders.
(08:43):
Where did the concept of we ownemployees ever come from?
It's such a crazy concept.
Right, it's all my people.
I do the work that I amdemanding they do.
What the fuck?
That's so crazy.
Hey guys, I've got a coolproject over here.
I'm going to make it so sexyand so attractive that I'm going
to attract you into it and thenI'm going to take really good
(09:05):
care of you and that alwaysseems to work out better, right?
If you can say it's an honor towork with you guys, come be a
part of it.
I'll make it really importantfor your career, for you as an
individual, instead of sayingyou got to be here at this time
and these are the requirementsand blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
I think it's the old white manissue in culture, right?
(09:26):
I think that's what happenedover COVID and I think that's
why there's been some push toreturn to office.
Is that, like old white guyssit in a corner office all by
themselves, they've judged theirimportance and their identity
on how many people were in thecubicles outside their office
and, sorry, it doesn't work thatway anymore.
People do great work all overthe world and you just want the
(09:50):
best talent.
So that's a shift, right?
Do I want to control the talent?
Because if you want to controlthe talent, you are not going to
get the best talent.
Or do I want to work with thebest talent and like, how do I
do that?
How can I be curious?
How can I get people engaged?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, it also reminds me of something that I read in
the book.
Mel and I both sorry Mel, notto out you.
It's fine, we're both a bunchof woo-woos and one of the
things that you talked about inthe book was abundance and this
idea of abundance.
It's so funny because more andmore I'm just like oh shit, it's
everywhere.
Woo-woo is everywhere.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
As in Vine's new book , right, yes, I mean which is
fantastic, and I agree.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I feel like there's been this model of scarcity.
This is mine, this is my pieceof the pie.
I'm going to piss througheverything, so I protect my
territory.
No, you can't have this talent,even if it's in the same
company versus.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Even if they aren't doing anything right now.
It's so selfish.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
It's so selfish, it's so selfish it is.
It is, and moving into thatkind of abundance mindset is a
really interesting flip around.
There's enough great work to goaround.
There's enough currency from aleadership perspective to go
around.
The other thing that I wasalways so surprised by as
someone running a team there arealways times where it's way
cheaper to contract that out orbring in somebody for a smaller
(11:09):
period of time, or you can bethe best planner and still have
these oh shit moments.
We need staff, aug here, or weneed someone to take this on.
It's so interesting that evenin the most numbers-driven
organizations that they don'tget the efficiency play and a
budget play.
It's a slam dunk Totally.
I think you a slam dunk Totally.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I think you're really hitting into something.
It is a scarcity mindset, but Ican't.
Maybe I'm trying to defend theold white guys, being an old
white guy.
But I think what's happened isthe whole world was set up for
white guys to be managers, right, you go to Harvard Business
School, where I work, and youget your degree and you have a
system and you have a process.
(11:45):
And then you go to a bigcompany like a Deloitte and then
they have a process and asystem and anything that's
variance outside that systemjust doesn't work.
But one of the problems so manycompanies are having is that
mindset is a vestige of anindustrial age and truly you
think about Drucker's work oreven more modern thinkers like
Jim Collins work.
(12:05):
The philosophy is a scarcephilosophy because the raw
materials, the talent it wasscarce.
He didn't know where to get it.
Education was really scarce,but I have to hire from an Ivy
league school because that Ivyleague business school education
is way better than anythingelse and not so much.
It was like I, I gotta get thisraw material from somewhere
(12:27):
because there's only one placein the world to get it and it's
really limited.
Probably not that way anymoreand now that we're in this
digital age where there's much,much more abundance, I think
we're going to see thatcompletely accelerate.
With ai, yeah is that we don'thave to think that way anymore,
but it's's a vestige.
One of the things we talked fora second about the Ezra Klein
book and one of the things Ifound so interesting is he
(12:49):
really takes on kind ofdemocratic cities that have
created scarcity throughbureaucracy around housing, and
I noticed it here in Boulder.
One of the things that's reallyinteresting is, yeah, boulder's
become way bigger than it wasand it's a bummer for all of us.
You guys live in Portland,right?
One of the problems is we'vehad this kind of let's shut the
(13:12):
gate after we're here, and soone of the things that's
happened, which I didn't reallyunderstand and I really
resonated with that Ezra Kleinabundance idea, was that
boulders become outrageouslyexpensive.
There's still a three-storylimit to buildings, and if you
(13:33):
could take a building and builda five-story building instead of
a three-story building, all ofa sudden it makes economic sense
to do low-income housing, butat a three-story building you
can't cost it out to do that,and so by having this, we've got
to make the place beautiful.
We've got to make sure this isa scarce resource.
It becomes a self-fulfillingprophecy that there's not enough
(13:56):
pie to go around.
I think that same thing appliesinside companies that over
decades have had this kind ofscarce commodity Even in the
beginning of the digital age.
I still have this vestige of Igot to get rid of some of the
photos on my phone becausethere's just so much shitty.
I took a picture to send to mywife on a piece of pizza.
(14:17):
Do I really want that as amemory?
But then I think about like inthe IFD of abundance is like.
It doesn't cost me anything, itdoesn't.
I shouldn't worry about.
Like.
Why would I worry about that?
Why would I sit around for twohours and select the photos on
my phone that I need to throwout?
The reason we do that is becauseat one time there was only so
(14:38):
much room on our computer or ourphones to do it, and so we
needed to continually manage ourresources, and so I think we're
just seeing this kind ofnatural evolution towards
abundance.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, I think there needs to be that switch right
and there's that opportunity forthat switch towards abundance
in corporations.
I'm wondering what yourperspective is on folks that are
working right now, because Ifeel like there is also a
scarcity feel.
Consumer sentiment is in thetank, hustling employers is in
the tank.
There is a fear that AI isgoing to take my job, absolutely
(15:09):
.
What's the abundance lens foremployees, or is there one?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, I think there is.
I think, first of all, that yougot to dissuade the scarce
mindset of living beyond yourmeans.
I don't know about you guys,but the happiest people I know
doesn't matter where they are onthe economic scale If they are
somehow having more income thanthey spend.
It could be some dude living ona beach.
He gets, catches tons of fishand he does the whole like
(15:36):
coconuts and he's totally happy,right, yeah, so I think that's
the thing, right, that the kindof abundant mindset.
There's more tomorrow, that.
And I find that interestinglyin places like mexico or
indonesia or even japan.
I was just in japan skiing andI just so surprised how people
are just so gentle and sothoughtful, and I think it's
because they have this abundancethey don't have to be on that
(15:58):
bus or even though the bus issmall, there's abundant space to
put another two or three peoplein.
So it's just this reallybeautiful sense of it's all
going to be okay.
But it's hard if you've got ahuge mortgage and you're
stressed and you buy into allthis stress.
I don't know.
I think that's part of it isrefactoring things.
(16:19):
I'm teaching some stuff atHarvard, but I'm teaching a
class at Denver University andon freelance and what?
My assumption is that we're allgoing to have portfolio jobs.
You guys do, I do.
That's just the future, right,it's just what we do.
But how do we train these kidsto do it?
And so it's like a one-daysprint.
But one of my really oddtakeaways is there are all these
(16:41):
rules and regulations around AI.
So I decided it's going to be aclass about using AI to create
a class about AI, and the kidsare going to be in charge of
designing a class with AI aboutthe best way to teach kids about
AI.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So I only want to do it because I want to poke the
bear.
There's lots of 20-year-oldprofessors that have been there
for 20 years.
They use the same syllabus andI want the kids to so rock new
kinds of syllabuses and say, oh,this took me 10 minutes to do,
oh, I can bring this out in ahalf an hour.
And I want to be open about it.
I want to be like the next timea professor tells you not to
(17:20):
use AI.
Use AI, Sure to use AI, Becausethis is the future.
This is what we need to learn.
We all need to learn this.
It's a new skill we've got tolearn and we've got to look at
it abundantly.
Try to be creative about it.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I love where this is going because I'm a huge
believer in open talent concept.
I think as someone who's workedin talent my whole career and
then worked in talentacquisition, and you see the
talent that comes into anorganization.
