The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:05 - 00:00:32:02
Kevin Eikenberry
The world is different, the workplace is different. So it holds that work must be different. Yet as we all work and live through these differences, we need to see a bigger picture to help us get better results. Today we're talking about truths and principles that will help us see that bigger picture step back and they will help us work different and win bigger.

00:00:32:04 - 00:00:52:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger difference for their teams, organizations and the world. If you're listening to this podcast, you could join us in the future for live episodes and get the information sooner. We'd love to have you do that.

00:00:52:12 - 00:01:12:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And if you want to know when they're happening and where to join us, you can go to our Facebook and join our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. And here's how you can find those. You can just go to remarkable podcast dot com slash Facebook or remarkable podcast dot com slash LinkedIn to get in on all the fun and join us live in the future.

00:01:12:15 - 00:01:37:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Hope you'll do that. Today's episode is brought to you by our remarkable masterclasses pick from 13 important life and leadership skills to help you become more effective, productive and confident while overcoming some of the leader's toughest challenges. Learn more and sign up at Remarkable Masterclass dot com. And with that, I'm going to bring in our guest if I can get my screens moved around here.

00:01:37:16 - 00:02:12:18
Kevin Eikenberry
His name is Ilya Banach. He is our guest. Let me introduce him and then we will dive in. Ilya Bionic is an Aussie native who is based in New York. He brings a global executives view to his work as Mercer's head of strategy. He worked with the leadership team to secure Mercer's business continuity response to the pandemic. He is similarly focused on Mercer's business evolution as we adopt various generative A.I. tools to augment our own workforce, enhance our business competitiveness, and continue to make an ever increasing positive impact for clients.

00:02:12:20 - 00:02:29:22
Kevin Eikenberry
He told me a few minutes ago he's been at Mercer for 30 excuse me, 26 years, and he is the coauthor with two of his colleagues of the new book Work Differently. Ten Truths for Winning the People Age. Welcome. I'm glad you're here.

00:02:30:00 - 00:02:37:20
Ilya Bonic
Thank you, Kevin. What a fabulous introduction and what I like most about it was how you said Aussie. Well.

00:02:37:22 - 00:02:40:02
Kevin Eikenberry
I don't know if I Did I say it right? I don't know.

00:02:40:04 - 00:02:41:19
Ilya Bonic
I would say all.

00:02:41:21 - 00:02:50:12
Kevin Eikenberry
you see? There you go. We're already off on a bad start yelling at me if you're on the.

00:02:50:14 - 00:02:51:04
Ilya Bonic
With.

00:02:51:06 - 00:03:12:01
Kevin Eikenberry
The good so that we've I've shared the bio. Right. We sort of generally know that you've been at Mercer a long time working in the organization, work with clients, and yet that's really only part of the story. And so as I know that, you know, because you've listened to other episodes, I often ask this question like, tell us about your journey.

00:03:12:06 - 00:03:26:14
Kevin Eikenberry
And I guess really what I'm saying is sort of how do you end up doing this kind of work? Because when you were ten, you weren't thinking you'd be doing this. You didn't know this kind of work even existed. Right. So like, how do you sort of end up where you're at?

00:03:26:16 - 00:03:54:07
Ilya Bonic
I had ten I didn't know. I did not know what to do. This my my dad was a steel fabricator. He ran his own business. And we never really misbehaved as a as a teenager, he used to take me to work with him and have me clean steel just to discourage me from from following his footsteps. I studied psychology in university or college, as he called it here, and I wanted to do drug and alcohol counseling.

00:03:54:09 - 00:04:16:04
Ilya Bonic
I did an internship, then quickly worked out. It was super interesting work. But why are the same people coming back week after week after week and they don't seem to be any better? And so very quickly, I worked out I like this work. I could see the impact that I'm I could have, but I think I'd be burnt out after a couple of years of not seeing as much progress that I like.

