Episode 80

Johan Eriksson on AI's Role in Data Analysis and Effective Job Seeking Strategies

TIM: We are live on the objective hiring show today. I'm joined by Johan. Johan, thank you so much for joining us today.

JOHAN: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

TIM: It is absolutely our pleasure. I'm really pumped to speak to you in one of our first shows of 2025. And the place I'd like to start is kind of in the theme of probably everyone's favorite topic at the moment. That is those two little letters AI and the fact they seem to be changing. Almost everything about the world as we know it. And what I'd love to get is your thoughts firstly on like the impact it's having on the scope of data roles that you see. So what is, what is it meaning for a day to day data analyst or insights analyst? How is that changing? And then is that almost impacting your view of recruiting these roles? What are your thoughts there?

JOHAN: No, it's a, it's a, it's a good sort of anticipated question. This, this day and age, and when it comes to AI, think the, you know, no one can predict what the future will look like, but what we can do here and now is to learn and experiment. And I think every analyst needs to do that a lot by in what way AI impacts their workflows. and I see AI being a great scripting, companion, coding companion. I see AI being great in generating dummy data if we want to prototype or pilot something. And I see AI being being great in, in automating some workflows. So I think there's already now a lot of things that, that we can do as as an analyst community to leverage AI now in, in the way that it impacts the role as such, yes, it, it does, but. Like I would still hire the same people, but I just expect them to use this tool and toolbox and, and, and, and suite of tools as well. And so in that sense, I think it's, it's challenging us to disrupt ourselves before someone else does. And and it, it gives us tools for being a bit more creative as analysts and productive, hopefully.

TIM: And so in your view, the current skill set that let's say a data analyst needs to have the fundamental core skill set, soft skills, technical skills is kind of the same, but now you just need someone to leverage this amazing technology to be more efficient, to be more productive, as opposed to the scope of the role fundamentally changing.

JOHAN: Spot on. I think that's the case from where I'm sitting and, and I think the skill set of a data analyst, like hasn't changed as such, but we just need to learn how do we best leverage new technology, new tools in our, in our work. And what I think is really important when it comes to AI for analysts is that it even more points to the, I think, most important question, which is. What do we want? What are we looking to achieve with all of these analysis? So I find the decision intelligence being massively interesting from a data analyst perspective. Someone said any organization success depends on two things, luck and decisions. Let's talk decision intelligence. And I think that's, that's spot on. And, but many sort of analysts, they sort of go down the rabbit hole and And they forget to sort of lift the gaze to see what are we solving for, what's the bigger thing that we're contributing to. And there I think we have a collective responsibility, especially in light of AI development, because AI can help us with anything. So what do we want? That becomes a more pertinent question over time, I think. And therefore, as an analyst, you cannot, you cannot just rely on your technical skills in scripting or whatnot, but you also need to Sort of uplevel your decision intelligence skills and collaboration skills and communication skills to work across the organization say how is Data helping us to achieve what it is that we want to achieve.

TIM: Even if the, let's say, fundamental skill set needed is pretty similar now, is there anything to be said for the mix or blend or relative priority of the skills changing? So, for example, if, I don't know, in a year's time, maybe it would be preposterous to ever write code from scratch again. It would just be, hey, Claude, hey, Gemini, hey, whatever here's the code I want to achieve. And then maybe it's at a level where you don't even need to scrutinize. If it's right, it's just going to be right. Therefore, maybe SQL, maybe Python, maybe some of these scripting languages aren't as important. But as you say, maybe then the softer skills come into it. So it's almost like a, the blend is changing from less technical to more soft. Some people have told me that. What do you think?

JOHAN: Yeah, it's that's a really interesting line of questions I I think hard skills are the collaboration skills the communication skills because they're really hard Scripting has a certain logic to it in that sense which collaboration doesn't always have now in terms of, again, what the future looks like anyone who guesses will be wrong per definition almost, but what, what we need to be doing is to challenge ourselves to say, can AI help generate you know, the basic scripts that I need, et cetera, et cetera. Now, just like with software developers, you need the foundational knowledge still in order to say, is, does this make sense? Is this as efficient as it could be? And so I think in that sense, you need the foundational technical skills to be able to leverage AI to be more productive, to be more creative and so on. And but where I'm sitting, the lack of skills is in the analyst communities is not often in the technical space. It's much more in the decision intelligence space. It's much more in. You know, having the patience and courage to operate across the organization to say what is it that we want to solve for before getting to work and starting analyzing. And so I think the sort of pre analysis conversation is going to be increasingly important. And so, so, so, so I think that won't change with AI, but it becomes, even more important as we get more powerful tools.

