Hi my name is Joel in this episode of unplugged I talk to Rik Vera after an extensive career in general management sales and marketing Rik changed his course he is now a worldwide keynote speaker boardroom adviser and renowned thought leader on the topics of extreme customer centricity innovation in the digital era and business model change I love Rik for his clarity his way of looking at reality and the way he inspires leaders and companies with his insights and this unplugs are top with Rik about his purpose the importance of

chaos and the wedding companies of the future I think your you’re a great observer of what’s happening in the world today and you’re able to translate your insights to leaders and companies my question is when you observe yourself what do you feel is your purpose what is it that drives you to do what you do the thing about I do today is what I’ve been doing all the time accept the fact that it’s my professional and it didn’t use to be my profession it’s a very personal one and maybe it’s the first

time I talk about it in public but I’ve always felt like what looks like an Indian in this life say if you’re an alien if you feel like an alien in this life you’re interested in how there’s life functions in how people function in how people’s relationships functional and that relates to how companies function in the world as well when I worked for companies I never had the feeling that I worked in a company I worked I don’t know how to say that but I was looking upon myself and upon my function of functionality within that

company so I’ve always had by definition that ability to observe the world and you decompose what I saw to try to find out relationships between the separate elements it was the essence of what you did or was the essence of what I did in order to and that sounds so big in order to survive or to lead a life and maybe that’s what other people who you don’t know what other people think but that’s how I interpreted my being here say I’ve always done that and I think it was my strength in in business life because I was never into

it I always looked upon it and now it’s my profession say I’m kind of this is coming home for me hmm that’s amazing yeah so that your purpose is to be the observer yeah yeah yeah to be kind of and kind of neutral observer I don’t like to judge I like to observe and I always like to I never try to find the truth in something because the truth is then it’s then it’s dot then it’s it’s fixed when I when I position something when I talk about something it’s never deep with the intention okay this is it and believe me it’s more like

this could be it and try to come up with the alternative because that is going to enrich my perception of of that happening or that singer of that type of relationship but when it comes about being neutral in your book you say by visualizing the future you can create a new reality are you neutral when it comes to the reality we are going to create with each other or do you have an opinion about it what is the reality that you would like to create I’ll go create it’s its mix of neutral that the elements are neutral of course

you always start especially when you visualize the future we know for sure that the future that we’re living for the moment will be highly influenced by technology and the technology is not new people and humanity that divorce is nothing new and yeah I start from a set of values in a set of beliefs so that’s not neutral I’m some believer by definition of the fact that in the end human mankind always uses in the end the new technology to the best of mankind like every technology every technology call it AI

now AI can be abused and I can be used and I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be abused but in the end that is going to be of good news for mankind so yeah when I visualize the future that’s not neutral it’s it’s it’s yeah there’s a set of rules said off of values in my head they always tend to believe in signs let’s call it science and our technology as science needs to a bit of mankind Indians so you’re positive about our future I’m positive about our future not all the time there’s a couple of of things in in

the outside world right now that I don’t like and that keep me awake at night to some extent but I do believe that in the end like a long run I kind of always find solutions for stuff why is it that you are dead optimist I think that we have kind of the application to be an optimist I think that everybody if everybody is an optimist and good do you have an idea about the timelines we’re talking about and you talk about the integration of technology and humanity yeah I have a fixed answer for that the fixed answer is faster mm-hm

yeah the fixed answer is do you think it’s going to be 2035 or 2045 mastery’s always it’s going to be faster than that I think we always underestimate the speed of change mm-hmm because most elements that we see in the change are very incremental and our brain is not capable of coping with little incremental changes because we hardly see them and it’s only when we look back that we realize how much something has changed hmm nothing that by definition we underestimate the speed of change that’s going to happen in the future so

it’s my ulcer is faster and what do you think will change in a way that businesses are led in the in a technology driven world I think that one of the biggest changes in humanity as such in the last 50 years now the last 15 years is you can give it a whole set of names business network it’s the fact that we live the first time that humanity is becoming a network that there are for the moment four billion people connected and I think we still don’t really understand what it means we still cannot really cope with what it

means we cannot really predict what’s going to give us in the future but we all know is going to be huge and it’s unseen it’s the first time in Indian history and if you realize about the or printing has done for Humanity then I think we have no idea what this network means for Humanity but talking about businesses that means that businesses the business environment is changing completely and I’d like to compare the network the network is your customers if you’re a business you always have customers your customers our network and

