The Future of Work: Leadership, AI, and Belonging with Luke Jamieson

Imagine transforming your workplace into a hub of creativity and purpose, where AI serves as an empowering co-pilot rather than a replacement. In our latest episode, we invite you to discover how global expert Luke Jamieson transitioned from baking pastries to leading dynamic contact centers, all while championing the cause of meaningful employee experiences. Get ready to challenge traditional motivation methods and usher in a human-centered leadership approach that moves beyond the mundane and taps into the vast potential of every team member.

AI isn't just a tool; it's a catalyst for redefining the future of work. Picture a world where organizations shed their task-oriented routines in favor of pursuing purpose-driven goals, enabling employees to connect deeply with their core values. Luke and I discuss how this shift enables intrinsic motivation to flourish, reducing stress, and enhancing job satisfaction. We also delve into the pitfalls of traditional reward systems, advocating for a culture of appreciation and gratitude that fosters transparency and dismantles silos in the workplace.

Our conversation takes a thought-provoking turn as we explore the importance of community-building and collaboration. We highlight the need for leaders to create spaces where growth and interaction thrive, viewing challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles. Join us as we tackle topics ranging from Australia's tall poppy syndrome to innovative evaluation methods in education. Together, we redefine leadership as a journey of shared success, inviting you to engage with our RVA framework to align your personal values with your career goals, driving meaningful and lasting change in your leadership journey.

Huge thank you to Mario Hernández for editing this content and PostFlow for helping me with the clips! 

Chapters

• 0:07 Revolutionizing Leadership With AI Impact
• 8:58 Employee Engagement Through Meaningful Work
• 19:39 Embracing Holistic Quality Approaches in Leadership
• 28:41 Workplace Challenges
• 42:06 Creating Space
• 49:17 Epical Growth and Leadership Transformation

Transcript

Sarah Caminiti: 0:07

Welcome back, listeners, to another episode of Epochal Growth. I'm your host, sarah C, and I am so happy that you're here Today. I am thrilled to bring you a conversation with someone who is truly shaping the future of work. Luth Jamson is a global expert in customer and employee experience. He's known for his creative approach to leadership and his insights on how AI is transforming our roles, not replacing them. We're deep diving into the importance of creating space for purpose-driven work and how AI is revolutionizing leadership, and why leaders need to focus on appreciation and belonging over recognition and rewards. This episode is packed with so many valuable insights you won't want to miss. Many of you will recognize Luke from the fantastic series with Michael Madison 2020-ish that was on LinkedIn celebrating leaders within the CX space, and I am so happy that he is now a part of the Epochal Growth family. All right, listeners, let's get into it.

Luke Jamieson: 1:09

Well, g'day g'day everyone. G'day g'day everyone. My name is Jaand and I am so stoked to finally get to face-to-face meet Sarah Caminiti. I am. What do you want to know about me? I'm just passionate about CX and employee experience and the future of work and all the things that come with that, and I like producing content that I hope people like, because it's you know, I think there's so much drab stuff out here, so it was awesome to actually get an invite to be on this one, because I think this is a cracking podcast.

Luke Jamieson: 1:43

Oh man thank you, thank you.

Sarah Caminiti: 1:47

Well, I think that you do produce content that people like, because that's how I was introduced to you and what you're doing, and I think the first thing that I do really want to know, L, is what happened. What was your moment where you realized you needed to talk about everything you're so passionate about talking about, about the employee experience, about the power of making people feel like they belong in their workplace? What was it inside of you that was like I got to talk about this?

Luke Jamieson: 2:25

Yeah, look, I'll tell you what it's been an evolution to get to that, right, because many people might know that I was a baker and pastry chef when I left school and that was a blast. I'm a creative person and there's heaps of creativity to be done in that. But I'll tell you what, when you're working nights, your mates become scarce and girlfriends even more so. So after I finished my apprenticeship and had my bakery and all that sort of jazz, I needed to do something different and really quick segue, like I did some graphic design and editing and ad space work and and that had me traveling up and down the east coast of australia. If you haven't figured out by the accent, if you haven't heard me on a podcast before, I'm in melbourne, australia, and um, anyway, I moved to melbourne and, uh, it was. I. Funny enough, when you don't have a qualification in graphic design, it's not as easy as you think't have a qualification in graphic design. It's not as easy as you think to get another job in it, despite how good you are at it, right. So I took a stepping stone job into a contact center. I was like I'll just do this for a little bit until I can find a creator and I was like this world is insane, this world is bizarre. You're asking humans to try to be as human and empathetic as possible and then treating everyone like a robot, and I don't know. It was one of those moments. So I've got a pretty. You know, I've always had kind of this natural I gravitate to leadership, right, and I ran youth groups growing up and created youth groups and ran those and all that sort of stuff. And then so I saw this opportunity to lead in contact centers and I don't know, I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with the opportunity to change and to revolutionize how we do stuff in that space, and particularly from a contact center and employee engagement perspective.

