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AI may transform how work gets done, but leadership will determine whether that transformation succeeds. The future belongs to organizations that pair technological intelligence with human intelligence, creating environments where people can adapt, grow and thrive through change
This week, Dave and Rob are joined by Fiona Maher, Director at The Feminine Connection UK to explore why human sustainability is not a wellbeing initiative but a commercial imperative for organisations navigating constant change.
This week, Dave and Rob are joined by Fiona Maher, Director at The Feminine Connection UK to explore why human sustainability is not a wellbeing initiative but a commercial imperative for organisations navigating constant change.
TLDR
00:30 – Introduction
02:00 – Hang out: Rob finds himself surprisingly confused by the carbon footprint of iconic paintings
06:31 – Dig in: Notions of the human system and the role of the coach
09:00 – Conversation with Fiona Maher
51:22 – Creating a programme for growing remarkable Leaders
Guest
Fiona Maher: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fiona-maher-72a26a4/
Hosts
Dave Chapman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/
Rob Kernahan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-kernahan/
Production
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/
'Realities Remixed' is an original podcast from Capgemini
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 Realities Remixed?
From the award‑winning team behind Cloud Realities, Realities Remixed explores what happens when people, culture, industry, and technology collide, because real breakthroughs rarely come from technology alone.
In each episode, hosts Dave Chapman and Rob Kernahan dig beneath the surface of innovation to understand what’s truly shifting. They speak with leaders, practitioners, vendors and thinkers across industries to explore how technology reshapes human behaviour, organisational culture, and society, for better and sometimes for worse.
Web - https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/cloud-realities-podcast/
Email - realitiesremixed@capgemini.com
No. I was just gonna declare that I had a bit of a late night last night.
Speaker 2:So you're hungry for his hell.
Speaker 1:It's quite bad. So if Robert has to dive in front of a hail of bullets, I would appreciate it Robert. You need to dig me out of the
Speaker 3:hole. I'm more of just letting you flounder Dave.
Speaker 1:I'm Dave Chapman. I'm Rob Kernahan. And this is Realities Remixed, an original podcast from Capgemini. And this week, a conversation show exploring why human sustainability and adaptability is not a well-being initiative but a commercial imperative for organizations navigating constant change. I mean topic of the moment Robert, what do you think?
Speaker 3:Absolutely humans in the system, disruption going on, this is a very important conversation to understand about how we need to cater for the humans in the world around us and we should take better care of them. Maybe talk to them occasionally and understand their emotional state etc. So I think it's literally the thing we should be focusing on as all the AI rolls over us at the moment.
Speaker 1:And it exists I think, you know, talk about quite often on the show the responsibility of leaders in the tech domain and and frankly in all domains as we as we adapt to AI and and and the responsibility we all have to do that in a way that is human centric and and empathetic and thoughtful. So I'm happy to say that joining us later in the show to talk about points like that is Fiona Maher. She's a director at the Feminine Connection and has worked with leaders for twenty years exploring aspects of leadership and connection and human systems and adaptability. If you want to jump to Fiona's conversation with us there'll be the time code in the show notes but before we get to that the world continues to be confusing Robert.
Speaker 3:It does David. It does. It and it's getting worse as well. But I had a I had an interesting thought this week around carbon footprints but of old things. So you think it's old, it no longer has really a carbon footprint but I had the pleasure of going to the Fitsi Gallery in Italy you go to
Speaker 1:Very see sophisticated.
Speaker 3:That I was all I was all high brow that day, high brow high brow. And I thought to myself, right, Birth of Venus, you go into the room, it's a wonderful painting, everybody's taken a photo of it and I thought actually the Birth of Venus, although it's like quite old, it's got a new digital footprint, carbon footprint with that. So I did I used some I did some maths David. I did some things and how are we considering this and it's about the the photos but apparently Ufitsi gets 5,000,000 visitors a year and I estimated at least half of those visitors probably take one or two photos of that famous painting.
Speaker 1:How many did you take? How many did you take?
Speaker 3:About seven or eight actually. Trying to frame it up and get it, right? So this is a conservative estimate. When you run through the each photo is probably about four megabytes, you end up with 30 terabytes of photos of the same picture, literally the same picture every year which leads you to a low estimate of 1.6 tons of c o two per year generated or a high estimate of 43 tons. And then you've got this compounding impact of that every year every year every year.
Speaker 3:Those photos stay static on the cloud. So it got me confusing about and I know we've discussed this before but it comes back, nobody's clearing out their digital litter and where does it end because it's all sat using power somewhere in a data center and this time where we're worried about power consumption and various things, maybe we should take an imperative to force people to do something about this because actually, it is a problem when you, that's just one picture in one gallery, now go across the world with that and you suddenly have a big issue really.
Speaker 1:Do you sort of foresee a situation where that compounds over time to a point where every atom in the universe is a storage device?
Speaker 3:Well I mean that is quite extreme isn't it? It's all needed, it's just this rampant consumption. And the irony is it's not needed because there are much better photos of that painting that you can get straight
Speaker 1:away They've already been taken by professionals.
Speaker 3:So ask yourself the honest question, when you go back and look at your holiday photos, that's not the one you're gonna look at. Is it? It's the one of your family, it's this sort of stuff, it's not that one.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly. And unless unless you've done a selfie with like, you know, you and your partner in it, it's a it's it's worthless, isn't it?
Speaker 3:It is a worthless photo.
Speaker 1:Actually worthless.
Speaker 3:So my confusion is why don't they put signs up that says, you know, think about your carbon footprint you're creating from the boat shows or something but it's a thing we should be doing really because it is
Speaker 1:The awareness, it's it's a good insight cause and you don't think about it in in those terms do you at all. And education around that. Normally I I enjoy being scathing about your confusions but in this particular case, you make a good point. I mean god damn it Marcel, how did this get through editorial?