I compare a network with a cloud of bats you know that cloud of bats you can imagine that that the movements that the cloud of birds are making is completely unpredictable and nevertheless you can do experiments if you do that experiment on a computer and you give the computer like 10,000 dots you only need three principles to recreate the movements that that part of us is making the the first principle is close formation so you have to fly close together yeah the hard connection that is the social that

the fact that people are connected but not too close because then you bump into each other so you fly close formation the second is the second dot always tries to follow the first dot you always try to follow the dot that’s in front of you so that’s the second principle under the third principle is every dot tries to be in the middle of the cloud which is the most it is the safest place and that three principles together create a completely unpredictable cloud say if the cloud is unpredictable then businesses in the world that

especially in the West used to make a picture of the situation you make a picture of the situation that’s the situation and then you develop a business model that fits that picture and we’ve been very good at that and we all of the management books that we have written it that we read so far are about how do you create that picture and how do you fulfill that picture I call that fast architecture you make that picture and then you develop the business model to fit into that to fit into that page but you can no

longer frame that cloud of bells because if you frame it the very moment you start your fast architecture and you end up in that frame maybe the whole cloud of bats is already somewhere else say by definition agile is not a hype word it’s not the best word it’s something that companies need to do you need to be able to constantly follow that cloud of that so that means that instead of fast architect you have to go for slow architecture slow architecture is have to adapt all the time your big picture okay I want to get

into that cloud I want to be in to be that cloud that’s your that’s your aim that’s your purpose that you have to adapt all the time – that fast-moving cloud so that means that companies used to be inside our body finishing because you worked in two words that frame me to be outside in I’m a strong believer that on a personal level there is a lot of love inside out as well so like you talk about yourself as being an observer so you can bring something to the world that’s inside out in some kind of way I

understand what you’re saying about companies having to be outside in yeah as a human being or either you have preferences or you are curious to certain aspects in the world like you are not tell you I think you here are very interested person in you’re interested in a lot of things but still you’re framed in a certain kind of way to prefer certain types of work yes or businesses or sectors or whatever so there’s silk still an inside-out perspective that we have to meet that outside in perspective are I think if

you that’s what I said if you are passionately curious then by definition you you know who you are you know it’s always the perception of reality is an important element and how you perceive reality is to a big extent is the find by who you are because who you are defines your perception of reality so even if you’re outside in the filter between the outside in is who you are and that’s inside out that is by scientific papers the first thing I look at is who’s the author and what is he what is he like because that tells you a

lot about the scientific outcome of the paper yeah yeah we’re always we always start from assumptions whether we like it or not we’re not neutral we’re not we’re not like a physical instrument that is there that is no that has no personality that’s why we are people we have a personality absolutely yeah the subtitle of your book is connect to many engaging yes can you elaborate what do you mean by this yeah whatever he said that is that that the customer base is a cloud so that’s many connect to many so every

business in the past businesses had a choice and they had to make a choice and it was either I connect to many the fact that I connect to many then I lose my ability to engage individual because then I go for mass communication or we call it mass communication but it wasn’t no communication because communication is two-way that if you start mass communication you do broadcasting and broadcasting is one directional say big companies and if you wanted to get bigger as a company you want to scale as

a company the only thing you had was mass communication was broadcasting so connect to many or engage individuals and that or engage individuals was well smaller companies could do that was engaging individuals that you couldn’t combine it although big companies try to and I’ve been working for big companies and I’d done exactly the same stuff companies started to segment their customers in a trial to get closer to that engaged individuals or we started creating personas I’ve done that like hell and you tell yourself

that you’re closer to your customers but you’re not then we started to develop customer journeys and let’s face it it’s good that we think about the customer journey but there is no such thing as the customer journey because it’s always inside-out we’re always thinking like the middleman I do it for my customer base connect to many but not engaging individuals so it was was a choice I think that in the future interaction with your customers will be the combination connect to many and at the same time engage individuals even more

