How Humans Fit Into an AI Future

Artificial intelligence is entering the business world, welcome or not. Binh Diep (MBA 2012), general manager at Slalom, a consulting firm, is doing his best to prepare his company and his clients for the future. On this episode of the Voices of Experience podcast, Diep explains how Slalom is taking a “human-centered approach” to the new technology and discusses how he sees AI shaping the consulting business. Plus, he offers his top piece of advice for building a relationship while networking.

Show Notes

Binh Diep

Binh Diep is the general manager at Slalom, a consulting firm. He graduated from the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business in 2012, earning his Executive MBA.

1:09 Aligning values and organization
3:16 Creating a culture like Slalom’s
6:01 “Let’s thrive in turbulence together”
7:42 Maintaining culture through layoffs
What’s next at Slalom?
11:58 “Human-machine collaboration” and AI
14:02 How AI might change consulting
15:30 The most important skills for an AI workplace
16:13 From engineering to business
21:02 How to build a relationship
21:02 Show notes and credits

In this episode:

Binh’s LinkedIn feed
Denver Business Journal: Denver’s 2023 Best Places to Work winners
Slalom Careers page
Slalom on artificial intelligence
Slalom: Steering your organization through the AI revolution
CRN: ‘Painful Decision’: Slalom Consulting Layoffs Hit 900 Workers

Binh Diep’s Commencement Address

Transcript

Lorne Fultonberg:
Today on the Voices of Experience podcast: a new year’s resolution.

Binh Diep:
Leading with clarity, I think, is a theme for me as we go into 2024.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Like many resolutions, of course, that’s easier said than done, especially as Slalom’s general manager, Binh Diep, stares down the artificial intelligence technology that’s sprinting toward him.

Binh Diep:
We want to make sure it’s a very human-centered focus around how we implement, and roll out, and help our clients through the AI transformation.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Slalom is all about “thriving during turbulence” and doing it together, as human beings. That approach applies to AI, but it also applies to the culture at Slalom, which has been recognized as one of Fortune’s Top 100 Companies to Work For—not once, not twice, but eight years running.

On this episode: some advice for creating a culture as successful as Slalom’s, and maintaining it, even when the going gets tough. Plus, I asked Binh for one tip for building a successful relationship when networking.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Binh, thank you so much for stopping by.

Binh Diep:
Thank you, Lorne.

Lorne Fultonberg:
I was looking through your LinkedIn posts from the last couple of years, and all of them seem to be focused on highlighting employees, and Slalom’s positive work culture. And I found myself wondering, how did you learn what a good work culture is?

Binh Diep:
It’s probably the culture that I was searching for more than the culture that I was made aware of, for me, probably the answer is around understanding what it is that you’re looking for, learning through the organizations that you’re a part of, and then figuring out which is the right organization that aligns the best with what you’re searching for.

Lorne Fultonberg:
What are some of your values that you feel really aligned with Slalom?

Binh Diep:
Yeah. So I love building. That’s something that I really enjoy doing, creating something new, building something, experimenting around that, the value of learning. We are a consulting organization, but I think at the core of it, a lot of our folks who are part of this organization love to learn. And we are always being challenged with new advances in technology, new ways of doing work, new processes that are out there, new modern architectures around that, right? And I think the value of learning is very important to me. The value of purpose, and living life with purpose, and living, have an organization around purpose is extremely important as well. And I think if we look at the Slalom purpose statement, I think it is very aspirational. having purpose around what you do is really important.

Lorne Fultonberg:
This might be a softball, but what difference does a positive work culture make in an office?

Binh Diep:
I think the right positive culture will allow us to really stretch out people, and really find that alignment in regards to where people want to focus time, where people want to become really good at, the passion that they want to bring to the organization, as well as the work that they do. And then I think as a result of that, when you are able to find that intersection of things that people are really good at, and the passion of studying, and learning, and growing, I think you get something really magical.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Slalom is clearly doing this in a good way, because you’re regularly recognized as one of the top places to work. So you’re pretty clearly established there. I’m wondering, for businesses and business leaders who maybe aren’t as established in this area, where do you even begin to create a culture like Slalom’s?

Binh Diep:
I think it has to begin with we have an exceptional leader in our CEO that is extremely purpose-driven, that really pushes and stretches the organization. There’s always more. There’s always more impact that we can create. There’s a challenging mindset, and environment. And I think it’s got to start with a really aligned leadership team that believes that that is important. And I think foundationally, for us through the years, through the eight and a half years that I’ve been at Slalom, that has been something that we will not compromise on. And I think as you continue to build even an organization like ours that have grown to nearly $3 billion from where we were started, we make that as the utmost important part of our business, and part of the organization that we’re a part of. And I think as long as you continue to hold that as a really core element of how you grow your business, you can continue making sure that the culture although will evolve, the values around that continue to live on.

