Rich Fernandez
Hey, everybody, I'm excited for you to join us on the Return on Intelligence podcast. It's our inaugural podcast with a very special guest, a former colleague and friend of mine, Bill Duane, who is currently an advisor to Google X as well as to Amazon. And in this episode, Bill will be focusing on upskilling for the world of artificial intelligence with specific focus on how you design AI systems with a human centric approach.
Rich Fernandez
Bill offers some fascinating ideas about different learning models, that can be adopted by individuals and organizations, and some lessons for practitioners, learning and development practitioners, especially on how to scale this new skills based approach focusing on human centric skills in the world of AI. Hello everyone! I am so excited today to welcome you to return on intelligence and to have our very special guest, a dear friend and former colleague of mine, Bill Duane.
Rich Fernandez
And I'm especially thrilled because I have known Bill for at least a decade, as a colleague and as a friend, we both work together at Google, with a focus on employee learning and well-being. And so it's a great privilege today to be able to meet up over a decade later for this inaugural podcast on Return on Intelligence.
Rich Fernandez
So welcome, Bill.
Bill Duane
Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here. you know, our our relationship is on multiple levels professional, personal. And I think also that we've also really been on our own individual but also similar growth, paths. So it's really happy to have a conversation with you that brings all those together.
Rich Fernandez
Awesome. Looking forward to this. But, since the audience doesn't know you tell us where you're located. and then we'll get into it.
Bill Duane
Yeah. I am, speaking to you from the Haight Ashbury neighborhood in, in San Francisco.
Rich Fernandez
That's awesome. And then tell us about yourself, particularly your career. And you know, the aspects of your career that really have to do with learning, development and related topics.
Bill Duane
Yeah, yeah, it all has to do. I mean, it's it's I would say the same because when I describe it, the people are going to be like, that sounds crazy. you know, the salient thing that holds it all together is this idea of what does this moment need and what do what can I shift, in order to meet that moment?
Bill Duane
I actually, I started off my my technology journal journey started off as an administrative assistant at a NIT consulting firm. my my professional educational background is public policy and anthropology. so I took this admin job trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my life. And the environment in which I found myself was very alive and interesting, and I had great personal relationships and professional relations.
Bill Duane
And they needed, one of my buddies needed a system administrator. So I had to learn how to become a system administrator. and this company, as it went from 700 people to 10,000, that led to learning how to, how it operations work at a, at a fast growing company. And then once I burned out and said, okay, I'm going to quit and burnt out.
Bill Duane
Then they said, no, actually, you should just become a consultant. so then you have to learn about clients and consulting and value and the perception of value. and I did that and then worked for some startups. So fast forward about ten years. Google called in 2005, and they said, you've made a terrible mistake.
Bill Duane
I'm self-taught. I'm a liberal arts person. I don't think I'm going to hire. And they're like, yeah, but still. So, I went in and just had and maybe this is another aspect about learning is I had fun with the interview. Like I just thought, okay, I'm just going to let go of of the results and just enjoy myself and, and try and have the other person enjoy their experience too.
Bill Duane
And then that led to me being, technical program manager, then a manager, then a senior manager. during Google's hypergrowth period. And, I really got over my skills during this portion. my engine was a fear and shame engine. and I had to learn how to shift to that being a love and service engine, which is probably when our worlds start, really start intersecting, of what's the inner change needed to make outer change?
Bill Duane
and then I continued on the executive track for a while, and then I thought, you know, especially, after my father died, like, what's what am I here to do? And I thought to help other people be on their own version of the journey. I had gone into a about towards meaning and purpose and, confronting some of the less pleasant, you know, parts of, what life has to, has to offer up.
Bill Duane
And then that led to me then becoming the superintendent of wellbeing at Google, which is where we became closest colleagues within the function and saying, you know, how do you build a radio that broadcasts that signal out all channels of an organization rather than just having well-being be siloed within the benefits function? and then after 13 years at Google, then wanting to work with a broader set of people, then moving into, this consulting role that I'm doing now at, Bill Duane and Associates.
Bill Duane
And, you know, the the most recent part of learning was then shifting from using the wellbeing frame, which is really important, into the innovation frame. This question of what what does the world need? What do I need? And, we need to figure out new and different ways of doing things. And I thought, oh, between like, my nerd background, tech background, leadership background and background, like coming around of how do we generate create new ways of doing things became clearly like the question that I can, help answering.