Speaker 3:How did this get through? But when in in the good old days, you used to have film camera, had 24 photos, you would not take seven of one thing, would you? Right? So now it's become cheap and easy and convenient. Maybe we've over indexed on it but there is actually a problem that we're creating.
Speaker 3:And actually when you run the numbers, it's absolutely massive when you add it up across the the system.
Speaker 4:So can't can't we use can't we use AI? So if you take a picture of of a famous painting, you think you take a picture, but AI is picking the one picture on the Internet and that's the picture.
Speaker 3:So Oh. What you could do is everybody who took the pictures a day goes into a thing, the best ones picked, and then everybody just gets a semantic link to that photo on one photo a day. That's all you're allowed quoted quoted. That's the answer. I think you've just solved it, Marcel.
Speaker 1:Marcel coming in with off the wall technical solutions.
Speaker 3:Done something smart and clever.
Speaker 1:He's done a thing. He's actually done a thing. I didn't see that coming, did you?
Speaker 3:Don't think anybody did.
Speaker 1:No. Anyway anyway, onto today's main topic which is we are returning to notions of the human system. And it's something we have touched on regularly on the show and it was a you know passion point of of Esmee and we will be you know continuing the thread in Esmee's absence. But this conversation today I think is about the role of the coach, the the role of leadership in developing leaders as we go into complex change situations and I think we touched on it very briefly at the top of show but it's more important than ever Robert isn't it? Like what what what's coming do we think that makes this subject more important than ever and actually are we are we as a society really taking it seriously enough?
Speaker 3:I suppose in my head if you think about the the four epochs of computing we talk about the first three mainframe client server cloud were about where work gets done basically. It allows us to change systems around it. What AI is doing is fundamentally different, it's changing how work gets done and the human systems need to be redesigned. We've talked about the agentic only company, There's a 50% chance they're saying that the first unicorn which is a billion pounds of a billion US dollars of market capitalization occurs this year where it's one human and an agentic system. There's very dramatic forces in play that are going to change the way we interact, the way we operate, the jobs we have and that's huge change.
Speaker 3:And when we think about change, that can be difficult for humans to be able to grasp and tackle and so this is the time, the time is now that this is the hot topic about how we as a society are going to deal with what is a systemic change that's coming but you know one that could be fabulous. But if we ignore the human in the system and just chase the tech, we're gonna make everybody's lives a bit more miserable. So it's that empathetic approach to how this stuff gets used. The the you know, the morals, the guardrails we stick in place and all that. It's got to be a topic and it's a big concern I think and you hear it in the press, you hear it in society, the the grumbling has started and I think it's gonna bubble to the top this year very definitely.
Speaker 1:So without further ado, let's go to our conversation with Fiona Maher from The Feminine Connection. So let's start with, maybe tell us a little bit about the feminine connection.
Speaker 2:So the Feminine Connection came around as a bit of a hybrid experience. I spent the first sort of fifteen years of my career working in large corporate and I was working with typically with parts of the organization senior leaders who were going through major change. And I then decided to take a leave from large corporate and it's because I sort of came to a point where it was time for me to make a change and so being good at following my own medicine, off I went. And I spent about fifteen years at that point really trying to understand how individuals change and what works and what doesn't. And so the feminine connection came about as a composite of those two things.
Speaker 2:So the ability to be able to work with organisations at an individual and at a personal level with senior leaders who are going through major change.
Speaker 1:So just explain a little bit about what you actually do then. How have you turned that into is it a coaching process? Are you dealing with it, like, individuals or systems in an organization?
Speaker 2:I work with both. And so sometimes I'm working with individual senior leaders who are having to leave complex, challenging change, and I'm working behind the scenes to support them. And at other times, I'm working front of Harris, and I will go in, have conversations with the executive teams and the senior leaders and then work alongside those group of people who are leading and driving the change on-site.
Speaker 3:And when you do that Mhmm. Did you get a mix of here's structurally how to deal with the issue and how to deal with the human system or is there a lot of when you do the personal coaching a bit of emotional guidance that they need about how to deal with different personality types? What's the sort of split of the types of conversations that you're having when you're doing this coaching just to get a feel for the the area where most support is is presented?
Speaker 2:I mean, because I've led major change, I understand the processes. And so sometimes there is a piece around understanding the steps that you're taking the organization through and the people inside that. So my real expertise is understanding how people are gonna behave in certain environments and therefore how you can support them. And then sometimes it's actually down to the fact that the the leader is under a lot of strain and stress. And the challenge with that is that as the figureheads and as the person who needs to be leading it, they need to be as much on point as they can be.
Speaker 2:And, you know, when that is involving things like major redundancies or personal almost personal conflicts within that change,
Speaker 1:you
Speaker 2:know, then you are having to spend time with them working through some of the emotional because that's where emotions live in the body. And so it's about, you know, if if you're struggling using movement as a balancer. So it I work across those levels, and that's because I studied across those levels. You know? I look at human beings through their body, their mind, their emotions, their sense of meaning and purpose, and what underlying systems fuel those.
Speaker 2:So what are the energetics that you need to be sustainably good at performance? So I became what I was looking for. I wanted a one stop shop. I didn't wanna talk to five people. And so I've had to learn about people from a very holistic perspective.
Speaker 1:Well, let's maybe return to that. There's a couple of things in there that I wanna I wanna explore a little bit first though. The the first thing is the is the notion then of of human systems. So from a point of working with organisations and distinct from the individual, how do the systems of work play into the sorts of conversations that you're having?
Speaker 2:So if you think in terms of culture as three sort of big buckets, how we define the way we do things around here. You've got a bucket around the leaders. You've got a bucket around your systems, and you've got a bucket around your messaging and media. And so I'm listening for all three. So sometimes the challenge is that the messaging that you're sending out is confused.
