CRHL01: Cloud Realities x AI

To provide some summer listening on the beach, and to act as a bit of a 'previously on...' for Season 4, AI has taken over the show for four special episodes of some highlights from recent seasons. 

In this first of the four episodes, our hosts G0r-GE and Lil-E, somewhat self indulgently, guide us through some of the conversations the team have had on AI itself, including...

• 00:34 Erwan Menard, Google: Innovation & sustainability meet AI
• 03:40 Gretchen Alarcon, ServiceNow: How employees will use AI in the future
• 07:13 Roisin McCarthy, Women in Data®: AI and gender parity
• 09:07 Bernard Marr, Author & Futurist: Scaling GenAI
• 10:50 Rainer Karcher, Allianz: The realities of AI
• 13:10 Father Paolo Benanti, Vatican: The direction of AI
• 16:05 Bart Groothuis, European Parliament: The rise of AI
• 20:35 Cory O'Daniel, Massdriver: Why he's tough on AI 
• 28:50 A final word to Father Paolo Benanti: Six principles on AI

Hosts
GE0-RGE: Genuine Emote 0 - Repartee Generation Engine - currently doesn't have a LinkedIn
L1-LLE: Level 1 - Longform Loquaciousness Engine - currently doesn't have a LinkedIn
Dave Chapman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/
Sjoukje Zaal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjoukjezaal/
Rob Kernahan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-kernahan/

Production
Nathaniel Tapley https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanieltapley/
Marcel Van Der Burg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-vd-burg/
Dave Chapman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/

Sound
Ben Corbett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-corbett-3b6a11135/
Louis Corbett:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-corbett-087250264/

Creators and Guests

Host

Dave Chapman

Chief Cloud Evangelist with nearly 30 years of global experience in strategic development, transformation, program delivery, and operations, I bring a wealth of expertise to the world of cloud innovation. In addition to my professional expertise, I’m the creator and main host of the Cloud Realities podcast, where we explore the transformative power of cloud technology.

Host

Rob Kernahan

VP Chief Architect for Cloud and Cloud Realities podcast host, drives digital transformation by combining deep technical expertise with exceptional client engagement. Passionate about high-performance cultures, he leverages cloud and modern operating models to create low-friction, high-velocity environments that fuel business growth and empower people to thrive.

Producer

Marcel van der Burg

VP Global Marketing and producer of the Cloud Realities podcast, is a strategic marketing leader with 33+ years of experience. He drives global cloud marketing strategies, leveraging creativity, multi-channel expertise, and problem-solving to deliver impactful business growth in complex environments.

What is Cloud Realities?

Exploring the practical and exciting alternate realities that can be unleashed through cloud driven transformation and cloud native living and working.

Each episode, our hosts Dave, Esmee & Rob talk to Cloud leaders and practitioners to understand how previously untapped business value can be released, how to deal with the challenges and risks that come with bold ventures and how does human experience factor into all of this?

They cover Intelligent Industry, Customer Experience, Sustainability, AI, Data and Insight, Cyber, Cost, Leadership, Talent and, of course, Tech.

Together, Dave, Esmee & Rob have over 80 years of cloud and transformation experience and act as our guides though a new reality each week.

Web - https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/cloud-realities-podcast/
Email - [e-mail]

