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Generative AI and every subsequent wave that comes now from here on out cannot go back into a box of business as usual. moment where we now have to have foresight.
We now have to think about how we plan differently to not just do what we did better yesterday or do what we did yesterday better today and tomorrow, but now start to explore the unknown and say, these tools actually help us do the things we didn't even know we could do. or weren't possible to do before, how does that change our tomorrow?
So that way you're growing linearly like we have been since the industrial revolution. and now growing exponentially in ways that weren't possible before.
At least that's the mind shift that I hope to give people that, They can recognize these opportunities and start planning proactively and productively and optimistically. towards them rather than waiting for disruption to happen to them.
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Brian, thanks for joining us today. Kwame, it's my pleasure.
We haven't even started officially talking and I'm already stoked on the conversation we had before the show.
Same. Me too. Me too. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Yeah, my name is Brian Solis. I'm the head of global innovation at ServiceNow.
I'm also an author, a former analyst, futurist, digital anthropologist.
And my new book, Mindshift, is the book to help inspire a new generation of leaders across the board, whether they're going to run a a company where they're gonna create a startup or they're gonna help others achieve greatness.
It's a book to really open your mind and see not just the world as it is, but the world that's coming. so that we can unlock opportunities, create opportunities for everyone.
And instead of reacting to disruptions in a negative way or a frustrating way or one driven by fear, we can do it proactively.
One driven by optimism and hope and also one driven by inclusion so that we're all moving toward a new destination together and feeling really good about it and reshaping the future in a way that we want it to unfold.
Incredible. There's so much here to explore.
I know this because we had to save some of this fire for the interview because we were before we got started.
And I love the way that you're framing this too.
Because with mind shift, we're talking about how we can prepare for the future, how we can overcome our fears. emotions that might hold us back, and then how we can move forward together.
And for the listeners of the podcast, knowing where I'm going to take this, of course, negotiation is going to be a key part of that.
And so, of course, we define negotiation as anytime you're having a conversation and somebody in the conversation wants something.
And we are going to be having very serious conversations about technology and where we go as a community, as a nation, as a society, but also On a smaller scale, where do we go as organizations?
Right. And so for this episode, we want to give leaders the tools they need to have those conversations effectively.
So maybe a good place for us to start, Brian, is first kind of setting the stage, letting folks know what types of technologies are coming down the pike what types of conversations we are likely to have but then also what holds people back from making the mind shifts that are required to be successful in the future?
Well, where to start? Let me give you an example so that we can frame it up for everyone.
Think back to 1994 and the launch of Amazon.com.
Traditional businesses reacted, one with skepticism, But two, with their version of e-commerce, we saw websites spring up We saw online ordering, online shopping.
But we didn't really revolutionize what that could be.
Still, all these years later, E-commerce, for the most part, web shopping still kind of looks like the 1990s.
We didn't really revolutionize much. But then think to...
Web 2.0, the rise of social media. Think about the iPhone in 2007.
I'll pause there for a second where I'll say just like in 1994, uh, In 2007, companies responded to the iPhone and the world of mobile computing by saying, let's just make websites work on a smaller screen. let's create an app because everyone's going to need apps.
They didn't really take the moment to see how this new opportunity could, let's say, create a TikTok. or an Instagram, or something that's mobile native, that's intuitive for the user who's learned an entirely new interface, a new way to communicate, a new way to interact with information.
But think about just all these other milestones too, like iTunes disrupting the music industry, Spotify disrupting iTunes, Uber disrupting the entire taxi industry.
ChatGPT in 2022. There have been so many disruptive events.
And for the most part, we have just taken it and put it into the box of business as usual.
We've just figured out a way to use it to scale what we did yesterday better today and better tomorrow.
And I believe as someone who studied this, written research reports about all of this stuff over the past 20 plus years, Generative AI and every subsequent wave that comes now from here on out cannot go back into a box of businesses.
It is the first true disruptive moment where we now have to have foresight.
We now have to think about how we plan differently to not just do what we did better yesterday or do what we did yesterday better today and tomorrow, but now start to explore the unknown. and say, these tools actually help us do the things we didn't even know we could do. or weren't possible to do before?
