AI: Direction Before Destination

Allen Dorsey:

In today's episode, I sit down with Nous Principal Michael Rathjen to unpack one of the biggest questions facing leaders today. How do you make decisions about AI when the future is moving so quickly? Michael shares his perspectives on why AI is more than just another technology shift, how organisations should think about change, why having a clear direction matters more than a clear destination, and how the rise of AI could make the human side of work even more important. Grab your coffee and let's jump in.

I am so excited for the conversation today. We are joined with Nous Principal Michael Rathjen. He works in our digital design and data practice, and he has a real passion for technology-enabled transformation across government and the private sector with a specific focus on AI. But he also loves the great outdoors, getting up into the mountains, and traveling to new places.

Is that right, Michael? That's

Michael Rathjen:

Right, Allen. It's been a little while since I've travelled to new places, but I suppose young kids would be in the list now, but absolutely.

Allen Dorsey:

Michael, you have spent a big part of your career working at the intersections of technology and transformation. And so where did that interest in technology and that real love of tech begin for you?

Michael Rathjen:

I'm not exactly sure. I'm a chemist by training, so I have a master's in chemistry and was very science-focused through my studies. And what that usefully told me was I didn't want to be a chemist. So then I became a consultant in a technology organisation in particular, and I thought I'll try a bunch of different things and work out what I don't want to do to hopefully work out one day what I do want to do. And it turns out what I think I want to do is be a technology consultant, which is where I've ended up today.

Allen Dorsey:

So how is this AI revolution different from so many other previous technology advancements? And I wonder, are we perhaps thinking about AI too much as a technology that really needs to be adopted rather than something that will eventually just sort of become part of how we work?

Michael Rathjen:

Different technology revolutions all have different characteristics. More recently, the one I liken it to the most is the internet. Everyone had an internet strategy. We were all working out how the internet fit with our work, but we wouldn't be talking here today without the internet. Businesses would be very hard to run without the internet. I don't really think about the internet on my day-to-day basis. I just use it, and I use it for everything I do.

I think where generative AI and agentic AI and different forms of AI will take us is a world where it's pervasive in everything we do. It becomes the context of everything we do rather than an individual technology. I think we'll gravitate towards the most beneficial and productive ways to use it. But I think the journey we're on now is we're still in this phase of it's new and we're working out what it means for our business, what it means as an AI strategy, how we bring it in.

I think we'll move very quickly to AI being pervasive. That type of idea I think will be quite ephemeral. I think the difference in this phase is it's moving so fast and it's moving a lot faster than I think some of those previous phases of technology were.

Allen Dorsey:

So we often talk about AI as a technology transformation, but is that actually the right way to think about it? What does AI really ask organisations to change?

Michael Rathjen:

Possibly an interesting thing to say, leading us as a digital practice, but I don't actually see it as a technology challenge in and of itself. I think the technology can already do amazing things, and at least with many of the organisations I'm working with, the technology can do many more things than we're currently using it for. It's not what is holding us back from the opportunity of AI.

I think I see it as an organisational challenge, which touches every part of an organisation's design, everything from really its values, its purpose, its strategy, and the mission it's going for. Not to say it changes that, but I think what it does is unlock so much more that we can do in those organisations. So we're no longer going to be constrained by a bunch of the administrative challenges and by the current capacity and capability we have.

We're actually going to be able to achieve a whole lot more and potentially achieve a lot more in quite a different way. So that may mean we can change the sort of services we offer or the way we interact with people. It might mean we can really double down on the human component of those services. And we look in healthcare and human services and the importance there of going, how can we actually lift up the human part of our work by getting rid of some of the AI part?

But it requires a change in capability. It requires us to actively engage in what could that future look like and how could we do things differently? If you took off the shackles of our business as it is today and really took all of the opportunity that AI can and, looking forward, might offer us, how cool could it be?

That's not a technology challenge. That's about thinking about the whole DNA of our organisation.

Allen Dorsey:

Yeah. So listening to this, it feels like we're sitting in this really interesting moment. On the one hand, the opportunity seems enormous. Then on the other hand, we don't yet know exactly what the future looks like. And I imagine that that's a big challenge many leaders are wrestling with right now. So how do leaders make good decisions today without having complete certainty about what's coming next?

Michael Rathjen:

I see it as a big opportunity in terms of the pace of change, but it is a little bit scary as well. And I think a little bit of fear actually is quite constructive because what we need to do is challenge ourselves and disrupt ourselves a little bit. And I think fear is a really useful bit there.

