Amnesty CIO Paul Smith on AI Adoption Beyond the Hype and Developing Talent Others Overlook

In Brief: Paul Smith (linkedin.com/in/pdsmithmba/), Chief Information Officer at Amnesty International, joins host Dan Freehling to discuss tech leadership with people and ethics front and center. Drawing from a career that spans industry (defense, automotive, and more) and humanitarian organizations, Paul shares hard-won insights on AI adoption (00:30), four essential digital skills for non-technical professionals (09:32), and emotional intelligence, strategic communication, and talent development for technical leaders (15:53). Paul relays his own journey from a working class background to the global C-suite (22:00) and emphasizes the power of mentorship, permission-giving, and inclusive hiring to help other non-traditional talent make a similar journey (37:54).

Recommended reading: “Bulletproof Your Career” by Patricia Romboletti.

Dan Freehling (00:03):

Hey everyone. Dan here. I'm excited to bring you the first video episode of the Forward-Looking Leadership Podcast. Today I speak with Paul Smith, who's the Chief Information Officer at Amnesty International. We cover AI adoption in real-world organizations, the digital skills executive should be developing, how to mentor rising talent and so much more. I hope you enjoy. Paul, thanks so much for joining me on forward Looking Leadership.

Paul Smith (00:28):

Pleasure to be here, Dan. Thank you very much for having me.

Dan Freehling (00:30):

Yeah, so the big question I'm sure on a lot of people's minds is beyond all the hype, how should organizations really be approaching AI adoption in practice?

Paul Smith (00:40):

That's a great question. Very topical. I don't think I can go to an event these days without it mentioning ai. I think I have a few thoughts on this, Dan. I think I'd probably start with saying just because you can doesn't mean you should. I think for me it's still a question that people process and then technology in the round, you have to consider these things. It's not about throwing technology solutions at problems, it's about considering what else and maybe the issue or where else might pain points exist. That doesn't mean to say that there isn't no tech driven opportunity. It's just about thinking about things in the round and actually think about things like return on investment and engagement and change management and all that good stuff. We also need to think about ethics and responsibility. So senior leaders, we should do no harm.

(01:20):

So we have to start from a position of respecting ethical standpoints and the responsibility that's placed on us as senior leaders. I think it's very important to define a strategic approach to make sure that we're focusing on the right things, the right high impact things at the right time, and sometimes good enough is enough to start with. It doesn't have to be perfect. We can test and learn as we go, but it's also important I think, to strengthen those foundations like your data governance, like your information security, because ultimately we're still dealing with tech and rubbish in rubbish out or trash in, trash out. What I've also found important from my own experience and my peers is the need to really build organizational wide capacity. And in the sense of that I'm not just talking about skills. I'm talking about giving people safe spaces to have a conversation about this technology because we're all learning whether that's through communities of interests or formal education and awareness programs to make creating that safe space where we can share what's gone well share what's gone less.

(02:13):

Well have a debate about the ethics or about should we do this, but just create the ability for people to educate each other for a peer-to-peer conversation and to let that stuff play out in a really free transparent manner. I've had a lot of success with that and I think embedding ethics and regulatory adherence from the start because it's very expensive to bring that stuff in later. Change designs, change approaches and so on. And I think starting small to show value for a very specific use case is important not to bore the ocean, to pick one problem, look at the things needed only to solve that problem and to see if you have any success through piloting, scaling, and then sustaining a solution for that. And I think lastly, but certainly not least now, we're still all learning. I know we're a year or two in with some of this technology now, but it's still moving really fast. So I think it's very important that we all continue to learn from anyone and anything and if you can, to share in return to contribute back to the community.

Dan Freehling (03:09):

Yeah, so it sounds like a really foundational approach with people with process and technology coming in where useful and not just kind of chasing the next shiny object for you.

Paul Smith (03:20):

Yeah, it doesn't change. It's not technology in isolation. It's still used by people and used for a particular process. So I think you have to consider everything in the round, otherwise we risk a foul change initiatives.

Dan Freehling (03:30):

So you've worked in a lot of different sectors from defense to automotive to IT for 200 year old lifeboat charity. What have you found to be kind of the same across every organization? What have you found to be, okay, I need a unique IT solution for this unique problem at this organization?

Paul Smith (03:52):

Great question. Let me think about that for a second. I think so what I would say, what's been the same, I think firstly say there's a lot that can be shared between sectors to raise capabilities at a commodity level. And I think there's also a lot that can be learned from alternative sectors that might create a competitive advantage in the sector that you currently operate in. For example, I've worked in commercial and nonprofit sector, so I can give you some comparisons between volunteer management to workforce management to support the journeys and customer journeys and around other things like employee experience and engagement and digital friction management. These are themes that are transferable or at least you can copy some best principles or some good solutions from one to the other. So a lot of similarities there. And I think mostly it is it in terms of its professional disciplines, the roles, the technologies, the things that you do to deliver a solution, the differences in the application of it for your specific context, IE where the rubber meets the road for you.

