Episode 5: Conversations That Matter - Aaron Alburey, LACE Partners

Welcome back to another episode of our Conversations that Matter podcast. Throughout this series, you'll hear the opinions and experiences of individuals who deeply believe in the power of conversation.

We are excited to welcome our next guest, Aaron Alburey, CEO and Founder of LACE Partners, a leading HR and Payroll transformation consultancy.

Aaron has worked in the HR space for over 30 years, setting up LACE partners with his business partner Cathy in November 2014. Aaron previously worked for both Accenture and Deloitte, and is incredibly passionate about the delivery of HR technologies to improve employee engagement and productivity.

OpenBlend's Founder and CEO, Anna Rasmussen sat down with Aaron to reflect on how HR tech has evolved over the last 10 years, and a relationship of balance between human conversations and technology to truly drive long-lasting, people performance.

Join us on social to keep up with all things OpenBlend.

Follow us on LinkedIn, where you can connect with our Founder & CEO Anna, and our Chief Revenue Officer, Jordan. Have you got a question for us that you'd like answered? Email hello@openblend.com today.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Anna Rasmussen: Welcome to the OpenBlend conversations that matter podcast. I'm Anna Rasmussen, founder and CEO. OpenBlend is a software platform that replaces the performance management approach of yesterday with a tool that recognizes the human being in the achievement of goals and enables one-to-one conversations that drive outcomes to retain and grow high performing cultures.

[00:00:34] Anna Rasmussen: We've created this podcast series to share the opinions and experiences. of individuals who deeply believe in the power of conversation. In each episode, we'll hear from people that we've handpicked for their unique perspective. Some of those personal, some of those professional, and all incredibly insightful.

[00:00:53] Anna Rasmussen: We hope that you'll gain some valuable tips, advice, and perspective on driving your own conversations that matter. So thank you so much for joining this conversation that matters podcast today I'm absolutely thrilled to be joined by Aaron Albury who is the CEO and founder of the HR and change consultancy Lace Partners.

[00:01:16] Anna Rasmussen: So prior to founding Um, Aaron spent circa 20 years, which we've just been giggling about that, in Accenture and Deloitte, spend, specializing in HR consulting. So very safe to say that Aaron really knows his stuff and I'm thrilled to be chatting to him today, an absolute privilege. So thank you so much, Aaron. 

[00:01:37] Aaron Albury: Thanks Anna. It's exciting to be here and thanks for the reminder of the age, appreciate it. 

[00:01:44] Anna Rasmussen: That's okay. Yes. 30, 30 years of wisdom, which, uh, I'm sure all of our listeners are going to benefit from today. So before we kind of get started in kind of the main body of our discussion today, it'd be great to just kick off, maybe I can start with what you like most like about your job, Aaron?

[00:02:08] Aaron Albury: I love that question. And, it's interesting, one of my kids was just asked me that the other day. I have, between my partner and I, six, six children. So there's always a question about work somewhere along the lines, but, um, I think for me, the thing that I love about this job and why I've been doing it so long is it is this, and we're going to talk about it today actually, the way in which people meets technology.

[00:02:34] Aaron Albury: I'm an engineer by background. I grew up doing computer science. That's my heritage, I fell into HR very early in my career. Um, and, and I've always been able to blend those two things together. And that is the best bit about my job. It's just figuring out how to help organizations get the best out of their people, And for me, the added advantage of then blending technology and that to enable it. So I love it. It's exciting. It's always fast moving and you've got the challenges of people, uh, meeting the vast world of technology. So yeah, couldn't get a better job, really, in my mind. 

[00:03:08] Anna Rasmussen: We're very aligned, aren't we, Aaron? I would say they're the bits that excites me a lot about my job as well. So, um, so yeah, that's a perfect lead into our subject that we're going to be discussing today. So, uh, in a time where HR tech is rife, do we still need human conversations to drive performance and develop people. Um, so I'm genuinely excited to run through this with you. I've broken some, it down into kind of three sections. So the first section looking at tech and how tech helps people. The second section around conversation. And then the third one, which I'm now expecting you to come alive in, when we're looking at the combining of tech and conversation and how they work together.

