Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:01:25: Benefits of scenario planning
00:04:57: Part 1: a sample matrix…
00:07:07: … a) best case - promotion
00:08:54: … b) worst case - redundancy
00:10:33: … c) unwanted - changing role
00:13:15: … d) hopeful - job-crafting
00:16:22: Part 2: why wait?...
00:17:17: … a) best case - sponsorship and skills
00:18:46: … b) worst case - create connections
00:20:09: … c) unwanted - look sideways
00:21:44: … d) hopeful - shadowing
00:25:02: Part 3: AI add-on
00:30:09: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly show where we talk about the ups and downs of work and give you some squiggly support for whatever you might be going through.  We share ideas for action and tools to try out, and create lots of PodSheets to make it easy for you to take what you've listened to and put it into action in your work. 

Sarah Ellis: This week we're talking about how scenario planning can be useful for your career, partly prompted because Helen and I are playing with generative AI left, right and centre at the moment, and I read a really good article in Harvard Business Review about generative AI for big scenario planning.  This was like scenario planning for countries and worldwide environmental risks, and I thought, "Oh, a more individual level, I wonder if this could be useful for your career".  And Helen and I started having a play, and I think we are both on board, it's fair to say, with the matrix that is coming all of your way very, very shortly. 

Helen Tupper: And it is a Helen-and-Sarah-created Matrix, which always makes me very proud.  I wonder how many matrices we've now created? 

Sarah Ellis: What's the plural?

Helen Tupper: I don't know, 'matrici'?  I don't know, someone let us know.  But there have been a few in the many years that we've been recording this podcast.  I think any excuse for a matrix to create a bit of clear clarity will always get my thumbs up. 

Sarah Ellis: So, why is scenario planning useful, especially if it's something that you've not done before?  And I think it can fall into that category of a strategic activity that can feel daunting and difficult, you know, those sorts of things like if that's not part of your day job, you might look at that from a distance and be like, "Oh, I just don't know how to do this".  And so, I hope both are matrix, but also then we'll talk a bit about how you could use AI for this, I just think it makes it way, way easier and much more accessible for all of us.  And the reason scenario planning is so helpful is it helps you to anticipate risk and opportunities, I think both obstacle and opportunity.  And by doing it in a sort of pre-emptive way, you can then take some actions now that can be useful.  So, you don't have to wait for the scenario to happen or not happen for this to be helpful.  And I think it just increases your level of control. 

So, if some of these scenarios just happen out of the blue and you're really surprised by them, you know, like you're taken by surprise when like, I don't know, something changes in your job, it can really knock your confidence I think quite quickly.  We already know that in a Squiggly Career there's loads of change and uncertainty, we kind of anticipate that, but I think sometimes then we're not specific enough about, "Well, what does this mean for me?  What might this look like in the context of my career over the next 12 months?"  And then, having thought this through in quite a clear way, "So, what now?"  It's sort of, you know, Helen, you often talk about the 'what', 'so what', 'now what', and actually, that was running through my head a bit as I was working out how would you take these insights and then figure out what to do with them next. 

Helen Tupper: I think sometimes as well with your career, you can be a bit nicely naïve, as in you're like, "Oh, it's all going well", and you assume that everything's going to keep going well, because of course you want it to.  And I don't think scenario planning is about being negative.  It's not like, "What if everything just went wrong tomorrow?  What would my life be like?"  It's not doom, gloom and disaster.  But it is just saying, "Well, if it wasn't all amazing forever, or maybe this thing happened, how would that change the opportunities that are available to me?"  And to Sarah's point, sometimes that's really good.  Sometimes you're like, "Well, actually, that is a different thing that could happen in that scenario".  Or sometimes it can be a bit like, "Well, actually, I wouldn't really want that to happen".  But better to be aware of it and prepare for it than to find yourself in the middle of a situation you weren't expecting, and feeling a bit stuck and lost and unable to take control of it. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah I think it helps you to be both realistic and pragmatic, both of which I think are useful day-to-day qualities.  And, yes, you might be a bit naïve, or sometimes I think we just hope if we ignore or avoid something, the 'head in the sand' scenario, which is not what we're going to be talking about today, but you're like, "Oh, maybe if I don't think about it, it won't happen", you're like, "Okay, well, that's probably not the reality".  And I do think sometimes, we just don't have the structure to think these things through, because you are trying to imagine something that isn't true today.  And that can always feel quite tough, because you're like, "Well, I don't know.  I don't know what scenarios are going to happen".  But that's where I hope some of these questions and this matrix that we're going to go through today, I think everybody will be able to get to at least four, if not more scenarios by the end of our conversation. 