Bill Duane
So right now I, for, consulting and and coaching on people who are people and organizations that are dealing with innovation challenges. And what's the the part I think's really missing. And I think this really speaks a lot. To search inside yourself is what's the internal change that's needed to make external change? I see a lot of in the nonprofit world, in particular, people making wanting to make very ambitious changes in the world.
Bill Duane
But they there's that inner work. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, it was a bit long winded, but, I do think that the, the line through is constant learning to be of service.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah, absolutely. And just to, for the audience to say because I don't know if you caught this, but Bill, you know, you were in a very technical job at Google when I met you. You were in site reliability engineering, which ensures the uptime basically of the platform. And, you were one of the only engineers I've ever met in my whole life.
Rich Fernandez
There's one other who is our friend Meng who wrote the book Search Inside Yourself that I know of that transitioned from an engineering role into a learning and development role. And what was really cool about that, and I think especially valuable, was that you brought the insights, coming out of a very technical, high performance organization. The insights coming from there into this role around well-being.
Rich Fernandez
And now eventually, as in your current work, innovation and how to really kind of incorporate that into the fabric of an organization, into its culture and into its leadership. So maybe that's where we can pick up this story, because I know that's a lot of the work you do today. So what are you working on today? I mentioned Google X.
Rich Fernandez
You're an advisor to them and you're an advisor to Amazon who you do a lot of work with them. So tell us a little bit about the work that you're doing today. A little bit more perhaps.
Bill Duane
So, you know, in hindsight it seems very unsurprising. But you know, it it's a bit surprising. But this is really focusing around AI quite a bit, right? AI creating so much technical change, but also, personal and organizational change. It's really supercharging this. so maybe just a very fun, weird project I'll start off with before talking, talking about some of the other ones.
Bill Duane
And again, I think this is this need to cultivate a sense of of being open towards things, not going according to the plan. I got invited to do, to give a keynote on Buddhism and AI in Shenzhen, China. And that led to me, one of the people who was speaking was now my my now dear friend Thomas, doctor and colleague, who invited me to be on this project about what are concepts from wisdom, traditions that are applicable to the development of artificial intelligence, which sounds crazy like how possibly with.
Rich Fernandez
An artificial intelligence you add the two together. Not a bad idea.
Bill Duane
Well, I mean, and you know, I think there was this real idea of there are very practical things. You know, one of the things that you alluded to in the set up for this question is that right now, the idea of these ideas of well-being and generative ness, and we'll just use the word love being something separate from the doing stuff.
Bill Duane
so one of the things that came out was, oh, there are things there are very practical ideas about how one defines the self in any given situation. Is it me? Is it we, this idea of, love and compassion as being percept, perception and cognitive elements. So this led to basically four years ago really starting to dive deep on what is the connection between wisdom and artificial intelligence.
Bill Duane
And at that point, I was not really it was certainly not, on the tip of everybody's tongues or the or the top of mind. So, I was I was moving away from the idea that, you know, from the well-being as being the framing into something, being a little bit more project and problem oriented. One of the things I missed in my career, going from engineering to LSD, was working on actual problems.
Bill Duane
so I wanted to bring for me that part, a little bit, more into it. And so it became clear then, as I said, you know, going back to all sorts of systems around us are destabilizing. Sometimes this is good sexism, racism, all that stuff. Other times it's really concerning democracy, the biosphere. In either case, we need to invent new ways of doing things.
Bill Duane
so then stepping into that space of, of innovation and then having this, you know, really crazy random thing happened that led me to then focus on AI. so right now it's around innovation challenges, particularly, around, around AI. So there's that Buddhism and AI project, the, the work at Google X is on researching and implementing hybrid human AI systems of care.
Bill Duane
and then, you know, at Amazon, it's really supporting the efforts of, Ridgeway and his team, about imbuing their leadership culture, with, emotional intelligence and empathy. as a, as a means towards higher performance.
Rich Fernandez
So it's so interesting because, yeah, emotional intelligence we get we do that as well. But this hybrid systems of care with artificial intelligence probably bear some unpacking. so could you describe because always in your work I'm interested in how you, put forward sort of human centric approaches to artificial intelligence. So is that what we're talking about?
