0:05
Exploring New Perspectives with Debbie and Cam
Welcome to the show where we expose new perspectives on our ever evolving world through the lenses of various industries, cultures and backgrounds.
Our guests are disruptors, united by a common goal to bring their purpose to life.
Whether they’re from the commercial world or third sector, from the global North or the Global S, expect an inspirational journey that will transform your perspective on just what is possible.
My name is Philippa White and welcome to Thai Unearthed.
What becomes possible when two people from completely different worlds stop trying to overcome those differences and instead begin using them to see what neither could see alone?
Welcome to episode 122 of Thai Unearthed.
Debbie Ahenkora and Cameron Milne are both creators, but they began in very different places.
Debbie had spent years building Golden Baobab, an organization created to discover African writers and illustrators and bring more African children’s stories into the world.
Cam had built his career transforming marketing organizations in the corporate and advertising world.
They met through tide.
During the pandemic, Debbie was in Ghana, Cam was in New York, and Golden Bayobub was facing a very practical challenge.
It had an ambitious vision but needed to communicate its value to potential corporate partners who spoke a very different language.
Cam brought his experience in positioning, marketing and communications to help Debbie translate that vision into something companies could understand and support.
And what began as one project became a relationship that has continued until today.
Now, Cam is the founder of Braid, an organizational design consultancy focused on the human side of AI transformation.
Debbie now works alongside him, bringing her experience as a social entrepreneur and responsible AI practitioner to help nonprofits and foundations adopt AI in ways that genuinely strengthen their work.
We talk about what happens when expertise crosses boundaries, how AI could give social impact organizations access to capabilities they have never had before, and what becomes possible when that technology is woven into the work rather than simply added as another tool.
So if you’ve ever wondered what becomes possible when very different worlds build together, this conversation is for you.
Debbie and Cam, welcome to TIE Unearthed.
2:56
How TIE Fostered Unexpected Connections
Cameron and Debbie, it is so amazing to have both of you here.
Thank you so much for joining me on TIE Unearthed.
Amazing.
You’re so excited.
Yeah, thanks for hosting us.
So before we start getting into any of the detail, where are both of you today?
So I’m in Montreal.
Yeah, and I’m in New York City.
And Debbie, obviously we’ve worked together, but the last few times ago when I spoke to you, you were obviously based in Ghana.
So what an exciting new move.
Yeah, it’s 360 almost to feel.
So to start bringing all of this to life because it’s an exciting story actually with various chapters and we’re and sort of another exciting new chapter, which is revealing itself as the day’s progress.
But to both of you, can you take me back to 2020 now?
We’re in the middle of a pandemic and you?
Each.
Joined a program with a stranger.
What?
Did you actually?
Think when you first met one another.
I think 2020 was a weird time.
It was weird because of all the uncertainty during COVID and not knowing kind of when things will be lifted, not knowing when the world will get back to working, but knowing also that you’ve got to kind of make things make sense somehow.
So in the midst of that, we had a project that we were trying to bring up.
And the big challenge for us always at Golden Bob Up was that we always needed to be bigger than we looked or better than we were because we were representing an entire continent literary work and at the highest quality.
And I always kind of worked with like youngest teens.
So we weren’t always quite there, but I look and feel always had to be there to get us the results that we wanted.
So that’s why I absolutely loved working with Thai because working with Thai, we could bring in people that we couldn’t afford to have on a daily basis that could kind of bring that external Polish that, you know, we needed to get the outcomes, but we couldn’t quite easily produce ourselves.
So when we we’re connected with Cam, I’m like, Oh my goodness, this is brilliant.
Because this thing that we don’t have this Polish that the corporates need to see to buy into this.
I think this guy can help us with it.
So it felt like, OK, this could be a big unlock for us and I was very excited.
So in comes Cam, who was in New York at the time, right?
Yeah, that’s right.
Yeah.
I was in New York and I was lonely in my apartment, quarantining.
I had just traveled from somewhere.
And the rules at the time in New York State, whether if you had traveled in between states or something, you had to be isolated for I think 14 days.
And the sheriff, which I didn’t even realize they were still a thing, would text you every day.
So every day I get a text from the sheriff.
And the sheriff would be saying, are you on your day 4 of quarantine?
Make sure you don’t go out?
