Stuart Easton: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending where you are.
Stuart Easton: Welcome to today's webinar.
Stuart Easton: I'm Stuart, Stuart Easton, and what I'd like you to do is go find the chat.
Stuart Easton: we're gonna have a few questions for you through the course of the session today. So if you go find the chat now, just introduce yourself, tell us who you are, where you are, and and what your…
Stuart Easton: what your, role is. And also, tell us a little bit about the weather. I'm a Brit, and we Brits, we love finding about the weather. I'm actually sitting here in sunny Phoenix, Arizona, with my good friend Alzhe Turn.
Stuart Easton: We're at a conference, the PMI Global Summit, for the next few days.
Stuart Easton: And so we're enjoying beautiful sunshine. The value of the beautiful sun. Beautiful sunshine. I don't know if you can see out here, you can see that. It's sunny, you've got some fantastic mountains off in the background.
Stuart Easton: It was… it was cool. I went for a little walk last night, and there are cacti, and all kinds of things all over the place. Very cool indeed.
Stuart Easton: So, so jump on in and, introduce yourself, tell us where you're based, and, oh, we've got a gloomy California. Oh, that's not good. That's… that's not good, Norman.
Stuart Easton: So, so jump into the chat. We are going to be using chat, as I say, as we go through this. Is it for Q&A as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so just drop, drop questions, comments into the chat. I'll keep an eye on the chat while the, while Al and Kevin, are speaking.
Stuart Easton: And, and for me, this is… this is kind of weird, because it's… it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon, body clock time. Yeah. But it's 9 in the morning.
Stuart Easton: Yeah, here in Phoenix. So I was on conference calls at 3 o'clock this morning, because I was wide awake, and not good, not good. Anyway… It's been global, it's been global, right? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So don't forget to jump onto the chat, go find the chat now, because I'll be asking one or two questions later on, so you might as well figure out where it is now.
Stuart Easton: Rather than when I ask the questions. So we're going to be talking about strategic clarity in the age of AI.
Stuart Easton: So this is about how to build operating rhythms, was the word we chose, that deliver. And what they deliver is business results.
Stuart Easton: Right? That's what this is all about, is how do we actually, deliver business strategy in a way that we get results, right? So it's one thing having a strategy, but if you don't translate that into results.
Stuart Easton: then that's… You know, what's the point?
Stuart Easton: So that's what we're going to talk about. And, you know, the path we're going to take is looking a little bit about what's the problem.
Stuart Easton: what some of the approaches are, what… and we'll touch on what does the research tell us, and things like that, right? So we're going to try and base it on as much fact as we can.
Stuart Easton: This is, you know, doing kind of… anytime you get into kind of strategy land, sometimes it feels kind of soft and squishy, right? So we're going to try and avoid that a little bit.
Stuart Easton: and get right into the heart of it. So, today, we've got two speakers. We've got Kevin Doblenet, and Kevin… I'm trying to remember how we met, but we met, you know, two, three years ago, I think it was now.
Stuart Easton: And, Kevin's background, I'm gonna let them introduce themselves, but, spent a bunch of time in this sort of strategic planning function at Nestle.
Stuart Easton: Al has spent a career in strategy execution, most recently at Siemens. He, you know, we're at the PMI Global Summit this week.
Stuart Easton: Al is also a PMI fellow, which means that he is basically a big brain on legs. And so, you know, we're really thrilled to have the pair of you here today. So, Kevin, do you want to just introduce yourself briefly?
Kevin Darbelnet: Yeah, and, sorry I couldn't be there in person here, it's probably the first time we're this close in terms of time zone, Stuart, here, so, but, you know, appreciate the opportunity to be here, and
Kevin Darbelnet: Love the collaboration with Al as well, but like Stuart mentioned, you know, my background, I come from the food and beverage manufacturing world, you know, fast-moving consumer goods, and really the bulk of my career has been inside of Nestle here, but I'm founder of Strategy Matrix here, and really helping organizations across
Kevin Darbelnet: consumer goods and beyond with strategy execution. A lot of my experience comes from leading large corporate CapEx engineering programs and projects, as well as innovation, and actually worked in the Nestle Waters business as it was sold to private equity, and during that period was leading innovation PMO, product development, and also standing up R&D within the business.
Kevin Darbelnet: So a lot of experience across, you know, different project types, but ultimately all, strategy, execution, you know, project leadership. So really happy to be here to talk about strategic clarity in this age of AI.
Stuart Easton: Awesome. Just gonna add, I mean, you said it for… you said, brain on legs, is that how you… Brain on legs. Yeah, that's terrible. Oh, so again, definitely… It's a little cartoon character. Yeah, that's terrible.
Stuart Easton: The area of strategy is pretty much what defines me, so thanks for having us here, and it's outstanding. Listen, yeah, I mean, there's been many determining elements in my journey that drove me to the interest of today's session.
Stuart Easton: So, part of it is recently culture, and part of that becoming an author accidentally, or in a planned way, I'm not sure which one it is, over the last few years, so definitely focusing so much on culture, strategy, program management, and a lot of what I publish.
Stuart Easton: speaker, and I do a lot of advisory also, recently, quite a bit, since my recent time, as you mentioned, in the digital, industries with Siemens, and prior to that.
Stuart Easton: actually in energy spaces as well. So, in terms of mega and or giga programs and projects, that's where I got my feet quite a bit, especially in the Middle East and the nuclear program there. And it's all about transformation, so… which is really bringing us to the importance of why today's session. So, super glad, super excited to dive into this. It's going to take multiple rounds. I don't think the webinar is going to be sufficient.
Stuart Easton: But at least,
Stuart Easton: having the chance to also understand and learn from our audience today, where are the validation point, let's call it, in this heavily AI-driven world as well for them today. So, excited to be here. So, let's kick off with some of that learning there now. Yeah. So, one of the things we were talking about in the green room before we came in is
Stuart Easton: You know, who really owns
Stuart Easton: strategy, right? So who owns this strategy, process, right, of creating and executing this strategy? So, if you can jump into chat and just tell us, in your organization, what's the job title of the person that you think
Stuart Easton: owns the strategy? Is it the CEO, CFO, CFO, Chief Transformation Officer, CTO, and the Chief Technology Officer? There's lots of places it can sit. So, let's jump into chat, first of all, and just see from the audience, where does it sit in your organization? Yeah, while the audience thinks about that, because really that's my motivation to be here today, is to really learn a ton from the audience, yeah, because
Stuart Easton: Ultimately, that's the space that will help us also do a better job and being of help and support. I would say the first thing that comes to mind is contradictory, almost, that says everyone owns this trash.
