Certainty Killed BlackBerry - Dr. Debra Clary on the Curiosity Curve

Speaker A: So right now with AI, anyone that has access to the Internet has the answer. So the answer is abundant and we'll come up with similar answers if we're using similar AI tools. The difference is what AI cannot do for us, uh, is around discernment and judgment.

Speaker B: Hello everyone and welcome to episode 92 of Colors of Tech and Entrepreneurship. My name is, lam your main host today. For those of you who are new to the show. Colors of Technology and Entrepreneurship is a show highlighting the journeys of builders and innovators in technology and entrepreneurship. Some topics, especially in technology, we get technical but we do our best to keep it accessible for most people here. Uh, hm. Today I'm joined by Deborah Clary. And Deborah, can you give a quick introduction versa?

Speaker A: Yes. Thank you for having me today. So my background is three decades in corporate America from Frito Lay, Coca Cola, Jack Daniels and then into healthcare with Humana. And then three years ago I left to really promote the concept of the power of curiosity to transform organizations and people.

Speaker B: Cool. Sounds like you had a pretty long, like you said, three decades, right? That's pretty long. Long careers in uh, with different company. I think many of you would be interested in knowing more about your, your professional background. Maybe feel free to I guess pick whichever company that, that you had a lot, a lot of strong impression. Maybe share with us some interesting stories back in the day when you were working for this company.

Speaker A: Uh, one thing that is, that is quite interesting is right out of business school, I went to my first professional interview at Frito Lay and I thought I was going to be a manager. And so I was all dressed up, ready to go. I had a briefcase and uh, sat down for the interview. And I quickly learned that it wasn't for a manager role, but it was actually for a route driver. It was to be a delivery driver in the city of Detroit, Michigan. Uh, and they said they start everybody at the bottom, no matter where you are, because they wanted you to understand the business from the ground up. And so right out of business school I was uh, driving a route truck in the city of Detroit. Uh, and I did that for about nine months. But it was one of the greatest experiences because I did learn the business from the ground up. That truck became my classroom. It's where I learned how to manage a P and L, how to manage operations, how to build relationships, which really served me for the next three decades in corporate America.

Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, that sounds like a very humble beginning. I'm sure that. Yes, yeah, I, Yeah, yes, ah, definitely. Yeah, I remember there was some time When I was actually still working for like there was I think a management training program at one of the rental car company. I mean it was like very much like, it wasn't a manager, uh, position either. I guess similar to your case, it was like a management training, you know, program so people training to be managing uh, your own branch one day. So, so basically it was just like doing everything. But yeah, it was very helpful in learning and I learned a lot how to do like give like the best customer service back then. I think I still, I think I'm still very much proud of that. Had customers from all over the world and you know, coming to this is in like Flagstaff, Arizona and then just to give them like the best XVM that they could get. So that will still remain with me until this day. Okay.

Speaker A: Similar. So I spent, I ended up spending uh, 10 years at Frito Lay in various sales, operating and marketing roles and then was recruited away by Coca Cola. So I spent another decade with Coca Cola in a global marketing role. So that's where I got to see the world, got to understand different cultures and how business was done around the world. And then I went to the hard stuff, which was Jack Daniels and uh, was the VP of strategy for Jack Daniels and really learning how to position our products against other products, which was a different industry for me having coming out, come out of Frida Lay, Coca Cola. And then the hard stuff with Jack Daniels. And then I got wildly interested in human behavior. I wondered what made some leaders great, some great entrepreneurs, and what made some not so great. So I decided to go back for my doctorate in leader development and kind of order design to try to get underneath how could we help leaders be better? And then after I graduated with that, I went to work for Humana, which was a Fortune 50 healthcare company where I ran the leadership Institute, where the opportunity to take my business background, but also now my new learnings about how do we develop leaders to really accelerate change.

