Robyn Tombacher on making AI transformation stick

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Let's go.

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Hello, Robin! How are you? Welcome to the Work Blueprint!

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Thank you for having me. Hi, Siobhan. Great to see you. It's very exciting. You too. It's a very hot and warm Wednesday. I know, it'

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I know, I'm heading back to Sydney in, like, 2 weeks, and apparently it's, like, freezing, so I'm gonna max out as much of this New York heat as I can. So, folks, I'm so excited to welcome you all to the Work Blueprint. This kind of show is all about, like, talking to the best, most incredible thinkers within the space.

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Today, I am so grateful to be joined by Robin and a little bit of back context for everyone. So Robin and I first met at WPP and then we followed over into the Warner side as well. So Robin, I'm going to give you some context on her background, but Robin, you're going to have to tell the story about your background because it is amazing. So Robin has spent over 25 years helping some of the world's biggest companies.

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Navigate moments that essentially redesign the future of that company.

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She has led transformations at the intersection of people, operations and technology, from modernizing workforce strategy at WPP to orchestrating major agency integrations. And now she's right at the forefront of leading the integration management at Warner Brothers.

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So folks, and not sure if anyone's not reading the news, but it seems to be in the news everywhere I look, with Warner Brothers and Discovery merging together with Paramount Skydance to build the next generation of media.

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So, she's become a really trusted partner at the CEO level, right from board and executive, and we are so grateful Robin has joined us to share some of the learning that she's had along the way. So, Robin, welcome! Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Siobhan. Yeah, I think you got my story pretty well said, but…

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I think as you and I talked about, you know, when we first met, my background and my career is really taking some interesting turns.

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You know, I really did start out, early days in that dot-com era of being a digital producer and creating, at the time, you know, first-ever websites, first-ever digital advertising campaigns, mobile campaigns, social campaigns.

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So, my early career was really spent doing the work itself.

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And then over time, I transitioned into more of a operational management role. I traveled the world, helping to integrate new companies and establish operations and ways of working.

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And then ultimately, you know, continued on that path of operational excellence and leading companies. And, you know.

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probably about 5, 6 years ago.

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I took a little bit of a turn like you said during the pandemic at Wpp.

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when I sort of stepped out of, you know, having come off a very large merger with Wunderman and J. Walter Thompson into thinking about, like, what is that workforce management strategy globally for WPP? And it was at a time when

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We were so used to always hiring externally and bringing in people as needed, and now is the time for us to think about how do you tap into the people that you have.

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How do you cast the right team members? And for me, it felt like a moment to kind of come into a specialty, knowing that I'd really come up as a producer, someone who had to think about how to build the right teams, get the right skill sets and experiences.

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And put them together to deliver great work. So, I took that turn. The last several years, I've been in the people function, thinking about their people operations, their transformation strategy.

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And, only in the last several months have I kind of taken that turn back towards the business to really focus on, like you said, what I'm doing now, which is the integration management office.

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and leading the global business transformation team for Warner Brothers discovery. So it's kind of full circle. But yeah, but as but, as you know, you know, I am a huge proponent of the future of work of where AI is really going to make an impact again, as someone who's like a player coach.

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I really do understand what it takes to do this at scale and in complex organizations. And I think oftentimes that gets missed. Like, there's, there's often sort of this perspective that, like, you could just force something in or dabble your way in. And it really needs a much more, like, methodical and thoughtful approach.

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Yeah. And I think the thing that's really awesome about your background is you understand the technology, you understand the actual business where we're going to be making those changes, and then you also now understand on the people in the HR side. I think that's a very rare breed. And one of the things that I'm kind of seeing in market, you know, globally as well, there's this, like, new formation, this new team. So I think the way I would kind of describe it is that

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You know, companies have had to borrow capability.

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to figure out how to build the AI-powered workforce, right? But really what's not happening is that customers are not realizing that they need to build this capability inside of their own company. So think of like, you know, the important work, consultants do, you know, great work and they come in, but essentially think of them as the bridge, not the destination. The destination is driving this out inside of your own organization and

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If I was to, like, sketch up on your whiteboard right now, I would say you need someone who understands tech, someone who understands the business, and someone who's actually sat within the HR team, so understands how that works, who cares about people.

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Yeah. So like tick, tick, tick, tick. You got it all going on. And this is why this conversation, you know, for folks listening is gonna be so exciting because to have that like empathy while also understanding structurally how to make that change at a big scale is, is incredible. So before we kind of jump into, like, I got lots of things I wanna ask you. Okay. Where do you see the market at? Like, you know, I've got a view of like, everyone is kind of hurdling.

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towards AI without a kind of plan. What's your take on AI and what the world is looking like and where we're going to go?

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I mean, I think it's certainly starting to feel like it's getting embraced by more of, we'll call it like those who are deeply rooted in the business that they do. I think, you know, for the last few years, it's really been a focus for a lot of the people who are on the emerging side of understanding AI.

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And now is really starting to take hold in organizations where people are grasping that this is not something that you can look away from or not be curious about. It really is going to become sort of that currency for career advancement, for business advancement.

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And those who are who are like, you know, ready to go.

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are gonna, you know, certainly be the ones, you know, sort of thriving in this new world right?

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But the ones that are still sort of, like, thinking they're going to get it done just by, like, hey, dabble in co-pilot or use chat GBT, it's not going to drive material impact. Yeah. Which is why, as you know, you know, we started working together because I really

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Loved what rejig had to offer, which is really about, like, for me, and coming back to that COO mentality, that, that, like, person who's

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Connecting the business and the financials and sort of performance. It's really about knowing where you're going to get the most impact.

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in the use of AI versus just using in dabbling for AI's sake. Yeah, and I think that where we've seen the dabbling, dabbling doesn't go well. Dabbling costs a lot of money, you know what I mean, like, with not a lot of outcome. Right.

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Or, right, I mean, and again, I have so many friends who are CIOs and who really understand this space. I think many of them are, like, on the forefront of embracing it, and then it kind of gets, like, stuck at…

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Okay, we've gone, we've…

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you know, we've paid a lot of money for these large enterprise platforms, but we haven't thought about how to pull that through into actually re-engineering work, people's roles, people's responsibilities. Those are the things that are going to make this take hold.

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Yeah, and I think that's where… I think when you and I are thinking about understanding all your work at the task, and it's so…

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task level, nowhere's even valuable to go after because like some things are too expensive or not even worth automating in bringing in AI for getting really clear and then reinventing the work itself. Like that's kind of where we see And to be fair, like you are, right? Like I think there is definitely a maturity shift where most customers were in like POC

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territory, and now they're kind of over that. There's fatigue around POCs, it's like, get it into production.

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And like, let's start seeing the ROI return on this stuff fast. Absolutely. It has to be, it has to become something that's sort of like built into the way of working, into the way of operating.

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And that means removing current state ways of doing work or manual workarounds, and that's the piece that we have to get everybody comfortable about. And, like, it's up and down the organization.

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Yeah, I think as well, like, we're seeing a collective view of CIO, CHRO, CFO coming together. So, like, we had Michael Ficarro on a couple weeks ago on the show, and he's ex-Mastercard, and he said it was like a COVID moment.

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where suddenly these teams have to work together in a way that they probably didn't have to work together since COVID, because, you know, they're starting to see this, like, view of…

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Like CHRO obviously needs to help with driving the change and the work design and all of that. CIO owns the tooling. And then CFO was like, how much money are you spending on what? And what is my return? And modeling on people capacity versus agent capacity. So we used to, when we first started, we sold predominantly with HR. I would say 60% of my buyer and I is CIO.

