Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Dr. Frank Gonzalez - Cultural Architect

Hi, and welcome to Decoding AQ, helping you to learn the tools, mindsets, and actions to thrive in an ever-changing world. Hi, and welcome to the next episode of Decoding AQ. With me today, I have Dr. Frank. He is a culture and talent leader. He's known for turning people strategy into business strategy. He's got more than a couple of decades of cross-industry leadership, and he shaped large-scale learning ecosystems. He's redesigned organizational culture and delivered thousands of learning experiences worldwide. In a new role as Chief Culture Officer, but much the same, he is deeply centered around humans. He blends data, empathy, design, and builds inside organizations where we get performance to grow together. So, welcome to the show, Frank. Hello, my friend, Ross, and listeners, my friend from across the pond. Thank you. And at the recording and conversation of this timing, it is Friday Junior, Friday Eve, as I like to say it. So, I hope you're having a great Friday Junior. If you nurture it and care for it enough, it'll turn into a real Friday and a weekend, hopefully a renewal on purpose for you. Well, that's interesting. We, we now work a 4-day work week. So Thursday is actually, you know, like a Friday for me in that respect. We actually didn't start off that way. We started off 5 days and then, you know, 7 years ago, there's lots of talk about it. So we did a quarter on, quarter off, quarter on, quarter off. And we tracked how people were feeling, what the results were. Got feedback about it. We did that over sort of about 5 or 6 quarters of quarter on, quarter off, quarter on, quarter off, and let the team decide where do you want it to land. You've got the experience now, not someone else's report. What do you want it to be? And we are a 4-day work week. So today is a Friday for me. Oh, beautiful, beautiful. Then nurture it more, nurture it more. It'll be a full-blown Friday for you then, my friend. Indeed. Now, as we were getting set up, I, I still can't, um, quite get over how your son smashed something that I don't even know if I know yet. And that was the definition of love. Can you tell me that story again for our listeners? I think it was just an awesome story. Yes, you know, along with all the, the, the the nuances of work life, right? Is I— yes, I am a father and I'm a husband. I'm a person. I'm a human, right, as others. And Ross, I was sharing with you about— I learned much from my son as I do anything else. And I really, really appreciate learning something new daily, if I can, minute by minute, that would be optimal, right? Yeah, I— it was, it was a kind of a troublesome day. I just, you know, work-wise, I'm human, you know, I'm reacting to things. And I was in a bit of a funk. And my son was explaining to me what he loves and who he loves. And I love this. And as children do, maybe the overuse of a word. And I kind of looked back at him. And I said, I asked, do you even know what love is? He paused, looked at me very directly and said, Yes, when you care about someone, you know. And he just paused again and said, what's your definition? How do you— almost as, you know, accusatory— how do you not know? And I was like, the beauty in the basics, as you and I were talking about, the beauty in the basics can come from those very foundational things, regardless if it comes to human behavior, which we tend to, you know, over-explain and try to quantify, qualify everything, and whether it's in business or in your personal life, as that situation was. And I was in awe. I was in awe. I was like, I can't with this child. I can't. Somebody. And it's lovely when we can witness moments like that because they're happening all the time, but we might not see them. We might not be ready to hear them. And I think the challenge in work is just that, right? It's hidden in plain sight, a lot of these nuggets, a lot of these things that can help us overcome some of the problems that we're facing, some of the challenges that we're facing when we are able to just pause, able to simplify things out. So tell me a little bit about, um, why did you join a new role? You've joined a new role recently. What were some of the drivers behind that and what is it that you're working on right now, Frank? The, the simp— there's usually two simple drivers, and I know many folks, you know, whether you're a seasoned leader, a consultant, uh, or, or somebody who's emerging and building your skill sets, we're often just gravitating towards what's pushing or pulling us. And in everything, if you really truly believe in it, everything happens in season and for a reason. And I was at this time pulled into something where a number, you know, I work for an enterprise that is in just a number of different industries, restaurants, construction. Of course, we have our corporate, our corporate setting. We're building upon that with other things as well, telecommunications. I mean, if you name the industry, we are probably the holding company of, or at least trying to get into it. And it's almost a mixed bag of my history. Professionally, I first started in healthcare, and I've gotten into insurance and investment and the quick-service restaurant industry, a bit of private consulting. I've been in an emerging part. I've been in so many different things, a mixed bag. And it's almost as that we're here to learn, earn, and return. So it was a mixed bag of— You know, I really can return things that I've learned in this phase right here. And one of my biggest focuses is really around capability building. It's my passion. It's my love. The foundation around that is cultural anchors. You know, as a, as a, as a cultural architect, as a people enthusiast, cultural architecture and Cultural anchors are the bread and butter, right? But