Latest / Business Roundtable / Why Most Businesses Get AI Wrong

Transcript

Why Most Businesses Get AI Wrong · Business Roundtable

0:14
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I am your host,
0:17
Speaker 1: David Carr, founder or steward your business while we help
0:20
Speaker 1: leaders business owners build businesses that really scale, scale with clarity,
0:26
Speaker 1: aligned teams, and really sustainable growth. Uh, you may if
0:31
Speaker 1: you're if you're living out of Rocky you you're not
0:33
Speaker 1: going to know this. But most people right now are
0:36
Speaker 1: part of this massive conversation about AI artificial intelligence out
0:41
Speaker 1: there in the world. New tools, new platforms, new promises
0:45
Speaker 1: about how everything is going to change. But what I'm
0:49
Speaker 1: seeing is most businesses aren't really aligned in and they're
0:52
Speaker 1: struggling with AI.
0:55
Speaker 2: And it's not.
0:56
Speaker 1: About how they're you know, going after it in a way,
1:00
Speaker 1: it's really how do they even think about it? Because
1:03
Speaker 1: they're getting hit with these things. They're buying tools, maybe
1:05
Speaker 1: without a plan. They're maybe chasing trends hoping that this
1:09
Speaker 1: will fix the problem, and honestly, in many cases, it doesn't.
1:12
Speaker 1: And this time, this conversation we're going to lean into
1:14
Speaker 1: today is about a very different approach. So I'm excited
1:18
Speaker 1: to have Jason Alexander here. He's the CEO of Chief
1:20
Speaker 1: AI who brings really a unique perspective. Hopefully you're going
1:24
Speaker 1: to hear something you you haven't heard before. Who's a
1:27
Speaker 1: founder who's helped scale one hundred million dollar business, has
1:30
Speaker 1: really helped companies turn AI into real, measurable roles. He's
1:34
Speaker 1: really helped in so many different ways. And he really
1:37
Speaker 1: lives from the way he leaves any way he operates.
1:41
Speaker 1: And so, Jason, I wanted to start there.
1:44
Speaker 2: We'll dig into it.
1:45
Speaker 1: But why are so many business owners getting this whole
1:47
Speaker 1: AI wrong?
1:49
Speaker 2: Right now? What are you seeing?
1:52
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, excited to be here and thanks
1:55
Speaker 3: to the opportunity, David, is my pleasure. Yeah, I love
1:58
Speaker 3: your show and the truth that you have here is
2:01
Speaker 3: great as well. I just I love watching that every
2:02
Speaker 3: time I watch one of your episodes, you know it's
2:06
Speaker 3: it's I I I don't I don't necessarily want to
2:09
Speaker 3: start off by by looking at at you know, organizations
2:13
Speaker 3: looking at AI right or wrong. It's because it's such
2:16
Speaker 3: a it's such a vast abyss of information and technology
2:22
Speaker 3: that it's like were without without the proper guidance, where
2:25
Speaker 3: do you where is it really reasonable to expect one
2:27
Speaker 3: to start? And you know there's a I to me
2:34
Speaker 3: to to to Chief AI and and and our team
2:37
Speaker 3: is is it's a couple of things. It's there's there's
2:41
Speaker 3: technology accompaniment, but what it really boils down to is
2:44
Speaker 3: people in process m And where I think a lot
2:49
Speaker 3: of organizations fall down is they focus on the technology,
2:53
Speaker 3: but they don't necessarily focus on the people in process
2:55
Speaker 3: as well. For instance, you know, we we've I'll encounter
3:01
Speaker 3: this all the time where we'll we'll go into an
3:04
Speaker 3: organization that has recently bought some kind of AI tool
3:08
Speaker 3: or AI powered tool, yep, with the idea of making
3:13
Speaker 3: things better, but not better measurably or not better as
3:17
Speaker 3: part of a larger scale plan. It just seems like
3:20
Speaker 3: it might make one aspect of their business work better.
3:23
Speaker 3: So we're going to go ahead and try that mm hmm,
3:25
Speaker 3: without really giving giving thought as to what the ripple
3:28
Speaker 3: effect of that might be, what the competency of the
3:32
Speaker 3: user base needs to be in order to really make
3:34
Speaker 3: sense of the tool in the first place. And oftentimes
3:37
Speaker 3: that's where it falls down because we you know, if
3:40
Speaker 3: if I give you, if if I give you a guitar,
3:48
Speaker 3: I don't hear any music, David, right, But then I
3:51
Speaker 3: forgot to train you on how to play it. Yes,
3:54
Speaker 3: and and that's that's a great you know, that's an
3:57
Speaker 3: analogy I've stolen from from from somebody, from other people
4:00
Speaker 3: that i've that I've that I absolutely love, because in
4:04
Speaker 3: order to get to a point of efficiency and competency,
4:08
Speaker 3: if you need to be able to think like somebody
4:11
Speaker 3: that is now qualified to have either a suite of
4:16
Speaker 3: agents available or a suite of new processes available, and
4:20
Speaker 3: that oftentimes requires training, expectations, setting governance. And if if
4:27
Speaker 3: those frame, if that framework in those guardrails aren't necessarily
4:30
Speaker 3: in place, you're you're depending on luck as opposed to
4:35
Speaker 3: skill and strategy to make you successful.
4:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh.
4:40
Speaker 1: The way I hear you saying is there's this illusion
4:44
Speaker 1: out there that if I, in your analogy, give you
4:46
Speaker 1: the instrument, you'll just know how to play this and
4:48
Speaker 1: make sweet music. And you know, it sounds to me
4:51
Speaker 1: like owners are chasing this down and somehow thinking that
4:55
Speaker 1: this is going to be a silver bullet, like, oh,
4:58
Speaker 1: this is good, It's going to be a tool. And
4:59
Speaker 1: I've seen this before, I I Jason, I mean I've
5:00
Speaker 1: seen this in different software in the past of like oh, NRIs,
5:04
Speaker 1: we started planning software or something like this.
