and the most important thing is that AI is just the latest of 20 or 30 rounds of digital revolution that we've experienced since the 1960s. You can make a case that it's different, but people are always making the case that whatever we're in at the moment is different. Yeah, there's going to be a lot changing, but a lot is going to stay the same. And a lot of the things we're playing with around AI right now, we're going to be reverting back to a lot of the kind of traditional conversations about behavioural change and structural change that we've always been having. Welcome to the Changing Conversations podcast. I'm Katie. I'm Steve. We're consultants at Implement Consulting Group, and we believe that people and organisations change through changing conversations. This podcast is about inviting you into the conversations we're having with leading thinkers and researchers about the conversations they're changing. So you can get inspired and use their insights and questions to spark positive change and transformation in your organisation. Today, we are so thrilled to be in conversation with Julian Birkinshaw. Julian is a leading expert on strategic agility, innovation, and digital transformation. He teaches these topics as a professor at London Business School and now at Ivy Business School, where he is the Dean. Julian is also a trusted advisor to senior leaders and a bestselling author of multiple books, including his most recent book, Resurgent. Welcome to you, Julian. Thanks very much. Great to have a chance to share my thoughts. So before we dive into the book and all the fantastic insights that we can learn there, we'd really like to get to know you a little bit better. And we'll do that through the theme of our podcast. So on conversations. We're very curious to hear what is a conversation that has shaped you and made you who you are. So I do recall one with somebody else that you know well, Gary Hamill, who was a mentor of mine, you can almost say about 20 years ago, I first met him. And I was at the time when I was meeting him, I was a junior professor at London Business School. But I saw him as this sort of guru who was shaping the way that everybody was talking about things. He was the guy who came up with this phrase core competence. And that's a word, of course, term that everybody uses. And the initial conversations with him, I really got a sense of how to take academic ideas and to turn them into something that the business world cared about. And also to do it in a style that made it sort of immediate and provocative and important, if you see what I mean. Because, you know, there is a sort of a narrative style, I mean, a conversational style, if you like, of getting ideas across that he was just a complete master of. He writes well, he speaks well. And my first few conversations with him, he kind of pushed me a little bit in terms of, you know, you've got some great ideas, but you need to find a way of getting them out there in the world. And so that's the one that immediately jumps to mind. That makes good sense, given how much of the gift we can say that you're bringing to the world is through the translation, through your teaching, through your writing. So I can definitely see the influence of that conversation. I, I, and, and your story hits me hard in the sense that I remember picking up the Howard Business Review journal where he wrote that core competencies was when I was studying. And I remember it was shattering the world of strategy. And yeah, he has, he has a way with unique new ideas as you have actually. Yeah. No, thank you. Of course, you know, he's taken a different career path than I have because he started out actually as an academic, a proper academic, if you like, at the London Business School. But he quickly moved on to this, this world of writing books and case studies and, and becoming, of course, a very successful advisor. Um, I've stayed, I guess, closer to my roots as an academic. I continue to publish academic work. What I'm trying to do, of course, is to, is to straddle the two worlds. And, and that's, that's difficult because of course academics take years sometimes to get their articles written and published. Whereas the, the cycle when you're in the world of kind of gurudome, if you want to call it that, is much shorter. So, um, so yeah, he's absolutely influenced my career in a big way. Uh, but I've also taken, I think a slightly different path than he did. Wonderful. Well, I think now we can move into your work and the latest work that you have released into the world in Resurgent about how established organizations can stay agile and thrive in the age of digital transformation, as you put it. So what's the conversation that you wanted to change when you decided to put this book out there? Yeah. I mean, the narrative that every company hears, uh, you know, when they listen to, uh, a consultant, when they listen to, uh, a guru like Gary, or when they pick up the, you know, the business press is that the world is changing really quickly. And it is, but, but at the same time, it's always been changing quickly. So we mustn't put too much credit to that, but, but right now the, the digital companies, you know, the magnificent seven of course of the, you know, the, the big story here, but there's also many fast growing private equity backed startups, fast growing companies. Those companies are rampaging over the scenery, um, and they are taking over. And that's a narrative that of course is, is a little bit scary because in this narrative, the established companies are dinosaurs. They are going to go the way of Kodak and Nokia and Blackberry, and they haven't got a chance. And I mean, they've, they've got to, you know, really find some very, very creative ways of, of, of fighting back. And, and, and as with any narrative, there's some truth to it. That's the conversation that I'm joining. But I want to say, hold