[00:00:00] Lucia, how are you this afternoon? Hello, Ted. I'm very well, thanks. And you? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I'm so excited about this conversation. I don't know if you remember, but I heard about you through one of-- A team member saw you speak in, was it Italy or... It was at a Cosmonauts event. Yes, it was, uh, here in London. Okay. Uh, it's Future Lawyer UK, yes. Yeah, and he hit me up and said, "You gotta get Lucia on the podcast." So here we are. That's very kind of him. Yes. So, um, why don't we get you introduced? So maybe take a few seconds and tell us a little bit about, uh, what you do. I think your background is super interesting and unique, and it's a-- Um, your background aligns really well to a theme that we've been having on the podcast lately, which is kind of the human side of legal and-- [00:01:00] because that's where the hard work really, in my opinion, and I think in your opinion, lives in, in this transformation. So, uh, tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, first of all, Ted, thank you so much for, for having me. It's such a pleasure to be, uh, here with you today. I, I love your podcast. I, I love the fact that you bring, um, different narratives, uh, and narratives that, that are provocative and, and, you know, that open the conversation to more interesting, uh, discussions in my view. Um, and, and also congratulations on, on being recognized by the Financial Times Lo- Law 50 recently here in London. Thank you. Well, well done. Ma- massive, massive recognition. Yes. Thank you very much. Um, so, well, so I'm a lawyer by, uh, trade, um, and by background. I practiced as a litigator for, um, over 20 years. Um, and, and then I transitioned into, uh, full-time into an innovation role. [00:02:00] Um, and, um, I, I quickly realized when I started working on innovation that, um, innovation in law, uh, let's say pre-pandemic, was very much focused on tools, technology, um, features. Uh, and, and we were not talking, or we were not talking enough about, um, the, the human component or the human behavior component that unlocks innovation and that unlocks the, uh, useful use of technology. Um, so as, as such, I, I developed, um, a, an interest in behavioral science. Behavioral science is a, is an intersection. It's a science that, uh, it's a, a- an intersection between, uh, economics, psychology, organizational, um, transformation, um, sociology. And, um, and I started a new career, and [00:03:00] I, I studied, um, behavioral science. Uh, I'm now I'm a behavioral scientist as well. And, and the work that I have been doing, uh, over the last, um, I would say eight, nine years, have been, um, focused on On the human side, uh, on the human aspects of technology and AI adoption, uh, but also on, on what needs to happen from a human behavior compo- uh, perspective, uh, for innovation to happen in, in law firms. Uh, but everything I say and everything I will share with you today when I talk about law firms, my experience has always been, uh, has mostly been in law firms, um, although I worked five years as general counsel of a multilateral organization in Latin America. Um, everything I say today could be applied either to law firms of all sizes, um, and also to i- in-house legal teams. [00:04:00] So I would say that, that my role is, um, is, is or, or, or what I bring to organizations is precisely, um, the observation of how lawyers and business professionals work, how they behave, and, and what needs to change in their behavior and their habits for AI to make sense, for technology to make sense, but also for actual transformat- organizational transformation happen. Uh, we like to talk about how AI is going to disrupt this or that, but it's not AI that will disrupt this or that. It's, it's people using AI who will disrupt this or that. Um, so yeah, so that's, um... Sorry, that was, uh, more than a few seconds. No, that's, that's really good because I, again, what, what really attracted me to having you on as a guest was your title, which was-- I'd never seen in a law firm before, which is [00:05:00] behavioral innovation. Mm-hmm. And, um, I thought it was a very, uh, progressive sounding role, and m- maybe you could just take a minute, like what, what is the remit for a behavioral innovation role inside a law firm? Like, what does that look like? Oh, this is such a great, such a great question. Um, so my-- So let's say for, for, for the most part, uh, for the last few years, uh, most conversations around innovation and technology have focused on, on what the technology can do. Um, now, now to me, uh, the more in-interesting q-question is how organizations respond to AI and technology and change in general. So my work sits, um, at this intersection where I try or I help legal organizations, law firms of all sizes, and [00:06:00] in-house legal team, uh, build the capabilities that they need to adapt successfully to change. In a way, everything I do, all the programs that I lead, um, that are of a different nature, uh, it could be about, uh, developing creativity capabilities in people. It could be about, um, encouraging practice groups to develop radical ideas to reinvent their business. It could be, um, helping leadership see things around AI from a different perspective outside the echo chambers that are very predominant in our organizations and in, in our industry. So, uh, my work, my, my different projects that are of a different nature, um, bring, try to bring a perspective that is informed by behavioral science, um, and that, [00:07:00] uh, in a way try to generate, uh, debates around in the organization and develop strategies and framework that, that, that