How does that change our tomorrow? So that way you're growing linearly like we have been since the Industrial Revolution and now growing exponentially in ways that weren't possible. possible before.
At least that's the mind shift that I hope to give people that they can recognize these opportunities and start planning proactively and productively and optimistically. towards them rather than waiting for disruption to happen to them.
They're so much here to explore, Brian.
I love this. And I will disclaim my bias because I'm a tech optimist as well. the team, we're all well-schooled in generative AI.
We have licenses and far too many subscriptions that I'm willing to admit to my CFO. at this point, but it's so exciting because everybody on our team, we're excited about this and we're embracing this and we're moving forward with this. the tech coming and they say, okay, how can I do what I was doing before better?
And a lot of times that leads to stagnation.
And so a lot of the people who are looking to the future and seeing the unique ways that we can use these technologies, they are shocked. struggling to get other people on board.
They come in with a lot of passion and energy and they're saying, can't you see the future?
This is exciting. And then they are either hit with skepticism or fear.
Right. And so for those people who are trying to push their companies forward, how do they start to break through the skepticism and fear? fear that can often hold their colleagues back.
Oh, I love this question. Okay, so let me frame it up real quick.
You know, for those... who didn't geek out with us on that super fast timeline, another way to think about it is this.
Just think about in the last year and a half, two years, how much... new generative AI tools have been introduced and also look at how fast they've evolved in terms of imagery, video development, music development and say what you will.
Like my wife is just absolutely, it's just does not want to see any of this coming.
She wants our daughters to have a a good traditional, awesome education, doesn't want to use these tools.
And at the same time, though, she is... a representative of what we will all have to encounter.
So skepticism will be one of it. Fear will be another. denialism will be another.
And in the book, I talk about every potential type of person you're going to encounter. and then how to speak their love language.
So that I think as you can appreciate in any negotiation, A negotiation is when somebody wants something and a negotiation is also when someone does not want something.
And that is if you care about your organization, if you care about your team, if you care about your community, this is what makes you a leader.
It's not just a title. And if you believe then that the future can be great for all of them, because you see something differently.
You've gone through the exercises that I, for example, that I introduced in the book to make everyone an everyday futurist. and how to translate what these trends mean to everyone.
Then you start to work through the cognitive shifts that are required for people to see, oh, there's something in it for me and now it's a choice.
So I am now the champion of my own destiny.
And that's really what a lot of this is about.
I think many times we think about leadership as telling someone what to do and then managing how well they do it.
And that doesn't go away. But at the same time, there is you don't. know what you don't know.
And sometimes the role of a leader has to be able to visualize that for you.
Talk about It's opportunities for you and the role that you can play in this and the role that we can play in this together.
And so there's a whole... series of chapters on storytelling and how to bring people into the folds to cut through those biases.
Because look, you can't move into the unknown only with courage.
You don't just stop having fear. You just have to have a structure to move in a direction step by step. so that you're making sense of the unknown and starting to plan then starting to bring clarity then into a world of uncertainty.
And once you do that, you're already further ahead of people who are refusing to see it or can't see it, don't want to see it, whatever it is.
And so I guess the long story short is that technology disruption is Societal disruption, Mother Nature, disruptions all over the place are...
Starting to show that they're not only happening faster, but they're happening more.
They're elevated. They're more impactful.
They're not going anywhere, I guess, is another way to say it. understanding that these things are accelerating, what's not accelerating are going anywhere, I guess, is another way to say it.
So understanding that these things are accelerating, what's not accelerating are mindsets, our leadership frameworks, our abilities to incentivize people to move into the unknown.
And these are the things that we have change.
That's why we need new leaders. Hello my friends, before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question.
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Absolutely. And there's so much here to explore too, because when you think about certainty versus uncertainty, When it comes to persuading people, the feeling of certainty or the lack thereof is going to be a critical component of their decision making.
And a lot of times it's just like the old saying, they will choose the devil they know.
They might recognize that there are problems and they might recognize that there is a need for evolution. but it's more comfortable for them to stay in that familiar space.
And in those situations, for the person who is the futurist, who's looking for ways to innovate, it's really tough because there's a communication disconnect.
And so a lot of times we use egocentric persuasion, where we think about the things that are motivating and persuasive to us and then we regurgitate it for other people and we say, of course, that's how they would get on board everybody thinks like me.
