How to Navigate Digital Transformation and Disruption with John Fallon Former CEO of Pearson

When times got hard, when it might have been easy to abandon the purpose and the values, we actually double down on the purpose

and the values. So I would argue that in times of tough it's actually the enduring purpose of an organization becomes even more important because

that's what pe keeps people with you through all the you know the profits warnings and the restructurings and the shocks and the surprises and the disappointments.

People will stick with you if they believe. So what we know we were digital

believe. So what we know we were digital transformation of Pearson will enable us to play an ever bigger role in empowering more people around the world to progress in their lives through

learning and we can make education more widely accessible. We can make it more

widely accessible. We can make it more affordable and we can deliver better outcomes for more people. That is why we are doing this and that's what kept

people with us through as I say some very very difficult and traumatic times.

Welcome to International Business Today where we discuss the most critical issues in international business with top academic experts and thought leaders. I'm Paula Kelliguri, a

leaders. I'm Paula Kelliguri, a professor at Northeastern University's Deorm Kim School of Business. Today I am thrilled to be interviewing John Fallon.

John is a longtime global business leader and the former CEO of Pearson where he spent years steering one of the world's most established education

companies through a shift from print to digital. He's the co-author of the book

digital. He's the co-author of the book Resurgent: How Established Organizations Can Fight Back and Thrive in an Age of Digital Transformation. John, welcome to

Digital Transformation. John, welcome to International Business Today.

Paula, lovely to see you.

So, you've been with Pearson since 2013.

So, you really saw it through a massive transformation.

Tell us about that. So uh when I was uh appointed CEO of Pearson in in late 2012, I I remember I think you know you get introduced to the press and shareholders and you have to talk about

what your plans for the company are. And

I said I thought you know that we had a a nent digital strategy that looked great but we had to drive it harder and faster to really bring about the digital transformation of the company. And uh

over the next decade that's pretty much what we did. And in many ways that all went very well. So we we built a business partner in universities to to go online. We launched virtual schools.

go online. We launched virtual schools.

We massively expanded our online professional testing and certification because really important to help people to progress in their own careers. Uh

teaching English as a second language around the world. Hugely important

because English very much still the language of business and culture and technology gave us the chance to drive all that much harder and fast. We built

our digital courseware business in higher education. So all of that went

higher education. So all of that went great. The Achilles heel was that

great. The Achilles heel was that alongside that, the analog business declined much more quickly than we expected. So, in the year before I was

expected. So, in the year before I was appointed CEO, uh Pearson was still selling 20 million college textbooks a year here in America at an average

benefit to Pearson of about $100 and a gross margin of about 80%.

By the time I left Pearson, that was down to less than a million.

That's amazing.

And the price and the gross margin had declined. So we essentially had to the

declined. So we essentially had to the rest of the company had to grow revenues of 10% and profit significantly more

each year just to make up the shortfall.

So that put the company under as you can imagine a huge amount of of economic and financial pressure. Um didn't

financial pressure. Um didn't essentially change the strategy. If

anything it it helped to clarify minds.

you know, analog to digital wasn't an option for Pearson. It was a necessity.

There was an existential threat if we didn't drive it harder and faster and more successfully.

Yeah. So, is that how Resurgent came along? And it sounds like that's really

along? And it sounds like that's really Yeah. study of the book.

Yeah. study of the book.

The um I can I can remember the um you know, Pearson was uh Pearson is now what 190 years old.

