Teamwork - A Better Way

Christian Napier
00:14 - 00:25
Happy Friday, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Teamwork, A Better Way. I'm Christian Napier, and I am joined by the man in royal purple. Well, maybe he's not more, more lavender, but Spencer Horn.

Christian
00:25 - 00:26
Spencer, how you doing?

Spencer Horn
00:27 - 00:32
Great. Good to be with you. It's always wonderful when I get to have a conversation with you.

Speaker 1
00:34 - 00:40
Well, thank you for joining me. I know you've been under the weather and so. Yeah. Better and you're on the mend.

Speaker 2
00:40 - 00:55
We had a, I had a retreat, a team retreat up in the mountains in Southern Utah, and it was just gorgeous. But that was last Friday and Saturday. I felt this cold coming on, and it hit me hard this week.

Speaker 1
00:56 - 01:05
Oh, man. Well, I hope you're going to be all right, because you've got some big stuff happening in next week. You're going up to Seattle, I understand.

Speaker 2
01:06 - 01:17
Yeah, I'm, uh, gosh, I've got a lot. I'll be actually in San Jose and then to come back immediately. And I head up to, to Seattle and, uh, yeah, there's just lots of, lots of travel. You're going to be there too, though.

Speaker 1
01:18 - 01:22
Yeah. For different reasons. Uh, we're there visiting family. So that's so funny.

Speaker 1
01:22 - 01:36
We're going to be there at the same time. I know the ironic thing is we can't figure out a day to go to our favorite restaurant, ready one and have some lunch here because we're too busy. and yet we happen to be in Seattle at the same time. That is funny.

Speaker 1
01:38 - 02:06
That is funny. Well, Spencer, I'm glad that you were able to carve out some time here on a Friday morning for our viewers and listeners to discuss an interesting topic, and the topic is AI. has been at the forefront really since CHAT GPT was launched in November of 2022. And there's been tremendous excitement surrounding that, but also some consternation.

Speaker 1
02:06 - 02:31
And that was further amplified by Well, we read an article that was in Inc. Magazine, but was referencing Bill Gates' appearance on Jimmy Fallon where he said, well, maybe we won't have to work five days a week. Maybe we just work two or three days a week because AI is going to be doing everything. And of course, the author of this particular article in Inc.

Speaker 1
02:31 - 03:12
Magazine, which is An opinion article by Jessica Stillman, who's a contributor to Inc Magazine, says, well, that might sound great on the surface, but there could be some issues with that. And so we had a read of that and decided, let's have a conversation about AI, its impact on our jobs, and what would happen if we actually didn't have to work five days a week? We only had to work two or three days a week. What would the impact be on us individually and collectively as a society if the paradigm shifted?

Speaker 2
03:13 - 03:39
Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know that, I feel like if that happened, well, let's just start off, people say all the time, I'm so busy. You and I talk about how our lives are just so full and people are complaining that they work so much and they never have time for themselves. Work-life balance is an issue. So on the surface, this sounds like this could be a cure for that.

Speaker 1
03:41 - 04:21
On the surface it does, right? And what's really interesting, I guess if you look back historically, I was reading an article, this is a bit, it was a little while ago, but it was basically saying at the turn of the century, 1900, from the 1800s to the 1900s, that food preparation, just keeping your family fed, was an eight hour a day, task. It literally took all day for the mother or whoever was running that household to prepare and feed the family.

Speaker 1
04:21 - 04:48
And a lot of that's decreased. And people worked in fields or in factories very long days, six or seven days a week. So I'm imagining in the back of my mind, my great-grandfather just kind of chuckling at the notion that, oh, yeah, we work so hard today when we have a five-day work week or whatnot. For some people.

Speaker 1
04:48 - 04:59
I know people like you. You're busy 24-7. You are working super hard. who've got more regular nine-to-five kind of jobs, you know.

Speaker 1
05:00 - 05:06
Somebody living back a hundred years ago might look at my situation and say, what do you mean, you know. So

Speaker 2
05:07 - 05:23
we have it so easy and I do have it easy. You know our lives are, it's interesting, I mean we just, last night you know we had, which I didn't tell you, we have our latest grandbaby three days ago. Oh, congratulations. Thank you.

Speaker 2
05:23 - 05:41
And I haven't been able to go see him yet because I've been sick. But my wife, Jana, has been going and watching their other two-year-old and helping and doing all of this work while I've been sick. So I'm taking care of myself while she's taking care of the family. That's not a complaint.

Speaker 2
05:41 - 05:51
That's exactly what I need her to do. But it's so funny because yesterday, at the end of the day, Christian, I'm just like, oh, I'm so tired. What are we doing for dinner? She's so tired.

Speaker 2
05:51 - 06:06
It's like, I'm going to order pizza. And we just order pizza and then sat on the couch and ate pizza and watched TV because we were tired. And so we didn't have to do any food prep, right? We just had somebody prep that food for us.