Lorne Fultonberg:
So eight-and-a-half years of doing this. Are you still using the same tactics to implement change?

Binh Diep:
Oh, gosh. We refine a lot. I think it goes back to culture evolves, and I think the values of what we have as an organization is pretty consistent. And for me, I think those values are very consistent with my own values, and I think that makes the alignment, and the path much more positive. So as we continue to grow, when I joined the organization, we were about 120 here just in the Denver market, and we’re nearly 700 here in Denver. The organization continues to grow. The culture continues to grow. I had a colleague once said, as we continue to hire people into our organization, he was talking about, “We want to make sure that that cultural baggage from the last organization doesn’t get brought into our organization.” And I think that’s as you continue to grow from a smaller to a larger organization, again, the foundation of those values have to be consistent, and have to be at the front and center. But allowing yourself as well as the organization to adapt to that change, I think is really part of the journey, and part of the process.

Lorne Fultonberg:
So some of the words on the Slalom website, “Let’s thrive in turbulence together,” is right there on the home page. And I wanted to ask you the question that’s posed on the site as well, which is, “How does putting people first help your business thrive in a chaotic world?”

Binh Diep:
Yeah. When your people thrive, and your folks have purpose in regards to what they’re doing, and they’re thriving in that environment, they’re able to show up in the right way. They’re able to be productive. They’re able to meet our customers where they’re at. They’re able to form meaningful relationships and conversations as part of that as well. And just even last night, we do a quarterly every quarter to celebrate our people, to celebrate our culture. And we probably had a few hundred folks within our office during that time. And a lot of the folks that were there really enjoyed seeing each other, and being together.

And even the client was there, and recognized that there something really neat and special around what we’re doing, and how we celebrate. And our client said that type of energy, and that type of celebration, and that type of culture transcends past the organization. And we feel it as a customer and a client as well. And I think by making sure that your people are really aligned to where you’re going, as well as aligned to what they need, I think we get to be able to show up the way we want to show up.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Business has ups, and it also has downs. And I know Slalom recently had to go through a tougher stretch where it laid off 900 employees in September. And from a cultural aspect in a company, how do you support your people in this process, through this process, and how do you make sure that your culture stays strong on the other side of it?

Binh Diep:
Yeah, that was a really difficult decision for us to make. We have never done that before, and it took a lot of time for us to figure out what was the right decision for our organization, as what was the right decision to be able to support our people within the organization. There’s a couple of statements out there that I think is really relevant to this topic. We have this event called R4 at Slalom. And one of our guest speakers there was Indra Nooyi, former CEO of Pepsi. And she said, “Growth is like oxygen. Without growth, it really sucks away the life of the company, and your best and your brightest leave.”

And I think as we go through this tough challenge that we’ve had when we made that decision, we want to make sure that when we look at the organization, and we look where we need to go in the future, that we are able to support our people who are part of the organization that we’re developing in the right way. And sometimes those difficult decisions are a result of what we need to do to be able to enable the growth for our organizations.

Lorne Fultonberg:
What’s the next thing that you’re focused on improving or enhancing at Slalom, whether from a cultural standpoint, or a practical operational standpoint?

Binh Diep:
Yeah, there’s probably a couple big things out there. One, I think as we all know, we can’t get through a conversation without an AI conversation. And that’s really top of mind for us as an organization around how do we make sure that we’re really front and center in regards to what that disruption looks like for our clients, for the industry, and where that technology is going. So we have a lot of different programs in place right now around how do we make sure that both our people are skilled, and trained, and become an expert within that domain, so that we can be able to work with our clients in the right way as we move forward to help them figure out what this journey might look like for them.

On a maybe more operational side, I think as leaders, I’ve done a lot of reflection on this Lorne, and I feel like over the last couple of years, we as leaders, there’s been a lot of factors across what we’ve had to deal with over the last number of years, whether it’s COVID, and some of the changes that result of that, whether that was the huge growth that I think a lot of organizations saw during the last couple of years as well, I feel like we have the ability as leaders to be potentially more deliberate and clear in regards to where we’re going, what we’re doing, what that path looks like. And I think leading with clarity I think is a theme for me as we go into 2024.

Lorne Fultonberg:
I’m so glad you steered us toward AI, because I was going to drive us there anyway.

