#101: Are people the superpower that drives transformation?

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Oli Carpenter (Host)

Companies are investing more than ever on technology to transform their businesses. But the full impact isn't being felt. Most organisations believe they're missing out on up to 50% of the returns they expect from digital transformation. So what's the missing piece? Do firms need to invest more or does the answer lie in their leadership and culture? Today we answer the big question: Are people the superpower that drives transformation?

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Kate O’Neill (Guest)

We're overlooking how much transformation actually requires behavioural insight and workflow readjustment.

Mike Manby (Guest)

Technology is not the challenge here. Technology can do pretty much anything you need it to do. It really comes down to people.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

I think meaning is truly the central sort of human idea. It's the central condition of humanity.

Mike Manby (Guest)

We're going to take away some of those things that are non-value adding, let technology do that and we're going to liberate you to use the best of yourself and your skill set.

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Oli Carpenter (Host)

Hello and welcome to The Green Room by Deloitte. I'm Oli Carpenter and I'm back in the studio today with my co-host Annie. From AI to cloud platforms, organisations are undertaking digital transformation in the search for added efficiency, growth and competitive advantage. But change doesn't just happen to systems, it affects people too. Behind every platform roll out and process redesign, are employees being asked to adapt and buy into new ways of working. So, how can businesses ensure their transformation efforts are a success? Today we're answering the big question: Are people the superpower that drives transformation?

Annie Wong (Host)

Today we're joined by Kate O'Neill, founder and CEO of KO Insights. Who's also a keynote speaker and author known as ‘The Tech Humanist’. Welcome, Kate.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

Thank you.

Annie Wong (Host)

And we're also joined by Mike Manby, technology and transformation consumer industry lead at Deloitte UK. Welcome Mike.

Mike Manby (Guest)

Thank you.

Annie Wong (Host)

So, to kick us off, can we talk a bit about defining transformation in the broadest sense. So when organisations talk about transformation today what do they mean and what are they actually trying to achieve? Kate I'll come to you first.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

Yeah, I think transformation is a term that's kind of kicked around for a few decades in the work I've done, and I feel like oftentimes it gets conflated with innovation. And I find these to actually be two very separate kinds of functions. Like transformation to me is about the work of catching up from sort of technical debt and business strategy debt, like what decisions have you made in the past that you need to now kind of catch up to the moment? What has changed in the externalities, the marketplace and so on. Whereas innovation is looking ahead and saying, you know, “what kind of whitespace could we create around our offerings that our competitors are not caught up to yet?” But both of these functions really need to be happening simultaneously in every organisation all the time.

Mike Manby (Guest)

So I would say transformation is about being better, but much better. And I don't think this is really about incremental, you know, progression and improvement. It really is about that sort of leaping forward. And I think sort of many, many years ago, digital was the thing that got people very excited. Now the next big word is transformation, and everyone wants to be doing it. But it's also... I think it's was sort of a thing a couple of years ago, but now it's almost everything. Which is, I'm sure, something we'll explore throughout the podcast.

Oli Carpenter (Host)

Talking about, I suppose, investment in technology, we know that businesses are investing hugely in technological capabilities and advancements. And in our latest ‘Tech Value Report’ from Deloitte, we found that more than half of leaders are spending $100 million beyond their IT budget on digital transformation initiatives, with 6% reportedly over a billion extra. Huge amounts. But in the same report, most organisations say they believe that they're missing out on up to 50% of those returns that they expect from the digital transformation. So, what's getting in the way of that? Mike, maybe we can come to you on that?

Mike Manby (Guest)

Technology is not the challenge here. Technology can do pretty much anything you need it to do. It really comes down to people, business processes, how they've been configured in the past. And because there's so much change hitting our industries, there's so much transformation and there's a lot of overlays that we’re bringing into organisations. And our experience has shown many users, people are experiencing up to ten changes at once, where ten years ago it was only two. And so I think because of this ambition and desire to really drive the transformation, there's a lot that our people are having to work through. And therefore I think it really comes down to people being part of that, you know, the solution, but also the challenge because of the speed of which this disruption is happening.