Stuart Easton: Now, not everybody loves that, because we also, the three of us, I'm sure we are around the room, are strong believers of ownership, accountability, those classic words. You gotta nail that in terms of, you know, a person, or a PMO, and so forth. Actually, I was just recently on stage and left.
Stuart Easton: you saw me in Velnius when I said, I can't believe in 2025, we still have PMOs, yeah? I'm not saying that to disrespect anything, but it's truly about the need to completely be adapting and adjusting to the realities of the strategic clarity that we need. So, I would say ownership needs to be embedded across the board. That's part of the model we're going to share in our discussion today.
Stuart Easton: but also needs to have, still, at the end of the day, someone, because, you know, our good old friend Deming, right, if you cannot measure it, you cannot truly confirm that it has been achieved. So, we gotta find not only the right measures, but we also have to have someone, some group, some entity, helping the extended ecosystem of ownership to still own the final getting across the line.
Stuart Easton: Oh, this stage or another. I mean, we all realize that transformation is not a project or a program. Hopefully, everyone around the room realizes that and does not use that language, because language does matter. It's an ongoing beat. I call it the organizational beat of the future, so every organization is going to have to have that transformation. So, again, let's… hopefully some comments came in the chat while I, like, touched on the topic there.
Stuart Easton: But just…
Kevin Darbelnet: Just to build on your point there, Al, and definitely agree that I think, you know, strategy execution in particular is everybody's job, and I do see it, you know, as one of the biggest issues in many organizations I work with, is how strategy gets executed in silos.
Kevin Darbelnet: And, you know, you'll often see, you know, marketing and R&D are running an innovation program, you know, off kind of one side of the organization, and IT is driving a big digital transformation program or portfolio of initiatives, and, you know, especially in the physical goods, you know, might have a big capex portfolio of projects on building factories, installing lines, and so on, you know, and that's led by the supply chain or manufacturing side of the
Kevin Darbelnet: organization, and, you know, then finance is running cost savings and… or a business transformation initiative. And so, you know, each of these portfolios often operates independently, but the reality is, you know, when you look at the folks that have to do the work across those portfolios, you're often drawing on a lot of the same shared resources, and so when you're setting priorities in isolation, you end up losing a lot of focus.
Kevin Darbelnet: overloading teams, and really ultimately burning out the people that have to do the work. So for me, I actually often look at, okay, innovation, strategy.
Kevin Darbelnet: you know, transformation as ultimately the same agenda, and really kind of three faces of the same challenge. They all kind of represent, you know, how we choose and deliver a strategy or change,
Kevin Darbelnet: But, you know, I think looking at them in these functional silos and the lack of clarity around who really is driving the integrated strategy is a big opportunity for a lot of.
Stuart Easton: Very briefly, there's just two takeaways quickly. One, it doesn't work when you still have silos, right? So that, you know, I'm sure Kevin was preaching to the choir when he said that, but the reality is, when it comes to effectiveness of transformation, especially in this high digital world.
Stuart Easton: silos have got to be dismantled second. Yes, we set everyone and ownership across, but in reality, also, we do need to have a dedicated transformation core entity of some sort, right? So, and it has to be respected. This is the classic good old project management challenge, respected as a time.
Stuart Easton: that is fully championed by the execs. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, well, so it's really interesting. We asked the question at the beginning, right, who's the owner?
Stuart Easton: And the answers have come back. Basically, it's the CEO, the C-suite, someone in the C-suite owns it, but, you know, it's the CEO and their direct reports. And that's a sign to me of how important this stuff is. Correct. But if the CEO owns it, right, the CEO is one person. Yeah.
Stuart Easton: how can they know everything that's going on, right? So inevitably, you end up with the silos, and part of what we're going to be doing today is talking a little bit about how can you build an operating system, because if, you know.
Stuart Easton: You can't drive without an operating system, a way of coordinating and driving the cadence and the rhythm and the vision and execution.
Stuart Easton: So, so Samantha asks, you know, how are organizations rolling up decentralized strategies? And the answer is, as a general rule.
Stuart Easton: They're not. Yeah. Right? Would you agree with that?
Kevin Darbelnet: Yeah, I mean, look, I absolutely agree with that, and I think this, you know, brings up this notion of the shadow organization for me, a lot of times, where, you know, there's really… I think every company has two, you know, organizations. There's the formal one with the org chart and the governance process and so on, but then there's kind of this shadow organization, these informal networks where I think decisions often actually happen.
Kevin Darbelnet: And the problem, I mean, and I think that's just inherent, and I think it's a good and a bad thing, because it's human, but the problem is it drives misalignment, and I think this is where you see a lot of pet projects and zombie projects, you know, lurking in the shadows of the shadow organization, draining, you know, limited resources away from critical priorities.
Kevin Darbelnet: And so, you know, actually, this is what I'm kind of excited about when I look at, you know, transparent choice and the collaboration here, is how do we bring, you know, more transparency, you know, illuminate the shadowy parts of the organization, and bring a little bit more focus and clarity and ultimately alignment
Kevin Darbelnet: Around, you know, the critical strategic decisions and priorities that the organization is making, you know, really from top to bottom.
Kevin Darbelnet: Yeah.
Stuart Easton: Another key takeaway, you're sharing some good gems here. I love the expression of the shadow organization, because as we…
Stuart Easton: everything we've talked about so far in introducing today's time here is we're talking about designing the organization. And we're talking about, also, I want to hit this fellow next to me, you know, because he said, culture and or strategy seem soft.
Stuart Easton: The reality is just, like, the same maturity journey we've gone through when it came to soft skills, and realize how hard, actually, especially in this age of AI, those skills are, and those are the determining ones, right? Same thing goes for culture and for strategy, right? This is no longer, you know, a choice anymore, speaking of transparent choice, yeah. It's got to be nailed in terms of
Stuart Easton: making sure not only it's clear, but also, like you talked about, the shadow organization. This is the beauty of culture where things actually happen. It is…
Stuart Easton: you know, that gets us to our model anyhow, so let me just take a stab. So we have three components to the model we want to share on the session today. One has to do with the human in the loop, which is really that element that Kevin has started talking through. How do, especially in this age of AI, we make sure that anything we do in AI is not just about efficiency. Anything we do in AI is ultimately about achieving of outcomes for the transformation programs that we have.
Stuart Easton: That could be any and everything from external drivers, internal drivers, constrained, not constrained, there's a lot of things there, right? But the human and the loop, it's ultimately that alignment and partnership between technology and the human to ensure that that's going to move forward.
Stuart Easton: the decision science aspect, which is a beauty behind also the tools and technology and the prioritization that can take place, is something also I'd love to hear your views on, right, is definitely a key component of that model. And then, of course, the most important piece of all of this, because of the day and age we live in today, is the enterprise agility, because the reality is.