Speaker 2
06:07 - 06:18
And of course, that's not super healthy. We have a lot of options today for a life of ease. And in some cases, that's very helpful. That's good, right?

Speaker 2
06:18 - 06:38
I mean, because I just, I need a break and we can do that. But I just imagine getting to a place where we have two to three days of work only. Because according to Bill Gates, it's like we should be able to earn enough that we don't have to work more. I mean, I work a lot of hours because I have to.

Speaker 2
06:39 - 06:54
I have to generate revenue and income so I can actually live. But the premise is that we actually won't need to because we will have enough wealth or revenue generation that we'll be able to have some sort of living wage. Is that your understanding?

Speaker 1
06:56 - 07:37
Yeah. the AI would increase productivity so much that organizations would be generating enough revenue so that we wouldn't necessarily have to work all of these hours. Now, there's a cynical part of me that says, well, if organizations are generating these massive productivity gains, then they have no need for the workers. So why pay the workers what was, you know, up until now considered wages for time spent working, right?

Speaker 1
07:37 - 08:19
Like, okay, I work full time, I work 40 hours a week, I get paid for 40 hours a week of work, right? And if a company is like, well, I don't need you for 40 hours, I need you for 20 hours, then I'll pay you for 20 hours, right? So there's a part of me that's like, well, okay, but to Bill's point, if the companies are generating that much revenue, then there needs to be funds set aside. I don't know how that would work, where we have some type of universal basic income or some equivalent, that allows us to live without having to work so hard.

Speaker 1
08:20 - 08:25
And it sounds on the surface like utopia. Hey, that's fantastic. Yeah,

Speaker 2
08:26 - 08:43
I'm very concerned about that. But I have a question before we go down that direction. He didn't say that AI would eventually eliminate all human necessity. So in my mind, that says there are some things.

Speaker 2
08:46 - 09:18
I don't know if there's a time when machines would completely eliminate the need for human labor, but at least now he's saying that there are things that humans still can only do, and that's why we still need to have them two to three days a week, because there's going to be productivity gains, there's going to be things that machines can do. but there's also things that we have to retain. So there's going to be some value in retaining human cognition and labor and ideation and culture creation.

Speaker 2
09:18 - 09:26
All those things are still going to have some level of necessity is what I'm gathering from that. What do you think about that?

Speaker 1
09:27 - 09:46
Yeah, I think that's probably true because I was thinking a lot about this, Spencer. We had a conversation a while ago, I don't remember when exactly, because we've been doing this podcast for more than five years now. I know, it's unbelievable. We've had a lot of conversations.

Speaker 1
09:47 - 10:28
I don't remember exactly when we had this conversation, but it's come up actually in a couple of conversations that we've had, where at the end of the day, our fundamental long-term happiness comes from the relationships that we have with each other. Work, as it is currently constituted by and large, affords us an opportunity to build and maintain relationships with people. We talk about teamwork. Well, that's the function of a team, is you have multiple people working together to achieve a particular objective.

Speaker 1
10:29 - 11:29
And that's been so highly valued throughout our history that I don't know what it looks like in 10 years, but I can't imagine that we would go into a situation where we just isolate ourselves, but we work to build and foster relationships with each other in meaningful ways. And it may be that the tasks that we perform are different, but fundamentally, we still, work together, whether it's people on my team or whether it's you with a client or whatever it is, to achieve some type of objective, whatever that objective may be. And I really hope that doesn't go away, because at the end of the day, that's what really brings us satisfaction, in addition to doing something hard. Yes.

Speaker 1
11:29 - 11:30
And doing something hard together.

Speaker 2
11:30 - 11:53
So those relationships are so important. And you and I have talked on this show about what is it that causes somebody to love the work that they do. And one of those things is finding meaning and making a contribution. That means you are doing things for the business, like creating solutions to problems.

Speaker 2
11:54 - 12:16
And that requires a level of effort, right? So this concept of contribution and then being appreciated and recognized for that is one of the things that causes people to love their work. And so hopefully those opportunities will still be there. The second thing that causes people to love their work is to be challenged.

Speaker 2
12:17 - 12:46
We as humans are actually designed to be challenged to grow so that if our responsibilities are slightly above what our capabilities are, we are somewhat out of our comfort zone, right? When people get a new promotion, it feels very, a little uncomfortable, it feels off balance. And some people feel like they have this imposter syndrome. And I feel people feel like, well, I hope they don't find out that I, that I don't know everything.

Speaker 2
12:47 - 13:06
That's actually a great place to be because what happens is if we get to a place where we have mastery in everything that we do, the brain actually gives us less dopamine because there's no effort being put into what we do. We just, after a while, it becomes boring doing the same things over and over again. I'm sure you've experienced that.