Speaker B: Fascinating. So you said you after working in the consumer goods, right? Sounds like you had three different runs at three different company and then you went back to get your Ph.D. you said in leadership.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, yeah, absolutely. And then I went into actually putting it all to practice the theory, but also the experience I'd had with those other Fortune 50 companies. And so I spent nearly 18 years in Leader development. And then what happened to me one day I was sitting next to my CEO in the boardroom and he turned to me and said, do you think curiosity can be learned or is it innate? I said, I don't know. I've never thought about it. Let me go out and do some research. So I came back and said, guess what? Curiosity can be learned. And he said, oh, that's really interesting. And that was like the end of the conversation. But for me, it was the beginning of exploring curiosity further. I began to wonder, could curiosity be the missing link in organizations with engagement dropping, satisfaction dropping, you know, and just overall productivity dropping with employees? And so I commissioned a group of researchers to study the relatedness between performance leadership and curiosity. And three months later, they came back and said, how'd you know? And I said, three decades navigating complex systems. And so we knew we were onto something. So we went out and did more in depth research and come to find out that there is that direct correlation, meaning if a leader has a high level of curiosity or an entrepreneur has a high level of curiosity, then you're going to see greater performance by the team. And to give you an example of this, one of the things that we noticed this came through Gallup and Gallup measures employee engagement. And in the history of measuring engagement, they'd never seen it so low. Specifically with millennials, you know, those between the age of 29 and 40, how

Speaker B: does they measure engagement, by the way? Like, what's the definition of them?

Speaker A: So there's. It's a. It's a 26, uh, question, Q& A that, you know, that are answers that you ask employees and their standard. And they might. It might be things like, my leader allows me to do my best work at my best work. Uh, I have the resources to do my best work. So again, there are. There are 26 of these questions. And based on that, you get a baseline of what engagement looks like, or in this case, what disengagement looked like. So, uh, specifically, as we dug into the data, we found out that the millennials who are the age 29 and 40 were the highest disengaged. Now, why is this a problem? Well, they make up 39% of the workplace, so that's a significant population. But secondly, these are the individuals that we would normally be developing to take senior roles in the next decade. And they're signaling to us, we're not interested. That's a problem. Uh, that's a pipeline problem. So we did a focus group and we brought in the millennials, and we asked them, what's your source of disengagement? What's your source of unhappiness? And they said, my leader doesn't know me and doesn't care to Know me. And we said, you mean, like, they don't know your hobbies? You're a marathoner or you have a dog? They said, no, they don't know what I can contribute to the problem at work. They just keep telling me what to do. And I have, you know, being on the front line, I have the most information, but I'm least consulted, you think about that. That's something that leaders can change by simply enrolling people to provide their input, to ask their point of view on how something can get solved. So that's a changeable behavior that leaders can implement.

Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah. So you. Did you say you did this research, uh, project at Humana, or this is after.

Speaker A: No, no, I had. Well, I was still at Humana when I did the research, but it was on my own, um, just kind of on the side because I was fascinated with it. When I got the data, I said, I have to go do this work. People need to hear what changes can take place and really to drive engagement, which drives performance.

Speaker B: Okay, interesting. Yeah, interesting. I actually, um, want to hear more about some of your previous experience and then maybe connect with this team of leadership, uh, and curiosity as well. Right. So, I mean, since you have held major operating leadership roles before researching curiosity, which is, I guess now is your main devotion. But what did you repeatedly see inside companies that make you think like, oh, the real problem is not the execution.

Speaker A: It's called certainty. Certainty. And what I mean by that, as leaders grow in their careers and they get more experience and they build more confidence, what comes with that is certainty, meaning they are certain how to solve a problem, they are certain how to grow revenue or how to create, uh, mergers and acquisitions. Right. Well, when you become certain, your curiosity narrows. And what we know is when curiosity narrows, then other things begin to slip as well, in terms of engagement, satisfaction, all those. Those metrics that we're trying to get up. And so when I now work with executive teams, I help them understand how being confident does exude this sense of comfort for others. But what's missing is asking other people to make a contribution to the conversation. So the sense of, um, if you're trying to solve a problem and is asking your direct reports, how can we solve this better? What are we missing? What could be different in order for us to really accelerate performance? So certainty is the thing that tipped me off in terms of going in, presenting an idea, and an executive would say, no, we've tried that before. That's not going to work. But times have changed. Things are moving so quickly that you can't afford to say that won't work here. You need to ask the questions on how could this work here?

Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah. So, yeah, for sure. I mean right now I think we believe people have told me that we live in like the, the age of accelerated age. Actually. I think that's like the way a lot of people have put it for me because, you know, with AI now and then things are uh, moving at a breakneck speed. Right. People was like sometimes. Yeah. So how, how do leaders, I guess in your own way of thinking, how do they. Which how do they I guess create an environment. Right. That fosters the curiosity? Because I know that a lot of public companies, isn't certainty a good thing for them? Especially when it comes to company performance, financial results, things like that.