Stuart Easton: when two or three of us around the room are talking about this shadow organization, or about the informality, etc. The beauty of that, it allows us to find a way to energize continuously the organization, its teams, its functions, etc, to break those silos Kevin Starr talked about in the beginning, and making sure that
Stuart Easton: the shifting, the tilting, the resiliency of handling the demands that are being put, or being changed, or the different perceptions of value, and all the topics that have been bugging us over the years are all coming together in that DNA in the context of that organization. And it does require, back to the topic of our session.
Stuart Easton: the continual way to go back to the strategic clarity, the why aspects of the journey altogether. And that's the key why we three wanted you all to tackle this, I think, today. Brilliant. So let me… let me tell you a little story. You've heard this before, because we spoke about this in Vilnius when we were… we were both out at the… speaking at another conference there.
Stuart Easton: And,
Stuart Easton: So, when I talk about, you know, this softness, this wooliness, right, what I really mean is that, you know, you've got the CEO, and the CEO probably has quite a clear strategy, quite a clear vision of where they want to go.
Stuart Easton: Maybe the C-suite has a reasonably clear picture, but probably they're all interpreting it slightly differently, or very differently, in fact, which is the silo problem.
Stuart Easton: And then… and then you come C minus 1, right? So you come down a level. Yeah. Right? It gets fuzzier, right? The definition gets fuzzier and less aligned. By the time you sort of C minus 2,
Stuart Easton: C-3, it's kind of, you know, what strategy? Do we have a strategy? I don't know what the strategy is, right? But that's the most annoying aspect of it. Stuart, you nailed it. That story over that example is excellent, but the reality is, when it comes to transformation and strategic clarity.
Stuart Easton: yes, the C is going to be busy, the C has other competing demands and priorities on his or her time, yeah? It's so important to… back to the very basics, when this whole notion of projects and programs started 20, 30 years ago, being highly focused, structured, kind of a discipline, we got to go down to the empowerment aspect. That person, we've… we've screened our
Stuart Easton: you know, to the… on the top of the mountains, as far as get the PM to be the CEO of a project. So imagine for transformation. The person driving that transformation is that C-level person. He or she are completely entrusted to do the things we were talking about here in this model, from the human in the loop to the driving of enterprise agility, knowing exactly what's missing, getting the ingredients right, and definitely drive that with
Stuart Easton: the decision science as well. So, I do believe we've got to make sure we have that shift, and we've got to look at organizations who have managed to do that. In my work with Siemens, you know, in the innovation and excellence, for example, community of excellence around all the divisions, and
Stuart Easton: and parts of Siemens, that was the core. We were trying to figure out what is preventing, for example, the organization from not diving deeper in the innovation space. It was elements of appetite, risk appetite, elements of the same old in terms of when its strategy is scaling down, it ends up being a budgeting exercise that's still the same exercise we used to do 10, 20 years ago. This is not the world we live in, right?
Stuart Easton: It's like a wake-up call. Transformation is a chance to revisit those behaviors, practices.
Stuart Easton: as we know, that have to be altered, yeah. So let's just step back a bit, because we're sort of getting into the how. Let's just talk about the why for a minute, and
Stuart Easton: So, you know, there are statistics that we've all heard, maybe you guys want to share one or two, about transformation, and how successful it is or isn't.
Stuart Easton: So, Kevin, you want to start?
Kevin Darbelnet: Look, I think, you know, there's a lot of statistics out there that, you know, just generally represent that, you know, transformation or failing to deliver on their objectives, you know, to the order of north of 75%, right? So tremendous, you know, failure rate, and again, we can talk about strategy and innovation, and look, digital transformation, I think in some cases, last year, Accenture had a report where it was, like, north of 80% or, you know, failing to deliver.
Kevin Darbelnet: on their objective, right? So I think for me, failure rates are high, but, you know, the… why it's important is also… has to do with, you know, the reality that the pace of change
Kevin Darbelnet: is just accelerating, right? It just feels like the world's spinning faster, these days, and, you know, whether it's technology or, you know, kind of market disruption, supply chain, you know, tariffs, you know, geopolitical issues, sustainability, whatever it is, right? Like, there's a bunch of things.
Kevin Darbelnet: that are really compelling this change in acceleration. And so I think, you know, this is, again, where it gets back to, in this kind of environment, you know, I don't think organizations are failing to come up with the right ideas and, you know, robust strategy. I think they're just failing to adapt quickly enough.
Kevin Darbelnet: But also focus on the right things.
Stuart Easton: Yeah, and you know what gets complex in these numbers, Kevin, is the fact that it could be worse than these numbers, or it could be a lot better, and we actually don't know. I mean, this is like the governors and others of the world, they're doing the best they can with the data and the surveys and everything else.
Stuart Easton: But the reality is, just like anything else, if our measurements are wrong altogether, in terms of what success looks like for these transformation programs, especially we haven't… we haven't adjusted anything. I don't know of two, three organizations who've adjusted in this age of AI what the measurements should look like, being augmented by that in this day and age, right? I know many organizations around the room have been investing in KVIs, for example, key value indicators, and shifting
Stuart Easton: to really drive that home, and so on, and change the mindset. But this needs almost to be a science exercise.
Stuart Easton: You know, the transformation person needs to dedicate an entity, a team, whose job, or a person at least, whose job is nothing but agreeing on what are those right metrics that, at the end of the day, ensure that the movement
Stuart Easton: And the pilots we run, the use cases that we have in place, etc. They are getting us exactly that, back to enterprise agility, the dents we want to create, as fast, most effective as we can.
Stuart Easton: and how the ripple effect can be seen for the holistic picture of that strategy, right? So, it's not a haphazard exercise, back to your point about the why. I mean, the investment up front.
Stuart Easton: And you've heard me say that many times. Slow down to go faster applies fully when it comes to that as well. Absolutely. And, you know, there's lots of statistics out there, so I was looking at some research just last week.
Stuart Easton: And, you know, 30… 35-55% of the overall performance, the profitability.
Stuart Easton: of an organization is driven by how well their execution… is how well aligned they are to strategy. So, being aligned to strategy isn't just some
Stuart Easton: you know, I know I used the word woolly earlier, but it's actually not a woolly thing. Not at all. We can measure it, right? We can do it, we can drive it, we can work out what is the strategy. How does that cascade? Fadhi actually asked a… made a really interesting comment.
Stuart Easton: Because he asked, what do we mean by strategy? Because, you know, depending where you are in the organization.
Stuart Easton: the definition of strategy changes, so we can actually build a strategy where the pieces connect, right? So we know what we're trying to.
Kevin Darbelnet: You were to action… oh.