You also see when it leaves andyou're like what happened to
that guy?
He was awesome and I think alot of it is like that lack of
opportunity, as you said, likethings can get stale or they
(18:04):
might have a leader who'sholding on to them for dear life
Right but they're not reallythinking about the employee and
what they need to feel purposeand meaning in the work that
they do.
So I love this concept andreally believe in it.
I also think there's a hugeopportunity to unbreak
innovation within anorganization, because what keeps
me up at night is how muchinnovation is lost because we
(18:24):
don't have this type of model.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
When you think about who didn't we tap into to find,
like hot Cheetos no it's funnybecause I just was on a
conversation yesterday with aconsulting company that won't be
named.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Does it rhyme with Beloit?
Yeah, just joking.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
That's a good guess but I can't confirm or deny.
And there was a new seniorperson and we were having a
conversation and I was likehow's it going?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I'm like how's it going?
He's on board.
He's been like six weeks andI'm getting there and I got
another five weeks and I'll talkto you in six or seven weeks
about this project that we weresupposed to start like eight
months ago and I was like Idon't know if I'll be around
then, but try my phone and ifI'm up for something then great.
But good luck with thatonboarding.
I'm glad you're going.
Everything about the familyhistory of the organization and
(19:13):
what they were doing back in the1800s.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Exciting stuff.
Exciting stuff, exciting stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Really relevant to how you do your job.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Yeah, oh man, I'm really excited about where your
work is headed.
One of the things that youtalked about was moving away
from hierarchies to networks.
I love that because I thinkabout the silos and all the
dollars lost on redundant workthat happens across
organizations.
But you have thoseorganizations that are just
holding on to this so tight,like this is how it works.
(19:40):
How do organizations who are soused to this hierarchical
structure, how do they evenstart to begin to make that
shift so this works for them?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
If you figure that out, will you let me know?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, what's one small step they can take to test
and learn.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
It starts with an open dialogue, right, and,
unfortunately, the things that Isee.
I don't know if you guys see it, but the bottom's just begging
for this, right, like Z folkstrying to be more flexible, and
the very top is really focusedon the outcomes and it goes
beyond the C-level and getsdropped into some bureaucracy
and everybody starts followingthe rules and it's just crazy.
(20:19):
It's just really crazy, I think, especially with ai, for those
leaders that are more curious.
They're just going to go aroundthe bureaucracy, right, they're
just going to go yeah I'm goingto take some smart people, give
them some ai tools, go build,build something.
Blow up the bureaucracy.
We did a case study recently onCoursera and they have a really
amazing CEO and he's trying tofigure out how to push things
(20:44):
with AI and one of the exampleshe used his team came up with
and one of the examples was whenyou have a course and you want
to translate it into 20different languages right, so 20
courses, 20 different languages.
It was 12 weeks and $10,000 pertranslation, and so that's $4
(21:05):
million.
Somebody on his team said Ithink I can do this in chat, gpt
, and now the system costs him$40 per translation and takes
about three hours to do withthat, with the fact checking and
somebody leaning into it.
So I, so it's saved them.
What is that?
Eight hundred dollars orsomething like that.
It's such a radical shift incost.
(21:27):
But to me, the really magicalthing is that was a huge
friction point.
Certainly some people who aretranslators lost their jobs and
that's a real bummer.
But but for the rest of theorganization sitting around
waiting 12 weeks for atranslation, it just kills the
organization.
Like I got a new course.
Is it in Spanish?
Damn, it's not in Spanish.
It won't be in Spanish for 12weeks.
(21:48):
I'm off to the next thing.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
But it's also like thinking about those translators
and how do you continue to usethem to be that human checkpoint
for AI, right?
Like how do you take that groupof people and use them
elsewhere?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I think some of it has to be mandated.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I was at this.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Eric Von Hippel is this crazy, really amazing guy
that in his eighties at MITworks on user innovation, and
Charlie Shee's guy from Harvard.
We had this round table andwe're talking about innovation.
So charlie told the story whichjust totally blew my mind.
The port of la, the biggestport in america, 10 000 workers,
(22:23):
all union longshoremen, justhad a strike last year.
What they didn't resolve in thestrike was automation.
That's still on the table.
They're still arguing about it.
It takes five minutes to load acontainer.
Once the truck pulls up acontainer onto a ship, right.
So 10,000 people, five minutesto get the work done, organized,
(22:45):
but very disorganized.
Then he showed a picture of aport in Shenzhen in China, four
times as big.
It takes 10 seconds not fiveminutes, but 10 seconds to put a
container on a ship Four timesas big.
Guess how many employees worksat the dock 200.
Zero, oh yeah, really, yeah.
(23:08):
Zero.
It's all automated, it's allpowered by hydro.
There are like 25 peoplesitting in a control tower oh
sure, yeah, the core crew yeah,but nobody is down near the
ships, it's all automated.
And and charlie's point is areally good point we're sitting
here fighting about peopleholding on to legacy jobs,
(23:28):
saying my grandfather was alongshoreman, my dad was
longshoreman, I deserve to be alongshoreman, my dad was a
longshoreman, I deserve to be alongshoreman.
And in China their point issorry, technology replaced that.
Here's three training modulesor three different training
paths you can do, but you don'thave a job as a longshoreman.
That is no longer a job thatyou have.
And I know that we get intothis weird place, especially in
(23:48):
the US, on likeself-determination and choice
and things like that, butunfortunately we can decide to
change the type of employmentthat we have and mandate it, or
the market's going to decide forus, and I would suggest that
the turn of the last century.
There are probably a lot ofbuggy whip manufacturers and
people that made buggy whipsthat were really good, but I
(24:10):
don't know too many buggy whipmanufacturers anymore that are
around and a lot of people gotdisplaced, but that's just the
way it goes.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
What are those folks that used to walk around to
light the lanterns or to wakepeople up in the morning?
That job went away too.
I feel like in every generationthere's that shift.
It's great that legacy existedin some of these jobs with your
family, and there's somethingreally special about that when
you think about it.
But at the same time it's didyou want to do this job because
(24:39):
of that or because it's what youreally wanted?
If, now that you have theopportunity to think about
something else, you could maybedo, what does that look like for
you?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
What do you need to pay attention to, right?
Do you guys remember?
In the book there are allhorses in one car and then, 10
years later, in 1913, there wereall cars and one horse in 10
years.
We're thinking that ourprogress is up going through the
(25:05):
roof and we're changing so fast, but that would mean that our
streets were all horses in 2015.
And that there would be carsnow.
That would be like saying, oh,we had cars and now we have
flying right autonomous and ifyou consider that tesla's been
going since 2003, like thistransition is not that fast.
(25:29):
And you could say that, oh,isn't it sad for all the people
that took care of the horses andthe stables and the people that
picked up the shit on streets,and Some of those jobs weren't
really great, but they needed tochange.
Sorry, we don't need yourservices for shoveling shit.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Here's my thing on that, though.
China, for example, is offeringretraining opportunities for
people.
So here are the three paths youcan go on.
I'm looking at organizations,and there are only 18% of
organizations that are activelyreskilling their people for new
jobs.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
And then, beyond that , what skills are human skills
and what skills are syntheticskills?
Right, a thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Or hybrid or hybrid.
My concern comes from whoseresponsibility is that to
retrain those people?
Is it government?
Is it corporations?
Because I don't see anyonetaking up the reins there.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I know it's an irresponsibility right.
Unfortunately, our unfetteredcapitalism is all about
maximizing profits orshareholder return in the very
short run and you can't thinkbeyond the next quarter.
So AI is a hot thing.
Let's get rid of all thesepeople and hire a bunch of AI
people and not oh, that's'sgoing.
Let's retrain a bunch of people.
(26:43):
They've already committed tothe company.
It's going to save us a ton ofmoney.
Here are the people that canreally do that.
It challenges the core westernphilosophy of self-determination
.
Right, you should have trainedyourself on ai six months ago.
We're going to hire somebodythat has six months worth of
experience.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And I think we just need a little bit more of a
collective mentality.
There are pockets of companiesthat get it and usually, in my
mind, they're usually singularlyowned.