on, let's just remind ourselves of a few salient facts that actually require you to rethink that conversation. And the one that I start my book with, which I think you, you two have certainly heard me say is when you look at the fortune 500 companies, the biggest American companies by, by revenue, um, of that list, only 27 of those companies were actually created in the internet era or 1995 or on. So the, there are a further 473 of those companies that actually have survived, uh, the entire internet revolution and the AI revolution. And that statistic takes most people by surprise because they're all convinced that they're, that, you know, their, their, their shelf life is, is, is, is going. And I'm saying, actually, there's almost always a way through. So the narrative of, uh, dinosaurs being killed off has to be replaced by one of, I use the term dancing elephants, because these are big established companies. Yes, they are losing some opportunities to big, to the, to the digital companies, but they are finding ways of adapting. Some of them are just surviving, hanging in there. Others are actually thriving. Others are reinventing themselves. So for me, that's the, that's the conversation I want to have. And it does, by giving them that starting point, it does then change the conversation. What, what are the things that these companies are doing? How are they adapting? What are the things they have to do inside those organizations to stay agile? Hmm. And, and one of the, one of the arguments so far underneath that has been, that there's a distinction between these, uh, dancing elephants. And that might be, okay, what makes them dance actually. Right. And, and, and, and, uh, and our experience is that, that the place to go to, to figure out whether you will be dancing or standing in the next epoch of your, of your life is to look at your management model. So, so, so within being, being, being, being an old company, have you actually managed to, to change or tweak your management model away from a classic bureaucracy? Are you on the same page there? A hundred percent. And, and it is, it is true that many big established companies still have very bureaucratic ways of working. And, and what, when we say bureaucracy, we mean essentially privilege your court conforming to standardized rules and procedures. Everything is done by the book. And it is the case that if you are running a, a nuclear power plant, just to use a kind of a extreme example, you do have to do everything by the book. Um, but that, that sort of, the recipe book of bureaucracy, you know, which has its place, has found its way into many, if not most companies. And one of the big ideas that Gary Hamill and, and you and, and I have all been exploring in our own ways is this transition away from bureaucracy towards a number of different models. And I use in my book, this concept of a meritocracy, which is privileging knowledge and information as the sort of the, almost the organizing principle. And I also talk about this concept of adhocracy, which is an organizing principle based around action first, action and experimentation and initiative. And these three models kind of coexist. Every big company has some combination of these. But the point I, I will always make when I start working with a company is we've got to move away from the defaults of everything is a bureaucracy to, um, a, a thought about there is a time and a place for bureaucracy, but there's going to be other parts of your company where it's really important to jettison those old principles and embrace the principles. Of adhocracy because that is indeed the principles that a lot of these digital companies, the Googles and the Facebooks have been using, uh, certainly startups use them. And actually they are absolutely appropriate in many large companies in parts of many large companies. And that's, so that's a principle I completely agree with you on. Mm-hmm. So ensuring that technological innovation alongside that, we're also considering management model innovation, as you put it, Julian. And if I'm a manager in an established organization, how can I be thinking about doing this in this AI, the disruption right now? What should I be considering? Yeah. And of course, AI brings an additional layer of, I'm going to say, opportunity on top of things that I've been writing around for years. So if I am a mid-level manager in a large company, I mean, you've got to answer that question at two levels. One is what can I do myself right now, kind of within my area of, uh, of influence, uh, versus what would I like to do in terms of helping to kind of nudge the system in the right way? I mean, I'll focus on the first question of the two, uh, just cause it's a bit more immediate and practical. Um, and we all have degrees of freedom in our work, right? Uh, and obviously some of us have very overbearing bosses who make those degrees of freedom quite narrow, and others have very kind of libertarian bosses who give us a lot of space. Um, you know, my, the way I think about it is that, you know, my job is always to do my job, but also to look for ways of better, better ways of doing my job. I'm, I'm always trying to find more efficient and more effective ways of doing my work. And because of the AI revolution, suddenly I've got these tools available to me that first of all, allow me to, to do much quicker pieces of my job, uh, some bits of my job more quickly. Uh, and also allows me to do things I never thought possible before. So, so I do, do absolutely see that we, we should be using AI. I mean, we've got to make sure that our, you know, our superstructure, our boss and our boss's boss are okay with this. I mean, I, I do see some sort of permission necessary, but within that, looking for ways of adding value to my job, that's the way I see it. Now that is within the ambit of the job. I also see a lot of companies giving their employees this opportunity