Speaker A: It's in um, doses. So certainty is good. But if certain certainty isn't coupled with curiosity is when we're seeing major failures in organization. So there needs to be a balance. And that's why the book is called the Curiosity Curve, because there is a right, optimum balance of certainty and curiosity. Right. So you can come into a room, you can have a conversation on the best approach, but before you leave that meeting, you have to make a decision on what action are we going to take. And so everyone is clear on this is what we know and this is the action that we're going to take. So you think about if you come into the room and you just ideating all to. All day long and that's for me, that's fun work but you take no action. You're not driving performance. And since, you know, I've come out of a background of managing a P and L, I've come out of the background of having to report earnings and it's not fun to go in front of your board and not have the numbers that you'd like to have. And so that's why I'm saying you couple this with certainty and curiosity is the formula to actually driving accelerated performance.

Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah. So what is. I, I guess m. Let me see here. Can you give an example, like a real example, when a team's, when a team or company lacks of curiosity led to a bad business decision and what

Speaker A: did it look like when you think about BlackBerry? So BlackBerry was the leader in, in mobile devices and Apple was just beginning to develop theirs and they ignored them. They just said they don't know what they're doing, they're never going to be able to catch up with us. Uh, and the long and short of it is BlackBerry lost its edge. So that's the one thing about being curious, is also understanding what is your competitors doing, what is your market doing, what is legislation doing? You're scanning the external environment and based on what you're learning, you begin to make adjustments to your own products and services. And BlackBerry did not do that. There are many examples of that, but that's the one that's probably most notable because you also look at Blockbuster. So Blockbusters in the, in the 90s was. That's the place you went to rent videos. And then, uh, you know, Redbox, Netflix were still coming out. They ignored them and said, nobody will ever go for that. And again, Net, Netflix is the leading streaming service now and Blockbusters is not in business. So many, many of those, when you're being arrogant or certain, is when you can certainly lose market share, you can lose your company.

Speaker B: Okay, and do you think that, I mean, the, uh, what, what happened to BlackBerry and Blockbuster, was it because of the internal culture, organizational culture, or was it more like the way they were structured? What was it? Or the way the leader left the company?

Speaker A: Yeah. So leadership and culture is synonymous. So so goes the CEO, so goes the executive team, so goes the organization. And in the BlackBerry, the CEO was very certain and confident of the direction that they were going to head. And they weren't taking input from their direct reports to say, hey, this is what's happening in the United States. This is what's happening, you know, uh, in Silicon Valley. We need to be taking a look at it. And he says, don't pay any attention to them. We're going to move in our direction. And so it was the direct failure of the CEO and now taking counsel from those that he employed.

Speaker B: Yeah, makes sense. So, um, Interesting. Yeah. And I think we both know what happened to both those companies. They got replaced.

Speaker A: Absolutely. So when I'm working with, uh, executive teams, uh, first, you know, I have to share with them that there is a direct correlation between curiosity and performance. Otherwise they just think I'm doing something that's nice and fun. I'm not doing this because it's nice and fun. It is actually driving performance. And so once they understand that there is a correlation there, and then the first thing we do is we take the curiosity curve assessment so we can measure a, uh, team's current level of curiosity. And in this curiosity curve, there are four measures that make up the assessment. One is exploration, inspirational creativity, openness to new ideas, and focused engagement. So we know that those four factors make, gives us an overall curiosity score. And we look at curiosity as a system, meaning that curiosity can be learned and curiosity can be contagious. And so the sense of, uh, we know for sure that if we can create an environment where there's more curiosity, meaning there's more space for people to speak up, where questions are welcomed, then that's when we see real change to occur. So we start with the curiosity assessment, and then we go into what are the ways in which this executive team can change their own behavior to actually drive it through the organization. And then six months later, we'll take the assessment again. Another year, we'll take the assessment to see if we're really shifting the culture of curiosity.

Speaker B: Interesting. And when you work with the companies, I assume this is probably big companies. Right. And what's the sample size of how many employees, uh, typically get involved in this?

Speaker A: The largest company, I have two large companies. There are over, you know, 100,000 employees globally. So there is significant players in corporations and businesses.