Wow. And uh we survived through the big that big change that I made. Um it

wasn't pretty. The you know share price harved at one point. We had profit warnings. We had to cut the dividend. We

warnings. We had to cut the dividend. We

had to make major major cost savings to ensure the survival of the company. And

whilst we were doing that there was all these new edtech darlings, the unicorns emerging, people like Baiu and Cheg and

Tuyu. And so the popular narrative was,

Tuyu. And so the popular narrative was, you know, Pearson's the dinosaur that's going to be extinct and all these new darlings are going to take over. And I

never believed that cuz I thought what we did was funly important and useful to society and we did it really well. And

we were going to prove ourselves to be that bird that's even rarer than the unicorn. That's the that's the phoenix

unicorn. That's the that's the phoenix that rises again and again from the ashes as Pearson had done throughout its history. Um and that ultimately proved

history. Um and that ultimately proved to be true. So um when I because those and I as I um as I as I write in the

book in the in the afterward those um unicorns turned out to be more like unices than uh than incumbents would go the way

of of of Kodak. And that's how it proved. So I I sort of um when I retired

proved. So I I sort of um when I retired from Pearson and took a little time out before I decided what I was going to do next with my my career and my life, I

sort of sort of reflected and wrote and I somewhat nervously um after a lifetime of publishing other people's books and supporting other people's courses, I

connected with a guy called Professor Julian Burkinshaw who at the time was at the London Business School, now dean of the Ivy Business School in uh in in Canada and uh just said, "Is this

something?" And uh from that we we we we

something?" And uh from that we we we we wrote the book. And it turned out that my I guess what you would call my lived experience, my own personal

perspectives, guess what was supported by the data.

And uh Julian had had the the most popular article in the Harvard Business Review in 2022 and it told the story how the fact that you know if you looked at

the Fortune 500 in 1995 on the you know eve of the in dawn of the internet um of those Fortune 500 companies

um 474 of them are still alive vigorous and going day and only 24 of them had actually gone bankrupt in spite of all

the hype about how technology was going to disrupt and put all the old play all old guys out of business. And and on the other side of it, if you look at the

Fortune 500 today, there's only 24 companies that didn't exist in 1995 that are members of the Fortune 500. So that

basically tells you uh that there's a lot more resilience and and that. I

think it also tells you that the degree of disruption that we went through has been confined to a small number of sectors. So it's in areas like

sectors. So it's in areas like technology media telecoms obviously some parts of retail, some elements of banking but not all of it.

And there's whole swaves of the economy, you know, industrial, even areas like sort of health care where actually uh the level of impact of of technology has

been relatively benign and relatively little disruption.

Um and we I suppose the final point was to say that you know um history may not repeat itself, but it probably does rhyme. And in and in those rhythms there

rhyme. And in and in those rhythms there are lessons we've learned from the last you know 30 years of digital transformation or arguably further if

you go back to the the mid70s of lessons that companies can learn that can apply to probably the you know the biggest and most exciting and intimidating

disruption in equal measure AI that companies are now sort of facing. So

that's sort of how the book came about and those are the the broad themes of it.

Well, the book is fantastic. It's great

for anyone leading a big legacy firm, but it's also great for those who have to compete against them. Um because

there are things about these legacy organizations that that they are competitive in ways that we don't consider and don't remember. And I think the book did a great job highlighting

those such as the relationship with clients and and you certainly talk about others. Do you want to share?

others. Do you want to share?

Yeah, sure. I mean, I I think the um I I think there's a number of big themes. I

think one of the big themes I saw from a a Pearson perspective was um really sort of focus on what is it that's

fundamentally important about what you do as a company and what is the enduring value. It's often described as the as

value. It's often described as the as the job to be done. Um and that in essence the value of Pearson wasn't in

the physical product of books and paper and pen tests and newspapers and that it was in the deep respect we had with

thousands of of brilliant academics and educators around the world who trusted us to help them to tell their story. It

was in the value of the pedagogy and the psychometrics. It was in the

psychometrics. It was in the relationships we had with customers all over the world. It was in the trust and how we if you like monetized those

capabilities was changing and that actually if we focused more on outcomes rather than inputs then that would be

massively beneficial to us. And so we talked much more about so outcomes, access affordability.

Um I mean I would argue that what happened to our textbook business um the industry brought upon itself. Uh for

they were expensive.

Exactly. Well precisely for the 30 years previously um the cost of college textbooks had gone up three times the right rate of inflation every year. Um,

and I remember sort of a wakeup call CN CNN Money early in my tenure did a piece on America's greatest consumer ripoffs.

