[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to grow the reach, revenue, and impact of your learning business, you're in the right place. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Celisa Steele. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Jeff Cobb, and this is the leading learning podcast. [SPEAKER_02]: If you're leading a learning business right now, you're almost certainly navigating uncertainty. [SPEAKER_02]: Political, economic, technological.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the face of all that, it can be hard to know how to lead well plans strategically and stay responsive without burning out. [SPEAKER_00]: Our guest in this episode, number four hundred and fifty seven is someone who has spent years helping association leaders. [SPEAKER_00]: Seth Khan is the founder of visionary leadership and the author of the books, getting changed right and getting innovation right. [SPEAKER_00]: He's also a longtime friend of the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had him on four times before. [SPEAKER_00]: Jeff, this time around you talked with Seth in June of twenty twenty five a moment of volatility in U.S. [SPEAKER_00]: politics. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes indeed, and Seth opens with how that's affecting the associations he works with, and he shares what leaders can do to stay effective when the ground keeps shifting.
[SPEAKER_00]: You and Seth talk about his disruption playbook and seven elements he sees as essential for leading in uncertain times. [SPEAKER_00]: You also talk about the role of learning, learning for staff, for members, for boards, and for leaders. [SPEAKER_02]: And we get into AI how Seth is using it personally and professionally as a tool for curiosity, not just efficiency.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're looking for ways to think more clearly and lead more intentionally dear listener, then this conversation is for you. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the interview with Seth Khan.
[SPEAKER_02]: set you've been on the podcast several times now I think we're up to four at this point and each conversation really has felt very of the moment there's been something of foot every time it feels like and there certainly is right now so what's been most on your mind lately and in the work that you do with with leaders in organizations [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm watching the fallout from the new administration. [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of my clients are really suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're suffering from research being cut, truncated, you know, right in the middle of things. [SPEAKER_01]: And that has a huge impact on not just funding, but morale. [SPEAKER_01]: And so many people are in survival mode. [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of my work in the mental health space, I'm leading a grand challenge called stop stigma together. [SPEAKER_01]: includes working with organizations like the CDC and there's been a lot of uncertainty.
[SPEAKER_01]: People not being allowed to attend meetings, not allowed to contribute professionally. [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's probably the biggest thing of the moment is that we're just waiting to see how far this is going to go. [SPEAKER_02]: We've talked in the past about your work with grand challenges, which I think is so interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, in this current environment, what can you say a little bit more about the grand challenges you're working on?
[SPEAKER_02]: But also, is this a time when leaders are sort of open to taking on grand challenges? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so. [SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of leaders are in survival mode. [SPEAKER_01]: They're contracting. [SPEAKER_01]: And so they're going back to basics.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a grand challenge is something that you do when you've got the desire to contribute largely to the world and to work with other partners on a [SPEAKER_01]: big framework take on problems that people have shied away from in the past and a lot of times now organizations are asking how do we push through this time and survive and how do we not lose ground in the space that we're in. [SPEAKER_01]: So in general, I see people backing off of grand challenges.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, [SPEAKER_01]: Grand challenges are unique and people who go after them, organizations that go after them, some of them are doing well. [SPEAKER_01]: And so there's good still going to be a grand challenge here and there. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's not going to go away. [SPEAKER_01]: It's just that in general the appetite is focusing much more as I was saying earlier on change and innovation. [SPEAKER_01]: So how do we create new products and services?