But we need to use more empathetic persuasion where we can understand where the other person is coming from and then persuade from their perspective.
And I love the fact that we're bringing in storytelling too because for people who are not as into the tech that it is going to be incredibly difficult for them to imagine something that they've never even seen before.
So the storytelling component blended with this empathetic persuasion is going to be really powerful.
And so when you think about the people that you've worked with and the folks who are following you as well, When you think about the types of stories they're telling to get people on board, to bring a little bit of certainty and clarity to something that can be a little bit ambiguous to a lot of people.
How are they approaching that storytelling component?
Your description of the egocentric approach to narrative is the one that's most common.
I think Anna Easton once said, we don't... in a way where you can make it where you can make the the response and the action plan it's That's self-awareness, that humility, that egocentric approach.
They're really difficult to find in any type of management or leadership today.
And it's okay. I think it's understanding, like you said, empathetically.
It's understanding that people got to where they are for a reason.
They fought hard, they worked hard, they've had ups and downs.
We fortified the center of what I know I know.
And then surrounding that, this is a famous Donald Rumsfeld quote, surrounding that is, What I know I don't know.
And this tends to be the realm of which people operate.
So they make decisions. decisions in this case, they lead in this way, they make decisions about the future based on this.
A lot of it is either gut or experience.
And so it's understanding like that's, that's cool.
But the outer realm is what I don't know I don't know.
And let's just think about generative AI for a second.
That is all over here. But what people are trying to do with it is use it right in the center.
So this is why, for example, you'll see a lot of prompts that are taking what you did yesterday today. and doing it better tomorrow.
So things like Copilot, for example, helping me write, helping me with my emails, helping me summarize information so that I could move quicker.
But none of that is challenging your own conventions.
But once you start... operating in your what I don't know, I don't know, and starting to ask different questions like the book helps you walk through, you find answers to them.
And then you recognize that you can use these tools for... entirely different outcomes that you couldn't have imagined or have done before.
And now those outcomes, you are exponentially outperforming everyone else who's using it as a basic tool. search engine almost, like a Google-like tool.
Based on that, I can now start to communicate to you the different types of things that I can do that you cannot now. and how that's going to impact the world and how that might be valued. how creating that net new value is going to create new opportunities that I can start to show a different path that I'm on than you.
And when I do that, you either react like, oh, that's BS or oh, my goodness, or This will never happen.
Whatever it is, I'm going to anticipate how you're going to respond and I'm going to be able to then have a conversation with you about how to help you see that.
I might sit you down, we might use a tool together and say, hey, tell me when of your biggest dreams of what you wish you could do in life and show you how to start working in that direction. either using these tools or using some other tool or just the frameworks that are in the book so that you start to now... touch and feel and see what you didn't know you didn't know.
Because once it becomes yours, It's yours.
You can't unsee it. Right. Oh, there's so much here.
Because I love the fact that we're still starting with the person.
And I think a lot of times we make the mistake of starting with the technology.
And so you're starting with the person and getting a deep understanding of them.
What is it that you want to accomplish? What are your challenges?
And then working through it with them so they could actually see what that future could look like.
So you're making it something that was very intangible, making it more tangible so they can see it.
And something that you mentioned in passing, but I wanna bring it back, is the fact that the person you're talking to Let's assume they are some level of high-level professionals. because they're the person who can have the power and authority to make a decision. they have done something or some things well in their life and they were done well enough for them to get to this level and position of power and the reason why this is important is because If somebody cares about how they perform, they will also often have questions about how they will perform under completely different circumstances.
And so they're saying, but being able to do that in the midst of a conversation can be difficult.
So in your position, how can we make this new scary technology seem like something that can be learned and harnessed by anybody in the organization, in particular the person that we're talking to.
There's a part in the book where I tell the story, not just of storytelling, but story boarding.
And it's an exercise, even if you're not an artist, that helps you understand the person on the other side of what you're trying to say the story you're trying to tell.
And one of my friends, his name is Nicholas Sung.
And he's a former Pixar storyboard artist.
He got famous for helping Airbnb create storyboards that changed Airbnb Many years ago, I don't know if you remember when they had to do a massive control alt delete and they were having trouble They were always having bad publicity in terms of people,
Staying in homes and finding cameras and all this crazy stuff or having – having houses trashed and not being able to get insurance or good customer service to cover all of that stuff.
