Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Henrik Jarleskog - Executive Leadership

Speaker A: Hi and welcome to decodingaq. Helping you to learn the tools, mindsets and actions to thrive in an ever changing world.

Speaker B: Hi and welcome to Decoding aq. With me today I've got Henrik Jarliskog and I learned how to pronounce that as it translates to the Earl of the Forest in Swedish. He is the head of the future of work at ah, Sodexo. And as he puts it, it's a journey of leadership and innovation. And in fact it's a huge role because Sodexo, if you haven't heard of them, they are one of the largest employers in the world. In fact, they employ over 400,000 people worldwide and serve 80 million consumers every single day. So welcome to the show.

Speaker C: Thank you very much, Ross. Um, I'm humbled to m be here. Um, looking forward to an, um, interesting conversation today.

Speaker B: Well, let's see what we can do about that in the, in the warm up. Uh, I often, you know, get to know somebody and uh, I've got a hunch that this is going to be a good one. So, uh, Henrik was hired to transform Sodexo, make it grow faster, improve its margins, to innovate at speed. And that might be an interesting sort of concept of ah, future, uh, of work and hired to grow faster, improve its margins and to innovate at speed. And so the European CEO entrusted you with this crucial mission, uh, to sort of deepen the understanding of their clients. So that might be quite different to maybe some people's perceptions of what is head of future of work. So I'd love to perhaps just start there, Henrik, of uh, what really is your role and some of the misconceptions that people have with that kind of title.

Speaker C: Yeah, thank you for the question. And, um, I usually get that question, uh, and I think it's good to baseline what it is about. Uh, we aren't that many heads of future work yet, I must say. But, uh, for me, this role really started in the beginning of, um, the pandemic, where I sat down with my CEO. At the time I was heading up strategy for Europe and, um, was kind of the right hand to the CEO. And he said, so, Henrik, um, our world is transforming around us, uh, because of the pandemic. And no one knows what will happen when the pandemic kind of has ended. Because what we see right now is that companies start to work in new ways with remote work, hybrid work is on the rise. And you have to remember that this was five years ago now. But at the time he Entrusted me with the topic of um, understanding the future of work. Because he already then as a fourth seeing a four forthcoming, you know, CEO, uh, saw that if we are going to stay relevant, we need to adapt to this new environment. What kind of new services, what kind of innovations, what are the needs that are arising at the Fortune 500 of this world? How can we help them? How can we you know, make their uh, organization thrive? So that's a lot about what my job as uh, the head of Future Work is about, really understanding that movement, being out there with clients, giving advice. Sometimes I sit on kind of on their leadership team facilitating their discussions, a lot of gridlock discussions like which path should we take? Should we design a new operating model? Should we go back to the office? Uh, 100%. A lot of the super dynamic debates and um, discussions in, in, in, in these Fortune 500 companies and others of course.

Speaker B: And it, it's critical to have that connection with an audience and with a marketplace. Right. And the responsibility to understand how business models are flexing, how emergent, uh, technologies are shifting so that you're not caught off guard, right. So that you can have that foresight. And what an opportunity to be in those rooms.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Be in those rooms is a strategic conversation. And, and I, I'm curious. Um, you know you mentioned hit on a few big ones, right? Uh, hybrid work, return to office. Those are very critical for a, a ah, company like Sodexo, right? That in terms of their core propositions of facilities management, you know, serving food in these huge buildings. I mean I've been to many un, uh monstrous buildings and how they have to feed people in short periods of time at scale is, is a tough job and tough role if industries are shifting and moving of where are we doing work? How are we doing work? The downstream supply chain has a big effect. So give me some um, you know, some things of some of the conversations that are going on right now, uh, a little bit more.

Speaker C: I think we need to kind of back the tape exactly what you're talking about because uh, everyone who have a fair bit of education within business model, uh, design understands that a company like us, we are world, world's 18th largest employer. Uh, our revenue model has built on, you know, having people on the ground doing services for our clients. And whenever companies withdraw their people from the offices, that hits our revenue directly. So it was a bit of a challenge in the beginning of the pandemic, uh, revenues were dropping vastly and really fast. And we were, you know, in a position where we had to really renegotiate a lot of contracts and start thinking about, okay, how can you build a more sustainable business model? Can we become more flexible and these kind of things? So a couple of the things that are major discussions right now in the food and um, facilities management industry, which is also one of the largest industries of the world, uh, of course is that how can we serve our clients in a dynamic way? Because it is a, uh, truth, and it has been proven so many times that there is in general this Wednesday mountain of people in the offices right now happening, a bit dependent on which kind of country you are in, but that normal distribution almost over a week is happening. So we have too much people on the ground on Mondays and Fridays and we are not enough on Wednesdays because our contract is kind of rigid to uh, a lot of the extent. So that dialogue with clients is quite exciting. How can we develop a new industry that is more dynamic, really doing different types of deliveries during Mondays and Fridays with some ingenious ways of uh, even becoming a magnet and a help for some organizations who want to uh, have their people more time in the office by providing a great place to work. And I think that's. That's number two. Right. If there are so much competition going on right now, I'm sitting at home today. I love being in the office, but that's because my office is a great place to work.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker C: So the future office needs to be better than the choices people have for them to choose to be there. That's, that's number two, I think. So these are two examples of the really big, big questions on the table.

