[00:00:00] something out and put that in. What does that look like? What am I losing today by trying to invest this time tomorrow? And and that's that's always kind of the question a little bit. And when we come back to to culture and there's, you know, are are people understanding what this is and what it could mean for them? Then are they given like this is where companies I'm like working with them.

[00:00:24] You have to give people space, invested time. Time is investment. I'm going to invest this time to hold your hand and inspire you of ways you can play and learn safely of what this could look like for you and then start building that confidence, that curiosity. But you have to give them time. Again, coming back to Microsoft with Copilot, they actually have a fantastic library and they they point people to this of persona-based value cases.

[00:00:52] But but but the traffic there and people's ability to apply and research is there's still a gap. People still If I give you a website, they don't just go to it and read it. Not all of them. 30% do. But the majority, that 70%, they don't. They don't. I'm getting pinged all over the place. I have three calls at the same time. How am I supposed to go over here and figure it out?

[00:01:16] Well, then you have a mandate like what we're seeing now. Use it or else. Okay. All right. So what else is going to fall off my plate as I shift to this mandate at the same time? I think I saw something that in China, oh no, in the US, like the guy from Anthropic is saying like 40% of entry level, you know, like paralegals and admin people, those jobs are gone.

[00:01:38] They're just not going to happen. And um and then you saw you see Sam Altman talking about UBI, which, you know, I'm I'm a independent, but I I see the pros and cons because this is the deal. Like even in China, I saw something about it where like, you know, it's going to be the same thing worldwide where probably 40, 50% of people are

[00:02:00] they're just gone. And it's not their fault. It's just the technology. So we're going to need I I'm viewing it like the great deal, you know, where like they can they can teach, they can they can do the finer things in life that in the end of their life they're going to be happier about than being unhappy about a, you know, as a paralegal or whatever they got to do, right?

[00:02:22] I think Yeah, there's a there's a a change that'll come out of it um wealth-wise and productivity-wise cuz maybe the solution is is I mean, I think most people want to work. That's not the thing. But but like then they can work 30 hours. If you're more as productive as 50 or 60 in 30, God, like, you know, respect your employees and let them be that way.

[00:02:44] Yeah. Well, that then gets into a lot of the conversations happening, you know, where we're firing people. We're not investing the benefit back in the people. And anyway, that's that's what you're saying across across the news right now. When you think about the shift, I just read one of the the more recent It was a European study on jobs just like this and like what you said, these entry-level clerical positions are the first that can be automated cuz they are more tactical.

[00:03:13] So what how are we evolving what the future career force looks like? It's more of an uh architect, engineering kind of mindset. So so if you think about those competencies now, how are we shifting the waves of the children and their growth for the future of tomorrow? How does that look like? But what's scary and it it kind goes into the responsibility and the ethical components of AI is there's a recent study done that this is the first generation that does not prove to be outperforming outperforming in terms of their cognitive ability, their parents.

[00:03:47] The first time ever. Like we're always looking to to improve our kids so that they can outperform us at the end of the day. And the the generation entering the workforce this year is the first one reported to

[00:04:00] lower. So, are we crippling our skill building? Our skill capability is not keeping up with the pace of change on the tech side to the point where there are ripple effects that we can anticipate if we don't mitigate these types of risks. So, how how do I train? Like what does that learning path now look like of what good looks like? How do I train someone to know how to question the validity of data and what the AI component is spitting out to me as an end result?

[00:04:29] It's not always right, but you have to know how to read the signs. If I'm not training people on how to do it the hard way, how are they going to know how to question it when they have the easy way? Yeah, that's cuz I People talk about hallucination, even big people, and I I almost never ever see it um mainly because I almost always check stuff. Like I actually I'll see or Claude will make up stuff.

[00:04:54] Um Gemini is wonderful. I think cuz it's live web and stuff. Grok has gotten so much better. But um and that's what Yeah, cuz I people need to know that if you use it like off the shelf, right? Like um off the rack, whatever the term is, it's junk. It's Yeah, it's going to hallucinate 20%. When they post this, I'm like you're doing it wrong, right? Like why would you assume that it's going to be perfect?

[00:05:20] Like I tell people refine it five give it more information by voice than than you should so it knows the context. And when I say um and like and mfer or whatever I say into it, it knows that I'm just being emphatic about something and then I care about it and then it cross-references. And you know, when I say whatever, it disregards maybe the term right before or after that.

[00:05:44] Um and then I say refine it five times. Say this isn't good. That drives me crazy about GPT. It'll say you want a better version at the end. I'm like what do you think GPT? What do you think? Why didn't you give me your best? So, it's funny you say that.

[00:06:00] I do this icebreaker with people depending on the group, right? Where I'll ask the group, I'm like, okay, everyone raise your hand. And they'll all raise their hand. I'm like, okay, raise it higher. And they raise it higher. I'm like, why didn't you raise it higher the first time? Right? Like there's there's just but it's like connecting a little bit of the behavior with your effort, right?

[00:06:22] I'm giving you I'm giving you half lift, right? Why didn't you give me full lift? Right? When we talked about that, right? So just just those little things at the same time, same thing what you're talking about with with ChatGPT. It's it's it's all related for sure. Yeah. That is so funny. Yeah. I I don't know why it doesn't do that. I think I'm like, ChatGPT, you know me and I've told you a hundred times to stop doing this, but it it's interesting.

[00:06:49] I don't know like I don't know why it does that. Yeah. I like to use tools a lot almost like a a like how do I find holes in my position? How do I anticipate the gaps, right? The additional needs? And it's it's it's that kind of partner kind of view because I don't always have a sounding board, right? How do I leverage this kind of partner to educate me faster on on who I'm talking about, that kind of audience, that kind of persona?

[00:07:14] This all ties to org psychology and that is where I find it very fascinating just from the ability to shift persona, but you always have to validate, right? You have to take in that data and then validate still on the human side. We did uh a team and I recently on a culture strategy. We're working with a very large uh healthcare organization and there was a concern as there is right now, right?

[00:07:37] On surveys. You mentioned it earlier. I know that if I do the survey, even though they say it's anonymous, nothing is anonymous ever. Nothing is So anyway, so there was concern about their own data, concern about their own data, right? They're like, we understand that we've gone through a lot of reorgs recently. We're noticing disengagement. We need people to be revitalized and help us to

[00:08:00] to this next year and what that looks like and making it happen and we're just we're just not sure where they really are. So I'm like, okay, let's talk about what what does the what does your optimal culture look like? We there are foundational competencies that are sought after no matter the industry, no matter the company, no matter the org. Things like growth mindset, resilience, innovation.

[00:08:24] These are foundational. Doesn't matter what your strategy is, like we need to come down to them at the end of the day. So we aligned on their their version of these optimal cultures and I said, okay, let's let's understand and do an assessment of where your org is today towards that optimal model. Like let's separate culture from vision, mission, values.

[00:08:46] It's separate. We're trying to understand where they are today and their current mindset. And to do that, I couldn't do a survey because there were trust issues with the survey. So we do focus groups. Like regardless, I'm seeing AI avatars be better, but it's still an avatar, right? So we did these in-depth focus groups where we use technology to collect quantitative and qualitative data.

[00:09:10] There's a lot of design that goes into this experience to split out different types of insights all based on different views of the data, where they sit in the organization, their tenure, male or female, a little bit if they're hybrid workforce or if they're all remote, what that looks like, all to understand their cultural readiness at the end of the day.