And it was um it was hotel mini bars, the price of wine in restaurants and college textbooks and movie theater popcorn. I remember

movie theater. That's right. You're

right. I knew there was a fourth one. It

was movie theater popcorn as well. And

so we um and that was and also we were focusing now what we did was shift to a model that was much more about sort of outcomes. So it's all about the learner.

outcomes. So it's all about the learner.

People aren't buying a textbook for the sake of buying a textbook. They're

buying a textbook to help them to um achieve a to to to learn to get a qualification. That qualification in

qualification. That qualification in turn is going to get them to have a a better job and a better life. And so

what we really do is empower people to progress in their lives through learning and to achieve their dreams. And if we think about it from the outcome and always put the learner at the center of

what we do, um we can actually build a better business. And and you've actually

better business. And and you've actually now seen that actually if you just take college publishing as an example, after 10 years of decline, industry revenues have stabilized and started to grow

again. prices are lower, but we've

again. prices are lower, but we've essentially eliminated the secondhand market in in in textbooks and students and learners have a much more direct relationship not just with Pearson, but with the other major with the other

major publishers as well. That's a

little bit what you saw in um in the music industry where you know after you know what the music industry revenues declined by 70% over 15 years and now

have stabilized and started to grow again as they shifted from an an ownership to an outcomes model. So I

think that's one um I think that's one big big lesson from from the the the transformation the change. Probably the

biggest single lesson though is the digital bit of digital transformation is hard, but it's nowhere near as hard as the transformation part.

U and what I mean by that is, and I didn't really fully understand it until I read um uh Tom Freriedman's book uh thank you for being late, in which he quotes a guy called John Kelly, who's a

senior executive at IBM. John Kelly

says, "The challenges of the world in which we live in now is technology is innovating at an ever faster rate, ever more exponentially."

And obviously we can see that with AI and just with the you know what came out the other day on the and the impact that's had on the legal industry and and all and all of that

and humans change in a much more linear way. And so that gap between the rate of

way. And so that gap between the rate of of of of technology change and human change, closing that gap, expanding, you

know, accelerating the rate of change in a company is really hard.

And it's hard because it's all about people, people, right?

And there is absolutely no way you can do that unless you really take the time to stand in the shoes of others and shuffle around in them and understand from their perspective. from their and

their point of view. So you know we can talk about you know new business models, new technology platforms,

rate of you know rapid prototyping, changes in pricing and all of those things are absolutely vital.

But ultimately this is a a contact sport because it because it's about people and it's about humans and things get bruised and broken and bent out of shape when

you go through change on this scale and empathy listening stand in the shoes of others understanding when things are not going well and and listening and and

responding.

That's the single most important thing I think I learned in my in my tenure as CEO. That's really powerful because so

CEO. That's really powerful because so often we think of these big transformations as either being about the technology.

Yeah.

Or about strategy. And and really what you're saying is, you know what, there's a lot of there's a big human component with it.

Yeah. And and I um I was reading I think the former um the former CEO of Home Depot who's now set up a second career for himself as coaching other other CEOs

and he's a bit of a CEO whisperer. I was

reading something that he was saying about as a CEO of an organization going through many major change you need to sort of invert the pyramid

and see yourself as at the bottom of the hierarchy not at the top and that your job is to really sort of understand the needs of every other part of the

organization and respond to them and really to empower your c your people are at the front line and engaging with you with your customers.

And that resonates with me. I think that um change is really disempowering and difficult for people

in an organization when it seems very high level, very conceptual, very big and overwhelming.

