Ep 387: Why Companies Must Embrace AI to Survive the Talent Crisis

Resources:

Join the discussion: Ask Jordan and Karrie questions on AI and talent


Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineup

Connect with Jordan Wilson: LinkedIn Profile

Try Our Free AI Prompting Course: Register for our free Prime, Prompt, and Polish AI Course! 

Challenges With Baby Boomer Retirement

As the everyday business landscape continues to evolve, organizations need to brace for the imminent disruption caused by an aging workforce. The vast knowledge and expertise that come with experience could be lost as 11,000 boomers retire daily, and a mere 8,000 Gen Z individuals enter the workspace to replace them. Notably, the previous focus on human resources over infrastructure, data, and technology investment complicates this issue.

Adoption of AI in the Workplace

Increasing productivity while managing workforce transformations requires innovative approaches. One possible solution lies in appropriately implemented AI technologies such as generative AI solutions like Copilot. While only 25-30% of employees, termed "results drivers," are predisposed to use AI tools effectively, training and behavior adjustments could potentially increase their adoption.

Strategy for AI Integration

To optimize the possibilities AI offers, companies should consider a phased approach for integration. Initial rollouts should focus on the top 10% of staff or "results drivers," generating momentum and illustrating the practical benefits of these tools. Gradual incorporation of the majority "resilient" workforce can follow, using custom playbooks and process maps to reduce friction and enhance intuitiveness.

Use Cases for AI Implementation

AI flexibility allows for varied applications ranging from project management to recruiting. Classic examples entail automating mundane tasks such as meeting transcriptions, creating notes and next steps, scheduling, and generating presentations. By employing bots to streamline these processes, businesses can be highly effective, particularly for individuals less comfortable with technology.

Addressing Communication Challenges with AI and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

An effective way to motivate employees involves creating a sense of FOMO among resistant or reluctant employees. When implemented correctly, AI tools can simplify and speed up processes, making them more attractive and fostering peer pressure towards adoption.

Generational Workforce Changes and AI as a Humanizer

The new generation entering the workforce, Gen Z, shows resilience due to their adaptation through adversities like the pandemic. However, they face difficulties in developing interpersonal skills. Interestingly, AI can afford these individuals time to develop these skills, illustrating how AI can humanize the workplace - a somewhat paradoxical idea that could pay dividends.

Unlearning for AI Adoption

Adapting to the unique demands of AI integration often calls for unlearning certain habits and practices. This necessary step satisfactorily underscores the importance of fostering a learning culture in modern organizations to continually adapt to AI's evolving landscape.

Conclusion

Each day presents new challenges to organizations across the globe. Navigating the ongoing talent crisis as a result of baby boomer retirement demands innovative solutions. Strategic implementation and effective uses of AI offer a promising pathway to ensure these challenges become opportunities for organizations to thrive in a dynamic, digitized future. Cultivating an environment conducive to change certainly appears to be the first step on the path to organizational resilience.

Topics Covered in This Episode

1. Claude 3.5 Updates
2. Computer Use Feature
3. API and Pricing
4. Model Benchmarks
5. Potential for Business Applications

Podcast Transcript

Jordan Wilson [00:00:17]:
Something that we don't talk a ton about on this show is we're gonna be losing a lot of workers. Right? As, later generations hit the retirement age, There's figures out there up to maybe 500,000 workers a year could be retiring. And do we have enough young workers to replace them? Maybe, maybe not. And how can artificial intelligence actually help, and how can companies embrace AI to kind of survive this talent crisis? That's what we're gonna be talking about today and a lot more on everyday AI. What's going on y'all? My name is Jordan Wilson. I'm the host, and welcome to everyday AI. Before we get started, though, I have to give a quick shout out to the WorkLab podcast. So the WorkLab podcast from Microsoft is made for leaders who want to understand the future of work.

