Rishad Tobaccowala

To bring human enhancement and insight to AI in solving problems we need to think like photographers. FRAME: Focus on the right problem, ensure different points of view and choose what to leave out and in. EXPOSURE: Quality and Quantity of Data. Determining the speed needed and how sensitive the result should be in its implications CURATION: Editing, cropping, filtering and displaying the solution Read more on how to upgrade your thinking in an AI age A Key to Problem Solving: rishad.substack.com/p/a-key-to-pro…

From a distance... The regrets of omission versus the errors of commission. Study after study of people at the end of their lives find that what gave them the greatest joy were relationships and what they most regretted were not things they had done but what they had not done. Time and distance make people regret the people they did not reach out to share their feelings with, the path less traveled they did not take and that “person” they saw but never talked to Read the entire piece here: rishad.substack.com/p/from-a-dista…

Janet Foutty spent 33 years at Deloitte. In her last two roles she served as executive chair of the board of Deloitte US from 2019-2023. Previously, she served as chair and CEO of Deloitte Consulting LLP. Three years ago she left Deloitte and began again. In a conversation she shared some insights we could all benefit from: youtu.be/jMLuFg8w7_o?si…

Have you been thinking about reinventing your career? Are you at a stage of life that you find yourself either climbing the wrong ladder or have found there are no upward rungs available to you? Are are beginning to realize that time is running out as you get older? Or that meaning has drained from your work? It may be time for Identity Reinvention... rishad.substack.com/p/ide…

Are you ready for the organizational meltdown about to happen at work? The biggest challenge of an AI age will be organizational design. AI is like hydrochloric acid that burns through all the containers of the past. Different areas and tasks leak into each other while others evaporate away. Since any change in organizational design impacts roles and responsibilities, spans of power, and compensation, it is likely to be resisted and therefore take time, be deeply emotional and challenge every human in an organization. rishad.substack.com/p/the-coming-o…

Stories Endure Technology Helps Why AI might fail at human storytelling rishad.substack.com/p/stories-endu…

A bouquet of wisdom. A summary of a conversation with Jim McCann the founder and chairman of 1-800-Flowers rishad.substack.com/p/a-bouquet-of…

Making meetings suck less rishad.substack.com/p/making-meeti…

Read Kyle Kingsbury’s 32 page critique of AI: “The Future of Everything is Lies.” It is a polemic, cynical and disagreeable piece to many in tech, but felt by most outside of it. It highlights the many problems we will need to solve as AI percolates through society. Must read.

"Guide Yourself By The Stars And Not The Passing Ships" David Kenny on leadership and Unbossing. A must read and must listen. rishad.substack.com/p/guide-yourse…

In country after country the birth rate plunged after the introduction of smartphones, no matter what the previous trend was. The younger the age group, the more pronounced the downturn — a mirror image of smartphone usage patterns. Melissa Kearney, professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame, says it is “quite plausible that the modern digital media environment has had profound effects on society that have led to a decline in romantic coupling”. Indeed, Hudson and Moscoso-Boedo’s thesis that the key factor is less time spent socialising in person is supported by evidence from dozens of countries. In South Korea young adult in-person socialising has halved in 20 years.

We won’t all have jobs in the future—but we’ll all have work? @rishad explains what that means and how that shift is already underway. “They began to say, ‘I like my work, but I don’t necessarily like my job.’” That realization, Tobaccowala says, made him understand that work and jobs were starting to separate. “While that was happening, a large number of people, when they were at home, started doing side gigs and side hustles because nobody was watching.”

Today I published the 300th edition of the " The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past" which is FREE and read by 32,000 leaders. For this issue I had ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini do an analysis and distillation of 6 years of writing. rishad.substack.com/p/anti-interne…

Another AI key to our future strategies Asymmetrical Interconnectedness Filled with analysis and charts to help your firm and you prepare for next rishad.substack.com/p/asymmetrical…

Anxious about your career? Take a read of my latest post Reducing Career Anxiety 10 minutes that may change your point of view while providing you with tools and techniques and much more to ensure you have agency over your career and not agents or aging or any other thing. rishad.substack.com/p/reducing-car…

Three Keys To Engagement Employee Engagement is hitting an all time low Solving it is not training or bringing in consultants. Its being more human and requires no budget or permission. Try: Curiosity. Empathy. Generosity. Read the entire piece here...its free. rishad.substack.com/p/three-keys-t…

This week on my Substack a guest post by David Armano @armano on Silicon and Soul and why instead of being the smartest or most powerful or grandest person in a room we just might want to be the most human person in the room. Today in order to thrive in the age of AI this might just be the ticket. Also this week I introduce "One Single Thing" which is the single most impactful thing I saw or read the previous week. This week I feature a short video that will likely change the way you live your life. Read the entire piece and access the video here It is completely free....no subscription...no ads...no data harvesting...just writing and thinking imbibed by 32,000 leaders every Sunday rishad.substack.com/p/silicon-and-…

Días atrás hubo una interesante pero más alarmista tapa en @TheAtlantic La distinción entre trabajo, empleo y tareas la señaló con precisión esta semana @rishad en The Future Doesnt Fit in the Containers of the Past. Es el auto de este libro:

10 learnings from Reed Hastings the Co-founder of Netflix on Unbossing a new podcast I co-host. 1. Team not Family. Companies are teams and not families. As in sports every employee needs to be skilled to retain their position. To stay in a team one must be at top of one’s game and competitive. Players can be asked to leave a team but one cannot be cast out of families. 2. “Best Selves” not “Whole Selves”. Nobody is looking for employees to bring their whole self to work, warts and all. People should bring their best selves. 3.”Radical Candor” should not mean just radical . Reed believes that Netflix may have come off as too competitive a culture from the outside in the early days. Radical by itself is just plain mean. 4. Fear is a double edged sword: Fine in moderation but bad in excess. The fear of being beaten by Blockbuster or falling behind on streaming to Hulu or not understanding the nuances of local cultures kept Netflix perpetually improving. But this did not stop them from taking big risks of original programming and global expansion. 5. Market product fit is a combination of competitive strategy, timing and trends. Netflix rode the growth of e-commerce but kept away from Amazon categories, while benefitting from DVD’s which were easy to mail replacing VHS. Find a trend, keep away from a big competitor and align with a technology shift. 6. Sometime one can be too early. One of the big mistakes that led to a 70 percent stock price drop was the Netflix decision to focus on streaming by spinning off the DVD business. It was the right idea but 3 years too early. 7. Maniacal focus while adjusting to environment are key. Netflix focussed on every aspect of operational excellence on mailing DVD’s then they switched their focus to streaming and then to globalization 8. AI is bigger, broader and faster than all that has come before. As a board member of Anthropic and one who has seen previous technology shifts, Reed believes that AI is going to be much more impactful than the technologies that have come before and will have a far broader impact on humanity than just the current productivity tools. AI will also move much faster than most people assume. 9. Luck is far more central to people’s success than it appears. Reed believes a great deal of his success was due to luck. While things worked out very well financially for Reed he recommends that people should focus on what they like doing and what they believe gives them joy vs defining themselves or fixating on financial outcomes. 10. No Rules. Reed suggests that we are in a world of reinvention and it is time for no rules. and in a a book called No Rules Rules he notes Be radically honest. And never, ever try to please your boss. (The ultimate Unbossing move!) Listen to Reed on Unbossing: Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unb… Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/0iDAo29Xf…

In partnership with iHeart Media and Bubbler Media I have a new podcast called Unbossing My first guest Reed Hastings of Netflix iheart.com/podcast/1119-u…