So it was pretty intimidating.
It was a weird, as Debbie says, it’s a pretty weird moment.
So yes, I was, I was stuck in my apartment.
And not to say that this partnership came about from boredom, but I was definitely pretty bored.
And it had definitely helped me get thinking about ways that I could apply my brain power.
You know, I was working in advertising at the time and just the whole world was very different.
And I was very eager to apply myself in a way that was more unexpected for what I was doing every day.
So when I saw that you were looking to partner virtually, people from the corporate world with social impact organizations, I really jumped at it.
And then from the first moment, the word that stands out after meeting Debbie was like the were and we’ve been whirring this whole time.
You know, at the time she was in Ghana and I was in the States, But through WhatsApp, it felt like we were really in the room with each other.
We were batting ideas around from the very first call and during our discussions, it kind of felt like this global pandemic had kind of faded out of view a little bit.
And I think, at least for me, it was just a really welcome distraction and focus about something that’s really meaningful, You know, and I come from background of studying English literature.
So the idea of literacy is really something I’m very passionate about.
And Debbie’s passion for that subject is just so contagious, if you’ll excuse the pun, during that moment in time.
But we immediately realize that we excel at quite different things.
And immediately from our first conversation, I identified that Debbie is a, is a visionary, immensely creative and instant and endless source of like ideas and enthusiasm, which is kind of great for me as someone who is going to help because I came into this experience as a, as a supporter.
He knows that to be an assistant and excel someone else, but also because kind of through the conversations and ongoing work, I discovered a lot about myself and that enabling others to do their best work is actually the type of role that I love to play and that I thrive in.
So it was a very rewarding relationship from the early days really.
And here we are, 5-6 years later, still working together.
I just want to compliment this because it was an interesting time for Ty as well, because with the pandemic, we had been doing these immersive experiences and then when the pandemic happened, obviously borders shut down.
We had to very quickly kind of pivot to a new way of working, not just to sort of sustain ourselves.
But it was also.
This thinking of, you know, there was still the need for what we did.
We just weren’t able to do it in the context that we had been so used to being able to do it by sending people in, in person, going to places.
But I was so.
Aware that people are on their own in their houses, people are desperate for connection.
The organizations in other parts of the world were really struggling when it came to resource because everyone was so worried about resource and sort of where to put their money, but also having to pivot because many of the organizations, Oh my God, we were so used to doing things in a certain way.
We now need to think differently.
We need to understand and the issues for many of these organizations in the global SI mean, we’re talking real life issues simply because of, you know, access to certain logistics and even the seen and finances.
And so having the opportunity to find a way to bring these individuals because also Ty doesn’t usually work with individuals, but that moment in time was so necessary to find a way to bring individuals together with organizations.
This founder of an organization in the global S with an experienced professional from the global N.
Let’s just bring people together, see what happens.
But there’s definitely a need on both sides.
And it’s so interesting to hear because that was my thinking.
Oh my God, let’s just make this happen.
Let’s make this happen.
And it was an an extraordinary moment for us as well because I, I got so motivated by seeing these connections where they really made a difference to both parties.
Yeah, 100%.
And I think the previous Thai experiences we had had with Thai had all been in person.
So I think this is going to be our first one virtually.
And and so I was quite curious to see kind of how that would go because a big part of the the original Thai experience was the opportunity to exchange experiences, right.
So we have Age of hosting and these incredible fellows to support our working organization and they have the opportunity to experience our work, our culture, our country.
So in this case it would be different.
I think that was one of the things that I thought about.
I was like, oh, I hope this is enough of an exchange for camera because like I can’t give him Ghana.
All he has is I said our word.
So I hope it’s sufficient.
And I was just like anything that we got from Cam was just so grateful.
Something like, I hope this is enough for him because it’s amazing for us.
So interesting because I thought that there was an opportunity there for virtual work when we got back to working with companies and I needed to pilot it.
And I remember, Cam, I love you.
You were so great.
And I can’t remember we, we must have had a conversation, but I don’t even remember how it even came about.
And Deb B, because we had done a handful of programs before, like listen, I’m needing to pilot this.
I’m just, can we just try it?
And it was.
And it’s just so extraordinary how it went from some random conversations that we had back in, you know, 2020 to what we’re going to be talking about now, where that not only made a huge difference, but now it’s inspired a whole new chapter in both of your lives.