Luke Jamieson: 4:30

And so, to answer your question, finally, it's been an evolution over the last 20 years, right of what is it that drives us to be motivated and give us a sense of belonging? And it's made up of so many, so many things Like. This idea of a sense of belonging is so complex and there's all these different senses that we have to have in order to feel that sense of belonging. And you know that involves things like a, not just like those obvious ones, like a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning, but a sense of self, a sense of community, a sense of joy, a sense of achievement, a sense of growth, and all of these things have to align for us to get to a point of a sense of belonging. And so many organizations don't know how to do that and they simply throw a pizza party and expect people to be motivated.

Luke Jamieson: 5:28

And just the way we create KPIs and everything for people is just so broken and we need to shift how we do that. And I think one of the reasons I love AI so much is because it's freaking everyone out. Right, it's freaking everyone out and it's going to take our jobs, and that's because we've created all these jobs that are made up of tasks that somebody, that a machine, can do, and and I think people are starting to realize that we need to create jobs that are not based on tasks but based upon humans and and what our broad mission and purpose is for an organization. How do we achieve that and what is the output versus the input that us, as humans, can bring to a workplace? So, wow, that was a long response to your question. I'm sorry, sarah. So good.

Sarah Caminiti: 6:20

Oh, that was so good, man. We are kindred spirits on so many levels, and I think that I agree with every single thing that you said. And the thing that stood out, though, was the AI bit. Was that's really different than what I've heard and what I've talked with others about, for that correlation between AI and CX. I've been excited about AI because it's finally giving us a chance to talk about all of these things that we've been doing for a really long time, quietly and without any sort of appreciation, with data analytics and really drilling into the trend analysis and doing all these manual things, because we don't have the support or the budget to use the tools that actually make us effective.

Sarah Caminiti: 7:17

And AI is coming through and it's like, oh my God, this thing is amazing. Look at all these things that they do and it's like, guys, we've been doing this for years. You just never were paying attention. But what you're saying about AI being a task, like it like takes over those tasks, because so much of what we do is a task. That is a huge chunk of what the purpose is of this job is. So it's that is such a solid point, and it's I like that angle. I think that that's an angle that can really connect with people outside of our space. That comes with the same result of now we will be able to do more. We would be able to actually do the stuff that we have been doing, but use it in a more purposeful way. But saying that it is taking over those tasks, I think that is a really well thought out way of expressing the realities of AI in the CX space.

Luke Jamieson: 8:19

I think it poses some really interesting future of work thoughts as well around how do we structure our days and all that sort of stuff.

Luke Jamieson: 8:29

And I think, you know, in Australia there's this the unions, I think, did a really positive thing way, way back when and created the eight-hour day, the eight-hour work day, and so there's eight hours of play, eight hours of sleep and eight hours of work, and I think that that changes.

Luke Jamieson: 8:52

I think AI has the and that's been decades and decades of that right. I think AI has the opportunity to change that because, you know, as organizations start to think about the like what we're here for and what is the big, hairy, audacious goal as an organization that we want to get like, what is the purpose and meaning of our organization, all of a sudden we can start focusing our people on achieving that instead of doing the tasks, and I think that that then creates these jobs of meaning and stuff, and that might actually mean that we don't need to work eight hours a day. We might only have to work four hours a day to do that, but it's purposeful, driven, aligned work and that's going to be way more valuable than these tasks. Anyway, we're probably getting way off topic, but that's kind of where my head's at with the future of work right and what this has potential to do.

Sarah Caminiti: 9:49

No, I think that that's totally on topic.

Sarah Caminiti: 9:51

I'm so happy that you were saying that, and I think that this idea that we would be able to do more purpose-driven work within an organization makes me think a lot about core values.