They're owned by some maverickwho doesn't really care that
much.
Yeah, I want to make more money, I want to do this, but I like
Judy down in shipping, I'm goingto take care of her.
It's interesting, right,because I would say because
Patagonia is always a reallyinteresting case for me.
There are a lot of people atPatagonia that were there way
(27:30):
too long, but they just so addedto the culture.
He answered the phones wayafter you needed a receptionist,
but his name was Chipper Bro,and Chipper Bro remembered
everybody's name.
He remembered everything.
You didn't go on hold.
You talked to Chipper Bro.
He's like where are you goingon your next surf trip, dude?
(27:51):
Oh yeah, I'd go here.
It made Patagonia who they are,just that human connection.
But I think what happens is, ifyou have that kind of feeling,
then, in the same breath, yvonnewalked in one day, and long
time ago, and 10% of the revenuewas non-organic t-shirts, and
he didn't like that idea.
So he cut the t-shirt line andsaid let's put the money that
(28:13):
we're going to make here intosubsidizing farmers to grow
organic cotton and then in fiveyears we can buy that back and
start t-shirts again, and that'sreally bold.
But if you're secure, knowingthat you're going to have
employment, you're part of it.
Even if you get let go in anhonest, thoughtful way, then
you're fine with it.
But it's these kind of darkroom, black box oh, this
(28:34):
division has to go, no rhyme orreason.
It sometimes feels.
Oh, the CEO is not going tomake his bonus unless he lops
off a thousand employees.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And it just doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Agree, you mentioned we have a very short window to
start to get this right.
So, when you think about this,if you test this tomorrow I'm
thinking of the renegade we werejust talking about that's not
going to pay attention to therules.
And just let me try this out.
For the renegade leaders outthere who are like, yeah, I'm
going to try this open talentmodel and how that lines up with
AI too and what we need to lookat, what would you advise for
(29:08):
them to do to dip their toe inthis?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I think first you have to have a mental model
right.
So you've got to have a thesisand you got to get agreement on
the thesis.
So, francesca, like you said,going from scarcity to abundance
I think that's the first thingis saying the world's abundant.
We have so many opportunitiesand we have to figure out how do
we get to the opportunities weneed to grow or to do whatever
we want to accomplish.
Above that, most companies evenstruggle with the idea of
(29:32):
purpose, like why are you evenin business, besides making a
few people rich?
So, understanding what yourpurpose is, understanding that
it's really an abundant mindset.
But then, after that, I thinkit's really getting focused on
outcomes.
What are the outcomes I need?
And then let's what are thetasks we need to do to get to
those outcomes?
And then what are the skills weneed?
And we know that right now, inthe next few years, it's going
(29:54):
to be AI 24 seven.
So how do we retrain people?
How do we get people up tospeed?
How do we get the right talentin place?
What I've noticed in leadersthat get it, it's not that
sensitivity and wavy grave, it'salso even a more radical, I
wouldn't say brutality, but atleast honesty.
(30:14):
So I was in a meeting in NewYork last week and we had this
big kind of ai training for thislarge company and that so the
head person, that's, the editor,and all her staff.
They literally just blew offthe owner ceo to request to be
there and they flew to a concertand it's because they had to
cover it for the magazine andthey've refused to adopt ai and
(30:39):
refuse to do anything like.
That's cheating.
Can't have AI write ourarticles.
So we spent five hours workingthrough some of this stuff and
the CEO looks around the roomand looks like he won't have a
job on Monday, meaning theeditor that decided to take her
staff and do something else.
To me that was not a brutalmove, but it was more of an
(31:01):
acknowledgement that, hey, thisis scary times.
Thank you so much for committingyour time and being here at my
request.
If you don't want to be here,it's totally fine, I get it.
I don't have time to babysit,sorry.
We've got a lot of great thingsto do and we're going to use
technology and we need tosatisfy our customers and our
customers have a lot of frictionin their lives and we got to
(31:22):
solve for that.
And if're going to usetechnology and we need to
satisfy our customers and ourcustomers have a lot of friction
in their lives and we got tosolve for that.
And if you want to not dowhat's best by our customers,
then that's great.
There's a lot of other greatthings to do in the world and I
love that.
I love the kind of just likecertainty because, as much as
it's a bummer for a few people,it shows the rest of the
organization like whoa.
We're going for it.
(31:42):
And there's not some likeclandestine non-talked about
conversation in anon-transparent way, but if it's
very transparent and very open.
So that's the third part of thestool.
What's my purpose?
The abundant mindset and thenthe ability to move fast and
make great decisions.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
And that story is so poignant because you hear that
all the time when change happens, where someone really just is
like fighting versus how can Ilean into it?
How can you reframe yourmindset right now, maybe be open
to what's possible?
It might have a positive effectfor your experience here.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, it's almost like we could never have an AI
aggregate comments on ourwebsite, because somebody has to
take the time and understandthe nuance.
Good luck with that.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I've done a lot of synthesis and I will tell you I
am so glad AI exists to helpwith that.
How can someone listening today, who's in that traditional
space of wherever they are,start to really think about how
they can?
What would they be as afreelancer, even while they're
still within this assigned job?
How can they start to test thatfor themselves of what that
(32:47):
might look like, so that whenthings do change, they're ready
for it?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, definitely do some side gigs.
Yeah, like Moonlight.
Start right away.
Doesn't even matter, right,like the cost of failure is so
low.
Start a podcast.
I don't mean to set up a bunchof people.
You guys are already wrong.
Sorry, you guys have alreadypierced through the stratosphere
.
Just go try some shit.
Right, like?
I think that's the sad thing,right?
It's like when we're kids theworld's our oyster.
(33:12):
We have so many possibilitiesand somewhere along the way we
forget we have to do all thesethings we have to do, and that's
just total bullshit we don'thave to do them we have these
mental models that we feel soobligated to do things.
And then for most people we'vehad a lot of tragedy and we've
(33:32):
gotten stung on some things.
But I think back to our openingcomments.
This is the time for optimism.
I think everybody has to growinto an optimist.
I think pessimists are going tohave a really difficult time
because the world's not paid tobe the same.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
All right, we're going to jump right in with some
rapid round questions for you.
Typically one word answers areokay, we're not going to judge
if you do that, but if you'dlike to elaborate, please do.
How's that sound?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah, for sure, all right Perfect.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
All right, it's 2030.
What is work looking like?
Speaker 1 (34:28):
looking like.
Oh man, it's looking somewherein Indonesia with your phone and
waiting for the next set tocome in as your agents do all
the work for you.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Sounds nice, actually , sign me up.
What's one thing aboutcorporate culture that you'd
like to just see die already?
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Bureaucracy.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Sometimes it's like turning a cruise ship to get
things done.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Oh my God, it's horrible.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
What's the greatest opportunity most organizations
are missing out on right now?
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Tapping to the people's passion, or not just
their people's passion, but thepassion of the culture, and what
I mean by that is like thelarger culture of customers and
suppliers, and it just that's sosad that there's like us
against them inside, outside allthat stuff.
It doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, I like that.
Okay, all right, now we'regoing to get personal Are you
ready yeah.
Okay, what music are youlistening to right now?
What's on repeat on yourplaylist?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I'm a discover weekly guy, oh okay, and I love that
because I love so much music.
But the idea of just sittingdown every Monday morning going,
oh my God, a whole new playlistSome weeks it's awesome, some
weeks it sucks.
And the thing that kind of hasbeen turning me out lately are
these two guys, hermanosGutierrez, these guitar players.
(35:39):
Okay, and they would be a funkySpanish flamingo kind of thing
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Oh, that's so nice, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, top of mind, okay, Expecting, like Katy Perry
or something.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
No, I had no expectations.
I do this because one I'minterested.
Like you, I like music fromeverywhere and I love that DJ
feature that they have onSpotify.
Have you tried your personal DJyet?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
No.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
They haven't, I gotta do it, okay, yeah, I'm old
school Okay.
They throw in some of yourfavorites and some new stuff
into the mix.
Good for road trips.
Yeah, what are you readingright now?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Reading could also be listening to a book.
