How to rethink intergenerational talent and adaptability with John Tarnoff

The biggest threat to organizational resilience might not be technology disruption or AI at all. It might be the way we think about talent, especially who we decide is “valuable” when change speeds up and trust in leadership gets shaky.

We sit down with executive and career transition coach John Tarnoff to challenge a stubborn workplace myth: that experience slows organizations down. John makes the case that multi-generational teams are a strategic advantage, and that “overqualified” often masks bias rather than truth. We talk about how mid-career professionals can communicate value without war stories, and how recruiters and hiring managers can redesign evaluation to look beyond a narrow job description and see team context, capability mix, and real impact.

Then we get into networking and social capital. We don’t sugarcoat it: performative engagement on LinkedIn can dilute trust. But networking itself is still core to career growth and organizational adaptability when it’s done with intention, research, and a clear sense of what you bring to the table. From there, we tackle authentic leadership without oversharing, the difference between role and voice, and why reinvention isn’t layoff churn but education, retraining, and leaders who model the change they demand.

If you care about leadership trust, talent strategy, skills shortages, and building a human-centric workplace that can survive the decade ahead, this conversation will give you language and next steps. Subscribe, share with a leader or HR partner, and leave a review with the long-standing practice you think your organization needs to change.

Transcript

The Talent Risk Nobody Names

Nancy Nouaimeh 0:00

What if the greatest risk to organizational resilience isn't technology disruption? But how we think about talent. By 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfulfilled globally due to skills shortages. At the same time, experienced workers are becoming the fastest growing segment of the workforce. Yet many organizations are still designing talent systems at careers and at 55. Add to that, a growing crisis of trust in leadership and a quiet but serious question emerges. Are our organizations structurally unprepared for the future we're already in? Welcome to the Excellence Foresight, where we explore the tensions, paradoxes, and leadership choices shaping sustainable organizational excellence. Today's conversation challenges some of the most entrich assumptions in HR and leadership. Our guest is John Tarnoff, executive and career transition coach, former media and technology executive, Teraxis speaker, and author of Boomer reinvention. John has spent years working at the intersection of experience, reinvention, and value creation, helping leaders and organizations rethink how capability, identity, and contribution evolve over time. This is not a conversation about careers in isolation. It's about intergenerational capability, organizational adaptability, and what leaders must unlearn if they want their organizations to remain resilient, trusted, and relevant in the decade ahead. Let's get into it. Welcome, John.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Thank you, Nancy. It's great to be here. I uh really appreciate the opportunity to have this more in-depth conversation about these issues. And I should say, starting off, and thank you for that nice introduction, I should say that I come here really as an advocate for the professional, for the candidate. And my observations and my prescriptions and the work that I do with my clients really is an attempt to kind of normalize the hiring and career development process for mid-career professionals specifically at a time when I think we have tremendous challenges across generations in the workforce, but particularly it seems to pile on in a very unique way for the mid-career folks. So that said, let's get into it.

Nancy Nouaimeh 2:23

Great. Thank you for being with us here today, John. So let's start. Conventional wisdom suggests that older employees slow organizations down in times of rapid change. From your perspective, when does experience actually become

When Experience Becomes An Asset

Nancy Nouaimeh 2:37

a strategic accelerator, then a constraint? And what must organizations redesign to unlock that value?