[00:03:55] Anna Rasmussen: So, Yeah. So in your 30, we won't go back 30 years. Let's go back 10 years. How do you think HR tech has evolved over the last 10 years?

[00:04:08] Aaron Albury: I think for me, probably the biggest change in the last 10 years, you know, and it coincides really with when we launched Lace Partners, which was 10 years ago, was the move to cloud based technology, and then that drove in terms of speed of innovation. In the technology landscape. So I think what we've seen over the last 10 years is just a very rapid, uh, increase in technology pace. And which brings with it some challenges, right? In terms of organizations, keeping up people, keeping up best use of functionality, and all that kind of stuff, But what it has also done with the changes, the macro changes in the employment market and COVID and everything else is also enable in a way it couldn't do before, employee experience. And, and, and putting employee experience at the heart of technology. So not just a simple user experience from the tech side, but a genuine connectivity of process of flow of work through tools to help people deliver work better.

[00:05:08] Aaron Albury: And I think that for me is probably, if you look over the last 10 years where everything has been moving towards,, and lots of challenges with COVID, but COVID itself really accelerated then that level of technology support and enablement. Um, and it's brought with it some challenges we've, I'm sure we'll get into in the other conversations, But I think that's one of the biggest, the biggest things for me is that sort of, how do we stop using technology in the HR space to make HR's job better? And how do we start using technology in the people space to make work better? And that really is kind of, I think what we've seen in the last few years. 

[00:05:47] Anna Rasmussen: So you mentioned that about the flow of work. I'm interested to get your opinion on the impact that you have, that you think tech has had on people management. So I've been looking at the, the, the flow of work. We might be talking about project planning or task-based activity or, you know, projects, connecting people on projects that maybe aren't located together. What impact do you think it's had on people management?

[00:06:14] Aaron Albury: Good question. Um, and I know clearly this is your passion area. This is what OpenBlend loves and what exists for, right? But I think, it's an interesting one. Theoretically, technology should have improved this position around, talent and talent conversations and so on. But I think what it has done in some cases is reinforced a HR bureaucracy process. Um, and that has been one of the big challenges in the marketplace is that it is, um, originated from an HR enablement process rather than this experience. And I think it's only in those last few years of the 10 years we've been talking about that that has shifted, and so what we are starting to see, I think now are tools that, that help those conversations, um, that remind you easily about what was talked about before that brings together objectives and goals and measures alongside the conversation and prompt you and guide you through that conversation.

[00:07:18] Aaron Albury: And I think that is where you start to see it actually enabling and helping rather than being a system of record, which is where, where historically it has been. But there's, there's so much in this space to unpack, right? And you know, whether you go for talent tools that are creating talent marketplaces for people to easily engage and find the new jobs and work on projects, et cetera, or whether it be as in the case of OpenBlend, helping people have the right conversations with the right guided process and the right coaching, there's, there's just, there's, there's a plethora of tools now to help. And I think. But, uh, as an HR director, as a CPO, try and understand how to navigate which ones are the best ones to use and how to, you know, at what point, and to what business end, right? So quite often it's a shiny, shiny tool for a problem that is, is an HR problem, not a, a business problem.

[00:08:15] Anna Rasmussen: Okay. So it's fascinating then that you mentioned sort of the difference between, sort of HR enablement and experience. And I know Lace, you've just produced a fantastic employee experience report. Um, what, and so it leads me on to my, my next thinking there. So what do you, I think workforce expectation, the employee expectation sits within experience, not enablement, right? So they come into work and they have an expectation, um, of the business, of the environment, of their manager, of being supported to do the best job they can do. What do you think, and which all, I guess, sits Experience, um, within experience is the experience that they have. What, what do you think the workforce expectations are of tech today, specifically in driving performance and their development? 