Speaker 1
13:07 - 13:32
Yeah, and I think on the flip side, if you think about your career and you if somebody asked you what was the pinnacle or what's been the highlight of career, I would wager that it was the achievement of something at great personal effort. Something that was a struggle to overcome rather than something that just happened.

Speaker 2
13:33 - 13:51
And that's exactly right. And when we exert effort, Our brains actually reward us with the feel-good drugs, the dopamine. Now, in the beginning, it feels like it's awkward. It's uncomfortable because we don't feel like we're making progress right away.

Speaker 2
13:51 - 14:12
Think about when a child is learning to walk. They're crawling, and it feels like they're not making a lot of progress. Sometimes, we do something new and in the beginning, we're laying the groundwork for exponential growth. And then eventually, we start to have very quick improvement in our ability to do something.

Speaker 2
14:12 - 14:27
That feels good. But eventually, we get to a plateau of mastery. and the reward mechanism that our brains have starts to diminish. Well, that's when we need to actually create a new opportunity for learning, a new challenge.

Speaker 2
14:27 - 15:06
And my fear is that if we're only working a couple of days a week, are we going to feel that level of challenge? We might even feel more challenged because we have to do a certain amount of work in a short period of time. On the other hand, if we have more time to challenge ourselves elsewhere, maybe we will be climbing more mountains, maybe we'll be running more marathons. We still have those needs to do something difficult because as you mentioned a minute ago, effort is something that brings us great rewards.

Speaker 2
15:06 - 15:21
There's a paradox actually that the article talks about of effort, isn't it? It's called the effort paradox. And that paradox is that sometimes we as humans want to, we assign costs to effort. And our brains want to do things the easiest way possible, right?

Speaker 2
15:21 - 15:32
So we often want to exert the least amount of effort. But the other side of that is, is the things that do take effort, we create higher, we place higher value on that, don't we?

Speaker 1
15:34 - 15:57
We do. You know, one of the things that the article mentions is, the research showing that people putting together IKEA furniture find greater satisfaction in the furniture than if they just go and buy the furniture themselves. My wife is a huge consumer of HGTV, right? So you see a lot of do-it-yourself kinds of things in there.

Speaker 1
15:57 - 16:27
And I have to say, it was almost 20 years ago, we remodeled our kitchen and I put in our floor, which was really difficult. And after doing that, I said, I'm never doing, I'm not gonna put, I'm not installing flooring again. And I have not, I was like, I'm gonna pay somebody, because it was really hard. But our son and his wife, they bought a home and they decided they were gonna replace the flooring in the home.

Speaker 1
16:27 - 16:49
And I said, I think it's worth it to just hire somebody out and have them do that. My daughter-in-law is very handy. She's very good with tools and she wants to do things herself. And she has just about finished putting the flooring down in the main level in their home by herself.

Speaker 1
16:51 - 17:14
And she gets great satisfaction out of doing that because it's not easy. Taking out old flooring and installing new flooring is not an easy thing. It's labor intensive and it's a lot of up and down and it hurts your knees. And it's very physical, but she enjoys doing those things herself rather than just hiring it out and have someone do it.

Speaker 2
17:15 - 17:51
You know, I love that story because it is demonstrative of how we enjoy doing things that bring us challenge. And I remember you talking about your experience with the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. coming in as an advisor with a new team to kind of take over this Olympic Games that was struggling with the former administration. And so the goals that you set, and you should share that, weren't they very difficult?

Speaker 2
17:51 - 17:57
They were lofty. They were challenging. And it required a lot of effort to turn those games around, didn't it?

Speaker 1
17:58 - 18:21
Yeah, to be fair, I was a very small part of a very large operation. But yes, the leadership of the organizing committee, Mitt Romney and Fraser Bullock, they really had to, they had a hard nut to crack there. It's like, hey, the city has gone through a major bid scandal. that bid scandal has scared away sponsors.

Speaker 1
18:22 - 18:47
We are looking at potentially significant shortfalls in revenue. How are we going to pull off these games? So, you know, it was a combination of taking a very, very hard look at all of the expenses to see where could we, uh, get any savings by reducing some costs. And that was really Fraser's job.

Speaker 1
18:47 - 19:33
And then Mitt's job was to go out there and inspire the community and turn around the reputation of the bid, which he did. My very small part of that was just on the technology side of things, particularly related to the systems that we used to manage our workforce, both the paid staff, the volunteers, the contractors. And because of those tight budgets, we had to make a decision that we would save more money by not using the sponsor and implementing our own solutions. And that put a lot of pressure on us to go out there and try to find solutions in the market.

Speaker 1
19:34 - 19:56
that would allow us to meet our cost objectives. And it was a hard task and I had never worked on the games before. I didn't know anything about anything within Olympic games, but we got the job done. And the Salt Lake 2002 games to this day are widely recognized as the most well-managed games that have ever been delivered.