I was just talking about anamazing book the other day that
I've read a couple times and Ijust love it.
It's called Perfume and it'sgot the subtitle something
creepy the smell of death.
It's all like 1400 or 1600s inFrance about a super smeller.
Unfortunately, right now I'mlike totally absorbed.
(36:39):
There's too much going on inthe world, although I have to
tell you guys, somebody justsent me this great podcast.
My wife and I both listened toit.
It's called fierce intimacy.
It's really good.
I was like, yeah, it's like in.
The old concept is like youhave to fiercely fight for the
relationship and you've got togive each other space about it.
(37:00):
You got to likecely fight foryour relationship and you've got
to give each other space aboutit.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
You've got to like total transparency.
I like that.
Yeah, just get in.
Be in it.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
You're in it, be in it.
Yeah, don't avoid it.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I love that.
Okay, the perfume one is sointeresting to me.
Francesca and I talked aboutthis when we went to Tuscany.
You recommended the Santa MariaNovella perfumery place.
It's just such an interestinghistory with perfume, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
And the whole super smeller thing and the people
that they used to hire do that,and oh, it's so crazy, that's so
cool.
What a cool history.
Who do you admire most?
Oh my God, that's a goodquestion.
My dad, for sure.
My dad's still alive.
He's a modern day ErnestHemingway.
Such a stud, I would say.
There's a collection of peopleright.
(37:42):
I think that there are lots ofpeople that inspire me for
different reasons.
Tinker certainly one of them.
Good friend, like we talkedabout, Francesca.
My wife Emily she's definitelykept me going, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Good stuff.
We like to hear it.
What's a piece of advice youwould love to give to others
because you didn't have it foryourself a long time ago?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
The guy told me this and my wife at the time, bridget
, and I we just adopted two kidsfrom Russia and we always hung
out at this coffee shop and thisguy kind of looks like Albert
(38:26):
Einstein.
I used to have a one man,albert Einstein show, len, and
he didn't have any kids Kind oflooked at our kids and they were
like two or three and looked atus and looked at the kids and
he's I have some parentingadvice for you.
She was like oh no, lynn, Idon't know if you want to hear
it, and he said that some motherhad told him this said most
parents when kids do things thatare outside the norm, they
(38:49):
always say be careful.
But be careful creates all thisfear.
It's like be careful, you mighthurt yourself.
Be careful, that's too high, becareful, that's too fast.
So instead just always say payattention.
And so if your son or daughtersays I'm going to climb that
tree, if you say be careful,it's should I or shouldn't I
climb the tree, instead ofsaying pay attention, meaning go
(39:11):
as high as you want, but payattention to your inner feeling
and how you're willing toexplore, and when you're not
feeling comfortable, come backdown, it's all about you.
And so that's something that wasreally magical for me as a dad
to allow my sons to explore.
But it's also, I think, areally good thing to think about
in work, right, and it's likethere's so much fear, especially
(39:31):
around this new world of AI,and like how do we be less
careful and pay more attention?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
I really love that shift in thinking.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
It's crazy, just to pay attention.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Yeah, what a shift, and it totally eliminates the
fear out of things.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I know right it does.
One of the things I just loveabout AI is back to Einstein.
It's that Einstein quote thatsays if you gave me a problem
and an hour to solve it, I spend55 minutes on the problem or
the question, five minutes onthe solution.
And I think somehow in theindustrial age we got so focused
on the execution and thesolution right and solving the
(40:08):
problem properly.
And what's so great is now thecost of execution is going to
zero.
But it's really the value ofwhat's the problem you're trying
to solve.
How do you really define thatin an interesting way?
It's an exciting time, it is.
There's a lot to look forwardto solve.
How do you really define thatin an interesting way?
Speaker 3 (40:20):
It's an exciting time , it is.
There's a lot to look forwardto.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
A time to pay attention.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
A time to pay attention.
For sure, we loved having youhere.
We love the book Open Talent,everybody.
We appreciate you being with ustoday.
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Me as well.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
It's been such an honor.
This episode was produced,edited and all things by us
myself, mel Plett and FrancescaRennery.
Our music is by Pink Zebra andif you loved this conversation
and you want to contribute yourthoughts with us, please do.
You can visit us atyourworkfriendscom, but you can
(41:02):
also join us over on LinkedIn.
We have a LinkedIn communitypage and we have the TikToks and
Instagrams, so please join usin the socials and if you like
this and you've benefited fromthis episode and you think
someone else can benefit fromthis episode, please rate and
subscribe.
We'd really appreciate it.
That helps keep us going.
(41:23):
Take care, friends.
Bye, friends.
One of the things I could never figure out is like
leaders, where did the conceptof we own employees ever come
from?
It's such a crazy concept,right?
It's all my people.
I do the work that I amdemanding they do.
What the fuck?
That's so crazy.
Hey guys, I've got a coolproject over here.
I'm going to make it so sexyand so attractive that I'm going
(00:22):
to attract you into it, andthen I'm going to take you into
it, and then I'm going to takereally good care of you, and
that always seems to work outbetter, right.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome to your Work friends.
I'm Francesca and I'm Mel.
We are breaking work down, soyou get ahead, Mel.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
How are you doing?
I am doing excellent.
Thank you very much.
It is like 70 degrees, I can'tcomplain.
How about you Listen?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
it's good, Mel.
Do you know where your watermeter is?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
No, I have no freaking clue.
It's somewhere outside of myhouse, but I just get those ads
all the time about buyinginsurance in case the water pipe
breaks from the street to yourhouse.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, I came home from dropping off Enzo and the
city was outside, they'reflushing the fire hydrants, but
they couldn't find our watermeter, and so I was like, do you
know where your water meter is?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And I'm like if the city can't find it, what does
that mean for you?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
You're just shit out of luck.
Yeah, not stealing a lot ofconfidence from our friends?
Are you guys billing me?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah Well, we had such an amazing conversation and
just fun conversation with JohnWindsor.
Conversation and just funconversation with John Windsor,
the author of Open Talent.
For those of you who don't knowJohn, he's an entrepreneur,
he's a thought leader and he's aglobal authority figure on the
future of work.
He's currently the executive inresidence at Harvard Business
(01:59):
School's Laboratory forInnovation Science at Harvard
Lish.
Founder and chairman of OpenAssembly and, among many.
First, john founded Victor andSpoils in 2009, the world's
first ad agency that sourcedfrom the crowd.
He is the co-author of OpenTalent and also the author of
Flipped Spark Beyond the Brandand the co-author of Baked In
(02:22):
Just an all-around rad persondoing pretty amazing things.
How do you feel about thisconversation?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Listen, john's one of those guys you just want to.
Can I just talk to you aboutlife in general?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
The insights from this episode awesome, and we've
been talking about open talentfor years.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
If you don't know what open talent is in general,
it's basically thatorganizations will move to
having contract or gig like work, either sourcing those gigs
either internally in theirorganization so you can move
around and do more projects, asopposed to being decked to one
team and one boss for years andyears and years.
Right, you're going to movearound to different projects
(03:02):
based on your skills, or they'regoing to get that talent
externally.
You and I have been working inthis way, mel, for the last 10
years with Deloitte.
We worked with this all thetime.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You.
We had what was called adaptiveorganizations, where you had a
core of full-time folks thatwere really geared towards strat
and relationship and we hiredout right when we needed to for
the projects.
We did this all the time.
This is something that's goingto become more and more the norm
, especially with AI, especiallyas organizations are getting
(03:36):
really focused on only havingfull-time workers that serve
their core competence or, quitehonestly, it makes sense
financially for them to carryfull time.
It has massive benefits to anorganization.
It has really interestingbenefits to employees that want
to live a portfolio type of life.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It's also a huge retention play for that core
group if they can get it rightinternally.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Listen, if you're going to learn about this topic
from anyone, you're going towant to learn about it from John
.
Not only has he lived this withVictor and Spoils, with Open
Assembly and with Harvard, hesees this all the time.
Plus, he just gets life Greatperson to learn from.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
With you on that.
Listen, get the book.
Get the book, go to his website.