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And CFO is floating around. I think the CFO is the next tier, because they've… they're the ones with the pressure. They're the ones with, like, how are you gonna manage costs? How are you gonna get efficiency? How are you going to…

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Actually, free up cash to invest in new capability and investments and it's a cycle, right? So the CFOs that are really starting to get this and understand this, I think are much more engaged than they were before.

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And the companies that are going to really, like.

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you know, take off are the ones where all 3 of them come together to your point in that moment of saying like, we have to all own this. It's really interesting, because, you know, when Hr. Folks typically do business cases a lot of the times they feel more like vitamins than painkillers. So to your point, it's like, how do you like? There are so many people that join this show who all want to build this practice. They are so excited about the future they want to build.

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Whatever you want to call this team, like work innovation, work architecture, whatever, they are the folks that are excited about seeing the opportunity in their company.

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Building the capability in the business and then creating like a COE that can sit and feed the business, you know, and help them. So to your point.

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You kind of have to think about why would my CIO care about this? Why would my CHRO care about this? And also why would my CFO care? So the case for this has to be relevant to those three personas now.

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It absolutely does. And then, honestly, like, you have to see the poultry to the P

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Right with any big investment of this scale that's actually needed to deliver. You have to see the pull through. You have to start to model that out and see when is this going to start landing in my performance? I think up until this point companies been have been okay.

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just testing and POCing and trying, but, you know, certainly boards are looking for impact.

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you know, there's just so much more pressure, especially on the public companies, to deliver, you know, that level of margin efficiency. So, you can see that really becoming the next

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phase of of where I think your platform and tool could really be interesting.

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It's… you know, it's funny as well, like, your point about the board, we have started getting requests from our customer base now, like, can you use your… can you give me, like, intelligence that we can send up to the board now? Because there's a whole pile of that happening, so it's interesting… I wonder what's happening in those boardrooms, are they looking at, like, all the tech companies and going, you know, these folks are, like.

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Changing the headcount by, like, I wonder what's happening in those rooms, but we're definitely seeing now this, like, conversation where, and I'll tell you something that's very good. It's not just like, how do we cut headcount? It's actually like, what is the AI opportunity that exists across all of our work in our company?

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what will be the impact to workforce? So, actually, I would say that's the good story, that, like, if that's what they're caring about, they don't just want to be about CAT, it's like, okay, how do I think about the next phase of my

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Yeah, I mean, I recently participated in a training for future board of directors, and one of the areas that they talked about that more boards are interested in are board members who know and understand AI in the future work, and what kind of impact that can drive for the workforce.

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for obviously leapfrogging in, you know, capability and offering, but also in the products that are delivered. So you so I think it's definitely, you know, resonating beyond sort of the boards who were just looking at it in the past for just like, okay, now I can get more cost out of the company.

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And it's funny, because most of the conversations now are, like.

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So as you know, in Rejig, we tell you the task, the subtask. We give you the new workflow. We tell you how to build the agent. And then they want to track what's the actual changes to the work, not how many people are logging into an agent. They want to know how many hours, what's the velocity on the lock, have we actually achieved, if not shut it down.

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So that's kind of new. And one of the other things I haven't shown you yet, but we've got, we can tell you the cost per task, which is based on like how much does this typically cost for people to do. We now also have the models of like, what's the token cost?

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So, to your point about the CFO, the reason that we built that was because we were getting a lot of pressure, because you would have seen in the news, everyone's freaking out, because, like, the cost of agents, so customers are saying, like, how do we think about, like, balancing and projecting

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Like, sure, I'm gonna, like, model like this, but everyone forgot to model in how much blood was costing them. Do you know what I mean? Like, they came, like, like, I can tell you right now, somebody… There's the upfront, and then there's the part that comes underneath it, which is, like, everything that you're paying. I had to, in my team this

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And we are AI first. Like, we are, like, designed from, like, I got no legacy. We have blown out fast on Claude.

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So all of our forecasts are completely wrong. And so a lot of what I was looking at with my team was like, hold on, what is this AI usage that's valuable versus what's just someone

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doing something that could have been done in ChatGPT, some cheaper model, or, like, just Google it. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's, like, literally, like… Right, and that's where it kind of becomes, like, you know, it starts to kind of, like, erode from the bottom of the business, right? But hopefully, to your point, like, you start to create that blueprint for, like.

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What, what and where do you use each one of these really powerful

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platforms and tools? And where can you just

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You know, go with the way that things have been done the last 10 years at least. Yeah, and it's really funny because like I've got to drink my own champagne, right? So I'm looking at this and I'm like, well, hold on a second. Like we got to get across this. And it really does come down to part of where we went wrong was, I don't know if you've seen Claude Design. Claude Design's amazing. So what we've all got is so overly excited that now everything we create in the company has to be designed as a, like.

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we were giving it to WPP. Do you know what I mean? Like, everything is so over the top, like, produced.

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For an email that's coming to me, I'm like, "Guys, like, we don't need to do that." Right? Right? That's the place, for sure. Yeah. Well, because it's just so easy to take, like, hey, we do these rapid docs, which are, like, you know, rapid decision making, and, like, it has to go up for an approval. Now they're getting completely branded with, like, beautiful things, and, like, they're turned into, like, digital make decisions, like… Oh, I love it.

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So I'm always wanting to get that. Like, right. It's all about like presentation that matters every day, all day. But to your point, like it can become quite costly. Ten bucks. Yeah, exactly. So that's and that's kind of where like.

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this is everybody's kind of new. Everything's new. Like, you know, we're building a billion-dollar company with under 100 people, right? And I feel like a responsibility to be really open about where I'm making all my mistakes, because if I'm making them, imagine what's happening in a company with 200,000 people. Oh, yeah.

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can imagine the scale of stuff. So, like, for me, like, part of this is, like, just saying, hey, like, I let go of this for 3 months, and it blew out, like, massively, and that's happening everywhere. And I think, like, given you have led… I mean, you've done mergers, you've done restructures, you're pushing towards AI first.

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given, like, I'm all in for, like, sharing the lessons, like, what are some of the lessons that you have learned on that journey, like, that you can share with folks here? Because there's bound to be a whole pile of, like, things that have went down during that journey, right?

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Yeah, there's a lot of scars laughing and smiling, right? I mean.

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Sure, like, all of these big, massive disruptions always have, like, their, you know, their fallouts, right? I would say, you know, in the past, you could have gotten by by, like, a top-down edict. This is what's going to happen.

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I would say… no longer is that true, especially over the last few years. You know, organizations,

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and the people within them have opinions. They have ways of doing things.

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And, you know, they need to be brought along, they need to be engaged as you go through this change. So, for me, like, the big things that I've learned in any of these mergers, or even deploying new platforms and new technology is like.

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bring people along with you, get them involved, get them to start to see

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for themselves, how this is going to make their lives better, perhaps, and or just do things in different ways. And every time, I think when you do that, you build trust.

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you create a culture that sort of, like, identifies, okay, my voice matters, and then those things actually do deliver, right? Like, when people feel good, when people feel engaged, when they're learning new skills, you're gonna get a higher return.

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anytime that I've seen, organizations, like, push these things forward and focus on the logistics, or focus on even just, like, and again, like, I know I have operations in my title many, many

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companies. If you just focus on the operations, you're just… you're not going to be able to deliver success.

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And most companies, right? Their focus is like driving revenue, retaining clients, seeing growth.

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all of that is, it's part of this like whole ecosystem. Then I do think if you

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if you ultimately Miss that piece.

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I guarantee I can plot for you over my career, over the last, like, 25 plus years. The companies that didn't get it, who have fallen down, or fallen out of even, like, top tier, the ones that did get it continue to thrive, continue to build, continue to succeed.

