Even the best technology is not going to give you your return on investment if you don't focus on the human. Imagine if instead of spending say three hours writing a report, what if you can actually spend, say, 10 minutes with AI?
SPEAKER_01What resistance or what misconceptions, perhaps, are you hearing from the executives when you kind of introduce this people first approach?
SPEAKER_00It's human nature to avoid change. Like every time that something changes, we as human beings focus more on what we lose rather than what we gain. You really have to get your humans ready.
SPEAKER_01Kristen Ginn is the founder of Transform AI Shift, a consultancy focused on unlocking the human side of AI. She helps companies adopt generative AI, not as just tech, but as a people-powered transformation engine. Welcome to Using AI at work. I'm your host, Chris Dave. Each week, we'll be learning how today's business owners, entrepreneurs, and ambitious professionals are getting more done with smart use of tomorrow's tech. Let's get started. Right now, every business leader is asking the same question. What are we going to do about AI? If this is you, ChiefAIOfficer.com has the answer. We give you a simple path forward where we provide executive and team training so your people know exactly how to safely use generative AI in their day-to-day. We also manage the deployment and implementation to make sure tools actually get adopted and deliver results. And we'll also guide company-wide transformation so AI becomes part of your operating system, not just another shiny object. The companies that act now will increase productivity, cut costs, and grow faster than their competitors. Those that wait will get left behind. So if you want to make AI work in your business, visit chiefaiofficer.com and see how we're helping companies of all sizes finally get results from AI. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the latest episode of Using AI at Work. And today our guest is Kristen Jin. And Kristen is the founder of Transformate AI Shen. And one of the things that that I'm really excited about discussing in this is that Chris Kristen and I have kind of an affinity when it comes to the approach of AI. We don't necessarily see it exclusively as a technology. We see it more of a tool for transformation for the people in the company. And this kind of plays into this theme that when we're talking to uh executives and and uh clients, they always ask, is it the you know, should the CTO be leading this? And and my position is uh certainly have them involved, but uh this is really more of a a you need a people person to really lead AI adoption with the support obviously of the technical teams and all the other operational teams on that. Um but Kristen, we were just talking about uh you just got off the road uh having some amazing AI conversations and that sort of thing. But take a second and just share with the audience um kind of what you've been up to in the AI space.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for having me, Chris. I'm really excited to be here. Yeah, so my journey with AI actually really started at the end of 2022 when ChatGPT was first released to the world. I've worked in technology pretty much my entire career from small startups to one of the largest companies in the world. So I've seen technology trends come and go, but this one just felt very different right from the beginning. It was technology unlike anything that we had ever seen before. But I also think that a lot of us just didn't realize how much it would change how we live and how we work so quickly. So I started playing around with it and I quickly realized just how much of a game changer it would be for how I work. And it's only been around for like three years, right? Like really from when ChatGPT was first released. But study after study started showing really quickly that if you use AI at work, you can do tasks a lot faster, more efficiently, and a lot of times with higher quality than if you don't use AI. But here's what's really interesting is you would think that these individual productivity gains would also translate at the organizational level. But that's actually not the case. I'm sure that you see that in the world.
SPEAKER_01Or about engineering. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, and so you know what you see is that organizations start rolling out AI, but they don't really focus on the human side. So a lot of times you see that they think of AI as a technology rollout, but they it is just as much about the technology as it is about getting the humans ready. And so I started asking myself like, how can we help organizations with that transformation? And that's exactly why I founded my company, Transform AI Shian, because I believe that AI is a really powerful technology that can really transform how we live and how we work. But I want to help organizations and individuals really unlock their potential. But I believe that even the best technology is not going to really have any impact or give you your return on investment if you don't focus on the humans. So it's really my mission to help these organizations and individuals create these AI-first environments where humans are never second because it's all about human, right? But it's also an environment where AI success is centered on the success of the humans behind it. So that was a long answer, but that was my journey to AI and what brought me here.