[00:09:08] Aaron Albury: Um, I think it is heading towards more of a consumer grade experience. And, um, what I mean by that is, you know, it's the age old thing, right? If you go to your bank on banking app and how it presents stuff to you, or if you're on a Amazon or an Uber or whatever, you know, it is at a point of need when you need it and it is presenting what you need to you in a tailored way, if you think about how you engage those apps and that's why you keep using them and keep doing it right. You need to get home, you need to get food, you need to get to, you want to go see a show, right? Whatever, but it's presenting it in a tailored way. And I think what we've seen is, um, in the, These kind of people technology elements is that growing expectation that presenting me with just a menu and expecting me as an employee to try and search for something and look for what might be the right fit for me whilst I've got a thousand other things going on in my, in my job that are related to meeting my customer needs, meeting the needs of the business. It's just not a reasonable assumption anymore. And you need to challenge that and you need to therefore. Present information in a way that feels tailored to the employee that is allow, allows them to go, okay, I'm doing this job with these capabilities, I've talked about this performance gap, I've got, and then for the system to present to you, here are the five things that you probably want to learn in the next quarter and then, or these are the skills you could develop, and these are some tips on how to do it. So that kind of level of tailoring around things is what we're starting to see emerge and certainly from a, from a, if you were to speak to, as we do a lot with the employee experience work, we do those kinds of voice, the customer exercises, that's what you hear, that’s what you hear loud and clear. Why this is what's there is too cumbersome. It's takes too long. I can't find what I need. There's this, there's just an overload at the moment. So help me narrow it down and help me make the things that make me better at my job. 

[00:11:04] Anna Rasmussen: Yeah, and I think that's a massive trend in how tech has evolved over the last 10 years because the tech is that consumer grade experience, I think you hit the nail on the head there.

[00:11:11] Anna Rasmussen: And that's something that we're constantly looking at with OpenBlend as well. People have this expectation, this technology has to make my life easier. Otherwise, I'm just not going to use it.. So, so, okay. To summarize on that side of things, it's fast, right? This is all over the last 10 years, the speed of information, it's moving, there's a significant pace behind it. It's kind of moved out of HR and much more into the experience space. Um, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, it's, it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's fast. I think that's kind of what I've got from that. So let's, let's move on. 

[00:11:47] Aaron Albury: Sorry, Anna if I may, I think, I think fast and we haven't talked AI at all, and we could do a whole podcast just on that, but that's part of the speed of it, And I think it is, AI allows vast data integration and analysis quickly and representation of that. So I think that will open up for a lot of the HR tools that are driving for this experience, that tailoring. Because it will just intuitively understand what you're trying to look for and present it in a different way, um, at pace. So I think we're going to see another evolution over the next five years of that coming together at pace now. So I think you're right. Speed, speed is one of the things, and I think that is one of the biggest challenges in this as well. You know, in terms of how people, bring together people and technology at work is the tech is the tech capabilities are outstripping people's ability to absorb it right now.

[00:12:42] Anna Rasmussen: I think you've got these two sides to this. So you've got the tech is evolving, but Individuals' expectation is also evolving and they need, they, they need to come together. I mean, we certainly, we certainly feel this in OpenBlend right now. Um, how those two worlds are meeting. Okay. So let's come up to talk about conversations, which obviously is something, um, That's very close to my heart, and, you know, as you know, we think that conversation is vital. We believe that the one to one is the most powerful tool that a manager can ever have to drive performance, um, and development. Do, do you think it's as relevant today?

[00:13:28] Aaron Albury: I think even more so, Anna, for a whole vast amount of reasons.I think my background, as I say, was engineering and technology. I've been consulting, but I'm also a professional HR delivery person as well. And I've been working in that space now for 30 years. And one of the first things I ever got taught as I went into that profession was around hard conversations, difficult conversations.I think we've all read that book at some point, how to have difficult conversations. And, and that, that has never wavered. I think in that 30 years that that is the core of it, but it's stuff has gotten, stuff has gotten in the way, um, of doing those conversations. And, and I, I was reflecting, getting ready for this conversation, this discussion.