Speaker B: Cool. That makes sense. You did say that your frameworks. Right. Measures like forecast of curiosity.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Uh, which imbalance is most common among founders and executive. Would you say it's like too much exploration or, uh, too much execution or something?

Speaker A: I would say too little exploration. Too little. And what I mean by that is somebody might come in with a new idea or something that's happening with their competitor, and because of certainty, the CEO might shut it down. Right. So it is kind of the absence of exploration.

Speaker B: Do you have an, um, example of such a thing like that with a moment from a session experience that you had?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I'll actually have. I have the reverse, uh, example in the sense. When I worked for the Coca Cola company, I had the opportunity to be the chief of staff for the president. So it was a huge role, huge development role for me. And so on the first Monday I'm reporting to Tom is. I go in and he is just firing off ideas and. And I'm writing them down, and I leave and I start researching what it is that I thought he asked me to do. So I go back on the following Monday in our meeting, and I start telling him actions we can take. And he goes, oh, don't worry about that. And then he goes into more ideas and I write them down. I go back the next week. So this pattern goes on for about three weeks. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to get fired because we're taking no action on these ideas that he has. So I called the individual that had been the chief of staff before me And I said, tom's going to fire me. He's like, what are you talking about? And I said, I explained the situation. He gives ideas, but we're not getting anything done. And he goes, uh, I should have told you, unless Tom asks three times, take no action. So see, Tom was an expiration and I was in the mode of get it done because I thought that was my job to get it done. And had I had this language, you know, when I was much younger, I would have understood that we were ideating, we were not taking action. So that's an example of someone that was in high exploration, but I didn't recognize it. So the whole reason behind doing an assessment is you get your individual score and you get a team score. So those situations that I just talked about, um, you have language to put around it at they're in focus engagement, they are in let's get it done. I might have to pull them out to say let's explore some more. And any diagnostic tool is about know thyself and know others and that's how you build teams.

Speaker B: Interesting. So they would get like some sort of score and like I suppose this is like different dimension to this score. Right?

Speaker A: And then that's right, yes. And uh, people can, uh, I have the free assessment on my website so people have the opportunity if, if your listeners want to go in and take their assessment, they can do so.

Speaker B: Cool. Yeah. If you want to share the sample of that site or the place, feel free to do that. That's also Craig.

Speaker A: Yeah. Are you able to. There you go. So there's um, my website which is debraclary.com. yes. And so on that site you'll see videos and LinkedIn or different articles that I've written. And in addition to that you can take the free assessment.

Speaker B: Cool. Yeah, Helpful to know. So talking about like leadership, I'm, well, I'm more in like the startup world as well maybe. I'm sure that your principal would probably apply for like both startups and uh, big, big corporation alike. Uh, right. So let's just say in a hypothetical scenario, or maybe this is actually maybe a scenario that I've probably seen quite often as well. So a founder, uh, let's say he has a team of like 20, 30 people. So this is obviously a very small company and I'm talking like a startup, VC backed startup. So obviously they have limited Runway. It's not like a big, big, big 100,000 corporation with like unlimited Runway. Right. So they have a short Runway and no time for like open Ended workshops. What is one curiosity practice. Right. That they can do this week or maybe this month that will improve their decision making capability, help their business move forward?

Speaker A: Yeah. So let me, I'll share a story with you is I was recently working with a founder and he had 13 direct reports. So that I was leading a two day strategy session and I asked them, um, would you be willing to take the curiosity assessment so we can put that in, in the sense of how do we build teams, how do we build a culture of curiosity? So they all took the assessment and at the end of the two day strategy session I then shared the scores of um, the curiosity curve for that team. And what I did is I showed the distribution by, by individual without their name. So nobody knew the name. And so when it came to open to new ideas, one of the things that they had shared during the strategy session is that their competitors were going to the market faster with new products and that they were losing margin, they were losing revenue and customers. So they're in a situation where they need to get more products out. But on their assessment of openness to new ideas, they scored extremely high except one individual. So the distribution was high and one low. And they're looking at that quiet in the room. And then the CEO raised his hand and said, that's me. Openness to new idea was low for him on the curiosity assessment. And I said, share more about that. He says, well, this is my baby. I started this company. It's my re, you know, it's my capital m, I have a note to repay capital. And so I think I know it all and I think I know what's working best. And then I said, well how's that working? Because revenue had slowed margin. Right. And uh, then his team looked at him and said, we come to you with ideas and you shut us down. And the CEO in that moment said, you're absolutely right. I need to be more open to your expertise, more open to the ideas that you have. And so that's an example of being able to understand self and to be able in that moment to show that vulnerability to the team that says, I can do better.

