Chatgpt-4o - the 4 basic facts you need to know

The new ChatGPT-4o is live! Here are four highlights from OpenAI's event:

CHATGPT-4o will be free for everyone!

This means that more people will be able to use the new features - one can only speculate why they choose to have the latest features as a free version, what do you think?

Record live - or screen share - and get answers instantly.

This is fantastic news. You can now run live video with ChatGPT and get answers instantly. It can also read your surroundings almost perfectly.

Several new voice tonalities (including singing).

There are certainly many good uses here. I have already seen a clip where two phones are paired against each other. Then you run CHatGpt-4o and - tada - you have a live singing choir!

Finally, 2x faster and handles 5x more requests.

As the user base grows, OpenAi has also handled the higher number of requests coming in. The experience is that it is faster and you get more precise answers.

This feels both scary and exciting at the same time. Imagine the possibility of being able to translate sign language, learn complex maths - or yes, why not learn to sing? I feel that things are moving extremely fast now. The question is: will everyone not using AI today keep up?

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Change management is important. We are living in a vibrant ever-changing world where what we call new today will be tomorrow’s yesterday’s news. Change will come more and more often, so it is important to have the leaders who how to deal with change.  

Change has been a part of everyday life for centuries. However, in the 20th and 21st century, with a global 24-hours economy, change seems to be a faster reoccurring process than ever before without any sign of this process reversing. Knowing that, you know that change will come to your organisation as well, sooner or later. You should therefore be prepared to have the right leadership-skills in your company to drive home certain changes. Why leadership? Because the success of change does not depend on which software tool you acquired, which consultants have advised you, or which market research drove you to change. The success of change is dependent on whether or not you can get your employees to accept and work with change.  

The necessity of a good story

The first step of creating leadership that knows how to deal with change, is that the leadership needs to understand the foundation of the change itself. Leaders and managers need to have a crystal-clear idea of why change is necessary and how it can help the company to achieve its vision, mission and goals. There should be no question or doubt in the mind of a leader or manager about upcoming change, or this might affect the effectiveness of the implementation. A newly implemented project or change often fails because a lack of managerial commitment through understanding the change and translating this to employees.  

Once a leader or manager thoroughly understands a change in the company and how it can improve the company, the leader or manager needs to connect this to the goals of the company. Change or improvement itself is not that inspiring. Your vision, mission and goals are tools to create inspiration. So, to convey an inspiring message about change which shows commitment and has the capability to persuade people into adhering to change. The manager or leader needs to show how this change or improvement will lead to the accomplishment of the goals of the company.  

Now that the manager or leader understands why the change is necessary and can formulate the argument for change, connected to the goals of the company, it is time to communicate this to your employees. The communication of change is often not done by a simple power point presentation in a singular meeting. You will need to address the upcoming change on a couple occasions, not only because some changes are quite big and therefore complicated to explain, but also to let change ‘sink in’. Give your employees the opportunity to overthink change, to understand what it will mean for them, and to provide an opportunity for their feedback to perhaps even add value to your idea for change. So, plan in a couple of meetings, coffee breaks, group discussions or presentations to bring across your points, because remember: it does not only take effort to convince people, it also takes time to get them on board.  

Communication in this sense is a two-way street. You should be in close contact with your employees throughout every stage of change. This brings us to our second, and perhaps most important, aspect of change: your people.  

People

Change is not natural for most people. Most people work out of routine and experience. It is not so much that they are stuck in their old ways, but it is more that they know what works for them right now. Therefore, change can be scary and spark certain concerns. It is important to address these concerns because they can be a root cause for unhappiness, demotivation and stress, even if, in hindsight, there was nothing to be concerned about in the first place. Concern itself is, although very important, relatively unharmful for your employees’ wellbeing. A side-effect of concern, however, is stress. Stress is very harmful for the wellbeing of your employees. Not only for their individual mental wellbeing, but also for the atmosphere on the work floor. Stressed employees have a tendency to emphasize the negative and ignore the positive, which deteriorates the work atmosphere in the long run. This should give you more than enough reasons to address concerns fast and continuously.  

So, from the moment you announce change, also simultaneously provide opportunities for your employees to express their concerns. Not only because you want to be a good boss and listen to your employees, but if you can even take away their concerns and show them the advantages, then you can transform those previously concerned employees to be your champions of change. Don’t see concerns as a problem. They are a sign that people care. Concerns are even an opportunity to transform concerned employees into change champions.  

Another component that you might encounter when working with your employees towards change is resistance. Resistance is the natural result of experience. People know how they have to work from the past and are cautious to give up their usual ways with which they have familiarized themselves. This is unavoidable and there is generally not much more to it than to engage with resistance. Debates during meetings are a good way to engage with resistance and just like concern, you need to either take resistance away or you can use it to create something better. Resistance in this sense is a useful tool to optimize change. The people on the work floor have the best idea of what they encounter in their daily work, so if there is something which will not work according to their views, then you need to address that. Use the experience of your employees in such a way to optimize your change. Do not just let them be idle bystanders, but show them that their input is valued and that it can improve the process of change. So instead of seeing resistance as a nuisance, accept and embrace it. It is a sign that people care and an opening to let experience shape and finetune the planned change. After all, your employees are the experts on your daily business, so use their experience to criticize and finetune your ideas for change. Their insights will drive improvements, but most importantly also the acceptance and engagement towards the upcoming change.  