Speaker 1
19:56 - 20:05
Not necessarily the quote unquote best games, But when it came to the management of those games, there really

Speaker 2
20:05 - 20:05
isn't.

Speaker 1
20:06 - 20:06
And how

Speaker 2
20:06 - 20:30
did it feel to be a part of that, having put all that effort in, having to have such a a high bar to, you know, challenges to overcome, you know, for success. I mean, you had to really turn a lot of things around and that required a lot of effort and extra energy, I imagine. And as a result, I mean, how do you feel about that success?

Speaker 1
20:33 - 20:44
So that's a great question, Spencer. I'll answer it in two parts. One, the immediate aftermath, the afterglow of those games. It was amazing.

Speaker 1
20:45 - 21:12
And I remember turning to a colleague. We sat in cubicles next to each other and just saying, jeez, is this the best it could ever get in terms of career? Because this was amazing. I can't imagine having a more satisfying experience, a better job than the one that I've had up until now.

Speaker 1
21:14 - 21:53
So that was in the immediate aftermath. The second part of that was because I think it was so unique and challenging in many ways, There are several people with whom I still have relationships And we still are communicating with each other. In fact this person With whom I had the conversation the cubicle across from me Came out to my office yesterday For another meeting he was meeting with somebody else and he called me and he says hey, I'm in I'm in your office building You want to go have lunch?

Speaker 1
21:53 - 22:17
I'm like That's amazing, right? So it was very hard and it was very rewarding to do something that was so difficult. And what was forged in that crucible of challenges were some really meaningful relationships that I have to this day. And that was, you know, it was 25 years ago.

Speaker 1
22:17 - 22:38
23 years ago when we finished the game. And so I really think those two things were the most amazing things that came out of it. That tremendous sense of satisfaction and some enduring relationships.

Speaker 2
22:38 - 22:43
Can you, in two to three days a week, experience those same types of dynamics, do you think?

Speaker 1
22:46 - 23:07
That's really hard to say. I don't know for sure. But what I can tell you is that in the 90 days leading up to the beginning of the games, I only had two days off, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. Every other day, I went to work, including weekends, and worked long hours.

Speaker 1
23:09 - 23:23
There's no way in that paradigm that we could have delivered a games working two or three days a week. And that's like a massive effort, uh, near the end. And that's my

Speaker 2
23:23 - 23:38
concern. But the, the, the theory is, is that supposedly some of the work that you are doing would be done by machines, right? And so we wouldn't have to have that massive level of effort, but then are we robbing ourselves of those massive rewards?

Speaker 1
23:41 - 24:17
Yes. But I wonder if there will be new ways that we haven't really contemplated yet that will allow us to continue to engage with each other, even while AI is offloading a lot of tedious things that we would rather not do. Are there other things that we could do that might be more fulfilling? And if we do find some satisfaction and doing some of the hard things that AI could do, then there's nothing wrong with that either.

Speaker 1
24:17 - 24:26
It's just like with the furniture example we talked about, right? I mean, what do you think? I mean, do you think work will look the same 10 years from now? Absolutely.

Speaker 2
24:26 - 24:54
It's already different today. And one of the things that's different today is that AI is already doing some entry-level and menial tasks. Like, gosh, seven years ago, my friend who's a manager at Deloitte talked about this AI that they had developed, they spent millions of dollars on it, and its sole purpose was to read contracts and identify any challenges. And that is a function that they used to have interns do.

Speaker 2
24:54 - 25:29
So there was Oftentimes, corporations, organizations bring interns in or entry-level staff to do certain tasks that actually acclimate them to the work and help them to learn about how to be effective and productive. Those opportunities don't exist anymore. They exist less frequently. And so what organizations are finding is they bring new people onto their team They don't always have the entry level types of tasks to get them started.

Speaker 2
25:29 - 25:58
And so they're actually having to let go of more important tasks to the newer people. And that means that people come in are going to have to hit the ground running at a higher level to take on more tasks, to develop more trust for their ability to make an impact within that company. But that also means that leaders need to let go of more. of the tasks that they do and focus on more strategic or more higher value activities, which could end up being a good thing.

Speaker 2
25:59 - 25:59
That's happening

Speaker 1
25:59 - 26:10
now. You know what, Spencer, now that you say that, I think you're absolutely right. That's super insightful. So I'll share an experience with you.

Speaker 1
26:10 - 27:26
So with the Rio 2016 Games, the International Olympic Committee, they partnered with George Washington University George Washington University has a graduate program that lets people, students specialize in sport management. So what they've had since the Barcelona games of 1992 at GWU, they've had a professor who has taken number of students to every games edition to learn certain things and they'll be in meetings with certain people and they're just absorbing a lot of knowledge. And for the Rio 2016 games, there was a consultant, his name was Alan Shaw, who had developed a framework for the International Olympic Committee to to go out and physically observe what's happening in games with assets, to count things, to see, hey, are we actually using the assets that we plan to use?

