0062 - How to Lead Successfully in the Digital Age ft Brian Spisak

Dive into the future of leadership with renowned researcher Dr. Brian R. Spisak as he explores the transformative realm of Computational Leadership. With insights from industry giants at IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, and more, discover how simulations, AI, and network analysis revolutionize leadership practices. Uncover concrete strategies for enhancing remote collaboration, evidence-based techniques for fostering diversity and inclusion, and ways to fortify supply chains through cutting-edge technologies. Whether you're a manager, executive, or business leader, this episode unveils a holistic framework for leveraging modern technologies in the timeless art of leadership, challenging conventional wisdom and guiding you toward a post-digital future.

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Transcript

00:45.27

Ben Owden

Greetings to you I hope you are doing well or not having a productive and meaningful day welcome to another episode of the Why Lead podcast I am your host Ben Owden now I have a public service announcement whether you're ready or not business and society are entering a time of perpetual disruption. You can no longer rely on the intuition. Intuitive leadership styles of the past to address present and future needs intuition simply won't cut it so prepare yourself the computational revolution has arrived and so to have this conversation based off this public service announcement I am joined by a leader who creates. Next level outcomes in business and society with ah with his computational leadership approach a process combining behavioral science data technology and practical knowledge as a seasoned consultant bestselling author and distinguished scholar affiliated with the Harvard's national preparedness leadership and initiative. Ladies and gentlemen Brian Spisak Brian welcome.

01:46.62

Brian Spisak

Ah, thank you for having me That's a wonderful introduction I Feel very important now.

01:51.41

Ben Owden

Ah, um, Brian I'm curious like what what events in your life ah have sparked this passion for leadership and particularly the complementary relationship with leadership and technology.

02:06.47

Brian Spisak

Ah I guess just from the the very beginning I've always really found. Um, science and particularly psychology and human behavior. Super interesting. So like I think my first science fair way back when I was like 10 years old was a creativity experiment where I was looking at the differences in creativity between so-called gifted “students” and sort of normal students like myself. So I've always had this intrinsic interest in in understanding human behavior. 

02:43.16

Brian Spisak

Ah, for the science fair where it's all about understanding creativity and how students would read into rorschach tests. You know these things they're ink blots that you you kind of read into and and it's what's old old school sort of psychoanalysts used to use to try to understand how people would interpret.

03:01.93

Brian Spisak

Sort of these blots and they would say something about them. So I just wanted to see what students at the age of 10 if there would be differences and if if students that were insane. Gifted classes were give a more homogeneous answer anyway, long story short. There's my psychology experiment at the age of 10

03:21.40

Brian Spisak

And right next to the typical sort of volcanoes and all these other sorts of making ah you know a light out of a potato or whatever it is so I've always been a bit quirky when it comes to fundamentally interested in in human behavior. Um, so that that just kept going from a very young age.

03:40.19

Brian Spisak

And I've also had an interest in technology and really those 2 just started coming together. Oh I guess particularly when I started duringry my ph d and I started really getting into face recognition technology and understanding how people perceive leaders in different ways. Down to just their facial features so it was a slow sort of marriage of of these 2 parallel interests that during my ph d I think really started coming together. Face recognition tele technology then I really got into towards the end agent-based modeling and then. I spent some time in New Zealand and if you ever want to take time off and think big move to New Zealand for about 4 years you'll come up with good ideas I guarantee it and so that's where I really had time to cultivate this formally to understand. Okay, so there's human behavior and there's this. Explosion of technology and and how do we pair up the the fundamental needs of people like their intrinsic needs for competence. Ah autonomy and relatedness something from something called self-determination theory and how do we pair that with all this emerging technology to make sure for instance that we know what technology to invest in. So we know that there's these constants about human behavior. So we have to make sure that we invest in technology that satisfies those needs for instance and this is one of the most trickiest things that you can find if you're talking about say large digital transformations. There's so many different tools to choose from.

05:10.60

Ben Owden

And.

05:11.55

Brian Spisak

Which ones do we choose from and it can be a very daunting task and quite scary and there's a lot of room for failure so you need sort of ah, a constant and and one of those constants is just deeply understanding human behavior. So it only makes sense then as we're going into this time of unprecedented explosion of technology.

05:30.67

Brian Spisak

That we have a solid framework so we know at least we're a start when we're looking to to think about what technologies do we need to solve what problems. Well first and fundamentally it has to be human-centric we have to first start with people I use I like to say sort of people First the tech comes last.

05:41.55

Ben Owden

Yeah.

05:50.14

Brian Spisak

And and and that I think resonates in all of my work on computational leadership.

05:55.45

Ben Owden

I actually ah like the approach and I like what you said there because I think sometimes when we think of technology and people people tend to lean more towards the Steve Jobs School of thought that whole you know analogy he used that. If Ford asked people you know what they wanted they would have set a faster horse and sometimes you know in innovation and technology people don't really know what they want you bring them. But I think in most cases designing um or innovating from you know, like this human-centric approach meaning that not. Aiming to change the needs of the people but finding ways to complement to find ways to make it easier find ways to make it more accessible for them to you know, exercise their needs I think sometimes it's more exciting for people to do this completely novel thing and try to alter. Ah, the core needs that have existed for thousands of years actually just saying okay, these are clearly the needs people have fundamentally. How can we find tools. How can we find technologies that actually make it seamless make it accessible and make it extremely efficient and easy.

06:50.67

Brian Spisak

Yeah, yeah.

07:08.19

Ben Owden

To do that. So I like what you said there. yeah.

07:09.34

Brian Spisak

You know what you can think of about it like it's It's like we have to think about it like a digital prosthetic. That's an extension of our limbs that's augmenting what what exists The downside though is sometimes that not is not nearly as sexy as some of these other technologies that look like it's. Going to fundamentally Change. How humans do this and fundamentally do that. That's great excuse me because it it attracts sort of venture capital and investment. It gets attention. But at the end of the day when the rubber meets the road and actually taking an idea and turning into a workable solution.