Accountability and adjustments

Do we get everybody on board? Good. Have all the concerns been addressed? Good. Has the resistance been met and has everybody had a chance to ventilate their criticism? Good. So, then we are done here, right? Wrong.  During the process of change there can still be topics where your employees do not agree with the decisions being made. That is a natural part of the process. In this sense it is important to remain critical as a leader, also towards the decisions being made. If something is not working out, then this has to be addressed and the people involved have to be held accountable. This is not only important to ensure that there are no rushed decisions being taken, but also to uphold the legitimacy of your managerial team. Think about it his way, if managers consistently take wrong decisions and are not being hold accountable then this will not only upset your employees, but it will also undermine the general legitimacy and credibility of your entire management staff. Mistakes can be made, decisions can turn out to be wrong, that is a normal part of change. However, in this sense it should also be normal to hold the responsible people accountable. From that point onwards it is important not to let pride and stubbornness take over from reason and responsibility. If a decision for change turns out to be a mistake, it is time for an adjustment of the original change. This in and of itself is a new point of change in the organisation so it is again important to consider all the points made above when it comes to leadership.  

Conclusion

Change is a constant process. New decisions are made daily so it is important to have leaders who know how to deal with change. This starts with understanding change and knowing how to communicate it to your employees. They will subsequently respond with concerns and resistance. These are, however, not a bad thing. They are a sign that people care and they provide opportunities for improving and finetuning change. If it turns out that some decisions in change are not working, then you need to hold the right people accountable and take adjustive action. At this point, you are preparing new change, so it is important to again go over all the important points related to leadership and change management.  

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Companies and managers alike are always looking for ways to improve. Feedback conversations with employees are being held on the regular, but often they forget to utilize one group that is very important; the people who leave.

In the world of progress, nothing is as important as reflection. You need reflection to look back and see where there is room for improvement. Many managers and companies are already capitalizing on this by holding regular feedback meetings and one-to-one meetings, where both employees and managers openly speak about their experiences. If you are not doing this, then start doing it. Tomorrow. Seriously. The easiest way to improve your company is by tapping into the knowledge of your employees, so don’t let their talents go to waste. In this blog I will not pay attention to that, however. In this blog I will go into the importance of the feedback of the people who will actually leave your company and show you what you can learn from them.

Let’s start with: why?

Well, firstly, people who leave your company have nothing to ‘lose’, so they will be very forthcoming with what they think. In normal feedback meetings, employees are encouraged to be as open an up-front as possible. Although this sounds great, experience teaches us that employees can be a bit hesitant into saying everything that is on their mind in fear of retribution. This factor of retribution is not present at an ‘exit interview’, so your ex-employee will be open and honest.

Secondly, it is important to note that you can learn a lot from the reason why the employee is leaving. It might be possible that this new information helps you to prevent others from leaving for the same reasons as well. Often managers make assumptions as on why employees leave, instead of actually asking and understanding why they leave. This way they cannot effectively deal with possible problems in the internal organisation. Therefore, it is important to find out the true reasons in an exit interview.

Thirdly, it is important for your employer branding as a part of the employee experience. In an exit interview you can take up all sorts of matters which require closure before the employee leaves. Perhaps there are conflicts that need to be settled, equipment which has to be returned, or ongoing confidentiality clauses which have to be signed. Most of all it is a moment for your employee to reflect and express their thoughts and feelings. It is always good to give your employee the feeling that they are being heard, but it is even more important to actually listen (and act).

Still not convinced that it is important to have these exit interviews? Here are ten more reasons.

What to ask?

As said before, the main goal is to find out what the motivations are of the employee who leaves, but it is also good to unravel other possible problems in your organisation. So don’t be afraid to ask creative questions. Don’t make turn the interview in a acquisition and the atmosphere light-hearted to get your ex-employee to really open up. When having these exit interviews, then it is good to keep the questions uniform. Make sure that you are asking everybody the same questions, so that you can actually use the results. More on that later.

Here are some examples of questions that you might want to use:

• What is the reason you are leaving us? (obviously)
• Could you list a top three of reasons why you are leaving us?
• Is there anything we can improve as a company? Performance or cultural wise?
• Is there anything that your own department could improve?
• Is there anything that your manager can improve?
• If you would be owner of this company tomorrow, what would be the top five changes that you would make?
• If you would go back to the beginning of your time at our company, then what would you have liked to see differently during your time with us?
  

What’s next? Data.

Now that you know why it is important and which questions to ask, it is time to get to the interesting part: the data. To get an organised set of data, you will need to try and standardize the answers given by the ex-employees to get a clear picture. For example, if you ask the question “Why are you leaving us?” then you can get a very variety of answers as it is an open question. However, you can label the answers given so you can detect patterns. Answer labels for this question could include: “Atmosphere within company, Development possibilities, Prospect of better benefits, Personal reasons” etcetera.

One or two exit interviews will not give you enough information if you are dealing with possible internal problems. That is because it could just be that the couple ex-employees that you have interviewed might hold a grudge against you. However, if a certain pattern appears when more and more ex-employees point to the same problems, then you cannot hide behind the excuse of a coincidental common grudge anymore. So, volume is key here.

After having the right labels and enough volume, you are ready to analyse the data and draw the right conclusions to improve your company and tackle possible problems.

In conclusion

You should always hold exit interviews, not only because it adds to the employee experience, but you can also actually learn from them. This information can be valuable to retaining your future talent, tackle possibly hidden problems, and improve your company performance.

Do you need help with holding exit interviews, analysing the data, or implementing solutions to newly discovered problems? Get in touch with us and see what we can do for you.

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