Speaker B: It is, it makes me think a little bit of uh, like energy demand, right? In terms of energy providers and grid networks of, okay, when are the peak times? And you have dynamic pricing around that. You know, we've just changed actually our energy contract, uh, to an ev, uh, contract. So we've had an electric vehicle for many, many years. And our energy provider has launched, um, a, uh, service where it's a bit similar to where you used to have the uh, the nighttime energy, uh, pieces where the kilowatt hours were cheaper in the evening. What this one does is it actually links to the smart app of the charging unit of the car's app, and we'll charge it accordingly to when the demand of, you know, 7p a, uh, kilowatt hour as opposed to 26p a kilowatt hour. So you'll plug in and it won't charge it and it will communicate in a smart way between the, you Know, device, the vehicles app and the provider. And I think there's a similarity, as you said there, about, okay, this, people don't want to go in Monday and Friday. It's great. We can extend our weekend, be at home. And then this peak in at the midpoint of Wednesday. And not only the staff, but also the supply chain. Right. Because you've got all the logistics behind what those services are being provided that need to coordinate with that. So that's one component, and then the other component is, why are we going in? Yeah, and it's, it's shifting from, oh, uh, we need to go in to get the work done, because we can get the work done in a lot of places, a lot of industries without going in. So what is it, what is the experience? What's the connection, a human connection with another person being in the same room?

Speaker C: And I think that's still number one on the list, actually, on why we choose to go in. Yes, you're right.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I miss it. You know, I work from home. I used to, you know, go into an office with other people and hang out. And I have recognized the discipline and what I miss from working at home of just being in the room of other people. There's some things I just don't do as well as a human being by not being around others. And yeah, that's, that's challenging. Um, and I, I think many people are beginning to really understand how do we provide that environment, therefore the physicality, the, the structure of the office, everything will shift.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Most people love being around people. Uh, so that's the thing. And I think this is right on the terms. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And I think this is also one of the miscomprehensions of this debate, because when you see, uh, headlines in newspapers around return to office, a lot of people, you know, immediately think that that means 100% of the time. But that's a miscomprehension because a lot of these companies, they just say, okay, we want to spend some time, uh, together. And I think that's the future. Um, and that's also probably hitting on the two largest, uh, macro economic social changes that are going on at this point in time. Number one is that distributed work is here to stay and not to be mixed up with remote work, uh, because that's something else. Uh, because distributed work that started already 12, 15 years ago, where a lot of global corporations started to pop up, uh, offices in new countries, new parts of the world, to untap kind of emerging market markets or Untap, uh, talent that they haven't had um, before or just get new talents on board. Number two is obviously, um, that companies are doing more with less, which is also a good, I would say bridge from that ev, um, idea uh, that you told about. Uh, so companies are for the first time in history at the same time as they are laying off tens of thousands of companies. They are, you know, sorry, employees, they are hiring new ones because they have demanded, they have such a demand to change and they have decided uh, that they probably don't have time to rescale or upscale either.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, I think that amd Nvidia case is super interesting to have a look at. Right. Because that's what's happening. So amd they are really in a fast transformation window at this point in time. So I think that's the first time in history that you see it um, that in a gold rush people are being laid off, but at the same time they were hiring. And combine that with that uh, uh, distributed uh, work movement where people actually work on the same company, the same kind of office, uh, on the same team, but in completely different parts of the world, world working synchronously. And I think that's um, that's the thing that is happening right now.

Speaker B: It's the duality.

Speaker C: It's the duality. Yeah.

Speaker B: And to reconcile that as a leader, to reconcile that strategically as a business and then to implement it in a humane way.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Is challenging as well. Right. And we have this, you know, the speed between the, you know, buy, build and borrow of, of talent of where are we doing it? Is it talent on demand? Is it. Can we reskill and have employ. Does that meet the need and scalable quick enough? Do we have to, you know, get rid and buy in and all of those things creates uh, a different operating model to then different propositions. Right. And you're at this, this uh, interesting intersection for as you said, 18th largest employer in the world and who they serve.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And as a sort of strategic, uh, almost business development, strategic direction of what's going on, you're seeing that maybe at the edges and at the fringes and then it gets distributed over time. What are some of the challenges you're seeing between recognizing a trend and something happening and then getting a business model, a structure, an operational uh, impact to then shift. So if you see something right, here's what's going on. We need to do this now. And this being done, what are some of the challenges you're seeing in that process?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's a big question Ross. And I think there are different types of uh, dimension that we need to dissect in order to answer that question. Because I work with all of the kinds of companies. Yes. As you say, I have a unique vantage point because I see uh, how different types of companies are strategizing how they are changing everything from manufacturing companies to telecom to professional services, different, different peers and taking different um, uh, routes um for the future. Uh, they were everything from full time in office companies to fully flexible and everything in between. And uh, we you know, need to serve all of these ways of working. So we need to figure out how to serve clients depending on which strategy they are choosing. So what we are doing and how we are transforming and how we are adapting differs on the type of a way of working more or less. Obviously a huge change because only five years ago before the pandemic, all companies more or less worked in the same way. We could provide our services the same way Monday to Friday. That's not the case anymore. So for example, uh, one of my biggest um, um, I would say interests is to follow how many percent of companies are full time in offices or are structured hybrid or are fully flexible to be able to kind of weigh what's most important for us as a huge company serving so many thousands of companies. You know, we, we serve over 80 million people per day with our services. And, and you know that's also why I need to understand how, how can I give advice to Sodexo in order to adapt where to, you know, where is the biggest chunk of our clients?

