Nia Thomas [00:00:04]:
Hello, and welcome to the Knowing Self, Knowing Others podcast, where we discuss self aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. I'm your host, Nia Thomas. Join me as we talk to today's guest. A very big welcome to the show to Topaz Adizes. Topaz is

Topaz Adizes [00:00:19]:
a visionary filmmaker whose work has graced festivals like Cannes and Sundance. In 2015, he produced the Emmy winning interactive documentary, The And, which went viral and touched over 150,000,000 lives. As the founder and executive director of The Skin Deep, he creates groundbreaking projects and explores and illustrates human relationships. He's been exploring the transformative power of deep human connection for over 10 years. And in his podcast, Getting Under the Skin, Topaz takes you behind the curtains on relationships as a way of unlocking the power of deeper connection and more fulfilling relationships. So join us as we dive into the transformative power of deeper connection with our amazing guest, transformative power of deeper human connection with our amazing guest, Topaz Adizes. Welcome to the show.

Topaz Adizes [00:01:09]:
Hi, Nia. Good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Topaz Adizes [00:01:11]:
So tell us about your very interesting career and where did this interest in relationships come from?

Topaz Adizes [00:01:17]:
I mean, for the last 11 years now, I've been holding the space for people to sit together, and I give them questions, and they have conversations, cathartic conversations. So I've been privileged to be able to witness over 1200 conversations of all kinds of relationships. You know? Best friends, ex lovers, parents with their children, grandparents, coworkers, husband and wife, partners. And I've learned a lot because it's a privileged position to actually sit there and watch these intimate conversations, because how often do you really get to see people have really vulnerable conversations? And we've been able to move my team and I at the skin deep to create this space where we've been doing that for the last last 11 years, and we've learned a lot from that. And we've learned a lot about how do you hold a space for cathodic conversations? How do you construct the questions for them? And, ultimately, I've seen from the response of all the participants who've participated in in these conversations as well as, obviously, people watching the videos, the impact you have when you and the how it changes your relationship to each other, but more importantly, your relationship to life itself, your experience of living when you do engage in these kinds of in these types of conversations.

Topaz Adizes [00:02:27]:
How do you get people into these conversations to start with?

Topaz Adizes [00:02:32]:
I mean, well, in in the book I have that's out now called 12 Questions for Love, which is a guide to intimate conversations and deeper relationships. I outline, you know, the 2 big pieces, which is, a, how do you create the space, and how do you construct the questions? You know, there is a lot to be said about the the questions, and I think often enough, we don't pay attention to the questions that we ask. We adopt questions that are given to us by society, by the industry, by our family or parents or friends, community group, and we race ahead looking for answers. And I think that's a missed opportunity because oftentimes, you might get the right answer to the wrong question. And I think the more often we investigate the questions we're asking, we'll come out with more empowering, more constructive questions. And that's definitely true in the workspace.

Topaz Adizes [00:03:21]:
So I guess when you're having these I suppose they are challenging conversations, they are deep conversations, and you've really gotta think about what we're talking about and and how you're having these conversations.

Topaz Adizes [00:03:33]:
Absolutely. I mean, I think well, well, there's 2 things. Right? There's a space, in which is actually your question before is how do I bring people in the space? Is that look. If if you, we don't sleep in the kitchen and we don't cook in the bedroom. We do certain things in certain places. So in the workplace, when you have a meeting, what kind of meeting is it? Is this a brainstorming meeting? Is this a, execution meeting that we're is this a debrief of of a previous action to see what the KPIs we are, what the results are, what the learnings are, or is this a brainstorming meeting so that we're strategic, we that we're accumulating ideas for a strategic decision that we'll meet either make in this meeting or in the next? Communicating what the space is is important because then it gives permission and expectations of how it is for you to behave. And that's what I mean by you don't sleep in the kitchen, and you don't cook in the bedroom. So in the workspace, what kind of meeting is this? I find that in in our in our team, we've always been clear about what kind of meeting is this.