then organizations can apply to make change effective. And I should probably say, uh, something f-right from the outset. I, I I'm coming from a rather unusual positions. I'm not, I'm, I'm not trying to build an AI product. I'm not trying to sell a platform. I'm not trying to even sell behavioral science, um, to organizations. Uh, and, and you know, there's this saying that I love that it says, you know, "Never ask a barber if you need a haircut." Because if you ask me, I would say, um, everything is sh- is informed by human behavior. Um, but w- what I think is that, um, we all tend to see the world through the lens of what we know best. Uh, and I'm conscious of that, and, and, and I don't think behavioral science is, is something that should [00:08:00] operate in organ- in legal organizations independently from technology, strategy, or legal expertise. I see it as a lens, and, and what I have found out through experience is when we approach innovation and projects with this behavioral science lens, we tend to bring leaders, uh More useful and effective strategies to make change happen. Um, we tend to believe, and I think we're going to touch on this later on, we tend to believe that by having a strategy and by buying technology, magically, um, everything will change. Uh, we are gonna be much better at what we do, our clients are going to be happy, and everybody's going to be happy. That's not h-what, how it works, uh, because we are forgetting a missing link there, which is for that, all that to happen and to be unlocked, we need to change the way people behave day in and day [00:09:00] out. So, you know, I, what I say about my job, um, or, or the work that I love doing and my passion is that I love working with everybody in the organization, from the most senior lawyer to the most junior business service professionals. Uh, I like to mix them together. The, my most successful programs, like the innovation certificate program that I launched at Dechert, was, uh, the success of that program that ran for five years, was mixing everybody intensively for three months and letting them collaborate without hierarchies, without titles, without thinking I'm, I, I, I'm better because I earn more money or because I've been in the industry for 20 years than you. Everybody on, on the same level playing field, generating ideas and thinking, "Well, h-how can we do this differently? And how can we survive in an environment where only some of us, um, will survive, uh, and l- [00:10:00] few of us will actually thrive?" I don't have that problem about asking a barber for a haircut. Um, so Uh, so I, I never need a haircut, uh, which is great. But, you know, I, I have, I have been, since this whole kind of AI, whatever you wanna call it, you know, transformation story has been discussed, there's been, I feel like, a spectrum between the, um, you know, between the doomsday and the utopian perspectives. And, you know, a lot-- I feel like a lot of people in the doomsday camp are drastically underestimating the amount of human friction that's going to be o- need to be overcome in order for industries and organizations to transform, and the doomsday scenario really relies heavily on [00:11:00] us not having enough time to adapt, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's like people are out of work tomorrow, you know, all knowledge work is going away. The only thing that's going to be left are the trades and manual work, and I think that is impossible because of all the human friction necessary. I spent years, I spent a decade at, uh, Bank of America in process engineering, change management, risk management roles, and, you know, part of my job, um, I moved around a lot while I was there, but when I was doing process engineering work, a big part of my job was to go into organizations and retool how the work gets delivered, like from first principles. And that is so incredibly hard, especially with a, um, consti- constituency like lawyers that are, uh, you know, the ones that are more senior in their career, first of all, you know, like, um, Richard Susskind says, "It's hard to tell- Mm-hmm ... a room full of millionaires they're doing [00:12:00] it wrong." You know, that is real, and, you know, the work that you describe in your inno- inno- uh, be- behavioral innovation role sounds really, really hard to me in a law firm because of some of the things that you just mentioned, like taking away the, the, the hierarchies. Like, the, the hierarchies are really embedded deeply in law firm culture and, you know, we hear terminology like non-lawyers and- Yes ... um, which is, I, I think slowly s- starting to change, but it feels like I'm much more-- I don't... I'm, I'm in the middle, so I'm not dystopian or utopian. I'm kind of in the middle. I think this is going to be A big shift for our economies globally, for knowledge work. But I do think we're gonna have much more time. Th-the tech could be ready t-today, and it's not, by the way. Like, I feel very strongly that the tech is-- There's [00:13:00] been some inflated assessments, uh, uh, as to what the tech can do, especially in a legal context. Um- Mm-hmm ... you know, long horizon agentic work is still nowhere near where it needs to be, especially for a very high stakes industry like legal. Mm-hmm. But even if it were ready today, it would be years before we would be in a place where both inside legal teams, and I know there's a lot of like CLOs and GCs saying, "You're not moving fast enough, law firms." Yeah. Um, you know, Ford Motor Company, the, the CLO had a, a post on, I think it was Bloomberg recently. So they're- Mm-hmm ... you know, we're getting a lot of signals that it, it sounds