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So, you know, I again back to, like, all of the things that I have, you know.

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have had responsibility for. I think you know those hard leadership lessons are like you can have a you can have a vision. You can have a strategy, but you have to bring the organization with you, and there's a lot of levers that you could pull along the way.

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It's interesting, like, when you're saying that my brain is triggering me to go be like.

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there's this debate that I've been having with customers where they're saying, oh, but, like, the agent will do it end-to-end, and I'm looking at all the biggest companies in the world. They're not gonna automate out with no human in the loop. There is no way you're gonna, like, vibe code.

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Insurance companies, banks, hospitals. So there's always going to be people involved in doing the thing. And if the people don't do the work, then you are not going to make money and you will have a problem. So to your point, it's not even just the right thing to do. It's actually critical for your business to bring your people on this journey properly or they will not adopt the new way of working.

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And then you have a problem or even worse, like I've had this like I've been kind of watching the media a little bit. I mean, American media is like intense to watch because you kind of get full on rabbit holes.

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But the one thing I've watched is the kind of sentiment shift pretty aggressively in America against AI.

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There is, like, a pretty decent… and the assumption is that the young kids are going to adopt this stuff. No, they're not. They're the ones that are bullying. They're the ones that hate it. Like, it's… so there's, like, a really interesting… when you think

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And if most of the population is empty something and you still require them to complete work, what happens to leadership? Do people listen? Like that's going to be a really interesting theme. It really is. Yeah, I think it's definitely going to be an interesting theme. I would say the role of the human right becomes even more important in this moment as we've talked about.

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I…

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you know, people go from being doers, you know, a lot of times over my career. Early days like I did the hard work. I paid my dues. I did very tactical work, and a lot of times right like we bring in, you know, sort of entry level, you know, employees who

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don't want to necessarily do that work. They want to get engaged more quickly. I think this is going to ramp

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what we used to think of as our doers to be very quickly become managers. They may not be a manager of a human, but they're a manager of the output.

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And I think that will drive a different skill set, a different level of accountability.

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And, you know, I hope that gives people a little bit more like,

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pride in what they do, per se. So… So, like, outcomes? So, like, an outcome is… More, right, more pride in their outcomes versus, like, I did this task, check.

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Yeah. Now it's like, I can really say, here's what I did. Like, when I do my performance review at the end of the year, here are the things that we actually did do as outcomes and deliver. So I think if we could start to shift it more towards that, and again, I keep coming back to that, that people side of things, which is like.

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any way you're going to incentivize people is tied to performance, and, certainly, obviously, always pay, but those are the things that I think ultimately are going to need to start converging in this space to get the real pull-through.

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Hmm. It will be interesting, that pay point as well. Like, what's the ex… if I… if I'm a salesperson, and I'm targeted to book 5 meetings a week, and I book 7,

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Like, what happens in that world? Like, does the expectation shift? And I see a lot of European customers that have workers' councils that they're very strict on, like.

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If you go and change someone's job with AI, the resetting of expectations is critically important, because you know you're measuring someone against

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A new criteria, and if you don't communicate that, and that's one of the things that's been really interesting, like, we've built into the data to be kind of, like, here's a predictive view of how fast we could make this, or how the outcome will shift with the workflow.

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But someone needs to have the conversation with the people to say, by the way, like we're now seeing that like our expectation for our team is this, because if no one says it and then you start performance managing people based on an old, like no one's reset, like that's going to be a, this is why HR is important, right? Yeah, exactly. That's why the role of HR is critical. I mean, it's really about a reset of

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role expectation, you know, instead of measuring meetings, you're measuring output. Yeah. And you're measuring, potentially, I would hope, more

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more sales and, you know, actual revenue commitments. But, you know, I think to your point, like, the old way of managing people's work product is going to change and become much more outcome-based.

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I know those workers councils. Well. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. And they're gonna have to be managed through all of this change. You know, because.

00:24:09.150 --> 00:24:24.230

the big, you know, I'll call it more… the more agile, the more tech companies, companies like Rejig, like, you guys are just going and doing, right? It's the bigger organizations where it's gonna take a real effort to go out and make this material change and get the acceptance.

00:24:24.370 --> 00:24:31.599

Yeah, and it's funny because, like, I've worked across really complex… I'm building a startup, plus I've worked in the tech.

00:24:31.710 --> 00:24:39.469

side as well. And I think there is also, like, a little bit of over-exaggeration, even in how well that's going.

00:24:39.470 --> 00:25:04.160

In some instances, like, I'm a completely different example because I've been able to, like, whiteboard a completely new thing in a different way. If you're a company in any even the tech companies that are, you know, more established, you're still, like, once you get over a hundred people, changing anything is actually, like, pretty challenging because you've got core infrastructure that exists. You've got a whole pile of customers that are there. Stuff just happens. You don't wanna break too much stuff because you don't wanna impact, like, revenue flow as well. So I

00:25:04.160 --> 00:25:19.240

I also think there's a little bit of folks are selling us products as well in the storylines that we read. I actually would much prefer, in some senses, to be on the enterprise side because they've got governance and structure, which means they're not going to just throw it at a wall.

00:25:19.240 --> 00:25:26.930

They're actually gonna have to be pretty intentional about, like, the redesign. Whereas, like, we've done intentional…

00:25:27.040 --> 00:25:42.389

redesign… well, it wasn't even redesign, it was intentional design of the company, like, should we hit 100 people doing the billion-dollar company thing? I don't know, but, like, the whole test is to see how can you redesign a company, and if you look at, like.

00:25:42.390 --> 00:25:55.500

traditional industries, like, look at the media. Anything that has, like, people-fronted businesses, like media, the professional services, these companies are being completely disrupted. Their value position now is so different.

00:25:55.500 --> 00:26:07.870

Yep. In terms of, like, versus me selling a product, like, what's your, like, where do you see the world of, like, all of the different kind of, like, structures of companies going? Like, when you look at, like, the different way that they're even gonna have to work?

00:26:09.090 --> 00:26:10.010

Well.

00:26:10.260 --> 00:26:12.760

You know, the one good thing, right, is that

00:26:12.890 --> 00:26:20.870

The reason that all of those companies in particular that are, you know, people-based are where they are is that they've always had the most talented people doing the work.

00:26:21.110 --> 00:26:36.219

That talented group, you know, is probably driving a lot of what you see on the forefront of those organizations. And then there is the middle tall column, like the back office layer that is fairly consistent across the board at any organization that I've been a part of.

00:26:36.360 --> 00:26:46.689

And I think it's in those areas where you're definitely going to see more need to really, like, drive AI implementation, more need to get

00:26:47.000 --> 00:27:05.279

Change through ways of working, you know, over the last several years we've gone from, like, near shoring to offshoring to automation. Now, AI is that next frontier and that's going to disrupt all 3 of those big sort of levers that have been used around operating models and efficiencies. So.

00:27:05.460 --> 00:27:22.520

I would say, like, the professional services groups, they're, they're definitely feeling it because a lot of what they were doing, at least in those parts of the organization can now be. Really unlocked and leveraged, you know, and leveraging AI.

00:27:22.820 --> 00:27:33.699

Whereas I still honestly believe, like, the people that are doing a lot of the work that we see, you know, on TV or, you know, on an advertising spot, whatever that might be.

00:27:33.810 --> 00:27:41.849

that that comes from creative thought and thinking. You might use AI as a sort of like a thought starter and accompaniment.

00:27:41.860 --> 00:27:59.860

But, you know, that's the part of, like, the humanity that I don't think will change. It's like, that's the superpower that humans have in this moment. I'm your live case study on that. Literally this week, I had a conversation with my marketing team, where, like, I just think all the plot design is great, but it all…

00:27:59.910 --> 00:28:05.389

Looks the same and everyone's starting to look the same and brilliant design.