Stuart Easton: Let me…
Kevin Darbelnet: Let me talk a little bit about that, because actually I spent a lot of time, you know, talking about what is strategy, and also really looking at, you know, how people look at this very differently. And actually, one of the organizations that I, you know, collaborate and partner with is OutThinker Network, which is a network of chief strategy officers, and the founder of that organization, Kaihan Krippendorf.
Kevin Darbelnet: has a podcast, the OutThinker podcast, and has had, you know, a number of the global management thought leaders, you know, that are all globally recognized, you know, as attendees, and the first questions that Kai Han asks at the start of his podcast is, what is your definition of strategy?
Kevin Darbelnet: And everybody has a different definition, I think is what you end up, you know, coming to realize out of that. But I do like, I think, you know, Roger Martin's view around, okay, strategy is a set of interrelated choices, you know, around where to play, you know, how we will win, and what are the capabilities we need to succeed, and kind of what are the management systems that are going to enable that.
Kevin Darbelnet: But I think there's another important piece here around, like, when we talk about the definition of strategy, there's, okay, things like transformation, and there's innovation, and there's digital transformation and business model transformation, right? Like, all of these things, for me, I look at very synonymously. And when you look at, okay, companies driving these,
Kevin Darbelnet: change objectives, you know, the strategy defines it. We might call it a little bit differently, but at the end of the day, it does boil back down to, you know, a bunch of projects that we're prioritizing as an organization to deliver on our strategy, whether we're calling it transformation, innovation, or, you know, plain James strategy. So, I think, where the three elements of, you know, how we look at strategic clarity around
Kevin Darbelnet: human in the loop, how do we make decisions, and then the operating system to support that, you know, brings us also back to how do we break the functional silos and create this engine, you know, of change, of strategy execution. And I think that's where, you know, enterprise agility, you know, largely enables that.
Stuart Easton: It's almost, it's almost like… Strategy is overrated,
Stuart Easton: Yet strategy execution is essential, is what he's saying, right? So, or the same that we've spoken about planning in general before, yeah. No, no, no, it's… actually, the data backs that up, Al. The data backs that up. So the, if you look at the correlation between strategy execution and performance, it's usually up in the 80-90% range. Yeah. Okay? Yeah.
Stuart Easton: So, what that says is you can actually have a pretty stinky strategy. Yeah. But if you execute it well, you will do well. Yeah. But is… how good is that? That's the point. So when we talk about strategic clarity, and again, we can spend our wheels and spend our time trying to come up with a concise view of what strategy is, to me, I care less about that, but I care much more about the clarity of the direction. So, it's direction clarity at the end of the day.
Stuart Easton: And the challenge with direction clarity is that you still have to be, back to enterprise agility, you've got to be adaptable enough
Stuart Easton: to realize, hey, I messed up. The direction actually needs to be X minus 2 rather than exactly X, right? So I do have a tilting mechanism, and I have the rigidity and the, you know, the opposite of that, the flexibility in the organization via my structures and processes, and also via the human-in-the-loop aspect, because I have the smart brains around the room.
Stuart Easton: to help me be creative enough to adjust to the X minus 2. So it's, it's, you know, I love that balcony analogy that I always, day in, day out, get myself back to. I need to strategically always
Stuart Easton: give the opportunity to myself, to the person running the transformation, to get into that balcony. Yes, being on the dance floor is beautiful, yes, all the noise in the organization and across the silos, et cetera, is great, but at the end of the day, to create clarity, it's almost like a zen state. You've got to find a way by which we
Stuart Easton: what's the value of digital, anyhow, if we are not going to think again for a change like our friend John Maxwell keeps talking about? So, again, I think we're heading in the right direction. I want you to jump in, though. Can we tackle some of the enterprise agility further? Before we jump into that, right, because again, we're getting into the how. I'd like to come back to the audience. Okay. Right? So, time to jump into chat, and I'd be interested to see
Stuart Easton: you know, we keep talking about strategy and execution of strategy and all that kind of stuff. So in your organization.
Stuart Easton: Where do you think the big barriers are? What is it that's stopping you being successful?
Stuart Easton: So just think about that for a couple of seconds, and… towards transformation as well. Yes, yes. I'm happy to see what's preventing or not allowing the fluidity of strategy execution, but more so, given our focus as well on transformation today.
Stuart Easton: Whether he or she are involved directly in transformation, but if they look at
Stuart Easton: If that clarity was there, which, again, I question very much, because we don't have updated or fresh metrics, that's why I love my friend Harold Kersner, because even with value indicators, you're almost halfway into maturity, right? You need two more steps beyond that. In this human-in-the-loop aspect that Kevin was also starting to talk about.
Stuart Easton: You need intangibles in the mix. So, as much intangible metrics are added to the mix in this highly digitalized world, then that finally gets you to be strategic metrics, right? So, value is only two steps away, yeah? So, we need the
Stuart Easton: We need the human loop, yeah.
Kevin Darbelnet: Yeah, and so, Al, I actually… I love your point here. I care less about the strategy, but, you know, more about the direction, and I think for me, in that regard, you know, it really boils down to the why, or the purpose of the organization, and I think, you know, purpose, you know, is a core element of the strategy. It's really kind of at the top of the house here in terms of the, you know, the mission and the why we are as a company.
Kevin Darbelnet: and ultimately, you know, creates this general direction, which actually kind of brings me back to the human in the loop piece, right? Because when we talk about human in the loop these days, it's usually about how we interact with AI, and, you know, I think we're certainly looking at it through that lens in terms of AI augmenting our capabilities as opposed to replacing them.
Kevin Darbelnet: But I like to look at it, you know, also from a broader view, as we think of aligning the organization and executing the strategy. And so in alignment, you know, for me, human in the loop, that means, you know, bringing diverse voices into the decision process and really fostering collaboration and pushing decision closer to the front line and giving people authorship so they can kind of buy into the strategy, and
Kevin Darbelnet: defining a direction and a purpose, right, kind of creates this autopilot, right, to help the frontline make decisions that, you know, deliver on that objective. And actually, I love, you know, Rita McGrath.
Kevin Darbelnet: you know, thinkers 50, top 10, you know, ranked, management thought leader around this notion of the permissionless organization, right?
Kevin Darbelnet: purpose, you know, enables that and fosters this human in the loop in the alignment process. But I think it's also very much around when we get into execution, right, maintaining the human in the loop is about sustaining that same engagement and ensuring, you know, sponsors and the, you know, the top of the pyramid and the steering teams, as well as the folks on the front line doing the work in cross-functional teams, stay informed, connected, and find the way
Kevin Darbelnet: to adapt to dynamic, you know, conditions, but, you know.
Stuart Easton: One very brief comment, because I don't want the… even… we don't have a large audience, but they're still going to hear that and say, Al, it's crazy when he said strategy. Doesn't matter if that's translated.
