Fit For the Future

Hosted by Gihan Perera

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Jun 2026

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We have never faced us much uncertainty as we do now, and have never needed strong leadership as we do today. Navigate this fast-changing world with ideas and insights for leading through crisis, recovery, and growth, and being fit for the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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June 16, 20264 min

AI Anxiety At Work

Your people might not be openly resisting AI, but I bet many are wondering what it means for their future. You can help them by recognising their fears, understanding their concerns, and facilitating honest conversations about what AI means in your workplace. If you want them to embrace AI (and you do, don’t you?), bring them with you rather than assume they’re already on board.https://swiy.co/go-ai-anxiety-at-workAre your people excited about AI? Really?Do you know how your people really feel about the impact of AI in your team?You might have seen videos in the last month of graduation ceremonies at American universities, where invited speakers talked up AI to graduating students – and were booed by the students. Real estate executive Gloria Caulfield was barely into her pitch before the boos started. Music company executive Scott Borchetta told students “AI is rewriting production as we sit here” and told the crowd to “deal with it” as they booed back. And former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed after describing AI as a transformative force.These students aren’t booing AI. In fact, I bet most of them are already using AI in many ways in their personal lives. But they know their university hasn’t prepared them for an AI-enabled future. In fact, quite the opposite. Universities are telling students that using AI is cheating and that it’s a violation of academic integrity. That’s because most universities are still so far behind in their teaching and assessment methods they can’t cope with AI. Rather than levelling up themselves, they take it out on their students. And the students know it.I wonder how people in YOUR team are thinking about AI?They’re probably not booing you loudly at every staff meeting, but they might be doing it silently in their heads, and they might be talking about it behind your back.It’s a real concern right now because this is not hypothetical, theoretical, or purely in the future.People are seeing right now that other people are losing their jobs to AI. It might be happening to colleagues at work. Or friends outside work. Or they see stories in the media about people losing their jobs to AI.So, of course they wonder whether they might be next.If you really care about your people and want to bring them on the AI journey, then you must address those concerns.I’ll be talking about this in my next free public online presentation, which is all about AI at work. I’ll talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of what’s happening with AI right now. It’s open to everybody, so please invite other leaders and managers in your team and your network as well.Register for the virtual masterclass:https://swiy.co/go-ai-anxiety-at-work Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

June 9, 20263 min

Catch The Wave

If you’re waiting for the right time to start something important, you might be looking for a signal that never comes. Like learning to surf, progress doesn’t happen from standing on the beach and watching the waves. You only learn what works, what opportunities are available, and what direction to take when you’re out there paddling.https://swiy.co/go-catch-the-waveAre you thinking about something you should be doing – and you’d like to be doing – but you’re struggling to get started?I was recently on the Gold Coast again, speaking at a conference for the marinas industry, talking about AI for marinas and boatyards. The Gold Coast has a special place in my life – and in my heart – because, twenty years ago, I lived on the Gold Coast for a year. I had lots of clients on that side of the country, so I moved from Perth to build up my business there.I lived in Coolangatta, right next to Coolangatta Beach, and because I was trying new things, I decided to learn how to surf. And I learned something valuable in my first surfing lesson.We were in a small group, with the instructor helping us to get started, and he asked if there were any questions. I raised my hand and asked,“When you’re standing on the beach and looking out at the water, how can you tell if there’s a good wave coming?”He answered (kindly),“That’s a very common question. But if you’re standing on the beach, it’s already too late. You need to get out there and start paddling. Only then can you catch the waves.”My surfing career didn’t last long because I injured my shoulder playing squash and couldn’t swim for a few months, so figured it was safer to stay out of the water! But that one lesson has stayed with me for twenty years.Often, I see people – in business and in life – standing on the beach waiting. They’re standing there, waiting for the signal that they should plunge into the water. I’ve been in the same position myself.Don’t wait! Get out there and start paddling.I’ve shared this advice with my coaching clients, in my leadership programs, and in my conference keynote presentations. Whether it’s being a better leader, working with AI, building a speaking business, or something else entirely, it’s good advice.Get started.Only then will you realise what’s right for you, what the environment is really like, what direction to take, and what steps to take next.For some practical ways to do that, download my worksheet with many different ways to “start paddling”. Download it, share it with your team, and start putting some of those ideas into action.Download the worksheet:https://swiy.co/go-catch-the-wave Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