(04:50):

And I think other things I found that have been the same, I think it's still important to put the user first, no matter where in it you work. So getting out of the ivory tower and understanding the needs at the sharp end of whatever it is your organization does, and the general importance of people in technology, because tech is still about people, it's still delivered by people, with people and for people. So all the soft skills that go around that, not just how great you are with the cloud technology are still really important because otherwise it's just a tech initiative and a vacuum. So I think they're, the sorts of things I would certainly claim are the same. Some things I would say I find as challenges or that are a little bit different and maybe a bit more nuanced. I think certainly the stakeholder environment, depending on who you work for, where you work, the industry you work in, the ability to innovate and adopt, change, what the talent pipeline might look like, what funding might look like.

(05:41):

It all be challenges with varying degrees of impact across sectors. So my current organization has over 10 million supporters in 150 countries and territories, and it is by far on any level, by any measure, the most diverse organization I've ever worked in. And that brings some really interesting new challenges and opportunities with regard to aspects such as inclusion and diversity, equity, multilingual, global communication, even basic mutual understanding and overall alignment on what's important and what's not and why. So I think that's one unique challenge. I think secondarily is I think to recognize that, and it's often overlooked in my experience that everyone starts from a different starting point. That could be your digital literacy, the language you speak, the experience you have, even your fears or your knowledge, your upbringing, even resources at your disposal. These are all things that come into play. I mean, you start in a slightly different place to I do. So stakeholder engagement and communication often assumes that everyone is starting from that same point. That's just something to be aware of. So there's certainly a couple of main differences I would point to.

Dan Freehling (06:47):

Yeah, those are really fascinating and certainly things to keep in mind for people of what's kind of transferable and what has to be unique to the context. You mentioned getting to the heart of what the customer need is getting off the ivory tower and into that. How do you do that in practice?

Paul Smith (07:06):

Great question. So I think it's a combination of things. I think you need to look firstly at your business capabilities. What are the building blocks of your organization? What is it that it does on one piece of paper in big lumps, we do procurement, we do manufacturing. What is it at the abstract level and how well does it do that? What are the pain points? What do you need to move the dial on to create competitive advantage or to reduce risk for your organization? I think that's important because you have to have that capability based understanding for strategic alignment. Otherwise, you could be chasing whispers in the hallways and individual's pain point, those that share with air list. I think it's really important to have that link to understand what your organization's doing strategically in its operating environment and where competitive advantage might come from.

(07:53):

I think that's important too. So every conversation you can have from that point can be placed within context, if that makes sense. And then I think as I said, step ahead of the ivory tower. Go and sit next to the user, interview them, speak with them, observe them if you need to measure the time it takes for them to complete a process that you thought was easy, survey them, ask them the questions. Provide anonymous feedback channels. Communication is a very often spoken about, but very underrated and often not very done very well thing. And it doesn't suffice to say, I've told you this, why don't you know it? It's about, I'm going to tell you this in three different ways at five different times or whatever way may suit you best where you are in the format that you prefer. And these all open up communication channels for free to learn. So I think that's really, really important. And not just learn, but relearn what you thought you knew because things change. People change roles, change the environment. Your organization operates in changes, so you have to have that communicative, open learning mentality and you have to speak to the people at the coalface. Does that help?

Dan Freehling (09:01):

It's really, I think a really practical way for people to think of strategy and communications in practice and not in just be strategic and it's okay, what does that actually mean? How do you get to the heart of that and how do you communicate with people? How do you understand people? This is hugely useful.

Paul Smith (09:16):

Fantastic.

Dan Freehling (09:18):

So there's probably a lot of non-IT people, non-technical people listening, watching. What tech skills, if any, would you recommend that non-technical people prioritized developing?

Paul Smith (09:32):

I think firstly, it probably depends on what your career focus is, but I can probably give some high level examples. And actually some of these, I would say they're life skills. They're not just career skills, if that makes sense. So I'd certainly offer up general data, digital literacy, and what do I mean by that? So I'm thinking here about what does good cybersecurity hygiene look like? Do you understand what multi-factor authentication is? Do you know what a phishing email looks like? Do you know how you stay secure in your general day-to-day life? I'm thinking about did data privacy and compliance, how do you know you're going to comply with the law even in what you do versus what your business unit or your organization may be doing so that you can respect things like GDPR or P-C-I-D-S-S payment card standards? I think it's important to have an awareness on emerging tech trends.

(10:18):

And I'm not saying everyone should sit and read tech magazines or anything like that, but understand what it is that's disrupting the tech industry these days. So you can think about what your future career might look like or what your future role might look like. And again, this one's a bit more nuanced, but depending what your role is and your level of engagement with technology, you may want to understand a little bit about cloud basics within that digital literacy bracket. Just so you understand what it is. When your tech teams talk to you about software as a service or cloud, what is cloud? What is it really? So I'll certainly offer digital literacy following closely behind that. I would say data skills. Now when I say that you're immediately going to think things like Excel or Analysis and Power bi, but I would extend that ever so slightly to say, well, if you think about the link between data skills as they were and new emerging technology, now we're starting to think about how to have conversations with data to ask questions of a spreadsheet on screen through a large language model tool, not looking at KPIs and dashboards, but say, analyze this data.