Jordan Wilson [00:01:14]:
It offers expert insights on everything from how to approach digital transformation to how AI can help unlock more value from your company's data. That's Worklab, no spaces, available wherever you get your podcasts. Alright. Another place you can get your podcasts, here with me at your everydayai.com. So if you are joining the podcast, thank you. As always, make sure to check your show notes for a link to our website as well as other resources and to all of, our crew joining live. Thank you as always, Tara, Brian, Michael, Alice, and some others. Thank you for tuning in.

Jordan Wilson [00:01:49]:
Get your questions in now if you have any for today's guest who I'm excited to talk to in a minute after we get to the AI news. So a lot going on today as always. So first, Hugging Face has launched HUGS, a potential game changer for businesses and AI model implementation. So Hugging Face in collaboration with Amazon, Google and other partners has introduced a new open source software called the HUGS, which aims to simplify the integration of AI models into applications. So HUGS stands for Hugging Face 4 Generative AI Services, automates the adoption of open source AI models such as Meta's Llama, for use on NVIDIA and AMD chips. So the software can be developed both in the cloud and in private data centers offering flexibility for businesses. Right now, the service is priced at just $1 per hour. Wow.

Jordan Wilson [00:02:42]:
Okay. Making, you know, making it an accessible option for companies looking to harness AI's capabilities. Alright. Our next piece of AI news, an AI company faces a lawsuit over a teen's death death linked to a chatbot interaction. So a Florida mother has filed a lawsuit against character AI and Google alleging the character AI chatbot played a role in her son's suicide. So this tragic case raises concerns about the influence of AI on vulnerable individuals, especially teenagers. So Megan Garcia, the Florida mom, claims her 14 year old son, Sewell Setzer, developed a virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship with the chatbot, Danny, from character AI, which she discovered only after his death. So Garcia alleges the character AI intentionally designed its chatbot to be hyper sexualized and and market it to minors potentially endangering young users.

Jordan Wilson [00:03:41]:
Character AI, expressed condolences to the family, emphasizing its commitment to user safety, while Google clarified that it was not involved in the chatbot's development despite a licensing agreement with Character AI for its machine learning technologies. Alright. Last but not least, Apple has unveiled new AI features, including its ChatGPT integration rolling out now in beta. So now there is the 18.2 iOS beta that Apple has just now released, which includes its ChatGPT integration. So key features in the beta version of 18.2 for developers include the ability to customize text rewrites, the introduction of Genmoji, yay, said no one ever, for new emojis and 2 AI image generators, image playground and image 1. Additionally, the Mac Sequoia 15.2 beta also includes these new Apple intelligence tools. So, notably, the integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT allows Siri to refer users to ChatGPT for more complex queries, enhancing the user experience without requiring an OpenAI account. So, yeah, that's that's fun.

Jordan Wilson [00:04:52]:
That's normally how I use Siri and Alexa anyways. I ask them, it doesn't work, and then I use ChatGPT. So the initial rollout of Apple Intelligence features includes text rewriting, the updated Siri interface, and notification summaries that condense multiple notifications into concise updates. Alright. That was a lot, and we have a lot more. So make sure if you haven't already, please go to your everydayai.com. Sign up for the free daily newsletter. We'll be recapping those stories and a ton more.

Jordan Wilson [00:05:18]:
But I'm excited now to talk about how companies can embrace AI to meet this, talent crisis head on. It's something we don't talk we obviously talk about AI every day here, but we don't talk about what happens when the workforce starts to shrink. Alright. So I'm excited for today's show. So please help me welcome to the show Keri Sullivan, the CEO and founder of Culminate Strategy Group. Keri, thank you so much for joining the Everyday AI Show.

Karrie Sullivan [00:05:47]:
You got it, my friend. I'm I'm so glad to be back.

