Oct. 28, 2025

How to Build a Business That Runs Itself and Wins

How to Build a Business That Runs Itself and Wins
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Drawing from their upcoming book AUTONOMOUS, they lay out a compelling vision of the AI-powered enterprise—not just faster or more efficient, but truly fit to thrive in an unpredictable world. Together, they challenge leaders to question old assumptions, break through operational blockages, and design organizations that can learn, adapt, and scale at machine speed.

Beyond Confidence is broadcast live Tuesdays at 10AM ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Beyond Confidence TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).

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WEBVTT

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The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are

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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not

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those of W four WN Radio. It's employees are affiliate.

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We make no recommendations or endorsement for radio show programs, services,

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or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,

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explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN Radio.

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It's employees are affiliates. Any questions or common should be

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directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W

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four WN Radio.

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This is Beyond Confidence with your host d V park.

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Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do

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you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,

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and financial goals? Well? Coming up on dvaparks Beyond Confidence,

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you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers

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who have steps into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and

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are living the life they want. You will learn how

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relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.

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Moving your career business forward does not have to happen

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at the expense of your personal or family life or

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vice versa. Learn more at www dot divopork dot com.

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And you can connect with Diva at contact dant divapark

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dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's your host,

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div Park.

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Good morning, listeners, It's Tuesday morning and I'm so thrilled

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to be with you. So today we are going to

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be talking about something that is very close to my

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heart and close to your heart as well. It's about

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the leadership and the age of AI, which is artificial intelligence.

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And artificial intelligence has been in our lives since the

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advent of the GPS and the emails and like we

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talk about as if AA is new, it is not.

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It has been there. Think about Alexa or the first

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time that GPS came out and you left those maps behind.

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So we are going to bring in our guests today

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without further ado and jump straight into it. Welcome Henry,

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Welcome Ala.

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Thank you David. It's great to be here, Great to

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be here.

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Thank you absolutely. So here's what I want to like,

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jump straight into it. You know, so many like two

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and a half years back or maybe it was I

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think so twenty twenty. I don't remember the exactly, like

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probably somewhere around like yeah, I don't remember the exact days.

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I was just reading a few days back, like thousand

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days plus thousand plus short change some over there. People

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used to be talk like, oh, we want to be

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air first, we want to be air powered. Now we

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are gone beyond that. The stats that are coming out

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is that more and more people are using large language

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models throughout the country and throughout the world for that matter.

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So now those days are gone that you cannot toeut

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to be a powered first. So where do you think

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the company stands or an organization stands in today's twenty

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twenty five and as the more thanto twenty twenty.

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Six, do you want me to start?

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Sure?

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Well do you? First of all, I think you're well again,

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thank you for having us on your show. We really

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appreciate being here. And I think you're absolutely right you

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know you're talking about I think it was November twenty

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twenty two when chat GPT was first launched to the

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public and we were still in the midst of writing

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our first book, and our first book was called Boundless,

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and there it is in fact, and Boundless was really

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kind of about a mindset for leadership in this kind

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of new era that we find ourselves in. And I

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think it's fair to say that we were partially prepared

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but by no means fully prepared for AI, and having

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written Boundless and then it being published in October twenty three,

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we kept asking ourselves in each other there is AI

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going to render our book irrelevant? Or is it still

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going to be relevant? And we were sort of holding

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our breath for a little while. We're like, after months,

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we're like, well, thank goodness, it proves actually that it's

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still very relevant. And so this is why we went

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ahead and then started to write Autonomous because in direct

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answer to your question, generative AI is not the start,

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although it was really kind of the start of AI

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from a very public perspective. You know, we've had predictive

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AI for a long long time, and that has been used,

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you know, to one extent or another across organizations of

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all type. But we're really now going beyond predictive. We're

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going beyond generative and now we're starting to enter the

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age of agentic AI as well. And I think where

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most companies are currently is I think the individuals within

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most companies are pretty comfortable with a generative AI. We

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all use it on a daily basis. My whole family

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uses it, everyone I know uses chat GPT or Claude

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or Gemini or any one or more than one of

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the models that are around. But where we really are

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now organizationally, is how do we start to take advantage

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of agentic AI Where AGENTICAI is qualitatively different to generative AI.

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This is now AI that can actually do work individually

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of a human and this, we think, puts us into

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an entirely new place. And this is where I think

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that organizations are right now. We're right at the beginning

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of this period, this new new period where we have

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AI that's now a member of the workforce. It's no

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longer at all a member of the workforce, and that's

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categorically different. And so most companies are right at the

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right at the beginning of this era. And I think

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we're all asking ourselves what does that mean? What does

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it mean to have a new member of the workforce?

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What does it mean to be a human colleague? But

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knowing that as a human we may have a digital colleague,

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we may have digital advisor, we may have digital boss,

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an AI boss, what does it mean for human leaders

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thinking about the way that they manage their teams? What

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does it mean to have teams which are hybrid teams

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of humans and machines or humans and AI. What does

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it mean to hand over some of the responsibility for

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leadership of an organization to AI. So I think that's

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that's kind of where we are right now. We're at

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the we're really at the beginning of this new age

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of agentic AI, and I think that's what we've been

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focused on in the book, and that's what we're very

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excited about.

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Absolutely, And you're right on the market, Henry, because there

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are agents all over, but there's still so much in

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their ncency that the current agents that are out there

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in the market, yes they're performing, but they're still stalling.

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They're still like that robotic they're developing personality, they're learning,

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and they're reasoning. So if a company like you know,

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if an organization we're thinking like okay, I want to

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bring in that agentic the key is like having that governance.

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Like you know, so many companies do not talk about

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having the AI governance. So what would you say, while Henry, like,

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what are some top three to five things before they

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even think about bringing in the agentic AI.

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Well, as you mentioned, you know, governance is critically important.

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My company's core value Number one core value since its inception,

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so for twenty six years has been trust. And you

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know in the book we talk about trust is competence

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plus character. Competence is capability and reliability, characters, integrity, and benevolence.