00:28:05.390 --> 00:28:22.229

and creative is, like, you cannot, like, you cannot beat that. That can't be created with an AI model. And, like, we did our first work with RGA, and we'll pretty much be going out and doing, like, a whole brand, and we were debating, like, do we even need to do, like, a new creative, or do we just scale? And I was like.

00:28:22.230 --> 00:28:27.810

No. We're good. Like, the thing that we wanna have is that quality, that taste, that creativity, and some of the stuff

00:28:27.890 --> 00:28:36.859

Like, on, like, the wording, the verbal creative, the written creative, like, we could never have come up with that in terms of AI. There is just no way.

00:28:36.930 --> 00:28:53.709

But the thing that I think is exciting, right, because I've been in those organizations, is that most of the time, like, companies will create your brand sort of tone, your playbook, your ethos, right? And then they would do all of the work to create all of the assets and all of the ways in which you can leverage that brand.

00:28:53.710 --> 00:29:12.219

That's where AI is interested. 100%. Into a platform or tool, and boom, spit out, you know… Yeah, and now it becomes the playbook for how you sell your playbook, like, everything. That's exactly… so we're pretty much now, like, locked in on that next phase, which is, like, build this, like, I don't know what you call it, like, build us the brand, the creativity toolkit.

00:29:12.220 --> 00:29:22.039

Create me all of the asset, like, and animation designs, and then what we will do is, that's our IP, and then we own that, and then we scale that through, like a cloud design, or something like that.

00:29:22.090 --> 00:29:26.770

That's, that's basically, but I think to the point of like.

00:29:27.160 --> 00:29:45.420

I'm probably right at the front of, like, use AI for everything. I'm very clear on where you meet the taste, the person, like, you just cannot beat that. Like, no matter how much you, like, play one prompt off against and use all of them, you will still never get to a point, and that, I think, is going to be common across a lot of work.

00:29:45.420 --> 00:29:47.970

You know, not just like the creative work as well.

00:29:48.310 --> 00:30:06.870

Yeah, and I think that's where, you know, companies are going to need to make choices like. In those, you know, we'll call it like mid tier or tactical layer channel executions. You can absolutely use AI and that is disrupting for, you know, a lot of the communications businesses that have existed to date.

00:30:07.040 --> 00:30:18.589

But there are other areas where you absolutely cannot, like, rely on an AI agent, and or you start to know that, like, okay, this definitely doesn't look right, it doesn't feel right, and it's…

00:30:18.590 --> 00:30:28.569

it's gonna create, like, a lack of confidence with your customer, with your clients, what have you. So, those are the choices that I think we're gonna have to find ourselves in, and

00:30:28.590 --> 00:30:31.889

You know, most people are learning their way through it.

00:30:33.430 --> 00:30:42.010

And certainly, you know, the organizations that are advising should advise a little bit on, like, here's where you can pull that lever, and here's where I really would say.

00:30:42.010 --> 00:30:58.240

Just don't do it. Yeah. And in a world where product is so easy to ship now, compared to what it used to be, brand is the point where the feeling of your company… like, if everyone looks the same, and product's gonna get to the point where there's pretty much cloning of everything, then…

00:30:58.300 --> 00:31:22.410

That big brand and like how you show up and how you communicate and the experience you give to your customers. And this is not just me talking about rejig, I'm talking about like whether you sell tins of beans or whether you are like across the board, like everything is going to be able to be built so much easier. Like even look, forget even just AI, look at all the robotics. I've got a little bit of an obsession right now watching on social media, like.

00:31:22.410 --> 00:31:36.160

in China, the amount of robotics stuff that's happening, and these robots on the street wearing, like, little skirts and backpacks, it's, like, hilariously funny, but, like, imagine what's gonna happen when you kick in robotics and AI at the same time.

00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:55.480

That's when it becomes like a big thing, right? Oh, totally, right. Like they made movies about this. Yeah, exactly. And we're here, we're almost here, right? And here's me watching them on TikTok. Yeah, I'm like, okay, is this real? Is this really happening? And it's closer than we think.

00:31:55.560 --> 00:32:06.139

you know, it's certainly becoming a real shift for everybody, and that I don't think… I think when you watch those movies, or you saw, okay, that was the future, you thought, okay, like, that's 50 years… Yeah.

00:32:06.330 --> 00:32:14.830

It's probably like 5 years from now. Yeah. And you know what's really great to see. I mean, I get a lucky position where I get to see across the board and multi industries.

00:32:15.070 --> 00:32:23.060

Especially customers who, like, if you sell something to the consumer and they also could be an employee, they're very protective of not doing the wrong thing.

00:32:23.060 --> 00:32:47.949

So, which is a great thing. So like I don't go and work for companies that basically wanna cut X percent. The companies that I work with are like, I wanna be really bold. I wanna keep my head count flat and I wanna increase our revenue profile and I wanna be really bold and like redesign how we're doing this. But I also wanna make sure that I build the capability in my business within my people and make sure I don't leave them behind because the reality will be.

00:32:47.950 --> 00:32:57.830

that the job evolution is going to happen so rapidly, especially when you've now got, like, co-work with Microsoft and things like that are starting to get into enterprise. That's when you go from subtask

00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:00.079

To, like, I'm doing a task.

00:33:00.250 --> 00:33:25.210

Right. And I think that's where you're gonna see a lot of the impact. I think it's not gonna happen as fast this year. I think next year's really when I'm starting to like model and look at, okay, 'cause most companies are not allowing that to happen at scale yet. It's really like when that becomes like an improved governed thing in a big company that you'll start to see that. But I think that's where, that's the good thing I'm seeing in market is that like the folks that work with me are generally the folks that wanted

00:33:25.210 --> 00:33:30.769

do both. Like, they they are ambitious, and they wanna make as much money as they can. Of course. Who doesn't?

00:33:30.770 --> 00:33:35.169

But they also have their people at the heart of it, and recognize that

00:33:35.170 --> 00:33:48.770

there is going to be, like, some talent shortage, but we gotta figure out what that shortage looks like, and then how do you rebuild those people? I mean, rejig is, like, designed as a name for exactly that moment, right? It's, like, that whole continuous loop.

00:33:49.220 --> 00:33:56.590

No, and I mean, again, back to, you know, why your story and your business really resonated with me as I looked at

00:33:56.640 --> 00:34:11.019

You know, where do we go when it comes to, like, defining the future of AI and work? It's because you're, you're thinking about, like, the impact to the work, but really about helping to reskill, helping to re-engineer the work product itself.

00:34:11.080 --> 00:34:23.389

And give the people the tools to continue to, like, okay, if I'm not… okay, now I no longer need to do this Excel spreadsheet, because that's already done for me. What I do need to do is check it, build the insights.

00:34:23.670 --> 00:34:37.089

and, you know, start to see what's going to come next. It almost, to me, was really important, because otherwise, you know, I've been in organizations where it's just, like, okay, AI is the new cost lever, and

00:34:37.630 --> 00:34:39.789

you know, that's the long road to the bottom.

00:34:39.820 --> 00:34:55.490

I think as well, like, when you start going down that path, and if you don't even have visibility of what's changed, it's also chaotic. So, like, there's also, like, a view of… you wanna look at the AI opportunity, predict where to go, have a map.

00:34:55.489 --> 00:35:00.619

That sends you in, like, a direction, but then, like, you don't want a, you know, shot…

00:35:00.680 --> 00:35:19.719

The way I you don't want like all of this like chaotic mess. And if stuff is not working, you have to have a visibility layer to be able to shut stuff down. Yeah, that is, that's mission critical. Otherwise, you're just, you know, putting things into the work process and not evaluating whether they're actually delivering impact.