[00:09:31] And what's interesting is as a part of that data, the talk track, the dialogue is data, right? So we recorded it and I was able to take out this transcript. No AI tool can guarantee 100% accuracy of documenting a transcript. None. So as a data person in the confidence of my own services, I couldn't use a tool. I had to have someone listen and validate that what was caught in the transcript.

[00:09:55] So if people talk over each other, for example, that gets muddled.

[00:10:00] and how AI captures what the conversation is. I could be losing content from a different person and I've got to be able to affiliate that dialogue with the right persona at the end of the day. If people say um or if their microphone pauses for a second, a human still has more ability to understand what that context was based on the conversation than AI.

[00:10:21] What I care about the most is making sure my data results are valid. People have confidence in what I'm showing them at the end of the day. If they don't, then how am I any better than a gut feel? So we tried in that case to use AI to capture the dialogue and it even told me this is 96% accurate, which even though that's an A, wasn't good wasn't good enough for us in that instance.

[00:10:43] That is so interesting because usually I just look to see because I have Granola which takes notes. Everything takes notes nowadays and it does a horrible job of taking notes. I don't understand how it's so bad. And so I'm I don't even care that it didn't work. And whenever I'm done, usually I send people the notes, but it it summarizes them way too much.

[00:11:05] And so, you know, I'm using descript so I'll take the text. And the good thing about this is it does recognize who said what. Um but yeah, that and so I shouldn't say this, but like I'm going through a legal situation and like I record everything. I record all every call and um I won't I I can't say I've recorded something that the AI when it analyzed like to your point said one thing, but I observed the body language.

[00:11:30] I and so I I disagree. Not respectfully. I hate when people say I respectfully disagree. I they're never respectful about it. They're never ever. Why are they wasting the time? It's a backhanded, you know, it's a it's a slap. It's like I'm about to hit you with a shit sandwich. You know, this is Anyways. It's it's kind of like what's that Southern I had a Southern roommate that would that would call someone a peanut.

[00:11:55] And like if you don't know what that means, you think it's cute. And I'm like she

[00:12:00] just totally just flat out smacked you to your face. Like peanuts. Not not not a term of endearment. No. Oh. Oh, no. If you If you call me by my last name twice, we're going to talk. We are going to I There are things And you know what? The first thing when I don't like somebody, I call them their last name. I'm such a little shit. Oh my god. So, you're right.

[00:12:21] You're Well, I know. I know. It's It's so petty. Like And there's some other things, too, that are so petty. If you use a word more than three times, I'm like, oh my god. Um but No, but that's It It is interesting like I I because I want the data. I want the data from everything. So, like this we could do You could do 20 blog posts off of it, right?

[00:12:42] Because we naturally flow and touch on things. And that's That's I was literally going to ask you. You record them, right? But you you crossed that, right? You hit me before. But then you went a next level because like I wonder if because that's my theory with politics is it's instant fact checking. It's instant data accumulation. And there's other things that I'm trying to target with like instant, you know, like the thing with at a in a football game they have the winning t-shirts.

[00:13:12] And I was always like, how do they have that? You could do that with vibe coding and and AI have multiple scenarios where, you know, somebody it was a tie, it was a win, they discussed this. You could have 20 different sites. And when the debate's over, you direct the domain and you target people to that. Like it's amazing. So, but I wonder how it will discern who said what.

[00:13:34] I mean, maybe it'll by volume level and they say their name once. Or I wonder if we're going to have to start having people tag the data. Like say make sure you say your name, right? And then then it should do a pretty good job, right? So, what what we do too And it depends Like if you're invited, it has your email definitely linked to your voice or your computer, right?

[00:13:57] In our In our other data, you can use things like

[00:14:00] Mentimeter, right? That's a a common tool, right? So to help facilitate different types of engagement and collect qualitative data. But even with Mentimeter, depending on the tool, you have to get the user to enter their their name to make sure that you can sync it up with their other employee related data at the end of the day and then do all of this analysis, which that part AI is brilliant, right?

[00:14:25] Like you can have AI pull all of that together, but still something I even with my junior team members, I still have them manually um as a skill building do V lookups, pivot tables, tell me what they're finding and how they're pivoting a little bit without giving them access just so they go through the growing pains that that I I think will help them know how to question the tool again.

[00:14:50] Mhm. I say this every podcast too and then we'll wrap it up and I want you to talk about your book um because it says here it's a Trojan horse. I do this I never look at my notes. It says um Biba and Baba, is that right? Is that did I say that? No, I didn't say that right. I um as a behavioral Trojan horse to shape mindset earlier, kids to adults. Yeah.

[00:15:13] Yeah. Help What is that? What is that? So I work with large scale organizations on people strategies and this can be adoption strategies. I call myself a human systems architect, right? Or I told you a Jill of all trades. You just you have to lean in and understand the people related connection to whatever you're doing and there's always a people play.

[00:15:35] Right now the culture, the mindsets, especially with AI is so hot, it's so prevalent. And I told you I've I've realized that at the core foundation those optimal competencies are global. Doesn't matter what group you're talking about. It could be a church, it could be a community, it could be your school of teachers, it could be the the boardroom over here at American Express.

[00:15:59] It

[00:16:00] regardless, there are these common themes that are sought after at the individual, team, and organizational level. So, I have two young kids at home and we're avid readers, avid readers, and I'm reading and I'm like, okay, some of these books suck. Like, what are they at the end of the day? I'm like, a couple of things, and this totally was selfish of me.

[00:16:21] I'm like, one, I have a a boy and a girl and I want them to see themselves and their relationship in a series. There aren't that many brother and sister books out there except the Berenstain Bears, which is a while back. So, I'm like, all right, so there's I was searching for that. And then two, I wanted to enjoy reading it. I read with my kids for hours, hours every day.

[00:16:44] We love to read. So, I'm like, I want to enjoy it. And then three, I want them to grow in some way, for me to say, okay, you see how you're experiencing this today? Think back about how this happened in the book we read the other day. So, when I think about these core concepts like growth mindset, that's my first book. It's all anchored around growth mindset and innovation.

[00:17:07] Like, if our kids are sponges, I've got they we are a bilingual household. I watch my four-year-old switch fluently between Spanish with my husband and English with me mid-sentence, four years old. If I If they can absorb that and I'm working on these skills, why wouldn't I focus on that with intent with my children? So, the entire vision of the Biba and Bubba series is how do we start focusing kids to think more regularly?

[00:17:32] Cuz teach teachers do do this. They focus on how do you make something out of trash, right? I've seen them do that. I mean, same kind of concept. How do I continue to reinforce growth mindset, innovation? What does that look like? A lot of a lot of companies say, we have to have a growth mindset. What does that mean? How do I visualize that? So, that's what I've been doing through these children's series.

[00:17:57] Now, here's where it's a Trojan horse.

[00:18:00] And I'm always thinking about, you know, you heard me say I'm a beekeeper. I'm all about how do I make the world a better place at the end of the day through some sort of positive change. So I'm like as as I read books, I too am thinking about the lesson, the intent behind the story. So a lot of these concepts are things adults hear all the time, but now they're visualizing what that looks like too.