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I love the word benevolence. Your intentionality, your thoughts, your words,

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your actions are aligned, and so you have to be

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clear with your intentions when you leverage powerful technology that

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understands Natural language processing AI has evolved where it can

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understand language incredibly precise. It has reasoning capabilities, lots of

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combination of capabilities, retrieval, augmented generation, vector database, romantic search.

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You've got all the scientific work that combine has created

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software that can think and can reason and can be

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embedded in complex workflows, and as Henry mentioned, take action.

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Where you're no longer talking about a tool that humans use.

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This is now software that can work on your behalf

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and it constantly learns with every iteration. So the combination

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of natural language processing and multimodalit it can understand images, voice, texts, videos,

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it can reason, it can take action, and it can improve.

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This is the most important technology of the twenty first century.

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I've been in tech thirty years, and I view agentic

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AI as electricity for the twenty first century. Without it,

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you will not be able to compete in this hyperconnected

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knowledge sharing economy powered by AI. And as Henry mentioned,

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when we wrote Boundless, the goal was to discuss the

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negative impact of silos, silo mentality, silo structures, data silos.

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All AI projects are data projects, So if you have

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data silos, you cannot reach your boundless potential when it

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comes to AI algorithms. And we decided that based on

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five years of research looking at companies that are growing

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at double digital compound annual growth rates, what were some

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of the muscles, what were some of the attributes and

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characteristics they had, and we identified and converged down to

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seven design principles, and one of the seven design principles

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was autonomy. So as much as Henry says we were

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nervous about this launch of agentic AI, for five years,

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we were researching and identified autonomous capabilities. Is one of

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the key elements of eliminating silos. And AI agents are

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autonomous agents. And as you mentioned, fifty nine days after

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launch of JATGPT, you got one hundred million people using

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language models to generate content, but agentic goes beyond that,

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and so trust is critically important fundamentally in my career

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in tech. When I look at the most successful companies,

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including my own, I would put technology at the bottom

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of the key success factors. I would say, it's culture.

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You have to have good, healthy, culture, and in this

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situation that we're in, it's a culture of experimentation, culture

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of trust, culture of collaboration, culture that removes silos. You

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have to have strong talent, you have to hire people

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with high rate of learning and good judgment. This is

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why trust is so important. It's very difficult to maintain

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good judgment, especially if you're working in an environment where

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velocity is not like anything we've ever seen innovation velocity,

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speed and direction, and you have to have good processes.

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You have to look for waste, you have to look

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for bottlenecks, you have to create lean processes, and then

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lastly technology, So culture, people, process, and technology, and if

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you are guided by the north star trust and customer success,

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you know ultimately you have to have shared success, which

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was one of the seven principles in Boundless. We keep

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going back to the book we wrote two years ago,

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not the one we're trying to talk about now because

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it was foundational to the book Autonomous. So I think

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if you have those elements as top of mind, you

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position yourself to be successful. And the last thing I

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would say is stay teachable, Stay teachable. As I get older,

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I realize how heart it is for me to stay teachable.

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This is why I you know, I love being on

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your podcast because you know, it allows me to learn

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from you, Henry, and I had to learn from you.

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It helps us identify blind spots that we may have,

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and it reminds us that, you know, to have a

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beginner's mindset is critically important. And as much as your

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commentary is absolutely correct in terms of this is the

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beginning when we're talking about agentic AI. I just came

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back from San Francisco. When I stand on the streets

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of San Francisco, I can count to ten and I'll

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see a car drive by me without a driver. I

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could see Waymos, eight hundred of them in San Francisco.

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I can see Zekes from Amazon. I will see Cybercamp

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from Tesla. I'll see Moya from Volkswagen. We've got eight

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hundred waymos that have started passed forty five thousand lyft

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drivers in San Francisco in terms of number of rides.

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So anyone who doubts that AI is here and what

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are we talking about when we talk about self driving cars?

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AI has replaced a driver in a major city when

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life and death is on the line. And by the way,

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there's been zero fatalities with manmos since twenty seventeen. So

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it's safer drive and it's less costly. And so it's

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a realization that, yes, the term was coined in nineteen

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fifty seven at Dartmouth College and it's been around a

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long time, but what we can do with it today

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is unlike anything we've ever experienced in that lifetime. And

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we have to be aware that if we don't maintain

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that beginner's mindset, if you don't challenge dominant logic, if

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we're not comfortable with software guiding our careers, we may

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be positioning ourselves in a place that's harder to compete

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and win.

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Absolutely, you on the head because unless you're looking to

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get obsolete, the time has passed that you cannot embrace it.

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And as you mentioned that agenda GAI is still it's

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in its beginnings, and I really like what you mentioned

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about having that beginner's mindset, being teachable, having that humility,

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because AI can replace everything, but it cannot replace that

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human connection in that touchability. So given that you mentioned that,

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it's really essential to have that edge, like to have

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the competitive edge, you have to keep on depending on

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the automation and the technology. So as companies are looking

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to implement it, and as they're look going for AI adoption,

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what are some of the guardrails that they can think

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about that what is the right place to do some

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of the cost cutting or for that matter, like you know,

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move people or layoff people, And that's one of the

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tough challenging questions their organization sends today.

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Yeah, Henry and I absolutely don't like cost cutting, go

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straight there, but we don't think that that's the right approach,

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and I'll want Henry uh away in, but we think

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that it's short sighted and it's absolutely the wrong way

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if you're guided by cost cutting, and Henry take it away.

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Sure, yes, So thank you for even mentioning that and

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bringing a smile to our faces there, Divia. Of course,

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cost cutting everyone you know, we know that we are

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in in this part of the market cycle where everyone

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is thinking about that, and you know, over the last

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few years the expression do more with less has become

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kind of rather common, and it all kind of comes

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down to the same thing of cutting costs. We think

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that the that there's some challenges are sociated with taking

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a cost cutting approach to business. One is it's there's

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a question about whether you should be fair or not.

