Episode 5: How Consultants can use AI, with Greg Taylor

How could you use AI to make life as a consultant or freelancer easier?

In this episode, hosts Melanie Loy and Fady Ramzy welcome Greg Taylor, a change management expert from Salesforce. Greg shares his unique career journey from a Hercules pilot to a leader in AI-driven workforce transformation. 

The discussion delves into the evolving role of AI in consulting, emphasizing the importance of building confidence and ethical awareness in AI usage. Greg highlights the potential of agentic AI to automate tasks and enhance productivity, while cautioning against over-reliance on AI outputs without human validation. 

The conversation concludes with practical tips for consultants starting their AI journey, underscoring the value of curiosity, learning from others, and maintaining a learner's mindset.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn here.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
• 00:00:00 Greg Taylor's Career Journey
• 00:00:00 AI in Consulting: Confidence and Ethics
• 00:00:00 Agentic AI and Productivity
• 00:00:00 Practical Tips for AI Adoption

Connect with us on LinkedIn!

• Fady Ramzy
• Mel Loy

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Transcript

0:06

Welcome back everybody, to another episode of Reinventors Consulting Conversations Over Coffee. I'm Mel Loy. And I'm Fady Ramzy. And today, Fady and I are welcoming a guest who is going to talk to us about all things ai. But before we get to that quick refresher on who we are, Fady, take it away. Tell the people who are you. I'm a personal branding strategist and consultant, and I coach executives with their narrative and storytelling. How about you? Who are you? Who am I? That is a very deep question for this time of day. I am an agency owner and I'm also a person who likes to make up songs for my cats. So that's me. So that aside, you know, one thing that really helps with making up songs for your cat ai. Oh, oh, what a segue. What a segue. Interesting entry for today. So today we are talking to. Greg Taylor, who, uh, as you'll hear has had an interesting career path. I won't steal his thunder, but he currently works in a, at the forefront of AI really with Salesforce, and he's made it his mission for people to adopt change with confidence. He's worked as an independent consultant and an internal specialist across a wide range of industries leading and advising on change and workforce transformation. And as you'll hear from this episode, he just has so much insight. To share with us. It was a great conversation. So without further ado, I guess let's introduce Greg, shall we? Let's do it. Greg Taylor, welcome to reinventors. Nice to be here. Thanks, Mel. Oh, thanks for coming on the podcast and, uh, Fady and I were very excited to talk to you about all things ai. Uh, I've literally just done a little bit of research into. AI use this year around the workplace. And you know, there, while it seems to be a lot of companies are still in that kind of experimentation phase, more and more are getting closer to scaling. Uh, more than half of people are using an AI tool every day in their workplace now. So it's certainly come a long way. But before we get into that, tell us a bit about you. What do you do? How did you get there? Yes, uh, so. I currently, um, look after the human centered change practice for the APAC region in Salesforce, based in Sydney, in the wonderful Sydney Tower and circular key. And, um, I came here from a very interesting path. I started my career as a, a Hercules pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force, and, uh, flew. Aircraft for 18 years and then decided I needed a change and, uh, became a change professional. So as corny as that sounds, that's kind of how it worked. Um, but I think in my current role, not only do we get to help, um, customers who are navigating very challenging transformation paths, but now weaving in the whole topic of AI on top of that and what that means for workforce transformation. So it's a very exciting time. To be a change consultant and working very closely at the coalface with, with, uh, people who are, who are up against these challenges. That's quite interesting, Greg, that that's impressive. That's the real change. So it's like a living example that, that you mentioned. But having, having said that, 'cause AI is all about not only change, but it's like total transformation. How would you define today with your clients? What is AI and what's not? Yes, yes. Very, very interesting. So, I guess the first thing I would say about that is what we're finding, or certainly what I'm finding in my conversations with customers, uh, or people that are on their, um, on their AI journey at the moment, they're not quite ready for that transformation discussion. Mm-hmm. Currently, it's more a question of confidence. What are the things that we should be thinking about? Um, what are the things that, uh, that we could potentially benefit from? How do we engage the workforce effectively knowing that there's a lot of fear about ai? So I think for me, what is AI currently? AI is a confidence challenge, and if you look at the technology itself, um, you know, AI has been under development since the fifties. It's not a new thing, but it's. Come to a new level of consciousness with the launch of assistive or generative AI in chat GPT. And I think most people, if you ask them, most people would associate the term AI with, uh, generative ai. So chat, GPT and, and the like. And of course it, it's a lot more than that and it's also not a magic piece of magic. Um, and so I think there's a lot for us to learn and a lot for us to do to help people properly understand what it means in a business context. You, you made us laugh, me