[00:14:07] Aaron Albury: Um, I think that, that, It's cutting through everything to have the right conversation. So I think one, having a one to one is, is, is vitally important, but it's, how do you, how do you get in the time that is poor for people to the right conversation and in a way that allows you to have difficult discussions in a courageous way.You know, I think that's, that's one of the things that, um, I still think is If you're going to change productivity, helping people understand their role, their accountabilities, where they could do better, what they're doing great at, and how to, how to work with others. You can't just do that through tools.You have tools can help you gather that insight and information and use it. And one to one conversation certainly for me is still key. 

[00:14:59] Anna Rasmussen: Yeah, completely, you know, it's got to be the right conversation at the right time with the right intention and curiosity and all of that good stuff behind it. Um, to, to, to create the change and to make a difference. So we, and obviously that, you know, what aspects of the manager employee conversation do you think, or do you believe are the key drivers? For performance and development. 

[00:15:30] Aaron Albury: Ah, I think most of this boils down to expectation management, right? And what is expected of you in your role in a clear way, um, is, is remarkably difficult actually for people to get across in a conversation. Um, you know, you can, you can feel, I think, going into a one to one conversation that you've had a good conversation come out. And then if you interviewed both people separately, you may find that they actually thought two different things came out of that meeting. So that ability to get to clarity in a concise way that is, allows people to really understand what's expected of them. I think it's one of the, it's one of the key aspects. I think the other thing you, you touched on it a little bit there as well, is this, this Right conversation at the right time. Anna, I think, um, one of the things I've been really glad to see the back of is those sort of regimented once a year or twice a year conversations to be replaced by the concept of continual review and discussion. Because it allows you to take the moment to go, I need to talk about something now. I need to rather than six months after the fact to try and course correct, right?

[00:16:41] Aaron Albury: Um, so I think that right moment, right time is also really been an important aspect of the conversation, but I think clarity of accountability, clarity of what is expected of somebody, for me is one of the key things it's been, it's tricky to get across 

[00:16:55] Anna Rasmussen: but that starts almost in the onboarding stage, doesn't it? When someone comes in right from the word go, like what, this is your job. This is what's expected of you. And this is how, you know, the, the, the times that we're going to check in and check you're on track.

[00:17:07] Aaron Albury: Yeah. And what does success look like, you know, in this role? Um, and I keep coming back to that and, and also, you know, most jobs these days don't stay in, Doing the same thing day in day out, right?

[00:17:20] Aaron Albury: They, they, there's a level of fluidity in the market these days. Um, and so I think there's a, there's, you know, you have to have that timely conversation to allow people to course correct as the, as you go through the year is the, as the, as businesses change. 

[00:17:34] Anna Rasmussen: There’s a very scary piece of research that was conducted last year that concluded that 69 percent of managers are uncomfortable communicating with their employees.Which is terrifying, isn't it? So if you're thinking about like the pressure, the pressure is to have the right conversation at the right time in a courageous way. Um, and you know, to have to do, to be really clear of what deliverables are, what good looks like all the rest of it. Yet the vast portion of managers are uncomfortable communicating.

[00:18:08] Anna Rasmussen: Um, which I think they, which I think is the con, which is the conflict of tech. I think people are so used to sitting behind email or, um, you know, the comms tools or whatever that actually it's reducing the level of confidence that people have in having those conversations. 

[00:18:22] Aaron Albury: I think so. And I think unfortunately, I'm a great believer in hybrid working. I think that part of the reaction to COVID has, has, has had some great benefits for a lot of businesses, but I think it has. unfortunately lost some of the art of conversation because you end up in very structured transactional conversations scheduled throughout the day, um, with, with limited ability to sort of, you know, and you have to remind yourself that not to just jump straight into the transactional part of your meeting and just go and have the conversation with people like you would have done in an office environment where you'd maybe go and have a coffee before you started your full peer discussion.

[00:18:59] Anna Rasmussen: Well, you mentioned, you mentioned at the beginning of the call that you've got six kids, I've got three, you can see. the impact that technology is having on their ability to socialize and have good conversations and all the rest of it, you know, and as parents you're monitoring it. But yeah, we, maybe we're not thinking about that quite enough in the workplace.

