Why Leading with Heart is the Future of Businesses: An Interview with Antoni Lacinai

Today, guys, for this episode, I have a special guest from Europe, from Sweden, if I’m not wrong. And his name is Antoni Lacinai. And he is an expert in communication and motivation. And the amazing part is he’s written or been involved in writing 14 books. So let’s start with that. Antoni, if you don’t mind, why 14 books? And what has it done for your business? Why not 14 books? 

You know, it sounds better than it is, just to say that immediately. Some of them, at least half of them I’ve written with other people. So some of them are written with friends, some I’m just in a chapter, but I’m, you know, part or a co-creator or a co-writer in that case. So it does sound a bit more than it is. But I’m on my 15th right now. So we’ll see what happens with that one as well. It’s great fun. Okay. So what has it done for your business? Being an author of 14 books? Well, I guess there’s a couple of reasons for writing a book. One is that you really get your thoughts nailed down in a good format. So when I started to write books, it was more like I need some sort of course literature for my presentation skills training or for my sales training and so on. So that’s why I started to write them. And I saw an effect. I wrote a book, I promoted the book, and then I can reap the rewards afterwards because people started to contact me about the content of it and so on. So I can do more training or more keynote speeches and so on. And I know at least one customer told me very early on that she chose between me and at least one other potential supplier. And she chose me because I wrote a book. So she had the book and she said, yeah, that must be for real then. He must know what he’s doing. And so I got that assignment or that booking. And then we had a number of sessions afterwards as well. So that was great fun. So it has helped me from a credibility perspective, but I can’t say, I mean, I don’t have any bestselling Dan Brown book or anything like that. It’s not on that level at all, but it has helped me. Another book that really helped me was when I wrote, unwillingly I would say, I didn’t want to write the book, but my customers asked me to, a book about virtual communication and virtual meetings. So I published that book in 2016, I think, or 17. And it was of course not a bestseller either because nobody cared about virtual communication at that point. But then 2020, you know what happened? And all of a sudden I was in high demand talking specifically about virtual communication, remote leadership, hybrid leadership, and so on. So I was super busy throughout the pandemic, except for the first three months where everyone was just paralyzed. So for sure it has helped me, not book sales per se, but rather as a credit builder and a good way to get a foot in the door, if you will. Well, that’s kind of lucky that you kind of wrote the book a few years right before the, you know, 2020 and then that positioned you as the expert when everybody’s trying to catch up. So was that just lucky or was it kind of just foresight, some kind of foresight there? That was just pure fluke. I’ve written a couple of books about how to lead engaging meetings before with a friend. And then again, as I said, some large global companies came to me and said, we need to be better at this from a virtual perspective. We have distributed teams and we need to figure out how to work with them in the best possible way. Can you help us? And I said, yeah, okay, if you ask, I will. So I did my research on it. And I also, I was one or two steps ahead of most people when it came to virtual communication. So I already set up a pretty good or decent, I would say, you know, technical setup. Of course, compared to today, it’s nothing, but it was just a little bit better than most of my clients. And then when this happened, I immediately started to share tips and insights on how to be better at it. And I referred to the book as well. And that got me to get those, you know, I’ve been booked, I was booked as, you know, a trainer or just an inspirational speaker about this topic and so on. Long answer, but it was pure luck, nothing else. 

But I think you bring up a very good point there, because you said you were just a little bit better. And I think that sometimes that’s all it takes for like a coaching business to be successful or any business to be successful. You just need to be ahead of the learning curve by that little bit at the right time. And then, you know, the business can take off. Yeah, that’s, yeah, there’s two learnings on this one. The first one is exactly that. Usain Bolt didn’t run twice as fast as his next opponent. He was like a 10th of a second, faster. So it’s, or two perhaps, but it’s nothing if you look at the timeframe, but it’s everything when it look at who comes out as a winner or not. And the second one is that, and I listened to this nice podcast, I think it was about luck. Many of us, when we are, we should not underestimate the potential of being lucky. We have to do our work, of course, we have to put in the time and the effort and everything like that. It doesn’t come by itself. Or as one elite athlete in Sweden said at one point, it’s pretty funny, the more I train, the more luck I get. So you do have to put in the work, but also be a bit grateful that you are lucky when you get, for instance, a new client or you do produce something because someone else would probably do it as good as you, but you got the deal and they didn’t. So, and that could be of many reasons. Yeah. I mean, like for you and for me too, like there’s probably hundreds of people competing for the same dollar, but sometimes we just get lucky. 

