#146 - Tony Saldanha: Why 70% of Digital Transformations Fail (and How to Succeed)

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There's no such thing in my mind as work-life balance.

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Because at the end of the day, it's all life.

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And you make choices about, for your own life, are you better off spending 12 hours a day
in the office as opposed to uh being with your family or playing golf or whatever it is.

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But that's a choice you have to make.

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Whoa!

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All right, you all welcome back.

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Hey, today on the necessary entrepreneur, we're joined by Tony Saldana, global thought
leader on digital transformation, former VP at Procter and Gamble and co-founder of

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Transformit among another company I just found out, which we're going to discuss.

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uh Tony's the author of Why Transformations Fail and Revolutionizing Business Operations.

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And he's been recognized as one of the top voices in helping companies successfully
navigate technically driven change and leading billion dollar initiatives.

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at P &G to advising entrepreneurs on how to build operations.

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um Todi brings unique perspective on what it really takes at a transformative scale in
today's business world.

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That's a lot.

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Welcome to the necessary entrepreneur.

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Thank you very much.

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I'm delighted to be at the necessary entrepreneur.

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And the reason I came here is because I wanted to find out if I qualify as a necessary
person in here.

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You know what?

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um Not too often someone asks me a good question from the beginning, but as we can get
into it, I'm through, we'll bob and weave through, but um that's one of the fundamental

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things in my 46 years that I figured out that if we put ourselves in a position that were
necessary for a product, for a company, for the marketplace, you're always going to win.

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So, and also then for me to have the life that I wanted and I desired, it was necessary
that I go and do this.

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You know, that's actually funny because there's an equivalent term that I live by.

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It's called distinctive.

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um And distinctive is something unique.

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uh And in a lot of the work that I do, which is in IT, through transformation.

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It is actually.

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And in the area of global business services or back office shared services, which we can
talk about later.

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The big challenge is if you don't change, then you become a commodity.

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And your job could be done by uh some startup or some product company that's gonna do it
in some corner of the world for a quarter of what you do.

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And so the game is always to stay distinctive, to be adding more value than anybody else
does.

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That sounds like that's exactly the same as yours, the necessary.

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Yeah, I think, um, we just always are looking for constant improvement.

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Yeah.

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And I don't, we try not to stress ourselves out about it or become depressed about it to
not grade ourselves too often, but we found it, we know from day to day, if we're getting

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better, we know, like, I don't have to reach the finish line every day and all my
businesses, but I just need to kind of check in at the end of every day.

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In the beginning of another day, like, Hey, how was yesterday?

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And were we any better?

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We take a step back and having that conversations with ourselves, selves every day.

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um It puts us in a good spot to compete in whatever businesses we're trying to.

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eh Yeah.

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So I think, but we use this word commodity lot.

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Yeah.

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But we're talking about commodities of humans in this conversation.

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That's exactly right.

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That's exactly right.

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that's, you know, at a macro level, when you kind of think about what is happening with
technology, especially with, you know, artificial intelligence and everything else, um

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what is happening is through the use of technology, everything that's transactional, and
eventually we'll get to decision-making type of capabilities of the technology, but

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everything that's transactional,

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is now becoming a commodity and it can be done by technology.

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So let's take something like uh email services.

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When I joined Procter & Gamble three decades ago, among the services that we provided
inside the company, and this was obviously way before Gmail and stuff like that, was

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mainframe based email where you could actually send messages from the US to

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you know, where I was in Asia and Japan and India and stuff like that.

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And then at the beginning of every morning, you'd kind of sit down at a terminal and
download your email and print it and stuff like that.

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That was a competitive advantage, the ability to communicate through email.

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Today, nobody in their right mind, other than, you know, Google and Microsoft actually
have internal email.

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It's a commodity.

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You can buy it.

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You can get it free.

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And so that's an example of what is happening.

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And the people that used to do those email jobs in these big companies, they have to do
something else.

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I mean, they have other forms of communication that they have to move on to.

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But that's really what technology does.

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It basically takes the stuff that's repetitive, that can actually be automated, and then
it moves it to uh a commodity.

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And the transition that we have to make.

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as humans constantly.

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By the way, this is not new.

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mean, the technology is new, digital is new.

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But this was exactly the same challenge we had in the first and the second and the third
industrial revolutions, which is, what are you going to do when the stuff that you used to

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be doing, maybe weaving clothes, is now being done by machines?

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And then you have to move on.

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Do you think eventually everything becomes commoditized like everything?

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I actually don't think so.

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ah So if you kind of look to the historic cycles of, you know, how economics work and how
wealth gets generated, ah there is always something which I'm sure I have no clue about

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that's going to be discovered in the next 10, 20, 30, 50 years.

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That's going to generate the next economic cycle.

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So, you know, we may feel like

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my God, you know, the world's kind of falling apart because jobs are going away and you
know, now you've got AI that can actually predict what you're going to do next and all

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that kind of stuff.

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But then if you kind of think about it, you know, when the Wright brothers first flew
their aircraft,

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1903.

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that's- oh

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yes.

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um Not too far from here, actually.

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And then aircraft started to be used in production to ferry people across, literally in a
couple of decades after that.

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That was an incredible change.

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And so this is the same cycle.

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And I think what's going to continue to happen is that we're going to discover something
new.

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And you and I were talking about the origins of the universe, or Big Bang, or whatever,
all that kind of stuff.

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I have no idea what that next wave is, but I'm confident that cycle will repeat itself.

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What would stop it from repeating humans don't exist anymore?

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ah That's probably the only thing I can think of as well, Grimes, that may be.

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um But then you have to ask yourself, and I know I'm drifting, um what about life on other
planets and stuff like that?

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It's so many.

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So what do we do?

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Everybody wants to know you coming up in a, you know, top level corporate environment.

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We wanted to know things.

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We wanted to make decisions based on things we know.

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So we're talking about like at the end of the day, there's a lot we don't know.

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So how do we move forward even in this environment and your new companies?

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What do you do thinking in 20 or 30 years, there's going to be something that we're going
to learn that we don't even know.

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How are you confident to operate them?

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That's a great question because I think it kind of gets to the issue of timelines.

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How certain do you need to be within a given timeline?

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um So I'll give you an example.

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um So about eight years ago, towards the end of my career at Procter & Gamble, um one of
the big dilemmas that I struggled with

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was Procter & Gamble at that point in time still was known to be among the best in the
world on IT technology and shared services, global business services.

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And uh my somewhat crazy dilemma was, yeah, what do I do next?

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Because staying where you are and becoming a commodity is not a choice.

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And so I had reached out and talked to 100 different enterprises

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CEOs, startups, venture capitalists and stuff like that, trying to figure out where is
this headed, somewhat like a conversation here.

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um And the actual light bulb moment for me here was when I saw a tweet, and this would
have been in 2015, from the police in the city of Cincinnati that said,

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shooting in the Avondale area, uh short sport or, captured the evidence and the
perpetrator was captured.

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short sport or is an AI technology that is used in, uh, now it's used globally, but at
that time was used in like Paris and London and stuff like that.

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plate, facial technology, all that stuff.

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uh So this one, Shark Sporter in particular is fine-tuned using audio, so sound, to detect
when a shark is fired and where in the city.

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Within a distance of like 10 square meters or something like that.

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And I was completely flabbergasted.

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It's like Shark Sporter, AI, sound technology, Cincinnati, not London or Paris or...

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or Silicon Valley or New York City or.

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And so the aha moment was that, look, you know, what we do, whether it is transforming,
you know, how you do finance and stuff like that, is always going to be a need.

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The use case of new technology to change the way we actually do that same old work is
always constantly evolving.

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And so that led to a...

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whole different cycle which eventually led to the book on why digital transformations
fail.

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So why do they fail 70 % of the time as you say?

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70%, that's exactly right.

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um Two simple things.

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One is the articulation of the goal and the other is the actual process or the methodology
by which they want to transform.

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um So uh let me take the first one, which is the articulation of the goal.

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I think it's basically an issue of defining what digital transformation is.

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So if you're not clear about what you're trying to do, then what happens is, you start to
package whatever it is that you're doing and throw in a little bit of technology in there

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and say, I'm working on digital transformation.

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So it's a little bit like the emails that you get, which says stuff like, hey, transform
the way you run your business by using this

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you know, next generation AI tool.

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It's like, really?

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It's a very general statement.

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And so the start of that is clarity on what are you trying to do?

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And if I may step back a little bit, because I think that needs to be put into the context
of what we were just talking about, which is industrial revolutions.

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So we're in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution.

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And just like the others, you know,

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steam engines, internal combustion engines, electricity, uh internet.

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uh The fourth one is basically changing a lot of stuff, except that this technology,
digital technology, actually changes every other technology, the mechanical internet of

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things, uh medical, genetics, you know, so on and so forth.

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So digital transformation in my definition is what you need to do.

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to change the way you deliver your products and services and still be successful at the
end of this industrial revolution.

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So in other words, you don't just become like the horse carriage companies that didn't
make it to be an internal combustion.

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You got to maintain cashflow for the company to survive.

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You have to be relevant now.

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You have to be relevant now and when the industrial revolution is over, you still have to
be relevant.

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So, necessary.

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Exactly.

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So, the only correct definition of digital transformation in my mind is the ability to
actually be relevant, to be necessary in the fourth industrial revolution era when you've

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been successful in the third.

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So how do you change, not just the technology?

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don't replace one set of technologies with another and say, hey, I've transformed this
now.

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Where is the business outcome?

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Do you still have the same market share?

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Do you still have the same, not just financial, but the impact that you're making on the
world and all of the other metrics of success?

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So can you simplify how a company does that then if they don't currently know how?

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Is it mindset?

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Is it a way that they're thinking?

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Is it the right person or two on their team to do?

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How do we go about that process to say, all right, Tony, sounds good.

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uh I'm a buyer.

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Yeah.

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Do it.

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So now what?

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it really does start with a lot of work to identify, you know, how you're gonna measure
success.

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Is it gonna be through the same Wall Street metrics, like, you know, profit share, stuff
like that, social impact, you know, whatever your right metrics are.

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And then, which kind of gets to the second reason why digital transformations fail, then
putting in place the right methodology for execution.

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So the challenge on the methodology, and I'll come back to then how you do this, is that
most companies think of transformation projects like any other IT projects, which is you

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got technology, you got people, you got certain scope of work, time, money, stuff like
that, and you deliver the project and you call it a success.

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um

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Digital transformation being the broader uh framework is going to be a portfolio of many
different projects.

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Some of them are going to be tactical, replace this technology with another.

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Others are going to be really mind bending, change dramatically the way you actually do
stuff.

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There is a percentage uh formula called 70-20-10.

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which actually goes all the way back to Steve Schmidt and Google in the early days where
they basically said, we have to actually allocate our resources along this formula

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70-20-10.

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70 % of our organization's got to do day-to-day stuff, 20 % continuous improvement, and 10
% is disruptive innovation.

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It's like driverless cars.

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stuff.

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That the vast majority of that might not work.

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Might not work.

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Now the thing is, and by the way, Harvard and others have already proved that companies
that follow a three-part strategy outperform by whatever it was, 20%, the appears that

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actually follow a two-part strategy, which is day-to-day work and improvement.

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So in other words, they miss the disruptive.

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So for digital transformations, now tying all of that together, the methodology is set up
the right kind of goals, right?

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And then create a portfolio of work

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that you're gonna actually have to deliver so that you have the sufficiency of the
portfolio to get you to those end results.

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And the methodology that you have to use for the 70%, maybe traditional operations, 20%,
the next group would be traditional project management.

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But the 10 % is really methodology that I borrowed from venture capitalist companies to
the point that you are making, which is venture capitalist companies

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they may invest in 10 different companies.

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They may actually allow nine of them to fail, but then the 10th one will more than make up
for everybody.

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That's a different methodology.

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Do you think, not to redirect too much, but do you think that the 70-20-10 model, if
that's the way to evolve globally, to really evolve to make sure you're relevant and

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necessary in 20 or 30 years, is that maybe also the struggle of surviving?

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Because the businesses that are entrepreneurial, that are startups, they're probably all
10%.

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Yes, that's exactly right.

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That's exactly right.

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That's why for large enterprises, the real competition is not another large enterprise.

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For Procter & Gamble, it is not always Unilever or whatever it is.

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uh It is the, it's the startup.

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And then you've got to be nimble either to actually catch up with them or to acquire them
or do something.

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Because without that, you're not getting your 10.

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The idea in these huge corporations you spent your time, let's find out who the winner is
and then we'll pay more for it.

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That's one strategy.

208
00:18:20,211 --> 00:18:23,532
At some point in time, though, that becomes really expensive.

209
00:18:25,293 --> 00:18:26,792
Facebook has been very good at it.

210
00:18:26,792 --> 00:18:27,304
very good.

211
00:18:27,304 --> 00:18:39,058
Actually, I think Facebook, to them credit, I think they do more than just acquire those
very innovative companies.

212
00:18:40,239 --> 00:18:47,802
A lot of large companies do that, but very few of them allow those small companies to
thrive.

213
00:18:47,882 --> 00:18:48,608
and scale.

214
00:18:48,608 --> 00:18:50,881
uh

215
00:18:50,881 --> 00:18:53,856
done that with Instagram and many other businesses people don't

216
00:18:53,856 --> 00:18:56,928
Yes, yes, and they've made them success.