Helen Tupper: So, we want to bring it to life as much as we can, talking about a matrix on a podcast.  And so, this is how this is going to happen.  We'll explain the matrix, and then we're going to talk it through quadrant by quadrant, but using a moment in Sarah's career to bring it to life.  And then beyond that, we will put the matrix and the prompt we're going to talk through as well, we'll put that in the PodSheet.  So, the PodSheet is a one-page downloadable summary that we do for all of our podcasts to make it easy for you to take action.  You can get that from our website, amazingif.com, it's on the podcast page.  If you just can't find it, then email us at helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.  But hopefully, between the PodSheet and Sarah's career story, it will help to bring the matrix to life. 

So, let me describe the matrix to begin with so you can get it in your mind, and then we'll dive into Sarah's career story.  So, if you imagine first of all a vertical line, at the top of the vertical line, we are going to look at the likelihood of something happening in your career over the next 12 months.  We think it's useful to have 12 months as the timeframe because it just makes this stuff a bit easier to action.  So, there are some things that might happen that are highly likely in the next 12 months and there are some things that have a low likelihood of happening in the next 12 months.  And again, what those things are, very personal to you and what you do and where you work, but 'high likelihood, low likelihood' is what is on our vertical line.  

Then, we're going to cut across the middle of that line with a horizontal line, and that's where we're going to think about desirability.  So, on the right side, you're going to have 'high desirability'.  So, these are the things that you really want, the things you get really excited about.  And then, 'low desirability' are the outcomes you'd really like to avoid.  So, obviously, the worst case to be here is low desirability and low likelihood, that's not really where we want to be.  But we'll talk about each of these quadrants in turn, and we're going to use Sarah's career to bring it to life.  So, Sarah, where are we going to go in your career?  You've had quite a long career, you're still squiggling, thank goodness, but where are we going to go to? 

Sarah Ellis: That's made me sound old, "Quite a long career"!  "Squiggly Career", one might say!  Let's go to when I was working for Barclays, so financial services, and actually I can't even remember what my exact job title was, but it was along the lines of a marketing manager.  So, let's use that as our case study for today. 

Helen Tupper: Okay, so Sarah is a marketing manager at Barclays.  So, we're going to go, first of all, the first scenario that I want to talk to Sarah about, we're going to go positive first because I think it's the nicest place to start and probably one that you might have in mind, so it might come to mind a bit more easily.  So, we're going to go with the best-case scenario.  So, on your matrix, this is higher likelihood it's going to happen, so with a good wind, this could happen, so high likelihood; and also, high desirability.  So, this is something that Sarah at Barclays wants this, and if things go well, this is probably likely to happen.  This is best-case scenario, if things go well.  So, what would that have looked like for Sarah then? 

Sarah Ellis: The most obvious answer to that would have been a promotion.  So, I really liked the area that I worked in, I really liked the people I worked with and for.  And so, a promotion would have meant a role with a bit more influence, bit more impact, bit more budget and money to spend, which is always a good thing in marketing.  You can do good stuff when you have a bit more cash.  And I think that didn't feel unlikely.  It was by no means a guarantee, but I was definitely motivated to keep doing bigger roles and bigger jobs.  And the best-case scenario for me would have been to stay within the function that I was in.  I think I was pretty relaxed about what that job was, exactly which part of marketing I was in, because I liked lots of different parts.  And I felt like it was relatively likely, perhaps not right at the top of that arrow, but equally I knew I was doing a good job, I was getting good feedback, I was producing work that I was proud of.  So, it felt like that would be at least one best-case scenario for me. 

