Beyond Management: Leading with Purpose, Resilience, and AI Smarts | Biz Bites for Thought Leaders

Sustainable leadership and ai, a panel discussion with two people who haven’t met before this particular podcast, which makes it all the more exciting and it made for an absolutely amazing discussion. You do not wanna miss this episode. We have Johann, who has a background in sales coaching, and he brings decades of real world experience helping business owners scale through authentic, I should say, sales leadership.

But what we really love about his approach is he is so much purpose driven that he has also established a publishing company where proceeds a hundred percent of the proceeds, I should say, are going back to a charity in Africa. I. So we are talking to someone who truly understands purpose driven business, matching that with Brigitte Johnson, who is a master coach and strategist who spent 20 years helping leaders, particularly female lead leaders, I should say, navigate the challenges of sustainable success.

Sustainable is something that we are really gonna press home in this discussion. Mixed in with purpose driven and mixed in with the impact of ai. It makes for a really an amazing discussion from two people with incredible varying expertise who come together and really do agree on the way forward. So you don’t wanna miss this episode.

Sit back, relax, enjoy it, whatever you are doing, and make sure you listen to this full episode of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders.

Hello everyone, and welcome to a very special episode of Biz Bites. I have two guests with me today. They haven’t met each other until a couple of moments ago, and this is gonna make it for an even more interesting discussion. So welcome both Johann and Brigitte.

Thank you. Thank you for the introduction and lovely to meet you too, Brigitte, on a short notice.

It’s been it’s always good to connect with new people.

Fantastic. Lovely to meet you Johann. Thanks for having us, Anthony.

Absolute pleasure. So as we like to do at the start of the program, it’ll allow each of you to introduce yourself. Johann, why don’t you kick things off and tell everyone a little bit about you.

Cool. So I’m very transparent. So Anthony, you can even ask any question throughout the show as well, both personal and professional. But on a professional level, I’ve got two business to. I basically help business owners make more money through sales. I do a lot of sales training, sales coaching, one-on-one coaching sales workshops with large and small medium organizations.

But the reason why I love it is I’ve been in sales since I was 14 and I’m now 40. So whatever I teach and preach for businesses are things that I’ve actually done in my own world. So that’s my big point of difference there. And then I’ve also got a second business. It’s a publishing company.

So I’ve created actually my first children’s book only about eight months ago, and I created a publishing company called Blueprint Publishing. And a hundred percent of the net proceeds of this children’s book that I created go to a charity in Africa. So on a personal level, that’s my purpose is is helping others and that’s part of function that.

So that’s a bit about me for now.

Fantastic. I love it. We have plenty to come back to. Brigitte, what about you? Introduce yourself a little bit.

Sensational Johann, that’s I could have done with that when my three kids were little. I am a bit of a rebel thinker. I’m a master coach and a strategist and pretty much a thinking partner for my clients, which range from leaders in education to across.

Probably quite a number of different sectors. I cannot think of many sectors that I haven’t worked in my 40 years of coaching and leading. So yeah so basically my core strength is curiosity. And I didn’t even know what coaching was. When I was leading a team of 50 back in the early, earlier part of this century.

And then. Discovered through McKinsey that this thing called coaching exists. And sure enough, I unleashed myself and set up my practice pretty much, within weeks. And so it’s been a journey of 20 years of my practice, which is really cool because I’ve got my three teenagers and my dog.

I love to travel and and help purpose centered humans to, to lead sustainably really is my core value.

I love that. It’s a it’s a lot of really important ideas that you’ve both hit upon there. And this is where I want to start this. Discussion. If I can talk to me a little bit, firstly, Brigitte, about that whole idea at the end, sustainability and purpose driven, because I think that’s such an important aspect and I know I can see Johann nodding his head.

And I know from reading a little bit about your background, Johann as well. I know this is something that’s important to you. So how do you define that? What actually is it?

Yeah. So for me a lot of the client community that I’m, I work with successful on the outside and hopefully on the inside. Female leaders struggle with common themes of burnout imposter syndrome just feeling like they’re just spread too thin and there’s not enough time.