217
00:18:57,289 --> 00:19:06,086
All of the, you know, examples of matter, you know, I could give you many examples of
other companies that acquire these startups and then stifle them in their corporate

218
00:19:06,086 --> 00:19:08,568
culture and then eventually it's like, yeah, they're dead.

219
00:19:08,568 --> 00:19:12,034
You think that is it because they tried to make them assimilate?

220
00:19:12,034 --> 00:19:16,477
Yes, they try to fit them into their mold.

221
00:19:16,477 --> 00:19:20,999
Not because they're trying to be nasty or whatever it is.

222
00:19:20,999 --> 00:19:25,622
mean, they've obviously paid good money for them.

223
00:19:25,622 --> 00:19:38,368
The dilemma here is that for large company, for any company for that matter, it's the
things that you do successfully that harbor the seeds of the stuff that will actually kill

224
00:19:38,368 --> 00:19:39,669
you eventually.

225
00:19:39,758 --> 00:19:40,689
Why is that?

226
00:19:41,294 --> 00:19:42,205
Let me give you an example.

227
00:19:42,205 --> 00:19:54,803
So you take a large company, know, like Procter & Gamble, uh very structured, uh very,
very strategic, very deliberate, very slow in making decisions.

228
00:19:54,803 --> 00:20:00,507
uh But because they're very strategic, they're incredibly successful, right?

229
00:20:00,587 --> 00:20:11,180
You hire a small company and then you say, you know, for us to decide to invest the next
billion dollars for you to create a factory.

230
00:20:11,180 --> 00:20:16,265
You're to have to go through this, you know, entire rigorous process of, you know, is this
worth it?

231
00:20:16,265 --> 00:20:23,554
And, you know, can you then drive alignment with other functions inside the company who
are going to be affected by this?

232
00:20:23,554 --> 00:20:27,416
And that could stifle the actually thing that created the company that made you want to
buy it.

233
00:20:27,416 --> 00:20:28,446
You got it.

234
00:20:28,867 --> 00:20:30,969
Yes.

235
00:20:31,670 --> 00:20:45,922
And so that's always the dilemma, which is, how do you acquire innovation, but then allow
it to flourish, give it the freedom to flourish, but not in a way that then that starts to

236
00:20:45,922 --> 00:20:51,126
make the parent company become a meaningless holder of a lot of startups?

237
00:20:51,154 --> 00:20:54,534
So did you come up with the idea of transformant?

238
00:20:54,894 --> 00:20:58,693
Did you come up with that in 2015, 16, 17, when you're like, what's going to be next?

239
00:20:58,693 --> 00:21:03,654
And you saw the shot spotter and you're like, wait a minute, the whole world's going to
change.

240
00:21:03,654 --> 00:21:05,514
So then what was your idea on the framework?

241
00:21:05,514 --> 00:21:09,114
I'm assuming it evolved and metamorphosized.

242
00:21:09,114 --> 00:21:12,754
I'm sure it's not in the exact forms you thought it would be, but maybe it is.

243
00:21:12,814 --> 00:21:14,474
how'd that happen?

244
00:21:14,474 --> 00:21:15,614
Go through the process of that.

245
00:21:15,614 --> 00:21:17,274
Cause you hadn't been an entrepreneur.

246
00:21:17,274 --> 00:21:19,992
You might make an argument, the word intrapreneur.

247
00:21:19,992 --> 00:21:23,950
People were making that argument a lot, but it wasn't on you completely.

248
00:21:23,950 --> 00:21:25,150
No, it wasn't.

249
00:21:25,150 --> 00:21:38,010
And actually, it's funny because that's what I actually did at Procter & Gamble for my
last three years there, which is I became an entrepreneur.

250
00:21:38,910 --> 00:21:48,570
I created an organization which we call Next Generation Services because we're terrible at
creative names there.

251
00:21:51,310 --> 00:21:53,310
So yes.

252
00:21:53,490 --> 00:22:00,114
That was our creativity on Norman Clayton anyway, but really it was modeled after Google
X.

253
00:22:00,515 --> 00:22:10,041
So you guys know, Google X is basically that 10 X, meaning 10 times better than the status
score, not 10%.

254
00:22:10,041 --> 00:22:23,110
Innovation factory for disruptive ideas like the driverless cars or balloon internet or uh
retina uh kind of glasses that can tell you if you've got diabetes, that kind of stuff.

255
00:22:23,278 --> 00:22:39,897
um So their model of how they Google now Alphabet actually goes through and identifies
amongst the thousands of ideas that exist in the enterprise and outside, pick a few and

256
00:22:39,897 --> 00:22:41,548
then make them big.

257
00:22:41,708 --> 00:22:48,131
That was the shop that I set up at Procter & Gamble with a really tiny difference.

258
00:22:48,252 --> 00:22:53,164
Instead of working on really cool stuff like driverless cars,

259
00:22:53,198 --> 00:23:00,498
we worked on really boring stuff like accounting and travel and expense reports and that
kind of stuff.

260
00:23:00,498 --> 00:23:02,878
So it was all internal work processes.

261
00:23:03,498 --> 00:23:09,378
But the goal was the same, which is 10X transformation of how stuff gets done.

262
00:23:09,378 --> 00:23:11,498
And I'll give you a really specific example.

263
00:23:12,138 --> 00:23:18,978
So let's take another of those really exciting processes called travel and expense report.

264
00:23:20,426 --> 00:23:33,760
If uh Dave, uh your producer, wants to go from Cincinnati to New York, you probably have
some agency that he would work with to say, okay, I want to make a trip, get me a hotel,

265
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:35,330
get me a flight, stuff like that.

266
00:23:35,330 --> 00:23:37,571
uh He would collect his expenses.

267
00:23:37,571 --> 00:23:39,412
He'd probably make an expense report.

268
00:23:39,412 --> 00:23:47,330
Now, the necessary entrepreneurs are relatively small business, so you may not have an
offshore location where people actually match your.

269
00:23:47,330 --> 00:23:50,858
hard copies of the receipts with your bank statements, but large companies do that.

270
00:23:50,858 --> 00:23:54,526
Now we scan them and put them into a system and it all gives us the data we need.

271
00:23:54,526 --> 00:24:04,373
That's that's great now so so procter and gambler and companies like that literally had
people that would do three-way matching So what does your actual picture of receipt say

272
00:24:04,373 --> 00:24:06,875
versus what does the system say versus?

273
00:24:06,875 --> 00:24:07,936
did your budget say?

274
00:24:07,936 --> 00:24:22,046
um Which is all fine except that when I looked at this is the equivalent of the shorts
Sparta story when I looked at companies like Adobe They didn't have their employees do

275
00:24:22,046 --> 00:24:23,186
stuff like that

276
00:24:23,788 --> 00:24:35,143
So the alternative way of doing exactly the same process of travel expense report is Dave
goes into a system and says, you know, three day trip to New York, the system already

277
00:24:35,143 --> 00:24:43,066
knows your policies of reimbursements, know, it spits out a number saying, okay, fine
Dave, $3,000 or whatever the budget is.

278
00:24:43,567 --> 00:24:46,568
At that point in time, the process is done, complete.

279
00:24:46,628 --> 00:24:49,789
Dave would have a corporate credit card.

280
00:24:49,929 --> 00:24:51,714
He could use that to

281
00:24:51,714 --> 00:24:53,445
book tickets wherever you want, right?

282
00:24:53,445 --> 00:24:56,397
You know, on Google or Priceline or whatever it is.

283
00:24:56,397 --> 00:24:57,686
Stay wherever you want.

284
00:24:57,686 --> 00:25:02,020
So with friends, Airbnb, you know, all within the policy that you define.

285
00:25:02,461 --> 00:25:08,409
Every transaction on the credit card is auto-generated and is checked for authenticity.

286
00:25:08,409 --> 00:25:09,635
It's like, Dave, really?

287
00:25:09,635 --> 00:25:13,047
You had three lunches on that day on Thursday afternoon?

288
00:25:13,047 --> 00:25:15,808
You know, something's going on here, type of stuff.

289
00:25:16,089 --> 00:25:18,444
And then, you know,

290
00:25:18,444 --> 00:25:22,576
So there is no procurement people involved in travel agencies.

291
00:25:22,576 --> 00:25:27,538
There is no people that need to check receipts with other stuff.

292
00:25:27,559 --> 00:25:29,559
But you know the best part of the story.

293
00:25:29,940 --> 00:25:34,662
When you give Dave a target, like 3,000,

294
00:25:36,532 --> 00:25:40,398
he's going to underspend anywhere from 15 to 35 percent of that budget.

295
00:25:40,398 --> 00:25:42,418
You $2,100 in my brain.

296
00:25:42,418 --> 00:25:45,352
I'm like, $2,100 sounds way better than three.

297
00:25:45,352 --> 00:25:47,244
Yeah.

298
00:25:47,645 --> 00:25:51,048
And then you just eliminate a whole lot of work processes in the company.

299
00:25:51,048 --> 00:25:58,018
So this is really how you would reimagine boring old stuff and replace it with completely
new work process.

300
00:25:58,018 --> 00:25:59,977
Can I just use the word efficiency?

301
00:26:00,834 --> 00:26:02,426
That's exactly right, yes.

302
00:26:02,466 --> 00:26:04,694
Finding it, building it, creating it.

303
00:26:04,694 --> 00:26:05,594
It's efficiency.

304
00:26:05,594 --> 00:26:21,643
uh But now, more and more, and this is how it relates to digital technology, what
companies are finding is that um this gap between efficiency and effectiveness, uh when

305
00:26:21,643 --> 00:26:26,816
you actually free employees from doing the day-to-day stuff.

306
00:26:27,084 --> 00:26:28,221
not in this things.

307
00:26:28,221 --> 00:26:29,248
That is not productive.

308
00:26:29,248 --> 00:26:33,759
Then then you move them up the value chain and then you actually get effectiveness.

309
00:26:33,759 --> 00:26:46,563
So there is a another study I think this one was from Bain that basically proved that for
any given company small company large company Two-thirds of their competitive advantage,

310
00:26:46,563 --> 00:26:55,535
you know, they measured it based on stock price improvement But you know, whatever you
could measure it based on profitability of the small company or whatever uh Two-thirds

311
00:26:55,535 --> 00:26:57,096
comes from their core products or services.

312
00:26:57,096 --> 00:26:57,688
So

313
00:26:57,688 --> 00:26:59,602
For Apple, it would be iPhones.

314
00:26:59,602 --> 00:27:01,524
For PNG, it would be Tide.

315
00:27:01,866 --> 00:27:05,071
One third comes from internal agility.

316
00:27:05,974 --> 00:27:10,303
So that's a direct link from efficiency to effectiveness.

317
00:27:10,303 --> 00:27:12,271
profit to the bottom line if you fix that.

318
00:27:12,271 --> 00:27:12,914
There you go.

319
00:27:12,914 --> 00:27:13,476
Yeah.

320
00:27:13,476 --> 00:27:15,224
There's no cost to producing anything.

321
00:27:15,224 --> 00:27:16,939
No, you're just doing it better.

322
00:27:17,710 --> 00:27:27,593
um I went back when you were saying that to like economics 100, 200, macro, micro of the
idea of opportunity cost.

323
00:27:27,593 --> 00:27:28,364
Yes.

324
00:27:28,364 --> 00:27:32,730
That a lot of times that's about what country should produce a thing and who does it
better.

325
00:27:32,730 --> 00:27:36,322
But that same thing can happen with inside organizations, release them to do their work.

326
00:27:36,322 --> 00:27:41,025
Yes, yes, exactly, yes.

327
00:27:41,025 --> 00:27:54,983
by increasing the cycle, the agility, the speed of decision making, because for every
travel expense report that isn't held up because it went to wherever Manila and then got

328
00:27:54,983 --> 00:28:04,428
stuck there and all that kind of stuff, ah it means minutes that the employee is then kind
of thinking about what's the next product I create, or so on and so forth.

329
00:28:04,428 --> 00:28:09,853
the number that you ended up putting on that you saved the business.

330
00:28:09,853 --> 00:28:12,042
It was probably in hundreds of millions of dollars.

331
00:28:12,042 --> 00:28:25,534
I am, yeah, I'm not allowed to give you the actual number, but over a three year period,
we worked on about 20 ideas, you know, like the traveling expense report was like one of

332
00:28:25,534 --> 00:28:25,935
those.

333
00:28:25,935 --> 00:28:36,043
um And each of those was, uh had a size of prize of $50 million each, right?

334
00:28:36,525 --> 00:28:38,314
So this becomes, this adds up.

335
00:28:38,314 --> 00:28:39,196
Tremendous.

336
00:28:39,196 --> 00:28:39,596
Wow.

337
00:28:39,596 --> 00:28:45,427
um Boy, if you would have been incentivized based upon like a salesperson is on
commissions.

338
00:28:46,730 --> 00:28:48,233
Why didn't you?

339
00:28:48,233 --> 00:28:49,254
uh

340
00:28:49,555 --> 00:28:51,339
No, that's not the way we work.

341
00:28:51,630 --> 00:28:54,555
um That's more the way we work in entrepreneurship though.

342
00:28:54,555 --> 00:28:54,987
That's true.

343
00:28:54,987 --> 00:28:55,359
That's true.

344
00:28:55,359 --> 00:28:56,386
When you're building businesses.

345
00:28:56,386 --> 00:28:57,288
That's exactly true.

346
00:28:57,288 --> 00:28:58,591
Yes, no, absolutely.

347
00:28:58,591 --> 00:29:00,334
um That is exactly right.