SPEAKER_01And you you mentioned something that I don't hear uh out of all the interviews that I've done, I've never heard somebody put it this way. But but let's talk about your position on getting the teams ready for the introduction of AI. Kind of kind of give me um like what that looks like. Like how does a company get their teams and their employees ready for the introduction of generative AI into the roles?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so when you think about regular technology rollouts, a lot of times it's the enablement team who's in charge of it. And they follow a, this is oversimplified, but they follow a pattern of like, okay, we get the tech ready, you know, we have our compliance, we have our privacy and all of that in place. And then once you actually make it available to employees, you may send an email out saying, hey, this is available for you now. You may send some documentation of like, hey, here's how you use it, and you may even do a quick training of like, hey, here's the one-on-one and how you use it, right? But because AI is not really replacing a technology, like, for example, if you are a Google company and you use Gmail and then you move over to Microsoft, one day your employees won't be able to use Gmail anymore. They have to use Outlook, right? With AI, they can still do their work the same way they have always done in their career. But AI is now there to help amplify them. And so it goes from, hey, this is a tech rollout to this is really change management. Yes, you need the technology, but your enablement teams, they have to take a completely different approach because there's this human element. Like, how can you help your employees change the habits and the routines that they have developed over the course of their entire career to really create this AI first mindset? And I think that is where the challenge comes in that a lot of organizations see. And I'm sure that you see that in your work as well. Um, it's not just about the technology. You have to get your humans ready, and then you just have to rethink your entire rollout strategy, pretty much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, earlier in my career, I kind of um had a habit of forcing change rather than I didn't even know what change management meant. And I learned some hard lessons. And since then, um, certainly when it comes to that conversation with employees, because usually when we go in and train companies, it's not just the executive team, it's it's the team leads and some AI enthusiasts and that sort of even skeptics that are in the room. So I I'm very careful about how we position that. One of the first things I I tell them is that, hey, this is your company is investing in your career by having us here, right? It's not like you know, you two go to the back of the room, we don't need you anymore. So um, but uh it it isn't necessarily because we cover a broad spectrum, and I know that you you focus a lot on the change management side. I'm particularly interested in what, like, where do you start? What do you say? What are the challenges you see? Um, how do you address those challenges? How do you just disarm people so that they're not skeptical or nervous about does this mean my job's going away because they they brought in AI?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's a concern that you hear a lot. It's like, oh, AI is coming for my job, but it's really helping you refocus what you do. Instead of focusing on all the tedious work and the stuff that's really draining your energy, AI allows you to hand this off to AI so that you can really focus on the more strategic work and the type of work that actually gives you energy rather than draining it. And the approach that I usually take is you have to look at the entire organization to really activate the humans at every level of the organization. And when I'm in rooms with individuals who are, you know, employees, not necessarily the leaders, and I get these questions like, well, but if I start using it, does it mean my job is going to go away? I usually say, hey, take a look at your work. Like imagine if instead of spending, say, three hours writing a report, what if you can actually spend, say, 10 minutes with AI, get that report 70, 80% to where you need it to be, and then you just finish it up. It's still your work. You just don't spend all of this time and energy on the tedious work of, you know, doing the research, writing it up, staring at a blank page oftentimes. And I think when you phrase it that way, where it's like it's still your work, you still finish it. You're not just using a prompt and then you hand it off, right? Like it it changes the perception a lot. And some of the work that I do, especially with individuals too, is around that mindset shift, um, you know, to help them overcome the barriers of, hey, uh AI is considered cheating, for example. Like I actually hear that a lot. And I think there's research too that, especially women in AI or using AI consider it cheating. Because it seems like, well, it's not my work anymore. Like I'm cheating by using AI. But it's that reframing of like, no, AI is really there to help unlock your potential and help you do things that you actually never thought were possible and to just reclaim your energy too. So those are usually the types of conversations that I start having with both individuals and when I talk to, you know, the CTOs, CIOs, et cetera, is like focus on the human side and then let's figure out how we can activate your entire organization from the leadership to the enablement to the individuals as well.
SPEAKER_01Do you find that I mean, because here's the reality businesses don't have a choice, whether they address change management or not, they will no longer be competitive in the coming months and years if this is not amplifying, augmenting what their people are doing? When you're talking to the executive level, especially those that are leading on the technical side, do you find that that they've already considered this part of AI, the human side, or are they looking at it more like what resistance or what misconceptions perhaps are you hearing from the executives when you kind of introduce this people-first approach?
SPEAKER_00I think a lot of times they go through a process. Like when they first start buying AI tools and rolling it out, they look at it as purely technology. And a lot of times, you know, the executives, like the CTO, CIO, directors of IT, they are enthusiastic about what AI can do because a lot of times they have started using it and they see the potential of it. But then they also assume that everybody else also sees it and has that same perception of AI. But then when they roll it out, they quickly realize hey, we don't really see usage going up the way that we thought it would, you know? And so when I come in and then I say, well, AI is really powerful, but look at your humans. Like look at those habits and routines that they've had. You're really asking them to change all of that. And, you know, it's human nature to avoid change because, you know, there's loss aversion. Like every time that something changes, we as human beings focus more on what we lose rather than what we gain. Like it just feels stronger that, oh, I'm losing my way of doing whatever task I'm working on, instead of, oh, I'm gaining a new way of doing it. Um, similarly, like the fear of the unknown, you know, that's where it comes down to, hey, I don't know what AI needs. Like it's coming for my job. Like a lot of that just goes back to the fear of the unknown. And when I start having these conversations, and you know, I tell the executives, like, you have the technology, but you really have to get your humans ready, like get your people to realize what is possible with AI, but also making the connection at a more personal level with the technology. That's usually the aha moment where they start to realize, okay, yes, it's about the humans and the change, and it's really change in management rather than, hey, here's a new tool, go using it.