And yeah, having that attitude of gratitude is super important, isn’t it? 

Yeah. I think that’s an underestimated feeling to be grateful. I think that’s really good. And again, it doesn’t mean that I should sit on my couch eating chips and drinking beer all day, thinking that everything will solve itself if I just imagine it. No, it doesn’t work like that. But there is an element of chance as well, that they happen to stumble upon you instead of someone else and all that. But, but hey, take it. I’ll take it. It doesn’t mean that I’m bad. It means that I’m at least as good, but I was timing wise at the right place, perhaps at the right time. Yeah. Or you just appeared in the right place on some social media channel and they happen to be browsing there. So, you know. Yeah, that’s happened too. I mean, I remember just putting a simple post about five success factors of running a workshop. And all of a sudden I got this client immediately on an email saying, we need you, we need you now. And then I was, you know, I would be working with them ever since that was a couple of years ago. So again, it’s opportunities, but also preparation and being out there. It’s about how you show up, I guess. 

So Antoni, I’m just curious, what got you started in this business in the first place? Like you could have done any other business, but why do you choose to become an expert in communication and motivation and, you know, train people on this? 

So can I back a little bit more going back to, okay, so here’s my story about why I started to, why I left the corporate career, by the way, because I was working in a global company and all that. But in December 1999, I was working for this global company. It’s right before the Y2K thing going on. And a friend of mine, a colleague of mine said, hey, let’s go to an audition. The company I worked for had a global roadshow going on or about to hit the road, so to say, and they needed more people. So I said, yeah, let’s do it because I like to be out there presenting to clients and everything. So I went there and when I came there, the two communications trainer who was supposed to assess us said, you know what, we already have presenters for this program. It’s one of those things where you have hundreds of customers in the audience or media people and then there is a show more or less. It’s like a TV show with interviews and film clips and all those things. So he said, we need program leaders though. We don’t have any program leaders, any moderators, so to say. Are you interested in trying that one out? And we both of us said, yeah, we’re here now, so let’s do it. And then we did it and they threw everything at us, see if we can catch it and so on. And we did. So we became two out of five selected program leaders. So just a month later, I was in Singapore and then I was in New Zealand and then I was in Mexico and then I was in the US being this program leader, just like it was a TV thing, as I said. And I think that’s when I really got this idea about, hey, I like this so much that why don’t I do that all the time? But at the same time, I was considered high potential. I had a good time at the company I was working for. So it kind of took three years before that seed grew so much that I couldn’t even not do it. So some people say, oh, you’re so brave. You left this corporate career and all that. I wasn’t brave. I just couldn’t help myself. I just had to do it. And then I did that. I did some moderation at that point. I did presentation skills training. I did workshops and I started to get more and more bookings as a speaker as well because I did a lot of presentations before, but not as a keynote speaker, more like a salesperson as well. And it just grew. This was a long time ago now. So 2006, I left the corporate career. So that’s 18 years now when we record this. And I haven’t regretted it since. So that’s how I think it started. Yeah. It was one of those pivotal moments. If you didn’t grab me by the arm and say, hey, let’s go to an audition, we wouldn’t have this conversation, Terence. And so comes the whole luck equation again, right? Yeah. It’s a kind of serendipity or it’s just a chance. And all of us, anyone who listens to this and you as well, we have these situations in our lives where something has happened. Somebody said something. We took a left turn instead of a right turn. Something happened that made us walk on the path we are today. Could be small things, insignificant things perhaps, but it could also be bigger things like, you decided to go this way instead of that way and then study this thing instead of that thing and so on. 