07:36.82

Ben Owden

And.

07:45.90

Brian Spisak

I'm not so interested in if it's flashy or not I want to make sure that it works and it works with people and and that's fundamentally what all this technology must do is people must be in the loop and this technology must work and it must work with people and any investor out there should be paying attention to that.

07:52.28

Ben Owden

Um, and.

08:03.50

Ben Owden

Um, and in your book you you know you say data and tech are providing leaders with the power to use social capital and drive change like never before from your perspective like how does this look like in. 2023 when we're talking about Ai and you know all of these emerging technologies.

08:22.11

Brian Spisak

Yeah, so I'm working on a ah small startup project right now with a a colleague in Sri Lanka and computer science and for me what this looks like is being able to map navigate and engage. Large organizational networks and large social networks in a way we haven't been able to do before and by map I mean being able to map at the individual level for instance, what what I know or what you know or what everybody anybody knows in an organization. But then that social capital is understanding who knows what and who's working with whom. Because then there's knowledge between 2 different individuals. It's that edge between the 2 nodes from a social network perspective. So it's being able then to map and capture that knowledge as well. The knowledge that comes from the connections of people that's the social capital side of it.

09:01.69

Ben Owden

Um.

09:14.36

Brian Spisak

But then it's it being able to navigate that and that's where we're getting now with the accessibility of network technology is being able to quickly navigate that so say you're new to a large international organization and you're having difficulty finding the right people to help you with a project for instance. Having a tool that will allow you to navigate that human and social capital rapidly and and even now with Ai like automatically where it can actually look at what you might need and then be able to automatically find that capital for you and then to actively engage it and that's where you know we mapped it out. We can you know navigate through it like a map.

09:30.66

Ben Owden

Um.

09:41.81

Ben Owden

He.

09:50.36

Brian Spisak

And then we can actually engage it. We can connect people and and that's where I think the mixture of things like knowledge graphs and artificial intelligence particularly generative Ai is going to be somewhat of a game changer and that's at least that's what we're working on so I'm biased but there it's it's. I Mean it's really like say you have a project coming in. It's super Complex. You could It could automatically identify What are some of the challenges and then automatically start assembling a team for you. You can talk to this social Network graph like you would ah a person.

10:25.40

Ben Owden

Um.

10:26.30

Brian Spisak

And and going a step further. It would be able to. For instance, say you're in in crisis management. It would be able to identify emerging threats something we call creeping crises. So they're hard to see and all of a sudden they emerge and they explode and they're a big challenge. This would be a tool to also potentially then.

10:35.41

Ben Owden

And.

10:45.90

Brian Spisak

Automatically kind of spine the warning signals of of a potential crisis or a threat alert a leader to it and then already say okay this is a potential threat for your organization and here's the team. That's available in your organization that you would need to put together to have that so you already have plans of action set up and they're being automatically generated by an Ai that's working with the whole of your human and social capital. So that's where I think it's going. It's going to be big networks that we're going to be able to navigate and we'll be able to talk to these networks.

11:18.16

Brian Spisak

And and and they'll be able to talk to us and tell us we see potential I see a potential problem I being this sort of artificial intelligence and they they do sometimes refer to themselves as I which I find a little creepy but that's besides the point but it will be able to then find these problems build the teams and and work to mitigate challenges. Before you see him same thing on on the project side say you're a consultancy being able to find potential opportunities like you know the call for for grants and tendering and tendering opportunities being able to actively monitor all these websites that governments are always putting out tendering opportunities. Actively monitoring that for you. So say you're a consulting manager or director you turn up Monday morning and this Ai has has already gone through automatically using things like natural language processing identified all the relevant projects that have a high success rates for us. Put the team together based upon their availability and then have a prebate proposal ready for you Monday morning. Not you know by Friday this is already this has done the work for you on the weekend while you're hopefully sitting on the beach having a cocktail or something I don't know but you get the idea so this really makes our life a lot easier. It's not replacing us.

12:23.62

Ben Owden

And.

12:29.32

Brian Spisak

But it definitely makes our life easier and makes us much more productive.

12:31.37

Ben Owden

I like that and and I think I like what you said early in terms of like our relationship with technology. You know it's not because I think sometimes the idea is you know, terminated too. It's this separate individual that's coming to you know end human life and whatnot. So So ah, but I like what you said that it's an extension of you know of who you are and now something else that you speak about is you know you say leadership is universal which I think is you know we all know that you know, but especially if you look at leadership as influence pretty much every human being exercises leadership. To some degree but you also say leadership is flexible but I think the one that really interested me was leadership is scalable right? because I think there's always always that debate is you know is ah leaders born or they made or is it Both is it either or um. But leadership is scalable. How do you scale leadership.

13:35.17

Brian Spisak

Ah, well I mean this is a fascinating story in itself I mean so what I mean by it being ah scalable is you can see leadership emerge from 2 to say two point three two point five million and and why do I say those numbers specifically so you could have 2 which are 2 people in a garage set to change the world in terms of technology and and 1 exercising a bit more leadership than the other and we see this in in dyads as they're called, but we can scale up leadership.

13:59.26

Ben Owden

Um, hey.

14:06.84

Brian Spisak

The whole way to like say some of the largest employers in the world last I checked. It was like two point five million or something which is the us department of defense I think it might be eclipsed now by the indian military I can't remember it doesn't matter. You get the idea it can go from a very small number. Of 2 which is like the smallest number you can have in terms of leadership but it can go the whole way up to millions in terms of rearranging I guess we should talk about leadership too. Not as a person but as a process a leader is a person leadership is a process.

14:39.14

Ben Owden

Um, yeah.