Helen Tupper: Okay, so best-case scenario for Sarah, so high likelihood, high desirability, promotion, bigger budget, bigger job.  Nice.  Let's explore some more.  So, now we're going to go to the worst-case scenario.  I sometimes think this is just easier to go opposite sometimes to unlock this.  So, this is something that Sarah really doesn't want to happen, so low desirability, and to be honest, relatively low likelihood.  This is, if things go wrong, this worst-case scenario could happen.  So, what would have that looked like? 

Sarah Ellis: Redundancy and I've very intentionally there not just said 'restructuring', because actually restructuring was quite likely because that happened quite frequently, but often and particularly in that moment, and where I was, there were lots of other roles as part of restructure.  So, if you were relatively open and flexible, you had at least a chance of doing something different, even if your role was impacted.  I think at that point, redundancy for me would have been really hard.  It would have been a worst-case scenario for me actually, because I had only just moved to London, I'd suddenly got massive rent, I'd really attached myself, at least for a little while, to a role and a person, and I wasn't as well networked and my career community wasn't as strong as it is today.  I was just getting started with that.  I worked for someone who was very good at opening opportunities for me to do that, but at that moment as I was in that role, there definitely would have been a point where I would have very quickly needed to get another job.  I would have been an okay-ish candidate, but I would have been in a sea of other people probably a bit like me, and that could have created some real challenges for me really quite quickly. 

Helen Tupper: Okay.  Well, let's stay with low desirability, so stuff that you don't want to happen, but let's move into higher likelihood.  So, in that scenario, Barclays making you redundant based on the way the business was, it was a low likelihood you were getting that.  But in 12 months from where Sarah was at that point in Barclays, what would be not particularly desirable, but higher likelihood, so we're calling this 'the unwanted scenario'.  It's feasible that it could happen, but it's not something that you'd really -- you wouldn't love every moment of it happening.  What would that be? 

Sarah Ellis: I suppose that probably would have been maybe my role changing, or the needs of the function changing, which meant I had to do a job that I wouldn't have chosen, but I'd rather have a job than not have a job.  So, it's definitely unwanted, but it's not a worst-case scenario.  And maybe it's a part of marketing that I'm just a lot less connected to or just interested in, or feel like my strengths weren't such a good fit for.  So, when I was doing that marketing job, I was doing a job that had been sort of created from scratch.  It was quite a new job, there was lots of innovation in it, so that was all good stuff for me.  Probably, if I'd have moved into a marketing job that was more about project management and plans, and quite a lot of similarity in terms of operational efficiency, you need to get the next campaign out the door, people around me did those jobs and did those jobs brilliantly, but they definitely were less appealing to me, and I think they wouldn't have been such a good fit for my skills and what I could offer. 

Helen Tupper: I guess another thing for people that might fit in that unwanted scenario box, so high likelihood, low desirability, could be a change in your team in some way, but more of a --

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I was just thinking that; my manager.

Helen Tupper: -- more of a person.  Your manager.  So, if you've got a great relationship with your manager, and that's a big part of why you love your job, which is a proven fact of why a lot of people love their jobs, is that relationship, but that manager squiggles onto somewhere else in the company.  I mean, they're a talented manager, that's quite likely they're going to have other opportunities.  So, within a 12-month period, there probably is a high likelihood that your manager might make a move.  But if you really like them, that probably is a bit of an unwanted scenario if they're really helping you grow and develop. 

Sarah Ellis: That happened to me when I joined Sainsbury's, really quickly.  So, I don't think I had appreciated that.  I think if I had thought this through at the time, I could have guessed that.  Because I think when you really connect with someone, you see very quickly that, if they're doing a brilliant job, people who are doing brilliant jobs in organisations don't tend to stay in them for that long.  Now, that was a particularly quick turnover for me.  But I do remember, you know, we talked about that ability to respond because you've thought these things through.  I definitely responded by panicking because it just hadn't even crossed my mind. 