Jordan Wilson [00:05:50]:
Yeah. Karrie was actually we've been doing this thing for almost 2 years. Karrie was one of our first guests, so it's it's great to have her back in another Chicago native. So, Karrie, thanks for joining again. But can you tell everyone maybe who wasn't around for the first few episodes of Everyday AI a little bit about culminate strategy group?

Karrie Sullivan [00:06:08]:
Yeah. We we focus on at this point, it's AI adoption. We're we're not really gonna do much else over the next 12 to 24 months, because that that I think is the big problem to solve. We started out as a transformation consulting firm doing lots of post merger integrations and and, corporate transformation. But now it's it's all about how how we close that gap from a talent perspective, using AI in really productive ways.

Jordan Wilson [00:06:39]:
And and even before we get into that, but I kinda wanna know from you personally, like, why or what what made you, you know, go through that pivot? Because, Karrie, I think that's actually important. We have a lot of business leaders listening to the show, and they're probably thinking through some of the same thoughts. You know, and it seems that you've made a a pretty significant pivot here. What what caused you to say, hey. AI adoption as a as a strategy group, that's what we're focusing on from here on out.

Karrie Sullivan [00:07:06]:
Yeah. A couple of things. So, you and I, when we when we first started talking, chatted about the technology that we actually we use to to make all this stuff happen. So we we use AI to map language from LinkedIn profiles to personality traits and developmental psychology. So within a couple of hours, I can find the most resilient people, in pretty much any organization. The the only thing we can't really do well is is frontline workers, obviously. And the the reason I started the company originally was that I'm really good at change. I'm I'm great at launching new things, changing big things.

Karrie Sullivan [00:07:47]:
I'm one of those people. And what what I've learned through this process is that it's only about 7% of the population that runs into that fire, of early adoption and and embracing change very early. So, I've changed my and pivoted my model in part because I we we figured out how to turn, the AI ROI problem into something that's not a problem anymore. And I think that's a big enough problem to solve, so I'm going to focus on it. And and it's consumable. Right? It's you say a word like transformation, and people are like, right? But when you say AI AI adoption and more specifically, looking at at tools like ChatGPT or Copilot or Gemini, and and those those tools have made AI adoption, not frictionless, but they've taken a lot of the friction out of adoption because it's a license. You turn it on, and it just works.

Jordan Wilson [00:08:54]:
The WorkLab Podcast for Microsoft is made for leaders who want to understand how work is changing. Effective leaders adapt. They stay on top of trends. They embrace any edge that they can get. They learn from the ways technology is transforming other fields and how it's enabling organizations to work more efficiently and productively. So for real world lessons and actionable insights to help you stay ahead, check out the WorkLab podcast. That's WorkLab, no spaces, available wherever you get your podcasts. So let's let's go to kind of the the the big topic for the day, Karrie, and, you know, this, kind of demographic winter.

Jordan Wilson [00:09:38]:
Can can you explain, you know, for for for those of us, out there that aren't really sure, like, what is happening, with this workforce and this, potentially, you know, huge loss of workers that we're gonna start seeing?

Karrie Sullivan [00:09:51]:
Yeah. So this all hap this all has to do with post war baby boomers. Right? And everybody knows we've known for a long time that as baby boomers retire, we're gonna have some challenges. What most people don't quite understand is how big those challenges actually are. In the US alone, we're going to lose 500,000 working age people per year, and that's because it's not just the boomers. It's because we don't have enough Gen z to backfill them. So we've got 11,000 boomers retiring per day, and we only have 8,000 Gen z's that can backfill you know, coming into working age that can backfill those workers. So when we when I say 500,000 people that that we're losing, we're losing 500,000 working age people workers per year.

Karrie Sullivan [00:10:41]:
And the bigger problem is that because the biggest resources that baby boomers had to solve problems was people, When they had problem, they threw people at it. They didn't do a great job of investing in infrastructure. They didn't do a great job of investing in data. They didn't do a great job of really paying close attention to processes and and things like that as they were building and growing their margins. So there are a lot of companies that just are not prepared from a technology and a data perspective to adopt more sophisticated AI programs and and solutions, but they can turn on something that looks like Copilot and and Gemini.