what I really love and what I get passionate about is the ability to be able to build capability. And that's not just pie in the sky and sitting behind a computer sending out emails and, you know, strategy decks and update this, update that. And what's our newest sales report? And what's this? What's that? It's really the opportunity to be able to strategize implement, but really be the executioner in many a times too. So I deliver these workshops and coachings, uh, one-on-one or team, and, and be able to get into the trenches of this with various leaders. Everybody's a leader, by the way, of course. I, I really truly believe that. Um, but whether it's you're, you're just entered into their, um, their career intentionally or by accident through our cultural ambassador program that I've built out, which is many, many skip levels, frontline folks on the register, on the grill, fixing cars, selling cars, building things and construction at the frontline all the way up to your seasoned C-suite executives. That part is amazing. That's the big work right there is the phased approach around capability building that we all Enjoy. And let me tell you, Ross, I'll say this. I learned just as much in those as well, right? When people add that perspective, much like my son did, when they frame something a different way, I always tease and I say, you know what, let me write that down. Let's put that on a t-shirt. You know why? Because there might be some royalties in there for you and I. But really, that was just an amazing way of framing all this jibber jabber that we're throwing around here. And I love that piece of it. I never ever want to lose that. So, it was really the opportunity to be able to be immersed in that day in and day out, my friend. Yeah. You shared the sort of 3 phases of earn, learn, and return. I've heard versions of that, earn, learn, and serve, which is very similar, right? Yes. In listening to you, what came to mind was the fact that these aren't distinct buckets. That when we're serving, we're also learning. When we're learning, we're also earning. And they're all blended and merged. And so, what you were describing there of, "Oh, I might be showing up serving. I might be building capability, but at the same time, I'm learning back." And that blend was just really fascinating for me. So, the two things I'd like to unpack a little bit more. One is you mentioned culture anchors. So let's start there. Tell me a little bit more. What are they? What do you mean by that? And see if we can get a 7-year-old language level so that I can understand it. They're, they're to me, and there's many definitions, but for me, they are your catchphrases, your wows, but they really guide your ever being and your values as well and how you show up, because culture is how you show up. So there's an easy one too. Culture is how you show up. And when framing those things right, you need those cultural anchors so that you go back and you use those words and you put the behaviors on how you show up around those. So for many years, I didn't have that language. But most recently— and well, recently, let me buy say, subnote, that's when I say recently, it was like 15 years. It's been, okay, now I get it. Yes, it's using the behaviors that are already there, right, wrong, or indifferent, to then frame your 2, 3, or 4 words that will guide that. So for me, I'm a cultural architect. I'm a people enthusiast. That's me. That's my values, both personally and professionally.. And I always have to work towards that. Cultural architect, meaning, okay, gimme the parameters and we will build what you, how you wanna show up. We have to build that, right? And like an architect, you, you set the parameters with your vision and I will do a needs analysis, right? And download that with you. But said differently, if I were to explain that then to my son, I said, I'm a fun builder. That's my, that's my cultural anchor. I'm a fun builder. And my son probably would agree. He's like, I'm also his coach in sports. So he'll say, you are greatest coach. And I say, well, why am I the greatest coach for you? Because you're fun. I'm like, OK, well, hopefully you all are developing as well. Because when it comes to work, those cultural anchors are those words. And then we can help align and actualize those values day to day. So in the past, I've used things like, OK, I've listened to the executives. I did your listening tour. I do skip levels. I said, OK, I think what you're getting at, and if I were to summate that, it's connection, brand, workforce. Those 3 words are important for you. Those are going to be our cultural anchors. And that's going to help us prioritize and adapt as well any initiatives, any activations in the foreseeable future. But notice those 3 words are easy to use. We just have to maybe put some behaviors behind it and make it look all sassy, right? And visualize, right?. But that will also help us prioritize by saying, okay, we're going to get into this new contract, we're going to do this new initiative, we're going to have this new product launch, we're going to have this— does it align? And just ask a simple yes or no with our workforce, our brand, and our connection. If you can only say one or yes to one of those, well, that's a low priority. If you can say yes to two of those, then maybe we will show up, but it's not still on the high priority. But if you say Yes, all three. You absolutely have to show up. Right. And most recently it's the same thing. Yeah. You know, I shared with a CEO, right? I asked, what's your one word? A cultural anchor. There you go. What's your one word that will differentiate your enterprise, your business? What's your one word? And they had the time to think about it and had to come back and okay, it's hospitality. Okay, what are some other words? What are some