Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Workplace AI 101: A User’s Guide w/ Charlene Li

Transcript

Workplace AI 101: A User’s Guide w/ Charlene Li · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck show with Tim
0:05
Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGraw. Let's get into it.
0:08
Speaker 2: Hello, change Makers, And as much as I might try
0:12
Speaker 2: that introduction in the smooth suave tones you normally hear
0:15
Speaker 2: from Tom, it will never work out. And Tom is
0:17
Speaker 2: out on some well deserved PTO this week. So while
0:20
Speaker 2: it's usually me that needs to miss an episode because
0:23
Speaker 2: of travel, this week I get to drive the ship's
0:25
Speaker 2: solo and I'm sure we'll get Tom's assessment when he returns.
0:30
Speaker 2: So let's get on with that. I want to welcome
0:31
Speaker 2: to the show, Charlene Lee. Charlene is founder and CEO
0:35
Speaker 2: of Quantum Networks Group and executive transformation coach and author
0:39
Speaker 2: of the book Winning with Generative AI. Charlene, Welcome to
0:43
Speaker 2: the show.
0:44
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
0:46
Speaker 2: Great to have you here. So let's start out just
0:48
Speaker 2: by sharing a bit about your journey and how you
0:50
Speaker 2: became an expert in disruptive transformation strategies.
0:56
Speaker 3: Sure, I actually grew up in American in Detroit, and
1:01
Speaker 3: so as you can imagine, there aren't very many of
1:04
Speaker 3: us in Detroit, and so this was used to being
1:08
Speaker 3: very different in the room, and I carried that with me.
1:12
Speaker 3: I realized into the workspace into business and technology, and
1:16
Speaker 3: so have felt very comfortable being a distructor because by
1:19
Speaker 3: simply being in the room, I am disruptive. So and
1:24
Speaker 3: so I thought about how to think about change in
1:29
Speaker 3: a very different way. Instead of saying change is something
1:33
Speaker 3: that you fear, you try to resist, or you take
1:35
Speaker 3: on only in certain circumstances, I look at change as
1:39
Speaker 3: an opportunity for growth. And so when I look at technology,
1:43
Speaker 3: I look at business challenges, especially at how technology can
1:48
Speaker 3: change the way we relate to each other and the
1:51
Speaker 3: way that we work. I get very excited and I
1:54
Speaker 3: can see the possibilities, and I think my superpower has
1:57
Speaker 3: been translating how technology can work and simplifying the technology
2:03
Speaker 3: into ways that we can understand it, wrap our arms
2:07
Speaker 3: around it, and then be able to think about how
2:09
Speaker 3: we can adapt and change and be optimistic and curious
2:13
Speaker 3: about it rather and I fear it.
2:16
Speaker 2: It's so needed in today's world, and I think it's
2:19
Speaker 2: a skill that not many people have. So simplifying things
2:22
Speaker 2: is I think is really necessary and your work it
2:26
Speaker 2: focuses on the intersection of technology and leadership and strategy.
2:31
Speaker 2: I think with a focus on that leadership part. I'm
2:33
Speaker 2: always interested to hear what inspires people to do what
2:36
Speaker 2: they do. So what inspired you to follow this path
2:40
Speaker 2: and how do you see your work evolving in the
2:42
Speaker 2: context of now this new world of AI and digital transformation?
2:47
Speaker 3: Right? Well, I started, as in my work, really around
2:50
Speaker 3: desupture technologies as an analyst at Forrester Research, and in
2:54
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight, my co author Josh Brunoff and
2:57
Speaker 3: I wrote a book called Groundswell that talked about how
3:00
Speaker 3: companies can use social technologies. And I remember this one
3:04
Speaker 3: distinct meeting where a CEO came up to me and said,
3:07
Speaker 3: I get it, social is going to be really important,
3:10
Speaker 3: But how open, how authentic, how real do I need
3:14
Speaker 3: to be? And I realized this was not a technology challenge,
3:19
Speaker 3: this was a leadership challenge, and that when it comes
3:22
Speaker 3: to adopting these technologies, when we talk about digital transformation,
3:27
Speaker 3: we oftentimes think about the digital part, the technology part,
3:32
Speaker 3: and not the transformation part. So I realized I could
3:36
Speaker 3: talk about technology until I'm blue in the face, but
3:39
Speaker 3: if I didn't talk about the leadership part, the culture part,
3:44
Speaker 3: it would be for naught. So my focus shifted and
3:47
Speaker 3: my second book was about open leadership, about how you
3:51
Speaker 3: had to transform your leadership with it and you could
3:54
Speaker 3: do that with these technologies. How to have these two
3:57
Speaker 3: things fit together rather than separately.