TIM: To completely contradict what I just proposed a minute ago, another thought I'd had was that, if anything, Maybe the technique technical component of the skill set might become more important because if you really know, really know, and you're on top of the large language models, you know them well, and you can program and call an API, suddenly, maybe that's like a multiplicative explosive skill set that is amazingly powerful in a way that it wasn't as powerful two years ago before you had the AI models in place, because you can really use them like a programmer would, JOHAN: Yeah, I think I think when it comes to skills development I I think that just as before AI Technical skills and collaboration communication, etc. Skills are both very important as for an analyst They will both remain very important for an analyst the nature of those technical skills will evolve As we more look at, you know, modeling and so on and so forth, just as the nature of the collaboration skills will evolve as we're looking at more hybrid work environments, et cetera, et cetera. So I think they remain equally important, but they just shift in nature, which is why I think the only long term sustainable strategy for any analyst is to sort of recognize. That the world keeps changing, so lifelong learning will be, will be the only long term sustainable strategy. There isn't a plan B in that sense, so we need to challenge ourselves. Hey, am I really leveraging all the new tools, all the new technology in the way that I'm working? Just as we need to challenge ourselves and say, what are the three most important decisions our organization needs to make in the coming six months? And how can I help make better decisions out of those? Because if I were to ask any management team, what are your three most important decisions in the coming six months, they would probably all say quite different things or not know, or at least not have a top of mind. So I think there's, there's that sort of advocacy work that the analyst community needs to do in order to surface decision intelligence in the light of AI in particular.

TIM: If we have this. new groundbreaking tool that's changing very rapidly is obviously extraordinarily valuable. And as you say, it's, you need to have this kind of growth mindset, lifelong learning mindset. Is there something to be said then for Needing to have some way to almost like measure adaptability of a candidate. So I'm thinking of one of my favorite books, which I can just make out on the shelf over there. Atomic Habits. It's all about like changing your behaviors. And it's sometimes very hard because things are changing so quickly, and you have to make like a conscious effort. Should we be almost trying to, yeah, measure someone's adaptability to change?

JOHAN: Yeah, I maybe I think it's hard to measure someone's adaptability to change in, in a sort of significant way. And that said, instead of measuring adaptability to change, I think we need to have very clear values and norms that governs the organization around that. We expect curiosity, we expect learning, we expect experimentation. That's, that should be as natural as anything else that you do. And, and, and sometimes I get the question, like, how do you create this sort of culture of learning? Well, it's like everything else that you want to create a culture around, because culture is just a receipt of repeated action. So how do you create a culture of learning? Well, learn. How do you create an innovation culture? Innovate. Like, innovate for two years, and then ask yourself, do you have an innovation culture? Well, for sure you will have. So, I think it's, there's no shortcut around prioritizing learning. There's no shortcut around prioritizing learning. Spending a bit more time to experiment with a new way of working. That will take longer time versus your old way of working in the beginning because it's new. And so we need to invest time and energy in learning and innovation. I would, I would almost say like 20 percent of your time should be invested in learning new things and innovating. Just as a sort of starting point. So one day per week because the world is changing so fast. So if you don't invest that. You're risked getting you know, left behind or, or at least not performance performing at the peak of your abilities.

TIM: One thing I'd heard a couple of companies doing recently was that they basically said to their, and these are substantial businesses, like several thousand people and above, they'd said to their entire company, stop working. Don't do anything. Just learn for one of them was just, just adopt Claude in your day to day life. And the other one was just a job, chat GPT. The other one was Gemini. And so they thought that it's like, well, people just need some, some time, some head space to get the heads around what they do day to day. And like, maybe they can see like these three things could easily be automated away. I can do this thing better or whatever. And so carving out that time explicitly open up the opportunity which. is interesting way to do is almost like counter to the normal narrative of find a problem and then choose the right solution. This was, we have the general solution. Now we're looking for problems that we can solve with it. So I found that quite interesting. What do you think of that approach?

JOHAN: Yeah, I think, I think whatever approach you take to learning and innovation, I think there's a couple of things that are important. So number one, it's going to be a marathon, not a sprint. And so if someone says, Hey, this quarter, we're going to have a learning week. It's like, yeah, but then what? Like a learning week. Yeah, it will get you off the ground in some areas, but. But what does the marathon strategy look like for learning? That's my question to any leader or any analyst leader or any analyst out there as well. And so I think that's really important to design for a marathon on a sprint. And I think the second thing that is important is to also recognize the research around how do we change behaviors. And there are plenty of really strong meta studies around behavioral change out there that we can operationalize in the way that we, for example, adopt generative AI in the work of an analyst. There's plenty of research around science of learning in terms of how do we best, how do we best learn new things? How do we combine education with exposure with experience where sometimes we do the education, we take a training, we jump into a project with experience and we forget about exposure where we could have shadowed someone that is two steps in front of us. So I think there's, there's a lot to be said around how do you design for a long term sustainable learning and innovation strategy as an analyst. But it's definitely needed. And then there's all will always be the sort of personal nuance of what works for you, what works for your team, what works for your organization. And, but carving out time and investing is needed, whatever way, shape or form you do it.

