Living through history

I’m a fan of history, and over the holidays, my mom and I talked about “hinge moments”, inspired by a radio series based on an idea that Salman Rushdie wrote about:

"When one lives at a hinge moment in history, as we do, as Shakespeare did when he wrote his protean plays … then it becomes essential to admit that the old forms will not do, the old ideas will not do, because all must be remade, all, with our best efforts, must be rethought, reimagined, and rewritten,”

The past 6 weeks have ushered in another hinge moment. The LLMs that are the engine of a new phase of AI will change so much, including our jobs, our interactions, and the way we work.

In my mom and my’s conversation, we discussed as one of our contenders the year 1436, the year Gutenberg invented the printing press.

I’ve spent two decades thinking about leadership development, organizational culture, teams and teamwork and learning and growth, and I think 2023 will be a Gutenberg Printing Press moment for us who think about these topics.

We founded Valence believing there was an opportunity to democratize the individualized coaching and guidance that top leaders get, and offer it to any manager, any where.

This individual coaching and guidance that’s offered to the most senior leaders works: it’s the only way that people learn - small nuggets, in context, it’s a “pull” because it’s about what leaders are facing. There are a bunch of academic reasons why this “personal” or “apprenticeship” model is the only proven way to effectively build the mindsets, skills and behaviors to become a better leader.

But it has always come with a caveat: it costs a fortune, so it’s reserved for the few.

So what are most managers left with? The only affordable way to offer them is a combination of online and sometimes in person training programs, really one size fits all. It might be a fun gathering, often interesting ideas are discussed, the the evidence shows that little is retained, and there is little long term impact.

When we talk to CHROs, they know their support for managers need to change. Not only do managers and leaders more guidance, but their jobs are getting hard. Their business context is defined by changing, and trying to keep ahead of it. They’ve had to navigate the changes to work from Covid. They have more on their plate, and less time to handle things.

More training won’t cut it.

So CHROs’ eyes light up at the idea of mass personalization at scale. Of giving every manager - indeed every employee - access to a personal coach, to help each one both learn the next skills for them. And they dream of being able to guide those coaches to help achieve business goals around the culture, speed, business transformation.

That idea of personalization at scale, that’s obviously a too costly pipedream.

Until now.

This is our Gutenberg Printing Press Moment.

Almost 600 years ago, Gutenberg brought down the cost of printing by 50x. No longer monks, great craftspeople, producing books, precious, for the few. Soon, millions of more people had access to millions of more ideas.

We’re in that same moment. With LLMs, we can put a coach in every employees hands. Whether it’s your first month on the job, your first stint leading a team, a newly promoted manager of managers, or an executive, you can have your virtual coach.

A coach for anyone, anywhere

A year ago, I gave a speech outlining that in 10 years, maybe 8 if we were lucky, this coach might have enough knowledge and context to catch up with a human coach - but honestly, I was using data science and NLP as the underlying technology.

But I now think by the end of this year, this virtual coach will be better than 80% of the coaches out there.

• This coach will have access to the world’s learning, drawing on any framework that might help.
• This coach will have perfect recollection, and know everything that you’ve talked about.
• This coach will be available, at your fingertips, 24/7.
• This coach will be integrated into your work - it can identify a challenging meeting coming up, and give you thoughts.
• This coach can also be your assistant, taking care of tasks for you.
• This coach can be a mentor, helping you reflect on mindsets and behaviours that might help you be more effective and successful.
• This coach can help you build better habits.
• This coach can encourage you when you are down.
• This coach can be a thought partner, a co-pilot, who can help you as a leader.
• This coach can gather feedback for you.

And imagine how good this coach will be?

• This coach will have coached 10s of thousands, 100s of thousands, millions of people.
• This coach will know what will work for you, and will help tailor their advice to what they think will be most helpful for you.

And this coach will be powered by the latest in LLMs, with a ton of sophistication in the data models, and will get smarter about what is most helpful for you, with every interaction.

The possibilities are almost endless. There are obviously a hundred different technical challenges that need to be overcome, but they will be, and faster than any of us think.

Imagine your enterprise leadership & coaching platform

Now, if you’re in the C-suite, you might be thinking - wait, how can I harness the power of this for my business?

You’re probably not only trying to help your leaders, managers and employees to reach their full potential, but you’ve also got business goals to achieve - goals that might be getting harder in a world that’s increasingly focused on efficiency.

You might be trying to drive an agile transformation.

You might be trying to get your teams closer to their customers.

You might be launching a new set of leadership behaviors, or a refreshing your culture.

Whatever your goal, you need a Leadership & Coaching Platform that combines your culture and performance goals into the 1:1 personal virtual coaching that each employee will have access to.

You want one framework for feedback, not five. You want one language for psychological safety, not five. You need some consistency across your teams, and you want a common language. You want your coaches to coach to your culture.

You’ll be able to get that.

Hinge moments

We in the L&D space are in a hinge moment. Over the next 12 to 24 months, the concept of leadership, learning and growth will be upended.

We’re excited to help you make sense of this. Together we’re excited to build a new world that will unleash the potential of everyone, and help you transform your business.

Looking forward,
Parker