348
00:29:00,334 --> 00:29:12,230
Um, so what, uh, since 2015, 16, 17, and the adventure here in 2025, um, share with me
about those eight years versus the 30 prior.

349
00:29:13,294 --> 00:29:26,594
So when I left P &G and that was 2018, this entrepreneurship model essentially then became
the seed of the entrepreneurship model, which is, there's got to be a lot of companies

350
00:29:26,594 --> 00:29:33,994
that have the same question, which is, how do we disruptively change our internal speed of
operation?

351
00:29:33,994 --> 00:29:42,694
And so that's what led to the book, Digital Transformations Fail, and a lot of work with
different organizations, both in terms of

352
00:29:43,022 --> 00:29:47,766
uh literally helping them with their innovative strategy, disruptive innovation strategy.

353
00:29:47,766 --> 00:29:54,752
And then, know, in some cases, um you know, leadership, keynote speaking, all that kind of
stuff.

354
00:29:54,752 --> 00:30:08,865
um And then that went on for a few years until just before COVID, I hooked up with uh my
ex-boss from Procter & Gamble, person named Filippo Pasarini.

355
00:30:08,865 --> 00:30:10,406
um

356
00:30:10,610 --> 00:30:16,254
and Italian who actually came up with this whole construct of global business services.

357
00:30:16,254 --> 00:30:26,312
So global business services is how do you take the back office operations of any given
company, finance, accounting, HR, IT kind of stuff, and then get efficiency out of it,

358
00:30:26,312 --> 00:30:26,612
right?

359
00:30:26,612 --> 00:30:34,848
And it is now a well-established industry, about 120 billion, I think, uh growing like 20
% a year.

360
00:30:34,848 --> 00:30:37,870
And it includes everything from technology to...

361
00:30:38,048 --> 00:30:42,100
outsourcing to offshore partners to transformation and stuff like that.

362
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:51,476
And so he and I used to get together over beer occasionally and kind of commiserate with
each other saying, hey, all the stuff that we did about 30 years ago, people seem to be

363
00:30:51,476 --> 00:30:53,166
struggling with today.

364
00:30:53,427 --> 00:31:05,404
And, you know, at this stage in our life, rather than helping the large big four
consultancies kind of pick our brains and make money, we should actually disrupt that

365
00:31:05,404 --> 00:31:05,824
market.

366
00:31:05,824 --> 00:31:06,390
So

367
00:31:06,390 --> 00:31:10,963
Why don't we actually share some of these models and create the next generation of
leaders?

368
00:31:10,963 --> 00:31:18,739
And so that's what led us to create the second company, which is called Inixia, or
Inissia, which is Latin for to begin.

369
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:32,309
And now that company we've gone around and I think worked with about, I think the latest
number is 180 companies all the way from like Walmart downwards to help kind of drive this

370
00:31:32,309 --> 00:31:34,378
approach and capability.

371
00:31:34,378 --> 00:31:35,979
inside their organization.

372
00:31:35,979 --> 00:31:37,039
it's been a lot of fun.

373
00:31:37,039 --> 00:31:50,545
um The COVID period actually um really drove a lot of the demand for this because then
while people were not in the office, they were looking out for ways to build capability,

374
00:31:50,545 --> 00:31:51,466
train.

375
00:31:51,466 --> 00:31:55,508
And so we'd some of that mostly through training in the initial days.

376
00:31:55,508 --> 00:32:00,206
And now increasingly, I think it's much more advisory to help implement some of that.

377
00:32:00,206 --> 00:32:04,230
That's what I going to ask, is it advisory and consultant versus bringing systems to the
table?

378
00:32:04,230 --> 00:32:04,591
yeah.

379
00:32:04,591 --> 00:32:13,262
Yeah, it's been a long time since I built anything in IT, uh but yes, it is certainly
advisory.

380
00:32:13,262 --> 00:32:16,480
Would you imagine starting a career now in IT?

381
00:32:18,274 --> 00:32:21,636
I'm sure I would not make it, I would not be hired.

382
00:32:21,636 --> 00:32:25,137
um It's a very different world.

383
00:32:25,137 --> 00:32:30,899
um But if given half the chance, I would love to, I would join again.

384
00:32:30,919 --> 00:32:37,102
Because again, you have to kind of look at this industry of IT in the context of time.

385
00:32:37,102 --> 00:32:46,145
um Corporate IT in its current form has existed for about what, five, six decades, right?

386
00:32:46,206 --> 00:32:47,306
At best.

387
00:32:48,434 --> 00:32:55,687
you know, three decades ago, three, four decades ago, when I first started, we were
literally the back office of the back office.

388
00:32:55,687 --> 00:33:01,340
You know, we were actually literally located in the basement of the headquarters building
at Procter and Gamble.

389
00:33:01,340 --> 00:33:06,962
Um, it was euphemistically called the terrace, but we all knew what we were talking about.

390
00:33:06,962 --> 00:33:16,726
So, um, from there to today where technology has become the really big driving force.

391
00:33:16,726 --> 00:33:23,371
for strategy and change in the big enterprise, that pace of change is only going to
continue.

392
00:33:23,512 --> 00:33:33,129
When you contrast that with, and this is not a competition, but when you contrast that
with other functions on how they evolve, mean, sales existed since one caveman sold to

393
00:33:33,129 --> 00:33:36,774
another, or finance existed from whatever we're just will be encountered.

394
00:33:36,774 --> 00:33:39,134
were talking about the 15 and 1600s, right?

395
00:33:39,134 --> 00:33:39,554
exactly.

396
00:33:39,554 --> 00:33:39,894
Right.

397
00:33:39,894 --> 00:33:52,766
um This function of IT going from really you're hidden in the back room to now being in
the boardroom within about five, six decades is incredible.

398
00:33:52,766 --> 00:33:55,018
And that pace of change is only going to increase.

399
00:33:55,018 --> 00:33:58,131
so, yeah, I think it's an exciting place.

400
00:33:58,131 --> 00:34:02,585
It's a place that has a lot of risks, a lot of traps, a lot of demand.

401
00:34:02,585 --> 00:34:04,477
You got to keep up and stuff like that.

402
00:34:04,477 --> 00:34:06,398
But I find that exciting.

403
00:34:06,706 --> 00:34:17,793
Um, you know, the world now, everyone's talking about AI and there's different versions of
it, but every time what I've recognized is once the global world is talking about

404
00:34:17,793 --> 00:34:20,815
something, it was already happening for an extended period of time.

405
00:34:20,815 --> 00:34:25,197
We just weren't talking about it, but is the pace surprising to you?

406
00:34:25,197 --> 00:34:27,157
It is, it always is.

407
00:34:27,157 --> 00:34:41,877
And I think this kind of goes back to something that Bill Gates said many years ago, which
is, we tend to overestimate the capability, any capability, IT, in a 10 year horizon

408
00:34:41,877 --> 00:34:46,197
period and underestimate it in like the one or two year period, right?

409
00:34:46,837 --> 00:34:47,671
I'm sorry, it's the other way around.

410
00:34:47,671 --> 00:34:48,864
The other way around.

411
00:34:49,128 --> 00:34:51,035
We underestimate what we can accomplish in 10 years.

412
00:34:51,035 --> 00:34:52,910
oh

413
00:34:52,910 --> 00:35:03,403
So it's exactly that same phenomena uh for me, which is that I really did think that, the
world is going to change.

414
00:35:03,403 --> 00:35:06,134
AI is going to come on board and stuff like that.

415
00:35:06,134 --> 00:35:09,935
But really, I've been surprised by the pace at which it has happened.

416
00:35:10,135 --> 00:35:12,495
To your point, it's been around for a while.

417
00:35:12,695 --> 00:35:22,382
The actual mathematical formula behind AI, because it's all math, has existed for
probably, you know,

418
00:35:22,382 --> 00:35:23,203
100 years.

419
00:35:23,203 --> 00:35:35,304
uh All of those, it's basically, know, statistics and maths and, you know, probabilities
and all that kind of stuff at its heart.

420
00:35:35,304 --> 00:35:36,460
That's the technology.

421
00:35:36,460 --> 00:35:38,542
Now we have the processing ability to put it all together.

422
00:35:38,542 --> 00:35:39,262
There you go.

423
00:35:39,262 --> 00:35:40,582
So that's what changed.

424
00:35:40,582 --> 00:35:48,062
And then suddenly, you know, thanks to Moore's law and doubling of, you know, price
performance every 18 months, that kind of stuff, that became very, very affordable.

425
00:35:48,062 --> 00:35:53,902
And then you had more data to play with and therefore, you know, it just keeps
compounding.

426
00:35:53,902 --> 00:36:01,062
And it is literally that exponential effect of stuff doubles every two to three years.

427
00:36:01,522 --> 00:36:03,202
That is what is new.

428
00:36:03,202 --> 00:36:05,454
So it's the, you know, the energy.

429
00:36:05,454 --> 00:36:07,509
you uh know, and stuff like that.

430
00:36:07,509 --> 00:36:11,950
It's the computing capabilities, the data that's available, that's new.

431
00:36:11,950 --> 00:36:15,968
The foundation, you know, the mathematical equations.

432
00:36:17,468 --> 00:36:19,931
Is the speed what takes all the energy?

433
00:36:20,213 --> 00:36:22,977
Is it the speed of the analyzing?

434
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:24,601
Yeah, is that what it is?

435
00:36:24,601 --> 00:36:24,954
uh

436
00:36:24,954 --> 00:36:29,107
It's actually the volume of computing that's done.

437
00:36:29,107 --> 00:36:30,136
um

438
00:36:30,136 --> 00:36:33,929
So then the power necessity is gonna be exponential as well.

439
00:36:33,978 --> 00:36:35,268
The power necessary.

440
00:36:35,268 --> 00:36:35,759
Yes.

441
00:36:35,759 --> 00:36:37,439
So it's going to grow exponentially.

442
00:36:37,439 --> 00:36:40,270
Well, um it's going to grow not necessarily exponentially.

443
00:36:40,270 --> 00:36:46,022
It's going to grow because what happens is that, you know, these computers are also
getting more efficient.

444
00:36:46,022 --> 00:36:48,202
So you can do the same computer.

445
00:36:48,283 --> 00:36:48,703
Yes.

446
00:36:48,703 --> 00:36:53,024
um You know, with a little less energy than the previous generation.

447
00:36:53,024 --> 00:36:54,545
But to your point.

448
00:36:54,545 --> 00:36:56,215
um yeah.

449
00:36:56,215 --> 00:36:59,666
Computing AI is going to continue to suck power.

450
00:36:59,672 --> 00:37:01,247
Did you know to invest in Nvidia?

451
00:37:01,247 --> 00:37:02,525
buy it real cheap?

452
00:37:02,570 --> 00:37:04,732
I did not, I'm a terrible investor.

453
00:37:04,732 --> 00:37:14,062
um My philosophy, if you look at it in hindsight and try and extrapolate a strategy, my
philosophy would be, you know, buy high and sell low.

454
00:37:14,062 --> 00:37:25,602
So I learned very quickly from there that I was too emotionally involved in a lot of this
stuff and let me just go, you know, outsource it to somebody who knows better.

455
00:37:25,602 --> 00:37:31,530
Yeah, what since you still have the energy and you said given the opportunity again, you
love to do it.

456
00:37:31,530 --> 00:37:33,192
What do you really think?

457
00:37:33,192 --> 00:37:37,708
Do you business plan for these companies for yourself and and for your party?

458
00:37:37,708 --> 00:37:39,230
I'm assuming he's in Italy probably.

459
00:37:39,230 --> 00:37:40,312
I don't know if he's here.

460
00:37:40,312 --> 00:37:43,234
He actually spends his time between Italy and New York.

461
00:37:44,433 --> 00:37:46,679
What do you really think you're going to do and accomplish?

462
00:37:46,679 --> 00:37:48,565
What's the plan look like?

463
00:37:48,565 --> 00:37:52,224
What's the trajectory of three and five and seven years for these two businesses?

464
00:37:52,494 --> 00:38:06,858
um You know, I'm probably at the age where I try and count success, uh not necessarily by
the growth of the business, you know, like dollars or whatever it is, but you know, the

465
00:38:06,858 --> 00:38:10,359
number of individuals, leaders, and the number of success stories.

466
00:38:10,359 --> 00:38:16,701
So, Filippo and I, it is exactly impact, uh but measured in a different way.

467
00:38:16,701 --> 00:38:21,142
uh So, impact measured by the number of companies that we worked at.

468
00:38:21,142 --> 00:38:22,060
uh

469
00:38:22,060 --> 00:38:28,184
or impact by the leaders we've helped coach that are now in top leadership positions, that
kind of stuff.

470
00:38:28,184 --> 00:38:30,635
So we've got a few goals along those lines.

471
00:38:30,635 --> 00:38:45,325
um But unlike our career, Philippo and mine at Procter & Gamble and uh many of the other
people, uh there is a new factor in there, which is, we having fun?

472
00:38:45,325 --> 00:38:47,526
um

473
00:38:47,682 --> 00:38:51,105
And fun isn't like, you know, lay on the beach or play golf or whatever it is.

474
00:38:51,105 --> 00:38:56,969
uh Fun as in when we take on an activity, it could be a consulting gig.

475
00:38:56,969 --> 00:39:03,805
um You know, at some point in time, if we feel like we're not making an impact, we will
just get out of it.

476
00:39:03,805 --> 00:39:07,177
like, it doesn't matter if we lose money, it's not worth it.