Speaker B: And it's huge. Right? If you're, if you're serving 80 million people per day and they shift their requirements. Yeah, right. And uh, no longer is it okay, it's a hub of a traditional location, a base, a time period and a body of people to serve. So all of the setup around that to then as you said, distributed. If they are hybrid and they're at home and when are they at home and what do they now need and can we serve them? How would we serve them? Yeah, um, uh, should we serve them? Uh, is it economically viable to serve them when they are n of 1 versus you know, a uh, collection and a collective.

Speaker C: Exactly. And it's, it's, it's just profound right, to think about it. How um, how can we improve people's lives independent on what kind of model or company they are working for? Now I'm thinking that the full time in office companies, um, if you look at it from a Fortune 500 perspective first. Uh, super interesting. Do you actually, do you have a clue on how many of the Fortune 500 companies who have their people in the office? 100% of the time?

Speaker B: I would say, uh, 100% of their time is going to be a lower number. I think probably, um, 40 would be my guess.

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, so it's, it's a common guess. Um, and it's actually 10x wrong. So it's 4%.

Speaker B: 4% in there all the time.

Speaker C: 4% of the Fortune 500 companies who have kind of a, an open, uh, strategy about how they are going to work and you know, where and when, you know it's 4% of them, open strategy. They, you know, who have kind of M to the rest of the world in an open format on their homepages where you actually can go in and analyze what they're doing and how they're working. Uh, out of those in the Fortune 500, um, list only 4% or 100% time of the time in the office. So that means that's the smallest part because, yeah, 10% are fully flexible.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: So it's twice as common to be

Speaker B: fully flexible compared to be always in.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so what's the other percentages made up from then?

Speaker C: Uh, it's a structured hybrid model. Like they have an expectation of having

Speaker B: three days, two or three days in

Speaker C: the office, more or less, and models in between, of course. So 86% are on some form, uh, of hybrid. I think that's super interesting just to kind of see how that changes. Because if you look at it from a, um, perspective of not only Fortune 500, uh, but all the companies or organizations that we, you know, can gather data around. And it's the biggest database, uh, holds around 12,000 companies and 120, I think, million users. Um, then the picture looks vastly different. Um, then it's around one third of each, like one third being, uh, full time, one third hybrid and one third almost, um, fully flexible. So it is a difference comparing Fortune 500 companies to all of the companies, of course.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's about where the market opportunity is for you currently, what you need to change and adapt from current systems, uh, of those things. So in terms of, then you get that data. And you mentioned during the pandemic that was a massive hit to the business model, uh, of the organization.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, how did you adapt? What did you do? Um, what were some of those things? Because I know that there was a, you know, platform launched. What does that mean? You know, this future of work platform what were some of those things to respond to that. And let's just start there and then I've got a few follow ons I want to.

Speaker C: Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah. So the first thing, uh, when you have a global movement, uh, like this, you really need to understand it, uh, bit by bit. Slice the elephant if you like. So we started doing a lot of surveys, uh, surveying companies, surveying, um, different parts of businesses all around the world. Uh, really taking a data driven approach on expectation. What is working, what is not working, what are the demands, you know, what, what do people like even looking at? Okay, do we think that this will um, affect mental health or physical health or taking a holistic perspective and really trying to understand where this is going. And we of course started to um, uh, create white papers, we did a lot of webinars, built networks globally and really you know, starting to understand how can then adapt. At the same time as we, as I said, renegotiated tens of thousands of contracts. But also going in the more, I would say, um, flexible way of building the business. Um, not any longer saying that okay, we will form this really rigid contract of three plus two years and uh, this is what is going to be done and really frame that in. But becoming much more flexible and saying okay, let's go this direction. We can uh, exit for convenience in six, uh, months for example. Um, and you could do that on both sides. So increasing that flexibility in the actual business model is part of this adaptation to the new ways of working because it can change in a really fast fashion too. Um, so starting to understand stuff like that, um, starting to understand individual needs, starting to understand really corporate needs and strategizing, creating playbooks in order to be able to give advice, uh, to companies on how they could take steps of understanding their own situation. Do they for example know how much they utilize their office today? Um, and what does that say? Um, do they use the offices, the, the full um, ah, footprint they have globally in the same way? Or is it, is it any reason to believe that it would? So that's also part of the game of really understanding this. But I would say um, the real inflection point started to come when we understood the, the challenges that were specific for companies choosing a full um, time and office model. They have different challenges compared to the, the companies going structured, hybrid.