(11:18):

Tell me about it. What would it look like if I did this? What about the do some scenario analysis modeling? So conversational analysis of data I think is going to be a very useful skillset to have for forward facing non-techies, because you don't need to be technical to ask a question in plain English, but there is still the need there to have some Excel skills, I suppose in the meantime, and maybe some power BI skills and to understand how you might create a dashboard to tell a story to your senior stakeholders and how you might use data in reality to make a data and forward decision. And what does that really mean? Is it just it's gone green, therefore it's good, it's gone red, therefore it's bad, or is it more than that? So data skills in a very broad sense. I think there's a lot of talk generally around AI and automation, and we've already touched on this a little bit already.

(12:07):

So I think having an awareness as an individual about the AI ethics and biases that inherent in current modern tools, I think is important just as an individual, just so you can be aware and not be blind to this stuff. Again, as I said earlier, know that you're doing no harm. I think that's really important. Definitely develop your prompt engineering skills for AI tools. There's a lot out there at the moment, and going back to my initial point of trash and trash out, being able to craft a really well articulated prompt has a really pointed question that will give you a better result. So I think that's really important for these kinds of tools and things like workflow automation, because as an individual, you may want to look to how you automate your work, make your life a little bit easier, reduce some effort, but also to look to where the art of the possible may be for the teams that you work in or lead. And I think probably last but not least, I'd say just general communication and collaboration tools because all of us work in the vacuum. So being proficient in tools like project management platforms, communication tools like teams or Slack and knowledge management basics using tools like SharePoint or GitHub, these can all help to facilitate great information and knowledge management and collaboration and information flow across teams. So they're the kind of four big lumpy areas I would offer up, if that helps.

Dan Freehling (13:23):

Yeah. Again, again, hugely useful for people listening, and I would love to hear where do you stay current on this as an IT professional, and where do you think a more lay person can look to stay current on some of this stuff?

Paul Smith (13:36):

It is a great question, and I can tell you what I used to do and what I do now because there's been a bit of a change in the way I do this stuff. So I used to like many other people read the emails that got sent me, the news emails, the articles, the blogs, the white papers, but it got really overwhelming really quickly. And then I started to transition more into learning directly from people through conversations. So going to networking events, attending roundtables, virtual, physical, and just listening and talking to people because actually what you get done is an aggregated view of this is actually what I learned, this is what I found useful, and it's a bit more relevant and pointed. You can kind of have a two-way conversation and refine what it is you're talking about. But lately I found myself, and you're going to think I'm quite strange with this.

(14:18):

I have quite late night conversations with generative I tools on my mobile phone. If I want to know something and I have a question and I want to explain in a certain way, I want to dig into it, I'll just have a conversation with a tool like Copilot or Chat GPT or insert your LLM tool here because it will explain it to me in a way that I find easy. I can tell it how I want it to explain to me, I can drill into certain things that I'm not so sure about. I can get it to summarize news articles for me based on the industry I work in, the role I have, what I'm working on. So I'm finding that it's a great tool for taking all that knowledge, all that information, and bringing it into context to me. And I didn't expect to be doing that probably two years ago, but I find it a lot more a beneficial use of my time.

Dan Freehling (15:02):

Yeah, it's a really underrated tool for learning, and I think it's kind of an insatiable amount of things that you can learn through these tools and obviously checking on things before taking it at face value, but a lot of the kind of main stuff is really, really strong and able to help you understand things in a better way.

Paul Smith (15:21):

And it can be any topic really. Not just talking about tech stuff here, anything I want to learn about. I've asked it gardening questions and automobile maintenance questions, anything. I found it really interesting. But again, I'm always mindful of the environmental impact of using these tools and could I get the information otherwise? But for me it works.

Dan Freehling (15:40):

Yeah. These are all really great tips. Again, kind of the flip side of this question for technical people, what people skills, what non-technical skills should they really prioritize developing?

Paul Smith (15:53):

That is a good question. So I can probably tell you what's worked well for me. I won't claim to be great at any of these things, but these are the things I've focused on. And I think firstly, I think it's worth saying that to be, I think to be a good successful modern leader, whether technology or otherwise, I think you have to have quite a lot of skills and tools in the toolbox. You need a lot that you can reach on and you need to be able to be resourceful. But I think I can probably offer up a handful of things that I found important. And the first is by some way the most important for me, and that's emotional intelligent. It's very closely coupled with situational leadership. What do I mean by that? Being self-aware, having adaptability, having empathy and being good at managing relationships allows you to now get quite complex interpersonal dynamics with tact, but most importantly to act in context.