5:05
Speaker 2: If we just buy this, this solves our X problem.
5:11
Speaker 1: And and and what I'm hearing you say is that's
5:14
Speaker 1: not necessarily that's not the answer.
5:15
Speaker 2: I mean, it can help, certainly help.
5:17
Speaker 1: But but but just by getting the the tool in
5:19
Speaker 1: your hand, doesn't it doesn't solve that. That's kind of
5:22
Speaker 1: to like, that's the illusion if you will, that people
5:24
Speaker 1: are buying into if you will, Jason.
5:28
Speaker 3: I think so well that I think that speaks to
5:30
Speaker 3: half half of it, right, because we talked about like
5:32
Speaker 3: what you're what you're talking about is is usability training mhm.
5:37
Speaker 3: And that's don't get me wrong. That part's important because
5:40
Speaker 3: if I'm going to give you a new a new tool,
5:43
Speaker 3: a new software, a new toy and new anything to
5:45
Speaker 3: play with, I'm gonna I'm we're gonna have to teach
5:47
Speaker 3: you click here, click there, do all the things to
5:50
Speaker 3: make it work properly. But the bigger piece, the more
5:55
Speaker 3: the more important piece, and sometimes the hidden piece is
5:57
Speaker 3: to me, is is if I'm going to put in
5:59
Speaker 3: place an AI strategy, AI process and a series of
6:03
Speaker 3: accompanying technologies to to make you David more efficient, what
6:10
Speaker 3: I need to make sure I'm doing is is ensuring
6:14
Speaker 3: that you know how to think and operate like a
6:18
Speaker 3: strategist now and because maybe you were in this particular
6:24
Speaker 3: case of you know, at an entry or mid level doer.
6:28
Speaker 3: And not to knock the doers of the world, you know,
6:31
Speaker 3: it's all good, but not necessarily you know, primarily a tactician,
6:35
Speaker 3: but not a strategist. Ye. Well, if I'm going to
6:38
Speaker 3: free up I'm I'm now I'm telling you I'm going
6:40
Speaker 3: to free up an hour and a half of your
6:42
Speaker 3: time every day because you're not going to have to
6:44
Speaker 3: deal with these repeatable administrative tasks or whatever whatever the
6:48
Speaker 3: tool and process might do for you. I also need
6:52
Speaker 3: to make sure that you're able to think in a
6:54
Speaker 3: way that that guide you down the path of adopting
7:00
Speaker 3: new and more profitable and productive processes and actions in
7:07
Speaker 3: order to make that hour and a half now work
7:09
Speaker 3: for you.
7:10
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
7:11
Speaker 3: And if I haven't done that, well, now I really
7:14
Speaker 3: don't necessarily have the control or the vision, the vision
7:17
Speaker 3: into what's happening at David's desk hour and a half.
7:21
Speaker 3: What's happening? You know, I really thought.
7:26
Speaker 2: They're like one of the they're like at your desk.
7:28
Speaker 2: We got to get a hold of Jason.
7:29
Speaker 1: You know.
7:30
Speaker 3: I know, it's my PR team telling me that I'm
7:33
Speaker 3: doing everything wrong. It's the no, it's so what when?
7:42
Speaker 3: When it comes to AI literacy and readiness, that's probably
7:45
Speaker 3: one of the largest areas that that companies fall down
7:48
Speaker 3: in is is to make sure that the users are
7:52
Speaker 3: now thinking like strategy, are thinking like delegators. If I
7:58
Speaker 3: give you a tool that can do a bunch of
7:59
Speaker 3: you work for you, it's very similar to me giving
8:01
Speaker 3: you an employee, and you need to know tactfully and
8:07
Speaker 3: strategically how to chop that work up and pass off
8:11
Speaker 3: what needs to be passed off and Q see what
8:13
Speaker 3: comes back to you, while also maintaining your own personal productivity. Yeah,
8:17
Speaker 3: and that can be confusing, that can be overwhelming, and
8:21
Speaker 3: that oftentimes fails miserably.
8:24
Speaker 1: Would you say, Jason, to your point on that is
8:26
Speaker 1: that so they're chasing these things trying to solve the problem.
8:29
Speaker 1: But what I hear you saying is that they're trying
8:32
Speaker 1: to solve Maybe they have these powerful tools, but they're
8:35
Speaker 1: trying to solve unclear problems like Okay, what exactly am
8:38
Speaker 1: I trying to do with all this?
8:39
Speaker 2: I've got this new person, I'm.
8:40
Speaker 1: Not sure exactly how to apply it, and we're just
8:44
Speaker 1: so yeah, you're getting stuck there. And then it's like, okay,
8:46
Speaker 1: well this doesn't help us. It's making it almost worse
8:50
Speaker 1: in some regards.