CR075: Season 4 Kick Off with Dave, Rob & Esmee
Rob, do you want to, you've been having to think about this. Do you want to, uh, do you want to delve into detail a bit about that? What I mean about the whole, sorry, Dave, edit point. I got distracted by a team's message. That's staying in by the way.
Welcome to Cloud Realities, an original podcast from Capgemini. And this week, it's a conversation show exploring the practical and exciting alternate realities that can be unleashed through cloud driven transformation. I'm Dave Chapman. I'm Esmee van de Giessen. And I'm Rob Kernan.
Right, so we are Back for season four after a pretty nice summer. But before we get into what we did on our summer holidays, I want to welcome a new voice to the show. You may have heard her at the end of season three. I'm delighted to say that Esme is joining us as part of the team. Esme, how are you doing?
Yeah, very good. Thank you. Very excited to be here and be part of the team. Are you still feeling okay about the commitment or are you having second thoughts yet? Uh, ask me that later. Uh, no, I'm, I'm, I'm very happy to be part of these conversations and uh, so far, you're, you're pretty nice company. There's a disclaimer there, so. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's fair and probably sensible of you to put that disclaimer in. What kind of interest have you got in this subject? Just give us a sense of like, how you're coming in and your framing for this. I think what I love most about technology is that the meaning that we actually give to that technology.
And, uh, I think really diving into what it means in cultural ways and human ways is what really fascinates me, even from an early age, like my dad and my brother brought home gadgets. So we were the first one with the buzzer and we used ICQ and, uh, MSN for people that are My generation, and I really love that, you know, communicating through technology.
And then in class, you were actually asking like, what time do you get online? You know, and I think that is just part of how I grew up. And it, it still fascinates me till, till today and also in everyday life. So I, I was a CRM consultant back in the days. That's how I grew up. So thinking holistically about customer journeys and sales service and marketing.
And then again, it really was about user adoption that fascinated me the most. So that's what I'm mostly excited about, about the impact on people. And I'm also that kind of girl that just grabs a gadget and. Pushes all the buttons. Um, and I love that just to see how it's, how it works. Do you do that before or after you've read the manual?
No, absolutely before. And I think it's really bad user experience, or it says something that a user actually needs a manual. Depends on the audience though. Right. Right. Uh, but yeah, for me, it would be, it wouldn't be a good sign if I would actually need a manual, if you know what I mean, don't know how you feel that about yourself.
Even with a vacuum cleaner, I need a manual. There's a universal constant. It's like the play button on anything is a green triangle. Stop is a red square. There's lots of conventions that we work to the burger menu in the top, right? I forget the ellipses or whatever it's formally called is where you get the drop down options.
We have got to a state where. Uh, good user interface design means I shouldn't really need a manual. I should just be able to poke at the screen. Unless you're a producer. You don't get a manual with an iPhone, do you? Nope. You probably do with an Android phone, though. I can't believe you've gotten there already, Dave.
Oh, yeah. Rob loves a bit of complex technology. Oh yeah, but it's also about learning and development. Uh, we were brought up with technology or at least the older generations that come after millennials, I think. Uh, but, but still then there's, there's a huge group of people that, you know, uh, do need those manuals.
So luckily they're still there, but the way manuals are written is also like, uh, you could completely study on that. Like, how does a good manual work? There's a really interesting example in browsers on this that like, uh, Safari and Chrome and this sort of stuff, especially on a mobile phone, have loads of features that nobody ever uses, but they're really useful.
So if you're swipe on the URL bar, it does something. And there's, you know, if you, if you swipe in a particular position, it does this, but it doesn't tell you that exists anywhere. There's this bit about, can you get on with the user interface and do the job you need to? Yes, but there's all this stuff hidden just below the surface.
And apparently loads of people don't use it because they just don't know to. And why would you just start swiping randomly on the screen to find it? Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Well, you often come across those little videos on like Insta or TikTok or whatever. And you're like, features you never knew about!
Da da da da! Five features. How to get the most out of your iPhone. That kind of thing. I had the newest one in on WhatsApp that you can actually, if you, uh, hold on to the camera, you can make a short video and then it's like Don't tell you that though, don't it? I don't To Dave, I would do an insta reel for you that is how to get the most out of your iPhone, which is chuck it in the bin and buy an Android.
And then you'll follow up with like 464 hidden features of an Android phone. Yeah, because it actually does what you need it to do, opposed to the horrible ecosystem that one can get sucked into. So, if you hadn't noticed, Rob is also here. How are you doing, Rob? Did you have a nice summer? Hello! Yes, yeah, it was good.