14:41.70

Brian Spisak

So that's why it can take this sort of flexible and scalable approach because it can be somewhat informal at that level of 2 and of 2 but if the n is say 2000000 then it can also leadership conform sort of hierarchical structures and add some rigidity to allow to keep. A collective action together of such a large group so that's what I mean by scallal because it's flexible. It can. It can be very effective at the end of 2 but also way up to the end of 2000000.

15:12.70

Ben Owden

And I like that leadership is a process and especially you know the analogy edition just used and I think something that I've seen recently is some of these larger systems where you know thousands of people are part of these systems. They tend to be. Rigid and late to the party so to speak the party of change because you know the sustenance is based on control and making sure that there aren't too many changes or too novel of changes happening and disrupting how this system you know it's this large structure that has to remain intact. So for.

15:32.47

Brian Spisak

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:50.17

Ben Owden

People who work in these larger, especially with governments or just like large multinationals. Um, how you know can they retain that sense of not necessarily control. But that sense of structure yet at the same time leave room for.

16:09.50

Brian Spisak

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so what you're talking about is ah is a famous dilemma or a tradeoff called the exploration exploitation tradeoff and that's the dilemma between organizations need to explore new alternatives to remain innovative.

16:09.52

Ben Owden

Change.

16:27.37

Brian Spisak

But at the same time they need to exploit and refine. Their best practices to stay to stay relevant in in in their current market. Ah, and the idea then is organizations have to explore something called organizational ambi dexterity. And that's the idea of being able to find a balance between effective exploration and investment into new ideas and products and services at while at the same time being able to make sure they refine their core business and they squeeze every bit of value they can out of their core business. It's really about finding that balance a good example of where that didn't occur is Nokia right? So if we can remember everybody had the little Nokia phone away back when I love that thing man you could throw it off the wall. It would bust into a million pieces. You put it back together.

17:08.59

Ben Owden

Everybody had that everybody had the no care and you can put it back together.

17:21.41

Brian Spisak

And you're calling. You're calling. You're calling your mom the next day it doesn't matter. You know it's like it's working it just it got it. Got you got things done the way they needed to be and they were great. Everybody loved that little noia throne I still want it by the way they they're making like a um, a faux. Ah, smartphone version of it I almost bought it. it's it's it's not quite there but okay so they did that great right? and they they they had such market share but what they didn't do arguably because of leadership hubris they got a little overconfident because they were so big. They didn't think about investing into that smartphone market.

17:51.12

Ben Owden

And.

17:57.16

Brian Spisak

Thinking that you know it doesn't matter. This isn't really you know going to make much of a splash and boy didn't they get that wrong. So that's an example where they overexploited their existing ways of being and they didn't explore new ways of being and that's the big challenge that these. Ah.

18:01.64

Ben Owden

Is.

18:14.59

Brian Spisak

Organizations have and we all have really in our own way just down to the individual level. We have to think about do I exploit what I'm good at now if but if I do that then I might be missing this whole say Ai revolution or do I go and explore this Ai revolution. Well then I might.

18:31.46

Brian Spisak

My my current business and way of doing might suffer because I'm putting my attention elsewhere. So we have to think about balance at the individual level. But that's the same thing that organizations have to deal with and it all goes back to yeah the exploration exploitation tradeoff if you don't know about it listeners I highly recommend and go check it out. The seminal papers of I a fellow named James March M a rch james March read it live it. Love it.

18:57.68

Ben Owden

Um, ah I like ah you know that example of of Nokia right? Um, the balance between exploitation and and and exploration and I think sometimes because you know as individuals but also institutions.

19:01.62

Brian Spisak

Yeah.

19:14.30

Ben Owden

Because of social media and accessibility of information. There's that sense of constant foma fear of missing out and so sometimes we we chase and we explore things that maybe we shouldn't be exploring and it's very easy to get lost in fads and whatnot and so something that you mentioned in your book Is you say you know this data impoverished approach.

19:20.86

Brian Spisak

Yep.

19:33.38

Ben Owden

Ah, not accounting for the complexity of leadership development makes it impossible to set up reliable initiatives Instead you're likely reinventing a very expensive will every couple of years as fads fail and go out of fashion right? This idea of fads and of course you've got to give very specific examples. But. Knowing that. Yeah, we should have this healthy balance between so you know exploitation and exploration but knowing that sometimes if we're not Careful. We might be exploring fads and actually make a lot of you know significant investments in things that are actually not any substantial in driving you know organizations forward. So How do we recognize. These fads whether it's systems whether it's approaches. Whatever it is. How do we recognize them.

20:15.30

Brian Spisak

Yeah, yeah, I mean so you're right, you're talking about the flip side of the coin of Nokia where they overexploited but there's always this danger especially now because of all the shiny new toys out there in the market to go and over explore and over invest in unproven technology for instance. Ah. Yeah, so how do we? How do we avoid that that that goes back to what we were talking about sort of the very beginning is it has to come back to being human-centered. It has to come back to understanding human needs understanding frameworks of say for how people work so understanding. What are.

20:51.66

Brian Spisak

What are the job demands of individuals. What are the resources that are necessary that will satisfy those job demands to alleviate stress ah within an individual then we need to know. So for instance, the psychological frameworks that that are rattling around in our head that that have been and will always be.

20:53.67

Ben Owden

He says.

21:10.70

Brian Spisak

In many ways right? So going back to that one I talked about with Self-determination Theory We know that there's a fundamental needs to satisfy a sense of competence a sense of autonomy and a sense of relatedness. So this helps guide then potentially our tech investments is it is it ticking these boxes.

21:20.99

Ben Owden

And.

21:30.57

Brian Spisak

Is it really helping and to satisfy the the needs and the demands of people for instance, that's the first question. So if if it's yes, then we have to go into the second question this might be a good segue as well. Is it ethical and responsible technology then too. So.