like the inside legal teams want the law firms to move faster. Mm-hmm. And, you know, on the law firm side, there is a tremendous amount of human work that still needs to be done. So I was so intrigued that your firm had the foresight to [00:14:00] see, to, to, to invest there. Um- Mm-hmm ... so would, would you say that-- Well, first of all, have you ever seen somebody with a behavioral innovation title in a law firm? No, I haven't. Uh, a-actually, I came with, uh, I came up with it. So I thought it was like a, a, a, a, an interesting way to, to describe, um, what, what the, the role was about. And no, no, I haven't seen, uh, a role s-such as that, and I wish, uh, there were more roles like that, um, because the need is there. Um, and, and, and you know, what, what I think y- what you're saying is, is very, is very powerful because- I'm, I'm, I'm with you. I'm, I'm in the middle. I don't think we need to be dystopian or utopian when we talk about AI. We just need to be more analytical and observe what's, what's going on. And, um, you know, it's when we talk about [00:15:00] AI, um, it's we, we offen- often focus on what the technology is capable of doing. We talk about process mappings, workflow, tasks, automation, features, agents, and behavioral science or behavioral innovation shifts the conversation towards humans and what they are actually willing and able to do with that technology. So those are t- totally different conversations. And, and sometimes I like to describe this as the difference between potential and realized value, right? Technology creates the potential, right? We have amazing technology with the potential to do amazing things. Like now, only people are going to determine whether that potential is effectively realized or not. And, and that has led me to, to believe that behavioral capabil- developing in every organization a behavioral [00:16:00] capability is a strategic capability, and it sits within boardrooms to make that decision. And it's not simply about managing change well or change management. It's about building organizations that, you know, can develop the adaptability capability, let's say, that are organizations that learn, adapt, and evolve as technology continues to change. And, you know, one thing that I've noticed about AI, and I love what you said about the, you know, the, the doom and gloom and then the, the, the, the utopians and happy people, is that one thing that has surprised me, and I've noticed this every day, is the way we talk about AI. We often describe it as, as though it's an independent force acting on organizations. We hear phrases like, "AI is reshaping the legal industry. AI is replacing lawyers. AI will kill the billable [00:17:00] hour. AI will transform the profession." It's interesting because that language kind of subtly removes the human agent agency from the story. You know, it makes AI sound like something that's happening to us rather than something we are actively shaping through thousands of decisions we make every day as individuals and as leaders in organizations. And, you know, this is very-- it's a very important reminder that g- doom and gloom or utopia depends pretty much on us, not on AI. It, it will depend on the decisions leaders make in relation to their people, but also on how each individual shows up every day at work, and what are the conditions for them, th-they, uh, for them to show up in the way we want them to show up. And, you know, AI doesn't decide [00:18:00] how work will be done or redesigned. Th-those are people, and leaders, uh, need to think how, think and strategize, but also implement strategies that are geared towards understanding how they are going to make people do things in a way where AI brings the value and releases the potential that it has within itself. Um, so I would like us to, all of us, like as an industry, stop giving AI too much agency, uh, and, you know, kind of regain the agency that we as humans have in this process. And it depends on us. Nothing is going, nothing is going to be imposed on us. It will depend on human decisions and how we want to address that for our organizations and as an industry as a whole. Yeah, you, you used a, a metaphor about a car in London when we had lunch a couple weeks ago, um- Yeah ... when I was over there for the Financial Times. Maybe you can talk a little [00:19:00] bit about that, because I think that's a great way to visualize the, you know, uh, the paradigm that I think we're in. Yes. I mean, I, I, I love, I love that, uh, metaphor because it's very graphic. And, you know, the way The way, um, I, I, I think about AI in, in legal organizations, um, is by thinking about two systems that interact. On the one hand is the technology system, and on the other hand is the human system, let's say, right? There are other systems and other, other organizational levers that are important for this conversation. But if we just take these two systems, technology and people. Um, now this, the technology system is advancing absolute- at a n- at a speed that we cannot even believe, right? It's, it's advancing at a pace that is very difficult for us to even [00:20:00] comprehend, right? Now, that's technology, and then on the other hand, we have humans. And humans, uh, the, the s- the human system in organizations, uh, is it, it, it moves at a much slower pace. And why? Because we as humans, we behave based on values, on thoughts, on feelings, emotions. We are complex creatures. So if we, if we want to change a habit we don't like, think about our personal lives. If you, if you want to change a habit we don't like, if we, if we smoke or overeat or don't do exercise, how long does it take for any