Binh Diep:
Okay.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Artificial intelligence, AI is all over the place right now. It’s the talking point, like you said. And a phrase that I saw a lot when I was researching Slalom was human machine collaboration. And I was wondering if you could tell us what that means, and how Slalom facilitates that.

Binh Diep:
As we look across how we provide and help our clients through this journey, how do we do it in a way that is very human-centered, and human-centric, right? Because at the end of the day right now, humans are at the center of this impact. And when we look at things, whether it’s revenue uptick as a result of how do we leverage AI in the future, or operational changes as a result of that, I think we’ve got to make sure that we keep the human at the center of what we design, and how we actually roll, and implement this out.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Do you get push packs from companies that are hesitant to implement AI?

Binh Diep:
We do. I think what’s important is as an organization, and potentially as a leadership team, that those organizations really understand what path do they want to be a part of? I think there are three different paths. Path One is as an organization, we want to be a leader around this, right? We want to be a leader in gen AI. We want to be a leader in AI. Second path is we want to be an organization that experiments with this, and understands, “Let’s do a few use cases. Let’s try it out, but we’re going to experiment.”

“We might not be the forefront of this, but let’s experiment with a few of the use cases.” And then we see a number of clients that are the wait and see, right? “We’re not ready to take those first two steps. We don’t want to be a leader, and we’re not sure if we’re ready to experiment with this.” but I think where I see some organizations is some parts of the organization want to be in that leader path. Some parts of the organization want to experiment, and other parts of the organization aren’t ready yet, and they’re in this wait and see mode. And I think that alignment in regards to what path do you want to be in, I think is really important.

Lorne Fultonberg:
While we’re talking about AI, Binh, I’ve got a question for you from one of our students here at Daniels.

Mary Margaret Koch:
Hi, this is Mary Margaret Koch. I’m a Denver MBA student, and I want to ask how you see AI potentially changing the way that consulting works in the future?

Binh Diep:
There are so many different applications of AI right now that we’re looking at. if we look at AI as an advisor, or a supplement to who we are, and what we do, I think there is a huge amount of productivity gained from a consultant standpoint. As an example, if we use AI to help us craft messaging as a starting point, communication, that could save us time. If we use AI to drive some insights into the operations of our business, that would be a huge lift.

If we use AI to help us through allowing us to understand our clients in a way that we can meet our clients where they’re at, if we use generative AI to allow us to research our clients in a way that it’s more personable, I think that’s another opportunity for us to leverage AI. So I think there’s just a lot of use cases, and we’re just at the start of it. And I think we’ll continue to find out a lot more opportunities as a supplement to what we do on a daily basis.

Lorne Fultonberg:
On a more micro individual level, there’s a list on your website for the top ranked skills for AI-driven workplaces. And we’ll put that list on our show notes so people can check it out if they want. But maybe can you boil it down to one or two skills that you see as the most important for working professionals to develop?

Binh Diep:
A skill set that I think is really important is understanding the technology around it, but then having the acute awareness in regards to, What does it really truly mean from a human-centered perspective to be able to lead the organization of the folks within that organization around this change?

Lorne Fultonberg:
Before you came to Daniels, you did not have a business degree. Is that right?

Binh Diep:
That’s correct, yeah. As a chemical engineer graduating from the University of Connecticut, I knew after I graduated, that just was not the path that I was looking for. And shortly after that, I joined Andersen Consulting, which became Accenture, because I was searching for what that path could be.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Did you panic at all, after a few years of studying engineering, and realizing, “This isn’t the path for me.”

Binh Diep:
I don’t think I panicked. So I went into that path because I’m one of five. And my oldest brother was a ChemE. All five of us went to the University of Connecticut. It was what we could afford in a good school. And my oldest brother went there. And when I entered college, I said, “What should I be when I grow up?” And he said, “Well, you could be a ChemE like me. It’s a hard degree. People will likely respect it when you graduate, and you’ll likely get a job.” So that was an input into my decision to be a ChemE. I also thought maybe going down the medical path was something that was looking forward to. So that’s how I started it. And I think by the time that I realized maybe my third year is, to your point, Lorne that probably wasn’t the path for me. I felt like I was so close to finishing it anyways as well. So I might as well finish it. And then that’s when I started pursuing a different path where consulting sounded like a very interesting path.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Was it a pretty natural thing for you to slip into?

Binh Diep:
Consulting?

Lorne Fultonberg:
Yeah.

