Fireside Chat: Confidence Trick - How to reclaim your value in an AI Obsessed market #107

After all, all art is experience. Hello, Gary.

Hey, welcome to your own house.

We're having a real fireside chat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks like an AI background, but it's real. It is a genuine cozy fireside chat. It's relevant to mention AI because it's sort of what we're going to be talking about today. And You know, it's one of those things that if you open up the news at the moment, you can't move for stories about people being laid off, companies making massive cuts. And I think that we're here today by this cozy, cozy fireside to maybe give employees and employers a bit of, a bit of a map through this sort of fairly murky terrain and a bit of confidence, which we're going to get onto. And we have got a name for the title, but it's completely slipped my mind. So let's move past that.

I think it's going to be AI Meeting Confidence.

Yeah, I know that it was good and it was clever and it had AI and confidence. When you're looking at this episode, you'll realize how clever. Yeah. Um, but let's kick off. This is a new format for us. Um, the fireside chat.

I quite like it.

It's a bit warmer. It's a bit easier than— it is a bit warm.

And less blowy than when we were around London.

The sound should be better, but I have had to take my jumper off. Um, but let's kick off. Um, as I mentioned, at the moment, these stories are everywhere. Every time I've been opening up the news, another big company has been laying off thousands and blaming AI. Do you think that CEOs are actually seeing any sort of massive productivity booms from these cuts, or is it just a bit of a handy excuse to trim the fat?

Yeah, no, I think it's always a mixed response. But before I answer that, I must admit the whole topic, and I'm going to kind of give you a phrase, which is progress. So the world kind of moves on. Otherwise we'd be speaking in Old English. Yes. I used to work for AT&T, which was, you know, a 100-year-old company, and they used to have horses that transmitted communications.

Horses.

Horses started communicating and then obviously got taken over by technology.

So I see.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Things progress. Otherwise we'd still be communicating by horse.

Yeah.

And we, yeah. Having said that, if you go into London, the average speed is less than it was when you were on a horse and cart, but that's another story. So yeah, it's like always these things, there's a balanced view. And part of the reason for doing this podcast is to talk about that because people will be scared by change. And for some people it will be difficult in the future, but actually things always in balance are always good.

Progress is good. Yeah. Nice. I agree. Adapt and move on.

I mean, I don't want to belittle it because I think it's a revolutionary change. Yeah. But you know, what I see in the market right now is that people are struggling beyond ChatGPT to know what to do.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Can I just quickly ask you, actually diverting from my written down questions.

Please do.

When the internet first came in for me, I wasn't in the workplace, but you probably were.

Well, you're showing up.

Not that I'm suggesting anything about either of our ages. Was there a similar panic? Was there a similar sort of distrust of this new technology? Can you draw any parallels between the two?

I can actually, and I'm laughing because I remember my boss who may be listening to this, he told me to look into it. Well, I was at AT&T at the time and I said, it's petty, annoying stuff that no one's going to care about. Don't look at me as a futurist because I said, you know, it's not, and I do remember it 'cause it was really clunky when it started, you know, we're on '96 boat modems and yeah, speed was ridiculous and images were impossible. But then I slowly saw companies that everyone had a website and I've seen that happen over time.

And even our family and friends, no one can move without a bloody mobile phone. That's it.

Yeah.

It's the speed of change, isn't it?

And then that's a good question. Maybe why you're asking me, it did revolutionize the world, but we morphed and adapted rather than. It wasn't a catastrophe. It was actually a good thing. It gave us progress. Yeah. It gave us bad stuff as well, but it's given us progress.

Nice. Well, that's sort of what I thought at the time. But yeah, there was parallels to be drawn. Of these companies, we've seen people like PayPal, Coinbase, Microsoft making these pretty hefty cuts. Is this a tech sector bubble or is it sort of going to be spread more widely across the business landscape, you think?

Yeah, look, I think most companies have tech at the center. It never used to be like that. So we're talking about tech companies, but most companies that have tech, you know, you've got to find ways to be more efficient. And actually that's good for everyone because it means that people can work on more interesting things. Companies can grow. You can kind of remove admin and things that slow business down and annoy people and improve customer engagement. So I think ultimately everyone should look at ways to be more efficient for sure. Why wouldn't you? Yeah.