00:04:16:06 - 00:04:47:06
Ilya Bonic
So I shifted my study to organizational psych and then moved into a career there in a space that was in Australia. We see remuneration, consulting. Yep. I didn't even know how to pronounce the word. I walked out to my first interview and I said, I'm here for the renumeration consultants interview. Anyway, I got there, joined the small business, became a partner very quickly.

00:04:47:08 - 00:05:03:05
Ilya Bonic
I have a kind of creative bias to my work. That business is acquired by both the members, has given me terrific opportunities to work in Australia, in Asia, in Europe, and now here and here in the US. It's just been an incredible ride. Awesome. Yeah.

00:05:03:06 - 00:05:15:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Glad that you're here. And the book is called Work Different, so I thought we'd start there. What do you mean by work? Different?

00:05:15:02 - 00:05:43:02
Ilya Bonic
Yeah, I could say a typical boring response to that and say something like would have works changed forever. People issues are more complicated. Businesses can't succeed without people. And that's all. That's all true. Yeah, but what took us down the path of of writing this book was the experience we had with our clients, but also with this consultants running around own business.

00:05:43:04 - 00:06:01:10
Ilya Bonic
I'm one of the executives at Mercer and the same kind of people pressures that everyone has experienced over the last few years. I mean, I've been dealing with on a day to day basis, but maybe I'll just share a story to give you an insight into some of the things that we've been seeing and the starts of an airport.

00:06:01:11 - 00:06:04:20
Ilya Bonic
And have you ever been delayed at an airport?

00:06:04:22 - 00:06:09:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, if you've flown more than three times in your life, you have been delayed. Yes, I have been delayed.

00:06:09:19 - 00:06:15:06
Ilya Bonic
If you ever overheard a conversation that you shouldn't have when you're waiting at an airport.

00:06:15:08 - 00:06:19:11
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm sure that I have I'm not thinking of anything in the moment. But yes, I'm confident that I have.

00:06:19:13 - 00:06:45:06
Ilya Bonic
So he's his runway. Kyle and I, my colleagues who write the book or to the airport, taking a flight together, flight's delayed. And we're here, which had to be a very senior executive, super frustrated on the phone to one of their one of their colleagues. And the conversation goes something like this right here they are because we could hear it, but we couldn't help but listen, because it's in our space.

00:06:45:09 - 00:07:11:07
Ilya Bonic
It's like so it was just this frustration, like we're losing all of this talent. It's like we bring the best people into our business. We train them up. That's what attracts people to our business. That's what they like. But then two or three years later, they offer to our biggest competitors. And at this stage, at this stage, the executive names these companies as well.

00:07:11:07 - 00:07:32:12
Ilya Bonic
Again, a little too loudly. They go into it in a bit more detail. They go kind of get it. It's like we bring them in on this with this promise of training and development on this client base salary. But the benefits are terrible or average. We don't give them any incentive pay, we don't give them any long term incentive.

00:07:32:14 - 00:07:56:00
Ilya Bonic
We got rid of the retirement plans years ago. There's nothing really to keep them. So 2 to 3 years in, we've got some of the best talent in the industry. We've trained them and they leap and they go into bigger jobs, higher paid with all of the things that that we see. And the thing that really caught our attention was like they said, I don't blame them for leaving.

00:07:56:02 - 00:08:14:02
Ilya Bonic
I totally get it. What really frustrates me is the people that don't go, the people that stay behind, either they're not confident enough to pursue that other opportunity or they're not good enough to get that other opportunity right.

00:08:14:07 - 00:08:16:12
Kevin Eikenberry
The market's not not saying they're ready.

00:08:16:13 - 00:08:38:14
Ilya Bonic
Right. Snap. So how are we going to win if we don't have the best talent in the business and right. That was I know this has always been an issue, but in that period from 2022 to now, it's just been been magnified. And the way organizations look at this, the way employees look at this, the mindset, the way competitors look at it, it's all changed.

00:08:38:16 - 00:08:39:22
Kevin Eikenberry
It's all that.

00:08:39:22 - 00:08:57:01
Ilya Bonic
Kind of scenario that's prompted this kind of looking for these issues in a bit more detail and start to think about work must have changed. It has changed. Here are some different ways that we can think about work as we go forward to be able to make better decisions.