[00:18:24] So even though it's intended for kids to learn and sharpen that skill, as an adult, I'm being reminded of what that looks like and having a positive affiliation with that term, whereas now being so exhausted with change and how we're talked about, I I can hook on something else at the end of the day. So I I did. I got I got my proof copy. It's being launched uh April 28th on Amazon, my first one.

[00:18:48] I have another one that's focused on resilience, which is definitely a lacking skill that I hear a lot from the educational um industry right now. So just a lot of those core competencies that again I work on with organizations daily with data, right? How tied to their strategy. This cannot only help prepare kids for those scenarios, but think about what this could do as they continue through their education and developmental life cycles, as they learn how to work together as teams, as they think about what kind of career they want to go into and how they participate with others.

[00:19:24] We talk about the screens leading into the siloed effect. Well, if I can now also focus and support that reinforcement of concepts that can bridge that gap and push people to feel comfortable and confident and how they can uh the whole cultural buoyancy, people ask me about that, and I mention resilience and that's that's an anchor of where a lot of companies kind of stay because resilience is how do you bounce back, but buoyancy is how do you stay afloat, especially when times of change accelerate and high stress environments continue.

[00:19:56] How do I know how to adapt myself and stay afloat?

[00:20:00] how do I know how to adapt my team to stay afloat? How do I as an organizational executive know how to drive and adapt my organization, my enterprise to stay afloat, not bounce back, but keep up here regardless of the scenario? That's what we're talking about. So the more we talk about it, the more we emphasize these competencies at a young age and grow it through adulthood, we we can do that.

[00:20:24] That's a good that's a good thing cuz everybody glorifies the phoenix, the bounce back, right? And I do the same thing too. And then, you know, with things I'm learning right now, it's I always knew persistence was the thing, but my persistence was obsession and pushing more so than just, you know, acceptance, right? And but with the with the buoyancy, with the so what the AI has said and and what I have been learning about recently, and that's a kind way of saying it, is like it's horrible with strategy.

[00:20:55] It's it's good with facts, it's stuff, but it doesn't because it just like the body language example, it doesn't know the nuances. It doesn't understand. It knows what is, not the possibilities. And nobody knows what is. Nobody could imagine what the heck is going on right now with politics. Like you could not make this stuff up. And uh but nobody knows.

[00:21:17] And so there's but that's the thing is like I um that's what I think is important for people too is to know that you won't know, know that you will fail. When people I I I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I've had successes and I've had huge failures. And people starting off, they were like, what if I'm going to fail? I go, don't worry, you will.

[00:21:39] And that's how it goes, right? Like you don't you don't ride a the Tour de France like the first time you ride a bike in your front yard, right? Like welcome to life. Welcome to life. But if you keep going, I can guarantee you that I said this last night. My business advice is do ever like I did e-commerce and and I was very successful

[00:22:00] early days of Amazon, but people would be like, oh yeah, I'm going to do it. I'm going to drop ship from the from the get-go. I'm going to have all this stuff, right? I'm going to invest $5,000. I'm going to like you're going to fail 100%, right? Because because you don't even know what products people want. I never knew. I would buy up 50 or 100 of each and then I would see what sold and then I'd sell more of what's sold, right?

[00:22:24] And so that's what they need to be persistent. And what the AI says with my stuff is it's silent Yeah. strength, but persistent. It has to be. So like in a company, it's not going to be Wednesday. It's not going to be once a week. It's not going to be say, no, this is the reality because we've seen this before with the internet 27 years ago with Google, right?

[00:22:45] It's we can't deny it. We can't act like it's not here. So we're going to be persistent because everybody else is going to do these small tiny things, but we're going to be the ones who are obsessive about it, who every week we ask you, right? That that's I think what it's going to take, you know, and and fail and make it messy and then pretend like all the failure and messy didn't happen.

[00:23:08] You know how it goes with business, right? You just pretend like yeah. But what you're talking about like there's that that's how AWS got started, right? They had the whole fail fast. People remember that, but they also had fail cheap. Yeah. Yeah. Which a lot of people forget now. It's fail fast, fail cheap, and when you do fail, say, okay, I've invested that in my education.

[00:23:29] How did I learn from this? That strategy though only works if people feel safe. Yeah, yep. People have trust and there's different levels of trust. And right now that is the biggest gap that I'm seeing across multiple industries is because of how how we've positioned and branded and talk about AI publicly and looking at the earnings announcements go up when when human capital is is goes down, right?

[00:23:52] That that correlation causes fear and mistrust. And you have to look at trust on multiple levels. One, do I trust myself? That's

[00:24:00] skills, my own competency, that and that can go into imposter syndrome, right? Like do I feel like I should be in this room? Do I trust my team to have my back to work together towards this common goal? That's a different question. Do I trust my organization to have my back? And right now those different levels of trust we're seeing kind of go like this up and down depending a lot on how these strategies, how these visions have been articulated and communicated and reinforced throughout the levels of the hierarchy.

[00:24:29] I'm that what you're saying is the vision. We need to feel like we we can be curious and we can fail and we can learn together. Um but I also have to be able to think I can raise my hand at the end of the day and not be penalized for it. That's yeah, that's my whole thing because like people say there's no stupid questions. There are stupid questions 100%.

[00:24:49] But you know what? I try and ask them. I try and ask like the dumbest question. Totally. Totally. Because I'm a white male who speaks up and you know, the in classes, you know, it's always the obnoxious, stupid, ignorant white males who don't know what they're talking about. And yeah. Yeah. No, I I'm right there with you. I'll say I'm going to ask a stupid question.

[00:25:10] I'll even say that because I know that someone else is thinking it, but I am a confident leader. And I'm like, so let let me be the one to ask it so you feel safe at the end of the day. Yeah. I know. Yeah. They should almost reverse engineer and say like we need to know who has the stupidest question, right? Because like most of them are stupid, but it's like how do I do this?

[00:25:31] And you go go to the top right. It would have taken them weeks to figure that out, but you know like with Vibe Coding, they all look the same. If you know Lovable, you know VO because it's all the the the interface is the same. But until you know that, you don't know that. Exactly. Exactly. Jason, now you're in change management, right? It's like how how do I make sure that every stupid every question there's what's that?

[00:25:55] Every level of complexity of question, let me say that way, is addressed. Yeah.

[00:26:00] that I know how to hold their hand. I'm going to hold your hand and you're going to find it and as you gain your confidence, I like to I'm big on alliteration. You like clarity, confidence, and commitment. Right? Once I have commitment, I'm gone. I'm I'm in. Right? This is this is my new normal. This is what that looks like. But you have to go through the uncomfortable fear to build up that confidence to get to that commitment.

[00:26:25] So, it's two side notes small and then let's wrap it up cuz I don't trust uh just script after a while and it already crashed anyways. I had to start and stop it. Do you do public speaking? Cuz you'd be good at this, I think. The alliteration and the Yeah. I'm trying to kind of get into it. So, I've I've always worked through organizations and communication and strategic communication all ties to how people experience and feel about whatever journey they're on in that moment.

[00:26:53] So, communication is a big component of what's always been an anchor in my career. I recently though was a keynote speaker for Toyota and um and yeah, I was I was actually advised by a mentor of mine, Victoria Pelletier, who does public speaking, who does podcast. She's like, Jill, you need to get into this. Like this is this is aligned to what what this could be for you.