and Mel, as soon as you said, it's not like the magical wand as every, everyone thinks. Yeah. It's not magic. And I, I totally agree. AI has been there for quite long. I used to work with AI in 2009, but the gen ai hype starting, uh, late 2022 is what everyone is just like trying to understand whether it's a magical wand or not. And as, as you said, it's, it's a matter of confidence. I a hundred percent agree to that. Mel, what do you think? Yeah, I totally agree. I think, um, there are people who are very excited about it and think it's. S you know, the bee's knees, it's gonna be the most amazing thing. And then like any change really, there's others who are just, they don't wanna know head in the sand. I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing till somebody tells me not to do that. Uh, which is not a good place to be when this stuff is moving so quickly. And as you say, Greg, it's, it's more than the capability. We can train anybody to use a tool. It's the confidence to use it and to use it ethically. I think, you know, it, we had to do. When I say we like governments and, and regulatory bodies had to do a lot of catch up because it moved so quickly on the ethical side of things, there was a lot of, they're still catching up really with legislation and uh, you know, we saw some cases just in the last couple of months of lawyers in Australia using ai, uh, got found out pretty badly. Uh. Deloitte's the same. They've been, uh, sprung a couple of times. So I, yeah. I really like how you said it's, it's a confidence thing, but I think it's also that Yeah, the ethical awareness around it. Are you seeing a bit of that sort of challenge, I guess, of what's right, what's wrong, what's, what's acceptable use, what's not? Yeah, I think so. Um, I think. Um, there's a couple of layers to the, so responsible and ethical use. Like what, what does it mean to use AI in a responsible way? Knowing the kind of information that you're sharing with the AI and how the AI is treating that and dealing with that information. And, um, that's a bit of a black box for most people. Uh, so it is. Um, the confidence aspect comes into, I'm just not sure what's happening when I share my information on the other side, there are people that are quite willingly sharing their information with their ai. In fact, they, they've given their AI agenda and they, you know, they might call it him or her or, and they've given their AI a name and they say, my, my chat knows me, and, um, responds to me and they share everything because it doesn't offer judgment. So I think there's very different. Um, um, uh, people have very different relationships with, with ai and I think we have to recognize that in on organizations that people are coming from very different places, um, through their personal experience as well as their organizational experience. So yes, ethical and responsible use of the information we put in is such a big piece of confidence. Yeah, for sure. And, and that, that's, that's like on on two sides. Many people just share whatever, and I like that you mentioned this. AI is my friend, you know, it's just like my buddy where I share every, everything other, other side. People are skeptical about their data. They're afraid of their data. Having said that, what are the common fears that, that you see with, with consultants fear of using ai? Is there like specific trends or common common factors that you see? Well, I think the number one thing would be, uh, particularly as a consultant being very, um. Uh, deliberate in making sure that you are using AI in a way that your customer or the person that you're doing the work with, uh, to make sure it's aligned with their principles. Um, some organizations have very well defined policies and principles around the use of ai. Some haven't even grappled with that yet. So I think it's very important as a consultant, firstly to understand where's your customer at, and then personally. Where are you at? Um, some consultants, there's a lot of talk about there're not needing to be a role for a consultant because you just use ai. And so I think consultants are still redefining what is the human value that I bring to the work that I do, and how can I legitimately and effectively incorporate AI into my work and disclose that with the customer to show them that I'm actually bringing an additional layer of value to the work. Um. Faster synthesis of information, um, higher quality of outputs, but the human element and the human skills that we might bring to the work that we do as a consultant. Uh, we're still trying to define that, I think, and be confident that that's actually value in the relationship. Yeah, and es especially when you're up against certain organizations or people who think, oh, we don't need. The comms person anymore because we can just get everything written by AI or, you know, we don't need that PR agency. We can write our own media releases and, and forgetting of course, that behind all of this are those relationships that actually get the information and, and, you know, make things happen. But on that, how are you seeing consultants use ai? What are some typical use cases? I think, um, so most of the use cases are associated with generative. Ai. Um, although I have seen some consultants certainly creating more agentic or agent driven, uh, assistance to help them with their work, which is, it's still emerging, but it's also very interesting. Um, so definitely where the value is is in the synthesis of large amounts of information around the theme that might. Be related to the customer challenge that they're trying to deal with. Um, you know, typically, or traditionally, if we didn't have tools like ai, we would gather an immense amount of information and then we would need to allocate