Annie Wong (Host)

And Kate, in your experience, having worked with so many organisations, what is it about people and the human centric values that is so critical to transformation?

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

So I think one of the things is we tend to think that transformation projects are going to begin with technology, you know, that they're going to be led by, “we have this new tech and this is how we're going to transform.” But in fact, A: we're overlooking how much transformation actually requires behavioural insight and workflow readjustment and work process readjustment to the point you just made. So much of it has to do with human centric adaptation and really rethinking the processes and the workflows. I also think that, you know, some of this is not led by the purpose of the organisation. You know, really thinking about what is it that the organisation exists to do and is trying to do at scale? As opposed to, you know, trying to just be like every other organisation laying in the exact same set of automation technologies and the same AI and so on. Like, how can this AI, how can this technology actually enable our purpose and our people to do the work that they mean to do?

Annie Wong (Host)

Mike, how are you seeing that come up in conversations with clients around culture, people and that driving transformation?

Mike Manby (Guest)

In our experience, we have found about 70% of our technology-driven programmes are not successful when change, and that human element are not built into the programme from the start. And I think for us, you know, we've spoken for many years about tone from the top and culture really sort of driving that message. But actually, change only happens when you've got the whole spine of the organisation lined up, excited about the change, but also being clear about what are they going to get out of it and what's their role in contributing to it. So I think for me, that people element is as, if not more, important than the technology.

Oli Carpenter (Host)

So if we then look at the barriers and opportunities and Kate, we've talked a bit about the link between organisational culture, human creativity and digital transformation strategies. But what does a culture that can supercharge the impact of technology transformation actually look like? Do you have any sort of tangible examples that you can draw out?

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the big overlooks is trust. You know, organisations often start with this mission from the top, and we're going to do this a certain way. And then it's just top down communication. And what's overlooked is the opportunity to create a sort of transparent kind of environment, a trusted environment, one where people actually believe... And by the way, this doesn't just start with the transformation effort. Like that trust has to be being built all the time, but it's really tested in a moment where we're saying, you know, we're going to lay in conversational AI into our customer support, and we are not trying to replace 15,000 call centre jobs, right. We're not trying to get rid of all of the humans in that function. But that has to be part of the discussion because people sort of naturally suspect it, and it's natural that people would suspect it. So I think there's a sort of, there's an honesty and a sort of emotional intelligence that's lacking in a lot of these initiatives that sort of addresses those suspicions and the very realistic kind of assumptions that people have of a programme like this.

Oli Carpenter (Host)

Yeah. Trust is a really important point you make. And we're actually going to come on to that a little bit later on in the discussion. And Mike, from your perspective, what about some of the barriers that organisations face day to day?

Mike Manby (Guest)

Yeah, I'd say I mean, going back to that trust point, I have worked with a client for the last five years, and every year I'm very, very fortunate that I go and spend time with their leadership teams. And I've observed their journey over a period of time. And, you know, a couple of years ago it was, you know, let's do the same for less. Big productivity agenda and therefore that trust put in concern around people going, “well what does this mean for me? How is this going to potentially impact my job?” And then it came for actually we want to do more for the same. And it was like, “Ok, that's great. I've got a role to play. But actually I don't want to do extra work.” Or, “how can technology actually make my job better?” And therefore I can take it on but not feel too overly burdened by it. But then I think we're in this dimension now of doing more for less, and therefore we're in a situation where both organisations and people are thinking through, “actually, we all need to change because we need that productivity, we need the growth, and we need that efficiency to enable all of it.” So I think the way the dynamics are working in the market, I think that's a little bit of that challenge. It's not just the change human aspect, but I think it's also the dynamics of how the market's evolving. But technology is not. The technology aspect is not the issue.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