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You know, a lot of leaders are concerned about do

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we cut costs evenly across the entire place. Do we

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say everyone needs to take five percent out of you know,

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out of their budgets or ten percent or whatever happens

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to be, or do we identify specific areas of the business.

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And if we identify specific areas of the business, does

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that really mean that we are criticizing that part of

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the business, And you know, risk demotivating them because you know,

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they think that we think that they are failing in

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some way. So it's difficult whether you actually take a

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targeted approach to cost cutting or whether you take a

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peanut butter, you know, approach to cost cutting. Neither one

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really kind of work, particularly a effectively, and it's always

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demotivating for people and it's not something that you're building

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to use kind of others term of muscles. It's not

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a muscle that you're going to continue to use every

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day across all different types or all different parts of

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your market cycle. When you're in growth mode, you're not

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necessarily going to be using that cost cutting muscle, right,

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And so that kind of muscle can atrophy in parts

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of the economic cycle and then kind of grow again,

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and then atrophy and then grow again, and it means

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that cost cutting is not actually a core business discipline.

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It's not a core business competence. Whereas if you take

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the approach that waste is never a good thing to have,

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you always want to be able to reduce or eliminate

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waste from your operations, then you can build that to

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be an organizational muscle that you use all the time.

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And it doesn't matter whether you're in growth mode or

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whether you're in you know, a slower part of your cycle.

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It's always relevant. You can always be looking for waste.

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And what we're thinking about waste is because when most

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people hear the world waste, they're thinking about materials largely,

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but they're thinking about what do you do with excess

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materials that you actually don't use, that are kind of

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or byproducts for manufacturing and production operations. When we're talking

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about waste, we're talking about any resource. So waste for

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us is the misuse, the overuse or the underuse of

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a resource in order to do a job. And so

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that can be a human I mean, just generally, that

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can be you shouldn't be using this person to do

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this job, because they're much more qualified than you need

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to do this particular job. You could be using an

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agent at this point, and you could be honoring all

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of the time and all of the energy and all

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of the effort that this person has put in to

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making them uniquely qualified to do a job, and you

307
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could be having them do that job. Right, So you

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can have waste at all sorts of levels. They can

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be materials, they can be humans, they can be data,

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they can be money, they can be any resource that

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you have. And basically what we think should be happening

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is we think businesses should be looking all the time

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tom or reduce and eliminate waste. And the kind of

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a punchline there, if you like, is the all waste

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is costly, right, All waste has a cost associated with it,

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but not all costs are wasteful. So it means that

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whenever you're focused on waste, you're always cutting costs anyway,

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you're just cutting the right kind of costs, because anything

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that's costly is anything that does not add vantage you

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and in particular does not add value to your customers.

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So that's where that's where we're really thinking about waste

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rather than cost, and where that way think about waste

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rather than value.

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And some examples in business research shows that when you're

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a sales professional, you're only spending twenty five percent of

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your time actually selling, becoming a trusted advisor guiding your customers.

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Seventy five percent of sales professionals are doing research administrative

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tasks and not in front of a client or a

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prospect actually helping them achieve their success. Eighty percent of

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marketing leads are never transitioned to sales organizations. They sit

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in the funnel and they decay to become irrelevant. So

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there's a ton of research that speaks to wasteful activity

333
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in your call centers, wasteful activity in your sales and

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marketing human resources. And then when you look at pure

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research and you look at people's sentiment towards work of

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workers are looking for their next gig. It's harder to

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maintain talent in your company, and we believe part of

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that is we're signing wasteful activity to our human resources,

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things that are repetitive, things that are boring, boring. In

340
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a blink of an eye, you realize you spent ten

341
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years of your career pushing a bunch of buttons and

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doing work that, frankly, software could have done on your behalf,

343
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freeing you up to listen to podcasts, to go to conferences,

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to read books, to go back to school and become

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lifelong learners. Frankly, I believe this technology can free us

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and give us joy and not just sense of belonging.

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Because we carry a badge. We have a badge on

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the cover of our book. It's a reminder that you

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can belong to an organization and a company, but that

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doesn't guarantee a sense of mattering. And I believe that

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if you use technology in the right way, you can

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not only have a sense of belonging, but you actually

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believe your work matters. And I don't know how you

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can achieve your balance potential if you don't think your

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work matters. And so I'm very optimistic. We're very optimistic,

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and I know the pessimists can sound smarter, but in

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our experience, the future is built by optimists. So you know,

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regardless of your point of view with the technology, and

359
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it can be scary. Trust me, when I get a

360
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ride in these autonomous vehicles, I put my seatbelt on.

361
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You know, you know it's scary, but it's also exciting.

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And we're witnessing companies really achieve a level of creativity

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and value creation unlike anytime in our lifetime. You just

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have to be mindful and you have to put you know,

365
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our colleagues, you know, on the edge, in the center

366
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and everywhere when you're making decisions on how to invest

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in technology so you can elevate your people at the

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end of the day. It should not be a replacement strategy.

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This should be, as Henry said, a waste removal strategy,

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freeing your human talent to reach their balless potential.

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Yes, definitely very powerful to both Henry and Waila. Like

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your point is, cost cutting is something that I do

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not like. So coming from a and you no one

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likes it. Coming from a lean sig Sigma background, I

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can definitely kind of tell you that redundancies can be

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waste looking at the processes, and so many times what

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happens I go to the doctor's office, or I am

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at the car dealership and I'm like looking, oh my goodness,

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like there's so much waste over here and like duplicates.

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So I completely agree with you all that you know,

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it's important to look at where the waste is happening.

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And I'm sure y'all have also seen that. But with

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so many of my clients, the one thing that heatedly

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props up is that people are tired of doing the research.

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Like you know, even if you're an account executive as

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you are talking about sales or marketing or for that matter,

387
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any like, you know, most of these jobs, they do

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spend all that time in doing the research, like okay,

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what what is the competition doing? So if you have

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agents for that, then you're freeing up time for employees

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to do the work that they like. So definitely, that's

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that's a good way of looking at it. Now, when

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we say this, how would you say this is going

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to impact the changing role of CIO and CHR.

