Full Transcript for An Interview With Brian Solis, Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow and 9x best-selling author.

actually see what was happening in the world and recognize that we weren't getting much beyond platitudes to inspire new leadership. 00:04:08.627 --> 00:04:32.680 And if you think about the last eight years alone, with societal polarization, with climate change, with COVID in 2020, with generative AI completely dominating the technology and business scenes in 2022, all of these revolutions and cycles that continue to happen at breakneck speeds, I realized that maybe there was a voice necessary here to challenge leadership. 00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:44.685 If you think about where leadership has been over the past let's just say decade with some of those massive black swan events, some of those massive disruptions we saw semblances of change. 00:04:44.685 --> 00:04:47.382 We saw semblances of transformation. 00:04:47.382 --> 00:04:51.682 I noticed the opportunity to help leadership see opportunities that they weren't seeing. 00:04:51.682 --> 00:05:03.086 So, for example, if you remember, in 2020, it was like an overnight shift to accelerate digital transformation for the first time at that speed that it had been since 2012, where it really started to pick up momentum. 00:05:03.086 --> 00:05:04.389 And so overnight. 00:05:04.389 --> 00:05:14.661 We're getting e-commerce, we're getting curbside pickup and buy online pickup in store, we're getting remote work supported All of these things that just took years and years and years to justify were finally being done. 00:05:14.661 --> 00:05:18.216 But what wasn't being done was thinking for the long term. 00:05:18.216 --> 00:05:38.702 For example, we started to hear terms like next normal and new normal, but now we're seeing things like return to office and we're not really seeing much great innovation on the e-commerce fronts like we did in those first couple of years, and so we find ourselves sort of elasticized into this new domain and then snapping back into business as usual. 00:05:38.702 --> 00:05:52.490 Not that there's anything wrong with successful businesses getting back to their core and doing what they do best, but at the same time, each one of these disruptions also are creating opportunities that we're not necessarily taking advantage of or even seeing. 00:05:52.980 --> 00:05:59.079 So the inspiration for the book really came down to what if we had new leadership to push us in new directions? 00:05:59.079 --> 00:06:13.387 What if we had people who are willing to take the time or invest the resources, hire the people to look at what was happening, to look out into the future and to uncover those opportunities to create a better future, not just for the organization, but for everybody. 00:06:13.387 --> 00:06:19.619 If you think about generative AI and then you look towards the future, we know it's going to introduce needs for new skills. 00:06:19.619 --> 00:06:22.045 It's going to introduce new ways of working. 00:06:22.045 --> 00:06:24.569 It's going to create new opportunities beyond automation. 00:06:24.569 --> 00:06:33.889 If we were to embrace and invest in augmentation, as an example, those are all areas where we could be making strides and investments in to prepare ourselves for the future today. 00:06:34.009 --> 00:06:36.985 So it was all of my research, more so than the books. 00:06:36.985 --> 00:06:46.173 Each previous book was an idea, but all of the research was focused on transformation and innovation and leadership, and so I thought, gosh, I've never written a book about these things. 00:06:46.173 --> 00:06:47.464 This is the time. 00:06:47.464 --> 00:06:49.807 So, last but not least, Jim is big question. 00:06:49.807 --> 00:06:55.309 At ServiceNow, I spend pretty much every day with customers and they're all trying to figure this out. 00:06:55.309 --> 00:06:56.504 What does AI mean? 00:06:56.660 --> 00:06:58.427 What does business transformation mean? 00:06:58.427 --> 00:07:01.028 What could the future of work look like? 00:07:01.028 --> 00:07:09.942 And so we're having these really big, meaningful future forward conversations and I figured the framework that's in the book, the inspiring stories that were in the book, felt like. 00:07:09.942 --> 00:07:14.101 You know, I can't scale one person, but maybe through a book we could scale a movement. 