Stuart Easton: if I say, from a transformation standpoint, I need to spend X amount of time up front on the direction, I still would want to spend
Stuart Easton: 2X, 3X on strategic planning, et cetera, and all that. But at the end of the day, all of that may not matter whatsoever when the battle is on, right? Because at that point, the troops and the mix and the dynamics and all that will change. However, I got something very useful out of that exercise.
Stuart Easton: I got my scenarios, I got my preparation, I got my risk management, response plan, so I increased my adaptability and resilience. So, the investment in strategy and the strategic planning is definitely worth the money, especially in transformation programs.
Stuart Easton: Yet, all of that may not pan out if that first X is not spent on that direction, because at the end, also have a plan
Stuart Easton: for what I said earlier about, so who makes the call on the X-2 direct, you know, adjustments to the… to what that might look like as well? Well, so Laura's just made an interesting comment, right, which is that some of the problems around execution
Stuart Easton: Are about these silos which lead to, you know, multiplying red tape and slowing down decisions and all those kinds of things.
Stuart Easton: Now, Kevin, you've got a really interesting story. I don't know if you can…
Stuart Easton: Share it from one of your previous employers of that… that happening.
Kevin Darbelnet: Well, look, I think, you know, when I look at how companies make decisions in strategy, I think you quickly boil down to which projects am I saying yes to, and which ones am I saying no to? And so in that lens, you know, I look at that through the view of project portfolio management, right? Here's all of my projects across all of these initiatives or priorities.
Kevin Darbelnet: The problem is, I think, when you look, especially in a large organization, you know, project prioritization is done often through stage gate process.
Kevin Darbelnet: or some form of it, you know, phase gate, whatever you want to call it here. But, you know, the problem is if, you know, I've got manufacturing running the CapEx portfolio, and then I've got marketing leading the innovation portfolio, and then I've got finance driving a transformation program, well, what happens
Kevin Darbelnet: you know, and they're all kind of using some form of gating and portfolio management to approve projects. Well, what happens when I've got an innovation project that requires capex, that's supporting the business transformation? Well, you know, in my past experience, like, I literally would run that one project through all three of these workflows supported by three different, you know, solutions, and so for me.
Kevin Darbelnet: You know, that is the organizational drag that exists in a lot of organizations, and certainly not an illustration of enterprise agility when we talk about helping, you know, the organization make fast, quick decisions, and frankly, pivoting as business conditions, you know, change.
Stuart Easton: Yeah, when he talks as well.
Kevin Darbelnet: I'm just really wondering, just like my comments when I say, I can't believe this does exist today, right? What I can believe exists today, still.
Stuart Easton: is not increasing the focus on CHROs, right? So you talked about multiple number of ownerships, and because we're talking a lot about organizational design here, and we're talking also about the impact of technology and AI, et cetera, in driving how we work, I don't think we're equipped organizationally with the right
Stuart Easton: mature CHRO kind of functionalities enough yet. I know there's a lot of investment in that space, but the pace is not keeping up. So, from adjusting what the capabilities of the feature are.
Stuart Easton: You know, you can even read the, you know, a world report from any of the large organizations around the world about the skills of the future. Even those as we sit here and speak out of Phoenix or out of
Stuart Easton: good old Colorado, etc, we are still missing the beat in terms of what literally could be changing as we speak, in terms of where the emphasis needs to be. So, back to the point about design again. And also, when he's talked about
Stuart Easton: silos, and you talk N-23, that should not exist anyhow. That's why we hear the news about middle management left and right, because organizations are confused. They are really not in a position to understand
Stuart Easton: what the right context for the work that's being done in the future, and the roles and responsibilities of the future, those dialogues
Stuart Easton: before they even take place, organizations are making random decisions. Because CEOs, CROs, you know, CTOs, all their exes are not even taking the time and use this golden opportunity of where we find ourselves in this AI era.
Stuart Easton: to rethink the structure, the design, the mix, you know, those tough choices have to be made yesterday. Well, so this… this starts to bring us from, into some of the… some of the how. So we've been talking a little bit about agility. So agility is kind of…
Stuart Easton: one of the measures of success, right? Do we have a good process in place? If we have, then we're going to be agile as an enterprise. Yeah. you know, but also, do we have…
Stuart Easton: a good…
Stuart Easton: cadence, right? So a good operating system for integrating the decision making. I really like the way you talked about it, Kevin, that, you know, it's about the decisions that we're making.
Kevin Darbelnet: Well, look, I do want to touch, you know, on that note, Stuart, right, because you're at the PMI conference here, and when we talk about enterprise agility, I really look at it differently than I think a lot of project practitioners and PMOs tend to, because when I talk about, you know, enterprise agility, I'm not talking about Agile versus waterfall project methodology.
Kevin Darbelnet: Exactly.
Kevin Darbelnet: talking about…
Stuart Easton: Two minutes.
Kevin Darbelnet: ability, ethics.
Stuart Easton: It's not that, yeah, yeah.
Kevin Darbelnet: And so, look, I know we've probably got a few PMO leaders in the audience today, and so this is probably for you, and it's a challenge, you know, that I have for the PMI and the overall kind of project practitioner community, because again, it does too often get framed as project delivery choices, you know, Agile versus waterfall, like I said, but really, you know, when you look at the executive leadership, you know, teams and the problems that they're contending at the enterprise level.
Kevin Darbelnet: The question isn't about how are we running our projects, but more so, are we working on the right ones?
Kevin Darbelnet: And so, in that sense, you know, I look at enterprise agility through this lens of dynamic portfolio management and the ability to prioritize, reprioritize, or even stop initiatives, you know, that are operating in the shadows of the shadow organization, you know, as business condition changes. And so, you know, it's about, like, killing the pet projects, the zombie projects, and the ones that aren't creating value, so your limited resources.
Kevin Darbelnet: The humans in the loop.
Kevin Darbelnet: are ultimately focused on what truly matters to deliver that why and that purpose. And so, yes, I'm challenging the PMO community here. Enterprise Agility isn't just about running projects better, it's about helping the business decide which bets to make and when to change them.
Stuart Easton: Just a note there very quickly, I want you to jump in. But future organizations, they run labs.
Stuart Easton: They don't run projects. The experimentation happens when we operate in a lab-like fashion, yeah? And we have a golden opportunity now, with all the simulations we can run, with all the data analytics we can have, with all the…
Stuart Easton: you know, the expansion of our minds and choice-making capabilities that we have to really innovate and experiment 24-7. You don't have to be working on an innovation project or program to transform how you do what you do, yeah. I mean, this is exactly where I was going, actually, Al. So one of the things that we… we talk about transformation, we talk about strategy, we talk about all these things. Yeah.