395
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O Great, great question, Okay, Henry smiling here, go ahead, Henry, Well,

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I love the fact that you just kind of jumped

397
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straight into that. I think that's I think that's super important.

398
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You know, we're so Vala talked about the siloed world, right,

399
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and I mean to be clear when we talk about silos.

400
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You know, first of all, silos are everywhere. No one

401
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likes them, right, everyone complains about that, but they're but

402
00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:16.119
but they're in every single industry that we've come across,

403
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every single industry. You know, we were in an education

404
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we were giving a keynote and an education conference in

405
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Arizona State University last week, and you know, they're complaining

406
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about their silos in higher education, they complained them about

407
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them in agriculture, they complain about them in manufacturing and

408
00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:39.640
their retail and finance, and they're they're just everywhere and

409
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no one likes them. And so really kind of the

410
00:25:41.599 --> 00:25:44.880
question is why does that happen? And and it turns

411
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out that silos are actually just the way we manage resources,

412
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or the way that we that we conventionally have managed resources.

413
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So we put all of our marketing expertise into a

414
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marketing bucket or a marketing silo marketing department, we do

415
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the same all of our I t all of our

416
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technological resources we put into the I T Department and

417
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so on and so forth, and this is how we

418
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end up with And this is not a criticism of

419
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any individual organization, it's just how we have developed over decades,

420
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maybe even over hundreds of years. This is how we

421
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come to have a CIO or a CTO who is

422
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seen as being the leader of all of the technological resources,

423
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and we have a HROO who is seen as being

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the leader of all of the human resources. And the

425
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question is, and this is I think very much what

426
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we're getting at is, so what does the future.

427
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Look like digital labor where it's not just human resources,

428
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it's human and you know agentic AI.

429
00:26:49.119 --> 00:26:55.960
Resources Go ahead, Yeah, that's right. So there are discussions

430
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going on about, you know, whether the CIO now kind

431
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of takes a closer position next to the CEO because

432
00:27:02.279 --> 00:27:06.640
they're responsible for more important resources, or or you know,

433
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what does it look like in our mind? Just as

434
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Valla said, we now need to be not only cognizant of,

435
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but we need to be actively working in a world

436
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where we know that we have both digital and human

437
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and working together on some tasks, working individually on other tasks.

438
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And we need to be able to see them collectively,

439
00:27:32.440 --> 00:27:36.920
as you know, our most important resource in business, and

440
00:27:37.079 --> 00:27:39.799
we need to be able to see the relationships between

441
00:27:39.880 --> 00:27:42.759
them as the most important thing that we have in

442
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our business. Right at the beginning of your podcast, Devia,

443
00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:47.839
you've got to I think that there's a statement that

444
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says something like reships, right, relationships are essential to achieving

445
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your potential. Right, I think that's right in the first

446
00:27:55.799 --> 00:27:59.759
thirty seconds of the introduction to your podcast. And of course,

447
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as you can tell, both of us are like, she's

448
00:28:02.039 --> 00:28:07.160
so right, that's exactly right. And so we think that

449
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the future of the CIO and the CHR, however, that's

450
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kind of organized, but that needs to be about developing

451
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new relationships between humans and urgentic ai such that they

452
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all individually and collectively achieve their potential. When we talk

453
00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:34.599
about autonomous I want to get here, here's this book.

454
00:28:35.440 --> 00:28:38.200
When we talk about autonomous we're not just talking about

455
00:28:38.279 --> 00:28:42.839
argentic autonomy. We talk about human autonomy as well. And

456
00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:46.880
the difference that we're really talking about between two is

457
00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:51.160
that we think that the agentic AI can take on

458
00:28:51.319 --> 00:28:54.880
more of the operational autonomy. They can do more and

459
00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.519
more tasks without humans, but humans take on the mission autonomy.

460
00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:03.240
You know, we're the ones that actually set the direction.

461
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We set all of the guardrails. We've already kind of

462
00:29:07.279 --> 00:29:09.920
talked about all of that. We set the governance, but

463
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:13.200
we set the direction, We set the north star, as

464
00:29:13.240 --> 00:29:15.960
we talked about, as Valor just talked about, when you're

465
00:29:15.960 --> 00:29:20.119
in a weaymow. Now you're not driving the car anymore.

466
00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:25.279
You're not a you're not a machine operator, which is

467
00:29:25.319 --> 00:29:28.599
what we've always been as car drivers before. But we're

468
00:29:28.680 --> 00:29:32.240
still saying here's where we want to go and here's

469
00:29:32.279 --> 00:29:36.400
how we want to get there, and then having set

470
00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:39.640
the mission, then we're free. And that's what we see

471
00:29:39.720 --> 00:29:44.799
in business. We're seeing that humans set the direction, they

472
00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:48.119
set the vision, they set the goals, they set the culture,

473
00:29:48.680 --> 00:29:52.920
they set all of the conditions for success, and AI

474
00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:57.160
takes more of the operational autonomy. So, again, in answer

475
00:29:57.200 --> 00:29:59.240
to your question, where does this lead the CIO and

476
00:29:59.279 --> 00:30:03.599
the CHR. There's a danger that if they stay in

477
00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:07.119
their existing buckets, if they stay in it, and if

478
00:30:07.119 --> 00:30:10.440
they stay in HR, the either one or both of

479
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:13.279
them are going to become redundant and obsolete, to use

480
00:30:13.319 --> 00:30:17.000
a word that you used earlier. If they combine forces

481
00:30:17.799 --> 00:30:22.720
and they look over each other's silos and they recognize

482
00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:25.599
that what we're really looking now at is a future

483
00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:29.559
of a hybrid workforce, then I think some very very

484
00:30:29.599 --> 00:30:31.960
strong things can be done that have never been done before.