June 2, 20264 min

Build Their Judgement

How do you create a team culture where people take initiative and make good decisions without always coming back to you? Easy, but not simple: build their judgement. It’s like learning to drive: you know the rules and gain the basic skills, but what really matters is how you read situations and respond in the moment. The more you help your people develop good judgment, the more you can step back and say, “I trust your judgment” – and that’s not just good for them, it’s also good for you.https://swiy.co/go-build-good-judgementDo your people feel empowered at work?The word “empowered” sometimes has negative connotations, but it’s vital for building a future-ready team.You want people who can take initiative, have the authority to make decisions, and will then make those decisions. But that’s not enough; you also need to trust them to make GOOD decisions, and that means building their judgement.Five years ago, I taught my then 16-year-old niece, Abbey, to drive. Her parents were reluctant for her to learn driving at 16, but she persuaded them that if her uncle was willing to teach her, that would be OK.So, I taught Abbey for her first ten or so lessons – the crucial first ten hours, which I think are the most difficult! And then I handed her back to her parents so they could take on all the extra hours of supervised driving she needs before her driving test.When we were talking about handing over, I said to her,“Abs, you’re already a pretty good driver. Your job now is to stay out of other people’s accidents.”Isn’t this true for all of us as drivers every day?Abbey knew the road rules, she had learned the skill to handle heavy machinery in public, and she was reasonably confident on the road.But the real test is when she had to make judgement calls. She will often face situations when it’s not a clear-cut decision.Sometimes it’s safe to go.Sometimes you need to stop.Sometimes you need to wait.And good judgement is knowing the difference between those three options.This applies to your team as well. You know they have good judgement when they know when to follow the rules, know when to ignore the rules, and know when they don’t know (so they ask you).Ideally, you’ll get to the situation where somebody comes to you for help, and you can confidently say,“I trust your judgment.”Right now, can you do that with all your team members all the time? Probably not, and you don’t HAVE to do it every time.Sometimes you help – by telling them how to start, showing them the process, adding a few check-in points, maybe even doing it yourself while they shadow you.But every time you do this, ask yourself,“What would she have to know next time so I COULD confidently say, ’I trust your judgement’?”Building good judgement in your team is one of the most important factors in building a culture of change agents.For more about this and other elements of the future of work, join my free, public, online presentation THIS WEEK. It’s open to everybody, so share the link with others in your team and your network as well.Register for the virtual masterclass:https://swiy.co/go-build-good-judgement Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 26, 20264 min

The Sisyphus Trap

You might want AI to help your team work smarter, but are you just giving them more work? Instead of freeing people to focus on meaningful, higher-value work, AI can end up creating a cycle where more efficiency just leads to more work. If you’re not careful, the work never really changes, it just keeps coming back faster – and that's bad for everybody.https://swiy.co/go-the-sisyphus-trapWhen you’re using AI in your organisation, are you falling into the Sisyphus trap?In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who angered the gods. So, for his punishment, they gave him a never-ending task. Every day, he had to push a big rock up a hill. But before it reached the top, it magically rolled down to the bottom, and he had to start all over again. Push the rock, it rolls down. Push the rock, it rolls down. Push the rock, it rolls down.In Greek mythology, this was known as the eternal punishment. I call it the birth of rock and roll, ha ha.But isn’t this exactly what happens in many workplaces?Many team members feel like Sisyphus – spending most of their waking hours pushing rocks up a hill, never achieving anything useful. Even when they get a “new and improved” system for boosting their productivity, it just means they can push more rocks up more hills!Is that true for you? Do people in your team feel like they’re making progress, or just working harder?New tools, new processes, and new expectations promise efficiency, but sometimes they just lead to more work. AI can draft your emails and replies faster – good! But does that just mean you get more emails???Using AI isn’t better if it just means more emails, more tasks, more pointless meetings, and more pressure.That’s short-term gain (at best) but it’s terrible for your people, and uitimately for your organisation.This is not true of all AI adoption, of course, but I’m seeing it a lot.As a leader, recognise this and ensure that change is actually improving the work – not just increasing the workload – of everybody in your team.AI is part of a broader conversation about the future of work, but it’s a very important part because everybody’s talking about it.I’m running a free public online presentation very soon about the future of work – including AI – so please join me and invite others in your team and organisation as well.Register for the virtual masterclass:https://swiy.co/go-the-sisyphus-trap Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 19, 20265 min