4:02
Speaker 2: It's an interesting question he posed to you, How real
4:05
Speaker 2: do I need to be? Some of the most inspiring
4:07
Speaker 2: and easy to follow leaders are the ones that are
4:11
Speaker 2: the most transparent and the most real. And to have
4:13
Speaker 2: somebody considering how real to be is interesting and it
4:18
Speaker 2: kind of is a is a good segue into some
4:20
Speaker 2: of your other topics that you talk about in your
4:23
Speaker 2: writing and speaking engagements. You often talk about the concept
4:26
Speaker 2: of being a realist optimist, right. I find the optimism
4:31
Speaker 2: can be, especially in today's world, a daily task, almost
4:36
Speaker 2: to chore. It's an intentional choice, though, and at least
4:39
Speaker 2: it has to be deliberate and top of mind. I'm
4:42
Speaker 2: curious if you can and it can explain a bit
4:44
Speaker 2: about the concept of the real optimist or the realist
4:47
Speaker 2: optimist in a little bit more details.
4:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, people tend to be wired to be more optimistic
4:53
Speaker 3: about things more pessimistic about things. Now we have there's
4:56
Speaker 3: lots of studies that correlate optimis with happiness and longevity,
5:02
Speaker 3: and so there are lots of practices you can do
5:05
Speaker 3: to take a more optimistic view of the world, how
5:07
Speaker 3: to see the world as a glass half full rather
5:10
Speaker 3: than half empty. And the challenge of being an optimist
5:15
Speaker 3: is sometimes you can get pollyannish. You can think, well,
5:18
Speaker 3: the world's going to be great, it's just going to
5:20
Speaker 3: be fantastic, and people around you go, you're not being
5:25
Speaker 3: realistic about this. You're not seeing the challenges and the limitations.
5:30
Speaker 3: And so especially tech optimists tend to have a bright,
5:36
Speaker 3: shiny object aspect of things. So I like to temper
5:41
Speaker 3: the optimism with this healthy dose of realism. Okay, this
5:46
Speaker 3: is great, we're optimistic about what this technology could do,
5:49
Speaker 3: about the prospects for this, but let's be realistic. Here
5:53
Speaker 3: are the challenges, Here are the capabilities, but here are
5:56
Speaker 3: the limitations. And then also here are the usable things
6:00
Speaker 3: we can do within our organization. Because if you do
6:04
Speaker 3: not put in plans that can actually work, all your
6:07
Speaker 3: optimism is going to be for nothing. It'll go nowhere
6:11
Speaker 3: because you haven't anticipated the difficulties the challenges that have
6:15
Speaker 3: to be overcome.
6:18
Speaker 2: As one of the things that was driven into me
6:20
Speaker 2: from a very early stage of my career, the technology
6:25
Speaker 2: is great, but if you're not solving a problem, you're
6:28
Speaker 2: doing technology for technology's sake. And if you haven't figured
6:33
Speaker 2: out how you're going to operationalize it and make it
6:35
Speaker 2: real based on the realities of your environment and the
6:38
Speaker 2: world today, then you're transforming. Your transformation will fail.
6:44
Speaker 3: Exactly.
6:45
Speaker 2: And you've advised a number of leading companies on this topic.
6:49
Speaker 2: Exactly on transformation. From your experience, what are some of
6:53
Speaker 2: the common challenges they face, especially when implementing something major,
6:58
Speaker 2: a major tech change, And more importantly, what are some
7:01
Speaker 2: of the strategies they've used to overcome those.
7:05
Speaker 3: And the number one challenge I hear is that how
7:07
Speaker 3: do I get my leaders on board this is a
7:10
Speaker 3: change we need to have happen. Our competitors are doing
7:13
Speaker 3: it or falling behind, and our leaders are just stuck.
7:18
Speaker 3: They're just stuck. They don't want to move forward. They
7:20
Speaker 3: see it's challenging and they don't care. And so how
7:22
Speaker 3: can I get them interested in this new technology? And
7:25
Speaker 3: I go, it's the only way you can break through
7:29
Speaker 3: it to a leader is to talk to the top
7:31
Speaker 3: three strategic objectives that they care about. Because they're great leaders,
7:36
Speaker 3: they're in that leadership position because they have been successful
7:39
Speaker 3: at implementing and executing on their top strategic objectives. And
7:44
Speaker 3: just focus on the top three and align this new
7:47
Speaker 3: technology to how you can help it, how that technology
7:51
Speaker 3: can help them achieve one of those top three goals,
7:55
Speaker 3: because it's a lot easier to mold how the technology
7:58
Speaker 3: is going to be used. Who again, as you said,
8:01
Speaker 3: solve a problem, be a solution. Then trying to change
8:05
Speaker 3: one of those top three objectives of that leader, it's
8:09
Speaker 3: not going to work. You're not going to change with's
8:12
Speaker 3: top three objectives. You're not going to get them to care.