TIM: That's a really interesting framework that I haven't heard before. So just so I understand that correctly. So you do the learning of let's say the Udemy course or whatever you put it into practice, but then the other element was sorry, that you're shadowing someone who's more experienced in it than you. Is that right?

JOHAN: Yeah. Yeah. So you'd be in parallel, not sequential, but in parallel, you educate yourself. You, you have probably have a backlog of here are the trainings that I want to take, right? Here are the videos that I want to watch and so on and so forth. And then you have exposure, which is what are the people that are stronger than you in specific areas that you're shadowing, that you're learning from mentors or whatever you want to call them. And that's the exposure leg and then experience that is in which project that you're working on, will you start to sort of adopt some of the new way of working or some of the tools, some of the technologies, et cetera. So triple, kind of a triple E framework of education, exposure and experience.

TIM: I'm wondering now, if someone didn't necessarily have someone in their network for the, the exposure bit, could a well crafted AI prompt provide a second, like a second prize effort? Like, Hey Chachapati, Hey Gemini, you are XYZ. Can you help me with this?

JOHAN: Yeah, I know. I, I definitely think that you can, you can create an AI companion to help you along the way, but I would still like to get the exposure from real people. And especially in this emerging field. So, and, and, and if they don't, if someone doesn't feel that they have someone in their network, and my question back would be, who have you asked? Right? Because the way I go about it is that maybe I read a book that someone wrote, or maybe I. saw someone in an online event or something, there's a global thought leader in the space, like I, I sort of reach out and I say, Hey would you mind doing a digital coffee and for 30 minutes because I'm keen to understand what are your learnings in the space? And I, I, I, I try to do one of those every week and every week I try to do a digital coffee with someone that I haven't met before, but that knows a lot about something that I want to learn more about. And, and, and, and that's super rewarding also because, you know, relationships, meeting people, it's awesome. And, but, but the learning benefit, the learning experience of getting that exposure to someone that's been working perhaps on training and fine tuning and machine learning model many, many times locally. And, you know, in different settings and, and finding out what are your learnings and insights.

TIM: That's a great approach. Have you ever considered putting that into a podcast? I mean, rather than just the one on one coffee,

JOHAN: Yeah, that's, that's a really good idea, actually. That's a really sort of good idea of how do we. How do we, how do we become generous with the knowledge, with interactions that we're having? Let me, let me you know, get back to you on that one for sure.

TIM: I would, I imagine it would change the dynamics, but you'd be in a really interesting position to almost AB test it.

JOHAN: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and the benefit of, of keeping it private though, is that when it's true exposure, then you would look at code together, or you would look at sort of internal tools together, et cetera, et cetera. So that piece would, would of course need to be amended, which can be done for sure to fit a more public format. But But I love sort of just meeting someone asking, what are you working on? How are you working on it? What have you learned so far? What are your insights? Et cetera, et cetera. So that is something I can recommend everyone to do. Maybe, maybe start by a monthly lunch. You know, I'd say every month have lunch with someone that knows a lot about something and, and talk to them about that. And then you can, and then amend it from there.

TIM: And it sounds like the people you've been reaching out to are very receptive to these conversations. What do you think it is about the way you're approaching it that makes them so open to having a coffee with you and chatting through it?

JOHAN: Now it's a good question and, and, and I think in general. There are quite few people who reaches out in it from a learning perspective. There are many people who reaches out because they want to sell you something. And there are many people who reaches out because they wanna you know find a job in the organization, which you work a hundred percent, but people reaching out just to learn. That's it creates a different dynamic, I think with that framing and with that positioning. And sometimes it may be a bit flattering to hear that someone wants to learn from you. Absolutely. But then I think the positioning of it, of, you know, Hey, this field is so interesting. I'm exploring it. I want to learn together. By understanding, you know, what, what, what you're working on, what you've learned. And I'll share what I'm working on and what I've learned. It becomes sort of like a two, two way street. So, so that works.

TIM: And for you, so this is not only direct learning, but you also mentioned it's, it's building up your network. Is that part of the benefit for you as well? And and the other person as well, presumably.