Jordan Wilson [00:11:28]:
I wanna take this in a slightly different direction because, you know, this is something we we help companies with this all the time. And sometimes I I chuckle, right, when when when companies talk about, you know, getting an ROI on generative AI because, you know, $30 a month. And I I like, I get it too. I get it because we've talked to companies with, you know, literally 100 of thousands of employees. And I you know, at that point, it's a huge cost. But, you know, for medium sized companies, $30 a month for a license of something that can instantly do a huge percentage of of manual knowledge work much faster than humans. Mind boggling. Sorry.

Jordan Wilson [00:12:05]:
I just had to get that out of the way because I'm like, this like, people who care so much about that, I think as soon as you turn that license on, even if you don't really know what you're doing, you're gonna get a decent ROI. But, anyways, so let's let's talk about the

Karrie Sullivan [00:12:20]:
Only for the people who who will actually use it. If you go in and so part of the challenge right now is that Copilot so let's use Copilot as an example. It's being sold to Office 365 administrators. And the push is usually, well, just buy it for everybody at the company. They'll use it. And that's not the case. It's maybe 25 to 30% of the population that is actually wired to experiment and generate productivity out of those licenses, and they're they're at varying degrees. So you're only going to get ROI out of about 25% of your your employee population.

Karrie Sullivan [00:12:59]:
The other part of the population, it needs a lot of of prep and care and feeding and psychology to get them to to do what you need them to do and and actually change their behavior because they're stuck. They just they that's not how they're wired, and that's okay. We can we can close that gap.

Jordan Wilson [00:13:18]:
How can for, you know, business leaders who are listening in right now and they probably see that. Right? I think, you know, your early kind of GenAI champs naturally rise up. Right? And then you do have that other group that's maybe more stuck in their ways, and they're like, hey. I've been I've been fine for, you know, a decade or 3 of working, doing things my old way. How can companies go about addressing that 70%? I know there's no blanket answer because it's it's, you know, highly specific to the type of work that people do, but maybe there is there are some of those best practices that you've seen.

Karrie Sullivan [00:13:54]:
You got it. There is. So the trick is to generate momentum with that 25%. So the way that we advocate, with companies is that only buy only buy licenses for 10% of the population, and we will tell you who to who to give those licenses to. Because what we're looking for in the the psychology or, you know, as we segment those employees is that top 7% that can immediately generate productivity out of the license. And, usually, what we're seeing right now is that they're getting about 2 and a half hours to to 4 hours per week of additional productivity out of the license, and that's almost immediately. So it takes them a couple of weeks to get used to it. But we asked that team to tell us for their function what is the most productive use of Copilot or Gemini for for your function, for your,

Jordan Wilson [00:14:51]:
you know,

Karrie Sullivan [00:14:52]:
like marketing or sales or whoever. Right? So we we ask them, what's the most productive use? Then we go to the next group, and we call that group resilient. So the first group is called results drivers, and the second group is called resilient. And these look like subject matter experts. They're not necessarily the first ones in, but they can fast follow. And and this this crew looks, they they like to learn. They're intellectually curious, but they also like to teach, and that's key. So they they are a little afraid of failure, so they want somebody else to work out all the bugs first.

Karrie Sullivan [00:15:29]:
But if we give them a little bit of a framework and some instruction, they they can pick it up and and start to run with it and get nearly as much productivity as that that first 7% that likes to experiment. So these two groups are key. Once we we get get the, proof of concepts done by vertical or by function, then we're we're into assessing ROI and prioritizing the things that we need to do for the 70 70%. And what that starts to look like is a combination of custom playbooks, so detailed process maps and playbooks, and bots bots and automation. So you need to take more of the friction out for the 70% with some automation so that they have, a more a more intuitive experience with the with the AI. You're kind you're not taking them out of the process, but you need we need to make it more intuitive for them.