Sarah Caminiti: 10:08

Motivation makes me think a lot about core values, because if your core values as a company are clearly defined and you have a purpose and you actually live by that and your actions speak to these core values and your employees feel those core values, it allows them the space to lean into their personal core values and see how they can make the company stronger because of it. Wow, we now are able to utilize these folks that we invited into our space, into our company, to be employees and to help make this place better. Now we have this opportunity to like see what can happen. Let's see what happens if we give them the tools that they need to be successful and do the work that they want to do. But the task stuff is taking up all of their time and celebrate who they are and what they bring to the table and use that as kind of your differentiator as a company of.

Luke Jamieson: 11:20

This is what we believe in and this is why this is what we believe in and this is why that's it, and and I think I think one of the challenges I think we've seen in in many industries is is good intention and poor execution.

Luke Jamieson: 11:37

And so and let me give you an example like um, like environmental, social governance, right, esg these companies are like, yeah, we want to be environmentally conscious and so therefore, let's bring in some people who are really focused on that and really passionate about that and they bring them into the organization so that they can say that they're taking action and they're being socially responsible.

Luke Jamieson: 12:07

And then these people who are passionate about that get into these corporate organisations and just get like destroyed by the red tape and the mundane and the tasks and all the things that suck the soul out of you in a corporate environment, and then, all of a sudden, it just becomes a tick box exercise. Whereas if we were able to remove some of those barriers and remove some of that, those things that got in the way that did suck your soul out because you know I can take some of these tasks and you can just focus your passion and your, your creativity and your joy and your all the things that get you excited about that. How much better could that role be, and how much better is that for the organization and how much better is that for our society? And I just think, man, there's some seriously cool opportunity here for that.

Sarah Caminiti: 12:58

Yeah, no, there are. It'll be really interesting where, I think we're hitting into the next two to three years of a reality check, where the shiny toy mentality of AI is starting to leave a little bit. The folks that decided to just do it in a way that was ineffective or thoughtless I guess, for lack of a better term for when they're implementing these sorts of things are regretting it, and their customers have voiced their opinions about why they need to be regretting these choices. And now we're shifting into okay, well, this doesn't work. We can't just replace an entire department with a bot that has never been trained and doesn't have anything set up for QA. So now? Now, what do we do?

Sarah Caminiti: 13:54

And now we're starting to see so much more conversation into. Well, it's an enhancement tool, it's a co-pilot, it's a reminder of all of these other things that we want them to remember, but the brain cannot hold all of that information. It's the 360 view of the actual customer journey and it's allowing teams to not be siloed anymore. Like, think about the opportunities that exist now to not have everybody pit against each other, because no one really could ever see into the customer experience that existed for that one specific department. And so then you just are constantly butting heads. No one's talking the same language, and now we can.

Luke Jamieson: 14:44

Yeah, yeah, exactly heads. No one's talking the same language and now we can. Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah, that's yeah, like the thought of that. I've been I've been wrestling with a similar topic around like reward and recognition. Not wrestling with no, I've got my views on on this, but that this idea of reward and recognition within organizations, um, and how it? It literally pits people up against each other and that we need to think of different ways to do that.

Luke Jamieson: 15:10

You know, around that appreciation and gratitude versus reward and recognition, and what does that mean for us from an intrinsic value perspective in our work lives? So yeah, interesting, interesting. I think there's some synergy there between those two topics, for sure.

Sarah Caminiti: 15:31

What do you think companies should do?

Luke Jamieson: 15:34

Look, I think the problem with reward and recognition programs inherently is that they more often than not go to the extrinsic thing. There's a reward, it's reward based, you're working towards getting this reward and there's this celebrity culture that comes with that right. So all of a sudden I feel like the world is all about 15 minutes of fame, and that's no different in the office. People are looking for that 15 minutes of fame in the office and they do that through these reward and recognition programs. And it's like how do I get my name up in the lights? I tick all of these boxes, I take all the widgets you've thrown at me and I achieve them in this order in order to get that recognition. And then what that does is it puts people up against each other within an organization, and those people who are doing the work because it's meaningful to them and they want to do that work because just doing a good job is what satisfies them and gives them that intrinsic reward and they do that because it's the right thing to do Get overlooked. And then they get demotivated because of these reward and recognition programs and it's a form of gamification, right, it's the gold star on the checkbox because you know, you did your homework today, and it's just a different form of that, and I think we forget that, like you can have adverse effects. You know it's God it is. You know, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. You know, and I'll give you an example of that, like each is, um, we're diving into gamification a bit here, but linkedin has recently put games on on there, so I don't know if you've noticed this there's three games you can play on a daily basis and, like I was actually really enjoying those. But, um, then, then, uh, they brought in this thing of streaks. So then you would, how many days in a row you would have to? Actually, how many days in a row you'd completed it, and the minute I lost my streak because you know just life, I no longer wanted to do it anymore, and so it has the complete opposite reaction to that right.