(16:46):

So I would've said this to you in this way, but no one of these things about you. Well, this thing that's going on today, maybe I'll change the way I approach this. You can't be a one trick pony today as a senior leader because most everyone and every situation is very different. And actually the change that we're all facing, the lives that we all live is constant and there's a lot going on. So I think emotional intelligence and situational leadership, number one, I think secondly, strategic thinking. So I think the ability to see the big picture and align whatever decision I may take or how I prioritize something in the long-term. Two, long-term goals is really important. One, because it helps with prioritization and it helps to drive the right organizational growth and resilience conversations. So to be able to bring yourself out, look at the big picture, have the helicopter view whatever the phrases you prefer to have. I think the more you know about general direction of travel, the more relevant you can be in the longterm for sustainability.

(17:42):

I think thirdly, communications and stakeholder management, and I don't like the word stakeholder management. You puts people in a box, it makes you, I'm a stakeholder, what does that mean? It's a very formal phrase, but communication is generally because you can't operate in a vacuum. I've used the term a couple of times, but by that I mean you need to be able to build trust and be trusted and to trust others. Trust is a really important thing for today's modern business and closely linked to that is credibility. Do I do what I say? What I would do? So through boards, through departments or external partners, I think that trust and credibility is really important, but also to understand and address very diverse needs. You talked a little bit earlier about acting in tight context and situational awareness. So communication facilitates that because now what you are happy to talk to me, I can now understand it starts that journey and I think closely into that is the ability then to tell a story that's relevant to you, to inspire you to gain your buy-in for change.

(18:36):

So you can start to see how these things layer up. Oh, probably off our two more things. I think number four would be, let's say change leadership. I think I've mentioned earlier, I think we all know change is constant. So to be able to lead through uncertainty, to build momentum to start with, to say, I think that's a thing we should do. I need to catalyze some activity here and build some momentum and then need to deliver through managing resistance for benefit. I think that is an important end-to-end journey. Again, linked to how people might perceive you, the relationships you have, hey, communicate with people helps you with that tool to manage that KU change curve that people often go through. So I think that's important. You can start to see how these layer up. And I think very lastly, I think talent development. So the ability to recognize future talent, to coach it, to mentor it, and to create a culture of learning and growth.

(19:30):

I find that good for me for a number of reasons. One, because it helps with engagement with my own team. I want 'em to feel like they belong, they have a place to go and they can see a future for themselves. So I get engagement from my teams, but also because they become me when I'm not there. They ask the questions that I would ask because they understand the things I would think about. So starting to think about talent development, getting people to feel comfortable acting outside of their role profile box to challenge, to learn from each other. Just giving permission sometimes is all that takes. But I think talent development has been really important to me too, because ultimately, as I say to my team with a smile, I'm just a mouthpiece, right? They do all the hard work. I'm just one guy. There's only so much I can do. So the better I can enable these people to do their work and to take the blockers out of the way to protect them from the asteroids that might hit them, to allow them to express themselves, the better we will all be. So I'd offer those. That was five, five things.

Dan Freehling (20:26):

It's again, just hugely useful for people and I think it's so helpful. You're being quite humble about your out accomplishments in this, which is a very positive sign as a leader. But I mean, you're routinely awarded in the top 100, 200 CIOs in the world, and this is something that I think just carries a lot more credibility coming from someone like you who does this day in day out, rather than some of the kind of leadership management gurus who are not actually doing this in practice day to day. So it's stuff that I hope people are listening to and really seeing, okay, this is a very serious person who's thinking these things are critical to success of himself and the team and the organization.

Paul Smith (21:05):

Thank you, Dan. That's very kind of you to say, but I've been very fortunate to have some, just to go down that tangent, I wouldn't achieve anything without my team, and I don't mean that as lip service, it's generally the truth, and I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, but I've also been fortunate to have some great mentors, some great supporters, great family members that hold me up as an individual, and all these things need to come together. There are recipes in the box and what you would say is success I would say is maybe a small battle I've fought or at the end of a journey or something like that. But as with all these things, I hope that anything I say is useful to at least one person. Then for me, it's worth it.

Dan Freehling (21:43):

This emphasis on mentorship and developing talent and especially that rising talent is critical for you. How do you think about that? How do you go about coaching, developing, growing, rising talent within your team, your organization?

Paul Smith (22:00):

It's a great question and it's pretty saying for me because I'm from what most people today would call an underprivileged background. So an extremely working class background, social housing and the center of the country, not born with any I would call privilege, but didn't come easy and certainly couldn't afford to go to university, didn't have the opportunity to do that, obviously a young father. So there's a lot to unpack there. I think about generally developing talent and what that talent that you are trying to develop needs to consider. So if I could take those two perspective one and then the other. So my approach to developing talent is firstly to start with, as I've said earlier, giving permission, it sounds such an obvious thing to say, but the difference it makes when I can say to you, as a member of my team, I give you permission to learn. I give you permission to tell me I'm taking one hour on a Friday to learn something.

