Higher Up Podcast

Ep.048: AI and the Faithful Leader

Higher Up Podcast Season 4 Episode 9

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AI is already in your business. The question is whether you're leading it or letting it lead you.

In this episode we talk honestly about why AI feels threatening, especially for creatives and leaders who care about trust and relationships. Then we reframe it: AI is a tool, not a strategy, and definitely not your conscience.

We cover the 80/20 rule for using AI well, prompt engineering, and why the best use of AI is as a thought partner, not a decision maker. We share real examples from hiring, customer service, meeting prep, and operations, and we get into where it can quietly work against you if you're not paying attention.

We also run AI through four leadership filters: stewardship, dignity, truth, and wisdom. And we close with a line worth writing down: before you go to AI, go to I AM.

Automate the task. Don't automate the trust.

Subscribe, share this with a leader on your team, and drop a comment: where is AI showing up in your business right now?

Welcome Back And Grace Recap

SPEAKER_00

Hi, fellas. Welcome back in. Brady, we're glad you're back with us. You were gone the last episode. It was kind of kind of weird when I introduced and realized you weren't sitting here.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, Brady. Oh, wait, he's in here.

SPEAKER_00

So, but great episode. The last one we talked about Grace under pressure a little here.

SPEAKER_02

Adam, our ratings went down last time.

SPEAKER_00

No, I think it was good. I had somebody, I had some, I had somebody reach out and tell me they were like, I just listened to your episode. I feel like I got slapped in the face a little bit. You know, I've got some grace that I got to give. So that was a great, I thought it was a great one we have.

SPEAKER_02

So we all we all have that. I mean, we all have anytime we get under pressure, especially if you're dealing with conflict, you got to show some grace. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Giving giving grace this stuff. I did tell uh Benji, I was kind of sad that we didn't get to hear your perspective because I feel like, I mean, as much as you do on the day-to-day, you probably would have had a lot to give in that

Listener Story And Faith Invite

SPEAKER_00

conversation.

SPEAKER_02

I probably have a lot to learn from giving trying to give grace. We all do. We're on a journey of life together. We are. Hey, I will tell you guys, uh, I did have someone reach out to me recently and uh they they wanted to have lunch with me. Um, and they said, Look, I I just want to tell you what an impact this this podcast has made on my life. And uh what you and Brady are doing, Adam, you know, you guys are doing has really helped shape me to be better. And I was like, man, that's incredible. He said, What you don't know is I actually gave my life to the Lord six months ago. Wow, that's awesome. And that's incredible. I was like, man, that's the best decision you could have ever made. So look, listeners, we know this is a podcast that we are not scared to tell our faith, honor God is our number one core value. It will always be that way. I just want to encourage you, if you're looking for someone to talk to, reach out. I mean, we've got the text feature right there on the podcast. You can click or you can connect with us on social. We'd love to reach out. This is why we do what we do. Yes, we do this to help you in your business. Um, and and that's that's important, but it's not the most important thing. And you you talked about this, you know, grace under pressure and this life journey we're on. So I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening and thank you so much for those that if you do need help, if you have concerns, reach out to us because it's a lonely world out there sometimes. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah. Well, I I mean it's awesome to kind of see people are listening, getting a lot of got a lot of impact we're seeing on on social and people sharing. So we love it. But uh, I'm excited about today's episode.

SPEAKER_02

Um before we before we do the okay, before we mention the episode, do either one of y'all in the in the uh widget world, we we talk about uh W-I-D-G-E-T. Working genius. Yeah, do either one of y'all have discernment in your is that is that is it is it one of your competencies? Okay, one of your competencies. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

No, all of that's not mine. I will say all of my strengths are Brady's frustrations, though.

SPEAKER_01

So Adam has zero discernment. No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_00

I don't. It is not, but I did always laugh because when we until we did it, we always were trying to figure out why do Brady and I kind of not like work together is because we're on different sides of it. Like my strengths are his frustrations, and my frustrations are the same thing.