Speaker 2:It's chaotic. It's overload. It's misdirecting. From a systems point of view, how you pay people, how you reward, where they can live, how they can work, if you say you're a cutting edge organization, but you can't log on, how is that aligned to how we work around here? And then the lead is the other big bucket.
Speaker 2:And in terms of impact, it used to be very much that, and I think it continues to be, that the behavior of the leaders has the biggest impact on understanding what we do around here. So I will be listening for not just the HR systems, but the structural systems and the messaging that sends. So it it's it's understanding how business systems work, how people infer from that, and where the clash points are gonna be coming. So as you're teeing up your major change, if it's all about innovation and it's all about working slicker, then you need to look at your practical sides of, well, do your IT systems need that?
Speaker 1:Yes. So see you have a situation where you've got all of those things like interweaving into a into a complex Yep. System with a series of individuals that actually become more of a network in that sort of situation. And then you introduce technology into that and you introduce this notion of and I'm gonna put I'll put it in you know audio inverted commas transformation into that. So what does complex transformation mean to you when you're bringing, whether it be technology into that system or whether it be a change of whatever nature into that system, what what does it do to the system do you think both at like network level and individual level?
Speaker 2:So I think it really helps if you understand a bit more about how people see change and the response to it. And so there's two very distinct ways of looking at change. Firstly, change is very energetically costly. You know? If you think about the way nature works, in order for us to put change into a system, it it requires us to find additional energy to do something.
Speaker 2:And when you've got change that requires new learning, that's gonna be a complex that's quite a risk you know, you're having to respond to that. But then there's the other type of change, which is change which is seen as a threat. And so there's change for opportunity, and there's change for threat. When you're putting a transformation in, depending on where the individuals are, they will perceive it from two different places. What does this give me, and what does this challenge me against?
Speaker 2:And so when I'm working with organizations, what we're trying to do is look at how to navigate that place where when humans are in a state of threat, they stop learning, they stop adapting, and they stop engaging. Okay? So one of the critical things around transformation is to understand what it is you're displacing through that process and how leaders can start to bring levels of reassurance into that. So instead of the human capacity being focused on a survival response, it then starts to pivot into an opportunity response, and that takes time.
Speaker 3:And I see, you know, it's the sort of the CXO community say something like thou shalt be digital, don't explain it to anyone and everybody just sort of sits there and sees stuff going on and nobody actually explains it to them, what it means for them, their role in the new system, etcetera. I think what you're saying there is it's the forgotten reassurance part of the process which is let's talk to the humans, let's explain it to them, let's rationalise it, allow them to work it out because you do get these things where people are just sat there going, I don't know what's going on, but I can see everything changing around me. It's nice, yeah, that that goes into a threat response and they shut down in a particular way where you actually need them to be adaptable for this to to work for the organization. It's the forgotten communication because it's a little bit harder, isn't it? It's like, it's easy to talk about a plan, it's easy to get technology implemented, it's much harder to talk to humans in an empathetic fashion I've It feels
Speaker 1:messier, doesn't it? And it's, we spend, you know, those of us who particularly have got careers in technology typically have more stem like backgrounds educationally. Generally train the technical and you spend your whole career training the technical muscle And then and then perhaps it's only when something doesn't go well or or you get to later in your career and you sort of zoom out a little bit that you're like, actually there's a whole other discipline around working with humans whether you call that leadership or whether you call it you know what you know whatever you call it. It's it's it's it's Being a human. Being a human within a system.
Speaker 1:Human to work with humans isn't it? Yeah. But it's it's just as skilled and learned, isn't it, Fiona, than your technical skill?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think that's what one of the key messages that I would sort of wanna share today is that human beings are remarkable, and they're complex, and they're incredibly sophisticated. But if you're going to be driving clever artificial intelligence, then you need to up your game on emotional intelligence as well. And I think we've done a very good job, as you said, about lining up and teeing up something that feels inert. But it's the human response to that.
Speaker 2:It's about whether you're actually gonna get the benefit of the changes that you're driving in. It's whether people are gonna adapt, adopt, use, connect to, and that takes a whole different level of systems integration. And, you know, and my piece around the uncertainty is really key because the longer humans don't like uncertainty. And one of the reasons we don't like uncertainty is if you understand the biology behind it, it's when I say it's costly, the way it runs is takes you from a place of stress, which is a motivator, to distress, which is a chronic state and a and a hoover of effort. And so what you're looking to try and do is you're navigating through these big change projects is is to create enough of an impetus that people connect and they're engaged and they're curious.
Speaker 2:So there's times when at times you they call it eustress like euphoria. Eustress is to increase to a state where you're actually more engaged. But I think what happens is when human beings come to work, they're coming in with all of them. So if you're in a situation where you've got a lot of change going on in your home environment or you've got a lot of change that's going been going on in the office anyway, and now all of sudden you've got an IT system change that's coming in over the top, you have a natural capacity for being able to process that and it ranges depending on individuals.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay? And so when you're working with teens and when certainly I go into working with teens, one of the first thing we're looking at is trying to understand how does their stress response work and where's their capacity for change. Now if you understand that, you're able to start to start tailoring your interventions. And
Speaker 1:and any in your work with leaders over the years, know, going right back to the large organizations and all the way through to now. And and I don't mean this in terms of I'm I'm trying to like unearth an ignorance in leadership necessarily. But what would you say in terms of the percentage of leaders?
Speaker 3:I don't think it needs unearthed, Dave.
Speaker 1:Do you think it needs unearthing?
Speaker 3:I I don't think it needs unearthed. I think a lot of leadership you look at it you just go that's quite obviously not very good.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm sort of going in that. I'm actually sort of going there Rob. So you you kind of read my mind on it which is how many leaders do you think in your conversations innately understand some of the things that you're saying? So like I get it. I I just like I need some more tools
Speaker 4:to be able to deal with it.