8:15
Speaker 3: So if you can orient this change around something they
8:18
Speaker 3: care deeply about that they wake up every single morning
8:23
Speaker 3: thinking about that, They spend every fiber of their bea
8:28
Speaker 3: think about how to solve this challenge, they would get
8:31
Speaker 3: very curious. And if you can create that curiosity, then
8:37
Speaker 3: you can start working on this. You can get that interest,
8:41
Speaker 3: that curiosity and the interest to actually dig into what's
8:45
Speaker 3: going on with this technology. It can't be about technology.
8:48
Speaker 3: It's never about the technology.
8:51
Speaker 2: I love a couple of things. They're the aspect of curiosity.
8:55
Speaker 2: How can things be different? How many times in our
8:59
Speaker 2: careers have we heard leaders say, well, we've been doing
9:01
Speaker 2: it this way forever and it works, so why change?
9:03
Speaker 2: Change is hard? But the other thing that I like
9:06
Speaker 2: is that it's from the viewpoint of the bottom up,
9:09
Speaker 2: the grassroots, people on the ground who know what needs
9:13
Speaker 2: to be done, trying to convince or sell internally a
9:17
Speaker 2: change to leadership. But flip it around, because some of
9:19
Speaker 2: the most successful transformations that I've seen get support from
9:23
Speaker 2: the top and from the bottom. So think about how
9:26
Speaker 2: IT leaders should think about applying some of those principles,
9:30
Speaker 2: especially in the context of AI adoption, which in itself
9:33
Speaker 2: can be scary, especially to teams who feel like it's
9:36
Speaker 2: going to replace them. What strategies can leaders use or
9:40
Speaker 2: any IT operation leader to effectively communicate those benefits and
9:45
Speaker 2: address concerns from their teams about resistance or change in general.
9:51
Speaker 3: Well, I think that the biggest heerian It's right rightfully
9:54
Speaker 3: there that people concern that AI is going to take
9:57
Speaker 3: your job. But I remind people, it's not AI that's
10:01
Speaker 3: going to take your job. It's people using AI who
10:04
Speaker 3: are going to take your job. So the best thing
10:07
Speaker 3: you can do is to run towards us to understand
10:10
Speaker 3: how IT can help you. And for you, as an
10:12
Speaker 3: IT leader to explain to people, this is how it
10:16
Speaker 3: can help us do our jobs better.
10:18
Speaker 2: Now.
10:19
Speaker 3: I've worked really closely with one call center and they
10:22
Speaker 3: made it clear from the very beginning they were not
10:25
Speaker 3: putting in AI to take people's jobs. That was not
10:29
Speaker 3: the purpose. The purpose was to first of all, create
10:33
Speaker 3: a better experience for their customers, second, to make everybody
10:38
Speaker 3: in that process a better service agent. And then third,
10:43
Speaker 3: because of that increase in productivity, they were going to
10:47
Speaker 3: start tackling this long, long list of new innovations and
10:51
Speaker 3: products and services they always wanted to create but never
10:55
Speaker 3: have the time, people, and the money to do that.
10:58
Speaker 3: And they said, AI is going to create competitive advantage
11:01
Speaker 3: for us. We're going to create new businesses, and the
11:05
Speaker 3: faster we do this, the sooner we can again be
11:09
Speaker 3: elevating everything that we do on behalf of our customers.
11:13
Speaker 3: That's a very different message than saying we're going to
11:16
Speaker 3: use AI to become more productive so that we can
11:20
Speaker 3: save money and have it end up in the bottom
11:22
Speaker 3: line in the purses of our shareholders. That's a very
11:26
Speaker 3: very different message. And that intent and the reason, the
11:31
Speaker 3: strategy behind why you are putting in AI. The purpose
11:35
Speaker 3: of it align with what you're trying to do as
11:37
Speaker 3: an organization is extremely important right from the get go.
11:42
Speaker 3: So I again, this organization saw quality increase so that
11:48
Speaker 3: the errors were reduced by eighty five to ninety percent.
11:52
Speaker 3: Training was improved in terms of the speed, so reduce
11:56
Speaker 3: training time from thirty to forty percent. And it just overall, saidtisfaction,
12:00
Speaker 3: people began to feel joy in their job because they
12:04
Speaker 3: didn't have to do the routine things, the mundane things
12:08
Speaker 3: that they really didn't like about their jobs, and so
12:12
Speaker 3: it all overwhel has been a net net good thing. Now,
12:15
Speaker 3: the reality is jobs are going to change because tasks
12:20
Speaker 3: being automated, the things that you used to do, that
12:22
Speaker 3: things that define jobs are going to change and as
12:25
Speaker 3: a result, career ladders are going to change. So this
12:27
Speaker 3: is a transformation. It is not an easy one. But
12:31
Speaker 3: the assurance is from the top that this is our goal,
12:35
Speaker 3: this is our ambition, this is our purpose. For putting
12:38
Speaker 3: this in creates this scaffolding for people to know that
12:43
Speaker 3: this is why we're going through this change and transformation.