[00:19:16] Anna Rasmussen: Um, so moving on to coaching, so my, well, my background is coaching and I know that coaching is very much seen as an intervention. Majority, a lot of businesses would, invest in external coaches, Bringing them in to kind of work with typically more senior people in an organization. A big passion of mine is to democratize coaching and enable everyone to be on the receiving end of a good coaching conversation, but coaching is not wavering, is it in its popularity? I think businesses are investing more in in it. You know, I'm going over to the HR summit in Madrid, which is all about people development had a look at what people's priorities are. Coaching is really high on the agenda in there. Um, what do you think is underpinning the fact that sort of coaching as an intervention is is growing or not wavering in a world where tech is kind of coming in, because the people obviously see the value in it?

[00:20:19] Aaron Albury: I think it's worth separating. It'd be interesting when you go to that summit to understand. Um, do people see digital coaching as coaching because I think what's what we've managed to develop over the last few years is, to your point, more channels to democratize coaching in a way that never existed before and use of technology to do that. Um, and so I think, if anything, that has opened people's eyes to the benefits of coaching. And how, how much, how important that is. I also think, you know, we've got some macro things going on where we're three years past breaking out of COVID that is in a lot of cases, the timeframe in which you may cycle through a leadership team.

[00:21:03] Aaron Albury: Uh, certainly we've seen far more turnover of leadership teams in this last year than in the previous two, because businesses have got to a level of stability and normality, normality, um, around how they operate and therefore they're taking some of the options around leadership change and that in itself then leads to a coaching requirement and an environment, but I, I think, you know, I think there is this ability now through technology like OpenBlend and others to, to, to provide. online digital options around coaching that didn't exist before that makes it more accessible to the broader population. And so I do, I think that's probably fuelling some of that preference for it.

[00:21:50] Anna Rasmussen: Yeah, no, that's a really interesting point. And actually just through the accessibility of it, people are having a taster of it. They're seeing the benefit of it. It's just becoming more in bed as an intervention. That's becoming the norm. 

[00:22:02] Aaron Albury: And, and I think there's, I think unfortunately we talk about the sort of leader, um, um, team leaders, line managers, having difficulty having a conversation. I think in my experience, a lot of the, the senior leaders have as much problem with that conversation with their, with their peers, uh, and also are less tight and have even less time available. So I think they see, um, coaching as an option to help them with that, uh, at, at the senior leadership level. 

[00:22:34] Anna Rasmussen: Yeah. Okay. Brilliant. Okay. So now let's move into your, uh, your passion area then about combining tech and conversation. So we've looked at tech and the pace in which it's evolving. Uh, we've looked at conversation and the importance there is around good conversation and expectation, right conversation at the right time. Let's kind of bring them together and see how, how they work together. Um, to finish off today. So what, what are your thoughts On the use of time. Don't be polite because you're talking to OpenBlend. You know, what are your thoughts on the use of technology to enable conversation between two people? 

[00:23:13] Aaron Albury: Um, it's very interesting. It's coming into this conversation. I was, I was thinking through this point about whether, you know, I would argue there's improved, and then, then I was thinking back to a conversation I had with somebody just the other day around, um, how things were pre coded and, um, how difficult, how much email I used to have to wade through how much, um, how difficult it was some points to have discussions with people and how revolutionary things like teams, zoom and so much has actually changed things. So I think it's going out to let out from the coaching side for a second is looking at broader technology change. In the last five years, I think the world we now live in on video calls, teams, chats, you know, the level of email drops that that has seen, I think has been, has been absolutely beneficial to allowing quick, fast conversations. I mean, every day I'm sending messages to people that I wouldn't have had time to pick up a phone to before, or I'd have to spend time crafting an email to before where you can have an instant chat with somebody and just get an interaction going and of course, correct makes the set expectations, manage things.

