Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 396: AI Strategy Starts with People with Mike Rudinsky (Part 2)

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Episode 396: AI Strategy Starts with People with Mike Rudinsky (Part 2) · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  if you think of AI as a tool that can supercharge you, that that is the mental model that that I hope, people use.
• 0:12
  It is so powerful. You are capable of, of of so much more. And so when you think about it that way, that's my favorite way of looking at it. That's how I look at it. And so if you can get your mind around that, then you've got a secret weapon.
• 0:32
  Welcome to the Growth Project, a podcast brought to you by amylose. Doctor Drew Brannon here joined again for episode two with the one and only Michael Lynskey. Welcome back. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Great to be back.
• 0:46
  we've done series in the past and I always enjoy these.
• 0:50
  This one has really just I mean, this is episode two, but I'm having a lot of fun with this. One is it's really pushing me in some ways that I think are super healthy. And, and everything we hopefully do is professionals is, is we are constantly, like working hard and really thinking about like, what do we have here?
• 1:11
  And I don't know that feel that's kind of how I feel like. What about you? Yeah, I agree, I think it's challenging us to think through these things and especially where our worlds intersect, which I which is a lot, right now. So I'm enjoying it. So as we kick off today, let me just quickly return to where we ended with episode one.
• 1:31
  Mike. And, just, you know, the way we kind of wrapped up and, landed the plane, as you might say, was mentioning the fact that so much of this is mindset and and that's really what we're going to be digging into today. Ride is thinking about in order to have a chance at doing, you know, most like doing a, let's say, anywhere.
• 1:57
  Right? You don't love that. No, no, no. But in order to have a chance, you must successfully think about, consider, and ultimately put a plan together for the mindset piece. Yes. Correct? Correct. And so as we think about that, I think the next question becomes, given that reality, where do you start? Where do you start? And like, I know what we believe fundamentally with our employees and what we have preached for many, many years is the importance of the leader.
• 2:27
  Right? Within organizations, within teams. One of our key mantras pertaining to leadership has and will always be you can't give away what you don't have. As we think about the mindset from your perspective, Mike, why does the conversation have to begin with the leader? I think for for two reasons. One, the leader themselves need to get their head around what's going on, and then two, need to be able to articulate a plan or a strategy in a way that you know, keeps their people comfortable.
• 3:02
  Yeah. And so I think balancing those two things is tough. And so we found in a lot of cases, yeah, we've got to start with leader mindset first. As you said, that's the only way to wrap your head around this. And then prepare you to help others wrap their head around this. Yeah. So let's start with, there's a couple things that I think are worth mentioning here as we focus on the mentality, the mindset, the leader.
• 3:26
  And let's let's just take a step back for a second and just basic human psychology and the intersection of psychology and performance. So when are people at their best? You you know, when are they, maintaining composure, acting with confidence, making decisions with conviction. Like, what are the conditions in which people are doing that? And the answer is when they have a healthy degree of stress, right.
• 3:55
  Not too much. Not too little. Right? Right. They want to have the dial set just right when they feel informed and when they feel prepared. Here's the problem. Right. Like, you know, right now and you've been in these boardrooms. You've been in these meet like, what's your honest take on the degree to which leaders are feeling prepared, informed and convicted in their decisions right now.
• 4:23
  And that's tough with AI, the ground is moving constantly. And so every, every week or every day, some new models, some new capabilities coming out, some new thing to learn and to try to wrap your mind around, including some pretty big, you know. But these aren't just tools. That is a pretty, pretty big mindset, shift. And so that's happening daily.
• 4:50
  And so I think figuring out where is the firm ground, what are the things that, that don't change day to day so that you can handle the stuff that, that does? Yeah. I'm afraid we have to like get this off fast because it's going to be soon, right? Yeah, yeah. And we should. Yeah. We can take this opportunity to date this episode.
• 5:06
  So this is this is August 2026. So if you're listening to this in October and it's. Yep, it's not our fault. It just went right. Right. Yeah. So I think we on the one hand, what do we know? Leaders have to be clear in their minds in order to have the demeanor and the posture necessary in order to do what their job is within organizations.