12:47
Speaker 2: So how about at the individual level, I think it
12:49
Speaker 2: resonates for people that this is you know, give them
12:52
Speaker 2: a reason for it and what it means to the company.
12:55
Speaker 2: You've had to focus on building movements right, and those
12:58
Speaker 2: movements can be very emotional for people, and they follow
13:02
Speaker 2: an inspirational leader. I'm curious your thoughts on inspiring and
13:06
Speaker 2: engaging with service delivery teams at an individual level so
13:11
Speaker 2: that they see these as opportunities not only for the
13:13
Speaker 2: company they work for, but as opportunities for themselves as well,
13:17
Speaker 2: rather than that threat. What's in it for me? Well?
13:22
Speaker 3: He going back to leadership and culture, and that when
13:25
Speaker 3: you're putting in these new technologies, it's also an opportunity
13:29
Speaker 3: to change the things about your culture that you don't like.
13:33
Speaker 3: And so a very simple way again to think about
13:36
Speaker 3: culture is that simply the beliefs and the behaviors that
13:40
Speaker 3: you have as an organization. It's not what's on the wall,
13:43
Speaker 3: it's what people actually do day to day and their
13:47
Speaker 3: behaviors and be flexed beliefs. So if you don't like
13:50
Speaker 3: your culture, then you change your beliefs and you change
13:52
Speaker 3: your behaviors. So a very simple one is I don't
13:55
Speaker 3: have commission to do whatever, Well why is it? So
14:01
Speaker 3: how do you start changing that? Another one is, well,
14:04
Speaker 3: that's just the way we do things around here. You
14:06
Speaker 3: mentioned that before. People just have done this for decades,
14:09
Speaker 3: and so that's the way it is. How do you
14:12
Speaker 3: systematically change that? To say, instead of saying that's the
14:16
Speaker 3: way we do things around here, every time we hear that,
14:19
Speaker 3: we ask why do we do things that way? And
14:23
Speaker 3: to say, could we do it a different way? Have
14:26
Speaker 3: we looked, have we checked? Let's confirm that it is.
14:30
Speaker 3: Let's take the extracycles because there might be a better way,
14:32
Speaker 3: and we don't know until we try. So those are
14:35
Speaker 3: just some example of beliefs. But it's very simple for
14:38
Speaker 3: any organization to hear that, to understand that. And when
14:41
Speaker 3: you talk about the individual, the most incredible powerful thing
14:46
Speaker 3: you can do is to check in with them and say,
14:48
Speaker 3: what are your beliefs about how the organization works, how
14:53
Speaker 3: the relationships are, what power do you have? And you'll
14:57
Speaker 3: get a lot of information on what people say and
14:59
Speaker 3: where people say. Until you do, people are just very
15:02
Speaker 3: quiet and you don't have an idea. You can do
15:05
Speaker 3: all the engagement surveys that you want of your employees,
15:09
Speaker 3: but unless you have that conversation, what do you believe
15:13
Speaker 3: and do we hold these things to be true and
15:16
Speaker 3: what do we believe is holding us back and then
15:19
Speaker 3: have an active discussion to say, well, we all agree
15:22
Speaker 3: that this belief we don't want to believe anymore. Let's
15:25
Speaker 3: all not believe that anymore and believe just the opposite
15:30
Speaker 3: and so incredibly powerful and can change cultures not only
15:34
Speaker 3: in teams but inside of entire departments and companies very
15:38
Speaker 3: very quickly if you focus on those beliefs.
15:41
Speaker 2: It's kind of like what we talked about with optimism
15:44
Speaker 2: versus pessimism. Right, The easy path is to instantly need
15:48
Speaker 2: jerk everything's bad and come out with a negative opinion
15:52
Speaker 2: versus intentionally looking at positive, positive outcomes, positive directions. Curious,
15:58
Speaker 2: A lot of the work that you've done involves that
16:01
Speaker 2: empathy and understanding of the individual. Any other recommendations for
16:07
Speaker 2: service desk managers to help with kind of the settling
16:11
Speaker 2: of nerves and removal of fears and uncertainties. Especially, let's
16:15
Speaker 2: face it, a service desk can typically be seen as
16:18
Speaker 2: an entry level job and potentially one that is easily
16:22
Speaker 2: replaced with technology. What are the principles or what things
16:25
Speaker 2: can managers do of people to allay those fears and uncertainties.