Change is much more empowering is if you can make it as small and specific and near-term as you possibly can. And I

think the mistake a lot of CEOs make and and I think I made it at times as well is, you know, you've got this big vision. We're going to lead a digital

vision. We're going to lead a digital transformation and we're going to personalize learning and and this is going to, you know, once in a generation opportunity and you love talking in

those terms and you think, well, the rank and file get it because they're the digital natives. It's just if I didn't

digital natives. It's just if I didn't just have all these middleman in the way. And you know the phrase you often

way. And you know the phrase you often hear is the perafrost who are frustrating the vision and they're both frustrating the leadership and they're frustrating the rank and file. I came to

see that as been the absolutely wrong way to think about it. Every employee

pulse survey we did every quarter as we went through all these massive change told the same story that the leaders in the company that were most valued and

most trusted were those middle managers.

And I came to see them more as the the shock absorbers better than perafrost.

They than the perafrost. They have to absorb they have to take what the leadership is telling them. You know the grand vision

telling them. You know the grand vision strategy and translate that into something meaningful. And then they have

something meaningful. And then they have to absorb all the anxiety from the rank and file. Am I going to lose my job?

and file. Am I going to lose my job?

what was that story in the business press about the Pearson share price? Do

you see what I mean? And so I as time went on, I would spend more and more time wherever I went meeting with that level of the company, really

understanding the world from their point of view, listening to their insights, and that really I think helped make a big difference to the to the transformation. So certainly this is

transformation. So certainly this is about people and and humans and and how we work and engage and and live with each other. That's an important message

each other. That's an important message to really, you know, listen. Is that

when you when you talked in the book about speed like be careful you're not doing transformation too quickly or too slowly that there was sort of a a sweet spot in the middle.

It's a it's an so the I think that humility is hugely important in this and understanding what you can control and what you can't

control. Um one of the myths of

control. Um one of the myths of disruption is um you know oh it's you know technology means that transformation disruption is happening

ever more quickly and that's actually on the whole not true there are some exceptions. So you look at um you know

exceptions. So you look at um you know if you look at sort of Blackberry and Nokia they were essentially knocked out of the mobile you know they were knocked from leadership to nowhere in mobile

phones within 18 months of the iPhone being launched. Uh Blockbuster went from

being launched. Uh Blockbuster went from market leader to bankruptcy in four years. But um the music industry 15

years. But um the music industry 15 years that took the college textbook industry that I described the decline

was over 10 years and to some extent it would have been easier if it had gone quickly because the pain would be out of the way. But what happens is for example

the way. But what happens is for example in those you know we didn't go the 20 million textbooks in year 1 to 1 million in year 10. It didn't go down

sequentially by a couple of million each year. It'd go down a little bit and then

year. It'd go down a little bit and then it'd seem to stabilize and then it would go again and then it would stabilize and then it would go further. So what you realize from that is you don't get to

choose the pace of digital change and transformation.

Customers decide that. And so you have to you can manage the rate of your own internal innovation but you can't know the pace and speed of

what you've got to go. And that's why I always say this um this idea of the um escort Fitzgerald idea of you know definition of a first rate intelligence

uh the ability to believe two mutually contradictory things at the same time and still be able to function. You have

to accept the fact that sometimes things will move quicker and sometimes things will much more slowly. Not everything

that you think um has the capacity to be disruptive will suddenly will certain will will will actually turn out to be true. We I tell a story in the book. Uh

true. We I tell a story in the book. Uh

we were talking just before we started recording about um self-publishing. And

I remember in like you know 2010 2011 the leaders of Penguin which Pearson owned at the time were convinced that self-publishing was going to massively

disrupt their industry. Um and so we went out and bought the leader in self-publishing.

Complete dog of a of a deal.

self-publishing didn't was the dog that didn't didn't bart. We lost a couple hundred million dollars in the in the process because what happened is that

actually um you know authors still valued all the other skills that a publisher can bring around sort of marketing and distribution and editorial

and all of that. And so you never quite so all the time you have to be assuming that disruption is everywhere and may happen

but it may not. Um you know look at a a sector we both cared deeply about sort of higher education. You know people have been predicting the massive

disruption and demise of higher education in America and around the world for what 15 20 years. Um and so far yes there are you know yes small

some smaller colleges are finding life more difficult than that but on the whole um higher education universities continue to endure and value and that's partly because they are managing their

own rate of change and partly because what they do is is of enduring value. Um

so I think that's part of it you you know this twospeed or 10-speed approach you need to you need to to to deal with.