8:53
Speaker 3: In a lot of ways it can be. It's I've
8:57
Speaker 3: been part of this in my own companies in the past,
8:59
Speaker 3: and I've I've you know, I've I've made a lot
9:01
Speaker 3: of the mistakes. I'm helping other companies correct sure where
9:06
Speaker 3: I've I've gone and thought, well, this tool set's not working,
9:11
Speaker 3: I'm going to add something to the stack, right, that
9:14
Speaker 3: seems really good. Now, the problem is I've already you
9:17
Speaker 3: already have five tools I added to your stack that
9:20
Speaker 3: you're only mildly using it best. Now I'm adding another
9:23
Speaker 3: thing to another layer layer and if that doesn't work, well,
9:28
Speaker 3: let's add in another one and maybe two more on
9:31
Speaker 3: top of that. The next thing I know, I'm paying
9:32
Speaker 3: for ten twelve different productivity tools. Everyone is using them
9:38
Speaker 3: in a disparate way and in an inefficient way, and
9:44
Speaker 3: not necessarily taking a step back from a from a
9:47
Speaker 3: strategic leadership perspective saying all right, what is my you know,
9:53
Speaker 3: great example, we run a lot of our clients through
9:56
Speaker 3: the three year success roadmap. Let's look at your three
10:01
Speaker 3: year success roadmap for what you're trying to accomplish in
10:04
Speaker 3: the next thirty six months. It could be a revenue goal,
10:08
Speaker 3: a scale goal, breaking into new markets goal, whatever that
10:12
Speaker 3: thing is. If you don't have that roadmap, I will
10:15
Speaker 3: help build that roadmap for you. Look at you know,
10:21
Speaker 3: year by year, quarter by quarter, month by month, the
10:24
Speaker 3: things that have to happen systematically to get that thing,
10:27
Speaker 3: get to get that goal accomplished. And then where in
10:31
Speaker 3: that model do we find gaps for inefficiency? Find gaps
10:38
Speaker 3: for any one of a variety of things. AI can
10:41
Speaker 3: come in and help and help your organization with when
10:45
Speaker 3: you go about it that way, and make AI part
10:48
Speaker 3: of your strategy as opposed to something that you're just
10:54
Speaker 3: I like to say, grasping at straws. Yeah. Another like
11:00
Speaker 3: a great example. I had a conversation today Basically I'll
11:03
Speaker 3: paraphrase the call. I was on a new new sales
11:06
Speaker 3: call with a client who would express some interest and said, well,
11:09
Speaker 3: you know, really, we're all said, I have all I
11:11
Speaker 3: have chat GPT for all my employees. But and I said,
11:16
Speaker 3: well why m hm, And it was it was crickets
11:20
Speaker 3: right that right then and there? Really what was what
11:22
Speaker 3: was the driving force that caused you to get chat GPT?
11:24
Speaker 3: Except for the fact that everyone's doing AI stuff, so
11:27
Speaker 3: why don't we do AI stuff too? And that was
11:29
Speaker 3: about as far as we got.
11:31
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm yeah, yeah, Well I want to get Jason.
11:35
Speaker 1: I want you to unpack a little bit for audience
11:37
Speaker 1: that don't know but you before you started chief AI again,
11:40
Speaker 1: you you're bringing in a different perspective and understanding because
11:43
Speaker 1: you've lived this through other companies and helping them grow
11:47
Speaker 1: and scale. So you understand that that company life cycle,
11:52
Speaker 1: if you will, in those evolutions. And so those of
11:54
Speaker 1: you that are listening and maybe haven't had that that
11:58
Speaker 1: that scale of working in a company, you may not
12:00
Speaker 1: have thought about those things. And so what I what
12:03
Speaker 1: I think is you're looking at this versus just like
12:06
Speaker 1: a tool, Like you just explained this to them, like
12:08
Speaker 1: here's the tool I got everybody the tool.
12:10
Speaker 2: That's what I call tool.
12:11
Speaker 1: Thinking versus an operator thinking, which is what you just explained.
12:15
Speaker 1: How you're looking at this roadmap and planning ahead and
12:18
Speaker 1: and you know as an as a founder or an operator,
12:22
Speaker 1: how you know, we got to think differently about AI
12:26
Speaker 1: than like you're saying, well, it's just a tool.
12:28
Speaker 2: And I think that's something you bring uniquely Jason through
12:32
Speaker 2: a Chief.
12:32
Speaker 1: I talk a little bit about your journey before you
12:34
Speaker 1: came to Chifi and why you infuse that now with
12:38
Speaker 1: what you're doing.
12:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean for the for twenty years prior to
12:43
Speaker 3: starting chief AI, I was in the staffing and recruit staffing,
12:47
Speaker 3: recruiting and consulting business from an entrepreneurial perspective, so I
12:51
Speaker 3: had a couple of partner a few partners. We started
12:55
Speaker 3: a company back in two thousand and five, which became
12:58
Speaker 3: two companies, which became four. We acquired a few more,
13:02
Speaker 3: consolidated down and YadA, YadA, YadA. It was a tremendous enterprise.
13:10
Speaker 3: We we had a number of different offices, great employees,
13:14
Speaker 3: tens of thousands of jobs filled, and and and and
13:19
Speaker 3: really a wonderful story that even continues on today as
13:21
Speaker 3: as it as the organizations are still flourishing. As a founder,
13:28
Speaker 3: and what I found is in conversations with other founders,
13:31
Speaker 3: you've either you've either been there knee deep in the
13:35
Speaker 3: blood and guts of running a business or you haven't.
13:38
Speaker 3: M and one of the things that I find and
13:42
Speaker 3: i've I've really got shot for is when I when
13:44
Speaker 3: I selected other members of my founding team, I was
13:50
Speaker 3: looking for. AI knowledge is important, Don't get me wrong,
13:54
Speaker 3: it's it's critical. I mean, we are Chief AI, we
13:57
Speaker 3: have we're a but the number one criteria I was
14:00
Speaker 3: looking for was really deep business understanding and metric driven
14:05
Speaker 3: success because I want my consultants, I want my sales people,
14:10
Speaker 3: I want my operators, I want my marketing people. I
14:13
Speaker 3: want all of the people involved with Chief AI to
14:16
Speaker 3: have to be differentiated by having a deeper business understanding
14:20
Speaker 3: than the next person who's coming along, in addition to
14:25
Speaker 3: tremendous understanding of AI trends, tools, problems, et cetera. And
14:31
Speaker 3: that I think is one of the differentiators for us
14:34
Speaker 3: being able to get in and have really a deep
14:36
Speaker 3: in the weeds business conversation and talk about you know,
14:39
Speaker 3: talk talk about a three year roadmap.
14:42
Speaker 2: Yep.