And it’s just mind blowing if you think about the universe being around for 14 billion years almost and all the things that have happened for us to be having this conversation right now. I mean, it shouldn’t even be probable. So again, I think it’s pretty fascinating to imagine that. I mean, absolutely. I just read a book called The Surrender Experiment. I’m not sure whether you read that book. And it’s just really about this guy that started off with just wanting to do his little meditation retreat. And then eventually one thing led to another and he’s just surrendering to it. He became like having this huge like building company and then he built a software company that was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And all he did was like, oh, well, the opportunity came. So I guess the universe wants me to take it and he took it, right? Yeah, he was open to it. And he did the work. He did the work still. I mean, he must have. It’s not like he’s just sat there and meditated and everything just came to him. I don’t believe that. But I believe that. 

I mean, there are two different versions of this. One is the whole secret thing. Wish it and the universe will help you. And the other one is that you have this system in your brain called the reticular activating system, which works like a radar. So if you start to open yourself up to a certain path or possibility, you will see more of it and you will attract it from that perspective. You know what? I don’t care which one of those are true, but they do seem to work. So if I want to reach a certain goal, if I want to speak in Borneo, if I do that, I will have my radar on and hopefully that will make me see opportunities that I would have missed otherwise. Have you heard about the term inattentional blindness? No, I haven’t. Okay. So basically this is what it is. If you focus on one thing, it also means that you will miss out on other things, right? And it’s a famous, famous experiment where you have people, two teams on the basket court. One has black clothes, the other one has white clothes. And you are asked to count the number of passes, for instance, for the white team. And you do that. And afterwards, people ask you, did you see the gorilla? Because all of a sudden a person in a gorilla mask or dress is going around on the circle, on the court and just waving and then going away. And most people don’t see the gorilla. They count the passes so that they’re so into their thing that they miss out on other opportunities. And I’m not saying it’s bad. It means that you have a focus, but it also means that you don’t have a focus on other things and you have to choose because your brain cannot handle everything at the same time. It cannot. So just Google gorilla experiment or something like that. It’s called inattentional blindness. So what I mean is that if you open up your eyes to a certain opportunity, you will see more of it. If you’re looking for a certain car, you will see more of that car out on the street. But it also means that you close the door on other things and you should just be aware of the fact that it is like that. Yeah. I mean, this, this was not the direction I intended this to go, but you know, we’ve talked about it. That’s totally cool. I mean, it’s always fun to see how this interviews go sometimes. So, I mean, just going back to you at that point in time, right. You could have like, you know, say no, no, this is not for me. I mean, I’m happy with my corporate job and all that kind of stuff. Right. But you open yourself to possibilities. 

Right. So I think that’s so important in business. Sometimes it’s like, yeah, you’ve got to stay focused, but sometimes maybe there is things that are, you know, that is opening new doors for you and you should take it. Do you have any advice, Antoni, in which, in that point in time, how do you decide whether it’s like a shiny objects syndrome or whether it’s a new opportunity you should pursue? Do you have any advice on that? 