477
00:39:07,177 --> 00:39:12,882
uh So I think that's the only concession to age that uh we've added.

478
00:39:12,882 --> 00:39:13,702
uh

479
00:39:14,210 --> 00:39:16,830
Did that come from just maturity and living?

480
00:39:16,830 --> 00:39:18,023
I think so.

481
00:39:18,023 --> 00:39:20,104
I really think so.

482
00:39:20,966 --> 00:39:26,910
Because eventually everything kind of goes back, I believe, to Maslow's hierarchy of
needs, right?

483
00:39:26,910 --> 00:39:38,400
Which is, there was a point in time when safety and security was a question mark for me,
and then financial security, and then ego was important.

484
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:45,766
But I think we're at the point now where it's like, the difference that we make is much
more important than all of the other stuff.

485
00:39:46,395 --> 00:39:49,228
Um, so that's maturity.

486
00:39:49,228 --> 00:39:53,190
Would we have been better served if we understood this in our 30s?

487
00:39:53,220 --> 00:39:55,702
I would have liked to have known that better.

488
00:39:55,702 --> 00:40:02,018
I learned the construct, but I had no idea what it meant as it applied to me.

489
00:40:02,828 --> 00:40:04,100
maybe it evolves properly.

490
00:40:04,100 --> 00:40:08,110
Maybe we need these individuals in their 30s and 40s to be hard drivers.

491
00:40:08,110 --> 00:40:09,431
I suspect you're right.

492
00:40:09,431 --> 00:40:25,353
I really do because um when I compare the risk taking that I might embark on versus our
two daughters who are in their early 30s, um I'm glad that they are taking the risk that

493
00:40:25,353 --> 00:40:29,766
they do because that's how people change and innovation happens.

494
00:40:29,912 --> 00:40:36,530
How did you create an environment um as a parent because you want to see your children do
well?

495
00:40:36,611 --> 00:40:43,960
How did you create an environment where they were comfortable embracing change and risk in
their careers?

496
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:46,162
How did you create an environment to support that?

497
00:40:46,414 --> 00:40:50,760
uh By making sure that we did stuff that they absolutely hated and they hated us now.

498
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:51,480
I'm

499
00:40:52,222 --> 00:40:53,505
Maybe you're not.

500
00:40:54,130 --> 00:40:55,084
That's a maniacal laugh.

501
00:40:55,084 --> 00:40:56,486
don't think you're kidding.

502
00:40:56,486 --> 00:40:59,348
Now, well, maybe only partly true.

503
00:40:59,348 --> 00:41:10,324
Now, see, the fact is, as we were talking earlier, um so this three-decade career was
really spread over 14 different roles and six countries.

504
00:41:10,324 --> 00:41:17,858
And I think at last count, there were 12 different house relocations involved.

505
00:41:17,858 --> 00:41:25,342
um And um so there was a lot of change for the kids as they were growing up.

506
00:41:25,342 --> 00:41:36,756
And some of it uh was at really bad times, including like, know, switching schools and
countries from Cincinnati to Geneva, Switzerland when they were in high school, terrible

507
00:41:36,756 --> 00:41:37,446
time to move.

508
00:41:37,446 --> 00:41:41,287
uh I wouldn't probably never do that in hindsight.

509
00:41:41,287 --> 00:41:48,749
uh But I think uh that was their form of adversity.

510
00:41:48,749 --> 00:41:51,630
uh Perhaps it was not, you know,

511
00:41:52,322 --> 00:41:58,612
We may not have enough money to buy something, I think it was much more, okay, why do we
have to go through this kind of.

512
00:41:58,612 --> 00:42:00,142
Yeah, as an adolescent.

513
00:42:00,183 --> 00:42:01,293
That's significant.

514
00:42:01,293 --> 00:42:04,404
They're not worried about money.

515
00:42:06,204 --> 00:42:10,626
did you think that exposing them to all those moves, all that change?

516
00:42:10,626 --> 00:42:20,449
Because isn't it, if humans don't like change, if you can learn to embrace it, you're
probably gonna achieve a lot more in life.

517
00:42:20,449 --> 00:42:24,536
Whether it's education, level of friendship, all your relationships in business.

518
00:42:24,536 --> 00:42:26,428
Yes, no, that is absolutely true.

519
00:42:26,428 --> 00:42:35,028
um I do think that adversity and necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention,
right?

520
00:42:35,028 --> 00:42:37,680
But it's hard.

521
00:42:38,648 --> 00:42:41,250
comfortable to put yourself in it intentionally.

522
00:42:41,250 --> 00:42:42,651
Yes, even today.

523
00:42:42,651 --> 00:42:48,586
And that's really the downside of, as I was saying, moving up the mass law hierarchy of
needs.

524
00:42:48,586 --> 00:42:52,299
like there's some stuff that it's like, no, it's not worth it.

525
00:42:52,299 --> 00:43:02,078
What comes with a quote unquote price, which is I'm sure if I forced myself through more
adverse situations, I might learn a little faster.

526
00:43:02,078 --> 00:43:04,829
But it's like, at this age, I've got enough gray hair.

527
00:43:04,829 --> 00:43:05,670
I don't need any more.

528
00:43:05,670 --> 00:43:06,630
uh

529
00:43:08,051 --> 00:43:12,692
Are your hierarchy needs pretty much just about the relationships about your people now?

530
00:43:13,306 --> 00:43:16,169
I think they are absolutely about people.

531
00:43:16,169 --> 00:43:26,248
um And I think it's equally about uh seeing other people be successful.

532
00:43:26,378 --> 00:43:27,980
That's the people you're with at the time though.

533
00:43:27,980 --> 00:43:30,360
That's the people that we are at the time, yes, yes.

534
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:30,971
Hmm.

535
00:43:30,971 --> 00:43:36,775
So if you've touched 180 or 181 companies, is it going to be 500 or a thousand?

536
00:43:36,775 --> 00:43:41,548
Or at some point, do you raise the white flag and say, ah, I've had enough of this.

537
00:43:41,816 --> 00:43:54,034
See, the beauty I think of, um the beauty of being at this stage in life is that you do it
until someday you feel like, I've had enough.

538
00:43:54,034 --> 00:44:00,278
um And so I think as a person, I'm a restless person.

539
00:44:00,278 --> 00:44:02,460
um I would rather do stuff.

540
00:44:02,460 --> 00:44:05,622
And by the way, that do stuff doesn't necessarily have to be technology.

541
00:44:05,622 --> 00:44:11,756
I mean, it could be like stripping my garage to its studs and uh

542
00:44:11,756 --> 00:44:15,569
redoing it, that kind of which I am.

543
00:44:15,569 --> 00:44:16,830
That was my COVID project.

544
00:44:16,830 --> 00:44:27,358
uh So uh yes, I mean, I feel like as long as I'm learning a different skill, I'm having
fun.

545
00:44:27,358 --> 00:44:30,674
an eternal educated mind.

546
00:44:30,674 --> 00:44:35,388
And uh it doesn't have to be educated as in necessarily words in a book.

547
00:44:35,388 --> 00:44:39,147
mean, educated could be, how do you grow better roses or whatever?

548
00:44:39,147 --> 00:44:40,224
100%.

549
00:44:40,224 --> 00:44:46,339
I think our brain evolves learning how to grow better roses the same way it does in
learning some new degree.

550
00:44:47,061 --> 00:44:48,390
Same process in our brains.

551
00:44:48,390 --> 00:44:48,870
Exactly.

552
00:44:48,870 --> 00:45:05,491
So um I suspect if I were to look into the globe that uh at some point in time, I might
grow tired of the IT or business kind of stuff and perhaps move towards something more

553
00:45:05,491 --> 00:45:06,272
productive.

554
00:45:06,272 --> 00:45:08,113
I don't know, maybe making better food.

555
00:45:08,113 --> 00:45:09,093
Yeah.

556
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:12,713
We might find Tony meditating for five hours a day.

557
00:45:13,455 --> 00:45:14,136
Do you do any of that?

558
00:45:14,136 --> 00:45:17,360
What do you do for, um, for improving your own personal life?

559
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:19,086
you, what do do?

560
00:45:19,086 --> 00:45:21,769
uh I actually like to work with my hands.

561
00:45:21,769 --> 00:45:24,071
uh So a lot of the stuff that I was talking about.

562
00:45:24,071 --> 00:45:30,077
uh I love woodworking, carpentry, uh pottering around in the yard, in the garden.

563
00:45:30,077 --> 00:45:34,181
uh We love travel, um as a family always have.

564
00:45:34,181 --> 00:45:39,566
um So that's really, I think, our main hobbies.

565
00:45:39,608 --> 00:45:45,546
Do you think working with your hands is it soothe your brain from all the intense pressure
of the corporate environment for so many decades?

566
00:45:45,546 --> 00:45:47,038
It has.

567
00:45:47,038 --> 00:45:53,114
I think working with my hands has been a way to just kind go into your happy place and...

568
00:45:53,114 --> 00:45:57,294
um Exactly, that's the meditation.

569
00:45:57,294 --> 00:46:01,022
um What satisfies you the most when you're working with these people?

570
00:46:01,022 --> 00:46:03,656
You wrote your book for a reason, you had something to say.

571
00:46:04,310 --> 00:46:19,160
I think um the book writing for me, just to back up a little bit, um the creative process
is for me the equivalent of growing roses or building stuff at home.

572
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:20,061
That's important.

573
00:46:20,061 --> 00:46:25,064
um And so I always liked writing as a form of creativity.

574
00:46:25,064 --> 00:46:33,836
um And very early on in life, uh I started to write college magazines and stuff like that.

575
00:46:33,836 --> 00:46:46,290
And I had this itch at the back of my mind that when I retire, I want to write a book,
except the kind of book I wanted to write was like a uh thriller or whatever it is.

576
00:46:47,110 --> 00:46:52,271
And uh so before I uh left P &G, I started to kind of feel around.

577
00:46:52,271 --> 00:46:56,212
It's like, okay, how easy or how difficult is it to get into this?

578
00:46:56,373 --> 00:47:00,994
And I spoke to a couple of publishers and one of them said,

579
00:47:00,994 --> 00:47:03,420
I'll give you a piece of advice, stay in your lane.

580
00:47:05,454 --> 00:47:06,949
I think it is good advice.

581
00:47:06,949 --> 00:47:08,935
Sometimes I hate that advice though.

582
00:47:08,935 --> 00:47:13,154
I know, I do, hate it because it it squashes the creativity piece.

583
00:47:13,154 --> 00:47:14,994
Well, in this particular case, it did.

584
00:47:14,994 --> 00:47:17,715
So what it did was it, I think, channeled it.

585
00:47:17,715 --> 00:47:25,327
yeah, I would have made a terrible, I don't know, uh know, Dan Brown or whatever it is.

586
00:47:25,327 --> 00:47:28,538
No, certainly not.

587
00:47:28,538 --> 00:47:39,421
um But I was able to channel that same creativity to taking stuff that I know and putting
it down in a way that's halfway interesting.

588
00:47:39,421 --> 00:47:40,801
And that was really useful.

589
00:47:40,801 --> 00:47:43,282
So I think it did work.

590
00:47:43,438 --> 00:47:44,899
Hey, thanks for tuning in.

591
00:47:44,979 --> 00:47:50,384
If you like these types of conversations, be sure to follow the necessary entrepreneur on
your favorite platform.

592
00:47:50,384 --> 00:47:52,686
So you never miss out on future content.

593
00:47:52,686 --> 00:47:54,667
Let's dig into this staying in your lane.

594
00:47:54,667 --> 00:48:00,572
I haven't had this conversation with too many people because I have, sometimes I have
these adverse reactions to things.

595
00:48:00,572 --> 00:48:09,359
I don't like anybody in this world to stifle an idea or creativity, because I know if
someone has an idea and they actually willing to see it through might be a decade.

596
00:48:09,359 --> 00:48:12,041
They have a way to change the world possibly and change outcomes.

597
00:48:12,041 --> 00:48:13,132
However,

598
00:48:13,336 --> 00:48:18,020
You're making an argument that there's a benefit to most people staying in their lane.

599
00:48:18,203 --> 00:48:19,745
Why do you think that is?

600
00:48:20,058 --> 00:48:30,163
You know, like most other things in life, um I'm a little careful about absolute
statements or absolute philosophies.

601
00:48:31,685 --> 00:48:36,527
I don't necessarily think stay in your lane is good advice in general.

602
00:48:36,527 --> 00:48:45,952
um I think um as it applies to specific situations, um there's a lot of merit.

603
00:48:45,952 --> 00:48:49,324
um So it's possible that

604
00:48:49,324 --> 00:48:52,155
you know, I might have said, no, forget it.

605
00:48:52,155 --> 00:48:57,717
You know, I really do want to become, uh you know, the next Michael Connolly or whatever
it is.

606
00:48:57,717 --> 00:49:09,002
And, you know, and it may have very possibly uh in the ideal world, I might have spent
another three or four decades and eventually become successful at that.

607
00:49:09,002 --> 00:49:17,445
uh And alternatively, you know, I wrote a business book, a couple of different business
books.

608
00:49:17,445 --> 00:49:19,106
And then I, uh you know,

609
00:49:19,106 --> 00:49:25,052
found my passion there, which is, okay, now I can not just write, but I can teach and I
can help others.

610
00:49:25,052 --> 00:49:28,014
And so that just took me down a different pathway.

611
00:49:28,014 --> 00:49:34,439
But back to your point, um I don't know if stay in your lane is generically good advice.