Speaker B: I see. Cool. Well, thank you for sharing the story. Yeah, very true. Well, which made me think. And then I guess this is like uh, a follow up question to that story that you share. So what are the actual signals that would tell employees of such a startup that it's safe to ask a hard question, especially when the uh, founder or CEO is in the room?

Speaker A: So it starts with that founder and that CEO. The CEO to have the mindset of, um, I welcome all questions and when somebody asks a question, you'll ask another question on top of it. Well, what has you asked that question and does anybody else in the room have a, have a perspective or a solution to whatever the question might be? The CEO has to drive the, a culture of curiosity by being open, uh, and welcoming of questions and challenging. Like you can challenge me on my way of thinking. Because when we challenge each other, that's how we get better. It's almost like dissent needs to be a core value of the C suite, that it is okay to disagree with someone's opinion because that's how we get better.

Speaker B: That, yeah, that, that makes sense. Yeah. Uh, very open to change and open for discussion argument. But what if like the CEO is not very open and very, you know, like, uh, gung ho and set on like the way of doing it. So is there anything that the employees can do to change? Assuming we're still talking about like the same small company?

Speaker A: Yeah. So here's what I recommend to people because that is a common thing, especially with VC's founders have, that is to um, is if you have a CEO that is resistant, it's going in with saying something like, I've been thinking about this problem and I'm wondering if we solved it in this way, if that might benefit the company. You know, in the sense of not going at it with I, but going at it. I think this could help the company. I think that we could, you know, out compete or get an edge if we do these things. But you know, you're the expert I would really love. What do you think of this idea? You're approaching it one of wonder and curiosity. Is this possible? That's the beginning. Um, now if your founder may not go along with that, they might still be very narrow in their certainty. Then you have to make a decision, right. Do I have equity and I'm going to get a payout if we get this thing going public in the next couple of years. Uh, you got to look at your own Runway and say, how long can I work for this individual? Do I need to leave now or are there financial benefits if I stay? And you know, a lot of times in startup you're just trying to get it over that point where you can get investors or you can go public or you can sell it. You have to make those personal decisions.

Speaker B: That's fair point. Yeah. And yeah, I think what, what you said is like, basically the employee should go by in uh, a route about Weight which I also agree. You know, sometimes like with leaders like maybe founders with a very big ego, they may take some bruises on that. So if you go about route about way and give him or her the credit. Right. The way you, you put it, I think that may, yeah. Help him to uh, be more open. Cool.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Yeah. Want to switch the direction a bit about. I'm sure if you know nowadays like we live in the day and age of AI, right. AI is what is everywhere. But just wondering now with some of your tech term, you probably work with big companies that like they probably also thinking about AI. I'm sure everyone now thinking about AI. Right. One way or another, AI is making you know, prompt engineering a business skill kind of these days. It's like you need to like some people could actually come to you and be like oh, that could have been answered with a prompt for example. Right. And then. But you, you actually said that the underlying skill for a lot of people just simply be curiosity. Right. So what does a curious organization do differently with AI, uh than an organization that merely buys AI tools?

Speaker A: So it certainly it's a competitive edge and so organizations really need to get on top of this. So right now with AI, anyone that has access to the Internet has the answer. So the answer is abundant and we'll come up with similar answers if we're using similar AI tools. The difference is what AI cannot do for us is, is around discernment and judgment. Which is at the root of curiosity in the sense of um, the leaders that are going to have the edge in the future or the founders in the future is not those that have all the answers, but it's those that are willing to explore different questions in light of the constraints that we're facing and in light of the abundance of information.

Speaker B: Yeah, makes sense. Obviously. Yeah. Nowadays I believe that we have like an overwhelming amount of information. So just like you said, being able to filter and discern and then figuring out which one to take. Right. Which action. So in the end it still fall back on the leader. Yeah, that's fair point there. And then so I guess a next follow up question on. But that relates to relate to AI here. So could AI make leaders more certain and less thoughtful because it produces plausible uh, answers so quickly? And then I guess another related to that, how should team pressure test AI output which are um, becoming slower.