Meet The Workfluencer

If you have a culture you’re proud of, workfluencers are powerful brand voices for you – sharing their experiences, amplifying your culture, and helping attract the right sort of talent, long before an interview. It’s time to support, nurture, and trust the people already championing your workplace.https://swiy.co/go-meet-the-workfluencerDo you have a workfluencer in your team? If you don’t, maybe you should!So what’s a workfluencer? (I hear you cry)In a nutshell, a workfluencer is an employee who talks about their work on social media and in other online communities.Of course, we’ve always been doing this, even before the online world – with friends and family at parties, with other parents at your children’s school events, and in your local community or church community.A workfluencer is the 2025 version of that. It expands and amplifies the concept because of the power and reach of online networks. They work in your team, and are also active on social media and other online networks, sharing the good, the bad, and the occasional ugly about work. Exactly as you do when talking to friends at a barbie, but on a much larger scale.So do you have somebody like that in your team? Typically, it’s a younger person – a Gen Z or maybe a younger Gen Y (Millennial). That’s good, because of the demographic shift that’s happening now. In the next few years – and it might already be happening in your industry and sector – one in three people on the planet will be Gen Z. That’s one third of your customers, one third of your employees, and one third of your future leaders.If you don’t have workfluencers in your team, maybe you should. Not by forcing it, but by creating a culture people feel proud to boast about.If you like the people in your team, you want them to talk to their friends and community, because you want to attract more people like them. And you want those people to know about you before they join – not through the traditional hierarchical interview and recruitment process, but by knowing somebody “on the inside”. Those people will be a good fit for your team, because they already know your values.So, are you tapping into their online influence?Now, if you’re NOT proud of your workplace culture, this advice isn’t for you. (I have some other advice for you, but that’s a topic for another day!)But if you have the sort of workplace culture and team you’re proud of, you have nothing to be afraid of. Encourage and nurture workfluencers to share their experiences online, far and wide.This becomes part of your employee value proposition (EVP), which is a key element of the future of work.I’m running an online presentation soon about the future of work, and this is one of the four key elements for all leaders to understand. It’s free, public, and open to all. So please register, and invite others in your team and organisation as well.Register for the virtual masterclass:https://swiy.co/go-meet-the-workfluencer Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 12, 20265 min