Really. What we do is we look at, okay, what is sustainable success? How can we get to where we want to go and stay there and hang in because the world needs. More female leaders. We know that organizations that are, that have a good representative of females on the board and on in the C-suite do better.

Yeah. From an ROI perspective, they perform better. But our systems aren’t designed, haven’t been designed. For women historically. So what we’re looking at is, okay, how do we elevate the leader to have not just authentic leadership, but sustainable? So these are micro habits. These are evidence-based practices that you probably have heard of, but with coaching.

It creates that safe place for someone to sit and go, ah, you know what? I really marked that bit up. I’ve done it again. I’ve over committed or I’ve tipped the balance too far in, in the favor of work, and now I’m feeling, totally disconnected from my partner or my kids, or whatever it is.

So these are the sorts of issues that we help to address in coaching.

Yeah it’s such an important. Aspect, I think to be able to look at that whole notion of something that is sustainable. Because when you start with trying to elevate people, unless you’ve got longevity to it, it’s a hit and miss kind of scenario, isn’t it?

Correct.

And I guess that’s the element as well where coaching comes into it, doesn’t it? Because it’s about trying to find ways to keep maintain that.

Yeah, absolutely. We’re obviously in a very interesting time in history globally. There’s a lot of disruption regardless of what gender we are, for across the board for all of us politically economically there, there is enormous.

Disruption happening. And what we’re finding is that, and that, and I haven’t even got to the sort of, the main one, which is obviously the technology. And when we think about this, we’re looking at, okay, how can we be more human in our leader our approach to leadership agreed. How can we bring more empathy, more compassion, more resilience?

How can we navigate transitions because. Humans aren’t going to be replaced by machines in the most important aspects, which is connection, right? Um, sustainable leadership is also about riding that wave of technological disruption as well.

I think that’s something we need to come back to.

But Joanna, I wanna bring you in here because I think it’s really important to understand as well that sustainability. In terms of sales and sales leadership is incredibly important, isn’t it? Because there is a quick burn and a churn and burn theory that’s existed in the past as well. And if you want to survive, you have to find a way to make it sustainable.

Yeah, I think Brigitte, hit something ahead on the nail like I think my coaching aspects and philosophies are very aligned, and it might be for a different market, but. It’s for the same outcome. And usually when I work with business owners they have this expectation on maybe what they wanna achieve within their business, but it’s not necessarily aligned to what their staff think that achievement is.

So always this alignment. So sometimes what I need to actually do is integrate and alignment theory where both the owner has a target and the capacity of a salesperson as well. Because Brigitte mentioned, burnout is such a big thing. And I’m a big believer that compounding on small steps is such a greater thing than trying to do things on a massive scale than then burning out and ruin, ruining your whole ecosystem as well.

But the other thing that I like to personally do with sustainability is that when I’m associating or talking to a business owner, that’s what I primarily do is I don’t look at how business is performing, how internal. Perform. Are they in isolation mode? Are they neglecting, are they angry, are they frustrated?

And that usually will paint me a picture on what’s happening in the business, not vice versa. So I don’t look at the business. I actually look at the owner first and seeing how they’re reacting, trying to find out exactly what is happening within them. So that is my sustainability. Sustainability means long.

I’m a marathon. I run. And it’s all about steps. It’s all about doing things in slow patterns. So I’m a big believer in that too.

Yeah, sustainability is. Important and I think misunderstood word. You know, Brigitte, if I can bring you back in there, that I think people, think about it in terms of the environment.

They think about it this kind of eerie fairy sort of term, but it has more meaning and depth to it, doesn’t it? And is that getting through to people? Are people understanding what it really means?

Yeah, absolutely. I’m talking as practically and fundamentally as 70% of adults are not getting enough sleep.

We’re going about our day with our, executive functioning, nowhere near full throttle. So leaders making critical decisions, under enormous pressure. Sleep deprived, or, I love hearing Johann’s running. Just having that outlet. ’cause we know that kind of energy is important for sustainable leadership.

Yeah.

