Luke Marple: Rebuilding talent processes for the age of AI

Pauline Bertry 0:13

Hi Luke, welcome to the den, how are you?

Luke 0:16

I'm well, how are you?

Pauline Bertry 0:17

I'm well, I'm well. I'm so glad to have you here.

Luke 0:21

I'm glad to be here.

Pauline Bertry 0:22

Thank you so much for finding time to join. Look, I was

Luke 0:25

Of course.

Pauline Bertry 0:26

super excited that we reconnected. I know a lot of things happened in your professional life since we last worked together. So I'm

Luke 0:35

That's right.

Pauline Bertry 0:36

super excited to host you. And I mean, I know parts of your story because we did work together, but I'm pretty sure I don't know the entire story. So... I think it's only fair to start with my favorite question of asking people to tell me their stories. So what's yours?

Luke 0:56

Yeah, so I grew up in rural West Virginia and I'll skip through all of that. And I got my MBA from Michigan State before I joined McKinsey. And so McKinsey is where I spent the entirety of my career. I joined 20 years ago, expecting that I would be there for a couple of years and then move on. I joined as an analyst and ended up staying for 20 years. And so about the first third of that was as a consultant. So I was an analyst and an associate. engagement manager and then an associate principal. I did the very generalist consulting path early on, did a little bit of everything, eventually found my niche in healthcare strategy work, was doing a lot of work for healthcare insurers around the Affordable Care Act and kind of how consumers would buy on the individual exchange. Was also doing some leadership and top team effectiveness work with the org practice. But eventually decided to move off of that path and thought I would go do strategy work for a healthcare company, because that is the work that I'd been doing, and worked with a coach who helped me kind of re-look at where I got my energy and what I was really good at. And it became pretty clear pretty quickly that that all came back to people. So whether it was You know, the way that I solved problems by collaborating with clients or the way that I led teams and and helped get the best out of the people that I was working with. it was really all about people. And so I actually pivoted what I was looking for, both internally and externally, and started focusing on people-centric roles. And that was kind of the place that I found myself. And so I moved over to the professional development team in McKinsey, which is a group that kind of, you know. At the time in particular, worked with cohorts of new consultants and helped them through their professional journey. So everything from onboarding to coaching them to helping them interpret feedback to staffing them on projects and to running the review process. And so I did that and started leading that team for the Northeast office, which was our biggest office. and that team grew during that time from about 10 to about 25 professional development professionals. you know, across New York, Stanford, and Boston, and was very involved in kind of the broad people space at that time, a little bit like an HRBP role at at other places. went through multiple re-orgs and did the same kind of work, not for a geographic practice, but for a set of or not for a geo geographic office, but for a set of industry and functional practices. So at the North America level, leading teams of professional development managers who were You know, similarly, staffing projects, doing running people initiatives, supporting consultants from kind of the engagement manager through their partner journey. Did that for a few years. during that time, I was also leading our work around staffing and kind of how we match skills and people with the our clients' needs, doing that at North America level and kind of starting to radiate that globally. And then the last couple of years, I took on a global role. which was doing a few things, but the primary focus of it was at first replacing our staffing tool, right? So we had an in-house built staffing tool that was very good for the McKinsey of 10 years ago, which was very much, you know, an engagement manager and two generalist associates staff for three months on a strategy project. And as both the work and the client demands and the talent became more complex, more kind of integrated across the firm, we needed a new solution. And so we started looking at the question of how do we take advantage of AI? How do we be more skills focused in how we staff teams? And pretty quickly during that work, we realized that what we were actually doing was creating, you know, the backbone of a talent ecosystem that needed to also think about. learning and recruiting and evaluations, et cetera. And so, you know, I led that work kind of through the strategy and the build by and vendor scan and piloting. and that, you know, got to a place where they started to roll out the initial version of the tool. That role itself kind of reached a natural conclusion. And I figured I decided it was time to go do something different after 20 years. And so, you know, over the last few months, I've been you know, both in the job market, which is, you know, a little bit overwhelming for the first time in 20 years, because I never really searched in my entire time at McKinsey, despite having thought I wouldn't be there that long. but in the last few months, I've gotten quite excited about independent consulting and helping clients think about some of the the topics that I keep hearing about, which is, you know, For organizations, particularly, you know, the CHRO, the chief people officer, head of talent, whatever it is, they're thinking about kind of two things right now, right? One is how they lead an organization and a workforce through a transformation of the work driven by AI. And two, how they think about that being a lighthouse within their own organizations, the people, the people function or the talent function. And so how are they thinking about their own. processes, workflows, et cetera, some of which may not have ever been documented, some of which they may have already outgrown. And so how do they think about their people processes and what that's gonna look like as AI kind of comes into the organization?