14:42
Speaker 3: If you take somebody off the street who took a
14:44
Speaker 3: weekend course on how to become an AI, an AI
14:46
Speaker 3: consultant and then try to try to put them in
14:48
Speaker 3: the middle of a boardroom and having a deep business
14:51
Speaker 3: conversation about anything from mergers and acquisitions, to cost of
14:55
Speaker 3: client acquisition, to a variety of other things that that
14:57
Speaker 3: founders have to deal with there and to sink like
15:00
Speaker 3: a stone you're not capable of that that aspect up
15:06
Speaker 3: the process. Then, much like the example I use before,
15:10
Speaker 3: you're kind of depending on luck to choose the right tool,
15:14
Speaker 3: choose the right process, and choose the right means by
15:17
Speaker 3: which you show an r o I for for for
15:20
Speaker 3: what you've what you've brought in, and what you've implemented,
15:24
Speaker 3: so that that that that track record of not just
15:28
Speaker 3: having all this wonderful business success but also failing miserably
15:33
Speaker 3: over and over again as well. Because any founder knows
15:36
Speaker 3: that if you if you look at really what your
15:39
Speaker 3: what your job, job title ought to be, if it
15:41
Speaker 3: if it represented what you do most often, it ought
15:43
Speaker 3: to say professional failure, because you try things and you
15:47
Speaker 3: you fail and you learn and hopefully you don't make
15:50
Speaker 3: the same mistakes twice.
15:51
Speaker 2: Right.
15:52
Speaker 3: So I find myself in calls with clients and you know,
15:57
Speaker 3: having everything from giving great guidance on all of this
16:03
Speaker 3: thought leadership around AI to having self deprecating discussions about
16:07
Speaker 3: some of the embarrassing failures I've had in the past
16:09
Speaker 3: and how I've learned from them. Yeah.
16:11
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely.
16:12
Speaker 1: Well, what I hear you saying, Jason, is this isn't
16:15
Speaker 1: just AI expertise. It's about business judgment that you've developed
16:20
Speaker 1: over many years and bringing in the right people to
16:23
Speaker 1: help us think you know, you approach this and thinking
16:27
Speaker 1: in a way that is strategic. It's not just oh,
16:31
Speaker 1: I'm just going to grab a tool, just not really
16:32
Speaker 1: thinking through it very much.
16:34
Speaker 2: And I think that's and again small.
16:36
Speaker 1: To midsized businesses, I think we get hit with these
16:39
Speaker 1: things and it's like we're going fast and you're like,
16:41
Speaker 1: hold on, let's slow down. Because if we get this
16:43
Speaker 1: right what you're saying, I think, if you get this
16:45
Speaker 1: roadmap and think through this strategically, then I think you
16:51
Speaker 1: can actually, to me use AI as a decision multiply
16:56
Speaker 1: like it can be. But it's we're not basing out
16:59
Speaker 1: on the right foundation, then it's all we're not we're
17:03
Speaker 1: going in the wrong direction.
17:04
Speaker 2: We kind of leaned our ladder on the wrong side wall,
17:07
Speaker 2: so to speak.
17:08
Speaker 1: So right, so if so, if so, again, going back
17:13
Speaker 1: to the decisions, a AI is not the starting point
17:17
Speaker 1: because like this, well, this is what is the starting point, Jason,
17:19
Speaker 1: a little further about where should be as a business owner.
17:22
Speaker 1: You laid out a couple of different things, but where
17:24
Speaker 1: would you start first, Like when you're working with somebody
17:26
Speaker 1: or talking with a gentleman, where's the decision point of
17:29
Speaker 1: Like where do would we bring in the tool? What
17:31
Speaker 1: do you start with when you're working with somebody, Jason?
17:33
Speaker 1: What does that look like?
17:35
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean the first thing I'm usually asking
17:39
Speaker 3: is something having to do with a success roadmap and
17:43
Speaker 3: where are the gaps and in getting you from point
17:47
Speaker 3: A where you're starting to point B where you're trying
17:49
Speaker 3: to get We also will go through a detailed, expedited,
17:54
Speaker 3: but detailed assessment of the organization. And depending on the
17:59
Speaker 3: organism and the engagement, it could be a department, it
18:02
Speaker 3: could be a group of small group of employees, or
18:04
Speaker 3: it could be the collective entire business. But we're going
18:08
Speaker 3: to spend time looking at business processes. We're going to
18:11
Speaker 3: spend time accumulating opinions from key stakeholding employees across the board.
18:21
Speaker 3: What do you like about your job? What don't you
18:23
Speaker 3: like about your job? If you could take one thing
18:25
Speaker 3: off your plate and add one thing to it, every
18:27
Speaker 3: single day. What would that look like? And we have
18:30
Speaker 3: a we have a scientific process that takes that goes
18:33
Speaker 3: through the right what we believe anyway, the right questions, sure,
18:37
Speaker 3: and an aggregating process for taking you know, a lot
18:41
Speaker 3: of times when we ask people these questions out though,
18:43
Speaker 3: sometimes we'll get eye rolls and they'll seem really elementary.
18:46
Speaker 3: But when you put them all together in the right order,
18:49
Speaker 3: and you take all that data and put it together,
18:51
Speaker 3: it will then yield some pretty tremendous output in terms
18:57
Speaker 3: of looking at where where are the gaps, where are
19:01
Speaker 3: the best opportunities for AI from a most impactful standpoint,
19:06
Speaker 3: where's our lowest hanging fruit. And what we always try
19:09
Speaker 3: to do as an organization is because we don't believe
19:13
Speaker 3: in silver bullets such thing. There's no magic box that
19:18
Speaker 3: you can buy and plug in and all of a
19:19
Speaker 3: sudden AI just works for everybody. So this is to
19:23
Speaker 3: put it in football terminology. This is not a game
19:25
Speaker 3: of hail Mary's. It's a game of inches. You know,
19:27
Speaker 3: a AI is a brown game. So let's come in,
19:32
Speaker 3: let's assess. Let's deliver you one win in the shortest
19:38
Speaker 3: order possible, so you can get you can get a
19:40
Speaker 3: feel for what the So there's not this vague ambiguity
19:44
Speaker 3: around this AI benefit that you're about to get. You're
19:47
Speaker 3: going to get something tangible that you can look, look at,
19:51
Speaker 3: play with, smell, taste, touch, And then we then we
19:55
Speaker 3: develop an incrementally adoptable plan that moves that will move
20:00
Speaker 3: the needle over the over a series of weeks or
20:03
Speaker 3: over a series of months, that will put in place
20:07
Speaker 3: the next solution, and then the next solution, and then
20:10
Speaker 3: the next solution. But we don't want to go to
20:11
Speaker 3: solution two until we've proven the concept of solution one
20:15
Speaker 3: and gotten people competent and ready to use it, whatever
20:19
Speaker 3: it is, and and then we move on to number
20:25
Speaker 3: two and then number three. Now is there exception to
20:27
Speaker 3: that rule, Sure we can, we can multiple things at once,
20:31
Speaker 3: but we do try to look at it from an
20:32
Speaker 3: incremental standpoint, because that's the way I think AI needs
20:35
Speaker 3: to be looked at.