Mm hmm, definitely incredible.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, I think the, you know, hearing you both talk about it, it’s so indicative, I think of what a great organization needs to do.
And people often talk about like agility in organizational terms.
And it’s so easy to say that word, but it’s so hard to actually operate in that way.
And granted, you know, we all are relatively small business owners or work in small organizations, so it’s easier to be agile.
But I think it’s a testament to tie to Golden Baobab and to what we’re building now that you have these externalities that happen, whether it’s a pandemic or a technological revolution in AI.
And you’ve just got to be reactive and you’ve got to try new things and you’ve got to put it into practice rather than just think about it and plan about it.
And I don’t think tie in its current form would exist actually, if it wasn’t for that moment.
You know, it’s completely, completely forced to change upon how you think about how you can bring impact into the world.
And same with Golden Baobab and African Bureau and same with Braid.
It’s like these things would not exist if it wasn’t for these externalities that we as individuals and leaders responded to in this proactive way and shape shifted to become something a bit new.
Totally and I and obviously we work a lot with unlocking competencies and ways of approaching challenges and you know, necessity is the mother of invention is like is something that I am constantly thinking about with my own work, but also with the experiences that I provide for people.
But it really in my mind comes down to two ways of seeing a challenge.
One is I’m a victim.
Oh, what was me close the door.
I’m just going to sort of live with this.
The other option is open the door.
Let’s see what’s behind it and let’s embrace this and I think all of us in that moment did that.
Let’s see what the opportunities are let’s see what can happen and these are the fruits of that.
This is what happens.
12:56
Cam’s Journey to Human-Centric Leadership
So bringing this to life.
So Debbie, when we were put together, when we put together the the proposal for the Thai program back in 2020, you describe that moment in time to me and you explained that your team and Accra were scratching their heads over a sponsorship proposal, not knowing what to offer, how to price it, how to make yourselves legible to a corporate world that spoke a different language to what you were so used to speaking.
It really does come down to language.
It comes down to connection.
It comes down to how you present yourself.
What does that moment represent to you now, looking back?
You know, it had actually not dawned on me until right now that the project that Cam helped came and helped us with, which was our GB, the book bag project, which was another way for us to sell our books, right?
So we started our publishing house and we were selling traditionally, but moving books and volumes is very difficult.
So we came up with this idea that we had this book bag character.
Let’s fill the book bag with books and then those bags to cooperate as part of their Christmas packages.
Now, I hadn’t made the connection, but guess where we birthed the original GB?
It was in a tie project with Tiffany.
With Tiffany.
Yes, my very first high experience.
Tiffany came in and I think we were looking for ways to move boats.
And it was so fascinating to see her mind work because she was I guess applying like marketing and advertising principles.
Just like, you know, I just want to know what’s existing that we can watch on to.
OK, let’s talk about Christmas.
Let’s talk about gifts.
Then we came up with this character like in our office.
So GB and other time, we didn’t have our own publishing work, but we used it to fundraise to distribute books and earn some revenue.
And now when we started our own publishing work, like, hey, let’s bring GB back as a way to get our books out.
So then in comes another Thai fellow.
And I think on our own, we couldn’t probably have come up with an idea like, because we didn’t have the principles to apply that like I might, we would have come up with maybe another idea, but it would have been maybe not as exciting and not as able to translate to another world because we would have been only speaking to our world because that was the only world that we knew.
But Tiffany was able to bring her perspective from corporate, from advertising and help us to create something that could live in both worlds, right?
Lived in an NGO world, but it could also live, you know, in the corporate world and serving me.
So the big thing that Cam did, I remember, we’ll tell him about GB and he’s like, you know, I like it, but we’ve got to find a way for the character to come alive.
And like he played with the story of who GB was and we’d send him some and he’d send it back and it just read so beautifully.
And I’m like, oh, they’re gonna love this way better than way better than what we had before.
So come was almost the bridge between where we were and where we needed to go.
And we couldn’t have crossed that bridge by ourselves without this working out.
I was just so immensely grateful because I remember sometimes we’d be having meetings and then he had meetings and his other work and people like squeezing time between here them like, dude, I’m so grateful.
You have no idea.
You have no idea because such men’s help to us.
So yeah.