Luke Jamieson: 17:55

And so, going back to employee engagement, if the work itself is meaningful and the work itself is the thing that gives the satisfaction to the employee, because it's aligned, it's purposeful, it's meaningful, and they, how do we recognize that? Well, I think it comes from a culture of appreciation. You know, culture is just a set of behaviors repeated. So it's those moments of appreciation on a regular basis which then drives gratitude, you know. So appreciation is outside to in, gratitude is inside to out and it creates this nice flow. And I think we need to move back to this culture of appreciation and gratitude and aligning meaningful work and the achievement of that meaningful work. So collaboratively, as a group and as a team, we're all working towards the same thing, versus trying to get this celebrity status within an organization.

Sarah Caminiti: 18:58

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Luke Jamieson: 19:46

I think the challenge of this is sometimes it feels a little intangible. So it's so easy to see a reward and recognition program and see that tangible outcome and it's easy to put widgets in place and it's easy to put metrics and goals and all these sort of things in place. I'm not saying we shouldn't have goals Goals are a great way to celebrate achievement and progress so great. But we've got to think about what is the like, what is the? How do we think about those from an intrinsic value versus the extrinsic value? And the simple answer is it's a cultural change. But that is equally as hard to actually achieve right and it takes some. It takes some, some guts to to stand up and say we're actually going to, we're actually going to go down this path and we're not going to have a reward and recognition program, we're actually doing away with it, where you've got organizations left, right and center saying we're just introducing this new reward and recognition program. No, we're not about that, because culturally we're about appreciation and this is where leaders have an opportunity. This is where leaders need to lead. This is where leaders need to lead. This is where leaders need to to. And, again, this is where ai helps right leaders forever taking the monkey on their back.

Luke Jamieson: 21:07

It's like how many times I think back to my career when I'm leading people and running contact centers and a contact center agent comes up to you and says, hey, I've got this really big problem, or I've got this, I'll be like all right. Um, I've already got 50 things on my plate. But I'm like what do I say, leave it with me, leave it with me. All of a sudden, you've got 100 things on your on your plate and you're doing all these, these tasks, taking you away from the thing that actually is going to provide the most value, which is coaching, training, taking time to appreciate, taking time to acknowledge someone's effort, celebrating someone's growth.

Luke Jamieson: 21:47

I think that's a huge part. That's a huge part of that when we talk about progress and recognition and appreciation is acknowledging someone's growth in something They've got better at something, because that is an intrinsic reward for someone themselves, and just to acknowledge that is so huge. And so AI is going to help. I think that's what I hope. My hope for it is that it helps leaders get back to doing the things that are going to make the biggest difference, which is lead people and appreciate people and give them the time and let them be seen. I'm not talking about celebrity status seen. I'm not talking about putting them up in lights employee of the month, bs. I'm talking about just being seen and appreciated and heard and know that they're contributing to something bigger than themselves, which then starts to drive that sense of belonging yeah.

Sarah Caminiti: 22:44

Yeah, it definitely does. And it's one of those things where, with the reward and the recognition programs, those are usually the same companies that have the most expensive help desk thing that actually only does one tiny, tiny little nugget of what actually needs to be done. And they get a pizza party twice a year and it's such a removal because they're not able to give themselves the opportunity to really think about what it is that these choices they're making are telling the people that they're working with. And it goes over and over again to I don't value you enough, I don't value your success enough to actually look at you as a person instead of a metric, and then it does skew. When you want to do this well and when you want to embrace it, it boils down to data because you can't coach, you can't see, you can't be present if you don't know the reality of what's going on. If you don't know the reality of what's going on and if you are a leader who wants to actually be in it with your team, you need to see.

Sarah Caminiti: 24:04

Oh, yesterday I noticed this person had a huge dip in their numbers. I'm not gonna go to a negative assumption and say they weren't doing a good job. That day I'm going to go up to them and I'm going to say did you have some really complex problems? Yesterday? Like I noticed that you were taking a much longer time than usual, but you didn't come and ask for help. So I just kind of want to check in and, like, let them know.