They went through a control alt delete moment, but to get there, they had to convince... their board, they had to convince their investors, they had to convince employees that there was a different way forward, a better way forward.
And they used this artist, Nick Sung, came in, they analyzed the data, they looked at what it meant Why do people put their houses on a site to open them up strangers and why do strangers want to stay in other people's homes?
And they really got to this empathetic level of understanding And then they use storyboards to tell the story of, well, here's this person who puts their house on and humanizes it. rather than seeing a PowerPoint presentation, for example.
And the storyboards helped do a couple of things that we need to do when we're talking about the future.
And then we can get to the how, which is, It's gotta be believable.
And in order for it to be believable, You have to know who's watching it.
And so storyboards became a way of, testing out the story because you knew who the audience was, And you wanted, before you went through this whole expensive production of making a movie or... the whole expensive production of change management to understand that how this story is resonating or not resonating with someone.
So this is where empathy comes in. This is where understanding how someone's gonna respond.
This is understanding how someone's motivated.
This is how understanding someone's bias is.
So yes, essentially, we have to do all the work, just like Disney or Pixar does all the work to make a great story.
And then what makes it also believable is that you see yourself. in the movie.
This is why sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, sometimes we get angry.
And so that that part then is the hard work that we do to humanize something that is intangible.
And then from there, because we understand the different types of audiences we're working with we can then talk about what we do next.
And that's what a good leader does is sees an opportunity and helps us go there willingly and hopefully enthusiastically rather than fearfully. or arrogantly, or begrudgingly.
We want... people to move forward in this step, this step and this step.
And that's what that's what I believe a good leader should be doing in this realm of unknown and it's totally possible i've been doing this my whole career.
I used to just only work back in the day with startups.
And think about this, a founder has to create a company in a market that is either undeveloped, doesn't exist, using solutions that people don't know they need to buy yet.
And then on the other side, you're an investor. trying to calculate whether this unknown is going to deliver you one to 10,000% return.
And you have to do that well enough to stay in business over the long term. either undeveloped, doesn't exist, using solutions that people don't know they need to buy yet, And then on the other side, you're an investor trying to calculate whether this unknown is is going to deliver you one to 10,000% return.
And you have to do that well enough to stay in business over the long term.
And these are tools I've learned not just how to calculate whether or not this is a good bet, I also use the same tools to start looking at what's happening on the horizon and what we need to do Should these things come to life?
How would we respond? For example, Kodak new digital was coming back in the day because some of their engineers created the first ever digital cameras.
If you look at blockbuster. They knew streaming was coming because they were working on it too.
So... It's not just a matter of seeing what's coming.
It's a matter of the how, like you said. making it tangible and scenario planning, understanding what we could do with it and how we can make it great.
What role do we want to play? and making it great.
And so I'll give you, I'll give you one last example.
Cause I could keep talking. I actually, uh, I'm doing an event here coming up with Mark Randolph.
He's one of the co-founders of Netflix. And we were talking, because Mark talks about how in 2000, him and his co-founder, Reed Hastings, went to Blockbuster to try to sell Netflix for $50 million.
And as Mark tells it, Blockbuster laughed him out of the room.
And I asked him, I said, Hey, let me let me ask you something.
You ever think about that time and what would have happened if they did acquire you?
Do you think you'd still be here? Do you think Netflix would still be Netflix?
Or do you think it would be gone just... just like Blockbuster, because I don't know, the leadership would have had to change their mind, would have had to open their mind, would have had to think like you to... make this happen?
And he was a gentleman and he didn't want to kind of say fully, but think about how that would have played out.
Because if you're not going to change your leadership mindset, if you're not going to change how you approach unknowns, if you're not going to rally people into an era of uncertainty in order to create create what doesn't exist and make it yours and be successful in it, you will just be stuck in the box of status quo, using something new and great and trying to iterate yourself forward.
But you can't, iterate your way to innovation.
You can't cut your way to innovation. Just like that old saying, the light bulb is not the result of the continuous improvement of candles.
There is so much here to explore, Brian, because you're absolutely right.