Speaker 1
27:27 - 28:01
If we're not using things at games time, then we're wasting money. We're spending money we shouldn't be spending. If we have too many seats allocated for athletes, if the lounges are too big, if we have too many empty parking stalls in parking lots that aren't being used, then we could be more effective in planning. He knows the person who is running this program at GWU and says, hey, what do you think about we have these students go out and count things on venues?

Speaker 1
28:02 - 28:13
And they say, that's a great idea. So I went to GWU. I trained the students on how to count the things. I built an application on a phone they could use to enter the data they counted and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1
28:16 - 28:22
And it was awesome. And the students came out and they did the counting. But it was hard work. And it was hot in Rio.

Speaker 1
28:23 - 28:28
And it was very physical. Tough to be in Rio de Janeiro. I know. It was really difficult.

Speaker 1
28:28 - 28:53
But I mean, it was hard work. And the days were long. And the students, some of them, expressed a little bit of disappointment because they were hoping that they would have opportunities to have more meaningful engagement in the games and not just be there counting things. So fast forward to now, I mean, AI can do a lot of that counting.

Speaker 1
28:53 - 29:39
They don't need the students to go out there and count these things because you can use AI through object detection or through sensors. Can do a lot of the counting that had to be done manually nine years ago. So on the one hand, you could say, well, that opportunity may not exist for the students anymore, but it could be replaced with some more impactful opportunities, which honestly, the students craved. They wanted to have more time to do some more impactful, meaningful things than what we had them do was counting vehicles and parking lots all day long.

Speaker 2
29:42 - 30:14
I love that story. So hold on. I really think that illustrates what we've been talking about and putting forward effort is necessary. And my belief is that team leaders are going to have to find ways in the future to help their teams, whether they're working two or three days, find meaningful work in the time that they have together.

Speaker 2
30:15 - 30:33
My only concern is, will they be able to create the same level of esprit de corps if they're only meeting occasionally? I don't know. But I want to tell one more story about effort and how we're just wired as human beings. So I heard the story of Sir Edmund Hillary.

Speaker 2
30:33 - 30:49
As you know, he was the first person to climb Mount Everest. And as he climbed to the top, and he looked out, and I don't know the name of the mountain that he saw next to him. He was visualizing the route. up that next mountain.

Speaker 2
30:50 - 31:06
So he just climbed the tallest mountain in the world, and he was already thinking about, what am I going to do next? What's my next peak to climb? And I really think we're wired that way. There's such this euphoria that comes after extreme effort.

Speaker 2
31:07 - 31:30
And my hope is that we will look for ways to create that. You know, it's so interesting. I actually talk about how do we future-proof our careers as, you know, as a professional, any kind of professional. And I talk to lots of project managers that work in you know, managing of all kinds of complex projects.

Speaker 2
31:31 - 32:05
And I'm going to actually be speaking to a group, not this Saturday, but the following Saturday, all over the world about how to, you know, pivot in the future. And I have been talking about this for years. And of course, I asked AI about, you know, what are some of the skills that that we need to compete with you. And so obviously the things that I've been teaching about, it actually picked up on, and that is developing more of those human-based skills that machines will never have.

Speaker 2
32:05 - 32:15
You talked about building relationships. Well, that takes empathy. That takes emotional intelligence. It takes communication excellence, right, in order to build those relationships.

Speaker 2
32:15 - 32:40
It takes a great listening and a great commitment to expressing your ideas. It takes storytelling. You just told a great story of this Rio games, and that conveyed such a perfect example or metaphor of what we're talking about. So your ability to tell stories is a skill that is going to really help you.

Speaker 2
32:41 - 33:01
in any job that you do in the future. Well, that's something that you need to learn how to become good at. Collaboration, how are we going to collaborate with people when we're only working a couple of days a week? We have to figure out new ways to really bring ourselves up to speed and to quickly engage with each other.

Speaker 1
33:02 - 33:02
You

Speaker 2
33:03 - 33:32
know, and I think accountability because there's this, I think when we don't have this regular cadence of effort, there might be a temptation to have lower accountability. Well, you know, I got distracted climbing Mount Everest, you know, on my days off or whatever. I'm exaggerating. But if there's not this regular cadence of accountability, it may be harder for us to meet deadlines and to follow through.

Speaker 2
33:32 - 33:38
So we're going to have to learn how to be more creative about how we do that. Anyway, those are

Speaker 1
33:38 - 33:50
a few thoughts. So I want to expand on one of those, Spencer, because I think all of that is super insightful. You talked about the ability to communicate effectively. Yeah.