Actually, you’re very generous.
That’s all you.
Well, I definitely remember writing the story of of GB and that character.
And it’s funny, we were just workshopping something together for a client that we’re working on.
And Debbie was showing me some examples of, you know, how she’s been applying AI in her own work.
I was like, wait, is that GB?
And I was like, it was six years later and GB lives on.
And it was very actually rewarding in that way.
Very rewarding.
Yeah.
But you know, I think Debbie said it perfectly, the combination of skills and beyond just skills, just outlook on how to apply your skills to make an impact vary hugely depending on which sort of area of industry or society you come from.
And Debbie, in that particular instance I remember, just knew the social issue of inequality around children’s literature and representation so unbelievably well.
And what I was able to bring from corporate advertising in New York was none of that understanding, but a lot of understanding about how to communicate to corporate buyers or to different consumer groups and how to turn a brand from something that exists as words on a page into narratives that were going to move people to take action.
And so I think those skills that we had and we still exhibit now in the work we do today come from completely different places but mesh so perfectly well together.
And the common goal is the impact, right?
The common goal was about increasing representation of African stories to children and to as many children as possible.
But the way that we were able to make that happen was, you know, completely different.
It was very both personally rewarding, but it’s good when you get to the end of those types of projects because you kind of see what your work looks like and how it could only exist from those two different perspectives.
Yeah.
When we have been talking about your Thai experiences, but you’ve always said that stepping out of the day-to-day has always given you a new lens on leadership, and that complexity gets solved through these diverse perspectives, which is what we’re talking about now.
I mean, Debbie basically said it like, we keep doing what we’re doing all the time.
Having this external viewpoint come in is just so powerful because you can’t help but see things differently because your reality is different.
And it’s because of these diverse perspectives, not despite them, that progress is made.
Where has that belief been tested, and when has it been hard to?
Called.
Yeah, So a lot to unpacking that question from my personal experience, because I think it’s both very sort of practical learning, but it’s also quite sort of philosophical learning.
At least it was for me, you know, because when I first learned about Thai, I sort of had grown up for the past decade in environments where standing out and leading from the front was the style of leadership that was to be emulated.
It was sort of taught towards emulating this idea that having strong opinions was really important, that always engaging in debate was important, and that being the kind of the bearer of solutions was the most important thing when it comes to being a good leader.
And for me personally, at that time, I was huge people pleaser.
That’s kind of my archetype, I suppose.
And so that style of leadership, in some ways at least I thought was great because I really got value from people saying or thinking, wow, Cam is so great and helpful and he has the answers to my problems.
So this being sort of from the front leader gave me the most direct route to that type of validating feedback.
At least I thought it was.
But something wasn’t quite jiving for me in that like even though I was getting this validation and I was leading from the front, it just felt a bit unnatural and I always felt on edge.
Like 1 stray comment or one missed solution provided.
Would, you know, make me?
End of everything.
Yeah, it would be maybe down to everything.
And it’s like a tie that forced me to challenge that internalized belief of what good leadership was.
And it wasn’t necessarily a philosophical epiphany by just sitting there and thinking about it.
It was because we were talking about this before recording.
Actually, I couldn’t speak Portuguese very well.
So my first Thai experience was in Brazil with an educational NGO.
And, you know, I turned up, and I was hoping to have the answers for them, but I honestly couldn’t even understand what people were saying.
I couldn’t read the reports.
I couldn’t literally understand what was going on.
And actually, this is a piece of advice that I give to anyone I speak to now, particularly people who are starting their careers.
Find a place to work.
Work for a week, for a month or however long where when you turn up you don’t know how to find a glass of water because you don’t speak the language and you don’t know the culture of whether you’re able to drink from the tap or have to go to a shop.
It puts you in this very slightly uncomfortable place.
You know, I’m not talking go into the deserts and put yourself in danger, but try and put yourself in a position where you have to work out how to navigate the environment because it was just so humbling to not be able to communicate.
I had all of this marketing expertise and all this training.
I’d consulted for really smart leaders in New York, but there in Brazil, I could, you know, barely order coffee or ask for directions.
Yeah.
Overtime my Portuguese got a bit better and Google Translate became my best friend.
And ultimately it led me to kind of use the words porque more and more, you know, like why and and como, like how, you know, questions Because that’s all really I could do.