time to go through all of that, synthesize it. And of course, that time period itself means that information is eroding in our minds. Can't remember where all of that stuff was. The value of the AI in being able to. Uh, synthesize, collect, draw patterns to you for you to interact with that content as a consultant. Oh, tell me, what was the theme that emerged in this conversation with such and such? I remember a bit about it, but I can't quite remember the details. So I think that's, that's where is immense value. And then in providing high quality outputs, you know, I might have an idea and a concept, I might do a bit of a draft. But then allowing me to change the tone and style, um, synthesize in a more coherent way, take my ideas and actually articulate them in a way that makes a lot more sense. So those are the main, main areas that I'm seeing that, the value that consultants are getting, the synthesis, but then the, the, the coalescing of that and producing something that's really impactful. I, I always call it the, the assistant that can structure. Many things in place smartland quickly, and also help, as you said, with with gathering data. Structuring data or if I start for data, it can help me structure in, in a super interesting way. But, but you mentioned something very interesting, which is the building agents or agent ai. I'm curious to know like an example or too, because that's a little bit higher than the nor normal people. They just use, as we said, but building AI agents for, for consultants. What's that? Yes, so interesting. So here's an example. Um, I might start an engagement and, uh, I might need to run a bunch of one-on-one interviews with people. Um, I may gather the information from the, my client in terms of who are the key stakeholders and what roles they have. I might build a bit of a summary of that. And let's just say that of the 20 people, they give me names and email addresses for, um, I really only need to interview 10 my assistant. If I'm using AI as an agent, I could, I could say to it, look, what I'd love you to do is to book appointments with these people. Here's their email addresses. I would like you to go out and engage with them. In a meeting, you know, this is the context of the conversation, can you please write an email to them and ask them for information and then go into my calendar and book times in my calendar that suits times that they might have be have available. So we may not be able to see into their calendars, but the act of asking them and then looking at what times might come back and then booking that into my calendar frees me up from having to do all of that work myself. That's a very simple use case, but there are many others now I think. The thing about this agent is that I am giving agency to the agent to take action on booking appointments in my calendar, and that's what makes Agen AI different from just a generative AI assistant who's looking at content and then returning content. To me, I'm giving this assistant. The authority to actually take an action on my behalf may be very simple. I might need to validate it as a human, but it's actually, I'm actually allowing it to take action. That's what a true agentic AI function is all about. The action. That's a really good example. I think it's, it's a nice way to simplify the difference between AI and ai. I, I think, as you said, a lot of people just think, oh, it's chat, GBT, it's writing stuff for me. As opposed to Yeah. Use giving it agency essentially. Mm-hmm. And I haven't actually thought about using it that way. I dunno about you Fady, but I tend to use, uh, Google Gemini a lot for just ideas. So I'll say, you know, I'm running a workshop for 10 people, they're in the insurance industry. I need an icebreaker activity, give me 10 ideas. Mm-hmm. And some of them are trash. Yeah. Um, but you know, they're a starting point like anything else. But I hadn't actually thought about. And especially as a consultant, using it as an assistant in that way, which could save a lot of time for me. What about you, Fady? That, that was amazing for me. Yet I'm not that level at using like multiple agents where they take decisions on, on my behalf. The, the best thing for me is like business modeling. AI is amazing since, you know, it has a memory and it knows a lot about me whenever I debate my, my current business model as a consultant, pricing everything. It always amazes me, but let, let's say, and, and the accuracy is, is getting higher and higher, like suggesting mm-hmm. You know, better optimization or steps in the funnel or it, it, it goes on updating itself. So this is my, you know, aha area, but agents, that's my next aha, uh, area. Let, let's put it this way, but it makes me curious, Greg, on the other side, what is the negative side, like pitfalls or problems or mistakes you have seen people in that context working with, with ai? Yeah, well, I think there's, there's quite a few very public, um, examples of mistakes. And I think the biggest mistake is taking the output of your AI prompt at face value without validating the content. Um, it, you know, when we interact with ai, we're always amazed at what we get back. You know, it seems, it seems just phenomenal. And sometimes when you pick it apart, you see holes and gaps. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think the mindset that we should have is that we should treat, currently we should treat our AI assistants as, you know, graduates or interns. Um, they're very good and very quick at providing us with information, but at the moment, the human is still, should still be the expert and should still. Validate. So I think in terms of biggest mistake, it would be that one where we just take the output of AI at face value and not validate that it's actually, it's actually improvement on what we could potentially have done ourselves. Yeah, I think, uh, you're absolutely right there and I think that's what we've seen with a lot of the, like I said earlier, those cases involving lawyers who had used AI to, uh, put forward some papers. AI just spat out some case law that never actually existed. So, uh, yeah, please check. Um, I'm curious, Greg, how do you use ai? Because you are across it from head to toe. How do you use it every day? Yeah. Uh, it varies every day, but I, I have to say that I'm, I feel very grateful to work for a place like Salesforce. We are expected to be very well educated about the benefits and the risks of ai. Uh, how to use it responsibly and ethically, uh, but also to experiment in a way that we can find ways to be more productive, but also deliver more value, um, to the interactions that we have with our customers. So we, we are, we, we, we have a list of all the tools that we're authorized to use internally and to what level of data should we be sharing with them. So, for example, if we were using chat, GPT. We should never, ever share anything that isn't already publicly available. Whereas when we're using Gemini, we have an enterprise version and we can, um, we can use, utilize with, um, mission critical data. So it's data that's, uh, that's, uh, sensitive to customer projects simply because it's actually not leaving, leaving the, uh, the, the, the enterprise. So, um, it's, it's knowing that, uh, is very important. And so then how do I use it? I'm using it to, uh, help accelerate industry specific examples. I'm, I'm using it to synthesize large amounts of information that might come through, um, workshops that I was unable to attend or interviews that I wasn't part of because they might have done pre be been done previous to my, um, my presence on the project. Uh, so gathering lots of information that would already have existed. And rather than me going back and interviewing those people in the same, with the same context because I didn't hear it myself, I'm using that as a repository to better understand where are the gaps in the information. And therefore, if I'm gonna spend time deepening my understanding, I'm, I'm spending it on things that aren't necessarily available. Um, um, creating content, um, video content, image content. So, um, there are so many features that pop up all the time. Uh, experimenting with those things, working out what is useful and what isn't. Um, something is quite novel, but it has limited, uh, application in a business context. So actually working through all of those, and certainly in my team, uh, fortnightly, we have our team meeting and we're always encouraged to bring examples of the way we've incorporated AI into our ways of working and our practices, and we showcase this to one another so we can help the collective knowledge and experience. Um, uh, increase and accelerate. Um, so, so all ends of the change management spectrum, um, is where we're using it and, um, and in experimental and innovative ways. I, I like Greg, that you are always talking about the positive side and the negative side, you know, like the best tools, but use it, you know, wisely, carefully. Do not use that face value. Just confidence and, uh, that, that's very true. Having, having said that, if I'm a consultant and I'm just starting my journey with this ai, what would be your top three tips for me to just jump into that journey practically and safely? Yeah. Yeah. Great. Um, so we, um. Uh, through, through the change management community here in Australia, we've run a number of, um, uh, AI bootcamps for people in the change, uh, community change profession. And the number one thing that we always talk about when we we're conducting those bootcamps is be curious. Um, go onto YouTube and have a look. What are the top five tools? Free available tools to do video content and go and explore them. Don't share. You know, project or company specific information, but just learn about them and see what they can do. So be curious and experiment would be the number one, um, tip. Secondly, uh, I think the tip is actually learn from others. So subscribe to podcasts, subscribe to, um, you know, video, video content that's relevant to your field and actually have a look at what people are doing and get some ideas from them. So certainly. Learning from what others are experiencing is important. Um, and I guess the third thing would be, uh, challenging yourself. The, the technology is moving so quickly. Challenging yourself to have a learner mindset at all stages. Even if you think you know something about a tool like Gemini. Um, in a week they'll release some brand new feature and you go, wow, what is that and how could it be useful to me? So it's, it's having that learner's mindset I think is a very important thing when it comes to ai.'cause even the experts will say, they're not experts. No one's really an expert. So, um, so, and that, that means having a learner's mindset is, is, is a great thing to have really. Three great tips there. Thank you for sharing those. Now we have three questions we ask every guest on the podcast. You ready for those? Go right ahead. Beautiful. Question number one, if you could wave your magic wand and change anything about freelancing and consulting, what would it be? Wow. If I could change anything about freelancing and consulting my, my sense is. Most consultants really do want to do the best thing for their client, but they often struggle with the trust layer with the client. And so if I had a magic wand and could wave away anything for a freelancer and a consultant would be this, this instant aura of trust that comes when you meet a customer for the first time and then allow them feel comfortable enough. To