Speaker 1:Or how many conversations roughly roughly in percentage terms are you basically like going have you ever talked to a human before? Like do you do you understand that your organization is actually a load of humans? You know, just just give us a give us a sense of your experience of that.
Speaker 2:I would say so I've I've been very lucky in some I would say there's different where people are critical to your success, and then that's not just a corporate narrative spiel. I mean, when they are profoundly critical, then that tends to be higher up the radar, the awareness of it. Okay? Where they're less important, so maybe it's around they process what you create, but they're not really part of it. They're not your product.
Speaker 2:There's less awareness of that. So I think this sector dependent and organizationally dependent as well. So if you're working in an organization where, you know, I know from working with organizations like BP, you know, people are on the ground and safety really matters. You know? And and so when safety really matters, you have to really know how to work with people because your license to operate depends on that.
Speaker 2:Right? And any kind of large scale big operation that is, you know, that that has big risks. Yeah. And so I would say those types of leaders absolutely understand that unless they have that connection point and that capacity to connect with people at that level, that actually that's not just a soft skill, that's that's a business that's a business imperative. So it does vary.
Speaker 1:And maybe for listeners that have not had the privilege of going through like a coaching process, I just digress onto that for a second. I I'm lucky enough in some of my earlier days, I also worked at BP and had some amazing coaching and I've I've I've been lucky enough to be in that place. What is a typical coaching journey? You know, just just sort of the the practical parameters of how something like that functions. Just give give the like listener who might not have been through that process just a glimpse of what it's like and I'll I'll maybe put a slightly finer point on it which is one of the things that surprised me when I went into the process was how psychologically it was about me.
Speaker 1:Like I that that is something that I just sort of didn't see coming.
Speaker 3:It's always about you Dave, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Have you seen that brilliant meme online from Star Trek The Next Generation where it's Beverly Crusher and she's on the she's on a deserted bridge of the Enterprise and and she and she's sort of wandering around mystified about where everybody's going and she's like and goes she goes, well, there's nothing wrong with me. So there must be something wrong with the universe. Like, is that what coaching is like?
Speaker 2:I I definitely think light bulbs go on, and there is no doubt that the higher understanding that leaders have of themselves, the more capacity they have for connection, empathy, understanding, compassion, all of those bits that are needed when you are putting a system under stress. So if you a coaching program would need to start with you if you are gonna grow those kind of skills. And and I think, you know, the type of things that we're seeing and the challenges that we're seeing come through is that, you know, it's it's not just about what you learn to do. It's the person you become through leading. So it's not just about tools and techniques.
Speaker 2:There is a honing of sensitivity and understanding that goes with it that I've seen in remarkable leaders. And so a coaching program typically would start from a place of helping you understand how you work. Because when you understand how you work, then you're much more likely to be able to understand how it feels for the person on the other side.
Speaker 1:Very well said. And another another aspect of this, of of the dimension you're talking about, I I thought was in a, there's a really good paper. I think it's a McKinsey paper. It's been around for probably fifteen years at this point and it's called Change Leader Change Thyself. And it was this this notion of the change starts with you.
Speaker 1:So if we if we return back to to say complex transformational leadership, not not only does it require in the leader them to understand some aspects of themselves psychologically and and therefore you know might stand a better chance of half understanding some other people. But it's about them actually also going on a change journey, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It is. And so, you know, the questions you're starting to look at is well, how do you cope with stress and how do you learn and what environments really do, you know, that and which bits don't?
Speaker 3:I suppose it it it can depend on the type of stress as well. So from a personal perspective, I've been in some really bad operational situations with massive system issues and all sorts and I'm fine with that but delay a flight for me or make me slightly late to the airport and I I just don't deal with it in the same emotional context or way and it's weird because the impact of the first one is massive but
Speaker 1:Leadership starts with self awareness, Robert. Leadership starts with self awareness.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm aware I am terrible at travel stress but operational thing, that was a big part of my career, fine, no issue. But travel stress still still gets me, even though I do a lot of it, still gets me. It's like it's weird this the impact would be quite minor, but, yeah, it still causes me emotional angst. I suppose it's that which is the the different dimensions of where the stress comes from can be quite important as well. Exactly.
Speaker 2:And so one of the tools that I work with, which is a very it's a it's a clever psychometric test because it measures someone's capacity, not their capability. So how much can you cope with? Not whether you can, It's is the bucket full? Because I can be very good at something, but if I have no capacity for it, I'm not able to mobilize it. Okay?
Speaker 2:So what it will do is it will identify for you what situations are stressful. So say, for example, I'm an extrovert, so I like sensory stimulation. I like being around people. That's all really great. If I'm an introvert and you put me into an environment that's high sensory stress, you've already stressed me out.
Speaker 2:So the whole concept with stress is it's very personal and it's very environmental. And the skill that when typically I'll be working with leaders in organizations is you help people understand how they function. It's like you've got this bit of amazing kit called the human being and the human life, and most of us have been given a car. We're let loose. We've no idea how to drive it.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know? So what you're trying to do is help people to understand stress looks like this, this for me. Recovery looks like this for me. You know? It's very personal, but you can get a very you can get a very fast sense of it.
Speaker 2:And particularly when you're working with critical groups, they're worth, you know, you really do know. If you measure them, then you're on the money. If you don't know what you're dealing with, you're flying blind.
Speaker 1:I think Robert, next time we're on our way to the airport, we should we're gonna conference Fiona in and and then you're gonna explain.
Speaker 4:For a bit of coach here.
Speaker 1:I mean it's case study level interesting Fiona, that's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3:This is a big difference between me and Dave, There's lots of things we have in common, but he is incredibly relaxed about travel. In fact, some of the stories he's told me about how relaxes around travel are quite quite almost disturbing. Okay. And there's me going, well, know, let's just get there, make sure we find the gate and sit there for three hours outside before the plane bores, that type of thing. That's more what I am.