We know that’s what gets our, the blood flying to the brain and so those sort of fundamentals. But then there’s also. Sustainability I think about with purpose, right? Are we tapped into the purpose, the why of what we’re doing every day? How do we get that practice happening so that we’re actually not just clear on our own purpose, but also that our teams are really clear on why.

They’re doing what they’re doing and the difference that they’re making and the impact that they’re having. And I think that younger obviously the younger generations are really wanting to go to those purpose-led purpose-driven organizations. So you’re gonna win the war for talent when you have that.

Level of sustainability.

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You’re gonna win the War for Talent when you have that. Level of sustainability. And then there’s like that, there’s, look, I’ve got eight huge pillars of, of all of these micro habits that you can pull into your day. But we look at each leader individually and figure out where are your strengths?

Where are you energized? Where are you playing to those strengths? But where are also the blind spots or the weaknesses or the areas that you, you’re gonna. They’re gonna become big traps if we don’t address them quickly.

Yeah. It is important isn’t it, to try and understand that because there’s one thing zeroing in on your purpose, but it’s another thing as you say, trying to find those blind spots and yeah, and I think that’s an area that is.

Particularly interesting when you talk about the marathon and running step by step, like it gives you a lot of time to go, okay, you can focus on what’s in front of you, but what is on either side? What are those areas that you might be a little bit weaker on?

Yeah it is actually interesting.

A lot of people say to me, or how do you become such a great marathon runner? Or you don’t like to run, and it’s a natural gift, if I’m being honest with you. So I’ve always had that bit of advantage that. We’ve got like what Brigitte said, or strengths, and I’ve probably realized what those were.

Quite a young age, which is naturally sales, natural running, and I’ve influence. I succeed when I step out, not outta my comfort zone, but something that I’m not a specialist at, that’s when I really get fatigued. I really get burnt out and I actually really crash. And I’ve got a big faith background and I believe that we all have a special gift or two.

And I think sometimes we need to understand that we may have four or five different talents within us. And then how do we use us? Use it. So it’s not just happening for us, but through us to empower leaders, staff members, and everyone within our circle, both on a professional and personal level as well.

And that’s something that I really love to, to harness in. I believe that everyone’s got some, unique talent within them and had we extract it out so they can use it within the marketplace to benefit them. And I’m a big believer in that too, to be honest with you. You probably see me smile because I’m very passionate about that.

And it’s interesting I think all three of us have a very clear idea of what we. Great at and what our, superpowers for want of a better term are, but Brigitte, how easy is that to make sure that when you’re dealing with teams and people that in, in, whether it’s across an organization or just individuals coming to you, that their purpose has actually been realized That they’re not just going through the motions and fallen into something.

Because I think we’ve probably all done the same thing at various times in our career, right? Where we’ve fallen into something and we can do it. But it’s not our purpose. It’s not what we love.

Such a great question, Anthony. It’s that kind of golden, that zone of deep fulfillment when one’s strengths are aligned with the purpose of the team and the overall mission of the organization.

That is a sweet spot that I think, every young person or EE, every person, emerging leaders, established leaders. Everyone in an organization should have the opportunity to at least have that conversation with their manager of how do I align and bring more of my strengths to this role, and how do we evolve the role to suit me?

Because that’s when a team of individuals is more than the collection of the individuals. It’s a real kind of. It’s a force to be reckoned with. And the organizations, you can see them that get that that really actually tap into what’s the, what are the gifts that these people are bringing every day?

How do we dial that up? How do we get them more in flow, more energized with what they’re doing? More intel. We know that when you’re playing to your strengths and when you’re bringing your strengths to work and you’re acknowledged for that, and and there’s an outlet for that. The performance improvement is more than 40% sustainably, right?

So you are, people are feeling like they belong. They’re aligned with the purpose. And it’s extraordinary. It’s it’s so wonderful to see those benefits and this is where sometimes working with the leader to see that maybe they’ve got this candidate in this role that is not gonna, is not a good fit.

But it’s a great person for this activity over here. Let’s just change things up a bit. Let’s not be too fixed in our mindset of who we want in each role. So it’s a bit of bit like a jigsaw puzzle really.