individual human being to change that habit? It takes a long time. So there's a massive disparity when it comes to, uh, the, the pace at which humans can change and technology can change in an organization. There's a [00:21:00] massive disparity at, in pace between these two systems within any organization. And the, the, the, the Ferrari or the super fast car in London is, well, you know, if you think about Technology and humans, right? And how humans are just also heavily influenced by the environment. When we talk about the human system, we need to remind ourselves that the way your people, Ted, at Infodash, or the people at any organizations, they don't, don't just behave the way they want. They also behave, uh, in a certain way because of the context of the organization you have built, because of the environment. Uh, so their behavior is heavily conditioned by context. So if we think about, if we translate that to cars in London, if you have the super-- the best car in the, in the market, I don't want to say any, any brand. I'm, I'm awful with cars, so I don't know anything [00:22:00] about that. But let's say you have the fastest car in the market, right? And you buy it because it is the fastest car in the market. The moment that super fast car enters central London, the car is not going to go at the maximum speed it can go according to its features. It's going to go at the speed of the context and the environment created in central London by other hundreds and thousands of cars trying to get into central London and creating traffic jams. So if we translate that to organizations, it's the same thing. You know, we are buying technology, we are developing technology, we are talking about how much technology is going to change us. But then when we bring the human system into the equation, we realize, h-hang on, this is not going as fast as we possibly can because people are slow to change, and people are slow to build new [00:23:00] habits, and people have fears and concerns about their identities being impacted by AI. So when you have two components at different speeds that interact with each other, the whole system is going to go at the speed of the slowest one, not as the fastest one. And the same thing happens in organizations. And this is why you go to most law firms, most legal in-house teams, or most organ-- uh, s- professional services organizations, and things don't look very different, really. Uh, we, we just bought more technology. Now, I'm not so sure we yet, we have bu- You know, we have found out, uh, what we are going to do with that technology to increase the pace of change, and this is where different lenses, different approaches to unlock that are important. You know, there's a book that was required reading when I was, uh, entered business school [00:24:00] 20-something years ago, 25 years ago, and, uh, it was called "The Goal" by Elliott Go- Goldratt. Um- Mm-hmm ... are you familiar with it? No, I haven't read it, but I'm, I'm writing it down to read. Yeah. It, it's, it's a really good book, and it, it talks about the theory of constraints and how- Mm-hmm ... you know, a system moves, only moves as fast as its slowest moving component, and they use a metaphor, and I'm going back in my mental archives here, so I might get this a little bit wrong, of, like, a marching band. And- Mm-hmm. Got you ... however, however fast the slowest drummer in that marching band goes is how fast the system moves. Um, so yeah, that was, like, a very early, um, teaching. I think that was in, you know, in the entry, whatever the entry level class was, that was required reading. So it's very real, it's very true, and something that you touched on is [00:25:00] identity, which I think is really interesting. And I've been talking about culture in law firms for a really long time, having not spent my entire career there, having spent time... I was at Microsoft before I was at Bank of America. Uh-huh. I was an entrepreneur before that. Um, and the, there are so many cultural components in a law firm that are really foundational, like cornerstones. Mm-hmm. Um, one of them is, is, you know, the, the KPIs that end up being the axis around which the law firm rotates, which is the billable hour and originations. Mm-hmm. Right? That's how lawyers are measured. Those are the two metrics that determine your, your career path, your compensation, how you're viewed by your peers. Really, the identity o- of the lawyer are really wrapped up, uh, tightly or tightly coupled to those metrics. And we're now entering in, [00:26:00] in, into an era where the billable hour isn't necessarily-- I'm not, I'm also not one of, uh, one of these believers that the billable hour is going away, and no, I do think it's going to lose ground to alternative pricing structures, for sure. There's no way it can't. But I think there's gonna be a much longer horizon than it's not happening tomorrow. It's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, it's gonna be an evolution, not a revolution. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It, as bad as-- There, and there's so much pent-up demand for alternative pricing structures that the market on the buy side is really chomping at the bit. But the reality is not, not just, I mean, just take people out of it for a minute and just the technology itself, there's still so much human in the loop work required that it makes... And there's so many areas of practice within a law firm that really, uh, incorporate a level of variation or [00:27:00] variability that, you know, that's a-- I'm a Lean Six Sigma black belt and, you know, variability. People think Lean and Six Sigma are the same thing. They're not. Lean, because they use the words together, Lean is about r- waste reduction. Six Sigma is about quality control. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So if you're operating at Six Sigma, and I'm gonna butcher this too 'cause it's been forever, but it's like 4.3 million defects per, you know, 4.3 defects per million opportunities. So if you're manufacturing widgets and you have more than 4.3 out of a run of a million go, um, defective, then you're not operating at Six Sigma. Right. Right. So it's a very, it's a v-very high bar. Right. And, um, but g- going back to the identities piece, how do you, how do you see... You, you talked a little bit about the double mismatch- Mm-hmm and, and rebuilding lawyer identity. Like, talk a little bit about that. Yes. I mean, um, I, I love your questions, Ted, and I know [00:28:00] we discussed, we were, we were preparing this conversation. I had some ideas, and now I have more, even more ideas. Well, anyway, um, uh, I'll try to be brief. Um, so, so yeah, so I, I, I think there's this, um, the, the, the... When I refer to the double mismatch or, or, or a gap is, um, is... Well, there are, there are two mismatches here, uh, or gaps. Uh, the first gap is between the speed of technological change and the speed of organizational change. Um, and this is similar to what I just mentioned about, um, the, the car in Central London. Uh, technology is advancing very fast, but of course, changing organizations change very s-slowly, uh, because we need to consider governance, regulation, client expectations, organizational processes, but also because, uh, successes, past successes are sometimes a very important obstacle for [00:29:00] change because we believe that if we've been doing something, uh, for the past dec- for the past 50 decade, fi- five decades or for a long time, then, uh, you know, we know how to do things, why change? So that's, that's the first, um, that's the first mismatch. But the second mismatch, and I think there's a second, that second one we discussed le- much less, is between what technology is capable of doing and how people experience that change. Now, if you, if you talk to an AI person or a technology person or an engineer or people even like us who are in innovation, we perceive AI as a technical achievement, as something that is amazing, full of features. It can do this, this, and that. And this is why w-when people approach law firms when pe- Vendors or, or people who develop amazing technology come to us. They explain to us how amazing their, their tools are. Now, when we talk about [00:30:00] human behavior and how people think about technology, uh, and especially lawyers, we experience AI as a ch- as a radical change, as a radical change to the way we practice, we develop expertise, and we create value. Um, so much so that AI i- is perceived as a threat to our professional identity. Um, f- especially for more senior people like us, um, we've been trained in a certain way. Now, AI scraps all that and, in a way, start... forces us to think differently about the value we bring to the organization and to our clients. And, you know, this, this double mismatch is, is something that creates, uh, two different conversations that don't talk to each other or that don't relate to each other. One group, uh, or, or one group of people in an organization or [00:31:00] one group in the industry is talking about AI capabilities, and the other group of people who are needed for AI to make a change is thinking about themselves, the, the value they, they bring as professionals. So one, one thing that research has, has, has shown us is that people don't, um, simply evaluate change objectively. W- when we tell people, "This tool is amazing because of this or that," information alone is not what change people's behavior in relation to that technology. We, when we receive that information, we interpret that information through our existing beliefs, experiences, and professional identities. So when you have a leader, you know, a group of leaders who want to introduce AI, they are not just introducing technology. They are introducing uncertainty, and uncertainty [00:32:00] for, for their people, and uncertainty about careers, about expertise, about progression, about where, where's my value, and this is something very interesting. There's this, uh, this is, again, this is a line of research that is very interesting. When, when you want... When there's a mismatch between the behavior you want to promote and the behavior r- you reward, for instance, if you want to promote more use of AI, but you reward working long hours The, that mismatch creates a problem for people and people solve that problem by leaning towards the behavior that gets rewarded, not necessarily to the behavior that the organization expect people to, expects people to have. So your point about billable hours I think is a great example. I mean, I don't even want to [00:33:00] get into the decades long conversation about whether there's a good system or a bad system, but because I think we, most of us know the, the, the, what's the prevalent view on that. But, but you know, if, if we are create, if we want our lawyers and business professionals to use more AI and we don't change simultaneously the context in which that behavior will take place, the incentives, what gets rewarded, what gets recognized, what makes people progress their careers, then people are not going to adopt AI the way we want them to adopt. We need to change all that for this little thing to work, for AI to work. So, and this is the last thing I'm going to say about because you mentioned KPIs and I love that because we constantly get