20:36
Speaker 2: H m hmm.
20:38
Speaker 3: It's it's one of the it's one of the reasons why,
20:40
Speaker 3: you know, going back to my musical analogy, we learn
20:43
Speaker 3: chords before we learn whole songs.
20:45
Speaker 2: M h.
20:46
Speaker 3: And let's let's do that. Let's let's let's produce something
20:49
Speaker 3: that sounds interesting to us. It captures our interest, captures
20:52
Speaker 3: our excitement, gets our dopamine rushing and then and and
20:55
Speaker 3: and also caters to the the the larger scale end game.
21:00
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I could totally relate it my correlation Jason
21:05
Speaker 1: as I As you know, I work with people on
21:07
Speaker 1: the on, not so much of the technology. But when
21:10
Speaker 1: you think about the same thing, Jason, I'm applying this
21:13
Speaker 1: to me and Stewart your business. When I come up
21:15
Speaker 1: with a leadership or team, it's like a lot of
21:18
Speaker 1: them don't even understand fundamentally beyond their technical skills, who
21:22
Speaker 1: they are.
21:22
Speaker 2: How do they show up?
21:23
Speaker 1: And so it's like getting that clarity first and then
21:26
Speaker 1: applying it to themselves. And then we ample my when
21:29
Speaker 1: we start working with other people. And like you said,
21:31
Speaker 1: if you start to do this too many things all
21:33
Speaker 1: at once, it and you wonder, well, why am I
21:36
Speaker 1: not getting success? Well, you're not, you're you You're got,
21:38
Speaker 1: you're you've got too many. I like to use like
21:40
Speaker 1: a laser. It's a diffused a laser. It's like, can
21:43
Speaker 1: we just get you know, one one maneuver down the field,
21:47
Speaker 1: if you like you said, get that, and then we
21:50
Speaker 1: can start to add to complexity in there. It's and
21:53
Speaker 1: I like your instrument analogy as a as a musician
21:57
Speaker 1: background myself. Jason, you know you you you can't start
22:00
Speaker 1: with an orchestra with you have. If you've had people
22:04
Speaker 1: that have never played their instrument, don't know how to
22:05
Speaker 1: play together, you have to get them lined at first
22:09
Speaker 1: understanding how they use this instrument and how does it.
22:11
Speaker 2: Play with everybody else.
22:12
Speaker 1: And so I like that way of thinking because what
22:14
Speaker 1: I find is people are going so fast trying to
22:17
Speaker 1: be quote unquote efficient, but to.
22:20
Speaker 2: What end and it's not really getting them where they
22:23
Speaker 2: want to be.
22:25
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
22:26
Speaker 2: You know it's more efficient, I'm like, for what.
22:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, or it's not necessarily practical. You know, we we
22:35
Speaker 3: we live by we live by the tagline practical AI
22:38
Speaker 3: measurable results, and it's it is sometimes not practical to
22:43
Speaker 3: be more efficient.
22:44
Speaker 2: M h.
22:46
Speaker 3: I could come into your business today, you're very business David,
22:50
Speaker 3: and and AI enable the whole thing, and perhaps it
22:54
Speaker 3: fails miserably because of because of what we did. You know,
22:58
Speaker 3: we take like if I could put a chatbot in
23:02
Speaker 3: for for for where you normally would humanly interact with
23:06
Speaker 3: people and and and that is likely one of your
23:10
Speaker 3: greatest differentiators is your personal interaction with people, So you
23:14
Speaker 3: don't want to lose that. It wouldn't be practical to
23:17
Speaker 3: take you off the board and replace you with an agent,
23:20
Speaker 3: even though it would open up a lot of time
23:22
Speaker 3: for you and free up because we we just took
23:27
Speaker 3: one of your most valuable, most productive, most profitable actions
23:31
Speaker 3: off the table. Yes, you leave on the table, and
23:35
Speaker 3: we want to take other things off, right, And that's
23:39
Speaker 3: that's not you know, that's it's to put it in
23:43
Speaker 3: one of my favorite one of my favorite lines, so
23:45
Speaker 3: one of my my favorite movies of all time. I'm
23:47
Speaker 3: a Jurassic Park John. I love the Jeff Goldbloom line.
23:50
Speaker 3: You know, we we it took so much time to
23:52
Speaker 3: figure out if you could. You didn't bother to think
23:54
Speaker 3: if you should.
23:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, great line, great out.
23:57
Speaker 3: And should we AI and a piece maybe not?
24:01
Speaker 1: Mm hmm right right, yeah, I like you know, you
24:06
Speaker 1: make me think where does the AI actually create revenue
24:09
Speaker 1: or profit for us? And actually you triggered a memory.