Speaker 1
33:51 - 34:25
Well, one of the challenges that we have with AI, especially generative AI, is to actually get it to do what we want it to do. And I've been thinking about this a fair amount. Why is this? And the conclusion that I've come to, at least so far, is that the AI has been trained on a vast body of imperfect human communication.

Speaker 1
34:26 - 34:47
We, as individuals, sometimes have a hard time communicating our expectations and showing gratitude and clarifying what it is that we actually want people to do. We make assumptions. We deliver something that somebody doesn't want because we made an assumption. about what they want.

Speaker 1
34:47 - 35:13
And I find a lot of this reflected in the communication, the conversations that I have with generative AI. Before we came on, you were talking about how whenever you are interacting with generative AI, it always acts so positively toward anything that you tell it, right?

Speaker 2
35:13 - 35:17
Yeah. Hey, what do you think about this idea? Oh, that's a brilliant idea. I'm like, really?

Speaker 2
35:18 - 35:19
Come on, give me some criticism here.

Speaker 1
35:19 - 35:54
That's oftentimes what you have to do with human beings, right? Because we might be a little bit reticent to give criticism and then you have to clarify this is actually what I'm looking for from you I'm looking for some some real truth here. You don't need to butter me up I'm looking for some real truth. And so I Just find it quite interesting that the communication challenges that we have with people, we are also having with the generative AI solutions.

Speaker 1
35:55 - 36:02
And I think in large part, it's because it was trained on the body of knowledge. I

Speaker 2
36:02 - 36:52
think this is a reason why effective communication is a skill, especially Gen Z and millennials have to learn. Because interestingly enough, because of the onset of technology, our smartphones, our so many ways of communicating through Slack and other mediums and other platforms, we have eroded, if you will, our communication skills. In other words, we are used to texting and emojis and we're not really very good anymore at following through on deep concepts in our communication. I even struggle all the time because our skills have begun to atrophy because of reliance on technology.

Speaker 2
36:53 - 37:33
And what we're finding is that the older generation, who's supposed to be non-technology native, are actually having a better time getting results from things like ChatGPT because they are more explicit and more effective at communication. They're actually getting better results than some of the younger generation who are not as good at communicating. So oddly enough, the ability to communicate with the technology is going to help you be more productive in the future, get greater results from the technology that you use. If I said that, I don't know if I said that clearly.

Speaker 2
37:33 - 37:35
In my mind, I think I did.

Speaker 1
37:35 - 37:56
No, it makes total sense. That's why I say learning how to effectively communicate with general AI should help you communicate with real people. If you can apply the lessons that you've learned in, I don't want to say prompt engineering, it's almost an out of fashion term these days. It's kind of a flash in the pan.

Speaker 1
37:57 - 38:07
But the more effectively you can communicate with generative AI, You can take those same communication lessons and you can apply those to communicating with real people to a certain extent.

Speaker 2
38:21 - 38:38
So I have a question and I don't know the answer to this. I think we've been talking around it. So as AI takes over more and more tasks, how do leaders ensure that the team members that they have find purpose and meaning at work?

Speaker 1
38:43 - 39:03
That is a big question. That is a big question, Spencer. My feeling working with this is it is coming. It is coming fast, but it's not necessarily coming all at once.

Speaker 1
39:05 - 40:01
And so we do have a short window of time to figure this out because AI In 24 hours, we're not going to be able to flip a switch and have it do everything. It will happen incrementally, even though those increments are shorter than maybe what happened with the invention of the telephone or the steam engine or whatever. We do have a window here where we can solve this problem. I don't know what the answer is, honestly, but I do think that There will be a rapid but not instant progression of AI doing things that people do, depending on the role of the person and AI's capabilities and limitations.

Speaker 1
40:02 - 40:14
And it really is on us as leaders to help our people adapt and take advantage of these new ways of working.

Speaker 2
40:17 - 40:54
What if we involve the team in that process? And not just did it, instead of saying, hey, we're gonna do it at the leadership level, we're gonna figure out what you need. What if we collaborate more with our teams into finding out how to create this new paradigm, this new culture and involve them in that process? I don't know what that would look like, but to me, if they owned it, you know, the team members owned it, it's not just being, you know, here we are, this is the new paradigm, we're teaching you and we're going to show you how to do it.

Speaker 2
40:54 - 41:01
Let's include them in that process, that research, that iteration of how we work together.

Speaker 1
41:01 - 41:13
I think that's absolutely right. And shouldn't we be doing that with teams already with anything that we do? You know, rather than have the top down, I'm making the decision, you go implement. kind of mentality.

Speaker 1
41:13 - 41:32
I mean, I think that's what you've been preaching for years, Spencer, to the clients you have around the world. You know, this is how you should be operating, and AI, well, it's another thing that's come along, and we should, you know, if the team is already high-performing and effective, it should treat AI like any other thing that's come along, and we start to

Speaker 2
41:34 - 41:50
How do you get your teams to think critically? Involve them in the solution finding process. I find that so many leaders are so concerned with efficiency, and that's actually what we're talking about here. We're talking about productivity and efficiency, aren't we?