485
00:30:32.839 --> 00:30:37.559
My advice to CHROs and the longest study on happiness

486
00:30:37.559 --> 00:30:41.559
and success Harvard study that I believe you know over

487
00:30:41.559 --> 00:30:45.920
eighteen monitored one thousand people for seventy years, found that

488
00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:53.200
the number one success factor for happiness and success was relationships,

489
00:30:53.480 --> 00:30:56.599
not fame, not fortune. The people I had the healthiest relationships,

490
00:30:56.880 --> 00:30:59.839
but the happiest and more successful. Again, the longest study

491
00:30:59.880 --> 00:31:03.279
on happiness by Harvard. And so, in fact, I work

492
00:31:03.319 --> 00:31:07.160
for a company CRM with that R is relationships in CRM,

493
00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:12.079
and CHROs need to recognize that as much as we

494
00:31:12.160 --> 00:31:17.480
all value relationships, none of us have taken formal courses

495
00:31:18.039 --> 00:31:21.799
on designing healthy relationships. I've never had one in my career.

496
00:31:22.599 --> 00:31:26.279
And now you're talking about we're the last generation of

497
00:31:26.359 --> 00:31:29.680
business leaders that are only going to manage humans. We're

498
00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:32.160
not going to be tasked with managing humans and agents.

499
00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:37.039
So how do you reach your full potential? Your balance potential?

500
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:43.680
In the absence of purposeful frameworks that ensure human to human,

501
00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:50.319
human to software, software to software creates relationships that help

502
00:31:50.400 --> 00:31:53.880
us be happy and successful. We need to now think

503
00:31:53.920 --> 00:31:58.160
about strongly designing for relationships. And then it's no longer

504
00:31:58.279 --> 00:32:01.920
human resources, it's intelligent resources, and it could be human,

505
00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:04.880
it could be software, and so the paradigm has changed.

506
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:07.559
We are now at an inflection point where my company

507
00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:11.680
has thirteen thousand companies that have deployed agents and so

508
00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:16.720
unlike any other adoption curve in my lifetime. So CHROs

509
00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:21.079
get in the game designed for healthy relationships. Recognize that

510
00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:24.480
all companies are tech companies. Meaning this is why we

511
00:32:24.559 --> 00:32:27.759
said AI first strategy and digital labor, and we use

512
00:32:27.799 --> 00:32:31.079
the word fittest because Henry and I can't imagine a

513
00:32:31.160 --> 00:32:36.240
company that can compete and win today and tomorrow unless

514
00:32:36.279 --> 00:32:40.640
they have digital labor, because digital labor gives you limitless

515
00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:44.759
resources for you to create value at speed, scale and

516
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:48.599
intelligence alike anything we've had in the past. So I

517
00:32:48.640 --> 00:32:51.440
think it's Batman and Robin when I think about CIOs

518
00:32:51.440 --> 00:32:55.480
and Chrros or Batman and Wonder Woman. Let's make sure

519
00:32:57.880 --> 00:33:02.319
the diversity is actually a competitive advantage. Especially in a

520
00:33:02.319 --> 00:33:05.480
world where our thoughts are becoming algorithms. We have to

521
00:33:05.519 --> 00:33:08.559
have diversity because if you don't have diversity, you get

522
00:33:08.599 --> 00:33:12.200
biases of a common cohort creating algorithms that doesn't represent

523
00:33:12.599 --> 00:33:17.119
society or customers, your employees, your partners. So these two

524
00:33:18.440 --> 00:33:23.440
line of business leaders, I've never had more opportunity to

525
00:33:23.480 --> 00:33:28.279
help shape their companies' future success. And hopefully Batman and

526
00:33:28.319 --> 00:33:31.039
Wonder Woman get in the game and think about this

527
00:33:31.079 --> 00:33:34.920
whole new world that we're building, because it's incredibly exciting

528
00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:37.480
but at the same time a little bit scary as well.

529
00:33:38.359 --> 00:33:42.519
And this is this is you know, one of the

530
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:45.519
one of the unknowns as well. Just as Vallas said,

531
00:33:45.559 --> 00:33:49.480
you know, he's never taken a course in relationship building,

532
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:53.200
you know, a professional course in relationship building, because there

533
00:33:53.200 --> 00:33:56.400
aren't any And not only are there are no courses,

534
00:33:56.720 --> 00:33:59.519
but there's no design that he talked to again about

535
00:33:59.599 --> 00:34:04.519
design and designing intentionally, there is no design practice or

536
00:34:04.559 --> 00:34:09.800
no design discipline for relationships. We do have and we

537
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:12.239
have had for the last twenty twenty five years or so.

538
00:34:12.920 --> 00:34:21.760
It's a design design practices for experiences, but never for relationships.

539
00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:25.320
And so this is something that we think is going

540
00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:27.519
to be another of these new things. It's nothing to

541
00:34:27.519 --> 00:34:30.079
do with the technology. This is nothing to do with

542
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:32.960
the technology. It's like we've been in a world of

543
00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:38.760
relationships for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years,

544
00:34:39.760 --> 00:34:42.760
and in the business world, we don't really take them

545
00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:45.440
as seriously as we should, even though everyone knows they're

546
00:34:45.480 --> 00:34:48.559
the most important thing. Again at the beginning of your podcast,

547
00:34:48.639 --> 00:34:51.400
the most important thing. Everyone knows it, and yet we

548
00:34:51.400 --> 00:34:53.760
don't design for them. There is no way to design

549
00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:54.519
for them currently.

550
00:34:55.840 --> 00:34:58.159
It's learning my analogy, we assume if you deliver a

551
00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:01.159
good experience, we're likely to have a good relationship, and

552
00:35:01.199 --> 00:35:03.320
if you don't hear from the other side, we assume

553
00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:05.840
they're satisfied. In fact, it could be indifference, which is

554
00:35:05.880 --> 00:35:09.480
the greatest enemy to your success. So you know, we

555
00:35:09.559 --> 00:35:14.079
can't and experiences or loyalty it's based you know, advocacy

556
00:35:14.119 --> 00:35:17.280
and loyalty is based on your last experience, your first experience,

557
00:35:17.320 --> 00:35:21.880
and all the experiences in between. But that's not specific

558
00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:26.440
design thinking in terms of reciprocity of value and trust,

559
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:30.760
where it's foundational to healthy relationships. And now you're talking

560
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:35.599
about humans and software you're talking about speed scales, intelligence,

561
00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:39.079
and personalization. That's not like anything we've ever experienced in

562
00:35:39.119 --> 00:35:42.079
the past. So we can no longer afford to just

563
00:35:42.159 --> 00:35:46.320
assume a good experience means good relationship really needs to

564
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:47.519
be more deliberate and precise.