00:07:14.702 --> 00:07:15.485 Jim Hertzfeld: Yeah, that's great. 00:07:15.485 --> 00:07:24.000 I really appreciated what you put to paper and, like I said, it's sort of my interpretation was a plea right, hey, we've got to keep this going and here's how we're going to do it. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:25.541 So it really resonated. 00:07:25.541 --> 00:07:28.021 You know a couple of things that really stood out to me. 00:07:28.021 --> 00:07:30.142 I would love kind of your personal take. 00:07:30.142 --> 00:07:34.283 I love, by the way, reading a book and you know, you gosh, I wish I could talk to this guy. 00:07:34.283 --> 00:07:37.185 I need to have a conversation and here we are, so I really appreciate it. 00:07:37.824 --> 00:07:47.850 Well, right off the bat, you talk about three things that sort of by bundled together self-awareness, cognitive bias, the beginner's mindset, and I love these concepts. 00:07:47.850 --> 00:07:53.853 We talk about pragmatism, we talk about scrappiness and we have a phrase we love think big, start small, move fast. 00:07:53.853 --> 00:07:58.375 But to buy into all those things, you really have to have this initial mindset. 00:07:58.375 --> 00:08:00.536 A lot of leaders, I think, maybe lack this. 00:08:00.536 --> 00:08:10.961 So what would you share with organizations, especially those that are sort of had a track record, they've had success, they want to build on what they've done, but what got you here won't get you there. 00:08:10.961 --> 00:08:12.963 So is that kind of what's behind that thinking? 00:08:22.185 --> 00:08:22.185 Brian Solis: Yeah, absolutely, well first, thanks for picking up on the key elements. 00:08:22.185 --> 00:08:23.711

A mindset is how you see the world, how you see opportunities, how you see challenges. 00:08:23.711 --> 00:08:26.464 Jim, I know you work with companies that are also trying to invest in digital transformation, now business transformation. 00:08:26.464 --> 00:08:37.220 A mindset is what they see they need to do, and then what they do is work with brilliant minds like yourself to then bring that strategy and those goals to life. 00:08:37.220 --> 00:08:41.910 But if the mindset is limited to what it knows, then all it can do is iterate. 00:08:41.910 --> 00:08:45.698 Make tomorrow better than it was yesterday faster, cheaper, more scalable. 00:08:45.698 --> 00:08:57.201 If you look at all of the disruptions that are hitting us left and right today, if we attack those with the same mindset, the best we'll be is iteratively better, with chat, GPT or generative AI, for example. 00:08:57.201 --> 00:09:12.816 So there are going to be organizations that are going to ask what if, or what about, or why can't we, and those, those mindsets, are going to ask different questions that are going to get different answers, of which then are going to unlock different opportunities. 00:09:12.816 --> 00:09:22.923 And what you're going to have over time here, slowly but quickly, is, if you think about the linear path of organizations that are constantly improving, incrementally improving. 00:09:23.404 --> 00:09:25.509 Take all of these new innovative technologies. 00:09:25.509 --> 00:09:32.797 It might do that faster, but what's also going to happen is we're going to have people who say, well, beyond automation, what about augmentation? 00:09:32.797 --> 00:09:39.910 What if we use, for example, AI to do things we couldn't do before, to not just make yesterday better, but to do what we couldn't do yesterday tomorrow? 00:09:39.910 --> 00:09:45.009 Or if we get leaders who say, well, what are some of the things that we just couldn't do, that we didn't think to do? 00:09:45.009 --> 00:09:47.918 If we're looking to accomplish these things, what else could we accomplish? 00:09:48.321 --> 00:10:06.192 And so what's going to happen is you're going to create this inflection point self-awareness, new mindsets asking different questions, curiosity, imaginations where they'll still probably do the linear things, but then they're going to break into this exponential growth curve, and the delta between the two is really business disruption, competitive disruption. 