Pauline Bertry 6:33

I love it. I mean, during your last, the last piece in McKinsey that you were mentioning, that's where we met and that's also

Luke 6:43

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 6:43

actually something that inspired me to do what I'm doing now. So I have you to thank for that.

Luke 6:49

Yes, we did some very interesting work around laying out what we wanted the the kind of experience and journey to be like in some of our core people processes for the stakeholders. And that you know, you really helped us bring that to life in a way that was I think helped kind of set the vision for what we wanted the final solution to look like.

Pauline Bertry 7:08

Yeah, I love that. And I mean, I know there are most certainly a lot of things you cannot share because I mean, I've been in McKinsey, I know the secrecy secret situation, but on a high level, if you could share a little bit around from your experience and from having built this internally, what are the, let's say three or five things that make McKinsey exceptional at bringing in and develop, specifically developing and keeping their best people over the 20 years.

Luke 7:50

Sure. I mean, look, that that is a a big question, right? But it but it's an important one to me because, you know, it I should say the reason that I stayed for 20 years, there there were kind of two reasons that I always kept coming back to. And every few years you kind of ask yourself, do you like, is this still the right place? And one was I never stopped learning, right? In any role that I was in. I constantly felt like I was being challenged and giving new opportunities and being taught new things and and kind of getting to do interesting stuff. And two was the people, right? And and so the people really is what kept me there for 20 years. And so if I think about some of the things that kind of make that true, right? So first of all, you know, there is a real, as you know, a real culture around the importance of developing people, right? Very much an apprenticeship model. the leaders at the firm Really are thoughtful about the way they are bringing up the next leaders of the firm, right? And so we do a lot of great learning and a lot of great development and evaluations, everything, but but fundamentally, in my experience at the core at McKinsey, you become a great consultant or you become a great leader by watching what the person. one step in front of you does and learning from them and replicating and getting feedback and getting coaching in the moment. Right. And so that is one thing that is really, you know, the heart of development at McKinsey. I mean, in my experience, and this again was 15 years ago, but it was the magic of the team room, right? Like how I learned to build presentations and shape a narrative for for an executive and think about how to win over a difficult client and and that all happen from kind of watching the the people ahead of me do that. So that's one. I think and that's kind of a culture and a people point. There's also a lot of process that, you know, hopefully feels behind the scenes to a lot of our consultants, but I think is really important. And that is how do you think about creating an entire ecosystem in a purposeful way that supports the development of people? Right. And so that's not just thinking about the review as a one-off moment in time that is evaluative, right? It's not just about creating good learning programs. So that is certainly a part of it, right? It's about how do you weave together that entire view of what a person's developmental arc should look like. And how are you supporting them kind of at all the moments that matter throughout that? Right. And so we had a very well-articulated leadership development model, right? So what do we think it takes to be? I'm gonna talk in generalist terms a little bit, but what do we think it takes to be a partner at the firm? And therefore, what are the signs that we need to see when you're an analyst and when you're an engagement manager and when you're an associate principal that mean you're moving along that Path on all the the relevant dimensions, right? And similarly, like on the technical side, a technical competency competency model. So we had well-articulated view of what good looks like, and then a whole ecosystem to support people in that. So thinking about what are the projects they do, how are we gonna, you know, set people up for success and and help them be apprenticed in the craft. How are we going to help them get feedback, interpret feedback, act on feedback in a way that self-reinforces? And how are we going to use the evaluation process and kind of the year-round development cycle to continuously reinforce that? And so I think it's both a culture and a commitment to developing people, but also the systems that were in place for that.

Pauline Bertry 11:28

I mean, I stayed in McKinsey eight years and I think if I were asked to kind of what was the major reason, I would say the same thing. I never stopped learning and people were amazing.

Luke 11:41

And and look that and that that extended to to people like myself even after I was in the consulting world, right? And so like I said, I continuously had opportunities to stretch my skills, but coaching from whether it was partners or senior leaders in the people space, putting me in in situations of stretch myself, giving me feedback, giving me support, so that I was always slightly outside of my comfort zone. And, you know, I and the growth that I can look back and see and appreciate, you know, is just phenomenal.

Pauline Bertry 12:11

Yeah, fully agree. And I keep trying to find like a one structured answer to the question that I generally get asked when I'm talking to my clients now or to like even people in different kind of organizations. So if you are not McKinsey, if you are not a 40,000 people company, but you are still in a like professional service industry, let's say a consulting boutique, a digital agency, even like a tech startup. What are the like simple and clear elements that you can borrow to

Luke 12:55

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 12:56

lay this foundation for people to feel supported in their

Luke 13:03

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 13:03

growth journey?