Helen Tupper: Well, let's end on a hopeful high.  So, we're going to talk about the hopeful scenario.  So, this is where an outcome in the next 12 months, so from where Sarah was at the time at Barclays, is highly desirable.  So, it's something that you really want, but in all likelihood, it's probably not going to happen.  So, you'd like it to happen, but it doesn't look likely it's going to happen.  It's different to the best-case scenario, because the best-case scenario is like, "If everything goes my way, this is probably going to be the outcome", so that's Sarah's promotion.  The hopeful scenario is potentially maybe a bit more ambitious, maybe a little bit more stretching, less easy to see how it could happen.  So, you want it, but you can't quite see that it might happen.  The hopeful scenario, what would a hopeful Sarah wanted?

Sarah Ellis: I think I would have wanted to do some job-crafting, and spend maybe one or two days with some of the agencies I was working with, working almost in their teams but on other brands that wasn't my brand.  And so, I loved the variety of people I worked with in that job and I loved the creativity, and so it definitely would have been to keep doing that role.  But I think I would have crafted it even further, probably to spend some time -- I definitely always knew I wanted to work on other brands as well as financial services, and I got a sneak peek of that with some of the advertising agencies we were working with.  I'd also got a sense of, "Oh, I think maybe I would have quite liked to work in an agency".  I really liked the people in agencies.  They're really smart and switched on, and they have really creative ideas.  I liked all the planners that I worked with.  And so, if I could have come up with a way of keeping my job and then also doing a tiny bit of another job at the same time, I think I would have really liked that.

Helen Tupper: So, that doesn't surprise me at all.  That's so Sarah.  For as long as I've known Sarah, she has always done a bit of job-crafting, forever, always.  So, let's just do a bit of a recap of the scenarios that Sarah then identified. 

Sarah Ellis: I'm now thinking, why did I not do that?  I should have done that.  That sounds really good! 

Helen Tupper: You can do it now, you want to do a bit of job-crafting?!

Sarah Ellis: I don't want to do it now, but at that point, I'm like, "Oh, I didn't think of that at the time.  I should have asked to do that". 

Helen Tupper: This isn't the episode on career regrets, it's on career scenario planning!  All right, recap on Sarah's regrets/scenarios.  Best-case scenario was the promotion; the worst-case scenario was the redundancy; the unwanted scenario was a bit of an unwanted role change; and then, the hopeful scenario was complete freedom to do a bit of job-crafting.  Now, in of itself, that might make Sarah just a bit more open to what could happen.  So, less naïve, like we talked about at the start, like, "Oh, actually, I'm not totally in control of all these things, these things could happen".  So, you may be a little bit more aware about what could happen.  But unless you take action, it's not necessarily that useful for your career development.  So, part two of the process is about taking those scenarios that you have identified and then doing something different as a result of them. 

So, part two, we have called why wait?  And the point here is, even though these scenarios could be 12 months off, because that's the timeframe we've been looking at, you don't need to wait for them to happen to you.  Actually, you can start creating some action as a result of looking at these different scenarios.  So, we are going to go through each of the scenarios that Sarah has identified, and just think, "If that was a potential outcome in 12 months' time, what action could you take now?"  The point of these actions is that you are a little bit more in control, so you're not just feeling like you're just reacting if that thing happens, but you're being a bit more proactive.  And also, that you're confident you can respond to it.  You go, "Do you know what, if that worst-case thing happened, I've already thought through what I might do".  And some of that, you could get on with now, and some of it, you might just be ready and prepared for if it does actually materialise. 

So, let's go through them.  We'll start in the same order, Sarah.  So, your best-case scenario was getting the promotion.  So, you could just leave that to chance, or why wait?  You could go and do something about it.  So, what do you think.  If you'd had that scenario really clearly in mind, what could you have done that could have made it more likely or more of a reality for you? 