00:10:06.192 --> 00:10:25.169 So the humanity of things like self awareness, recognizing your mind shift, recognizing where your biases limit your thinking and your questioning today all of those will create white space to explore curiosity, to entertain it, to dance with imagination, to look at these new technologies, for example, and to say what, if? 00:10:25.169 --> 00:10:26.072 Why can't we? 00:10:26.072 --> 00:10:29.046 Instead of we could never do that, that's too expensive. 00:10:29.046 --> 00:10:32.095 We have to take costs out of our current implementations. 00:10:32.095 --> 00:10:36.594 Today we got to look for three to 10% out every year and breaking that iterative mindset. 00:10:36.874 --> 00:10:37.735 Yeah, that's great. 00:10:37.735 --> 00:10:40.830 I'm glad to see some of that coming back and we're recording this. 00:10:40.830 --> 00:10:43.575 It's the CES is going on and some great announcements. 00:10:43.575 --> 00:10:47.149 I was just chatting with a colleague today Like, wow, there's some big announcements. 00:10:47.149 --> 00:10:53.794 Of course you know they're in the sphere, which is awesome, so that amplifies it, but yeah, so I'm hoping this is maybe a year. 00:10:53.794 --> 00:10:56.628 Some of that mindset is taking place and settling back in. 00:10:56.628 --> 00:10:59.253 You know another thing you talked about maybe you touch on a little bit. 00:10:59.253 --> 00:11:02.558 You are a great storyteller and you touch on storytelling a little bit. 00:11:02.558 --> 00:11:06.326 I feel like it's sort of an underappreciated skill set, an underappreciated art form. 00:11:06.326 --> 00:11:07.690 Again back to a mindset. 00:11:07.690 --> 00:11:10.277 You know how do we communicate and identify with other people. 00:11:10.277 --> 00:11:15.966 If you could just touch on kind of your perspective on storytelling as a leadership or a mindset tactic. 00:11:16.346 --> 00:11:24.339 Yeah, you know one real quick point on self-awareness, because I think that's really where it begins, and you brought up a point that I didn't touch on, which was beginner's mind, and then I'll get into storytelling. 00:11:24.339 --> 00:11:37.087 Yeah, sure, you know, a beginner's mind is someone who brings a more open self to a problem, any meeting, any opportunity, just any moment, and to have a beginner's mind is something I think we'd all like to believe that we have, open minds. 00:11:37.087 --> 00:11:56.115 I don't know if you know this or not, but one study showed that only about 10 to 15% of us have the recognition of self-awareness and, in reality, rather than a beginner's mind, we usually bring to a moment an expert's mind you know where we have ideas, we have experience, we have a gut hunch, whatever it is, and those are essentially cognitive biases manifesting themselves. 00:11:56.445 --> 00:11:57.730 It's also very human and normal. 00:11:57.730 --> 00:12:03.938 Of course you want to bring your best self, your experience, that's who you are that's how you got here to these moments. 00:12:03.938 --> 00:12:08.315 And so the idea of having the beginner's mind is challenging, if not impossible, unless you intentionally try to do that. 00:12:08.315 --> 00:12:13.431 And in that white space to help people get there, storytelling becomes very important. 00:12:13.431 --> 00:12:23.999 You can't just say to someone you're not self-aware, you're not thinking as creatively as possible, and so storytelling becomes very important in every step of the mind shift. 00:12:23.999 -->