Speaker B: Yeah. For example, some industries lend themselves more to being able to do those sorts of things. Right, exactly.

Speaker C: And you know, the fully flexible companies, they also have their own unique set of challenges and things that they need to uh, solve and when we started to understand that, we can also start to understand, okay, what kind of market segments are, you know, in more attractive

Speaker B: or in different uh, operating models, so

Speaker C: in different operating models and we can adapt our delivery towards it. And I think that's, that's not uh, common knowledge at all. This is something that is probably unique for me in my role, uh, being able to see how that is now growing, um, going forward.

Speaker B: And some things come out from left field like the pandemic, and you have to respond to it. Other things are where you get early whispers and early research into trends that are not evenly distributed and then if they follow the exponential curve, they then suddenly hit us. So from something like hybrid work to I'd like to explore maybe some Horizon to Horizon 3 type impacts to how we work from the thought of, oh, I have a outcome, uh, and result I'm looking for and traditional thought of doing that is who's the. Who, who's the person, what's the talent, what the skills I need and bring them in, onboard them and then they provide that service in whichever business it is, whether that's somebody front of desk in a hotel or it's a consultant or wherever it may be. And we're starting to enter into a world that isn't just Star Trek, uh, and on film of where roles are going to be serviced by, you know, circuits other than robotics, but in terms of knowledge based services and physical services by technology, not by humans.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And this is a, you know, compounding effect of a lot of these exponential technologies. And I've seen a lot of uh, interesting trend reports about humanoid robots, you know, in terms of how many of those are going to be in the workforce, uh, in the not too distant future, you know, in very, very large numbers. So where something like the pandemic was probably not on the radar of many people at the end of 2019 that were even thinking in that way to how are you thinking about a future of work that is filled with millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of humanoid robots doing work and serving that? Is that something you're thinking about? Is that something companies are talking about yet? Or is that too far horizon free thinking in your, in your view at the moment?

Speaker C: Companies are talking about it, uh, all over the place on how AI, uh, may um, change, uh, or completely transform industries or, or companies or clients or contracts, whatever it may be. So that dialogue is ongoing all the time. Humanoids, uh, yeah, I think we include AI into that.

Speaker B: Yeah. AI, humanoid robots, you know, from um, we're Seeing and we've seen them in factories, in logistic is you know, Ocado. They've got thousands of robotics in the warehouses, those sorts of things. But in terms of take car ownership, right. People, lots of people have cars. You can you know, lease one. Now a few hundred dollars when leasing a humanoid robot that can do similar things to a human. And we'd start probably with the dangerous, dirty and disgusting type jobs.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: With similar values when they fall below the 40, $50,000 per unit, I. E. A salary wage rate, uh, to get one of those that totally transforms how work is done. I'm fascinated as to what companies are thinking about and what is a company like Sodexo thinking about when instead of it being about hybrid and where people work, it's who's doing the work. Human that needs this or a robot that needs that or whatever it may be.

Speaker C: Yeah, I like that framing and I think um, I um, I attended a super interesting conference last spring in Lisbon called Running Remote. Uh, this is where I saw a presentation on um, partly, you know, this message which is about the first manufacturing company in the world that doesn't have any employees, is already existing more or less they have employees but you know, the uh, management of that manufacturing plant, they don't sit at uh, the actual manufacturing plant, they sit remote and they run the robots in that manufacturing plan from a completely different place in the world. So I think this is already happening not only you know, in, in uh, in tech, but the interesting thing with that presentation was that uh, wow, it's happening within manufacturing.

Speaker B: Manufacturing, get food service. You can go in and get a fully from end to end from entering a ah, place not uh, interacting with a human and get a service provided whether healthcare, Medicaid, you know, um, as you said manufacturing, whether that's in food service. They exist in some pockets they do.