Well, that's a that's a really important lesson for CEOs to kind of really pace yourself with the market and don't believe you can dictate the speed the speed of change. Um, I want to talk

about higher ed. Yeah.

But I want to first talk a little bit in the book you you mention about focusing on purpose. Yeah. And I know you you are

on purpose. Yeah. And I know you you are um you're a believer in ORC culture and people, but how did you keep a focus on

on purpose when you were going through massive restructuring and making really difficult portfolio decisions? So I I um

I first I was at Pearson for 23 years and I joined in 1997 and I was hugely attracted to the company by

the culture and values in particular its leader. So the chief exec of Pearson

leader. So the chief exec of Pearson then was Marjorie Scardino, first woman to be CEO of a Footsie 100

company, first Texan to be CEO of a Footsie 100 company. I think as well first non-member of the Pearson family to lead the company in its 170 years

history quite astonishing and Marjorie had very strong values and culture on the lines that she described. So her big

thing was that profits sustain a company but they don't define it. What defines a company is doing something really important and useful and doing it well and the importance of being brave,

imaginative, and decent in everything that we we did. And

what I learned as we went through that major disruption that I described and the challenges that brought, the economic and financial challenges that brought is

you can't underestimate the sustaining bits, right? A purposeful company that

bits, right? A purposeful company that doesn't make money isn't going to last for long. So, don't underestimate the

for long. So, don't underestimate the importance of being a profit-making enterprise in that sense and also and

the things that enable you to do. Um

but actually when times got hard when it might have been easy to abandon the purpose and the values

we actually double down on the purpose and the values. So I would argue that in times of tough it's actually the enduring purpose of an organization becomes even more important because

that's what pe keeps people with you through all the you know the profits warnings and the restructurings and the shocks and the surprises and the disappointments.

People will stick with you if they believe. So what we know we will digital

believe. So what we know we will digital transformation of Pearson will enable us to play an ever bigger role in empowering more people around the world to progress in their lives through

learning and we can make education more widely accessible. We can make it more

widely accessible. We can make it more affordable and we can deliver better outcomes for more people. That is why we are doing this and that's what kept

people with us through as I say some very very difficult and traumatic times and it didn't just keep didn't just keep the employees with us. Um I think it

kept our biggest shareholders with us that they believed in it and could see that it was there. Um it was incredibly important to the board. Um it was

important I think actually you know as much as the press were were rightly at times critical of the company and as not meeting expectations in the short-term

financial forecast and the like they could see that there was an integrity and an ensuring value and a and a purpose there as well. Um and it was certainly important with you know when

you I think when you work in any sector but especially in a sector like education it meant that you know customers President Aun here at

Northeastern people like Michael Crow at Arizona State University policy makers and customers and teachers and students all over the world could see that there

was something important and valuable and purpose driven about the organization.

And I think that's really important.

It it especially important during times of you know real transformation and when things are uncertain and unknown and ambiguous it signals the right thing to a lot of stakeholders.

I I think probably the other big challenge we had was that when I when I as became CEO of Pearson we were still in three sectors really. So as

well as it being in education learning we still own penguin. So we had a large trade publishing company and we still own the Financial Times and the

Economist.

And what we realized or I realized fairly quickly was each of those three sectors was going through a major digital transformation

of their own.