Oh, what an interesting question. Shiny object syndrome. I like that. Because you know what, I’m also driven by my emotions and so on. So if I find something interesting, I’m this kind of yes man. I say yes to a lot of things. And then I realize, oh my God, I don’t have time to do everything. What should I do now? There’s just so many interesting things out there, which means that I’m probably open to a lot of things, but I’m also curious. So curiosity plays a big role here. If you’re close to narrow-minded, you will, again, you don’t see, just like I mentioned before, with the whole inattentional blindness thing, you don’t see it. So curiosity plays a big part, of course. Are you open to new experiences? That’s another aspect of it, of course, and that is your goals. If you set goals, you will also set the direction of where you want to go, which can be really good if you want to perform. If you set the right kind of goals, you will perform about 50 to 30% better compared to if you don’t. So that’s numbers that I’ve got from reading goal psychology, which are kind of huge numbers, really. You just make sure that you set the right kind of goals. And I even developed a whole model around what the right kind of goals can be. So that’s important to do. Set goals, but don’t be blinded by your goals. I still remember when I was 29 and a half years old and I was still not a head of marketing. What was going on? I had a goal. I was supposed to be heading a marketing department at that time, and I wasn’t. So I just found a new job as a head of marketing for a company. And I got the job, even though everything about the interview with the owners told me that I should not take the job. My head said no, my stomach said no, my heart said, no, this is not the place for you. And then I still took the job because I had this goal that was more important than my values at that point. But of course, it didn’t take more than three weeks. And then I quit. I decided that this was the wrong move. And now you can always say, well, you reached your goal. Well, I did, but to what cost? But it wasn’t a big deal because I just got another job very quickly. I was in demand, so why not? Great example there. 

So Antoni, I’m just curious, with your business career, what have been some of the highlights? Could you share some of the business? Oh, there’s so many celebrations you can have. 

I guess that getting my first booking as a consultant, if you will, a freelancer, that was pretty awesome. Sending my first invoice. I remember that one still. Invoice number one. That felt so good. I should have kept it or framed it or something like that. It was a small one. It was one of my business friends who said, hey, let’s do this. You can charge me for this. Yes, yes, it’s happening. That was pretty cool. My first book when it came out about presentation skills in that case, that was also a milestone, a legacy. I still remember. I didn’t have a release party at that point. I sat there with a glass of champagne with my wife and my two young, young sons. They had some juice and we sat there for like one minute and I had the book in my hand and then my kid says, are we done now? Can we go? And I said, yeah, sure you can go. But still having that book in my hand, it was a pretty amazing feeling. So things like that, but also just being on stage with thousands of people who appreciate the insights you share. It’s pretty cool. Another one is just having a one-on-one coaching with somebody and I can see how the light is just glowing in their eyes and how they just get it and how they level up. It’s also pretty amazing to do that. I mean, that’s just so many things. How about you, Terence? Give me one of your milestones, one of your celebration. Sometimes it’s the small things, isn’t it? 

I do remember my first client when I started this business, also a friend, and it was just signing the contract for the first deal. And it’s like, wow, that’s so amazing. And I guess another one would be when you achieve the milestones that the client set out for you and you exceed it. Like some webinars, for example, we’re supposed to get 100 people in a webinar for this budget, but we ended up getting 150 people. And that feeling is just amazing. It is. Yeah. 

And how you can help your people around you. It’s something about that. I have this idea that you get the customers and colleagues you deserve and actually service in capital letters or bold letters. So having that mentality of being a sherpa, helping your clients up that Mount Everest is pretty neat. It feels good for you as well. Numbers have shown this, that if you have this generous type of attitude towards giving things and so on, you decrease stress, you increase your happiness levels. It’s just good to be kind, I guess. 

I like that. And Antoni, what are some of your biggest challenges that you had to overcome in your business? 