SPEAKER_01 2:44

So I think you're making a number of assumptions here. Or if you're speaking on behalf of the assumptions that organizations are making, let me address this to them. This idea that experience slows organizations down is insane to me. It is the most counterintuitive and the most counterfactual assertion that I can imagine a recruiter, a leader, uh hiring manager taking. And I, along with a lot of other people in this space, were kind of scratching our heads around this notion, this question about so when did experience become a bad thing? And I understand why experience can be perceived with some squeamishness, uh, particularly in a fast changing business environment. But this is a, first of all, there are no statistics to back this up uh when you say conventional wisdom. All the studies that are done about multi-generational workforces support the notion that experience is a driver of productivity, success, uh, collaboration, uh, insight, wisdom. I mean, the list goes on about why having experienced team members bolsters the effectiveness of your team, does not um detract from the effectiveness. It's not like you have older workers uh metaphorically huffing and puffing to keep up with these athletic, um, effective, productive, hardworking younger employees. It's just BS. Um, that said, we need all generations, we need younger, inexperienced people to drive new ideas, to you know, use that energy and that enthusiasm and that naivete, even to help question conventional wisdom. But we also need people with experience to understand where the mistakes are, right? Where the minefields are. So, you know, back to the question, and I've created four courses on LinkedIn learning about the multi-generational workforce and the need for the multi-generational workforce. Um, so experience needs to be incorporated into the workforce, and I think the redesign that you're asking about is in two areas. The first area is obviously in recruiting, where an organization has to understand not solely what an individual job description is about, but it also has to understand the context for that role within the larger team. It may be a role where experience is not the most highly valued attribute for a given candidate. Instead, they might value a particular skill set, whereas overall you might say that another position requires the insight and the experience to better help navigate the future, to understand the pitfalls of the past, and to better communicate from experience why and how younger, inexperienced workers can do a better job. So this is a very nuanced question that leaders I think have to kind of really examine, kind of get out of this lockstep ageist view of older workers.

Nancy Nouaimeh 6:55

I I I think John, I totally agree with you earlier. I mean, when we started talking about Gen Z and uh the need to change the workplace for that generation, I think we went overboard, we went a little bit in extreme where uh maybe

Overqualified Is Often Hidden Bias

Nancy Nouaimeh 7:09

we didn't make an inclusive uh workplace for all. So I like the fact that you're mentioning this and multi-generational workplace that is required, I think, and the focus on all generations. And your focus is on mid-aged uh career uh professionals. So where do you see the difference now? Do you see they find their place same as the young or the oldest? Is the workplace have changed the last five, six years to be really more inclusive?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

No, I think the I think the workplace is just as exclusive and excluding as it's been for the last 10, 20 years. Um, but I I do want to unpack a little bit this experience question, then we can move on about why people are afraid of experience. I've tried to figure this out to be able to explain this to my clients because they're looking at me going, why? I just don't understand this. It's like I've worked 20 years, 30 years to get this experience, and now I'm being dismissed as being old and a dinosaur. And this happens in tech at extremely young ages. I uh have a woman friend who's uh who's kind of started a media company around this, she was fired at 40 for being a dinosaur from a tech company in Seattle. Wow, right? So, I mean, it really cuts deeply. Look, if you are 30 years old and you're being put into a position of responsibility with less than 10 years experience, but a lot of intelligence, a lot of of foresight, a lot of ability around the field that you've studied, you've gotten into, you don't understand what experience is. And that's fine. It's not a it's not a flaw. You just don't have it, right? So why would you be able to understand the value of it if it's something that is completely outside of your realm of, you know, your field of view? So I often say to older professionals who are applying to jobs, you know, you got to remember that just because you've got this perspective of having worked for 20 years, someone else just doesn't know what you're talking about. So you have to speak to them on their level of understanding. And it's it is a communication problem, really, for the older candidate to kind of reframe what's important about their CV and their background in terms that a younger hiring manager can understand. Right. So I would say to older candidates, stop telling war stories. Stop explaining why you're good for the job today because of what happened in the past. They don't care. Right? Talk to them as if it's today, as if you are coming at this fresh from a new mindset. Similarly, I would say to recruiters and teams, do a little bit more research, right? Understand the people that you're dealing with and the fact that a candidate might come in who is an outlier in your applicant pool and may just have this set of experiences that you don't understand why they're valuable for this particular role. This is where this, I will call it an accusation, comes up about being overqualified. Oh, you aren't you a little overqualified for this job? You know, if you're a hiring manager, examine that bias, right? Because you may just find a jewel that's going to completely revolutionize your team and bring all these insights and speed things up, not slow things down.