Speaker A: So the, you know, the advantage people have that have been in the, in their industry for a couple of decades is that they have experience and most likely discernment. So when I get Something from AI I just naturally have the ability to say that's true or not true, or I'd have to ask more questions to say, I need you to cite that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Sometimes it comes back and says, you know, I made it up. I. It was, uh, illustrious. Like, okay, that's not going to work for me in the sense that I think people that have experience have discernment. Now, for individuals that are, you know, starting out in their early careers in 20, they don't have that advantage. So my recommendation to them is always is get the information and have a conversation with others that might have a different perspective than you do.

Speaker B: Okay, interesting. Yeah, that makes sense. I. I can see that. Yeah. I mean, you do learn from people with different perspective. Right.

Speaker A: But of course, to say, you know, this is, this is what I pulled from AI, uh, these are my thoughts. What do you think? And that's when you have a conversation and that's when you can get to a better place.

Speaker B: Okay, cool. And then when you're talking about like young people. Right. So I guess I want to ask a question about like, young leaders as well. Like, what question do you. We should more ambitious, um, young leaders ask themselves before chasing the next, like, title or startup or company?

Speaker A: Am I open to having my mind changed? Am I open to having my changed mind? So in the sense of, um, I certainly, as, you know, founders and entrepreneurs, you do have a level of confidence and certainty, but there are so many things that are unknown. And the, you know, the continuous shifting of what's happening with AI, it's. If new information is presented, m. Am I open to hearing it?

Speaker B: Okay, yeah. That one is probably easier said than done, I believe. Right. Yeah.

Speaker A: Because, uh, I mean, it's a mindset in the sense it is a mindset. If you want a successful business, you can certainly have all the acumen that you need in order to launch a product or a service. But unless you're open to changing directions, you, uh, know, pivoting, adapting, you're going to fail.

Speaker B: And then. Hmm, interesting. Well, looking forward in, into the future. Right. But then, as you might have already heard about, right. There might be a day when AI has become like, aware or cognizant. I think they call it like artificial general intelligence, where it's like surpassing human capability. So if that days ever comes, we don't know, it could be years. Right. But I mean, recently there's been news of AI, uh, having their own acting in their own mind. Right. Of course. It's like they typically, they kind of given a Task. Right. When they're in like the research phase and they're trying to come up with clever, creative ways to solve the problem, sometimes the solution might be a bit tricky or like very illegal in the way that they execute it. So I think we would say that, you know, the AI kind of have some sort of a, uh, consciousness. Obviously right now they. Not yet, but when, when we come on that day. Right. So how, what, what, what are the roles of human then?

Speaker A: You know, that is in business. A question. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I would also say that, I mean AI is already more intelligent than, than humans. I mean just the significant advancements that are m. Being made in medicine and space travel. It's already there. But what I think you're asking is what if it begins to take over? Like there was an incident, I think last week with OpenAI? I don't have an answer to that. I don't know. Uh, we'll let the brilliant minds figure that one out.

Speaker B: Okay, good point. Yeah.

Speaker A: What do you think?

Speaker B: I actually think that there's still a lot of things that humans can do that AI cannot do. Right. For example, I mean, AI probably human can still turn off the AI for example. That's like the very emergency situation. I mean, how do you even turn it off? It's going to try to copy, clone itself, but you just shut it down one way or another, maybe use another stronger one to fight it. But of course, uh, when it comes to business though, I actually think that there's a lot of these understanding and nuances like discernment of emotion, language, culture, organizational hierarchies, a lot of these invisible things that AI cannot see yet, unless, unless you have to conceptualize and put it into text form. Because that's what large language models do. Right. They only understand text. So unless you can actually conceptualize and maybe verbalize all of that, then the AI don't have the whole understanding or background. So I, I do believe that there's still way tremendous value for human to be performing work. I don't think I'm going to be running out of work anytime. My being an economics, you know, uh, oriented thinker myself, I think that with new jobs coming, it's gonna displacing some old jobs, but also some new jobs gonna get created. Right. Because now we have people who build AI who have to function, who run the AI and then, and now we have like physical AI as well. Just like you've probably heard of like the robots. And so. Yeah, I think it's. Yeah, I don't think there'll be a day when human will run out to say, there's a lot of these jobs and roles and industry, like, that's still AI resistant, like the consumer goods. Right. Like, give. Give that one, for example. I mean, you work like Jack Daniel, right? Frito Lay. Who's going to be the one doing some of the, like, tasting? How does the AI do. Do the tasting? Right. Come on, like, AA cannot do the tasting. Come on, like, yeah, you cannot replace. There's a lot of jobs that AI cannot replace yet. And maybe robot can deliver the food. How does it, like, create new taste? Deliver. Yeah. So I actually think that there's still a lot of new things. And creativity is like, human has an unlimited potential for that. Yeah. It's probably pretty good on, like, creating and. Well, as soon as I. Not creating, recreating based on what they have already learned, because they learn the whole Internet. So once you learn the whole Internet, right. And then you just kind of reason to see, oh, what have I learned that I can use to solve the question that the user is asking? But most of it is just, like, repeat. It doesn't think outside the box, which is, I guess, is like, where the curiosity. Right. Tying back to the point. I think that's a very innate human nature that we have that I don't think AI can beat anytime soon. Cool.