00:08:57:02 - 00:09:20:22
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, in my work, much like yours, and also in doing this podcast, I clearly read a lot. And and so, you know, most of us would say, well, we've lived through or in our history, there is the industrial age, and most have said, well then we had the information age. Yeah, and in the last year I've read a whole bunch of people with different next ages, right?

00:09:21:03 - 00:09:50:01
Kevin Eikenberry
I've heard the wisdom age, I've heard the context age. You guys call it the people age. And I want to talk about that in a second. But the reason that I preface it with all of that is that it's all about the same point that you've just made is that there is so much too much tumult and there's so much going on and there's so much uncertainty and there's so much complexity that we're all trying to to lift our eyes up enough to say, well, yeah, it's really changed.

00:09:50:01 - 00:10:01:13
Kevin Eikenberry
And it's not just the individual things that have changed, but the whole paradigm has changed. You guys call it the people age. Why the people age?

00:10:01:15 - 00:10:27:20
Ilya Bonic
We call it the people age because I think we discovered through COVID in particular that work just can't get done without the people. Be it before we went digital, we went digital and we couldn't come to the office. We had to rely on our people to do the work without missing a lot of guidance. In fact, I think the guidance was often coming from the people to the to the managers in.

00:10:27:20 - 00:10:30:08
Kevin Eikenberry
The best organizations. It definitely was.

00:10:30:10 - 00:10:47:19
Ilya Bonic
And then now with the emergence of I mean, you could argue and say, hey, this is the age of air, but it's not going to work. It's not going to have an impact unless the people are making decisions using that technology and applying it for productive ends to get whatever outcomes required. And so that's why we're calling it the people ages.

00:10:47:19 - 00:11:09:15
Ilya Bonic
I think there's been a greater realization that the heart of success in business is the people. And also if we are going to be successful through our people, we need to get the balance right because their expectations of what they want from work, what they want for their careers, that's changed as well.

00:11:09:17 - 00:11:32:18
Kevin Eikenberry
It's changed because they've seen a picture of possible cases and their deal and they're dealing and struggling with all of this change as well. On a personal and individual level as well as in as an organizational and and career level. So you mentioned I will get there, I think, probably before we're done a little bit. But the book is really organized around these what you call the ten truths.

00:11:32:18 - 00:12:01:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And I don't want us to just sort of list off the ten person everybody. You need to go by the book. Then you can get all ten. So we're going to I'm going to pick a couple. We're going to talk about a couple of them along the way. But before we do that, I want to say one more thing about this idea of the people that everything that you just said is sort of profoundly true, and yet all of those things that you just said about the people, except perhaps the last thing about expectations has always been true, Right?

00:12:01:08 - 00:12:11:18
Kevin Eikenberry
So why are we or why is it so important that we finally actually act on those profound truths?

00:12:11:20 - 00:12:35:10
Ilya Bonic
Yeah, You know, before coming on, I mentioned to you that I downloaded listen to some of your books, right? And the one year right before COVID was about being a long distance manager. And in your 2023 book about leading teams, I think you made a comment along the lines of COVID didn't make this happen. It just accelerated things.

00:12:35:12 - 00:12:37:07
Kevin Eikenberry
You guys said the same thing in your book.

00:12:37:11 - 00:13:05:20
Ilya Bonic
I think we're on the same page here is like these truths, I guess they're always there. They're just magnified through clothing and they become so much more important now. And to your other point is like once you've seen the other side, there's this there's no going back. So there's no choice but to deal with. I mean, take like, like the conversation that seems to be going on forever is flexible working and return to office.

00:13:05:22 - 00:13:24:03
Ilya Bonic
I mean, there's no five day week anymore. And if we've compromised on 2 to 3 days, that's still a lot different than we were before. And we cannot go back. And in fact, there were so many organizations, and I think the banks in particular during, you know, just after like, yes, we're going to get everyone back. Yes, we're going to do this.