565
00:35:48.199 --> 00:35:50.519
You're absolutely right, and at the core of it, it's

566
00:35:50.559 --> 00:35:53.599
going to be the human relationships. And you mentioned something

567
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:57.519
very powerful that it's not just now between human and human,

568
00:35:57.639 --> 00:36:01.920
it is between software and software. Between let's just call

569
00:36:01.960 --> 00:36:04.639
them bots, because most people, like you know in the audience,

570
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:07.280
like understand, so like bad talking to the but talking

571
00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:11.039
to the human human having different bosses. So given all

572
00:36:11.039 --> 00:36:14.239
of that, you know what, as we keep on building

573
00:36:14.280 --> 00:36:19.159
these UIs or the user interface and user experiences, whether

574
00:36:19.159 --> 00:36:21.800
it's with the human being or with the software, what

575
00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:25.119
are the seven levels? If you can mention that in

576
00:36:25.199 --> 00:36:27.320
brief as we kind of coming to a close to

577
00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:31.760
the show, what would those seven autonomous levels might be?

578
00:36:33.159 --> 00:36:37.119
Yeah, in the book, we've included even a chart to summarize. Again.

579
00:36:38.280 --> 00:36:42.280
You know, you take any job, and a job consists

580
00:36:42.320 --> 00:36:45.920
of multiple tasks. So in order to complete a job,

581
00:36:46.199 --> 00:36:48.840
it may be one task, it maybe twenty tasks, but

582
00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:52.639
ultimately you can break it to very composable levels of tasks.

583
00:36:53.159 --> 00:36:55.679
So the first thing that an agent, and once you

584
00:36:55.760 --> 00:37:00.440
define the task, you you allow the agent actions that

585
00:37:00.480 --> 00:37:04.719
you sanction actions you want the agent to take. Guardrails

586
00:37:04.760 --> 00:37:07.239
things you never want the agent to take. So if

587
00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:09.519
you're on an e commerce side, you don't want the

588
00:37:09.559 --> 00:37:12.760
agent to offer up discounts. You know you want always

589
00:37:12.760 --> 00:37:16.280
a human involved or offer up promotions. To next level,

590
00:37:16.639 --> 00:37:20.599
so does guardrails, and then the channels you want the

591
00:37:20.639 --> 00:37:23.760
intelligence software to operate. It could be WhatsApp, it could

592
00:37:23.800 --> 00:37:28.159
be your app, your website, your social network. So jobs, actions,

593
00:37:28.199 --> 00:37:32.960
guard rails, and channels very precise, very composable way. So

594
00:37:33.360 --> 00:37:35.679
the first level of autonomy is a task that can

595
00:37:35.719 --> 00:37:39.719
be delegated to intelligent software. If you can do collections

596
00:37:39.760 --> 00:37:44.159
of tasks, it could be potentially a job or a role.

597
00:37:44.679 --> 00:37:48.960
So an individual within your line of business, entire set

598
00:37:49.039 --> 00:37:52.320
of tasks and job could be delegated to multiple one

599
00:37:52.480 --> 00:37:56.840
or multiple agents. Eventually you can spread that capability where

600
00:37:56.880 --> 00:38:00.119
it could be your marketing department, your sales department. You

601
00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:03.039
can go from an individual to a role, to a

602
00:38:03.159 --> 00:38:07.960
team to a line of business. You have agentic orchestration,

603
00:38:08.119 --> 00:38:10.679
So your sales agent is talking to your marketing agent,

604
00:38:10.800 --> 00:38:14.239
your customer service agent, your commerce or human resources agent.

605
00:38:14.599 --> 00:38:18.119
Your entire enterprise could have an agentic layer. Now you

606
00:38:18.119 --> 00:38:22.840
have people and software across your entire business that can

607
00:38:22.840 --> 00:38:26.159
co create value. And then ultimately every business has an

608
00:38:26.199 --> 00:38:30.400
ecosystem of partners, so you have, you know, your tech stack,

609
00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:34.639
and an enterprise could represent forty fifty sixty different partners

610
00:38:35.119 --> 00:38:37.960
and every company will have its own agents. And at

611
00:38:37.960 --> 00:38:40.480
that point you need to be able to orchestrate and

612
00:38:40.519 --> 00:38:44.960
create more of a choreography of agentic capabilities that's beyond

613
00:38:45.039 --> 00:38:49.079
just your enterprise, but your ecosystem. So the last level

614
00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:54.679
is ecosystem orchestration of agentic capabilities. And those are the levels.

615
00:38:54.760 --> 00:38:57.920
And in an autonomous vehicle that we've been mentioning, you know,

616
00:38:57.920 --> 00:39:01.360
there's also six levels of autonomy, zero to level five.

617
00:39:01.519 --> 00:39:04.840
Zero means no autonomy. Level two or three could be

618
00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:07.559
like parking assist or you have to have your hand

619
00:39:07.559 --> 00:39:11.159
on the wheel while the car is operating. But when

620
00:39:11.159 --> 00:39:13.360
we talk about the zekes and we talk about way

621
00:39:13.400 --> 00:39:18.639
More and we talk about cybercamp, there are no human involvement.

622
00:39:18.719 --> 00:39:23.920
The car is designed for passengers, not drivers. And when

623
00:39:23.920 --> 00:39:28.079
we talk about levels of autonomy in business, the scary

624
00:39:28.119 --> 00:39:30.639
part when you get into a zekes or a cybercamp

625
00:39:30.639 --> 00:39:33.880
from Tesla is the first thing you notice is and

626
00:39:33.960 --> 00:39:37.679
you mentioned user interface, all human user interfaces have been removed.