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we create new value? [SPEAKER_01]: How do we get our staff to embrace being proactive in an environment that feels like it's very choppy? [SPEAKER_01]: And how do we get people to take the good kind of risks? [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm seeing. [SPEAKER_01]: The two grand challenges I'm working on right now just do a quick summary and if you want to, we can dig in deeper to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But stop stigma together is about eliminating the stigma around mental health and substance use disorders on a national scale. [SPEAKER_01]: So bias and prejudice trying to get that away and trying to treat mental health just the way we do physical health. [SPEAKER_01]: and a big word that's used there is parity. [SPEAKER_01]: Mental health should be on parity with physical health.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that really comes down to kind of the common understanding of it so that we don't look at somebody who has a mental health challenge is having a character flaw, but we see that you can have mental health challenges just like you can get diabetes. [SPEAKER_01]: And the other aspect of it is laws and compliance and how do we reinforce the stigma unintentionally? [SPEAKER_01]: So anyways, so that stops stigma together and we're working with the ad council.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a seven year campaign called Love Your Mind. [SPEAKER_01]: It's going very well. [SPEAKER_01]: I can talk about that and we're working with a lot of partnerships. [SPEAKER_01]: We have about three hundred organizations that are working together to eliminate that stigma. [SPEAKER_01]: Then the other grand challenge is working with the American Association of Physicists in Medicine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are people, they were kind of birthed out of radiology, x-rays, physics, and x-rays, you know, and oh my god, we can look inside the human body with these things, like, seventy-five years ago, and that has evolved, and there's all kinds of ways looking inside the human body, medical ultrasound, many different types of radiology now, and then there's therapies.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the therapies are literally putting radio isotopes in pharmaceuticals and delivering them in the body, mostly around cancer. [SPEAKER_01]: Cancer is the number one area. [SPEAKER_01]: And the other area that physicists contribute to in medicine is AI. [SPEAKER_01]: So they are the original creators, the physicists are of the artificial intelligence, you know, in terms of code and understanding how to make it safe and large language models and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a lot of physicists in the medical space who are zeroing in on how do we develop AI in medicine. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just reading the other day about how in Europe they're already using AI to make decisions around, for example, cancer treatment. [SPEAKER_01]: What's the most effective? [SPEAKER_01]: So they've reached a point where they're comfortable relying on it. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think Americans are there yet, mostly.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're doing a summit in early twenty six, where we're identifying the biggest breakthroughs in physics and medicine over the next ten years. [SPEAKER_01]: And we're bringing multiple stakeholders. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not just the physicists, but it's like the FDA, all the different organizations that need to participate for those breakthroughs to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're always following your work with great interest reading your newsletter, trying to keep up with what you're doing. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's always great to have any on the show. [SPEAKER_02]: What made you sort of pop on our radar screen this time was, we noticed in one of your newsletters, not too long ago, you talked about a disruption playbook that you had put out. [SPEAKER_02]: And you were just talking about AI there, which obviously is a disruptor.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were like, well, we've been talking about uncertainty. [SPEAKER_02]: We've been talking about disruption. [SPEAKER_02]: And actually, I think the last time you were on the show, we talked about disruptions. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we did. [SPEAKER_01]: I remember that. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's apropos to have you back again.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you put out this playbook for executive leadership in turbulent times and you've characterized this or said it's a guide for executives ready to lead with foresight and integrity through political volatility, cultural shifts and systemic uncertainty, all of which we're certainly feeling right now. [SPEAKER_02]: What compelled you to say? [SPEAKER_02]: Playbook is what we need for this. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to put out a playbook here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what are you hoping leaders are going to be able to take from this playbook, which we will by the way, link to in the show. [SPEAKER_02]: No, definitely. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's already been being used. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's been nice to get the response from CEO saying we're using your playbook. [SPEAKER_01]: The environment was just so disruptive. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, first you had.