JOHAN: Yeah, absolutely. I mean. If I add 40 people to my network every year, and that's of course a good thing. Now I should say that some of them, I, we get into such interesting conversations. So, you know, we, we meet again and then I, you know, don't, don't add a new one for three weeks or four weeks or whatnot. But, but in general, yes, you, I, I love learning by exposure in meeting people like having a monthly lunch then you get a life worth of experience packaged in 90 minutes over a good piece of meal. And it's just amazing that way of learning. I love

TIM: And you have a nice meal. So, I mean, how bad could it be anyway?

JOHAN: it. When it works, unless the person is a significantly different time zone, I may have breakfast and they have dinner, but it works. I mean, the world has never been smaller than it is today. So now I'm having learning, learning coffee chats with people from San Francisco to Tokyo.

TIM: Oh, amazing. That's awesome. That's actually a nice segue to something that I've been asking a few other guests which is around Networking for jobs. So obviously slightly different approach, but I'd like love to pick your brains in this because you've got such relevant experience. So just to paint a picture of what it's like out there at the moment. The main feedback we're getting particularly from hiring managers in Europe and the United States is they are getting inundated with applicants for most roles, sometimes more than 1000 applicants in a few days for your average data scientist kind of position, particularly tech companies. And so, things feel a little bit broken there. Candidates are using Chachapiti to create the CVs or other AI tools. CV seems to be less reflective of reality. So companies feel like the process is broken. Candidates are very annoyed because they're competing with what feels like a thousand other people. It all feels a bit messy. And so one thing I was thinking about was, you know, if I were a candidate now, would I even apply through a job ad? Would I even go through those formal channels? Or would I try to? Leverage my existing network or try to go through the back door, quote unquote some other way. And so what I wanted to ask you about was kind of like the right and wrong way to do that. And some general tips you might have for people networking, either for a job now or just planning for the future and building those relationships out.

JOHAN: Yeah, I know. I think it's, it's, it's a great topic, important topic. And I also recognize the sort of fierce competition for many roles out there, a hundred percent. And now a couple of things that I think are important. So number one, I think it's really important to, instead of just, you know, let's say that, let's say that you're a data scientist, instead of just throwing yourself out there and applying for 40 different data science, scientist roles, start by asking yourself, What would your dream job look like? What would your dream role look like? What industry would it be in, in, in the public sector? Would it be for a nonprofit? Would it be for an impactful cause that you're passionate about? Like what does your dream role, dream job look like? After that, look at, you know, where could that dream role become a reality? And then, you know, maybe you start with three, three routes there. So let's say, let's say that, that, that you're super passionate about solving for loneliness or solving for the food, food challenges that we're facing in the world. And then you may look at you know, a food tech company. You may look at the public sector government agency working with food, food regulations, innovations, et cetera, et cetera. And then a third one. And then you reach out to them. And you start building your network. You know, focus on those three things because you're so passionate about it and that passion will shine through in every email you send, in every call that you're having, in every lunch, coffee chat, et cetera, et cetera, because this is your dream job. It's not just number 37 out of 80, right? And, and, and try to sort of be, be long term about that work, have a bit of endurance in, in pursuing your dream role. I, I have my. Email out of office on all the time I've had for the past 15 years It's always on and and it says two things first It says my job isn't only answering emails. So call me if there's anything urgent But then it says I hope you are where you want to be and do what you want to do If not change it and let me know if I can help and and and and that I generally believe in because when people are Where they really want to be doing what they really want to do. They will be at their best They will be at their peak. So so Before running off, applying for everything, ask yourself, where do you really want to be? What do you really want to do? And then pursue that with everything that you have, every energy that you have. So I think that's one thing that is probably the most important thing. And I put together a small site, yourvalues. org, to try to sort of just anchor in what values do you have that govern what it is that you want to do. And because then you will build your house on a steady ground, and that serves as a good compass in this. So I think there's, there's something, there's something there and then I think when, when it comes to sort of backdoors versus applying for former roles, et cetera, that becomes almost secondary because if you have identified those three places, maybe there is an open role that is a good fit in one of them for sure. Go ahead and apply for it. Maybe there isn't an open role in one of them. Then start by getting to know people in that organization. Having conversations about what their most urgent needs are, and then see how can you help some of, solve some of their biggest problems. And then you can go to, to, to, to any senior exec in that organization and say, Hey, I want to help you solve this problem. Here is my plan for how to do it. Should we, should we talk about how we can put that in practice? And then maybe it starts as a consulting gig because, you know they, they don't have headcount to hire at the moment. And then over time it turns into something. So focus. On what you really want to do. I think that's that's the name of the game. I would advise at least

TIM: That's such a great articulation and straight away when you were describing that I was thinking of a book that I read years and years ago, the details of which I can't remember, except the title did stick with me very well, which was dig your well before you're thirsty, which I think the before underlined on it. And so with this approach you've laid out, this is a very deliberate forward thinking. Targeted approach which of course, if someone is in a state of desperation, you suddenly lack that leverage, you can't probably have those nuanced, careful conversations. You just, you kind of need a job. So I guess if you can all help it, trying not to get into that situation in the first place by planning ahead is going to pay dividends, I guess.