Luke 13:05

Yeah. So I I think it's a really I think it's really important the way that you phrase the question because certainly what worked at McKinsey at 40,000 is not what needs to be replicated at a, you know, startup with 30 or 100 or you know, a growing company with 250, right? Like it would feel like theater in those places to replicate some of the the process and and the intensity. But I do think some of the principles translate, right? And so one, you know, first and foremost, especially when you talk about kind of founder led or very early stage, the culture becomes an important part of that. Right. And so recognizing, because you said we're we're kind of keeping in the professional services or or related spaces, recognizing that people are the product and that the talent is kind of a strategic advantage, like setting that tone from the top. Becomes super

Pauline Bertry 13:58

Hmm.

Luke 13:58

important. And then everything else flows from there. And you you demonstrate that as a leader and you show that that's important. And you link it to systems that exist, right? And so when you think about how you're evaluating people, how you're advancing people, you look for not just people like them, but that they are purposeful about the way they develop people and they are purposeful about the way

Pauline Bertry 14:23

Hmm

Luke 14:23

they Create opportunities for people and the way they bring that up. So that's something that doesn't require any real process or systems, right? That's a a culture and an expectation setting, you know, that works at a smaller, you know, at a smaller phase. And then at some point you may outgrow that and need to put the systems around it to continue to enforce those things and start to think about things like what are the metrics and what are the scorecards, right? But that you don't need that necessarily early on. you know, a second one would be, you know. How do you make development a continuous journey and not a moment in time? Right.

Pauline Bertry 14:57

Mm-hmm.

Luke 14:58

And so especially in, you know, smaller, you know, early stage or smaller startups when everything is crazy and people are doing everything, like how do you become intentional about, you know, not just reviewing performance and then kind of moving on and waiting a year and re reviewing performance again, but making that part of an ongoing dialogue about. How do you support the person? How can they improve? How do you build on their strengths? Right. How do you get like make the emerging strength a towering strength? Or how do you fill in gaps? and how do you surround them with the people that they're going to learn best from? Right. Again, that principle of making it a continuous journey doesn't require, you know, a massive learning infrastructure, a massive coaching department. It requires intentionality about how am I taking this moment in time and you know, kind of extending it to make it continuous. Right. And so, you know, I think there can sometimes, particularly when companies are growing and they reach a threshold, right? Where, you know, they outgrow different parts of the people processes at different

Pauline Bertry 16:07

Hmm.

Luke 16:08

times, right? So and and you know, so you know, you may find the culture starting to strain around 50 to 70, or you may find that. you know, career pathing isn't important until you hit about 50, right? And then you have to start to be more to and so those things are going to start to feel strained at different times. But even when you have to start to be more intentional about them, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to put in a massive in infrastructure, a massive bureaucracy. And so thinking about what are those principles and how are we designing around them becomes important.

Pauline Bertry 16:39

Yes, that was exactly my second kind of follow-up question. What are the things that we might keep hearing that we might consider good, but that from your experience, companies shouldn't copy at smaller or mid-size scale?

Luke 17:08

Sure. Yeah, I I mean it I would say there's probably very little that should be copied, right? like

Pauline Bertry 17:15

Mm-hmm.

Luke 17:15

what should be, you know, look to and look McKinsey is a great example of this. It's not the only example of this, but I'm gonna talk about it because that's where I have the deepest experience, right?

Pauline Bertry 17:25

course.

Luke 17:25

But but you know, I'll think about places where I spend a lot of time, right? I spend a lot of time in staff what we called staffing, but kind of talent deployment, matching of skills with with projects, right? Even in the time that I was doing that work and moving from what I experienced in an 80-person office in Pittsburgh to what I led in a thousand person office in New York, to ultimately what we were doing as we were looking for more integrated, looking across more integrated talent pools for a 40,000 person firm, right? That even changed, right? And so, you know, it worked at a moment in time when I was leading this in the Northeast for us all to sit around in a room and say, here are the projects we have, here are the people we have, let's make thoughtful matches, right? That starts to break down when you're looking across North America because you want to make sure that you're bringing the best of, you know, the expertise and the best of the experience. And suddenly you're looking at, you know, a few thousand people, right? And so now all of a sudden you need, you know. You need a system that allows you to see who's available because it's no longer, you know, in the brains of the people who are in the conversation. You need a way to to credibly understand what each person brings to that conversation so that I, representing that kind of staffing function, can have a conversation with the partner who's trying to staff up a team, right? So, so, you know, even what worked, you know, in one of those contexts doesn't work when you start to become bigger and complex. But the, you know, the thinking about, okay, what am I trying to accomplish when I'm putting people on projects? Right. Do I am I doing that intentionally and am I doing it in a way that is going to both get the best outcome, but also help support people in their development and who makes those decisions and who's involved in that process, those are things that somebody can be thoughtful about, even in a smaller organization, right? I would say

Pauline Bertry 19:27

Yeah.