Speaker C: And I, I think it will hit pretty much every uh, industry. I have uh, done a lot of thinking on this topic myself in, in my kind uh, role as the, the head of future work. Really trying to understand this because I felt early in 2024 that the AI train was about to leave the station. Right. Um, wow. I need to make myself much more conversant on the topic, really understand it, see how it maybe you know, how I as an individual can use AI already now because I really felt I, I could. So I invested in a great uh, education uh for a month of time which takes you from a noob to a master within 28 days. And the goal with that course was to get your own AI team in the end of that month. And it really delivered. Um, and these days, and today I have, uh, five AI colleagues working for me, 24, seven. I have a strategist, I have a communications executive. I, you know, I have a PowerPoint producer, I have a, um, executive assistant, and I have a, uh, uh, a video producer as well. You know, they're working for me whenever, whenever I want. And they do such a great job. And that, that experience has been really transformative from a personal perspective, because then I understand what the potential is for the rest of the world. Um, it is a limiting way of looking at the world. If you're kind of trying to understand what kind of technical projects can AI do for a given company. Uh, for example, take Sodexo, for example. Can AI help us, uh, reduce food waste globally to work, uh, to more chill world and uh, save the planet? Yes, that's one way of looking at it. But it's much more powerful when you understand what it actually can do for you as an individual, because you will understand that, okay, I can cut 30, 40% of my administrative time. I can become much more creative. I can overcome my hurdles of procrastination with the blink of an eye with help of AI. So I've become much more productive, faster, more innovative. I can innovate on a deeper level and I can, you know, enjoy work easier. Uh, um, so I think that's the, the whole absolute experience for me that has been transformative when thinking about humanoids and AI on an individual level.

Speaker B: Yeah, and technology has always been a multiplier, multiplier of intent, desire. And we've got a lot of things going on, you know, political shifts in the world that are going to influence and impact technology adoption, distribution, regulation, laws, all sorts of things, you know, from US to China to Europe and how we all navigate this and where, oh, we had the rise of, you know, intelligence of software to do things and software as a service, to shifting to results, as a service, as agents, as you describe, getting the end results, rather than, I've got a tool that makes me more productive. I've actually empowered a entity, a, uh, series of zeros and ones to give me a result after that, you know, and the way in which the barrier of entry is reducing that. It's just conversation to do that.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: That is then being the power engine in many other things. So even if we come back to humanoid robots and we look at figure one, you know, in a couple of years, they're not having to do all of these complex training, programming, all of those things, plug it into some other technology and we start adding these things in and they can just observe, you know, a human making a coffee from a coffee machine 50 times. And now that robot can do that same task and do those sorts of things.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker B: And we're only a few years into some of these key breakthroughs of what does it then mean that you said, oh, I've got five, you know, AI colleagues. Yeah, um, four companies that are making these mass layoffs and then they're, you know, making them huge investments of new skills that again, that train is going to be, oh, very soon. Mass layoffs again. And then, and it's going to be relentless. And so one of the things that we've, we're very much, you know, our purpose is, you know, how do we ensure everyone can adapt? What are those skills to be able to adapt, do it in a healthy way, making sure that no one's left behind. I, uh, e. Everyone has a future where they belong. I can contribute. I'm valued. And that's going to take a lot of, you know, figuring out. There's going to be some health issues along that, that way and that world. What. So are you involved in not only strategically, this is what's going on. This is what we need to do as a business. But what are ethical concerns? What are the human concerns about people and their well being? How important is that? Do you believe in the work that you're perhaps doing? Is that another department, another area? Or is that part of the strategic uh, conversation?

Speaker C: It's 100 close to my heart. And I'm really happy that you bring this up, uh, up, uh, because this is one of the most transformative dialogues m I have at this point in time is actually that the future work discussion has been about the lucky few, uh, knowledge workers in offices that can kind of enjoy flexible work, um, in a distributed working model. Uh, and that is uh, not fair probably, um, because that's all people already that have had a kind of a longer education, uh, quite well paid, they have some, some mandates to, to decide when and where they work. And now suddenly they have that flexibility, um, um, and that it doesn't really feel well in my stomach talking about this topic sometimes because still there are at least as many people who are tied to their workplace who can enjoy flexible work. But the last months I've realized that people who are tied to the workplace, let's say for example kitchen, uh, workers or chefs, very creative people, fantastic, uh, work ethic, they Love their job because, you know, they love to cook. And that's a creative, creative uh, profession. But that is also sometimes not conducive to being a, uh, I, uh, would say a, ah, family or provider of a family because it's really demanding work hours. You work, um, when people are off, for example, and uh, it's difficult to be there for your kids, for example, so they haven't really had that flexibility. But now there are platforms coming which enables people who are tied to their jobs to work in a flexible fashion. So thinking about that, ah, with distributed work is here to stay, companies are doing more with fewer people and these large societal trends. I think the third one is that everyone more or less can enjoy flexible work if we have the right technological help to do so. Because with these platforms, um, you can easily swap shifts or you can make sure that you join those type of companies instead that actually allow you to, to enjoy flexible work being a provider or a father or a mother, uh, to a family, um, and still, uh, keeping the job you want. Um, and I think that's democratizing the whole future work debate because it's well