00:35:19.720 --> 00:35:25.590

You know, as I think about work, that's again back to, like, the levers that we've used over the last few years.

00:35:25.590 --> 00:35:41.800

You know, it was really about, like, move to a distributed model, use teams all over the world, use low-cost locations as much as possible. And while work was pushed to those locations, the work process itself never truly evolved to make real impact.

00:35:41.860 --> 00:35:50.149

in, you know, cost management, in changing people's roles, per se. So I do think, like, this is going to force

00:35:50.450 --> 00:36:06.739

people to think differently about how they're going to do that, and having a platform like Rejig to see that, and to get that real, like, real-time transparency and visibility is actually, like, if… as a COO and mindset, like, that's…

00:36:06.860 --> 00:36:13.750

the Holy Grail, right? Otherwise… You're just, you know, presuming you're gonna get some sort of an up

00:36:14.150 --> 00:36:21.369

Yeah, I've got, like, a little bit of, like, a reaction to, like, the word transformation at the moment, because it feels like a one-time thing.

00:36:21.370 --> 00:36:38.080

It feels like a project. And I think that the world and this work is a forever now. You're not going to do this once and then, OK, we're done. This is where it's like a forever, right? Right. Continue to iterate, continue to iterate.

00:36:38.080 --> 00:36:44.099

Which is also, if you think about, like, the world of when I think about my early days in, like, web design.

00:36:44.100 --> 00:36:54.429

You know, we were using that waterfall methodology. It was like, okay, we did the, you know, we did the design blueprint, we did the wireframes, and we locked it, and then we built it, and then we, like, pushed

00:36:54.510 --> 00:37:06.089

And then, over the years, it became more about agile and incremental and continuation, right? And I think the companies that can start to move past those old sort of

00:37:06.120 --> 00:37:17.520

phase gates and move more towards agile and iterative. To your point, the transformation becomes ongoing and ever-evolving, as opposed to, you know, a one-and-done.

00:37:17.530 --> 00:37:39.530

Yeah. And there's another scenario that I've seen play out. Like someone will take a workflow and then they want to bake AI in for the sake of having AI. So then they're looking at all the subtask level. And in some instances it takes longer than what it was before for the person. So part of this is like, where is it even valuable to go after? Number one, what is the cost?

00:37:39.530 --> 00:37:48.079

Of doing this because to your point, like I design in my workforce strategy where I've got folks in Manila, I've got folks in Sydney, I've got folks in New York.

00:37:48.160 --> 00:38:13.129

And then I have like a lot of agent capacity across my team and some instances it's easier for me and cheaper for me to put something in vanilla versus agent, which sounds kind of crazy, but that's just true. So I think that's the, that's the, that's the business, right? Of like, okay. And then you gotta like redesign it so it's not just like AI for the sake of ai, right? Like, is this even worthwhile? Like, do we even do this enough? Like if I am doing this.

00:38:13.130 --> 00:38:18.110

task, like, once every week. Is this enough for us even to care about, right? Like…

00:38:18.160 --> 00:38:21.970

I agree, and that's where it's… that's where it's… for me, again

00:38:22.290 --> 00:38:24.760

Where are we going to get the most bang for the buck?

00:38:24.900 --> 00:38:32.669

Where are we really going to make a material impact? Where is this, you know, going to be something that is going to drive a real,

00:38:32.870 --> 00:38:36.929

You know, a real improvement in ways of working versus.

00:38:37.160 --> 00:38:54.130

Yeah, like, we could dabble here. We could do this little thing here. Okay, great fine. But like, does that really have any material change? Yeah. And so I think, you know, to your point, like AI, even though what you're talking about is designing at the task or subcast level, there's there's multiple layers of it.

00:38:54.130 --> 00:39:06.970

Right? Like, that's the underlying layer that sits in the workflow itself. But then there's big level thinking that is coming out of, like, the use of AI. I mean, I've always, for many years, the teams that work for me know, like.

00:39:07.200 --> 00:39:14.669

My holy grail is to get a dashboard with real time insights and start to see predicting insights. Yep.

00:39:15.070 --> 00:39:32.889

When I have to look at, like, oh, let's… let's look at how we did last month. Okay, last month… like, that already happened. No, how are we going to do in the next future months, right? And how do we get ahead of that, and how do we start to course correct? What are the key things that tell us we're about to head down that cliff again? Like, totally agree.

00:39:32.890 --> 00:39:40.019

I mean, and I've worked with incredible engineers and technologists over the years who always wanted to get to that point.

00:39:40.020 --> 00:39:50.969

But now with AI, like, they can get there tomorrow. Yeah. Like, here's my idea, like, tomorrow. They're like, oh, we already created something for you. That's exciting. As a business leader, that's super exciting.

00:39:51.200 --> 00:40:04.860

given, like, you've got that view, looking forward, like, 3 years, like, what do you hope organizations have figured out? Like, what are the kind of key pillars that, like, need to be true for this moment to be as good as it could be?

00:40:06.670 --> 00:40:12.310

I think those who are going to hold on to the past are going to get left behind.

00:40:12.590 --> 00:40:20.200

And… you know, working in big, large global organizations. There's multiple agendas.

00:40:20.300 --> 00:40:39.020

There's multiple, aspects to these businesses that are, you know, important and critical, and I think it's really going to require, you know, the leadership at the top to come together from across all these different groups to align on understanding the importance of embracing this moment, embracing this change.

00:40:39.210 --> 00:40:43.990

I think those that you know have carried us to this point.

00:40:44.300 --> 00:40:51.800

are going to start to say, like, okay, wait a minute, like, I… now I start to… I need to be curious, and I need to start thinking about, like, what does the future look like?

00:40:51.980 --> 00:40:54.999

So, the companies that that can, like, release that.

00:40:55.470 --> 00:41:10.620

Going to be great going to continue to evolve and deliver and those that aren't willing to do that or adopt change, I think will become obsolete. They'll, you know, they'll have had their moments, right?

00:41:11.110 --> 00:41:18.960

So I don't know. 3 years from now I'm sure work will look completely different. Operating models will look completely different.

00:41:19.080 --> 00:41:28.059

And again, I think that's only as good as, to your point, what you were saying before, is the companies that think about building those AI COEs.

00:41:28.250 --> 00:41:37.349

building the connections into the businesses and the leaders and the managers who are doing the work and then driving the accountability and driving

00:41:37.350 --> 00:41:49.239

sort of the incentive for performance. Yeah. Where do you think it sits? So, like, you've got, like, IT involvement, you've got HR that are kind of the work design…

00:41:49.450 --> 00:42:01.929

kind of gurus as much as there is the guru, you know, in that, because it's, like, kind of new. Where do you think… like, where would you prefer to sit if you're building out this team? Like, where does it sit? Like…

00:42:02.190 --> 00:42:12.000

I mean, I'm a big proponent of cross-functional teams. Like, I think if it's sitting in one group, you're not going to get the actual pull-through that you need.

00:42:12.180 --> 00:42:20.209

I believe that you probably need to have it come together where it's, you know, either 1 tied into a transformation lead.

00:42:20.360 --> 00:42:28.010

Or some sort of COO or operating strategy. And then it's a cross section of.

00:42:28.130 --> 00:42:38.960

Technology and information, you know, information officers, groups within them. I think HR, anybody who understands roles and skills.

00:42:39.130 --> 00:42:45.869

But then I think, you know, again, I'll come with my background, where for many years I led, like, program and project management.

00:42:45.940 --> 00:43:01.350

where I understood like process, work, product, how to flow things through. You know you used to get. You used to get like a a lean 6 sigma qualification. People understand how to re-engineer work.