We'll include all the socialshere so you can follow him,
because you absolutely shouldand with that here's Jon Windsor
(04:42):
.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
All right, jon, we're here to talk about open talent.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, which is very exciting.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I loved reading this book.
It actually brought me back tomy Deloitte days because and you
mentioned Deloitte in the book-multiple times.
Yeah, yeah, and you've livedthis life with Victor and Spoils
and Open Assembly.
This has been your world.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
It has been how would you define open talent.
Open talent is just an operatingsystem.
Where you have it depends onthe side of the situation,
though.
From a company perspective,it's really relying on variable
costs.
Talent right From an individualside, it's having a portfolio
career and having the confidenceto do that.
It's hard because I think we'veall been taught at work there
(05:24):
are all these rules andregulations and you can't step
over the line and you might haveto do something that breaks
some kind of unsaid culturalrule or legal rule, whereas when
you're on your own, you got topay attention to everything.
You've got to be way moreoptimistic and way more
aggressive, and that's a hugeshift for a lot of people.
It's really been difficult forpeople to shift.
(05:44):
So for us I use the term becauseI was trying to figure out a
term that certainly born out ofopen source software.
That, to me, was the firstthing, but secondly, it's like
how do you think about opentalent externally, building
external talent clouds andinternally, like how do I create
a system that allows everybodyin the company to participate in
a way that helps the companyget to the outcomes they need
(06:08):
but yet gives the freedom topeople for them to explore and
be a part of advancing theircareer.
It could be a software engineergoing.
This stuff sucks.
I want to be in marketing.
What's the opportunity?
Most people have to leave theorganization to do that and how
do we create an internal talentmarketplace that allow for that
exploration.
And then my history is morearound the idea of crowdsourcing
(06:29):
ideas and we built a bunch ofstuff at Harvard with NASA,
around the Center of Excellencefor Collaborative Innovation to
solve really hard problems.
And over again we see thatcrowds always trump experts and
it's because of the adjacentknowledge and the ability to not
be encumbered by tried and trueways of doing things that are
very linear.
It's very much throwing cautionto the wind and trying new
(06:51):
things.
So those are the three legs tothe Open Talents Tool and I
tried to use a term that builtoff some history, played to the
idea of open and then laid somegroundwork that you can use it
anywhere.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Organizations.
In my experience, they'll startwith the external marketplace.
Oh, we're going to start hiringfolks from open assembly or
Upwork or something like that.
They'll do an externalmarketplace where they're trying
to bring in folks to doproject-based work or at the
most basic level.
One of the things that's beenso interesting to me is, to your
(07:26):
very good point, I find mostorganizations lag on the
internal marketplace.
My entire career has been intalent development and it's so
interesting that mostorganizations are sitting on
such raw talent that careerdevelopment is the number one
thing people want, more than payyour rear, and that mobility
(07:48):
internally is such a key thing.
Have you found the same thingthat most people feel like it's
easier to go external than it isto queue that up internal?
Do they do it at the same timeand why?
Yeah, I love compound questions.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
No, it's great.
I think that the issue reallyis the managerial level and it's
really talent hoarding.
If you've got a really greatteam, you're like, oh, I can't
have them, instead of going hey,you guys, in the context of my
team, you guys are all hiredguns, like you're working here
because you want to on this team.
You're working here because Ineed you.
If I do something wrong, youmight want to jump off the team.
(08:23):
So need you.
If I do something wrong, youmight want to jump off the team.
So why not start from the basisof just hey, come if you want,
leave if you want, if you needsome help doing something else,
totally fine.
But if you're not passionateabout it, you're like life's way
too short.
But I think it's that change inthe leadership and the
bureaucracy and the allowing.
One of the things I could neverfigure out is like leaders.
(08:43):
Where did the concept of we ownemployees ever come from?
It's such a crazy concept.
Right, it's all my people.
I do the work that I amdemanding they do.
What the fuck?
That's so crazy.
Hey guys, I've got a coolproject over here.
I'm going to make it so sexyand so attractive that I'm going
to attract you into it and thenI'm going to take really good
(09:05):
care of you and that alwaysseems to work out better, right?
If you can say it's an honor towork with you guys, come be a
part of it.
I'll make it really importantfor your career, for you as an
individual, instead of sayingyou got to be here at this time
and these are the requirementsand blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
I think it's the old white manissue in culture, right?
(09:26):
I think that's what happenedover COVID and I think that's
why there's been some push toreturn to office.
Is that, like old white guyssit in a corner office all by
themselves, they've judged theirimportance and their identity
on how many people were in thecubicles outside their office
and, sorry, it doesn't work thatway anymore.
People do great work all overthe world and you just want the
(09:50):
best talent.
So that's a shift, right?
Do I want to control the talent?
Because if you want to controlthe talent, you are not going to
get the best talent.
Or do I want to work with thebest talent and like, how do I
do that?
How can I be curious?
How can I get people engaged?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, it also reminds me of something that I read in
the book.
Mel and I both sorry Mel, notto out you.
It's fine, we're both a bunchof woo-woos and one of the
things that you talked about inthe book was abundance and this
idea of abundance.
It's so funny because more andmore I'm just like oh shit, it's
everywhere.
Woo-woo is everywhere.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
As in Vine's new book , right, yes, I mean which is
fantastic, and I agree.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I feel like there's been this model of scarcity.
This is mine, this is my pieceof the pie.
I'm going to piss througheverything, so I protect my
territory.
No, you can't have this talent,even if it's in the same
company versus.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Even if they aren't doing anything right now.
It's so selfish.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
It's so selfish, it's so selfish it is.
It is, and moving into thatkind of abundance mindset is a
really interesting flip around.
There's enough great work to goaround.
There's enough currency from aleadership perspective to go
around.
The other thing that I wasalways so surprised by as
someone running a team there arealways times where it's way
cheaper to contract that out orbring in somebody for a smaller
(11:09):
period of time, or you can bethe best planner and still have
these oh shit moments.
We need staff, aug here, or weneed someone to take this on.
It's so interesting that evenin the most numbers-driven
organizations that they don'tget the efficiency play and a
budget play.
It's a slam dunk Totally.
I think you a slam dunk Totally.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I think you're really hitting into something.
It is a scarcity mindset, but Ican't.
Maybe I'm trying to defend theold white guys, being an old
white guy.
But I think what's happened isthe whole world was set up for
white guys to be managers, right, you go to Harvard Business
School, where I work, and youget your degree and you have a
system and you have a process.
(11:45):
And then you go to a bigcompany like a Deloitte and then
they have a process and asystem and anything that's
variance outside that systemjust doesn't work.
But one of the problems so manycompanies are having is that
mindset is a vestige of anindustrial age and truly you
think about Drucker's work oreven more modern thinkers like
Jim Collins work.
(12:05):
The philosophy is a scarcephilosophy because the raw
materials, the talent it wasscarce.
He didn't know where to get it.
Education was really scarce,but I have to hire from an Ivy
league school because that Ivyleague business school education
is way better than anythingelse and not so much.
It was like I, I gotta get thisraw material from somewhere
(12:27):
because there's only one placein the world to get it and it's
really limited.
Probably not that way anymoreand now that we're in this
digital age where there's much,much more abundance, I think
we're going to see thatcompletely accelerate.
With ai, yeah is that we don'thave to think that way anymore,
but it's's a vestige.
One of the things we talked fora second about the Ezra Klein
book and one of the things Ifound so interesting is he
(12:49):
really takes on kind ofdemocratic cities that have
created scarcity throughbureaucracy around housing, and
I noticed it here in Boulder.
One of the things that's reallyinteresting is, yeah, boulder's
become way bigger than it wasand it's a bummer for all of us.
You guys live in Portland,right?
One of the problems is we'vehad this kind of let's shut the
(13:12):
gate after we're here, and soone of the things that's
happened, which I didn't reallyunderstand and I really
resonated with that Ezra Kleinabundance idea, was that
boulders become outrageouslyexpensive.
There's still a three-storylimit to buildings, and if you
(13:33):
could take a building and builda five-story building instead of
a three-story building, all ofa sudden it makes economic sense
to do low-income housing, butat a three-story building you
can't cost it out to do that,and so by having this, we've got
to make the place beautiful.