I was going to say also, you mentioned earlier about processes, right, and kind of adapting processes around it. And I feel like one of the things that people overlook is the processes naturally have to change. When you roll out some sort of new procurement tool, right? We were talking about procurement earlier, earlier, and Bob used to go through Jane to get Sarah to approve the workflow. But now Jane is not part of that workflow. Jane is naturally going to wonder, “where do I fit in in this environment?” But if we're sort of redesigning workflows from a process centric viewpoint, from a people centric viewpoint, and thinking about those kinds of considerations, proactively communicating about them proactively, then we hit less resistance as we roll these kinds of things out, and we naturally open those lines of communication for people to air their concerns and be part of the process of re-engineering those workflows.

Mike Manby (Guest)

I remember as a young practitioner, you know, writing down mapping, level three, level four processes, because we wanted to then configure technology and write all the keystrokes to get there. And I think now we're doing the same, but we’re having to think it through that storytelling lens to go, “actually, what is my job? What is my role? What am I doing? what am I spending time on? Is it fixing the data? Is it about decision making?” And actually when you can really tell the story for your colleagues to say, actually, we're going to take away some of those things that are non-value adding, let technology, do that and we're going to liberate you to use the best of yourself and your skill set. And when you do that storytelling then the process stuff becomes quite alive and quite real and quite exciting. Well it certainly does for me.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

Yeah. No, I think it's great.

Annie Wong (Host)

It makes me think of, you know, the importance of leadership in empowering people to really understand what their role is and the role that they can play. How do you view the role of leadership in terms of driving transformation, not just tone from the top and C-suite, but across all levels within a business?

Mike Manby (Guest)

Goodness, I think this will be a really long, long topic. I go back to my recent experience with a client. You know, we're spending time talking about, you know, tone from the top, the spine and how we’re embracing all of this change. But I think there's also a literacy opportunity here to say, what does all of this actually really, really mean? Get into the myth busting of these definitions of what AI, agentic AI, and how these different agents work to get to a literacy level where we actually understand what the landscape is. So I think leadership's role is not just painting that vision for the future, but actually equipping our people and our teams to understand what this is, why it's important, how it's going to impact them. And that's very hard just for a single leader to do it. I think role modelling is also really important. If we're trying to encourage our people to embrace technology and to go digital, but then if we're still having those set meetings and routines and PowerPoints and spreadsheets, we're also not necessarily role modelling that adoption piece. And it's not it's not easy getting out of that technology because that technology is amazing. So I think it's tone from the top, I think it is around literacy, and I think it's also about role modelling.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

It’s such a huge opportunity for vision casting too right now with all of this, because I think so much of what goes wrong and I wrote about this in ‘What Matters Next”. So much of what goes wrong is either too reactive and not taking enough of a look into the future, or it's too forward looking and not really considering, you know, what's going on now in the here and now in the organisation. And those two sort of extremes of the future-ready flaws, as I call them, are easy to fall into the traps, they're easy to fall into, but they're also easy to correct for. And I think the way we do that is by understanding that where we are in the present moment, when we're making decisions, is very much informed by everything that's already been decided. All the priorities we've already understood about the organisation, and yet we need to be able to look into the future and say what is likely to matter in the future. How much are we likely to need to adapt some of this stuff to fit you know, where things are going or where things look to be going, and then triangulate, you know, make decisions that take into consideration what matters today while we're putting into place the kinds of processes that are going to lead us into tomorrow's preparation. If we do that well, then we're constantly building toward tomorrow, you know, in measured ways and in ways that everybody in the organisation kind of feels, in a cultural way.