00:43:01.390 --> 00:43:09.620

you know, need to be part of it. So to me, it's really like this cross cross section of like athletes who come from these various backgrounds.

00:43:09.790 --> 00:43:21.409

that come together into that AICOE, and then having those, like, I'll call, like, maybe that's the hub, and having the nodes that sit in the business groups, in the business units.

00:43:21.450 --> 00:43:27.810

In the, you know, in the functions that exist in the organization, who are really going to go up and down.

00:43:27.830 --> 00:43:43.509

the chain of, like, what's happening in that group to build out that AI strategy and see it all the way through. Yeah, we do see, like, across a lot of our customers, actually, we see this kind of new team that's forming, under the CHRO.

00:43:43.560 --> 00:44:02.640

So it's like a work innovation team. And it's kind of like — there's kind of — I don't know what to call them yet. But think of them as one is the work architects. They're the folks that are doing the wiring of the company. And they understand the job architecture, the tasks, the rules, that part you said. And then you have these work engineers, work designers.

00:44:02.640 --> 00:44:21.879

They're the ones that are kind of doing that process redesign, workflow redesign, and then they buddy up with the tech builders, like whoever the builder is. Some customers are putting the builders in this team, some are like putting them in the business, some are getting them in IT, doesn't matter, but they're working towards that. That's becoming a pretty common thing.

00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:33.880

that I'm seeing, and even starting to see, like, CIO reporting to CHRO now, where there's, like, this view of capability is, like, agent and people, so it's definitely… I think a lot of people are trying to figure out

00:44:33.880 --> 00:44:53.790

where it goes, but to your point, it's cross-functional. Like, it's… it doesn't really matter where it sits, as long as it's got the expertise and capability to do those parts, right? Yeah, correct. And as long as you're… it's cross-functional, so you're getting that, like, athlete sort of player in that group who can think through all those… those three components, and then it's also…

00:44:53.790 --> 00:45:08.769

to your point, and I'll go back to, like, the agile scrum model, it's like working and sitting with the teams and doing it together in real time, and then doing sprints and seeing where you are at the end of a few weeks. It's really, I think, you know, starting to

00:45:09.190 --> 00:45:16.530

go from, like, just creating something in a centralized function to really sitting and doing the actual change

00:45:16.570 --> 00:45:35.089

within the day-to-day, the way the world works and the business is working. Yeah, the one part I haven't, like, kind of figured out in my head yet is… so, to your point about the bringing the people on the journey, so, if we go and we reinvent a new way of working, let's say a new AI workflow to pay the invoice, you've got 100 people doing that.

00:45:35.250 --> 00:45:51.249

Who's responsible for making sure the 100 people know how to work? So we have built in the product, like, think of it like an SOP. It's the step-by-step guide for folks to kind of be brought on the journey, and they get to collaborate with the SOP, and they get to chat to it if they're unsure, like, hey, like, what part do I do what? So that's

00:45:51.250 --> 00:46:15.669

Yeah. But I'm trying to figure out, like, who's responsible for making sure that folks, one, do that, two, know the new expectations, because that's the part we talked about at the start of this show, right, was how do you tell Jane that, Jane, did you know that we're expecting X nine more invoices paid, or let's say we're not gonna bring in more invoices, where does Jane now spend her time? Like, who, like, where does that part sit?

00:46:15.880 --> 00:46:30.419

I mean, well, one, I think the leaders need to be the ones, you know, reiterating that like we are going to change the way that we operate and work. That doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to lose your your role. You're just going to work and do things differently.

00:46:30.480 --> 00:46:36.640

And I think having the right leaders, the right change agents who know how to drive that into the

00:46:36.790 --> 00:46:47.820

to the groups is gonna be super important. The role of HR becomes super important, right? It's, like, helping people understand, okay, now my job function changed. What is my new job description?

00:46:47.920 --> 00:47:06.150

What are the skills that I have? What are the skills that I need? So it's… I think it's… it's all of the above, right? It's, like, getting the people function, the HR function, to help recast that role for that individual. Yeah. The leader and the… A lot of recasting. Yeah, it's the leader and the manager really saying, like.

00:47:06.150 --> 00:47:09.159

We're we're looking to adopt a new way of working.

00:47:10.140 --> 00:47:24.690

We're, you know, we're asking you to be accountable to help delivering that, and then we're going to make sure to also not just invest in the new ways of working, but invest in you as our employee, giving you the skills, giving you the resources to bring you along.

00:47:24.840 --> 00:47:35.530

Again, that's why I always say it's, like, people who I want to change the way that they're working, I'm gonna get them in a room, and we're gonna start workshopping it, and we're gonna design it together.

00:47:35.530 --> 00:47:45.529

You know, whenever I've had to do something at, like, a global scale, we'll always think about, like, how do I bring in that global team and voices, create a task force and group.

00:47:45.540 --> 00:47:52.499

that can bring different points of view, but shape something together and get to that like 80 20 rule. Yeah.

00:47:52.500 --> 00:48:09.439

When you, when you do that, I think you also create the people become your advocate as you go back out into the organization and they can say, oh, well, you know what, like, I brought them our special needs and requirements and they thought about that through the flow or this is how this is being addressed.

00:48:09.600 --> 00:48:26.189

So there's, there's more like stakeholdering, there's more, you know, collective design that's happening. And, you know, hopefully, and again, I think people start to feel like excited when they become part of it. So it feels like a reward versus like, something's being taken away.

00:48:26.430 --> 00:48:38.069

Do you think, and I don't know what to do about this, so, like, let's say I have all the visibility of all the work that happens in your company, I know the impact of AI in the short, medium, long term.

00:48:38.070 --> 00:48:49.979

do you think, like, we should give that? Like, how do you… do we… should we tell the employees that? Like, what's the… how much do you be honest and try… like, what… what… what would we… like, I… because I kind of struggle with, like.

00:48:51.220 --> 00:49:14.389

how much do you freak people out versus? How much do you know? How much do you know that something is about like on our plan to change and then communicate? And this is again, why, Hr, I think the 2 things bolt in together. One, we're gonna redesign the work. But also we're gonna redesign your path forward. Or what did you call it? Recasting? I love that. That's the that's the at that. At what point, you know, do you?

00:49:14.390 --> 00:49:22.280

have that conversation with people, because I remember when I first started, my very first product was so…

00:49:22.370 --> 00:49:28.530

Like, interestingly scary to me, was even when people were being made redundant.

00:49:28.830 --> 00:49:36.120

And there was a low chance of redeployment and a very low chance, and these were probably, you know, 45-year-old plus folks.

00:49:36.480 --> 00:49:48.069

where there would have… in Australia, they've got laws around age protection as well for career, and, like, there's certain levels of, scrutiny that happen around that, so, like, we were very much so paying attention.

00:49:48.070 --> 00:49:59.339

And what actually was really interesting was that even when folks were being made redundant, they weren't taking action to go in and actually complete profiles and do these things, which…

00:49:59.990 --> 00:50:11.730

I used to look at and think, I think someone's just being, like, genuinely, like, rabid in the headlights, scared of, like, like, what to… like, you know, when someone gets completely, like, just, like… because I couldn't understand how I…

00:50:11.790 --> 00:50:12.899

you know, like, I don't know

00:50:12.900 --> 00:50:36.330

What happens in that next phase and how do you make sure that people are able to move into that next iteration of their career? And if folks are not engaging because they're like, they're afraid or I don't know the reason, that was my assumption. That's kind of like where I sit and go, do I give my data or would that freak everybody out? Do I tell them at the moment that they need it or like, like I'm trying to like figure out like how do I be responsible and what advice?