Stuart Easton: And we've talked about… about silos and all the rest of it.
Stuart Easton: And I think there's a… there's an almost artificial divide.
Stuart Easton: between transformation activity and business as usual activity. So, if you're the CEO, right, business as usual.
Stuart Easton: is basically everything that's not my big transformation stuff, right? Yeah. If you're running a division.
Stuart Easton: of a company, then my strategy is my divisional strategy, and underneath that, there's a whole bunch of BAU stuff that happens. If I'm running a factory within that division.
Stuart Easton: My strategy is about how… you know, I'm transforming my…
Stuart Easton: strategy, I'm transforming my factory, I'm updating the machines, I'm doing all these transformation things within my factory. Right. But to my boss, that's just BAU.
Stuart Easton: Yeah. So, I put in the notes earlier, one man's ceiling is another man's flaw. Yeah. And… Especially with AI as well. That's the point, and AI is accelerating everything here. Well, accelerating it also to the specifics of what you just said. So, BAU, if I see the play for AI, AI, to simplify it, just to not make up numbers here, but I would say 80-20. I would say 80% of value of AI
Stuart Easton: is in the BAU space, so that it frees up the time and the ability to really excel in the most complex, which is changing business transformation. Transformation-wise, I still can use AI, maybe, but it's the 20 of the AI I can use, and it's the 80 in this case, the human-in-the-loop aspect, because I do want
Stuart Easton: And need the humans, the leaders, the decision makers, the ones who can help me tilt and do those shifts that we've been talking about.
Kevin Darbelnet: So actually, just to kind of tie that together a little bit here, because I think we've talked about what is strategy, I think there's as much of a conversation around what is innovation.
Kevin Darbelnet: And in that regard, right, a lot of people think of, okay, innovation, is it just new products or services, you know, that marketing and R&D are leading, or is it more broadly business model innovation? And that's another term, you know, from the business lexicon, but, you know, business model innovation, right, when you think of a business model, there's different aspects of, okay, how… what is our product? How do we, you know, what channel do we distribute it? You know, might be e-commerce.
Kevin Darbelnet: you know, retail, how do we promote it, you know, all of the people, how do we do hiring, and then all the back-end, you know, business process. So, Al, to your point, you know, when you think of AI in the context of innovation, you know, AI is having an impact on all dimensions of the business model, so I challenge us to look at innovation very broadly, beyond just products.
Kevin Darbelnet: You know, and service innovation to business model innovation. And in that regard, for me, business model innovation is synonymous with business transformation.
Kevin Darbelnet: And so, this is where…
Stuart Easton: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and the reason I like that very much is what I said much earlier, when it comes to the metrics around AI and its use, right? Like anything else, we find ourselves in a space right now where there's high degree of hype, right? We cannot wait to create more pilots, we cannot wait to have more use cases, we cannot wait to buy more
Stuart Easton: you know, APIs, whatever the case might be, yeah? But the reality is, that's gonna confirm that we're gonna fail before we start.
Stuart Easton: Just like in the classic project situation. We've got to nail exactly the choices of why we're doing this, what is going to allow us
Stuart Easton: differently from an operating model standpoint, from an organizational design standpoint, etc. So, I gotta be… if I was methodical 10 years ago in how I approach things and how I plan things, etc, in this day and age, I have to be 10x when it comes to how methodical I need to be. With
Stuart Easton: still the flexibility in the mix, right? So I've got to do it, and I've got to also be able to adjust very quickly, but I need to invest more. Go ahead. Yeah, so just a couple of things, so I'm looking at the comments coming in. So I'm gonna, would like to know how we… how we're defining
Stuart Easton: transformation and business transformation, and I think it's related to the question, how are we defining innovation? Yeah.
Stuart Easton: Correct. Exactly.
Kevin Darbelnet: 100%. The execution of innovation, isn't it? Yeah, and I don't want us stuck in definitions. I'd love to hear your reviews, Kevin. You know, it's kind of like almost the dialogue between.
Stuart Easton: megaproject? Gigaproject? You know, the size… does the size matter? And we've always had that. Does complexity matter? Of course it does, right? So,
Stuart Easton: I would say in this day and age, of course, there are projects, like Kevin just said, that are dedicated to innovation, both from a product standpoint, from a solution standpoint, from a business model standpoint, from… you name it, right?
Stuart Easton: But all of those are transformations, so I would… if I had to pick, I would say transformation would be the overarching one, because that's the one that's going to stay with us till the end of time, because not a single organization around the room are forced not to maintain transforming to the end of times, right? And then below that, of course, you would have multi-innovations going on. Just… those are the program level. Those I'm happy to call programs. Those I'm gonna… I'm very happy to have a product lifecycle around them, if it's really product-driven, etc.
Stuart Easton: I'm gonna have more of the gates, Kevin talked about.
Stuart Easton: and I have more of the education of Agile helped me also as a backdrop for enterprise agility, right? It's not one of the same, and I agree with you, Kevin, yeah? Yet some of the practices and rituals there. Because remember, at the end of the day, when we talk about culture and experiments… experimentation culture, like I love to talk about and publish about.
Stuart Easton: It's about really shifting the rituals of the organization to do things differently so that I can make the best use of the resources, the investments I'm making, the prioritization I'm doing, etc. So let's shift and talk a little bit about how we actually make that happen. So we've established it's…
Stuart Easton: It's very desirable to have an agile organization with people in the loop. We've not talked too much about the decision science on how to do that, but there is… there's lots of decision science. The HP stuff. Yeah, the HP, so the stuff that we do in our product, right? So I don't want to turn… I don't want to turn it into an advert for the product, but the product basically underpins all of that stuff and makes… lets you…
Stuart Easton: create the structure that lets you push decision-making out. And by the way, make it more agile. The good analogy here, this is the soft stuff. So technology now became the soft Kevin, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The human in the loop became the hard skills. It's like a complete turn.
Stuart Easton: Thinks about that for a minute, but yeah.
Kevin Darbelnet: But I do think it's important to kind of get back to, okay, when we look at strategic clarity, you defined it earlier, Al, here. It's ultimately, you're right, first, you know, the human in the loop, we've touched on that. We've talked a good bit about enterprise agility. I look at it as the operating system, you know, between the alignment and kind of the execution. But I do think, Stuart, it's good for you to probably elaborate when we talk about decision science.
Kevin Darbelnet: When we have to make decisions and get alignment here, you know.
Stuart Easton: Yup.
Kevin Darbelnet: How do you look at that, and ultimately, you know, what… where does Solution, help organizations?
Stuart Easton: So, yeah, so the… yeah, let's do that, and then let's go back to the… let's build something of an operating model for people, so they understand it. So, within the operating model, one of the things that you've got to be doing all the time is making decisions, and the challenge
Stuart Easton: We've all been in rooms where you've had senior people saying, no, I think we should do this, no, I think we should do that, right?