No, it was um, I had a nice holiday away. Uh, overseas, Far East. Uh, well not Far East, East. Um, and was relaxed. So that was nice. Now, I believe you went to Thailand, is that right? I did, I did. So we did a bit of the big city in Bangkok. We went to the National Park, where we went walking around in the rainforest, which is good and I'll, uh, you'll be very pleased to know, Dave, that whilst walking around in the middle of a rainforest, it was very slippy and it wasn't exactly, it was, it was, literally just in the middle of nowhere, and there was a hill, uh, I, uh, missed my footing, slid all the way down, stood up, and was completely covered in mud at the bottom.
So, there's an image for you to maintain. And then after that, we went out to, um, Koh Samui for a Where are the pictures, Rob? There's no picture of that event. That's impossible. No, no, no. Sounds like a metaphor for your working week this week. And, uh, listen, let's not talk about this working week, right?
Let's forget that. But the, uh, we also got the, uh, got out on a few jet skis as well. Who doesn't like a jet ski? The big question I have been waiting to ask you though, Rob, is did you have a bucket while you were there? You, you have been saying this, and I do not know what you're talking about. You've missed out.
Oh, sorry, you mean the bucket with the, where you buy the, the, is that the one with the alcohol in it? Correct. Oh, no, sorry. Did you have a bucket? No, sorry, I didn't get to that. You've missed the, you've missed a key cornerstone. Of, of the Thailand beach experience, my friend. Maybe we just go to different beaches?
I don't know. I didn't see it available. Not a specialist thing. But no, I didn't, although what is nice when you go out there is you just, you can, I don't know if anybody's ever been in the North Sea, but you don't stay in it for long, whereas there you just walk in, you can sit down in the sea and you can just stay there.
It's definitely not like the North Sea. It's very different. No, it's gorgeous, isn't it? And the only one that's up there for me compared to that is the Caribbean Sea, which I think the Caribbean Sea is the nicest sea in the world. And like, you know, excellent bridge here, Marcel. Where did you go on holiday?
Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, Bonaire, three weeks, Bonaire. Yeah. Caribbean Sea. So some snorkeling and diving. Marcel, how many times have you been to Bonaire? In the last four years, I think eight times. He gets welcomed by the Prime Minister of Bonaire now. He's an integral part of the GDP of Bonaire. It's baked in.
Marcel's spend is baked in for the next five years. Pays for the Department of Education. So, and the positive thing is it's still Dutch, so it's really weird when you arrive, there are palm trees and people are still talking Dutch. It's really weird, but it's the Caribbean, so not like the North Sea.
Definitely not like the North Sea. No, it's, it's, the water is 29 degrees, millions of fishes and, uh, relaxing every evening, uh, with a beer and look at, uh, the sun dropping in the sea. And Marcel also said to me that the 10 bedroom house he's got there was, was relatively good value.
Well, and with the 20 servants. Yeah, yeah. Apparently, it runs itself, apparently. Yeah. Was there enough room to get all your hypercars on the drive, Marcel? As well? You have to dig down for that, you know, like one of those giant basements where you've got a Ferrari section and a McGaghy section. I mean, some would call it excessive, but getting your five hypercars on a plane and having them shipped to your holiday destination just so you can use them, you know, if you want to.
Uh, some would say it would be opulence, but you know, Marcel, you do what you do. It's a small island with no highways and no, no traffic lights. So, uh, you don't need to. He took the, uh, he took his, G Wagon and a Defender. Yeah, I took the Defender. Cool, well look, we're all back, and it's good to see everybody, and Esme Oh Dave, Dave, no, no, no, Dave, Dave, stop, stop, stop, stop.
Yeah, how about you? Where did you go on holiday and what did you do? You can't just skip over yourself. So I went to, well thank you for asking Robert, I um Somebody cares. I had a brilliant holiday, I went to Glastonbury for the weekend and then very quickly after that by accident of scheduling more than anything else went to Japan for a couple of weeks, which was absolutely amazing, like, properly lived up to my expectations of what it would be like.
The downside of all of that though, did a lot of walking during those three weeks and I have completely knackered my knee. That's an age thing though, isn't it? You've just basically declared your age. Kind of, kind of awful and embarrassing. Glucosamine, mate. Glucosamine for your knees. Take it. It's good.
When my knees get sore, I take that for a few months, then it fixes it, and then it comes back about two years later. I'm in physio at the moment, so I'm going to ask my physio about that. But yeah, so hopefully it'll be fixed in the next couple of weeks. But it's the weirdest thing. It's like a slow motion injury.
Like, it didn't actually hurt, but it kind of gives you this weird feeling of, like, nausea and dizziness. Pretty unpleasant. Torn cartilage is what it is. Ooh, that doesn't sound like much fun, Dave. No, it's not nice. Not nice. Doesn't sound very ninja like either. Hey, if you want to be a ninja You gotta be light on your feet, make sure you do that effectively.