So whether, you know, regardless of what sector you're in.

I always throw this example in, you know, people talk about the NHS all the time, about adding people and, you know, it's understaffed and it probably is. But the truth is, if you just add people, it's not going to fix it. Yeah. So that tells you something. It's not always what having people to do things, but there's lots of situations where having people makes a difference because it makes it warmer and a better experience.

That's the balance that we're leading to. We're hoping to get to. Um, that's the path I'm leading you down.

I love it. I'm going right down it. You're giving me a roasting.

It is. And I'm talking about when a company fires its human beings. Sorry, that's, that's in bad taste. But when a company does fire its human beings and replaces them with software, what happens to the sort of customer experience 3 months down the line? I know that's a very general question and there's no one answer to that, but have you seen any examples of this happening? What would you predict might be the case?

Yeah, look, things go in cycles. You asked me about the beginning of the internet, because you think I'm old. But also I remember I used to be in outsourcing and outsourcing was really in the '90s. And, you know, that was going to be the savior, you know, outsourcing to, I don't know, wherever offshoring as it's called. But actually what happened is it just caused massive of complexity. So there's a nuance to talking about any of these things that of course you can get efficiency in some level, but you need to find a way to stay engaged with the customer. I remember seeing my wife trying to buy cinema tickets through an automated process. And I won't repeat what she said because she's normally a lady, but I don't know what happened. And she was getting more and more frustrated. And at the end it said, you've booked 2 tickets to, I don't know what it was.

Yeah.

Yeah. But it wasn't the cinema thing that she'd bought.

Yeah. I mean, the speed at which things are improving is incredible. And I'm going to stay with the management perspective.

Please do.

For a couple more questions. If I am a middle manager, right now, what's the sort of number one priority to prove my own team's value to the board?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think people are starting in the wrong place. People are starting at a company level, but the best place to start is an employee level. And if you think of AI, not as artificial intelligence, but as assisted intelligence, then that gives you a bit of a clue about how maybe you should approach it. If you can make your employees more efficient, Yeah. Then you'll help the company. I'm not saying that you shouldn't remove certain roles that, you know, in the future that doesn't make sense, but just start there. Make your employees more efficient and you'll make your company more efficient. Yeah. Assistive intelligence. That does seem to be artificial.

Yeah. That's an approach which I think a lot of people are taking on. They sort of, it's like, right, this is a way to make my team more efficient rather than a way to, you know, it's not a way to save the company loads of money by axing a bunch of guys.

It might be, but it is like the example I gave you about offshoring. It's like. I've seen so many times where you've got low-cost resource, but you've increased complexity because everyone's trying to prove themselves. Yeah. So it's not always the answer. It's not obvious.

And we've talked about this on a different podcast, but if we start automating all the entry-level data tasks, how do we then train the next generation of managers who used to learn on the job, as it were, by doing all that sort of the grunt work, basically?

Yeah, look, it's an issue. We spoke on another podcast about there's an aging population. If you're not bringing young people in, you're missing out. Because it's smart people with ideas that can give an experience and they can't learn on the job. So it's like anything you need to have balance in your life is like, there's some obvious places where either AI or automation or efficiency should take place and kind of why wouldn't you? But there's some other places where it's nuanced and actually you have to weigh up, will I damage the experience? Will I improve the service or will I actually make it worse? And as a manager, you've got to think it through. It's not obvious. But some things are, and the ones that are, you should implement straight away.

And I think what you're saying as well is, just before we switch-a-roo to the employee perspective, is not to make knee-jerk decisions, not to panic, not to sort of base any decisions you're making on these sort of headlines that we're seeing and the sort of the buzz and slight panic around AI, but to actually sort of think about it and to use it, as you say, as assistive rather than whatever it is.

Yeah, but also don't be paralyzed by it. A lot of people are paralyzed by it. So just waiting, it's going to wash over them. But yeah, also think it through. A good example is I went to a show. I won't say the name of the show, but I went to a sort of a technology show the other day and pretty much 95% of the stands had added the word AI to the end of their product or service. It's like, come on. Yeah. I appreciate you don't want to be lost by the way, but to be honest, the best thing to do is think about use cases. Where is a use case I can use AI in assisted way that helps my business improve efficiency? Or helps the customer experience, because that could also help it by being quicker. But don't just add AI to everything you do. Don't jump on the bandwagon because you've been told to do it. Think it through. Get some smart people together in a room and get them to think, bounce ideas around use cases. That's the answer, I think.