Topaz Adizes [00:04:34]:
Or if it's not clear, then the team member will ask, wait, what kind of meeting is this? Am I here to give feedback and ideas? Right? Or am I here to help execute a strategic decision or to x you know, to outline what are we gonna implement? I think that's important because otherwise, you have different expectations across the team members. Right? Obviously, there's always that team member who's wait. Why are we having this meeting and we don't decide anything? And the other person is like, well, actually, because this meeting is for brainstorming and it's not for decision making. Or the other one is, this is a decision making meeting. Why are you talking about new ideas? So I think it's very important to outline the space that we're in, and we can discuss, we can double click on that. How do you do that? How do you construct the space? And then, once you're in that space, what are the questions that you construct that you inject into that? And, the payoff is a greater understanding between the people in your life, and it doesn't have to be intimate. Right? And I think there's we spend more of our time at work than we do with our lovers, with our partners, with our family members, or as much. We spend a lot of time at work.

Topaz Adizes [00:05:39]:
And I think a big part of success, especially in the world now where a lot of AI is gonna be executing cognitive function, question is, where's the magic between us? Where is the collaboration possible? So that we can create better things.

Topaz Adizes [00:05:53]:
That's interesting. We we rely very heavily on agendas to tell us what the meeting's about. But if you haven't got a well constructed agenda, or maybe even a meeting that doesn't have an agenda, and if somebody hasn't asked that question, how would you know?

Topaz Adizes [00:06:09]:
Yeah. Exactly. And I think I think I have a side so there's an agenda when the term that you use, which to me means in a meeting, we generally use agendas where it's we're gonna talk about this, then we're talking about this, then we're talking about this, then we're talking about this, then we're talking about this. So it's a road map. This is the Yeah. Trail that we will walk on. This is the spots we will stop along. These are the subjects we will discuss.

Topaz Adizes [00:06:31]:
But it's not telling you how we're approaching those subjects. Right? And I think that's a mistake. Right? You could have an agenda according to the use that you have, which is we're gonna talk about our, quarterly report, and then we're gonna discuss the new product launch, and then we're gonna discuss, what we're doing to solve this problem because we're losing market share. Okay. For instance. Well, those three conversations could be 3 different kind of conversations. So are you are you articulating okay. In the first part, we're just reviewing the KPIs and seeing how we did.

Topaz Adizes [00:07:03]:
In the second part, if we have to make a strategic decision or come up with a solution to a problem, we're discussing first what the problem is and then what the possible solutions may be, and maybe we have to brainstorm around them. Are you know, the environment has to change. And are we articulating that? Either in the same meeting or you create the space in a different meeting. In the scope of a conversation, what I like to make a distinction between is the intention versus an agenda.

Topaz Adizes [00:07:27]:
The listeners and watchers, if you're gonna consider that, ask yourselves that question. When you go into a meeting, is everybody clear about the purpose, what you're all there for? And if not, what might you wanna do about that?

Topaz Adizes [00:07:40]:
Because you might have an agenda where we're talking about a, b, c, and d, but what's not clear is how are we speaking about a? Are we brainstorming about a? Are we analyzing a? Are we collaborating about a solution around a? Are we just discussing about the implementation of the solution to solve problem a? What is our viewpoint by which we're having the conversation that's listed on that agenda point? And it requires a different behavior. And that's what I mean is that we have to create the space so that we're clear what is the behavior that's expected of us. Because if it's not, then that leads to, confusion and loss of energy and loss of enthusiasm and loss of coherence across a team.

Topaz Adizes [00:08:20]:
You've mentioned behavior a couple of times there, and I'm really interested in how we behave. And my fundamental belief is that self awareness underpins our behavior, that we either make choices about how we behave, or we don't care about how we behave, or we don't know we can make choices about how we behave. So what are your thoughts on self awareness and how it underpins behavior, which therefore, underpins relationships?

Topaz Adizes [00:08:48]:
That's a great question. So you're saying that self aware awareness or the level of it or the lack thereof of it dictates behavior?

Topaz Adizes [00:08:56]:
Yes.

Topaz Adizes [00:08:57]:
Uh-huh. Interesting. That's interesting. What comes up for me is what if we substitute self awareness for the questions you ask yourself? Because if you're self aware, you're asking yourself a different question than if you're not.

Topaz Adizes [00:09:10]:
Yeah. Okay.