[SPEAKER_01]: As we've already spoken about the truncation of grants, research, people losing their jobs in the federal government, which impacted science and health care, and other fields as well, even manufacturing, which I know they're trying to promote, but I'm not sure it's going well. [SPEAKER_01]: And I saw that the CEOs were kind of scrambling. [SPEAKER_01]: The ones that I was in touch with. [SPEAKER_01]: They were getting hit in so many different directions simultaneously.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were a bit in shock and they weren't sure how to move forward. [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, this is not the first time that we've been through massive disruption. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I drew on my experience from the mortgage crisis, from the pandemic, and also the knowledge that I accrued studying disruptions during those disruptions.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, okay, this would be a great time to put out something that's simple, that's concise, it's not too prescriptive, but it gives you a lot of different ways to look at what's going on and to think about how you should best respond here. [SPEAKER_02]: And you talk about seven elements in the playbook. [SPEAKER_02]: I think these are these feel pretty perennial to me. [SPEAKER_02]: As you said, you drew an experience from the past. [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to apply now.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to apply in the future. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm certain, but I'll tick those off. [SPEAKER_02]: So situational awareness, strategic agility, stakeholder alignment. [SPEAKER_02]: value-driven decisions, visibility, and voice, culture of adaptation, and systemic foresight. [SPEAKER_02]: And like I said, those all sound like areas that leaders just need to be focused on continually.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, perineally, do you find that there are ones that CEOs and other executives are struggling the most with right now, do any of those stand out more than others in what you're seeing? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I would say that there's a strong commitment in CEOs in general around strategic agility and stakeholder alignment. [SPEAKER_01]: There is certainly this ongoing desire to make value driven decisions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody would say that we're making decisions in any other way. [SPEAKER_01]: Those are three where I think there is strength that they're not super threatened by the current environment that we're in because I think people are already doing that. [SPEAKER_01]: But some of the others, situational awareness becomes extremely important right now because things are happening so fast. [SPEAKER_01]: and they're multi-dimensional.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's like too much for one person to keep track of all that's going on. [SPEAKER_01]: So having a weekly briefing or a convening a diverse roundtable of people that can say, here's what's happening in my space and they can all add it in so that you get a holistic picture, you know, kind of like a hologram.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody speaks up in a short period of time and you start to see a general trend or you start to see [SPEAKER_01]: synergies or places where forces are combining in a not good way that could impact your space. [SPEAKER_01]: So situational awareness whenever there's a lot of disruption becomes more intense and requires shorter periodicity.
[SPEAKER_01]: So whereas before I might convene this group once a month or once a quarter [SPEAKER_01]: Now, weekly briefings might be in order, like, what are we learning in real time, or ad hoc briefings? [SPEAKER_01]: Strategic agility, most people pledge allegiance to strategic agility, but, you know, they've still got their strategy and they're kind of hunkering down and working on the tactics to execute it.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a time where you suddenly really need to be able to say, where should we be pivoting? [SPEAKER_01]: And what does that look like? [SPEAKER_01]: You were asking me actually an email that you sent me around the difference between agility and speed. [SPEAKER_01]: And agility is that flexibility to do something that's different, speed is how fast you respond to it. [SPEAKER_01]: And you want both, you know, to the best of your ability.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a lot of times speed with what you're currently doing is not too hard to achieve because you just get really efficient, you focus in on it. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you know, the race car that pulls off the track and they've got to change the tires and do all the maintenance and they've got seven seconds to do it in. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like you can just run drills. [SPEAKER_01]: But agility is different because then you say, okay, we're not going to change the tires.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to turn this into a tank or we're going to turn this into a bicycle and it's like, what, you know, and that's, that's like a whole different ball game. [SPEAKER_01]: So strategic agility becomes important here. [SPEAKER_01]: the visibility and voices in area that requires an increase because your usual communication channels don't suffice when there's a lot of disruption. [SPEAKER_01]: People get scared and they want to know now what are you doing for me?
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you helping me out? [SPEAKER_01]: And there's always attention like right now in the mental health work I do. [SPEAKER_01]: There's attention between [SPEAKER_01]: Where can we work with this administration or should we work with this administration? [SPEAKER_01]: So there are staff and customers who say, take a stand. [SPEAKER_01]: Tell them we're not going to do that. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, push back and then there's others who say, oh, let's be more practical.