We've got to make sure this isa scarce resource.
It becomes a self-fulfillingprophecy that there's not enough
(13:56):
pie to go around.
I think that same thing appliesinside companies that over
decades have had this kind ofscarce commodity Even in the
beginning of the digital age.
I still have this vestige of Igot to get rid of some of the
photos on my phone becausethere's just so much shitty.
I took a picture to send to mywife on a piece of pizza.
(14:17):
Do I really want that as amemory?
But then I think about like inthe IFD of abundance is like.
It doesn't cost me anything, itdoesn't.
I shouldn't worry about.
Like.
Why would I worry about that?
Why would I sit around for twohours and select the photos on
my phone that I need to throwout?
The reason we do that is becauseat one time there was only so
(14:38):
much room on our computer or ourphones to do it, and so we
needed to continually manage ourresources, and so I think we're
just seeing this kind ofnatural evolution towards
abundance.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, I think there needs to be that switch right
and there's that opportunity forthat switch towards abundance
in corporations.
I'm wondering what yourperspective is on folks that are
working right now, because Ifeel like there is also a
scarcity feel.
Consumer sentiment is in thetank, hustling employers is in
the tank.
There is a fear that AI isgoing to take my job, absolutely
(15:09):
.
What's the abundance lens foremployees, or is there one?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, I think there is.
I think, first of all, that yougot to dissuade the scarce
mindset of living beyond yourmeans.
I don't know about you guys,but the happiest people I know
doesn't matter where they are onthe economic scale If they are
somehow having more income thanthey spend.
It could be some dude living ona beach.
He gets, catches tons of fishand he does the whole like
(15:36):
coconuts and he's totally happy,right, yeah, so I think that's
the thing, right, that the kindof abundant mindset.
There's more tomorrow, that.
And I find that interestinglyin places like mexico or
indonesia or even japan.
I was just in japan skiing andI just so surprised how people
are just so gentle and sothoughtful, and I think it's
because they have this abundancethey don't have to be on that
(15:58):
bus or even though the bus issmall, there's abundant space to
put another two or three peoplein.
So it's just this reallybeautiful sense of it's all
going to be okay.
But it's hard if you've got ahuge mortgage and you're
stressed and you buy into allthis stress.
I don't know.
I think that's part of it isrefactoring things.
(16:19):
I'm teaching some stuff atHarvard, but I'm teaching a
class at Denver University andon freelance and what?
My assumption is that we're allgoing to have portfolio jobs.
You guys do, I do.
That's just the future, right,it's just what we do.
But how do we train these kidsto do it?
And so it's like a one-daysprint.
But one of my really oddtakeaways is there are all these
(16:41):
rules and regulations around AI.
So I decided it's going to be aclass about using AI to create
a class about AI, and the kidsare going to be in charge of
designing a class with AI aboutthe best way to teach kids about
AI.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So I only want to do it because I want to poke the
bear.
There's lots of 20-year-oldprofessors that have been there
for 20 years.
They use the same syllabus andI want the kids to so rock new
kinds of syllabuses and say, oh,this took me 10 minutes to do,
oh, I can bring this out in ahalf an hour.
And I want to be open about it.
I want to be like the next timea professor tells you not to
(17:20):
use AI.
Use AI, Sure to use AI, Becausethis is the future.
This is what we need to learn.
We all need to learn this.
It's a new skill we've got tolearn and we've got to look at
it abundantly.
Try to be creative about it.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I love where this is going because I'm a huge
believer in open talent concept.
I think as someone who's workedin talent my whole career and
then worked in talentacquisition, and you see the
talent that comes into anorganization.
You also see when it leaves andyou're like what happened to
that guy?
He was awesome and I think alot of it is like that lack of
opportunity, as you said, likethings can get stale or they
(18:04):
might have a leader who'sholding on to them for dear life
Right but they're not reallythinking about the employee and
what they need to feel purposeand meaning in the work that
they do.
So I love this concept andreally believe in it.
I also think there's a hugeopportunity to unbreak
innovation within anorganization, because what keeps
me up at night is how muchinnovation is lost because we
(18:24):
don't have this type of model.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
When you think about who didn't we tap into to find,
like hot Cheetos no it's funnybecause I just was on a
conversation yesterday with aconsulting company that won't be
named.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Does it rhyme with Beloit?
Yeah, just joking.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
That's a good guess but I can't confirm or deny.
And there was a new seniorperson and we were having a
conversation and I was likehow's it going?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I'm like how's it going?
He's on board.
He's been like six weeks andI'm getting there and I got
another five weeks and I'll talkto you in six or seven weeks
about this project that we weresupposed to start like eight
months ago and I was like Idon't know if I'll be around
then, but try my phone and ifI'm up for something then great.
But good luck with thatonboarding.
I'm glad you're going.
Everything about the familyhistory of the organization and
(19:13):
what they were doing back in the1800s.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Exciting stuff.
Exciting stuff, exciting stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Really relevant to how you do your job.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Yeah, oh man, I'm really excited about where your
work is headed.
One of the things that youtalked about was moving away
from hierarchies to networks.
I love that because I thinkabout the silos and all the
dollars lost on redundant workthat happens across
organizations.
But you have thoseorganizations that are just
holding on to this so tight,like this is how it works.
(19:40):
How do organizations who are soused to this hierarchical
structure, how do they evenstart to begin to make that
shift so this works for them?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
If you figure that out, will you let me know?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, what's one small step they can take to test
and learn.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
It starts with an open dialogue, right, and,
unfortunately, the things that Isee.
I don't know if you guys see it, but the bottom's just begging
for this, right, like Z folkstrying to be more flexible, and
the very top is really focusedon the outcomes and it goes
beyond the C-level and getsdropped into some bureaucracy
and everybody starts followingthe rules and it's just crazy.
(20:19):
It's just really crazy, I think, especially with ai, for those
leaders that are more curious.
They're just going to go aroundthe bureaucracy, right, they're
just going to go yeah I'm goingto take some smart people, give
them some ai tools, go build,build something.
Blow up the bureaucracy.
We did a case study recently onCoursera and they have a really
amazing CEO and he's trying tofigure out how to push things
(20:44):
with AI and one of the exampleshe used his team came up with
and one of the examples was whenyou have a course and you want
to translate it into 20different languages right, so 20
courses, 20 different languages.
It was 12 weeks and $10,000 pertranslation, and so that's $4
(21:05):
million.
Somebody on his team said Ithink I can do this in chat, gpt
, and now the system costs him$40 per translation and takes
about three hours to do withthat, with the fact checking and
somebody leaning into it.
So I, so it's saved them.
What is that?
Eight hundred dollars orsomething like that.
It's such a radical shift incost.
(21:27):
But to me, the really magicalthing is that was a huge
friction point.
Certainly some people who aretranslators lost their jobs and
that's a real bummer.
But but for the rest of theorganization sitting around
waiting 12 weeks for atranslation, it just kills the
organization.
Like I got a new course.
Is it in Spanish?
Damn, it's not in Spanish.
It won't be in Spanish for 12weeks.
(21:48):
I'm off to the next thing.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
But it's also like thinking about those translators
and how do you continue to usethem to be that human checkpoint
for AI, right?
Like how do you take that groupof people and use them
elsewhere?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I think some of it has to be mandated.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I was at this.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Eric Von Hippel is this crazy, really amazing guy
that in his eighties at MITworks on user innovation, and
Charlie Shee's guy from Harvard.
We had this round table andwe're talking about innovation.
So charlie told the story whichjust totally blew my mind.
The port of la, the biggestport in america, 10 000 workers,
(22:23):
all union longshoremen, justhad a strike last year.
What they didn't resolve in thestrike was automation.
That's still on the table.
They're still arguing about it.
It takes five minutes to load acontainer.
Once the truck pulls up acontainer onto a ship, right.
So 10,000 people, five minutesto get the work done, organized,
(22:45):
but very disorganized.
Then he showed a picture of aport in Shenzhen in China, four
times as big.
It takes 10 seconds not fiveminutes, but 10 seconds to put a
container on a ship Four timesas big.