(22:54):

You seem the kind of analogy with the sheeps that are in the gate, but there are no fences when they all still stood behind the gate. It's a little bit like that, and you need to give people that permission to say, I am prioritizing this thing. It's important to me, it's important to the organization. So I think that's firstly an environment of giving permission. I think secondly, the individual also used to come to the table because ultimately any development plan has to be earned by the individual and it won't go very far. If they're sitting there with what I would call baby bird syndrome, they're sat there with 'em mouth open, waiting to be fed. They've got to step up, they've got to put the effort in because ultimately they'll be the ones that benefits from it. And they need to start asking themselves, Hey, hey, good, could I be, what might I be interested in?

(23:32):

So I think that's important. I think it's also important to share what you learn because we're all focusing on different things. Maybe we can start to help each other horizontally and celebrate successes along the way. The fact that you've read your first ever book, having never read a book covered to cover might not be important to anyone. But if it's important to you, it's important to me. I've never classed myself as a reading and I not all of these guys has, as you can see, shelf full of books behind me because I learn in other ways. And so when people have these micro wins, like I've read a book, I managed to learn this one thing and to when you've got to celebrate that. So I think there are things like that, and I think you need to create opportunities also for your team. I work quite hard with my own team and teams that I've led to try and create connections outside of the organizations with people like them or people that can help them.

(24:22):

And it may be other tech leaders like me, and they say the same thing out of a different mouth, or they may have a completely opposite opinion. It's still good for my team to hear that in terms of getting diverse perspective. So creating opportunities for exposure I think is really important and creating a very deliberate strategy around how the hell am I going to do this with my team? How am I going to take them from where they are today to fulfilling either their personal needs or the capabilities the organization needs and or both? And sometimes that can mean I'm going to develop you to a point where I don't have a role for you, but you'll definitely be ready if that role comes up or you'll be ready to move diagonally into another organization and we'll take all that benefit from you and engagement from you whilst you're on that learning journey.

(25:07):

There is benefit in that journey. It's not just realized three years at the end when they finish. It's that whole journey. So developing my people for a role that they want to expand into the role they're targeting or maybe a career change, I think it's important just have that open conversation. Say, I can develop you to be the next me, but I may not go anywhere for the next two years, but let's have that conversation. Let's talk about it. That won't stop me helping you anyway. So that's important. That are some of the things I did in terms of approaching development with my team. I think in terms of those that are seeking development, particularly those that may come from let's say non-traditional backgrounds who may want to either build a career in tech or build their career, add a little bit, I think again, permission, but permission.

(25:49):

Permission to believe that something's possible and believe that you can achieve it. If you don't have that belief to start with, then you've got nothing. You've got no drive, you've got no dream. So I think believing that I can learn that thing, that I can achieve that role that I'm able to prioritize this time, I think belief is a really powerful tool. I think they need to have determination and faith in the vulnerability just as who you are today. Well, what you bring to the table today with every battle you've ever fought, with what you've learned with what you've experienced, you are good to go already. You are ready for this. Okay. I think it's a believing in yourself that's important. And to start to get that question inside kind of bubbling to the surface that says, how well could I really do? How well could I really go if I really tested myself there?

(26:35):

If I really, really applied myself, could I get an A instead of a B or a extinction instead of a whatever it is? If I really gave all of myself, what could I do? If you can develop that appetite, that hunger, then you get desire, you get determination from it. And I've touched on it earlier, I think support networks are really important, Dan, because they build you up, they support you, they call you out when you need to be doing something, they call you out all in equal measure when you need it. And in the executive world, there's talk of things like personal boardrooms, your cheerleader, your mentor, whoever these people are that play these roles. For me and my wife, it was my close family along with some really good professional mentors who were guys that I, guys and girls, I should have some girls too that I looked up to and who I wanted to be.

(27:23):

They were my role models. And I often said to my wife, when I grow up, I want to be that guy. And you need that, you need that. You need that template. You need that person that you can look up to. So I think that whole support network with a whole ecosystem is really important around you because when you're on a learning journey, you may falter, you may have a tough day, you may want to quit, you may need the leash yanking a little bit if you get too full of yourself. All these things are really, really important. We talked about people schools already today, so I won't go too much into that, but the importance of recognizing that if you're going to develop, you need to do it with people because you don't operate in a cave somewhere. You will never work on your own in a cave somewhere.

(28:02):

You work with other people, you achieve things with other people. So I think figuring out how you interact with people, and there's lots of talk about great techies needing to develop people skills or what it takes to turn from a great techie to a great manager. And it's typically that people transition that comes in there, Hey, you lead people, performance manage people, manage people. So I think starting that people skills journey early in terms of getting used to talking to people, getting used to listening more than anything. I've got two years in one math for a reason, as my dad would say, getting used to listen to people is really important. And lastly but not least, I think realize the value in starting to cultivate and grow that network, not for your own benefit, for your own opportunities, but because you can help others. And connectivity breeds connectivity.

(28:49):

You may help someone one day, you help someone else the next, you talks to someone on the third day that can really help you actually, and that connectivity comes back, so pay it forward. And I found that to be, I didn't expect that to be a benefit of growing my network in my career, but I've made some of my best friends, closest allies, comrades, if you will, goes through the same struggles as me personally or professionally. And you start to build that little peer group, that little tribe. And that's important on a career journey in my view. So hopes on that's useful.