00:13:24:05 - 00:13:44:23
Ilya Bonic
But they'd always backtrack because whenever the employees or people are, we call them contributors in this book have more power or more say, you couldn't do what the talent didn't really want to do. You had to follow this discipline, the laws of supply and demand. You can't go against the grain that way.

00:13:45:04 - 00:14:14:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, you said something that we've been talking about internally, and Wayne, my coauthor in The Long Distance Leader and the long distance team and long as a teammate, all those have been talking about and that word that uses compromise that I think that many organizations, leaders and contributors all feel like they're compromising. And so we're we may end up at something in a year or two that doesn't look that different from where many organizations are now.

00:14:15:01 - 00:14:27:12
Kevin Eikenberry
But hopefully it's going to feel different because as long as everybody feels like they're compromising, there's not there's going to continue to be this unrest. I want to react to that thoughts and comments about that.

00:14:27:14 - 00:14:35:04
Ilya Bonic
Maybe with my business leader hat on is compromise does not lead to outstanding performance. Right?

00:14:35:08 - 00:14:37:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. But isn't that how a lot of people can be.

00:14:37:19 - 00:15:00:07
Ilya Bonic
Trusted leads the ordinary. And so there's another thing about the book is like, yes, there's these ten truths. I'm glad we're not going through each of them, because the way I like to think of it is have it as a reference to your side and you come across on the issue. You just flick through. Is there a chapter that might inform something different or if you've got an issue, for example, like that airport scene that we shared, use it to diagnose the issue in a different way.

00:15:00:09 - 00:15:23:02
Ilya Bonic
And then and then maybe, maybe, maybe respond and then it's the same thing with this is compromise. All right, work with it. Understand the issue. But at some stage, an organization needs to make a decision around the direction it's going to go, the values it's going to have, what its strategy is going to be. And the government just needs to be more informed to make the right to make the right decision.

00:15:23:02 - 00:15:45:17
Kevin Eikenberry
But I'm probably it needs to be more holistic. Yeah, many have. You know, we said early and during and post-pandemic, we said stop writing policy and start doing pilots or try and stuff, right? Pilot. Not pilot, not policy. And I think that many organizations really still need to be thinking that way. And if they will, they'll be doing some of the things that you're talking about in this book.

00:15:45:17 - 00:16:05:08
Kevin Eikenberry
There's nothing that you said earlier you were talking about as as as contributors. And again, one of the truths everybody and Julia mentioned, it is this idea of we're not employees, we're contributors now and thinking about it differently. But as contributors have seen a different way of working and have seen even a different way of are there leaders leading that?

00:16:05:08 - 00:16:21:22
Kevin Eikenberry
It's hard to go back. And I think one of those areas, it's actually one of the truths about empathy, the idea that I believe that one of the good things that came from the pandemic is that many, many leaders figured out that they needed to lean into empathy, and many did.

00:16:22:00 - 00:16:22:23
Ilya Bonic
Yes, right.

00:16:23:01 - 00:16:45:08
Kevin Eikenberry
The challenge now is it's not like a switch we should be flipping off, but rather a skill set and a habit set and a mindset that we continue. You want to comment? I mean, I really wasn't planning for us to talk about that truth, but since you showed up, you want to say anything I like? I don't have a lower third to put up about empathy and accountability.

00:16:45:12 - 00:16:48:16
Kevin Eikenberry
But do you want to say anything about that is right.

00:16:48:17 - 00:17:15:15
Ilya Bonic
If we if we went into the the the COVID crisis as employees, you know, the moment the world stopped turning, we went digital to continue work. Leadership lost control of the business. Right. How do you control a remote workforce that you've never had remote before? Some have worked and it didn't work because we had brilliant leaders are still the same leaders going into that crisis as the one before.

00:17:15:17 - 00:17:58:03
Ilya Bonic
But I get work because there was a common purpose, which was essentially for all of us to survive. And behind that common purpose, I think the majority, the links in to work in a different, more constructive way than before would create a tolerance for error and to be able to work out new ways of operating, new ways of working ways that hadn't been hadn't been done before, and that the whole situation demanded more empathy on all sides.