Luke 19:28

reviews is another place, Where McKinsey really shines. There's a lot about the McKinsey review and evaluation process that is really, really excellent. But you wouldn't have in a hundred-person agency or company or agency, you wouldn't have a massive committee with forms and pre-work, like you often probably know a lot of those people. But how do you become clear about? What is it that we're evaluating on? How do we remove bias from the system? How do we, you know, make sure that we have that we are spending the time talking about somebody's development and not just the backward looking performance evaluation? Those are the parts that should be replicated versus kind of the massive infrastructure that gets built up around kind of the semi annual review cycle at McKinsey.

Pauline Bertry 20:20

Yeah, and I would love to add one element there.

Luke 20:23

Please.

Pauline Bertry 20:25

I think what I always appreciated when I was part of McKinsey is that it feels really good to know that seven or eight people that are extremely senior are sitting for 15-20 minutes and discussing your story and thinking about how to help you be successful. in this organization for the next several years. And I think even though like now we have a lot of systems and there is a lot of talk about trying to automate people, automate reviews, bring AI everywhere. I think one thing that we absolutely shouldn't automate is this actual conversation because eventually the career growth is people dependent, whether we want it or not. especially in professional services.

Luke 21:18

Correct. I mean, and this gets at something that that maybe we'll talk more about later. But I think, you know, as particularly people functions or talent, you know, talent leaders think about where to bring AI into the talent space, right? How do you make it an enabler of the best of what you do as opposed to replacing that work, right? And so, you know, how do you use it to gather the inputs and the insights and you know, separate signal from noise and how do you use it to help structure your thinking. But ultimately that's a place where you're thinking about, okay, you know, how is this person actually performed and how do we help them, at least today, still needs real human judgment and pattern recognition and discussion.

Pauline Bertry 22:07

Yeah, I agree. think there is a very interesting study on that. is very interesting study on that. They run an assessment of performance review feedback, some that were written by chat GPT, some that were written by humans. And people appreciated the chat GPT once more. Until the moment they learned it was a chat GPT feedback.

Luke 22:38

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Pauline Bertry 22:41

But from your experience, what are the good cases or situations where in the talent space AI can generally bring meaningful value and which are the parts that you believe should stay perfectly human?

Luke 23:03

that's a a that's a great question. And and we are now starting to venture into forward looking, nobody has the perfect answer, right? And so, you know, I I I w I wanna

Pauline Bertry 23:12

Of course.

Luke 23:14

wanna caveat that with this is you know, this is all Luke's reflections, right? So so look, first of all, I think, you know, if I think about the the people in talent space broadly, There is a lot of process stuff that we do, right? There is you know, benefits administration and payroll, like, and there's a lot of process stuff that I think can be very much automated, you know, supported by agents, et cetera. And and that feels like a place where a lot of people have started to look and and made meaningful progress. You still even in that. need to be thoughtful about a couple of things, right? You need to be thoughtful about where are humans needed to, you know, approve, to recognize exceptions, what is the escalation point? And how do you have a human in the loop in a real way and not just checking a box, right? There was also a study that that I was looking at recently that, you know, This human in the loop idea is already starting to lose some of its power because, you know, technically there's a human in the loop. The person clicks the button, but they're not really spending the time to understand what the

Pauline Bertry 24:21

Hmm.

Luke 24:22

output was. And so that's something that I think the talent function people space needs to guard against, right? The other thing that is important, even in those kind of more process-driven parts of the of the space, is, you know. That process work used to do a couple of things, right? One, it got the work done, but two, it also helped build the pattern recognition and the judgment of the people who ultimately today lead that space and know how to oversee it and know how to govern it and know how to

Pauline Bertry 24:56

Hmm.

Luke 24:56

recognize when something might break as there are strategic discussions happening, right? And so thinking not just about how do you automate away all of the human work. But how do you continue to build the understanding of the importance of the process in a way that people over, you know, over the evolution can continue to work hand in hand with agents and with AI is, I think, incredibly important and a place that's going to be like a lot of really good thinking done over the next couple of years, right? And so does that mean that you need to, you know, have people do some of that? process when they first step into a role without being supported by agents? Or do you, you know, do you need to set expectations that 10% of those processes need to be done by human kind of over time just so

Pauline Bertry 25:47

Hmm.

Luke 25:47

that they they continue to understand? Because ultimately those agents and the AI needs to be, I mean, I think it's the BCG report that uses BCG or MIT uses this language of kind of like own like software, but supervised like humans, right? And so how do

Pauline Bertry 26:05

Mm.

Luke 26:05

you continue to make and and you guys have talked about this with Ron in particular, I've seen, right?

Pauline Bertry 26:09

Yeah.