Dan Freehling (29:21):

I love this all. And really being a mentor yourself. If you're someone who's coming from maybe a non-traditional background and looking to grow your career, it's seeking out these kind of mentors, seeking out these kind of opportunities, all these people skills to work on developing them, putting yourself forward.

Paul Smith (29:38):

And

Dan Freehling (29:38):

Then this turn on networking is one that I haven't heard put exactly in this way, but I really, really, really, really like it. For people of your network is not for you, it's to allow you to play this kind of a role, to be connector, to be a mentor to people, to help people.

Paul Smith (29:57):

Absolutely. And I'll share a little secret with you, Dan, probably not so secret because of this podcast, but I don't find these things easy. They're not something I do naturally. You may disagree with me based on how I'm coming across today, but these things don't come natural to me. And it was a skill I had to step into uncomfortably and deliberately because I started to realize that I don't sit here today and think, oh, I'm talking to X number of people. I sit here thinking I'm talking to me. I'm talking to the guy through the screen that is a future me, or that was me 10 years ago. That's the person I'm talking to. And I wish I had that. I did have it in other ways maybe. But that's important. And also when you're on a development journey, I think again, another family, my nan used to say to me, when planning and preparation meets opportunity, great things happen. You can plan, you can prepare. Opportunity will come as a result of that. So I thought that was fantastic and that stuck with me.

Dan Freehling (30:52):

It's so good. It's so good. And again, I just love how you're talking right to that one person who can benefit from this and just knowing people who might be listening to this and who knows who this reach is, but I definitely know a number of people who are in that kind of a situation and will find this hugely valuable. And yeah, it's a really valuable thing for people.

(31:15):

And there's something about not being naturally extroverted, naturally slick with networking and with these kind of public appearances that I put myself in that category too, and I had to learn how to do this all growing up and doing all kinds of student activities and things that force you into public speaking. And I think it's all really important stuff to develop. What do you see as the real value add of these kind of public appearances of doing podcasts, of going for awards of this kind of broader networking? How does that actually benefit you as a professional?

Paul Smith (31:53):

Oh, that's a great question. I think probably two Hals to that. I mean, the awards thing is one half, which I'll take in isolation, and the other half is the extension of the network. And I think I'll start with the latter. So I'll start with your network and what it means to be connected to people. Because what I found is we all know, I guess I suppose, is that you don't know what you don't know. And the more people I speak to, the more I know, the less I realize. I know if that makes sense. And I've certainly learned that. And it helps, helps with things like envy for example. So we all operate in a particular tech role or a particular leadership role, and I may look at you as a peer through a window of something like a LinkedIn or any other social media tool and think, God, that person's amazing.

(32:36):

And then I may talk to you and realize that you're amazing, amazing in that one thing, but there's 15 things that you're not amazing at and you've got real insecurities about. And I can help you with those things and maybe we can help each other. But I love sharing, I love sharing journeys, I love helping people. And that's why I work in a nonprofit organization. I'm a very purpose-driven individual. I'm a father of six, so this kind of stuff is built into me and I just love helping people because it's good to be kind and I see that play it through my network, but that's the personal side of things. As I said, I made some great friends and we've done some great journeys together. However, I've also seen the value in my network for my team to create connections for my team and opportunity for my team.

(33:19):

And I've also seen the value of a network to bring resource and thinking and perspectives and shared knowledge and template and work that's already done into my organization to save us reinventing the wheel or for expertise that maybe we couldn't afford to procure in any way. So it's just people helping people and just trying to, as they say, a rising tide lifts all ships. And there's nothing wrong with just people helping people appreciate. There will be some industries where confidentiality and competitiveness would make that more difficult, but there's certainly some of the benefits I've seen and things come out of left field in terms of, I've spotted this one great opportunity for one of your guys or for you, or have you seen this thing? Or have you heard about this discount or these free initiative? And you wouldn't know about these things otherwise. And I get the great benefit of seeing people's posts and their knowledge share and the great things that they're doing.

(34:11):

So lots and lots of benefit in terms of the network personally and professionally. I think to take the other part of your question, I think the awards are quite a different thing for me. And again, the introvert in me struggled with this. I'll be open and honest and share that with you, Dan, but I think what I come to recognize with the awards, it's not about me at all, at all. It's about the work of my team and getting them recognition for a job well done and to have a platform to talk about at work, to others, to share what we did, what we learned, what we struggled with. And by extension, I guess the work of my organization, because I get to talk about, for me, I get to talk about amnesty to brand new audiences through these platforms. Maybe I'll talk about a particular subject such as leadership or cybersecurity or knowledge management.

(35:00):

But now I get to talk about the work of Amnesty International in those contexts too. And I think, so it creates all this opportunity to share, but I thought conversely, it also brings credibility back into the team that says, we always told you we were good. You thought we were good, but now an independent jury of our peers has said, we are good and you can have some confidence in what we do and how we do it. And I think that's really important for an organization to have that validation. It's nice to have that. The awards themselves are a fantastic byproduct, and I'm sat here with a couple of mom windowsill next to me, but it's nice to be able to celebrate the work of my team to others and to benchmark ourselves against others to say, we will do this thing, but this year, for this reason on this project, we did it great. We did it great. So that's that.