Yeah it’s an interesting point. It’s something that sort of crosses over to the topic that I was discussing recently on another episode.

It’s that definition or that differentiation I should say, between management and leadership because they’re not the same thing. And trying to find people that might be a leader in a certain area doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be a manager. The people who are the best at their particular area of expertise doesn’t necessarily make them a manager or, they might be a leader, but they might not be a manager.

And we very often.

Very different. I think it’s a very different d different aspects, isn’t it? And the reason why I just jumped in there was I was talking to an individual after a workshop and lovely lady said to me, I wanna become a leader within my organization, but I haven’t got that management title.

And I actually said that there are many functions you can do internally without that title. You don’t need that title to become an actual leader. Leader leadership actually starts within yourself and what you do without people recognizing it. So we went through some structural behaviors for who to implement within the workplace, but I said actually for experience, what you can actually do, if you want real hard core evidence, is go out to a local community group that needs volunteers.

Use those leadership examples or skills that you’re learning in that environment. See how it’s actually portrayed, and then use it within your workplace. And the feedback was that, hey, in this volunteering place, I’ve got the experience of real leadership. This is what I don’t like about it. This is what I love about it.

And within her workplace, she had the confidence to then talk to her manager and saying, look, I wanna become a leader. But even without the title, but what can I do with you to, blow up my leadership skills? And it was such an amazing thing to, to see. So I think with leadership you don’t need to be a manager or a title or a director.

In fact anyone, everyone’s a leader in some sort of capacity where it might be at home anyway or in, in any environment. So I think it’s about having the confidence to know that. We all have leadership qualities, but then how do we utilize it in different environments as well? I think that’s very important as well.

Yeah. Brigittete, I’m interested in how you respond to that. I.

Johannn, that’s Kenny, because I’ve got a client that I’m working with at the moment who is definitely CEO material, but she has four kids and the realization and they’re at a certain age that, there’s just this small window, and she’s totally leadership material. But we’ve got to the point of do I want it now? Yeah. And the answer is not yet. That there’s times. To, and seasons in one’s life. And it’s fantastic problem to have that she’s, leadership material. She’s been tapped on the shoulder as well, so recognized, but to have that self-awareness and that ability or that maturity to go you know what?

I don’t think this is right for me right now. I’ll I’ll go this other path and then I’ll find my way there. There’s so many pathways but you’re spot on with that leadership influencing without authority, that self-leadership is absolutely where it all starts in my book as well. It’s, a hundred percent is, and then, the leadership journey unfolds, I believe as people are ready for it.

Yeah. So true. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Because you often hear it in sports analogies lead by example. I. And that’s, that, that’s probably the one that, that most people relate to.

You watch a team, whatever team it might be, in whatever sport, and often the leader is that person that is digging in deep and when things are looking a little bit vulnerable in the game that’s when them, going and putting a little bit of extra effort in to try and rally the troops as it were.

And that’s really what leadership is about, isn’t it? It’s not, it doesn’t have to have the title.

Yeah, totally correct.

Yeah. And I think that’s something that isn’t recognized as well, but that’s, but there is that difficulty. Brigitte, bringing back to you. That’s one of the hard things about, you talk about women in business and particularly giving them recognition for where they’re at.

And that’s one of the hard things that they can be leaders within a business as part, the client that you’re referring to would be a leader within the business, but may not have the title of CEO or whatever the. The leadership is, the top management position might be, and that’s a hard thing too, isn’t it?

Because sometimes that title does carry weight. That is important.

Absolutely. It carries weight. There’s a reason that, you’re being paid the big bucks, the responsibility is on those shoulders to make. Really tough decisions. It’s not a popularity contest. We want our leaders, to, as I said, coming back full circle sus to, to sustain their level of.

The quality of thinking, the quality of leadership, and to sustain their energy because we know that organizations, are gonna everyone’s learning and following what the leader is role modeling. So it sets the cultural tone for the organization. And the flip side of that is what we’re seeing is, you get leaders making.