• 5:31
  The knowledge in the fact that right now, on the topic of AI, it's very difficult to do that. All right. So we're going to get to the mentality we're trying to instill throughout the organization. But Mike, let's let's go with the kind of double click into that here for just a moment. We know that leaders aren't confident are stressed right.
• 5:52
  I'm curious whether it be through what you just know or maybe actual conversations you've had, with with these leaders. What are some of the primary questions that are pinging around in their heads as they're trying to sort all this out? So they, like everyone else, are trying to figure out their identity and their value in the context of AI, and the, the role that they played before or the knowledge that they had before.
• 6:28
  Takes a different seat. It was AI. And so I think they're trying just like everybody else to go, okay, where do I fit? And you know, I think we've mentioned you've got top CEOs saying, no, AI is going to take some of my tasks and take some of my job. The so that is the important part that I know we'll get to.
• 6:48
  But but yeah, they're, they're thinking the same things everyone else is. And the challenge to the leader is.
• 6:57
  There are things that they can show and things that they can't show, in front of others.
• 7:03
  Yeah. And there are things that they can there that I would recommend, they say in front of certain people and things that I recommend, they don't say, you know, until they can say, something that will set the team up for success and they can't necessarily do that.
• 7:19
  Yeah. And so so I think, you know, you know,
• 7:22
  I always believe in trying to drive some of our observations and some known factors toward action. And one of the actions that we wholeheartedly recommend, you know, for leaders right now is you must do a deep dive into yourself at the at the early stages of making your best attempt to bring this to the organization.
• 7:43
  So what do we mean when we say that it's being honest about the questions that exist in your mind? Is being honest about the unknowns, the uncertainties? Having a small circle of trust, the people you can talk with, and then just finding the right way to balance because it's good for people in the organization to hear you vocalize some degree of of fallibility here of like, hey, I don't have all the answers.
• 8:07
  But you need to do that in a way that also bestows confidence. But we're working on it. Yep. Yeah, I think so. I think the, the, the quiet strength or the, you know, I don't need to say much in this moment. It is probably not the right, probably not the right road to go down. I do think your people are decoding everything you say at this point with respect to AI, and I think that's the challenge.
• 8:40
  And it's look, that's a hard it's a hard thing to, to, to live up to. So preparation is key. A plan is key, you know, and understanding the types of questions or resistance or things that you're going to see, being ready for those before you're in the moment, before you have to just react. That's right. Yeah. I just what we're really saying is you're like long before you and the organization are rolling out a tool, right?
• 9:14
  You are rolling out a posture, a demeanor, a mentality, you know, and you must get that right. Yep. Yeah. And I think you've got you've got to say it right. You've got to arm your senior leaders in a in a way that they can say it right. And, and all the way down the chain, which, which takes preparation.
• 9:35
  And I think we're going to talk about the different, the different objections or the different concerns or fears that folks come up with and understanding what those are, being able to anticipate some of those just so that in the moment you are able to, you know, be a, a strong or calming presence and not do some of the things that, you know, are kind of the trap, you know.
• 10:03
  So on that topic, I'm going to insert a little story of example here. I know, hey, you know, it's right around the corner, college football
• 10:12
  I've been I've been a part of our listeners are aware of this. Many of them are, have been a part of Georgia football for quite a few years now in my role as their sport psychologist.
• 10:22
  And, one thing that would blow people's minds is the time and thoughtfulness that goes into what we call internally. The message, in just about every staff meeting that happens, which people don't always realize this in college football, they they staff at least once a day, sometimes twice, but at least once a day. And the questions that are always talked about with complete clarity in those meetings, there's tons of things, of course, but one of them is what is the message?
• 11:01
  So that we everyone in the client understands, here's what we're saying, here's how we're saying it. Yeah. And there's complete alignment. What you won't have what you won't find is everybody on the staff running their own play doesn't happen. And that's a, I think an easy example and application of what we're really saying here. It starts with what is the message.
• 11:23
  Yeah. And then it's a matter of okay, here's what we're saying, here's how we're saying it, I dig it, I dig it, and leaders are up against a bunch. I mean, there are there there are a lot of valid concerns and a lot of valid viewpoints. Again, that, you know, if they attempt to just handle that and react to that in real time without without prep, that that's a challenge.