[00:27:15] I'm like, okay okay, let's let's give it a go. Yeah. I was I was one time at my mom's church, which I go to too, and not enough, right? Um and uh it was a couple and he was the worst public about the worst. I've seen worse public speaker I've ever seen and she was about the best. She did the loop back thing. You know the loop back? Several times, like five times.

[00:27:37] It was so relevant. It was so organized. She was so good. And I'm like, I think they play this up. It's good cop, bad cop, right? He's dumb dumb speaker, she's wonderful speaker. But he had the, you know, the whole rhetoric thing, ethos, pathos, whatever, you know, the different types. And um I think that he was the ethos. He's the you identify with him.

[00:27:58] You like the guy, right? Yeah.

[00:28:00] because because anyways that was a side note. But um and then also you stand. You're standing, aren't you? I'm standing. I'm standing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've had a few guests do that. How do you I would be pacing. People tell me stop pacing, stand still in a normal situation, let alone a podcast. You know what's funny, Jason, cuz you you brought it up.

[00:28:20] I wasn't going to bring it up. Um my uh um one of my undergraduate degrees is in nonverbal communication. Yeah. Yeah, organization communication, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But so I did I I I did um a specialty in the nonverbal side. So how do you stand? What does that look like? And it's just it's you know the way you position yourself can help increase your own feeling of confidence in this moment.

[00:28:42] So you know on one hand I'm like Jason, I want you to know I know my shit, right? Like I do. Like this on on this side like like and I'm going to lead with facts and follow with feelings, but the end at the end of the day it's like how can I always feel and be the best version of myself um no matter what. So so yes, I am I am standing. Yes. I my degree is in org organizational communication, so I know enough to know that like I do almost everything wrong, communication and body language.

[00:29:10] Like you're saying stand and be confident and you know breathe and breathe or whatever. But the I I used to go to Hong Kong all the time, Asia, and so like I the only other thing I I learned a few things was to hand a business card with two hands to the Chinese. Like it's a it's a respect thing, right? Otherwise you're just like throwing you know we have Americans are with business cards, right?

[00:29:33] They just throw it at you, right? And this is a respect thing. Yeah. Yeah, and so like and I still I'll be in Asia and I hand it to them, I'm like oh god. Or they hand what it is is when they hand it to you. If you just put it in your pocket, you're supposed to like look at it and read it. It's interesting, yeah. It's totally. So we are a global family.

[00:29:53] I told you my husband's from Spain. I have a sister-in-law from Mexico and another sister-in-law from Japan. Uh

[00:30:00] she and my brother with their daughter live in Hawaii and I have just just cultural again how the mentality of of where people kind of come from and how they're behaving a little bit and then how do you adapt to to make sure you're mitigating any potential view of disrespect is is at the end of the day what are we trying to do? We're trying to communicate a point.

[00:30:24] We're trying to connect a concept share with an individual. If anything that we do distracts from that goal we we need to adapt a little bit of ourselves or or your goal won't be made at the end of the day. Yeah. Well, it's been great talking to you. Thank you so much for talking. Yes, likewise Jason. I've had such a fun time speaking with you this morning.

[00:30:49] It's been fun. Me too. Yeah, we'll keep in touch. Thank you. Thank you so much. You too. Bye-bye. Um so I use can you hear me okay? I press record like right as we start um just because then I get like you know real moments or whatever and I found out that uh that if you have like a peak at the beginning of the video you you get better exposure but how are you doing?

[00:31:14] I'm great. I'm great. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very I was reading and listening to your podcast and I'm just I'm very excited to to be with you today. Oh, thank you. So I did I always do too much research on people and then I never ever read the uh the questions or the stuff but I've started trying to do it in five points but here we'll go over that in a second but what are you working on?

[00:31:40] Yeah, so um I like to say Jason I'm a Jill of all trades. There's there's never there's never a dull moment so I've uh yeah got a couple I I mean I'm a global practice leader right now for Kindrel. I have uh my own consulting business and transformational advisory. I recently started beekeeping.

[00:32:00] on the side and am launching my first children's book of my proposed series. So so all of that's happening like this month. I know. It's I'm I'm working with a client and I just I need to know what she wants to do. Like I mean I'm the same way, but yeah. I just I hide yeah. I try and hide the crazy but and with you know AI you can easily do that cuz you can start and stop you know 100 projects and then always come back to them.

[00:32:27] It's like a it's like uh For sure. For sure. But that right like and that a lot of organizations are doing that right now. I'm talking to different individuals and different leaders who are trying to do that all on their own and the struggles that they're finding. It's it's it's an interesting time in terms of organizational psychology with this new tool, plaything, right?

[00:32:52] Advocate, partner that we're leveraging such as AI. I was talking with someone in Ireland yesterday who said yeah, in the last 3 weeks with Claude I've been able to three 3x my own output. Like that's Yeah. Oh yeah. crazy and fantastic. And then what's the ripple effect of what we're trying to do? Like how how are we accelerating the infrastructure that's combining the people component with the product component towards holistic progress at the end of the day societally?

[00:33:22] Like these questions kind of come out. Yeah, so it says here that you um 20 years of course of um global trans uh transformation inside Fortune 500 environments. But I was trying to find like the interesting thing. So it says focuses on human resistance as the primary failure point in tech and AI transformation. Yeah. What does that mean? Right right.

[00:33:45] So there's there's resistance at all different levels, right? I always like to start Yeah. change is driven from the top. But look right now in terms of I work with global companies who are trying to streamline processes

[00:34:00] thinking about AI. But what if you have fiefdoms happening in markets where leaders get together and they nod their head and they say yeah, and then they go back to their own little kingdom and they don't follow through? How do we measure behavior? That's a form of resistance. And if they don't follow, their teams won't follow because people look to their direct manager to say, okay, how are you going to judge me at the end of the day?

[00:34:26] And what are the priorities that I have on my list? Because we know companies are trying to move bigger, faster, stronger every stinking day. So from a change perspective, all of my teams say we're at 125% capacity. We're we're overblown no matter what. So one, how do we simplify that for them? What does that simplified story look like? And it starts with their own leader, and that leader looks to their leader.

[00:34:50] We're not just talking about C-suite executives. We're talking about middle-level management and how they control that narrative of what is the top priority happening at that time. If you don't have that at the top, which is literally I want to say 90% of the conversations I'm happening right now, we're trying to move too fast. Someone over here is pushing this initiative, but if the other other leaders aren't on board, they're not going to follow.

[00:35:17] You're going to have IT shadow organizations popping up. People are going to be coming up with their own processes, and you won't realize those results that you're after at the end of the day. So leadership is number one, and that includes that middle management layer. That doesn't even get to the end users yet, right? The people who are actually executing the work at the end of the day, who have to understand how am I not going to lose my job?

[00:35:44] Right? I mean, the fear is real, and we're seeing it every day. I was I was watching or listening to something the other day, and here's what's bananas about our time right now. As organizations announce layoffs followed by AI investment, that's the one. I know.

[00:36:00] It's I mean because it's it's efficient use of capital. It's they're serving their shareholders. They're not your friend. HR ain't your friend. Companies ain't your friend. AI ain't your friend. People need to realize that. Yeah. No. Here's the kicker too. A lot of the companies that thought that AI could replace human capital are realizing that it can't completely.