Because it helps us to recognize that When it comes to innovation and massive change, you cannot do that incrementally.
And that is incredibly uncomfortable. And I think when it comes to the conversations that we're having, you've laid out some really strong tools for us.
We have storytelling, but doing it from an empathetic position and making it real and tangible for the other side.
And now I want to shift this conversation a little bit and almost play the other side.
Because there are some times where somebody is afraid of the future.
They don't want to try anything else out that's new.
No matter what that new thing happens to be, they are 100% status quo.
That's it. But then there's some people who are saying, I'm okay with making change, but I don't think this is the one.
And so there might be somebody within the company who's saying, no, this is the direction we need to go.
And somebody might say, actually I don't feel comfortable, but that person is being dismissed as somebody who is afraid of the future rather than somebody who has legitimate concerns.
And so for that person who's saying, hey, I'm not afraid of change.
I just don't think this change regarding tech is the right change.
How can they... navigate that conversation in a way that doesn't get them stigmatized as somebody who's afraid of navigate these certain scenarios and bring everybody back to the center where we now understand. why we need to move in this direction and how we're gonna move in this direction.
You said earlier that people, who are in the status quo probably don't see themselves in the status quo because in their mind, they see themselves as successful.
And it's true that there's nothing There's nothing to argue about that.
The question is what I think Marshall Goldsmith says often, what got you here won't get you there.
And I don't think people can visualize the what is there because I only know All of my deadlines.
I know I've got a week full of packed meetings.
I've got... quarter end, whatever it is that drives you, that's what we see and that's what we work towards.
And it's hard to move beyond that. success is probably among the poorest of the teachers when you're looking to compete for the future because it, limits your thinking to what you know.
Now, When someone is planning for the future, maybe the next product, the next R&D, the next sales strategy, whatever that is, they are operating from that realm. of success, of what they know, what hasn't worked in the past, whatever their gut is telling them.
And again, There's nothing wrong with that, but you'd have to be able to, like in any negotiation, in any argument, in any courtroom... you'd have to present evidence in a compelling manner, in a way that's believable, and in a way that this person can see themselves in it, to see alternatives.
So in futurism, one of the practices is called scenario planning.
So I... had your attention and you had, this is what we got to do.
But I saw things differently because I've been thinking about this.
I've been going through the exercises in the book to kind of make my case, there's this the famous Aristotle, Lagos, Pathos, and Ethos, where...
The whole way to present a persuasive story was one, having the evidence to having the credibility to present that evidence and basically making it believable. meaningful, influential, provocative.
However, that person needs to hear it and see it.
But once they see these potential scenarios and they don't feel like you're pushing it on them, you know, one of the strategies is to help them see it as if it's their discovery, then Any good person will consider it.
If they choose not to consider it, that's a whole different conversation to have.
And I've dealt with my share of... But as a friend of mine, Ryan Holiday, wrote, ego is the enemy.
I agree and that's a battle I fight every day.
Just recognizing that. And it's so true.
And what I love about this is that, again, we have a very tangible step forward.
I love the idea. of scenario planning, again, making it really clear to the person who's on the other side that There are various ways we can go forward.
And I think that's an important part that's often missed.
Because sometimes people might hear us saying and they saying this is the way that we need to go forward and this is the option, this is what good looks like in the future, what success looks like in the future. we don't give them the various options.
We don't have, it could be this, it could be that, it could be this, but we want you to be part of this so you can help to build it in the way that reflects what success looks like to you.
And I think just going back to, like you said at the beginning, we want this to be collaborative.
We want this to be inclusive and just really hammering that home is going to be important because when I think about marketing, There's never a time where Coca-Cola, Apple, all these big companies say, you know what?
I think they got it. We don't need to market anymore.
I think everybody knows who we are. The same is true for us.
When it comes to these conversations, we have to continue to reiterate the fact that We want this to be collaborative.
We see you as being part of the solution.
We being part of the solution. We want you to be part of this solution as well.
We have to keep on saying that because the fear will get them to think about the opposite.
And just one last thing before you go, because this is something that I know we've personally run into in our company as we've thought about different AI solutions to incorporate is the reality that Sometimes optionality can almost be a bad thing because we run into the paradox of choice.