• 11:49
  So, Mike, let's take it in this direction now. So we'll go we'll create the example here. Okay. We have a, we have a, a leadership team, an organization that well done by them. And our hypothetical here, has what we would call a healthy awareness that, hey, we got to set the stage for this the right way.
• 12:07
  We've got to own our own mentality. We've been going through the right process to do that. We have an awareness of our internal angst, our uncertainties, etc. and so now we are beginning to think about, all right, what are the mindsets, objectives, perspectives out there, meaning throughout the organization that we want to be thinking about as we craft our plan.
• 12:29
  So no particular place that we need to start necessarily. But let's begin by like talk us through some of those examples and we'll get into more detail about like what's out there with respect to mindset. Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest one, if humans want to create value, they want to be valuable. And I think.
• 12:53
  In the context of AI, they're saying, if I can do all of these things, where is my value? Yeah. And and I think that is that's the biggest thing past that. Also big things are I'm worried that, the, the, the power and energy consumption of, of AI is too high. So environmental concerns, I'm worried that the use of AI will lead to our cognitive decline and we'll just get dumber.
• 13:24
  I'm worried that,
• 13:29
  About what I saw in the movies or read reading a book, you know, worried about a lot of different things. But I think in the work context, it's a lot about value. It's like, where do I add value? Where do I fit? And I think a lot of companies make investments in the tools. Yes. And say, yeah, here's the tools.
• 13:46
  Let's just roll them out. Let's use them. Without that next step of here's why we're using the tools. Not just how and here's where you fit in the context of the tools. And I think that's really important, not to mention the fact they before they even roll the the tools out. We spent a lot of time deciding on the tool.
• 14:10
  Oh, sure. Yeah. Product. The vendor, etc.. Yeah. You could spend 12 months determining what tool you're going to use and.
• 14:21
  Think about the human side for, you know, it's like we're going to give you an hour worth of training or something, you know. And so, so there's a lot of focus on the tools. And what we've seen is less focus on on the actual human side and, and preparing your people for the why and okay, cool. What what now?
• 14:39
  And I think this is worth mentioning too, even as we're beginning to talk about some of the mentalities that we know exist in people on the team. We know that many leaders feel ill equipped to do this. That's okay. But I think that leaders should have a balanced mentality here. What I mean by that is, on the one hand, it is not new to you to roll out something new, whether it be a new product, offering, a new sales methodology, a new way we go to market, like everyone's done that before.
• 15:17
  If you're a leader now, what's different, however, is that oftentimes with those, there's kind of a fixed element to it. You know, like here's the software product, here's what it does. We're going to go sell it or hey, instead of doing it this way we're now going to do it that way. It's clear what it is. That's not what we have here right?
• 15:34
  Right. Yeah. The ground keeps shifting and rapidly evolving thing. Yeah. But that's what's driving some of the uncertainty in the mindset of leaders. However, I do think it's important that leaders recognize you have done this in different forms. Many times in your role. You've got to be able to draw some confidence from that. Yeah. Recognize and pay attention to what what has gone well, what has worked well in this previous examples of this.
• 16:00
  Let's not completely disregard that. This is not a complete departure from that, while also recognizing there's some real novelty to this. Sure, sure. And I think the ability for a leader to understand what you know, as you mentioned in the last episode, people are our greatest asset. And it's all it's all about all about the people. Leaders can recognize what makes their people special, their unique skill sets, what what are their superpowers.
• 16:29
  And I think those are the things that are important to hone in on, especially in the context of AI, where you've got tools that can perform a lot of tasks. And I think as leaders, we've got to be able to say, I know what you're I know what your value is. I believe it. I see it every day.
• 16:46
  So I know what your value is. And we hope in the, in the context of AI that, that, that it's that it's clear where you fit in this equation. But that's something that has to be proactive. Because everybody's nervous about where do I fit a leader, being able to confidently say, I know, I know where you fit and I know where the tool fits in, and I have an idea of how this all works, I think is really important.
• 17:10
  And I'm not saying that's an easy thing to do, but but that will start to help your team and members, gain confidence about about where they fit in this. And that's what people want, right? They want to know that you see their value. You've thought in a really deep way, in a meaningful way, about what their contribution will continue to be, even if we are onboarding, I sure, which pretty much everyone's onboarding AI.