SPEAKER_02

So hey,

Why AI Triggers Fear

SPEAKER_02

and listen, that's okay. That is totally fine. That's what makes us better. The reason I asked the question is because today we're talking about discerning the machine, yeah. And the machine is AI. People get some a lot of people get scared about AI. I'll be honest, when it first came out, I was like, this is kind of cool because I'm the guy that IW and mine invention and wonder. I'm the guy that's like, man, what can we do with something like that? You know, how can we make it better? Yeah, but some people go, oh my goodness, like this is a this is a problem.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, um, so you know I was a pushback on it. I mean, Brady, we talked about this in the meetings.

SPEAKER_01

Major pushback.

SPEAKER_00

I was, I mean, I yeah, I think as a creative, I'm thinking, well, is this gonna replace what I do? Is this, but I, you know, as we got more into it, I found out that it's just a tool in my toolbox and helped kind of work through some of that stuff. But it it is kind of scary because you you're sending all this information off to the world and to whatever now there's multiple platforms. Oh, yeah, man. Just chat see it first. Well, yep.

SPEAKER_02

If you're not using Claude, Claude, I hope you pay me for this sponsorship. You use Claude.

SPEAKER_00

Personally, I use Claude. I do, I do like Claude, but um, but yeah, you know, you're sending all this information off. It is kind of a nerve-wracking thing because you're like, all right, I'm sharing this information, I'm doing these things. And at first with chat, remember there's a lot of businesses that had to be like, hold on, you're not using this. You're like people were using it to answer their questions for their business. Yeah, they're like, hold on, this is like trade secrets. Like, where where's this going? Right, right. So it can be a very scary world.

SPEAKER_02

So well, here's the thing. I mean, the reality is it's showing up everywhere. I mean, it's here, it's here to stay. You got you gotta you, I'm not gonna say leap and go all in. You it's a it's a machine, it has to learn you, right? It has to learn what you're wanting to do. Um, it's it's in every marketing, I mean, every ad on Facebook and Instagram is some kind of AI tool out there now.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and they're using a lot of it too. Like in my world for like creation, there's a lot of creators that you're having to use it to get some of the shots that you probably couldn't get. Yeah. Like, and so that's the other side of it. There's all these platforms that help you do videos and and graphics and things that maybe you that you were limited to do, like you didn't have the skill set. Well, now you can use kind of AI to help you do it. Obviously, within Spectrum, you don't want those with like seven fingers and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01

So I will I mean, I think about this. I mean, you said it's a tool, and I don't know why this analogy came to my mind. Y'all are probably gonna think it's dumb. But you know, think about all the different tools that have that have come out throughout the even the centuries through like the Industrial Revolution or just different things. But the analogy that came to my mind was a lumberjack.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

All right. So back in the day, you know, they've got these axes and hatchets and they're just chopping down these trees, you know. And then when the chainsaw came out, what do they think of that? Oh man, this is this is terrible. I mean, it's gonna take our jobs and it's gonna do this and it's gonna do that, and people are gonna get down a whole lot quicker. And but now, I mean, the many people use, I don't, I don't chop down that many trees, but you know, it's a it's a tool that helps you get your job done faster. Like for me personally, I use it, I I still am the and we'll probably talk about the book at some point, but uh I am the thought leader. Like I don't, I never want it to be the thought leader, I just want it to be a thought partner. So I it can come alongside me and help me to discern some of these things a little bit faster so that I can get on to doing the business. I don't I don't want to spend two days creating a report. Yeah, right. You know, which used to happen. Yeah, which used to happen.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and yeah, I think too for me, somebody in my position as a I mean, my wife owns the business with me, but she doesn't do as much other than like helping with QuickBooks. So I use it a lot of time too to

AI As A Useful Tool

SPEAKER_00

talk to it to think through things because I don't have somebody to bounce ideas off. Yeah, whether I'm writing an estimate or working on a contract or a scope, like what I want, like you know, taking the client's needs. I've used it and uh to kind of as a way to help me talk through it. But I agree with you, like I don't want it to be the one that's deciding hey, you're gonna do these things. Right. I want it to help me think outside the box, especially when I'm don't have somebody to bounce the ideas off of.