21:49.42

Brian Spisak

By answering those questions that gives us some some principles some guidelines on what we should invest in and explore and what we should probably shy away from because you can have a very effective tool. But if it's not very ethical and responsible and say an ai then that's also going to blow up in your face. So You want to avoid that as well. I think that's but again it all comes back to being human-centered and and by understanding what are the needs of people that helps us find a balance between exploring new alternatives and exploiting old practices because sometimes old practices have been around for so long.

22:28.29

Brian Spisak

Because they simply work so we have to make sure does this new thing work better than this current thing and and how do we know what work means well we have to have ah an understanding of what our businesses and what our and who our people are and when you have a clear understanding of that which comes from For instance.

22:28.42

Ben Owden

And.

22:44.78

Brian Spisak

Social and organizational psychology and organizational behavior. Then you can say yes or no this is working but you need to know some frame of reference to meet what what working means if this is working or not and and so that's where this human centered aspect is super important.

23:00.29

Ben Owden

I like that because I think sometimes you know it's very easy to have that rioters mindset where you're protesting. You're destroying instead of having this sort of like deconstruction meaning that. Okay, we we have something better to replace this with or are we just tearing it down for the sake of you know, tearing it down.

23:19.93

Ben Owden

Now something else that you mentioned and I would like to you know, start with a story I was having I was at a friend's birthday dinner and you know that was an executive I think the cfo of a very large multinational company and. You know were talking and he was asking Me. You know what do you do and I was telling him what I do you know I work with organizations and leaders and that and they was like okay ah yeah, actually yeah, you know well I remember you know we did this thing recently you know like the Mbti training and whatnote so he was speaking very proudly about this experience right. Um, anyway, so then went On. You know we all moved on with our lives and then but in your book you say that totally meaningless assessment tools such as you know the mad briggs type indicator um or other flawed algorithms are continually utilized and you know lots of organizations put them there. You know as. Almost like as a shiny attraction for you know, new recruits and telling people that you know how you know we're we're in there. So So how should leaders make sense of this and and and how do we in What makes you know such tools meaningless.

24:15.82

Brian Spisak

Yeah, yeah.

24:23.87

Brian Spisak

Yeah, so that idea of totally meaningless that that comes from work by a fellow named Adam Grant which many of your listeners might know very famous and he was only iterating reiterating something that is well known.

24:31.81

Ben Owden

Yeah, yeah.

24:42.60

Brian Spisak

The Mvti has like zero scientific validity and reliability. It. It was not a tool made from science and it shows in terms of actually what it tells us or doesn't tell us So How how do we? How how did it. Raised to such well-known heights. It's intuitively. It kind of makes sense. It's the same thing like a horoscope reading though it just we can read into it What we want to read into it and and and sometimes that's the problem because we can read Into. We only read into it say the good stuff.

25:09.29

Ben Owden

And.

25:18.87

Brian Spisak

And this is sometimes some of the challenges of using like really proven scientific Frameworks and and and and ways of measuring say personality which the Mbti tries to do ah sometimes you get from a real scientific instrument. You get information back that we don't want to hear.

25:37.73

Brian Spisak

And and that's very hard for for some people to accept right? So to get a bit of the medicine and so this is why some of these tools and algorithms tend to emerge a they just intuitively feel right? and B they are very good at we're very good at reading into them and seeing things we we like about ourselves.

25:57.36

Brian Spisak

Rather than sometimes getting that performance back that information back that says you need to work on this and this is not This is not your strong point. We hate to hear that kind of stuff right? I mean it's difficult for many people to hear that. So.

26:13.43

Brian Spisak

That's how these things tend to emerge. They just tell people what they want to hear in many ways and it and it feels right? That's where we need to move away from that so we have to understand then you know again, it goes back to understanding Needs. So How can we give people this medicine with a spoonful of sugar. So It's easier to swallow. And but but by giving people say anytime anywhere training where they can do this on their own at home in the privacy of their own home and they can build up their experience and get feedback almost like a video game.

26:33.85

Ben Owden

So.

26:42.47

Ben Owden

Yeah, yeah.

26:44.41

Brian Spisak

That's where a lot of this technology is going now. We can really use sometimes measures that are difficult in terms of the information they give back to us because it doesn't always tell us we're a rock star but then we can when nobody's looking you know, admit, our vulnerability if that's what it takes and work on these things.

27:00.92

Ben Owden

Um, yeah.

27:01.58

Brian Spisak

Anytime anywhere. So I think that's where we need to be going with this is just learning how to deliver sometimes hard difficult to swallow medicine with that spoonful of sugar and I think that's that digital sugar of technology. That's what I like about it. It's pretty cool.

27:07.27

Ben Owden

Transition.

27:14.20

Ben Owden

Um, yeah I like that comparison with like Horoscope. Yeah because you know there's sometimes that's what everybody wants they don what they want to hear. Ah good news and if something something is.

27:24.60

Brian Spisak

Yeah, it's It's literally mbati is just like a horoscope you know I don't want to dog it. You know like but it really has the same impact as a horoscope you can read into it and it'll tell you? Oh yeah, that's exactly who I am I'm I'm this code and yeah, definitely I news it all my life. But when you actually try to go and test it in ah in a controlled environment. It. It never works or it works by chance.

27:45.93

Ben Owden

And now something else that you know you speak you talk about in in your book Is you know you identify 4 must have leadership capabilities for driving digital transformation and I think in the world we live in right now. Most leaders are. Commissioned to do this to drive this digital transformation. So So so for you know for those who have not read the book which I would recommend to read the book and we'll put links to ah your your book on the description. What are the 4 um core skills or you know foundational fundamental skills. Um, let leaders need to develop to drive this digital transformation.

28:26.29

Brian Spisak

Yeah, yeah, saw him being quizzed about my own book. Fortunately I have it open right? there? Um, so so basically what I introduced there about driving digital transformation is something I refer to as the four c's.