00:17:58:03 - 00:18:23:20
Ilya Bonic
And of course, it helps that it's a health crisis, not necessarily an economic crisis, but the people just by nature of focus and I'm interested in how others are gave that opportunity for this characteristic to come to the fore. I don't think it's ever been more valuable. It doesn't also it doesn't look good on the leadership development consultant, but it doesn't come naturally to all leaders as well.

00:18:23:21 - 00:18:24:15
Ilya Bonic
And it's full.

00:18:24:17 - 00:18:49:01
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's why everyone is here listening to us, right? I mean, we are you and I are talking, whether it's live or later, to people who care about this enough to invest their time to listen. Right. So, yeah, yeah, that's for sure. One of the truths that I think I want you to talk about again from the perspective of we might always have said, Well, skills matter.

00:18:49:03 - 00:19:03:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. So one of the truths is skills are the real currency of work. So I guess what I'll say is like, how is this different now than it used to be? Like, Tell us what this means. Put the put the put the the lens of the future on this point for us.

00:19:03:11 - 00:19:29:15
Ilya Bonic
So let me share 2 to 2 stories. First, to set the scene and then we can. The first one is in the book, we talk about the time when pretty much everyone was out of work or you had a lot of furloughs and you had this situation or dichotomy in the economy, right? One where there are organizations struggling to find talent to do the work.

00:19:29:15 - 00:20:00:16
Ilya Bonic
And I'd be like, stop shell stock bottle shops, the liquor, whatever. And then you had a bunch of other employers hospitality and transport and just had no work at all. Somehow your colleagues in the executive suite across different competitors and in particular found a way to cooperate and start to move talent en masse from areas of low demand in economy to high demand.

00:20:00:18 - 00:20:30:22
Ilya Bonic
We would not necessarily move the workers from Marriott overnight to work at Walmart, but we did in this time of need and I think it started to open up people's eyes as to what the possibilities of what the transferability of skills and knowledge actually were. An example for Mercer is a professional services firm, particularly in the line of business that I'm responsible for, for that first three or four months of COVID.

00:20:31:03 - 00:20:34:14
Ilya Bonic
Yeah, business tanked. I can't think of one.

00:20:34:14 - 00:20:40:11
Kevin Eikenberry
I guess that's about the best word to use. I know exactly how you feel.

00:20:40:13 - 00:21:01:14
Ilya Bonic
But another part of our business is focused on health. And so we had other parts of our business that actually had high demand in this situation. So picture like one one third of nurse with very little to do and two thirds of nursing with a lot to do in Canada. I remember this example because it speaks to me both.

00:21:01:19 - 00:21:28:15
Ilya Bonic
I'm happy about it and sad about it. In Canada, our investment business, which was helping, helps pension funds manage to get the returns for their employees for the long run. Because of the volatility in the markets, more work than we knew what to do with. Instead of hiring from the outside, we transferred people from my business, the career business, the human capital consulting business into our investment business.

00:21:28:17 - 00:21:59:21
Ilya Bonic
It never would have been done before, right? It's been considered no, exactly. An investment. Colleagues could could not believe how talented and how capable these people from another line of business were. And these people from the other line of business had never thought about it. Career investments before. I was super excited and when demand picked back up and you've seen this as well, it's like we had this shallow, we had this deep, deep.

00:21:59:21 - 00:22:35:01
Ilya Bonic
But then demand for our services have never been so they didn't want to come back. Yeah, so we had to hide from the outside while our investment business was all good. And so I think the so it's a it's a, it's a, it's a long way to start to answer this question. But one of the things about combing in crisis is opened up our eyes as to how much we had existing bias and stereotypes about people skills and what kind of work they could do as we move forward.