24:13
Speaker 1: I was at a conference last year and there's a
24:16
Speaker 1: retailer called boot Barn and it was interesting to your point,
24:18
Speaker 1: Jason they could have automated their all call system, and
24:21
Speaker 1: they decided no, because our clients want to call in
24:23
Speaker 1: and actually talk with a human being. That's part of
24:27
Speaker 1: their experience. But what they did, which I thought was fascinating,
24:29
Speaker 1: and I think this is where the ingenuity. They took
24:32
Speaker 1: all their manuals, which we know all these manuals, which
24:35
Speaker 1: if you're in a retailer there's a lot of them,
24:37
Speaker 1: and they just audit. They took it in in this
24:39
Speaker 1: case notebook LM, and modified into an audio program that
24:43
Speaker 1: we just play at the beginning of the store, so
24:44
Speaker 1: when people were cleaning up the store or closing the store,
24:47
Speaker 1: we just listened to that.
24:48
Speaker 2: So I thought that was such a creative way of thinking.
24:50
Speaker 1: About how do we use this in a way that
24:52
Speaker 1: makes sense of fits within our culture and where we
24:55
Speaker 1: want to go. And I feel like you're asking these
24:57
Speaker 1: questions of these business owners and where are they going,
25:00
Speaker 1: what do they want to do? So it's not about
25:03
Speaker 1: just doing things faster, but it's doing hopefully the right
25:06
Speaker 1: things better, is what I'm hearing you say.
25:08
Speaker 3: I I agree with that wholeheartedly. And I also something
25:14
Speaker 3: that will will always ask lots of questions about and
25:17
Speaker 3: sometimes people feel like it's too many questions, and I
25:19
Speaker 3: don't believe it is is about how do you plan
25:22
Speaker 3: on making AI part of your culture? If you're going
25:26
Speaker 3: to start implementing AI, how's how's it going to be
25:28
Speaker 3: part of your culture? And I've often found that if
25:32
Speaker 3: you were to you know, with your with the client
25:34
Speaker 3: that wants the human interaction, if you were to have
25:38
Speaker 3: as part of your culture, part of your client service
25:42
Speaker 3: replaced with an AI bot, a voice chat, whatever it
25:45
Speaker 3: might be, and you set that expectation with your client,
25:49
Speaker 3: letting him know that this stage of the process is
25:51
Speaker 3: going to be driven through a great AI bot. Just
25:54
Speaker 3: interact with it, You'll love it. Then you're going to
25:56
Speaker 3: get to me right afterwards or whatever the case is.
25:58
Speaker 3: Maybe that doesn't fit for your business mm hm, but
26:02
Speaker 3: it's where I see businesses fall down is trying to
26:06
Speaker 3: trying to mask the work of the AI or trying
26:10
Speaker 3: to pawn it off as as a real person when
26:12
Speaker 3: it really isn't. I mean, that makes you disingenuous, That
26:15
Speaker 3: makes you Yeah. And I believe that AI from a
26:20
Speaker 3: an external culture and an internal culture needs to become
26:23
Speaker 3: part of your needs to become part of your narrative.
26:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:27
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's a head scratcher for most. Most are like, well,
26:31
Speaker 3: what do you mean part of our culture?
26:33
Speaker 2: Well, you know, no, I agree.
26:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, Your your employees are expecting a certain kind of interaction.
26:41
Speaker 3: Your clients are expecting a certain kind of interaction. If
26:44
Speaker 3: you're going to change the game on them, that's fine,
26:47
Speaker 3: especially if you're changing it for the better. But how
26:50
Speaker 3: are you how are you staging that in advance? So
26:53
Speaker 3: someone who's used to talking to David or Jason yesterday
26:57
Speaker 3: is now talking to you know, Dave and Jason. David
27:00
Speaker 3: and Jason. The AI chatbots took today, yep, without the
27:03
Speaker 3: prompting or warning. Yeah, and geez, this company really took
27:08
Speaker 3: a turn for the worst.
27:08
Speaker 2: What's going on here exactly? Yeah?
27:10
Speaker 1: I know. That really brings it home to the folks
27:13
Speaker 1: that I'm working with, Jason and the shift in leadership,
27:18
Speaker 1: Like what happens to people and roles in like you said,
27:21
Speaker 1: in this AI driven business. I don't think they're thinking
27:24
Speaker 1: through all of that. And I think there's this I'd
27:27
Speaker 1: love to speak you because I'd love you to speak
27:29
Speaker 1: this mentality because you've worked in the human talent space previously,
27:34
Speaker 1: and there is this there I see kind of two
27:37
Speaker 1: camps right now, just I like your take on this.
27:39
Speaker 2: There's a tip planet like.
27:40
Speaker 1: Well legius AI is just going to take over all
27:43
Speaker 1: all this work for human beings and there won't be
27:45
Speaker 1: anything for others.
27:46
Speaker 2: Or there's another camp where I see, no, there is
27:48
Speaker 2: a an.
27:49
Speaker 1: Elimination, like a very mundane routine, you know work, But
27:56
Speaker 1: there's a place where we could upscale our people and
28:00
Speaker 1: have them be leveraged in this. To your point of like,
28:02
Speaker 1: how do we do this in a more holistic way,
28:05
Speaker 1: there'd be people that have been here with us, I
28:07
Speaker 1: know what's going on, and you know, I'd love you
28:10
Speaker 1: get your thoughts on how do we do this? Because
28:13
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of fear out there. And
28:16
Speaker 1: I just recorded a podcast previously so you guys can
28:19
Speaker 1: go back and listen to. So I fear intelligent, but
28:21
Speaker 1: when fear in creeps, we don't make pretty we don't
28:23
Speaker 1: make very good decisions when we're driven by fear, anxiety, worry, doubt,
28:29
Speaker 1: And so i'd love you to speak to that for
28:31
Speaker 1: the business owner, because there's some busin owners that don't
28:33
Speaker 1: They're they're like, I don't want to bring an AI
28:34
Speaker 1: because I don't want to like lay off people or
28:36
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about what that's going to affect my team,
28:39
Speaker 1: and so thinking about how do we do this in
28:41
Speaker 1: a thoughtful manner.