28:30.10

Ben Owden

Ah.

28:41.57

Brian Spisak

And the forces of Co-creating. So I refer to as navigating the four C's it's a obviously play on words about co-creating this digital transformation and those four Cs first that we have to kind of confirm. What our priorities are I can't emphasize enough. How important it is for leadership in this first stage to really say what are our real priorities. What are the deep systemic tensions and contradictions in our organization that we need to solve so that we can move forward so and and I think you'll probably notice this but in your own work. This is sometimes the most difficult thing is identifying. What? what? Our real priority is and also being able to um, get people to agree on the same priority. This is a super big challenge. So That's the confirm step and and this is something I've refer to in the book as X Expedition leadership is really going out there in.

29:25.46

Ben Owden

Yes.

29:37.59

Brian Spisak

Flooring kind of what are our real challenges in coming back with some insights about where we need to start right? That's what we need to go after and that's the direction we need to go so that's the first step I should say by the way I didn't just pull this out of my butt. This is um this is a ah combination of of work from Ibm.

29:57.28

Brian Spisak

And and also work from some colleagues that are are more in the research in the scientific community and is being able to mash up so that the scientific insights with the applied insights from places like Ibm so this is.

30:07.83

Ben Owden

You know and I like the format in your book as well where you know you always tie like a case study something a story of how this has worked in an actual organization. So so I like that approach as well because it it paints a picture of okay so this is how this.

30:15.93

Brian Spisak

Yes, yes.

30:22.90

Brian Spisak

Yes, it would be very easy just to sit down and it would be very easy to sit down and just you know make stuff up and write about it. You know and but I mean I think the challenge when you're writing these types of books is like to be able to back it up with what's actually happening and and that adds credibility. So that's what I did.

30:22.99

Ben Owden

Look like for this organization. Maybe this is how this could look like for for my organization as well.

30:30.12

Ben Owden

Yeah.

30:37.90

Ben Owden

So.

30:41.82

Brian Spisak

That was the first step confirm and it requires this expedition style of leadership to really go out there and identify and discover and define. What what your priorities are this has nothing to do with tech yet. This is you know it's like people in process first tech comes last so the second step then is being able to collect. It's the collect step number.

30:48.58

Ben Owden

And.

30:54.76

Ben Owden

You.

31:01.53

Brian Spisak

And this is where you're collecting cross-functional ideas from everybody from marketing from engineers from whomever you can get your hands on that will come in and share their ideas about their perspective on that priority like. Okay, so we know this is the priority. How do we need to go about solving it. What are the challenges to solve that Problem. So That's the collect step and and these leaders are what I call ideation leaders they're they're the ones that are fostering the emergence of as many divergent ideas on how to solve.

31:20.10

Ben Owden

Yeah, so.

31:27.44

Ben Owden

And.

31:35.89

Brian Spisak

Or address a challenge in our organization or to to leverage an opportunity right? So ideation leadership getting as many ideas about this this challenge or opportunity. Whatever we've decided on in the first step. So That's that's another aspect of leaders and those leaders really need to be able to bring in. And explore all these different places where these ideas can come from not just in your small click of c-suite for instance, not just over on the people that you're comfortable speaking with because you speak the same Jargony Language. It's really about the courage to go and explore every pocket of your organization to find Ideas. So that's.

32:14.58

Brian Spisak

That's this third one is the con construct step. Okay, so this is where we start going from these divergent ideas to convergent actionable plans and notice I haven't really talked about tech yet. So now we're talking about. Okay, this is this is our challenge. These are the different ideas about it. Okay, we take those different ideas and and bring that down into 1 actionable plan of action. So this is then though where everybody starts coming together and you start forming sort of a model of or a prototype of how we can go about solving that problem.

32:51.23

Ben Owden

Yes.

32:52.74

Brian Spisak

Now this is where some some data scientists and some computer scientists might start coming in because this is where you're trying to stream in data to to talk about ways of of simulating say dealing with this challenge or finding this opportunity so this is the step where.

32:59.98

Ben Owden

He is.

33:11.35

Brian Spisak

I refer for leadership the third step in construct is simulation leadership and these simulation leaders need to be able to bring together the cross-functional leads that are seeing the problems on the ground and combining them with the data and computer scientists so that they can.

33:29.69

Brian Spisak

Start coming up with the digital solutions and this is one of the biggest challenges for leaders because there's this super big divide at times between say the non-tech aspects of your organization and the tech aspects of your organizations and and that divide makes it very difficult for the tech side for instance to.

33:40.46

Ben Owden

And.

33:48.82

Brian Spisak

Ah, really understand the business needs and it makes it difficult for the non-tech side to really understand the scope and limitations of technology and so that that inherently Breeds tension and conflict between those two sort of camps the tech side and the non-tech side. So this leader needs to be able.

33:55.11

Ben Owden

Me.

34:05.29

Brian Spisak

To bring them together to create good simulations and prototypes to to test and experiment new ideas in their organization. Finally, once you've got your you went through your testing phase and it's like it's working and it's ready to scale up then you get to the the Fourth C which is conveyed. And then you have to convey your idea your product your service. Whatever it is out to your stakeholders and at this stage this is what I call realization leadership and this is where leaders need to be able to kind of lead up to senior leaders lead down to ah followers lead across to their to their colleagues. Or orlytx externally say to their their suppliers. Their consumer. Whatever it may be and these types of leaders then need to be able to get buy-in for this change at all of those levels right? and you have to make you have to make the the the prototype a reality.

35:00.44

Ben Owden

Yes.

35:01.60

Brian Spisak

Realization leadership. So that's really the 4 steps and I'll just repeat and believe it confirm collect collect as many ideas as you can start constructing a concrete actionable plan and a prototype and then finally once you get through that stage then it's conveying. Get out to your stakeholders.