Dan Freehling (35:48):

It's beautiful just that, yeah, looking beyond yourself, looking toward the team, looking toward the organization and really bringing that forward in these awards. And then I love what you said about the networking being something where you don't know what you don't know, and it's really hard to get this across to people of networking being non-transactional. And it's something that's said all the time, but you can't even know what the goal is at the beginning of it, right? There's some times when you'll do a really transactional networking quote unquote thing, but there's so much where you just don't know what is going to be the ripple effect three times on from starting networking, and it's just the right thing to do, and it's a really great use of your time, even if you can't justify it right away from the beginning

Paul Smith (36:35):

And all things, it can become what we call uk, a bit of a cottage industry. You can spend all your time doing it. So sometimes you may need to be deliberate in hair and wear and with who, but as I said, connectivity, breach connectivity, and you dunno what opportunities are out there. I think one piece of advice I would give to anyone that's looking to step into this area is please don't go into networking with an ask. Don't go into networking looking for someone to help you first go in. Firstly seeing how you can help someone else. I think that's really important. Look, first to contribute before you take, it's a bit like having a garden, right? You cultivate your plants and your flowers and your vegetables, then you harvest if you've done a good job. And it's a bit like that. So I first give before you asked to receive

Dan Freehling (37:21):

Really, really, really great advice and hope everyone is listening to this in terms of how to approach that, working in a way that actually works and is the right way to approach it and makes you beneficial to your organization, to your team, to other people coming up in their careers. And Paul, you're just an exemplar of that. It's really great to see on the hiring process, we have all of these kind of what executives can do, what individual job seekers can do more organizationally, more systemically. How can we make the hiring process better?

Paul Smith (37:54):

So firstly, I will say that some of my greatest successes have come from great hires. I use the term my loosely. Our organizations in this all previous have come from fantastic people hired into the right role. So what advice would I give organizations to make the hiring process better? I think firstly, if you always do the same things, you'll always get the same results. So be open to try new things and experiment. Firstly, I think that's just a, we always use this template. We always go to this recruiter, we always go to these channels and we don't like the results we get and we can't figure that out, but we're not opening to change. I think that's really important to reconsider that. I think being inclusive and diverse in where you post a role to start with and then consider how people may need to engage with you, not just how you want 'em to.

(38:45):

What does that mean? So I'm going to post a role and I expect you to email me. Email isn't the place I add normally. Maybe I'm in social media, maybe I'm a telephone person. I think these are all channels you need to open up to allow neurodiverse individuals, individuals from different backgrounds an opportunity to engage with you because it first starts without exposure. So I think if you need to walk the talk in terms of those organizations are they that are inclusive and diverse? So think about that. I think simple things like being inclusive in using things like gender neutral language in the role profile. How does that role read to me as an individual from a particular background or as a female even? How does that role read to me? Does it feel exclusive? Does it feel like a role that they wouldn't want me for that I don't believe I can do?

(39:33):

I think that they're really important subtle things and get rid of the jargon, speak in plain English, plain whatever language I should say. But speak plainly. We don't need jargon. You don't need to tell us how important you are or try and impress us with the words that you use. I think also consider the roles and phrases people might be looking for, not what you think something is. So I've heard a technology leader described in 10 different ways with 10 different titles and 10 different role profiles, but they're all doing the same thing. They're all managing cybersecurity or cloud or whatever. So can we agree on some common terminology or maybe a common role profile and maybe even by extension to that, what is a standardized role? If you want a business analysis, can we just agree what a business analyst is and all use the same terminology?

(40:18):

These are little things that can make a big difference because I may be a fantastic business analyst, but I don't recognize in your role title or role profile that you, you're looking for a business analyst. It may not even come up in my search. So these are important accessibility tips that I think recruiters need to think about and maybe also consider how professional standards and codes of conduct that people care about credibility to a candidate's application. And they may tell you something about a candidate that you could not easily find it for yourself. So personally, I'm a great believer of professional standards. You'll know from my profile that I'm a chartered IT professional here in the uk. I'm also a fellow with the British Computer Society. And these things are important to me because I care about roles like mind that are big bet hires for organizations that have a lot of people responsibility.

(41:04):

We look to solve problems, we look to create competitive advantage. These are big bet roles. So I think that they're high risk and having some professional standards and codes of conduct around these things. Someone else that's validated my credibility, a jury of my peers, if you will. I think these are important things and this is kind of an insurance policy for an organization. So I think by extension, I think recruiters can think about that and what that looks like in terms of reducing risk in the hiring process and hopefully getting a better result with the candidate. Probably two more things I would offer down on this question. The first would be career long learning at every level. So it's great getting someone through the door. How are you going to keep them there? What does a candidate pipeline look like in the longer term? The employee experience?