Nancy Nouaimeh 10:48

I like your perspective, and I've had many examples where I I've heard this before, right? So people are overqualified, he's overqualified for this job or that job. I think, like you said, it's a bias, and we need to really HR people need to really look at it because this experience is very valuable. But I see also when we start looking at how things are are really changing and the use of social media and all of this, we see a lot, we sometimes we move from one extreme to another, right? We don't really necessarily find the right things and the balanced things to apply and to use. And my question is around that topic, uh, John, because we see many organizations invest now heavily in collaboration platforms with the use of AI and uh all of these new uh tools we have.

Networking With Intention Not Noise

Nancy Nouaimeh 11:34

And we focus a lot on networking uh as individuals, as organizations, but we see the social capital is declining. Is it possible that our obsession with networking is actually weakening the lay of connections we should be of having? Are we really focusing on numbers rather um and quantitative things rather qualitative things? And what should organization do instead if they want to have trust and collaboration and have that really scale within that organization?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

I totally disagree with this. I think that that the essence of professional success is networking. If people are having issues with networking, then they're not doing this with the proper sense of direction. And by that, I mean it's not enough to say either from an organizational perspective or as a candidate, oh, I need to network. I just need to meet more people. I need to go to an event, I need to go to a conference, I need to take business cards from every random person who I meet. Um, you have to network with intention. That that involves a little work, it involves a little research, it involves uh an understanding, first of all, of what you bring to the table as a professional, what you need as a professional to do your job better. Um, it's different for every role, it's different for every trajectory. I don't think it really is a question of devoting resources to this from a corporate or an HR perspective. I think it's really a question of training and helping an individual understand why and how building relationships with other professionals supports their work. This is true about internal relationships as well as external relationships. And I what I'm what I'm struggling with here is to is the is the messaging between working with people who are looking for work and using network as a as a means of getting referrals to people who are in the job. So, okay, so here's the thread. So people will say, I don't need to network. I'm I've got a job. Um, all of my resources are here in the company. I should really focus there and develop relationships within the company. And that's great, and that's certainly a valid argument. But people who are outside of the company are going to bring a different perspective to you as a professional. It is also not disloyal to be building relationships on the outside as well as curating and and and building relationships on the inside because you want to get some you know good competitive intelligence going on there, right? You want to understand the the world that your company is living in. You want to be an ambassador for the work that you and your company are doing. Um, you want to promote the work that the company is doing and listen for feedback, for interest, for ideas. You want to be able to eavesdrop on other conversations. Uh, so so this idea that networking is somehow a myth uh or overrated, um, I think is specious. And when you say social capital is declining, what do you mean by that?

Nancy Nouaimeh 15:12

I mean, this is how much uh connections you have, how is your uh network worth of your network? And it goes back to what you said, John, is because this if you have a good network, it's gonna help you find jobs, it's gonna help you maybe have better knowledge. But if that is really not strong enough, you might not really be able to get that. But I want to challenge you a little bit because I I understand that um maybe the statement is not necessarily um correct 100%, but sometimes we see a lot on social um platforms people who just saying whatever without any value things they're just saying, they posted that they're just doing just to get numbers of impressions, to be present, and it's not necessarily genuine or with intention or direction, as you said, right? So we just throw out things, just trying to uh we tag here and there. So this is what I think is not really working. But if it has Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Uh I don't mean to interrupt you. No, absolutely. I I think in that sense, I understand what you're saying by social capital. I think it's it is uh it is certainly, I don't know if declining would be the word I would use for it, I would say it's it's being diluted, right? Yes by by performative engagement. And performative engagement goes one way. It really is not designed to build dialogue with other people, it's designed to show off how smart you are, how cool you are, um, you know, how um uh you know what your latest uh uh uh clawed strategy is for doing whatever. Um and that is toxic. So I I certainly advise people who are kind of you know have trepidations about posting on LinkedIn these days and say, oh, I don't want to get into that mess. It's like, okay, I I understand that. And I certainly would not recommend that you post performatively. I I think it's actually um it's a it's a lose-lose for everyone, including the companies that have employees who are posting performatively. I think it it really is a bad thing that's going on right now. However, the the fundamentals of networking still apply. And the reason that you post, if you're going to post on LinkedIn or another platform that is really compatible with the work that you do is because you want to create value and create conversation around the work that you do and share insight, share your expertise and build that expertise through constructive dialogue with other professionals. So that's the goal of getting into it. And you don't want to just post about anything, you don't want to react to someone's post, you don't want to just kind of glom on to a post because that's supposed to increase your visibility. It's like if it's like a you're said, oh, I'm supposed to engage with people. Okay, well, let me engage with 10 posts today. It's not going to drive any meaningful algorithmic value for you. Uh the the fundamental rules apply as time goes by. You want to really focus on value. Uh, and across all the questions that we're talking today, the underlying, the underlying question is what is the value that I provide as a professional? What do I deliver? What is the impact that I make or can make or want to make or intend to make uh in my field and come from that very narrow uh platform?