Poor judgment, poor ethical decisions, mucking up. They’re out, that’s it. They’ve self-sabotage, whatever. It has been gone and more and more we have less tolerance and less forgiveness for leaders making. Really bad mistakes because everything’s so transparent now.

Yeah. Agree.

And whether you like it or not that’s just the way it is. That’s another thing that I think that leaders of today are really exposed to, not just the rapid rate of change, pace of change. But this transparency.

Yeah. Yeah. It is it’s there is, and we wanna come into this rapid change in a moment, but yeah.

Johann, I just wanna bring you in as well as is that the. We’ve talked about CEO kind of level, but when you talk about sales management level, is there a discrepancy between the people who are the lead, who are the leaders, and who are the managers and who they have the title and who don’t in the sales area that you are seeing?

Yeah, look, sales is a very unfair part of a body of a business, unfortunately, because I think generally if you’ve got that management position and you’re not a leader, but you’re bringing a lot of revenue. Sometimes your optical lens will be focused on revenue rather than leadership qualities from a high management point of view.

And that’s probably the biggest thing that I see when I speak to owners. But they’re like, this guy might not be the best leader, but he’s a state manager or a manager because he brings in the most, revenue in. And then sometimes my argument is that I can guarantee if that person wasn’t in your business.

Your other people would fire up more to a level where that revenue will exceed. Because again, going to what Brigitte said, you’re gonna be more sustainable, more happy. You’re not gonna have that churn rate of salespeople leaving in and out, which is probably costing you more than what you realize. So I think when you’re coming from a coaching point of view, where’re a different set of lands that we’re not working in the business it’s an overview.

So the advantages that you get is we get to see things that. Maybe, a biased owner won’t be able to see. And I’m very transparent in those conversations that just because someone’s making the most numbers doesn’t mean they’re the best manager is a or a best leader. It’s two different functions.

Yeah. And yeah.

And sometimes right that taking people away from what they do best. In this case, they’re a leading sales person, means that they’re spending more time on the management side of things and not doing the thing that they’re probably a best at. And B, most importantly, love.

Yeah, correct. And I think just on that point, sometimes what I actually do is if you’ve got. A person who’s a manager and you’re expecting ’em to do a lot of sales, I tend to find out burnout really occurs, or again, a churn will occur ’cause there’s too much responsibilities. So sometimes it’s having that conversation that your sales managers are not there just to bring revenue, but it’s really to lead, inspire your team.

It’s all about, that’s how you scale. Sustainability, not just everyone’s trying to do everything. That’s where problems occur. And especially in sales, when people get desperate, when their revenue’s low, they do crazy things. They self-sabotage or a lot of bad things can occur in that place as well.

So it’s so important to be number one, transparent. But number two, just to, just to be flexible as well, and move people around. It’s very important.

Before we just come into the technology thing, there is one question I wanted to ask you, Johann, because it’s something that I’ve seen over the years and I’m wondering where you stand with this.

There’s an often sales sits. I wouldn’t say independent of the organization, but they seem to be a law unto themselves and often there’s a lot of friction between the operation side of the business and and sales. I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it firsthand very early on in my career where sales and operations were literally at 50 cuffs at this particular organization.

But is that something that still exists or is that, that those tensions seem to have watered down or what are you seeing?

I would say 95% of organizations still have it. I wish it wasn’t the case. And a framework that I actually will share with everyone, and this is just like free value is I always get both teams to be together.

And what I’ll do is I’ll ask the sales team, what are three things you’d like from your operations team? And I’ll ask the operations team, what are three things you’d love? From your sales team, and it’s not about cleaning a fresh start or a clean slate, but it’s about building trust slowly and over time as well.

And I’d be, I’m a big believer, my philosophy in sales is that when I do well, I’m helping people. I’m employing people. People are growing. I wanna support my operations team. And I always encourage the salespeople that your operations team are the backbone to what you do.

Yeah it’s really hard isn’t it?

Often to understand. I think part of it is the commission based, right? That’s a source of tension within a business because you’ve got operations who are paid a fixed wage, generally speaking, and then sales who are often on some sort of commission based, and so that. Breeds friction

inness.

Yeah, for sure.