Apparently it gets you back to sleep after a bit of ninja running as well. It's ninja running, going back to sleep. So on with the show then, let's first of all talk a little bit about season four and some of the differences. So the way that we look at the show, which, you know, hopefully is evident, but I'm not sure, is seasons one to three have been a bit of a, a bit of a market scan.
So a big reflection of what's going on on the market. And, There's no better example of that reflection than the rise of AI over the tenure of the show. Literally, as we started the show a couple of years ago, and we were writing the first episodes, it was pre Chat GPT, incredibly. So, you know, we weren't thinking going into it that AI was going to be such a prominent feature of the show over the course of the first three seasons.
And certainly not to the point where we do some compilation episodes and we literally use AI as the, as the sort of hosts of those shows. That, you know, that wasn't in our thinking at all. So that's an example of, like, I think of how we've tried to reflect the changes in the industry. And that will continue during Season 4 with guest shows in the way that we've done them so far.
But what we're going to introduce into it though is a bit more of a feedback loop, Rob. Yeah, so thinking about the conversations that we're having and connecting them and also as part of it, maybe some counterbalance episodes as well. So, you know, when we talk a lot about what's going on in one direction, can we hear the voice from the other direction and then make sure we create the debate and maybe some points of tension within that that allow us to.
provoke a bit more of thoughts around particular topics and issues. So looking forward to having that ying and that yang associated with the conversations that, uh, that we've been having up to date. The other thing we're really excited about trying to do is get into listener questions. Uh, so the, the idea is, you know, listeners can send in challenges to the team.
And we and potentially with some friends of the show will take, you know, one or two of those questions once or twice a month and just explore the depth of that question. And our amazing and fabulous producer Marcel has actually created an email address for people to use to submit ideas and questions.
Last generation technology, Marcel. We have to do it. Like the worst digital interface we could possibly design via our producer, he implements it. We, we, I think we discussed, you know, using snail mail and whether we should do packages. I'm for carrier pigeon. I mean, I'm going like old school carrier pigeon.
So Marcel, would you like to unveil our very, very cutting edge email address? Yes. It's [e-mail]. There we go. There we go. So please do. That email address is real. And if you're still using email, please send us an email. And if you'd like to just message any of us on LinkedIn, please use that route too.
Love to hear your questions. You know, like, my cloud transformation isn't working. It's costing me too much. I'm not getting the benefits that I wanted to get all the way through to the end. Why are humans in the picture so important? You keep banging on about it. What's going on with that? You know, anything you want, go anywhere you want.
So yeah, hopefully you will, we'll introduce that sort of more analysis into the show as we're going forward.
Through seasons one to three, what we've been trying to examine are the different dimensions of the practical and exciting alternate realities that can be unleashed through cloud driven transformation, you know, What does that actually mean, though? I thought it was probably worth a bit of a level set on that as we go into the rest of this season.
So, we're going to just unpick some aspects of that. So, Rob, let's start with cloud driven transformation. Is that just exiting a data center? Oh, David, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's a whole new era, and we talk about epochs of computing, but essentially, our organizations look like the technology they have to manage.
And what cloud gives us is an ability to decouple and get technology the way we want it our way. So no longer is technology as in the tail wagging the dog, but now we have control over it much more effectively. So suddenly. Operating models can change. We can become far more business focused. We can codify the world.
So Gene Kim's episode that we discussed in Season 3 was a fantastic example about how we can behave differently in an organization when he wrote his book, uh, The Phoenix Project, and then obviously, uh, wiring the winning organization. And so we create new potential. So what is it? It's a thing that if we know that we can change the way we operate around it, and we commit to that, you can create like this new potential.
And under this new potential, What you're able to do is completely change business models, completely change the way we approach problems, you know, completely change the way we operate and work on a day to day basis. And I think if you're still in the world where it's product version, upgrade, some, you know, the next version of this or that or the other, you're like on a very low horizon.
And what it's actually allowing you is to dream more. And that's where it is for me. So, you know, it's that, it's, it's that core, which is, it's allowing us to do things we could never do in the past and just change the way we interact, you know, from a technology perspective and change the way we interact as humans and change the way we think about delivering experiences and outcomes in a different way.