[00:24:32] Aaron Albury: So I think there's that side of stuff has really, really helped bring. Bring that conversation together. That's just a mechanism to allow you to have the discussion. It has, none of that is helping me with how to have the conversation. It's just, it's still me talking through that channel, rightly or wrongly, getting it right or wrong. I think where the interesting areas are going to be, are going to be with some of the things that we're starting to see emerge with some of the AI technology, um, where. You know, you can almost ask the AI engine to sort of review what some of the things that you've talked about around, uh, with previous conversations and summarize the things that you need to talk through with somebody.

[00:25:17] Aaron Albury: Yeah. So, and no, that's not going to be the final list, but it gets you faster. So it removes that block to conversation. A lot of time when people think about, okay, I'm going to have a conversation. It's okay. What am I going to talk about? I've got a blank sheet. I've got to try and build it up. That gets in the way.

[00:25:31] Aaron Albury: And then it's always put in the pile of, we'll have it later. We'll have it later. There are things there with tools now that will allow you to get to, you know, 70, 80 percent of what the summary is to allow you then to add your, your bit to it and can move forward. And then you start looking at the kind of stuff that you're doing with OpenBlend where you're talking around how to have the conversation and the prompts and the guidance and the coaching that's built into that.

[00:25:57] Aaron Albury: So I think there's overall, I think it's, it's, a much, much better environment now, given the kind of work that we do that is hybrid and dispersed teams and distributed work. The tool sets available now are far, far better for having those conversations than they ever were. Um, but I think how you bring those together, how you use them, the way that your ways of working as a business, your, um, mechanisms that you put in place, the tools, the ways of operating. You need to have a very explicit conversation around about how that's going to operate for you and how, you know, how does it add a benefit for you?

[00:26:33] Anna Rasmussen: And I think it comes back to your point at the beginning around a consumer grade experience as well. I think if you're going to put technology into people's lives to enable conversation, it can't be prohibitive, prohibitive in any way. It needs to make their lives easier.

[00:26:53] Aaron Albury: Yeah. And, and it depends on, depends on how you, what your class as a conversation as well. Is, is a digital to digital conversation a conversation or is that, is that really class as a conversation or do you need to have.

[00:27:07] Anna Rasmussen: Right. So yeah, I think, yeah. Yeah, I see it more as a voice commentator. Can I, can I just give sort of slightly, it's not off topic here, but just the, we've mentioned a couple of times about the pace in which technology is speeding up. We talk about how people are time short. Um, we talk about the, the speed, you know, if we can have something that takes us 80 percent of the way there and then we, you know, what, what has happened in the way in which we're working where Because, you know, because I feel, I do feel this when, when, when we're out in the market, obviously we spend our lives, dedicate our sort of working lives to understanding how people communicate in an organization.

[00:27:48] Anna Rasmussen: Is that it's, the conversation with someone is the, is the thing. If we think it's that important, it is, that is the thing that people drop. I haven't got time to do that. I'm going to move that. I've got, I've got to deliver this. I've got to deliver that. What is it that is fueling this pace in which we're working where we can just drop, drop conversation?

[00:28:07] Anna Rasmussen: over something else. Did you have an opinion, you know, any thoughts on that? 

[00:28:12] Aaron Albury: Um, it's, yeah, I don't know. I'll talk from my own experience, Anna, in terms of this, because I, you know, I run a business with my partner, partner Cathy, and It's very easy to drop into a schedule for the day, call, call, call, call, right?

[00:28:34] Aaron Albury: And they're all conversations, but they're, they're pretty transactional in their nature. Yeah. Yeah. What they're, what they're not is that kind of empathetic type conversation that you want. An investment in that other person. An investment. And so we had a sense, we've had some checks and balances around this and had to sort of go, okay, well, actually, we're going to build some time in our calendars now that is just keep an hour free.

[00:28:57] Aaron Albury: So I can wander around the office and have a conversation with people, organic conversations and discussions and just check in and stuff, because I think it's really important. I think it's been lost. And I think, you know, you can hark back to all sorts of things, but I think the, the break with COVID, the lockdown, the move to.