One that I’m struggling with right now, you can say, because, okay, so I live in Sweden, but I’ve always worked internationally, although most of my work have been in Sweden or the neighboring countries. And I decided a few years ago that I want to go back into the global world because the company I worked for at the time was global and I was traveling, as you heard, all over the place. So I wanted to have more of that and I have. Okay. So that’s one of my milestones. I actually do much more work outside of the country I live in than I do in the country. But the number of conferences out there that want you to speak for free or even pay to speak is staggering. I think it’s 95% of all the conferences that my sales assistants have talked to want you to basically turn your profession into a hobby, speak for free. And their business model is pretty simple. They have people on stage who either are consultants selling very expensive programs. So they basically tell you, you have a problem. Now, let me solve it afterwards, which I think is okay. It’s one way of getting business. So I get it. It’s not my business, but I get the idea. Doing a free note, so to say, and then getting that return on investment afterwards. I get it. The other one is that you have a lot of people who are employed somewhere. They are the sales director of this or the product director of this and so on. And they have a salary every 25th of the month. They are not necessarily as good as I am as a speaker. They don’t get the same type of… Normally they don’t get the same type of energy in the room and so on. They could, but in general, they might not. But they get there because they want to show their company’s value and all that. So I get this. But I’m guessing that my challenge, again, a long answer, but my challenge is that there are many conference organizers who don’t really perhaps understand that there is a value of bringing in somebody who knows a topic that is valuable for the audience and that knows how to deliver it. And it’s worth something. It’s worth to pay somebody. It doesn’t have to be me, but it’s worth to pay somebody to really give that extra value to the conference. And I’m guessing… It sounds like I’m whining. I’m not. I mean, I’m still booked. So I don’t have a problem with it. But I could actually speak every day of the year until I go bankrupt, basically, because it’s so many organizers who believe that you should speak for free. Right. And that’s a challenge for me right now. I understand it. I can respect it, but it’s just not my business. I can’t turn this into a hobby. It’s the way I make a living as well. Do you have any solutions for solving this problem? No, I don’t. I mean, I say to them, I understand where you’re coming from. I do a couple of pro bono gigs every year just because it’s good. I could do one or two showcases per year where I don’t charge much at least because I want to enter that particular market. But that’s it. You know, that’s the cost of sales. For the rest of them, I respectfully decline. So it’s not a problem for me. I’m just not there. We are not a good fit. And I should respect that and be okay with it and get on with my life anyway, because there are enough conferences and enough kickoffs and so on where they do want to hire somebody to do what I do. So I don’t have a problem with that perspective. There’s enough anyway. But it takes time sometimes when I’m searching in markets where I’m not known. For instance, I want to go into this market or that market. I don’t have a brand there. Then it takes quite a lot of time to realize which one is it that I should really go for. That’s just basically a time challenge for me. Yeah. I think that applies to any business, right? You have your clients that have good fits and you have clients that are simply not a good fit and you just have to move on. Yeah. But I’m surprised by how many people think that speakers should speak for free when they don’t ask their carpenter to build a house for free. 

True. 

I mean, how about everyone goes to you and say, Hey, how about you make sure that I get the webinars and you don’t pay me anything. I’m not going to pay you anything. But you know, I have friends. There’s a limit to how many times you can do that before it becomes ridiculous. Do I ask my bookkeeper to handle my finances for free because I have friends? I mean, it’s just, I don’t get it. Yeah. I think it’s a wrong mindset, I guess. Or maybe there’s just too many people that have something to pitch that’s poisoined up that market for you. Like you say, the expensive consultation calls or the whatever they have in the back. Yeah. It might be an inexperienced, you know, wannabe speaker who comes up and say, I can do it for nothing. Again, I understand it. It’s not… We spent too much time on this topic already. But it’s there at least. I can see it. And it’s not only me who says this. It’s just like, I need to treat this as a business and not a hobby. Otherwise, I have to get myself another job and do this as a hobby. And that’s not the way I want to go. 

So tell me, Antoni, what are three things you do to get clients for your business? 