Rich Fernandez
What are we talking about when you say that, hybrid systems of care in AI.
Bill Duane
Yeah. That's a that's a really beautiful way to put it. So basically, the work of this group called the center for the Study of Apparent Selves, which, is, was Thomas's naming. And it's an awesome name for a group. I like it because it sounds you like, oh, are these people AI researchers or is it like Scooby Doo?
Bill Duane
Or it could be either I like that. but, you know, there's this idea that care makes you smarter in the medium and long term, right? That's the takeaway is that care is functional. Care gives you affordances. And we believe this is something that you can model. Right. So as an example, imagine you're stuck in traffic and you're late for an appointment.
Bill Duane
And you start slaloming through traffic to try and make up some time. your definition of me in that situation is, is quite small. And as a way of solving your problem, you choose a way of solving the problem that actually creates the problem that you're stuck in. In the first place. People slaloming through traffic, creates traffic. However, if you can shift your definition of self from me to we, then all of a sudden ways of driving that would, increase flow rate of traffic, become winning.
Bill Duane
And if you do this in enough numbers, then all of a sudden you start your, your, your slightly different definition of we, ends up creating more possibilities and the motivation to pursue them. And then when you bring AI into it using that specific example, imagine that like 40%, 50% of the cars around you have programing that makes them optimize for the overall flow of traffic versus, you know, and then maybe there's even some clever way of having a beacon of saying, I'm late, where we're where that can help.
Bill Duane
So this is an example of what's a hybrid AI human system. So our whole thing is that care is more effective. And again, going back to the beginning of the conversation, it shifts things from like care is nice and moral, which of course it is fully. And it's actually, the smart play. So that's, that's the model that we're looking at.
Bill Duane
And then there's the question of then how do you implement it? And we you know, we're working on some ways of modeling this in toy universes and artificial life and then also expanding it into, into more complex, like actual projects of what would it look like to use the lens of care, carers, perception, carers, cognition, carers, intention sharing, setting and then carers, is taking action.
Rich Fernandez
So if, what's great is this conversation is like the conversations they have with, with all the time when we go on walks or go out to brunch, which requires me to catch up and sort of understand exactly what he's talking about. And so I do it by repeating, if I understood this correctly. So did I understand this correctly?
Rich Fernandez
When you talk about care, we're talking about essentially something that has beneficial effects, perhaps beyond one's own self-interest. And then is that, first of all, is that am I understanding. So the traffic example like, you know, other than getting myself to a place most efficiently, I'm also thinking about how I can move whether intentionally or not. But like, you know, not be a part of traffic, which has its knock on benefits for the overall traffic dilemma.
Rich Fernandez
and so you're trying to create these things in an artificial if, first of all, is that right? And you're trying to create build that into AI in your work with ex and others.
Bill Duane
Right? Well, and, you know, build that into human AI hybrid systems. And the reason why that's such a crucial portion of it is that and then my belief is that if we fail at AI, it will not be a technical problem, it will be a human problem. Right? So it's really important that at the same time, the technology is really important, and the rate of the technology change is one of the key drivers.
Bill Duane
It's really our relationship to it. As humans that will be, that will be really, really pivotal. And this is the reason why, you know, we've really framed it as human AI hybrid. So, for example, if you wanted to build a complex system that had the emergent quality of privacy, but no one on the team had the lived or felt experience of privacy or the absence of privacy, what are the chances that they would make all the micro decisions that would result in privacy being a robust, emergent quality of that?
Bill Duane
So, you know, when and again, is part of the reason why I think it's so important to put the human part of it is I can't imagine doing the work I just described to you without the humans doing work on the felt experience of care like, and and this is, this is, this is where I think the, the mindfulness and the emotional intelligence stuff is literally how could we create automated systems that have these qualities if we don't have them and, and selves?
Bill Duane
And going back to the learning and rich, you've known me long enough. there was a time in my life when I didn't have that lived experience. Right? And if you don't have that lived experience, if you haven't set out to create these skills of self-awareness, self-regulation, connection, and understanding one, it's easy to go through the world like missing a whole bunch of opportunities to do good, or not realizing if you're causing harm, right?