Speaker 3:But it's it's it's one of the big differences between us where it will stress me out that Dave's not stressed about travel and he should be more worried about this and that's big part of it,
Speaker 1:isn't it?
Speaker 2:So typically the process when I'm working with the leadership team is you go through your stuff. So we do your assessment and I sit down and we go, right. Let's unpack you. And we'll have exactly these conversations, Rob, where you're going, well, for me, it looks like this and dah dah dah dah dah dah dah But you don't work on your own. You work in a team.
Speaker 2:Right? And
Speaker 3:so Yeah, Dave. Working in
Speaker 2:a team
Speaker 1:t. Here that.
Speaker 2:Dave's There
Speaker 1:is no I in team, Robert. Dave's
Speaker 3:is a me though. Yeah. Anyway, sorry Fiona we interrupt.
Speaker 2:And so because you're working as a team in a group, what you start the next stage is you get a group of people in and you've done all of their assessments, and then you start to realize that in this continuum of, for example, delivery performance, which is probably kinda what you guys are talking about, they're rather ahead of times, as in three hours ahead, they'll be delivered. There's the just in times, and then there's the consistently late, but totally at peace with it. Okay? And there is a measurement for that. Now if you you've got two people working together on a team, you're already working at polar opposites, and the conflict that can create is massive until you unpack that for them.
Speaker 2:And they start to realize that it's not Dave being really difficult and ignoring your personal needs. It's that Jane Dave's capacity for timing is totally
Speaker 3:It's just
Speaker 1:Dave being chill.
Speaker 2:But there are times when his are advantageous, and there's times when it's advantageous that you're the way you are. So between the two of them, you pull it off.
Speaker 3:This is how I convince Dave. So I I've adapted to Dave and what I say to him is, but if we get there early, you can have a bloody Mary at the airport and you'll be happy. And I'm like and then that that convinces him, alright Rob, let's go.
Speaker 2:So he needs to be incentivized.
Speaker 1:It is worth saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Needs be so I now incentivize Dave to get to get early because I know what Bloody
Speaker 1:you're Mary is an elite trafficking. In a positive way. So let me let me paint a picture for you. So you're heading into the airport. You've you've checked in online, you're like pretty happy with yourself because you got through security nice and quickly.
Speaker 1:You're heading to a bar or the lounge. Yeah. You're thinking, I'm gonna have my favorite airport drink. What's in what's popping into your head?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna be really boring. I quite like I I wouldn't I wouldn't reach for alcohol, and that's not because obviously, I don't
Speaker 1:like a nice mess.
Speaker 2:Why? Would just have I would have what I call a total non coffee. I'd have a decaf oat milk latte.
Speaker 1:Caffe oat
Speaker 2:milk latte. It's it's like a failure of coffee, but it gives me the taste.
Speaker 3:It's like
Speaker 1:a coffee flavored beverage. It
Speaker 2:was. It's like it gives me the flavor, but there's no caffeine, and I don't get on with dairy too well. So I have to, like, create this alternative. That
Speaker 3:is a funny thing. I see people at airports ordering like double espresso shots before they get on a long haul flight and you go need melt that.
Speaker 4:Is the worst thing you could possibly do.
Speaker 1:Or or five pints of lager in the spoons.
Speaker 4:Is that is that yours Robert? At 06:00 in the morning. Yeah
Speaker 3:yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:What's your elite travelling drink Robert?
Speaker 3:I do I do enjoy the Bloody Mary. I think that's a good travel drink but I also enjoy the champagne. Alright. I think that's a good because it's a celebration of the travel and the trip especially if it's a holiday thing, you go for the champagne bar. That's nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That is nice. Marcel, what is your elite travel drink?
Speaker 4:In in the airplane, start with champagne.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 4:But at the airport, only water.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Oh.
Speaker 4:Really boring. Really boring.
Speaker 1:I I
Speaker 4:I I wouldn't must I must admit, Dave. I think I've never been to an airport bar.
Speaker 1:What? I mean, this is a this is a revelation. How?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 3:Is a difference.
Speaker 4:Have food in in in That's in the okay. But I've never I I I can't remember I've ever been in an airport bar.
Speaker 3:This is really weird because me and Dave always end flying from the same airport so we have a lot of experience of airport stress together or my airport stress reflected on to Dave. You always fly from The Netherlands so we're never with you in the airport really are we? Because you're in a different flight. This is why we don't know this Dave. There's a side of Marcel we don't understand.
Speaker 3:We do know he drives us into oncoming traffic but we don't know he likes water in an airport.
Speaker 1:Mean you're You you are bringing absolute revelations into this into this. You are unpicking us.
Speaker 3:This is like therapy.
Speaker 1:We we're learning stuff about each other.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I do. See. That's what we wanna do. Because the more you know and the more you connected, then when it all gets tough, the more you support each other. So, again, it's like, you know, when you ask me, it's like human beings have this remarkable biology and they have all of these sort of chemical systems that send, you know, information out.
Speaker 2:And we hear a lot about cortisol and stress. Mhmm. But there's a beautiful one called oxytocin, and that's the bonding chemical. And you get that from drinking together, from eating together, from touch. And why is that important?
Speaker 2:Because it creates resilience in teams. So do you remember we joked about the whole work hard, play hard?
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Actually, what that did is it built very strong bonds. And teams were able to navigate more challenging situations when they're able to play together and eat together. And, you know, again, you look at the corporate world where we've stripped all of that out and gone unnecessary, unnecessary, but it bonds in a way and what resilience, solo resilience is totally different to tribal resilience.