Nancy Nouaimeh 19:01

Um yeah, absolutely. And I think um when we talk, we're just talking maybe a little bit, uh focusing a lot on social on social media and then these platforms, but networking is beyond that too, right? We have a lot of platforms to network. And for me, if I want to take it back to the organization, John, we have the informal networks in organization, and I think these help anyone in the organization really build certain credibility internally, build uh their own um presence and their own connections inside the organization that helps them really succeed and perform. And to do that, I'm gonna talk a little bit about authenticity. And we're talking about here people who are in leadership positions, or anyone we want to train them to become leaders, or or we we preach about this, I think, a lot being authentic. For me, I think it's key, but I don't see see it well understood by everyone. But when we say leaders are often advised to be authentic, uh, we want them really to have a polished professional identity, right? And you work with a lot of people who are uh looking for jobs, so they need definitely to polish that professional identity. How can they do that and remain authentic? And um, where does this misalignment come between personal values and professional roles sometimes? Because you need to play a role in your organization. My husband, he's in sales, so he tells me I play a role when I'm at work. At home, I don't talk a lot, but when I'm there, I have to play that role. So, how can we remain authentic? How can we teach leaders to remain authentic, especially when they are leading others and they need to play that role very efficiently and and help their organization build that trust and collaboration internally and all of these things we're talking about?

SPEAKER_01 20:36

This is a great question. I think it it uh it flows out of the previous question around networking and performative engagement. Uh I don't think people

Authenticity Without Oversharing

SPEAKER_01 20:49

necessarily have an understanding of what it is to be authentic. And it's a very slippery slope. You know, playing a role is not the same thing as having a voice. That may be a good place to kind of start the conversation because if you're playing a role traditionally, when you think about that, that concept is it's not you, that role, right? That's some external construct that you have developed to, in your mind, achieve a particular purpose. And the disconnect there is that if that role is not really you, or doesn't really come from who you are as a person, then it can never be authentic. It's just a role. But a voice that is something that can be connected to your identity. Another wrinkle on this is the is the word persona, which is an aspect of you, it's not all of Who you are, but it is an aspect of you. And that persona can be authentic. It's not all of who you are. But I use those terms voice and persona to help people get over this question about how do I engage professionally in public, uh in a way that is, you know, quote unquote authentic, but at the same time, does not overshare, does not share the wrong stuff, just does not deceive anyone. Um it's not hiding anything, but it's not necessarily sharing stuff that's really not relevant to the conversation. How do I figure that out? For me, the answer to this question goes back to the fundamental issue that we have as professionals, whether we are it starts when we're going after a job, when we're looking for a job, and then has to carry over and continue when we're in the job. And that is the question of what's my mission? Who am I? Why do I do what I do? What have I done that really expresses those values? And where am I taking this? Where do I want to go? Those four questions belong in the LinkedIn about section. The LinkedIn about section is this very underutilized resource that people just don't know what to do with. They put their bio in there, they put a list of skills, they kind of they kind of puff themselves up. It can be very performative. They write this in the third person. I mean, all of these mistakes go on that don't really serve. Some people just don't include the about section because they don't know what to do with it. In a way, that's kind of more honest than putting something stupid and performative in your about section, or some kind of droning list of skills that really belongs in your experience section or your CV. But again, coming back to the question of authenticity versus professionalism, you know, it's it's ironic that you would frame this as one versus the other, because when you're truly authentic, you are being through thoroughly professional. Right? So the key is to start at the beginning and figure out who am I, right? What do I stand for? Uh, these are vital questions to answer as a leader. If you're aspiring to leadership, you have to lead from your core essence and values as a leader. Otherwise, you're never going to get any respect. People are going to see through you, no matter how sharp you are, smart you think you are, how much you try to hide this or hide that. You have to resolve all of the sides of yourself so that there are various layers of you that are all available in the right context to everyone that you encounter professionally. I'm I'm reminded of this great scene in the first Devil Wears Prada movie. So we're recording this now, the the second one is about to come out. And there's this scene as as the Ann Hathaway character gets more into the insert in the inner circle of Meryl Streep's character and winds up at her brownstone one night and witnesses this very vulnerable moment where the Meryl Streep character is kind of talking about the problems in her marriage and and and the you know the I don't know if it's the divorce that's that's pending or whatever, but it's this very deep, personal, painful moment that she's sharing with this young girl whom she's been cruel to, and and uh, and and all of the auteur evaporates. And yet in that moment, she is being totally authentic and in a funny way still thoroughly professional because she's really helping her assistant understand the pressures that she's under that are underpinning her behavior in the office during the day. And in a way, you might look at that and go, oh, she's finally cracking, she's finally breaking down and revealing what she never reveals to anybody. And I would say, well, yeah, maybe you could look at it that way, but you could also look at it and say that she's bringing the Anne Hathaway character further into her circle to develop even greater loyalty and understanding as a leader. So just something to consider for what it means to be authentic and professional across different relationships and layers of your leadership team.

