Companies can’t continue training people for a world we’re leaving behind, but as artificial intelligence (AI) further takes hold, companies also can’t afford to leave people behind.
Rohit Talwar, a global futurist, shared those thoughts at UK & Ireland ENGAGE late last year.
Talwar, the CEO of research-based consultancy Fast Future, said that when it comes to AI, the most important part is the human element.
“We don’t always value the knowledge, the experience, the beliefs people have,” Talwar said. “There’s a tendency to be a bit overreliant on technology. We spend lots of money on the tech, but we don’t think we need to put as much into training.”
Talwar stressed the need to focus on the future of finance, not today’s priorities.
“The author Graham Greene says there comes a time in everyone’s life when we have to open the door and let the future in,” he said, adding that now is the time to consider what sits on the other side of that door. “What could it look like when you start to get this level of intelligence penetrating our world?”
AI is opening up new risks but also new opportunities for businesses, he said, like tracking patterns of consumer spending to tap into unserved parts of the market.
However, he said that some companies spend a lot of time stuck on things they can’t control — politics, tariff decisions — and leaders often fail to leverage their biggest asset: people.
“Fear is a natural human emotion, but it’s useless — we can’t do anything with fear,” Talwar said. That’s why scenario planning is crucial; it’s what we can do in those environments that’s really important.
Encouraging one thought experiment once a month and equipping teams to carry out that experimentation is crucial, Talwar said.
“Most of the projects I’ve seen that are working are … supporting people to do things in a more intelligent way and use their time in a more intelligent way, checking the outputs and then applying the time saved to other things,” he said.
5 steps for shaping future talent
According to Talwar, five critical levers can best position talent in an AI era:
Prepare to let go of what you know now: A lot of what served us no longer does or won’t in the future. If you’re not training people in generative AI now, you’re missing out. Also, letting workforces learn the basics of those tools will help them take control of their own learning.
Encourage teams to scan today’s environment: Emboldening teams to learn new things and share their knowledge is key to facilitating meaningful discussions, Talwar said.
Develop a common language: “Everyone says they’re good at innovation. But what we find is very few organisations have a common language,” he said. Teach people how to start a project, how to analyse a problem or need, how to prototype and implement ideas — and things can move much faster.
Use foresight: Look at what’s going on and brace for change, Talwar said. Have a willingness to challenge everything, to look at processes and say, “Can we dismantle them?” rather than just adding new systems on top of existing workflows.
Promote personal goals: Ask employees to assess where they think they are and compare it with what their colleagues think. Then encourage them to set targets for where they want to be in 18 months, Talwar said.
— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Steph Brown at Stephanie.Brown@aicpa-cima.com.