The ABC Of AI Strategy

Adopting AI in your organisation can feel like a huge task, but it helps to keep your strategy simple. Start by understanding your assets so you know where you can apply AI. Then build and deploy AI tools to support your teams and improve how work gets done. Finally, connect those systems to the wider world, bringing in external data and insights to make smarter decisions.https://swiy.co/go-abc-of-ai-strategyI’m speaking soon at the Marinas26 conference, an international event that brings together professionals from the marinas and boatyard sector. My keynote session is about AI for this sector, and I’m then moderating a panel with four people who are using AI in different ways.As with any industry group, the level of AI use will vary. Some aren’t using it at all, others are just starting out, and others are embracing it.What’s your level of AI adoption?In my keynote, I’ll lay out a three-stage strategic roadmap for AI adoption. I’ll share it here because it applies to every organisation – small or large – and you can overlay it on your own strategy.Think of this as the ABC of AI strategy: Audit, Build, and Connect.First, AUDIT your assets: processes, data, physical assets, and your people assets (internally, your team and employees; externally, your customers and other stakeholders). Assess how much data you’re capturing, storing, and collecting from those assets, and how much you CAN capture. AI works on data, and the more data the better.Next, you BUILD, deploy, or buy AI system to work on that data. For employees, for example, you might use AI for HR, learning and development, career growth, shift management, and removing the boring, routine work. For physical assets, AI might use sensor data for predictive maintenance, sustainability, equipment performance, and return on investment. And so on.Third, to take this to the next level, you CONNECT AI systems to the external world. For exampe, in the marina sector, it means looking at climate data, sustainability data, regulatory requirements, and a range of other external data.This AUDIT-BUILD-CONNECT roadmap is a simple framework, but don’t be fooled by its simplicity. Review and assess your current AI adoption through these three stages, and ensure it fits within your overall “future of work” strategy.For more about the future of work – and how AI fits in it – register for my free, public online presentation coming soon. It’s open to everybody, so please invite others in your team and your network as well.Register for the virtual masterclass:https://swiy.co/go-abc-of-ai-strategy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

April 28, 20265 min

Push Authority To Information

As a leader, would you like the people in your team to take more initiative? You might say,“Of course I want them to take more initiative! That’s a no-brainer.”If that’s what you think, good – because I’ll show you how to start encouraging people to take more initiative.But I should warn you this isn’t always what you want. It’s not always a “no-brainer” that you want people to take more initiative.For example, I see this a lot with AI rollouts. Let’s say your organisation is rolling out some new AI system to improve efficiency, and your job as a leader is to get your team on board with this new system.Do you want your team members to take initiative? Well ... maybe. But probably not!You actually want the opposite: to be compliant. They must follow the rules and use the new software. Not keep using the old system, especially secretly behind your back.So, sometimes initiative is the last thing you want. But you want to move past that point as soon as possible, and start showing more initiative.This isn’t easy!David Marquet, commander of the US Navy’s nuclear submarine Santa Fe, discovered this in 1999.At the time, he was leading his crew through exercises In Pearl Harbor, taking them through a series of intense training exercises.In one such exercise, Marquet ordered the engineer to shut down the nuclear reactor, testing the crew’s ability to deal with the situation, and find and correct the fault. The submarine switched to its battery backup, and the trouble-shooters started working diligently through their checklist, trying to isolate the fault before the battery died.Marquet – by his own admission – became bored, and decided to raise the stakes by increasing the submarine’s speed. That would significantly increase the drain on the battery, adding extra pressure to the process.He nudged his Officer On Deck, Lieutenant Commander Bill Greene, and asked him to increase the speed from “ahead one third” to “ahead two thirds”. Greene immediately barked out the order to the helmsman, “Ahead two thirds!”And then … nothing. Nobody said anything, the helmsman didn’t respond, and Marquet noticed him squirming in his seat. He asked why, and the helmsman replied, “Captain, there is no such setting on this ship!”Marquet realised he had probably been told this during his training, but he had forgotten. He later took Greene aside to ask him why he ordered it. Greene admitted he, too, knew there was no “ahead two thirds”, but went ahead and ordered it “because you told me to”. He went on to say, “I thought you had learned something secret at Commanding Officer school that they only tell the Commanding Officers.”Marquet was stunned. This was his first role commanding this type of submarine, so he was one of its least experienced crew members. But, because he had the title, his crew would respond without question to his orders. He resolved to transform that culture from blind obedience to individual empowerment, and did that over the next twelve months.Marquet realised this crew, as good and as smart as they were, were still compliant. They would obey the hierarchy.He spent the next twelve months building a different culture and turning that around. He tells the story in his book, “Turn the Ship Around”.One of the key principles – and one I encourage you to use – is this simple idea: push authority to information.Push authority to information.If all people do is alert you to problems, that’s fine. But even better is when they have the authority to act on that information without always checking in with you.Of course, there are situations where they should check in – that’s a matter of judgement. But the first and most important thing you can do to encourage initiative is to push authority to information.If you want people to take more initiative, push authority to information.Download my worksheet here to use with your team to identify ways to put this principle into practice.https://swiy.co/go-push-authority-to-information Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