16:31
Speaker 3: Yes, First of all, we always think that change is
16:34
Speaker 3: going to happen a lot faster than it actually does,
16:37
Speaker 3: and so we still have time. We have good couple years,
16:43
Speaker 3: I believe, before any major change happens where you're seeing
16:48
Speaker 3: radical shifts and how service centers are actually staffed. And
16:53
Speaker 3: so because it takes time for the technology to develop
16:56
Speaker 3: for us, they feel comfortable using it in a way
16:59
Speaker 3: that we trust it. We still trust people more the machines,
17:04
Speaker 3: but over time, the machines are going to get better
17:06
Speaker 3: and better and better. And so what I encourage individuals
17:10
Speaker 3: to do and their managers and their leaders is to
17:13
Speaker 3: develop the levels that the skills that are going to
17:16
Speaker 3: be required to be successful in this new world. And
17:21
Speaker 3: it asks that, especially when you're coming in an entry levels,
17:24
Speaker 3: that you come in at a different level. Now we
17:26
Speaker 3: know that with training with AI, the speed at which
17:31
Speaker 3: people go from entry level to average is minimized. It
17:35
Speaker 3: is tremendously minimized, and so what we call entry level
17:40
Speaker 3: jobs won't necessarily exist because the level of quality and
17:44
Speaker 3: expectations of performance is just going to be higher thanks
17:48
Speaker 3: to AI. And that has been true across history. Sixty
17:52
Speaker 3: percent of the jobs that exist today didn't exist forty
17:56
Speaker 3: years ago, and so we're going to continue to see
18:00
Speaker 3: this shift happening again. It's not overnight, so we have
18:03
Speaker 3: some time. But I do believe is extremely important that
18:07
Speaker 3: we take advantage of the opportunity right now to get
18:11
Speaker 3: AI ready, to be AI first as quickly as you can.
18:16
Speaker 3: One organization said, the CEO said, you know, we're a
18:19
Speaker 3: service organization. Everyone here is an a knowledge job. So
18:23
Speaker 3: we are going to get AI ready AI first. We're
18:25
Speaker 3: all going to get trained on AI. Will all have
18:28
Speaker 3: access to a pre poose set of tools, and we're
18:31
Speaker 3: going to have a dashboard that has every person's name
18:35
Speaker 3: on it. And next each person's name is going to
18:38
Speaker 3: be a light, a green light if you're actively using
18:41
Speaker 3: these tools, a yellow light if you're figuring it out,
18:44
Speaker 3: you're trying it but you haven't quite figured it out yet,
18:46
Speaker 3: but you're getting there, and a red light if you're
18:49
Speaker 3: doing nothing. And then he drew a line in the
18:52
Speaker 3: sand and said, in six months there would be no
18:55
Speaker 3: more red lights. You'll either be yellow and trying it
18:58
Speaker 3: or you'll be actively green. Well, we have come to
19:00
Speaker 3: an agreement that this is not the organization for you,
19:05
Speaker 3: And I think it takes that leadership, that kind of
19:09
Speaker 3: culture shift to say this is our future. We're going
19:12
Speaker 3: to invest in every single person so that you at
19:16
Speaker 3: least hit the ground running, you at least have exposure
19:20
Speaker 3: to this. Standing still being a red light is no
19:24
Speaker 3: longer acceptable. I think that's what it's going to take
19:28
Speaker 3: supported scaffolded again. It's honest conversation is to say, is
19:34
Speaker 3: this the place that's a good fit for you. If
19:37
Speaker 3: it's not, we'll help you find another position. But if
19:40
Speaker 3: you want to take on this challenge and come along
19:42
Speaker 3: for the ride.
19:45
Speaker 2: I love that. It's really that's a great example of
19:49
Speaker 2: being deliberate about it, making it known, giving them the plan,
19:53
Speaker 2: and helping them along with it. I love the concept
19:55
Speaker 2: of being scaffolded. There's one aspect of this that I
19:59
Speaker 2: think is worth it exploring a little bit. And you know,
20:02
Speaker 2: the technology capability of AI is really no different than
20:09
Speaker 2: other technology capabilities that have come along over the years.
20:12
Speaker 2: It drives certain outcomes and it solves certain problems. But
20:16
Speaker 2: this feels like, especially with the advancements in gen AI
20:21
Speaker 2: and machine learning and large language models over the last
20:23
Speaker 2: couple of years, it feels a bit like the tails wagon,
20:27
Speaker 2: the dog. We've got this cool creation, and now everyone's
20:30
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what to do with it. It
20:32
Speaker 2: wasn't created specifically to solve anyone problem, so they're figuring
20:36
Speaker 2: out how to apply it to their problems. I'm curious
20:40
Speaker 2: how leaders can take the principles you've talked about and
20:43
Speaker 2: help teams make the transition when it's not clear we're
20:48
Speaker 2: at A and we're moving to B. We're actually at A,
20:51
Speaker 2: we're moving to Z and we're going to figure out
20:53
Speaker 2: the alphabet in between as we go. How do you
20:56
Speaker 2: help people navigate change when the destination is vague.