to, to have this sort of plus one sort of, uh, goal for the year. I think Unilever, for example, you know, when, when you set your goals within Unilever, you have this three plus one. I certainly used to a few years back. You know, here are my three goals for the year and here is my plus one goal. And the plus one goal is optional. It's something I'm excited about. I share it with my boss in advance. Uh, um, and we agree that if I could make progress on this, it would be kind of cool. It would be kind of cool for me and it would be cool for the, for the company. So in talking to, you know, former students who are at Unilever, some of them have done wonderful things with their plus one time, because it's a little bit of a license to go off and kind of pursue an idea that they hadn't, they hadn't, they thought about, but hadn't had any time to do. So for me, you know, you want to just get better at your job, but you've got to have that creative conversation with your boss to look for the opportunities to do something, something exciting. On, on, on the management model, do you, do you have the feeling that any structure can actually work if you just have the right managers within the structure? If they have the mindset that kind of embraces, uh, you know, testing, probing, experimenting, that is not too firm around plans, knowing that, you know, you make a plan and then you make a new plan and, and things like that. Do, do, do, do you have that? Yes. Pretty much. I mean, I look, we can always make structural improvements. Um, um, and we can always delay, uh, because of course, bureaucracy, you know, this self replicating way of working. Um, so within any given structure at any given time, if you've got the right people in place, there is room for a version of what I'm calling adhocracy, because it ultimately is a state of mind, which a, a manager who's got a, you know, traditionally defined job can liberate his or her people. But the, the, the challenge is, is one that you'll recognize, which is that you really do have to have pretty much everybody signed up for this. Because as soon as you've got one person who is sort of playing narrowly by the, the rules of my job is to run my process and to keep everybody in place. The risk is the entire organization kind of pulls itself down to that, that sort of rather more basic level. Because if, if they're slowing things down, then my opportunity to do things myself goes away. If they are kind of sandbagging the budget, and I'm trying to choose for a stretch budget, well, you know, that's not fair. I mean, I'm taking a lot of risks on his or her behalf. So I, I do think that, that leadership development, and indeed just putting the right people in positions of seniority, does go a long way down the track. But the flip side of that is, you then got to be very kind of disciplined about taking people out who are, who are making a little bit of a toxic environment, and are actually then pulling everybody down into a much more bureaucratic way of working. So, so can I just stay with that for a second? I'll just say that for a second, because, because an enabler of that, at least from our work with, with companies is that it's critical that you have a leadership team or even a culture that somehow embraces a both end mindset, or you have integrative thinkers, integrative thinking as a key cornerstone in how you, so the example you just gave, I mean, on one hand, you want whoever is in the organization, to have an extreme level of, and a sense of accountability, and you also want everyone to, to sense unity, because otherwise you can't have resource fluidity. So everyone is sitting on their own resources and running their own show. So you, you, you want to dance with those two opposing forces. Yeah. Building that capability. First of all, do you also see that as a key enabler? And how do you build that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so of course, so perhaps, of course, I don't know. Um, I do agree with, with what you said. We need, um, absolute accountability at the individual level, because as soon as you, you know, give a team a response, a collective response with the risk is everybody looks to each other. But, but that accountability has to then be linked up to the serial accountability of others in a, in a team structure where people are fighting for the collective rather than just for themselves. And I, you know, I, I now lead a business school. I have a management team of eight people and I am, and, and it's, actually it's really seven people. And for me, seven people is the maximum size of that group because seven people can, can pretty much agree to take collective responsibility for something in a way that 12 or 15 people cannot. And, you know, in a former role, I was part of a management team of 12 people and we, we devolved into people fighting their corner. I am, I mean, I inherited this at Ivy business school, but my management team of seven people, um, we have, you know, even budgeting, the budgeting discussions are always the most painful of the year. Even budgeting was a relatively light touch because I was able to get people to, to own the collective responsibility that they needed to fear whilst also owning their individual departments. Now, how do you build that capability? Yeah. I mean, we, we do have opportunities, of course, to provide people with the, with, with the breadth of understanding the training, the, you know, the, the basic sort of knowledge of how to do this better. I mean, just the sort of stuff that I would teach and you would probably put in your seminars, but, but as we know, the, the basic sort of understanding is really quite simple. You know, what we need is the processes, the developmental processes, if you like, within the organization so that people feel that they have an opportunity to try things out and to get the feedback on them. I wrote a piece, I