Nancy Nouaimeh 27:17

People who don't understand what does it mean to be authentic, I think they don't do it right. Otherwise, definitely, I think at the highest level of or more servant uh leadership, I would say, is someone who's able to really understand his own um weaknesses, be authentic and at the same time serve others and be able to have that connection um with the others. And I think it goes hand by hand, like I said, being professional and authentic in the same way. I won't trust someone who's not authentic, and I think these traits, but we still see them a lot, John, in the workplace. We still see leaders who are not authentic, and that's I think where we we need to do a lot of work there, I think, to teach that to leaders.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Um yeah, this is a this is a failure of leadership. And I think that the uh you know you're talking about servant leadership. The other, the other uh kind of concept about leadership that I would throw out here is this this idea of leading from behind. And that instead of understanding leadership as coming to the front of the line, uh holding up the banner and saying, follow me into the breach, a strong leader actually goes to the back and makes sure that everyone is included. No one is straggling, no one is going by the wayside, no one is veering off into areas that are irrelevant, no one's slowing the organization down. And they are like a good shepherd, making sure that everyone is included, but they are also keeping their eye down the road ahead of the leaders to make sure that the direction is going right. So it is a it is a servant leadership, it's shepherding, leading from behind all of these greater perspectives. Um I think taking that attitude is a great way to learn the authenticity, to find the authenticity that you need to communicate and really uh inspire the people that you're working with.

Nancy Nouaimeh 29:16

I think a lot of leaders lack that talent to inspire others, but definitely if they really put themselves uh in that leading from behind, I think that really helps them to get there because they will be able to understand the people better. And John, we're talking a lot about leadership and leaders at this stage, but I want really to go back a little bit to organizations. And we say organizations, they pursue stability by minimizing disruption or they hope to minimize disruption. I don't think anyone can really control the disruption these days anymore. But why um continuous reinvention of roles,