(41:48):

And I think because it's, I will speak to someone if I know them at your organization before I interview them, you may be fantastic and attractive and do all the jazz hands to get me through the door and then be terrible as soon as I sit down in my chair and that's where my career stops because there's no opportunity to develop and grow. So I think continuing that journey past the candidate recruitment, past the hire is really important because ultimately the organization still needs to grow and adapt. And so your people, you don't just stagnate, and I've just touched on it already, but I think what does that employee experience and social contract look like to an individual? I can see a low profile, I can see the benefits, I can see the salary, but how are we going to work together? What things are important to you? Do they align with my values? Are we going to go in the same direction? Is there anything that, are you going to do what you say you will do in terms of learning opportunity, benefits, future enhancements, whatever those things are because that's going to make me turn up or turn up for work. I'll stop there. That

Dan Freehling (42:51):

Yeah, it's all really useful. And putting yourself in the candidate shoes and imagining if you're a candidate from a non-traditional background, what might be barriers for you here and which of these necessary barriers and which of these are completely unnecessary? You can just take these away. And really thinking in that way is important for people. And I just love the way you phrase all of this in very common sense terms and devoid of the jargon of everything that you've said could be super jargon heavy and really academic and loaded with things. And this is all really practical stuff if you sit down and think about it and approach it.

Paul Smith (43:29):

I hope so. I've got a simple mind, Dan so, short words.

Dan Freehling (43:36):

No, it's much, much more of that is needed in this without getting overly simplistic and kind of glossy pass a lot of the stuff either. So on that note, I know we've talked about where to look for kind of new resources. Have there been any books or other resources of any kind? I'm not wed to books by any stretch of the imagination that you found particularly useful as a leader that you'd recommend to others?

Paul Smith (44:00):

Yeah, I mean, I already talked about these large language models and how they can help you in your learning journey. And so I won't touch back in on that and pick a large language model of choice and leave that to the audience to think about. But they can help tailor you a plan for what you want to learn and explain it and however you want to explain. So I think that's one good resource. I have the distinct privilege of having access to LinkedIn learning in my current role. It's a benefit of my current employment, and I really enjoy using that because it gives me bite-sized things. I can go and look and listen about. I can save them for later. I can listen on my phone or on my laptop or wherever. So I find LinkedIn learning quite useful, other learning tools are available, but I enjoy that.

(44:41):

And I said that I don't read too much because I learn through other ways. But there are a couple of books that I've read and the one I would call out again, because we talked about careers and development and recruitment and those sorts of things, today is a particular book called Bulletproof Your Career, and that's by a lady called Patricia Romboletti. And that talks about how you as an individual can bulletproof your career and the acceptance that there are no longer 20, 30 year jobs, right? You will move multiple times in your career and hey, you can manage that. You manage your resilience, manage your preparedness. And I think it was a great simple actionable read for me and I really enjoyed that.

Dan Freehling (45:20):

Yeah, that's real answer, fragility in a lot of senses in terms of your career and just knowing that it's going to get disrupted all the time and you want to be leading up

Paul Smith (45:30):

And sometimes you don't see the stuff coming, right? It's environmental, it's financial and no one wants it to happen, but you might find yourself looking for a new role. And I think, so it's important to be prepared because at the time you find yourself, unfortunately, maybe looking for a new career, you might not be in the right place to be able to recraft a cv to think about the skills. You have to think about your achievements, and it talks a little bit about good best practice. I know you can take care of those things.

Dan Freehling (45:54):

It's a great recommendation. I will definitely add it to our list and check it out myself for sure. And yeah, I want to double down on LinkedIn learning. This is, I know a lot of people have either an organizational account or a career account. Sometimes you'll have this baked in if you know somebody who does, they can get the free trial for two months. This is always a good option for people. I did this when I was studying for my PMP, the project management certification, and they had a great course on it, and it was amazing. It was really, really useful. And it was free basically if you got the two month trial or you paid for the career account or something. And

Paul Smith (46:27):

There's

Dan Freehling (46:28):

So much on there that is just at your fingertips ready to be learned. And I would encourage people to do that.

Paul Smith (46:33):

And I find it useful for me because I can learn about a whole subject or a particular chapter, and that just works for me.

Dan Freehling (46:39):

Yeah, that's really, really great advice. Again. So Paul, if listeners want to follow along with your work and get in touch, how can they do that?

Paul Smith (46:48):

I try to post what I can on LinkedIn, but I'd love to connect, as I said earlier, I believe in the power of network, and so I'd love to connect with anyone on LinkedIn that feels appropriate to do so can.

Dan Freehling (46:57):

Great. Awesome. We'll go ahead and put those links in the show notes at contempusleadership.com. And Paul, thank you so much again for joining us. This was such a pleasure and you've had an amazing career journey and you're an inspiration to a lot of people out there who are going through a similar thing. So just thank you for all you're doing on this. Thanks for taking the time to share all your insights, listeners,

Paul Smith (47:17):

Very kind of you to say, and a privilege to be listened to. So thank you.