612
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:36,568
That's not something I would say lightly.

613
00:49:36,568 --> 00:49:36,768
Yeah.

614
00:49:36,768 --> 00:49:39,212
Why do you think they do the people who do?

615
00:49:39,212 --> 00:49:41,430
Why do you think that comes out of their

616
00:49:41,430 --> 00:49:46,452
I think it all kind of goes back to what gives you joy.

617
00:49:46,452 --> 00:49:59,918
uh So much as I appreciate the fact that there are people like me that are constantly
restless, I also appreciate the fact that there may be people that uh find their happy

618
00:49:59,918 --> 00:50:02,379
place in predictability.

619
00:50:02,399 --> 00:50:08,502
So they want to live in the same town, they want to go out with the same friends, they
want to watch the same matches, stuff like that.

620
00:50:08,502 --> 00:50:09,542
uh

621
00:50:09,542 --> 00:50:10,550
they find contentment.

622
00:50:10,550 --> 00:50:11,913
And they find contentment.

623
00:50:11,913 --> 00:50:21,733
um And back to my Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I think if that's the fastest way to move
up the hierarchy for some people, go for it.

624
00:50:22,860 --> 00:50:26,709
Maybe that's the eternal challenge is to know our own self.

625
00:50:26,886 --> 00:50:27,818
It is, isn't it?

626
00:50:27,818 --> 00:50:30,132
Yes, that's the most difficult.

627
00:50:30,132 --> 00:50:37,914
And a lot of this, think, you even with the companies that I work with, people are looking
for what's the formula?

628
00:50:37,914 --> 00:50:39,416
What's the best-in-class approach?

629
00:50:39,416 --> 00:50:40,348
What's the answer?

630
00:50:40,348 --> 00:50:41,902
um

631
00:50:41,902 --> 00:50:43,495
How do you take that approach with them?

632
00:50:44,011 --> 00:50:53,590
And the question really is, goes back to the digital transformation thing, which is I end
up spending a lot of time saying, let's sit down together and figure out what the goal is.

633
00:50:54,828 --> 00:50:56,885
A lot of times, do they not know?

634
00:50:58,562 --> 00:50:59,882
They have an idea.

635
00:50:59,882 --> 00:51:04,831
I think the issue is, it tangible enough that you can measure it?

636
00:51:04,831 --> 00:51:06,512
Is it the right goal?

637
00:51:06,953 --> 00:51:14,222
Like with technology and transformation, are you confusing the technology for the outcome?

638
00:51:14,223 --> 00:51:16,505
And so that becomes the conversation.

639
00:51:16,824 --> 00:51:25,020
What you talked to, we talked about all fair before we got started a little bit about you
could recognize over the years, um, there was this idea that you could recognize another P

640
00:51:25,020 --> 00:51:25,980
and G here.

641
00:51:26,081 --> 00:51:26,981
Right.

642
00:51:27,102 --> 00:51:32,365
And what I speak to that is, and then you said something, you're like, we kind of start,
said, is it solution focused?

643
00:51:32,365 --> 00:51:36,168
And you said, well, we kind of start, you can put your words with the end in mind.

644
00:51:36,568 --> 00:51:42,773
So have you come upon things that we couldn't take that approach with?

645
00:51:42,773 --> 00:51:44,654
And I asked that question because.

646
00:51:45,164 --> 00:51:46,559
almost everything I find in my life.

647
00:51:46,559 --> 00:51:48,590
You just start out with, what are you?

648
00:51:48,590 --> 00:51:49,454
What are you trying to do?

649
00:51:49,454 --> 00:51:50,539
eh What is it?

650
00:51:50,539 --> 00:51:51,202
eh

651
00:51:51,202 --> 00:51:55,346
And then usually there is a direct line from that back to where you are.

652
00:51:55,938 --> 00:51:57,749
that a part That's a great question.

653
00:51:57,749 --> 00:52:11,789
That really is a very good question because um there are absolutely things where starting
with the end in mind um may not work, at least not in the way I was describing.

654
00:52:11,789 --> 00:52:17,653
um I'll give you a really personal example, my own career.

655
00:52:17,653 --> 00:52:24,998
um So after whatever engineering MBA kind of stuff, um

656
00:52:25,374 --> 00:52:36,889
I had studied marketing and I thought I wanted to be either a marketing person or a
finance person uh until I started looking for jobs and the only jobs I could get were an

657
00:52:36,889 --> 00:52:37,229
IT.

658
00:52:37,229 --> 00:52:39,140
I was like, okay, fine, let me do that.

659
00:52:39,140 --> 00:52:50,049
uh Now, uh if I had basically taken the approach of, let me start with the end in mind.

660
00:52:50,049 --> 00:52:53,706
It's like three decades from now.

661
00:52:53,822 --> 00:53:04,291
I'm gonna be known as the best marketer in the world or whatever it is I don't know how
this goes back to you know stay in your own lane kind of stuff I don't know and I really

662
00:53:04,291 --> 00:53:16,571
mean I don't know as in I don't think this is this would have worked is I don't think it
would have worked out quite as well as you know Sense and respond.

663
00:53:16,571 --> 00:53:22,796
Let's see what the world needs Let me take my education and marketing and apply it

664
00:53:22,904 --> 00:53:28,918
to make another industry different.

665
00:53:28,918 --> 00:53:45,730
And so I kind of think of that as an example of sometimes you got to be clear, sometimes
you got to be careful of what you wish for uh because that implies you're closing yourself

666
00:53:45,730 --> 00:53:50,653
up to certain possibilities and stimuli in the environment.

667
00:53:50,653 --> 00:53:52,364
And if that is happening, then

668
00:53:52,364 --> 00:53:57,206
Yeah, that's the cost of being too laser focused on that one goal.

669
00:53:57,206 --> 00:53:59,357
Yeah, so we shouldn't stay on our lane.

670
00:53:59,606 --> 00:54:01,275
In that particular case, yes.

671
00:54:02,702 --> 00:54:05,296
Um, why.

672
00:54:07,330 --> 00:54:10,070
without using deprecation because you're a, you're a humble guy.

673
00:54:10,070 --> 00:54:11,272
don't know if you were your whole career.

674
00:54:11,272 --> 00:54:18,798
I'm sure you were hard charging and we're going to, but it seems like you've put this idea
of life and living and accomplishment.

675
00:54:18,798 --> 00:54:19,809
seems like you put it together.

676
00:54:19,809 --> 00:54:29,765
Well, I bet there was, we couldn't probably calculate the amount of hours of internal
thought for you to get here.

677
00:54:30,526 --> 00:54:36,320
Do you know why you reached the level of success, a VP level?

678
00:54:36,878 --> 00:54:41,218
six different countries, 14 or 12 or 14 different appointments.

679
00:54:41,238 --> 00:54:42,822
That's accomplishment.

680
00:54:44,994 --> 00:54:48,520
What made you the person that achieved that?

681
00:54:50,594 --> 00:55:01,167
You know, that's always a really difficult question because, you know, I wish it was, you
know, one thing or two things, two things that worked for me.

682
00:55:01,167 --> 00:55:13,180
And certainly to be very, very clear, the things that work for me may not work for, you
know, another individual, um but kind of getting specifically into my situation.

683
00:55:13,180 --> 00:55:20,282
um I think a lot goes back to, you know, what we were talking about, which is

684
00:55:20,590 --> 00:55:30,175
uh being open to change and a certain amount of adversity as you're growing up and
learning from that and becoming resilient and stuff like that.

685
00:55:30,175 --> 00:55:48,926
uh I think my parents, as I grew up in India, uh they really taught us, uh me and my uh
four sisters, three sisters, uh the benefits of hard work.

686
00:55:49,076 --> 00:55:50,367
number of hours doesn't matter.

687
00:55:50,367 --> 00:55:52,409
And I'm the same way, even now.

688
00:55:52,409 --> 00:55:58,634
It's like, I probably work more hours now than I did while I was at Procter & Gamble.

689
00:55:58,634 --> 00:56:02,057
And Procter & Gamble wasn't like a nine to five job.

690
00:56:02,057 --> 00:56:03,738
uh It was much more than that.

691
00:56:03,738 --> 00:56:06,720
um So I think there is that.

692
00:56:06,720 --> 00:56:12,025
uh I think another aspect is uh constant learning.

693
00:56:12,025 --> 00:56:13,346
And again, that works for me.

694
00:56:13,346 --> 00:56:15,147
may or may not work for everybody else.

695
00:56:15,147 --> 00:56:18,508
um I like to learn new stuff and that works.

696
00:56:18,508 --> 00:56:20,030
Why wouldn't it work for everyone else?

697
00:56:20,030 --> 00:56:30,975
Cause I actually really like you as a human, but I want to disagree with that
fundamentally because if everyone, whatever their spectrum of this world is, if they took

698
00:56:30,975 --> 00:56:36,842
that approach, I think we'd be hard pressed to say they don't have a better outcome in
life.

699
00:56:36,928 --> 00:56:38,459
I will concede that.

700
00:56:38,459 --> 00:56:43,021
um No, I think I misspoke on that.

701
00:56:43,922 --> 00:56:50,505
I didn't mean to say that um constant learning isn't good advice for everybody.

702
00:56:50,505 --> 00:56:55,268
um The point I was trying to make is that it wasn't just constant learning.

703
00:56:55,268 --> 00:57:02,912
think it was, and then using it to allow yourself to go try new stuff.

704
00:57:02,912 --> 00:57:03,672
A willingness.

705
00:57:03,672 --> 00:57:06,073
Constant change, yes, exactly.

706
00:57:06,850 --> 00:57:16,706
And it's not so much the learning as then, all right, let's take a risk and go to Japan
or, you know, let's take a risk and before Procter and Gamma was like, okay, I've had

707
00:57:16,706 --> 00:57:20,031
enough of IT, let's go back and try something else in India.

708
00:57:20,031 --> 00:57:22,232
So is that kind of risk taking?

709
00:57:22,232 --> 00:57:26,216
But it seems like maybe it's, but is it, do more.

710
00:57:26,894 --> 00:57:35,574
It was always driven by, I don't know if it was so much do more as it was, you know, I
want to try it.

711
00:57:35,574 --> 00:57:36,534
I'm curious.

712
00:57:36,534 --> 00:57:38,822
I wonder what's gonna happen.

713
00:57:39,214 --> 00:57:40,494
That seems a fun way to do it.

714
00:57:40,494 --> 00:58:00,629
um Yes, but to the point that you were making, um it also comes with some amount of
willingness to just take a risk, to just go, um and to fail, um because a lot of those 14

715
00:58:00,629 --> 00:58:09,350
assignments uh did come with, well, I wish I did that one better in hindsight, but yeah,
mean, the trajectory was good and that worked.

716
00:58:09,826 --> 00:58:18,219
the because I think so many people today growing up in these new generations in this world
of technology, they just want to say, well, tell me what to do.

717
00:58:18,219 --> 00:58:19,189
How do I get there?

718
00:58:19,189 --> 00:58:20,650
They see the outcome.

719
00:58:20,650 --> 00:58:21,090
Yeah.

720
00:58:21,090 --> 00:58:21,590
Right.

721
00:58:21,590 --> 00:58:22,621
And they said, well, just tell me.

722
00:58:22,621 --> 00:58:27,012
And to your point is, wow, I don't know what worked for me, what will work for anybody
else.

723
00:58:27,012 --> 00:58:32,782
But then the question is, is there an underlying philosophy that you just have about life?

724
00:58:32,782 --> 00:58:34,402
Yes, yes.

725
00:58:34,402 --> 00:58:45,142
And I think it is, this is going to sound really, really corny, but you know, to do good
and to help others to do good.

726
00:58:45,702 --> 00:58:52,982
One of the things I've realized is that you can do good and do well at the same time.

727
00:58:54,182 --> 00:59:00,792
There are companies and individuals that will do well, meaning

728
00:59:00,792 --> 00:59:03,184
They're extremely successful.

729
00:59:03,204 --> 00:59:12,273
They're hard-nosed business people, but they're also doing a lot of good.

730
00:59:12,273 --> 00:59:18,818
And you've got many philanthropist billionaires in the US and in the rest of the world and
stuff like that.

731
00:59:20,022 --> 00:59:23,633
It's very possible that some of them are.

732
00:59:23,633 --> 00:59:26,045
And maybe as they're getting closer towards the...

733
00:59:26,045 --> 00:59:27,366
em

734
00:59:27,925 --> 00:59:28,326
uh...

735
00:59:28,326 --> 00:59:36,326
you know the end of the asking themselves you know was it worth it or you know can i make
a difference in another way it's possible but i think you know if we could come to that

736
00:59:36,326 --> 00:59:40,306
realization of the little earlier in our career that would be nicer

737
00:59:40,923 --> 00:59:49,256
Isn't it a balance of success, making money, um becoming financially free and independent,
but at the same time not running over others to get there?

738
00:59:49,422 --> 00:59:52,002
You you said the magic word balance.

739
00:59:52,522 --> 01:00:01,822
this really, eventually, I think that is the hardest thing for people to understand.

740
01:00:01,822 --> 01:00:03,502
How to maintain that balance.

741
01:00:03,502 --> 01:00:12,762
I mean, in life, as is with business, in your personal life, stuff like that, you
constantly have to keep that balance.

742
01:00:12,762 --> 01:00:13,250
What's that?

743
01:00:13,250 --> 01:00:13,851
mean.