Reinvention Beats Layoff Churn

Nancy Nouaimeh 29:49

careers, and even leadership identity is important more than ever now? And how does it help really long-term stability and excellence? We really need to look at the talent pools again. We really need to look at how are we managing talent, how are we recruiting talent, how are we meeting the needs of the talents, right? And making them fulfill their potential. So there's a lot of reinvention in the HR and talent management sphere that needs to happen. So, how can organizations really do better in that area, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Yeah, I mean, I think that there is very little reinvention going on. Um, but instead, what we have is churn. And churn is not the same thing as reinvention. When you when you fire 10% of your workforce because you need to save money, or you think you need to save money, or show the shareholders that you're being, I don't know, uh uh productive and efficient, uh, you're really undermining your ability to achieve stability, much less strategic uh foresight. So I think we need to help organizations teach what it means to reinvent. And I I don't know, I'm sure some companies do a better job than others in culling staff that is underperforming, but I would offer that few organizations if you look at the cost, the hidden cost of culling low performing staff. You you remember that Jack Welch at GE famously or built his reputation on the idea that they were going to cut the lowest percentage of performers every year, no matter what. Purely on the numbers. That created a culture of fear, competition, uh, and dread. So I would argue that that's not a great way to build a company, and that instead of churning employees, reinvention means that you support your entire workforce through education, retraining, and communication. It may be as simple as just telling people what you want. And I think a lot of times employees are are are whipsawed between different directions, conflicting, conflicting directions between various levels of management about what's the goal, what do we need to do, what are you supposed to do, what am I supposed to do? You might say that in a fast-changing economy, it's really hard to get clear about what direction we're going in. Or, oh yeah, I I forgot to I forgot to tell you this one important thing because I was just so rushed and I didn't have time in the meeting, or something happened, and and and I and we just wasted three weeks because no, no one was was mindful about this, or no one was kind of keeping their eye on the ball. Uh, at the end of the year, you look at the performance of the team and go, we got to cut those people because they didn't they didn't do well. It's like, well, yeah, because that's your fault, right? Because you didn't tell them. So, you know, this becomes a leadership question as much as it as anything else. And uh it's it's it's like if you if you're if you're losing money, look at yourself, don't look at your employees. Um and I think reinvention is the same way. You you you almost have to kind of reinvent yourself first, and then once you've reinvented yourself, you have a clearer idea about where it is that you're going and what other people can do. People are looking to you as the leader. Uh, it's not enough to kind of have them say, well, we got to change things around here. You know, you need to, you know, step it up, you need to figure out how to do more with less. Well, Mr. CEO, are you doing more with less? Right? What where where how are you leading by example? You know, how are you reinventing the world that you're in and the work that you're doing? So let's start there.

Nancy Nouaimeh 34:05

We're uh talking a lot about leadership here today. I think it's because it always goes back to leadership. And I know that leaders, when like new leaders come to an organization, they change everything without really looking out for what's working, what's not working. We have that mindset of leaders is that they they don't really face the right things. They don't have the courage to really dig deep and take the right decisions. So sometimes the decisions are really the quickest ones that um the quickest responses they see in front of them. And I think it goes back to why to that, why organizations maybe are not that resilient, are not uh having really stable work environment for employees or not really attaining access as we used to see more. I mean, examples earlier. I'm I'm really liking it that this decision is about leadership finally, but uh because leaders are key really for organizational resilience and stability. And if I want now to maybe get close to the um with the end of our episode here, John, I want you maybe to look a little bit um to the future. What do leaders need to do in the future? Because we avoid a lot of risk now, we just necessarily not reinvent things because we want to keep things the way we know them, the way we like them. What is the one um tip or one suggestion you would tell leaders really to focus on to make sure that their organizations and their people are ready for the future, that they have the right talent pool for the future? Because we have we're gonna have more challenges, I think, rather than less in the future.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

So I think the leaders have taken their eye off the ball, and that ball is their workforce. And I think we are strangely reverting to an industrial era mindset around the workforce. And after, you know, fifty years of developing tools, policies, procedures that acknowledged and supported employees, at least nominally, and gave employees a sense that they had a stake in the success of the company. I'm not even talking about loyalty, I'm just talking about appreciation, value, and commitment to supporting the employees who are delivering value for leadership and for shareholders. We are reverting to an objectification of employees, a isolation of leaders, a focus on both profitability and disruption over community and inspiration. So instead of issuing mandates to their employees about being, you know, working hard ass and being tough and creating these unreasonably Spartan environments or repressive environments, thank God for AI, because we can just do away with all these people because we don't have to deal with them. And I I really don't want to have to deal with people and their problems and and telling them why they should do something, and you know, the maternity leave and you know the personal time off and burnout. And it's like, you know, there's snowflakes. Why can't they just kind of get it done? Oh, I'm just gonna have 5,000 AI agents do all the work, and then I can just, you know, get into my jet and uh go to Aspen for the weekend. You know, that that may sound like a a very bitter uh Marxist, you know, approach to this, but I I think at the end of the day, it's a it's a kind of race to the bottom if you undervalue your employees. And um I I I think it's gonna mean the destruction of many companies because people are going to shun these um uh opportunities in these companies. It's just gonna, it's just it's not gonna work out.