Speaker B: needed and we can't unsee these things and we can't unexperience them. So if we've had a moment of those things, what, what previously might have been unknown, uh, and we just were expected to do something, we've now seen it and we suddenly feel we might have a ball and chain, you know, around our, uh, inability to be flexible. And what it sounds like is there is opportunities through technology, different platforms. How can we schedule differently, how can I show up and serve differently?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I think what's, what's fascinating is it's still then decisions of people to allow that to happen. And there's often fear in change, you know, and in our model we look at, you know, there's five core skills of okay, we might. We need grit, we need mental flexibility, we need, you know, unlearning to let go consciously of what's been. To allow other things, uh, to, to come in. We need resilience when, oh, we tried it and it doesn't work. Yeah, you know, how might we learn from that and move forward? We then have certain characteristics that people might have of why Henrik changes to something might be very different to me, you might be because you want to win and gain something new. I might be because I want to protect something I love. I. E. I want to keep that job I've got. Yeah, that's what uh, if I make this change and I can keep my job. I'll do it, uh, if it's ah, I can't keep that job. I have to get a new one. I'm not interested in new one because that doesn't motivate me and therefore I put up barriers and I put up pieces. And then we have in our model is that we never change in a silo. We never adapt in a silo, we adapt in an environment. What is the level of work stress? What's the level of, you know, of psychological safety of the team stress that it's under? What's the um, emotional health of the organization to respond to data, to insights to those opportunities? You know, these things exist. You've said they exist, platforms exist, technology exists, yet they're often not used or they're used when it's too late. And I think the danger is that companies will inevitably miss the boat. They will be left behind, have to evolve differently on terms that are probably less healthy, um, and the consequences less good. So um, I'm aware of our, you know, time frame of this podcast and the conversations and in the last kind of wrap up I want to do two bits. The first one is, is there anything you would have loved to have cover, uh, around this topic of adaptability and what you're seeing and what's going on that we haven't covered?

Speaker C: Number, uh, one thing would be probably, uh, to talk a bit more about, um, a one liner. I know you like them because I've been watching your episodes and um, that uh. About half the space, twice the experience. That is what I am working towards with our clients. Right. Um, because uh, if you really want to create a more engaged workforce, really unleash distributed work, there is a sum of money probably to get if you right size your space and it reinvests some of that savings into the experiences that actually happen when you're in the office. So half the space, twice the experience, that's like I'm working with every day. That's probably a topic for another, another session.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's, that's wide reaching.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, in, in that um. I like that you've picked those things out because we all consume so much information, right. We've just, just rattled on together having a conversation for some time. What are the lasting impressions? What do people remember? Remember stories, remember emotions. They hear it through their own experience. What resonated to them? Half the space, twice the experience.

Speaker C: Because this is also where companies like us come in and you know, suddenly we are in the midst of everything we can curate the front of house experiences, the mid house and the back office experiences because we already have people working there. We already do these services but m. Uh take care of much more of the curating with community captains, uh, baristas, barceptionists, really doing those town hall meetings. A memorable, memorable experience. Um, so that's, that's kind of the, the everyday work I'm um, I'm working towards.

Speaker B: One of the things I love about that is it feels like an invitation and inspiring than a burden because I've heard, oh, do more with less and that feels like Jesus, that's a job to be done. Uh, that's hard work work. You know, half the space, twice the experience. Sounds like such a creative, inviting um, piece. Yeah, love that a lot.

Speaker C: Love that. Yeah, yeah, I do as well. Yeah, yeah. It's really inspiring.

Speaker B: Very much so. Very much so. What a great framing and premise for problem solving for people to work uh, work towards because it um, yeah.

Speaker C: Invites that and I think that then distributed work actually works.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, because a lot of the uh, or most actually of the structured hybrid companies, those 86% of the Fortune 500 companies, you know, you're really struggling at this point in time trying to make hybrid work work because it's a lot

Speaker B: of frustrations, A lot of frustrations. You know we've, I've been having conversations with some very senior people in you know, the HR internal, uh, type of companies that employ you know, over a hundred thousand. It's nowhere near 400,000 but you know, I can recall two or three where I've been working and actually personally coaching a few of them that have had a mandate of return to office. Uh, that they've got a roll out, roll through that is very tough to others that are working with a uh. How do we figure out hybrid, you know, at scale that functions, that works. And we're still figuring that out, right? We're still figuring it out as a society I think of what do we want? Uh, you know, because all things ah, are possible.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: In terms of what you're really excited about, of 2025, some things that you're going to. Focused on uh, working on. Give me a little flavor of, of some of those uh, things that you're excited about in the year ahead. And then I've got my final question. After that we'll wrap up.

Speaker C: All right. Yeah. I'm really exciting to, to see where this debate is going. Um, because you, as you said, uh, there are some um, uh, I would say more conservative um, voices being uh, happening at the same time as the, the new, new president in the US is being installed. A few of the companies that are, you know, voicing loudly that they are bringing their people back to the office 100% of the time. For example JP Morgan, um, and I think that's fine. Uh, it's on brand. It's probably expected for them to, to, to do that. It's their, probably their fifth time where they try and maybe this time they will uh, manage uh, let's see. Um, I'm interested in following these stories. Um, what I think as well is super interesting to follow. If you look at the full time and office companies, uh, they are building these magnetic offices because they have understood that they need to provide the best place to work in order to compete with anything. They are also struggling uh, um, with recruitment at this point in time because most of the people, they prefer having some kind of flexibility in their lives. If you look at the hybrid companies, uh, they struggle with making hybrid work work, uh, as we just said, right. Sizing the space, creating a better experience, removing obstacles. Um, and the fully flexible ones, they have figured out that they need to meet. Uh, they also invest in the actual workplace experience.