• 17:45
  Yeah. You know, yeah, it's I think we're not far away from living in a time where that's baseline. Yep, yep. And I think if you're not painting a picture of okay, cool, we have the tools and you're using the tools and you've freed up a little bit of time or bandwidth to do a thing if we're not pointing them out.
• 18:07
  What that thing is, then that's unknown. And and we mentioned decoding earlier, but your team member will know. It's like, well this is just efficiency. And if you're just trying to make this more efficient, more and more efficient then I as a human, I know where you're going with this, or at least I think I know where you're going with this.
• 18:28
  And that's where leadership comes in of going. You know, I've got you. I know, I know what you do that special even in the context of, you know, a seemingly powerful tool. All right. Let's make a connection here. Mike, I want to jump back to what we focused on a moment ago of we're aware of the prevalent thoughts and concerns that exist in people's minds.
• 18:51
  One of the tenets and mantras we've had forever and ever and ever and within families, and we've talked about this a lot in the world of sports, is a very simple line of where the mind leads, the body follows, where the mind leaves the body follows it. All that means is it's basic cognitive behavioral theory. Thoughts trigger actions.
• 19:09
  Thoughts trigger behaviors. So we've talked about what some of these thoughts are. Will I have value here. Do I have a place here I don't understand this, etc.. We also see in the data some of the behaviors that are emerging. Yep. Right. We know where they're coming from. We just outlined it for, for everybody here. It's it comes from the psyche, the mindset, the psychology what's going on here.
• 19:33
  But what is some of the data we are seeing now related to the behaviors people are choosing? Yeah. That's a good one. A couple things. One, KPMG does an awesome pulse survey quarter over quarter. And they have seen in the last quarter a, a, a quadrupling of the amount of sabotage that the humans are doing with respect to AI agents.
• 19:59
  So that means the humans are saying, if this agent is really, really good at my job, then I don't have a job anymore. So I'm going to help the agent not be so good at this job so that the company needs to keep me around. All right. So hold on. Let's unpack that. You said in the last quarter.
• 20:17
  Yeah. And this is data that came out in June. Is that correct? You know from KPMG and yeah little small firm. Yeah. So according to their data we saw the sabotage rates go for ex. Yeah. Yeah. And I you know the science behind that of that. That is a I would imagine you'd be able to call that one before it happened because of the things that you mentioned previously.
• 20:45
  It's like of course that happens. Yes. Yeah. Like to me though, no better example of what we just said. Yeah. Right. Where the mind leaves the body follows. I think there's also, I would imagine in that scenario, due to a lack of clarity and an abundance of uncertainty, what do people do? They act in a way that's often impulsive, you know, being honest.
• 21:12
  Yeah. Like I can promise you, many of those forex behaviors were done in ways and by people who, if they could hit the rewind button, might have done something differently. But when you get stressed and you don't, you think you get impulsive. Yeah, it's very normal. Yeah, yeah. And I think we saw that coming up in, in, in, in past clients where I could show leadership, a lot of different trainings or a lot of different topics that we could cover from the very most basic literacy around AI to to actually building AI and building these topics all through that.
• 21:51
  And the ones that they kept asking for more and more on were on fear and resistance. And how do we handle this kind of change, this isn't your typical change management, but but how do we handle this? And so I think not only are we seeing it in the data, we're seeing it in conversations, with real companies of saying, we've got to understand how to handle this because this is a this is a big problem and it should be pretty when you look back on it.
• 22:22
  Pretty logical how we got here. We thought that we could just send out an hour long training on an AI tool and thought that the humans would just adopt that and run with it when what they're really thinking in the back of their minds is, well, wait a minute, where do I fit in this?
• 22:37
  You know, it's funny as you say that.
• 22:39
  And I want to come back to the KPMG study here just a moment. For other findings. But.
• 22:46
  Part of what we see happening here feels, as innocently naive as some of what we saw during early Covid like, because I remember, I had a good friend who is a professor at a university, and I remember March of 2020, of course, is where all this was beginning to really take shape. And, I was talking to him.
• 23:09
  So it all hit while they were on spring break. Okay. And so the university decided their solution was going to be about middle the mid part of that week. They told the students, hey, just take another week, stay home next week also, and then we'll get back at it on Monday. Okay. If at that time that sounds like a very reasonable thing to do.