SPEAKER_02

That's right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is it's it's everywhere. If you're hiring, you know, management leadership, you're out there trying to hire people, making HR decisions, you put you put in the task, it'll get, I mean, it'll be careful to come back with because it'll give you some pretty unique things. Customer service. I mean, in the customer service space, it helps uh, you know, do there's y'all remember the days when you called them, if you have American Express for people that do, you called American Express, you got somebody overseas, you couldn't understand them, right? Well, now they have these tools out there that can actually provide customer service, and the younger generation's actually going on their phone saying, Hey, help me do this, this, and this. And they're not, they're not having to go to quote Google, they're going to Gemini, they're going to Claude or whatever. Um, it'll give you strategy, like Brady said, forecasting. So there's all these different tools out there. Um, it's at the end of the day, people people have different opinions about AI, but it is morally neutral, you know, because you have to train it to what you're thinking. That's right. Um, so so just know that. And it also, there's ways not to use it. So um a couple temptations, right? Leader as leaders. And Brady, you probably have some things to offer on this, but it's speed without sacrifice. So that to your point, the day that used to take me two days to come up with a presentation, you know, or whatever, yeah. I mean, boom, you click a button and say, I want to now you do to your you can't just it's not a it's not an input and output that quick. You do have to, once you put the input, you have to train it what you want it to do. You have to tweak it. Uh you can take screenshots and say, No, I don't want this. I'd rather have this. Oh, you'd rather it to look this way and blah, blah, blah. And then it'll spit out this presentation for you like that. But then you still have to tweak the presentation, right?

SPEAKER_01

Well, and the more that you feed it, the more that it knows. Because I mean, the the the big probably the biggest, I guess, buzzword that's out there right now is called prompt engineering. Yep. Yep. So prompt engineering is and and it's it's um is siloed into whatever large language model that you're using, but it learns the way that you think, and the way that it knows that is because of the questions that you ask. And so each each um session that you do or each presentation, it's it can feed off of other things that you've created or or brainstormed about, and it knows kind of the way that you want it done, so it can spit out you know your your product even better.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and going through and and and developing your prompts, I um I developed one for us at the church where whenever our pastor sent us our message for Sundays, I went through and I take their entire message and I upload that into where I'm working with my COD and I've developed a prompt like, hey, this is Pastor So-and-so's message for this. I want you to help me develop some response questions for our church. Um, I want you to kind of help me dial it down. And all of it was really for YouTube. Like I'm trying to create a YouTube description to help people find these messages. And so I use that instead of me having to like read that entire message and understand because every pastor writes differently. Oh, yeah. All their messages look different when I get it, all four of them that we have. So I need to be able to kind of do that. So develop that, but I had to develop that prompt to have to say, hey, I'm looking for A, B, C, D, and F. I need you to help me find this, this, and this. And it it kind of does those things. But what it has done is it allows me to be more efficient with my time. Yeah. Move faster and get the things done that need to get done. That could probably take a team. Now I can get done a little quicker, a little faster on my own.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, like you said, it gives you the faster output, right? It it there's cheaper labor because you don't have to have extra people, extra staff, uh, potentially. You can make easier decisions sometimes, um, and and there can be less frictions. But for those of you listening that have listened to a recent podcast that we did, don't cut corners because the AI system is will cut corners if you're not careful. Oh, yeah. You know, you got to be really careful of that.

SPEAKER_01

The rule of thumb that I like to use is I I think I'm landing on kind of 80% at this point, but it will get you about 80%. Right. Right? A human being needs to take it for the last 20%. So it it just it cuts down the amount of work the front end work that you have to do, but once you get there, yeah, then you can take it over the finish line.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's funny y'all mentioned decision making because uh my wife may fund me for this, but I worked really hard to buy this certain camera that I wanted, and it was what's called a point and shoot. It's like there's no, like it's one focal length. And I really want to- Is that not what you normally do? You point and shoot, yeah, so you point and shoot, but there's no you can't change focal length. People in the the camera world will understand. Okay, but it was this Fuji camera I wanted so bad. I worked for months, I got it finally. You can't find them anywhere because everybody wants them. I purchased it a month and a half goes by, and I tell I'm I was like, I may sell the Fuji. And we're sitting in Best Buy, and she's like, I'm not even I'm not even having this conversation.