Speaker B: We do a, a, an annual workation. Yeah because we're all remote when we get together and we pay for everybody coming from, you know, to be in the same place at the same time, you know, even at our small scale, uh, of doing those, those things because

Speaker C: we want to, want to be connected. And I think in response to that, um, if you compare these three buckets or different strategies, there's a mind blowing thing happening right now. If you, because you have the full time and office companies and you compare uh, to the structured hybrid companies, they both still work synchronously because this is how we have learned how to do it. So the full time and office companies they just continuing working in the same working more or less they've been doing. But the hybrid companies they are also continuing working synchronously and this is why the lot of the frustrations appear. Uh, people are being forced to travel in two to three days in the week. They sit in hybrid screen meetings synchronously between nine to five wondering why they're sitting in the office. It's so easy to just invite somebody to a digital meeting because they think or people think that we have to work synchronously. So I'm thinking that those 86% of companies who are actually structured hybrid of the Fortune 500 companies, the next frontier will be for them to learn asynchronous collaboration with help of digital tools or really figuring out, uh, how many meetings do I actually need. I don't need to have meetings for the full managerial layer all day long every single week because it's just destroying productivity and burning out people.

Speaker B: And I think we've got an opportunity of the natural generational shift of a more disposition to asynchronous work because they've been exposed to technology and a way in which asynchronous. I speak a lot with, uh, Keith Farazi. I don't know if you're familiar with him and some of his work that you know, is a proponent of. You know, how do we get team performance and asynchronous work, um, is now so possible with technology. We were doing it before because of time zones, uh, and doing things now we don't like. You say, need to be at the same, same place, uh, digitally on zoom to make progress. And we can use things, um, to bring people up to speed to not have to be there through all of it. Get the notes, get the, you know, snapshot recordings, get those pieces and then contribute to a, a working document rather than who's got the latest version on the SharePoint. All of these things, you know, it's, it's layered from the cloud technologies to now being able to work asynchronously and without it then being task robots.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Without losing the dialogue, without losing the connection and the discussion and it's. Where does that pendulum, uh, and balance shift? So that's exciting, isn't it?

Speaker C: That's an exciting, it's really exciting to follow if large companies of this world can learn asynchronous work because then, you know, the efficiency gains will be enormous.

Speaker B: People, well, they've got to unlearn.

Speaker C: Yeah, synchronous way. Exactly. And that's a pain and it's may, it may be too difficult actually. But I'm, um, curious to see how this development, uh, progresses and I think

Speaker B: our tool can provide insights to how they can do that and who might lead it, who might struggle. Who needs the support to go through those transitions of new Playbooks? Because one thing is having the playbook, the second thing is then it actually being implemented and followed.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, sure about it.

Speaker B: So m. My last question, um, when was the last time you did something for the first time and what was it? Wow.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, that was quite recent actually. Um, I tried a new, um, um, competition format which is called Hyox. Um, super demanding new type of sport That's a traveling circus all over the world, and they visit city by city by city. But the competition is actually the same and I do that with my girlfriend. So we are a team. So you really, you start with running 1km and then you do the first station. It may be rowing for 1km, then you run another kilometer and then this is second station. And you do, you know, different stations. There are eight stations. And you do this on the shortest potential time that you can do it, um, mind blowingly tough, uh, competition to prepare for because how do you even exercise or how do you even train for these eight different stations at the same time as you're also fit enough to run in between as fast as you can? Uh, so that challenge of really preparing for it was tough. Yeah.

Speaker B: Very cool. Thank you. And we started off, uh, when we, you know, connected at the beginning of the call before the recording where you'd just done your morning exercise. So you're somebody who exercises a lot, has been elite and equally, um, your, your trainer you shared with me is somebody who trains Olympic, uh, athletes. And, uh, it's been fascinating, um, you know, just to observe you and your energy. And I think that's an important part I'd like to leave us all with, is with all of this change, with all of this shift is what's the energy that we bring to something? How are we showing up, how are we present, and how do we invest the time to ensure that we're healthy when we're coming into something, rather than. I'm so exhausted. And I think that's critical in times of immense change is that we carve out the time to ensure we don't thrive, but actually we're killing ourselves. That the company's working, this is working, but along the way we've become unhealthy.