35:16.97

Ben Owden

Yes, yes.

35:19.76

Brian Spisak

Above you below you beside you and externally and and and leaders need to be versatile and doing this and they also need to realize that not every step it. It has to be them. There's it's it's leadership again as a process not just of 1 leader as a person potentially though as a team and I think that would be very helpful for them to keep in mind.

35:30.56

Ben Owden

Yeah.

35:37.98

Ben Owden

Yeah, and and I think you know listening to what you were saying. Um for all this to work really? well it almost sounds like as an organization there has to be that culture of diversity and and and particularly diversity diversity of thought.

35:50.10

Brian Spisak

Absolutely.

35:55.58

Ben Owden

And so how how do organizations build that culture of diversity because I think sometimes you know diversity of thought is you know is one of those things they're easy to talk about but to implement is not as easy because then you know Egos come in the way and you know who's right, who's wrong. So How do we. Create that culture of diversity of thought so that as you know we practice all of these different um principles and approaches it works when you talk about ideation and you know and people have ideas that on the surface level are all posing right? creating a space where everybody feels like a mistakeholder and you know.

36:22.22

Brian Spisak

Um, yeah.

36:31.70

Ben Owden

My ideas matter right? or wrong I will get to that stage of analysis down the road but to get people to fully engage and you know and and bring their full selves in terms of ideas and thoughts. How do we create those cultures.

36:45.82

Brian Spisak

Well I think if I had ah a packaged answer in 2 or 3 minutes to to solve that problem I think you and I should start a business because we're going to be worth a lot of money. Ah well first it starts indeed with culture and again it again. All of that I'm talking about with technology. It's it's people first tech last it's got to be human century so we have to understand what are the potential barriers to that kind of connectivity is there too much internal competition within your organization. That's.

37:18.26

Ben Owden

E.

37:22.31

Brian Spisak

Getting people to sort of knowledge toward rather than knowledge share right? So I think that's the first thing is to understand you know are there these sort of hidden barriers to sharing knowledge and and to promoting a more diverse equitable and inclusive way of operating. And and and so how how can we do that? Well 1 thing we can do is we can look at technology from a social network perspective and you can you can look at social network analysis and I talk about that in the book and you can identify potential silos. So for instance who's emailing whom right? and.

37:50.60

Ben Owden

Um.

37:57.11

Ben Owden

This.

37:59.59

Brian Spisak

Are some people Microsoft for instance is is starting to release more of this technology now for analytics about this right? So you can identify some people are are being isolated in a network even though they might have untold value in terms of their input. So if we can just start visualizing. Right? And we can see that there are pockets of peoples and groups that are isolated in our organization. Well we need to work to connect those. They need to start coming into and and that's all that Ben is where I think strong strong leadership has to come in right? We need really strong leaders that are actively working to identify.

38:32.40

Ben Owden

Yeah.

38:38.55

Brian Spisak

These disconnected individuals or groups and reconnecting them and making sure that knowledge is flowing. So again, there's no simple answer to this but the first thing is first trying to identify. Do you have barriers to knowledge sharing because of say competition or whatever else. It might be in your organization and then being able to use technology.

38:41.87

Ben Owden

You.

38:58.49

Brian Spisak

Like I talked about before to map navigate and engage that social or organizational network Once I'm convinced on this like once we can just get visualizations of our network. We can literally see and I've done this where you can see there are pockets of people and groups that are isolated like little islands and a social network.

39:03.10

Ben Owden

Yeah.

39:17.13

Ben Owden

You know.

39:18.42

Brian Spisak

Disconnected from everybody else you start thinking to yourself. Why Why are we just hemorrhaging this talent. You know we're not leveraging it and it just it starts making common sense to see like well we have to connect these people because they add value and and I think that's that's a good step towards. Um.

39:37.50

Brian Spisak

Towards that leadership us to drive it. We have to look at potentially some of these barriers to cooperation and knowledge sharing and we need a tool that will effectively visualize us visualize this for us so we can navigate that road towards a more diverse equitable and inclusive organizational structure because.

39:56.69

Brian Spisak

Those are the organizations as we move forward that are going to be the successful ones and and and we can tell that that that's important to to businesses because some of the biggest players in town like I interviewed Microsoft Jpmorgan Chase they're all actively looking to navigate Map Map navigate and engage that network at a level. That that has previously been It's unprecedented. It goes by just to finish. Just go back to finish that that that goes back to like always in my book having concrete examples if the big players are doing it that means there's something there.

40:20.10

Ben Owden

Um I like that. Ah.

40:30.40

Ben Owden

Yes.

40:32.20

Brian Spisak

Full stock right? I mean if these multibillion dollar companies that are in pretty much every country around the globe if they're doing it. Everybody else should be doing it right in in that sense. Maybe not everything but when it comes to something like diversity equity inclusion we can. We can learn and we should and we should follow that lead.

40:40.41

Ben Owden

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely and they've probably invested you know millions of dollars in research and to figure out why they should be doing it so I like this.

40:55.24

Brian Spisak

Yes.

40:58.78

Ben Owden

Because I think you know it keeps coming back data data data. You know visualization is comes after data. But then there's a stat that you share as well in the book which i've've I've come across it right? where up to 7% of all data gets unused in enterprises and and it's it's it's interesting because.

41:12.27

Brian Spisak

Yeah.

41:18.80

Ben Owden

On 1 hand, it's almost like we have this apocalypse-like thinking where you know you feel like the world is going to end so you just buy by things waiting for its to happen and never use it right? So it's it's almost like we exactly. It's covid. Not right? So it's almost like we have that same thing in organizations where.

41:28.60

Brian Spisak

Like toilet paper right during covid.