21:01
Speaker 3: I think it's a discandet right now because we're hearing
21:03
Speaker 3: a lot about AI, but we haven't really seen what
21:07
Speaker 3: it can do and experience it. And frankly, it's still
21:10
Speaker 3: under the works, it's still being developed. I am very
21:14
Speaker 3: optimistic about AI agents, in particular because right now you
21:18
Speaker 3: have to sit at the keyboard, have to type everything in.
21:21
Speaker 3: Everything's a prompt. I hate the word prompt engineering. It
21:24
Speaker 3: should be called prompt conversations much more so. But it
21:27
Speaker 3: is a conversation, and it's like an art rather than
21:33
Speaker 3: a science. So it's just a bit of a mess.
21:36
Speaker 3: It's really really early right now. But as we develop
21:40
Speaker 3: AI agentsy I can truly automate things that can take
21:45
Speaker 3: on and be augmented to us without us having to
21:48
Speaker 3: be there. Things are going to change significantly now. One
21:52
Speaker 3: of the things I think is so important is for
21:56
Speaker 3: us to as leaders again to get our hands dirty,
22:01
Speaker 3: because when people ask me, well, how can AI create value?
22:04
Speaker 3: My first response to them is how often are you
22:07
Speaker 3: using AI personally? Because if you're using AI, you won't
22:11
Speaker 3: ask that question. I think there's a knowing doing leading
22:16
Speaker 3: gap where we know about AI, but the vast majority
22:20
Speaker 3: of people of leaders are not using it. And then
22:24
Speaker 3: if you don't use it, if you have not personally
22:27
Speaker 3: experienced the transformational nature of journey of AI, then there's
22:31
Speaker 3: no way you can lead an organization. So my top
22:35
Speaker 3: recommendation is to set up an AI that is that
22:39
Speaker 3: you can safely use. You know the information you put
22:43
Speaker 3: into it is not going to be training the model,
22:45
Speaker 3: and then train your top two levels of leaders on
22:48
Speaker 3: how to use it to do the things they do
22:51
Speaker 3: every day, that is, to create content, to do research,
22:55
Speaker 3: and to use it as a thought partner. These are
22:59
Speaker 3: three activities. Is that every single leader does, and then
23:03
Speaker 3: start capturing the prompts, capturing the best practices and sharing
23:07
Speaker 3: them with each other, and you'll develop again this institutional
23:10
Speaker 3: knowledge of how you're using AI as an organization, and
23:14
Speaker 3: you will not help yourself but find and think about
23:17
Speaker 3: opportunities to use AI to solve strategic problems in the organization.
23:24
Speaker 3: The last thing you want to do is to develop
23:26
Speaker 3: hundreds and thousands of potential use cases, because those are
23:30
Speaker 3: all experiments and they're just going to be on the margin,
23:34
Speaker 3: and you're going to go to the least common denominator
23:37
Speaker 3: of what's the least painful to do, versus saying, here's
23:41
Speaker 3: our strategy, these are our biggest problems that could that
23:45
Speaker 3: we could really use help with. How can we apply
23:47
Speaker 3: AI to help with those problems? Where is our competitive
23:50
Speaker 3: advantage and how can we use AI to create even
23:53
Speaker 3: more advantage shore up against new entrants or substitutes. How
23:59
Speaker 3: do we use those new capabilities to develop new business models?
24:03
Speaker 3: Those are the questions that leaders should be asking, not goodness,
24:07
Speaker 3: how do we create value with AI? No, how do
24:10
Speaker 3: you create value as a business today? And how can
24:12
Speaker 3: AI support the way you create value?
24:16
Speaker 2: It's a subtle difference in how you think about it,
24:18
Speaker 2: but it's I think it's incredibly important. I've listened to
24:22
Speaker 2: social media influencers, I've listened to authors speak, and the
24:27
Speaker 2: most creative ones in this day and age look at
24:30
Speaker 2: AI as a creative partner. I like the idea of
24:34
Speaker 2: the thought partner. They don't look at it as a
24:36
Speaker 2: cheat code or a shortcut. They look at it as
24:38
Speaker 2: that creative partner. And why does my creative partner need
24:41
Speaker 2: to be a human when I can get so much
24:43
Speaker 2: more material and valuable information from AI. Doesn't mean eliminate
24:48
Speaker 2: all humans from my creative world, but having that AI partner,
24:52
Speaker 2: I think is huge. The other thing that you've talked
24:54
Speaker 2: about that's really important is the feedback loop. So talk
24:58
Speaker 2: about effective feedback mechanisms that can help teams adjust to
25:03
Speaker 2: this AI world and continually evolve with the tech.
25:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll just talk about being a manager a coach
25:11
Speaker 3: to your team. So you sit down with a team
25:14
Speaker 3: member and you go, so, how is it going? What
25:16
Speaker 3: are the challenges that you're having? And the team member
25:19
Speaker 3: goes like, let me think about that, and you both
25:23
Speaker 3: have imperfect memories about everything that's happened and AI can
25:26
Speaker 3: actually sit there and understand and listen to every single
25:31
Speaker 3: conversation that that agent is having and actually in real
25:36
Speaker 3: time give recommendations, or the agent can go and ask
25:40
Speaker 3: the agent the AI you know I've been I had
25:44
Speaker 3: a hard time with that last call. What recommendations which
25:47
Speaker 3: you have for how it can improve it? Because transcripts
25:50
Speaker 3: are available, they can listen for intonations and provide that
25:54
Speaker 3: real time feedback when it's most effective, and then can
25:57
Speaker 3: collect all of that information, provide it to the coach
26:00
Speaker 3: or manager and then say, hey, these are some ideas
26:04
Speaker 3: and ways that we have identified. Now provide that in
26:09
Speaker 3: person coaching because you know that person so much more detail.
26:13
Speaker 3: But having just that gathering of information that is always
26:19
Speaker 3: available in there, I use it because I will send
26:22
Speaker 3: in transcripts into my AI coach and say, I that
26:26
Speaker 3: did not go well, what happened here?
26:28
Speaker 1: You know?
26:29
Speaker 3: Or I can My best thing would be eventually to
26:32
Speaker 3: send an avatar of myself into a meeting that can
26:34
Speaker 3: just ask the questions that would normally ask depending on
26:36
Speaker 3: the type of meeting it is. But that's yet to come.
26:39
Speaker 3: So that would be my ideal agent. So I could
26:41
Speaker 3: go to fewer meetings. But there are so many ways
26:45
Speaker 3: that you can think about using AI to be that coach.
26:50
Speaker 3: I personally use it when I'm writing to give me feedback,
26:55
Speaker 3: and my editor is so happy because she gets this
26:59
Speaker 3: real clean draft. She goes, this is so good, that's
27:02
Speaker 3: so clean, and I'm like, yes, thanks to my AI,
27:07
Speaker 3: and I have it tuned specifically to be an editor.
27:12
Speaker 3: It has instructions, it has samples of my writing, so
27:15
Speaker 3: it doesn't try to change my writing. But I even
27:18
Speaker 3: use it sometimes to help draft a first draft and
27:22
Speaker 3: annoyingly includes all my grammatical errors, so it is truly
27:25
Speaker 3: implementing my cell on my tone when I'm as I'm writing.
27:30
Speaker 3: So there's I think the hardest part about this is
27:34
Speaker 3: realizing that AI can do a pretty darn good job
27:39
Speaker 3: as a writer. To realize that it could write like me,
27:44
Speaker 3: that it could do research like me, it could think
27:46
Speaker 3: like me, is a hard thing. The phantom, because it
27:51
Speaker 3: calls up began that existential question. If it can do that,
27:54
Speaker 3: then who am I right? I mean, I could go
27:58
Speaker 3: into chat GBT and I've been testing this and I
28:00
Speaker 3: would tell it to be me and I would give
28:03
Speaker 3: it questions like the questions you're asking me here and
28:06
Speaker 3: it'll do a decent job of answering them. And so
28:10
Speaker 3: what I realize is how can I be better than
28:12
Speaker 3: my AI When I'm constantly feeding data into that AI model,
28:17
Speaker 3: by publishing content, by doing podcast interviews. It means that
28:21
Speaker 3: I have to be more creative. I'd the more curious.
28:24
Speaker 3: I have to be more at to synthesize more information
28:28
Speaker 3: and use the AI to help me do that better
28:32
Speaker 3: and faster than I could have ever done in the past.
28:35
Speaker 3: I cannot stand still, and so that's the challenge that's
28:40
Speaker 3: going to be in the future. We will not be
28:42
Speaker 3: able if you want to really benefit and say, and
28:46
Speaker 3: it's been true for a long time, if you fear it,
28:49
Speaker 3: it's because the challenge of growing is scary. And so
28:57
Speaker 3: this is not about fearing AI. It's about fearing growth
28:59
Speaker 3: and change.
29:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating because it just on a personal note,
29:04
Speaker 2: I'm in the midst of putting my second book together
29:06
Speaker 2: experimenting with AI as that creative partner. It sounds like
29:11
Speaker 2: you're much farther down the journey than I am. Maybe
29:13
Speaker 2: I need to connect with you offline and you can
29:16
Speaker 2: give me some tips and tricks on it. But looking ahead.