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_00

And I was like, they hear me out. If I sell it, I can sell it for more than I made and buy this other camera that's higher quality just for photos. And so I actually put that into Claude, and it knows I have the camera because I've I've had it help me learn it, and it honestly pointed out, you don't need this other camera, you're not doing this type of work right now with what you have. There you go. And I was like, Your wife was like, Man, I like this Claude. It's like, all right. So, but it was just funny you point that in, and it but I mean you talk about it can be, but it also will give you legitimate, like, hey, you the specs on that camera, you don't need it. Yeah, yeah. And I think I can help you talk to those things.

SPEAKER_02

Here, here's something to think about. Just because something's faster doesn't mean it's better. Yeah, yeah, you know, just because it's possible doesn't mean it's wise.

Four Filters For Wise AI

SPEAKER_02

I mean, it's what's possible in the AI world is really, really uh intriguing. So let's let's let's bring it back to our bib a biblical framework, right? That's the reason we do this podcast. Think about four filters that are in for AI in the bit in business. All right. The first one, the stewardship filter. Okay, we've talked about stewardship on our podcast a few times, but does this honor what God has entrusted me with? Is it my people, my customers, my mission? So AI should actually simplify, should excuse me, should multiply our stewardship, not replace it. Because again, if we're if we're not careful, AI can we get so busy in the AI world, everything becomes AI. And like Brady said, you you still have that 20% human element. You have to you have to kick things off of people because discerning the machine, you know, you gotta you gotta put a little thought into it. Um the dignity filter. Does this treat people as image bearers of God? All right. We know that Chat GPT can give you some really strange pictures. We call it AI hallucination. Really strange pictures. Okay, no, it's a no, it's a known fact. But if if a tool reduces the humans to data points, that's a problem worth pausing. Because you you you still have to, like Brady said, we still have to have the human element to it. There's no way around it. The truth filter is this act, is this honest? Is it going to cut corners? Is it going to uh mislead? Is it gonna give me fake information? The deceptive personalization that you put to it, right? Undisclosed automation. Well, this thing's gonna automate anything now. Oh, yeah, yeah. So you gotta be careful of that. And then the last one is the wisdom filter. Just because I can, should I? You don't have to use AI for everything. It's a great partner, it can be a great tool, but you don't have to use it for everything. Not every efficiency, the camera situation is an upgrade.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Be careful of that. Some things are worth doing slowly. Uh innovation is great, okay. So where does AI help us? All right, we've talked about some of these, and where does it hurt us?

SPEAKER_01

That's that's one we gotta think about. I think I think here I I was actually challenged the other day. I was on a webinar um with uh a guy by the name of Jordan Rayner, and he he actually wrote the book um one of the one of the productivity books that that that we've that we've talked about on here. And um, and so he was he was talking through it, and we'll maybe we'll put that in the in the show notes, the the books I'm drawing a blank right now. But he was talking through just um some some practices and he actually got on the the AI and he said, Look, I use AI, you know, I use it all the time to to do this and do that. But sometimes we we go to AI first, and so he gave us like four different steps that would help us be a better leader and all these things. And one of the steps was, and I I mean I wrote this down, I was like, oh man, that one kind of punched me in the gut. But he says, Here's one practice I want you to do. He says, Before you go to AI, I want you to go to I am.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that's good.

SPEAKER_01

That is and so he actually has this little, it's not an app, but he's got this little thing that you can install on your phone and you put it, it's you know, you put it right beside your your AI uh app of of choice, and it's got I am, and then it's got like this little arrow. So you got you go to if you you know whip out your phone and go, oh, I need to oh I need to go to that to the I am first. Like go to go to the Lord, seek the Holy Spirit, seek the wisdom, seek the guidance instead of going to the so I I was challenged back. That's good. Yeah. Drop mic drop.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I was gonna say anything I can say can follow up with that one. Because that was that I mean it makes a lot of sense. It's because you you also have to be careful because, like you said, you don't know what you're being fed. You know, when you go and you read the word and you're doing these things, you know what you're getting. You know what you're being fed, you know what the Lord's speaking to you. You sometimes with AI, you don't know where that source is. Where is it pulling from? Because it's scanning, it's pulling from the internet, it's pulling from sources, pulling from Reddit, pulling from all these different things. Yeah. So you have to be careful because there's a lot of just false information and no idea.