SPEAKER_01So I I guess like in a traditional tech rollout, the adoption level is 100%, you know, pretty quickly or significant pretty quickly because they don't have a choice. There's no like, I'm gonna do things the old way, I'm still gonna use Gmail instead of Outlook, right? But with this, even with the introduction of tools, if they're still doing their same job, are you finding that like the adoption levels? Obviously, it's not gonna be as um severe with well, you can't even log into that platform anymore as compared to you can still do your job, but we taught you how to use the tools, we taught you prompting frameworks, we taught you how to build custom GPTs or whatever. What are you seeing as far as uh adoption rates in the companies that you're working with? Or are you are you involved in measuring that?
SPEAKER_00I don't necessarily measure it directly through the work that I do, but just feedback that we get after. Like, you know, we have some uh programs that we roll out and you know, we hear afterwards, like, oh yeah, like people actually start using it because they start to realize just how much they can do with AI and how they can really win back their energy as well. So, for example, yes, you have to do a training of like, you know, prompting best practices, et cetera. Like if you don't use AI the correct way, like if your prompt isn't good, your output isn't gonna be good either. And a lot of times when you have people who start using AI, they may try it, but their prompt might not be great. And so a lot of times the thought that manifests in their minds is, oh, AI just doesn't get it. Like I tried it, it didn't work, it's not worth my time. And so yes, you do absolutely need to have these like prompting 101 sessions. And that's one thing that I usually start out with as well. It's like, let's get everybody in a room and just do this prompting 101. But the way I do it is even though I work in work environments, the examples I use are actually more everyday life scenarios because I want people to be able to make that personal connection with AI so that they actually feel a sense of joy and excitement about it. Yes, you can get that too when you see that you know, you don't have to work on a report for three hours. You can get that in 10. But if you make these connections at a more personal level, you get more excitement out of the people. And that will actually get them to want to use AI as well. So there's a lot of that type of work that you need to do. But what I also tell enablement teams is, you know, when you do these trainings of like, hey, here are some use cases. If you have people from all over your company sitting in a meeting like that, and for example, you show a prompt or a use case that is specific for, say, marketing. But if you have engineers or finance or legal uh people in the room as well, they just won't make that connection. Like, yeah, if they try really hard, they may see, oh, okay, this prompted this. I think this translates to the work that I do. But if you can show them like use cases that are specific to the work that they do in their department, that just creates this more relatable um idea of what AI might be able to do for them as well. So it's like, yes, you need the basics of prompting, but you also need to really show them and say, hey, for you specifically, this is what AI can do. And like these scenarios of how you can use it in your specific department, that is usually key as well, just to help them understand, hey, I should actually try to use it.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's interesting that you bring up the uh not necessarily using exclusively business specific examples when you're teaching this stuff. Our chief AI officer does that regularly, and I'm I'm much more of a data-driven kind of guy. And he'll talk about you know how he uses it to create stories for his children and stuff like that. And I'm kind of like nudging them and like, dude, they don't want to know about this stuff. But what what you're telling me is that that that's actually um a tactic that helps people make the bridge between um this tool and oh, now I get it, I can use it for all kinds of things. So uh good job, Adam, our chief AI officer.
SPEAKER_00Yes, good job. Yeah, I mean, when you think about it, there are so many tools available that anyone can use, right? For free. You don't even have to pay for it. Like ChatGPT, Copilot, you know, Claude, all of these tools are available. So AI doesn't just have to live in your work environment because your company just happens to give you access to it, right? So if you make these more personal connections with AI, your people may start using it outside of work as well. And that helps them, for what, get better at it because they will start playing around with prompts, et cetera, and create, you know, this sense of, oh, I should take a moment before I start a task and ask myself, can AI help me with that? Most of the time they will realize, yes, it can help you get 70, 80% there. And so that's why I feel like even though you are in a work environment, if you can make these personal connections, they will start using AI and really help it helps them adopt that AI mindset of like, hey, let me pause. Can AI help me with this? Yes, I can. Let me try it out.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, I I use this saying a lot, repetition is the mother of skills. So I'm always encouraging people, you know, as they're working with the tools, they every time you do it, you learn so, oh, I shouldn't say that. Well, you remember that, you carry that into the next time you're prompting, right? Exactly. How do you um how would you recommend listeners, if they want their team to start to use it more regularly in the business environment? What what are some approaches that they could use to encourage their people? Hey, practice at home, practice on the phone when you're in line at the bank or whatever. Do you do you have some tools or some games, maybe even that you tell them to do to get them to start using it outside of work?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. So part of the work that I do with companies and individuals is I help them create habits around using AI. And I actually have some resources too that can be used as team activities, but that are actually really fun to do as an individual outside of work as well. Um, let me touch on the habits first.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because we have done things without AI our entire lives, it's really difficult to break the habits and start new routines. So when I work with individuals or I do these workshops with, you know, entire groups, I usually tell them there are kind of four things that they should start doing just to get themselves into this AI mindset. The first one is make a commitment to start using AI at least once a day. It doesn't have to be anything super complicated. It can be, hey, every morning I just ask AI, hey, summarize the news for me, or what's the weather today? Like something that is super easy, doesn't take a lot of time, just start using it and make a commitment to use it once a day. That over time is going to help you create this habit and is actually going to bring AI to the top of your mind as you go throughout your day. The second piece that I tell them is create routines and be very intentional with how you use AI. So, for example, at the more personal level, use AI, say every Monday morning to really set your intentions for the week. Like if you have a really busy week coming up with a ton of deadlines or really intense