Mike Manby (Guest)

Yeah, just to build on that point, maybe from a slightly different angle. A lot of successful organisations have grown organically, but through acquisition the market's very dynamic, a lot of convergence. There's divestitures taking place and therefore businesses are becoming quite complex in terms of how they wired. But then we see how organisations who start with a digital first mindset and Start-Ups are so much more agile, but that's because their base, they had very little to worry about any constraints. With the rise of cloud and how that works in some of these new commercial models, I still think there's a way to go before organisations can truly unlock the potential of that and not ignore the fact that actually, they've got some of these legacy systems that are either holding them back or could actually get modernised as a result of this, to enable some of the more transformational opportunities that, you know, Gen AI and, you know, agentic would provide. And so we're seeing some organisations challenge themselves on, almost, the business of today. But if we had to reimagine our future with agentic at the heart, would we then configure ourselves differently? And do we have the belief that that could take place? So it's almost like you’re reading the book from the front and from the back.

Oli Carpenter (Host)

What opportunities are there for businesses where they put the correct foundations in place from the start? What experiences can you share from your work?

Mike Manby (Guest)

I think we have to balance the business of today and the business of tomorrow and realise getting to tomorrow is not going to be just a simple, we make a decision and we're going to get there because even in the business of tomorrow, we're still going to need these underlying plumbing capabilities, these, you know, sort of a digital core, your master data management, all of the things that you need to then put all of the smart technology on top to help. So I think there's a level of honesty with ourselves to say we know we want to get there. Here's what needs to be true. We can't ignore some of these basics. But as we build confidence in doing some of these things, let's then explore on how fast we can go once we've done so. So I think some of the things we talk to clients about is, is be ambitious, but be honest about that journey, because, you know, if I think about what I do and advise clients, us as consumers, think about 9 to 5 versus 5 to 9 at 5:00 in the afternoon. We're on our technology. We’re away finding, we’re shopping, we're ordering something, we're connecting with our friends and family wherever we are in the world. And we’re just so digital in that experience. And then at 9:00 in the morning, we get to the office and we go quite analogue to some extent. And if you think about how digital and social media has driven our personal engagement, it's taken ten years for some of that technology to catch up in the workplace. And it took time. So I think there's an element of getting excited to paint that picture, but realise that is a journey that you need to go on.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

And I think this word, ‘enablement’, you know, it comes up a lot, but it is one that I think requires a sort of multifaceted consideration, right? You have to be thinking about what does it look like to enable our organisation to operate at different sort of AI assisted levels all the time, and it requires a lot of different lenses. I think it's why it matters so much to build the trust and the transparency for all of the people around the entire organisation to sort of pipe up and say, you know, what I recognise is that we're not doing this in a way that's consistent with this vision we're trying to cast. For example, maybe we're having these like stand-up meetings every day and then they need to be in person. Do we really need to have them in person? Do they really need to be every day? Could we, you know, maybe have a certain portion of the people who are not contributing that day only send their transcription bots to the meeting, you know, and what are we going to do about putting a policy in place that's respectful but also recognises not everybody needs to be in every meeting all the time, yet they might need to get the transcript of that meeting. And can we start adapting some of those processes and adopting some of those processes into a more future ready approach?

Mike Manby (Guest)

It's a huge cultural shift, too, isn't it? One of my incredible clients, they had this thing called ‘Innovember’, and it was a month that they set aside every year to innovate and think about ideas, and it recently can't just be one month a year. This is got to be an always on feedback, two way dialogue with our people, because we just have to be agile and we need their feedback on the things that we need to change and do. But that's a cultural change, not a technology one.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

And one... And I think a lot of opportunity just comes up day by day, you know, just kind of moment by moment, as you say, as you're living in those 5 to 9, 9 to 5 kind of opportunities for recognising, “Hmm, this is something we probably don't need to be doing anymore the way we've always done it. And maybe there's a way to adapt that's more agile.”

Annie Wong (Host)

You've both mentioned the role of leadership and how important that is in driving transformation. How do you ensure that individuals within leadership are aligned and moving towards the same kind of shared view and shared vision.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

That’s such an important point, I think because it's happened a lot throughout the decades of technology revolutions, right, where marketing analytics and platforms kind of created this whole shadow IT group within marketing. And now we have shadow IT organisations throughout every part of the organisation. There is a sense that I think there needs to be this purpose centric, you know, kind of strategically aligned mission with how technology lays out. And it really needs to kind of foster this communication across the top and across the organisation well, in general. That requires a lot of coordination. It requires a lot of back and forth and sort of iterative strategic updates. But I think that's the, that is the mission that will actually enable the best alignment. What what are you seeing with this?