627
00:39:38.079 --> 00:39:40.880
There is no steering wheel in a cybercap, there is

628
00:39:40.920 --> 00:39:45.199
no break or gas pedal, there is no mirror, there

629
00:39:45.239 --> 00:39:49.239
is no window in the back. So that first AI,

630
00:39:49.480 --> 00:39:53.960
first design means some courageous engineer. She rose her She

631
00:39:54.039 --> 00:39:56.400
had her hand up probably five six years ago in

632
00:39:56.440 --> 00:40:00.719
a meeting at Amazon. At Tesla, she said, I have

633
00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:03.480
an idea. Let's design cars where we don't need a

634
00:40:03.480 --> 00:40:07.719
steering wheel, what we don't need gas or brake pedals.

635
00:40:08.800 --> 00:40:12.199
I'm sure the room was very quiet as she courageously

636
00:40:12.280 --> 00:40:17.519
raised her hand. But the realization was, let's build cars

637
00:40:17.519 --> 00:40:20.239
for writers so that I don't have to take a

638
00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:22.199
key for my eighty five year old dad, which I

639
00:40:22.199 --> 00:40:25.440
had to do this year, which five million people that

640
00:40:25.559 --> 00:40:28.440
lose their vision every year can still be able to

641
00:40:28.480 --> 00:40:31.239
get from a to B and own a vehicle. If

642
00:40:31.239 --> 00:40:34.199
you're dealing with seizures, if you're dealing with aging, if

643
00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:39.519
you're dealing with site loss, and ultimately we'll see external

644
00:40:39.559 --> 00:40:42.440
positivity with all of this because these cars are constantly

645
00:40:42.480 --> 00:40:45.000
in motion, so we don't need as many parking spots.

646
00:40:45.239 --> 00:40:48.639
We can have libraries, we can have museums, we can

647
00:40:48.639 --> 00:40:51.840
have more schools, so there'll be societal impact as a

648
00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:55.639
result of this AI for a strategy, and most importantly,

649
00:40:55.840 --> 00:40:58.800
you know it'll be safer to operate and cheaper to produce.

650
00:40:59.079 --> 00:41:03.719
So the seven levels is a reminder that the worst

651
00:41:03.760 --> 00:41:07.519
AI we're using is today. No matter what complaints you

652
00:41:07.559 --> 00:41:11.320
have about the algorithm, it's slow, it hallucinates. Just wait

653
00:41:11.360 --> 00:41:14.639
a week, wait a month, wait a quarter. Certainly by

654
00:41:14.679 --> 00:41:17.079
this time next year, I mean, just look at the

655
00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:19.360
improvements on the tools that we have on our phones,

656
00:41:19.400 --> 00:41:21.159
whether it's Gemini, Perplexity Chat.

657
00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:24.239
Yeah, like you know, the day one, like when I

658
00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:27.639
jumped into like when GEDGPT was like, because I'm usually

659
00:41:27.639 --> 00:41:31.119
the early adopter for any technology there, it was like

660
00:41:31.159 --> 00:41:34.039
that plunky you know, Jedgibt three. And now you have

661
00:41:34.119 --> 00:41:36.239
got the reasoning and depri so you can even kind

662
00:41:36.239 --> 00:41:39.920
of see like how it is thinking through, like it

663
00:41:40.079 --> 00:41:43.719
literally kind of shows you and it's just fascinating. So

664
00:41:44.079 --> 00:41:47.039
not to deter from what you're saying, is that one

665
00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:49.719
thing that really hit me hard while I was that

666
00:41:50.360 --> 00:41:54.639
taking the keys away from your parents, taking that independence away.

667
00:41:55.199 --> 00:41:59.599
So AI is something that will provide that agency to

668
00:41:59.719 --> 00:42:02.760
peopleeople to live their life with dignity and to bring

669
00:42:03.119 --> 00:42:06.880
absolutely potentiel to the workers, like you know, making that

670
00:42:06.960 --> 00:42:10.119
work matter because and it will also allow people to

671
00:42:10.239 --> 00:42:14.519
take leadership, giving them a permission, like anybody can take

672
00:42:14.519 --> 00:42:17.920
a leadership and look at what could be the next frontier.

673
00:42:20.599 --> 00:42:24.199
And as Henry mentioned, you know, an average adult in

674
00:42:24.199 --> 00:42:26.559
the US can have up to an hour of commute.

675
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:29.960
You know what's wasteful driving a car for an hour,

676
00:42:30.559 --> 00:42:32.960
where you could have a vehicle that's autonomous. So now

677
00:42:33.039 --> 00:42:38.639
you can read your favorite book, you can walk Netflix,

678
00:42:39.039 --> 00:42:42.559
you can work on your Salesforce dashboards, you can listen

679
00:42:42.599 --> 00:42:47.679
to a podcast comfortably. And so you have this nonlinear

680
00:42:47.800 --> 00:42:52.000
optionality when you have autonomous vehicles. With today US three,

681
00:42:52.039 --> 00:42:53.840
when we get in our car, we have one job,

682
00:42:54.079 --> 00:42:56.800
drive the car. There's nothing else we can do. But

683
00:42:57.000 --> 00:42:59.159
my son is fifteen years old, and when I can

684
00:42:59.199 --> 00:43:03.000
imagine and when he leaves graduate school and he's commuting

685
00:43:03.039 --> 00:43:05.960
to work, all the options he'll have in his vehicle.

686
00:43:06.440 --> 00:43:10.400
He can really invest himself and self educate and train.