Speaker A: I agree.

Speaker B: Cool. So, uh, just maybe two more questions here close the show.

Speaker A: Perfect. Yes.

Speaker B: One is. What is one bold question every listener or every corporate executive should ask their team this week?

Speaker A: When was the last time you changed your mind? When was the last time you changed your mind?

Speaker B: Okay. Can it be about, like, personal topics, or is it mainly business?

Speaker A: Well, what you're going for, I mean, it's. You're probably in a business environment, but this. This what you're looking for is your team scanning the environment for changes. Right. In terms of products and services. And so is what you're asking is, what's the latest research? What are the changes in AI? What the things that could impact us in terms of our competitive edge? So that's why that question is powerful.

Speaker B: That's true. Yeah. There's a lot of things packed into that. One singular question. Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, yes. Yes. And what I encourage leaders to do is when somebody asks them a question is to say, I don't know, because what you're demonstrating is vulnerability. And then the next thing is, let's explore it.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Let's explore it together.

Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense. Because a lot of people are very much afraid of Admitting that they don't know. Right. They don't want to look stupid. Right. They think it's actually looking stupid.

Speaker A: But no, yes. We want you to look as though you are in exploration of, uh, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it.

Speaker B: Okay, cool. Cool. Makes sense. Yeah, thanks for that. And then final question. I know you did share your website earlier, but do you have any public handles that you want to, you know, maybe just give a shout out for people to follow you along? Uh, and where can people follow you?

Speaker A: Basically, yes. So you can, uh, follow me on, uh, LinkedIn, which is Deborah Clary. You can also follow me on Instagram, which is Deborah Clary. And then if you're interested in purchasing the book and going deeper, uh, my book can be found on Amazon.com, it's called the Curiosity Curve.

Speaker B: Cool. Yeah, I'll make sure to put all those links in the, uh, show notes here afterwards so that you know, the listener and maybe the viewers can also follow, uh, you and then check, check out your book. Yeah, awesome. Cool. And Deborah, once again, thank you for joining the show today. It's been fun talking about curiosity. I think the Curiosity Curve, which is like your new book, right. I hope everyone can get a chance to check it out. And thanks for sharing some insights on leadership topic and that would be helpful for both startups and, uh, big corporation executive alike. Yeah, thank you again.

Speaker A: My pleasure.

Speaker B: And we back to our studio. What do you think about this episode with Deborah Clary? For me, Deborah ideas that curiosity is not just a personality trait, but a real leadership capability. Really? Stay with me. Especially in a world where AI can generate answers in seconds, the advantage is increasingly in asking better questions. You know, please go buy her book on Amazon to support her. Uh, before we wrap up, I also want to share an update about the show. Colors of Web 3 and Entrepreneurship is now becoming colors of tech and entrepreneurship. Web3 still remains a part of the story and a community I care deeply about. But the conversation I'm most excited to have now go beyond one category, technology. I, uh, want this show to explore the people, ideas and businesses shaping what becomes next across AI startups. Web3, the future of work and emerging technology. The heart of the show is not changing. Thoughtful conversations with builders, operators and curious people doing meaningful work. This new name simply give us more room to follow the most interesting questions wherever they lead. And thank you for being part of this journey. Wherever you are tuning in from, if you enjoyed this episode, uh, please follow the show. Give it a, uh, with someone who would enjoy it. And I see you in the next episode. Colors of tech and entrepreneurship. Thank you.