Guess how many employees worksat the dock 200.
Zero, oh yeah, really, yeah.
(23:08):
Zero.
It's all automated, it's allpowered by hydro.
There are like 25 peoplesitting in a control tower oh
sure, yeah, the core crew yeah,but nobody is down near the
ships, it's all automated.
And and charlie's point is areally good point we're sitting
here fighting about peopleholding on to legacy jobs,
(23:28):
saying my grandfather was alongshoreman, my dad was
longshoreman, I deserve to be alongshoreman, my dad was a
longshoreman, I deserve to be alongshoreman.
And in China their point issorry, technology replaced that.
Here's three training modulesor three different training
paths you can do, but you don'thave a job as a longshoreman.
That is no longer a job thatyou have.
And I know that we get intothis weird place, especially in
(23:48):
the US, on likeself-determination and choice
and things like that, butunfortunately we can decide to
change the type of employmentthat we have and mandate it, or
the market's going to decide forus, and I would suggest that
the turn of the last century.
There are probably a lot ofbuggy whip manufacturers and
people that made buggy whipsthat were really good, but I
(24:10):
don't know too many buggy whipmanufacturers anymore that are
around and a lot of people gotdisplaced, but that's just the
way it goes.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
What are those folks that used to walk around to
light the lanterns or to wakepeople up in the morning?
That job went away too.
I feel like in every generationthere's that shift.
It's great that legacy existedin some of these jobs with your
family, and there's somethingreally special about that when
you think about it.
But at the same time it's didyou want to do this job because
(24:39):
of that or because it's what youreally wanted?
If, now that you have theopportunity to think about
something else, you could maybedo, what does that look like for
you?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
What do you need to pay attention to, right?
Do you guys remember?
In the book there are allhorses in one car and then, 10
years later, in 1913, there wereall cars and one horse in 10
years.
We're thinking that ourprogress is up going through the
(25:05):
roof and we're changing so fast, but that would mean that our
streets were all horses in 2015.
And that there would be carsnow.
That would be like saying, oh,we had cars and now we have
flying right autonomous and ifyou consider that tesla's been
going since 2003, like thistransition is not that fast.
(25:29):
And you could say that, oh,isn't it sad for all the people
that took care of the horses andthe stables and the people that
picked up the shit on streets,and Some of those jobs weren't
really great, but they needed tochange.
Sorry, we don't need yourservices for shoveling shit.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Here's my thing on that, though.
China, for example, is offeringretraining opportunities for
people.
So here are the three paths youcan go on.
I'm looking at organizations,and there are only 18% of
organizations that are activelyreskilling their people for new
jobs.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
And then, beyond that , what skills are human skills
and what skills are syntheticskills?
Right, a thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Or hybrid or hybrid.
My concern comes from whoseresponsibility is that to
retrain those people?
Is it government?
Is it corporations?
Because I don't see anyonetaking up the reins there.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I know it's an irresponsibility right.
Unfortunately, our unfetteredcapitalism is all about
maximizing profits orshareholder return in the very
short run and you can't thinkbeyond the next quarter.
So AI is a hot thing.
Let's get rid of all thesepeople and hire a bunch of AI
people and not oh, that's'sgoing.
Let's retrain a bunch of people.
(26:43):
They've already committed tothe company.
It's going to save us a ton ofmoney.
Here are the people that canreally do that.
It challenges the core westernphilosophy of self-determination
.
Right, you should have trainedyourself on ai six months ago.
We're going to hire somebodythat has six months worth of
experience.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And I think we just need a little bit more of a
collective mentality.
There are pockets of companiesthat get it and usually, in my
mind, they're usually singularlyowned.
They're owned by some maverickwho doesn't really care that
much.
Yeah, I want to make more money, I want to do this, but I like
Judy down in shipping, I'm goingto take care of her.
It's interesting, right,because I would say because
Patagonia is always a reallyinteresting case for me.
There are a lot of people atPatagonia that were there way
(27:30):
too long, but they just so addedto the culture.
He answered the phones wayafter you needed a receptionist,
but his name was Chipper Bro,and Chipper Bro remembered
everybody's name.
He remembered everything.
You didn't go on hold.
You talked to Chipper Bro.
He's like where are you goingon your next surf trip, dude?
(27:51):
Oh yeah, I'd go here.
It made Patagonia who they are,just that human connection.
But I think what happens is, ifyou have that kind of feeling,
then, in the same breath, yvonnewalked in one day, and long
time ago, and 10% of the revenuewas non-organic t-shirts, and
he didn't like that idea.
So he cut the t-shirt line andsaid let's put the money that
(28:13):
we're going to make here intosubsidizing farmers to grow
organic cotton and then in fiveyears we can buy that back and
start t-shirts again, and that'sreally bold.
But if you're secure, knowingthat you're going to have
employment, you're part of it.
Even if you get let go in anhonest, thoughtful way, then
you're fine with it.
But it's these kind of darkroom, black box oh, this
(28:34):
division has to go, no rhyme orreason.
It sometimes feels.
Oh, the CEO is not going tomake his bonus unless he lops
off a thousand employees.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And it just doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Agree, you mentioned we have a very short window to
start to get this right.
So, when you think about this,if you test this tomorrow I'm
thinking of the renegade we werejust talking about that's not
going to pay attention to therules.
And just let me try this out.
For the renegade leaders outthere who are like, yeah, I'm
going to try this open talentmodel and how that lines up with
AI too and what we need to lookat, what would you advise for
(29:08):
them to do to dip their toe inthis?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I think first you have to have a mental model
right.
So you've got to have a thesisand you got to get agreement on
the thesis.
So, francesca, like you said,going from scarcity to abundance
I think that's the first thingis saying the world's abundant.
We have so many opportunitiesand we have to figure out how do
we get to the opportunities weneed to grow or to do whatever
we want to accomplish.
Above that, most companies evenstruggle with the idea of
(29:32):
purpose, like why are you evenin business, besides making a
few people rich?
So, understanding what yourpurpose is, understanding that
it's really an abundant mindset.
But then, after that, I thinkit's really getting focused on
outcomes.
What are the outcomes I need?
And then let's what are thetasks we need to do to get to
those outcomes?
And then what are the skills weneed?
And we know that right now, inthe next few years, it's going
(29:54):
to be AI 24 seven.
So how do we retrain people?
How do we get people up tospeed?
How do we get the right talentin place?
What I've noticed in leadersthat get it, it's not that
sensitivity and wavy grave, it'salso even a more radical, I
wouldn't say brutality, but atleast honesty.
(30:14):
So I was in a meeting in NewYork last week and we had this
big kind of ai training for thislarge company and that so the
head person, that's, the editor,and all her staff.
They literally just blew offthe owner ceo to request to be
there and they flew to a concertand it's because they had to
cover it for the magazine andthey've refused to adopt ai and
(30:39):
refuse to do anything like.
That's cheating.
Can't have AI write ourarticles.
So we spent five hours workingthrough some of this stuff and
the CEO looks around the roomand looks like he won't have a
job on Monday, meaning theeditor that decided to take her
staff and do something else.
To me that was not a brutalmove, but it was more of an
(31:01):
acknowledgement that, hey, thisis scary times.
Thank you so much for committingyour time and being here at my
request.
If you don't want to be here,it's totally fine, I get it.
I don't have time to babysit,sorry.
We've got a lot of great thingsto do and we're going to use
technology and we need tosatisfy our customers and our
customers have a lot of frictionin their lives and we got to
(31:22):
solve for that.
And if're going to usetechnology and we need to
satisfy our customers and ourcustomers have a lot of friction
in their lives and we got tosolve for that.
And if you want to not dowhat's best by our customers,
then that's great.
There's a lot of other greatthings to do in the world and I
love that.
I love the kind of just likecertainty because, as much as
it's a bummer for a few people,it shows the rest of the
organization like whoa.
We're going for it.
(31:42):
And there's not some likeclandestine non-talked about
conversation in anon-transparent way, but if it's
very transparent and very open.
So that's the third part of thestool.
What's my purpose?