don't know, 15 years ago in Harvard Business Review on, you know, maximizing your return on failure. And the, the, the big, the idea in that article was, you know, whenever something fails, whenever something goes wrong, we have this tendency to sweep it under the carpet and just to move on. But of course, actually that failure is an asset. I mean, it is actually something that we can all learn from. And, and good management teams do actually pick up on these things and they, and they do share those, those failures as a way, of course, of building that, you know, the, the, the shared understanding of what it takes to be successful. I mean, we often use this term psychological safety as the, as the sort of the, the way of, of kind of framing it, but, but that's, that's the starting point. You also need to have the, the very specific conversations about what's working and what's not in order to just to build up the, you know, the leadership skills in, in doing this better. So staying with this theme of, of both and, and that mindset or capability in an organization, the mindset that you're suggesting to managers and leaders and established organizations when it comes to digital disruption is to be both paranoid and pragmatic. Can you say a few words about what does that mean and look like in practice? Yeah, that's right. So the book, we have this quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald that the test of a first rate mind is the ability to hold two completely, you know, orthogonal ideas in mind and still retain the ability to function. So translated into today's world. Um, there is a possibility that AI is, is out to destroy sort of civilization as we know it, or more likely to make traditional organizations obsolete. There is a possibility that that is true. And a little bit of your, and my job is to be a bit paranoid that that is happening. Uh, only the paranoid would survive was the quote from the former chief exec of, of Intel. Um, and we need to be a, um, and we need to be able to explain to our colleagues that we're taking this threat or slash opportunity seriously. On the other hand, uh, history tells us that AI is just the latest of 20 or 30 rounds of digital revolution that we've experienced since the 1960s. Uh, you can make a case that it's different, but people are always making the case that whatever we're in at the moment is different. And I don't believe it. I, I, I actually, you know, the pragmatist in me says, yeah, there's going to be a lot changing, but a lot is going to stay the same. And a lot of the things we're playing with around AI right now are once we've understood the technology properly, we're going to be reverting back to a lot of the kind of traditional conversations about behavioral change and structural change that we've always been having. So that's the pragmatists, you know? So I, I don't want to be misunderstood. I cannot go to my board or my alumni of my business school and say, we're not going to take AI seriously. We don't think it's, it's actually up to much. Of course, I'm not going to say that. I'm going to say we're actively experimenting with using AI in all aspects of the organization with our learning experience of our students and so forth. At the same time, we're doing it on the cheap. We are not putting huge amounts of money into it. We are feverishly monitoring what is actually changing. And at some point, you know, the language of S curves, things start so early and then suddenly at some point something takes off. I actually don't see that we're on the steep part of the S curve for artificial intelligence yet. I mean, of course, we've got the hyperscalers who are throwing money into it. But in terms of the fundamental systemic changes in organizations, we're still completely at the experimental stage. So hopefully that explains a little bit of my, my way of thinking about it. You know, you've got to be able to, you know, talk one language whilst also not completely believing it. And then being prepared to, you know, at some point, maybe throw a lot of money behind it when you see that the world actually has changed. But, you know, fast followers beat the first movers most of the time. Yeah. And a follow up question to that is, how can you get leaders to accept that perspective? Because when I hear that, if I'm a leader of a big organization, I mean, my ego, it hurts. And I think that I'm not going to be number one in jumping in and being the first mover. So how do you talk to leaders about taking that more pragmatic approach? I mean, I start with a few facts, you know, was, was Amazon the first online bookseller? No. Was Google the first search engine? No. Was Facebook the first social network? No. I then give them a few facts around, for example, the first movers in, you know, online. And I'm talking about traditional companies now. Time Warner merged with America Online AOL and lost, I forget, $10 billion worth of shareholder to value. Disney threw a lot of money at it. Rupert Murdoch's Fox organization threw a lot of money. A lot of companies lost a lot of money by moving really early. And so that at least gives people an opportunity to say, oh, yeah, actually, it is quite complicated. And we usually land on some sort of compromise where, as I say, I do want you to make all the right noises, but just be really thoughtful about what you're putting the big money behind. And that is reassuring, I think. Because I've yet to see a good example, actually, of a genuine first mover who stuck the course. Right now, OpenAI is the first mover in generative AI, and it lost $12 billion last year. So I may be wrong, but I would bet that OpenAI is going to become the Netscape navigator of the AI revolution. In other words, it's going to disappear. So there you go. That's a prediction which may or may not ever come true, but that's what I believe. So, Julian, you're basically saying, and correct me if this