I was asking question after question to solidify my understanding.
And it’s through questions that I learned the most about, you know, Brazil’s educational issues, but also how I earned trust with my colleagues and the communities that they served.
And it’s through questioning that I kind of got a lot closer to the humans at the center of, in that instance, a social issue.
And ultimately, I think every problem in the world is a is a human issue.
Even what we’re going to talk about in a minute around AI, it’s technology, but really it’s a human issue.
So your question about developing a new lens on leadership, It was really being out of my comfort zone, which sounds like it’s a cliche, but really it’s a cliche for a reason.
That was the real catalyst for my evolution from forcing myself to be kind of front LED leader to more of a sort of human centric leader.
There’s different words for that, but I just sort of like the idea of human centricity in my in my leadership style where building coalitions and asking questions and being curious is how to solve problems effectively.
And that’s kind of how I evolved my leadership style, I suppose, through Thai how?
Amazing.
And I just again like listening to where things were in 2020 and now, how all these puzzle pieces kind of come together and how that’s now evolved to where you’re now.
And I find it so inspirational because the old way of leading that you talked about would not work with what you’re doing now from the point of view of particularly with what you are doing together.
It just wouldn’t work it.
Wouldn’t even come up, do you know what I mean?
But the fact that it’s human centric, the fact that it’s empathetic, the fact that it’s really trying to understand, asking those questions, that’s now birthed quite an extraordinary initiative that you’re both doing, which is exciting.
22:58
Unlocking 10X Impact with AI Integration
So let’s talk about it.
So Braid exists at the intersection of two things the world often treats as separate, so AI capability and human purpose.
I’d love to hear from each of you.
Where do organizations get that wrong and what does it look like when they get it right?
So yeah, just to introduce Braid and where it kind of came from, I’d spend over a decade in the ad industry.
Things seem to be going well for me and for the industry until about, I’d say two or three years ago, when to ChatGPT first started really taking off.
I think every industry at that time just became obsessed with AI.
But I really felt that the conversation actually kind of lacked ambition.
The conversation was all about sort of speed and efficiency and automation.
And that’s pretty demoralizing.
If you’re an employee, you know, the conversation is about how do we make you faster?
How do we reduce the cost that you have on our spreadsheet?
How do we automate what you do?
And so I really thought, you know, let’s inject the positivity and the ambition into what this moment really potentially marks.
You know, where’s the talk of growth and creativity and new potential?
Where’s the talk of what humans are capable of in this whole picture?
And so Braid was kind of born from that belief that people are actually the greatest source of untapped potential within an organization in the age of AI.
So what we do is we sort of help companies and mission driven organizations with the human side of AI transformation.
And that might be tailored AI training programs or other organizational design programs that might be evolving operating models for the AI era.
And so to your question about where organizations get the integration of AI and human right and wrong, I’ll sort of go back to the braid metaphor that we’re born from.
Braids are sort of tightly woven from individual threads, and these threads are intertwined into something new and something stronger than their constituent parts.
And I think that organizations must think of themselves in this way.
They must think of themselves as braids, as braided organizations.
They are built from threads.
Threads like people like technology, like process, like data, like culture, and these are the dimensions that need to be intertwined, but where organizations often go wrong as they sometimes see these dimensions more as Lego bricks or as links in a chain.
They’re kind of bolted together, but never really properly integrated.
And so the organizations that are getting AI integration right right now are the ones that are intentionally designing how this technology can be braided into their work.
And the result doesn’t look the same for every organization, right?
Not a braided organization is not necessarily an end state.
You know, some might be totally reimagining how their teams are structured.
You know, maybe they’re moving to this relatively novel concept of like dynamic teaming.
But others might be keeping their team structure but using AI to help connect information across their existing structure.
So there’s no one answer here, but what we do is we help leaders navigate that transition basically and making sure that the human part of organizations remain an equal thread in their braid as the AI technology and other threads basically.
For me, that’s really interesting actually, to be able to picture that because the human needs to be an integral part of it.
Rather than removing the human and you as a consumer or as a client of a company, you can tell when they have been like, OK, let’s just take everyone out and just make it the chatbot and you’re like, I need a person.
Yeah.
So I guess maybe to get a little context about how I moved from Golden Barber to AI in the 1st place.