[SPEAKER_01]: There must be some place where we can work with them. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's just ignore the places where we can and let's join hands where we can. [SPEAKER_01]: And that can become a real tension in this day and age. [SPEAKER_01]: For example, in the mental health space, I convened the top leaders from fifteen major mental health organizations in the United States in April to talk about how we work together under the current administration.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of those big organizations like the American Psychiatric Association or Mental Health America, were really about finding where can they shake hands with the administration and where should they stay away from it. [SPEAKER_01]: But there were organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and Black girls smile, much smaller organizations, that have a target on their back with this administration. [SPEAKER_01]: There's no place they can work with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that you can see the tension there. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, what are you going to do? [SPEAKER_01]: Are you going to take a stand in my favor? [SPEAKER_01]: Are you going to protect me? [SPEAKER_01]: Are you on my side? [SPEAKER_01]: Or are you going to try and work with these people who are trying to take me out? [SPEAKER_01]: So visibility and voice is where you say, this is who we are. [SPEAKER_01]: This is what we're doing. [SPEAKER_01]: And you stay in touch.
[SPEAKER_01]: You stay in touch with your members, with your customers, with your vendors. [SPEAKER_01]: Culture of adaptation, just like what I was talking about before. [SPEAKER_01]: This becomes, I talked about agility, but now it's like, can we really more for what we've got? [SPEAKER_01]: Can we take it to a different [SPEAKER_01]: place. [SPEAKER_01]: How do we adjust? [SPEAKER_01]: Let's look at all the variables in which one should we adjust?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the last one I'll just mention before we're done is systemic foresight. [SPEAKER_01]: Again, just like the briefings, you want to start engaging more deeply in it because suddenly you've got really dramatic changes that are with short time horizons. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a different environment. [SPEAKER_01]: You've a lot of talk in the press about uncertainty and how much the business world does not like uncertainty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's where this stuff comes in, is dealing with that. [SPEAKER_01]: And so you've got to build your chops. [SPEAKER_02]: really knowing your situation, well, having a grip on it feels fundamental to being, well, to having the confidence to be able to be agile, to be able to have that visibility and voice that that you may need in the situation. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what's your perspective on that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I find often organizations move too fast and saying, yeah, we understand our situation. [SPEAKER_02]: It's this and this and we're going to move ahead from here. [SPEAKER_02]: But to really dig in and come out of that, you know, with the strong confidence that we know what's going on here and here's how we're going to respond. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a great question.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I find in my consulting practice is that in some ways you could take a lens and say, I'm going back to basics. [SPEAKER_01]: So then doing grand challenges, I'm focusing on change, innovation, and leadership. [SPEAKER_01]: Those are perennial, as usual word. [SPEAKER_01]: However, [SPEAKER_01]: It's twenty twenty five and those all those things are done differently and with greater depth than ever before.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, you can bring a eye into the picture and start using prompts to help you dig down deep and to discover like where you week, where's your understanding not as strong as it is in other places. [SPEAKER_01]: are there partners that we should be identifying for future fit that it doesn't necessarily seem like that we would be partners, but maybe they're rising or emerging opportunities that would bring us together.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember studying there was a great Pepsi-Cola document on the internet about how to develop strategic foresight and they talk about some of the new products that they were able to come up with using strategic foresight. [SPEAKER_01]: This is twenty years ago now and they had teams of people [SPEAKER_01]: doing things that AI can do now. [SPEAKER_01]: And God knows how many hours they put into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now it's probably measured in seconds or at most minutes that you need to get some of that same information. [SPEAKER_01]: So we're in a different world and we want to make use of all the tools that we have while you might be doing basics. [SPEAKER_01]: We're really talking about doing it at a whole different level.
[SPEAKER_02]: And coming back to that idea of systemic foresight, because I think everybody's looking for some foresight right now to figure out how they're going to adapt. [SPEAKER_02]: Where are they going to take things? [SPEAKER_02]: How do you help organizations? [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm assuming it's primarily the executives and the board really get that foresight that they need. [SPEAKER_02]: And who are the leaders?