Now I don’t suppose that there’s not really an answer to that one, so we’re gonna move on to something that I, that we’ve, you’ve all touched on, which is around technology and the, and there’s a lot of tension as well with technology at the moment, and it’s moving at such a rapid pace, particularly in the past couple of years with ai.

And there’s people who are, feel threatened by their job. There’s, there’s peoples whose business feels like they’re under threat because they need to move faster with technology than they can actually handle. Where does that sit firstly, in terms of leadership? Brigitte? Where is it that people should be positioning themselves in relation to technology?

How do they harness it?

Yeah, I think ignore it at your peril. Really. I’m there is no conversation that I’m having in any client boardroom where, it’s a good idea to I. Downplay the impact of ai. What we are seeing is, and you might have heard a lot of people talking about, be the thinking partner.

Use it, leverage it as a a thinking partner collaborate. I think it’s a, you are the master and it is the servant. It’s a very poor master. It, there is not an ethical kind of dimension there. There’s not a human dimension. These are not human beings, right? These are machines, right?

And we need to feed, but the opportunities. And what the applications that we’re seeing in organizations that have got this alignment with their purpose and their people, and they’re using and harnessing ai. To actually boost the roles, boost the performance of of their teams. It’s extraordinary, really inspiring.

One of the things that I was I was looking at was, how do you. Can you create an AI coach? Now, of course you can. I’ve actually created one, but with this little app replica, and Richard, my coach, he’s onto me, right? He’s holding me accountable, but I can ignore him. You can’t ignore me.

I’m actually right. I’m holding you accountable. So there’s and there’s also conversations and emotional intelligence and nuances and all the soft skills they can emulate, but it’s not there yet. But I love seeing, I love playing around with it. Because, it’s important to know where you sit in the world and not to be kidding yourself, that you are irreplaceable. My key strength is the relationship that I have with my clients that is. If that’s strong, then, and that’s what I train other coaches in too is be confident in that and really own that and own your presence as a human being and as a coach in terms of, having these authentic, real relationships.

The other thing I was just gonna say quickly, and we’ll come back to this hopefully later, but is in this area of mental health and. Looking at how can we leverage all of the apps, which we do. We teach, I’m a mental health first aid trainer, but we also look at how do we help people leverage apps and technology for E-Health because they can now get access to affordable mental health that was not previously available.

And there’s still unfortunately such a stigma in Australia. Around mental health conversations inside organizations. You think about sales teams and it’s warfare sometimes, right? And you’re looking at. Performance is key, right? The, and the the metrics are really king. Is it safe to to talk about, my vulnerabilities as an employee, maybe not.

So this and not anonymity that technology provides in the mental health space. Amazing.

Yeah, it’s, and it is, you’re right about harnessing the technology. It’s using it for good is certainly important. But I do wanna pick up on a point that you mentioned earlier in that, with the having a coach sitting as alongside of you, that’s a, that’s an AI.

Like any of any tools that you can switch on and off, you can switch them off. Which is, that’s the point about the human being. You can’t switch them off. Not to the same extent. There’s the unpredictability of that, that they call you at a, at an opportune time that you get messages in lots of different ways.

And the way those messages are said is very different to what an AI might do, that you can literally just turn off if you want to. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Johann, how are you seeing AI in the sales space and impacting that because that’s an area where there is a big increase in the use of it and the use of it potentially to replace people.

Yeah. Look, I’m a big futurist on ai. I love to always think for the future, and it’s a bit of a frequency that I have, but I actually getting a lot of salespeople and managers and owners of businesses, especially that SME space, to really embrace it because it’s gonna give SME opportunities where they can cut costs, not in terms of human capacity, but on tasks that rather than that sales person doing admin.

They can go out there and actually communicate with customers more because, like Brigitte pointed out, the best thing about ai, you can allow it to take off mundane tasks. But when it comes to creativity or human connection, you need that in sales, but you also need it in life. And I believe that if we encourage businesses to use it correctly and ethically, you are gonna have more opportunity.