I think the scarier thing is not adapting with AI. I think there's so much opportunity in how we can add more value and how we can use it to our advantage. I think the real challenge there is working out where it genuinely is useful, but also doubling down on those capabilities, those parts of the organisation that we need to keep human and need to stay away from AI.

I don't think we've landed that yet. I don't think we've resolved what that is. And if I sit there as a leader in some of the organisations that I work with, it's a very uncertain future and I'm not exactly sure what to do next.

And I think that's the real challenge of the moment, is we've got lots of experimentation, we've got lots of pilots, different organisations are moving at quite different speeds.

I don't think it's got pervasive in many yet, and so that future is quite uncertain. I talk to many clients about investments in their technology and previously you would've written a big business case and it would've taken five years and a whole lot of money to build something. You'd realize some value from it maybe after that five years, maybe another five years beyond there, and you were making generational decisions for your business.

I don't think you can confidently make five-year technology decisions today. So what it really requires of our organisations is to be far more open, far more adaptive in what they do. I think one of the tactics I've been using with organisations is a bit of scenario planning. The future could be four or five different things, but what that can help us if we explore those four and five different things is, and I'm channeling the recent Commonwealth Games here, is I think of it a bit like a javelin arc.

We need to know which direction to head in, but we don't need to know exactly where the javelin's going to land. And I think by creating that arc, and the arc might have many possible outcomes, it means we can move confidently in our direction and we can take steps forward, but without having the certainty of exactly where that's got to land.

And I think that's a bit of a change from some of the previous phases of particularly technology transformation we've been working through, which often have had quite a defined end state. And part of how we funded and assured that work is we've had quite a defined end state.

And I think that's been challenged at the moment. And what we need to do is determine what is that arc and what are the conditions that are right for us to move confidently inside it.

Allen Dorsey:

Michael, I really love this image of the javelin arc, and not just because I'm a lover of all things track and field, but also because it's just a really interesting way to think about the future. You don't need to know exactly where you're going to land, but you do need to know the direction that you're heading.

And if I'm a leader listening to this and trying to work out what that means in practice, what are the practical questions that organisations should be asking themselves right now?

Michael Rathjen:

I think there's lots of different organisations and their journeys are very different, and how AI will impact them will also be very different. So I don't think, first of all, there is a one-size-fits-all to what AI means for me.

Having said that, I do think some of the questions are quite similar. I do think there's a need to look at what do we do that, if we didn't have to do it, we would be able to focus on much more valuable things. And I think we've gone through that through phases of automation, and there's been different phases of technology change where we've tried to pick some of those things off.

I think there's a chance to go a bit more back to first principles and go, where can we free our people up and offer more value? I also think as part of that, it's a real opportunity to think back to the start of how we do our work.

What don't we need to do anymore? Because we can outsource that either to artificial intelligence or potentially because of the other augmentations we have in our technology environment, we don't need to do it anymore.

I think there's some real challenges there of we need to explore what is possible, but actually I think it can be anchored much more in what is there today and how we sort of... You can spend too much time looking forward, I think.

And I've got this thought in my mind, Allen, and you alluded to it before, which is we're coming from a phase where we're driving adoption, and that's great. It's let's get people on the tools, let's experiment, let's have fun. Let's find use cases, let's make a lot of mistakes. Hopefully those mistakes don't lead to bad outcomes, but we've been in a place of adoption.

And there's lots of people at the other end who are saying the future will be different. The work of the public sector will be completely different. Government 4.0 is a very different thing. And I think that's probably true, but it's very hard to have any specificity there.

If we put a dot, dot, dot in the middle, so it goes AI now, dot, dot, dot, the future, I think there's a real challenge to navigate that dot, dot, dot, which really ties into that javelin arc. That's the space to move in.

And I think the sort of questions we need to ask there are far more about the work and the people we work with rather than the technology. They go, what are the capabilities we need in the future? What are the capabilities we might not need as much in the future? And what do those workforce transitions look like? What's the work we do today and what's the work we can do tomorrow that might be high value-add?

Michael Rathjen:

It's an interesting question. It ties a little bit back into that. Some people are scared. It is a big change. Again, that ties a little bit into the internet. The internet was a very big change.

I don't think there's any problem yet in moving slowly, and I don't think people have missed out. So I think the first thing there is lots of other people have made the mistakes we can all learn from. And I think that's a really useful thing to start with here.

I do think as we move forward, there will be challenges to potentially moving too slowly here. And again, I appreciate the tension, Allen, that there is too slowly and there is too quickly. And I think the right balance is somewhere in between.