[SPEAKER_02]: And what are the characteristics of the leaders who really get that and are able to implement that in their organizations? [SPEAKER_01]: The characteristics of the leaders is that they're hungry, and they're smart, and they understand strategy. [SPEAKER_01]: Those are really the characteristics, and those fit many of the leaders on boards, and many of the CEOs who are out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you've got to feed them something that really operates at the level that they're capable of operating. [SPEAKER_01]: And so for example, I was just watching a keynote speech for Antelios, one by Dale Sear, who does certification in medical ultrasound and radiology in many areas where we're looking at imagery using technology. [SPEAKER_01]: And he's bringing in keynote speakers that are at the cutting edge of, for example, AI. [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, he's got one on his board.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, he's, by being like, what's the latest thinking out there? [SPEAKER_01]: And AI is one of those fields that's growing exponentially, it's too fast for any of us to keep up with. [SPEAKER_01]: So he found experts in AI who are genuinely interested in the future of education and certification. [SPEAKER_01]: So he's really importing that knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's one of the things that you see CEOs doing is that they're out scanning the environment for thought leaders who understand their space, who can help them see what is this new emerging opportunity look like for us, what should we be concerned about? [SPEAKER_01]: And what are some of the things that might be counterintuitive? [SPEAKER_02]: That's kind of the looking forward part of it, but looking back is also something that you need to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the actions that you recommend, which again, I think falls in this, this is a perennial thing. [SPEAKER_02]: You need to come back and do this on a pretty consistent basis is identifying a legacy practice or assumption that needs to be questioned. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm wondering, we both do a lot of work in the association and non-profit worlds. [SPEAKER_02]: I like to focus there.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are some of the most common assumptions that you see associations or non-profits clinging to? [SPEAKER_02]: And what's the downside of doing that? [SPEAKER_02]: Why do they need to get rid of those things and jettison them to be able to move forward? [SPEAKER_01]: But one of the most dangerous things that I see is when you've got an organization that is eminent in its field, and people really start to say, look, we already know what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're number one, let us do it the way we do it. [SPEAKER_01]: We know this space. [SPEAKER_01]: That can be really challenging. [SPEAKER_01]: If I walk into a leader, a market leader, and they're telling me about all the weird stuff that they're looking into that's on the horizon, and I relax.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if they're telling me that they don't need to go digital or that they can still do things the way that they did them ten years ago, even, because that's what got them to where they are. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a major danger sign. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we all know that being eminent in anything does not ensure your future success. [SPEAKER_01]: And that gets, and that's a perennial issue, too. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can look at Clayton Christensen's work, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: On the innovators dilemma, that's what that's all about in part. [SPEAKER_01]: When I'm working in an organization, one of the first things I'll do is I'll go in and I'll start interviewing people. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm always especially interested in interviewing people who are seen as sticks in the mud or are naysayers or apathetic and tagonistic because often they've got something real to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm all about finding the gem in that, you know, it's like, what's going on here? [SPEAKER_01]: Why is this person holding on so tight to this? [SPEAKER_01]: And then, sussing out, what's the issue? [SPEAKER_01]: Is the issue that the organization is not looking at something? [SPEAKER_01]: Or is the issue that there's a sacred cow that the organization is not willing to sacrifice?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is the issue that this person is truly living in an organization twenty years ago? [SPEAKER_01]: And mostly it's not the latter, I find. [SPEAKER_02]: So maybe to tie a bow around the disruption playbook, and again, we'll definitely link to this because it's a valuable resource.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether you're an executive or an idiot level of the organization, I think looking at what's laid out in the playbook is valuable, but if you want to get started with that, or you just want to get better at leading through disruption, what's one thing that a listener could potentially do today to start shifting their mindset or their habits? [SPEAKER_01]: I think you want to shake yourself up in a constructive way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the way that I always do that with myself is I try and find someone who's talking about the thing that I'm interested in and is really pretty far out, but not so far out that they're feet leave the ground. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like I want someone to open up a vista for me that I hadn't been seeing before. [SPEAKER_01]: So I set out to intentionally get shaken up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and it can have far-reaching consequences because it can reach into every other thing that you're doing, but that's okay. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we've got YouTube now at a whole different level that we've ever had at before and you can find thought leaders on pretty much anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also ask your buddies about it because I find in any collection of leaders, CEO communities, you know, a group that goes out to lunch together or that has a distribution list that you can say, who's talking about something that seems extremely exciting to you and far out and tell me why. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's one thing that you can do right away.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been engaged in a project myself recently, and talking with association CEOs, which I know you do a lot of work with association CEOs, and I've been specifically concerned with the value of learning in the association value proposition, and how CEOs look at that. [SPEAKER_02]: What is learning?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, learning broadly, not just formal education and events and things like that, but learning more broadly, how is that driving the value of associations [SPEAKER_02]: And I'd be interested, particularly since you work with change so much, and I mean, change requires learning. [SPEAKER_02]: Learning and change go hand in hand really.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how do you see association CEOs thinking about learning as part of the value of associations, for their membership, for society thinking about it in strategic terms? [SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to hear your perspective on that. [SPEAKER_01]: There's learning for the staff, there's learning for the members, there's learning for the interrelated sectors that you're operating inside of, right? [SPEAKER_01]: There's all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So ask yourself, where is the value proposition now? [SPEAKER_01]: Am I having more challenges with my staff? [SPEAKER_01]: Is it with my members? [SPEAKER_01]: Is it with the people that I'm trying to excel out in the world with? [SPEAKER_01]: And in any one of those areas, if you feel that you're being constrained, then obviously that's an area to focus on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I have an engagement right now with a large organization where the majority of the staff are not taking a proactive view towards learning and that that's a problem and we need to figure out how to resolve that, how to get it, to catch in the organization. [SPEAKER_01]: And you really want it to catch. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the traction, buying is critical for something like this. [SPEAKER_01]: This is not something you want to [SPEAKER_01]: push on someone.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want them to be seeking it out. [SPEAKER_01]: For one thing with the evolution of things like chat, GBT, we're all capable of really highly customizing our own learning and excelling at it. [SPEAKER_01]: So for example, some organizations are giving chat, GBT to their staff. [SPEAKER_01]: And then they can't stop there. [SPEAKER_01]: Then you've got to give them at least a couple of classes.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can be short and powerful, but you've got to teach them what's possible out of this thing. [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot that's possible out of it. [SPEAKER_01]: We want that organization in particular to get hungry for learning, because we want them to stay at the head of the pack, which is where they are. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's staff. [SPEAKER_01]: Then members, obviously, there's a value proposition for learning around members.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things, in fact, I was just cautioned about this in a meeting I just came out of. [SPEAKER_01]: which is that we were looking at things that were way out on the horizon. [SPEAKER_01]: And the CEO said, we got to make sure we don't leave our members behind. [SPEAKER_01]: They're feeling a sore need right now. [SPEAKER_01]: We need to make creeks and breakthroughs that are, you know, that they're feeling the pain of.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to make sure that we're doing that. [SPEAKER_01]: So then we get into learning and teaching the members about what are the constraints? [SPEAKER_01]: How do you create a breakthrough? [SPEAKER_01]: What's it? [SPEAKER_01]: I have a getting change right. [SPEAKER_01]: I have a formula for a breakthrough. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not the only formula, but it is a formula and you can apply those in the organizations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you get into learning, this gets into stakeholder alignment and ecosystems, learning with your partners and exploring things together. [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's not just you sending them stuff, that's like getting into the trenches together and looking together at what's out there, what's possible, how is this going to change our field, where are the opportunities for us?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, to me, learning is core right now, you know, I think in the, in the nineties, it was kind of like a new discovery, the learning organization and all of that, [SPEAKER_01]: to me now, it feels like it's got to be embedded in the foundation for a healthy organization. [SPEAKER_01]: And if it's not, then that needs immediate attention, just like other core issues would. [SPEAKER_02]: And do you feel one of my perspectives?