• 23:36
  Sure. Like, oh, hey, we got to get our hands around this, you know, take another week. You always remember that you get two weeks for spring break, right? We'll see you Monday. And I think they ended up coming back like six months later. So. Yeah. Yep. So there's some unfortunate similarities there of like I think we have organizations who are to your point, like, hey, we're going to kind of kick this thing off with, you know, training deal.
• 24:00
  Right. We'll get some people on there and talk about how excited we are and then like start using it. Yeah. You know, and like it'll work. Yeah. Yeah. And I think now we're realizing that does not work. And there is a lot of layers to why that doesn't work. Any other notable findings from the KPMG work?
• 24:25
  No.
• 24:25
  Another anecdote. I mean, I've been on calls with clients and high ranking members and organizations who will just flat out say, I am the resistance. And so, you can hear it. And so on one hand, you know, we're asking leaders to be proactive. On the other hand, it's like you'll just hear it if you listen for it.
• 24:51
  This person made it real obvious, by saying literally those words on a conference call. So sometimes it's, it's said out loud and and sometimes it's not, but but it's there. That was an interesting way to get moving. It was. Yeah, I had 40 I had 45 minutes to try to, to, to, to talk through it and see.
• 25:12
  Okay. I'm sure all valid reasons why you are the resistance. But let's talk through the realities of where this thing is going and where it probably needs to go. Okay. Let's introduce a little bit of attention here, if that's okay. Because I also don't want to be naive on our side. And what I mean is we recognize there's, plenty of fear.
• 25:39
  There's a lot of uncertainty in the minds of people. Some of that is very, very fair. And I think what I the way I think we want to try to maybe head here for a moment, Mike, is some people's jobs will be eliminated. And so I don't want to be naive to that know, nor do I want to have a lack of compassion for that.
• 26:00
  So let's address the tension of. On the one hand, leaders need to have a great deal of thoughtfulness around how we talk about this and how we roll this out. We are not seeing this simply as an efficiency play, only, and yet some jobs will go away. Give us some perspective, please, on the ways in which leaders need to kind of balance the scales there and do their best to land that.
• 26:28
  Yeah, it's a tough one. I mean, I think if you look at all of the different, you know, the Industrial Revolution or those behind it, these things created higher and higher productivity. And there was growth, crazy growth. You were hoping it will be the same thing in that, you know, we're hoping organizations use AI to gain a competitive advantage, to grow the company and grow products or grow markets or whatever it is.
• 26:55
  And when you do that, you will need more productivity, both from AI and from people. So ideally, you're setting your sights on that, on growth. But like you said, we're not naive to, to, to understand the idea that sometimes it is just efficiency. That is the whole story. It's not the the longer story of like, we want to grow, but the story ends at yeah, we're going to kind of we're going to we're going to take our gains and bank them, and we're going to cut, cut heads and, and there's been a lot in the news about that, whether it's true or not, whether it was actually AI taking jobs or
• 27:37
  not. AI has been the reason, for these things. So, yeah, folks are folks are scared. So for the leader, it's really threading that needle of saying, these tools can help take some tests off of your plate. These tools are not taking entire jobs yet. I, as a leader, understand the difference in the place for each.
• 28:07
  And so we're going to work through this together. And so when, when we ask for your help in decomposing, your job into tasks and trying to see which tasks can be automated with AI, we hope you'll help us in doing that. So that you can spend more time on higher value things. The the challenge is sometimes the so that is so that we can eliminate head count.
• 28:40
  And, and so that's why it is a very tricky story. That's why ideally we're aiming for something something more than just efficiency. But but for advantage. But yeah, for those who are aiming just for efficiency. Yeah. That that is tricky because you're asking the team members, the humans, to participate in training a machine to do their job well.
• 29:04
  And here's this is important for leaders too, because because I know this for a fact, because I work with these people and that although leaders are very busy people, here's what they also find time to do. They're still on Twitter. They're still on LinkedIn. They're still on Instagram. And everybody loves a hot take. And so leaders, here's where you need to protect your psychology a little bit.
• 29:29
  There are no shortage of hot takes popping up on that. Whether it be Twitter I guess it's called X. No. Yeah X LinkedIn whatever. Everybody has this take this sounds something like this by this date or it all of these jobs are going away. AI is taking over this and this and this. If you don't do this, just this like huge broad stroke claims, right?