00:12:34.970 It's how do you give one to yourself and then how do you give one to those who work with you, so that you're inspiring full imagination and creativity to tackle these opportunities in ways that just weren't possible before. 00:12:34.970 --> 00:12:39.126 And that's a mind shift before you even get to all of this incredible technology. 00:12:39.126 --> 00:12:51.494 But storytelling, one of my biggest idols since I was a kid probably true for many people is Walt Disney, and I think of Walt Disney as an innovator, a master storyteller, the original Imagineer, if you will. 00:12:51.494 --> 00:12:58.815 Yeah, so I was very lucky when I came across the name of someone who used to be a Pixar Disney storyboard artist. 00:12:58.815 --> 00:13:06.294 His name is Nicholas Sung and now he is a storyteller at Netflix, which is very cool to watch his career take off. 00:13:06.294 --> 00:13:14.418 I had the opportunity to work with him after meeting him when he was doing storyboarding work for Airbnb, and this is a really famous story. 00:13:14.605 --> 00:13:31.432 When Airbnb, back in the day, was going through its big identity crisis, they hired Nicholas Sung to come in and work with the data team, understand what the challenges were, what guests were looking for, the problems they were having, what hosts were looking for and the problems they were having. 00:13:31.432 --> 00:13:38.105 They were looking for the aspirations of each side, and they were able to uncover these stories that they just had missed. 00:13:38.105 --> 00:13:46.457 Why does someone put their home open to strangers, or why does someone want to rent the homes or rooms of strangers rather than going to, I don't know, the Four Seasons? 00:13:46.457 --> 00:13:59.943 And they were able to put these into aspirational storyboards, of which then they brought decision makers, investors, the board together around these stories to then invest in the change that was necessary for Airbnb at the time. 00:13:59.442 --> 00:14:10.980 I had always thought storyboarding was about capturing stills and putting them into a linear format to be able to tell the story in an inexpensive way, before you started investing in all of the animation. 00:14:10.980 --> 00:14:12.470 It turns out that's partly true. 00:14:12.846 --> 00:14:18.238 The reality of it is a way of testing the ability for the story to become believable. 00:14:18.238 --> 00:14:20.513 Do you see yourself in the story? 00:14:20.513 --> 00:14:22.653 Do you see yourself in the characters? 00:14:22.653 --> 00:14:24.652 Because you're not just looking at the board. 00:14:24.652 --> 00:14:29.856 People are acting out the board in front of you and they're making changes to it in real time. 00:14:30.345 --> 00:14:37.850 So this believability aspect of the storyboarding process is a very different approach than just simply telling a story. 00:14:38.211 --> 00:14:51.572 So if you're telling a story of disruption and generative AI is going to unlock

new ways of work, you can't just say this is what's going to happen and this is what the work is going to be and this is what people are going to do and hope to scare someone into action or creating a burning platform. 00:14:51.966 --> 00:15:04.796 What you do is you inspire someone to be into the story of what the new world is going to look like and how people are going to thrive, and you're basing the characters on the people that you feel are your stakeholders and you're turning the story and how all the stakeholders can be successful. 00:15:04.796 --> 00:15:12.052 It's a Disney-like approach to telling the future of your organization in a way that people feel inspired, that they want to be part of that story. 00:15:12.052 --> 00:15:23.626 And learning from Nick and working through the storyboarding process with him he even worked on this book with me it's life-changing because now you realize that the story is bigger than just your work or what you feel is important. 00:15:23.626 --> 00:15:43.216 Because of the research you did, you're now making it a story of transformation and a human conquest towards greatness, of one of which people want to be part of, and that, for me, was probably the most important part of the book is recognizing kind of coming back to self-awareness, and a beginner's mind is that you're not your audience, and to become part of your audience requires empathy. 00:15:43.565 --> 00:15:46.634 Storytelling is built on empathy and then building up from there. 00:15:47.096 --> 00:15:48.280 Right, that was a great connection. 00:15:48.280 --> 00:15:52.293 I didn't see that coming and storyboarding and storytelling is a design process. 00:15:52.293 --> 00:15:55.288 You didn't mention what I heard and I love about good design processes. 