Embrace the Unknown to Move Forward
We talk to Lianre Robinson, AI specialist and Cultural Agency Leader
Where does annual planning tend to fall down?
It’s often the moment where organisations shift from aligning behind a big vision; and transition to ‘what do we actually do now’? The excitement and energy flows can dissipate; and business as usual behaviour creeps back in as people retreat to their silo’s and comfort zones.
We talked to Lianre Robinson, an AI and Cultural Specialist to understand her views when it comes to these kind of challenges. As General Manager of 1021, a cultural agency; ex CEO of CODEC, an AI Culture Agency; and Client Services director at LadBible and Livity, Lianre has seen her fair share of organisational, tech and cultural change.
“When we get more granular and away from the inspiration, the ‘this is exciting’, ‘we’re going to create the future now’, it is human nature to throw up challenges, throw out problems, and not always feel best equipped to solve them. Because it is something unknown, rather than problems you might be used to solving in your day to day. So I think one of the biggest challenges is trying to keep the motivation around the intention. Trying to keep the energy high around that, rather than being transported to the future state, where you suddenly think, ‘gosh this is going to be really hard to do, isn’t it’?”
She sees one of the biggest issues being the tendency to lean into what we know; and run at those things because they feel familiar. It’s why organisations often continue to add, add, add, rather than removing as they move into new areas of challenge. It feels familiar, even if it’s not having an effect.
“We run from the fear, don’t we, because that’s just natural human instinct. Like, I don’t know the answer to this, so I’m going to lean into things that I do feel I know the answers to, that I can solve. So sometimes you’ll see organisations spend a lot of time in the detail of things that actually aren’t going to push the needle. But, embracing the unknown, and actually setting up a way that everyone can actually speak quite freely about that is where I’ve seen positive stuff happening”
The full interview is for our paid subscribers. We cover:
The importance of bringing everyone on the journey
The fear factor of big tech changes like AI
How to approach scenario planning
How we make real rather than ethereal future leaps
The inevitable place of change
How to keep energy when actual planning begins
We hope you enjoy this one!