• 29:59
  Many of the people that are saying those things have no idea what they're talking about, right. Or selling something or, you know, they're selling selling this idea and everybody's trying to look and sound intelligent. But there are repercussions for that 100%. And they. Exactly. They're trying to look and sound intelligent. They don't know what they're talking about.
• 30:22
  And yet neither do the leaders. Right? Many of them. And so they're reading these things. And I can promise you, because I've had these conversations, the wheels get turning and they just don't know what to do with that. Yeah. They're like, well, gosh, if I'm not eliminating X, Y and Z not doing my job right, when in reality, where did you come up with that idea?
• 30:44
  You didn't. You just had the wrong you made a bad decision on your input sources, right? Right. And that one thing can set in motion a whole sequence of events. And I think, you know, more accurately, when a leader is thinking about roles or the company, and this is actually the way it plays out, it is more likely that AI does a thing.
• 31:05
  Human does a thing, AI does a thing, human does a thing, and you figure out where the human fits in. You're able to articulate that to your people. That will start to calm some of that. But if you don't, it if for some reason you go to the extreme like you were just mentioning, which was AI does a thing, we left out the human part, which is actually the reality.
• 31:23
  I mean, you know, AI is good. It's not. It's not that that good. And so, I think a very useful thing is breaking down these tasks or jobs. You're going to have to do it anyway. And so that lets the human know, oh, here's where I fit. Here's where my value is. And yeah, there could be a point where that changes, but but for right now, for the vast majority of AI use cases, that's how it works.
• 31:54
  The human is in the loop on the loop. You know, the human has its place. So leader's job to be to articulate that. And I think back to my example that's very real. And I like you've got to have the mental discipline to decide for yourself. Yep. And decide via your, your leadership team or whatever it might be cannot be influenced by the hot takes.
• 32:21
  Yep, yep. It's too dangerous. And frankly, it's too unfair to people. Yep. Yeah. Go back to your roots if you are leading people. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, we'll, I want to at least touch on the mindset that I think positions people to really win in this space. And that is, being able to look at this as you would any other form of, like, innovation.
• 32:51
  We go back to what we said, in our first episode, organizations thrive when they are, gaining competitive advantage. Yep. Well, historically, how they've organizations done that time after time, time innovation, you know, coming up with something new, finding a better way to do something, finding a way to amplify the strengths that already exist within the org, such as people.
• 33:19
  Right. And so I think if you don't do this in a one hour session, I can promise you that, right? But ultimately, if we can get to this place of, hey, we're on the same team, we're in this together. We recognize the power of this new innovation to elevate everything we're doing. Yep. And we recognize the power of the human contribution and the necessary parts where the humans are necessary.
• 33:45
  And as long as you can kind of bring that all together, then you are articulating a plan or a strategy that will pass the sniff test of, of, of your team members and, and at least allow them to, have have some confidence of, of their part in this rather than just saying, hey, here's a tool adopted.
• 34:08
  I just think there's such a huge opportunity here, Mike, I'll tell you another reason why. So, I remember years ago this was not a very fun call, but I was here's what happened. So we were asked, someone or an organization reached out to us, interested in us coming in and doing a session with their organization on burnout.
• 34:31
  Okay. And it was one of these ones where the person who reached out, who wanted to bring us in wasn't the ultimate decision maker. And so we had had the preliminary conversations. And now we're on to phase two where who's joining the call today? The decision maker. Right. You know, or at least sometimes. Yes. So we get on the call and you know, we get through the pleasantry stage and we get and so now we're on like, okay, what are you going to do?
• 34:59
  And we get into it and we're kind of walking through the plan. And then we get interrupted. And here's what the decision maker says. You know, I've sat through plenty of these burnout things over the years. And, some of them have have touched on or mentioned, the research, some of them have it. But one of the things I've noticed is every time someone is mentioning this research or touching on the data, it never changes.
• 35:32
  It's not getting better. The other thing that hasn't gotten better as a result of us doing burnout stuff I just did there. Yep, yep. When we survey our people every year, the numbers are never any better. So why should we hire you guys to come in and tell us the same data of how burnout not getting any better?