I obviously concur with that. And I think the way that I think about it is back to your point about epochs or eras. For me, when you look back, but say like you could split this in a few different finer ways if you want to, but I sort of see three main areas, like the era of the mainframe, the era of client server, and then the cloud era that we're currently kind of working in.
you know, 10 years into at this point. And in that, in, in each era, it seems to me, organizations have shaped themselves around the technology. So in, in the era of the mainframe, you know, that was very scientific. It was a big thing in the basement. You had to, you had to trot down and book your time on the mainframe.
And then ultimately you would get some, you know, computation and you'll get some results back. And that had a certain tick speed to it. You had to have cooled rooms and specialist equipment, and it was a very centralized thing. Client server comes along, client server then democratizes technology, you know, the goods and bads of a server under every desk and, and, you know, desktop compute and, uh, putting compute computation in the hands of like every staff member, which would have been unthinkable in this more scientific era of the mainframe.
And then what happens, of course, organizations start to reshape themselves around that. and ways of working change and, you know, organizations get a glimpse of what it might look like. Global organizations can start to work as more, you know, more like one organism rather than being distributed. And there was a big wave of globalization of organizations on the back of what was technologically possible at that point.
And then we come to the cloud era and Esme, for you going into the cloud era, what's different and how does it distinguish itself from from previous eras of compute? I think because also what with the dog and the tail that Rob was referring to, it tabs into the autonomy piece, right? So if teams can deliver value autonomously, then you can speed up delivery and deliver value faster.
And that relates to Daniel Ping's drive. Intrinsic motivation. And I think if the autonomy is now being accelerated by cloud, by technology, which is great, then the focus should, in my opinion, be more on the two other aspects that Pink is also talking about when it's about intrinsic motivation and that's purpose and mastery.
And I think mastery is all about learning and development and getting everyone, you know, really understanding the power of cloud and AI and gen AI. And then you leave Or it comes down to purpose. And I think those are the bigger questions, the more human questions that we should also now be starting to focus on.
It's not all about AI. It's all about what the tech is going to do. Okay. So that's good. That's great. But what about purpose? You know, who am I and what am I here to bring into this organization or into this world? Even a bigger question. And then yes, uh, autonomy and technology can even be more helpful in unleashing our true potential.
I've got an interesting fact about autonomy. Brace yourself. Here it comes. Now, it's an excellent point you make, and it's a really important one. It's, happier people, happy people are 20 percent more productive than normal, or even worse, sad people are less productive. But let's take the Not like 19 percent or 21%.
No, no, it's 20. Dave, it's 20%. Yeah. Okay. Dot zero. Absolutely. Hang on the nail. Measured. It's that. That's it. And then the biggest thing you can do to make a person happy in the workplace is allow them autonomy to just get on and do the job. And they don't have to interact with other humans, ask for permission, all this sort of stuff.
It's the biggest productivity boost you can give in your organization. is to grant autonomy to drive the happiness and you'll get an extra day out of the working week. There you go. Oh, I find that a bit, I don't know, you know, cause happy people for me also means collaborating with other team members. Oh no, that's a bit where you're being creative.
Absolutely. It's more about the, as you go through your daily job, asking permission for things you know are right and you do every day, just letting people get on with it. Yeah. I think re repolarization organizations from sort of hierarchical top down control to bottom up support and enablement. Yeah.
Massively unlocks the potential of your organization. But you're right, it it, it requires a change in thinking around, I'm gonna use the T word, like trust and autonomy becomes a massive aspect of the cultural change required, I think in the cloud era. Do you think? Uh, I think it is. There's a lot of concern in big organizations about risk and that's fair because regulated industry and you know, people who deal with sensitive topics, risk to life, that all needs to be controlled.
But if you create those paved roads, those guide rails, that, that rule book that says as long as you stick within these bounds, you can do what you need to do. That is a basic principle to start with to drive autonomy. And then you can develop with that. But that is a fundamental shift to trust to say that the humans will stay in the road.
And I always use the example of mass transit system, which is you don't ask permission to drive to work in the morning or get on a train or get on a bus, you know, you buy a ticket, off you go. And we all interact. We know what to do with traffic lights. We know what to do at roundabouts. We know how to join motorways and how to get off.