744
01:00:13,851 --> 01:00:26,824
So everyone talks about this, every word, every podcast or all the elite folks because, so
who was the past from India, the lady who was the CEO of PepsiCo.

745
01:00:28,942 --> 01:00:35,846
So I recently saw a podcast interview with her and someone asked her this question about
balance and she laughed.

746
01:00:37,644 --> 01:00:40,256
Was it about work-life balance or balance in general?

747
01:00:40,256 --> 01:00:41,136
it all went together.

748
01:00:41,136 --> 01:00:43,610
said there's no such thing.

749
01:00:43,932 --> 01:00:46,895
So from her frame of mind, what it took for her to achieve that.

750
01:00:47,076 --> 01:00:48,927
So what do we do with this word?

751
01:00:49,086 --> 01:00:56,049
Um, so like with a lot of things that I do, I, I, I, I push for clarity and definition.

752
01:00:56,049 --> 01:01:08,425
Um, so let me take one aspect of that, which is work life balance, um, and tell you why if
she was talking about work life balance, there's no such thing in my mind as work life

753
01:01:08,425 --> 01:01:08,975
balance.

754
01:01:08,975 --> 01:01:16,578
Um, because at the end of the day, it's all life and you make choices about for your own
life.

755
01:01:16,588 --> 01:01:26,004
You know, are you better off spending 12 hours a day in the office as opposed to, you
know, being with your family or playing golf or whatever it is.

756
01:01:26,004 --> 01:01:28,065
But that's a choice you have to make.

757
01:01:29,287 --> 01:01:29,687
Yes.

758
01:01:29,687 --> 01:01:31,428
ah So that's exactly.

759
01:01:31,428 --> 01:01:34,400
So that becomes priorities in that context.

760
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:39,403
so simplistic arrangements like, hey, you know, we got to have work life balance.

761
01:01:39,403 --> 01:01:46,648
You know, we're going to turn off the lights in the office after eight hours, I think are
really disruptive because

762
01:01:46,648 --> 01:01:53,461
they actually take away that right of the human to make their own choices, right?

763
01:01:53,461 --> 01:02:03,505
So in that context, I would completely agree that, you know, setting that up, that
definition of balance as a goal is actually incorrect.

764
01:02:03,505 --> 01:02:16,250
um What I was talking about was balance in the sense of what you correctly said, it's
prioritization of being aware of what's priority number one, two, and three.

765
01:02:16,512 --> 01:02:26,495
And then uh if I see that uh I have a conflict between priority number one and three, I
have to be clear about where am I going to invest?

766
01:02:26,495 --> 01:02:32,041
so that, think, is incredibly important and obviously very difficult.

767
01:02:32,334 --> 01:02:35,278
But that's the balance, right, that you actually know you have a choice to make.

768
01:02:35,278 --> 01:02:36,259
Yes, yes.

769
01:02:36,259 --> 01:02:45,065
And that's why, back to your question around, you know, when people say, you know, give me
the magic formula, whatever it is, it's always got to come back to, you've got to put it

770
01:02:45,065 --> 01:02:50,608
in the context of your own priorities, whether it's you as an individual or you as a
business.

771
01:02:52,110 --> 01:02:54,131
Yes, yes.

772
01:02:54,752 --> 01:03:01,476
Yes, I do think there is a fair amount of, you know, it is hard.

773
01:03:01,497 --> 01:03:03,018
There's no question about it.

774
01:03:03,018 --> 01:03:03,726
So it's.

775
01:03:03,726 --> 01:03:04,616
because it's uncultured.

776
01:03:04,616 --> 01:03:05,947
is very uncomfortable.

777
01:03:05,947 --> 01:03:07,008
It's uncomfortable for me.

778
01:03:07,008 --> 01:03:19,314
It's uncomfortable for you when we kind of face up to it and we make a lot of mistakes and
stuff like that um but at the end of the day, I think anything that forces us to

779
01:03:19,475 --> 01:03:31,191
introspect and say I need to make a change, know, whether it's in diet or exercise or
amount of hours you spend in the office or you know, whatever it is um is only good

780
01:03:31,191 --> 01:03:32,504
because I think it

781
01:03:32,504 --> 01:03:36,758
helps you understand yourself a little better and hopefully make better choices.

782
01:03:36,758 --> 01:03:45,863
I've seen the best things in my life start, they started with a question because I don't
know if I need to change, but the important thing to do is ask myself if I need to.

783
01:03:47,164 --> 01:03:50,326
That then you have a conversation how that aligns with your priorities.

784
01:03:50,478 --> 01:03:57,058
You know, this is also what the best consultants do, advisors or whatever it is.

785
01:03:57,058 --> 01:04:00,918
They use the Socratic method of, let me just ask questions.

786
01:04:00,918 --> 01:04:02,458
You know, I'm not gonna tell you what to do.

787
01:04:02,458 --> 01:04:03,916
I will just ask you questions.

788
01:04:03,916 --> 01:04:11,936
best advisor because if you're truly the proper advisor and consultant it means that you
have the toolbox of whatever they need.

789
01:04:11,936 --> 01:04:17,362
Let me listen to them and find out what tool I need to get out versus get out the one I
think I need to.

790
01:04:17,474 --> 01:04:18,015
Right?

791
01:04:18,015 --> 01:04:18,455
Yeah.

792
01:04:18,455 --> 01:04:23,169
And by the way, that's also the hardest approach to take for a couple of reasons.

793
01:04:23,169 --> 01:04:29,214
One is because, as we were saying earlier, clients, companies, individuals, they want the
formula.

794
01:04:29,214 --> 01:04:31,687
It's like, tell me what to do.

795
01:04:31,687 --> 01:04:37,311
That's true of us, generally, as human beings, which is, give me that magic pill that will
help me do X, Z.

796
01:04:37,311 --> 01:04:42,926
um And the answer isn't always, I mean, sometimes the answer is yes, here is the right
pill.

797
01:04:42,926 --> 01:04:45,108
But it isn't always the case.

798
01:04:45,346 --> 01:04:57,987
But I think that philosophy, I'm going to kind of zoom out a little bit into the, you
know, not the macro view of the world and, you know, how we all kind of work together as

799
01:04:57,987 --> 01:04:59,117
professionals.

800
01:04:59,118 --> 01:05:14,450
Sometimes the answer is um to actually pause and challenge ourselves on, OK, wait a
minute, you know, is my world view the only way to look at something?

801
01:05:15,086 --> 01:05:27,740
um Or, you know, is it worth it for me to kind of, as you were saying, sometimes challenge
myself and ask the question of, what happens if I'm wrong?

802
01:05:28,492 --> 01:05:30,062
I want to know actually.

803
01:05:30,604 --> 01:05:32,505
That's a better way to go about it.

804
01:05:33,106 --> 01:05:35,348
Then I have a better, a better informed mind.

805
01:05:35,348 --> 01:05:36,248
Yeah.

806
01:05:36,369 --> 01:05:43,916
In all the mistakes in the past that I've made, if I would have had more reflection in the
moment, I might've found more intelligence around the decision versus going into it

807
01:05:43,916 --> 01:05:44,896
blinded.

808
01:05:45,357 --> 01:05:46,307
I may have, right?

809
01:05:46,307 --> 01:05:46,947
Yes.

810
01:05:46,947 --> 01:05:47,237
absolutely.

811
01:05:47,237 --> 01:05:48,066
There's no doubt about it.

812
01:05:48,066 --> 01:06:01,294
mean, you know, and it doesn't get any easier, by the way, um even as you get more
experience, because I think that act of taking something that you're really sure about

813
01:06:01,674 --> 01:06:10,316
and, you know, finding that magic moment where you say, oh, wait a minute, let me pause
before I say this is the right way.

814
01:06:10,316 --> 01:06:13,295
I'm just now finding the ability or willingness to do that.

815
01:06:13,578 --> 01:06:14,619
Just now.

816
01:06:14,883 --> 01:06:16,286
After all these years.

817
01:06:17,187 --> 01:06:18,571
It is really hard.

818
01:06:18,571 --> 01:06:19,452
Me too, yes.

819
01:06:19,452 --> 01:06:19,970
um

820
01:06:19,970 --> 01:06:25,359
without losing the purpose and the foundation of the why you're trying to do the thing
too.

821
01:06:26,523 --> 01:06:28,726
That's more benefited from the people around us.

822
01:06:28,846 --> 01:06:29,986
It is.

823
01:06:29,986 --> 01:06:45,766
And by the way, to take this in a slightly different direction back to technology, I think
it's even more important that business leaders, industry leaders, government officials,

824
01:06:45,766 --> 01:06:54,466
you know, start to ask some different questions about technology, including AI in this
particular context.

825
01:06:54,466 --> 01:06:57,326
It's like, what if we're wrong?

826
01:06:57,326 --> 01:06:59,078
You know, what could go wrong?

827
01:06:59,777 --> 01:07:01,323
or what guardrails do we need?

828
01:07:01,323 --> 01:07:02,246
uh

829
01:07:02,607 --> 01:07:03,742
How long do we stay there?

830
01:07:03,742 --> 01:07:04,917
That's the question and the answer.

831
01:07:04,917 --> 01:07:05,389
We don't know.

832
01:07:05,389 --> 01:07:07,496
How long do we stay in the question?

833
01:07:09,474 --> 01:07:14,316
That is uh way, way, way above my mental capability.

834
01:07:14,316 --> 01:07:18,607
uh But isn't that?

835
01:07:18,607 --> 01:07:20,237
That is exactly leadership.

836
01:07:20,237 --> 01:07:24,059
You need somebody to step up and say, wait a minute, enough is enough.

837
01:07:24,059 --> 01:07:29,920
So the challenge is with something like a technology.

838
01:07:29,920 --> 01:07:33,542
And again, whether that's steam engines or artificial intelligence, it really doesn't
matter.

839
01:07:33,542 --> 01:07:35,142
um

840
01:07:36,928 --> 01:07:43,020
We as humans have always had this uh belief that more is better.

841
01:07:44,021 --> 01:07:46,402
More automation is better than less automation.

842
01:07:46,402 --> 01:07:48,843
More data is better than less data, things like that.

843
01:07:48,843 --> 01:08:01,168
um We've never really come up with, um I shouldn't say never, we've rarely come up against
something that's useful that could also harm us.

844
01:08:01,168 --> 01:08:06,220
um again, uh atomic energy, nuclear bombs, that was one of

845
01:08:06,220 --> 01:08:06,786
way.

846
01:08:06,786 --> 01:08:07,146
Yes.

847
01:08:07,146 --> 01:08:15,808
um So that was one example where I think guardrails eventually got put into place, you
know, arguably semi-effectively, but that's fine.

848
01:08:15,808 --> 01:08:29,712
uh I think AI is one of those where uh my fear is that that particular arms race uh is
operating without any guardrails.

849
01:08:30,412 --> 01:08:36,396
And uh so, you know, I like to use every forum I get to

850
01:08:36,396 --> 01:08:43,313
make the case that, know, and unfortunately I don't necessarily think it's going to come
from governments.

851
01:08:44,395 --> 01:08:56,578
I think it's going to have to come from industry leaders, uh corporate leaders uh to
voluntarily, you know, put together a board that say, you know, these are the boundaries

852
01:08:56,578 --> 01:08:58,750
that we believe should not be crossed.

853
01:08:59,426 --> 01:09:02,780
Can one bad actor with enough money though work outside of that?

854
01:09:02,780 --> 01:09:03,651
yeah, absolutely.

855
01:09:03,651 --> 01:09:05,313
um But they always will.

856
01:09:05,313 --> 01:09:08,877
I mean, the same with dirty bombs, atomic energy, that kind of stuff.

857
01:09:08,877 --> 01:09:16,366
um But you have to be aware that that is very likely going to be pursued by somebody.

858
01:09:16,366 --> 01:09:20,010
And then you have to put in place some countermeasures to minimize the probability.

859
01:09:20,010 --> 01:09:20,820
Yeah.

860
01:09:21,016 --> 01:09:26,548
Do you think the smartest people in the world can even comprehend those countermeasures
right now though?

861
01:09:26,548 --> 01:09:27,540
Can they?

862
01:09:28,395 --> 01:09:29,974
I think it's important to try.

863
01:09:29,974 --> 01:09:31,001
I really do.

864
01:09:31,001 --> 01:09:32,505
um So I'll give you an example.

865
01:09:32,505 --> 01:09:32,826
think...

866
01:09:32,826 --> 01:09:34,630
um

867
01:09:36,278 --> 01:09:45,426
Some of the minds that have given us chat GPT and stuff like that, know, open AI and
others, they all started with the right intentions of trying to figure out how to build

868
01:09:45,426 --> 01:09:47,267
ethical AI.

869
01:09:47,267 --> 01:09:53,712
um And somewhere along the way, I think they got, yeah, exactly.

870
01:09:53,712 --> 01:10:01,378
uh So they got the dollar signs in their eyes and then I think they got caught up with
their own success.

871
01:10:01,378 --> 01:10:02,880
It's like, okay, more is better.

872
01:10:02,880 --> 01:10:05,600
um

873
01:10:05,600 --> 01:10:17,853
In that context, and this kind of is similar to the conversation we're having about
billionaires who don't really think about the human impact until they're away.

874
01:10:17,853 --> 01:10:19,394
uh Later in their careers.

875
01:10:19,394 --> 01:10:28,716
um Unfortunately, I think a lot of the developments in AI are being driven by leaders that
are still in their very early stages in their careers.

876
01:10:28,716 --> 01:10:29,556
Right.