JOHAN: Yeah 100 and and and I think it's important that Whether you're quite new on the job as an analyst or whether you've been working for the past 15 years as an analyst You should always have a list somewhere in terms of if you wouldn't be where you are now doing what you do Where would you most like to be and that list you should create? and have You know, sustain over time and then make sure that you have contacts with those places where you would be if you wouldn't be where you are now, because otherwise what may happen, let's say, for example, you work in a big organization, you get impacted by a reorganization, you get, you get laid off, for example, and when, when you get the layoff notice, it's really hard to be objective about what that list looks like, because you're going to, you're going to risk, you know, having a sense of urgency that impacts and clouds your thinking. And it's really hard to be patient. It's really, and so what, what you, what you often see is that people who get laid off, they jump onto something and they're there for a year and then they jump onto something that is a bit more what they probably would have gone to from the beginning. Had they had that sort of mind space to think about that. So always have that list in your pocket, in your phone, in a Google keep sort of document or whatever, and keep it updated.

TIM: You are a very well organized man, I can tell. You mentioned in passing your website. Sorry, what was the URL again?

JOHAN: yourvalues. org. It's super scrappy. Just one page in terms of how to think about. Your values, because I believe that in a world that is changing all the time and where we can do so many different things and apply ourselves just being deliberate and clear about what are the values that will govern the direction of your career and life and whatnot, I think is a, is a good starting point. And also values, unlike goals, like you can hit or miss a goal, but every single day you get a new chance of living in line with your values. And that's liberating, I find.

TIM: Excellent. I've just pulled the website up now. I'll have to dig through that a little bit later and yeah, really meditate on, on my own values. I haven't done that for a while. We did a company exercise probably a couple of years ago. I guess it's sort of similar, but more personal when you think about your own values. But I certainly found it valuable for the, at the company level.

JOHAN: Yeah, and I think you need it at an individual level. You need to be clear about what are your values. And then you need to have it at a team level. Whether you call it team values or team norms or what not. How do we operate as a team of analysts? And then you obviously need to have it at an organizational level. Where you live though, the values of the organization. So it's not just in the about section under investor relations. So I think that that sort of hero care values is needed. And when you're aligned with your individual values to the team norms to the org values, that's when I think you will really thrive. And as an analyst community, if I were to just sort of highlight one example, I think if we're going to help people make better decisions, and that's really what being an analyst, I find this is all about and then. And we need to govern the concept of truth, even when it's even when it's cumbersome to do so. So, for example, if I'm in a meeting and someone throws up some sort of user satisfaction data and they say, look, the user satisfaction is moving from 73. 2 to 77. 5 year over year then, and, and, and you look at the data and you see that, hey, This is poorly sampled data and the universe is so big, et cetera. You can't really say that that's, that's numbers we're looking at. You need to be the one who have the courage to sort of voice that and say, Hey, actually, we don't know if it's going up or down because it's, it's really poorly sampled data. So, so you need to take on, I think the value of, of governing the truth, because I think analysts are uniquely positioned to do so more than any other role in any organization.

TIM: And that sounds especially important in this post truth era that we're in. Someone's got to bring us back to rationality and reality.

JOHAN: Yeah, I mean the truth will be the truth independent of our opinions. And that's why I think it's also so important with values, because if we connect our identity to values, instead of connecting our identity to opinions then we will be having a much easier time of sort of taking on a researcher's mindset. And I think there's this quote that often gets attributed to, to Keynes. And, but I, I, I don't know if he actually said it, but when I get new information, I change my mind. What do you do? And I think there's some, I mean, that's the mindset of an analyst. When I get new information, I change my mind. What do you do? Well, I think one of the biggest challenges we are facing as an analyst community globally is confirmation bias not least among senior executives because they have a perspective of that. We need to launch this product. And then if the data says otherwise, they will sort of be very selective. Not, not always consciously, but even subconsciously and, and see their, their, their, their confirmation bias monster.

TIM: Yes. And that is, I think, a nice segue to the use of data in hiring specifically, because I'll tell you my opinion and viewpoint. It's that. the way most hiring gets done, if there's like a spectrum from data driven to gut feel, I feel like most companies would be 90 percent of the way towards the gut feel side of the spectrum. And there's a hell of a lot of things that happen in hiring that aren't measured at all for a variety of reasons. Where do you sit on that? What do you feel about gut feeling versus data driven hiring? Do you think we should do more? Is there a value in the gut feeling like love to get your overall thoughts on this?