Stuart Easton: And usually, those people are not actually disagreeing about which of those options is better. Yeah. What they're really disagreeing about is which goals we should be optimizing for. Okay. Okay, so… so if I care about… so if I'm in the… if I'm in, the European stovepipe.
Stuart Easton: Right? Then the goals that I care about are going to be things that matter in Europe.
Stuart Easton: And so I'm going to prioritize options, investment options, or whatever it may be, that support my goals in Europe. Yeah.
Stuart Easton: But if I'm running the US, I'm going to have different goals, right? And I'm going to prefer different options. So when they're arguing over the options, you have to remember, they're not really arguing about options, they're arguing about the goals. It's the strategic clarity that's missing. Yeah, it's funny, this is a great point, because when I do those, you know, when I apply decision science of any sort, I have to start by saying.
Stuart Easton: Please suspend disbelief.
Stuart Easton: Yeah? Take the constraints off.
Stuart Easton: Including the regional, the market, the number of resources, the talent mix, etc. Because to start with, you're going to make the wrong choices when you are constrained in that survey process. It's hard to do, some folks think of it as unrealistic, but you've got to be unrealistic first and bring the reality later, is usually how I approach that. I don't know, Kevin, if you're…
Stuart Easton: Go ahead, yeah.
Kevin Darbelnet: No, I mean, I, you know, really can't agree more with both of your points here. I mean, ultimately, you know, it really ties back into, you know, decision science, bringing clarity, you know, bringing,
Kevin Darbelnet: you know, transparency around the shadow organization, right, and the choices that we have to make, but we also have to make those choices on a continuous basis. It's not a once-and-done thing when we talk about strategy. It has to be this dynamic, you know, prioritization operating model. And so, you know, again, the keeping the human in the loop, putting some data around
Kevin Darbelnet: how do we make decision and make sure that we're, you know, bringing clarity on aligning everybody so we don't have these pet and zombie projects just draining our focus and limited resources in order to, you know, close this gap of, you know, failed projects, right, or mitigating some of the failed project statistics.
Stuart Easton: And in a large organization, it's even more complicated, right? Because you've got… you know, decisions are actually often made, not based on
Stuart Easton: strategic clarity. They're made based on power, politics, and things like that. Size of the bucket. Yeah, and I've got a big bucket, and I don't want my bucket to get smaller, so go away, right?
Stuart Easton: And so… That's depressing, you know that. It is. Well, so what… so there's a bunch of research into this stuff. I mean, we know how to fix it, so if you… But why are we not? Yeah. Well, because you've got… because you've got to… first of all, I think a lot of people aren't even aware that there are good ways of doing this. Yeah, but maybe we're not courageous enough. I mean, I think my… one of my takeaways from…
Stuart Easton: Time today is for the ones around the room to help get the message across.
Stuart Easton: Unless we… the ones running transformations need to, you know, switch something here and become courageous enough.
Stuart Easton: not that expensive, we're not asking anyone to jeopardize careers or to create enemies or anything like that, but really find ways by which we can have those very critical dialogues on an ongoing basis. You cannot do what we talked about without this. So again, in preparation for this, we had a bit of conversation, and…
Stuart Easton: You know, usually the first step in any process to transform transformation.
Stuart Easton: is to do some kind of diagnostic. Yes. And so is that… is that where that diagnostic can come in? Because the people on this session may not actually be empowered to change anything. Yeah, no, absolutely. So is that where the diagnostic might help?
Kevin Darbelnet: Oh yeah, look, and I'd love to talk a little bit about that,
Kevin Darbelnet: just to, you know, sorry to take words out of your mouth there, Al, but look, I think, you know, when we look at the approach, right, we talked about, you know, how we look at strategic clarity, human-in-the-loop, decision science, and this kind of enterprise agility operating system. The approach, you know, that this collaboration, you know, consists of is first a diagnostic, right? And so we start with really an enterprise agility culture diagnostic, you know, understanding, is there a clear, you know, data
Kevin Darbelnet: driven baseline around how well strategy and culture and execution are aligned, and really getting a baseline here of where are the biggest opportunities, the big rocks, right, that need to be addressed to bring, you know, more clarity and alignment. So that's first and foremost before we then go into
Kevin Darbelnet: you know, align, activate, and embed. So, Al, maybe you want to compliment there.
Stuart Easton: No, no, I don't want to comment more on that, necessarily, but what I want to say is that,
Stuart Easton: assessments, diagnostics, everybody knows that. What's unique about this one is the anchors we have, that, you know, to a great extent, define what we have been on in this journey for several months, if not years, right? So, you've seen my three layers, for example.
Stuart Easton: So that diagnostic follows the layers of the head, heart, and hand. They truly talk about the intellectual, around the science. They truly talk about the human in the loop.
Stuart Easton: And they truly address all the exclcutive muscles aspects that are part of that as well, right? So you can… we can, you know, adjust it to a great extent, but it's also
Stuart Easton: A diagnostic like this, what's unique about it is the co-creation aspect. Yes, we may have a set of driving questions and stages, da-da-da, but at the end of the day, it's driven also by the pulse of the organization, you know, the readiness of the organization, the journey the organization is on and at, and so on, right? So, back to agility, enterprise agility, that's exactly what drives us when we have those four steps. And, you know, first step could be 30 days, could be two days.
Stuart Easton: You know, and so on. So, I know, I checked your website, the service offering is not there, but I'm sure it's going to be available for folks soon, but the reality is, whatever it looks like.
Stuart Easton: back to this whole discussion here, it's about the fluidity and the design that comes out of that. So I'll mention there that, so we're going to be putting a joint offering up on the website in the next few days, hopefully.
Stuart Easton: Which kicks off with the diagnostics. So if you'd like us to notify you when that's available, please just stick a note in the chat, and we'll… we'll… we'll follow up with you.
Stuart Easton: And that's the first step. So you do the diagnostic, right, and we get some feedback. What happens next?
Stuart Easton: Talk about the other steps a little bit more. Yeah, you can talk about steps from three. I love the last one, which is in bed, because to me, I… That's where I want to be right now, with the jet lag, is in bed. Not that bad, but no, but the reality is to really, at the end of the day.
Stuart Easton: Even though it might look like sequential and steps, da-da-da, I'm a firm believer of the interconnectedness about any model you use.
Stuart Easton: for the design, for the actual implementation, da-da-da. So, I'm a big fan of putting some embedding along the way. Go ahead, Carol.