So my family and I moved to Canada and three years ago and when I came here to do a master’s in information studies, information studies has a library science component, which is my initial interest because I wanted to explore how to get our books into North American library systems.
But then information science also has a tech component.
So I was in this program right when Chaji PT was coming up.
So that became a big part of the work that we did and we studied and outside of my coursework, I was just like, you’ve got to be kidding, right?
Like how is this technology doing things that before it took us months?
So he’s an example of this corporate proposal that we were struggling with.
AI could speak the language we couldn’t speak.
AI could do the tears that we could never quite figure out how to do.
AI could do the strategy.
AI could help me come up with a three-year nonprofit strategic plan.
Just show me what it needs to look like and then I’ll fill it out and then I’ll do that.
Like I just could not believe it.
And I thought, Oh my goodness, all the things I struggled with.
That’s three months when I was building this organization.
This thing can do in seconds.
This is going to change the social impact world because then more young change makers can be equipped.
And that was always the thing that was startling for me and my work starting Golden Bob about 18 years old.
I was just a college student.
I had this idea.
I launched this literature prize for an entire continent and it worked.
And I was like, listen, if it’s.
Working really well by the way.
If it’s working so well and I’m just this little kid, then what does it actually take?
What it takes is will you need to want to solve the proper Isn’t that the adults in the room were never willing to solve this problem?
That’s why it’s here for me to solve today.
Is that what it is?
But the trouble I had was there was just so much I didn’t know how to do.
If AI had been there, I didn’t know where it would be.
So how can we give this technology to social impact people?
That was my thinking.
So Cam and I hadn’t even been that much in touch.
Like, you know, we were on LinkedIn and then I saw that he put this thing up about Braid and I was like, oh, Cams in AI too.
I had to get a job in Canada.
I got a job working in AI because of my fascination with it.
I’m like, wait, comes in AI too?
Like we should nerd out about AI.
So I reach out to him and then we talk.
He tells me about Braid and my mind is blown.
And I’m like, yes, the technology is so amazing.
Why aren’t we seeing 10X results in the work that we’re doing?
The technology can do so much, so why isn’t it 10X seeing everything we’re doing?
And for me, my fascination was about that 10X.
How do we 10X impact?
How do we do that much more?
Because this technology exists.
And the thing for Braid was that the Tenex isn’t happening because we’re still using AI as analog people and not as AI native people.
We’re not braiding AI and our work.
We’re just like using the front e-mail here.
We’re just using it for a thing there, but it’s not totally integrated.
And it’s in that integration that changes how we work.
When humans and the technology merge in an intentional way and recreate how we work, that’s when the Tenex comes in.
So it’s almost like having a new member to your team who is Claude.
Claude’s incredible.
But Claude came in and you didn’t on board Claude, Claude.
And he’s just sitting in this corner.
And when you have an e-mail, oh, by the way, Claude over there, can you write this e-mail for me?
And Claude brings the e-mail and that oh, Claude over there like Claude isn’t integrated, but you have this new incredible team member and you’re like, Claude, you and I are going to be a team.
You’re going to be partners.
I’m going to teach you how I do all my things.
I’m going to set you up here.
You’re going to be responsible for this.
I’m going to and you braid Claude into how you work.
And Claude is a superpower, but he got to right, And if he could do that, that’s when the 10X starts to happen.
So when come describe that world, I’m like, that’s it.
That’s the missing link.
That’s the path to the 10X.
And then he said something else.
He’s like, oh, you know, we’re new and I’m just trying this out, you know, give maybe six months, see how it goes.
I’m like, you’re not giving the six months.
This needs to work.
Break needs to exist that I think it took me back to that moment as a founder struggling with something and thinking, can this work, you know, back in a car like what can’t can’t just work.
Well, I’m just going to try it and see if it doesn’t work.
And then in comes Cam is like, of course this is going to work.
Here’s how you think about it.
So I think in that moment I’m like, OK, how can I be a Cam for cat?
How can I do for cat what Cam did for me?
Love to understand from each of you, where do you see it going and what are you seeing happening?
Yeah, great question.
So where we’re completely united in our sort of purpose, I suppose, is that humanity and people need to sit at the heart of AI transformation.