Luke Jamieson: 24:31

Yeah, it could be one step further where they're actually getting insight into what it was before they actually even have to ask that question. And it could be hey, wow, I saw how that affected this. How do I want to be able to support you by doing X, y, z, or let's buddy you up with this person, or hey, well done on handling something that in any other day we would say you didn't do a good job, but the insights actually shown me that you actually took the time to care and show value to that customer and add loyalty and all the things that we wanted. So we really appreciate that you've done that. And this thing comes back to the output that someone does and not the input right? And yeah, wow, yeah, I just think there's. There's so much opportunity, yeah.

Sarah Caminiti: 25:22

Yeah, no, there is.

Sarah Caminiti: 25:23

There's definitely so much opportunity and the fact that there's conversations being had outside of the CX space, cause I feel like we're a special bunch that have known that this is what makes a difference for a long time, because we're dealing with human emotions every day, like that is the name of the game when you're working with customers and we're able to play and see what happens when we approach a problem in this way.

Sarah Caminiti: 25:53

We see what happens when we ask a question in this way and oh, this didn't convey what I wanted to convey in this way. And so when I go and talk to my boss about something, I know I should probably, you know, try these words, because these seem to work really well with the customer and the message will get across much better with somebody else. But the QA piece of being a leader is something that AI, I think, has really shown a really positive light on. Of the excuse of I don't have time or I only need to look at two, two or three tickets a month and that's my QA is that excuse isn't valid anymore because it's taken that out if you actually invest in a program that does it for you.

Luke Jamieson: 26:49

Yeah, yeah, I always struggle with that anyway when leading with people the whole idea that one call can ruin your whole month or whatever as an agent. That's why I created a whole new quality framework when I was at an organization, which was more focused on just breaking down the individual components of a call and rating that as a holistic view of performance. Versus this one call was a zero, despite the fact that there was 99 good things, but you failed to do a security check on, so it's a zero. I think we need to take a more holistic approach to quality, even if you don't have AI right, but I think, yeah, you're right AI is definitely going to revolutionize that space, thank God.

Sarah Caminiti: 27:41

What did you see as a change when you started implementing that holistic approach to QA and how did that conversation go when you were talking about it with senior leadership, that you were changing the way that you were doing QA?

Luke Jamieson: 27:58

Well, the biggest thing is it impacts the employee, right? So let's say it is three calls or four calls a month and and whatever, and you fail one and your pass marks 80. You can't pass if you fail one call and so you're written off for that. And if that happens a couple of times in a year, you've written off your whole year. And then once you're no longer, once you no longer realize you can achieve the goal, what's the point in even trying for the rest of the year? And it just leads down this horrible path of disinterest and disengagement and apathy and all these things that we don't want, and destroys resilience. And, yeah, it's a horrible process.

Luke Jamieson: 28:41

So the biggest impact is actually on the employee because it's like, okay, I know I can make a mistake and yet still be acknowledged for all the good things I did, and that doesn't take away from the mistake, right? We report the mistake up the line, we acknowledge it, we address it. We create a closed loop circuit that allows us to then go and address that with a customer and with regulators or whoever it is that we need to do to do the right thing to rectify the situation. But what it doesn't do is destroy all the good things that somebody does and degrade someone down to a binary moment. It's a way more holistic approach and I think that's a way better employee experience. It makes no difference to the customer in that moment, right, if the mistake's done, the mistake's done. It's what we do afterwards that changes that for the customer. But in that moment for the employee, how we treat that makes a huge difference to them.

Sarah Caminiti: 29:47

Yep, yep, no, it definitely does. There's something I realized when I started building the teams in my previous jobs and stuff it's when you're, and it took them a while to get used to this too. So it's a different approach to these sort of conversations. But difficult conversations aren't supposed to be like anxiety-inducing, like feel like you're going to throw up conversations. A leader needs to take responsibility for the fact that that employee did not have the support that they need to do the job that they needed to do. Well, because we have to remember, everybody's trying to do their best, and so if you start approaching those conversations of hey, we know that this wasn't an intentional thing, but why did you do it this way, walk me through it so that I can figure out where in this process things didn't go according to plan, so that we can then put something in place to support you and help you and then share this with everybody else, because if you're feeling this, you're not alone. Everyone is probably feeling this in some capacity, and now we can have a conversation.

Luke Jamieson: 31:02

Yeah, exactly, it's removing that binary approach to these things, where it's good or bad. And again I'm going to go back to a gamification example and why I think there's a place for it in the workforce when done properly. I don't know if you play games or not Sometimes, sometimes, All right.