Rather than having 20 meetings about, something that’s not productive, let AI do that. But then you and I, Anthony, or you and I, Brigitte, we can connect up in person and actually discuss real problems. But the other thing as well on the human side is that humans love other humans. And empathy, human connection, like love, energy.

We never be. Hopefully we’ll never be taken by ai. But AI will be able to take on jobs that don’t fulfill us. And I think coming back to what Brigitte probably said at the start, is, that’s gonna allow us more time for our purpose. When you think about it within the workplace, what tasks can be taken from AI and where can we sit within that business to use our time and value efficiently?

So I don’t think it’s about replacing staff. I think it’s about how do we change our skill sets within that marketplace, if that makes any sense.

It absolutely does. I think it’s a really important differentiation. I know a couple of instances in small businesses where AI have taken control of booking appointments, that they’ll answer a call and they’ll be able to have a conversation and book you in.

To have an appointment with the main person. So that’s more, as you say, more the administrative mechanics. Whereas if you’re trying to have a more creative conversation about, I. Buying a tool and you want some different kinds of ideas of it and other things that might happen as a result of it.

That involves a, booking an appointment and having a conversation with a human being. Yeah. And if you can make those more direct and channeled that’s definitely going to work. And it’s how. People learn to interact with the ais as well? I think at the moment, from various things that I’ve read and people that I’ve spoken to, it seems to be the rough percentage seems to be that 90% of people don’t even identify that it is an AI at the other end.

And those that don’t seem to care that it is because of the nature of the functionality of what they’re being involved with. And I think that’s going be the hard part is. Where do we start to draw some lines in the sand about saying, no, I don’t wanna deal with an ai, or, yes, I am happy to deal with an ai.

Will all the people be ethical in, in making it certain that everyone knows that you are dealing with an ai? Certainly those that I’ve talked to have make a point of saying if someone asks the question is, are you an ai? They will answer. Yes, I’m,

yep. And it’s, sorry to just jump in again, guys. Something that I actually practice with.

Of clients is when you’re communicating with a client, actually ask ’em how they wanna be communicated with and some will say, I don’t mind what it is. It could be an AI robot, or it could be just an email or a call, but you can have your people that says, I still want that human connection, and I’m still really big on that.

And I’m just looking forward for AI taking tasks away from us that don’t fulfill us, so we can have more time in the bank to do the things that make us more productive and mental health. We’re gonna have more tools. My, my wife has a Tony Robbins up on the phone that she can communicate with every day, and it’s great for those crisis points.

But then when you’re a deep conversation, you still need to reach out to a Brigitte or yourself, really meaning conversations where. It’s other problems, not just one or two problems as well.

It’s gonna be fun times.

Yeah. Fantastic. I I was going to say that I, it’s in the contracting. So you’ve raised a couple of really cool themes there.

One is the contracting with clients, certainly. So with each client engagement these are the options. We have client dashboards where we’ve got lots of resources that can be tailored for clients using ai. But really important with confidentiality and what is documented and how long we keeping, records.

So there’s the, this space, which is very much in this transparency and ethics, and it comes down to contracting, not just for making life convenient for me, but really how are we adding value. To the client relationship here, how are we adding value to the mission? How are we using, AI to, to really as you say, take these resources, offer, the this sort of grunt work.

Away from us, so that we are actually the quality of thinking, the caliber of our collaboration together, the thinking partnership with the areas that we can start getting into, which is creative thinking, which is problem solving, which is really exploring certainly relationship building and taking, making big decisions.

Those are, there’s more space to, to do those things. But again, it has to be negotiated without wanting to sound like a broken record. Yeah, it is. But because it’s, you can have a conversation one week and then the next week, this is the rate of changes. Suddenly there’s a new opportunity that’s opened up for a client.

What do they want to hear about it? Probably. But do we need to negotiate how we bring that on, into the, to the program of work or to the relationship? Yes. It requires a lot more collaboration.

Yeah. It’s it’s important isn’t it? That establishing that, that small point, but in a very important point, establishing that means of communication for people.

And the interesting thing is. Where people might say, oh, I don’t really care. But I think the truth is all people do care. They just don’t know which one they like the most or they want to understand where different ones are appropriate at different times. I think that’s the hard part, isn’t it?