00:15:55.288 --> 00:15:59.407 It just sort of reveals the truth, right, it reveals the need, and I heard a lot of that. 00:15:59.407 --> 00:16:02.011 Tell us a little bit about what's going on at ServiceNow. 00:16:02.011 --> 00:16:04.395 Where you're kicking off the year, what are you seeing? 00:16:04.395 --> 00:16:07.160 What's sort of the vision that you're seeing with ServiceNow? 00:16:07.702 --> 00:16:08.243 Absolutely. 00:16:08.243 --> 00:16:15.499 We have an incredible leader in Bill McDermott and he is all in on AI, business transformation and at ServiceNow. 00:16:15.499 --> 00:16:22.586 You might know us as one part of your organization, largely built in foundationally in ITSM, right. 00:16:22.586 --> 00:16:38.404 But what a platform does is connects work, and AI helps you to automate that work, helps you put agents to work, it helps you take your organization and make it more optimized and efficient, but what it also does, it allows you to reimagine work, so you're connecting the dots across the organization. 00:16:38.404 --> 00:16:40.552 If you think about what powers AI, well, it's data. 00:16:40.552 --> 00:16:42.605 Data doesn't work well when it's in silos. 00:16:42.605 --> 00:16:45.410 So when you're connecting work, you're actually connecting your organization. 00:16:45.410 --> 00:17:01.437 You're building the foundation for more intelligent enterprise, and so the leadership under Bill especially here in 2025, is really going to help our customers unlock the future of work without having to completely control, alt, delete their businesses, and I think that's a pretty special value for opposition. 00:17:01.498 --> 00:17:03.365 So a lot of the lessons that are taught in the book. 00:17:03.365 --> 00:17:07.777 For those who didn't know, bill McDermott also wrote the foreword to the book and it's very inspirational. 00:17:07.777 --> 00:17:11.977 It's very Bill, and in fact, I'm actually rereading my book, as you can see. 00:17:11.977 --> 00:17:17.953 I enjoy it and one of the reasons I'm rereading it to your question is we're going to spend 2025. 00:17:17.953 --> 00:17:46.482 I work in the innovation office at ServiceNow and our big charter is to be the voice of innovation, not just for ServiceNow, but for our customers and helping them see these opportunities, the storytelling aspect of it, understanding where they are where they're trying to go, and helping tell the story of where else they can go. 00:17:46.482 --> 00:17:46.482 What else they could do. 00:17:46.482 --> 00:17:50.943 And helping them accelerate those aspirations of that type of transformation for those leaders who want to build the business of the future today. 00:17:51.263 --> 00:17:52.523 I'm glad you're there, Brian. 00:17:52.523 --> 00:18:00.848 I'm excited about what you guys are going to do and a mind shift that you're going to create, I think, both within the organization and with your customers, and I hope we connect over a project someday. 00:18:01.229 --> 00:18:03.172 Jim, anything to help you and help our customers. 00:18:03.172 --> 00:18:10.326 That's what I'm here for and I really appreciate one the time you took to read the book and then also the time to invite and host me on the show. 00:18:10.326 --> 00:18:12.653 It means a lot and we can inspire new leadership. 00:18:12.653 --> 00:18:24.192 You said earlier at the beginning of the conversation something that I meant to touch on that it was like this cry for new leadership, and it's exactly how I described it when we were finishing the book and thinking about how we were going to market it. 00:18:24.192 --> 00:18:39.665 It was literally the words we use was rally cry for new leadership, because leadership isn't management, and I think, if you look at organizational evolution, management is important and companies have to scale and they have to save money, they have to make money, but they also have to innovate. 00:18:39.945 --> 00:18:50.247 I had an opportunity to spend time with Mark Randolph about a month ago and Mark Randolph is the co-founder of Netflix with Reed Hastings, and we were talking about, a lot of people don't recognize this. 00:18:50.247 --> 00:18:56.972 They just sort