Luke 26:10

And so how do you make sure that people understand enough of the underlying work that they can supervise that work and so that they can integrate that work into other workflows and strategic work. So so I kind of went on a little bit of a a tangent there. In the in the broader kind of talent development and people space, right? I think there's a lot of really exciting Work being done on how to synthesize a bunch of information and support a coaching and development conversation. Right. And so

Pauline Bertry 26:42

Hmm.

Luke 26:42

how do I look at all the various output that somebody has produced, all of their emails, all of their written communications, listen to a conversation that they've had and frame up kind of the observations and the synthesis of what you're seeing? I think where there is still a lot of value in that for a human to be involved. Is again applying that judgment and saying, okay, in the context of the role that you're in, the organization that we're a part of, the objectives that we have, you know, where do we focus? How do you apply that, those observations? Where do we actually think that so having a know an AI, having an agent or AI that is helpful in Bringing together a lot of disparate information, but then still having a human apply that, right? If I think about kind of the the internal mobility or staffing or talent space, where AI I think is really good is you know looking across the system to say, who do we have? What skills do we have today? How can it, you know, what are the different options for putting together a good team for this project or for this engagement?

Pauline Bertry 27:49

Hmm.

Luke 27:50

We're still not yet at the point where that AI is going to replace the human judgment of how we put that team together and how we arbitrate conflicts and how we think about a finite set of resources, right? It can help us to optimize and give us scenarios, but you still need a human making some of those decisions, right? and then the AI can also help us look at. Okay, well, if I look at trends and I look at the skills that I have today, where am I going to start to see strain on that system? Where do I need to think about building up skills? Right. Where do I need to think about training? Where do I need to think about hiring differently? So I think any place where we've got a lot of good data, AI will be very good at helping us think about what are the potential interventions that we can take. I think we still, you know, we're still at a place where Humans with their judgment, with their understanding of the organizational context, with their understanding of the politics and how to navigate are gonna need to make a lot of those decisions.

Pauline Bertry 28:44

Yeah, I read a nice framing that I try to keep when I work with AI in any kind of context is that the first 10 % and the last 10 % should be yours as a human. And then everything

Luke 28:59

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 28:59

in the middle can be AI, but you need to have this like initial what I'm trying to solve.

Luke 29:06

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 29:07

And the final, that's what I'm kind of packaging and making an actual product. 10 %

Luke 29:14

I I I I I think that's absolutely right. And I'm gonna add to that, right? I think that that first 10% is really where a lot of that pattern recognition and judgment that you've built over time comes from, right? And or or goes it goes into. And so I think that becomes critical. I think that last piece, that last 10% is the Part that I was referencing earlier, that that we have to be careful that we don't start to trust AI so much that we, yes, that looks good, kind of pass it on, right?

Pauline Bertry 29:43

No.

Luke 29:43

I've also seen, you know, studies about how much managers are taking on now because the people that are that are on their teams can produce so much more output. The manager's job of kind of reviewing and and understanding everything that's happening is becoming strained and kind of that cognitive load. But I I would I would go back to Even that middle 80%, yes, if it is synthesis, if it is structuring all good, if it is actually running parts of a process, somebody has to continue to know what's in that process, right? Because at some point something's going to break. At some point, there's going to be exceptions that need to be reworked. And so, you know, making sure that as an organization, you're spending most of your time here, but not losing sight of the of that middle work is also important.

Pauline Bertry 30:32

Yeah. I can totally relate to the pain you were mentioning on the number of elements that are now needed to be reviewed because the iterations are becoming so much faster. then sometimes you, like I feel five years ago, what would happen is that we would spend much more time in the beginning, kind of explaining the problem, framing the judgment. framing the situation, developing the idea, cetera. And then eventually we would get to a solution. And this is in almost any space, like take software engineering, take design, take marketing, et cetera. Now I feel like we are jumping from, like if you're trying to go from, I don't know, Prague to New York, we fly to the moon first.

Luke 31:23

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 31:23

And then we need to kind of build the steps down to land in

Luke 31:27

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 31:27

New York. And that's it. Like that's a challenging exercise to be frank.

Luke 31:32

Totally. And and and look, I've been experiencing this even working by myself, right? So as I'm setting up my kind of independent consultancy, I'm doing a lot of, you know, shaping my perspectives on things, building out what the diagnostic looks for looks like for this particular thing, et cetera. And I find myself, you know, I can produce so much. But I need to like be very purposeful about the time that I set aside to really step back and think about it. Not even just review, but really step back and create that thinking space. Because a lot of that thinking space got, you know, in your you know, as you look back a couple of years, a lot of that thinking and processing and getting comfortable space happened in that messy middle as we moved from kind of 20%

Pauline Bertry 32:17

Yeah.