motorways. And if you break the rules, guess what? A police, uh, a police might turn up in your door and say, please come with me. But the point is that the whole thing is massively. Yeah, but there's, um, there's a, there's a whole thing about trust that drives. a massively autonomous system that works incredibly effectively world over.
And so corporate cultures need to think more about those types of codified systems and to drive autonomous behavior. And you know what? Roads can be safe. They're well managed. They're well understood. They're very effective. You know, we, this is the mindset we need to get more towards. Yeah. And I think when you bring sort of the points we were making earlier about the cloud, removing lead times and opening up huge amounts of potential with, with the points we've just made around sort of the fundamental change in, in kind of humans in an organization.
I think that's what we mean when we think, when we talk about holistic change that attaches to the cloud, that it's not just a technology change. It's, it's a deeper and more fundamental opportunity to to address how organizations function. And you look at the ones that have, that have really digitalized themselves, both culturally and from a tech perspective, you can see their performance in terms of how they come to market, what they're bringing to market, the speed they get to market, the innovation in the market.
These are the things that, that, that can be unlocked in that though. One of the other threads that we've had that I think it might be worth just bringing into this bit of the conversation. Digitization versus digitalization and what, and what that really means. Cause I think there is a link between the distinction here and say, some of the cloud eras that we've talked about, Rob.
Yeah. I think a good example, and this happened very early on is. An example would be, if I want to do something, I fill in a paper based form and I send it to your organization and your organization processes it, and then I put that online. So basically you go to a website and the form looks the same as the paper did, and when you click submit, it goes off to the same team and they just process the same information.
What you've done is you've cut out a sort of time lag between presenting the information it being consumed. Digitalization is taking that entire process and rebooting it to a completely different interaction model, where when you're trying to interact with an organization, it might be smaller micro interactions they may be able to prompt you in reverse with data.
You don't have to interact and say way. It might be automatically monitored. The human might not actually have to submit a request to the organization, but they already know what they need to do. It's about changing that experience and changing the style of that interaction associated with the experience so that it becomes less.
It becomes much more efficient for the business to deliver, um, that, that experience, et cetera, et cetera. So there's this, this fundamental shift to, I'm actually rebooting the way I operate and changing the experience as opposed to just putting a form into a webpage and doing the same thing behind the scenes.
That's the difference for me anyway. What's the distinction in those things for you Esme, digitalization versus digitization? No, I think I can absolutely understand what Rob is saying. So I relate to that. That's the first time for everything. Yeah, that's recorded now. Welcome to the show. Yes. Thank God you're here.
Cannot get any better now. No, I think again, the human part, is it really helping or is it not? Is it fully digitalized? We now also have mortgages, right? That you can completely, with an app, you can just get your mortgage. There's no person on the other side. And that's changing also business models. That's really intense for, I think, an entire company, especially if you're used to printing everything and doing everything by hand.
So for me, it's also a distinction between the startups. And the mentality of having that from the start compared to the larger companies that are slowly moving into that direction. And I think the biggest challenge for them is to have, and you've seen all kinds of ways of getting there to have like a completely different part of the organization, like separate already, you know, having that ingrained in the DNA and starting to really get completely digital from DNA to DNA.
Start or to slowly get into that. And we see examples of success in all different forms and places. And that's what I also find fascinating. And what is it that the sum of all parts that the one company is able to do that and the other companies just somewhat failing in whatever they're trying to do.
It's a good point that you raise at the end there because what we're talking about here is extremely non trivial. It's a vast journey, a huge leadership challenge, a big, a big financial challenge and, and it comes with all the attendant risk that Rob was calling out earlier. So from an organization point of view, It's challenging, but let's maybe wrap up the conversation just by talking about the human experience of it.
What it means as the human to be kind of autonomous and trusted with, with a larger accountability. That can be daunting. It can be quite a big change for some people who have might have been quite comfortable with the way that they were working before. And it's quite a journey for quite a lot of people to go on.
And there's an, there's an aspect that we've touched on in the show before, and it's important a lot of the cloud organizations, which is a notion of psychological safety. Rob, why is that critical in the sorts of organizations that we're describing, or the sorts of transformations that we talk about?