Bill Duane
So this is how I think this really, really. So the one thing I really want to land on is that we have to really pay attention to the technical part, like around the stuff around like the book Weapons of Mass Destruction is a great one about the way that algorithms can take bias and then propagate them. but at this point, it's only humans that have the ability to imbue compassion and love and care into these systems.
Bill Duane
So if we don't train ourselves up in how to do that at the individual and the team level, then I think it'll it'll be much harder to try and do that at the at the AI level.
Rich Fernandez
I love that, and it brings new definition to the word train the trainer data via you're training the trainers of I love this, which actually is a good bridge. Perhaps to that next topic which is around future of work. So in a lot of ways what you're talking about is upskilling and developing capabilities or capacities for greater care, empathy.
Rich Fernandez
You know, all of these qualities that are kind of human centric, which you must possess first for yourself before you have to, before you can build systems that you know, even remotely represent them. So when you think about the future of work, the growth of AI within that context, what do you see as, let's say, the critical skills that we need to develop as AI becomes increasingly a part of our workflows and our reality?
Bill Duane
Yeah. I mean, you know what? What is the critical path for humans to put in to, to these systems? and then also is how do humans respond and react to periods of rapid change and dislocation, which is coming. Right? It's already it's already starting. you know, with global warming, what's it going to be like when the most densely populated part parts of the planet hit the road within a 50 year time period?
Bill Duane
Right. as well as the technological change, some of the political change, we are we are seeing so, you know, during times of complexity and ambiguity, you will never have the data that you wish you had to make decisions. Right. And so I'm talking at a very, very high level is, you know, our, our system of, of engineering has assumed a certain level of things being consistent that I think is, is really changing.
Bill Duane
So how do we hold complexity and ambiguity I think is really, really, really important. You know, something, you know, a piece of research that has been fundamental to both our lives and our careers is that your studies in, curve that shows that the relationship between stress and performance is curvilinear, too. Little stress. You don't really get much done.
Bill Duane
You're not excited or engaged. Too much stress. You shut down, there's that, there's that, there's that sweet spot. So I really think that's going to be super crucial as we begin to, to navigate this one is what's our level of resilience. Are we freaked out? and then too, is with this idea that given that causality is going to start shifting a lot, you know, in business school, you learn to instrument things and then measure them and then extrapolate them and then do clever things based on that.
Bill Duane
Well, what happens when the past is not an indicator of the future? How often are we surprised? How often do you look at the news rich? And you just like that happened, that just like I didn't even think that was on the table. And yet it's happening and everyone's just sort of nodding like it's normal.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah. Now that's really true. So navigating ambiguity as a skill set, really absolutely kills. Yeah. Is that what you're talking about?
Bill Duane
Trainable that I would add. Yeah. Thank God they are. I'd be screwed if if they were, I would have been stuck. Maybe. Where, the kind of person I was, ten or, 10 or 15,
Rich Fernandez
What would you call that? Bourbon and hamburgers. Way of coping.
Bill Duane
Well, yeah. So I had a I had a very detailed method of coping with stress. although it was the bourbon and cheeseburger method, which is the language of my tribe does not scale.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah, not necessarily sustainable for good health and well-being, but, but the practices and tools around, navigating complexity. can we kind of get a little more granular on those? Like, what would you say are the things people can do to build that toolbox for themselves?
Bill Duane
Yeah. I think the key thing to be aware of is the more like different levels of complexity and ambiguity. Different things are the smart play for it. So if things are pretty consistent, then policy and procedure is really, really good, right? there's a thing, a model that I really love called the Canevin model. I'll spell it because it's Welsh and the spelling has no connection to the pronunciation signify.
Bill Duane
and in simple systems that are really consistent causality, it's policy and procedure. if they're complex, you know, you can really be clever to figure it out. And then, so that's complicated. and then complex is where actually causality comes and goes, and then there's chaos, which is the fourth quadrant. What's really interesting is that different strategies are different, are successful.
Bill Duane
Like if you try and put policy and procedure on an emergent situation, like it doesn't work, even though in a different context, it's really, really important to to do that. So there's this meta awareness of realizing like, what level of complexity am I in? And therefore, what's the what's the smart play? And then another layer on top of that is that if you grew up in an environment where policy and procedure was the right way to do it, you'll see every problem.