Topaz Adizes [00:09:11]:
Right? So if you're in a meeting and you're self aware, you may be asking yourself, how is my behavior, how is my reaction, how is my contribution to this conversation affecting the others, affecting the collective journey of the team to endeavor to find a solution or to succeed? If you're self aware, you most likely are asking different questions than if someone who is not. And then it's not a binary switch. Right? Self awareness is like a peeling onion. I mean, some are more than others, and there's different aspects of self awareness. So for me, I like to ask, what is the question we're asking ourselves? What is the question you're asking yourself when you're in that meeting? And be very cognizant that the brain, your head, your mind, the brain, is built to get you answers. It's it's it's like a faithful dog that chases any stick you throw, regardless where you throw it. So if you throw the stick into the mud, the dog will run into the mud and get it and come out. So if you ask yourself, why am I failing at work? Or why did I not succeed with this project at work? You will get a whole list of reasons why you did not succeed at work.

Topaz Adizes [00:10:19]:
The dog is faithful. The mind is faithful. It will fetch the stick. It will find you the answers. But instead, you do have the control over where you throw the stick in the form of the question you ask yourself. So instead, if you ask yourself, what's the lesson in this failure that I could take to the next project? That already puts you in a more empowering position because you're seeing the failure as a lesson. You're taking that, and it's gonna you're gonna bring that to the next, you know, project that you have at hand, or the never the next endeavor you're facing. And so for me, self awareness comes really imperative as to what's the questions we're asking ourselves.

Topaz Adizes [00:10:52]:
You go into a meeting where your no. It's gonna be problematic. It's a high level of conflict. You've been sitting through it, whether it's with your direct report, with your with your manager, or with whoever it is, or your colleague on the same level. And you know there's gonna be conflict because things are not working out, and you have to have that conversation. And you're wondering, oh, shoot. Why do I have to do this today? Or, oh, shoot. I have to do this today.

Topaz Adizes [00:11:20]:
Or, oh, my I hope this doesn't go too bad. Right? You can change the question. Go, okay. Where is the positive result that can come out of this? How can this conflict make my relationship with this person better so that we can be more successful together? So when you go into this moment, if you ask yourself a different question, you will be looking for those answers. Right? And and I think that's really powerful. It's shifting. Your question shifts your perspective, which then shifts the way you can perceive a situation and how you can best utilize it. Does that make sense?

Topaz Adizes [00:11:54]:
Oh, absolutely. And I, I love the way you put that. It's the questions we ask ourselves. And it reminds me of the phrase, be careful what you say because you are listening. That's exactly that that mindset shift, isn't it? It's by looking at it from a different angle.

Topaz Adizes [00:12:09]:
But see, most people most of us think we're we're listening to the answers. And what we're not listening to is the question. So you wake up in the morning and go, oh, shoot. I have to do that today. You don't realize that you are actually answering a question. Oh, shoot. Is I have to do that today is an answer to the question of what do I have to do today? Or what's you know, what instead, if you if you know you have a horrible day, you're looking at your schedule and there's you got back to back meetings all the way through and it's gonna be a challenging day, and your response is, oh my, I gotta do that today. Okay.

Topaz Adizes [00:12:38]:
Oh, jeez. This is gonna be a tough one. You're asking, well, you know, how's the day looking? It's gonna be a tough one. Okay. How about how about if you shift the question in that moment and you say, in today's challenging day, what's the lesson I can take care of it? Or what's a moment that I can cherish? How can I amplify these challenges so that I create a better team throughout this tension?

Topaz Adizes [00:12:58]:
I love that. That's brilliant. Yeah. Definitely.

Topaz Adizes [00:13:00]:
And then as a team as a team, we should ask ourselves questions too. And, you know, we have a we have, well, I think we have about 15 physical decks now. Fourteen physical decks and another 5 digital edition decks. And 2 of them are for business. 1 is team building, and 1 is coworkers.