Luke 32:18

to 80%. Right. And so like I'm finding myself having to create real time. to just sit with stuff in a way that I I maybe didn't have to before. So

Pauline Bertry 32:29

Yeah, that's fair. And I think there is even another trend that I'm now observing is the entire kind of junior talent situation,

Luke 32:44

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 32:45

because I see, I observe almost like two competitive trends and I would love to get your thoughts on that. So one thing I observe is that there are so many organizations that are like, we don't need senior people anymore because now we take a junior, we give them some AI and this is good enough. But then at the same time, and I personally see more of that, is that people hire senior people or upskill senior people to work with AI because they have the human judgment and the experience. And then it's becoming increasingly difficult for junior talent in almost any space to find these entry positions, these entry jobs that were extremely manual a few years ago, but were meant to build this judgment. And

Luke 33:38

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 33:39

I would love to learn how you are seeing the market in this area right now.

Luke 33:46

No, look, I think your your observations I agree with completely. I'm not seeing anything different. I think this is going to be one of the things that we as you know a society, as a business community have to really wrestle with, right? And and I think it's gonna be w there's going to be a challenge because the incentives for any individual, particularly on the smaller side, right? The the incentives for Any particular organization to make the investment in the junior talent may not be there in the same way that they were before. But if nobody is making that investment, we're going to look up in three years and realize that we've, you know, we've got a system, whether it's within an organization or across an industry, where we don't have the people who can, you know. Innovate around what the agents are doing today who can connect the dots in a different way. We're not going to be building that pattern recognition. And that is something that I don't know what the answer to that looks like, right? I know what it I have hypotheses on what it can look like within an organization for the people that they have, how they continue to bring them through the organization, right? It's things like I talked about, it is making sure that they are still doing some part of the process. It's making it's asking them to. answer a question before the AI answers the question. It's evaluating them on the, you know, the quality of their supervision of agents and not just the output of the work. Right. And it's looking

Pauline Bertry 35:13

Yeah.

Luke 35:14

so so there's a number of ways that I think you can do that within a system. But I think as we look across systems, that trend is going to to lead us someplace that that I'm not sure we have an answer to yet.

Pauline Bertry 35:25

Yeah, same. I don't have an answer to that. In my head, I was playing a lot with an idea of some kind of external secondment type of situation. So for example, like a company that would hire juniors on their account and then let them go to like five, seven different companies with different challenges, different... sizes and then the last company who hires them and keeps them maybe pays them like the hiring price because eventually they would have had like a senior person that was trained through several segments.

Luke 36:09

Yeah, and and whether that yeah, and whether that becomes a company that does that, you know, TBD where the economics live, whether that is a kind of

Pauline Bertry 36:19

Yeah.

Luke 36:20

social whether that is a a kind of social investment that we make. I I

Pauline Bertry 36:24

Non procediam.

Luke 36:25

like yeah, we'll I think we'll have to see how that plays out. But I I do think the incentives for any single company to solve this problem make it sud make it very difficult. Right. And I think particularly when you're talking about smaller companies who are thinking about every role they bring in. So

Pauline Bertry 36:42

Yeah, I agree. And there is one follow-up question I wanted to ask you from what you were sharing in the previous section, in the previous answer. You mentioned that it might start becoming a good practice to evaluate people on the quality of the agent supervision, not only on the output of the work itself. How would this work? or what's your view on that?

Luke 37:15

Well, I mean, I you know, if I think about what it means to be part of a blended human agent team, which is where I think you know, a lot of teams are going to move to, right? you know, what that mix is, I think will vary a lot across industry and across the type of work. But you know, and if you think about this idea that we referenced earlier around agents needing to be kind of owned like software, but managed like like people. Then, you know, how you lead that blended team becomes important, right? And we've kind of often or we've historically thought about how you lead junior people, right? How do you put them in the right position, give them the right training and coaching, give them feedback in the right way? You can ask kind of all those questions about how you interact with agents, also, like how do you supervise their work, how do you Correct mistakes? How do you take action when something isn't working? Right. All those questions apply also to agents, but we've never asked the question about, you know, how do you supervise your Excel usage? Right. We viewed use

Pauline Bertry 38:24

Yes.

Luke 38:24

Excel as an output tool. And so you need to know how to use it. But like now we have to actually start thinking about how we. manage those, how we design the interfaces between the human and the agent or between two agents, how we resolve conflict between the outputs of two different things. I think all of those are going to become management skills that will need to be, you know, they're not just like people leadership, yes, you can have a strength in it and you can have a lean toward it. But it needs to be developed and it needs to be nurtured and it needs to be coached. And it like it's a skill that you have to develop. And I think managing those blended teams is going to be another skill that people who are leading teams or organizations are just going to have to have to learn. You're smiling. I think you have something to say

Pauline Bertry 39:15

Yeah,

Luke 39:16

to that.