Luke Jamieson: 31:29

Sometimes yeah, in most games you get to that boss challenge, that boss fight where you have to. You know the final challenge to overcome a level or whatever it is, even if it's in Candy Crush, there's always going to be that big one that's going to get you to the next level. We don't approach that. When you approach a game at that level, you don't go in there going. This is a pass-fail moment for me. This is one of those moments that if I screw this up my career's over, I'm never playing this game again. You don't approach it like that. You approach it as a learning opportunity. Right, you have a go at it. All, right, new work, I'm gonna give it another go. Okay, I got slightly better. Yeah, I overcome it. Great, we, we move on to our next level threshold of challenge. If we approached, if we approached those, those difficult conversations in the same way that it is, this is just a boss fight. We just we're gonna, we're gonna have a go at it. We, we might, we might, we might die on this one. Yeah, okay, let's go again though. Okay, let's just have another crack at it. Let's just have another crack at it and and have it.

Luke Jamieson: 32:40

Have a different mentality going into that, that this isn't binary. This is just a, an opportunity for learning and growth and moving forward. We have a, we have a much better um uh feeling towards that. All of a sudden, we don't have the anxiety right and of of that I think. You know.

Luke Jamieson: 32:56

I even think about my oldest daughter is doing her her um final year of school at the moment and, uh, she's going into exams in the next couple of weeks and I just worry for her because, like, exams suck for that exact reason. Yeah, it's all that hard work that you've put in for years and years come down to this binary moment of can I perform in this next two hours to be able to show that I know this or that I you know, and there's so many factors that play into that. It can be time, it can be anxiety, it can be all these things, and yet we approach this in such a binary way that creates all this stress and anxiety, which it doesn't need to be. There's so many other ways we could test, learning and check that someone has competency and um and and desire and passion and and thinking like just just um like the comprehension solving yeah, comprehensive.

Luke Jamieson: 33:54

You know all those sort of things. I can't, you know, lose, listen, kind of talk all of a sudden. But you know it's, uh, we approach, if we approach these, um, it's, it's, it's this way of that we've done these things in our society, that things are just good and bad, and I just don't think there is good and bad. I think it's so much more complex than that and we shouldn't simplify anything down to that.

Sarah Caminiti: 34:19

No, no, I agree, I definitely agree, and I'm hopeful that your daughter gets out of this Luckily she has a support system and you being able to have those conversations of taking some of that pressure off of her, because it really does take away some of that love of learning that could still exist and you want to have carry on with you for the rest of your kids' lives, exactly when there's just that doomsday of I could just have a bad day or I'm not good at taking tests. I mean from a personal thing, I was terrible at taking tests. I would just panic and I would just feel like I was never going to be able to remember everything. My mind would go blank and then, who knows, who knows what was going to happen.

Luke Jamieson: 35:14

Just like I did then, exactly Just like I did then. And hey, I think I made up six words with that sentence.

Sarah Caminiti: 35:21

Yes, no, it's true, though, and that shouldn't define a person, and that's like. I've been thinking a lot about resumes, too, and uh, and the pressure that goes into creating the right resume and saying the right thing and being able to articulate it the right way, and it boils down to some just crappy power dynamics, with all of these different things, of good and bad.

Sarah Caminiti: 35:55

There's no gray. It is, someone has decided that this is good, this is bad and you can't defend it. We're not going to have a conversation about it. You either are or you are not, and that's that.

Luke Jamieson: 36:12

And what a terrible mindset.

Sarah Caminiti: 36:17

No, there's no feedback.

Luke Jamieson: 36:19

You don't go into it going. Do I sell myself here? Or do I go in with humility and undersell myself? Do I go in there as what's my approach to this? And you don't always know. It's hard to tell from a job description and a company profile as to what they're looking for, and then you get a one-liner rejection email and no feedback as to, oh, the feedback you get. There was a lot of great candidates, awesome, so I'm not one of them.

Sarah Caminiti: 36:54

What did I do wrong?

Luke Jamieson: 36:54

Yeah, yeah, exactly Like if we talk about that from a customer experience perspective. If we were to just put that out there and get no feedback, that's it, we would be up in arms about it, right? So yeah, it's a broken industry, broken process.

Sarah Caminiti: 37:17

It is, it is.

Luke Jamieson: 37:19

And this is coming from people who are people, people this is coming from your HR areas, right who are there for your, are meant to be your people champions, and then this is how they treat external people Like oh God, don't start me.

