How Leaders Can Navigate Technological Change
>> Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and others.
TRANSCRIPT:
DOUG: If I had to use two words to describe leadership, I’d probably consider saying Anne Green. So, Anne if you had only one word to say, how would you describe what leadership requires today?
ANNE: Well, thank you Doug. The one word is a cheat because it’s both-and, I feel it represents quite a lot for me. Meaning that first and foremost, multiple things can be true today. And we have to live in that knowledge. It’s not a binary, simple, black and white kind of world. And for leaders especially, it can be hard sometimes, and especially in communications, marketing we are very hard driving, type A, we want to get things done, understand where it’s going, and we want a project manage, but today we really have to recognize there are things that are going to be in the middle and they’re going to be vague or unfinished, or we’re not sure of where the path is going to go. So, embracing the fact that multiple things can be true at one time allows a lot more adaptability as a leader, and that’s just something I’m leaning on more and more. And everywhere I look I see the both-and.
DOUG: Yeah, I like the both and concept because both implies, okay, there’s two things we’re considering, but hey, there may be a third way also that we’ve really got to consider.
ANNE: When you’re trying a scenario plan now in a time that’s so volatile and changing. I mean, the way AI is evolving is just one of many changes. I think sometimes of like opening a fan and every rib is a different possible outcome. So, I look at from the worst to the best and everything in between, and you have to do that kind of scenario planning, but it helps you open your mind to the fact that there’s just a lot of ways that it can go, but it doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t plan. You just have to do more of it and you have to be willing to pivot more, which I’m sure you’re having conversations about all the time.
DOUG: We’ve had to pivot ourselves. Obviously, AI didn’t exist. It existed, but it didn’t exist as a PR must until probably two years ago. And I was hearing stats from Jonny Bentwood at Golan, head of their data and analytics group that Google searches, only 23% of them now result in clicks. Two years ago, it was probably close to 100% because that’s why you search. So, we’re talking technological change, but as a leader that you are, how do you get the people engaged in that without making them feel overwhelmed but still moving forward as is needed in this rapidly changing environment?
ANNE: We want to hold all the exciting thing that will happen with AI or technological change, or just change in general, but there are so many negatives floating around in the ether, and a lot of it has to do with potential workforce impact. It’s been interesting to see some of that dialogue. They’re trying to roll it back from the Frontier Labs, just as they look to IPO and realize that people are quite scared and quite negative. So, I talk about all this because we’re all living through it, and I think we have to look at it and name it and say the mental load is a lot, but at the same time, technology and also just the changing business models, the world, the geopolitical situation, or how supply changes have changed, the changing needs of organizations of clients. If you’re on the agency side, this is all a fact of life, and there are so many things to be hopeful and excited about too. There’s always opportunity, even amid challenge. So, I think when you ask me, Doug, like, how do you lead through this? I think the first and foremost is I want to be open with the people in my ecosystem, whether they’re peers or whether they’re folks that are reporting up to me at any level.
DOUG: That really brings trust into it. If you’re not open, you’re not going to be trusted.
ANNE: 100% and you have to be open and say, hey, there’s amazing things about this and hard things. We are both an organization that’s doing work, but we’re also counselors to our clients. And so, we have to hold it all. So, hold it all, the good and the bad. Let’s educate ourselves. Let’s feel more empowered. And then the other thing that I try to talk about is how is it from our different vantage points, especially as leaders, do we articulate the future we’re driving toward that we’d like to see? And how do we make sure as we work with organizations that we’re in dialogue about, wow, this is what we think is the optimal mix of human and machine and how do we get there?
DOUG: Yeah, and it’s almost has to be avoiding a zero sum game. I have some opinions on different things, like the whole idea for work life balance for people with white collar jobs, which unlike work life balance, that means if you improve one, the other goes down. So, it’s zero sum. You know, it can’t be a zero sum working with AI, new technology, the role of people. The whole idea is to make it more so with all these things that you’ve talked about and all the different choices. It’s not like one or even a binary thing. It’s, you know, multiple clicks along the way. How do you articulate a clear vision when there’s a both-and situation going on?
ANNE: If you’re at a brand that makes a specific product, especially if it’s well known, it’s a bit easier for people to get a handle on what are we? What do we offer? What are we selling? What are we serving? What is our purpose, right? I have been for 34 years as you know, Doug, on the agency side, starting at Burson-Marsteller, Cooper Katz, G&S, I have seen a lot of evolutions of the space. It can be harder for folks to they get very identified with their clients and that client mission and purpose, but we work with all of those missions and purpose, many, many different ones, as you do too in professional services. So, you have to step back and say, well, what are we doing? And I think that’s part of it too, is helping folks understand, you know, how are we high performance and highly human? How do we help companies, the organizations we serve make a real difference in their sectors, change the world. We work with a lot of very innovative entities science based, health based like healthcare, agriculture, and food. So, we try to root ourselves in what that mission is. That reflects many different missions at one time. I think also the vision of what might work look like in the future. One thing I try to do is just read and listen to the podcast and engage and have conversations with my peers across many industries and sectors because we’re at a stage in our career where we know a lot of people and we can have those conversations. And I’m constantly asking and interrogating what are we seeing? What are we thinking? How is the narrative changing? What are we hearing about? What’s that data? What’s the evidence? And then I try to bring it back to the team. This is the latest insight we have. And based on this, we’re still on a course to try to see that interesting interplay between human and AI, where we are still a primary counselor. You know, I try to articulate that all the time.