is wrong, so you're basically saying, even though you're a big and old corporation, you're still cool, and you can still be really good at innovation. And to jump that, even though that you're the second mover, you can still be actually, you're better teed up to be the real winner. Is that right? Yes, I mean, that's exactly right. And second mover, as I say, doesn't mean that you're not working actively on this new technology, but it means you are not jumping after every latest idea. So right now, you know, there's a lot of talk of agentic AI, you know, AI as agents. You know, we are not ready. The world is not ready for true AI agents. And the companies that are pushing that really hard are actually getting their fingers burned. And so I think right now we've got to wait and see on agents. We can, again, we can build teams who are working on agents, but there's a big difference between that and throwing it out and, you know, letting our customers and our suppliers already see the consequences of it. Do you think, do you think that AI will, going back to our conversation around the management model? So if you can, if you can develop a management model that's agile and you can have leaders in your management model that has the right mindset, do you think that AI will create more agency in the sense that there will be much more transparency of knowledge all the way through the organization? So no one can claim, you know, make these boundaries. Only I know this and it gives me power. Everyone will know and everyone will be more capable. So that will mean that the old management model where some people will sit on some information and it'll give me power and I can exercise that power is I'm going to lose that power with AI. And therefore, I mean, people will gravitate towards companies that will unleash that and accept agency on the individual level. Is there some correlation with AI here? 100%. I mean, and you said it well, which is, you know, one of the classical kind of, almost like sort of reasons why the hierarchical system at the beginning, in the middle of a bureaucracy came to be, was a hierarchy of sharing of information. And we all know that from history. And so the longstanding argument around the information revolution, of which AI is obviously the latest iteration, has been the democratization or the transparency of information within organizations, which allows us to work on a much flatter way as before. So AI is, of course, just the latest wave of democratizing, not just the flow of information, but as you say, the ability to kind of act on the basis of, you know, what you know and how you're able to then kind of, you know, sort of extend what you know through the power of AI. We are all, you know, supercharged in terms of our ability to do our jobs. And that allows us to, yeah, to flatten organizations, to some people talk about inverting the pyramid with obviously the frontline workers actually being the agents of change. And I buy that. I mean, we will, to be clear, we will always need some sort of management system. I mean, so some sort of people, you know, to whom others are accountable to, as we said earlier, to have the discipline around resource allocation, essentially, sometimes to do things in a much more efficient way. I don't want to get rid of managers. What I do want is managers to be essentially changing their role so that they are facilitating and enabling and then doing certain things on behalf of others. But just a little bit like the European Union is built on this principle of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity means that, you know, Denmark makes Denmark's choices and the European Union only gets involved when the things Denmark chooses to give to the European Commission. That's the principle that organizations should be built on. You know, the default is the lower level of analysis and we just come together for the things which we can't do as individuals. Can I ask you, so if I'm in a big organization, I'm working in a big organization, I think most people will, most leaders I know of will not say I'm a classic bureaucrat. Most people will think I'm an egoless servant leader in some shape and form. But could you help me? If I should go into an organization and figure out whether we have the management model that is fit for the future, fit for AI, fit all of these things, what are the conversations that you would be looking to detect? Yeah. So what are the types of conversations that you would look to to get a feel for whether this organization is where it's supposed to be? Yeah. Wow. That's no, it's a terrific question. And, you know, the big sort of barriers, because as you say, people have read the books and they've all got a narrative, whether it's true or not, of how they are a modern executive. I mean, one or two don't, but most people think they do. So what are the big barriers? One of the big barriers is process for processes sake. And another barrier is obviously the, essentially the, the people at the top who become isolated from the people at the bottom. So the conversations I want to have are around, let's look at your, your, your processes, your process for, for, for new product development, your processes for resource allocation. Um, what I want to know is are the people who are leading that process, the ones who are actually ultimately accountable for getting things done, or are they the people who feel that they're somehow responsible for the process itself? Right. Because as we know, you put somebody in charge of a process, they will optimize in their view, the process, but almost certainly optimizing the process actually means slowing the process down because they want to make the best process. So I, I want to, to have a conversation with people in terms of what, what is your role within this organization? Do you, do you actually have a visibility on what's ultimately driving value in