Speaker C: Exactly. And, um, I've been transforming the way I live, uh, my life, the way I work so vastly over the last five years, uh, that I am now at a point where I feel sustainable. Um, I have, you know, switched, traveling to different parts of the world all the time into utilizing, uh, technology, um, working distributed, uh, being there much more for my kids, um, really spending time on my own personal, uh, health, um, to really feel that I'm, you know, I'm here for the long, long term

Speaker B: vitality, got a good frequency and able to enjoy. The journey, as you've talked about it, is a journey of leadership and innovation. And that starts with self.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: Exactly. So I really feel that today I am the sustainable executive that a lot of other leaders don't even know yet that they should be looking for. Um, um, because of utilization of my AI team freeing up time, really looking at time in a different way. Where do I want to be present and what kind of impact do I want to do? So. Yeah, that's beautiful. I'm very uh, exactly on, on your side of things on this and maybe as well. Uh, I know you, you know, as I said before, you love these one liners. Uh, as a head of future work, working in the workplace industry, it's really evident for me that in the future real estate is no longer the centerpiece for any workplace strategy. People are. That's also quite beautiful, I think.

Speaker B: Yeah, it is, it is. And um, where we see a transition of technology, you know, people over tools and technology. Yeah, they're, they're inert. We give them a purpose and, and let's do that consciously and intentionally. The, the challenge of course sometimes is we can't foresee some of those downstreams. Um, they catch us by surprise. But we can respond to them, we can think about them. And yeah, I like that of the, the, the shift from real estate to people. Um, and I'd put that in a similar category of from you know, this thirst for technology and tools to people. How does it better people's lives, you know, people and planet?

Speaker C: Yeah. The thing is that human is probably the new luxury. Uh, when AI uh is developing with the speed that we see. Would you, would you rather buy an expensive piece of art from an AI or a real artist?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm conscious of time. Are you okay for a couple of minutes?

Speaker C: Yeah, of course, yeah.

Speaker B: So I, I had a uh, a life changing experience last year. I went to Bhutan M and they had an event there called the uh, Bhutan Innovation Forum. It's the largest event Bhutan's ever put on in their entire history. And there were 650 odd international guests to this. Logistically a nightmare for a country. The country is 800, 000 population. To get in there is very challenging and difficult, not only logistically. So there's um, I think 20 pilots that are licensed in the world that can land, um, you know, it's three and a half thousand meters, uh high where the airport is. It's a very short Runway.

Speaker C: Yeah, I've seen it.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and we uh, my wife and I went, I was speaking at this event and the king has a new vision called the mindfulness city, uh, taking over about um, three and a half percent of the land mass. So I think it's around 2, 600 square kilometers is a big vision, 30, 40 year vision to build a new mindfulness city that looks at uh, what um, is Bhutan's role in the world as a, you know, carbon negative country.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: How does it ensure it's not left behind? It doesn't sacrifice its soul but also attracts ah, and retains some of its talent because some of its youth are going to Australia, Canada, uk, those sorts of things. And to your point of artistry, they have limited resources and so a lot of it isn't about scale. So where they have the coffee or the chocolate or the um, fabrics and eyes, it's limited, limited resource, very sustainable. It's high end. You know the tourism is, is high value, low impact tourism.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And the art, you speak with the artist who's gone out into the forest to forage for the rhododendron, for the chestnuts, to make the pigments to then you know, paint the painting. That has taken them two months or three months to paint. And it was profound being in the energy and space of that experience versus when I've been at Singularity University years ago when you're seeing an, you know, an artist's impression via an AI and computer generated into yeah, physical form, it's something else different. It's something else I think all has value in different parts in different ways. But it was beautiful to just experience of you know, this, this lad who uh, created some tinctures uh, you know, from different things. And of course again it's not about mass production for them, uh which makes it quite exclusive, quite expensive. But you get such a, ah, artisan creativity in there. Oh, this is a woven piece from nettles, you know, and it's dyed in this way and so it's fascinating to almost rewind back to a world that I could imagine it was maybe several hundred years ago inside Bhutan and they were uh, you know they're famous for being the you know, happiest ah, place, you know, they're uh, not around GDP but gross happiness index.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And it was a great experience.

Speaker C: I, I hear that and I can see that and I, I again I'm repeating myself that human is probably the new luxury going forward. It's a lot of that, you know, a lot of indication that, that that will happen. Um, yeah, that's beautiful.

Speaker B: Well, I am going to call it on this one. It's been an absolute joy. I was looking forward to this one. Thank you for showing up, uh, as you uh, I appreciate that and I know that our listeners will too.

Speaker C: Thank you very much, Ross. Happy to be here and um, happy to talk about stuff that I'm just passionate about.

Speaker A: 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 break through? Find out today and uncover your adaptability profile and score your AQ. Visit aqai IO to gain your personal report across 15 scientifically validated dimensions of adaptability. For a limited time, enter code PODCAST65 for a complimentary AQME assessment transforming the way people, teams and organizations navigate change. Thank you for listening to this episode of Decoding aq. Please make sure you subscribe on your Facebook podcast directory and we'd love to hear your feedback. Please do leave a review and be sure to tune in next time for more insights from our amazing guests.