JOHAN: Yeah. No absolutely. I think I think we should always challenge ourselves to learn and experiment and research. How do we hire better? Absolutely. But there's a couple of, of, of, of, I think, important points here in terms of striving for perfection versus striving for something that is better than the current way of, of, of doing it. So I think the first question is what do you optimize for, like, how do you know if you had a good hire? How do you, how do you sort of conclude that for an analyst, for example, especially since the work of analysts are sometimes harder to sort of attribute that value within a big organization. So if you have a product team, then the success of that product will, will be sort of down to the product management, etc, etc. If you have a sales team, you know how much revenue are bringing in and so on, but as an analyst, you're enabling many other people to do a better job, to make better decisions. So since it's so coupled with other people's performance, it's harder from an attribution perspective to say, what is the unique value of this data scientist? What is the unique value of that data scientist, this analyst, and so on and so forth. So I think that that's, that's a major challenge. I think we're facing an attribution challenge of, of, of value added. And so the question is when you hire, what do you optimize for, how do you, how can you even tell if you did a good or bad hire other than sort of peer feedback and so on and so forth. So that's, that's hard. And now that said, there are things that we can do to sort of even the playing field for all the candidates by being, by being more inclusive and so on. And so one example is just having diverse diverse interview panels. And making sure that it's not just three people from the same team with the same profile doing the interviews, but having a diverse set of people interview. So we would have, we would have at least three people from different functions with different perspectives, not backgrounds, et cetera, et cetera, interview. That's one thing that helps. Another thing is to make sure that you have the same questions across all candidates. Just that sort of simple thing, because otherwise what you risk doing is that you risk sort of asking harder questions to candidates that you intuitively feel good about, and then they get to perform really well in interview whilst other candidates get lighter questions, and you're like, yeah, the answer was okay. And so, so, so I think it's really important to sort of adopt some of those best practices when it comes to you know, even leveling the playing field for, for, for all candidates. And then, you know, from a more long term perspective, also doing the research and maybe partnering with academia on this as well to say, how can we over time improve our recruiting process? The final thing I'd say probably about that is, is that one thing that I sometimes struggle with is when people are looking for exactly the same capabilities that they already have in house. So for example, you would see the ad where it says, you know, lately I've been looking at some of the ads within the public sector just to understand how they think about this and, and they see, you see, now you need to have experience from the public sector and you need to know this regulation and so on and so forth. And I asked myself the question, why do you need one more when you already have them? You know, so instead of thinking about cultural fit, I tried to think about cultural ad. What is the cultural ad that this person would bring from a diversity perspective to our team? And if they don't bring any cultural ad, am I hiring merely for capacity and not capability? Because if I'm hiring merely for capacity, should I even be hiring or should I bring in a consultant or should I bring in, you know, an automation specialist to try to drive productivity within existing capabilities? So cultural ad, I think is, is really important to think about when, when thinking about how do we, how do we hire inclusively. Yeah.

TIM: So you mentioned cultural fit, or let's say, a slightly more developed, nuanced version of cultural ad. Have you seen any attempts to measure that? Because I've just seen so many examples of cultural fit. Being used as I call it like the, the joker card of hiring, whereas basically you don't like the person you need to come up with some reason to not hire them for whatever reason. It could be a bias. It could be they didn't shake your hand properly. It could be you felt they were waffling on. I don't know, some, some reasons like, oh, well, they're not the right cultural fit it for years. I feel like it was just this trump card, this joker card played. When you just didn't like the person. And so I have this quite negative biased against the concept. Have you seen where it works? Well, have you seen, yeah, any attempts to measure it to make it a little bit more kind of objective?

JOHAN: Yeah. No, it's a, it's a good question. I mean, I'm, I'm not a fan of cultural fit. I'm a fan of cultural ad thinking about what diversity will this person add to the team. So for example if, if we talk about measurement, it's really hard to try to make this measurement complex, but if we just take one easy example, if we have, if we have seven analysts with roughly the same industrial background in tech, and then I interview a corporate finance analyst. Then just from that pure background, the corporate finance analyst will bring diversity to the team and there is no single organization or nation or nonprofit or whatnot that doesn't depend on sort of a financially sustainable way of working. So someone with a corporate finance background will always add some value in that, in that regards. So just looking at the background of what, what sort of industries the person has been working at, you can immediately spot where will it be a cultural fit versus where will it be just one more person with roughly the same experience and so on and so forth. And and I think it's important to recognize as well is that diversity is the right strategy for the business in the long term, but it sometimes costs a bit more in the short term. It costs a bit more to be patient to fill up your recruiting pipeline with diverse candidates instead of just going for the first five replied. It costs a bit more to sort of onboard someone who comes from a different industry, for example, than to onboard someone who has been working, for example, in tech all the time. So the sort of initial cost is probably quite often a bit higher. But the mid and long term reward is significantly bigger because of that diversity they bring in and the ability to make gradient analysis, enabling better decision making.