Bill Duane
Everything that's broken is because it's broken, because it doesn't have policy and procedure. If you're a Googler and you love complicated environments, any failure is a failure to invest in enough analysis and getting data and figuring it out. So I think those ideas, like we all have our preferred lenses of looking through the world, and then to have enough cognitive emotional flexibility to let go of our favorite and to see things as they are and, and then to do it.
Bill Duane
So that's, that's an example that I've found to be extraordinarily powerful. And then to switch it from sort of the systems thing to the individual thing, like what are our stories about which one we prefer growing up? How did that happen?
Rich Fernandez
Right. So that then now I'm thinking about our listeners who might be R&D practitioners, who are thinking, this is all conceptually, hopefully modern and, you know, resonant, given the organizations they work in, the uncertainties that they're trying to navigate, their leaders, their employees are trying to navigate. All right. So how do you go about, scaling up the the workforce and the leaders to engender this kind of cognitive flexibility, you know, to kind of manage their, stresses, anxieties?
Rich Fernandez
the never ending and ever increasing demands on their time and attention. Okay. So Elon Leader wants to solve these things, for example, like how might they go about doing that from, skills building perspective for their teams, for their organizations?
Bill Duane
Right. So my approach is always to have it be problem oriented, to say, what problem would this solve? So an example of a mistake I made at Google was I wanted to I wanted there to be a compassion program. Compassion training. So I went to my VP buddies and I said, hey, what, what do you what would you want to see in a compassion program?
Bill Duane
Like, I'm glad you're doing it. Sounds cool.
Rich Fernandez
somebody should do that.
Bill Duane
Yeah, well, I mean, they all said that, but I realized I'm asking the completely wrong question. Right? And the way I went back after I figured it out, the the mistake I had made was. What business problems do you have that connection and understanding would solve and then blur. So I think from a lab perspective, the first thing is to always look at and this is my sort of cultural anthropology background.
Bill Duane
Peeking out is like, what does the world look like from their point of view? Because like, we all have self-interest. And again, like, what practical problems would it solve? will we'll get the amount of buy in and interest and attention and willingness to follow through. so I think that's a good way of closing the knowing, doing gap of sort of aligning self-interest.
Bill Duane
the second part is to present a model that I think of, like how this works to create a common vocabulary. I did that with the Can Evan model that I super briefly unpacked. and then there's the, the individual skills portion. and I think this is the toughest thing because there's a difference between information and, and behavior change.
Bill Duane
and it's a little bit of a side quest using video game, terminology, but, maybe I can unpack something that's been huge for me about the four ways of knowing from onions, tomato, which covers this. So that's all right. I'll take please go ahead.
Rich Fernandez
Do that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Bill Duane
So Agent Tomato mentions and this is an account. He's a, traveling Buddhist monk, and he says there's four ways of knowing. There's information. He notes that you could teach a parrot to recite, you know, the four basics of Buddhism. And it doesn't mean that it would be enlightened. But you have information level you've given. You've been given a map of the terrain.
Bill Duane
And I think a lot of lower quality land stuff stops there, like, oh, we've given them the information. And part of the trick that's so hard with LSD is that that's the easiest part to count. But since it's all that stuff, so you've given.
Rich Fernandez
Some that you're good to go install this app. Yeah. You think they need all the information and and they're they're done. Yeah. Got it. Then they're just.
Bill Duane
Yeah. We'll just we'll just assume that that that happens. But then the second way is the lived direct experience sense of the person, you know. So for instance, if I, if I gave you this Canevin map about complexity and then you said, wow, I'm really feeling like I have this direct lived experience that everything's tumbling and up in the air and I don't know what's next.
Bill Duane
And I'm constantly surprised in the mind, in the body. That would be that second way of knowing the lived, direct experience of that. and part of the thing that's really challenging if you're only operating at the information level, is that a lot of times this is literally a felt experience. And if you're like me, how I used to be, like living shoulders up, like, you know, it's all about ideas and, you know, like, shoulders down was like, there be dragons.