April 21, 20266 min

The Dependability Gap

When you’re operating in a world where more and more things feel unpredictable, that uncertainty puts pressure on how your team functions. You can’t shut the door on that chaos and uncertainty, but there’s one surprisingly simple thing your team can do to reduce stress and anxiety.https://swiy.co/go-the-dependability-gapA few weeks ago, a Tesla driver driving across Australia got stranded half-way across the Nullarbor. He knew there were charging stations along the way, and had planned his trip carefully to use them along the journey. Unfortunately, three charging stations in a row – hundreds of kilometres apart – weren’t working. Usually, they are reliable, and he had even built in enough contingency for one to be broken, but not all three. Suddenly, he was stuck!This often happens in times of change and uncertainty (like right now!). Sometimes the biggest stress doesn’t come from new things, but from old things that just don’t work anymore.This is the dependability gap, and it causes a lot of stress and anxiety.You know this now, right?You go to your local servo and it’s out of petrol.You want to change a flight, but it’s double the price.You want to pump up your tyres, but there’s a massive line of people following the government’s advice.(OK, maybe that last one isn’t happening everywhere!)Your regular café is probably one that reliably makes your coffee the same way every time. It doesn’t have to be the best in the world, but it’s reliably good, and that’s good enough. You wouldn’t go there if it’s the best in the world today, but tomorrow it’s terrible, then the next day it’s just OK, then back to the best again.It’s not reliable, and you can’t depend on it.You don’t need 100% precision – just dependability. If the last train home at night could be 5 or 10 minutes late, OK – you can work around it. But if it sometimes doesn’t turn up at all, you can’t rely on it.We depend on dependability.You might call it reliability, but I’m using the word “dependability” because it’s the word Google used in its Project Aristotle research to identify the factors that high-performing team share. Google thought the best teams must logically have the smartest engineers, but in fact they discovered something five other – very different – things. I won’t share them all here (just look up Project Aristotle), but one was dependability.In other words, people in the team could depend on each other.This happens in the smallest everday things.You ask somebody to send you a report by 2pm, and you know they will do it – not at 2.15pm or 2.05pm (which means you can’t present it at the 2pm meeting).You ask people to do some pre-reading for a meeting, and you know they will do it, so you don’t have to waste time in the meeting waiting for them to catch up.You ask somebody to reply to a customer and you know they will do it – without you checking in on them every hour.Google found that teams with high dependability perform better. And when you think about it, it’s obvious. But would you have guessed it’s one of the TOP FIVE factors?Dependability matters even more when there’s a lot of external change and uncertainty. When you can depend less on what’s happening outside, building depending inside becomes even more important.So how do you build dependability in your team?It starts with small things – like in the examples above. It’s tempting to think they don’t matter. But they do.For more examples, download the worksheet here and use it as a starting point for building more dependability in your team.Download the worksheet:https://swiy.co/go-the-dependability-gap Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