Binh Diep:
Natural in the sense that, so that year give or take, I think about, we had a graduating class at 13 ChemEs that graduated with a chemical engineering degree from the University of Connecticut. Six or seven of us went to Andersen Consulting. So the reason why I say that is there is some association, at least during the late nineties there where engineers had at least the capacity to become consultants. There was a technology aspect of that engineering degree. There was a process, rigorous process part of that degree. There was a capacity to learn. And then there was also, “How do you look at these individuals, and are they folks that have worked well in teams? Have they done leadership roles, and so on, and so forth, some of the more soft skills around that?”

So I think jumping into consulting, it was certainly, I knew nothing about it. It was not something that I grew up thinking, “I can be a consultant one day.” And I think from that perspective, I don’t think I knew exactly what I was getting into, although I think the readiness from what I got from an education perspective around those skills around problem solving, and learning, and being a quick learner, I think was very applicable. And there was a lot that I learned through the first many years there, and continue to do so. And that’s why I love this field.

Lorne Fultonberg:
You had been in business for a few years before you came back, and got your MBA?

Binh Diep:
I was with Accenture for about 14 years before I got my MBA, or maybe 12 years before I got my MBA.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Why did you want to come back for that, and how did that change your professional life?

Binh Diep:
The decision to get my MBA was a number of reasons. One, at that point, I was starting to interact with a number of senior leaders within organizations that we were working with. And I felt like with a technology degree, like a ChemE degree, I wanted to be able to have the fundamentals, and the background, and the education to feel like I could go toe to toe with those executives, business executives that I was working with. So that was really important, that core foundational part of the degree. The second part of that was at that point, we were starting a family. I had one child at that point in time, and it was really important for me to be connected to this community.

I was here for a number of years, and I didn’t feel being a consultant that traveled every week, didn’t feel like I was part of this community. And I think the second part of why that was important for me was because I wanted this to be the community that I lived in. I wanted this to be the community that I served. I wanted to be this community that I impacted. And that was a big part of the decision to attend DU.

Lorne Fultonberg:
I was reading your LinkedIn profile, which says you have a proven track record of three things, driving strategic processes, managing operations, and building relationships. I don’t know if this is a favorite child situation here, but I’m going to ask you, “Which of those three is the most important to you, and why?”

Binh Diep:
Building relationships, the top number one, right? It’s just so important in what we do, and the joy I get in interacting and meeting people, and then as part of that, finding something that is mutually, or finding something that is aligned, and that we do together. So I think building relationships would be number one.

Lorne Fultonberg:
I feel like that’s a term that at least I throw around a lot, but then when I think about being in a room, networking, and trying to build these relationships is a little bit of panic for me.

Binh Diep:
Mm-hmm.

Lorne Fultonberg:
What is one tip that you would have for building a relationship with someone?

Binh Diep:
Being curious it’s probably the word that comes to mind. Approaching that conversation with curiosity, like I said, there’s always something to learn from another person. And I think if you’re genuinely curious about what it is they do, where they’re from, what they’re working through, I think that creates an authentic connection. So I think curiosity. Leading with curiosity is what I would say.

Lorne Fultonberg:
One last question from me here for you, which we ask all our guests is, as a voice of experience on the podcast here, what’s one thing that you would want to tell our listeners?

Binh Diep:
I got a chance to do to deliver a commencement speech for Daniels’ graduation back in May. And a big theme of that is around living life with purpose. I think understanding your purpose will allow you to make the greatest impact, and will allow you to be able to get the most out of the opportunity that we have. And I would say find that purpose, live that life with purpose, and that will allow you to create the biggest impact that I think you want to be able to make.

Lorne Fultonberg:
Binh Diep is the general manager at Slalom, and a graduate of the Daniels College of Business with his MBA in 2012. Binh, this was a lot of fun. Thanks for talking with me.

Binh Diep:
Thank you Lorne.

Lorne Fultonberg:
When I think about “living in the moment,” I normally think of more happiness, more long-term satisfaction. But for Binh, it also means freeing up more time. He explains in a commencement address he gave at Daniels last March. You can find that speech in full on our show notes. That’s at daniels.du.edu/voe-podcast. And we’ll also link you to a Q&A where Binh explains what makes a good consultant, his “superpower” and much, much more.

The VOE podcast is an extension of Voices of Experience, the signature speaker series at the Daniels College of Business, sponsored by U.S. Bank. Patrick Orr and Sophia Holt are our sound engineers. Joshua Muetzer wrote our theme. I’m Lorne Fultonberg. Happy new year! We’ll see you soon.

Show Notes

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Binh Diep’s Commencement Address

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