Accelerate Your Success by Building a Human-AI Team

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Dr Jon Finn introduces the concept of Human-AI Teams as a collaborative approach where AI supports cognitive labour rather than replacing humans, similar to how the Industrial Revolution supported manual labour.

• People and businesses achieving success with AI are creating human-AI teams, not just buying tools
• Dr Finn uses AI technologies daily as team members to increase efficiency and business growth
• Experience working with a championship-winning football team that spent 54% less on wages inspired his team dynamics research
• 74% of businesses spending significantly on AI aren't getting returns due to poor human-AI collaboration
• We should focus on team transformation rather than digital transformation 
• Brain state management is key to unlocking the benefits of human-AI collaboration
• Using the snowmobile metaphor: you're on the snowmobile, AI is helping you move faster toward goals
• Exercise: identify AI team members you already have and tasks AI could help with to increase happiness

Remember you're only ever one Brain State habit away.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Walking to Work
• 0:29 Humans Supported by Machines
• 1:32 My Experience with Human-AI Teams
• 2:34 Lessons from Elite Sports Teams
• 4:40 Building Your Own Human-AI Team
• 7:34 Brain State Management and Closing Thoughts
• 10:15 Final Exercise and Goodbye

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello, habit Mechanics. It's Dr John Finn here. I hope you're having I hope you can hear those birds singing behind me. I hope you're having a great week so far. So I'm walking to work, so I thought I'd do a quick pod.

Speaker 1: 0:17

Now what I want to talk about is human AI teams, so that is, teams made up of humans and machines. It's not humans being replaced by machines, it's humans being supported by machines. Just in the same way that the Industrial Revolution supported manual labour, we now have machines that can support cognitive labour. And this is what I see is emerging People who are getting success from AI technologies, and some are. If you just look at some of the testimonies we we're getting from the people we're working with, they are getting seismic advantages or the other people that are not either using AI technologies or or getting the most out of them. And what's actually happening here is that the people and the businesses that are getting success, they're not just buying a tool or an AI bot or an AI system. They are actually creating human AI teams and again, it's for the individual as well, so you can create your own human AI team. So I have my own human AI team. I use AI technologies daily and they're like team members. They can do the tasks that I would otherwise pay humans to do, but they help me to do things more efficiently and effectively in a way that helps me to grow my business and help others to do well and create growth. So these machines they are not a threat, they are not a competitor. They are a team member, and the way that we harness the power of human AI teams is through human AI performance psychology the new field of psychology we've created and we are pioneering now.

Speaker 1: 2:39

I've not heard anyone else talk about it in these terms, but I think this is the way forwards and the foundations of my professional career began in elite sport and predominantly team sports, and I was very fortunate to be able to work with a professional football team, and I was 24 years old, I was working on the first team staff. I was in there making, contributing to selection decisions and everything else that goes on when you're part of that senior group, or the leadership group, if you like. So I was in a position where, beyond my years and I was really lucky and part of that, part of the interesting thing with one of those teams, a football team I worked for is we won the league title, won the league one title, english professional football by spending, if my memory's right, 54% less on player wages than the teams that came second and third, you know, on average. So we were able to essentially get much more out of our talent pool and that really and it was actually a UK record for the that season we broke the UK record for the least amount of money spent for the most amount of league points gained. That was one of their big four do like a quite an in-depth analysis of of football in the UK and that's what the numbers that emerged were. So we were really doing something special as a team and I just got fascinated by that and I thought what is going on here, how are we able to do this? And that sparked my PhD work, just looking at one aspect of that, which was how we were a developing talent. But it also led to the development of our leadership models, a spark of the development for that and our team models, our team power model. So I've been thinking about teams for a long time in my professional life and you know, going backwards from that, I've been part of sports teams since I can remember. You know whether it was playing football in the park or, you know, playing rugby or cricket or football or for different teams, and then you know through to university, et cetera. So, and I played decent level amateur sport and I play decent level amateur sport, so I really have a deep knowledge of teams and what makes them work, and I think that this is the right approach to take.

Speaker 1: 5:51

With AI, it's a human AI team and the AI is a team member and it can help you to do your job more effectively. And again, we can do this at the individual level, so you can have your own team. And if you go you know, if you go backwards people have in history and even right now, although AI is disrupting this a little bit people have been hiring virtual assistants now for maybe 10 years. So it's the same kind of thing that AI can do a lot of what virtual assistants used to do and that frees up the virtual assistants to do something else. But you can do it at the individual level, so you can have your own human AI team and you can get seismic results, like we're seeing. But also at work, you can build. The priority should be to build human AI teams and if you look at the data on organisations. The last big set of data I saw on this was by, I think, the Boston Research Group, and they cited in their research that about 74% of businesses that are spending significant money on AI, they're not getting any real returns. And again, if you dig down into it, it's because humans and AI are not collaborating well. It's because humans and I are not collaborating well.

Speaker 1: 7:20

Now, that's always been a problem in digital transformation, where someone says you buy this digital system and it's going to revolutionise your business and invariably it doesn't work out quite like that. Businesses, you know, sometimes get there eventually. It doesn't work out quite like that. Businesses sometimes get there eventually. Just, the PC took a long time to get to become effectively used in organisations, for example. But I think AI is different. It isn't just. It isn't just a digital tool, it's like a team member.

Speaker 1: 7:48

So I also think we need to move away from talking about digital transformation and start talking about team transformation and, of course, the currency of team transformation is human high performance, psychology and the thing that underpins that is brain state management. So I think to unlock the benefits or to scale the benefits of ai because many people are unlocking the benefits and you're forming a human AI team and it helps you to move faster. If we use our snowmobile metaphor, it's like you're on the snowmobile, the tech is your snowmobile the AI and it's helping you to move faster up the mountain towards your goals. And I think that's going to be a really helpful starting point to just start creating a better narrative around ourselves and the journeys that we're going on, but also about what the AI tools can actually bring to our lives. That we're seeing in our own lives, but also our customers lives.

Speaker 1: 9:09

But the key is brain state management. We can't get away from that. That is the thing that's going to unlock all of this. So I hope that was interesting. It got you thinking. My mind's racing with ideas around this now. I think it's really exciting.

Speaker 1: 9:30

So you know, maybe as a quick exercise, just start thinking about your little team that you've got just for yourself. You know, even if you've got like a new iPhone, for example, that's just it's not a passive device anymore. It's got generative ai built into it, for example, and other uh ai features. So these things are becoming like team members, these technologies, and just have a list and maybe think about some of the other tasks that you do every day you may not like doing. Is there a another ai you can employ to help you to do that task more efficiently and effectively, so that you don't have to do the work that you don't want to do? You can focus on the work that makes you happy, and if you're interested in the happiness equation, you can check out chapter seven of train your brain for the higher revolution. So enough from it, from me. Enjoy the rest of your day and remember you're only ever one brain state habit away.