Yeah, it's an, well, it's a hard thing to unpack sometimes, but organizations that have been used to working in a, in a commander control, risk control mechanism, don't like to think about failure. Okay, but through failure, you learn better. So we've all learned past the sort of last decade that the test failed learn loop is a really effective way to get the better results out.
As long as the failure isn't something catastrophic, but is understood that we might try something and it might not go the way we wanted, but it doesn't mean that it's, you know, it, the, the results are useful, but the, the impact of that is, can be managed. So, We then start to introduce this, we'll have a go and see if it works.
And for many, that's not the culture they've lived. And the culture they've lived, then they're now in control of these organizations. So they've grown up in a different culture and style. It's very difficult for them to let go. And what you've got is a new generation coming in who want this test, fail, learn, develop, improve loop.
And so there's this, there's this, um, uh, there's this tension that grows within the organizations that is, I want to try things out. Cloud allows me to do that. I want to see if we can improve what we are, but there's this culture above that says, no, no, everything we must do must be successful. We must go, we must be structured, we must deliver.
So then there's this fear that if you do try test, fail, learn, loop, actually, what's that mean for me personally, if I have to put my hand up and said, we tried it for three weeks, it didn't work. And that's not a psychologically safe environment. So people then uh, don't want to experiment and then they don't get all the benefit from experimentation and trying new things.
So creating the environment you said it earlier about it's not top down, but it's bottom up enablement and creating a place we say we want to try this. We know it might not work, but it's okay if it doesn't just as long as we learn from it. That's the environment where suddenly you start to create psychological safety and through that then humans get curious, they do interesting things, and out of the back you actually get much better results and people are a lot happier again, go back to my point earlier about autonomy, and it's that which is the crux of the problem of psychological safety.
The other thing that's very interesting is, um, allowing people to interact at a human level that isn't work focused is another way to get people to trust each other much more. So that five, 10 minutes at the beginning of a meeting where you don't talk about the issue at hand or the thing that you need to do, but actually just learn about each other, um, is a great way to build that.
But many think that's a failing of the meeting and they go firing straight into it. So it's being consciously aware of what humans need to be able to be effective. Esme, what's your lived experience of this? Like, have you, have you felt any of these things as you've gone through your career? I think since the beginning, I think repercussions is one of the key things.
And it doesn't even mean that you're, you're being, you know, that you're experiencing it, but if you even see it, that somebody else is being punished because they tried, or you heard the rumor about somebody. who tried, I think those are all aspects that can really, uh, spiral down. And, and, and then something like psychological safety, especially in the Netherlands, you hear that all the time, and inclusive and, and diversity.
But sometimes what it tends to happen is that it starts to become a joke or that it starts, you know, and then it loses its power. So I think it really is about living your own truth. And I am, uh, I'm a true believer that it's, top down and bottom up at the same time, because there's power in a system, in a group dynamics.
And if lead, you know, I do believe that leadership is that important, that everything that's cross route, uh, that is beautiful. But if it comes up to a level of leadership that doesn't, you know, really step up and, and joined the game, uh, then you're only as good as, as that level. I think that's spot on, uh, and the leadership aspect of it, I think, is important for everybody going through this journey.
I know when I ran a cloud transformation a number of years ago now, the leadership change that was required and sort of personal development that I had to go through first hand was, uh, It was not what I was anticipating actually, and it took a while to, to get used to the idea that I was going to have to actually quite fundamentally change how I was approaching some of these things and, uh, go on a personal journey.
And I would encourage anybody that's, that's involved in one of these transformations or an organization that's transforming is to kind of really embrace the, the personal journey aspect of it. Cause it's, it's quite, it's quite illuminating. And we bring ourselves in it as well, huh? Sorry for adding that.
But I, I think. You bring yourself to the table to every transformation you're or every program you're part of. And it doesn't mean matter what kind of role you are, but you're, you're adding something to the flavor. And sometimes we tend to not see that because that's something that, you know, you're not very aware of, but I think we should be very Uh, open to ourselves about that as well.