asked, "Well, what's the ROI of innovation? What's the ROI of behavior change? Uh, what's the I- ROI of this and that?" And you [00:34:00] know, I, I really would like us to push back on that question and ask, "Well, I'm going to answer that question when you as leaders of organizations also start thinking how the rest of the organizational levers need to change to measure accurately ROI of AI behavior change and innovation." That is such a good point. And, uh, you know, I, I have been beating the drum for a while now about the risk of firms that over-index on ROI too early in this transformation because I think so much of the ROI is learning, right? Exactly. It's experimentation and like- Exactly ... in, in innovation if you're not failing, you're not innovating, right? No. It's, it's a requirement in order, it's, it's a, it's a process of trial and error and experimentation and, and that necessitates failure, and failure isn't [00:35:00] bad in that context. Um- Mm-hmm ... what y- uh, when we, when we had lunch a couple of weeks ago you, you talked something that I thought was interesting concept, the IKEA effect. Mm-hmm. What, uh, te- tell me, tell me what that means. So, you know, the IKEA effect is a, is a a, it's a, it's a cool, uh, concept in, in, in, in behavioral science and, um, it's, it's all about, you know, researchers finding, researchers finding that, um, people place greater value on things they have helped build themselves. Um, and, and I think this is a, a, a, an important lesson for, for legal organizations because we often, um, treat lawyers and business, especially lawyers, but also business service, uh, professionals, as the final stage of it- an innovation process. So traditionally, a [00:36:00] group of people within the organization who are not normally lawyers, um, select technology, workflows are designed, processor, uh, processes are developed, and then when everything is ready for lawyers to use, we bring them to the lawyers, give them all the information they need, and give them 100 trainings on how to use that technology. Uh, and then we cross our arms and magically expect that people start using the technology. And What research has constantly found in terms of how humans behave is that the, almost the opposite approach is the right one. Because if according to th- this IKEA effect, you should bring lawyers and business professionals into the process, whether it's technology, building, buying, or innovation in general, right from the very beginning.[00:37:00] You have to ask them what the friction-- where the frictions are, which trust tasks they hate doing or drain their energy, which ones they love doing and gives them a sense of purpose, um, you know, what their clients like, what they don't like, what matters to them. But also, I-- There's a question that I always love to ask, is, you know, I would li- I ask people, "What part of your job, if removed, will make you feel less important, less valued, less recognized, and less willing to show up and go to the office every day?" Because those questions are going to give you very valuable insights to understand what you should do next, what you should do with which technology, buy or, or build, how the, how the technology should be built, what fe- what features it should have. But also, how can [00:38:00] we redefine and reimagine everything that needs to be reimagined in a law firm? And, you know, it's, it's-- This is something that is, is very, is, is, is very interesting because, again, we think that we give... If we give people information at some point, at the end, you know, things are going to dramatically change, and, and that, that's not the case. This is why you can invest as much money as you want in technology and run as many training programs as you want, but then, uh, that's not gonna impact a- adoption at scale. And, and this is why I would say what's important in every innovation project, whether it has to do with AI or not, you need to involve lawyers right from the very beginning. Uh, and, you know, there's something that I found in law firms That is, is, is, is, is a bit of an obstacle. We don't like to ask for feedback or questions. I mean, [00:39:00] we-- even, even clients, we do not like to ask feedback to clients about our service. Um, and, and we tend to, uh, you know, we tend to underestimate the power of asking people what they think about things. Uh, because-- And if we do, that will probably lead us to much more successful outcomes when we roll out that technology or where we try to push for a certain change, organizational change. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, in technology, um, pro- in the '70s, '80s and '90s, there, um, there was a what they call an SDLC, a software development life cycle, um, methodology called Waterfall. Mm-hmm. And Waterfall is a process where you bring a, a group of users together with a business analyst, and you write down the requirements of the system, and then you go off, the [00:40:00] technology team goes off in a vacuum, builds this solution, and then the first time that users get to see it is during user acceptance testing or UAT. And that has created so much friction in the world- That's right ... of technology that in two thou- I-- early 2000s, there was a group of thought leaders in the, in the technology space, and they, they, they signed something called the Agile Manifesto. Mm-hmm. And the Agile Manifesto was really the beginning of the agile movement in technology, where-- And the agile movement is, um, you know, if you had to sum it up in a one word, it's iterative. Mm-hmm. And it's the, the mantra is to deliver value incrementally and engage users early