41:37.56

Ben Owden

People are constantly collecting collecting data but they're not using it. You know so how how do we get out of it for organizations who have this you know tendency of feeling like okay maybe we need this data. Maybe we might need it one day so collecting collecting but actually.

41:44.63

Brian Spisak

Yeah.

41:52.94

Ben Owden

Taking that next step of actually creating systems and processes within the organization to streamline that data to analyze that data to you know, find stories that are you know, being told by that data. How how do we take those you know next steps.

41:57.91

Brian Spisak

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, That's a great question. It really is and I think that's a very important one and I think a lot of it comes down to data literacy on the non-tech side that we talked about and and and business literacy and really increasing business literacy on the tech side.

42:13.40

Ben Owden

Um, yeah.

42:21.59

Brian Spisak

And and being able to meet in the middle so that we can effectively work together. A lot of that data goes unused simply because the people that could use it don't know it's there or don't know how to use it a lack of data literacy and then a lot of the the people that could tell them about that data aren't entirely sure what the needs are.

42:31.97

Ben Owden

Me.

42:41.26

Brian Spisak

Ah, say the non-tech side of an organization so that that disconnect in terms of communication because one doesn't know what to do with it and the other one doesn't know how to tell them what to do with it right? So there's lack of communication there. A good example of where that can change is I think it was airbnb.

42:59.46

Brian Spisak

They launched a few years back at data university where the goal was specifically to increase the data literacy of of their managers and their and their people in general and it was super effective right? I mean so instead of constantly going to say. 1 of the core data team because you need a visualization or something like that instead they're now able to to leverage that data themselves so that frees up to say that core data individual to kind of work on you know the the real sort of data engineering and and the real.

43:33.82

Ben Owden

Um, yeah.

43:36.18

Brian Spisak

Real heavy lifting in terms of the tech side of that and at the same time that makes this this manager. For instance, it gives them the ah vision now. Oh there is all this data. Oh and I'm not afraid to use it now and I can use it and here's how I can use it and I can get it done. You know in a day rather than. Throwing a request out and waiting two weeks to get it back. So I think that's gonna need to be more again. It goes back to like if the big players are doing it in in this sort of way. Others should start thinking about doing that and maybe it's not about setting up your own data university because maybe you're not big enough to do that. But.

44:12.98

Ben Owden

Um, yeah.

44:13.50

Brian Spisak

There's more. There's more than enough resources online to just go through to Linkedin and start looking for it. People were always posting about if you want to know how to be data literate check out this Youtube clip this Youtube clip go to this site. Go to this site. So even if you're a small organization or enterprise you can set up kind of a. Ah, Pseudo Data University where people can become more knowledgeable on how to use their data and and that will be the big game changer for many many organizations if you can ramp up your your data literacy to everybody in the organization then that's no longer unused toilet paper right? that is then.

44:52.30

Brian Spisak

Ah, very is very effective data to help you solve your your real problems in real time and that's where I think we want to go with this.

44:53.49

Ben Owden

Ah.

44:58.14

Ben Owden

Yeah I'm I'm glad you you brought it up because I because I was going to ask for you know organizations that maybe don't have the budget to invest in you know a data focus department a monitoring and evaluation and learning department like they don't have the budget to actually do that. What will be the most. Cost effective way to actually still implement that and especially for smaller Organizations. You know sometimes that's the excuse is that we can't actually afford to do this. We can't afford to hi you know a data Analyst or a data scientist come in and and and help us figure all this out. So Sometimes it's and so I'm glad that you you've mentioned that you know actually there are.

45:27.73

Brian Spisak

Um, yeah.

45:36.73

Ben Owden

Cost-effective approaches that people can take and still benefit from you know what data can do for us.

45:43.41

Brian Spisak

Definitely I mean if any of your listeners want to reach out that's fine. You can basically put a curriculum together for your organization on how to boost their data literacy from from 0 to hero pretty quickly.

45:48.76

Ben Owden

Yeah.

45:58.69

Ben Owden

Um, now as we're you know, drawing to a close There's a question that we ask pretty much all of our guests the one one one which is what is the 1 book that you've read this could be as recent as this year ah that you said you know what I wish I had this book ten fifteen twenty years ago what is the 1 habit that you've developed over time that you wish you had developed it earlier and what is the 1 personal value that no matter the circumstances you will you will fight to continue to uphold that value.

46:29.81

Brian Spisak

Yeah, okay, first one 2001 space odyssey by Arthur C Clerk I first read that in oh but 2 20102011 something like that blew my mind. How. We we could I think this was started the beginning of me thinking about putting together science and technology and humanity all in 1 right? And and that's a book I wish I would have read much earlier because it would make me feel a little less weird and nerdy growing up I would I would have realized that.

46:55.85

Ben Owden

Yeah.

47:06.15

Brian Spisak

And there's a lot of people out there like me and we're all thinking big and because I grew up in a small town there you know they're more interested in the Pittsburgh steelers I think than they were a lot of the time they just didn't know what I was talking about half the time. So this this this would have been something.

47:17.29

Ben Owden

He.

47:22.90

Brian Spisak

Where I think would have given me a bit more perspective that there. There's this big world out there I I got ah it's a very unique one where the movie was written basically in parallel with the the book. So it's one's not adapting the other so it's a very unique book in that way.

47:26.11

Ben Owden

Yeah, is the is the movie. The adaptation of that book.

47:36.66

Ben Owden

Oh okay.

47:42.54

Brian Spisak

But I find that the book was a little bit better in terms of getting deeper and it really scratched my nerdy itch so it it gave me a sense of connectedness with with my fellow people that that like that sort of sort of think big far out sort of stuff so that's the first one. Ah.

47:46.71

Ben Owden

Um, a and.

47:52.92

Ben Owden

8 yeah.