877
01:10:29,677 --> 01:10:34,918
But I think for every leader that is in that stage, there are other

878
01:10:35,234 --> 01:10:48,033
really respected business people, company leaders, CEOs, um who are uh in older stages in
their lives, who have enough influence to bring some of these actors together and say,

879
01:10:48,033 --> 01:10:54,067
okay, fine, I understand you want to do this, but let's have a conversation.

880
01:10:54,168 --> 01:11:00,352
Instead of going to Davos and having conversations that really never lead to anything.

881
01:11:01,453 --> 01:11:02,033
Exactly.

882
01:11:02,033 --> 01:11:02,814
oh

883
01:11:02,814 --> 01:11:11,663
why don't we essentially have a conversation that starts to put together a body, right, to
put some governance around it?

884
01:11:11,664 --> 01:11:21,084
I think it's really important to start because if you don't start, you don't get to the
conversations that are next level, including what do you do with rogue actors and stuff

885
01:11:21,084 --> 01:11:21,410
like that.

886
01:11:21,410 --> 01:11:24,979
Does it need to happen in the open that we all see or is it okay if we don't know?

887
01:11:25,518 --> 01:11:38,677
I think it's inevitably going to happen, um and I hope when rather than if, ah with a few
people getting together in the closed before it becomes open.

888
01:11:40,152 --> 01:11:42,434
Can you envision how that's going to happen?

889
01:11:42,434 --> 01:11:48,891
Like the people and then their mind and why they do it before they become 80 years old and
then say, we should do it different.

890
01:11:48,891 --> 01:11:50,252
Like what's it what?

891
01:11:50,693 --> 01:11:51,794
Because it's.

892
01:11:52,635 --> 01:11:57,059
It's against the thing that has driven them to build these companies and make this it's.

893
01:11:57,360 --> 01:11:58,171
It's against that.

894
01:11:58,171 --> 01:12:00,463
It's a completely different thought process.

895
01:12:00,463 --> 01:12:03,374
Do they have to feel like it's an existential threat to be willing to?

896
01:12:03,374 --> 01:12:14,919
I think it is uh They're gonna have to feel that it is an existential threat to do
something like this this what we're talking about I Mean it is it is honestly an

897
01:12:14,919 --> 01:12:17,400
existential threat now to be very clear.

898
01:12:17,400 --> 01:12:32,590
I'm not an alarmist I don't think any of the AI that we have here today is um Is is is
literally the self-aware AI that people are afraid of Yeah um

899
01:12:32,590 --> 01:12:38,030
And I know people think, okay, yeah, well, chat GPT can do this, tomorrow it can make
decisions.

900
01:12:38,030 --> 01:12:39,290
I don't believe that.

901
01:12:39,290 --> 01:12:46,130
I don't think that we've actually cracked the code on algorithms and computing and
decision-making.

902
01:12:46,130 --> 01:12:49,310
I think it's going to be a totally different generation of AI.

903
01:12:49,310 --> 01:12:57,160
But I do think that it's a question of decades rather than centuries, which means the time
to put the guardrails is now.

904
01:12:57,160 --> 01:13:01,952
Now, isn't right now the issue of who's the one putting the information into the AI?

905
01:13:03,414 --> 01:13:09,957
I think it is, in some ways, it's a self-feeding uh ecosystem.

906
01:13:09,957 --> 01:13:19,561
uh So what's happened is that, as Meta and others figured out, whoever owns the data uh
basically is king, right?

907
01:13:19,561 --> 01:13:23,362
And this was with personal information and social media and stuff like that.

908
01:13:23,682 --> 01:13:32,590
And then you had companies like OpenAI and so on and so forth that figured out that if
they can crack the code on how to

909
01:13:32,590 --> 01:13:34,850
process it and make decisions.

910
01:13:34,951 --> 01:13:39,372
And then those models essentially can be the backbone of how you do everything, right?

911
01:13:39,372 --> 01:13:45,173
So whether it is book travel or, you know, uh write up a paper and stuff like that.

912
01:13:45,414 --> 01:14:01,338
And now we've actually reached the point in AI where um most data models that exist,
whether it is cloud or chat GPT and stuff like that have actually absorbed most of the

913
01:14:01,482 --> 01:14:06,503
knowledge and by knowledge, all of these models work with text.

914
01:14:06,503 --> 01:14:10,905
uh Text not necessarily in terms of like English words or whatever.

915
01:14:10,905 --> 01:14:20,487
can convert videos also into text and then they all apply mathematics, algorithms to
predict the next move.

916
01:14:21,028 --> 01:14:29,030
But the thing is they've actually ingested as much as possible of the known knowledge,
books and stuff like that.

917
01:14:30,498 --> 01:14:37,942
The challenge there is, so you've got that, now how do you actually create more data to
train those?

918
01:14:37,942 --> 01:14:40,504
And now people are starting to make up stuff.

919
01:14:40,504 --> 01:14:43,425
uh So you can self-train.

920
01:14:43,425 --> 01:14:47,448
uh And that's not necessarily the best way to do that.

921
01:14:47,448 --> 01:14:58,944
So this self-feeding system of more data, same algorithms, decision-making, I think that's
going to certainly continue for a while.

922
01:14:58,976 --> 01:15:07,138
Until of course some smart scientist figures out the next code on decision making and
that's where things start to get really dangerous.

923
01:15:07,138 --> 01:15:11,180
How does it have its own morals or lack of morals or its own philosophy?

924
01:15:11,180 --> 01:15:13,041
That's the thing.

925
01:15:13,041 --> 01:15:16,472
So we spent some good time here, but we have one or two more things.

926
01:15:16,472 --> 01:15:19,584
What do you think, what are you best at?

927
01:15:19,584 --> 01:15:24,096
What have you grown over these past years that you know about yourself that's not some
marketing or branding?

928
01:15:24,096 --> 01:15:25,606
What are you best at?

929
01:15:29,454 --> 01:15:32,706
I think I'm good at problem solving.

930
01:15:32,706 --> 01:15:35,014
um

931
01:15:36,690 --> 01:15:44,713
And this is a, you know, this is who I think I am, which may be very different from who
people think I am and what I really am, so to speak.

932
01:15:44,713 --> 01:16:00,230
But as far as I'm concerned, I think what I like to do and I think I'm fairly good at is,
you know, given a problem, trying to get deep into it, to get as many angles into it uh as

933
01:16:00,230 --> 01:16:05,202
I can, and then just step back and say, all right, you know, what's the best way to solve
it?

934
01:16:05,728 --> 01:16:13,396
And whether that's how to grow tomatoes or write a book, ah that's what I've always
enjoyed.

935
01:16:13,794 --> 01:16:15,961
How valuable is that to companies?

936
01:16:16,427 --> 01:16:18,463
As an employee, as an advisor?

937
01:16:18,811 --> 01:16:22,436
I do think it is important, I mean, in all honesty.

938
01:16:22,436 --> 01:16:34,722
um Because at the end of the day, especially as technology takes oh away a lot of the
operational stuff, what you need is really judgment.

939
01:16:34,722 --> 01:16:36,754
And that's what we're talking about.

940
01:16:37,454 --> 01:16:39,777
putting all the data together and making the decision.

941
01:16:39,777 --> 01:16:41,558
Yeah.

942
01:16:42,239 --> 01:16:46,784
As we let you plug your stuff, what you're doing to give you all this money to buy your
books here at the end.

943
01:16:46,784 --> 01:16:48,666
ah What do you

944
01:16:51,394 --> 01:16:54,978
What are the types of people that you like spending the most time around?

945
01:16:54,978 --> 01:16:56,459
You're not allowed to say your daughters.

946
01:16:56,459 --> 01:17:00,045
didn't say the exact specific people, types of people.

947
01:17:00,045 --> 01:17:01,275
I know what you mean.

948
01:17:02,856 --> 01:17:03,978
So it's interesting.

949
01:17:03,978 --> 01:17:09,962
I like to spend time with people that are in very different fields than I am.

950
01:17:09,962 --> 01:17:13,204
um I mean, to a certain extent.

951
01:17:13,204 --> 01:17:19,709
I don't want to leave out all of the people that are in technology or big companies or
businesses and stuff like that.

952
01:17:19,709 --> 01:17:27,586
um So one of the reasons, just to back up a little bit.

953
01:17:27,586 --> 01:17:30,168
You know, we lived in Boston for a couple of years.

954
01:17:30,168 --> 01:17:40,767
uh and one of things I loved about Boston was that, you know, the conversation you had
over the fence with your neighbor, uh, was very, different.

955
01:17:40,767 --> 01:17:43,309
I mean, one neighbor was like a rocket scientist.

956
01:17:43,309 --> 01:17:45,831
Another one was working in chemistry.

957
01:17:45,831 --> 01:17:52,627
Um, and I, I loved the conversation because it is more than the conversation of how your
tomatoes doing this year.

958
01:17:52,627 --> 01:17:54,458
Or, you know, it's like, happened to you?

959
01:17:54,458 --> 01:17:55,329
Yes, exactly.

960
01:17:55,329 --> 01:17:57,090
So, um,

961
01:17:57,270 --> 01:18:03,892
And so I think I really enjoy that because em for me that's fun.

962
01:18:04,138 --> 01:18:04,963
eternal learning.

963
01:18:04,963 --> 01:18:06,910
Was that because MIT is there?

964
01:18:07,490 --> 01:18:09,972
They have 60 something colleges in Boston.

965
01:18:09,972 --> 01:18:18,420
um so, they were like, I mean, these were not just people that worked in schools or
colleges.

966
01:18:18,420 --> 01:18:20,334
There's a lot of startups there and a lot of.

967
01:18:20,334 --> 01:18:22,116
But that comes from the educational system.

968
01:18:22,116 --> 01:18:26,982
You look at a place that has a significant, mean, Stanford, Silicon Valley, look what's
happening there, right?

969
01:18:26,982 --> 01:18:30,498
And so there's things that come out of these educational institutions.

970
01:18:30,498 --> 01:18:31,502
Yes.

971
01:18:31,502 --> 01:18:37,360
And I think it brings together a certain uh archetype of person in there.

972
01:18:38,030 --> 01:18:41,544
um What do you hope for?

973
01:18:43,330 --> 01:18:45,131
You know, that's a really good question.

974
01:18:45,131 --> 01:18:59,382
um You know, the same as most other humans, I suspect, which is that, you know, the best
we can hope for is, you know, the people that we know, the people that we love, you know,

975
01:18:59,382 --> 01:19:02,824
they have uh a much better life than we did.

976
01:19:02,824 --> 01:19:11,080
uh One of the things that I think this is true for most families in India when I was
growing up.

977
01:19:11,086 --> 01:19:16,626
and I suspect was true in the US as well, is that the next generation was better off than
their parents.

978
01:19:16,626 --> 01:19:18,626
And I don't necessarily mean financially.

979
01:19:18,626 --> 01:19:22,726
That was certainly true, but better off in terms of happiness.

980
01:19:23,306 --> 01:19:32,926
One of the things that concerns me in the world is I see the trend where the next
generations are not always, not consistently, better off.

981
01:19:33,146 --> 01:19:37,266
And so for me, that would be my eternal hope.

982
01:19:38,638 --> 01:19:39,676
It's a big one.

983
01:19:39,736 --> 01:19:41,409
That's a big one, yeah.

984
01:19:41,409 --> 01:19:43,572
But you did ask an open-ended question.

985
01:19:43,572 --> 01:19:46,026
If you were God, what would you grant me?

986
01:19:46,026 --> 01:19:47,648
Yeah, give me that one.

987
01:19:47,746 --> 01:19:53,342
I think you've got the DNA to make some good decisions around it you had that power to
always make the next generations better.

988
01:19:54,892 --> 01:19:57,983
I think we can do that if we accept that as our own challenge.

989
01:19:58,276 --> 01:20:00,582
I think it really is an individual challenge.

990
01:20:01,006 --> 01:20:01,968
Yeah, we're responsible.

991
01:20:01,968 --> 01:20:03,220
So tell us all about these books.

992
01:20:03,220 --> 01:20:07,637
You brought me one here in, I believe, Italian.

993
01:20:07,879 --> 01:20:12,357
You brought me one in Japanese and you expect me to understand what these things are.

994
01:20:12,357 --> 01:20:14,230
Do you speak multiple languages?

995
01:20:14,466 --> 01:20:15,117
I do.

996
01:20:15,117 --> 01:20:23,254
I speak six, I think.

997
01:20:23,254 --> 01:20:25,035
and read five of those.

998
01:20:25,035 --> 01:20:36,495
um I didn't say well, but eh actually, you know, that's not a fair because, you know,
growing up in India, you usually end up with at least three, maybe four.

999
01:20:36,495 --> 01:20:38,346
So that's really four for me.

1000
01:20:38,346 --> 01:20:40,367
English, Hindi, Marathi.

1001
01:20:40,778 --> 01:20:43,128
actually, Konkani, my mother tongue from Goa.

1002
01:20:43,128 --> 01:20:44,319
So it'll maybe seven.

1003
01:20:44,319 --> 01:20:54,544
um So, and then a little bit of French um and then I can get by speaking Japanese I cannot
read.

1004
01:20:55,145 --> 01:20:56,446
So there's a little bit of that.

1005
01:20:56,446 --> 01:20:59,347
But the books, um yeah, I was just showing off.

1006
01:20:59,347 --> 01:21:02,709
I'm kidding.

1007
01:21:02,709 --> 01:21:09,753
The book, the Italian translation, Why Digital Transformation Fail um was an interesting
one.