SPEAKER_01

And and I don't disagree with you, you know. I just uh uh and I'm not pushing back, but just uh a thought though, you know, we can blame a lot on AI, but let's just talk about like reading the word. You you've and I know we're kind of getting off script here a little bit. You you talk about the biblical framework, but if we don't have the the personal relationship with Jesus, and we we're not, you know, we're not studying the word for ourselves and and researching and doing different things, you know, a lot of times, and I I know I'm I've been guilty of this and still am probably to some degree, but we blame on AI. But what about the what about the the pastor, the podcast, you know, the who are you listening to? The books that you're reading. You know, how's that any different? Because do we know that they're right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, so it's

Guardrails For Ethical Automation

SPEAKER_01

whatever input that we're receiving in, going back to your point of discernment, is that are we discerning through the Holy Spirit, is that the right thing? Because you could have a human being that's telling you something that's doctrinally or uh theologically incorrect. Right. You know, but unless you're studying the word for yourself and understanding it, then you may or may not know what that that input is the is the right thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's that's that's really true. Because again, if if you if you AI used well can actually free our team from unnecessary work. We talked about that a few minutes ago. It can bring insights to the forefront that you might need to improve on. Um, it can expand what a small team, you talked about this, can actually accomplish because you don't have to have here's where it can be used poorly, though. It can if you replace judgment that should stay human. You just talked about that. You know, um, it can actually spread misinformation faster than you could imagine. Because to your point, Adam, if you put it if Reddit's picking up on it and whatever else may be picking up on it, it can spread information that's not true. Um, and it can strip the humanity out of leadership. That's what you don't want to do that. No, automate the task, don't automate the trust. It kind of sums up what Brady was talking about. The human touch still matters. You have to have empathy for people, you have to have that spirit-led discernment that you were talking about. Yeah, you have to have genuine encouragement because AI is not gonna help you with that. AI is gonna tell you what a machine wants you to hear. Um, let the machine handle the workload, but don't let it handle the relationships that we're that we have with each other.

SPEAKER_00

So, you know, I I think about it too a lot. I relate with AI, especially being in the creative world. I always want to keep my mind fresh, especially as I'm getting older. I want to keep fresh. I want to have good ideas. I want to be able to think through things on how I want to create and what I what kind of art I want to make and things I want to do. I've always kind of thought about it like when it comes to take weight loss, for instance. It's like we're in a space now where everybody wants to find the quick way to lose weight without putting the work in. Yeah. And so you gotta think part of managing your weight and doing those things is going through those hard moments, the run, the weights, the all the different things you're doing, it makes it tough to do those moments, but in the end, you're making it better on your body. Yes, it may be tough to get to that number that you want to get to, but because you're putting that work in, you're also making your body healthier. I try to think about that as a creative wiser. If I lean too heavily on AI for everything, for every idea I need, for every caption I need to write, for all those things, there needs to be some type of human energy. Absolutely, right. Yeah, because I need to work out my mind as well because I need to stay sharp. As a script writer, as someone who who does these things, who comes up with ideas, who writes, I need to be able to do that. If I'm doing too much of it, I feel like I'm gonna lose that edge. Yeah, very quickly. Just like when the workout, if I'm not working out, if not running, I could look like I'm healthy because I'm smaller or whatever I've done to lose the weight. But if I'm not out putting the work in, I'm not gonna hit that eight-minute mile, that seven-minute mile.

SPEAKER_02

I'll never be at a seven-minute mile, just for the record.