00:22:35:01 - 00:23:15:08
Ilya Bonic
And another thing that happening in kind of it is you saw unemployment dropped to record low levels, greatest level of job vacancies in US history, and not for one month or two, but literally for two years. So there's not enough people to do the work. And so organization and so not only that, but the cost of buying talent into an organization also skyrocketed to see even if you could find the talent, you couldn't actually afford to get the talent, which means that you need to turn internally to your build strategy and at the same time and so probably carrying on, maybe moving too fast, you got an emergence of a bunch of technologies that allow

00:23:15:08 - 00:23:45:14
Ilya Bonic
you to artificial intelligence to identify or approximate someone's skills and capability profile based on experience. You can do the same with jobs, so you can start to get more granular with the well, think about jobs and all of a sudden you have a possibility to unlock or remove the friction in career movement. When you start to think about skills and you can get much greater outcomes and productivity and high levels of satisfaction among employees by increasing mobility.

00:23:45:16 - 00:23:51:20
Ilya Bonic
Even you think with a skills lens or what will say a skills based globalization.

00:23:51:22 - 00:24:25:15
Kevin Eikenberry
So you hinted at and I want to go there just for a second, the that the last truth that I want us to talk about is one that gets into the idea of I you just hinted at it. I mentioned it in your in in the opening. And the truth in the book is intelligence is being amplified. And I'm confident, having read the book and I'm talking with Ilya Bartok, one of the coauthors of work Different Ten Truths for Winning the People Age In the People Age, I'm confident you and I can have a long conversation longer than this podcast.

00:24:25:17 - 00:24:41:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Just about. Yeah, I that's not really my point here, but I do want you to share this idea of intelligence being amplified to help people get past some of the worry excuse me, in anxiety.

00:24:41:21 - 00:25:08:20
Ilya Bonic
Yeah. Yeah. So you can see that there's a play on AI there. So intelligence and amplified. We have a view as many as the many others is that the combination of human plus the generative AI or the artificial intelligence that will come in the past will lead to a better outcome than either is seen as stand alone. So this is this is what we talk about in the book.

00:25:08:23 - 00:25:17:22
Ilya Bonic
We also talk about the fact that some will view I as a friend, others as a foe. If you just.

00:25:17:22 - 00:25:39:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Like everybody, I'd say just like people have viewed every big technological change. Yeah, we could go back and say that not just about the ones in our lifetime. We could say that about television. We could say that about railroads. Like we could keep going back and saying, Is it friend or is it foe? There is fear and there's opportunity.

00:25:39:11 - 00:25:41:11
Kevin Eikenberry
You're seeing it again in real time.

00:25:41:13 - 00:26:16:20
Ilya Bonic
Yeah. Yeah. And so here's one of the one of the reasons that I like doing what I do. I think there's never been as important a time for leaders, for the organization to step up and be proactive in addressing both the opportunity and the challenges that will come with AI, I think with our own employees is we need and encourage everyone to use AI every day, because if we fall behind in use of this technology, someone else is going to get it get ahead.

00:26:16:20 - 00:26:25:23
Ilya Bonic
The skills that I need for my career to be sustainable in the future, they're going to fade and I'm going to be left behind.

00:26:26:01 - 00:26:28:03
Kevin Eikenberry
That is a combination of irritations.

00:26:28:04 - 00:26:28:17
Ilya Bonic
Quite a.

00:26:28:17 - 00:26:37:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Mystery. Exactly the conversation yesterday, I think, you know. So please go ahead.

00:26:37:10 - 00:26:39:10
Ilya Bonic
You go.

00:26:39:12 - 00:27:13:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Now, you hinted at H.R. and you talk about this in the book. And I'm curious sort of what you see. You know, the role of H.R. was different and elevated for most during the pandemic, but now we are post-pandemic. And so what do you see as so if if you've written a book about the people age, if you're positing that we're we're living in and working at a people age, then how do you see the role of H.R. or as senior leaders or executives that might be listening or h.r.

00:27:13:16 - 00:27:21:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Professionals that might be listening? What advice do you have for that for them as they think about the role of H.R. now and in the future?

00:27:21:15 - 00:27:45:23
Ilya Bonic
You know, and I would say that it's really important to keep a focus on ensuring that the skills of the workforce are going to keep pace with developments in work so that we can do our best to keep the careers of our colleagues sustainable. There's not enough people to do the work today. That alone will be required in the future.