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the right person to answer that question. Because as I said before, I just have this idea of what I want to do. And then I’m just getting into action mode. And then things happen. But I mean, you have a couple of things that you could do, of course. That’s the whole thing about running webinars. I will do my first one. I’ve never… I mean, I almost never do things based on my own initiative from that perspective, inviting people to an open whatever training or lecture webinar. It’s almost always based on customer requests. So I go to the customer because they asked me to. But I will do it now. I wrote one of my books that came out in the summer, what is called Speed Selling, how to generate leads at the trade show. It’s very niche oriented for booth staff and the companies who use exhibitions as a part of their marketing mix. So I’ve decided to have a webinar where I give people the best advice I can when it comes to this. It’s on October 11. I will do that for people. So that’s gonna be fun. And you know what, if there are a couple of companies or people in that audience who says, you know what, this is good, let’s do more, I would be very happy. So that’s gonna create a conversion, I hope. And if it doesn’t, at least I’ve given them something that will make them better. So it is a good way to do it. And I know that other people are very successful by running this type of webinars. Social media might be a possibility, but the best thing you can do, I guess, is to do a really good job. If you do a really good job, your customers will be your best salespeople. They will be your ambassadors. They will help you get new business. It doesn’t mean that every time, for instance, when I’m on stage, I immediately get new business because sometimes the timing isn’t there. But then a year later, or three months later, or even years later, they come back and say, you know what, I listened to you and now it’s time for me to do something. Can you come? Don’t underestimate the value of doing a good job for your clients. I think that’s number one. Of course, you have to have clients first to do it, but that’s in the startup phase. Once you do, you can build a momentum based on it. 

And Antoni, can you describe your ideal client to me? Who is your ideal client? 

It’s often a company that is at least medium but often larger. They’re often international. It doesn’t have to be, but they’re a bigger company. And they want to inspire their people to up their game even more. They’re good, probably. It’s a good company. They’re doing good things already. They understand the value of treating their staff well, and their customers well, and making sure that the leaders lead, not necessarily only manage or micromanage. They want to have this good collaboration environment. And then they want to bring me in to help them out. Whether it’s about communication skills, communication for leaders or teams, whether it’s about working with engagement and motivation and so on. But that’s what they want. They are not a company that has a business idea of ruining people or the planet. So I could make good money working with tobacco companies or oil companies or things like that, but I don’t want to do it. It’s not my business. So I’ve looked into my own core values and say, Hey, I want to leave this planet a little bit better than when I entered it. So what can I do in that case? How can I serve the right companies or organizations? Sometimes it’s governments as well. So I’m looking for that. Can I help companies who have a strong moral compass of doing good? Then I want to be part of it. So in other words, if a company does not align with your personal values, you won’t accept them as a client. Am I right? That is correct. If it’s very obvious that they don’t, I mean, it’s a gray zone sometimes. I know I work with telecom companies and I know that they have a perhaps a defense industry business area that I might not like or something like that, but it’s a, and then I do it anyway. But if it’s clear, if it’s clear that they are here to burn fossil, that’s their business idea. Then I don’t want to be in it unless they are in a transformation journey in that case toward clean energy or things like that, then I would absolutely help them. And it goes for any company. I mean, there’s so many companies out there that you can work with. And I have the luxury of saying no to some of them because my heart is not in it. I believe that your heart must be in it as well. If you want to do a good job, it’s not a big problem. Sorry. I think sometimes those companies that don’t align with your values, if when you, after you start working with them for a little while, you find that the business relationship doesn’t work for whatever reason anyway. Yeah. I mean, it’s not perhaps clear cut in the beginning, but after a while you realize that we don’t share the same values of, for instance, ecology that I mentioned now, but also other things like how you treat your people and so on. I still remember one client who said they wanted to have me as a keynote speaker for the leadership summit. And I said, well, this is my belief. I believe that engaged people will perform better. I’ve seen every number is pointing in the same direction. And the answer I got was, yeah, yeah, we’ve already done all of that employee engagement stuff, but now it’s time to get shit done. So, with that comment, how can you expect me to want to work with you? If you don’t care about your people, if all you do is command and control and forcing people back to the office five days a week when it’s just stupid. I’d rather work with companies who have a pro people mentality. That’s why I like HR so much. I like HR people. They are people. Find ways to help your employees thrive, regardless of whether it’s analog, digital or hybrid and so on, and just make them grow and be able to contribute to your business. Yeah, that’s a much better way, I think. 

So, Antoni, I was wondering if you had to restart your business over again, like rewind the clock back 18 years with all your experience that you have now today, what would you do differently? 