and often, so that- Mm-hmm ... users are seeing live working software and engaging with it, providing feedback, and you have really short, what they call sprints, development [00:41:00] cycles before the next iteration is released. And that has proven to be massively successful in the technology world. And I think it's not just technol- doesn't apply to just technology. No. It's any sort of like massive change that you're gonna introduce. Large. Um, so yeah, I feel like technology figured this out a long time ago, but I, to your point, it, I think it's, there's still some remnants of the waterfall mindset in other areas of the organization. W- 100%. And, and, you know, I think you're raising a- an amazing point there, is I am a firm believer that we need to be inspired by other industries and people who do things better than us as lawyers and legal organizations. Uh, you know, this concept of analogous inspiration. I like... I love to talk to... I mean, I, I, I love the, the examples you bring from the software world. I love to talk to people who are in the advertising industry or, you [00:42:00] know, who are in a profession, you know, like professional sen- services industry. It- to one event that I organized, I even invited my, my dentist because I thought he was the most, as a speaker, and he was a massive success. I thought, this guy is one of the most, um, he, he's, he's the most amazing, um, service provider when it comes to client service. Every time I would go to his, um, practice, I would feel happy to go to a dentist, which is something that, you know, you would never feel. And, and I found so many parallels with how people show up when they go to a lawyer, uh, and when they go to a dentist. And, you know, I, I learned so much from him, and when I brought him to the firm, everybody was excited to hear his, his stories in terms of how he approaches a difficult service he provides in, in very innovative ways. So I, I do think you're absolutely right. In the [00:43:00] legal profession and the legal industry, I think sometimes we, we haven't been so open to learn from others, uh, as if what we do is very special and doesn't have anything to do with anything, and everything has to do with e- everything, really. And, you know, these days, that's, that's very true. But in any case, it's, it, it sparks curiosity and it, it sparks new connections just to speak randomly with people who, who do things differently or do things in a, you know, i- in my view, sometimes even better than us. Um, and, and we should kind of seek inspiration as much as we possibly can to flex that muscle, uh, of creativity, which again, uh, I think everything that we're talking today, uh, is, is the foundation for making change happen is flexing the flex- the f- the, the creativity muscle in our people day in and day out. Creativity is not a swi- I [00:44:00] mean, if you want people to start using AI creatively, that's not a switch that you can turn on and off when you want, be it- creativity is something that is a com- compounded. It's, it, it's created over time. It's cultivated. It's cultivated, and the more you create an organization that, as you were saying before, uh, allows for creativity to happen, allows for mistakes to be made in the, in the context of experimentation, allows for projects to fail, you know, th- that is something that, that creates an incredible cap- capability in people to think, "Well, you know, I can try this. I'm not gonna be perceived as less competent because I tried this technology or this idea and it didn't go well." So everything is, is, is related, and in a way, is, this is something that, that connects perhaps to something we have time to discuss or not, which is, you know, the, the, the constant, um- Challenge [00:45:00] that we have between short-sightedness and, and the long view when it comes to decision-making, uh, in organizations and, and how much, how, how, how able we are to see around... I mean, how m- how-- If we are able to see around the corner, um, we will be much better placed, uh, to, you know, face the challenges, not just related to AI, actually. Uh, AI is just one component, but there are so many challenges, and we need to be prepared. But that will also happen, only happen if we are able to see around the corner and not just react to the immediate. I love the analogous inspiration terminology and concept. Um, I'm not sure if you've ever heard the story of Chick-fil-A and bringing in, um, the Ritz-Carlton to learn about customer experience, but they did, and they, they were laughed at by their peers in the fast food business, you know, whatever, 25 years ago or maybe even 30 years ago when they [00:46:00] did it, you know. Because they're such different worlds, you know, high-end- Yes ... you know, hotels and resorts and fast food. Who would ever think? And look how incredibly successful they've been. Exactly. Um, well, let's talk- I know it ... w- we have, like, a few, a few minutes, and I wanna hear your perspective on the short versus the long view. What are, what is your take on that? You know, I, um, I, I, I think that, again, uh, h-human nature is that we are great at reacting to the immediate, um, to what's pressing, to what's urgent, to what's ch- in front of us. Um, and, and leaders have a lot of pressure to, um, show results within short time frames. Very similar to politicians, right? If you, if you want to [00:47:00] keep your voters happy, you need to show results in three, four years or whatever your mandate, uh, lasts. Leaders in organizations, in, in fir- law firms, but also, uh, in, in organizations that have, uh, in-house legal teams also need to show achievements and