Speaker 1:Well, let's maybe let's maybe dwell on that because you're touching on something we've we've nudged on the show before which is post COVID hybrid working a good thing or a bad thing and I think on the show we have I'll I'll say we but I'm happy to say I if you want to jump in and and disagree with this Rob. I think I've been on a bit of a journey about my perspective on hybrid work and I wonder what you're saying there is is enlightening because my my initial feeling was it's excellent. Like I'm more productive at home like if I'm doing a day of teams calls you know I can rattle through them it's all fabulous. But what what is missing in the in the clarion call to return to work is the point I think that you were making that it actually is a societal good for humans to gather around things. Whatever that might be.
Speaker 1:Like back in the day it was probably around the fire or something like that. You know Yeah. And now it's maybe the water cooler or or whatever it is and you take that take that out of it. You're taking the soul out of the situation, aren't you?
Speaker 2:I I definitely think this there is a need for people to spend time physically in the same area, and it does make a difference. The challenges that you're looking at is, you know, how to respect the individuals need to live a life that matters to them or in places where they need to be and still be high performing in work. But, you know, your comments around around the fire, well, for ninety five percent of homo Homo sapiens existence, we have lived in small tribal groups deeply connected to nature. And now you think what we do. We spend our whole time indoors disconnecting, working solitary.
Speaker 2:And and that has a huge impact not just on physical health, but on mental health, but in terms of team performance. Those days when you get together in the room and those days when you then go out for food together, those days when you play together, those are all socially bonding behaviors. And that means you know each other at a level that when things do hit challenge, you're bonded at a very different level, and you're supported at a very different level. Now transformation. When you cut through an organization and people suddenly start to lose those relationships because maybe headcount's going down, you are cutting through bonded relationships.
Speaker 1:Fascinating.
Speaker 2:So it has both a pro and a con. And when those relationships are highly bonded, the sense of loss and grief is very different and you can't jump it. You have to go through it.
Speaker 1:Fascinating and so the I I just
Speaker 3:did a quick Google in the background and there's a number of studies that show statistical improvements in human performance when they're co located versus remote. I think it's about balance, isn't it? Because sometimes we need space to allow you to get the time you need with your family and the, you know, when you arrive and when you leave but there's also, I find it so important that what me is like the classic, they're emailing each other and you see this very harsh dialogue going on and then when they actually meet face to face it's a different emotional response to the human and suddenly it's all agreed. It's a classic sort of example that I've seen in the past where you go just using async communication, which is the tool we're all pushed to at the moment a lot more, doesn't always convey the human, does it? No.
Speaker 3:And a smiley face doesn't cut it at the end of your line sentence, smiley face.
Speaker 2:No. And relationships are built on trust. And I think was it Bernie Brown who's used this beautiful analogy? They're like pebbles in a jar. You don't build trust through one experience.
Speaker 2:It's a composite, a compound experience. It's my regular contact with you, and I'm sensing and I'm testing and I'm taking onboard that feedback. And so a pebble goes in the jar. And so trust is built. So this this whole thing around regular contact, regular touch points, that's on you know, trust becomes an underlying of, you know, resilient relationships.
Speaker 1:Let's let's move on slightly because I wanna come to something you touched on a little bit as we've gone through, which is notions of adaptability and particularly the building of adaptive organisations and culture. So we've talked about adaptability in the context of things like the Kernahan framework previously and I don't know whether you're familiar with that and just as a little, if you're not on a recap for those who haven't heard about it, it is a it's by Dave Snowden and his group, Kernahan Foundation and it's a four box grid. It talks about the world of order and a world of chaos. In a world of order you have order itself, which is very well understood, very clear. You have complicated as a as a situation which could be an enormously challenging thing like building an oil rig or a building, but humans have done it a lot and we understand a lot about the sort of the the technical side of things so it can be planned.
Speaker 1:Risks can be understood and it's it's very structured and very clear. You know, this is the world of the waterfall program and waterfall governance and yes, I'm gonna write a three year strategy that I'm gonna hit within a quarter of a percent, you know, three years out from now, you know, the world was a simple place. And then in the world of chaos, you've got chaos itself, which could be the world going into COVID or battlefield conditions or something along those lines where you just have to take a step forward. You don't even know whether it's the right one or in the right direction. And then finally complexity which is about an it sits in between complicated and and chaotic.
Speaker 1:So it's not not as clear as complicated or as messy as chaotic. But also it's shorter time frames around worlds of iterating and learning and responding and in that you can't put a team structure in place that says I know this team is gonna look exactly like this in five years time, and therefore, we can progress with absolute clarity, everybody. The world's messier, isn't it, Fiona? And and within that for me is is the world of why you need adaptable organizations.
Speaker 2:And I think some of the common sort of attributes of adaptable organizations is they generally have this really interesting mix between stability and adaptability. And so humans need a certain amount of when we when it's known, I don't have to run these systems of uncertain. Okay? And so when in the world is constantly changing, it's about how you create a container so there are boundaries around it. And so cultures that I see do this really well.
Speaker 2:They have they're really stable on things like their core purse purpose, their core identity. You know, what is it that holds us? Our purpose, our trust, our belonging, psychological safety.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Okay? So there is a container within which it's okay then to adapt because there's a level of being held in that. You know, if you know the Maslow's hierarchy of beings where it starts from, you know, you need your base, and then you also need at the top of the pyramids. And between that, it's like the container inside that. So you've got the earth and you've got the sky.
Speaker 2:You're, you know, you're grounded and you're reaching for the sky. That's your stability. And once you've got that container established, if those things are solid, then there is space for curiosity. Then there is space for sensing and experimentation because that creates the permission to explore, to play, to look, to grow, to adaptability has a real play energy around it. Well, we don't play when we're scared.
Speaker 2:That goes off the table. Okay? And then and then finally, the the other thing would be about, can you can you sustain it? So are you resilient? Are you connected?
Speaker 2:Do you understand the power of recovery? You know, can you manage it? So those would be the kind of adaptive qualities you'd be looking for in an organisation.