DOUG: Yeah. And what we found is you really have to be doing it and have your people doing it. So, you can just test what works, what doesn’t make sense. Like, for us, one of the easier things is expediting visuals for PowerPoints and presentations. For example, the reports we’ve recently done, you know, now we actually put real data and there’s no worry that it’s going to pull random data from anywhere. It’s like, here’s the report. What are some ways to give it visual treatment. Oh, that’s a good idea. That’s a that’s not a good idea. Let’s re articulate. It’s a huge time saver, but obviously with agenetic AI and other types of things, it’s going to be changing much more rapidly. What do you see is some of the changes that are coming down the pipeline?
ANNE: You know, we’ve tried to name each of the recent years to help everyone understand where are we in the roadmap? So, two years ago is the year of AI exploration, last year a year of AI enablement. This year we’ve declared the year for us of AI standardization and acceleration. So, what we’re trying to do, team by team, is to really talk about governance, which is what are those guardrails that also allow experimentation and active use for work, clarity and transparency between ourselves, clients, contracts, etc., but also standard operating procedures by account and by client type. What you know I want by end of year and you know, what is it on every given team that I think getting that locked in team by team and it changes and it evolves. I think it sets up a wonderful framework to make it clearer, to let people experiment and push and explore within boundaries, to make sure the work is being done properly, to make sure the governance is there, but also as, as you said, as agenda capabilities evolve, as new capabilities evolve, there’s a framework already where AI is a team member. I don’t have to anthropomorphize it and say it’s a team member, but it’s a part embedded in the workflow. And I think that, to me, is going to be one of the most critical things, in addition to more hands on, trying and iterating, and really seeing where it’s making us better.
DOUG: Yeah, it’s also different depending on whether it’s a regulated industry, a government agency. So even if a team has optimized their operations, you know, it might be different depending on what the client’s needs are, comfort levels, guidelines, rules. And some of those are by law. Some of those are internal. So, that’s something it’s important to be upfront about as well. Based on our discussion, I know we talked about you spoken about leadership being so important. Do you think AI is changing the role of leaders at all? Shifting it?
ANNE: There’s a famous philosopher technologist in the bay area named Stewart Brand who has been around forever. He created the whole earth catalog. He’s been just a really interesting voice. And I was listening to him being interviewed by Ezra Klein recently for his new book about maintenance, which was very interesting. Doesn’t sound like an interesting topic, but it is, but he said that one of the things he observes is that AI will help us more than anything understand what it means to be human, which is still a big unanswered question. And I thought about that when you asked that question, Doug, because I think a lot of times, we don’t spend much time being mindful in our role, like I really want, as my people grow to have a moment to reflect, to say, what does it mean to be a leader now? Like, what am I bringing to my people? What am I learning? And my I self-aware? Emotional intelligence? And what is it that we’re bringing? Like how? What? What is that we’re doing that special, or unique, or what are those leadership skills I want to pass on to others? So, in some ways, I’m really hoping that having this mix of tools and really having to ask ourselves, where is human the big upside here, and where might machines be better? Like, ultimately, maybe machines should be driving. We’re not so good at driving humans. Maybe we should have autonomous vehicles, but I feel like I would love to see more leaders having that chance to sit back and say, oh, what is the right mix? How do I raise up? And what is that role of a junior account executive look like today? How do they become the orchestrator of a lot of information without losing mentorship? I think it gives us a lot of chance to step back in a thoughtful way.
DOUG: That’s so fascinating. I think, you know, to your point, creating these opportunities. You know, your job as a CEO and leader has to evolve as the times change. And that gives the opportunity for others to grow. and that goes all the way down the line. Any final thoughts you want to leave our audience with.
ANNE: The idea of having these tools that have the programmed intelligence, and, you know, it’s still a bit of a black box. The fact that it’s not really understood fully how they even do what they do in terms of large language models, but so many people now have a space in which they can kick ideas back and forth. I mean, sometimes I feel like writing is the absolute least interesting thing that generative AI does. There’s so much in the tech stack, there’s so many other powerful tools, but just to have something you can train to go back and forth from a leadership perspective and say, this is my hypothesis or my idea, or this is a challenge I’m having, challenge me, give me divergent thinking. Support me now, give me the opposite. I think it’s amazing and it’s something that we really haven’t had access to, so I hope people take advantage of that.
DOUG: That’s great. Well, I hope they take advantage to the great thoughts that you’ve shared in this conversation. Thanks so much for being with us.
ANNE: Thank you, Doug.