TIM: Someone else speaking to recently described it as they thought that by having this diversity of mindset, let's say that comes with diversity of thought, which comes from diversity of background, that decision making might be a little bit slower because it's maybe more. diverse views and opinions and something, but ultimately are more likely to get to the right outcome. Would

JOHAN: yes,

TIM: agree with that in your experience?

JOHAN: yes, absolutely. And, and I think, I think in general working fast is, is almost never the objective of something, right? But figuring out what is the problem that is most important to solve? How do we best solve that problem? And then sort of prototyping, how do we best do that, making sure that, that to get feedback along the way. I mean, if you do that process well, then you have a good modus operandi for yourself and diversity will, will, will sort of amplify the value in that process. It's when you sort of, if you're a junior analyst and you sort of jump into the starting to get cracking on the data. And then after you put in 60 hours of work, someone says, That's, that's nice, but that's not really my question. And then you need sort of take, take the sun, you know, free yourself from the sunk cost fallacy and recognize that, all right, let's start over. And, and, and, and diversity, my perspective is that it will more often prevent people from doing unnecessary work. And because you have that diversity of perspectives throughout the entire process.

TIM: Most companies would have a set of values that they purportedly have or are trying to have. And in their interview process would have at least Part, if not a whole interview dedicated to some kind of cultural fit, values alignment, whatever you want to phrase it, type of interview, where they're basically, you know, behavioral interview trying to gauge does this person represent. So for our business, one of the values is, do they make it happen? Are they a no bullshit person? So that values that we're trying to seek in our potential team. Is, in a sense, that anti diverse if you're trying to get everyone who has the same values, like, is there an inherent oxymoron there where really you should be abandoning that and going, Well, okay, I'm going to meet someone who doesn't seem like they want to make it happen at all. That's going to at least give us more diversity of thought. I don't know, what do you think?

JOHAN: Yeah, no, it's a, it's a good question. And here's where I would separate foundational values from experiences or perspectives or opinions and whatnot. I think that the foundational values of people needs to be aligned. And I would almost flip that question to the candidate. Like, would you want to work at a place that is not aligned with your foundational values? How long term sustainable do you think that's going to be? So I think the foundational values needs to be aligned. But then the diversity needs to happen in. You know, how do you express those values? How do you live those values? What experience do you are you bringing in in terms of industries types of projects and complementary skills so For example as an analyst, maybe you came Into the analyst role from a very technical role Maybe you were a software developer before and you came in as an as working as an analyst or maybe you came in from more from from the sort of business side of things or org side of things and you You worked as a consultant and then you pivoted more and more into being an analyst So that diversity needs to be there, but the foundational values of of of you know, what are we what are we? You know, what direction are we running? I think that needs to be the same across the team, but that is not in conflict in any way I think with diversity

TIM: In your work on values and your kind of meditation on this, do you think people's values are more or less constant or do they change a lot through time?

JOHAN: I think I think they evolve over time. In the sense that When the world is changing, then we face new circumstances, and then we need to decide for ourselves, what do I value linked to this new circumstance? And then you may add a value that wasn't as important for you to articulate before, but that is now important. So for example, now in the analyst community, I think it's really important to govern the concept of truth, for example, as a value. That has, of course, always been important, but it's becoming increasingly important because if you look back many years a huge part of information in the world were fact based in the sense that with libraries and not computers and so on and so forth. Now, if you look at the ratio of fact based to opinion based information being generated every day, it's a tad different scenario that we're facing which is why I think governing the concept of truth becomes an increasingly important value. Whilst other values are timeless in the sense that building meaningful relationships between people has always been, will always be super important as a value, I think. And then, then some values are more universal of course, than, than others. But some values are also very specific to our situation. And what I think is one of humankind's biggest challenges in the coming, you know, 20 years. Is to figure out that sort of AI alignment challenge of how do we align AI to human values in a world where, where people around the world seems to have quite different values, depending on where you look. I mean, if we, if we asked AI to take a snapshot of the world today and say more of this, is that really what we want? Right. In that sense of 27 percent of people living in a liberal democracy and so on and so forth like. Do we want to amplify the snapshot of the current world or, or do we want to facilitate conversations amongst people around the world to say, to agree more on which direction do we want to run in? I mean, we don't even have a reasonable KPI replacing GDP as a measure of growth of society. So I think we're, as an analyst community, we need to help politicians, leaders, company leaders, et cetera, et cetera, figure out. How do we articulate better the direction we want to take society and the world? And that's a, that's a big job that requires a lot of analysts.