687
00:43:10.960 --> 00:43:13.119
And I used to have two hour commute early in

688
00:43:13.119 --> 00:43:15.800
my career US. I mean Massachusetts would drift to New

689
00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:19.400
Hampshire one hour each way. I think about for ten

690
00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:22.159
years I drove two hours, five days a week. You

691
00:43:22.159 --> 00:43:24.119
know what I could have done in that two hours

692
00:43:24.119 --> 00:43:26.360
over a decade. First of all, I have a PhD,

693
00:43:26.440 --> 00:43:30.599
which would make my mom happy. I'm her parents, So

694
00:43:30.679 --> 00:43:32.199
no matter what I do, I still need to get

695
00:43:32.239 --> 00:43:35.239
my doctorate. And also, Henry and I would have been

696
00:43:35.239 --> 00:43:39.280
on our seventh book, not on our seconds. So think

697
00:43:39.360 --> 00:43:44.480
about wastefulness and lean into technology. We believe that ultimately

698
00:43:44.960 --> 00:43:48.559
we're going to see a graduation from autonomous products, to

699
00:43:48.599 --> 00:43:53.280
autonomous factories, to autonomous companies, and this great amount of

700
00:43:53.360 --> 00:43:56.559
freedom and waste that we can we can remove on

701
00:43:56.599 --> 00:43:58.719
this journey. And this journey is another ten twenty years

702
00:43:58.760 --> 00:44:01.440
and ongoing. This is not about next week, next month,

703
00:44:01.480 --> 00:44:04.159
next year. This we're absolutely at the beginning.

704
00:44:04.920 --> 00:44:09.159
Absolutely well, thank you Henry, and thank you Alla. How

705
00:44:09.199 --> 00:44:12.559
can people connect with you? Where can they connect with you?

706
00:44:12.760 --> 00:44:15.800
Where can they find your book? So I know it's

707
00:44:15.800 --> 00:44:18.400
on Amazon? Is it any other place.

708
00:44:20.039 --> 00:44:24.800
Yes, So it's on it's Bound and Noble online and

709
00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:30.800
in physical stores. So it's on all major e commerce platforms.

710
00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:37.360
It's in all major physical bookstores across the US. It's

711
00:44:37.519 --> 00:44:42.760
available on Amazon in all major European countries as well,

712
00:44:45.679 --> 00:44:49.400
And so that's the best way to get in touch

713
00:44:49.440 --> 00:44:51.280
with us is to buy the book if you If

714
00:44:51.320 --> 00:44:55.000
you will, we greatly appreciate your support, of course, and

715
00:44:55.079 --> 00:44:59.920
we're both on LinkedIn and so Vallesan is val Afsha

716
00:45:00.159 --> 00:45:03.400
and I'm on as Henry King and Vala is also

717
00:45:06.280 --> 00:45:09.679
a major thought leader on x as well, and so

718
00:45:09.920 --> 00:45:13.719
he's available there at Valafshaw on X.

719
00:45:15.599 --> 00:45:15.800
Well.

720
00:45:15.840 --> 00:45:20.519
Fantastic, thank you for sharing so openly and definitely I

721
00:45:20.679 --> 00:45:24.440
am positive that our audience are definitely going to head

722
00:45:24.440 --> 00:45:26.719
out to Amazon, Bands and Nobles, you know, where are

723
00:45:26.760 --> 00:45:30.519
your favorite places and get the book because they're not

724
00:45:30.559 --> 00:45:34.199
only bringing the head, they're also bringing the heart and

725
00:45:34.760 --> 00:45:39.519
those are the next levels of leadership that we want

726
00:45:39.519 --> 00:45:43.440
to see, not only in our organizations, but wherever you are,

727
00:45:44.039 --> 00:45:47.599
doesn't matter where you're students, you know you're a professional,

728
00:45:47.639 --> 00:45:51.239
you're rising star. Wherever you are at, remember that human

729
00:45:51.280 --> 00:45:56.800
relationships and the human connection is the thing that will

730
00:45:56.840 --> 00:46:01.360
bring us to tab that potential all of us have.

731
00:46:01.559 --> 00:46:04.760
So thank you Allen, thank you Henry for joining us.

732
00:46:04.800 --> 00:46:08.519
We appreciate you ur thanks to heres from really pleased

733
00:46:08.519 --> 00:46:10.079
to be on and thank you for inviting us.

734
00:46:10.519 --> 00:46:13.800
Thank you so much truly, and thank you wonderful audience

735
00:46:13.840 --> 00:46:16.159
for being part of her Sure because without you the

736
00:46:16.199 --> 00:46:18.519
show would not be possible. Reach out to us like

737
00:46:18.559 --> 00:46:21.280
you always do. I so appreciate each and every one

738
00:46:21.320 --> 00:46:25.360
of you and let us know how can we help

739
00:46:25.440 --> 00:46:28.679
you live that life you want to live and you deserve.

740
00:46:29.440 --> 00:46:33.039
And thank you one a tech visit for making the

741
00:46:33.039 --> 00:46:35.880
show possible. So be well and take care until next time.

742
00:46:36.920 --> 00:46:39.360
Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence. With your

743
00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:41.679
host d v Park, we hope you have learned more

744
00:46:41.719 --> 00:46:44.400
about how to start living the life you want. Each

745
00:46:44.400 --> 00:46:47.320
week on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people

746
00:46:47.440 --> 00:46:51.920
who've experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships.

747
00:46:52.280 --> 00:46:55.679
During Beyond Confidence, Vapark shares what happened to her when

748
00:46:55.679 --> 00:46:58.119
she stepped out of her comfort zone to work directly

749
00:46:58.159 --> 00:47:01.400
with people across the globe. Not only coaches people how

750
00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:05.199
to form hard connections, but also transform relationships to mutually

751
00:47:05.239 --> 00:47:08.719
beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the life they want.

752
00:47:09.119 --> 00:47:11.000
If you are ready to live the life you want

753
00:47:11.199 --> 00:47:15.559
and leverage your strengths, learn more at www dot dwpark

754
00:47:15.599 --> 00:47:19.280
dot com and you can connect with vat contact at

755
00:47:19.360 --> 00:47:22.519
dvpark dot com. We look forward to you joining us

756
00:47:22.519 --> 00:47:23.119
next week