Sarah Ellis: I would have thought about the people that are going to influence that decision.  So, I'd go sponsorship, so, "Who do I need to sponsor me?"  Because those promotions never happen just by being good by yourself, unfortunately.  You usually need sponsors and you usually need more than one.  And so, I'd be thinking, "Well, who is going to sponsor the move that I want to make?" and I would also probably reflect on my own skills and I would be looking at people who do those jobs already and thinking, "Okay, well, what strengths and skills have I got that I can easily see that I would still use in that job?  Any gaps, where I just need to make sure that I'm good enough so I'm not going to fall down". 

So, in a best-case scenario, you pull that possibility towards you, put yourself in a really good position, you go for that interview.  I think you want to feel like you've done everything you can do in the next 12 months, that you just feel like you're brilliant, you're a great fit, you've really thought about it, you're really intentional.  So, I think sponsorship and skills. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, got it.  Written it down, like it.  All right, let's go to the worst-case scenario.  So, this is the redundancy option.  So, what would you do, with that in mind, what would you do that could, I guess, mitigate the risk or mitigate the impact of that scenario materialising? 

Sarah Ellis: So, I think here, you've got to look outside.  And also, redundancy is relatively realistic for all of us at some point in our careers.  And so, I would be thinking, "How can I get to know people who might be relevant for roles if my role here got made redundant?"  So, maybe that could be things like, I don't know, a marketing industry event for financial services.  So, it doesn't have to be a million miles away from where I am, but perhaps I'd meet some other people in other banks.  So, if I'm in that worst case scenario and I just need to get a job fast, if I'm thinking really specifically, the most likely people to give me a job is another bank.  It might not be what I want to do, but I might just need a job.  I didn't do this.  And also, you're an easy option, right, because you could apply for a very similar role, and that might be fine for now.  And sometimes fine for now, I think, is a good thing, if it takes away some of the stress and pressure for a while, while you think about what you want to do. 

So, I think it would have been, create connections, but across financial services, particularly marketing people. 

Helen Tupper: I like how specific that is, create connections across financial services, got it.  Okay, so let's go to the unwanted scenario.  So, this is where you're in the same team but you'd said, "Oh, there's some change to my role that I didn't really want, so maybe I'm enjoying my job a bit less".

Sarah Ellis: Someone's going to make me do a proper job! 

Helen Tupper: "I can't do all the fun things I want to do with unlimited budget"!  What are we doing now? 

Sarah Ellis: I think here, I would be best, and I have done this, to look sideways, because I'm in a really big company and you don't have to stay in marketing.  And so, if I'm looking around and going, "Well, those are the roles.  If they came up, that's not probably what I'd want to do", I think there were other teams.  I liked marketing, but I actually liked quite a lot of areas in big companies.  I once nearly went to work in procurement, but I think I'd have really enjoyed procurement.  I always liked all the people I met in procurement.  And that's stayed true, actually, in lots of companies.  And so, I think I could have looked, like adjacent teams, who works with the marketing team quite a lot; are there any interesting roles there?  Because I think what I liked really was starting from scratch, newness, innovation, change, projects where people didn't know what the answers were. 

So, actually, if you start with that rather than marketing, there's probably quite a lot, like there's big transformation projects and those sorts of things.  Any of those things probably would have been better for me than an almost slightly more, almost like I say, a proper marketing job.  So, I think that would have been the best thing for me in that scenario. 

Helen Tupper: Okay, let's go to the last one.  So, this is the hopeful scenario.  So, this is where you've crafted your dream job and you're getting to work in and outside the company.

Sarah Ellis: I'm working in, like, two or three places at once!  Perfect!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, one company's paying for this perfect job!  I mean, it's hopeful, it sounds nice, but it's hopeful.  So, with that hopeful scenario in mind, what action do you think that you could have taken to get a bit closer to it, make it more of a reality? 

Sarah Ellis: Well, actually, I think I probably could have done this if I'd have thought about it a bit more.  Because I had got a very supportive leader who had also worked in an agency, so she would have understood and appreciated the value of doing that.  But I think I could have done it in a more realistic way.  So, I could have said, "The next month I'm going to do some shadowing.  Every Friday, I'm going to go work in a different agency.  I'm going to rotate around them, but I'm going to do it for a time-boxed amount of time.  I'll do it for a month or I'll do it for two months".  Or I think alternatively, I reckon I could have sold a week, you know, "I'm going to take a week away", because that's like going on holiday for a week, right, and hopefully some other people can help you.  You could probably -- I was old enough by that point, as in I had a laptop basically.  So, tech had emerged that I had a laptop.