TIM: Yes, we better decide that before the AI decides what direction they want to take humans instead.

JOHAN: Exactly. Spot on.

TIM: Johan, if you could ask our next guest any one question, what question would that be?

JOHAN: That's that's, that's a tough one. I, I, if, if, if I'm going to ask the question linked to recruiting, I would probably ask, what are you optimizing for? If I'm going to ask the question more linked to society, I would ask, what do you want? Like, what do you want? And like, what do you want to get out of life, society, et cetera, personally, my macro KPI that I'm optimizing or trying to optimize my life for is sustainable well being. So I think that sustainable well being is reasonable replacement of GDP when looking at societal progress and individual progress as a sustainable well being, you know, could be. A combinatory index of physical, mental, social, planetary, et cetera, et cetera, well being. But, but that's, that's the discussion I would have with the next guest. Like you're an analyst or analyst leader or whatnot. What do you want to optimize society for? What do you want to optimize the recruiting process for? I find that super fascinating.

TIM: Awesome. I don't think we've had either of those questions proposed. So I'm looking forward to asking those to the next one or two guests and seeing seeing what their responses. Fascinated to hear both of those answers.

JOHAN: me as well. Looking forward to it. Hmm.

TIM: Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll share them with you. Actually can we just unpack just briefly a little bit more there, your, your KPI for your. for yourself, because that's really interesting. What prompted you to come up with that? And why did you settle on that one?

JOHAN: Yeah, it's, it's, it's a good question. I've been working on it for many years. I've been training people on, on, on sort of personal leadership, self leadership, et cetera, et cetera. And, and always wrestled with this type of question. And at the end of the day, when you think about it, because there's, there's alternative KPI or competing KPIs, if you think about the happiness index that some countries are looking at, et cetera, et cetera, but for me, wellbeing is much more. Sort of sustainable in the sense that happiness can go up and down if a close friend of mine dies I don't want to be happy, right? But I want to be well enough to mourn that person properly and go through that process with everything that it entails Right, and if I have a strong sense of well being I will be able to do so if I lack well being then I will struggle with that mourning process And so I've been I've been sort of pressure testing different type of KPIs looking into societal progress index, human development index, et cetera, et cetera. And, and, and, and they're all great in, in their own regards. But if you want to bring it down to the individual as well, sustainable welding is what I find so far to be the best one. Now, I'm still a believer that life is one big prototype and we'll see how it goes and we're all learning together. And if there's new information, I'll change my mind. But for now. Sustainable well being composed of physical well being, making sure that you eat well, move around, and sleep well, etc. Mental well being in terms of over indexing on health factors, reducing risk factors. Social well being, you know, I think if I could only solve one problem in the world, it would be loneliness. Because that's the precursor for so many other challenges that we're seeing. And then find the planetary well being, and making sure that we don't sort of be well on all the other parameters at the expense of the sustainability of humankind. So, so pressure testing, looking at options, that's how I arrived at sustainable wellbeing being my macro KPI.

TIM: do you currently measure some of those bits?

JOHAN: I, I, yeah, I, I do. I have regular weekly check ins with myself actually every Sunday at 10 p. m. Where I check, you know, what, what's my, what's my wellbeing at the moment. And I look across the, the different areas. So, I asked myself, where's the weakest link in the chain at the moment. So for example, for the past year, I've been over indexing on social well being a lot. So, really prioritizing, you know spending lots of time with friends, family, meaningful experiences, deepening relationships, getting new relationships, etc, etc. And you know, that, that sort of weekly habit of sound checking. Where, where, where am I exposed at the moment from a well being perspective, I find helpful, but I mean every person needs to figure out what works for you.

TIM: yeah, you've certainly inspired me to continue going down a path that I was. tossing around in my head recently this week. And so yeah, I've now got some, some ideas. So thanks for that. And I, I feel smarter speaking to you today. I think you've just, you've, you've given us so many insights so much wisdom that I think everyone who's listening is going to be better off for it. So Johan, thank you so much for joining us today.

JOHAN: Yeah, and thank you for, for having me and I, I, I, for everyone listening, I hope you are where you want to be and do what you want to do. If not, change it and let me know if I can help. I, I went, when that email out of office went out one time, I got the reply from a, from a partner of ours. And she said, she wrote like, I got so inspired by the email out of office. I just resigned. And I was like. Oh, I hope, I hope that was a bit thought through as well. Not just the email out of office, but that, that, that sort of some setup, I think, so think about where you want to be and do what you want to do.