other things that have gone on? What, what do you think are some of the downfalls, pitfalls, opportunities, as you would say, that we can probably anchor, that we need to work on? Oh, okay, uh, it's communication, it's making great decisions, it's collaboration. Okay, there's your culture anchors. Hospitality will be in the middle, but these three, this trifecta, has to be balanced. With every single level of your organization. Those beautiful organizations that we read about in books and, and listen about podcasts and say, oh, I would love to work there the way you're framing that. I would love to work there because everybody down to your administrative staff, up to your C-suite and your owner, you feel that. You feel those words in whatever cultural anchors that they're talking about. But if you don't have cultural anchors, It's a loss. Yeah. If I understand right, it helps give a filter, right? A filter from all the distraction, all of the noise to make decisions. And it also is a feeder in terms of to the mindset. And so how you show up, right? What am I feeding my mindset with? Doom scrolling or abundance with this person, with this person, with the narrative from here? Because the truth, what is truth? Well, in my perspective, my truth might be very different to your truth. Where is the alignment? The piece is inert. We'll give it a truth. We'll give it a sense. So that cultural anchor then as a food, what am I consuming? What am I looking for? A filter, does it align? You know, hell yes, all three. As you described, as it comes down. And then what I like about what you were describing is, how do I live it? How do I live that word? So if I start to understand it conceptually, then it becomes behavioral when I understand how it shows up. So if, if the word is co-elevate, well, what's the behavior of co-elevation? And that helps us work with that. If it is contribution, what does that look like in behaviors? And that reinforces again decision-making mindsets and the ability for all levels to get it, live it, and feel it, I think, is a very valuable but quite tricky thing to do, right? Hence why there's roles like yours. Oh, yes. The steward of behavior. Whoa, there you go. There's another cultural anchor. I literally just thought about that right now. So what happens then when a storm comes? When things are going well and we're making decisions because we've got things working, things happening, abundance of opportunity, all of that, cool. The reality that many organizations are facing right now is a lot of uncertainty, a lot of, well, we're not sure. We used to have yeses and nos. We would know things and it was a bit like last year, repeat with a tweak. Bit like last month, repeat with a tweak. Bit like last quarter, tweak, repeat. Now, as I mentioned, the podcast I was listening to before, you know, someone who's right in the middle of some of these technological advancements, themselves being wowed on a weekly basis of what the capabilities are. How do we, or how might we best navigate that challenge in the way that we're sort of designing workplace cultures that can adapt? Is it those words that adapt? Is it the behaviors that adapt? What is it that shifts around there to ensure relevance, right? I think you— it's always funny how when we're Talking like this, usually the last few words are the jump-off point or the headline. I would say what you just said, the relevance. It's the fear of relevance or the encouragement of relevance. I'm going to use your words right there because as the adaptability, we'll put the adaptability in the AI. It won't be artificial. We'll say adaptability. But through adaptability will surface or manifest your inner fears, your fear of being left out, your fear of, as they say, I don't think it's popular anymore, but FOMO was a thing a couple of years, for a couple of years, right? Fear of missing out. And that's what it is. But it's also the encouragement by which it's utilized. And that never happens, Ross, where you were talking about earlier at the very beginning and you were pondering and you're saying, when the storm comes, right? That never happens, friends, does it? Does it? Okay, of course it does. That you go back to the framework, you go back to that framework, and that's very, very useful. But when you're talking about things as artificial intelligence and culture and things, there's still some simple framework in humanity that comes up a lot of times. I'll give you all one is been very useful for me. It's CAR, C-A-R, or CAB, C-A-B. Humanistically, right, at the very foundation, we all want flexibility. But at the same time, we also want conformity, which is so funny. We're so funny like that. We want simplicity and flexibility, autonomy, but we also want some bit of order to go with that. The duality. Been very useful for me, at least. How do you build the C is how do you build capability or competency, confidence, competency? How do you build autonomy for folks, whether it's through trust, giving them that decision, right? The level of authority, creating the framework around that. Okay, Ross, you are at this level in this department, this doing this within this industry. When things happen, you have the absolute confidence and also authority, autonomy, the A, to, to make the decision as best with the information you have. What's wrong with that? But also the R or B, either one interchangeable, are relatedness or relationships and belonging or connection, because that's also how we weather the storm. And there's actually, uh, for folks that are out there, you can find— I love to provide fun, fun nuggets that are out there. Okay. Find the resistance to change assessment. RTC. Resistance to change assessment. Simple. Many of the frameworks out there talk about our human capability here or our, our reasons for why we are resistant to change. Because if you can surface those, then we will be more adaptable, as you say, or not be so fearful of being opted in or opted out. And the resistance to change really comes down to we're emotional creatures. We're very short-term focused because that's how business has taught us. We have our weekly updates, minute by minute, our quarterly financials, right? We're very— even in politics, it's 4-year terms, right? 