I could have also definitely filled in the cracks, as in if I had done another thing for a week, I could have picked up some of my work, like in the evening, some of the people would have helped me out.  I probably could have coached for a week because I worked hard and I really liked what I did.  So, I think there was some creative ways that I could have made that happen.  And I think I would have -- because I did used to go and work in those agencies some of the time.  So, I think I'm thinking about a more immersive version of what I was experiencing.  And I think that would have been really good for me.  I could have had loads more curious career conversations, I bet they would have shared with me things they were working on elsewhere, so you can borrow a bit of brilliance.  Yeah, dreaming.  I think I'd have really enjoyed it. 

Helen Tupper: I mean, I can see Sarah's face, and she's just sort of looking out to her past self --

Sarah Ellis: Wistfully! 

Helen Tupper: -- and thinking, "Why did I not do that?"  She's very happy by the thought of this!  So, in going through those scenarios, what Sarah has done is identified some proactive actions that she could have taken.  So, things like getting a sponsor, upskilling, shadowing, moving sideways, attending and building relationships in financial services beyond Barclays.  These are all things that Sarah could do right then and there, which would create more opportunities and help Sarah to be more resilient in the context of the unwanted or worst-case scenario materialising.  And it is just a really helpful exercise so that you don't feel daunted when things happen in your development, and so that you feel more confident about how you can respond and you're much more in control as well, I think, of how you create opportunities. 

Sarah Ellis: I mean, we were practising this earlier to make sure it worked and we didn't use this as an example, but Helen started talking through her own career.  And one of hers was, "We stopped being friends". 

Helen Tupper: That was the unwanted, not the best case, just to be clear! 

Sarah Ellis: But we decided our example wasn't that useful. 

Helen Tupper: It was a bit traumatising, to be honest! 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it was.  You just started to come up with all of these things and I was like, "Oh, this is really bleak".

Helen Tupper: It got really bleak really quickly!  But I didn't go onto the action stage, I just got onto the, "You're not my friend anymore"! 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, describing.  Shall I describe part three for everybody? 

Helen Tupper: Yes. 

Sarah Ellis: So, part three is your AI add-on or add-in, whichever way you want to think of it.  And I think we will increasingly keep doing this as we go through our podcast episodes to make your career even better, because we now have some of these tools available to us.  So, have a play, try this out.  I was doing this for something else as well over the weekend.  That makes my weekend sound rubbish, but I promise you that's not how I spend all my weekends.  And honestly, I was like, "This is working so well", it really helps to get you started.  So, even if you are looking at this now, or you've listened so far and you're like, "Oh, I'm not sure that the matrix is going to work for me, I'm not sure I've got enough ideas", just do this and it will give you some ideas.  You won't be starting from ground zero. 

So, the prompt that we've tried is, "I am a…" so, "I am a marketing manager who works at a..." so, "large financial services global organisation.  And I want to proactively think through potential career scenarios to help me navigate uncertainty and change over the next 12 months".  And then, you can be really specific, "I'd like you to generate these scenarios in the following framework".  We've written all this down and we'll share this so you can literally copy and paste it, because Helen and I were doing this, we were copying and pasting it with some different scenarios to check it works.  And you can ask it to think about things like market trends and the industry and your role.  And we also wrote an extra bit where we said, "Reflect on both opportunities and risks", so opportunities and obstacles. 