of take for granted, like, what's Netflix releasing now, because I've got an insatiable need to stream a series today? 00:18:56.972 --> 00:19:10.345 But Netflix started out, as those who may remember, as a DVD mailing company, Then the DVD mailing company at the time, e-commerce was becoming a thing, so they had to shift towards e-commerce. 00:19:10.345 --> 00:19:15.877 Then the internet became even more powerful and they shifted towards streaming. 00:19:15.877 --> 00:19:25.076 The story that isn't as popular as Mark was sort of alluding to is that every one of those evolutions was a foundational business transformation exercise. 00:19:25.076 --> 00:19:28.545 Every one of those evolutions was a foundational business transformation exercise. 00:19:28.545 --> 00:19:32.916 They were profitable in each one of those segments of their life but decided that because they were a small company, it was all or nothing. 00:19:32.916 --> 00:19:38.285 They couldn't stay in DVDs while investing in e-commerce and stay in e-commerce while investing in streaming. 00:19:38.285 --> 00:19:43.967 And so they made really tough business decisions and transformations to let go of their core businesses. 00:19:43.967 --> 00:19:48.609 Each time they would move to the next stage of their transformation. 00:19:48.609 --> 00:19:49.913 And those are big stories. 00:19:49.953 --> 00:19:54.938 And I asked Mark you know what's the mindset that business leaders need today? 00:19:54.938 --> 00:19:58.648 Understanding that they're essentially facing the next thing. 00:19:58.648 --> 00:20:10.945 We know that Netflix would look at the next thing by going all in on it, but business leaders tend to invest more in the core rather than let go of the core, and it really was a mind shift moment where he was talking about that. 00:20:10.945 --> 00:20:16.596 This is that moment for all companies to at least invest in what is next. 00:20:16.596 --> 00:20:20.252 Keep your core, nurture your core, but don't abandon the future. 00:20:20.252 --> 00:20:24.548 And it was really inspiring, relevant and timely story to share with those. 00:20:24.609 --> 00:20:28.291 And so, coming back to leadership and closing out, leadership isn't just a title. 00:20:28.653 --> 00:20:40.066 If you believe in something, if you make the case in something, if you tell the story in something, that you believe in what you're seeing where everything is going, it's generative or AI or neurocomputing or spatial computing or whatever it is that you're passionate about. 00:20:40.066 --> 00:20:45.630 Leadership is a way of life, it's a way of thinking, it's a way of acting, and leaders can come from anywhere. 00:20:45.630 --> 00:20:52.394 And that was really the rally cry is that we're not just writing a book for existing leaders, we're writing a book for those around existing leaders. 00:20:52.394 --> 00:21:10.238 We're writing a book for the next leader, the emergent leader, the next entrepreneur, to recognize that there is a mechanical process to understanding what something means and breaking it down so that you can take the what to, so, what to the now, what levels and move people with you, so that you're making the rallying cry towards that transformation. 00:21:10.238 --> 00:21:19.917 So the book helps well, hopefully inspires your story, but also gives you the tools necessary to become either the leader and the leadership enabler, the CEO whisperer or a leader yourself. 00:21:20.525 --> 00:21:20.965 That's awesome. 00:21:20.965 --> 00:21:23.073 Brian, thanks for the conversation. 00:21:23.073 --> 00:21:25.872 I really appreciate it and I hope you have a great future this year. 00:21:26.464 --> 00:21:26.865 Oh, thanks. 00:21:26.865 --> 00:21:33.718 Jim, happy New Year and wish everyone the best, most successful, brightest future possible, but recognize that it's all ours to shape 00:21:34.218 --> 00:21:34.900 Awesome Thanks 00:21:46.125 --> 00:21:46.747 Perficient with Jim Hertzfeld. 00:21:46.747 --> 00:21:48.692 We want to thank our proficient colleagues JD Norman and Rick Bauer for our music. 00:21:48.692 --> 00:21:51.060 Subscribe to the podcast and don't miss a single episode. 00:21:51.060 --> 00:21:54.451 You can find this season, along with show notes, at perficient. 00:21:54.451 --> 00:21:55.534 com. 00:21:55.534 --> 00:21:56.896 Thanks for listening.