Mike Manby (Guest)

It's almost like this... what's it going to be used for? What value does it bring? Who's going to use it? Who's going to build it? Who's going to support it? Who's going to fix it? And when you start asking those questions, everyone's engaged, everyone's involved because we're trying to solve business problems and therefore we want the business to feel empowered to drive that value. But they can't do it without the business partnering of the technology organisation, who is equipped to do some of the build, support and run. And so I think that that relationship with leadership, the pairing of each other and partnering with each other becomes so much more important. One of our clients has announced the merging of the CHRO and the CTO. So the chief people officer coming together with the CTO under one role. 20 years ago, everyone was doing the COO, then that kind of role fell away. And there was the chief strategy, and then the chief digital. There's this thing going I wonder if it's... I don’t know your view, I'd love to hear your views whether you think this could be a trend others might explore.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

Yeah, I love that. I actually was just talking with an HR podcast about how it makes so much sense that a lot of the strategy lives in the CHRO role, or something equivalent to it, because it is so people centric and it’s so important that there be that alignment and that it come from an understanding of where do the people bring the strengths, where can we kind of think about how to deploy and enable the skills of the people in the organisation? So to me that makes a ton of sense.

Mike Manby (Guest)

The employee experience. And it's like you have to learn to work with agents and they're all part of our workforce. Right? We work together. Super cool.

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Annie Wong (Host)

I think that brings us really nicely onto the future and where do humans and human centric values fit in a tech-driven future. What would you say is, kind of, required from leaders to create those conditions that will enable successful transformation for the future?

Mike Manby (Guest)

I ran a workshop recently for a client, and as part of my introduction to a couple of people that I didn't know, I used some AI to recreate myself as a chocolatier. And I may have been a bit ambitious with how muscular I looked in that picture, than the fact that I really consume a lot of their product. But I think as leaders, we need to be curious and embrace this technology ourselves and be comfortable with it ourselves. Because if we're going to lead the organisation into a digital future, we can't live and lead in an analogue environment. So I think curiosity for me is something because I think that's where it starts. And then you get to the strategy and then what we're going to do. But I'd say one word for me is curiosity.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

I love that. I think that's a really important value to model, as you say. Nothing for me kind of comes across as clearly as the fact that in discourse, the word ‘futureproof’ is so often the word that people use and that conveys this sort of defensive posture, this like, “Oh, we're trying to proof against the future.” And it's like, I really advocate for the term future readiness. I think future readiness is more about how can you, every day, move a little closer to what you believe the future holds for you, and how can you model that for your company as well? As leaders, how can you sort of set a process where you say, “well we didn't do it this way yesterday, but we're going to try it this way today because we think it might be a little closer to what we're going to likely need to do a year from now, ten years from now, whatever that might be.” Well, ten years is an awfully far horizon for most organisations. Let's just say a year from now. They think future readiness is such a much more curious posture. Right? It's a much more innovative and open posture to say I'm curious about what the future holds. Let's see if we can figure out a way to get there.

Annie Wong (Host)

I really like that. It feels a lot more embracing, and I think that's something that people could relate to across the business at all levels and at all grades. It's something they can buy into.

Oli Carpenter (Host)

On your point, Kate, you know, talking about the ‘futureproof’ point, the step back, the sharp intake of breath, when businesses do look at digital transformations, how important is it that we don't lose sight of that kind of personal, meaningful connection with both customers and employees? That's a really important point, right?