April 14, 20264 min

Small Wins, Big Change

Do you have people in your team pushing back on change? It might not be because they’re difficult, but they’re just exhausted by it. With constant, overlapping demands coming from every direction, it’s no surprise their motivation dips and their resistance grows. Instead of trying to force people to get on board, there’s a simple step you can take to get them started. It doesn’t instantly remove resistance, but it starts to change how people feel about what’s possible – and that’s where real momentum begins.https://swiy.co/go-small-wins-big-changeAs a leader, are you finding your people are resistant to change?In a recent online presentation, I was talking about building a culture of change agents, and one person said their team is going through constant change. And not just one change at a time, but multiple overlapping changes – and it’s creating uncertainty, instability, and change fatigue. His biggest challenge, not surprisingly, is sustaining motivation during this time.I’m hearing that a lot.Leaders tell me their teams are change fatigued, and often it’s from external change completely outside their control. Sometimes it’s even imposed from higher levels of the organisation, but it’s still outside their control.So what can you do?First, accept there’s a lot of change, and there will be a lot more in the future. This isn’t a temporary state that will eventually revert to normal; this IS normal.So, what can you do about it?Recognise that not everybody is going to be open to change at the same level or at the same time.So, one of the first things you can do is what Chip and Dan Heath, in their book “Switch”, call “finding the bright spots”:Find positive examples of change, share them, and amplify them.Ideally, find examples from within your own team. Even the smallest stories, anecdotes, and case studies can help.This doesn’t mean those people who are resistant to change will magically change. It probably takes more before they’re full open to change and embrace it. But at least they can see examples of successful change.So, invite people to think of success stories, give them a place to share them (such as the regular staff meeting or an online bulletin board), and celebrate their success.For practical ways to put this into action, download my worksheet, which is all about finding, sharing, and amplifying bright spots in your workplace. Use it with your team to help people move from resistance to starting to believe that change is possible — and even positive.Download the worksheet:https://swiy.co/go-small-wins-big-change Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

April 8, 20266 min

This Time It’s Personal

If you want real, lasting change in your team, understand what truly motivates each person. Everybody shows up to work for different reasons, so connect the change you’re asking for with what matters to them personally. When people see how change benefits them – not just the organisation – they’re far more likely to choose it, support it, and sustain it.https://swiy.co/go-this-time-its-personalI was speaking at a leadership conference recently, and somebody asked me for some advice afterwards. He said:“I’m a leader of a team and we’re going through a major change right now. If we don’t change, we’re going to lose our jobs – all of us! But some people in the team just don’t get it. How do I convince them it’s literally their job at stake?”It reminded me of something that happened to me in my first job, working for a small tech team (Nowadays, it would be called a startup). Because it was small, people tended to get promoted quickly, and I became a manager way before I was ready for it. I’ll admit I wasn’t a very good manager to begin with, but I like to think I learned quickly.At the time, our company was struggling. We had lost a couple of big contracts, and were finding it difficult to get more work because our biggest project (my project) was running late.In my first management role, at one of our weekly management meetings, one of the senior leaders told us we just needed to get people to work harder. Mind you, we couldn’t afford to pay them more, but we just expected them to work longer hours to get the project done.I asked him, “What do I tell my people? How do I motivate them?”He said, “Just tell them that if they don’t change, they’ll lose their jobs!”Even as a naive, wet-behind-the-years, 23-year-old, first-time manager, I knew this wasn’t going to motivate my team! Unfortunately, I had to pass on that message, but it reminded me this has been a constant problem. And many leaders still try to motivate their teams to change by offering only the stick, with no carrot.What’s a better solution?First, you can’t wave a magic wand and instantly get people to change. It doesn’t work that way, unless there’s a catastrophic event – like, say, a global pandemic.So, you need to build a CULTURE of change.And this starts by recognising not everybody is motivated by the same things. Everybody has their own reasons for being at work.For some, it’s just about earning money to look after their family and lifestyle. No problem with that – they feel fulfilled by what they do outside work hours.At the other extreme, some are passionate about their work, and put everything into it because they feel they are making a difference – the kind of difference THEY want to make – in the world.And then there’s everything in between.So, if you’re involved in any sort of change initiative and you want your people to change, my first question for you is this:Do you know WHY your people are there?If you don’t, find out! Because you can’t force them to change – or, rather, you can’t force them to change and keep the change.Motivation comes from them, not from you.This is part of building a culture of change agents, and it’s what makes change happen, makes it positive, and makes it stick.For more, join my free, public online presentation this week, “Keep The Change”. I’ll share how to build this culture of change, including some simple, practical things you can do right now.Register for the virtual masterclass:https://swiy.co/go-this-time-its-personal Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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