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, I'm biased because I'm sort of like, I've got a hammer and everything to nail with this particular issue. [SPEAKER_02]: But you know, I feel like what we've seen happen over the past five to ten years is workforce development, talent pipeline, lifelong learning, upskilling, rescilling, all of these things have become like [SPEAKER_02]: mainstream commonplace, you read about them in the New York Times when you never used to like ten years or so ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: And associations obviously play an incredibly critical role in supporting people from entry into a particular profession or field and then throughout their career. [SPEAKER_02]: In your work with association CEOs, do you feel like there's a consciousness of the association playing that role in whatever field or industry they're serving? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I do, I think, and I think that one of the ways that I see that consciousness manifested is frustration.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, having a board that is really not looking towards the future. [SPEAKER_01]: There are more interested in managing the mundane aspects of the organization or more interested in keeping the flywheel spinning by doing the status quo. [SPEAKER_01]: And when I go into an organization, I have one of the first things I look at is the relationship between the CEO and the board. [SPEAKER_01]: That tells me so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in those organizations where it's really humming, those are the organizations that I see really flying and succeeding. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm trying to assess out their problems or their challenges, but you know, from the CEO's angle with those board members and how do you work with difficult board members and all of that?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I see a CEO who's frustrated because his board won't take on something that's going to carry the organization forward, [SPEAKER_01]: That tells me that there's some learning issues, assuming that the CEOs doing well, but the board. [SPEAKER_01]: And then we get into it. [SPEAKER_01]: So how do we create some learning experiences for the board? [SPEAKER_01]: How do we get them out of their comfort zone? [SPEAKER_01]: One of my favorite things is something experiential.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's take a field trip. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to an organization that's really got this down. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's walk in and see what it feels like when you're in an organization where people are excited about the future and that they're reactively retooling their minds so that they're more capable, more equipped to deal with what's going on. [SPEAKER_02]: Our conversation is obviously turned to learning, which is appropriate here on the leading learning podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would love to hear a little bit about your own learning right now. [SPEAKER_02]: So what's something that you're learning right now, whether it's about leadership or change or anything else? [SPEAKER_02]: Because I know you've got wide and varied interests that you're very kind of share with the people who follow you. [SPEAKER_02]: What are you learning about that you think maybe others should also be thinking about right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm taking deep dives into my client spaces. [SPEAKER_01]: So you've probably seen my podcast where I'm interviewing people who are physicists in medicine, for example, I just learned about the use of digital twins at a population level and I got a much deeper introduction to digital twins. [SPEAKER_01]: So a digital twin in the healthcare space. [SPEAKER_01]: is a mirror image of you with all your health care information fed into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So right now, I know we still talk about the lack of coordination of care. [SPEAKER_01]: So if somebody's got diabetes and they've got congestive heart failure, some human being that's in their family has to take accountability for making sure that [SPEAKER_01]: those two doctors are know what the other one's doing and that they're not issuing contrarian advice and so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, with the digital twin, you can feed all the information into a computer simulation of a human being and you can see immediately if there's challenges. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, how does congestive heart failure interact with diabetes, for example? [SPEAKER_01]: And it can be a healthy person too.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have to be someone who's suffering, but you create a digital image that has all of the health information of a human being and then you can do things to it and you can watch how the whole system changes. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, all they have is healthcare information, so it may not know what color my eyes are or what kind of clothes I prefer to wear, but it will know what my blood pressure is and things like that and the medications that I'm on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then extrapolating that, this by the way, was from a podcast with Dr. Asan Samay in North Carolina, who is doing this work. [SPEAKER_01]: And he looks at, he'll create copies of these digital twins, so he has entire populations.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he could look at twenty thousand people who have a lot of different characteristics and ask the question, [SPEAKER_01]: If such in such a virus were to come loose in this environment, who's likely to catch it, what kind of symptoms are going to be the most severe that we need to treat? [SPEAKER_01]: Who should we go after first in terms of vaccinations, things like that? [SPEAKER_01]: So that's all me doing a deep dive into physics and medicine, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I start learning about digital twins and stuff like that. [SPEAKER_01]: So I love to learn more about the clients that I'm working with. [SPEAKER_01]: And I do a lot of work as do you in science and healthcare, and so that continues to feed there. [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I'm studying AI. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can't be alive these days and be operating and not be studying AI. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm pulling in books. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm looking for references.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm following people on LinkedIn. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm watching videos and trying to understand. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm using it myself. [SPEAKER_01]: That's another thing I should say. [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, both everybody in my family is using AI. [SPEAKER_01]: My daughter, who is in college, is freshman in college said, Dad, I don't need to use AI. [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, OK, I'm paying for chat GBT for one month. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm coming back to you in thirty days.