100%. You know, it's all short-term. 110%. Yes. We're very, we're very rigid in our cognitive ability. We always— we tend— not always, sorry, those are absolute words that I don't like to use. Always, you always, never— those, those three I try to avoid. But we tend to gravitate towards our past experiences. Oh, it just— it's tendency. Yeah, right. So we're emotional, we're short-term focused, We are cognitively rigid. But last but not least, we're also very routine-seeking. That's the hugest oxymoron when it comes to cultural design, whether you layer on AI or any other trends or last year's outlook and how it kind of jumbled up and the emergencies we're having now, or it doesn't matter. We tend to be routine seekers. But at the same time, we want flexibility. Yeah. Right? So how do we do that? These cultural anchors, this framework, any framework will really help us drive that. And I'll end here, Ross. I'll end here. I actually had one and I thought about one. I wrote this one down just for our conversation. Okay. I wrote this one down. Culture. C for the curiosity over fear. So designing environments where questions, experimentation, and learning are expected. They're expected. Experimentation expected. The U, use case studies to tie to real work. So how do you apply all the, the best practices? Well, case studies to real work, individualized for your organization, or if you're a consultant, individualized for the organizations that you're working with or for, right? The L for learning velocity. The T for trust by design. How do you design trust in the organization? So another thing I do is I do teach or facilitate part-time for Cornell University. And one of the most popular courses that a lot of people take is actually organizational design and the fundamentals around that. And we often talk about the culture and the trust and the collaboration communication around there. So the trust by design is a T. U for upskilling, my fun one, capability building, right? So upskilling at scale. So starting You know, you can build inclusive access around AI fluency, human skills, new career pathways, use it in fun ways. Ro, Ro, reimagination is the R. And finally, but not last but not least, would be the E, the ecosystem thinking. So all those C or all the culture of that C-U-L-T-U-R, very individualistic. Now you have to bring it back to the ecosystem. —in the ecosystem, in the environment. It's interesting, you know, a lot of when we did our initial research and our model that is ACE, ability, character, environment, you know, the things around abilities of unlearning, we might have to unlearn our identity. So who am I? What am I? If that's no longer relevant in the world, you know, certain roles have become not relevant anymore, been replaced by other things. You know, a computer was a job role. Now it's a physical thing. How many other things are going to shift that I now have to decouple what my identity or how I perceived my value for a new way I contribute and show up? But I'd like to, um, post something that I'm thinking about, and I'm not sure it's right now, but it's going to be sooner than many people think. And that is where We're talking a lot about humans and where workforce equaled humans. And humans then were multiplied by enablers such as technology. We had, you know, knives and forks, we had fire, we had various things, tools to do more efficiently, more predictably, and, you know, increase our capability. A computer increases our capability. We can do more things. And we would have designed workforce structure, org design, culture, upskilling to do that for humans. For a human to provide a task, a role, a collection of decisions that work together to do tasks to increase the outcomes and outputs in some way of value. Now, we're entering in where the tools can operate by themselves, as opposed to, ah, that pen can't write by itself that you're holding, right? And you using it with your level of capability will be different to me, different to a poet, different to a Shakespeare, different to whatever. But the pen is the pen. We have software and programs that we focused on. Okay, there's features and abilities in the technology to do stuff, but given it to this person versus this person has multiplier effects. We're now— the workforce and what defined as an employee that had roles, responsibilities, tasks, outcomes, numbers, KPIs, we will also then be giving that to what was previously thought of as a tool, a piece of AI, AI technology. McKinsey have now said, we've got 20,000 in our workforce that are AI agents of our workforce. And they talk about and discuss them as workforce. How might we best bridge to that future from a cultural perspective? How do we onboard an AI agent to embrace the right culture impact? How do we onboard a person who's working not with another person who's emotional, who's rigid, who's these sorts of things, but is program-led, that is parameter-led, that is, you know, an inert, or does it have personality? Do we build a personality inside these AI agents? So I'm curious around this merging of not the complexity of teams that is made up of humans, but teams that's made up of humans and let's start with stage 1, white-collar level AI technology in a digital format, and then we'll take it next level after that. But what's your thinking around culture with those components in teamwork? I wouldn't say it's completely merged. I would