00:50:36.330 --> 00:50:42.359

You know what, like, I've always felt better about transparency versus, like, withholding.

00:50:42.440 --> 00:50:47.299

But at the same time, you know, it depends on, like, the time horizon for a lot of the change.

00:50:47.820 --> 00:50:50.149

You know, I do think

00:50:50.740 --> 00:51:07.449

There's been fear every time there's something new. Like, I remember, you know, in my early career. I was working for the digital agency, and we are part of a, you know, a conglomerate and a traditional agency. And we were treated like, you know, the, the, the, like, you know.

00:51:07.670 --> 00:51:17.609

stepchild who was not important, right? Like, digital is a nothing. We own the brand. We own, you know, the traditional advertising. We own the client relationship.

00:51:17.970 --> 00:51:32.729

And over those years, like, I started to see, okay, wait a minute. Digital's starting to become more important. Digital's becoming the lead. Traditional, like, branding is less, right? And the people…

00:51:33.260 --> 00:51:51.610

Then I had as friends who had come from that world, either one, they embraced it and they said, you're right, I've got to learn it, it's here now, or the ones who are just like, I don't want to learn, I love what I do, like I love print, you know, I love print advertising. Okay, great.

00:51:51.880 --> 00:52:02.649

But if you don't start to learn in this space, you are going to be obsolete. And so sort of similarly, like, I think people need to understand that this is where things are going.

00:52:02.700 --> 00:52:12.739

have that transparency, but also make sure that, like, you're bringing people along with you, and you're going to help them get to a place where they can start to embrace it. And if they don't want to embrace it, fine, eject

00:52:12.800 --> 00:52:14.540

Okay. Tap out.

00:52:14.740 --> 00:52:18.220

But ultimately, and what I've always seen in my career is

00:52:18.260 --> 00:52:31.409

every year there's a new emerging trend, new emerging technology. You can either choose to like turtle and and like not embrace it and be like, that's a non thing, or you could at least be curious.

00:52:31.410 --> 00:52:38.519

you can engage and start to learn. Yeah. And I think I do think that, like everyone's on their own career journey.

00:52:38.520 --> 00:52:54.090

So, it's for those individuals who are on that career journey, who want to continue to be curious, to learn and improve. Those are the ones that are going to continue to go forward, no matter how old you are. But those who are just like, no, I like the way that I've always done things. Okay, well…

00:52:54.210 --> 00:52:57.340

You know the world's gonna evolve, and either, you know.

00:52:57.690 --> 00:52:59.269

I think that I'm wrong.

00:52:59.470 --> 00:53:23.670

The AI leaders, I think they kind of shot themselves a little bit in the foot because they were so catastrophically negative about the tool they were selling. This was the thing that blew my mind. And then they were suddenly expecting that people would not be petrified and not want to adopt it. I think that was like the biggest failure of leadership on their behalf because what they've ended up doing.

00:53:23.830 --> 00:53:42.510

is slowing down the potential of, like, sure, they're growing at a rapid pace, but, like, just because someone buys the product doesn't mean that they're using the product. And, you know, like, if you could go and sell a whole pile of licenses, people gotta, like, embed this into a way of working, or they will not stay with that product. It's only a matter of time, right?

00:53:42.510 --> 00:53:51.559

Like, I think that there was a lot of fear mongering. So like, it's just going to take your jobs versus actually, this is an enabler to make you better at your job.

00:53:51.560 --> 00:54:02.390

Right? And it was so it seemed for someone like me. So my background, I come from workforce strategy. I come from HR. I have no technical background whatsoever. But here I am building a

00:54:02.390 --> 00:54:27.239

Massively big and opportunistic AI company. Like I am the perfect example of what is possible with ai. And like I was so frustrated 'cause I was like, you're killing it. Like you're killing the moment for everybody to adopt this and embrace it. So my view was like, yes, there will be risks that we've gotta manage, but the greatest opportunity that we have is for everyone to become a builder. Like imagine being able to build like the freedom.

00:54:27.240 --> 00:54:35.959

We're exciting and again, there's always people that I've experienced throughout my career who were like tinkerers who will embrace and build and try.

00:54:35.960 --> 00:54:40.480

And then there are others who just, like, you know, don't have that curiosity, and…

00:54:40.480 --> 00:54:57.249

They do work differently, but for those who do really see the opportunity in this moment, this is going to be really exciting, like build new things, try new things, think about all of the blockers and the barriers that you've had to get work done or do the

00:54:57.250 --> 00:55:01.819

the idea that you thought of, and now with AI, like, it's just a way to unlock it sooner.

00:55:01.820 --> 00:55:04.959

And make a reality. And anything is possible.

00:55:05.010 --> 00:55:13.800

Right? It's disseminated and dispersed. Yeah. When AI first came out, it was, like, Watson, right? It was, like, very contained. Now it's for the everyman.

00:55:13.860 --> 00:55:27.209

Yeah, and what's really funny is watching them backpedal now, where it's, like, they're getting ready for IPO, so it's, like, they don't feel a little ready. Right, of course. It's so predictable, it's, like, really funny, but we didn't have to do that. That was, like.

00:55:27.210 --> 00:55:50.110

You know, one day I'll make my point heard, but like that didn't need to happen. And now what we've got is like a whole pile of folks who are petrified about the opportunity, and now we've got to work harder to get them to adopt into a new way of working, which just causes a problem, right? And I think I don't, I commercially didn't understand that, like you're freaking people out about the thing that you're selling. It doesn't make any sense.

00:55:50.110 --> 00:55:55.040

You know, like, usually, like, you kind of sell it, you don't, like, put people off, so I don't know

00:55:55.290 --> 00:56:17.710

Backwards marketing strategy on that, right? Like, do you know what I mean? Like, what was the goal? To your point, yeah, for sure. Yeah, like, these are not, like, these are smart people, so it was kind of like, I don't know, like, I just, but what is interesting is like, I feel like you, me, all of the folks on this call, we all have a responsibility to work with our companies and make sure that they're gonna be really bold.

00:56:17.710 --> 00:56:29.239

And make sure they're gonna innovate. But also, like, we can also be really responsible at the same time, and make sure we don't leave our people behind. And I think that's the… that's the opportunity. And that's the opportunity. When you do both.

00:56:29.310 --> 00:56:41.980

That's where you win, right? Because companies that, again, the best companies that I've been part of, when you bring people along with them, with you, when you understand their specialties and commitments and contributions.

00:56:42.420 --> 00:56:45.429

And you continue to invest in them.

00:56:45.640 --> 00:56:57.330

they'll drive revenue and growth and new and exciting projects and adventures, right? Otherwise, like, okay, then you just became a commoditized organization.

00:56:57.460 --> 00:57:07.929

That just uses, like, the vanilla adoption of the enterprise tool and the AI solution, for sure. Yeah, and I can tell you, like, just from my revenue growth…

00:57:08.100 --> 00:57:10.440

Companies want to be afraid of companies like mine.

00:57:10.570 --> 00:57:15.300

Like, the speed that I move up, the pace that I'm bringing on revenue, my margins…

00:57:15.470 --> 00:57:34.840

Like, I'm cashflow positive, I'm doing things that a company of my skill shouldn't be doing yet, and that genuinely comes down to good work design. Like, we haven't figured everything out, we haven't cracked it, I'm not, like, sitting here on my soapbox thinking we're amazing, but I can tell you right now, against a big navy ship style company.

00:57:34.840 --> 00:57:36.480

I will win every time.

00:57:36.480 --> 00:57:50.100

Well, right, I mean, but to your point, like, those big organizations need to think with, like, that old kind of incubator mentality, which is, right, it's like, even though there is that big ship that's always got to keep, you know, it's going to keep moving.