It’s establishing, yes. Book an appointment. That’s a simple thing where an AI could do that functionality because it’s not, it’s a very straightforward task, but have a conversation about what’s going on in my business at the moment. Definitely a human conversation, right? Understanding mental health issues.

I imagine, there’s only a limit as to what AI can do, isn’t there?

Yeah, absolutely. This is a really interesting question or point that you’re making because what we know with high performing teams is when you have an organization and a team culture where there’s psychological safety, meaning it’s okay to not be okay.

This is and there’s a, and there’s a great deal of trust. This is great, but how psychologically safe do people feel if they’re worried about their jobs being, consumed by a computer? So what you want to gain is transparency, is, clarity from leaders on this is how we’re using technology.

This is how we want you to evolve. And are we upskilling? That’s

the,

our. People, to think, think differently and and see this as an opportunity. Do they feel supported in their roles to evolve? Because change is tricky. Do they feel valued? Do they feel like there’s a, a sort of a.

A conversational channel where they can grapple with some of the issues that they’re facing. So those organizations that have got that actually understand this is where we need to be to support our people with this change, then, you’re gonna see some fantastic results and, and it’s exciting, it’s really exciting. Hopefully it gives you more time to write children’s books, Johannn.

You know, it’s actually my first one and, I’m so passionate. I’ve got another book that I’m gonna be writing an adults book actually in August. Sure. About mental frameworks fantastic.

I can’t wait. So yeah, may, maybe it’ll give me more time, but we’ll see what happens.

I think that’s the interesting thing about change. And just to wrap up the the conversation and is that. It does give you more time to do different things. The question is what are you filling that up with, isn’t it?

It’s the rate of change is such that there’s an expectation that you will respond quicker. I had a exchange some messages last night with a with a client who was like how can we speed things up a little bit further? Can we instead of move away from email and can we use Telegram?

Can we use WhatsApp? The implication with some of those things are that you get in contact with people out of hours as well and trying to. And so it is, technology is pushing those boundaries and the speed of change and the availability, and it’s how you actually blend somewhere to find the time to what you should be doing.

And I think that’s the important thing is what you should be doing is important as creating that creativity in the workplace in order to be able to, promote some innovations and things that moving forward. So perhaps just get your thoughts on both of, on, on that. Just to wrap things up.

Johann what’s

So look, humans are very intelligent creatures. We’ll always survive different errors, I think those who are scared, if you’re watching this about ai, embrace it. If you look at history, always look at history. We’ve went through massive changes in different kind of times, and those times would make people scared that things are gonna change, their jobs are gonna be replaced, but we’re evolving human beings.

And I believe if we’ve made ai we’re intelligent enough to evolve above that too. So we just gotta believe that we can. And. Not be disrupted by those things and focus on what we can control and not what we can’t control as well, I think is a big thing.

Brigitte, how do you respond?

Just to wrap things up here.

Yeah. I think it’s a, it’s exciting times. Staying curious is really, I think, my key message for organizations and those that are seeking to, to have, as I said, this sustainable leadership. How do I stay in for the long term while, partnering with ai.

Upskilling learning as much as you can. But remembering that it’s the quality of your thinking, which you know, is gonna make a big difference to and make you irreplaceable when it comes to high performing teams. And. Organizations that, that you wanna be a part of, moving forward. So yeah I think it’s exciting times.

I think I just wanted to say thank you for the conversation because, looking at it from the different perspectives, certainly of sales and organizational leadership it there, there are extraordinary opportunities.

Yeah. And thank you again as well. Yeah, appreciate it.

No, thank you both.

It’s been a really fascinating discussion and I really appreciate it and certainly two very different perspectives and some in some regards, but I think there’s very much a common ground here and I think that’s what’s important and hopefully everyone listening in has got lots out of that. And of course, we will include in the show notes how to get in contact with both Joanne and Brigitte as well.

So thank you both again for being part of the program and, we look forward to everyone, to your company on the next episode of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders.

Thank you very much.

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