00:27:45:23 - 00:28:04:12
Ilya Bonic
So that's an important responsibility. The other is I think it's really important to have a business lens on everything you do, and that means balance. So one of the things about the book is it's easy to go through and say, Hey, these truths, yes, they might be obvious. It's a nice way to talk about them. And is the thesis that if you follow all the truth, he'll be in a good place?

00:28:04:14 - 00:28:41:00
Ilya Bonic
Not necessarily because it needs to be a business lens. We also talk about the sustainability, right? You can't deliver on the people agenda and opportunity and delivering on the business outcomes. So you can't deliver on the business outcomes unless you're delivering on the people place. And for me personally, if I was in the organization, I would dive deep into AI and do anything I could to ensure that my organization and my people are getting access to not only the best tools, but also that I'm building a culture of AI.

00:28:41:02 - 00:29:10:10
Ilya Bonic
And by that I mean on one hand you've got access to tools, but the tools won't give anything unless they're being used. So how do I maximize the adoption of the tools that I make available to colleagues? The theory is that there'll be a 5 to 20% increase in productivity for anyone who's using generative AI. And then there's a whole, you know, leapfrogging you can do if you want to be disruptive in your application of AI.

00:29:10:12 - 00:29:43:12
Ilya Bonic
But think about that 5 to 20%. If my workforce falls behind and doesn't use those tools, my organization becomes 5 to 20% less competitive. Yep, I very quickly start to decline relative to the competitors who are moving in this direction. And they will. So there's no time to be to be wasted. So I would just really, really encourage to jump on the AI agenda and get proactive to ensure that our workforce is sustainable for the future.

00:29:43:14 - 00:30:03:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I love that. And I think the only thing that I would add to that is it's we have to get people have access to tools and using tools, encourage use of tools and all of that. And then I think we have to help them think about it more than just, I can do it to do this thing today, but help them think about that leap.

00:30:03:18 - 00:30:19:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Maybe not the full Libra leapfrog of a strategic in the organization, but like starting to think about, okay, like, how could I? How could we really fundamental shift the work in a way that serves the business and me as an individual as well?

00:30:19:20 - 00:30:46:16
Ilya Bonic
Right? Right. And there's a cultural shift for organizations. What we found is when employees talk about AI and and their views on it, actually the majority are open to using the technology. They're not so scared. But one common question is, if I use this and increase productivity, who gets the productivity gain? What happens with that extra time? And I think what we should be doing is just sharing the gain.

00:30:46:18 - 00:31:01:17
Ilya Bonic
Part of it goes to the organization. Part of it should go back into a reinvestment in skills development or creating the time for people to be curious, to experiment, to do more than they could before. And we'll all end up in a better spot right?

00:31:01:19 - 00:31:28:01
Kevin Eikenberry
That is absolutely. I think we're where part of the Leapfrog becomes is if if if I as an individual have now figured out how to do my work 10% faster, if you think about it that way, then it's like, how do we think about how do we now maximize results, not just not just systematize and and and, and speed up the execution of but how do we start to maximize augment is that word that you guys used earlier.

00:31:28:01 - 00:31:42:01
Kevin Eikenberry
So we need to move on. And I've got a couple more things I like to always ask our guests. I'm going to shift gears on you and I'm going to ask you what you do for fun. What do you do for fun?

00:31:42:03 - 00:32:05:14
Ilya Bonic
What I do for fun. I like to play tennis. I'm struggling a little because I have sciatica from all the travel I've been doing this year. And I have I'm married. I have a daughter who's 20, son who's 16, going on 17. So I like to hang out with them as much as I can. They are both away from from home.

00:32:05:16 - 00:32:12:10
Ilya Bonic
It's Christmas. They've come home. So I'm looking forward to spending good time with good time with family.