SPEAKER_00

I'm trying to get to eight minutes. I'm so close. I'm at eight and a half for for for a 5k. I'm so close. But yeah, I just I've always felt that when I've looked at those that looked at the same way with AI, I've got to make sure that I'm still having that aspect so I can work my brain.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So think about this in the business space. Let's put up some practical guardrails, okay, for our business. We got to be transparent. Tell our customers when AI is involved. We use an AI phone system, you know, for our company, but we have taught that system how to ask the right questions that gets our customers the best service, the fastest service, because they may have water in their house. They may have smoke in their home. We want to get the most pertinent information as fast as we can because we need to get someone to the home or business, right? So let them know when you're using AI. Keep humans in the loop. There's still a follow-up process after AI takes the intake that we have to have a human element reach out. You know, that that can't, you still people still want to talk to people. They don't want to talk to machines all the time. They want to talk to people, especially when hiring, firing, if it's pastoral care, uh high stake decisions, be transparent. Audit regularly. We do that when our in our systems all the time. What we're doing because if you if you get off track, like Brady, you and Adam were talking about, if you get off track, the system starts learning the off-track method. It doesn't learn the on-track method. So you got you got to be careful of that. Our tools do drift away. Stay anchored. We talked about that on a podcast. Stay anchored to the mission that you're trying to accomplish. Your values should drive your tech, not the other way around. Our core values are most important to us, but we never want that to flip the other way. And we're going to do our level best not to. So as we wrap this up, just a couple leadership takeaways. Okay. Remember, everyone,

Practical AI Wins For Meetings

SPEAKER_02

and I know you know this, but we're going to say it anyway. AI is a tool. It's not a strategy. Okay. It is a tool. Stewardship, dignity, and trust, or excuse me, truth and wisdom are timeless filters. Steward what the Lord has given you. Don't take advantage with AI to make it work for you, right? The human moments are still the most valuable ones you have. Have a human conversation because you can have as much as you want on an automated system, which I'm trying to learn automation and in AI right now, but I still have to have the human element. Hey, I need I need to understand this better. Help me understand this better. Discern the leader's edge. That's how we can uh use it to our advantage in this automated world. Discern what AI is doing. Because that machine, it's powerful, but if you're not careful, it can work against you. Reflect, here's a little bit of reflection. Okay. Where is AI showing up in your business right now? Now we know in our industry it is showing up left and right from every angle we got. We call it the hub and smoke model. Man, we're just sitting here in the middle of the wheel going, what's coming next? You know, because it's it's moving fast. Um are you using it to serve people or are you trying to replace them? It's something to think about. Uh, what is one area that we need to slow down and we can add the human touch back in? Now that doesn't mean you don't change speed your processes up. That doesn't mean you you speed your strategy up, so to speak. But don't let AI be the everything. Because again, it's just a tool. Technology is changing so fast, wisdom does not change. Lead with what last. What's some closing thoughts you guys might have?

SPEAKER_01

I think one closing thought is, you know, we we talked about um just how much faster it can it can help. I was actually having this conversation yesterday, but uh like one practical thing is like in for meetings, you know, how many how many times do you come to a meeting and the meeting is like a discovery meeting, but you feel like you never get anything done. Yeah. So one of the ways that we're using AI is to let let the let the automation, the tools, the reports, like and that way you can compile the information, send it out to the team so they can do the discovery on their own, so that when you come to the meeting, now it's a very productive conversation. Instead of trying to dissect different things in the meeting, now we can come with real questions and real answers. So, you know, there's a I mean, we could probably do eight episodes just on AI, but uh that that's one of the things that I'm thinking. But the other thing is, like we started with, you are the thought leader, it is a thought partner. One of the one

Reflection Questions And Closing

SPEAKER_01

of the um book that I read on AI is the the AI driven leader by Jeff Woods.

SPEAKER_02

See, I knew I knew the author. There you go. Aren't you impressed?

SPEAKER_01

And it's spelled G-E-O-F-F, by the way. Uh, but it's a great book. Any leader that's out there that's looking at getting into to AI in the workplace uh is phenomenal. And and he has a lot of tools on his website too.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So as always, we just want to say thank you so much for listening to us, watching us on YouTube. Really appreciate you guys. If you ever have a question, like we said at the beginning, reach out to us. Uh, we'd love to talk with you. And as always, go out and live a higher up life. We'll see you next time.