[00:36:21] Right? So they're they're coming back saying, oh shit, right? I don't have the people I need to actually do these things and now I'm having an issue operationally and they're coming back and hiring again at the end of the time. But all of this has this effect on your brand, right? To your customers, to your talent at the end of the day. You know, you think back to when my grandpa was in the workforce, he was with one company for 30 years, right?

[00:36:47] And he was proud to be with that company. And now people talk about portfolio careers just to survive, right? Or they're jumping ship after 18 months because that's how they progress in their career these days. It's just all shifted. And if you look at it from that perspective, turnover costs a company 150% on average of that person's annual salary.

[00:37:07] So from a cost perspective, building your people, which also is an investment, one, people see that's just an investment and I have these resources. I could just hire new talent. Well, you still have to onboard that talent. They still have to ramp in some capacity. They still have to embed themselves into your operating model and your culture at the end of the day.

[00:37:28] There's there's still a ramp to what that looks like. And if your brand is known as someone who doesn't take care of their talent, you're not going to get the best talent at the end of the day. I I'm reading right now that the people in um in uh in California, like the techies who are who are seeing their job be replaced with AI, they're either doing one of two things.

[00:37:50] One, becoming super amazing with AI and creating their own companies and successful that way. Or going off in Montana and becoming a hermit and cutting themselves off and

[00:38:00] you know, just creating their own sustainable lifestyle. It's crazy. Yeah. Um that's I I'd heard a statistic I don't know. There's there's all this stuff like, you know, if if you don't you're not going to lose your job to AI, you're going to lose it to somebody who knows AI. And then I heard this other thing where they were saying like the best companies, like I don't want to use I use Apple as an example because they're the the most successful retailer ever, like the sales per square footage of of their, you know, stores.

[00:38:33] So they're way above Tiffany's. Tiffany's is number two and it the last time I saw it was like a third of the um of the sales. I think Apple was like 3,000 per square foot. And um so but basically I I think the point of what I heard was the best companies aren't going to use AI to do less. Everybody's trying to use AI to do customer support, which is a nightmare.

[00:38:57] Everybody hates it. Every company, tech companies that use it should die forever because they're all being selfish and greedy, right? Like especially once they start making money and they just and I did a whole lot of research just this whole thing with, you know, growing really fast and ignoring your customers and coming back and trying to make it right.

[00:39:20] But anyway, so I think the best companies, like say Louis Vuitton or I I always hate to use that example, but luxury, and I'm there's only one luxury thing in my life. It's like a brand of of furniture. But people want luxury. So like maybe an example of that. And and so the thing is is like the best companies aren't going to use it to 3x and then cut their staff 2x, right?

[00:39:44] They're going to use it to 10x and give you 11x the service, right? It's not Amex. You know, if Amex knows you're over 70, you got problems with technology. Like you do. So they can call you three times a week, you know, or something. Use AI to track

[00:40:00] That's the thing is I think, and then I thought, I'd never thought about this until you were talking. You know what the best companies I think are going to do? Because one of my first podcasts was a woman who, like you, does consulting and said the exact same thing. It's middle management. So I have a few things to touch on that. But like I think the best companies are going to be the ones who say, walk in right now and say, we're not firing a single person because of AI.

[00:40:27] You can quit because of AI. I don't care for a year. If you don't do something about it, you're gone in a year, right? Here's your warning. It's funny you say that. I don't know if you saw Accenture just announced it's the reverse a little bit. They're not going to fire you, but you're not going to get promoted if you can't prove that you have adopted AI.

[00:40:48] But here's the kicker though, they give you access. Whatever tool you request, you can put in your business case and get access to it and play. Whereas other people are saying, and there's that term, you just need to learn AI. What does that mean? I know, I know. I don't know. What does that mean? Like break it down for me. Exactly what should I do?

[00:41:08] And that's where I come in, right? Because it's too hard. There's so many different apps and so many different tools and you can take all these courses, but no one has the capacity. It comes back to being 125% in my current state. I don't have time to go research and do that. Like I need someone to come help me, show me the way. This is why Copilot has such a hard time, right?

[00:41:30] People got all excited about Copilot and it is not a cheap license. So organizations are like, yeah, we're a Microsoft shop. For sure, we're going to bring in Copilot. And then that license at the end of the year comes around, they're like, oh, is the juice worth the squeeze? Am I seeing the benefit? And Copilot's not able to kind of show it because they didn't focus on adoption.

[00:41:52] And here's where they shot themselves in the foot. If you look at the new licensing agreement, they'll say, oh, we'll give you

[00:42:00] rapid adoption or something for for free. The moment you devalue a service, people don't care about it. Right? If a stakeholder says, oh, that's free, like I'm not going to pay attention to it at the end of the day. I'm going to assume it's going to work because we're a partner and then people don't adopt it. They end up going outside of their enterprise and using whatever tool they want anyway.

[00:42:25] So organizationally, I can't measure it. I can't see if I'm getting any sort of return on my investment, especially from Copilot. And then I have lost control of the security potentially of my data, of my of my personnel, and I don't even know what's real anymore. That causes a whole different slew of issues. Coming back though to something you said, which um uh have you heard about what Canada Goose is doing?

[00:42:52] Uh uh a couple of their stores? Vodka? Yeah. No, uh um no, no, the coat. The coat. Oh, what the the coat? Like fashion? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the coat. Uh yeah, yeah. Um so they have their stores Oh. Oh. Yeah. Uh they have in their stores, they don't sell um their their luxury coats. They don't sell them. You can go try them on and they will give you an immersive experience of Canadian weather that is designed for that for that coat.

[00:43:19] Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. So it it's like you can go in there, you can feel it, you can be a part of it, you can interact with this with this product. And then there's all sorts of really cool AI potential things tied to the experience of what you're having with that product, all to how it arrives to your door, which is just so cool. It's It's a It's a really cool different way of thinking.

[00:43:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what Yeah, cuz it's it's that wow factor. So I What do you think if I think I know the answer to what you'd say, but I want to I want to see what you'd say. Like if you walked into a business right now, it's

[00:44:00] insurance company, you know, maybe a regional player, they got 20 people, whatever, they know they have to use AI because some kid's going to graduate, get his insurance license and look and be on not even he'll be on every bus, but he'll, you know, he'll John Morgan it, right? He'll be all over and he doesn't know what he's talking about, but he's the expert, he'll get all the business.

[00:44:22] So what do you when you go in, what do you recommend people first use? Well, I'm going to give you a consultant answer. It depends. Yeah, I know. Well, that's my answer. So so right now what I do is I walk in and I understand um the organizational infrastructure of a company. And here's what I mean by that. What are their business units that are active?

[00:44:43] Um what is their their play? What what experience and service and product are they pushing into the world? You work you talk about insurance, which which is actually a very active conversation right now and how and how they can leverage certain things. But here's what you have to do. AI doesn't replace a person. It replaces tasks. So we look at what are those functions and what are the value cases?

[00:45:06] I like saying value cases versus use cases because with AI, you're not required to use it other than the Accenture, right? If you want to get promoted, you're required to use it. But but with traditional change management, I am changing the way you function. That's a requirement. You do something today, this is your process, this is how you're trained.

[00:45:27] Tomorrow you're doing something very different and that's your process. That's how you're supposed to be successful. AI is a benefit. It's a way to do what you're doing better. It's not hardwired into your yet. That's where companies are going. So right now to get people to opt to adopt, right? How do I get people to want and not fear what this looks like?