[SPEAKER_01]: They came back like, no, don't take it away. [SPEAKER_01]: Don't take it away. [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, everybody should be trying it out and using it. [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I often hear in the news someone saying, you have no idea what's really going on in AI. [SPEAKER_01]: The stuff that you're using is was hot six months ago, but we're like having, and I want to know, what does that mean? [SPEAKER_01]: What are you doing? [SPEAKER_01]: Educate me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me an idea. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm very interested in how organizations and businesses are using AI and what they're relying on it for and how they're relying on it and how do they keep the human at the helm while they're doing all of this and stuff like that. [SPEAKER_01]: So those are, I mean a couple of areas I could go into other sectors with my clients, but it's the deep dive with clients, AI, those are areas where I'm learning a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me just turn the tables on you for just a little bit of this. [SPEAKER_01]: So what do you most excited about when it comes to leadership learning and AI?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, with AI, where I've been trying to implement it, it's just in the, like, how can I take AI and use it in the business in a variety of different ways, not just from a productivity standpoint, but, you know, how does it help me with analysis, how does it help me with brainstorming, strategic foresight, all of those things that I need myself, just as much as my clients need. [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, I will bring it to bear.
[SPEAKER_02]: We do a ton of market assessment and things like that. [SPEAKER_02]: So bringing it to bear, it's like I can have almost a whole team of analysts with me to work through whatever the particular situation is.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's incredibly fascinating, you know, and in my sort of [SPEAKER_02]: personal life on the side of a musician and starting to figure out how AI might be instructive there what I would or wouldn't want to help me with in terms of musical production and things like that. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just what's possible is just a well it's just truly fascinating. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, so that's an area that I'm interested in.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just talked about with your music, like with my chat, GBT, which, you know, I have a small subscription for, but it cashes all my stuff, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm asking it about everything. [SPEAKER_01]: I might say, you know, my daughter's a vegan, and I need a recipe for dinner tonight. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going on a camping trip. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to figure out, are there any bugs or poisonous snakes where I'm going? [SPEAKER_01]: That I should be aware of?
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I'm, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: spiritual person, so I'm reading all these sacred texts that I find interesting and doing analysis, and I'll say, you know, what are the top five copies of the Bhagavad Gita that are written by, or that are commented on by someone who's a non-dualist. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like getting to the arcane stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: So, so chat to you, but he's got all of that. [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, there's my business.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll feed a whole conversation into it and say, I need to summary of this conversation over the most important points and stuff like that. [SPEAKER_01]: So then, when I go back to it and I ask it some generic question, it draws on all of that. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm surprised sometimes that it'll say something. [SPEAKER_01]: It'll say, well, because you're interested in this, you definitely need to check that out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And those are dots that I would not never have connected on my own. [SPEAKER_01]: So there's this kind of holistic element when you utilize it for all the different areas of your life. [SPEAKER_01]: that it brings to the table. [SPEAKER_01]: And I really like that element of it. [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like there's often really good surprises in there for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll find show notes in a transcript for this episode at leadinglearning.com slash episode four five seven along with ways to learn more about the work Seth Condes through visionary leadership. [SPEAKER_02]: If you found this episode valuable, we'd be grateful if you'd share it with a colleague that helps more people find the show and supports the work we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jeff, you and Seth covered a lot of ground from the impact of political disruption on many organizations to practical ways leaders can strengthen their foresight and flexibility. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think the elements he covers in his disruption playbook highlight how important it is to stay grounded in situational awareness. [SPEAKER_02]: True accurate situation awareness is something I've long seen as absolutely foundational for any strategy work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciated Seth's take on learning as a strategic necessity. [SPEAKER_00]: Learning is core as he put it. [SPEAKER_02]: And I appreciated Seth's personal take on AI using it not just for productivity, but as a tool for curiosity and exploration and work and family life. [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again for listening. [SPEAKER_00]: See you next time on the leading learning podcast.