say it mirrors, right? It mirrors, and it's still going to be data in, data out. Let's simplify AI and humanity, right? It's going to mirror. And is there capability around that? What would it look like on the onboarding in a mixed workforce? And am I— have I thought about things like that? I absolutely have. I absolutely have. However, or add to, it's still about parameters, right? So if you find something important culturally, And there's a formula. So I'm going to mix the two. There's a formula for organizational behavior. It is the personality of your most senior leader. And personality is thoughts, feelings, behaviors. Behaviors I'm always focused on, but deep-rooted in feelings and thoughts, right? Personality of your most seasoned, your most senior leader. Plus the values of your organization, the ones that are encouraged and the ones that are tolerated— tolerated being the not-so-great behaviors— plus the actual values, or should I say, uh, value system that your organization has. Those things added then make up the organizational design or output of your organization. So yes, you absolutely can use that, and that's what it would look like. You know, you can come in day one, what is— what's important to you? You know, being autonomous, uh, trustworthy, transparent, genuine, you know, using all these kind of words that actually are representative behaviors. Okay, what are the values and systems that, that I, that I want, and what gravitated— like you started You told— you asked me, what, what, why are you starting this new role? What do you have focused on? Right? So it's, I love people. I'm a people enthusiast, a cultural architect. Okay. What are the value systems here? What, you know, will I tolerate? Will I not? And then you have this personality profile. It builds, but it still has to be modified just like we are as humans, has to be modified day to day. And, you know, on those kinds of things, because Let's, let's just do it practical though, too, Ross. Let's not overthink it. Google came out a long time ago and then it became a catchphrase before AI. And we said, oh, just Google it, just Google it. So was it going to take the place of libraries for a bit? You know, like, just like Kindle took the place of Barnes Noble or other bookstores. I mean, come on. Then we circled right back as humans because the day-to-day office space, which I I'm in the trenches many a times. People will come to my office and I've actually seen in other folks' office, it says, if that's something that could have been Googled, give me a nickel for every time you ask that, right? So it's a tool, yes, but it will mirror the behaviors and the data or the behaviors of how we show up. In the office spaces, that's why in organizations, AI is still failing though, too. And that's an unspoken truth that you won't find very often. I published two videos recently, and it's really funny if you go to, you go to my LinkedIn, TikTok, or Instagram, I publish these just free. And I look at research, I geek out over research, Ross, and I look at research and I try to simplify it in a 1-minute-or-less video. What were the individual factors? You know, what were the outputs? What are the lessons learned from this, etc.? One of them was before the explosion of AI, and it talked about in this research— these are all, uh, doctorate research, um, you know, articles that I look at. I look at the parameters and I, okay, make sure it's, you know, quantifiable, qualifiable, practical, etc. And they talked about how AI, or the emerging, or what's coming around, you know, around the corner, AI It will only be encouraged or fail by your most seasoned leader. Yeah. How funny is that? Yeah. The mind— I looked at that and it was like, yeah, because if your leader is like, yeah, go use that, go use that trending AI stuff, that's really great, and all that kind of stuff, then nobody's going to do it, just like any other tool. Yeah. We have, you know, in our, our name AQ AI, AQ before AI, you know, your ability to adapt is the biggest indicator of adoption of whatever that may be, right? Your ability to unlearn, mental flexibility, what's the environment, do you have psychological safety, do you play to win, play to protect? All of these different things are impacting adoption. It's not a technological issue, it's a human issue and things. So, if we program and onboard AI in the same way we do humans, We have humans that do that quickly. Some take a long time. Some on a Monday are pretty good. By Wednesday, they're not so good. On a Friday, depends what happened to them at home. So the way they live and show up, even though they've been onboarded and programmed and given the catchphrases, given the behaviors, let's hope the reward structure of the company also aligns to those and there's not a disconnect between what they actually celebrate award, reward to what they're saying they are about their values. Let's say all of that happens. Now, the potential when we are then in a room where, ah, Miss Goody Two-Shoes, she's always on it, makes me look bad. And we have influence, we have politics, and we have all sorts of human elements to that. Now, if all of a sudden part of that workforce is now not as fallible as humans. I got a bad night's sleep. This has happened. This has happened in my personal life. Whatever it might be that shows up, and they show up consistently all the bloomin' time. Will we resent them? Will we champion them? Will it make us look bad, look good? Where will it fall within the pecking order, within the influence order that, ah, I listen to it because Frank said it, I listen to it because Frank showed me the data that is my language, or I'm not listening to it because it came from AI, or I am listening to it because it came from AI. How do we navigate that kind of real traction of the— yeah, of course we