Bill Duane
That's the place where I feel like I don't have agency or control and I don't like my body. So why would you pay attention to it? So I think this is the area where there's the for particularly for executives of everybody, but in particular for executives. This is the area where the skills are the least. And this is why so many people stop at the water's edge of information.
Bill Duane
the way I trick executive arms into working on this embodiment part, is to talk about intuition. since literally intuition or nonverbal body cognition signals, and there's a whole thing to talk about that. So one is information, two is embodied experience, three is connecting the two. That's when you go, oh, this is that thing. This is the oh right.
Bill Duane
This is that, this is that thing that I read about. It's that moment. And this is always wild because it's always so different than you thought it would be. Like you have this idea in your head about and you're like, oh right, right. This is you know, this is so when you have that moment. and then the last part, is wisdom.
Bill Duane
Can you actually apply that? Gil Franz Dale, a meditation teacher, has a beautiful phrase that says, we don't always have access to our wisdom. And I think this brings up a huge point, is a lot of times, the insight step, the third step, is unpleasant. You know, there's a lot of things around racism and sexism that people wake up to and they're like, oh, wow, that's that's harsh.
Bill Duane
And sometimes the unpleasantness of it prevents us from engaging with it from or just if we're too stressed out, we can't. We forget our wisdom. So those four ways, when I think about designing programs of one kind or another or another and or coaching engagements or advising a company, it's like, what's the information in the model? How do you guide people towards having a direct, lived experience of the thing that's under discussion?
Bill Duane
third is.
Rich Fernandez
connecting how.
Bill Duane
To connect those two, and then fourth is then you're going to forget this, right? How do you how do we remind ourselves.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah. And I I can see that thread in some of the work we've done together. Full disclosure, Bill and I worked together at Google on something called Search Inside Yourself, which is the emotional intelligence, platform there. And subsequently, you know, Bill was a board member for a nonprofit institute. Search inside yourself leadership institute, and collaborates to this day on site global, which also has elements of emotional intelligence training in it.
Rich Fernandez
But I think the common thread and bring it back to what you all said was that it's both. There's information, there's research on brain science, and you get to consume that. But really it's the practice of things like you named it, reflective practices, contemplative practices, forms of mindfulness or meditation. There's integrating it in the context of a community or cohort.
Rich Fernandez
Right. And then using that same cohort to think about the application of set insights, and getting support for that. And you always have this funny thing I remember used to say, what did you say? They would come for the neuroscience, but they would stay for the commute. What did you used to say about this kind of, when you remember you had a phrase.
Bill Duane
For the neuroscience stay, stay for the compassion and community.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah. Gut compassion and community. Because we'd say there's some neuroscientific ways you can, to engineer phrase refactor the brain, like you would refactor code, optimize the brain, you know, create like optimal functioning focus, all that good stuff. Performance. they certainly come for that information. But really, what they stayed for was the community and the compassion, that connection.
Bill Duane
Yeah. So, I mean, I think one of the most noble things anybody who seeks to help other people can do is, is to build a bridge. you know, so John Kabat-Zinn and man built a bridge of science, between my internal world of fear and anxiety and the fact that, you know, there was something that could be done about it, because I just thought as an engineer, as a scientist, as a cynical person, as a skeptic, that what this stuff wasn't for me.
Bill Duane
So I think this idea of like, what's the bridge that can be built? And again, echoing what I said earlier, one that honorably speaks to someone's maybe short term surface motivation. Like when I started this, I just wanted I was afraid of my job on a lot of days, like self-taught engineer standing on tippy toes, all of this stuff.
Bill Duane
I didn't want to be kinder. I didn't want to be more compassionate. I didn't want to have a clearer sense of my values. Like none of those were on the table in the beginning. So I think to really honorably meet people where they are, build a bridge. But to make sure that that bridge not only addresses the the short term need, but also, the deeper needs, like that's the it's the work of a lifetime.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah. It is that human centric approach. I know from experience that it is scalable. when you take like this cohort based model, sometimes even peer learning model, remember we had G to G which is Googler to Googler. so employees teaching employees some of these skills. There was a whole community which you were a big part of called G paws.
Rich Fernandez
Plus, where you literally take time to do some practices around these, reflective practices, sharing human centric, compassion based practices. that was a very organic, sort of self-directed group. But I think there's ways, deliberate ways that led leaders can, plan for this, integrate it into, you know, the offerings in an organization, because not just because it's nice to have and because now wouldn't it be nice if we all felt better while we do our work, but because I think it actually greases the skids on enabling and accelerating business results.