Topaz Adizes [00:13:18]:
Tell us what a deck is. So for listeners

Topaz Adizes [00:13:20]:
who don't

Topaz Adizes [00:13:21]:
know what a deck is

Topaz Adizes [00:13:22]:
Yeah. So basically, if you're wondering why am we listening to this guy who, albeit, has a cool name named Topaz, what is that about? No. My parents are not hippies, but, yes, my brothers are named Sapphire and Onyx, and my grandmother's named Diamond, so that's why I have a stone name. And my father's actually in organizational change. He has his own methodology about organizational cultural change, and I was steeped in that. I was raised in that. And along the way, as picking up becoming a filmmaker, I then just started doing this project where I just brought people together and asked them questions, having asked questions of each other. And And I've just learned, I've seen the power of asking questions.

Topaz Adizes [00:13:59]:
And that's where my experience comes from. It comes from 11 years of watching people have cathartic conversations, steeped in, you know, being raised in my father's views of organizational change. And when I see that, that's where all my information comes from. And from doing all these 1200 conversations, we have pulled out and distilled 2 additions, what we call decks, of questions, 200 questions that you can apply to different kinds of relationships. So whether it's friends, or family, or, couples, or, strangers, or even the self deck where you can ask questions of yourself, as well as the coworkers deck, where you can play with your coworkers, or you could play with your team. We have a team building deck. And in the coworkers deck, one of my favorite questions is, what's a value we do not share with our clients? Right? Why is that a favorite question? Because it takes pause. It's not something that you think about often.

Topaz Adizes [00:14:55]:
Another one is, how do you want to describe what we do to your grandchildren?

Topaz Adizes [00:15:01]:
Okay. That's a big question.

Topaz Adizes [00:15:03]:
Changes the question.

Topaz Adizes [00:15:04]:
Yeah.

Topaz Adizes [00:15:04]:
You know? You have the classic questions of, you know, what should we be doing that we are are not? What are we not doing that we should? Those are nice simple questions you've heard that often. That's not something unique and new. Right? But at least for me, I like to ask things that are much more, illuminate the connection between the team members so that we can elucidate those hidden gaps, and it's in those hidden gaps where the magic exists, especially in the workplace. Because we have complementary skills, you do one thing, I do not one thing, we have different experiences, and all that can bring disjointedness to a team, because we come from different worlds, we have different experiences, but yet in the disjointedness, that's where the magic exists. Right? It's in the difference of views where we're like, oh, wait. Over there, there's a little overlap of an opinion, and we see a cape you know, a possibility there, and we know that that can work. Let's execute on that. So

Topaz Adizes [00:16:01]:
I have a team meeting coming up in a couple of weeks. I wonder if I can get your questions deck before then. That sounds like a really, really important and, and an opportunity that you don't often get to be able to have a space and an environment that facilitates those kind of questions and that thinking.

Topaz Adizes [00:16:23]:
And and also what what helps here is the power dynamic. Right? You're in a meeting. Who's asking the questions? Generally, it's whoever's the superior in the group or whoever's facilitating the group. But if you pull out a box of questions and the questions are there and they're random and you pull one out, the power is now more equal because the one who's dictating the question is not, the manager or the executive or, you know, the it's it's it's the box. It's random. And that creates a bit more of an space of equanimity, which is helpful because it creates a more space of an invitation for people to step in.

Topaz Adizes [00:17:02]:
Yeah. It gives people an opportunity to speak up.

Topaz Adizes [00:17:05]:
Absolutely. But without without the people feeling as though it's a hidden agenda by the Yeah. Whoever's running the meeting. Right? Oftentimes, person running the meeting, they ask a question, and that question is meant to prime everyone in a certain direction, which is fine, which is great. But if you actually are trying to create the space to bring people out, it's much more useful when the question is clearly coming out from a neutral source. Right? From a rent from a box of card games. Box of questions.

Topaz Adizes [00:17:33]:
You mentioned that that you've actually got a self audition as well. Tell us a bit more about the self audition.

Topaz Adizes [00:17:39]:
So, well, the self audition is 200 questions to ask yourself. Now why is that interesting? So what I've come across, and for me has landed through experience of watching people and communication with people is that when you're faced with a really challenging problem and you're banging your head against the wall for the answer, my suggestion is ask a different question. Ask a better question. Because when we ask really good questions, the answer becomes obvious. So let me take a very simple example that works. I think many people can relate to it. It's, you know, should I break up with this person? I know this is more of a workplace podcast, but I think, should I break up with this person? This is just gonna elucidate the this example is that that could be a really hard question to ask. When I say is skip that question and create a better question.