actually talk about the real thing, challenges that they're trying to solve, because as a consultant, that's what takes the time to really unpack that and get to the nub of the real thing that will add value for this, this client. So trust Aura. Um, yeah, that would be my, that would be my, my magic wand. That's interesting. Okay. On, on the other side, Greg, if you would admire, highly admire a consultant or a freelancer, who would that be and why? I've had many senior consultants that I've worked with or worked for over the time that have inspired me along the way and taught me a lot actually. Um, but if I'm gonna use something that's on theme with ai, I would say Marshall Goldsmith. Who is a well-known author and leadership executive coach, but he has identified his entire body of knowledge, so you can go and talk to Marshall goldsmith.ai as if you're talking to Marshall Gold. Um, and it's just amazing the kind of advice and ideas that you can bounce off Marshall Goldsmith. So I would say him simply because he's created a digital presence of himself and it's just, it's just, it's just amazing. That's insane. I'm, I'm definitely gonna check that out. It's, it's like his, uh, I can't remember the TV show, but everybody's got their own sort of digital. Yeah, person in that other world, it's very, it's so sci-fi and yet here we are. Yeah, I know, I know. It's crazy, isn't it? But yeah, give it a go. It's insane. I'll actually, it's, it's crazy, but I think it's a little bit of trend. It's not the first time I, I, I know about him and his ai, let's say clone, but I think it's starting to be a little bit of trend for high end consultants like replicating. Then creating a digital product of AI that saves their time, but still, it's like a sort of revenue, but it's just like, as you said, replicating all the, the body of knowledge that they have. Maybe next year we'll see more of that. I, I think, mm-hmm. Maybe, I think the great thing about Marshall goldsmith.ai is that it's actually free to use as well, so. Oh, that's good. Um, so I think, you know, he's, he's democratized his brain in a way. Um, so it's, it's crazy. I don't know if anybody wanna see my brain, but if they've read your book smell, they would, they would wanna see your brain. That's true. Depends on the day. Yeah. Uh, so this is a consulting conversation over coffee or in my case today, it's a water bottle. Uh, so what's your coffee or tea or hot beverage order of choice, Greg? Well, it has to be a skim flat white. It's a fairly kind of ordinary cup of coffee, but that's my go-to every day to get, get my brain working in the morning. So yeah, skim flat, white. Solid choice. Solid choice. And I'll remember that next time we meet in person and buy you a coffee. Okay. Well, Greg, thank you so much for coming along today. Thank you for the show. Uh, I don't know about you Fady, but every time I talk to somebody like you about ai, I'll learn something and as you say, just going faster and faster, which is Yeah, mind numbing to a degree. And it's starting at the same time, right? Oh, totally. A hundred percent. Yeah. Well, Greg, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks, Greg. Thanks buddy. Greg, that was super quick and super deep. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, that was an amazing short but very sharp conversation with Greg. What did you think Fady? It was amazing and, uh, to the point he had very deep. Mm, and I love that Greg is, you know, he's right at the forefront of this stuff, but. He, like you were saying when we were talking off air, he's, he's a really humble guy. Um, so willing to share knowledge, so willing to help people. I've seen him speak at a few conferences and he's always just so approachable to people. So that's what we love about Greg. Uh, but we are going to share our three key takeaways from that conversation. So, Fady, what was your, one of your key takeaways? Number one, as I mentioned to Greg, it was like enlightening for me that consultants should or um, should start creating agents to take minimal decisions on their behalf. Like booking a slot on your calendar for sure with your supervision, but automating such tasks and giving the AI the right to save you time on those tedious tasks is, is really amazing. That that was number one for me. What about you? Yeah, that was definitely an eye opener. I think the second thing for me was what he said about building confidence. And I think that was a theme throughout the whole conversation with Greg, is to build the confidence. It comes through learning, having that learner's mindset, testing things, trialing things, experimenting, uh, getting to know it, not sticking our heads in the sand, as you know, a lot of people have been doing. But you're not gonna build that confidence unless you give it a go. And so, yeah, that was it. Second one for me was confidence building. And that leads to the third C. So we're discussing the three Cs out of today. The, I love a provisions. The, the third C is for me also is interesting, like cloning your body of knowledge as a consultant. Maybe it's a bit advanced or it's not the first move that you do, but at some point if you build an AI system where people can chat, like similarly with you, with, with all the knowledge. That you have and availing this as, as a product. You know, it's, it's like building your own ecosystem of digital presence over the internet, yet saving you time and effort. So let's call it cloning. That, that was number three for me. Yep. Love it. Uh, well, Fady, I always love talking with you, and today we just happen to have another wonderful person with us in our conversation. How good was that? That was an amazing conversation. Excellent. Thanks Fady. We'll see you on the next episode. Stay tuned.