[00:29:15] Aaron Albury: Teams based, Zoom based calls where you're in a scheduled type of environment. You remember, I think, going back to some of the debates we had over that time, right? Okay, let's stop scheduling it for a full hour, let's schedule for 45 minutes so people can have downtime between calls. Because we got to a point where you were just doing, you know, call, call, call, end of day, call, call, call, end.

[00:29:33] Aaron Albury: And there's no ability to have an organic conversation, which actually helps you, um, connect, meet on a personal, meet someone on a sort of personal basis in terms of the, in terms of the dialogue. Okay. So I do think it has, has, has been a challenge and a problem for a lot of businesses around this and that kind of loss of that, that ability.

[00:29:53] Aaron Albury: Um, and I don't think it's an easy answer to it. I think it is, it is a question of, of recognizing it and then consciously stopping and taking a breath and going, okay, we're going to need to operate in a different way. How do we get some of this organic ability back, which is why I think. Sorry, Anna, which why I think in some businesses, their answer is we need to reinforce coming back into the office.

[00:30:14] Aaron Albury: And I think that's why we've seen some of that start to come into, into dialogue. 

[00:30:19] Anna Rasmussen: I think as well, it's almost, and we're doing some shifts actually in the tool around to recognize this is being conscious of the types of conversations that you have with people. Because I think people, you're right, you're right, I mean this whole conversation is really brought this to the forefront of my mind is that actually we are using technology to talk all the time but that, that, the way that we're talking is transactional, task based, status updates, project based, how we're moving through and actually those invest in.

[00:30:48] Anna Rasmussen: empathetic, um, conversations that are a bit more kind of holistic about that in, about that individual, um, and investment in that individual are seen as just another conversation. Maybe that's how we're looking at it. We're just, we feel like we're talking all the time. I've caught up with them. I've caught up with them, but actually the type of that conversation The nature of that conversation is the one that needs to shift and we need to be more mindful for that because we're bringing in types of one to ones into OpenBlend, which I think actually, so it gives it almost a label and a purpose of that meeting.

[00:31:19] Anna Rasmussen: So we're going to talk about development and the, your development and the purpose of that. We're going to preload a purpose that you can edit, but it gives people an idea to start thinking, okay, so we're going to talk about your development. This is why we're talking about it. And then we're And this is what's on the agenda for this conversation.

[00:31:35] Anna Rasmussen: So helping people differentiate from those millions of Teams and zoom calls that we seem to have. 

[00:31:43] Aaron Albury: Um, yeah, it's a really interesting point and some conversations and I'm sure you're thinking this through, right, but some conversations require you to have a different mindset from your day to day job and work and switch to more reflective thinking.

[00:31:55] Aaron Albury: Yeah. And that's not always easy when you're action oriented transaction oriented and 90 percent of your day. And so, how do you help someone transition? Yeah. And they probably come from one meeting straight into the conversation. Yeah, that's why that's why copies used to be great for this kind of stuff, right? Because it allowed people to reset take a breath, move to a reflective position before you started in the conversation Then they would have thought more of it And I think that is where technology hasn't helped us in terms of some of the level of engagement because it doesn't You have to very consciously signal that that's what you need to do And when you're not face to face.  

[00:32:32] Anna Rasmussen: But AI could help with that, couldn't it? You could, you know, prior to a type of conversation, receive some content or some information that shifted your mindset, um, into that new place. God, we're putting an awful lot of pressure on ourselves, aren't we? Just the pace in which we're working. 

[00:32:50] Aaron Albury: Yeah, I think so. I think so. 

[00:32:53] Anna Rasmussen: I just had a I just had a vision then of receiving some AI content just through my ear on my walk to another meeting to get me in the right state of mind for the next conversation I was going to have.

[00:33:03] Anna Rasmussen: But, you know, joking aside.

[00:33:04] Aaron Albury: I think that's why the importance sometimes of just pausing, right? Yeah. Just pausing and stopping and giving that space, which is not easy. Um, but, you know, I think you say from a productivity perspective, just running from one thing to another is just, you know, it's less productive than actually taking time to breathe, focus and address some of those issues in a reflective way. So I think tools that can help you do that. I'm all for those. 