Topaz Adizes [00:18:27]:
And there's 3 parts to the question. There's time frame, how it makes you feel, and how it makes others feel. And so I say, okay, come up with 20 versions of that question. What can I do in the next 3 months? What can I do in the next year? What can I do in the next 5 years or the next chapter of my life? So that I feel inspired. So that I feel challenged. So that I feel safe. So that I feel at ease. Okay.

Topaz Adizes [00:18:49]:
So that I can, what, affect other people? Inspire my family. Support my community. Help my workplace. Okay. You cup 20 questions with that. And then choose one that inspires you. So in the case of, you know, should I break up with this person? You come up with 15, 20 questions. Maybe the question you solidify on is, what can I do for the next year that makes me feel most inspired and challenged such that I can contribute and build a loving family? When you ask that question, what should you break up with this person or not becomes obvious and clear.

Topaz Adizes [00:19:20]:
See?

Topaz Adizes [00:19:21]:
It feels like a lot of the questions that you're asking are almost coaching kind of questions. And especially in your self deck, it's like a a a coach in a deck. Is that how you see it? Is that how you you sense it? Is that your one of your missions that that that helps people to move forward?

Topaz Adizes [00:19:39]:
I have a purpose, which is to create space for people to explore. And in that space to explore, I have seen that there's an incredible transformative power of human connection. That sense of human connection, I call humanity. It's like the sense of humanity. And what I believe is that I don't believe humanity is in us. I believe it's between us. It's between us. And frankly, I don't even know if I like humans.

Topaz Adizes [00:20:06]:
Because sometimes, let's be honest, sometimes humans can be real pricks and selfish and power hungry and doing things for themselves while it does, abuse to others. Who knows? I'm just I I might not I'm I'm trying to debate. I'm still looking at that. Right? But I love humanity. And what is humanity? It's what that connection between us when we're both elevating ourselves and doing something that's greater than either of us could do alone. And that's something that definitely has happens in business, in the workplace, in any team. We're a team because we can't do this alone. So the question is, how do we cultivate the space between us? How do we cultivate the humanity? Right? And that's that's how I see the card games, is opportunities to cultivate the space between.

Topaz Adizes [00:20:50]:
And that's why the the product is called the and. The oldest editions, if you look at it, it's called the and, which are by far the worst words you could use on Amazon because it's the and. I mean, they're just too conjunctious. It's like, they're not really helpful for SEO, but the and is speaks to the space between. Because a relationship is not you or I. Us. It's you and I. Us and them.

Topaz Adizes [00:21:17]:
It's the and that connects us. It's the and that illuminates the space between. It's the and where connection exists. And so that's why we call the product the and, or the experience the and. And so for me, that's what it is. How do we cultivate humanity? Do we cultivate that sense of connection so that what we can create more beautiful things, whatever that is.

Topaz Adizes [00:21:40]:
So so pleased to hear you talking about that that gap between us. Something that came up in my research, I, I became interested in complex adaptive systems, which is, organizations that are functioning less as hierarchies, but as people who have the necessary skills to be able to manage this project and then the leadership moves to somebody else who has a different skill. And what adaptive leadership talks about is actually it's the spaces between people are more important than the individuals themselves. And that's exactly what you're saying is that we we are bigger than individuals. When you put teams together, we are greater than the sum of the parts. And it's brilliant to hear that.

Topaz Adizes [00:22:23]:
I yep. I believe that. But then the question is, how do you do it? Because people talk about in theory, but then the question is, how do we actually do that? And my experience is you create the space, and that means what does that mean? That means you create the boundaries, and you create, the intention versus the agenda, and you create a safe space, albeit an uncomfortable space so we don't confound safety with comfort. They're 2 separate things. We aim for safety yet uncomfortable. And then the second part is we construct really good questions, well constructed questions. And if you do if we do those two things, then you can cultivate the space between, and then you can tap into incredible amount of energy and magic, and magic is not the right word in the place of the workplace. Opportunities.