Speaker 3:And you just so something just springs to my mind about when you see people getting stressed or trying to control things they can't control. So there are things and forces in our world that you have absolutely no control over and you have to be aware of and you might have to respond to a situation they create but people who get stressed about things that just can never deal with so it's a persistent anxiety that's never going to go away if you find that anxious. What's your view on that when you talk about this sort of system and the containerization of the world? What's your view on coaching people around the understanding the things you're just never going to be able to influence so don't bother, just be aware they're going on?
Speaker 2:It's very personal. So if I'm working with someone who really struggles with the fact that they're not able to be in control, then you you you're gonna is was that the question? So how do you deal with people when they really they can't control what's going on? If you can find a metaphor if you can find a metaphor that's really helpful, humans are wired for adaption. Nature is not static.
Speaker 2:There is nothing in nature that doesn't adapt, and so you're wired for it. What's going on is a narrative that's going on over the top of it. But in your essence, you're absolutely wired for adoption. And so you reach to them and you ask them, so when you're in a place where you know and you feel safe within that, how is it that you respond? Imagine that container is fine.
Speaker 2:You have what you need to be able to do this. It's about helping them access it. So for one individual, it might be, I need to have a level of routine in order for this to feel safe. For another individual, it might be around, I need to provide clarity to this team because we're gonna be six months, and we're not gonna have any indication. So it's the leaders themselves need to be able to sit with uncertainty at a very profound level.
Speaker 1:Let's move on because I think one of the things that's in a, let's just say, complex world that we live in today and leave it at that, There there is one major thread that for a change we haven't talked about yet in these conversations and but it always comes up at the moment and it is the big high potential, high danger situation of of AI. When you put AI into the middle of a human system. One level you can think, well it's just a tool, know. It is a sophisticated batch job and it's just gonna run repeatedly and it's gonna do useful things in automating things but actually we'll just treat them like we've treated ERP systems for the last twenty years. And then there is another school of thought and this is particularly popping up a lot at the moment with the engineer recently who left Anthropic for example.
Speaker 1:That that AI is going to be a much more impactful thing whether it be on society or organizations or So where where do we start with this Fiona? Like a profound level of uncertainty about what it's going to do, how you get organizations to adapt it to it and also adopt it. How do you get value out of it without destroying the human trust in the situation? You know, where do you even start with something like that do you think?
Speaker 2:I would suggest that the people who are making the decisions about where and how they want to adopt AI are seriously considering as far as they can the implications of that. So there are places where I think if the narrative is we're going to use this to augment, that is very different to we're going to use this to replace. Okay? So you've talked very rightly, Dave, that it is a tool, but I find it quite interesting that we are almost almost personifying it in some ways that it's not. Okay?
Speaker 2:So we're confusing analytical intelligence and speed with life, and they're not the same thing. You know, they they the processing speed, the analytical is great, but the emotional intelligence doesn't exist in that system, but it confuses us. And we are all almost anthropomorphizing it to the point that when I see it on org charts Yeah. You've got people in boxes, and then you have a box that says AI, and the box is the same shape. Now if you put that in front of me as an as an employee, the message I get is you're replaceable by that.
Speaker 2:You're interchangeable by that. And it's to me, it's like we don't understand the value of being a human being and what they actually bring.
Speaker 1:So is there is there a strange
Speaker 2:You know, you have
Speaker 1:sort of maybe counterintuitive situation here, which is the introduction of artificial intelligence is is going to force lead us to think more deeply about what it is to be human.
Speaker 2:I do. So this is my thing. So if you say to me, what is the potential sunny upside is if you take away a lot of the tasks and stuff that I need to do that distract me from being a remarkable people leader, I suddenly have a different capacity. Okay? I have a capacity to learn.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna have to up my game in terms of not just being a great leader, but actually being a better human being. Because no matter whether you're looking at, you know, Deloitte's research, whether you're listening to the insights of Daniela Amodi or Anthropic, when you start to look at the qualities of the leaders of these futures, there is a whole piece around. It's all that soft stuff, inverted commas. So it's about understanding yourself. It's about exercising discernment and responsible judgment.
Speaker 2:You're going to need courage, a lot of it, because you are taking people into a world and environment that you don't know either, but moral courage too. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. You're gonna have to have profoundly good connections and relationships because you're gonna have to lead a group of people who are trusting you, and there is a level of you've never been there before. And by god, you need to be creative. So there's a whole it could encourage us to be better human beings.
Speaker 2:However, if the time I did have that's now freed up is now filled with more to dos, I never get the chance to grow those capacities and capabilities. Okay? So if you're telling me you're gonna free up all this time because the mundane is now being done, it takes time to grow those skills. You know? People don't wake up overnight and go from being difficult to being highly compassionate.
Speaker 2:That's a process. Okay? So give me the chance to become a better leader. You know? There's one other piece I think is really important.
Speaker 2:We have this narrative around it takes away the mundane. Isn't that great? When you are learning something new, it's a high cognitive load, a remarkably high cognitive load, and it all operates in one part of the brain. It's in your prefrontal cortex because you're not working on stored memory. Mundane tasks, we need a certain amount of that because it allows us to slow down a bit so that we can then step in.
Speaker 2:Right? So you still need time for people to regroup and clarify. Because if you want wise judgment at high performance consistently at that peak, they need to have time on and time off because we are not boxes, and we're not machines. We are nature and nature's cyclical.
Speaker 1:Now we end every episode of this podcast by asking our guests what they're excited about doing next and that might be something in their personal life, that they've got a good restaurant booked at the weekend, or it could be something in their professional life. So Fiona, what are you excited about doing next?
Speaker 2:Oh, well, like the idea of a nice meal at the weekend, so I hadn't got that on my excited, so that's now on the list. Okay. So that's on. But I'm gonna be greedy and have two. I want to grow, and I'm in the process of designing a program that grows remarkable leaders.