That's a really good point. And I, you see it so much, you know, such and such powered by AI where it's not, you know, it's just sort of saying that to try and make it sound clever, or it's immersive when it's also not. Yes.

So yeah, great point.

We're gonna switch gears to be more focusing on, you're an employee rather than a manager at a company, and you see this coming down the line, what are you supposed to do? And I think it's safe to say that the mood in offices is quite panicky at the moment based on some of these headlines. How can employees stay motivated if they think a robot is coming for their job or their mortgage?

Look, over the years, and I'm an old guy, right? I've been through lots of change and I've run lots of change programs. And probably the biggest thing I can tell you in change is Most people have got promoted during times of change than any other time. And so this is your chance to just take control of it. And the word I'm gonna give you, and we're gonna hopefully talk through, is confidence. Mm-hmm. And not arrogance, but confidence. Because when I look at my career or other people I've worked with, they've really done well during times of change when they've put themselves in the middle. Mm-hmm. So they're inside the tent rather than sort of being sidelined and sitting back and waiting for something to happen. Because normally these things do wait 3 weeks and it goes away. That's a completely wrong approach to this. Now's your chance to be counted. You should be in the center of this and find ways to help your company be more efficient or look at different ways that your career can develop because of it. Don't be a victim and don't be a passenger. You know, we always talk about piloting your own career. There's never been more important than now to pilot your own career.

And we've probably talked about some of these in the past, but what are some simple ways of doing that in setting yourself at the right place? And what sort of attitude should you have? You know, you mentioned with confidence but not arrogance, you know, what does that look like?

Let's start with the confidence thing, then we'll talk about the piloting bit. Because as you'll probably notice if you're watching the video, I'm wearing double denim. That shows a certain level of confidence, you know. And so your confidence needs to be double denim. Yeah. What I mean by that is, you know, I coach a lot of execs. I, I'm a career coach to lots of people, and I think the biggest issue is people worry about their jobs. And that's what we're talking about here. And when you worry about your job, you're not playing your A-game unintentionally, but you're slightly more desperate than you realize. And there's nothing worse than the whiff of desperation. People can smell the blood. But here's an example. If you got home tonight from work and you found out you won 300 grand, you know, money's not everything. I appreciate that. Would that change your approach to work? And your confidence. If you won 300 grand, George, yeah. Would that change your—

yeah, you'd suddenly feel pretty safe.

But what would change though?

Probably nothing immediately.

I mean, but I'm just thinking attitudinal. How would you react when, you know, someone's being, you know, not as nice as normal or you're worried about something at work? How would you feel?

I guess you think I don't care 'cause I've got—

let's say care, maybe care slightly less. Yeah. To put it that way. If you don't lie about it, right? Yeah. Now if I said to you, you've won 300 grand. And it's coming, that it's coming in a month, well, in 3 weeks' time is coming, right? Yeah. So for those 3 weeks, you think you would change your behavior and anyone listening, would you change your behavior? And then what happens after 3 weeks? So I said it wasn't real. Nothing's actually changed apart from what's in here. Yeah. And that's how you need to be. You know, when I work with senior people, I was, you know, not all of them are worried, but a lot of people worry about their jobs. And if I can get them in a place that They've got what I call go-to-town money. So if I give you 300 grand, it's in your bank, it's just there for a rainy day if you need it. Now, if you can intentionally build without the money, build that confidence the same as go-to-town money, then you've nailed it.

Nice. Double denim confidence. Double denim. I'm a big fan of that. Go-to-town money. And then you mentioned you might cover as well, just sort of the pilot aspect of what you can actually, you know, obviously that's the sort of attitudinal side of things and then what's the actual action?