00:57:50.160 --> 00:57:52.390

If you do not carve out.

00:57:52.690 --> 00:57:53.680

Money.

00:57:53.930 --> 00:57:56.780

people, support, commitment.

00:57:56.800 --> 00:58:13.270

you will not be able to make those inroads and start to incubate and work in ways that your organization will work. And again, those are the companies that I think are just going to get left behind, because they've focused on the way that they've already been doing things, and then one day they're going to wake up and be like, oh my god, like.

00:58:13.270 --> 00:58:19.640

one, people aren't buying this X, Y, and Z anymore, and the same people have been buying it, and I haven't evolved my business. Right.

00:58:19.770 --> 00:58:20.819

So now what?

00:58:20.950 --> 00:58:37.230

Yeah. And it is really interesting, to your point, the trend changes. Imagine the rate at which AI is also getting better and the capacity available to do more and more work. This is where it's like, this is the worst — today is the worst it'll ever be.

00:58:37.230 --> 00:58:41.590

It's gonna get better every day, so it's kind of like this, like, sudden shift.

00:58:41.590 --> 00:58:59.400

most of the folks that watch this show and listen in on their Pelotons, in the morning, you know, these are all, like, really strong HR folks who are really curious and want to be part of building out this bold, responsible, this new team.

00:58:59.400 --> 00:59:09.219

Given you have worked cross tech in the business, but your heart has sat within HR and you have a fond like connection to that group.

00:59:09.620 --> 00:59:15.410

sometimes I find it a little bit difficult to cut through some of the legacy in HR, and, like.

00:59:15.600 --> 00:59:39.539

I think there is this percentage of the Hr. Population who are seeing the opportunity, and they're running towards it. And they're, you know, they're pioneering. But then there's like a broader group like, if you were to be coaching, you know, the Hr. Community like, what are the mindsets and the things that you think are really important that we gotta learn from you to be taken seriously. If I wanted to build this team, let's say I come to you in the business, and I say, you know, my background's workforce strategy.

00:59:39.540 --> 00:59:58.319

Robin, I think that we need a business line that does this. I've got the background. I can do this. We're going to save millions of dollars bringing in external resources. We've got to do this forever. What mindset and things would you recommend that everyone here, including me, has to have, learn from, et cetera?

00:59:59.730 --> 01:00:19.640

Well, I'll start with your initial point, which was just like the Hr. The Hr. Organization. I do think that Hr. Has rapidly evolved over the last several years. Right? Even from when I, you know, sort of made that pivot into the people function. The people function, you know, is so ripe for modernization.

01:00:19.690 --> 01:00:23.620

Right? They're so ripe for changing the ways in which they do things.

01:00:23.720 --> 01:00:32.599

And so many, you know, HR organizations, they have their centers of excellence, and then they have their HR business partners and their talent advisors.

01:00:32.690 --> 01:00:46.499

And I think the centers of excellence are always the ones that are going to push. They're going to push to embrace this. They're going to push to think about how they use technology, because a lot of what they likely provide for the whole of the organization sits there.

01:00:46.670 --> 01:00:53.619

I think the companies, the part of the business that, you know, I'd love to see start to feel like

01:00:54.010 --> 01:00:57.170

They own this more are the talent advisors.

01:00:57.210 --> 01:01:04.069

all those are those individuals who now are advising leaders and dysfunction groups on

01:01:04.100 --> 01:01:17.820

What kind of change do they need to see in their people? Do they need to see in the output of those organizations and those people? And like, how do you really change that sort of makeup of individual?

01:01:17.900 --> 01:01:32.349

As opposed to, like, what you've always looked like for in the past. You mean, like, HRBP, kind of rural talent? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We are seeing that actually appear as a thing. That's the, that's the key, right? Because they understand, they have the connections to the people.

01:01:32.500 --> 01:01:36.809

And they understand how the work gets done, and they understand, like, who's an up-and-coming

01:01:36.920 --> 01:01:48.940

leader and or who needs some, you know, professional development. And it's in those individuals that I think HR can really get to a place of being, almost like

01:01:48.940 --> 01:02:01.099

the lead for this, you know, AI transformation. The lead for driving real material shifts in organizational structures and layers and spans, et cetera.

01:02:01.150 --> 01:02:07.380

So anyone who's thinking about like, you know, putting something like this into Hr.

01:02:07.430 --> 01:02:16.710

you know, really lean into that group, and really give them all the skills and training that they need to feel like they can advise, right, as new CEOs.

01:02:16.750 --> 01:02:33.529

For sure. I think this is like, honestly, the most exciting career moment ever. Like if I wasn't, if I wasn't doing this, I would be coming to you and I'd be saying, listen, there is an opportunity right now for us to do this and build the capability within our business.

01:02:33.580 --> 01:02:58.550

And we can set really good metrics in place to make sure that the ROI of the team is in place, that we will create an awesome service line into the business, that they don't have to go and borrow expertise outside, that we create a new infrastructure and architecture so our company is running off the same data set so that when we reinvent, it triggers and tells the talent team that actually work has changed. So for me, I think this is the most exciting moment.

01:02:58.550 --> 01:03:04.829

Yeah, I mean, if you are passionate about this, and you enjoy what you're doing.

01:03:04.830 --> 01:03:10.819

In terms of, like, being at the forefront of driving an organization towards a real new.

01:03:10.920 --> 01:03:12.899

era, right?

01:03:13.080 --> 01:03:19.799

Absolutely. And in big companies, there are definitely people who get it and understand it.

01:03:19.860 --> 01:03:24.129

I just think that like, at least in the companies that I've been in.

01:03:24.130 --> 01:03:43.539

I think that, like, we're, you know, we're often the ones advising clients on how to use these things, and you, you don't always, like, eat your own dog food and focus on yourselves. So, right now, it's like those companies that are, that are doing that externally need to take a lens, turn it inside, and start to really unlock, you know, the opportunity within their own organization.

01:03:43.610 --> 01:04:08.440

Yeah. And I think your kind of profile is the perfect example of like what you call it, like a chief work officer or whatever it's being described as. Whatever you wanna call it. Right. Like whatever it is, like there is this role that exists to sit like in the organization. And I think every company is gonna end up having someone like you who will be driving this out. And I think that's, if this doesn't go to plan, like I'm gonna call you , I'm gonna work for you. Please. Yeah.

01:04:08.440 --> 01:04:11.509

And I… so, to your point, though, right? I think…

01:04:11.510 --> 01:04:16.740

What you guys are providing is a fantastic unlock within any organization.

01:04:16.740 --> 01:04:31.929

I think the consultants are helping drive sort of the strategy, but having that group that sits in a company that really can think about bringing together that cross-functional team to go in and really get it done and deliver is going to be critical.

01:04:31.930 --> 01:04:38.029

Anytime you need me to help. No, we are so grateful to have you. Yeah, absolutely.

01:04:38.030 --> 01:05:02.679

I do think what's going to be really important is like how we start to focus on like sharing all of our learnings as fast as possible to the community so that folks get to really start like learning from that. Robin, it has been honestly the most incredible conversation. I could keep you here for hours and days and weeks just talking about this topic. Thank you for everything you do for the community. Thank you for all of the work that we've done together.

01:05:02.680 --> 01:05:15.639

we're so grateful that you've had the experience that you've had, so that you can share it with all of us, and you can find… we'll share with everybody after, like, you know, your LinkedIn and some context from this conversation as well, but thank you, Robin!

01:05:15.640 --> 01:05:22.560

No, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. Always good to see you, Siobhan. Thank you. See you, folks. Have a good day. Bye, everyone.