I remember in the early days of Negotiate Anything, we had Patrick McGinnis, who was the inventor of the term.
FOMO, fear of missing out. And he says, I'm almost disappointed that that's the one that took off because in that same article, I had something that I thought was much better and it was FOBO, fear of a better option.
And he said, when it comes to decision-making, I think FOBO is much more of a challenge because we can recognize that nothing is perfect.
There's no such thing as a perfect solution.
So we can always say, well, maybe this option might be better or this option.
And one of the things that came with the advent of ChatGPT and the generative AI where we are right now is a slew of so many other companies offering more or less the same thing, just marketed differently and perhaps to different audiences.
So now let's say we've gotten to the point where people are saying, all right, Brian, I'm on board.
Now I see. I need to become a futurist. I need to consider what's next.
And now there are 93 companies that are telling me they can do what we need them to do.
How do we make a decision from all of these options?
Scenario planning, there is actually... I use the tools that I teach in the book and just just to show you, I don't know if you see this, but I just reread it again just to inspire me to... you know, to see if I was just drinking my own Kool-Aid if we're really onto something here.
One of the things that I teach is sort of this You pick anything.
It could be generative AI. as an analyst, one of the tools that I used to use is sort of what it means.
It's this layer of if we believe generative AI is deal what is that what does that mean what does that mean to me what does it mean to my work?
Well, you could go through an exercise as well.
It'll help me. It'll help me write better and faster to kind of get more done.
What does that mean? Well, if I can get more done, I can save time in my day.
And if I save more time in my day, then I can actually do A, B, and C that I have not been able to get to before.
And if I can do A, B, and C, then I can do this, this, and this.
And so what you do is like a what it means, a whim cycle, to try to get to the thing that's going to be transformative for you.
And you go through this mental exercise.
You won't be great at it the first couple of times, but you just, you go through it. until you get to the thing and that's your like aha moment.
Because I think we always think that an aha moment is basically, you know, you're strolling down the street, walking the dogs.
I got this great idea, and then you race back to do something about it.
The only way we do something about it is the uh-oh moment. like, oh, Gen AI is here.
What are we going to do? But we got to get everybody licenses. we're not thinking about what it means to actually lead someone in a new direction, to use it meaningfully.
So for example, This is why you see most companies looking at artificial intelligence as an automation tool.
Oh, we'll just take the repetitive tasks and then we'll automate that stuff.
But nobody's asking. Are those the tasks we should be automating?
What does 2030 look like? If we were to assume that This wave of generative AI is coming.
This wave of generative AI is coming. This wave of generative AI is coming.
So those waves are reasoning and than agentic skills where AI can actually execute on your behalf. and work with other agents on your behalf, you can go through the what it means exercise for each one of those waves to see what two to five years could look like.
So then you can start to have conversations about what we need to start doing when AI can reason. and then when AI can work with itself to accomplish tasks towards outcomes.
What are we going to do with that free time you and I now have, Kwame? well, what are some of the opportunities for value creation?
What could we use these tools to do what we didn't do before? augmenting too.
So automating and augmenting. So a simple exercise or example of this would be Ikea.
IKEA introduces this super effective AI chatbot for customer service.
It handles first contact resolution, I think it was like 57%, some astronomical number.
And So now you think, okay, well, we automated customer service to the point where we can let customer service agents go save even more money.
But instead, what they did was they armed them with AI and re-skilled them and turned a fair amount of people into interior designers. so that when they were taking these calls, they could now have a productive conversation creative conversation with customers to help them plan their space.
And that business generated 1.2 billion euros in its first year.
So you have savings and you have growth.
And that's how we have to think about it.
And these are the things that are in the book to help you think like that. with whatever the trend is, not just AI.
This is... So good, Brian. And I know we're over time at this point.
For me, as a leader of my company now, I have some homework.
My mind is exploding with opportunities. right now after this conversation.
So I appreciate you. For those listeners who want to learn more about you and learn more about the books that you offer and the speaking that you do.
Can you let them know how they can get in touch?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, my website is BrianSolis.com, pretty much at Brian Solis on all the socials.
And the book is on Amazon. It's at Barnes & Noble, your favorite bookstores.
And the website for the book is mindshift.io.
Brian G. Amazing. Brian, thank you so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.
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