The abundant mindset and thenthe ability to move fast and
make great decisions.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
And that story is so poignant because you hear that
all the time when change happens, where someone really just is
like fighting versus how can Ilean into it?
How can you reframe yourmindset right now, maybe be open
to what's possible?
It might have a positive effectfor your experience here.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, it's almost like we could never have an AI
aggregate comments on ourwebsite, because somebody has to
take the time and understandthe nuance.
Good luck with that.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I've done a lot of synthesis and I will tell you I
am so glad AI exists to helpwith that.
How can someone listening today, who's in that traditional
space of wherever they are,start to really think about how
they can?
What would they be as afreelancer, even while they're
still within this assigned job?
How can they start to test thatfor themselves of what that
(32:47):
might look like, so that whenthings do change, they're ready
for it?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, definitely do some side gigs.
Yeah, like Moonlight.
Start right away.
Doesn't even matter, right,like the cost of failure is so
low.
Start a podcast.
I don't mean to set up a bunchof people.
You guys are already wrong.
Sorry, you guys have alreadypierced through the stratosphere
.
Just go try some shit.
Right, like?
I think that's the sad thing,right?
It's like when we're kids theworld's our oyster.
(33:12):
We have so many possibilitiesand somewhere along the way we
forget we have to do all thesethings we have to do, and that's
just total bullshit we don'thave to do them we have these
mental models that we feel soobligated to do things.
And then for most people we'vehad a lot of tragedy and we've
(33:32):
gotten stung on some things.
But I think back to our openingcomments.
This is the time for optimism.
I think everybody has to growinto an optimist.
I think pessimists are going tohave a really difficult time
because the world's not paid tobe the same.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
All right, we're going to jump right in with some
rapid round questions for you.
Typically one word answers areokay, we're not going to judge
if you do that, but if you'dlike to elaborate, please do.
How's that sound?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah, for sure, all right Perfect.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
All right, it's 2030.
What is work looking like?
Speaker 1 (34:28):
looking like.
Oh man, it's looking somewherein Indonesia with your phone and
waiting for the next set tocome in as your agents do all
the work for you.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Sounds nice, actually , sign me up.
What's one thing aboutcorporate culture that you'd
like to just see die already?
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Bureaucracy.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Sometimes it's like turning a cruise ship to get
things done.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Oh my God, it's horrible.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
What's the greatest opportunity most organizations
are missing out on right now?
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Tapping to the people's passion, or not just
their people's passion, but thepassion of the culture, and what
I mean by that is like thelarger culture of customers and
suppliers, and it just that's sosad that there's like us
against them inside, outside allthat stuff.
It doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, I like that.
Okay, all right, now we'regoing to get personal Are you
ready yeah.
Okay, what music are youlistening to right now?
What's on repeat on yourplaylist?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I'm a discover weekly guy, oh okay, and I love that
because I love so much music.
But the idea of just sittingdown every Monday morning going,
oh my God, a whole new playlistSome weeks it's awesome, some
weeks it sucks.
And the thing that kind of hasbeen turning me out lately are
these two guys, hermanosGutierrez, these guitar players.
(35:39):
Okay, and they would be a funkySpanish flamingo kind of thing
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Oh, that's so nice, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, top of mind, okay, Expecting, like Katy Perry
or something.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
No, I had no expectations.
I do this because one I'minterested.
Like you, I like music fromeverywhere and I love that DJ
feature that they have onSpotify.
Have you tried your personal DJyet?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
No.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
They haven't, I gotta do it, okay, yeah, I'm old
school Okay.
They throw in some of yourfavorites and some new stuff
into the mix.
Good for road trips.
Yeah, what are you readingright now?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Reading could also be listening to a book.
I was just talking about anamazing book the other day that
I've read a couple times and Ijust love it.
It's called Perfume and it'sgot the subtitle something
creepy the smell of death.
It's all like 1400 or 1600s inFrance about a super smeller.
Unfortunately, right now I'mlike totally absorbed.
(36:39):
There's too much going on inthe world, although I have to
tell you guys, somebody justsent me this great podcast.
My wife and I both listened toit.
It's called fierce intimacy.
It's really good.
I was like, yeah, it's like in.
The old concept is like youhave to fiercely fight for the
relationship and you've got togive each other space about it.
(37:00):
You got to likecely fight foryour relationship and you've got
to give each other space aboutit.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
You've got to like total transparency.
I like that.
Yeah, just get in.
Be in it.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
You're in it, be in it.
Yeah, don't avoid it.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I love that.
Okay, the perfume one is sointeresting to me.
Francesca and I talked aboutthis when we went to Tuscany.
You recommended the Santa MariaNovella perfumery place.
It's just such an interestinghistory with perfume, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
And the whole super smeller thing and the people
that they used to hire do that,and oh, it's so crazy, that's so
cool.
What a cool history.
Who do you admire most?
Oh my God, that's a goodquestion.
My dad, for sure.
My dad's still alive.
He's a modern day ErnestHemingway.
Such a stud, I would say.
There's a collection of peopleright.
(37:42):
I think that there are lots ofpeople that inspire me for
different reasons.
Tinker certainly one of them.
Good friend, like we talkedabout, Francesca.
My wife Emily she's definitelykept me going, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Good stuff.
We like to hear it.
What's a piece of advice youwould love to give to others
because you didn't have it foryourself a long time ago?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
The guy told me this and my wife at the time, bridget
, and I we just adopted two kidsfrom Russia and we always hung
out at this coffee shop and thisguy kind of looks like Albert
(38:26):
Einstein.
I used to have a one man,albert Einstein show, len, and
he didn't have any kids Kind oflooked at our kids and they were
like two or three and looked atus and looked at the kids and
he's I have some parentingadvice for you.
She was like oh no, lynn, Idon't know if you want to hear
it, and he said that some motherhad told him this said most
parents when kids do things thatare outside the norm, they
(38:49):
always say be careful.
But be careful creates all thisfear.
It's like be careful, you mighthurt yourself.
Be careful, that's too high, becareful, that's too fast.
So instead just always say payattention.
And so if your son or daughtersays I'm going to climb that
tree, if you say be careful,it's should I or shouldn't I
climb the tree, instead ofsaying pay attention, meaning go
(39:11):
as high as you want, but payattention to your inner feeling
and how you're willing toexplore, and when you're not
feeling comfortable, come backdown, it's all about you.
And so that's something that wasreally magical for me as a dad
to allow my sons to explore.
But it's also, I think, areally good thing to think about
in work, right, and it's likethere's so much fear, especially
(39:31):
around this new world of AI,and like how do we be less
careful and pay more attention?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
I really love that shift in thinking.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
It's crazy, just to pay attention.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Yeah, what a shift, and it totally eliminates the
fear out of things.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I know right it does.
One of the things I just loveabout AI is back to Einstein.
It's that Einstein quote thatsays if you gave me a problem
and an hour to solve it, I spend55 minutes on the problem or
the question, five minutes onthe solution.
And I think somehow in theindustrial age we got so focused
on the execution and thesolution right and solving the
(40:08):
problem properly.
And what's so great is now thecost of execution is going to
zero.
But it's really the value ofwhat's the problem you're trying
to solve.
How do you really define thatin an interesting way?
It's an exciting time, it is.
There's a lot to look forwardto solve.
How do you really define thatin an interesting way?
Speaker 3 (40:20):
It's an exciting time , it is.
There's a lot to look forwardto.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
A time to pay attention.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
A time to pay attention.
For sure, we loved having youhere.
We love the book Open Talent,everybody.
We appreciate you being with ustoday.
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Me as well.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
It's been such an honor.
This episode was produced,edited and all things by us
myself, mel Plett and FrancescaRennery.
Our music is by Pink Zebra andif you loved this conversation
and you want to contribute yourthoughts with us, please do.
You can visit us atyourworkfriendscom, but you can
(41:02):
also join us over on LinkedIn.
We have a LinkedIn communitypage and we have the TikToks and
Instagrams, so please join usin the socials and if you like
this and you've benefited fromthis episode and you think
someone else can benefit fromthis episode, please rate and
subscribe.
We'd really appreciate it.
That helps keep us going.
(41:23):
Take care, friends.
Bye, friends.
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