[00:45:48] We have to approach it the right way. So I say, okay, you know, let's let's take firing off the table. Let's just make you comfortable, right? And take away the scariness of it. Let's look at who you

[00:46:00] and what you actually do. Tell me about your day. And we'll do workshops about this. Walk Walk me through your day of what exactly you do. And we'll go through processes down to steps, but really the minute details of the tasks. For example, well, I in the morning, I log in, I grab my cup of coffee, and I open up my email, and I read my email. Okay, so once we get down to that level of detail, then you say, well, what's the pain point of any of those tasks?

[00:46:28] Let's look at what are the operational tactical things that you don't want to do, and that's where we focus on AI application and marry it with the right solution, tool, product that makes the most sense for your role. Cuz what matters most to me and what's going to benefit me is going to be different than what's going to benefit someone else. So the whole blanket tool use, you're going to get blanket general usage.

[00:46:54] If you really want to focus on accelerating or maximizing the return for AI, it has to be persona or function specific at the end of the day. So Claude. Like Claude blows my mind, right? I've been waiting a minute for that joke. I know. I know. Um No No, so yeah, yeah, I I agree with it 100% because that's when I you said it more elegant cuz whenever I I say to people they're like I go give it a go like download GPT like you save yourself time over Google.

[00:47:22] They go I don't know what to do. I go what problem do you have, right? Like what Everybody has a problem. Everybody has a problem. You don't even want to know mine. Yeah, like so I'm like what's your problem? And they go well, I'm not getting along with my wife or my brother's being a bum or whatever. You know, and then do it and then they see the value.

[00:47:44] Right. Right. Exactly. Because you're you're saying is identifying like all those miscellaneous things that like they don't know they don't know and like that they don't know there's an easier solution. Yeah. Like I hate logging my expenses or taxes.

[00:48:00] Right? Organizing I hate Right? Data organization. Yeah. But you have to make sure when you're designing these solutions you're designing it well. So someone has to know what good looks like at the end of the day. Right? There's that garbage in, garbage out. If your data is a mess, if you've got all your departments working on different templates with different worksheets, putting AI on top of it isn't going to help you.

[00:48:26] Right? You've You've got to get a lot of that maturity of your data organized in order to accelerate the benefits and have confidence in the results. And just like any other technology, if people lose confidence in what they're seeing as an output, you lose all credibility and we come back to the resistance conversation. Why would I use this tool? Right?

[00:48:49] I'm not getting And people are impatient now. Right? Like I go online, I can Google in or use whatever tool I want or Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, right? And come up with whatever solution I feel good about it. But if I'm using an organization's tool and I'm not able to replicate that feeling of confidence in what I'm seeing, why would I use it? I I wonder Okay.

[00:49:12] So it's like 80% of businesses use Google or Microsoft stuff, right? Office or whatever it's called, the Suite 360. And uh I've always hated both. Like but I I hate Office. If I If you send me anything, Google Docs, anything, it's it's going onto my desktop, hopefully in a Word document, hopefully. I use Macs and like the pay this Pages thing drives me crazy.

[00:49:35] And so if you're first And I got into AI because I was working at Orkin, whatever, it was a tough time in my life, but I got a job. But um and they had a course, one of the first supposedly good training. It's it's not good, but the bar is set so low. So it was just old 15, 20-year-old training. You know what I'm saying? But one of them was on AI. And I'm thinking, why in the world

[00:50:00] they talk about AI. And um this is an interesting side note actually. They were worth $3 billion. Remember when $3 billion was a lot? That's like nothing now. If I dropped it, I wouldn't pick it up. It's It's so cute. You're I try that joke on X. It never works. They're like, "Oh, that's so cute. You're worth 3 billion." Um Lovable went to 6.8 billion in like a year, the vibe coding platform, right?

[00:50:26] Yeah. Yeah. I mean like and it took them over a hundred years. It took Lovable like months, right? Uh it's just so interesting like yeah. So I um I'm going to stop calling it AI because everybody the second you call that, it's like the second you you knock on my door and you're wearing a tie with short sleeves, right? So Yeah. You know, like I know you're a Mormon.

[00:50:50] But anyways. I mean I'm like Yeah. It It's also become a scapegoat that I'm finding now too. So I was I was working with uh an organization uh recently who and I and I get this a lot with European companies because of GDPR, right? They have different restrictions on how they can position or things they can say. But they were investing no matter what in AI strategy, but but they were also um looking to to reduce their workforce by 10% of their lowest performers.

[00:51:20] So this was this was a performance definitely motivated. And here's what I said to them. I'm like, "Here's what you got You got to understand the ripple effect to your actions today and how that's going to impact your ongoing goals, especially when it comes to AI and the cultural connection and mindset of what this is, like what that term is. If you blame AI efficiencies for decreasing your workforce by 10%, the ongoing adoption strategy and trust of your company with your employees is damaged." Yeah.

[00:51:53] Yeah. And it takes a lot more time and effort to fix, and AI itself can't fix that directly. Now

[00:52:00] As a as a consultant, I use AI. We all use AI. It helps accelerate. But I was talking with an engineer a little bit cuz we're we're trying to craft a little bit of this application platform. He's he's brilliant. He's like, Jill, what's the human side of it? And he's like, to to help scale these types of solutions, you have to train people to know what good looks like.

[00:52:23] Right? So, I one one use case. This was a real use case I was talking about with a client who was stuck, analysis paralysis example, with their AI transformation. And they said, okay, they've got all of these little things happening, but they're not moving forward. It's costing them money. It's going to cost them money to invest, and it's costing them money to to not decide on what their cohesive vision and strategy is.

[00:52:49] And I got in this conversation thinking I was just going to sit in the back corner. The AI guy was on the call, and I'm like, okay, I'm I'm here. I'm the people person. Like, let me know um how you want to talk about this. And they said, Jill, honestly, we want to talk to you. Tech is fine. Said, but today, they gave me this use case. I have this this junior analyst that we hire from school.

[00:53:13] For 2 years, they work with that junior analyst to do these calculations. They shift factors. They consult with their senior architect, that engineer, and they they learn about how to pivot, how to come up with those instincts, how to understand the business and the services we provide. And after 2 years, they become that senior analyst or that senior engineer.

[00:53:36] They said, today, I could get AI to do that. I don't need their function at all. And they go, but how do I then get my senior engineers? What's my succession planning? What does that look like? How do I help make sure that I feel new senior engineers are ready to keep my company going? It is a talent conversation. How am I not only making sure I have the right people today,

[00:54:00] but I'm setting up the people of tomorrow at the same time in the future. This is these are conversations I'm having every day. Yeah, I bet. I bet. So, I I think what I was trying to get to earlier is like if So, my first experience into AI is I I'd used GPT years ago and it was horrible. And you know, I was doing other stuff um not related necessarily and it was it hasn't gotten good until, you know, as I was getting into it.

[00:54:25] So, the first thing was Copilot. If that's your first If that's somebody's first entry into AI, I wouldn't use it if they paid me, let alone paying for it, literally. It It I mean, I would take the money, but what Every time I search it, it's meaningless. It's useless. It's it's insane almost the same thing with Gemini except for images and video. And I hate to keep I say it every podcast, but it is astonishing to me how bad they are for overall search and how good GPT is.