meetings, go to AI and say, hey, how can I make sure that I stay on track? How can I decompress after work? You know, that type of work. And then do the exact opposite at the end of the week. So every Friday, be intentional about how you use AI. For example, reflect on your week or hey, my week was amazing. I had a ton of wins. Give me a few ideas of how I can actually celebrate myself throughout the weekend in like small steps. So like these are two ways how you can create daily habits and also like practice being intentional around using AI. And the other two are more like uh helping you track your progress with AI. When you first get started, you will realize oh, I use it for very basic tasks. And you know, when you first get started, you may get frustrated sometimes. Like AI might just not give you the output you want. So when you think of like star ratings, you may give your experience like a three star, maybe a two star. But if you actually journal your AI experiences, it doesn't have to be every day, but say once a week, you kind of sit down and you say, What are the use cases I use AI for in my personal life or at work? Write that down and then give it a star rating. If you look at that journal over time, you will realize two things. One is you started out with very basic tasks, but over time, those tasks have become more complex. So it's showing you, hey, I'm evolving, I'm transforming with AI. And the second piece is you may see that at the beginning, most of your tasks are maybe three stars, two stars, maybe you have a random five star, but it kind of hovers around the, yeah, I don't really know what to do. But over time, you will see that you get more four and five stars. So that tells you, oh, I'm getting better at it. I get more out of it. And so like it sounds weird, right? I like it, yeah. But you journal about it. It's just a visual that tells you, hey, this is a transformation I'm on, and I'm getting better at it. Um, and the the last part, the fourth part, is create a library of prompts. Like, you know, you have to be very intentional with how you prompt and how you use it, but especially for tasks that you do on a regular basis, save your prompt. It can be in an Excel sheet, it can be in your notes app, it doesn't matter, like whatever works for you. But create a library so that you don't have to start from scratch with your prompt. If you had one that worked really well, save it. So next time you do the task, all you have to do is copy and paste it and maybe change a few elements, et cetera. So it's that type of work that really like helps the people just break the habits of how they've done things and start getting into that mindset, both in their personal life and at work. And that's a lot of the work that I do, especially when I work with individuals as well.
SPEAKER_01I think those are fantastic suggestions for anybody who's listening who's not necessarily a power user, or if your team adoption and usage hasn't really caught on the way that you'd like it to, introducing this kind of stuff makes it there, those are fun activities, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And like especially in a work environment, too, if you have these, I call them champions, those are the users who are really excited about AI. They can't wait to try it out and they play around with it all the time. If they're the ones actually like doing the journaling, creating these libraries, they can then pass the library on to their teammates and say, Hey, I know that you work on something similar, go and use that. That worked for me. So they take the hard work away from the people who haven't really started exploring it as much, and they can start off with a really successful prompt. Because if if you know the people who aren't that into AI yet start using it, they may just get frustrated because their prompt might not be good, etc. But if that champion can enable them with a prompt that they know works, it creates a much better experience. And a lot of times you will see that the users go, whoa, I didn't know this was possible. You know, and that makes them want to try it out again. So, you know, it's activating those champions as well.
SPEAKER_01So we do something similar. We we encourage the setting up of a council which includes the department head, and we always encourage a couple of AI enthusiasts. And one of the things that we like to do is at the beginning of those meetings, everybody shares wins so that somebody in another department can go, oh, that's a good idea. We can use that. But one of the things that that I really want to encourage is, okay, meetings over, we go back to our job. How do you encourage that kind of organic, like, oh, I see you doing it this way, let me go stand over your shoulder and say, hey, have you tried this? Do you have any like formal efforts that you you encourage companies to do to make sure that somebody's coworker sitting in the cubicle next to them or the desk across the way, like people know? Oh, I can go ask Chris, uh, hey, I'm having some trouble. Like, are do you have anything formal or or any suggestions on how we can introduce more organic culture shift?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's actually part of the work that I do through my Transform AICEN framework as well. So earlier I talked about how you have to activate your entire organization. And what I mean by that is you have to activate your leaders so they can lead from the top down and really make AI visible and a priority. You have to work with the enablement teams or IT, depending on your organization, to inspire that AI transformation from within. But then you also have the bottom. And when I say bottom, I mean the users who are actually using AI, and they have to build the transformation from the bottom up. So it's like, you know, top down from the middle and from the bottom up. And the way that you can do this is, like you said, like have these meetings and share wins. A lot of times I, you know, suggest to companies like use the champions to really start off every team meeting with a win. And if they have a win, also communicate how others might be able to use it. You can then communicate these wins up to the enablement team. They can then figure out, hey, this is a win for, say, again, marketing, but there's a connection to finance as well. So they can make a few tweaks and then reach out to the champion in finance and say, hey, here's a really good idea of how you can use it. And enablement team uh teams are also able to then take these wins, communicate them up to the leadership level. And the way I try to activate all the levels of an organization is by building from the bottom up. So really trying out new things with AI, communicating it, and that's primarily the champions. But then from leading from the top down, that is where leaders have a pretty good obligation as well to really lead the AI transformation by making AI visible and really sharing how, for example, they are using AI. Okay. Like because change is so hard, right? Um people try to avoid it. Like if they don't have to, like you said, you know, they're not being forced to use AI. They can still do it the old way. But if they suddenly see their leaders communicating, hey, I, for example, if there's a town hall, I actually use AI to help me with the agenda for this. It's small sound bites like that that make AI visible and that tell the story of this is important. My leaders are using it. I should start using it as well. So it's like, you know, connecting all of these different layers in the ways that are relevant to each layer in particular.