Well, I think, you know, if you get your head around that no one else is going to sort out your career, even if you've got a lovely boss and they're really looking after it, the bottom line is that they can't and they shouldn't. You're responsible for your career. You're responsible for your future. And if you take control of it, then you're not waiting. Then, you know, how often do people sit down and plan their own futures? Who sat down and gone, AI is coming. What can I do to use that to my advantage? Mm-hmm. People don't do it. Why not book a slot in your diary and think it through? I'm not saying you have to make any decisions now, but give yourself a weekly slot where you think about your future and what you could do either in that company or another company. And then I think that will give people a chance who's got a bit of a game plan. Yeah. But then the second thing you should do is put yourself forward to help. The best thing as a manager, I got a LinkedIn message from someone that worked for me 15 years ago. He's the guy I always give examples of. Whenever I said something, he said, don't worry, Gary, I'll sort this out.

I'll get it done.

Yeah. And he did. Now people are saying that they don't get it done and it's not so good. He did it. And I always talk about him.

Mm-hmm.

And the reason that was good is that I knew that he would take care of it. So he'd say to me, look, Gary, I know you got a lot on your plate. Is there anything I can take off your plate? Something really sticky, difficult. I'm happy to do it. Maybe you can mentor me through it. That's amazing. As a manager, I'm like, of course, as long as they do it. If he asks for it and he doesn't do it, then I'm like, what an idiot. If you can do that. So put yourself forward, ask if you can help, come up with ideas. Don't worry if people don't take them forward because they don't always, right? But that now you're in control and you're raising your head a bit. So now you're on the radar, whereas before, as people are busy, you're not always on people's radar. People don't always know how good you are. So you need to politely, without showing off how good you are, you're adding value. I think that's the key.

Nice. Yeah, that's a tricky one to do as well. Sort of being confident and showing how good you are without coming across as showing off and sort of arrogant. But no, that's great advice. And actually, you can probably use AI to help you with your game plan, funnily enough.

Nice. Put it to AI. Yeah. I want to get in the middle of AI.

Yeah.

What are the 3 things I can do to add value to my boss and my company and ultimately myself in my career?

Yeah. I think it would genuinely help you. Love it. If my boss were to suddenly dump an AI tool on my desk, and tell me to start using it. How do I embrace that without feeling like I'm just training my own digital replacement?

Are you asking for a friend?

No, I'm asking myself.

I think things are moving really fast, right? So by the time you look at something, something else is out there. And I think you should keep on top of what's going on. I think the other thing is people get stuck because it's easy. Like most people started with ChatGPT, so they kind of only use that and nothing else. So I think it's worth experimenting. But get back to the use case. Do you understand what I mean by use case? Yeah. Okay. So is the actual case of use that you would have within a company, for example, is it a way of looking at all past proposals that you've done so you don't have to sort of search around your intranet to go and find them or through your SharePoint to find them, but AI can go and find them. So the use case for that, or is it a way that improves the customer experience that you, it's like a set piece where there's a, you had customer issues, like you have service management meetings, but no one can provide the ticketing reporting to see how that customer's been doing over the last month. Yeah. The use case would be, I can find a solution to that. That's a use case. Find a business value use case, whatever company you're in, whatever role you're in, and do one and start there.

Nice. Solid advice.

Trying.

Yeah, it's great.

The fire's warming up my brain.

Yeah, that's it. My double denim. I'm all there. Um, well, we've only got a few more questions. Um, just as you're starting to warm up.

Warm up.

Yeah. Nice. If I'm looking for a new job right now in May 2026, I'm not, by the way, if anyone from my company is listening. Um, what are the green flags that I should look for in an interview to know that a company values its humans and isn't just looking to automate me away?

It's a good question. Look, when my kids were going to the next schools, I would interview the school. They thought they were interviewing me, but I would interview them because I want to know that they fit what I want, how I want my kids to be. For example, academia is okay up to a point, but I want to know that there was a balance in their lives and the social stuff as well, and they take care of them as people. And I think it's the same in the company. Start off maybe writing down what are your values and what you're looking for, because that's what a company does when they're interviewing you. They've got a job description, but the attitude is probably more important than the skill. Once they've got the skill, they're looking for the fit. Yeah. But you should do the same in reverse. What is the fit of the company to you? Don't be desperate for the job. Be more interested in the fit for you against your values and your principles. Obviously it's gotta excite you, but that's what I would recommend. So a lot of people are like on the rebound, they got made redundant. Yeah. They're rushing to the next job. Never rush to the next job. You'll always find work. You've just got to kind of stop and think. You'll be better actually with a clear head. Yeah. But start as you, like when you were younger and you were at school, you decided what you wanted to be. I appreciate it might be more ambitious than it ends up being, but why don't you do that again? Have a reset, have a think about where you want your career to go and the fit of company, maybe which companies out there fit your profile. And I think George is leading me to say about the AI bit, but if part of your criteria is you want them to be inside the tent for innovation and development like AI or other things, and fine, that's part of your criteria, but I don't think it's the only thing. You shouldn't go then go, I'm worried because I know they're going to reduce headcount by half. Well, you should. That's a part of it. But then you look at the finance of that company and the growth of that business before you go and work there anyway.