Topaz Adizes [00:23:10]:
Opportunities that are not seen without you accessing them. And then when you do access them, you have incredible opportunities to grow and to achieve your results.

Topaz Adizes [00:23:20]:
You facilitate, something called the Grace experience, which you describe as an immersive retreat experience. Tell us a bit more about that because, interestingly, I think you're probably the 3rd podcast guest that I've been talking to about retreats. So there is obviously something about changing your environment, changing your space.

Topaz Adizes [00:23:39]:
Oh, absolutely. So, you know, me and my first, what, 15 years of professional work, I was a film director. I had and I would create films, which is basically creating a space and then filming it with a camera, then editing it again. So you live it once with your actors or your your, or real people. And then you create a world, you capture something in that with the camera. Then you go into the postproduction world, and then you recreate that world and recreate that story into another form of living because you're editing it and you're putting music to it. And so I did that for 15 plus years, and I really understand the idea of space and structure in terms of story structure. And so for me, I decided and I I need to stop here because a film director doesn't do immersive retreats.

Topaz Adizes [00:24:35]:
A film director does not do card games or interactive experiences. And so when I realized that I'm not a film director, I'm actually a I created another name for myself, story breaker in this case, that gave me permission to be able to do these different things. Right? And the reason to take home now for the listener is be really aware of what you call yourself. If you call yourself just a film director, that means you're gonna wear your scarf, and you go to go to festivals, and you're gonna fill up things, and you're gonna be a film director. But if you break that mold by giving yourself another name that's more expansive, it gives you more nuance in the possibilities that exist for you in terms of what you can create, but how you can be in that space. Right? So if you are a HR director, give your I'm not saying you have to tell this to other people because that could be confusing, but give yourself another name. Maybe I may, you know, maybe I'm a treasure hunter that amp you know, what does that mean? Well, I I find the hidden treasure in people and I amplify it. That would give you a different perspective in terms of what your job is.

Topaz Adizes [00:25:38]:
Suggestion. There's a power in what we name ourselves. Yeah. And so for me, when I call myself a story breaker, and the reason I call that was I realized we all tell ourselves stories. And then something happens that breaks your story. You fall in love, you get divorced, you get cancer, you get hit by a car, you heal from cancer. Something happens that changes your story, and you have to create a new one. And I realized, you know what? I'm gonna create opportunities for people to create new stories for themselves.

Topaz Adizes [00:26:04]:
And the story break, that gave me permission to explore different fields and different creations. And one of those was Grace, which is an immersive retreat. And the beauty there was I took my filmmaking skills and the idea of structure and space and lighting. I was able to create an immersive experience where 18 people would come together and share the stories of their lives. And the fundamental tenet was that the story of your life can be medicine for me, and the story of my life can be medicine for you. Because there is a there is a, because life itself is a wonderful technology, and it gives you experiences, albeit painful or not, that can uniquely offer you a gift. And the question is, are you sharing that gift with others? See, there's there's a saying by Viscott. What's this in the book? George Viscott.

Topaz Adizes [00:26:57]:
He wrote a book, you know, went around it. He's apparently the first one to say it, but the idea is that the purpose of life is to find your gift, but the meaning of life is to give it away.

Topaz Adizes [00:27:09]:
Really made me think about how we communicate and a lot of what you've said, I can, I can see how my thoughts about self awareness, because I have a, I have this idea that self awareness is a journey and you renew and you change depending on what's happening in your life? And a lot of what you're saying is that actually we have choices and we can change and we can reframe how we think about things, which really opens up the world to us. Brilliant. You mentioned technology there, and I'm gonna take that a step further and ask you what you think about this, this move towards digitalism. And I'm developing an idea that as we move towards ultra digitalism, we're gonna need hyperhumanism. And you mentioned humanism right at the beginning. And I'm interested to know what you think about relationships. How are they gonna develop? What we are going to need and possibly need more of as we become more digitally reliant.

Topaz Adizes [00:28:04]:
Well, great. Great. But in order for me to really be fair and honest, give you a real answer, I need to be clear. What do you mean by hyperdigitalism, ultra digital what do you mean by that, and what do you mean by hyperhumanist? Like, what do those words mean to you?