Rich Fernandez
And I think that's another piece of it that, you emphasize. So just. Yeah, iterate for us, that whole I love that switch, that pivot that you make where you need to offer well-being because you thought it was a good thing as opposed to it's really in some ways not to look at mercenary, but to have it been within the context of organizational impact, business results.
Rich Fernandez
Can you say a little bit about that?
Bill Duane
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll go I'll go backwards, with the second point then, and then the first is, you know, to the extent to which any of these qualities are separate, then the business, even if the business is nonprofit, then it's not integrated. If something is not integrated, it lacks integrity. so I think it's really, really always important to have this focused and not just be like separate or an after effect.
Bill Duane
So for instance, if you look at well-being or compassion or any of these things, if you say these are tactics we will deploy when people get burnt out, one is that's a very expensive way. You lose productivity, but also is, it's it's inefficient because you're, you know, anytime you deal with a problem later. But part of the reason it's inefficient is also you lose all the benefits of having this highly imbued with the way you work.
Bill Duane
What goals are set, what behavior to the leaders model, what behavior is rewarded or punished socially or formally? And what's the story the group tells about itself? This is the opportunity to, to supercharge this and part of having this be deeply imbued with the way the group works means that. And this is a point we've we've you know, had discussions about is you can't get there with classroom learning.
Bill Duane
You just can't for for sometimes very practical reasons. I think one of the great things about Covid, to your point, is we've shown just how much classroom learning can scale. and that's absolutely true. And from my point of view, it's a necessary but insufficient condition for having it be imbued in the day to day. So, I would state it much more emphatically than you did is like my my second hire in the wellbeing team was a community organizer because I knew that I could never solve the knowing doing gap with classes.
Bill Duane
There had to be this cohort based. So one is it scales. Two is a deeply imbues like, all right, here's the bullshit I got to deal with this week. I would love for some ideas to to help work through these. Right. And so I and this just doesn't happen. you know, Van Riper, the, the, the expert, the community organizing expert that, that that was really fundamental along with Rashica about, Suki, about about creating this this program was, you know, you have to be super intentional.
Bill Duane
It's it's not just organic. It just doesn't happen. Particularly when all the ways within an and function of measuring success are butts in seats and customers sat right in and this is why you have to create these communities of practice. That's the only way that they're ever going to make sure that you go beyond that. that first portion of it.
Bill Duane
And, you know, I learned so much from Van and Rouge. You know, van said something that was very counterintuitive for me. He said, make it a little hard to sign up for the community and like, well, we want the community to be big and robust. He said, yeah, but if people sign up with an initial rush of enthusiasm and they never follow through, that's just a it's a crappy experience of it and it makes people feel like this is flaky and unimportant.
Bill Duane
So with the idea of it not being organic to actually put in, there's there's a lot of cleverness about creating these communities that I think I said, ways to honor a great job and in creating these vibrant communities of practice. So if if I had to choose about putting resources in class versus community, I would I'd probably choose community.
Bill Duane
The the community part is, is usually under underserved in terms of the resourcing decisions that groups, make. You know, the way the way we visualize this at Google is we were switching from a hub and spoke model where the hub and spoke like the learning could only scale as the land resources scaled and scaled linearly. to, more of a full mesh method where every node is connected to everyone else.
Bill Duane
And certainly the land function is one of the larger nodes. And what we would say is we want to serve the community by putting information energy speakers and, executive alignment. You know, that that's that's what we enter into the system, whereas that's our value add, which meant going a little bit against the stream, because the metrics that everybody wants to measure by our customer sat in butts in seats.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah, exactly. And in my time at Google running executive dev, I saw that our most potent way to develop executives was when they were in conversation with each other about thorny business problems. And ideally, if those were cross-functional conversations, actually, and I love the days when, like, for example, the engineering executives like, wow, I really learned something for my sales leader and vice versa.