Like, what, what am I, what kind of energy am I bringing at this point? You know, am I still there? I'm, am I still, uh, uh, a cheerleader or am I actually sabotaging, um, myself while I'm also pointing at others? So there we go, that's a bit of an exploration of the practical and exciting alternate realities that can be unleashed through cloud driven transformation.
Hopefully we've given some of the aspects of, of, of what we mean, or at least scratched the surface of that. And, and we will continue to, we will continue to drill into it over the course of season four. And like I said, with, with some aspect of feedback loop, and we would love to hear your questions, the issues it raises for you, the challenges you might have.
that we can introduce into the show as we, as we go forward.
So we end every episode of this podcast by asking our guests what they're excited about doing next. And that can be anything from a good restaurant at the weekend through to something in their professional life. But since we are just in a team only show and we're kicking off the season, it might be appropriate just to quickly go around the team and find out what they're excited about going into season four.
Marcel, what are you excited about? No, Marcel had fallen asleep at this point. Uh, I'm sure it's not a reflection of the conversation. Marcel, um, what are you excited about doing next in season four? So next in season four, so I think it's, it's the structured approach that we, that we really will focus on, uh, especially around, uh, thought leaders.
And, uh, I think we have some exciting names over, uh, in, in, in the pipeline. So, so that can be, uh, I think amazing sort of podcasts. Um, uh, and, and on a personal note, um, because you're always asking about personal or private. So on a, on a personal note, um, I, I think I will work on my Defender in the, in, in the winter because it's, it's old.
It's, it has to be some, um, some maintenance on it, maybe some painting. And, um, so yeah. And you, you, is that cause you finished restoring the Ferraris at this point?
Yeah. As me, what are you, what are you looking forward to? Uh, you newly joining the team and Yes. Picking off a new season. How, how are you feeling about stuff? No, I, I'm just very excited, uh, just to be part of the team, as I said already. So, uh, that's what I'm really, I'm really eager to, to learn from you and our guests.
Uh, 'cause I think there are a lot of different voices in the room as what, what we already try to, you know, say. that we want to set that out for this season. I don't really believe in black and white, you know, that it's not either or. So I'm really curious about, you know, what are all those different perspectives that we can bring in and just be open to that and, and add my point of view to that.
And on a personal note, I have a water pump that is failing, which is electric and 50 years old. for the garden. So, uh, I'm hoping to get that fixed on time before it really starts to become warm again. Rock and roll, rock and insight into the rock and roll lifestyle there. Yes. Yes, yes, gardening. Yes, I love that.
And to be honest, it's also a sense of, uh, the same with meditation that Yeah, yeah, I do like that. Yeah. Love that. So I'm hoping to get that sound back again. It's the sound of the summer, isn't it, that? Yeah, it is. Yeah. Really nice. And Robert, what are you excited about for season four? The, um, well, the bit I've always enjoyed.
on this podcast is meeting people and hearing what they've got to say. So for me, um, there's been a few moments and a few people we've spoken to that have really made me think differently about various things from a sort of meeting like the likes of Susan Hockfield from MIT, or the Gene Kim's of the world, right through to the Anders Inset simulation theory, which is still, still playing on my mind, but it's that which is, I really enjoy that interaction.
So I'm really looking forward to more of that. thought leadership bit because yeah, you can do courses and you can do, read books and all of that good stuff. But actually the real learning comes from when you, you have the conversation around, um, the types of topics we discuss. So that's for me. And for me actually just building on those points, I'm looking forward to spending a bit more time as a team and dwelling on things as we go, as we go through a little bit more than we have in the past and really hope that we get some questions and, and answers.
Issues raised by the listenership and that we hear a little bit more of what people are thinking when we're, we're banging on about this stuff and that we can integrate that a little bit more into the show narrative. So really looking forward to engaging with that. And, and if you do have thoughts or concerns or questions that arise as we, as we're talking about it, like I said, get in touch with us through our extremely technical new interface, uh, called our email inbox at [e-mail]. So just like Dave just mentioned, you can email us, but we're all on X and LinkedIn. So please drop us a message, connect with us, let us know what you think, because we really need that to improve our show. And we're looking forward to hear all those questions. A huge thanks to our team and to, for me as a personal thanks to the team that I'm Been so heartfully welcomed by you.
I love that. Ben and Louis, you are true wizards in editing and sound. And Marcel, you are a great producer as well. So thank you for that. And all the listeners, we hope to see you for the rest. I love it. I love it. Just that little bit. Are we sure? Oh, we are so looking forward to the next episode. See you there.
And don't forget, we will see you in another reality next week.