28:43
Speaker 3: Jason, I, I don't at the in the current state
28:49
Speaker 3: of the of the AI union. There are, Yes, there
28:53
Speaker 3: are some jobs that are are being taken away by AI.
28:58
Speaker 3: Now I don't. I have a hard time I'm buying
29:01
Speaker 3: into the notion of them all getting taken by AI.
29:06
Speaker 3: What I what I Those that I fear for, I'm
29:09
Speaker 3: around to the answering your question.
29:10
Speaker 2: Exactly.
29:11
Speaker 3: Those I fear for are the AI deniers, you know,
29:14
Speaker 3: those who say, well, AI is just going to take
29:16
Speaker 3: my job anyway, therefore I'm not going to learn it.
29:19
Speaker 3: M And there's the I I find the I find
29:23
Speaker 3: fault in that logic.
29:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
29:26
Speaker 3: The messaging I give to UH to our clients is
29:28
Speaker 3: that we're here to superpower your people.
29:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that.
29:33
Speaker 3: This is a force multiplier. Now, you you might you
29:37
Speaker 3: might not hire as many additional people as you normally
29:40
Speaker 3: would have, or whatever the case is. But if you're
29:44
Speaker 3: a hundred person company and you want to wipe out
29:46
Speaker 3: all your people and replace them with AI agents, in
29:50
Speaker 3: hopes to get what a hundred people's about worth of output, Like,
29:55
Speaker 3: you're not really moving the needle. You're saving some you're
29:58
Speaker 3: saving some payroll dollars, things like that. But if we
30:00
Speaker 3: look at your three year roadmap, you wanted to get
30:02
Speaker 3: to revenue x in three years getting rid of all
30:06
Speaker 3: your people. Let's take the hundred person company. Let's fuel
30:10
Speaker 3: them with efficiency and productivity tools that can turn them
30:15
Speaker 3: into thought leaders, into strategists, and into orchestrators. And instead
30:20
Speaker 3: of the one hundred people's person output, we're going to
30:23
Speaker 3: get four hundred person output out out of our hundred people.
30:28
Speaker 2: That's what we're looking for.
30:30
Speaker 3: The competitive advantage is taking And now I mean you're
30:35
Speaker 3: you're always going to have needs for Companies are always
30:38
Speaker 3: going to have needs for letting some people go sometimes
30:41
Speaker 3: or going through layoffs because of hard times. But there
30:44
Speaker 3: is no need right now in most cases. And if
30:47
Speaker 3: anyone's watching this and has an exception to the rule,
30:50
Speaker 3: I believe that there's plenty of exceptions to the rule.
30:53
Speaker 3: But in most cases, we don't need to be laying
30:56
Speaker 3: our people off. We need to be arming them with
30:58
Speaker 3: the tools to superpower their their productivity and you're going
31:04
Speaker 3: to wind up taking an hour or two hours or
31:08
Speaker 3: something like that, of of of not of of of
31:11
Speaker 3: administrative or repeatable, repeated tasks off someone's plate, and you're
31:15
Speaker 3: going to give the more fun, exciting, profitable things to
31:18
Speaker 3: do during the day. You're going to find people more excited,
31:22
Speaker 3: You're going to experience less attrition, and you're you're going
31:26
Speaker 3: to develop an innovative culture that has everyone operating at optimal,
31:32
Speaker 3: optimal efficiency and speed. That's the kind of place people
31:36
Speaker 3: want to work.
31:37
Speaker 2: Yes. Absolutely.
31:39
Speaker 3: I actually think at this stage in the game. Now,
31:41
Speaker 3: where AI goes into the future remains to be seen,
31:46
Speaker 3: But at this stage in the game, AI is a
31:50
Speaker 3: is A is A is a force multiplier, it's a
31:52
Speaker 3: people in power. It's and and it really should be
31:56
Speaker 3: in a lot of cases where it's not welcome with
32:00
Speaker 3: open arms, because it can you know, it can make you.
32:05
Speaker 3: It can make you a much more enriched employee. If
32:08
Speaker 3: you're in sales, business development, commission driven, it can make
32:11
Speaker 3: you a lot more money. There's a lot of positive
32:14
Speaker 3: outcomes that can come out of this.
32:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Jason, It's the same thing I look at
32:19
Speaker 1: when people resist, you know, developing themselves further in there
32:25
Speaker 1: there are people skills what I teach you know the
32:27
Speaker 1: same thing that there's more greater opportunity if you lean
32:30
Speaker 1: into this. Sometimes there's there's there's fear, there's worry, but
32:33
Speaker 1: I'm saying you've got to move past that and see
32:35
Speaker 1: the opportunities that are out there. There's so much more.
32:38
Speaker 1: And I think Jason, you you're one of these people
32:40
Speaker 1: that are trying to champion that create that space that
32:42
Speaker 1: people can lean into that and have somebody there that
32:44
Speaker 1: walks alongside them.
32:47
Speaker 2: I know we're getting the end of the podcast here
32:48
Speaker 2: and we could definitely go further.
32:50
Speaker 1: Jason, But if you know, if you're if I'm the
32:54
Speaker 1: business owner, I'm in a leader position of influence where
32:57
Speaker 1: I can say, Okay, I can help shape how we
33:00
Speaker 1: approach technology AI and otherwise, what would you really empower
33:06
Speaker 1: them to do?
33:06
Speaker 2: Jason, after they listen to this podcast.
33:09
Speaker 1: By the way, you guys, Jason is and Iron connected
33:12
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn and we'll put all in the show notes
33:14
Speaker 1: how you connect connect with with Jason and Chief AI.