Kevin Darbelnet: Yeah, and in that regard, right, I think it's about tailoring, right, and adapting in this kind of agile mindset that we've been promoting here, right? So I think the diagnostic helps, you know, define a baseline of, okay, where do we really need to, you know, focus our attention here, right? Because we can't boil the ocean. So, but generally, right, it's, you know, diagnose, align is another, I think, key element here, and I think that may be in the form of a strategic prioritization work
Kevin Darbelnet: And this is actually how Stuart and I connected, because I love transparent choice and the power of decision science to bring clarity to what really matters, you know, using this AHP and ensure that every voice, right, and to keep the human in the loop is heard, and the trade-offs are made with transparency and clarity. So diagnose, you know, align the organization, and then, you know, it's about activating, and this is, for me.
Kevin Darbelnet: once we've aligned, you know, initially on the critical priorities, what's the operating system and the capabilities that we need to keep this execution and this alignment, you know, dynamically in sync, you know, with the strategic intent or the purpose that we talked about, right? So this is about, you know, fostering the right ability to adapt quickly, the innovation culture, you know, the
Kevin Darbelnet: Enterprise Agility operating system, you know, that creates this drumbeat or rhythm of the organization before, you know, we then focus on embedding that.
Stuart Easton: Very briefly, what I like about the Activate is that we're the organization can own most of that anyhow. The organization, the teams on the ground, I think a role of somebody externally, like you and I, or somebody else.
Stuart Easton: And the next and the activate can definitely… if we establish and succeed in the first two steps, that third step can highly be owned by the teams, because that's what brings
Stuart Easton: folks and, you know, impartial views and so on to the embed phase to really, okay, so that's what was experimented, that was implemented, is what this pilot led to, da-da-da, etc.
Stuart Easton: And maybe still engage a little bit with someone to give you, you know, the solid advice, da-da-da, but ultimately, okay, from there, how can we truly embed certain changes in behavior and…
Kevin Darbelnet: Well, and in that respect, when we pull back from all this, right, like, at the end of the day, what we're talking about, right, is not just a solution, right? It's a holistic approach in terms of how are we building the capabilities inside the organization to perpetually kind of transform itself and stay relevant in this, you know, dynamic business environment. So that's where, again, diagnosing, aligning, but then activating, embedding is really kind of implementing those capabilities that will kind of
Kevin Darbelnet: and sustain that business, you know, with the right agility and innovation culture to, you know, to really execute.
Stuart Easton: really the smart thinking, learning organization, almost, to help take the lead eventually. And a lot of people on this call come from more of a project management PMO type background. And in a way, what I think I'm hearing from you guys
Stuart Easton: is that this is… this is like benefit… doing proper benefits management for the entity. Please suppose value management. Well, value management, benefits management, whatever you prefer. We have a CEO here at Pima who usually, when he hears the word benefits, thinks about human resources benefits. Oh, okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so, so, so by that, I mean, you know.
Stuart Easton: a lot of people think benefit management and value management is about how you execute and the project. It's not. It starts with, what are our goals? Yeah.
Stuart Easton: Then, from the goals, we brainstorm which projects we should do, then we execute them well, but we make sure we do the change management to land.
Stuart Easton: The benefit, which is the embedding. Absolutely. Right, that's the embedding. The only exception to that is, because of the debate around goals and objectives and da-da-da, let's call it direction, for lack of a better word right now. Yeah, sure, sure. And then the thing, I think, Kevin, that I think you added on there is.
Stuart Easton: Making sure that, because we're doing that at the enterprise level.
Stuart Easton: That we actually have a mechanism, a cadence, a structured process to make sure that we are
Stuart Easton: iterating, right? That we're not just locking into a direction, and then just keep walking in that direction, regardless of what… And hit the wall. And hit a wall, yeah, absolutely. So, so, so I think what we've done, we've spent an hour, and we've realized that this whole discussion is about benefits management. A couple of final questions, at least. Are there good questions we can actually learn from as well?
Stuart Easton: Well, so, so I think, I think we're… we're, we're more or less at the, the top of the hour, so the thing that I would love to do, actually, is just,
Stuart Easton: reach out and, encourage people to engage in the diagnostic, right? We'd love to get started with a few people from this call.
Stuart Easton: If you think that's… that might be useful in your organization, then please just drop me an email directly, or a quick message directly, or drop it into the chat here, and we'll let you know as soon as that is officially launched.
Stuart Easton: And, and then from there, we'll plug
Stuart Easton: Kevin and Al in to figure out how to get that delivered, yes? Yes, happy to. Excellent. Can… can I ask, at least, if there's questions? You can. What is the one word that's resonated with folks around the room? Maybe if you can add that in the chat? Yeah, so… so…
Stuart Easton: Jump into chat again? What's the one word, one idea that's resonated the most? What's the one thought that can help us, you know, three of us also, learn about tweaks we could do to, our views of,
Stuart Easton: transformation in this age of AI. Yeah, so… and I'd add in there, again, nobody bit earlier when I asked, what do you think is the biggest barrier? I'd also love to hear that. Nobody bit on that one. Absolutely. So, so as we're wrapping up, as we're wrapping up there, just drop, drop your little last… last comments into the,
Stuart Easton: Into the chat, and, and really, I'd love to thank everybody for joining us, obviously. Amazing. and, yeah, Guy's right in there with silos. Yeah.
Kevin Darbelnet: Yeah, I mean, I think the silos is definitely the one for me that we've heard here.
Kevin Darbelnet: Yeah, breaking silos and, you know, breaking down that friction or that organizational drag here somehow.
Stuart Easton: And the only comment I would say there on the silos piece, and not like I've been always successful at it in my career, my journey, but I've definitely tried, definitely had my scars, is instead of complaining about it, please own it.
Stuart Easton: do something to definitely tackle that. Because the silence start with the mind, actually, before the structure, yeah? So the mindset aspect. If there's anything one can do to truly
Stuart Easton: Whether with data, stories, examples, whatever the case might be, to show
Stuart Easton: the mindset needs to shift for us to have less of that silos. And one of the reasons, you know, Kevin, we didn't talk a lot about this AHP method of decision-making, but one of the reasons that works is it forces people out of the silo. Correct. It forces them to come up a level and think.
Stuart Easton: More broadly. And build understanding between silos and across silos. So it's a really powerful technique.
Stuart Easton: So, so fantastic. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Thank you guys for, for, for such a great session.
Stuart Easton: And, as I say, do drop, drop me an email. We've got a few people who've kind of said, yeah, they'd be interested in the diagnostic already, but do drop me a note on LinkedIn or wherever, or an email directly, and let's get some diagnostics under our belt. Let's be brave, as you said, be brave.
Stuart Easton: And, and make the change. Thank you, everybody. Let's transform. Thank you. Thanks.
Kevin Darbelnet: Thank you. Great discussion.
Stuart Easton: Thanks, everyone.