🚧️ S3T Oct 13: IMF outlook, SBF trial, Mental health, AI empathy, NSA, Ownership mindset part 3
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In this edition of S3T: What leaders are talking about this week
- Macroeconomy: IMF's Gloomy outlook for global economy; Disney up, Louis Vutton down; the global cost burden of mental health.
- Emerging Tech: Fallout from the SBF Trial; longer timeline for AI in healthcare? Artifical empathy; GenAI for RFPs; NSA launches AI unit.
- For Paid Memberships: Change leadership: Kindling an ownership mindset in your own team.
🔊 Listen to this edition on the S3T Podcast
Opinions expressed are those of the individuals and do not reflect the official positions of companies or organizations those individuals may be affiliated with. Not financial advice. Authors or guests may hold assets discussed.
Macroeconomy
Latest economic context and developments impacting the financial decisions of your stakeholders and customers.
IMF's gloomy outlook on the global economy
The Global Economy is "limping along" per a new report from the IMF which sees reduced growth for China and Europe, as well as risks for emerging economies. Notably, the report calls out rising economic risks due to geoeconomic fragmentation (the deglobalization/multi-polar world discussed in previous editions of S3T). Read the full report here.
Disney Up, Louis Vutton Down
Disney will impose steep price increases for passes to its parks. Meanwhile, shares for Luxury brand family LMVH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) slipped to the lowest level since January on economic concerns, and the index of Europe's top 10 luxury stocks had its biggest quarterly drop since 2020.
- Victoria Scholar, Interactive Investor
The Cost Burden of Mental Health
Mental Health issues result in suffering for individuals as well as economic impacts for employers and the economy as a whole.
- Globally, mental health issues cause $1 Trillion every year in lost productivity.
- In the US, mental health among workers is improving. Surveys indicate the overall improvement is due to greater work-life balance associated with remote work options. See Cisco study (PDF), and the Future Forum survy (PDF).
That said, much work remains. How to keep this positive trend going:
- Be alert to opportunities to help individuals who may still be struggling to establish work-life boundaries.
- Encourage people to talk about what they need. Be aware of how self-silencing (not acknowledging or speaking up about your own needs) can impact your mental and physical well-being.
Emerging Tech
Need to know technology developments for leaders who need to manage technology investments and risks.
Sam Bankman-Fried trial: possible fallout for financial innovation
If you want to follow the proceedings of the Sam Bankman-Fried trial (big IF, yes I realize), NLW, the host of the Breakdown podcast AND former FTX employee has been providing great summaries from an unusually informed perspective.
Why this matters to financial innovation: As the trial unfolds, one of two perceptions could take hold in the public consciousness:
- Crypto is weeding out the scammers
- Crypto is a bunch of scammers
This plus the ETF filings awaiting SEC action mean that Q4 may see roller-coaster price action for leading crypto assets. In addition, the public perceptions forged during the Bankman-Fried trial could impact the adoption timeline of decentralized/blockchain-based architectures by regulated industries.
Longer than anticipated timeline for AI in healthcare?
Dr. Lloyd Mino, Dean of Standford's School of Medicine thinks we are 10 years away from seeing broad societal benefits from AI in part because it will take time to prove to the public that we can use AI safely and responsibly in healthcare.
"If AI is deployed responsibly in healthcare, I think 10 years from now we will be seeing the benefits societally and at the level of the individual in ways that people will, yes, have concerns, but they will be pleased with the transformation in their health." Minor said.
Artificial Empathy
Initial experimentation suggests that AI can enhance empathy in communications. When humans used AI tools that had been trained for empathy, their responses were ~19% more empathetic compared to responses created by humans alone. Notably, the responses were 38% more empathetic from individuals who self-identified as having difficulty providing empathetic responses. See paper here (PDF).
GenAI for RFPs and Proposals
That proposal you're reviewing? It may have been written by ChatGPT or the like. Increasingly companies are using GenAI to handle the text-intensive work of responding to RFPs. Example: Twilio's RFP Genie (a GenAI tool the company is developing internally) is speeding up the company's ability to churn out proposals.
AI and National Security
The National Security Agency is launching an AI security center that will work as part of the NSA's Cybersecurity Collaboration Center to protect against threats from adversaries using AI.
For Paying Members
Change Leadership: Cultivating an ownership mindset in your own team
We've been learning about the power of an ownership mindset - and how it makes a dramatic difference in the way teams and partners overcome challenges and navigate toward success.
We've looked at how to kindle an ownership mindset in 2 groups so far:
- The partners or vendors who don't report directly to you, but are obligated by contracts or other agreements.
- The stakeholders who don't report to you, and aren't bound by contractual agreements, but whose contributions are still critical to the outcome. These may be subject matter experts, academic partners, board members, or other stakeholders whose expertise or support is needed.
Each of these has unique challenges and we learned specific tactics to help us instill that ownership mindset and deeper level of commitment.
This week you're going to learn how to build an ownership mindset in the team that reports to you. If you're like many managers you may feel like you are struggling to develop an ownership mindset in your team members. But there are a few simple but powerful tactics that you can start using right away - and soon you'll start to see signs of an ownership mindset taking hold in your team. You can do this.
This is timely: as your team members approach the end of the year, and reflect on their growth and achievements, it's the perfect opportunity to bring up the topic of ownership mindset.
Let's start off by addressing a current reason why many teams fail to cultivate an ownership mindset.
The dark side of OKRs and KPIs
If we're not careful about how we talk about OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) or KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) we can foster the wrong mindset.
Have you seen this pattern in your organization?
- The only thing we care about is making the numbers
- Making the numbers usually runs afoul of things outside our control
- Therefore our #1 goal is not getting blamed for not making the numbers.
Cue the blame games, which aren't what they used to be. Blaming people still happens sometimes, but we've moved on to more sophisticated blame games:
- Questioning our process,
- Complaining about too many meetings,
- Burning time talking about what was leadership thinking when they decided to do (whatever it was they did).
These behaviors reinforce a spectator mindset of non-ownership and helplessness. They focus everyone's most powerful thoughts on how to look smart while deflecting accountability.
We want to focus everyone's most powerful thinking on how to achieve unusually impactful outcomes and how to overcome the challenges that stand between us and outcomes. To do that, we need to kindle an ownership mindset in our team.