And what that means in terms of how we help companies, it can be relatively, I don’t want to say it’s amorphous, but there are sort of two tiers to it.
At the first tier, you need everyone to just understand the potential of the technology and learn how to use it.
So to Debbie’s point, every single person in a foundation or a nonprofit or a social impact organization needs to know what is even possible with the technology.
So a lot of our work right now is around training, but that training is not sort of off the shelf.
Here’s how to prompt or here’s how to use this feature.
It’s incredibly tailored and we understand and sit with people working on the sort of ground floor.
So the middle managers, the individual contributors to understand what their day-to-day work looks like, what are the tasks and then teaching them how the functions of the tool and the technology can be mapped directly onto some of those tasks.
So that’s sort of Stage 1 relevant learning, I suppose.
Then Stage 2 is the sort of more amorphous organizational design stuff.
So that might be redesigning teams, it might be redesigning processes, it might be evolving how teams interact and communicate.
There’s a cultural dimension to this.
But the unifying thread throughout all of it is that we believe that all of this work needs to come not sort of top down, but kind of bottom up.
So even though this type of initiative might be initiated by leadership, it has to be driven by almost everyone in the foundation or the nonprofit organization.
And I think when you combine those two things, people understanding the relevance of the tools, functionality and designing an organization or an operational model that allows people to use the technology in a way that makes their work more impactful, that’s when you get the sort of the 10X.
So in terms of where this is going right now, we’re sort of working with a few organizations on the training components and we’re doing a few little bits of organizational development.
But despite the industry being so breathless about AI right now, we are so early in this transformational moment that we can’t get ahead of ourselves.
You know, we’re not here to sort of sell a rosy fictionalized future.
We’re here to do something that’s going to be impactful today.
And so we want to make sure we work with leaders and organizations that are at that stage.
You know, they they might have an eye on what the future might be, but they know that today they just need their people to be able to do better work in ways where they feel more empowered.
So that’s kind of the the trajectory.
It’s very much a cruel run thing for the whole industry and with everyone really is at the cruel stage, but that’s really the work you have to do to be able to build the muscles to walk and run.
So what would be really interesting to understand based on that, what do you believe is possible for social impact organizations right now that wasn’t possible five years ago?
And what stands between that possibility and reality?
I think the social impact world has never lacked purpose, it has never lacked ambition.
It has never lacked insatiable desire to change things.
What it has lacked, like in our case, was the ability, the resources, the know how, the skills gap.
And that’s what AI does well, right?
It cannot do the human part.
It does not have the insatiable desire.
It cannot activate itself to change problems, the will to change certain things, the picking of what to change.
Social impact organizations are doing that, but their work is stalled by what they’re not able to do.
And that’s when a, that’s where AI comes and asks that team member.
So I think one time Cam and I was saying that like AI is our Cam, right?
Not to replace humans, but as that thing that comes in when you’re stuck to say this is, this is how you can move to the next level.
And for people who work and organizations who have that insatiable hunger, I feel like just bringing in that gap, whatever that gap is, could be really game changing.
It’s so funny when you were talking about Cam and him kind of coming in and doing the thing and I just kept thinking, yeah, isn’t that great?
Because that’s basically what I can do now.
And not to remove Cam, but it’s sort of people don’t have the access on scale with the type of help that we can provide.
And this scales it.
Cam, do you want to?
It’s no.
I love how you articulated that because I thought that at the beginning.
Yeah, No, it is.
I mean, just, you know, working with a lot of sort of nonprofits and foundations at the moment.
I think what everyone’s so excited about is getting people in that organizations closer to the founding mission.
You know, so many of these organizations are so purposeful, but when you sort of trickle down from the founder or the leaders, people can sometimes drift further from the purpose of the work that they’re doing.
And I think what AI tools can help people with is get back to the closeness of how what they are doing day-to-day, whether it’s writing reports, running surveys, analyzing data, get that really back close to the reason why that survey, why that data, why that analysis needs to exist.
And that I think is so exciting.
It’s such an amazing, potential filled moment for reigniting people’s sense of purpose in the work that they’re doing.
36:05
The Power of Agency in AI Transformation
Oh my God, is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to say?
I think I will just add, you know, back to the idea of like Cam being the AI is that like, you know, Cam Cam could activate himself because he was human, right?