Nancy Nouaimeh 38:36

I've I've seen lately that there's I mean, I think some thoughts are shifting a little bit towards what a good leader is. Uh, unfortunately, this is what we taught leaders for for years, right? To to be that distant, to be like they have a higher

Human-Centric Leadership And Closing Challenge

Nancy Nouaimeh 38:49

uh position in the organization. I think as long as this doesn't really change from medication back, I mean uh perspective, I think we're gonna still have uh these uh these issues. But I do hope that things will change in the future. Just a quick one, John. Uh I I know you have a background in in Hollywood, right? So yeah, if you would if you in the future would envision the movie that uh the best workplace movie, um, talking about workplace in 2035, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 39:17

What would so it would be the genre would be horror, it would be a horror movie. Right, and uh the title uh might be something like uh the the zombie leadership, um, you know, the return or something something like that. The the leadership of the company has been you know has been taken over by by zombies who are just uh you know eating their employees and um uh and wreaking havoc, um something like that. But it it is a horror movie.

Nancy Nouaimeh 39:51

I'm a little bit more optimistic than you. I we have opportunities, I think, to create good workplaces if we go back to to certain good you know, ground rules that are important to create trust and collaboration. But we will see in 2020 in 2035 what's gonna happen. So thank you for that, John. Thank you. Thank you for your insights. Uh and as we close, I think one insight stands out from the conversation. Um, and I'm from an organizational excellence background, and I appreciate everything you said. But in the future, if we organizations are gonna do it differently, they will be the ones embracing reinvention, cultivating intergenerational capabilities, and leading with trust rather than um all that we're seeing now in the workplace. So uh creating, I mean, pushing leaders to really connect with their people, um, be human-centric key for organizations in the future. John, your perspective reminds us that the real work for Foresight is not predicting the future, but it's redesigning it. And I do hope we will have a better picture, um, a more beautiful picture. And uh it's about leadership mindset, the cultures they create, and how they adapt that to the need of their people. So if you would like to say anything before we wrap up, your last words.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

No, I I agree with you, and I think that uh where I would I would point out or I would align myself very closely with you is the idea of a human-centric uh approach. And I think we have uh we have lost that. Uh we are in danger of losing that more. But I think we will ultimately, yes, I mean I I describe the world today as a horror movie, but I I do agree that that our survival instinct will hopefully take hold. Uh, we will realize that the best practices involve working together, not working apart, uh, and that we need to bring our teams together, uh, not drive a wedge between us and them as leaders. So, yeah, I I certainly want to remain positive functionally about this. I want to encourage people who are struggling in the current work environment to uh stay strong about their inner values, uh uh the impact that they make as uh and can make as professionals, uh uh and and just to find other people who are like them. This is where networking is so important, um, because there is there is great uh power uh in in numbers.

Nancy Nouaimeh 42:18

Yeah, I totally agree. And you you reminded me, I think when we say values, I think people have good values. Leaders have good values, is the way they put these values into practice, is the way they really design the work and the organization, the systems, the connection is what's important. And I think this was one lady on LinkedIn brought it to my attention when I said principles, she said leaders have principles. They do have principles, it's just really how to make everything work and keep the focus on the right direction, John, as you said earlier. To all our listeners, uh, would like to leave you with this question what is uh the practice or the long standing practice in your organization that you think might need now to be changed because it's gonna be limiting for your future uh and and for the future for your employees. So thank you very much for listening to the Excellence Foresight. Until next time, stay curious and keep leading beyond the obvious, keep leading from behind. Thank you very much, John Ternoff.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

My pleasure.