Rich Fernandez
I think there was value in the I mean, come on now. But, but the advanced leadership Lab was what we used to run. And, I'm really excited too, because you'll remember, subsequently, a few years later, one of my successors was Sarah Devereaux. I don't know if you remember her, but she'll be a guest. Yeah. As well.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah. So she ran exact dem, but she also was a big instrumental part of cheetah G or Google to Google learning. Google or to Google to learning a peer to peer learning network. So that's going to be in a future episode specifically because that's.
Bill Duane
Amazing.
Rich Fernandez
Right? Community based, peer based learning is critical, and I think led leaders to the extent they can build that in this. This might not be news to some of you all who are listening. but it was a core part of the methodology we did at Google. What we do it search inside yourself. And I think, you know, a differentiator in terms of integrating those learnings, those four quadrants of learning that you were talking about earlier.
Bill Duane
Yeah, I learned so much from Sara. Definitely her her her fingerprints are all over the, GPAs program because there was and again, so this is the value of investing. And this is, you know, the research that she and her team did that showed very concretely the benefits and the scalability and the quality of of actually having the people who took the classes then teach the classes as well as teach classes on stuff that the lab function isn't prioritizing.
Bill Duane
Like I went do a class on, like WTF trans and you know, and that was like ten, 11 years ago, totally ahead of the curve. And it was just like this person was just like, hey, I'm trans and this is what you might not be aware of. And, happy to answer some questions. So, so the research that Sarah and her group put out was so important and I it and then I think it really speaks to the value of investing in this.
Bill Duane
so I'm so happy to see. Oh, and we had, we had coffee, I went to, I flew all the way to, to Michigan to have dinner with my, college roommates. over a weekend. And, that's where Sarah is. So I had the great opportunity to have coffee with her and, awesome job.
Bill Duane
So I'm so happy to see that she's going to be on the podcast.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah, it'll be really fun. All right, so last thing, Bill, you know, in your current work, you yourself have a podcast which really kind of explore some of these ideas and the work that you do. If people are interested in that. well, tell us about it and what episode they might listen to if they want to really dive in.
Bill Duane
When when I began, you know, refactoring like career 3.0, there was the engineering career, the well-being career, and now the innovation career. You know, there's real question. A question at Google, we were encouraged to ask is like, what's a really hard problem? I'm a good person to to help solve. And, you know, looking at when I had decided that innovation and supporting leaders who were, in innovation was, was really important.
Bill Duane
And so, obviously I want to understand the problem space, what's out there and what I found was missing was this idea of the internal change that then connects to methodologies of external change. That's why I called it, the heart of of innovation. You know, I wrote I wrote a book. We talked about this a little bit.
Bill Duane
I wrote a book and, called The Heart of Innovation and an outline and started sitting around a book, people. And then I realized the subtitle of the book might as well be what a white dude in tech Thinks About things. and, you know, the story is much broader than that. In particular, in my nonprofit work, some of the use cases for innovation are not ones that the market is paying particular attention to.
Bill Duane
So the reason why this podcast exists is I have access to so many amazing people from so many different, diverse backgrounds. and I just wanted to hear their stories about the change that they're making in the world and also their own individual paths. So the podcast are just very open ended, freewheeling, discussions around that. And they can, you know, the heart of innovation with Bill.
Bill Duane
Dwayne, I think, is what you can search for or at the heart of innovation. Dot net. and I suppose the one I love, all of them, I, I only invite people I love on the podcast. so rich, I hope you'll, yeah, you'll you'll join me, one day, 100%. And, so so the one is, so it's with a friend and client of mine, called Marco Ferreira.
Bill Duane
He's really interesting in that he has a, a PhD in nuclear engineering. He has a PhD in computer science. and he believes that beauty is the most salient and important thing in his work at an ion Air battery company. so how the hell did that happen? So it's called how cappuccino, green energy, motorcycle design and innovation are inextricably linked.
Bill Duane
so that's, that's a win. That's, that's that's a lot of fun to listen to.
Rich Fernandez
Yeah, I've listened to that one. It is fun, so. Well, listen, my friend, thank you so much. Wonderful insights. I also really appreciate, the, innovative thinking that you bring to this, this is largely, I think, going to be, listened to by learning and development leaders. And so taking these sort of innovative approaches to skill development, I think is critical now more than ever.
Rich Fernandez
So thank you so much again, my friend. onward. We'll. All right.