Speaker 2
41:51 - 42:24
But there are times when that productivity and efficiency, excuse me, is not effective because what happens is it seems like it's efficient in the short term, but in the long term, we're training our people to be dependent on us for all the answers as leaders, for all the solutions. And so when somebody comes to you with a question, what a lot of leaders just do is, here's what you do. And the idea is to keep people moving forward and keeping them productive.

Speaker 2
42:24 - 42:37
But how much more productive over time is if you have a whole team of people that know the answers and can figure those things out instead of coming to the leader who then becomes the bottleneck for growth and scalability.

Speaker 1
42:39 - 43:00
So let me throw something out to you. I think that hammers this home. And I'm probably going to get the figures wrong because I don't have it in front of me. But it was about a month or two ago, I was reading a Gartner study.

Speaker 1
43:01 - 43:45
They were looking at AI and its impact on worker productivity. And when it comes to just the regular office productivity type of stuff, the chat GPTs or the Google Geminis, integrated into office productivity suites. The productivity gains may be incremental and you may not be able to actually justify to your CFO an investment in this kind of technology because it's really hard to measure the productivity gains. What's self-reported is often quite different than what actually happens because, all right, I say it saved me four hours a week, but what am I doing with the four hours that has been saved?

Speaker 1
43:45 - 44:35
You know, I may not be productive in that time. I might be getting coffee, I might be taking time to transition from one task to another, or having a conversation with a person, and I'm not, you know, the organization is not getting the full benefit of four hours a week of my time saving. But One thing that really came out that was quite interesting is they did a study on net promoter score, employee net promoter scores of organizations and individuals in those organizations who use AI on a daily basis, on a regular basis. And what they found is that the average employee net promoter score for just the people who don't use AI was like a 21.

Speaker 1
44:36 - 45:13
And I might be getting these numbers wrong. And the average employee net promoter score of the regular AI users was like 57. It was a really significant gap. You know, we look at AI with some consternation and concern, but at this moment, employees who are actually allowed to use these tools and do use these tools on a regular basis are actually more satisfied in their jobs than those who don't.

Speaker 2
45:15 - 45:56
So the message then is clear for leaders. Start transitioning now, preparing your people emotionally for the change and really technically to be able to use these skills and teach them how to make their work more efficient, more effective, more pleasing, right? Really more enjoyable. Well, we got some work to do, don't we?

Speaker 1
45:58 - 46:36
We do. We do. But just to kind of put a cap on the Gartner thing, what their focus is on, or the recommendation is, when it comes to the generative AI tools like ChatGPT and those kind of things, if they can be implemented safely and responsibly so you're not exposing your company's data to training models and things like that, And rather than measure return on investment for these tools, measure return on employee, because your employees are going to be more satisfied if they're able to access and use these tools.

Speaker 1
46:36 - 47:04
I just had a conversation with folks from the state of Colorado. They did a really interesting study that showed the same thing, that the people who participated in a pilot really liked their jobs, they felt more productive, they felt like their quality of their work was going up, that they were able to find creative solutions to the problems, and it actually gave them more confidence. in the work that they were doing.

Speaker 1
47:05 - 47:17
And so it, this, you know, AI has a potential, at least in the short run, to really have a positive effect on the employees that have access to and are able to use these tools effectively.

Speaker 2
47:18 - 47:56
Yeah, for sure. And on the downside, the danger is, is if we as individuals are not disciplined and we take that extra time off to, do cheap dopamine rushes, like scrolling on our phones, or watching TV, or doing things that really don't add value to our lives, then we're going to end up like this Disney cartoon. I don't know if you remember WALL-E, where the machines would do that work, and all the people were on this big spaceship, and they were all overweight, and they couldn't even walk around in gravity.

Speaker 2
47:57 - 48:43
You know, we're going to have some health challenges, we're going to have mental challenges, we're going to have emotional challenges, so we need to figure out how to replace the difficulties that maybe we get in the work environment outside of that. Maybe that's through volunteering or community service or exercise, why do people go through so much pain of running a marathon? Why do people go through the pain of climbing a mountain? Why do people do these things that seem physically harmful, almost painful, and yet they do it because it gives them so much sense of accomplishment and it feels good to them to be able to do something challenging, which we've talked about.

Speaker 2
48:43 - 49:14
So we're going to have to be more intentional about finding those opportunities, perhaps outside of work, in other ways to be able to make up for the lack of perhaps opportunities at work or, you know, the time. And then with the time that we have, we're going to have to really be creative about how we are able to collaborate and build relationships and move projects forward in a cadence that may seem disjointed or interrupted.