[00:54:54] I I used Claude a lot, but then I hardly ever use it, right? So, like I try and pay for everything for a month and then not pay for it. And like I'm not hitting my limits with Claude like I was cuz I was doing a lot of stuff. Um but you know, I if I I I wish people's first experience was GPT. They they may they thought it was Google. They just forget what they were using, right?

[00:55:16] So, they don't use it any differently, right? Except for when they say they know what they're doing, they give it a paragraph with the stuff on their problem with their growing tomatoes in December in Kansas, right? It ain't going to happen, but they can go down a rabbit hole for a few hours. But anyway, so you know, yeah. Yeah. We lived in Kansas cuz you're in you're in Colorado, right?

[00:55:40] Yeah. Are you Canadian, part Canadian or something? No, no. I I've actually I'll tell you I have lived the Midwest. So, you say Kansas, I'm like I was in St. Louis for a time. Like barbecue, like we can talk about that. Yeah. And I I my husband's from Spain. So, then we moved to New York and I was like, man, I'm a Midwest girl. I

[00:56:00] more space, you know, I want to think about these. So we're we're now out in Colorado and love it. Oh wow. Well, we lived in Kansas for 5 years in Lawrence where the university is and we never went to to Colorado because you know it's a drive. It's a drive. It's a big state. Oh my god. Great stargazing if you go in the middle of the night though. Is it?

[00:56:22] Yes. Oh, cuz there's it's so dark. There's no light pollution. There's nothing. There's whole lot of nothing. Right. Yes. I've never I knew all these people from Salina which is like I think halfway through the state of Kansas or something. They were the most messed up people. I don't know what's going on in Salina. So I don't so and then I'm sure I used GPT and I was like wow, this is so much better.

[00:56:47] And then people won't shut up about Claude. But Claude is amazing for coding and it's I don't use Claude code. I use like the Vibe coding stuff that uses Claude code, right? I'm not I built something one time and it was amazing and I mean objectively and I did it with Manus which is amazing. Like talking about data stuff I I got a C in algebra and barely got it.

[00:57:10] I needed it to get into UF out of the community college. So I don't know math, I don't know data, nothing. But like with with AI especially Manus I can do anything. Anything. Like give it to me, I rip, you know, reports. I went to the city. There was like 10 reports, you know many pages long. They paid consultants from St. Louis, you know, 50 grand to do on whether or not they should plant trees on Main Street, right?

[00:57:36] But they need a they need a report to tell them that so they don't make a mistake. That's the other thing too. You know that historically I think with consultants it was cover your ass. And so AI can be cover your ass. For sure. For sure. So it's when you talk about data and on the people side that hasn't always been two dots that connect clearly, right?

[00:57:59] It does now.

[00:58:00] live in a digital environment. And I think one of your questions was um something about measuring culture. We can. That's a that I like to say um I like to lead with facts and follow with feelings. So let me show you the data. Let me show you your data to you and say but I'm an expert in this area. I've done culture strategy. I've studied org psych.

[00:58:21] I've worked with change management. I'm like when I see these trends of behavior, for example, I'll give you an example. If you want to lead people through a change, one, they have to know about it. They have to be engaged. They have to be aware. So so first off, are people invited to a thing, to a series of a thing? Are they invited? Are they given access to it?

[00:58:44] If they are invited, do they show up? If they do show up, are they engaging? To to know if someone's aligned, I've got to get them to respond or react to it. Are they engaging? And then if they are engaging, what is the sentiment of that engagement? Is it positive or negative? What's scarier, I'll tell you, is not when people engage with a negative sentiment.

[00:59:07] It's when people disengage. Mhm. We call it quiet quitting. Especially if you're showing up and you're disengaging, you're you're not showing your alignment, your connection, your your intent at all. Those are the ones you worry about. If you give a negative review, you're passionate. You care. That's something that you care about at some level. Now, there's there's always a conversation of is this leading to a level of toxicity which like are am I able to save you and bring you back?

[00:59:37] Is there a win inside? If not, that's a different conversation. But if you're negative because you care, because you oversee a team of people and you care about their future, you're going to be passionate. I can work with you. Right? That's a champion. I can work with you and make you a part of the solution and you will guide that entire ripple effect.

[01:00:00] to a positive tomorrow if I can get you on board. It's those that don't show up, that don't engage. Right. I got two I got two things to say. I had a job for a nonprofit and I hated that job. And you know what? I think they hated me. Uh the founder If you go to potato chips, it's okay to use your hand. This guy got the boss got onto me for using my hand with potato chips.

[01:00:21] Yeah, it's probably more proper to anyways. So, I forgot what my um I hated that job. But um the oh the quiet quitting. So, they did a book club, right? Like the stupidest books every, you know, whatever however many weeks it took us to get through it. I would not read that book on principle. Like I'm not I'm You know, they's like, oh, we're going to do a book club.

[01:00:42] Screw you and your book club, right? Like I'm not read Anyways, so that's the thing is people That could have been their culture strategy, Jason, which is not culture strategy. So, right. Something. It was a good company, I'll be honest, but like I just didn't I was not a cultural fit, right? Like the whole not eating croutons with your hands. I didn't get I mean, it's sure I'm an animal, right?

[01:01:04] But my point is is like I wish cuz it I I always hate the whole fake participation, fake we value every voice. Meanwhile, you know, you know how it is. They sit in the boardroom and they don't call on the three women. They don't. And like I hate to make it sexist or whatever. Or they Everybody knows the people that don't speak up, right? And that always it's they don't want to be called out, but they need to participate because like otherwise they're quiet quitting.

[01:01:31] Everybody's quiet quitting all the time anyway. I quiet quit the second day on the job. But um Exactly. And what we just talked about like let's talk about culture for a second because this is uh my intro conversation. Oh my, I'm telling you on a on a day-by-day basis. What is culture? I I was I was doing this strategy working with an I talk about culture in in a strategic term, strategic culture as a as an accelerator to change.

[01:01:56] If you have three links in a chain that matter to progress, you have

[01:02:00] Do you understand what you want? What is your goal? What is your outcome? Like your vision. Do you know what you're doing? Do you know how you're doing it? Your strategy. People live in strategy. Live in it. They like to overthink it. That's where they live. Yeah. Yeah. But do you have the people ready to execute your strategy? I like to say your strategy is your road map.

[01:02:22] Paints paints your road map to getting to your outcome. But your people, your culture indicate your speed limit at the end of the day. So when we say culture, one one person once said to me, Jill, why are we talking about beer and ping pong? And I'm like, that's not culture. Culture is literally how we behave every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like when you say I'm on a diet or I have a diet.

[01:02:46] Everyone has a diet. That's what you eat every day. But we think of it like I'm trying to lose weight or I'm trying to get cut, right? When we say culture, it's not separate. It's it's how you're noticing behavior. I have a colleague, she says it the best way. Culture, your culture is described by the worst behavior you allow. So when when I was working with an organization, they had situations where they did a big CRM implementation that failed.

[01:03:13] And still today, we're talking 10 years later, is not but people have shadow sheets and they're doing their own thing. Why? Because it wasn't set up the right way. They didn't have the people integrated in the solution. It was tech shoved down their throat. And because of all of these people neglects, we've we've seen this over and over again. And on top of that, the facade you talk about, the theater, this is where AI can can actually help and it is helping.