Yeah. So do your research, set up your research.

Definitely. You decide first what you want, research the company. If they're a public company, you can go online and check their figures. You can go to their website, check in investor relations to see where they're going as a business. But the main thing is through your lens because you're piloting your career than through theirs.

Nice. Right. Two more questions. The penultimate one being back to the manager side of things. Do you think that managers should be being honest about this sort of AI automation? You know, because I think one big problem is communication and employees just thinking that there's this high-level stuff going on that they don't know anything about. Should there be regular check-ins and updates to sort of say, right, this is the situation, these are the new tools we're using, but you know, don't worry, you know, or do you think that sort of conversation is enough to paralyze the workforce?

Yeah, this is a great question. I have a really strong opinion about this, as you can imagine. Of course, I come from outsourcing world, right? And when you hire people, they're smart. You hire them because they're smart. So don't treat them like they're stupid. And I appreciate there'll be sensitive areas you can't share with people, but when you don't share things with people, they work out anyway. In fact, they come up with an answer that is either better or worse than the real reality. I work with two companies that They were so paralyzed by telling people because they didn't know what to tell them and they didn't want to worry them and be insensitive. They told them nothing. People were leaving in the droves. With one company I went to, this is the ridiculous part, I went to Canada and I did 60 one-on-ones and 3 team meetings to calm people down. I don't work there. Wow. And people were just worried because no one was telling them anything. And I think You know, there's something in that. Now I appreciate there's sensitive things and you are doing a reorganization, you're not gonna let it out, but bring people on the journey. You know, there's more senior people, get them inside the tent, test the temperature. But on the communication side, give a balanced scorecard because people are smart. Don't treat 'em like they're stupid. Don't gloss over the communication. Tell them why you're doing it, because everyone knows why you're gonna go through this change. And secondly, tell 'em the benefits of doing it. So the positive side. The new reality, if you like, but also balance it off about what might happen because I think people are smart if you give them the balance, but then still finish on, but it's worth the pain because we're going here. Yeah. Then you've got actually much more credibility than if you try and put a polish on things that don't need to be polished. Yeah. Sorry, I'm getting on a soapbox here.

No, no, it's good. This is what we want. Okay, last one, Gary. Passion and fire. Passion and fire. Bring the fire. A classic. It's an old chestnut. But if a listener is taking away just one action from this episode, we've talked about a lot of things that they can implement, really useful advice and good opinions and good soapboxing. But if there's one key action that they can take away to protect their career from AI, I don't think that's quite right, but to sort of put themselves in the best possible position as we move into the future with assistive intelligence, as you call it, what should that action be?

I think it has to be part of your own careers because You need to get inside the tent. Don't let this be done to you. It will run over you. Your career will run over you. Take control of it and don't have to do it arrogantly. You just have to be confident. So offer yourself to people, look at opportunities to make the company be more efficient and yourself. It doesn't mean you should stay where you are because if you feel that it's not for you, then go somewhere else. But that's up to you. But you've got to take control, have the confidence, think about the 300,000 that you've just won. What decision would you make if you had 300 grand in the bank and do that?

Nice. I remember you giving me that piece of advice a while ago and it's probably the best piece of advice you've even made.

So such a nice guy, George.

Well, that's it.

Thanks for joining us on our fireside chat. Thankfully the fire lasted. Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't get a roasting, so that was pretty cool. All good.

Oh, that's what we should have done next time.

Next time George can roast the roast. Yeah.

Thank you all for listening. Thank you, Gary.

Thank you.

And we'll see you next time.

See you next time.