Speaker 1
49:16 - 49:44
Well, Spencer, you can talk about this from your own personal experience because You're an avid mountain biker, and you love to go hiking and climb mountains, and you set goals for yourself to summit so many peaks a year and all this kind of thing. And it's not easy to do that. So what do you get out of doing all this? I mean, I see pictures of you on top of Mount Tipanogos or Deseret Peak or wherever you are, and you look like the happiest

Speaker 2
49:44 - 49:59
dude on earth. I am happy when I get to the top, but you got to see the pictures of me while I'm climbing. That's where the real work is and it's miserable. And now with my, you know, as I get older, I'm having all kinds of other issues, my back, lower back.

Speaker 2
49:59 - 50:19
And I just spent three days at Disneyland since I talked to you last with my grandkids. And I took my hiking sticks with me to Disneyland and I took a back brace with me. It made all the difference in the world. It's just amazing because my back's giving me problems.

Speaker 2
50:20 - 50:45
And I'm six foot seven, I'm very tall. So I don't know, just doing that in my older age and trying to overcome my physical challenges I think is something that is, it just gives me great satisfaction to be able to do. I felt very proud of myself having survived three days at Disneyland. It was almost like climbing a mountain.

Speaker 1
50:45 - 50:55
Yeah, man, I don't know what's worse. You know, going on that long hike or standing in a line for two hours waiting for a border ride or

Speaker 2
50:56 - 51:05
something. Yeah, it was really fun. My grandkids, and we were up, we were at rope drop. We were like first in line at the gate for it to open.

Speaker 2
51:05 - 51:28
So, you know, You got to get in line early, and you want to get very front of rope drop, because then you can take that busy ride that you get in the very first morning rush, and you don't have to wait for anybody. So grandkids love that rope drop experience. And so I had to be up there early and then stay up all night. Luckily, we stayed close to the park in our hotel, and so we could go take a nap.

Speaker 2
51:29 - 51:34
And even when I climb a mountain, sometimes I'll just take a nap right in the middle. I'm just like, I just got to sleep.

Speaker 1
51:36 - 51:46
And that's important too, right? You got to push yourself to your limit, but it's also important to be aware of your limit and take care of yourself. Oh my

Speaker 2
51:46 - 51:48
gosh. I remember climbing the waterfall,

Speaker 1
51:48 - 51:48
I

Speaker 2
51:49 - 52:07
can't remember the name of it, at Yosemite with my two sons. And we totally underestimated what it was going to take because one of the people who worked in Yosemite National Park was a friend and client of mine. And she's like, oh yeah, it's not a big deal. That was one of the most serious hikes I've ever been on.

Speaker 2
52:07 - 52:12
We totally underestimated the amount of water we needed. I got to the top, had a huge headache.

Speaker 1
52:13 - 52:13
It

Speaker 2
52:13 - 52:24
was a huge hike. And I literally had to sleep. My poor sons were just freaking out. Luckily, some strangers gave us water along the way, and we got down.

Speaker 2
52:24 - 52:49
We were so dehydrated, but we got great pictures. Some hikes, you know, they don't turn out the way you want it if you're not prepared. And I think that's something that we need to learn from. We need to start thinking about what this is going to do to our teams and the effort and the impact that it's going to have on us and start preparing for this now.

Speaker 2
52:49 - 53:03
And you're right. We don't have to climb this all at once, but I think there's going to be some major changes ahead for us. And it's here. We need to start adjusting and adapting right now.

Speaker 1
53:04 - 54:03
Well, if I put on my optimistic glasses here, what I hope happens through all of this is that as AI offloads some of the things that it can do better than we can, that we will also find new opportunities to help each other. Organizations and individuals will find new, innovative ways to love and serve each other. The story that you just told about you with your sons and then the strangers coming and giving you water and how helpful that was, That's what I hope can happen by having access to this new technology, is that we will find new ways to serve one another. And that will bring us joy.

Speaker 1
54:03 - 54:16
If we can do that, we'll be golden. But if it leads us to a path of danger and atrophy, then we will be miserable.

Speaker 2
54:18 - 54:26
Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, good to be with you to talk to you about this. Really interesting.

Speaker 2
54:27 - 54:38
If you ask me if this is going to happen two to three days a week, I have no idea. But it's certainly plausible and I think we need to, I think we need to prepare for that eventuality.

Speaker 1
54:39 - 54:45
Yeah, I agree. All right, Spencer, well, get well soon. Thank you. Sorry listeners for my

Speaker 2
54:45 - 54:54
voice and my coughing and my stuffy nose. I apologize for that. I wanted to be here with you and it's been a while since we had a conversation, so it's good to be back.

Speaker 1
54:55 - 55:10
All right, sir, take care and we'll see you soon in Seattle, perhaps even, that would be hilarious. Viewers, we thank you for joining us today. Please like and subscribe to our podcast and we'll catch you again soon. Thank you.