this organization? And there's a lot of people in big organizations who are, who are so wrapped up in their accounts, payroll process or their budgeting process or whatever it is, that they've lost the ability to actually see how their process links to customer value. Um, so that, that's, that's one set of conversations I like, I like to have. And obviously we've got to try to sometimes get rid of entire processes as a way of freeing people up. I mean, that's difficult to do, but not impossible. I mean, the other one is, I mean, I'm reminded of a conversation I had again, a very senior guy in, um, it was actually Unilever again, I touched on Unilever earlier. Um, but he was, you know, he was like one from the top. He was, you know, just below the chief executive. He was kind of frustrated about, you know, enacting change in his organization. Because he didn't see anybody who was explicitly kind of, uh, going against what he was trying to do, the sort of spirit of our conversation here. And yet, of course, he, he had five layers of hierarchy between him and the front line. And so the conversations he was trying to have were almost like, go, get, bypassing a few layers of management. He was trying to, you know, and this is a little bit countercultural sometimes, but trying to actually engage directly with people literally three levels below him. Um, in order to understand what makes them tick, um, in order to see what the real problems are. Because, you know, as we know, the risk when you're right at the top of a big organization is, is you are fed this very filtered version of what's actually happening. And you can no longer actually diagnose what's wrong. So I don't know if that's, I mean, that's a way of answering the question in terms of conversations. But I think, I think you see the point, which is that, you know, we, we often get a little bit stuck with, with the sort of the hierarchical ordering of things. And if I'm talking to somebody, two layers, but no, we, I CC the manager in between. And, and, and that's, that's what's sometimes expected, but it actually slows everything down because that's, uh, people. So I don't know what your thoughts are on that. I mean, please, cause I, this shouldn't just be a one way street. You, you have lots of experience of trying to enact these sort of changes. I think you're, I think you're right in the sense that if you have a lot of people overlooking other people to see if they comply, that's a kind of, and I think, I think one of the areas that I, I think I normally go and look to is the conversation that is happening in the, in the top management team. So first of all, is it a conversation at all? Is it a place where you come and you actually feel that when you go into that group of people, you are a little more courageous. You're a little more capable because you are that team. And I think that, that's a good conversation. And I think that, that very often tells me being part of an executive meeting three hours says so much about, is there any conversation going here? That's one conversation that I'm super sensitive to, to, to, to actually get a feel for the level of real conversation going on there or defense kind of. And the second thing is, I'm, I think the way organizations change is very often through projects. So you, you want something to happen with some force and speed, you define a project. So a very good place to go is to say, go and have a look at a steering committee meeting. And if it's a, if you feel, and you know that there's a process going on for four weeks where a bunch of people are polishing a slide deck to show to their colleagues that everything is under control. Green, green, green, green. Then you just know that this is a culture where everyone wants to look good to their boss. And no one wants to have a conversation around because of course, in a project, everything is not fine. Of course you struggle. If you don't struggle, it shouldn't be a project. So, so having the real conversation around here is where we are mostly in doubt. Here's where we don't really know what to do. And collectively problem solve around that. If I, if I feel the latter, I know this is nice. Everyone is trying to help each other. But very often that's not the conversation. So those would be the two conversations I would point to. Yeah. No, I mean, and of course I recognize that. I was literally in the management team meeting just, just yesterday. And, and we had a, I, cause of course I'm, I'm steering these conversations, but, and I'm seeing somebody present and, and, and the presentation was, was a bit half baked quite honestly. And for me, actually, that, that wasn't a problem because for me, we were trying to get to, you know, a better result. But a couple of people afterwards said, you know, I was expecting something a little bit more, more polished. So I do, I do, I think that, that, I mean, the leader sets the tone. Of course they do. And the leader has to be very thoughtful about when they, when they push, when they challenge, when they, you know, the types of things that they say that's not good enough. Because as we know, that then gets everybody kind of running scared if they, if they feel that they can't bring something to the table, which, which isn't perfect. So, so I, I work on that. I mean, none of us are perfect. Right. But I, I'm very conscious that, that I have to kind of practice what I preach on that, on that dimension. Fantastic. And I think a nice bridge to what you've been saying there is to what you mentioned, Julian, as something very important for established organizations and leaders in particular to do is to make that invitation to share the weak signals of the unfiltered feedback, the problems, the potentially industry challenging information. Right. And if you don't have that invitation for the, the real conversation, then you can actually be one of the dinosaurs that goes extinct. So making sure that you do have a genuine invitation is, is one of the ways that you can stay agile, innovative as an established organization. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, right now, I'll just give you a very specific example. In the world of business schools, there is a paranoia over what's going to happen to entry level jobs, right? AI is killing jobs is the narrative, right? And so on the one hand, I have to be acute to that risk, but the data does not yet support that narrative. So what are we doing? I'm working, you know, through the hierarchy directly with somebody kind of three levels below me on the hard data about what jobs are being posted. How many jobs is McKinsey posting this year? How many jobs is, you know, Citibank posting? And what are they asking of the students? You know, and how many people do they actually hire? Because you've got to try to get into the weeds of what's actually happening rather than, you know, having some sort of filtered story that comes through and says either everything's fine or everything is terrible. It's always, it's always more nuanced than that. So I, you, you, sometimes this is called micromanaging, but hopefully it's, it's, it's not that. Hopefully that's drilling down on the hard information that allows us to make the right decisions about the most critical issues facing us today. Fantastic. Well, let's move into a quick wrap up mode here where our aim is going to be for our, our dear listeners to give them a few suggestions. They've been listening along. So what are some experiments they might run, some questions they might ask, some conversations to start based on what we've been talking about? So to, to kick off just a couple quick reflections here. We started with, first of all, confronting the fact that it might be a little bit of myth that you are doomed to extinction if you're an established organization. So maybe having a little bit of a shift in that image that we might hold working with your management model and management model innovation intentionally. Thinking about mindset, the both and in general, and in particular being both pragmatic and paranoid at the same time and going back and forth between the two. Looking at the connection between processes and value drivers and ensuring that's clear for everyone and inviting for real conversations. Those were a few of my takeaways. So what would you both say as a piece of advice for listeners? Gosh, you've done a very good job of summarizing it. So let me just throw in a couple. I mean, I think it is completely the right thing for people, people at all levels to, to have a point of view on these big questions. You know, AI is changing the world. Fine. Let's make sure that everybody feels that they have an opportunity to think about how it's changing the part of the organization that they're working on. Let's give them the license to go and explore what other companies are doing. Because the kind of the fun thing about AI, it's what we call a general purpose technology. It touches on everything. And literally, there's no job out there where there isn't some AI angle. So I would absolutely encourage people to, through using AI and through talking to customers or whatever, figure out ways in which they can start applying this technology in their roles. So for me, that is, that is a very active way of doing that. Whether that turns itself into an experiment, an active experiment or not, is a secondary question. But, but, but I want everybody in the organization to be, to be thinking actively about where the organization is going. I love having these sort of forums where we, we have a chance to discuss that. So that's one I'd like to add in. Steve, what, what, what else do you want to? I think, I think what inspired me in this conversation in particular, besides all the points that you, you mentioned, Katie, is I think what you incarnate, Julian, is this invitation to go below the first impression. So, so, so this sense of big and corporate doesn't mean necessarily slow. Second mover doesn't mean loser. AI doesn't necessarily mean entry level jobs gone. And, and, and, and I think you, you, you gave great examples of below that overall black and white compelling one liner. There, there is a, there is some tensions underneath that being curious to those will actually give you a better understanding of, so what, how do you actually get to be a big organization, but still nimble? How can you be second mover, but be the winner? How can you actually make entry level jobs cooler and make agency part of an innovation, part of everybody's job by, you know, enabling AI? All of these things, I think, uh, uh, you somehow, uh, incarnate that invitation. So thank you for that. That inspired me. No, thank you. No, I mean, really appreciate the feedback because I, I, I do find myself sometimes pushing against this, you know, this, this narrative out there and, and, and not everybody likes that. But, uh, but I think, you know, obviously implements a very successful and quite a sort of thoughtful company. So I appreciate that you, you kind of buy into the, into the nuances of, of what's really happening. We really appreciate your, your invitation to go into a little bit of a deeper and a more nuanced conversation about what it means to accrue expertise, um, and be an established organization and how there's more than one path there. So thank you so much, Julian. It's been a really interesting conversation. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks. Thanks for joining us in this conversation. We hope it sparks something for you to continue the conversation with us. You're welcome to send us your reflections and questions through the link in the show notes. We would love to hear from you. We also invite you to use this episode as a conversation starter by sharing it with your colleagues and friends. Take care and see you next time.