00:32:12:12 - 00:32:27:08
Kevin Eikenberry
I am right with you on that. And so I don't have to ask you the tennis or pickleball question. You're in the tennis camp, correct? Yeah. Okay. So what is it? And you knew I was going to ask you this. Like, what are you reading?

00:32:27:10 - 00:32:56:18
Ilya Bonic
Yeah. So there's two books. One leads to the other and your theme of have I or intelligence amplified prompts this. I'm reading a book called I Human by Thomas Tomorrow premiers. It's and Kevin just like you. He wrote this book before he was exposed to the world in November. You wrote your book about long distance management before. Perfect timing.

00:32:56:18 - 00:33:22:06
Ilya Bonic
No, he's a psychology is to the take. He looks at everything through a psychological lens. So the thesis of the book is that I has the potential to change lives, even for the better or the worse. It's got the potential to amplify the worst parts of humans, you know, like selfishness, distraction, massive season predictability, impatience and the like.

00:33:22:08 - 00:33:43:19
Ilya Bonic
But then there's the other side of me curiosity, adaptability, empathy, humility that we need to to balance. And that reflects my interest in A.I. as much as they are for the purpose of building business and careers and the like. How do you get it right? It's a super complicated one. And that took me to another book. So it is this name I human.

00:33:43:19 - 00:34:16:19
Ilya Bonic
It sounds familiar. iRobot Isaac Asimov written in the 1950s I downloaded to listen to. It's an incredible book. First Asimov book I've ever read. It's got incredible insights about man and machine and the complications that go with it, and so many lessons to be learned as we go into. I guess this next iteration of work in the next iteration of life with artificial intelligence being a key component of it.

00:34:16:20 - 00:34:46:08
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, I love that I have not read it, but I bet I will now. And here's why. Because I think that so often people want to find it. And both of us as authors love it when people want to find the newest book. And oftentimes, if we go back 30 years, 40 years, 50 or 60 years, we will get insights that are every bit that will still ring true and may help us see things in a way that we haven't thought of or in the moment we're not seeing or able to see.

00:34:46:08 - 00:35:05:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Even the even the wisest authors of today might not quite see. So I love that I Human and iRobot are the books. We'll have those in the show notes for you. Everybody, here's the question that you most want me to ask, however, though, is where can people learn more about what you're doing? Where can they find you? Where can they get the book?

00:35:05:08 - 00:35:14:03
Kevin Eikenberry
I'll hold it up while you talk about it again. Work Different entries for winning in the People age. Where do you want to point people? What do they need to know?

00:35:14:04 - 00:35:19:21
Ilya Bonic
Wherever you buy your favorite business books and the Satcom.

00:35:19:23 - 00:35:46:01
Kevin Eikenberry
And Mercer dot com, that's for sure. So I appreciate that. Before we go, everybody, I have a question for all of you. It's the question of application. And so we spent the last 30 plus minutes talking some ideas about work differently, about the people age, about how we need to adapt and adjust as leaders and as organizations to be more effective.

00:35:46:03 - 00:36:05:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And so the real the only real question that matters here is now what what will you do as a result of what you've learned? Whatever items that you took from this, And rather than sharing what mine are and I've got notes that I wrote as we were chatting, the question is, what are you going to do with what you learned?

00:36:05:08 - 00:36:25:08
Kevin Eikenberry
There's something that you heard that leads you to a next step. If you just let that go past, like when this podcast ends, then you won't have gotten nearly as much from this. Then if you decide now to take that action, I hope that you will do that. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. It was such a pleasure to have you.

00:36:25:09 - 00:36:32:02
Kevin Eikenberry
I enjoyed the book. Please tell Kate and Kai that I appreciate their work as well. And thanks so much for being here.

00:36:32:04 - 00:36:33:15
Ilya Bonic
I will.

00:36:33:17 - 00:36:55:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And so everybody, if you are here for the first time, welcome, you need to come back. And if you've been here before, you already know that back means next week. So wherever you're listening or consuming this podcast, podcast, hope that you will like it and share it and all those things. You know what to do. And then you'll be back next week for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

00:36:55:04 - 00:36:55:20
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll see you then.