the more you connect to money the better you will be able to engage individuals in the future the house got to do with artificial intelligence and robots because to create a clever brain let’s say that we world as a company to create a clever brain for our customer interaction you need loads of data because you can only train a brain like a human brain with lots of data so the more you’re connected customers the more data you collect about customers please don’t use the data to absorb cross-sell

or deep so but use the data to see that brain and to train that brain to better engage customers and then that brain can use a small data of the 101 customer interaction to do clever stuff for that specific customer say in the future it will be connect to many and engage in the rituals and companies that can crack that code faster than competition now I’m talking about competition I don’t like to talk about competition there is no more competition everybody’s competing and nobody’s competing it’s

about cracking that code and companies that can crack that code will not only survive but will kind of win in the future ok so the winning companies will be the ones that connect to many and engage in it yeah those that are able to crack that code and cracking that code that you do a lot of the daily stuff of the process-driven stuff with your customers based on digitization based on artificial intelligence artificial intelligence you know with deep learning that that that brain is not only trained

with big data but is also trained but every small interaction because it makes brain click more and more clever the advantage of artificial intelligence is also that it doesn’t start from assumptions but it starts from the data especially in this space it’s going to be people that assist artificial intelligence I’m not a believer that companies will be able to connect them and engage individuals without the interaction of human to human but I think that the humans in a company will make the final difference the final

point of difference between a good company and a company that’s not as good in customer interaction and why is that I think that because I think that we always need in human interaction there so that there always needs to be some friction there always needs to be some serendipity some unpredictability some mistake some errors to make a real and an artificial intelligence we’ll try to do the best by definition we missed it we will miss the human interaction I think that that and translating I think that one of the big

issues for artificial intelligence is how do you tell an artificial intelligence and how you train it to understand values and values of a company another thing that people will for a long time be far better in translating values of a company then compute as well it’s interesting what you’re saying with you know the movie The Matrix yeah in the Matrix day it’s very important the the knee out of Thomas Anderson meets the architect and Arctic explains that the first matrix that he built was to prove

matrix but people couldn’t accept it because it was faultless yeah so you you have to bid of it you need to pitch very union you need that friction it you need look at look at normal relationship if a normal relationship if in a relationship you do everything right it becomes so boring yeah it needs to have that friction from time to time so we need to live in an imperfect world to be happy as a you yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah I I read that you say it’s a myth that companies can change in an exponential

way yeah I is there I think that I wrote that because when companies say we need to change in an exponential way they try to again try to put that into a model try to put that into a system to grow in an exponential way I think that growing in an exponential way by definition is a more organic happening than it is a process driven happening it starts with chaos and so if you don’t create chaos that will never be exponential growth and companies don’t like to hear that that you say that that first you need to create chaos before

you can grow very fast you will never grow fast by putting into a model by definition because the model takes too much energy and chaos creates energy say you have to create chaos and the best way to create chaos in a company is to me is to allow your pirates within the company normally if we have pirates in the company people that think differently people that come up with crazy ideas people that don’t agree with the top-down inspections all the time in most of the companies we try to squeeze them into no no you have to

you have to be you have to stay in your box you have to play along the rules and we’re going to rewrite the rules and then you have a little bit more of playing field but that’s not enough so I think that every company should always allowed their own pirates and should try to catch up with the Pirates instead of trying to bring the pirates again within the company and that is that that’s a big that’s a big challenge but I think that companies that embrace that can grow faster and I don’t know whether

they can grow exponentially but can grow faster than competition hmm a lot of your pirates so what does a pirate look like how do you recognize them within your company the passionately curious the other thing that these are pirates if you’re passionately curious you you always question the status quo you always question is this right how do we do that better and better doesn’t mean like incrementally better than what we do today that’s good but that’s not enough it’s more like can we look at from can

we look at it from a different perspective can we really rethink and we decompose the elements and put them back together in a cookie in a different way and that is like partly because that’s that’s mutiny you have to allow some mutiny in the company and the extent to which you allow mutiny that that depends from environment to environment but I’m a strong believer that without without chaos there will be no change you need chaos to create the energy that you need to create change absolutely so