SPEAKER_01You know, that's interesting because one of the stats we used to, we used to do like a weekly free training for business professionals so they could come and kind of understand AI. And one of the stats that I used to share was like why this was important. It was a very high number. I think it might have been like in the 70s or 80%, but it was essentially 70% of executives are concerned about AI's impact on their role. And I used to position that like if these people who are thinking that they're thinking long-term about the business, right? They're trying to look around corners on impact. If they're worried about it uh impacting their business, like maybe you should pay attention, right? So how have you seen when the leader, the the CEO or the department head or whatever says, hey, I'm using it, are you seeing like that that gets people to go either say, Oh, I better use it, or oh, that's interesting. If he's using it or she's using it, I probably should too.
SPEAKER_00That's usually what we see. Like one of the tactics that we also recommend is if you have leaders using it, or if a leader hears about a win from a team, um if they can share those wins broadly, or even share a prompt. Like, you know, if there's like a leader prompt of the week or a leader prompt of the month, that is sending a really powerful message, especially to those who might be a little bit more hesitant to start using AI. So the leadership level is really important. And you have to, you know, sometimes you have to convince the leaders that, hey, you should actually start using AI as well. Like sometimes, you know, I have conversations about that and it's kind of chicken and egg a little bit. Like leaders see that yes, we do need AI, like that's the future of how work gets done. But they want to see return on investment and impact before they actually start communicating it. But then if they don't communicate it, they won't necessarily see that impact, right? Because people may not use it as much. So it's a little chicken and egg. But when you position it that way, a lot of times I see that light bulb moment too. It's like, oh yeah, I should at least do the bare minimum to communicate why my employees should start using it. And then it's almost like a snowball effect. Like as they start using it, like I have an entire resource that has a hundred different prompts for leaders across like 10 different areas and ways for them to just communicate it as well. And they don't have to sit there and say, I used this prompt to do this, and here's how it worked. It's just small things like you know, generated with the help of AI, you know, add that to a town hall transcript or something like that that just makes it visible. And that's usually one of the most powerful like tactic that you can use, and just you know, small visibility hacks that can have a big impact.
SPEAKER_01So for the listeners, if if you are an executive and you're like, I'm not really using it, but I want my people to use it. A great tip from Kristen just now was it doesn't have to be something you did. It's just you uh, you know, celebrating how it's being used in the company from customer service to any department, right? I think that's a a a hack for those of you listening who aren't necessarily power users yet, but you want to start to uh increase the visibility of its usage in the company. Now um kind of a pivot a little bit, but not really. There was the MIT study, I think it was MIT that came out uh a couple of weeks ago at this point about um basically saying, oh, AI's not really having an impact on businesses. Now, I use it, you use it, we work with people who use it. To say that to me is that's foolishness, right? Like we know like just what it's doing in my own, your own personal life or your work life, like it's having a big impact. I don't know if you really like dissected the report or anything like that, but I'm sure that that ROI question is coming up because executives and and decision makers and businesses on whether or not we're gonna use AI, they're seeing these things out there in the marketplace and they're going, is it all hype? So what's your take on when when that kind of report comes out? Because I just don't believe it.