Pauline Bertry 39:17

no, no, because I love it because I think we have a concept of like people leadership skills. It feels like we are almost talking a little bit about agent leadership skills because you are perfectly right. Like when you work with an agent, I mean, one part of course is to have the agent designed in the way where it can accept the feedback, where it can be trained, it can be kind of non-need and guarded, et cetera. But then you need to have people who have the skills to provide the feedback to an agent in the way where it's something that can be later re-observed in the context and applied to further tasks. So yeah, I was love it.

Luke 39:58

I mean it and look, it it extends not just to the kind of when they're in the workflow. I mean, I was having a back and forth with a founder the other day, but over email who is you know working on a a talent marketplace. And we were having a back and forth about what agent kind of onboarding and sourcing looks like in the future. And does that actually look more like recruiting does today? Does it look more like what procurement looks like today? Does it take does it borrow from both of those concepts as you're kind of looking for how you build your team. I think that I think it's a fascinating way to think about.

Pauline Bertry 40:36

Yeah. And I mean, it's, I would be curious to learn more on that as well, because we were thinking like, as we are building Lron, of course, like one of the questions is like, how do we price them? How do we onboard him? And

Luke 40:50

Yep. Yes.

Pauline Bertry 40:52

like, which parts of it are software, which parts of it are human? Do we bring

Luke 40:56

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 40:57

like a separate interface or is everything leaves in Slack or themes? And I think the concept we are kind of landing. to right now is closer to the fractional employee, which means that

Luke 41:10

Yep, I saw that. Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 41:12

you source him, you can hire him, you can onboard, offboard him. But then I think, and it's also learning for us, we need to be careful because more personality you give to an agent, more people will start treating him as a person, which means this transparency layer will also... potentially get a bit more tricky. So yeah, love this.

Luke 41:39

Yeah, I I I did see I did see the way you guys are are starting to shape that up. For and side note, I love that you're kind of doing all of this experimentation in public on LinkedIn for us all to observe. And and I'd love to see more companies doing that because I think you know, innovation even on things like how you price and how you onboard and things like that, you know, that's gonna proliferate over the next couple of years. And I think like there will be different models and it will work in different places differently. And so I th I think it's really cool what you guys are doing there.

Pauline Bertry 42:11

Yeah, because I think it also kind of likely depends on the customers as well. I was listening to the lovable talk about like how they approach pricing. And for example, like when you go in corporates, they generally want to have much more like clear per seat pricing because then it's much easier to build a business case around it.

Luke 42:38

Yep. Yep.

Pauline Bertry 42:39

I think for smaller organization, likely a fixed package is a more fair deal because

Luke 42:48

Yep.

Pauline Bertry 42:49

then they can get projected better around

Luke 42:54

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 42:55

it. So yeah, I love experimenting with that as well.

Luke 42:58

Yeah. And and I think I think just like with human talent, you'll find different models, right? Like just like with human talent, you have fractional you know, fractional roles that work better at some stages and in some roles and you have contracted roles and you have full time hires, like you will find different models for that, I think.

Pauline Bertry 43:19

Yeah, no, but that's very interesting question broadly. Like how is the agent sourcing and onboarding looks like in the future? mean, maybe we do a separate chat on that topic. love it.

Luke 43:34

Sounds good.

Pauline Bertry 43:35

And as we are kind of thinking about that, like all these topics, I think every organization now is wondering about... what the future looks like for their talent, for their industry, the AI influence and so on and so on. You mentioned that you were building like a diagnostic tool.

Luke 43:59

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 44:00

Yeah. So I'm wondering like if you feel comfortable sharing some of the elements of it, like what are the three, five questions leaders of human size organizations should ask themselves?

Luke 44:17

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 44:18

as they think about this topic.

Luke 44:20

Yeah, and I mean I I'm gonna this isn't directly tied to the diagnostic, but but I'll answer your question more directly, which which is like what are the questions that that we should be asking ourselves, right? So I think one, totally separate from the totally separate from the AI question is, you know, are my people systems working today? Right. And

Pauline Bertry 44:43

Hmm.

Luke 44:44

for Organizations go through lots of change, whether it's growth, whether it's a kind of strategic redirection, or whether it's a disruption from something like AI, right? And the people processes, as with other processes, but I'm going talk about people processes because that's what I do. The people processes that worked in one phase or in one stage or in one kind of configuration of the organization may not still be appropriate for the Right. And and again, that's not a failure of the people system. It's just they don't like you have to continuously re-look at those. Is it still accomplishing what we want it to do? Is it accomplishing it in an efficient way? Is it leading to the outcomes we want? Right. And so, you know, the first question I think to ask is you know, are our people function, are our people processes, whether it is what we're doing around culture, how we're hiring, how we're onboarding, our learning processes, our talent development, our you know, performance management, our compensation, which of those are working well today and which of those aren't? Right. So I I think that is one question again that that can be asked separate from the question about AI. I think then there's a set of questions around kind of where do we see the business going, right? Because ultimately the

Pauline Bertry 45:57

Hmm

Luke 45:58

people, the people function should be in service to the the outcomes of the business. Right. And so

Pauline Bertry 46:05

Yeah.