Probably if I wanted to accelerate my success, I would focus on one thing. I would be known as the one thing or whatever that thing is, and then work diligently on just putting the brand out for that particular thing. I’ve been too broad from the beginning. I’m pretty good at many things, and I like to do many things. The shiny object metaphor is back again, but it wouldn’t serve me if I want to be very, successful financially, for instance. If that was my end goal, then I would focus on that one thing until it’s so clear that I am the one in that business, and then I could perhaps expand it a little bit outside and so on. But I focused on communication, motivation, engagement, psychology. I’ve even done the moderation part, which I’m now no longer doing much of. I’ve taken it away just from a positioning perspective. And I could have seen myself doing that one thing, being a black belt on that particular niche, and then expand from there instead of just saying, hey, I want to do all those five or seven things now. That would be my one difference. On the other hand, I’ve enjoyed the journey of doing many things. And actually now, the last few years, they have all come together to form something that I would say is still unique for me because I don’t do only one thing. I have a much more holistic view on things and experience on many things. So I can offer so much more today that is not only… Let’s talk about communication. I have a friend who only focuses on the voice. He says, Antoni, people say that you can see the soul of people in the eyes. It’s wrong. It’s the voice, he says. And then he knows every nitty gritty thing about the voice. And I like it because I like nerds, nerds who can go into a topic deep, deep, deep. It’s so fascinating. While I take a different approach, I want to focus on voice, for instance, but not only. I want to have this more holistic approach. And it serves me well now, but it took longer to do it that way than if I would have focused on one thing. Right. So instead of taking many paths to get to the same destination, maybe you would have just taken one path and then spread out as you got really deep into one. Yeah. So instead of going wide from the beginning and then narrow it down, I would have gone narrow in the beginning and then perhaps widen it afterwards. Great business lesson there. 

So I got a question. Where do you see the opportunities currently in the marketplace for trainers and speakers like yourself?

I see a vast range of opportunities right now. I see that there are so many companies and organizations that are motivated to and have realized that their people in the organization is actually making the biggest, biggest difference. I can really see it. I mean, there is a downturn of the economy right now where you have to be a bit careful about expenditures and so on in some areas. But in other areas, I see definitely an uptake again in learning and development. I can see that so many companies value their staff to the point where they want to train them. They want to train their leaders to be better leaders. They want to train everyone to be better collaborators and more creative and more innovative and so on. So I mean, I just see opportunities all over the place. And it’s not like in one market. I work globally. And I can see how that is shifting with the economy to some extent. But there is an increased awareness that we want to go from hands to head to heart. And I can see that transition is going on. It’s not only manual labor doing things with their hands. It’s not only about sitting behind a desk and being intellectually driven. Now you want to lead with your heart as well. And you want people to actually like being in the office or remote or whatever. It’s more of a tribe feeling again, back into let’s do this together. Let’s serve a bigger cause or serve a bigger vision. And let’s do it together. And I can see that in so many places right now. And it’s not industry specific. I think it’s industry agnostic. It’s everywhere. I like it. There are good times right now. We want to go away from just command and control into a more lead by vision, lead by care. The people and the leaders who care are the winners in the future. 

Just a follow up question that I’m curious, because you probably work with a lot of organizations, right? And some are maybe like very purpose driven, whereas others just have the purpose pinned up on some poster that is probably in the storeroom or something, right? How do you see the difference in employee engagement and the results they ultimately get when in scenario one versus scenario two? 

Well, it’s true. Many companies work with core values and then it becomes three words on a poster somewhere. It has happened. But I also see some companies who often and often all the time kind of bring them up as part of their DNA and not only stop with the words, but also talk about how that comes into action. How does it manifest itself in our organization to be generous or to be innovative or to be trustworthy? And I do see that when you do that, when you involve people, you have to involve them more than you inform them. And when you do that, I do see an uptake of engagement levels. And also if you have executives with high perceived level of empathy, which you have to have if you want to involve people, you have an engagement level of about 70% compared to the world average of 23% of being really engaged in the workplace. If you look at Gallup studies and also compared to organizations with executives who have perceived low level of empathies, where you only have 15 to 20 something percent of engagement. So having leaders who care is good for business because that engagement will turn into more customer satisfaction will turn into better productivity, less absenteeism, and ultimately higher profit. About 22% more profitable is what we would be if you have highly engaged people in your organization. That’s a lot. And that’s a lot. Just a question on that as well. 

