What Will We Make of It?

Chris Huyck Trout

Senior Advisor and Consultant

What it becomes is what we make of it.

This is a big headline I am taking away from attending this year’s RedThread conference. For those of us attending the conference hosted by Stacia Garr and Dani Johnson, the founders of RedThread Research, there was a sentiment that, though we live in an age of uncertainty, we have within us much of what it takes to navigate these times. Of all that we covered during our time together in Utah, the point was not to resolve the big issues, but to plant the prompts to begin to make something of them.

Facilitators Lisa Kay Solomon and Jeff Rogers shared a quote. “AI is an answer machine. But we are question machines. Questions are essential to intelligence. Without them, we are static, stagnant. Without them, we don’t evolve.” (Charles Yu.) It’s about the questions. The ones we explore with one another, and the ones we ask ourselves.

The talented and diverse group of leaders at the conference brought a lot of experience to the conversation. When you have that much experience (hundreds of collective years!), you gain a lot of helpful insights. And it also comes with an abundance of assumptions that may or may not be helpful. Are we aware of what we are bringing – not just at a conference but in our day-to-day?

Dani and Stacia’s frame, based on their megatrends research, was telling:

• The old systems no longer hold us together.
• Trust is eroding as AI blurs what’s real.
• Data is now a foundation, not a byproduct.
• AI is becoming the air we breathe.
• Work becomes a system of people, AI, and platforms.

Within each megatrend, we mapped the room’s perspective on how much pressure that trend is creating and how prepared we believe we are to meet it.

This question of preparedness connects to all those years of experience, and all that we have been programmed and conditioned by. Absent questioning what we are bringing, our mindsets and models limit our ability to create meaningful impact that can help prepare and shape a future for people. As we navigate these megatrends and others, are we preparing and shaping a future for people, or are we just preparing for technology and greater business accomplishments?

It’s not a failure. Yet.

For those in the business of people, talent, development, and growth, there is a maxim that “you need to get close to the business.” It’s true in one sense, and it’s a trap. Helping the business move means not just moving in the ways the business has moved or may desire, because that can mean a greater focus on efficiency, leaving more people behind and more layoffs. And there’s the trap: you tell yourself, “Well, I’m close to the business,” but you’re just helping perpetuate the current ways of working that leave people behind.

On one slide was the line, “HR is in the business of trust.” Is it? Or, as another attendee put it, HR should be in the business of trust. HR has spent decades conducting layoffs, efficiency-based reorganizations, and compliance-centered work that does not build trust.

We all hold a talent that far too few of us ever use. The ability to stop, to pause, and to reflect. Most leaders never slow down to ask how they are taking in everything that is coming at them, what they are taking away from it, and what they want to do about it. I have watched capable people operate for years without once being that intentional.

It is not just what you experience. It is what you take from it, and then the harder part, what you decide to do about it. That is the part almost nobody makes time for, and it is exactly what this moment asks of us.

Reflection and action compound over time. You carry your learning forward, you bring in new mindsets and new perspectives, and that is when the big things start to move.

In a world where the systems we’ve counted on are not holding us together like they used to, as was also pointed out in another exercise, it’s easy to see things through fear. It can also bring tremendous hope. Because if they’re not holding us together, we can fill that space with practices that advance people and advance the business. Ways that build greater trust.

As we redesign the connections, systems, processes, and work for this new world, it is an incredible opportunity. Redesign comes with creating spaces for vulnerable conversations about the futures that are possible, and about how we get the limiting ideas out of our heads.

If you have it in your mind that you’re not the business leader, and so you need to get close, it leads to a whole set of thinking and ideas built entirely on that premise. Stay in that lane, and you can end up in the efficiency and numbers game, where I don’t think you further humanize the world or the work. Or you can view yourself as a business leader, one who advances the growth and development of people for a greater business. A business leader who grows talent for a capable workforce.

A future of successful businesses can be made up of people, AI, and platforms that deliver stronger results through people.

It’s not about skills data or new architectures. It is something more human than that. It’s expanding real learning and advancement for all employees, creating better jobs for people, more competitive businesses, and stronger communities. Not one at the expense of the others. All of it, together.

As was also pointed out, when we worry about one future, that is anxiety. When we take the time to consider multiple futures, that is building capability. A capability that can be built into organizations to explore what’s possible and what new systems can be created.

We need to use our questioning to raise the odds that the future we create is one where the whole workforce advances, not just the top of the organization.

We have the capability inside us to do these things. Absent that, consulting firms are going to continue to do what consulting firms do, technology firms are going to do what technology firms do, and businesses are going to do what they have always done, which is leave people damaged and left out.

Do we take this moment as more of the same, the way we always have, or do we view it as something different, and make the move?

A day and a half with really talented, passionate, and smart people. And now it becomes what we make of it, through our questions and our actions.