Luke 46:05

you know, is is our out Going to be different? Is our product going to be different? Does that mean something different for what we need from our organization and our employee base? Right. So, you know, thinking about kind of as the second question, you know, are we still going to the same place? And therefore, like, do we need the same thing out of our people? And, you know, therefore, do our processes need to change? And then really thinking about, okay, what parts of the work? Are really going to change and what are the priorities for where I need to focus? Right. And, you know, I think it is a fool's errand to try to do the five year planning exercise around some of this stuff with how quickly things are changing. Right.

Pauline Bertry 46:50

Yeah.

Luke 46:51

you know, what are the most important value drivers that we should be focused on enabling with AI over the next six months? Right. You know, where

Pauline Bertry 47:01

Yeah.

Luke 47:02

and and that. That needs to be not just where can we take out the most cost, but where can we get to really better outcomes without disrupting our core processes, or where can we improve our core processes? You know, how can we better delight our clients? How do how can we better support our people? Like, so I think that's gonna look very different by organization, but what are the the workflows that would really benefit from a real rework and an AI enablement? And so, you know. That's kind of where I start, right? How are your people processes working today? Are they still serving where your organization is now? Where is your business going? And where are their real opportunities from a kind of from an AI enablement perspective?

Pauline Bertry 47:46

Yeah, I like this because I think they are still often hearing the version of like a five to seven year strategy. And I think it might still work for larger organizations, even though like the period is still becoming shorter. For smaller organizations, when it comes to people processes, I think the good timeline is maybe like one year, two years maximum, because

Luke 48:15

Yeah. And and having a view on what is enduring and what is likely to change, right?

Pauline Bertry 48:20

Yeah.

Luke 48:21

Like you still need the, you know, you still need to know are we still going to be a talent centric organization three years from now? Right. There are questions that you have to answer that are that have a longer horizon. But you know, asking, you know, Drawing the roadmap of this is the order in which I'm going to, you know, change my people processes. You can have

Pauline Bertry 48:42

Mm.

Luke 48:43

that, but you also need to the ability and the agility and the planning processes to revisit it constantly as new technology emerges, as we learn more about what it means for humans and agents to work alongside each other. I mean, this is su like, yes, the technology is new and moving fast, but the human experience of it is so emerging. That we're gonna learn a ton about what it means over the next six months, over the next year. I mean, I think about my experience and what I was doing in my last couple of years at the firm, and even how we talked about what we were trying to do in the talent space and in the deployment space changed dramatically over the kind of two years I was doing that. Right.

Pauline Bertry 49:19

I am.

Luke 49:19

Like in terms of, you know, at the beginning we were talking about this is what we're looking for, and then it became all about agents, and then it became how are we thinking? So it was just, you know. as and I think that will continue to happen. And so so I'm not saying not to have a yo three year plan. I'm I'm saying to that it needs to build in the flexibility and the agility to be revisited on an ongoing basis.

Pauline Bertry 49:46

Yeah, I like it. And I think that's also an expectation that organizations should very transparently set with people, that in people's space things are going to change. And I think from my experience, that's one of the biggest frustrations I hear from people working

Luke 50:06

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 50:07

in those human-sized organizations, that the things are changing, yes, but no one is making it clear and transparent for them that it's normal in this stage

Luke 50:22

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 50:22

of development of our society.

Luke 50:27

Yes, and I you know, I it's a lot to get one's head around as a l as a employee, as a leader,

Pauline Bertry 50:34

No.

Luke 50:35

as an organization. It it's a lot.

Pauline Bertry 50:37

No, I agree. Any closing thoughts for someone thinking about talent space and talent ecosystem in the age of AI?

Luke 50:50

No, I mean I I think we I think we've hit on some I I've loved your questions. I think we've hit on some good stuff. I think, you know, the biggest thing that I think of as I kind of draw a through line through a bunch of this stuff is being willing to release what has what we've held on to for so long, right? Whether it's because we've kind of crossed a threshold where our processes are starting to strain, or because You know, AI is going to allow us to do something radically different than what we did today. Being willing to let go of the things that no longer serve us, but holding on to the things that make us as an organization or make me as a leader special is going to be like where a lot of the magic happens over the next period of time.

Pauline Bertry 51:36

I love it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye. Have a good day.

Luke 51:39

thank you for having me. All right. Bye, Voline.