33:17
Speaker 1: But Jason, if you know, if I'm listening to this
33:21
Speaker 1: and I've got intrepidation, I'm thinking about this, what should
33:25
Speaker 1: I be considering what Maybe I have a question I
33:27
Speaker 1: haven't asked you Jason today on the podcast, but as
33:30
Speaker 1: a business owner, a person of influence and how they
33:33
Speaker 1: can affect the organization with AI and technology, what would
33:36
Speaker 1: you encourage them to consider and reflect upon.
33:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think if I look at my if I
33:42
Speaker 3: look at me being like the luckiest guy in the world,
33:45
Speaker 3: because I've got a great job. And I'll come back
33:49
Speaker 3: to answering your question. I get to do two things
33:53
Speaker 3: all day every day. I get to empower people to
33:55
Speaker 3: make their businesses bigger and better and more profitable. And
33:59
Speaker 3: I get to get out on AI all day long.
34:02
Speaker 3: This is a wonderful thing, but a very complicated place.
34:05
Speaker 3: And if you don't live in it twenty four hours
34:07
Speaker 3: a day, seven days a week for years, years on end,
34:09
Speaker 3: which I've done, it can be a tough It can
34:13
Speaker 3: be it can be tough waters to navigate. So I
34:17
Speaker 3: also believe wholeheartedly in what we're doing. And my advice
34:23
Speaker 3: to anyone, I think, whether you hired Chief AI or
34:26
Speaker 3: whether you hired another firm or another person or whoever
34:29
Speaker 3: it might be, that you know and you trust and
34:31
Speaker 3: you believe in and you feel you feel philosophically and
34:34
Speaker 3: ideologically aligned with get somebody in to your business and
34:41
Speaker 3: do it right the first time, instead of having to
34:44
Speaker 3: pay somebody to come and unravel all the duct tape
34:47
Speaker 3: later on and then do it right at that point
34:50
Speaker 3: in time. Yeah, you know, getting some guidance, getting some
34:54
Speaker 3: getting the right starting point, building the right foundation for
34:57
Speaker 3: AI utilization.
35:00
Speaker 2: Yep.
35:01
Speaker 3: Is money incredibly well spent. And one of the things
35:03
Speaker 3: I talk about AI enablement. This is a pure investment
35:07
Speaker 3: right now. If you're if I had if I was
35:10
Speaker 3: given the money to if I had excess cash laying
35:15
Speaker 3: laying around, and I'm not saying just free, free, this
35:18
Speaker 3: is this is important stuff I can invest in a
35:20
Speaker 3: stock or a or a bond or a mutual fund.
35:25
Speaker 3: One of the greatest r o the greatest r o
35:27
Speaker 3: I that you can see in your investment dollars right now,
35:29
Speaker 3: is AI enabling your company m hm, you know for
35:34
Speaker 3: two x, three x five, ten x return on investment.
35:38
Speaker 3: And we've seen that, we've seen those very stories very
35:41
Speaker 3: tangibly in real life. Yes, so these things are possible,
35:46
Speaker 3: but it's going to require some guidance, some maybe for
35:51
Speaker 3: some maybe just a little bit for others maybe a
35:53
Speaker 3: great deal, but find that guidance, find that find that
35:58
Speaker 3: that entity that is aligned with you, and you feel
36:02
Speaker 3: like you can trust bring him in at least get
36:06
Speaker 3: started off the first couple of starting, you know, first
36:09
Speaker 3: couple of steps down the path. Yeah, with a little
36:12
Speaker 3: bit of guidance and and and and and commit to
36:15
Speaker 3: doing it right, and commit to doing it right for
36:18
Speaker 3: your own productivity, but also for the sake of your employees,
36:21
Speaker 3: because what drives employees crazy and I have I have
36:24
Speaker 3: made my employees over the year is very happy. That
36:28
Speaker 3: made them very very upset through through you know, through learning,
36:33
Speaker 3: is by giving them a tool that you're ill prepared
36:36
Speaker 3: to utilize. And then here we go again. You know,
36:39
Speaker 3: you develop this this kind of boy who cried wolf
36:42
Speaker 3: type of a type of a type of type of
36:46
Speaker 3: a reputation with your with your staff members, and they
36:49
Speaker 3: are like, oh, here here comes Jason with another great tool.
36:54
Speaker 2: Uh.
36:54
Speaker 3: And and that's obviously not the way you want to go.
36:57
Speaker 3: So you want to you want to create that that
36:59
Speaker 3: the culture of confidence by doing it right the first time.
37:03
Speaker 3: Absolutely a couple of small pieces at first, feel good
37:07
Speaker 3: about the direction you're going in, and then you've got
37:10
Speaker 3: a fire you can really dump some gasoline on.
37:12
Speaker 2: That's absolutely, absolutely now. It's been a real pleasure having
37:16
Speaker 2: you on the podcast. Jason. I think you've given us
37:18
Speaker 2: a lot to think about. I really appreciate the conversation.
37:21
Speaker 2: What you really stands up to me is isn't about
37:24
Speaker 2: a tools. It's really about how we think.
37:26
Speaker 1: How we make decisions, ultimately creating value in your business.
37:32
Speaker 1: And for those of you that are listening, I want
37:35
Speaker 1: to just encourage you, Like Jason said, look at how
37:37
Speaker 1: you're approaching these things and if you need help, reach
37:39
Speaker 1: out to Chief AI, among others, Stewart your businesses here
37:42
Speaker 1: as well, because we're here about helping create that clarity,
37:46
Speaker 1: building that strong leadership and team that can really leverage
37:49
Speaker 1: tools like this effectively. And so leave a comment. We
37:54
Speaker 1: welcome your feedback, like and subscribe and all of that.
37:57
Speaker 1: We appreciate you, Jason, thinking you and for being here
38:00
Speaker 1: with us on the Business Roundtable.
38:02
Speaker 3: David, thank you for the opportunity. It's been a lot
38:04
Speaker 3: of fun, real pleasure.
38:05
Speaker 2: Thanks everybody. Until the next episode, be well, take care.
38:09
Speaker 2: Thanks everybody.
38:14
Speaker 3: M