can program it in the same way, input the pieces. What happens in the dynamic then when you've got two very different operating systems than collaborating. Mm-hmm. You're still looking for the— another C in culture would probably be the consistency. It's still the consistency, my friend, because I would almost argue that AI is not that consistent. Again, limitations on the platform. It's still evolving. It will search on trends, but it has to be prompted to search on trends. And some are limited by what they can, what they can find. And others are prompted to say, do a global search, look what's out there, use this, use that. And the parameters are much grander. And I'm not talking about paid subscription, and I am not endorsing one platform over another. But if you were to sit two humans next to each other with AI, give the greatest prompts ever, very similar, but one person chooses to use a different word, that word then shows up as a different parameter, that minute change will have huge implications downstream. And I've seen— same way it does with humans. Same way it does with humans. So will they resent each other? As long as there's consistency, then you have the routine seeking, and through it, through routine seeking comes comfort. But you're talking more as when people are already there, Ross. What about the pre-onboarding or hiring part of it, the scoping, the talent acquisition and sourcing part of it? If you're looking for a certain profile, then the cultural ad becomes huge, right? Because those nuances come not necessarily from similar thought leadership that happens sometimes, but personality, the diversity, clashing or clashing. Within each other. I don't care that Miss Goody Two Shoes is always on it and AI is not, so long as there's consistency and we are a true adaptable organization. I want to be part of that competition. Another C for you, right? I want to be a part of that capability building. We are a true learning organization like that, and it's only modeled through another great behavior that I did see a year or two ago where in a town hall one of the CEOs for a company that I was working with actually shared his AI experience and utilizing it and showcased that he really was a learner first and said, hey, I used it for this and this was the output and I didn't understand it. And then that behavior, once again, Ross, then trickled down and now we all want to use it, right? It comes accessible on down. So it doesn't matter. You're talking about those workplace nuances that are going to be there regardless. But now we need to factor in talent acquisition and sourcing as a good way, right? I optimally want to be this organization and this and this. Build me a personality profile, then build me a rubric by which I can hire this optimal person and then onboard them so that they mesh well with the AI bots that are already here, right? And we all get along because then it's great. But that doesn't happen because there's still the human factor somewhere in there that is creating inconsistency. That's just my guess. We've built the systems currently around talent management through the lifecycle of dealing with humans, and that sat in this area of responsibility in an organization. And now there's gonna be a component that is Well, how does that function? Is that now IT's responsibility to upskill IT to understand the human side element that they're doing to implement these agents or things? Or is it HR's got to get upskilled in IT level to understand how to make the best, use the right words, set it up in the right way? Friction between functions is what you're talking about, Ross. Friction between functions. Not only— Marketing is rewarded for creativity. Yeah, right. When legal is about order and ensuring that nothing— and then you've got that, who was responsible? It's, um, well, uh, that was an AI, why that happened, that issue. We see it in the media currently, you know, where things went wrong. Oh well, it was a failure of this, of the system, not of Sally or Peter, but of AI. AI. And did AI lose its job or not? So there's going to be a who's accountable, who's responsible alongside friction. But then we've got another phase. So at the moment, we're in, you know, oh, I want it to do everything, it doesn't really work very well. I think it's a tech problem, but it's really a human problem. We're figuring all of that out. And that will happen at the same time of, oh, yesterday, what it could do is different to what it can do today and what it will do tomorrow. And that's a really interesting thing to I tried that, it wasn't very good, let's move on to— you tried it when? Last month? All right, let's try it again because there's a new piece. So that in itself might be a challenge. But then the next component, so if we take healthcare as an example, and, you know, my parents recently have had— they're reaching that age where the healthcare, different surgeries, different things are on the agenda. On the, on the menu and at various points. My father went through a knee surgery a few years back and he went and they were initially saying, no, you need a full replacement and all the various components of that. And he wanted a partial because the recovery was supposed to be better. And he also wanted a robo-assisted because he'd read and found out that, okay, robo-assisted was going to be better outcomes. Better performance. And, for example, eye surgery, would you trust the very best surgeon with the steadiest hands on his best day with his laser to do your laser in your eyes? Or would you want it to be a machine doing that? If we extrapolate that out to, we're not going to be very far away 3 years, 4 years maybe from humanoid robots to outperform the very best surgeon in any surgical practice. So we already have Darwin, we have various things that can do dentistry