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

It's my favourite point. I am a linguist by education. I come by my fascination with meaning, honestly. But I think meaning is truly the central sort of human idea. It's the central condition of humanity and the shape it takes in business is purpose. You know, purpose, I think, is a really important recognition of, how do we show up in a construct that business is, you know, in that sort of organisational entity that's saying we think we could do something that would actually change the outcome for people in a particular way, not, you know, it's obviously not only about profit in an organisation because you could sell, you know, pizzas and be profitable, but not every organisation is selling pizzas. I think it's really important that you understand why organisation exists, why people are drawn to it, why they want to contribute, why they drive themselves to, you know, over time in order to achieve projects that are part of that mission. And when you can do that, that becomes a lot easier to understand how that purpose is going to shape your future readiness and how you can think about transformation initiatives that enable that purpose through the lens of how do humans contribute to that purpose, how are people throughout the organisation, you know, part of enabling this purpose? That's where enablement comes back fully into this human centric lens.

Oli Carpenter (Host)

And to build off the back of that, you know, leadership alignment, absolutely critical. But what about the rest of the organisation? What's the North Star there? How do we make sure that everyone's aligned to that same vision, that same purpose and ultimately that goal?

Mike Manby (Guest)

We always heard in the past, culture beats strategy, culture delivers ambition. And one of the best examples, when I grew up as a young person, I always thought about, you know, NASA and the cleaner that was once interviewed and said, “what's your what's your purpose?” And I said, “I’m here to put people on the moon.” And the modern version of that for us, for me is, I think about McLaren as an example, where they think about making the car go faster. The whole organisation is focussed on it, not just the driver, not just the team principal. If you go to the operational centre, you know every sensor they add on the car adds weight, but a little bit of weight slows the car down and so everyone's involved in the conversation about how do we go faster, how do we go faster. It's everyone's job.

Oli Carpenter (Host)

What sort of skills are people really going to have to be focussed on over the next five years? If, you know, when we look at the culture of the organisation and the pace of change and that digital transformation piece, culturally, what skills are we going to have to look at for people to keep pace with that?

Mike Manby (Guest)

So the good news in all of this, the skills that we have today across all of our enterprises are still going to be required to some extent. They're not going to go away. They will evolve. So I don't think we need to worry that lots of things are just going to disappear. But there are some things, and I’ve got two teenage kids, and this is often a debate in our household around, “hey guys, what about this? Have you thought about that?” And, “Dad, you know, did you really did you really bring your work stuff home?” Like, yeah, but you know, what are the kind of things you should be thinking about? You know, I talk about curiosity, would be one, I think storytelling is another because as we embrace with this technology and you talk about the literacy piece, when I prompt, I have to ask a specific question, and then I have to learn to ask it differently if it's not giving me the right answer and so therefore, there's a little bit of the sort of problem solving that almost the engineering mindset. It's the decision trees. But then like we can get to an answer, but then how do we describe that answer? How do we sell that answer to our teams, to our people, to our customers? So I think that storytelling is going to be key. You know, when we were doing some research last year about the role of a prompt engineer and then a prompt librarian, I was like, “woah, this is super cool. What's a librarian?” “Oh, well, they store all these cool prompts.” Because if we're going to think about future readiness, we don't want to have to solve the same problem over and over again, like how do we go to the library, get this thing out? And then... So I think those types of skill sets. So I think the ability to communicate has never been more important than it is today.

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

I love that point about prompting, though, too. I've come to refer to, you know, we talk about upskilling and reskilling. I've come to talk about prompt skilling as the minimum viable skilling. I think that skill, that skill set is, to your point, what you're trying to do is articulate the problem well, right? But you're also doing it in a way that trains you to better communicate with other people as well. It's the same skill of delegation, and I think it's an awfully handy sort of two for one skill to be better able to articulate what it is you're trying to do, what the quality conditions of it are, what are the sort of success factors that will make it good? Those kinds of things are really, really important to be able to do no matter what. And it's just kind of handy that all of the current generation and probably next generation of AI tools are prompt driven, so we might as well learn it well.