Honestly, when you go down and then read the response that you get, it gives you so many different things.  And I think what you can then do is just pick and choose the ones that feel relevant for you.  You can try plotting these.  You could do this first, actually, you could do this the opposite way around to the way that we've done it today.  We've still gone, "Use your own brain thoughts first --"

Helen Tupper: We're so old school. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, we are, "-- and then use AI", but I think you could use AI first.  And when I read through this, I was like, "Oh yeah, okay, that's interesting".  So, it talks about, "Well, what are you going to do if there's marketing budget cuts?"  And actually, I hadn't really thought about that, I think, because I was just thinking about my role.  But actually, in every marketing team I've ever been in, there were always budget cuts.  So, that's actually a really likely scenario, but it's low desirability.  So, I would put that in low desirability and high likelihood, whereas actually the AI had put that in low desirability and low likelihood.  So, then what you can do is use your own experiences as a filter for then going, "Okay, well I've actually got a good idea from that, but where would I put that?"  And then you do the, "What would that mean for me?"  If there is a marketing cut, my roles were always a bit leftfield.  They were probably more likely to go or to get changed than some other roles.  So, it would make you get to some of those things that I was thinking about.  And it talks about things like game-changing career opportunities, and I was like, "Ooh!"

Helen Tupper: Yes, please!

Sarah Ellis: I know, it was telling me that a transformational opportunity is going to arise.  And I was like, "Oh, yes, what's this transformational opportunity?"  And it's like, "I'm moving into a leadership role, I'm shaping the bank's marketing direction", I'm absolutely loving it.  I've got speaking engagements according to the OpenAI here!  I'm like, "Oh, this is all very exciting stuff".  So, I think this can either help you get started, or I think it can build on what you've already done.  Or, Helen and I were talking about, it can actually also be a really useful thinking partner.  So, we were saying how actually, it's quite helpful to talk this through with somebody, because when we were going through it, Helen also mentioned that idea of low desirability, high likelihood, your manager changes or your leader changes, and I was like, "Oh yeah, actually, that is good.  I probably would want to add that one in there".  And so, by involving someone or something, depending on how we're describing an AI, in that process, I think you do get extra stimulus because people bring their own perspectives and they're like, "Oh, actually, what would that have been for me, and would that feel relevant for you?" 

So, I do think, of course, you can do this by yourself.  It'd be a great thing to do maybe with somebody in your organisation who you know you get on well with, and you're like, "Oh, should we both do this for ourselves?"  If you know someone else who really likes career development, maybe this is the chat you could have over coffee.  I appreciate not everyone wants to have these chats over coffee, maybe just Helen and I!

Helen Tupper: Probably just us, yeah!  So, yeah, just cut and paste the prompt into your preferred AI engine.  So, I would use ChatGPT or perplexity.ai are my favourites, but there are many more.  And I actually think it's useful to put it into more than one so you can just compare the responses, you can learn about all these different tools. 

Sarah Ellis: Should I mention that other one that I found? 

Helen Tupper: Which one did you like? 

Sarah Ellis: Well, I just found through that HBR article, WhatIf_WhatNow?  Because actually I'd used that and then you used a different one.  Actually, we both compared and I was just like, "Oh, okay".  They were both useful, weren't they? 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, that sits on ChatGPT as well, so it's similar functioning.  And there are things like Claude, and there are loads of other ones.  I think it's not a lesson in what AI tool to use.  I think we're all developing our preferred ones.  But if you're starting, if you're like, "I don't even know which one to use", I think ChatGPT is a really good one. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, same.

Sarah Ellis: And perplexity.ai, I find that one useful as well.  So, we will put the visual of the matrix, we will put the prompt, we will put some of those questions as well that you can reflect on for yourself.  That will all go into the PodSheet.  So, as I said, that's on our website, amazingif.com.  Worth following as well @amazingif on LinkedIn, because we post the PodSheet and tools on there.  So, it might make it easier to download and share from there if that is something that you would like to do. 

Sarah Ellis: But I hope you have fun with it.  We actually had quite a lot of fun, I think, playing around with these scenarios.  And I think if you did want to practise, you could also use a previous point in your career, like I did.  I think that got me going in terms of just thinking this through, and then you can always then apply it to where you are now, because then it got my head connecting the dots of like, "Oh, okay, so with where I am today, what might I do next?"  So, let us know, let us know if it works for you, any gaps, anything else that you found useful for thinking ahead to what might happen in your career and then what you might do now.  But that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening and we're back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye, everyone.