objectives and goals within sh- relatively short time frames. And the problem with that is that innovation, behavior change, transformat- organizational transformation, all that, as we said before, takes, take time. Um, and the reason why that takes ti- that what, that all that takes time is because it's dependent on humans, and we s- we already established that we, we don't change easy. Now- It's, it's a, that's a constant tension there, and I've seen both types of leaders. [00:48:00] I've seen the leaders who, uh, I would say are concentrated, are focused on delivering on the short-term goals that they need to deliver to keep their stakeholders happy. But also leaders who are very interested in their legacy, in how they want to be perceived, not just in the three, four years or five years of, or their mandates, but actually, uh, after that. And if you ask any leader of any type of organization, would you like to be remembered by a, a, a tool you implemented, or would you like to be remembered by someone who established the conditions for the organization to be more progressive, more forward-looking, to see around the corner, to behave, uh, more like a true organization that doesn't just focus on the immediate, but actually focus on the long-term sustainability? I [00:49:00] mean, you know, I, I would say most leaders would say, "You know, I would take the second option." I mean, no one is gonna care if I was responsible for, uh, uh, you know, the adoption and rollout of X or Y technology. So, but you know, the, the, there's a massive also gap between intentions and behaviors and, you know, while some leaders would like to be perceived by their legacy, long-term legacy, I feel that short-term goals have a, a lot of weight. And, and that, that's problematic. It's problematic for, f- to make change happen, and this is why, in my view, we haven't seen The rapid change and the transformative change that we should have seen by now in most of our organizations. Yeah, especially considering that law firms are private, at least here in the United States. I know there are, um, public law [00:50:00] firms in the UK, but here in the US there are no public law firms and, um- Mm-hmm ... it's all private capital. Even the ones- Right ... that have accepted private equity do thro- do so through a p- a non-public mechanism. So I do think there's opportunity for... It's really hard when you're publicly traded, um- Yes you know, because it, investors are so focused on, and analysts are so focused on short-term results. There's huge corrections in the marketplace happening right now in the tech world, like massive- Yeah ... I mean, Nike's down like 70% over the last five years. IBM is d- went down 25% in one day. Um- Yeah, it's crazy it's crazy the swings that we're seeing and, you know, there's a lot of questions in the AI world about, you know, uh, Kimi just had a new release, which is a Chinese open weight model, and it is blowing the doors off the legal benchmarks. But, um, yeah, it's, it's interesting [00:51:00] time. Uh, it's an interesting time to be in the space, and I love that, you know, y- your leaders recognize the need for a role like the one that, that you built out and, um, I can't wait to hear what you're up to next. So, um- ... may- maybe once that's, uh, once that's announced, we'll, um, have you back on at some point because this... We, we didn't even get through half the agenda. Um- I know. I know, but I, I knew, you know, Ted, I knew this was going to happen. Yes. Because every time, every time you and I start a conversation, we, uh, w- we can't stop. Uh- Right ... but yeah, I will be super, um, yeah, I, I, I can't wait to, to tell you more what's coming, uh, and, uh, for in my career. Uh, but yeah, I would, I would just like to say that it's going to be all about digging deeper into behavioral change and, you know, um, developing or helping leaders develop organizations that [00:52:00] are You know, more progressive and, uh, more focused on the, on the human beings and, and they are not just thinking about AI as a way to replace their people, but actually leaders who, who want to make better organizations with AI and their people. Um, and, you know, I, I think the future is, is very exciting, and I cannot wait to share more with you and, and, and your, your audience as well. Yes. That's great. So how do people, uh, get in touch or follow what you read, write, speak about? Are you on LinkedIn? Is that the best way? Yes. Yes, yes. I'm, I'm on LinkedIn. Uh, and, uh, yeah, I, I can share my, my email as well if, if there's a place for, for you to add it in your, in your website. But- Yes ... LinkedIn is, is the best place. And, uh, yeah, I, I really would love to hear from, from people what, what they think about what we discussed today. And, you know, I think we need more people like us talking about this topic, so it would be [00:53:00] exciting to, to have offline conversations. Absolutely. Yeah, we'll include your, your link, your URL in the show notes, so- Great ... so folks can get in touch. And thank you so much for, for taking some time. I look forward to the next conversation. Thank you so much for having me, Ted. It's been an amazing conversation, and you made my day. Oh, uh, likewise. Ditto. All right, we'll chat soon. Take care. All right. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to Legal Innovation Spotlight. If you found value in this chat, hit the subscribe button to be notified when we release new episodes. We'd also really appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate us and leave us a review wherever you're listening right now. Your feedback helps us provide you with top-notch content.