Topaz Adizes [00:28:19]:
So for me, as we become more reliant in the workplace on digital fixes and software, and rather than us as humans being able to do the work or doing the work as we would ordinarily do, we click a button or we put it into chat GBT and we say we give it the the instruction and it throws it out for us. So I think there will be a far less human involvement in a lot of the work that we produce because it'll be produced by the commands that we're giving our AI, and I think that's where I'm really thinking about what ultradigitalism means. Now for me, hyperhumanism, what I'm seeing is that as we move towards things that are more technological, that actually as human beings, we need to hold on even tighter towards this humanism. And that actually as the world becomes more digital in one direction, we're gonna need to be more human in the other direction, almost like balancing the seesaw. And that actually it it's about retaining our humanity. We need purpose. We need to live to our values. We wanna be engaged in our organizations.

Topaz Adizes [00:29:32]:
If we are moving towards, an increasingly digital working world, we're gonna have to move towards humanism to maintain that balance of what we need as human beings, that social interaction, that relationship. So that's what I mean by ultra digitalism, hyperhumanism.

Topaz Adizes [00:29:52]:
Yeah. Thank you, Nia. I think I agree with you in the sense of the shift that is happening. I think so the question is, what's the place of us humans where we can add real value? Because with AI coming in, where we see that it's way more effective and much faster for And we know that how just the the level of learning that these AI platforms and large language module models are happening. I mean, they are they are learning much faster than we learn. However, when one node learns, the whole system learns at once. So you just imagine, you know, if it would be like if one baby learns Japanese, a Japanese word, but we're all connected in the same way the AI is, then every baby learns Japan that Japanese word in that moment. So therefore, we're it all becomes 1 it's all one organism.

Topaz Adizes [00:30:46]:
It's learning at the same pace at the same information, And there's no misunderstanding. It's all one piece. But we humans are designed differently. We learn at different rates. We see things differently. And it's in that which creates conflict, because we understand things differently. We give different meanings to different words. We have different feelings about different thoughts.

Topaz Adizes [00:31:07]:
We are different. And but that's our unique place, I believe, is in the difference. And that's what I mean by the magic. The opportunities exist because we learn at different rates, because we see things differently. And if we can harness that, then we can create really beautiful problems to solve. And in you know, what I'm really saying is we can create really beautiful questions to ask, and then we solve them. And those saw solutions are beautiful things, because we learn differently, we see things differently, and if we create the space to really engage with one another, we can ask really beautiful questions. But if we are an AI, that's all learning at the same time, I don't think the questions that it asks of itself is that interesting.

Topaz Adizes [00:31:49]:
And therefore, the solutions it comes up with will not be that beautiful. Will not be that interesting. And by interesting, I think yeah. So that's a good question. What does interesting mean? What does beautiful mean? But that's that's another Pandora's box. But in this space, in the future, where all the cognitive functions are being done by AI, and you're gonna need less and less humans. The question is, what is the space for humans? And our space is in when you say become more human, what does that mean, hyper human? What does it mean when you say we have to become more human? That's a great question. For me, it's returning to the patterns of nature.

Topaz Adizes [00:32:25]:
That's what it means to me. And the patterns of nature, what is fundamental to humans is our connection and relationship with one another. So how do we cultivate more connection with one another? How do we and sometimes, because we're all different, learning at different rates, we have more conflict because we have different perspectives, different definitions to the same words, misunderstandings. But if we could sit in that and we can explore that, we can find the magic. We can find the opportunities that wouldn't exist there that are not so obvious. It's like the flipping of the coin. What was once a challenge becomes the opportunity. So how do you cultivate that? That to me is the way of of the opportunity for us so that we, just just doesn't become so monotonous.

Topaz Adizes [00:33:09]:
Everything becomes the same.

Topaz Adizes [00:33:11]:
One of the definitions of my layers of self awareness or my model of self aware leadership is reflection of your hard skills and reflection of your relational skills. It almost feels like the hard skills, part of those will be handed over to AI, but we can never hand over the relational skills because that is unique to humans.