The risks of moving slowly, and I think some of these risks are coming out in certain places. There is a certain naivety to thinking people aren't using it if we're not moving on it. And I think we need to acknowledge that and go, if we don't have the right organisational settings and capabilities available to people, similar to other phases like the internet, they probably will be using it on their personal devices, on their personal tools, but will be using it for work things. And I think there's a reasonable amount of evidence out there that that is happening.

So there's a kind of hygienic level to this to go, let's not move so slowly that we have a lot of impending risks. There's other bits I think that are really important to making sure we have some resolution here. The employee experience is a really important one. Workforces, this is a capability for work for the future. Workforces want to learn and build these tools, and you can impact your employee value proposition if you're not opening the right things or you don't have the right tools and capabilities available to people.

The other thing as well is you think, what are you leaving on the table? So we've learned a lot of the lessons now. It's not to say you have to go from the person at the back of the pack through to winning the race. I don't think that's feasible. And in fact, most people won't win the race. That's how races work.

But I think there is increasingly a need to engage with it because if you don't, there is a kind of strategic paralysis. It's very hard to make any decisions if you don't consider it in your context. So I'd suggest to those people, we do have to engage in it. I think we're beyond the point of, I guess, ignoring the change or ignoring the problem. I don't think there's a question on will it be part of our sustainable future? I think the challenge here is what's the right way to engage with it?

And how do I make sure I'm empowering my organisation and people to make sure they can do the best that they want for us?

Allen Dorsey:

You mentioned fear, of course, for people and people that are still grappling with organisations, people just broadly, but I wonder, what are you really optimistic about in AI?

Michael Rathjen:

I'm only an optimist about AI. I think I'm lucky that I'm not struck by really much fear here. I think the fear mostly comes in my mind is I think the fear of not moving or the fear of being left behind for me is far greater than any fear in moving forward, recognizing there is an uncertain future.

My personal fear is more in being left behind than not being part of it. I'm an ever-optimist with this. I think the future will be far more empowering for people. I think when we look at what's going to be possible, there's people who in their personal, but mostly their professional lives, will be able to achieve so much more and the impact we'll be able to have as a society is so much greater.

So I think in this sense, there's an individual aspect to this, and I sort of talked about that before, where the way people experience AI can be quite individual. The way people experience the internet is very individual. I'm sure you look at different websites to me, Allen, and do different things to me.

But the multiplier effect of all of us collaborating and working together, and there being a society that spans both the digital and physical worlds, I think has been immensely valuable for the world. I think of AI in a similar way, and the opportunity of moving forward in that world is so significant.

So I'm really excited to see where we end up. But I do just want to caution that we are in a phase where everything's possible and everything's interesting. I don't think we've really felt the full costs of AI.

That being, there's a lot of funding in the space. I'm not sure we're wearing the full costs of what it actually costs to provide the large language models to us, but also looking at the environmental impact and the resource requirements of it, et cetera.

I think we still have to resolve where it actually is useful and beneficial in our lives and where it's just fun or where we're just doing it for the sake of having it. And I think that's going to be a really interesting journey as a society to navigate those questions and work out where is this a really valuable thing? Where are we going to make really deliberate decisions not to use it?

And I draw to the arts and places like that where I think there might be a different tolerance to, say, knowledge work. And where do we draw that limit overall and decide that we want to be more human?

And I was at an interesting session last week and it resonated, so I'll bring it up here. I think one thing AI will do, and the opportunity I'm really excited for, is I think it will also accentuate humanity, and the things that make us human will become more visible and more interesting.

So the idea of having a typo in an email sounds fantastic, or the idea of instead of going back and forth with our agents and chatting with AI-enabled chat, to each other, we just pick up the phone and say hello and talk about the weekend.

And I think those micro moments of humanity may become more important and actually will build a greater sense of humanity after events like probably the last big disruption, which would've been COVID-19, where maybe we lost a bit of that connection.

I actually think it will help us identify and double down on what makes us human and where that value is rather than assuming there's an even base there.

So I'm both optimistic from a work and technology perspective, but I'm actually also really optimistic from a human perspective and think this will help us double down on what it is to be human.

Allen Dorsey:

Such a cool takeaway, Michael. And you know what? It leaves me really excited to fill my emails with heaps of typos from now on. That's going to be a really big takeaway for me.

Well, thanks so much, Michael. This has been a really wonderful conversation.

Michael Rathjen:

Thanks.