Each of them were had some similarities but actually had some quite distinct challenges to them and they were going to require

absolute focus and investment and we couldn't ride all three horses through such change and so we had to choose and clearly the education was by

far the biggest part of the company by then. So, um, it was hard because, you

then. So, um, it was hard because, you know, the one of the reasons I joined Pearson back in 97 was who wouldn't want to work for a company that owns the Financial Times and The Economist and

Penguin. Um, but we had to sell those

Penguin. Um, but we had to sell those businesses and it was important that we achieved good prices for our shareholders, which we did, but it was al equally important that we found good

homes for those organizations that would cherish and care for the brands and would pride editorial independence and the sanctity

of the author to say what they want to say in the way they want to say it and would also invest in the the digital transformation of those businesses and and that's what we enabled to do but um

it wasn't an easy thing to do but it was it was important we get it right well as one of your FT authors I I thank you so so let's switch these are all so important but I want to get your

thoughts on higher education because really you know We I think we are going through a big transformation and of course like you said you know it's affecting some universities some of the

smaller universities that are are struggling or closing. Um but for the most part we're still we're still in it.

We're still doing what we do as as educators. Um but I'd love to hear your

educators. Um but I'd love to hear your your thoughts on from your seat what what's changing in higher ed. So I think um

I think probably the way to look at it is what do we what do we think is likely to happen to the the the future of work over the next

uh over the next 10 20 years with the with the sort of impact of of of AI. I

think one of the things that we've learned is um you know there's often there's the joke that um you know the impact of technology shows up everywhere

except in the productivity figures you know and that actually we haven't seen in in many part in many countries I think the US probably in recent years actually has been the exception we haven't really seen the productivity

gains that you might have expected now some of that is because um the benefits are showing up in things that the traditional KPIs don't easily measure.

Some of the social media platforms and the value that's created there. But I

think some of it is that trying to just overlay if you just digitize existing ways of working

then you don't really get any great benefit. Hence my point about it's not

benefit. Hence my point about it's not about digitization it's digital transformation. The transformation bit

transformation. The transformation bit requires you to reallocate resources. It requires you to

reallocate resources. It requires you to stop doing things. It requires you to change things.

And um and I think this is what people are missing in the what's happening in the future of work. So if we can assume

that you know what AI to date is really good at is uh you know automating the

more routine administrative processing and analytical tasks.

They probably make up maybe you know it automates skills or tasks. It doesn't automate jobs. So

or tasks. It doesn't automate jobs. So

if any job is made up of a number of different some of which will be higher order analytical and and intellectual skills some of will require

creativity some of them will require empathy personal engagement resilience or whatever things that AI can't do. So

your ability to get the productivity benefits of AI requires you to fundamentally reorganize the way work gets done. Hence this this focus on ways

gets done. Hence this this focus on ways of working.

Most organizations find that really hard to do and this is why in my view this is going to play out over a decade not over 6 months or a year. I think Amara's law

that we overestimate the short-term impact of technology but underestimate the long-term benefit will still hold true. Um I think we are also going all

true. Um I think we are also going all the way back to the lites. we are much better at sort of understanding the jobs that will be lost through technology

than understanding the new things that will be created. Um you know the the past may not be a guide to the

future but look at what happened when uh Excel and other spreadsheets came in.

The idea was this was going to decimate, you know, the accountancy profession and bookkeeping and finance department to be much smaller than that. Look at what's happened to jobs in accountancy and

finance since. There's never been

finance since. There's never been there's never been more of them around.

So I would again just be a little bit skeptical at this idea that you know these new AI tools this week we're going to destroy

lots of jobs and lots of value in legal and financial and other professions.

Yes, it will automate a lot of tasks, but what about all the things it will enable us to do that we can't do today? That's a very long way of saying

today? That's a very long way of saying if you're in higher education if that's the world that you are preparing your students for that's the

world that you need to be thinking about. So I would argue that

about. So I would argue that experiential learning uh the ability to not just to know something but apply what you know is

more important than than ever before.