• 35:56
  And then get the same results when we ask our people how they're doing? Great question. Yeah. What what did you just say? Like, okay, so here's here's what I do. Well, first of all, she was exactly right. If you if you go and look at the data on burnout, it isn't getting better. And yeah, everyone does different studies.
• 36:18
  There's a fluctuation of prevalence that's to be expected when you're talking about this type of thing. But in the last call it five, ten, 20 years, whatever you want. It isn't getting any better. And so the reason I'm bringing this up, you hope you're not wondering. Maybe you are. The reason I bring this up is I think that this could be something that maybe we got a chance here, because the ways in which I can transform the work that people are doing, I think, could really elevate people's enjoyment for their job.
• 36:56
  The ways in which they can do work differently now, the ways in which they can maybe offload some things that are the things that tax them the most and create some of the burnout. And it feels like there's some momentum here that could be promising. I hope so, I hope so, I think the ability to use humans at their highest and best use is a really, really interesting one.
• 37:22
  There are some things we can talk about later on down the road of, of a different kind of burnout. Let's say you're maxed and operating at your highest, highest levels all the time. But I do think so. And I think
• 37:36
  if you think of AI as a tool that can supercharge you, that that is the mental model that that I hope, people use.
• 37:48
  It is so powerful. You are capable of, of of so much more. And so when you think about it that way, that's my favorite way of looking at it. That's how I look at it. And so if you can get your mind around that, then you've got a secret weapon.
• 38:06
  And that's exactly right. As we think about a wisdom mindset, we really hope we can get get to collectively as an organization.
• 38:15
  That's the one I think we're trying to embrace. Right? Yeah, man, this is an incredible mechanism to help unleash even more of my capabilities, you know, to elevate what I can do to offload some things to to drive faster and like that. All that is great, all that is great. But you won't get there within your organization. If the leaders don't first attend to all the things that are at play early on in the process.
• 38:41
  Yeah, I agree, I can I can give you a personal story. I had a team member in my company that, despite all of my best efforts to let them know how they were valuable and how they were special, and how I was not going to be able to do this part of their job. Despite all of that, they could not get their head around their value in AI and and they chose to leave, which was heartbreaking for me.
• 39:15
  But that kind of underscores the importance in the challenge to leaders right now of going, okay, you've really got to be in tune with your people. You need to know where the human sits and fits. It's just of the utmost importance. In order to keep your, your team all moving in the same direction, to keep, you know, to keep this, this bus rolling.
• 39:36
  All right, so I know we need to kind of move for our finish here. There's just a lot to say about I'll keep using that term, kind of the collective mindset of the organization. And it must start with the leader. And then it becomes incumbent upon the leader to take, you know, to his or her responsibility seriously.
• 40:01
  How do we attend to this across the organization? Yeah. Final thoughts from, you know, it's a it's a it's a big task. It's a challenging one. I mean, I think with this is the there's some of the crazier advantages and opportunities that we'll see in our lifetime. With that comes some of the biggest challenges that we'll see in our lifetime or our career.
• 40:27
  And so I think, yeah, this is this is this is the moment. There is a lot of reflection, from the leader standpoint and, and, you know, getting prepared and really thinking through this, you know, yeah, I think very well said. And I, I would just kind of close by, you know, saying this, most of the leaders that I know are wired in a way where they love a challenge, right?
• 40:58
  Like they love to be pushed that want to figure it out. And so I just, you know, I think the place to end discussion, the discussion today is, as you're taking that on for your organization, and you're thinking about all that the AI puzzle entails. Yeah, just be sure you are realizing and recognizing that step one is not picking a vendor.
• 41:23
  Step one is not, deciding where it goes or who gets it or who does it, or what level of it you that there's none of that is where you begin. You begin with yourself and reflecting and understanding and assessing your internal dialog, your internal thoughts on this whole thing. And then very thoughtfully, strategically working across, working a plan to attend to that for your team.
• 41:48
  That's where you start. It's a great start. Where do you go from there? I don't know, I'm not that expert. No, but we'll get there. Yeah. Stay tuned. Okay. Thank you for tuning in. We are excited about what will be our our third and final conversation of the series coming through next week, so be sure you do not miss it.
• 42:09
  Thank you so much.