Sarah Caminiti: 37:40

No, it's. I mean, this is. We could have another two hours, probably talking about this. I think that the biggest thing is someone asking for your expectations for salary on a job description and like setting it up so that from day one you don't have any negotiating power, like you threw it out the window, like now they hold this secret number and they are going to judge you based on how you were defining your worth and you can't go too high, because if you go too high, then you're going to get automatically rejected because you're outside of the budget. If you go too low, then you're going to get the low end, regardless of whether your qualifications like say that that's what it's going to be. No one tells you what the band is, so you have no clue what your place is in all of it. And then you have to go into a job interview and figure out how you're going to navigate it when you still don't even know if they like the number that you put into the job application in the first place.

Luke Jamieson: 38:46

Yeah, yeah, broken Broken.

Sarah Caminiti: 38:51

Broken. There's my soapbox for 1030 at night. Love it, but it's. Yeah, there's a lot to be learned from customer experience. There's a lot to be learned. If different departments of different companies, different C-suite folks thought of every person in their company as a customer, I think that people would approach a lot of things very differently.

Luke Jamieson: 39:19

I agree it makes me actually think about the application process that this idea of a CV is actually a completely wrong approach, right, it almost does need to be that questionnaire of answer these questions and you'll get a score and then come back and then we can give you a feedback loop, because, look, I get it. If you've got to reply to 100, 200, 1,000 people with feedback on their application, that's a lot. It's a big train, right? But hey, you know what we could use AI for that?

Sarah Caminiti: 39:55

Whoa, whoa. No well, why not? Though? When I do job applications, like when I'm hiring I don't look at the resume, really. I don't look at the cover letter. Really. I ask a series of questions, and I want to understand how they think about a problem, or how they start a paragraph when they're trying to talk to a fake angry customer. I want to see what your reality is in this job. What your reality is in this job, not some stuff that you Googled, you're supposed to put down on a piece of paper, and an AI has the opportunity to really do that and do it effectively.

Luke Jamieson: 40:40

And then it can be like hey AI who wrote your resume? This is AI, who's going to review it and give you the response? Gold.

Sarah Caminiti: 40:52

No one said the feedback loop had to be by a person. It's just a beautiful circle of robots talking to robots and just a lot of them are trained very well by humans.

Luke Jamieson: 41:04

Exactly. Yeah, that'll be the first thing that you say when you get in the room. I'm so glad your robot liked my robot. Let's have a conversation about what it's like to be a human here. So, yeah, awesome, yeah that's really good.

Sarah Caminiti: 41:17

So, L, I don't want to take up more of your Friday, even though I wish that I could take up the entire day, because I want to just keep talking to you but I do end every episode by asking the folks that gift me with their time what era do you find yourself in, or what era are you moving into, L? So, hey, what's your era?

Luke Jamieson: 41:39

Oh, I mean, like 1989, taylor Swift. Let me think, if I think about my era, my era is my collaboration era. So this year I set myself a goal to try to make most of my content collaborative and work with others, with others. And I had this epiphany kind of last year and like I've got a lot of accolades, um, which I, which I'm very grateful for. So anyone who's given me one of those just know that I'm super grateful. Um, but as as this conversation has gone, like, I've also been been questioning the value of recognition and what does that mean?

Luke Jamieson: 42:32

And self-promotion, it kind of is no recommendation, right, so it's. You know, when I get these accolades, it's almost uncomfortable for me to be like, wow, look at this, another accolade that I just got. It's. It's because, particularly in Australia, right, australia has this thing called tall poppy syndrome. I don't know if you've heard of that before and, yeah, aussies have this. This really bad. I think it's a really bad trait that we, we don't like anyone on a pedestal. We chop them down, bring everyone back down, very egalitarian in that way. So don't stick your neck out too far because you know, and that's hard when you want to be a thought leader right when you want to be a thought leader and you want to, which is what I aspire to be. I aspire to be a thought leader and provide my thoughts on these topics that I'm passionate about, so that I learn and others learn at the same time, and that we can create great conversation.