48:00.56

Brian Spisak

What would I have the 1 thing I'd learned or sort of principle or something like this ah that would be routine like formalizing routine I love schedules now right? So I mean I've always used the schedule. But now I do like for instance, this week this month I'm doing a health challenge.

48:19.52

Brian Spisak

And if it's on a calendar and I put it on the wall and every day I I tick off what I'm doing it. It was it regiments me and I find that you know I didn't go to the military which is very regimented. But I think that's one thing I would have enjoyed about the military or I benefited from with that. So I wish I would have picked up.

48:26.33

Ben Owden

Me.

48:36.22

Ben Owden

Um, me.

48:39.35

Brian Spisak

On being much more regimented very early literally making a month to three month plan and putting it on a calendar and visualizing it on my wall like old school printout. Not not just a digital one but on my wall I'm staring at it and every day I did that I did that I did that and and because it reminds you.

48:44.87

Ben Owden

And.

48:58.84

Brian Spisak

Those incremental steps that you make every day I'm getting one percent better every day. But if I get 1% better every day by the end of the year I'm three hundred and sixty five percent better right? and it just reminds me of that and I think that something also would help keep me grounded sometimes when you take these big steps.

48:59.78

Ben Owden

Nearly.

49:07.99

Ben Owden

Yeah.

49:17.90

Brian Spisak

In life. It can get a bit dark and uncertain and by just seeing like I'm making progress every day it gives you a bit of certainty and clarity and and it sometimes what seems like a very dark tunnel. Um, the last one and the last one was what was it again.

49:34.99

Ben Owden

The one habit. Ah, so there was habit and then value.

49:36.95

Brian Spisak

Oh value. Yeah, so 1 thing that is is like a complete must have is the pursuit of knowledge I will sacrifice and I have sacrificed a lot for the pursuit of knowledge literally when I started my ph d I got rid of my apartment I sold my car.

49:44.64

Ben Owden

Me.

49:55.66

Brian Spisak

I gave away everything I cared about you know, like all of my furniture to friends family and I put everything that I just needed to 2 suitcases and I hopped on a plane to London and so I'm living and breathing that I will prioritize the pursuit of knowledge above most things because I think this is one of the most.

49:56.19

Ben Owden

Um, yeah.

50:13.77

Brian Spisak

Important things that humanity can do is Pursue knowledge for the sake of pursuing knowledge and out of that comes some amazing amazing innovations and it's allowed us to kind of be who we are and do amazingly good things that I try to it keeps me focused on the good of humanity. You know what? I mean.

50:32.49

Brian Spisak

When when sometimes it's easy to kind of fall down that dark hole of despair about humanity about climate change and this and but if we look at a lot of what we're doing where we're pursuing knowledge and trying to change lives and save lives and all these sorts of things that's super exciting. You know, take me to a natural history museum.

50:50.80

Ben Owden

No.

50:52.40

Brian Spisak

And I'm like the happiest person in the world because it's It's a sign of people studying and pursuing knowledge and wanting to share it with everyone and and I think that for me is a value that I will live and die by for sure.

51:07.46

Ben Owden

Yeah I like that last one because I think it speaks to the epistemic humility right? Um, the whole idea of the known Knowns the known unknowns and whatnot um and actually seeking and pursuing um at at a great cost because I think sometimes yeah.

51:10.44

Brian Spisak

Yeah, and yeah.

51:22.77

Brian Spisak

It's funny. You bring that up. Yeah I just I go into those I go sorry I go into those unknowns unknown unknown unknowns and I think that's sometimes where I live my life. Maybe that's why I'm Bald is because I spent too much time in the unknown unknowns.

51:25.14

Ben Owden

Like go ahead.

51:37.18

Brian Spisak

And yeah, it's it's it's It's super challenging. It could be scary but the things you can find and the benefits you can deliver are are exceptional. So yeah.

51:46.35

Ben Owden

Yeah I Definitely I think I resonate with that because I think for me one of my core values is curiosity and part of it right is really I think moving away from the idea of knowledge is power to the idea that ignorance is power this idea of you know? um. I think I like this one analogy where I think it says you know I think sometimes you know whether it's science or pursuing knowledge is like you know, looking for a black cat in a dark room and there is no black cat. This idea that I'm not I'm not that person who's looking for their lost Keys under their lamppost because there's light but actually.

52:17.64

Brian Spisak

Yeah, and.

52:21.43

Ben Owden

Going into the dark way. You're not really seeing anything hoping that you do find something useful there. So and I think a lot of the changes in the world are a result of people who were courageous enough to actually do that. Um, and you know when it works we usually glorify and say Wow this person a hero you know an innovator an inventor.

52:24.16

Brian Spisak

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

52:31.68

Brian Spisak

Yes.

52:39.30

Ben Owden

Um, and when it fails you know So I think moving away from looking at success as or I have found something but maybe the pursuit the courage to actually pursue even when you don't find in and of itself is you know is victory. So so thanks for sharing that.

52:54.38

Brian Spisak

It's always about the pursuit of knowledge and I will always value and reward that for sure.

52:58.66

Ben Owden

Yeah Brian thank you so much for for for making the time to to you know to do this actually funny thing is I saw your book at a bunsza noble store and and eventually led me to reach out so you know shout out to brans and noble for.

53:10.50

Brian Spisak

I felt.

53:18.37

Ben Owden

For for displaying your book and and allowing me to you know to get to know you and and your work and I finally were here having this conversation. So so thank you for making that time and for you know for sharing what you've been learning. Um and you know as you continue to Pursue new things. Hopefully we'll get another opportunity to.

53:24.57

Brian Spisak

Yeah, yeah.

53:35.64

Ben Owden

Have another conversation down the road.

53:36.15

Brian Spisak

Yeah, sounds good Ben and thank you so much for having me I've had a blast.

53:39.74

Ben Owden

Yeah, and to our dear listeners This has been the Why Lead podcast and I'm your host Ben Owden.