[01:03:41] And I think people are surprised by it. What happened before is there's this facade of success of who I am as a leader, as a team, and that allowed the fiefdoms to happen. But now you can't hide what they with AI. You can't. And some of the leaders that agreed to some of these concepts aren't ready for that. So

[01:04:00] what are we seeing reorgs happen, right? If you're not It doesn't matter where you are in the hierarchy. With this type of investment, you're exposed. So, what are you going to do? This gets into what what is the culture we want? What is the leader we need? And how do we get rid of that toxic mentality and shift with the people who who are ready to shift, who are those champions that that looks like at the end of the day?

[01:04:24] Yeah. So, I wish I wish they would stop calling it AI. Like, I don't have anything to do with implementation and I just, you know, have an opinion, I guess. But um and they I wish they would tell people like around the table just like with everything authentically. Like, if you're going to do a survey that goes to HR about whether or not you hate your job or not, do it you know, do it anonymously, but don't just say that, do it encrypted.

[01:04:49] Make the people know because I always knew they're going to see my handwriting of how much I hated my job, right? But to the ultimate point is I wish that they would be authentic companies. Um but then also with this stuff, tell people we're not firing you for whatever, 3 months, 6 months, a year, but you better use AI. And this is what we do from here out.

[01:05:09] We're not judging anybody. If it's stupid what you say is stupid, we'll just let you say something stupid, right? But each week we're going to say what what are you doing with AI and how are you learning and what's your goal, right? And I always hated exercises like this like tell us your favorite thing and blah blah. Fun fact about yourself. Fun fact is I hate you all.

[01:05:30] No, I'm just kidding. Anyways, but you know what I'm saying? So, then people could be like And if they didn't do anything, just say it. No, you know, what is the thing? We don't judge or whatever. But like seriously, so that people can be like, all right, I need to use it. There's no pressure. And um and you know, have guidelines and stuff. So, have Mary, right?

[01:05:50] Like not use it and say, Mary, use the AI, right? Weeks go by. And finally, she's like, I don't know. I was planning a trip with my friends to Branson, Missouri.

[01:06:00] Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So then like everybody would know they're going to ask, right? No pressure. Like I can get away with not reading the book, you know. Me, I would always be like, it's all about teamwork. Uh what did you take from this chapter, Jason? It's all about teamwork. I don't know I don't know what the chapter's about. So anyways, I wish that they would like have a soft way so people could like ease into it, like not make it into a big deal.

[01:06:29] But no, the check's coming, right? The check is coming. Right. Right. And that kind of gets into when you come back to adoption. Are are you looking for people to succeed? And like what's your motive? There's there's this book I read in a master's class, The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. Had to read it years ago, and I read it three times. One, it's hard old English.

[01:06:53] It's hard to it's hard to read, right? I'm like maybe I'm not a reader. But I read it three times and and it's great. The concept is as you become a leader, all the different ways you can die. Do you want to be loved? Do you want to be respected? Do you want to be feared? No matter the strategy, there's a way that your people will try to kill you at the end of the day.

[01:07:17] This is like a old book, right? But the concepts are still are still there. So when you think about your leadership and these types of these types of transformations with AI, what is your strategy and understand the risks tied to how that's going to come back to you? Yeah, and I think I told I told a customer this today. Um I said your site is turning into a Frankenstein.

[01:07:41] Yeah. I just can't I can't not I need to be like you. Like when you said something earlier, I need lead with the data and then with like the feelings or whatever because I'm just like, do you want my honest opinion? Cuz but I need to be like, okay, you know, you're a dentist and your site is not

[01:08:00] optimized and beat Dennis who, you know, and I did that too. I did a five-point thing for uh sedation dentists and I it was a five pillars and like the 95% of small to medium-sized businesses have these have these seven pages, right? You know, it's all the about us, services, but it's it's that shallow. So, if you just do a little bit more, like you get huge results.

[01:08:20] And so I think back to like back to like the the maximizer thing because in this country we have a huge loneliness epidemic with old elderly people, with young males, with just people in general. So, think about that like I think it can literally instead of making it now so horrible with like call centers and companies that don't care about you, if they can literally get rid of all the minute stuff and realize like, you know, let's call our customer let's call them, not bug them to sell them.

[01:08:48] They only do it. It's like LinkedIn people that like link with you and instantly try and sell you. I just start I just started on like blocking them cuz I'm like they don't get it. So like I think it can like improve the quality so much and have and bring that back so you could, you know, tell your people. That was one of the good things about that company.

[01:09:09] They would say like, you know, call the customer and just see how they're doing and and and have those relationships where you can cut it's like mass customization cuz with Vibe Coding I do this all the time if I'm going back and forth with some idiot on Reddit like and they're and I'll go to their history and I'll just select all and I'll dump it in Lovable and I say roast this person, right?

[01:09:31] And it's usually them telling everybody their stuff sucks 20 times a day. And I'm like, look, it looks like you have it in mode. You know, you're an expert at telling and being a critic, but you've never once posted your work, right? But it synthesized all that data. So you could say, you know, do you want to give us access? And I, you know what? I did some consulting for a firm, a design firm that they told me they weren't supposed to their client.

[01:09:56] This was years ago. God, what was this? 6 7 8 years ago

[01:10:00] Um so it was pre-AI, but it was smart home and I was like an expert in the smart home space. So they were doing it for Amex, they told me. I'm sure I'm not supposed to say this, but it was so long ago. And um and I said to them this same concept. And they were talking about doing wearables and all this stuff. And I was like your clients, hell, are are affluent older people.

[01:10:22] I said do a smart This is the days of a smart speaker. I said do a smart speaker where they can It helps their life. Every day when they sit down at their desk, it says, "Hey Jason, how can I help you?" And you've given it access to your calendar like with this stuff. So it'll tell you whose birthdays are coming up. It'll tell you It's It's just interesting.

[01:10:43] Like I I think people can integrate it in their life and not think of it as this scary thing. Cuz if you're using it like you and I use it, Right. they'll they'll never get there and like they probably shouldn't because you know I do it in GPT, I don't trust it. I do it in Claude, I don't trust that. I do it in Perplexity, I do deep research, right?

[01:11:04] I do Then you're like a a a a director or a or a What is the term? Conductor, right? Yeah. But most people don't do that. GPT and is going to be good and then if they need to write something that isn't weird, they can do Claude, right? Well, so so exactly when you're talking about trust, like what do people fear? They fear what they don't understand.

[01:11:25] Yeah. Right? So it's like one, how do you how do you make it so that society can understand what this is? And then think about even what you're seeing online. If you look at Instagram or if you look at the news, it's you question whether or not it's real these days. The whole how do I understand what is real takes effort on the individual and people by nature are lazy.

[01:11:47] Yeah, yeah. I don't want to say it like that. We have different priorities and when you are a working parent, right, that is 125% capacity, who's also got a portfolio career on the side, how do you keep up? Oh.

[01:12:00] I lost you. Yeah, I know. I think Let me make sure I'm not I don't know how to check. It says I'm I think it'll work. Like I I I used um Descript and it's um it's not stable. But um yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Like yeah, cuz I I I with People are busy. They're lazy, but they're also busy. Yeah. They're busy and and and so lazy's not the right word.