work, full replacements, all of these things that the moment the accessibility is private, you know, country, location, where are we? If I'm in the In Africa, in this way, I get access to this kind of healthcare. If I'm in America with tons of money, I get access to this. If we get a component where humanoid robots are as prolific as some of these tech people are talking about, and they are capable of doing these things of surgery, and we reach a point in which, all right, white-collar work, can be outperformed with technology in a lot of areas, a lot of cases. So, what is our— what does work mean? And, oh, well, we do the practical things. We do the plumbing. We do these things. We do these. We do care. We care for people. And then if humanoid robots come along and then are able to do a lot of the atom-moving physical things, what does future work look like? In that kind of, uh, simulation scenario coming true? It's a true bicultural world. And what I mean by that is, so I've had the fortune of having worked in an emergency room. And let's talk about healthcare then. There's a huge difference between an emergency room, figuratively speaking, and literally speaking. Then there is outpatient care or an appointment, care by appointment, whatever it may be, whether you're describing your father's most recent, you know, with knee and robotic and, you know, the MERS, right? Huge difference. There's still going to be a bicultural whether it's the need for connection or the need for quick care. Right. And so what that could look like, and that's any organization, I believe there's going to be those that want to come in. It's— there's routinization in whatever you're doing. And this is my preference. It's personal. It's human. It's okay. But human, humanistic in the sense of I get to choose a robot and say, no, I just want to have this choice. The choice. There you go. The, the C. There you go. You got it from me right there, my friend. Thank you. I'm overthinking it. See, bring me back down. The other part is just, yeah, no, there are gonna all still be those that choose to opt into, I want your best surgeon because when I come in in emergency care, there's high emotions. There's some, there's a sense of sentiment that no matter what program you put in the parameters for AI and this robot that says, I'm here for you, Ross. I care. I understand your situation. You're like, I'm talking to a robot. Robot. And there's plenty of movies that have manifested it and fathomed these things already. You see that, you're like, yeah, still goes back to connection and some sort of human part. It's like any other things that I've been a part of. I've, I've seen it in restaurants, I've seen it in construction, I've seen other areas where we try to automate too many things, and, and people get frustrated by that because they will break down on you from time to time, or their parameters weren't set for a certain situation that came about. And that's why even in restaurants and things like that, they've been repopularized. Or books, people still love to buy books. Everything can be searched online, but there's something about having a book in hand and opt into that connection that you have with that piece of paper and reading it and pausing and reflecting and being mindful in the moment that a robot or any AI would try to duplicate. It would be different.— it would be different, right? I think there's gonna be, you know, coming back to a subject you were talking about earlier about duality, is that there will be a bit like the multiverse, you know, there'll be many versions of things as we are now, but the choices will perhaps be more accessible. And therefore, how we show up to work, can I exist and contribute in a way that is different to me and who do I have to become in that version? That might mean different industries, it might mean different countries, it might be serving different communities or groups in different ways. But I think we are large enough for that plethora, for that abundance of all of those things. My fear comes back to something you mentioned before around people being left out and left behind. And where we have a tsunami of super moments of convenience, that are we making ethical decisions around convenience? Convenience of the pursuit of growth, the convenience of the pursuit of efficiency, perhaps the sacrifice of the ethical responsibilities around humans. And I think that's going to be a challenge for us as humans. So as we come to the witching hour of the podcast, there's a couple of things I do want to cover in terms of we're influenced by what's happened to us before. I just happened to have, beginning of the year, taking my Kool-Aid of all the future things, and that's what's just shown up, you know, in part of our conversation. But bringing it back to things that people are working on right now, the— what's the, the project that you're working on right now that you're most excited about that, um, perhaps people can learn from and gain a bit of insight from all of your vast experience of? You talked about capabilities. Which ones are you focusing on? What are the exciting things that you're working on, Frank? It's almost a call to action though too. I will weave this in or bake this in is I'm working on a 30-day AI readiness sprint. That is my, my, my big thing. Something about 30 days always makes people feel comfortable. But what I mean that by that is picking a team or a team workflow, a workflow to improve with AI. Setting guardrails for responsible use, measurement of time saved, right? And also the quality that's been gained by that and be able to host that around some sort of show-and-tell learning event or experience. And I say that because I've also experienced those in the past, but it wasn't done as efficiently or effectively. And I'd love to work— or I'm continuing