With the training, the opportunities you see booming, how important do you think like stuff like AI and all this uncertainty in the geopolitical scene, does that make people more uncertain about the jobs and the futures? And how does training them help with, you know, I guess calming them down and keeping them happy and engaged at the workplace? 

I’m guessing it depends on what type of role you have, what functions you have. If I look at the gaming industry, for instance, there’s one company not too long ago that fired basically everyone who built, what do you call it, landscapes inside this video game, because they thought AI can do it just as well. So it does happen. I mean, if you look at writers, for instance, many of them are now AI generated instead. I’ve seen articles about that, how you have less and less people actually writing stuff and perhaps editing some of the AI generated material. But even that doesn’t take anywhere. So there’s actually a reason to worry, but it’s also a reason to learn quickly on how to utilise these possibilities that you have with AI. It’s a great tool if you use it right. But I’m a bit afraid if you have companies who think that we can just take away people completely. Let’s have chatbots and let’s have AI generated articles on our web page. It doesn’t take long before that becomes super generic and not very interesting. And then you’re on a downward spiral because then the next AI, you know, ChatGPT will look at articles around the world which have been written by itself, by ChatGPT, and then it deteriorates quickly. So humanity is not gone. We do have a possibility still to serve our clients and our colleagues well, but there is a shift. And exactly what kind of work we will have in the future, I don’t know. And to broaden it even more, and now we’re off topic, I would say, but I want to do it anyway. Who says that everyone has to work every day of the week in the future? What if we have automated and delegated much of the work that we have today to robots or AI? Why do we have to go with the old business model of grinding? Isn’t it time for us to just think about the future, a vision where we don’t have to? And in that case, how do we solve the issue of wealth, whatever wealth that is in the future? I mean, it’s a totally different question. It’s a big one. I don’t know. I can’t solve it. But it would be interesting to see if we have visionaries that look at that direction and say, hey, we could probably create a completely different future. Yeah, interesting, because I mean, the nine to five is an industrial age concept, right? Absolutely, it is. Yeah. I do my best work when I’m out walking. And I’m not in an office environment or anything. I’m just out walking, thinking about the things and it just pops up, you know, new ideas, new concept and everything. Who says I’m not working at that point? Why do I need to punch in? In my work, I don’t have to. If you’re in another type of work, you’re in a factory, you have to produce a number of products per hour, for instance, I get it. That’s a different story. But for many of us today, that’s not even the case. You might wake up with a brilliant idea. Who said you didn’t work then? So it’s different. 

So Antoni, just curious, if people wanted to find more about you, want to buy your book, how do they do that? What’s the best way? 

Well, I often say if you can spell my name, you will find me. I’m the only one in the world out of about 8 billion people with that name. And there you have, you will find me on LinkedIn, for instance, I share insights two, three times per week, four times per week on communication, leadership, engagement, customer focus, and so on. Good channel. Another one is just AntoniLassini.com. Again, the spelling is there. So that’s where you can see why I’m doing what I’m doing and what I’m doing as well. So that’s about keynotes and trainings and so on. It’s a lot of videos and downloadable material, checklists and books even that you can download if you want. So it’s all there. It’s all there for you. And then whoever want to approach me, do it. If I have a time to answer and talk to you, I absolutely will. It’s not like I have three social media people answering the questions for me. I don’t. I try to be the one who answers.

Antoni, thank you so much for being on this podcast. I think I’ve personally learned a lot and I hope our listeners have learned a lot too by listening to your business journey today. So thank you for being on the podcast. The journey continues for both of us. 

Yes, it does indeed. 

Thank you, Antoni. 

Thank you.