Speaker 2:And I'm really excited about it because I think you're gonna we're going to need to operate at that level going forward. And I look at the kids coming out of university and they're so bright and they're so capable and we've so dealt them a rubbish hand between COVID as a teenager and unemployment in their twenties.
Speaker 1:Poor kids who went through university during COVID and came out with a degree, but none of the experience of it. You know? I'm deeply sad about that for them.
Speaker 2:And so I want to grow a program that grows the remarkable leaders to support that group of people that are coming through because they're remarkable and they're amazing.
Speaker 1:Do you do you get a sense? I mean, a hugely valuable thing to do. And do you get a sense? I don't know whether this is just my personal experience of what I've been doing for the last ten years, but leadership coaching and training feels like it's dropped away. And I mean that in a very negative way.
Speaker 1:It's like we we used to do this didn't we? Like that was our responsibility as organisations was to grow leaders. I
Speaker 3:think that's a function of available time as well though. So you used to get and I completely agree, there used to be well structured programmes you could stick humans through to get them to the next level or help them out and give them coaching and I I has died away. COVID didn't help where everything was pushed remote, so you used to have in person events and now somebody ran it remote once, worked out it was cheaper and that's the end of it, you don't get the same value And then I think it is just we're we're all so shy on time and availability that actually we can't afford to do it because the systems pushed us to not be able to afford to do it. That's my view on it because I've thought about the same thing which is, yeah, the environment we work in and operate in is quite different for that sort of thing. Personal development has slid slightly, hasn't it?
Speaker 2:So I would agree with you, Dave. And I think the piece that it's it's this bit. If you recognise that people are natural systems, they need time for reflection. They need time for that. And and it's seen as a it's seen as away from their performance.
Speaker 2:It has totally the counter. It has absolutely opposite effect because you're not pushing on the same side of the organism to do something. By getting to do something totally different, you're actually growing the capacity to stand in and perform at a higher level.
Speaker 1:I thought your
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 1:I thought your point in the main conversation about the moral courage as well that is going to be required in in leaders who would who are taking forward, you know, the the technology of tomorrow which is visible and available today. But it's technology that's got such high stakes connected to it. That if you're not thoughtful about how that's being introduced, and and, you know, we we talk a lot on the show about it feels more like an arms race at the moment than it does a thoughtful bringing about of a very meaningful technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It could help. Why could it not help us evolve? It's a tool. It could if it took away stuff that gave us space to then grow that capacity.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know? But what I see is you've now got more time. Let's fill it. And that's that's the that's the place to watch because you're not gonna get the benefit of the tool.
Speaker 2:You're just gonna run people into the ground. Then you're gonna have a narrative that says, see why, you know, the boxes are doing more than the people, but you never set them up for success.
Speaker 3:But this is the thing about rampant capitalism is the the race to get the next iteration of whatever out screws up everything else. The report that came out last week was the or this week was ten percent chance AI will end the human race in the next decade and then there was the big conversation about nobody's putting the morals or the guardrails in place, they're just chasing the capitalistic outcome and you sort of go, well this is it, this is the end arriving, it's that sort of depressing part where nobody's stepping in at the moment.
Speaker 1:That that 10 as well, it was interesting, I saw it, I don't know whether you've seen it, it's it's doing the rounds online at the moment. Where where are we? We're at mid September as we're recording this and there's a great little clip from BBC Newsnight. Now for those that are not in The UK, Newsnight is a is a fairly buttoned up, well researched type of news show and they had somebody on like an you know, an expert in AI on to talk about that observation, Rob. And the buttoned up presenter asks this expert a question like, where'd the 10% come from?
Speaker 1:You know, like is is it 1%? Is it 20%? Where'd the 10%? And the guy's response is, well, look, we know there's a chance of it and we don't really know what the whether it's 10% or whether it's 1%. But he goes you know in the absence of being able to sort of scientifically get that 10% feels like a pretty good assumption to me.
Speaker 1:And this buttoned up reporter goes what? Like 10% do you realize what you're saying? Like you know completely flips out of character. It's a great little clip. Anyway Fiona, that was your first one.
Speaker 1:What's your what was your second excited about?
Speaker 2:I'm studying a course with the Harvard Medical School on the science of leadership, and I've almost finished it. And it's really lovely that what was once perceived as a random art also has a level of science and rigor behind it because I think that's important. So I will sit and I'll talk from a place of, you know, observation, but I like science and rigor and data too. So that's filling my bucket at the moment.
Speaker 1:Well, very good stuff. And I I I entirely concur that the bringing together of, like, arts and science in these sort of situations and emotion as well as technical and things like that are are are so it's so important and it's like it it amazes me how often it's missed. It's more it's more often missed than it is factored in I think And you can and to your point about underlying running of businesses, you can see that in the performance of businesses I think.
Speaker 2:Oh, your your point around the missed is they there is a basic stat that for every major change program, you almost need to overcommunicate the vision and the message by 10 times. It's not even by two or three. It's, like, 10 times more than you think because people just don't hear it because they're so busy trying to process what that means for them. And the repetition of that and the consistency of that allows them to get a sense, well, this is why we're doing it, and they'll stay on track. But it's always underestimated.
Speaker 2:Always.
Speaker 1:Well, on that important note, thank you for your time today. It's been very insightful talking to you and and and making this thing, you know, a little bit more personal, a little bit more human.
Speaker 2:Thank you. My pleasure.
Speaker 3:If anything on this week's show resonates or looks like it's heading for your business, get in touch at realitiesremixedcapgemini dot com. We're on LinkedIn too and we'd love to hear from you. Connect and DM us. Don't forget the awkward questions are the ones we enjoy the most. We love watching the world change while we're talking about it.
Speaker 3:We'll keep tracking it and telling you what we spot. Please rate and subscribe, small things can have a big help. Huge thank you to our sound editing wizards Ben and Louis, to our producer Marcel, our guests Fiona and to everyone of you listening. See you in another reality next week.