Mike Manby (Guest)

So what I love about all of this... That I'm excited about this is, the inclusivity of this technology. I'll go back to 5:00 at night. Mostly everyone has access to it and they do it. They are prompting, they are engaging. They are solving problems in their human life. And therefore I'm excited about, just the inclusivity of this, because I think when we bring it and we do it at scale in our organisations, everyone will benefit from it. Where in the past some of these technology programmes, it might be for the planner or the FPNA analysts or the auditor. I think all of this is becoming so interconnected across these processes that inclusivity on this technology for me is quite exciting. And we've proven it after 5:00, haven't we?

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

Yeah. Exactly.

Annie Wong (Host)

This has been a really fascinating conversation. I feel like we could talk for hours more, especially around not just some of the barriers and what's been a blocker so far, but feeling like optimistic and excited about the opportunities in the future as well. It's just great. As we wrap up, we like to end on practical advice for our listeners. So if you could give one piece of practical advice for consideration for CIOs, leaders, etc., when they're thinking about designing and implementing transformation programmes, what's one thing that they should be thinking about or considering?

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

Well, I think I'll lean back on prompt skilling. I think that that approach is going to be, to your point, very equitable, something that everyone could stand to learn. The other thing about it is we know that, going back to also the prompt librarian idea, we know that with every model that gets released with every LLM or agentic tool, you know these the responses differ ever so slightly. And so, you know, there is this kind of literacy that needs to come that says, you know, well, it used to work this way. And now we know that with this upgrade, it doesn't work the same way anymore. So I think there's just a basic familiarity with how these tools work, what you can sort of expect from them. I did a TEDx talk a couple of months ago called, ‘We cannot leave meaning up to machines.’ And this... The idea that we bring purpose and meaning back into the process is a really important one too. So being very sort of present with the prompting that we do and the tools that we use, I think is a really, really important human skill to bring to every transformation project.

Mike Manby (Guest)

My one bit of advice, when I look at all of the data in my experience, would be right up front, put your people into the heart of the transformation and the outcomes. Get them to really buy in and understand the impact that it's going to have on them, how it's going to transform their lives, not just the organisations. Because once you do that, you connect the head and heart and that culture and that, you know, opportunity can just... can accelerate. So I'd say put people at the heart of it, because most programmes fail when they are not at the centre of it.

Oli Carpenter (Host)

Brilliant. And finally, we like to bring it back to our big question, of course, to round off the episode. So, Kate, are people the superpower that drives transformation?

Kate O’Neill (Guest)

Yeah, I think it's 100% that case. And to your point about optimism, the philosophy I subscribe to is strategic optimism. I think you have to be able to name and sort of list and articulate the harms and risks that come with some of these technologies and what that most likely means for people. At the same time, I think we have to be able to articulate our hopes and what it is we're trying to build. And when people can sense that sort of both sides are accounted for, they will lean in and they'll be part of that process. So I think strategic optimism and really leaning into your people will take you pretty far.

Mike Manby (Guest)

We created this technology. Humans created it. And there will always be a need for us to be at the front and centre of that creativity, the adoption of it and the evolution of it. And so I would say, and would love to believe that humans will always be in charge. The reality is we have to learn to coexist with this incredible technology. We’re really used to it in our, you know, evening, personal lives. And we've got to get more comfortable, but we've also got to understand it comes with those risks. And really being responsible around that technology is also going to be, I think, the other side of this coin, which I know we haven't covered much on it today, but that's critical too.

Oli Carpenter (Host)

That's a great note to end on. So, Kate, Mike, thank you so much for joining us in The Green Room.

Guests (together)

Thank you

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Oli Carpenter (Host)

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Green Room by Deloitte. We release a new episode every other Tuesday with another big question. So don't forget to hit follow or subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening or watching - and make sure your notifications are on, so that way you'll be alerted whenever a new episode drops. This podcast is produced by our very own Pod Squad. Original music by Ali Barrett.

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