Like he can ask the questions that get the work moving, but AI is now a Cam on everyone’s team.
But if you don’t leverage the Cam like you’re not going to get the outcomes because the Cam cannot leverage himself because the Cam isn’t human, right?
So this idea that we’re in a world now where there’s really no barrier to amplified impact, but we’ve got it’s got to click because we’re in that transition space.
So that transition really needs to click for more of us, not just in social impact like all of us small business owners, like we have this person on our team that can be a game changer.
How we thinking about how we braid this person into our team.
I love the braid analogy.
I mean, obviously, I’m surprising that you came up with that, but it is such a beautiful articulation.
And because it’s true, you sort of using AI just as an external thing.
Because what is so?
Powerful is when you have the strategy, when you have everything put together, you know how to, you know you have your notion board, you have everything there, you have everything put together.
You know how to tie everything together.
So when you’re putting together a proposal, you’re putting together, you know everything is integrated, everything comes together, including the whole organization and everything.
If you just write a proposal with AI, it’s going to be just sort of this external thing that just sort of sits there.
But if it’s integrated with everything and you understand how to bring the fabric of your organization, you bring all those hairs together.
It is this beautiful braid and so powerful in 10 Xing.
But otherwise it’s this external thing and not get a cow on your team.
Or a Fraper or a Devi or a yeah, or a Bob, you know?
Yeah, No, I mean, I love what you said, that I’m so glad that it resonates with you as a metaphor.
And I think the only sort of thing that I would really encourage any listener or anyone working in a social impact organization or any organization is that we’re in this really interesting and nascent moment with this technology where we have the agency to shape how we use it in our organisations.
And we as leaders need to have and feel some sense of responsibility for how we adopt it.
You know that that is about the ethics and the responsible use, Absolutely.
But it’s also about exactly what you’re saying there, Philippa.
It’s like, how are we going to use this and how we write grant proposals?
How are we going to use this in terms of how we join up our survey data or our impact data?
Because a bad scenario is in three to five years time, we have a bunch of large tech companies that are enforcing a way of working and forcing a way of data sharing upon us rather than us feeling like we have the agency to shape that technology for us.
So that’s kind of the moment that we’re in that we’re really trying to galvanized people to seize.
39:02
Well, that is an amazing thing to end on, my gosh.
And it’s true.
You know, the more agency, the more you’re in control rather than letting the tech run you.
Listen, both of you have a very special place in my heart.
You have both been part of my journey for years now, which is quite exciting.
I’m so proud to have been a small part of this.
I’m of course following your journey.
Congratulations and you’re both amazing and I’m truly grateful to have you in my life.
So thank you.
Yeah.
And honestly, Phillipa, I do have to give you more credit than you’re giving yourself here because I think you represent more than just the connector.
I think what your role with Ty has been as well.
Having this vision many years ago before the world could even understand and having the conviction of this is a better way to work.
This is a better way to build leaders.
This is a better way to support organizations.
And your model, Like I remember the first time you described, I was like, wow, this is so thoughtful.
It’s so integrated.
You’re thinking about everybody.
Those are time where like the fellows would even raise money to support the organization.
It’s like you don’t have to do that, but it’s so helpful that we’re so grateful, like.
So well thought out and just seeing you be consistent with that and build it to this level and evolve whenever you know you have to evolve, I think is an inspiration in of itself and and that conviction.
I feel like, you know, this is one story of impact in the world, but now exists because of your conviction, right?
And I’m thinking of all the other people whose lives have been changed from the organizations themselves to the fellows, to the stakeholders, to the community because you to this conviction.
And he didn’t give up.
So thank you, thank you to you, and thank you to Tai.
Plus one to that.
Definitely couldn’t agree more.
Thank you, Philippa.
Thank you both having a wonderful rest of your day.
You too.
Bye.
Hey everyone, it’s Philippa again.
I hope you enjoyed listening.
Now if you’d like to dive a little deeper, why don’t you check out my book Return on Humanity Leadership Lessons from all Corners of the world.
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And if you’re ready to breakthrough disengagement, spark innovation, and build agile, purpose driven teams, let’s talk.
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Visit philippajwhite.com to learn more or get in touch.
A huge thanks to Benna Vieira for the music and to Pete Morgan for his help with the editing.
Until next time, and I hope we’ll meet again soon.