SPEAKER_00I don't believe it either, but I think you see that. Well, I feel like you see two things. Sometimes you see studies that show, oh, if an organization uses AI effectively, they have, I think, the status 2.4 times uh the productivity compared to organizations who don't use AI. So there's the stat that shows you, hey, if you use it, you are better off than your competitors. But then you have the studies that say, well, there isn't really impact, right? And I think it just focuses on two different things. The first one is as an organization, are your people ready? Like it all comes back to the people. If your people aren't ready, yes, you won't see an impact. Because if you have other technology, like you swap out one software for another, you may be immediately able to say, hey, by switching this, we saw sales increase by 10%, right? It's these like tangible numbers that you can tie back to a specific uh technology. But with AI, yes, there is the productivity gains, efficiency gains, et cetera. But I think a big part that just can't be measured in the traditional sense is how does it change how your people work? Like work-life balance, like energy drains, and all of that. Like all of that also goes away when you start using AI. Like the other day, you know, I had to create a report. And without AI, it used to take me like, you know, two or three days just to gather all of the information, figure out how I want to structure it, et cetera. But I was able to use AI and say, hey, look at all of these team meetings, look at these research findings, look at this, you know, stat from you know a quarter ago, create a report that tells ABC's story, and it drafted something for me within a few seconds that was pretty much 70% there. But how do you communicate that up to the leadership, right? It didn't impact revenue, it didn't really impact any quarterly numbers, but it impacted my work. And I'm now able to spend time actually doing things rather than you know spending two days working on this report. So I think these studies that show that hey, there isn't really any impact, they just don't consider that part, like the change in the type of work that your employees are focusing on. That that's just my take on that, because I'm like you, it's like I don't believe it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I and ultimately, like, can that that day that you saved, does that relate to does it hit the bottom line where they can attribute, oh, we've got an increase because Kristen didn't spend that money? They they can't. But when that's happening across every role or every department at least, and they're all doing two and a half times more productive, whatever the number was, like, does that would you rather not have that? I mean, like, as a business owner, I uh heck yeah. Of course, maybe I can't directly attribute one activity, one prompt to an increase in ROI. But as a culture, my business is now doing more with less resource time being the main resource there. Does that impact my bottom line? 100%, right? Like there's I can do more with less less need for more headcount or whatever the thing might be.
SPEAKER_00So um Yeah, it's a culture shift, right? Like it makes your yeast happier because they don't do the tasks that are draining their energy, but it's not a number, like it's not tied back to revenue increases or you know, whatever it is that your business focuses on, but it it it's just really hard to measure because it's not quite as you know qualitative, it's more a quantitative.
SPEAKER_01More sales came in because of this new software, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. But you know, the culture and like the way your people feel at work, it's just as important as the numbers because if your people aren't happy at work, you know, they will leave or you know they aren't motivated to do the work, right? So there is that benefit, it's just not not something you can tie to a number, pretty much.
SPEAKER_01You know, and what's interesting, you talk about people leaving, the B and C players, they're probably not gonna believe. It's the A players who will leave because two things. One, they recognize the value that this is gonna have on their own economic viability and their own career. So they want this stuff. And if there's a competitor that is providing training or is very like encouraging of AI usage and that sort of thing, and it's known, it's part of their culture, those A players start looking around and going, my company's not giving me this. I need this, I want this. I don't want to do the spreadsheet or whatever. I'm gonna look around. So, for those listening, you know, maybe you don't need the the B and C players around as much as your A players, but they're gonna be the ones that stick around and keep doing things the old way. That's why they're B and C players. One of the things that we're doing, Kristen, that I find um is starting to help is we've created uh a little widget. And anytime an employee does something with AI, we have them just in natural language, like in a bot environment, just say, Oh, I just use AI uh, you know, to do this, it would have saved it would have cost me 30 minutes, now it only takes me two minutes. And it starts to track those things so that maybe it's all anecdotal when they hear it at the water cooler, but if if they can look in a department and they can go, wow, there's 52 uses that one person did in a week and aggregated that 15 minutes here, the five minutes there, the hour there. Wow, they just added another eight and a half hours of bandwidth to their. So that's that's one of the things that we're again. Can they attribute that to the bottom line? No, but they're starting to see that 15 minutes matters because they did it. You know, that was something they did every hour on the hour. Wow, that's the equivalent of a whole full-time employee's bandwidth that we just say from something as simple as a prompt that Kristen gave us. So um I'll keep you posted on on how uh enthusiastic the leadership is about getting those reports.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I definitely do, because you just have to make it visible, right? Like they don't see it, like they don't see what's happening at the front lines or you know how people are working. But if all of these wins are actually communicated up and like, you know, tracking it like that, like that's a really great way. Same like you know, the journal idea. Like give you ratings. Like, how did you use AI? How would you rate it? And then, like, what's the benefit? And how did you feel about it too? Like, were you frustrated or were you surprised? Were you excited about it? Like, all of that just adds up to the culture that you're trying to create. And like you will see that when you start building these like AI first environments, it actually helps the success of the humans too. But it's just not a number, like it all comes back to, you know, it's not a number, but it helps your employees, they're happier, and leadership is starting to see that too. So I love that you have the new widget as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm I'm I'm excited to see like, because even if if if I go to a training and I learn some stuff and I'm like, oh, you know what? I'm gonna create the habit, I'm gonna use it daily. You start getting those wins and you kind of take them for granted, right? As a user, right? You're not really thinking about it, just becomes uh, as Ethan Mollett calls it, you know you become that cyborg, right? You're like seamlessly using it throughout the day. And unless you're documenting it somehow, you're not gonna see that, just like with your kids, you you see them every day, you don't realize, wow, they grew three inches last month or whatever. You're not gonna notice it because you're in it unless you're documenting it. So I think that's a fantastic practice. And the journal, you know, in the absence of any widget or anything like that, having people document stuff, knowing that they're gonna be sharing that in a weekly wins session or whatever, at least creates that that new behavior of, oh, you know what, let me let me write that down. They may not catch everything, but I think everybody from the executive sponsors all the way down to the actual users themselves would be surprised with, oh my gosh, that was four hours I saved just off that one activity this week. And I do that activity every week, oh, run the numbers, right? Like maybe that means I'm not working late on Fridays or bringing work home with me, and I'm because I'm I'm doing things smarter.