[00:33:34] Anna Rasmussen: Brilliant. So I'm just, I mean, I want to kind of round up on the sort of threats and opportunities. I think we've kind of discussed a few of those. So what, what do you think the threats and the opportunities are for an organization of leaning into tech to help the help conversation?

[00:33:51] Anna Rasmussen: Let's, let's lean that more towards these kind of conscious investment type one to ones as opposed to these kind of status update, um, task based conversations. if an organization is, is using tech to, you know, to Signpost the types of conversations in the workplace. Well, what can you are there any sort of threats at the forefront of your mind around doing that?

[00:34:21] Aaron Albury: I think that the risk is technology by its very nature follows a systematic process and that's how it's typically built. And so I think the risk is that you, you lose some of the. organic nature of a conversation by following, you know, Some people will then follow by rote the computer said to do this.

[00:34:45] Aaron Albury: and that for me is the biggest threat I think how do you How do you give enough guidance without taking away from what needs to be by its very nature an organic level of conversation where you, where you have to listen actively as part of a dialogue like that and, and, and, and respond, um, in a, in a way that might not follow the script, so to speak.

[00:35:06] Aaron Albury: So I think that's, for me, is one of the threats is that it's over engineered. Yeah. Start with introduction, introduce yourself and so on and that kind of thing that sort of works its way through. So I think there's, that for me is probably the bigger, the biggest threat in, in it is taking that personality out of the conversation and stopping that.

[00:35:28] Aaron Albury: I think from an opportunity perspective, as we talked about, I think this ability to, Use things like AI to summarize information to allow you to have to cut through the noise to get to the bits that really will add the value, um, to use it to give you the hints and tips on how to work through those more difficult conversations.

[00:35:48] Aaron Albury: If it's a difficult discussion you're having, um, to help, you know, because these are, these are, these conversations, especially the difficult ones don't happen every day. Um, and unless you're doing a job like ours or an HR professional type job, you know, you're not, you're not practiced in them all the time and therefore helping people understand it is actually not easy to do.

[00:36:10] Aaron Albury: It's difficult to do, but it can be structured. You can structure a way through it. Um, and giving them the guidance I think is another, is one of the real benefits where technology can be used to enable that kind of discussion. And then as we talked about that consumer grade experience. So as the person having the conversation, then what do I do with it?

[00:36:30] Aaron Albury: What do I develop? How do I do it? Making that really easy so that people can do it in their, in the, in their flow of work, um, because that's, that's, that is definitely the secret for most technology now is how do you get it into the flow of work so that it's just, you know, not something else you've got to go to because that will just stop it happening.

[00:36:49] Aaron Albury: Um, But yeah, I think that's, that for me, the sort of big benefits I think we'll see from technology in the space.

[00:36:53] Anna Rasmussen: Amazing, so just when you're talking there, I'm just thinking about Duolingo, and just how actually the way that you're talking about, you know, learning to have that conversation. It's almost like learning to have a language.

[00:37:05] Anna Rasmussen: You can have a structured, bite sized pieces of information that are served to you when you need it, but also that it fits into your day to day life in a consumer, um, grade experience is, you know, there's, there's some similarities as you were talking that I was thinking about that. 

[00:37:22] Aaron Albury: definitely. Yeah.

[00:37:24] Aaron Albury: There's lots to learn from, I think out there now. 

[00:37:28] Anna Rasmussen: Wonderful. Aaron, I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation. I really enjoyed talking to your, uh, your perspective. And yeah, I've learned a lot from that. So hopefully our listeners have as well. So thank you so much for your time today. It's very generous of you.

[00:37:42] Anna Rasmussen: I know how busy you are. You know being being a prime example how you can have really, uh, Highly sophisticated conversations in the use of with the use of technology because we're quite far from each other at the moment Aren't we? So, um, we are yeah. Yeah. So thank you so much for your time today. Um, it's been an absolute pleasure 

[00:38:01] Aaron Albury: Um, thank you so much and really enjoyed it.