Luke Jamieson: 43:41

But I think last year, when I sort of got to that point of like there's no point in having a conversation just with yourself, and I want to collaborate with other people and create great content with other people and share our amazing community and build this community, which is where the 2020-ish series came from. Right, it was like how do I connect with as many people as possible and share their stories and share how awesome they are? Um, and I think that's a way better way of of recognizing each other and putting up people in lights. And, and you know, I think it was uh, you know, when vicky um gave your shout out, uh, that's when we connected and, and to me, I was like man, if that's not the greatest success of 2020-ish is that you and I got to connect and we're now here having this podcast. Like that, to me, defined success, it's not some accolade, it's the fact that my network's grown. I'm able to connect with a kindred spirit and build this network and, you know, challenge each other, right?

Luke Jamieson: 44:47

There was a few of those posts where Jeff Toyster love him to death. I just think he's amazing. I've looked up to him for so long. I'm so grateful that he was even part of it. He would challenge me on the things that I said and it made me think and stop and go. Actually, what do I actually think about this and do I really, you know, is this a one line that I'm putting on LinkedIn or is this actually what I think? And that's the power of collaboration, right? Is that we get better with this stuff? You know, and you know the saying. You ever heard the saying iron sharpens iron.

Sarah Caminiti: 45:21

Mm-hmm.

Luke Jamieson: 45:25

I actually think that there's I actually been, I've been thinking about that, saying a lot, and I might have said this somewhere else, but I actually think that that, if we think about what you sharpen a knife with, you sharpen it with a stone right, and it's we we sharpen things, and the reason we do that is because it creates more friction, and the more friction we have, the sharper we get. Um, and so it's the opposite to customer experience, right, customer experience is all about removing friction. You know, finding friction, removing it, whereas growth within ourselves is about finding something that causes friction, that makes us sharper. And so, yeah, the only way you can do that is through collaboration. So my Taylor Swift album cover will be the collaboration era.

Sarah Caminiti: 46:16

I love this era and I have loved 2020-ish, and I am so happy that Vicky shouted me out. I mean, the message I sent you when I first introduced myself to you, Luke, was I have to send this to my mom so that she can see that I am on this. This is a really big deal. This is a crazy moment, and you made people feel heard and seen and appreciated and acknowledged. You gave them a space to shine and to be proud of themselves, and I think that that is a really, really powerful gift that you have given this community, because we all struggle with celebrating ourselves.

Sarah Caminiti: 47:00

And sometimes we need the help of others to do it, and you gave that. And so I'm very thankful for you.

Luke Jamieson: 47:08

Well, you've made me emotional because that was Michael and I's goal was to put other people in lights and give them a platform, and so I'm thrilled by that. I'm thrilled that you wanted your mom to see that. That's the icing on the cake for me, right? Yeah, really awesome, really awesome, and I'm looking forward to having you on the series next. Michael and I are looking forward to having you on the series as a feature next year, as a full-time guest next season.

Sarah Caminiti: 47:39

I'm so excited. I am so, so, so excited. I can't wait to dive into that with you and I'll be picking Vicky's brain and Rob's brain about what it was like to be a feature on there and really, really have fun, because you guys are fun and you make it fun and it's great.

Luke Jamieson: 47:59

That's it. That's what it's about. It's about creating. You said something before which I thought was awesome. It's about creating space. You know, and I think that is the future of work, and if we finish on anything, I think we finish on this, that is, the leaders of the future are going to be space makers. They're going to create space, whether it's online, virtually in there. They make space for their people to grow, to flourish, to have conversations and to share with each other. The leader of the future is a space maker.

Sarah Caminiti: 48:32

Luke, way to bring a mic drop right there. Well, thank you so so much for this, and I can't wait to keep talking to you and I just I really appreciate you. So thanks, Luke.

Luke Jamieson: 48:49

Back at you, sarah, and uh, I'll sign off, as I always do with everyone. Hooroo, which is a uh. It's an Aussie slang term, and everyone always asks me what it means, and it's derived from the word hooray. So we we celebrate the conversation that we've just had, so I like that Hooroo.

Sarah Caminiti: 49:17

My goodness, what a perfect way to end that episode. Thank you so much, Luke Jamieson, for gifting me with your time, and thank you so much, listeners, for joining us today for Epochal Growth. If you loved what you heard, don't forget to hit subscribe, share this episode with someone that needs to hear Luke's insights and leave us a review. We're nearing the end of the season, so stay tuned for some final amazing conversations coming up and, if you're ready to take what you've learned today and align it with your own leadership style and career goals, head epochaloperations. com to to explore my RVA framework. It's designed to help you identify your core values, define your ideal role and create a path to lasting impact. Remember, creating space for growth, purpose and leadership is what drives real change. I'm Sarah Caminiti. Have a great day.