1008
01:21:09,753 --> 01:21:11,234
thought, you know,

1009
01:21:11,852 --> 01:21:15,784
As you add it to your collection of different books there, it might stand out.

1010
01:21:15,784 --> 01:21:25,148
um So I'm really pleased with what that book has done because I think I may have gotten
lucky with that one.

1011
01:21:25,148 --> 01:21:34,482
uh A lot of the stuff that I did in the entrepreneurship stuff that I was talking about
while I was at Procter & Gamble was being at the right place at the right time.

1012
01:21:34,482 --> 01:21:38,613
This was actually before AI became a big thing.

1013
01:21:38,994 --> 01:21:40,426
And when I looked

1014
01:21:40,426 --> 01:21:49,292
at the work that we did from 2015 to 18, we were working with startups that were getting
excited about AI.

1015
01:21:49,293 --> 01:21:53,856
So this was a book that was just at the right time.

1016
01:21:53,856 --> 01:22:01,561
um And then the book is all about the methodology on how to make that useful.

1017
01:22:01,662 --> 01:22:07,986
And so that's the reason why that now is translated into like Russian and Chinese and

1018
01:22:07,992 --> 01:22:09,883
Japanese and Italian and stuff like that.

1019
01:22:09,883 --> 01:22:12,725
So yeah, absolutely it does.

1020
01:22:12,725 --> 01:22:14,726
um I had no idea.

1021
01:22:15,087 --> 01:22:18,029
For me, I would have been happy if I sold a thousand copies.

1022
01:22:18,029 --> 01:22:19,470
I think we did a little better than that.

1023
01:22:19,470 --> 01:22:22,582
So we were good.

1024
01:22:22,582 --> 01:22:25,414
Yeah, it was good.

1025
01:22:25,414 --> 01:22:32,660
The other book, uh Revolutionizing Business Operations is much more of a niche product.

1026
01:22:32,660 --> 01:22:35,261
This is about the business of global business services.

1027
01:22:35,261 --> 01:22:36,698
um

1028
01:22:36,698 --> 01:22:47,094
And the Japanese edition is actually one that I partnered with EY, the consulting company,
uh to actually create uh a Japanese edition.

1029
01:22:47,094 --> 01:22:51,686
And it's got a few other languages in there as well with translated copies.

1030
01:22:51,767 --> 01:22:53,127
That one's a little different.

1031
01:22:53,127 --> 01:22:56,849
um That one's much more about company strategy.

1032
01:22:56,849 --> 01:22:59,811
It's a little bit about what we were saying earlier.

1033
01:22:59,971 --> 01:23:03,763
Two thirds of competitive advantage for companies comes from their products and services.

1034
01:23:03,763 --> 01:23:05,674
And the other third,

1035
01:23:05,762 --> 01:23:08,614
comes in from the agility of their business operations.

1036
01:23:08,614 --> 01:23:14,609
And so that one's a cookbook on how you might actually create that business strategy.

1037
01:23:14,809 --> 01:23:16,150
So it's less about technology.

1038
01:23:16,150 --> 01:23:20,674
It's about how do you want to create the entire operating strategy.

1039
01:23:20,674 --> 01:23:25,397
uh But I've had a lot of fun writing both of those.

1040
01:23:25,578 --> 01:23:28,620
And I've been fortunate that they've been received well.

1041
01:23:28,620 --> 01:23:31,478
So I hope uh it helps somebody.

1042
01:23:31,478 --> 01:23:33,193
Is the third one in your mind?

1043
01:23:33,696 --> 01:23:34,326
Not yet.

1044
01:23:34,326 --> 01:23:35,637
I'm taking a break, right?

1045
01:23:35,637 --> 01:23:46,152
Actually, I am in the midst of editing another book, but this is one where I've gotten
together with other grey-haired people in the global business services industry, which,

1046
01:23:46,152 --> 01:23:48,143
like I was saying, it's about four decades old.

1047
01:23:48,143 --> 01:23:58,938
you know, like most other industries, you have to have the industry diverge and discover
stuff before it converges.

1048
01:23:59,128 --> 01:24:03,302
There were no standards around emissions of automobiles in the early 1900s.

1049
01:24:03,302 --> 01:24:04,043
Today there are.

1050
01:24:04,043 --> 01:24:13,413
uh With global business services, what I'm doing with these other grey-haired people is
starting to write a book on standards, which is, let's set aside some standards for the

1051
01:24:13,413 --> 01:24:14,534
industry.

1052
01:24:14,534 --> 01:24:18,182
And so it's a very different type of a book.

1053
01:24:18,182 --> 01:24:20,816
is, as we're even wrapping up, global business services.

1054
01:24:20,816 --> 01:24:23,791
Because we could have had a two, three hour conversation on that.

1055
01:24:23,791 --> 01:24:28,968
What is it, if you can explain it in a layman's terms, what's global business services as
the industry?

1056
01:24:29,506 --> 01:24:37,100
Global Business Services is essentially all of the supportive operations in any given
company.

1057
01:24:37,100 --> 01:24:41,792
Procter & Gamble, Apple, a small accounting company.

1058
01:24:41,913 --> 01:24:54,519
It's all of the work in human resources, on IT to provide PCs and email, uh processing
orders, uh order management, supply chain planning, stuff like that.

1059
01:24:54,519 --> 01:24:59,602
uh For any given company, it's a means to an end.

1060
01:24:59,990 --> 01:25:03,591
And the end could be, you know, better soap or shampoo.

1061
01:25:03,691 --> 01:25:11,873
But the means is sometimes uh both the enabling capability, but also the bottleneck,
right?

1062
01:25:11,973 --> 01:25:24,997
And so this started, the global business services industry started uh with multinationals
saying, hey, why do I need to have, you know, finance people in every country closing the

1063
01:25:24,997 --> 01:25:25,287
books?

1064
01:25:25,287 --> 01:25:29,038
Can I just sweep that together and have a service?

1065
01:25:29,486 --> 01:25:31,787
for the business, therefore business services.

1066
01:25:31,787 --> 01:25:39,130
um Until uh the evolution between then, which was a back office, which is can you do this
cheaper, please?

1067
01:25:39,130 --> 01:25:42,212
Can you use people in other locations in the world?

1068
01:25:42,212 --> 01:25:44,452
Philippines, India, exactly.

1069
01:25:44,693 --> 01:25:53,376
To now where it's like, okay, so these are the people that know how the company operates,
they know technology, they know change management.

1070
01:25:53,376 --> 01:25:57,878
So instead of hiring a McKinsey or a Deloitte,

1071
01:25:58,252 --> 01:26:01,632
Why don't we get them to redesign the way the company works?

1072
01:26:01,632 --> 01:26:05,501
And that's essentially what that industry of global business services become.

1073
01:26:06,048 --> 01:26:08,296
It is, it's fast evolving.

1074
01:26:08,396 --> 01:26:09,701
It is, yes, absolutely.

1075
01:26:09,701 --> 01:26:13,922
This is like, literally in this particular space, four decades old.

1076
01:26:13,922 --> 01:26:16,264
Yeah, but the speed is incredible.

1077
01:26:16,464 --> 01:26:17,455
What's causing that?

1078
01:26:17,455 --> 01:26:19,067
What's causing that speed?

1079
01:26:19,067 --> 01:26:21,948
Is it companies reaching for greater efficiency and more margin?

1080
01:26:21,948 --> 01:26:23,094
Honestly, is that it?

1081
01:26:23,094 --> 01:26:23,754
That's it.

1082
01:26:23,754 --> 01:26:25,155
That's it.

1083
01:26:25,155 --> 01:26:26,896
Yeah, companies have to keep up.

1084
01:26:26,896 --> 01:26:41,538
um You know, this has always been true, by the way, that, you know, for every hundred
companies that uh are in the S &P 500, I think 40 % are going to rotate out uh within 10

1085
01:26:41,538 --> 01:26:41,962
years.

1086
01:26:41,962 --> 01:26:43,192
And that's always been true.

1087
01:26:43,192 --> 01:26:46,224
It's not like that number has changed.

1088
01:26:46,224 --> 01:26:52,056
But what has changed is that what they need to do, the amount they need to change,

1089
01:26:52,056 --> 01:26:55,728
to survive for the other 60 % has changed dramatically.

1090
01:26:55,908 --> 01:27:08,565
You know, you could, for example, you know, you could shut down a factory and start a new
one uh literally, you know, within a couple of years now, whereas in the past, it may have

1091
01:27:08,565 --> 01:27:12,117
been fine to let that factory go for a couple of decades.

1092
01:27:12,117 --> 01:27:19,941
And so it's pushing companies to say, how do I become faster at internal operations, i.e.

1093
01:27:19,941 --> 01:27:21,107
global business services?

1094
01:27:21,107 --> 01:27:22,769
Massively uncomfortable.

1095
01:27:22,771 --> 01:27:24,966
Does it just take a few liters to drive that?

1096
01:27:24,966 --> 01:27:27,083
Just a few inside one company?

1097
01:27:27,083 --> 01:27:28,796
Or does it take everyone?

1098
01:27:29,516 --> 01:27:31,567
It actually always starts with a few leaders.

1099
01:27:31,567 --> 01:27:38,971
uh Somebody that understands this one third, two thirds, know, competitive advantage
contribution equation.

1100
01:27:38,971 --> 01:27:45,014
uh Because there are people that are product leaders and there are people that are process
leaders, right?

1101
01:27:45,855 --> 01:27:48,307
for example, I mean, Steve Jobs was a product leader.

1102
01:27:48,307 --> 01:27:52,179
Tim Cook is much more a operations process kind of person.

1103
01:27:52,179 --> 01:27:57,944
um But Steve was smart enough to know that that other stuff is important and you got other
people to do that.

1104
01:27:57,944 --> 01:27:58,725
hire people to do it.

1105
01:27:58,725 --> 01:27:59,175
Yes.

1106
01:27:59,175 --> 01:28:06,621
So, um, so it always does start with somebody realizing the importance of that one third
and putting that in place.

1107
01:28:07,182 --> 01:28:16,039
But that's the start of the journey because that person that does get identified then has
a massive problem of bringing the entire company along.

1108
01:28:16,039 --> 01:28:16,729
Yeah.

1109
01:28:16,729 --> 01:28:17,549
Yeah.

1110
01:28:18,488 --> 01:28:20,219
Great conversation today.

1111
01:28:21,500 --> 01:28:25,242
Yeah, go, go, go buy the books, make him a few more dollars.

1112
01:28:25,242 --> 01:28:27,343
I'm sure he's okay financially y'all in life.

1113
01:28:27,343 --> 01:28:29,944
And he's making an argument that altruism wins.

1114
01:28:29,944 --> 01:28:30,795
That's, that's it.

1115
01:28:30,795 --> 01:28:33,036
We didn't use the word, but do good.

1116
01:28:33,036 --> 01:28:40,210
Just do, but I think, uh, you know, it's very admirable that the idea is, you know, just
to, um, try to make the next generation better.

1117
01:28:40,570 --> 01:28:47,654
I think it's just a fantastic philosophy and a way to approach still the life that you
have left that you're investing here in this professional environment.

1118
01:28:48,020 --> 01:28:50,933
I sincerely hope so.

1119
01:28:50,933 --> 01:28:55,817
mean, I think we're all trying to be a better person than we were yesterday.

1120
01:28:55,817 --> 01:28:57,758
And that's really the intent there.

1121
01:28:57,758 --> 01:29:09,027
But, you know, if I were to kind of summarize, what I would say is the thing that we were
talking about, it's important to do well and do good at the same time.

1122
01:29:09,027 --> 01:29:13,091
uh At the end of the day, I think that is really important.

1123
01:29:13,091 --> 01:29:17,194
um And, you know, whether the books or any of the other stuff,

1124
01:29:17,250 --> 01:29:24,114
helps you in doing better in your own career or in your own life?

1125
01:29:24,114 --> 01:29:26,576
um I would hope so.

1126
01:29:26,576 --> 01:29:36,392
uh But along with that, regardless of whether you buy the books or not, what I also hope
would be that I've given people pause to say, am I doing a little bit of both at the same

1127
01:29:36,392 --> 01:29:36,846
time?

1128
01:29:36,846 --> 01:29:37,354
That's good.

1129
01:29:37,354 --> 01:29:38,825
So there's your next book.

1130
01:29:39,394 --> 01:29:40,695
Maybe that is.

1131
01:29:40,936 --> 01:29:44,240
We have to get together maybe over a beer or two or bourbon as we were saying.

1132
01:29:44,240 --> 01:29:45,000
Yes.

1133
01:29:46,146 --> 01:29:47,158
Yeah, that's it.

1134
01:29:47,158 --> 01:29:47,749
That's good.

1135
01:29:47,749 --> 01:29:48,160
All right.

1136
01:29:48,160 --> 01:29:52,770
Thank you for the ah

1137
01:29:52,770 --> 01:30:06,222
Tony Saldana uh website www.transformant.io not dot com and my digital transformations
fail.

1138
01:30:06,222 --> 01:30:07,063
Okay.

1139
01:30:07,085 --> 01:30:08,468
Thank you for coming in.

1140
01:30:08,571 --> 01:30:09,463
Enjoy your weekend.

1141
01:30:09,463 --> 01:30:10,936
Enjoy your weekend.

1142
01:30:11,240 --> 01:30:11,551
Yes.

1143
01:30:11,551 --> 01:30:12,382
Thank you.