SPEAKER_00Um, exactly. And like to your point too, you know, if you have these like review cycles, you know, some companies do it once a year, some do it twice a year, you know, sometimes even quarterly. But if you can actually add a line item of like, how do you use AI, or like give me an idea of you know, use cases for how you have used AI, that is going to not only help the individual like get that uh I don't want to call it a mandate, but this direction, hey, we want you to start using the AI tool that you have, is also going to help with the reporting up because all of a sudden your manager and you know that person's manager are able to see all of the things that are being done with AI and also the perceptions like, hey, it like you said, it helped save me 30 minutes here. It helped, you know, get something done in a day rather than an entire week. And all of that creates more wins that can be communicated up the chain as well. So yeah, absolutely. Like keeping track of it and really communicating it both up and down is really important.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, one of the things, especially with new users, that's paradox of choice. If I can use it everywhere, where do I start? What do you let's talk about two things? How you suggest people identify uh places where they can use it. And I know that the tedious task and stuff, but some people like a lot of their job may they may say, oh, that's tedious or whatever. So it's a two-parter. How do we do that? Um, well, actually, let's just let's just start there. How do you advise at all levels people start to identify some initial like beach heads for AI and their day-to-day roles?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so part of the workshops that I teach is the what I call the four AI mindsets. And those are mindsets that I develop to really help people, you know, pause for a moment and see can AI help me with that? When you just say, hey, AI can help you with that, a lot of times people don't know where to start, right? If they're not that familiar with it, they need that inspiration of what they can do with it. So I developed four mindsets that will try and that aim to answer that question. And like the four mindsets are for one, the assistant. Like, is there a task where you can use AI to do it faster? So instead of staring at a blank page, the assistant can help you get a draft done or whatever it is that you're trying to do. There's the explorer mindset. Like, if you're trying to ideate, brainstorm, think of different ways you can do it, if you put on the explorer mindset, you can use AI to think in different directions and discover new things. Third one is the editor mindset. If you have something that you created, that can be something in writing, it can be a report, it can be an image, whatever it is, the editor mindset can help you make that better. So you're basically taking what you have and you edit it. And the last one is the coaching mindset. If you're trying to learn something new, grow professionally or personally, you can turn to AI to help you grow. And so by just walking through these four mindsets and actually sharing some examples, like you know, with the assistant, you can draft something. If you have a really rough idea that isn't Polished yet, the assistant can help you expand it or like, you know, turn your 10 bullet points into a one pager, for example. So using these four AI mindsets has been really powerful when I work with individuals. Um, because a lot of times they have that, you know, blank page central. It's like, well, I'm looking at AI, I don't even know what it can do. And so that's usually an eye-opener. And so when they walk away from these workshops, they actually have these four mindsets top of mind, and they can then, you know, pause and say, Can the assistant help me with this? Can the editor help me with that? So that's usually a really good way for them to reframe the big question, can AI help me with that? But if you narrow it down to can the editor help me? Can the coach help me? It gives them a little bit more direction of like how to look at the task at hand.
SPEAKER_01So do people leave your workshops? Do they leave with like a handout or a guide that helps them remember all these things? Because they're all fan, like these are great.
SPEAKER_00But at the end, they're also sheet sheets. So, you know, they don't have to read through the entire ebook every time, but it has the hey, here are the four mindsets, or like, you know, prompting best practices, et cetera. It's an entire e-book that they receive after we completed the workshop.
SPEAKER_01Nice. So for those listening that end up going to that worksheet or going to that workshop with Kristen, print those out, right? Like keep them to where one of the ideas that Kristen talked about was, you know, set reminders. I tell people like, get a sticky note and just put it on your computer. It's like, can AI help me with this? Right. What she's doing is a lot more sophisticated than the sticky note, obviously. But that concept, yeah, that concept I think of just something that would cause you to pause and reflect. Can I be using AI right now to help me with this? I think that's a great place. Um, are there any particular uh departments that you see uh just the the avatar that's typically in those departments tends to be faster adopters or they recognize uh usage of it in a lot more areas than maybe other departments?