So, it's really important that students leave university not just knowing about AI, but knowing how to use um how to use

AI. uh if we're going to be in this

AI. uh if we're going to be in this world of co-intelligence and augmentation that you know the short-term immediate productivity hit

from AI might be to automate and process certain tasks but the real value is all the things humans can now do because of these tools that they couldn't do

previously which is this idea of augmentation and co-intelligence then our students should be learning how to work alongside

agentic AI I they should be learning to work alongside robots and so designing experiential learning ever deeper into

what we do. I think that um personality and individuality actually becomes ever more important

in a world where you know AI produces a lot of stuff

but it's mediocre stuff. the ability to do something, you know. So I

um I would argue the bar has got massively raised, you know, like AI is the first working draft, you know, like

I I always felt that it ever, you know, what I always tried to do in my career and the advice I would give young young people at the early stages in their career is

never produce something that's good enough.

always aim to produce something that is far better than the person who's on the receiving end of it could ever have expected.

I think that's the same advice. You know

what I mean? And and I think that actually becomes even I think that becomes even more important. The bit

that I think we haven't got yet.

What I'm less sure about is how AI, you know, so there's a lot of talk about creating digital twins in education as well as in every other sphere of life.

And you know, I mean, at Pearson, we had, you know, um, personalized learning aids like my math lab and mastering and McGroy Hill has a product called Alex

and there's all these things that that help to provide, you know, to automate the setting of homework are a big productivity boon for faculty and

provide much more personalized feedback to students much more quickly, but tends to be better at doing that in the quantitative disciplines. s and on sort

quantitative disciplines. s and on sort of multiplechoice type stuff and they use early stages AI so they use machine learning and natural language

programming and that to do that my sense today and I'm not a you know I'm not a computer scientist so my you know I have a lay person's perspective

on this is it seems to me that AI is much better at producing information than it is at asking really good questions. Mhm.

questions. Mhm.

And you know, there's still something about the deduct, you know, we learn through we still can't read context.

Yeah. We still we learn we learn through teaching others. We learn from

teaching others. We learn from questioning each other. We learn from having sort of so I I think the the the the point at which

these you know we can all have our own personal AI learning agent. you know, a a you could have one today that would uh capture all that you know, all that

you've ever done, uh that can help you think about what your career aspirations may be and that will all of that will be of value. But something that helps you

of value. But something that helps you to learn in a in a real powerful sense, I think that's that's the area where I still think there's work to be done.

Yeah.

What do you think?

I I would agree. I It's interesting. We

did a study of tech leaders and just asked them, you know, tell us about the skills needed, the durable soft skills needed for the future of AI. And

what they I, you know, shocked even me was they said absolutely, we need for all of the AI augmented jobs, we need humans to be even more human. So as

you're describing the creativity, that ability to read context, the ability to understand nuance, the ability to um empathize,

and then we looked at well what soft skills were needed for to do that well and they were uniquely human. curiosity

as you described, resilience as you described, you know, the perspective taking or empathy, um, humility, things

that AI can't do. Yet, when individuals have those and have those in a big way, they can be ever more human, but all that more effective in interacting with

with the machines. So, the machines can automate what they what it automates. It

can expand knowledge as you described.

Um but but really focusing on helping people be human. I I you know I keep thinking that before I retire I'm going to be teaching a course called on being human.

Yeah. No I I think a couple of building on that I think a couple of other things. I think one is that um

things. I think one is that um and I think this is this is all why I you know like you I love I love working with with Northeastern because I think as well as sort of experiential

experiential learning into everything.

Um I think you know Joseph's idea of of the humanics is really important because I do think that um the things that most make us human.

So social sciences, the liberal arts and that actually intermingling that with an understanding of of data, understanding technology,

been able to use AI to code, this sort of interdisiplinary approach I think becomes much more becomes much more important and much more valuable. And I

guess my other thought would be this pace, you know, back to this idea of the sort of exponential rate of technology means that the number of different careers

one is likely to have throughout your life becomes more important and that leads to two things. One,

learning how to learn, which is arguably the single greatest thing that higher education does becomes more valuable,

not less. But secondly, the need to

not less. But secondly, the need to reskill and retrain throughout your life becomes more important. And so I think there is a question for society and

governments as to whether if you took a step back would so much of a country's education budget