how do you make what you are saying practical when you are a leader or a top team what is the what are the key functions of a more progressive organization when you want to be the flock of birds what are the do’s and dont’s I think that the most important for a business leader for a company is your set of values Who am I what am I what is my purpose if a company needs to be very flexible that means that you need some some some point where it all comes together you need some you need some anchor where

this is this is this is our starting point and the starting point is no run where our processes and procedures which used to be the starting point for most companies because that takes away your flexibility so if you are a leader without strong values and without a strong purpose you not only look like but you are a leader without you you do this and then you do that it seems like and you are like you have no sense of what you’re doing but if you try to follow your customers and today you do a and tomorrow you do a little bit

different or you do B or you do even Z but if it all starts from the same purpose in the same set of values it makes sense so I think that process driven organizations need to be replaced by value driven organizations it’s more about do I have a set of values do my people in my company understand but not only understand but live the set of values of the company and I think it’s up to every company to define it’s its own set of values and not to create them I see so many companies now that create

let’s let’s let’s sit together and let’s create the values of the company by definition that is that that’s impossible you cannot create the values of a company the values of the company are the values of a company you can try to detect them you can try to define them now can you detect them again by by by being very aware of what you do what you are most companies bury themselves in in processes and procedures then you don’t have to think about it everything is a checklist we live checklist man

I did it myself for so long and I’ve always realized I was doing checklist management have a checklist and your check check check check and if everything is green then you do it you do a good job to be honest you’d only manages to do that you can do that with machines far better managers if that post management then do it machines management is something completely different so when you look at yourself at your current self yeah and most people have most of the time it’s our country’s but most people have a desire itself as well

so if you just think about your desire itself what is the gap between your desire itself and your current self so what is the the next step in your change of mindset one thing I love sure the gap is never been as narrow as it is now I feel very much at ease for the moment in who I am and if I look back at at at previous positions in previous stadia in my life that I used to be far off my own personal self know that you feel unhappy that you realize it later on yeah and that is the second element you realize

it only later on say I feel like the gap is has never been as narrow so I feel pretty much in tune with that ideal self but maybe in five years time or I say yeah but I was still far off but I don’t feel like that for the moment I feel pretty much at ease place right now oh part of it is that the sake there’s two elements first of all I’ve never settled in something you know I’m a big fan of the book geography of thought which explains the difference between the Western mindset and the Eastern mindset

and I’ve written a piece about it and a blog about it and I end with saying now only now realized that my mind is more like an Eastern mind than it is like a Western mind every time I end up in a situation for me that’s not the start of okay now I’m going to do that for the next five or ten years for me that’s a situation where I think okay what’s next so I always had that that that type of mindset say that that has that has created the fact that that I was constantly in motion that’s the first

and the second element is look there’s always a number of elements a number of happenings in your life that you have no control of whether you call it faith or whatever I do believe that your mindset and the fact that you’re in motion creates more opportunities and makes you more open for happening use them for using the happenings because if you have the fixed mindset then you might encounter the same happenings but you don’t do anything with it I’ve always grabbed the opportunity not in in an opportunistic way but more like

hey it passes it is here it crosses my path why does it cross my path why not change my path because I cross this but then you have to be emotion because if you’re not emotion you have no opportunity or you don’t even see the opportunity to do that but luck is part of it I’m pretty sure about that I’ve been lucky but barley you create your own luck i honest oh yeah yeah absolutely yeah sounds pretentious that you can try to dream your own future that if I if I look back at that my I don’t like to

call it career I don’t have a career man why my path as many things that happened on that pasture that kind of dreamt of and then it happens saying there must be reason and I think it’s not because you dream it that it happens but because you dream it you your mind cities are such that you pick up the elements that can lead you to realizing that dreams because you dream it that’s exactly again that that slow architecture that building of a Cathedral if you’re building a cathedral and if you want to get evil to be as big

and as huge and as high as possible all the new building techniques that can lead to that you adapt then you say oh I need to rearrange our Ritu I need to re-engineer how I’m going to build that cattivo because that is going to help me if you already have your fixed plan and you don’t even notice or you ignore that new building techniques [Music] you