SPEAKER_00I think generally the departments where you see the most like fast adoption is those that either have repetitive tasks or that have a lot of writing tasks. Like marketing is a really good example. Like once you get into the habit of like using AI to help you draft copy for social posts, for example, like that's usually one of the easy wins because it's not a big report that you're asking AI to do where you have to be really sophisticated with your prompt. Your prompt still has to be good, but like it's a lot faster for you to you know get an output that's like, I don't know, 120 characters, you know, than it is to create a like five-page report. So marketing is usually one. HR is another one where I see a lot of success um with AI adopters because a lot of times HR has to answer the same questions over and over again. They have to create FAQ documents, onboarding documents, right? So for them, it's about finding all of these different places with information and then putting it all together. If they can start using AI for that, they quickly realize hey, instead of me looking through like 20 different folders and looking at 50 different documents to create an FAQ, you can just tell the AI, hey, look at this and create an FAQ. Or look through my emails. Like this is when you have an AI tool at work that looks across all the different apps you're using. But you can say, hey, look at all the questions I got over the last three months. Love it. What are the top 10 questions? And you can create an FAQ out of that, right? So I think between marketing and HR, those are usually the best ones. Sales, I would say, is a really close third because when you are in a conversation with your customer or a prospect, the last thing you want to say is, uh, let me get back to you, right? Right. But you want to provide them the answers right then and there. And if you have your AI assistant there that has access to all of the information about the account, product roadmap, whatever it is that you're talking about, if your customer has a question, you can just quickly ask, say, hey, give me just one second, one prompt, and get the answer back. And you can respond back to the customer rather than you know having this really long follow-up email at the end. Same for you know, drafting proposals, drafting follow-ups and all of that. Like if you have meeting heavy days, use AI. You know, get the top 10 things you discussed in a meeting, get the action items, et cetera. So instead of you either taking notes during the meeting and missing half of what was being talked about, or spending an hour going through it again, you know, taking notes, let AI do that. So I think those are probably the three biggest apartments where you see the you know most immediate use cases.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, love it.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if you see the same, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I there's so many more questions I've got. This has been a fascinating conversation. Um, and I know that hopefully the as as a listener, you're starting to say, okay, I recognize, yeah, there's there's the magic side of AI and that sort of thing, but how do I get my people engaged with it? I think that um with Kristen's approach, there's a lot of tactical things, there's a lot of frameworks and concepts that we've discussed that uh I would encourage you to start testing with. So for those listeners, Kristen, who want to uh learn more, because I know you provide a lot of resources on your website, you're very generous with the sharing of your knowledge and that um what would be the best place for people to kind of plug into uh what you're learning and and the the the way that you suggest they keep people first in the AI space?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um you can go to our website, which is transformaishin.com. That's transformation spelled without any vowels except for the AI. So transformation.
SPEAKER_01Let's put a link in the show notes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.com. And like if you're an individual who's just looking to either get started with AI or you know you're using AI, but there's so many more ways that you not even are that you aren't even thinking of, there's an entire section called AI for humans. And those are the workshops, the resources to help you get better at prompting, et cetera. And if you're an organization who has invested in AI, but you know that you know you're just not seeing the return on investment yet because your humans aren't ready, there's an ebook that walks you through the entire Transform AICHAN framework of how you can activate your entire organization. And there's also an assessment where you can get your Transform Aician score that is really helping you gauge where your AI transformation is doing really well and where there are gaps that are preventing you from really seeing that potential of your AI transformation. So, yeah, go to the website.
SPEAKER_01Nice. We'll put all that in the links to that in the show notes for sure. But again, I just want to remind the listeners like the tool itself, fantastic, amazing, if you know how to use it, if you can create those new habits. So this part of it, the the behavior change that we've talked about today, I think is something that you cannot overlook if you want to just because you have licenses to Microsoft's Copilot or you have licenses to GPT business or whatever, doesn't guarantee that you're gonna stay like competitive in the marketplace. It it boils down to your people actually them being able to self-serve with this stuff and go, oh, you know what? Let me just hold on. I'll have that report to you in two minutes rather than can I get it to you next week? Those are amazing things. So, Kristen, thank you so much for taking time. I know how busy your schedule is and um with all the travel that you're doing, teaching people about AI and all that stuff. So I really appreciate you being here. I had a uh I learned a lot, and I'm looking forward to getting the show notes myself so that we can uh start to think about how we start to, I don't know, position this not only within our own company, but help our clients uh understand things through the lens that you shared with us today. So thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01Thanks everybody. We'll see you on the next episode. In the meantime, uh, go use AI. Thanks for tuning in to using AI at work. Don't forget to subscribe for more conversations about how to use AI at work. And a special thank you to our sponsor, Chief AI Officer, for empowering businesses, AI Education Training. Visit their website for free AI readiness assessment and AI strategy guide to help you get started using AI at work. That's www.chiefaiofficer.com. Follow us on Twitter at the handle UsingAI at Work. And visit www.usingai at work.com for free resources to help you harness AI in your role.