#124—Brian Evergreen: Beyond Digital—The Era of Autonomous Transformation

Outthinkers

Brian Evergreen, author of Autonomous Transformation: Creating a More Human Future in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, named a Next Big Idea “Must-Read” and for which Brian was shortlisted for the 2023 Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award.

Building on his experiences working at Accenture, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft, Brian advises and speaks to organizations around the world, guest lectures at Purdue University and the Kellogg School of Management, sharing the unconventional and innovative methods and frameworks he developed leading and advising Digital Transformation initiatives at many of the world's most valuable companies. There are very few people in the world who has had as much experience of Brian facilitating strategic conversations that lead to big, breakthrough ideas.

At the core of Brian’s ideas is that in this age of accelerated AI, there is not only room for—but a dire need for human reasoning to remain a core component of business strategy in what he calls “autonomous transformation,” which contrast with and complements what we all call digital transformation.

In this podcast, he shares:

• The differences between transformation, reformation and creation — and when each is best employed given the presence of key criteria
• His "reason-driven Framework," which in contrast to data-driven frameworks, allow the space and opportunity for human experimentation, learning, and innovation
• The critical difference between digital transformation (moving from analog to digital) and autonomous transformation, which encompasses systems that autonomously handle processes and make decisions, emphasizing that transformation should create value, not just imply digital changes

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Episode Timeline:
00:00—Highlight from today's episode
1:09—Introducing Brian + the topic of today’s episode
2:56—If you really know me, you know that...
3:29— How chess shaped Brian's approach to strategy
04:49— Defining strategy: a decision tree framework
05:56— Challenges of strategy implementation in organizations
06:58— Reformation vs. transformation, the key differences
09:17— Knowing when to build from scratch
11:24— Reason driven framework for strategic decision making
14:16— Data vs. reason: Why reason driven decision making is crucial
24:22— Steps of the reason-driven framework
28:48— Digital vs. autonomous transformation
33:43—Solving for the future
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Additional Resources:
Link to personal website: www.brianevergreen.com
Link to book: Autonomous Transformation: Creating a More Human Future in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brianevergreen/

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