to work on, on something around that. I say 30 days and maybe it'll be 15 with AI's assistance. On that, you should check out a friend of mine runs one. It's called AI Simplifier. So AI-Simplifier.com. It's a 30-day program and it focuses totally on mindset, mind models and thinking, less on tools. So many of these are focused on toolitis. You know, I mean, here's another tool, here's another piece. And actually it's the mental model and the thinking behind it that in their experience is where the value gains. So where you were talking about, okay, come with a real use case, start in this way of thinking, check that out. It's an interesting one. And yeah, really, really valuable as we're thinking. So the other part that I've asked every guest that's come on, and it's a sort of homage to my very first guest, um, around curiosity. And, uh, Dr. Diana Hamilton focuses in on curiosity, and it sort of blended in my mind over time. And the question is, when was the last time you did something for the first time, and what was it? Oh gosh. Okay, here we go. Here we go. I love it. I love it. First time I did something for the first time, and what was it? It was using clapping and enthusiasm to help coach my son's team that I then utilize that same clapping enthusiasm, kind of a rally in a workshop for the organization that I work for. And that was just last Monday, last week. And it worked really, really well where somebody asked, where did you get this from? And I said it was something that I learned once again, full circle, from my son. He says, clap it up, we don't give up. Clap it up, we don't give up. And it was a great rally. To get a bunch of 7, 8, 9-year-old children together. It worked really well in the times of turbulence. I used that same rally cry to start a workshop. And that enthusiasm carried over even during the turbulent areas in the workshop, which was the deep conversations. Yeah. I love that. Clap up to rally up. I've got a little adjacency to that. So in workshops that I've run over the years, you're familiar with rock-paper-scissors? Yes. Yeah. So you might have heard of this, experienced it before, but in a workshop, you line everybody up, two lines, you've got a partner opposite, and you do rock-paper-scissors. Best of three. When you lose, you become the cheerleader of the person you lost to. You've got to make the noise, and they go to the next person who's the winner. So you've both got one cheerleader each against those ones. Then there'll be a new winner. Everyone else who was in that group then become the cheerleader of that one, and they work up until the room is split between the two finalists with two halves of the room cheering on Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank, whoever it might be at that point. And you have to Oh, I'm on this person. They just lost. Now I'm on this person. Now I'm on this person. And you get this clapping, cheering of, ah, I've grown. And it's exactly the same environment of that just mass noise. And we've done it a few times. We did it once where the room next door came in and said, can you keep the noise down at the beginning? Because all of our people in here want to come over to whatever it is you're doing in there. Energy is contagious, right? It is. That's why I say people enthusiast, because it's contagious, and I want to be part of the positivity, not the neutrality or the negativity. And I love that. I will bank that one. I've heard of one similar, but I will bank that one and utilize that, my friend. Yeah, go for it, go for it. So if people are curious to find out some more, check out some of these great videos where you take a, you know, research paper— well, they've done a deep dive in— ah, it was this that solved it. It's Optimism. It's this piece that did it here. Dr. Frankie G, where do they go? What is the best way that they can interact with some of your content, maybe with you? How do they get in touch? The most 3 active platforms I am on right now are TikTok, uh, where you can find me at Dr. Frankie G, um, Instagram, same, same call sign. And then I'm very active on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, you can find a way to be able to also create an appointment with me. Uh, my personal contact is out there. Oh my gosh, and I got that feedback many years ago from my spouse who said, why are you giving your information out publicly? Very few people utilize it, but I'm very active on there. I love to publicize a lot of content out there for, for folks to just digest however they can find use. Beautiful. It's been an absolute pleasure. Uh, really enjoyed our conversation today, and I look forward to following more of your work and seeing where our paths intertwine and lead. And I'd love to gift you one of our assessments so that you can understand your own AQ. We have a variety of things in there, um, around these sub-dimensions. We have change readiness, reskill indexes, all sorts of things that Knowing what I know from the hour we've just spent together, I think you'll find it fascinating and interesting. Oh gosh, and then I'll have to schedule an appointment with you, Ross, or your people. Yes, yes, I love it. Thank you, my friend. My pleasure. It's been an absolute pleasure. Do you have the level of adaptability to survive and thrive the rapid changes ahead? Has your resilience got more comeback than a yo-yo? Do you have the ability to unlearn in order to reskill, upskill, and breakthrough? Find out today and uncover your Adaptability Profile and Score, your AQ. Visit aqai.io to gain your personalised report across 15 scientifically validated dimensions of adaptability. AQ AI. Transforming lives. Transforming the way people, teams, and organizations navigate change. Thank you for listening to this episode of Decoding AQ. 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