Topaz Adizes [00:33:34]:
Yeah. But the soft skills can be emulated too. Right? I mean, the AIs can talk to each other. AIs there's AI therapy tools now. I mean, you people are connecting with therapy tools and getting a sense of emotional connection to an AI tool, or it can be emulated. I feel like, the emotional skills can be emulated. Right? That's How

Topaz Adizes [00:33:53]:
do we deal with that? Does that then take away the humanity because it's emulated and it's algorithmic as opposed to humanistic? Is that our big challenge?

Topaz Adizes [00:34:06]:
Great question. Well, let me ask you this. Are you more or less human if you see the stars or not at night? Really?

Topaz Adizes [00:34:12]:
It you are you are as human whether you see the stars or not.

Topaz Adizes [00:34:17]:
Okay. So you're having as human experience if you that's why I think the question is, like, what does it really mean now in the future of us to be human? To what connection what distinguishes us from all the digital machines that are being built? You know?

Topaz Adizes [00:34:31]:
And I suppose I'm answering that on the basis that some people can see and some people can't see.

Topaz Adizes [00:34:36]:
Oh, absolutely. You're absolutely right. That's, maybe that's my

Topaz Adizes [00:34:40]:
text utilization of our question.

Topaz Adizes [00:34:42]:
That's wonderful. Maybe that's a that's a great point. That's a that's a great point. Maybe I should not be asking about seeing the stars, but I'm trying to give an example of when I was living in New York, and you would look up living there for 18 years, and you look up at the stars and you see 2 stars versus when you're living in a place where you look up and you see thousands of stars. Your place in the universe and your being shifts because you don't have a sense of the cosmos when you don't see stars or your sense of watch. But you're right. I mean, this is not and I can't speak to if you are have the, visually challenged, then obviously, that's that's different. And I can't speak to that because, unfortunately, I can see.

Topaz Adizes [00:35:26]:
But I'm saying that for a human, if you're watching the sunset or you don't watch the sunset, I do think that changes you physiologically. I think that does give you a sense of the ending of a day and the beginning of night, that that day will never come back. I think that there's practices to remind us of what is human and and even the word human. What is that to me? It's relational. It's like we are in relationship with one another, but we're also in relationship with Earth and nature. And how connected are we to that? And that's what I mean by the patterns of nature. I think that can really be incredibly useful, to us ask but, ultimately, why? What is this guy talking about? Is what what's the questions we're asking ourselves? And, you know, the AI is not really an a question asker of itself. It's an executor of questions.

Topaz Adizes [00:36:14]:
It's an answer finder. So what questions are you asking it? It's a new tool. It's an incredibly potent tool that's in our hands. What question are we asking of that tool?

Topaz Adizes [00:36:24]:
Yes. Fascinating conversation, philosophical debate, a little bit of existential thinking going on.

Topaz Adizes [00:36:31]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Topaz Adizes [00:36:32]:
Thank you so much for joining me. That was really, really interesting. Before you go, tell me how can our listeners and our watchers get hold of your questions.

Topaz Adizes [00:36:41]:
So the skin deep dot com. We sell throughout England and, you know, the UK throughout UK and Canada, Mexico, all of Europe, the US. So the skin deep dot com, and the book 12 Questions for Love is available in ebook, audiobook, and hardcover on Amazon and anywhere you get your ebooks. So or audiobooks. So that's, that's basically how you can find us. And the social media channels are TheSkin Deep, TheSkin Deep.

Topaz Adizes [00:37:09]:
We'll make sure that there are links in the show notes so that if anybody does want to get in touch with you and buy a set of your questions, I'm gonna be one of them. They say

Topaz Adizes [00:37:19]:
we

Topaz Adizes [00:37:19]:
can do. Topaz, thank you for joining me. It's been really interesting.

Topaz Adizes [00:37:23]:
Thank you. Thank you, Nia. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time.

Nia Thomas [00:37:27]:
Thank you for joining me on today's episode, where we aim to develop self aware leaders around the globe to generate kinder, more respectful and creative working relationships through reflection, recognition and regulation. Head over to my website at knowingselfknowingothers.co.uk to sign up to my newsletter to keep up to date with my blog, podcast and book. Looking forward to having you on my learning journey.