go into what happens between the ages of 18 and 22 or would you say actually probably we need to be yeah we're going to have to invest between the ages of 18

and 80 in people's ongoing and so does that need us to rethink greater flexibility, more pathways, um you know, the idea to sort of do

something here and then do some you know I mean I think a much more sort of flexible approach um and gaining the skills to be adaptable and to be flexible because that's that's

not necessarily intuitive and easy for and but I think it also means it will happen over but that's why I think this will sort of play out over time not not

short term. term. Um, but that's I think

short term. term. Um, but that's I think that's why Northeastern is in such a great position because I think the, you know, the future of education is very much what is already the the presence at

Northeastern and what Nor Eastern is already trying to do and we've always done a great job attracting students who are comfortable in situations of ambiguity and novelty and and really taking that and

developing them from that. Yeah.

So, it's a beautiful thing.

So, John, the last piece of advice I'd love for you to give, what would you offer our listeners, global leaders out there who might be running an

organization like Pearson or might be in an organization like Pearson?

I think I think there's probably um two if I'm allowed to.

I think one one I one I think I've already sort of referred to which is um I was going to say humility but I don't like using that phrase because it's sort

of like I never like it when that someone claims to be humble because I think you know I'll I'll be the judge of that I mean that you know you can't it's not a bit like saying I'm authentic you know it's

not something you can claim for yourself but I do think um curiosity understanding. I actually

just interesting I read the um Andrew Ross Sawin has just written a brilliant book called 1929 on the on the the greatest Wall Street collapse of all

time and his final paragraph says the lesson he learned above all else is humility because nobody really you know

at the height of the boom nobody really knew what was going to happen next. And

so I think that sense of always standing in the shoes of others, always trying to understand things from somebody else's perspective, why might I

be wrong, but still being able to lead is a very important quality to have in in a

leader. And the second one is um about

leader. And the second one is um about about two years before I became CEO of Pearson, I I had a an extensive period of treatment for for throat cancer. And

um my kids were young at the time and and my wife was, you know, had more than enough on her plate keeping me going and keeping the kids going. So I needed some

outlet for my sort of emotional and spiritual and whatever else that was going on. Um, and I sort of befriended a

going on. Um, and I sort of befriended a Benedict team priest who I'd actually never met, but I introduced me to in my email and I would just share with him

all the things and thoughts that I had that I didn't didn't have another outlet to. And he introduced me to a phrase

to. And he introduced me to a phrase by Martin Luther and I don't think you have to be remotely religious to understand the to get the significance

of it. And the phrase was the cross

of it. And the phrase was the cross tests everything. And it essentially was

tests everything. And it essentially was that moments of personal crisis like the one I was going through strip away all the sort of superficialities and stuff

we'd like people to believe about ourselves and reveals who we really are at our core and what really matters to us and values to us. And the thing I learned at Pearson is I think that

companies go through something similar.

So when we went through the big disruption and we had all the major challenges that I described earlier, what we did was it revealed

who it revealed everything and it revealed what the company was. What was

it that we did that of enduring value to our customers and that would survive us and would drive the future of it. And so

those would probably be my two bits and and the reason that latter bit of life is because I think like it when we're going through the stuff in AI very easy to become completely

discombobulated you know there's something new every day there's something changing every day and you can go chasing the latest fad and the latest thing or you can go chasing

the latest headline and just taking a step back and say strip all this away.

What is it that we do that really matters? What is it that we care about,

matters? What is it that we care about, that our customers care about? What is

it that we're really good? And if we focus on that, then that will ensure we do have a resurgent future.

That's the way I think about it.

And those are excellent pieces of advice. And you have so many more in the

advice. And you have so many more in the book resurgence. So tell us where you

book resurgence. So tell us where you can find it. Uh, you can buy it from all good bookshops if you still if you still want a uh if you still want an analog copy, but obviously you could buy it

online at from Amazon and Apple and from our publishers Bloomsbury as well.

Fantastic, John. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Really enjoyed it.

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