29:21
Speaker 2: Let's just put the kind of the crystal eight ball
29:24
Speaker 2: in front of us. In terms of the IT leaders
29:27
Speaker 2: that are listening, what do they need to be most
29:29
Speaker 2: mindful of when preparing their service as team or any
29:33
Speaker 2: IT team for future developments. How can your principles guide
29:37
Speaker 2: them through some preparations for what's about to come down
29:40
Speaker 2: the road.
29:42
Speaker 3: I like to use two things. I like to use
29:45
Speaker 3: this idea of bill to buy, and especially if as
29:50
Speaker 3: you're experimenting, there will be many opportunities to take content off,
29:56
Speaker 3: take technology right off the shelf, and start using it,
29:59
Speaker 3: and then you feel, oh, that's not perfect, that's not
30:01
Speaker 3: the way I want to have it work. What can
30:04
Speaker 3: I do? And you can use development resources to try
30:07
Speaker 3: to build things on your own. Now, here's the thing is,
30:10
Speaker 3: you may not want to build it to be perfect
30:13
Speaker 3: for your needs, but you're building it to be able
30:15
Speaker 3: to understand what are the possibilities so that I can
30:17
Speaker 3: go back to the vendors and say, well, this is
30:19
Speaker 3: what I want. And so this is a great opportunity
30:24
Speaker 3: as an IT leader to not just take what's off
30:26
Speaker 3: the shelf and say well that's just the way it is.
30:28
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna have to wait for something better to
30:30
Speaker 3: come along. Is to actively work with the vendors because
30:34
Speaker 3: they want the feedback. It is that the cycles of
30:37
Speaker 3: development right now are so fast, so quick, so your
30:42
Speaker 3: ability to stay ahead of that and to actually have
30:46
Speaker 3: a say and how the products and services are being
30:49
Speaker 3: built only come when you are actually building it yourself.
30:54
Speaker 3: So this mentality build to buy versus having to staff
30:58
Speaker 3: up a huge staff to be able to go and
31:01
Speaker 3: develop these things and customize them on your own. I
31:04
Speaker 3: think again, having a small, nimble staff that can be
31:07
Speaker 3: very clear about what your requirements are is going to
31:10
Speaker 3: be much more a better use of your development time
31:12
Speaker 3: because the cycles are again, there are just so many
31:15
Speaker 3: things happening and changing. The second thing I would say
31:19
Speaker 3: is for the staff in particular for your team, is
31:24
Speaker 3: to develop trust. To develop trust in the technology, buzzle
31:28
Speaker 3: trust in each other. The hardest thing to do as
31:30
Speaker 3: a leader is to delegate. We talk about delegation as okay,
31:35
Speaker 3: it's important thing as a leader to do, but we
31:37
Speaker 3: all know it is incredibly difficult to do because it
31:40
Speaker 3: requires trust. And so what is it going to take
31:43
Speaker 3: for you to delegate to an AI? And that's across
31:48
Speaker 3: the board not just the leadership issue. How again, it's
31:52
Speaker 3: a fundamental question. What are the marketers of trust that
31:55
Speaker 3: is needed inside of my organization, inside of my team?
32:00
Speaker 3: How do we begin to trust AI to do the
32:02
Speaker 3: job we wanted to do? How do we begin to
32:05
Speaker 3: be comfortable letting go? So that's an important word to do,
32:11
Speaker 3: and it doesn't happen overnight. Again, trust is developed from
32:16
Speaker 3: experience in every interaction, over and over and over again,
32:20
Speaker 3: and sometimes it's broken and how do you rebuild it?
32:22
Speaker 3: So how do we again love that word scaffolding, create
32:26
Speaker 3: the scaffolding so that trust can be developed.
32:31
Speaker 2: Such a fascinating conversation. And like so many of these
32:34
Speaker 2: episodes that we do, I wish this one could go on.
32:37
Speaker 2: There's so much more we could cover. This another great
32:40
Speaker 2: angle to consider for people when diving into AI adoption. Charlie,
32:45
Speaker 2: thanks for being on the show. Really appreciate your insights.
32:48
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
32:49
Speaker 2: And before we go and we'll put it in the
32:51
Speaker 2: show notes, but let people know where they can find you.
32:53
Speaker 3: And your work, and they can find me at Charlie
32:56
Speaker 3: Lee dot com and all my content appears on LinkedIn
33:00
Speaker 3: as well.
33:02
Speaker 2: Excellent. I've taken a brief look at it and I
33:05
Speaker 2: will absolutely be diving deeper into it personally. Into everyone listening,
33:09
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining the episode without our main man Tom.
33:12
Speaker 2: He's off in the wilds of Wales, but provided he
33:16
Speaker 2: survives that wilderness, he'll be back with us in the
33:18
Speaker 2: driver's seat for the next one. Until then, thanks again
33:21
Speaker 2: and we'll talk again soon.
33:24
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33:47
Speaker 1: Until next time.