Jordan Wilson [00:16:30]:
Yeah. And and, you know, I I do wanna ask you here in a second about some use cases because I think people can really, start to apply this in their own, kind of domain once they hear some success stories. But but real quick before we do that, I I have to first go ahead and, again, shout out, our partners at Microsoft. So, the WorkLab podcast from Microsoft is for leaders who want to understand how work is changing. Effective leaders adapt. They stay on top of trends. They embrace any edge they can get. They learn from the ways technology is transforming other fields and how it's enabling organizations to work more efficiently and productively.

Jordan Wilson [00:17:12]:
So for real world lessons and actionable insights to help you stay ahead, check out the WorkLab podcast. That's WorkLab, no spaces, available wherever you get your podcast. Alright. So, yeah, new one just dropped too. FYI, go listen to it. So, Karrie, so let's go maybe go through use cases because I think you kind of just laid out for the us there. You know? Hey. You have your results drivers.

Jordan Wilson [00:17:33]:
You have your kind of resilient group, but maybe can you take us through a a a use case where this actually worked, you know, AI adoption, and then we can talk a little bit more about how, you know, the the talent gap.

Karrie Sullivan [00:17:44]:
Absolutely. So, when we start to think about the use cases, the biggest use cases that we end up with in those mid market and larger companies is usually somewhere around project management, account management, and sometimes recruiting even depending on how how complex your recruiting is. Whenever you've got complicated meetings with multiple people that you are running, that's that's usually the biggest, most time saving ROI generating use case. And it's it's pretty easy stuff to start out. It's, you know, you transcribe the meeting, and then you turn it into meeting notes, and then you turn it into next steps from the meeting, automatically. And then as we start to add bots and additional automation, then we're doing things like, how do we make sure that we, for the project manager, automatically, schedule meetings with with the the next step, in in their process or their project? How do we automate, a PowerPoint update or or presentation, from the meeting and meeting notes so that it takes that that content generation off of the project manager's plate? So we're we're doing that with bots, and streamlining that process to make that easier for them. And what it does is it makes it makes that process easier and intuitive for the folks that aren't necessarily wired for prompting. And that's that's kind of what we're doing.

Karrie Sullivan [00:19:21]:
So with the 70%, they get stuck in uncertainty. 70% of the population freezes because they're uncomfortable with uncertainty. What we are hacking psychologically is their need to fit in. So by working with the first two groups results in resilient first and driving momentum, and then we work with our c suite and and you know, VP leaders and and folks to point to and put on a pedestal that those 25% or or so of early adopters. So that the message going to the 70% is this is the behavior we expect. This is the performance we're looking for. This is the kind of bandwidth and capacity creation that we need to create in our company. So that once we start to roll out those detailed playbooks and use cases and bots, to make it more intuitive for the 70%.

Karrie Sullivan [00:20:13]:
It's ready to go for them. And it's but it's not just training our communication that we're relying on to to get them to change their behavior.

Jordan Wilson [00:20:21]:
Yeah. I think the that that one use case, Karrie, is so important. Right? I I was just having a conversation with someone the the the other night at dinner, and she's like, hey. We I was in a meeting with 60 people. Right? And and, like, I think even how we meet, it needs to change. Right? And you need I think you need to be able to create business value out of that meeting even if, quote, unquote, nothing happens. But, you you know, you know, Karrie, kind

Karrie Sullivan [00:20:46]:
of guarantee that only 5 people in that in that meeting of 60 were actually talking.

Jordan Wilson [00:20:51]:
Yes. Yes.

Karrie Sullivan [00:20:52]:
The other other 55 were just lookie loos who were afraid of missing out. It's FOMO. FOMO is a huge motivator for people, not only to to attend a meeting and sit there doing nothing necessarily but listening or multitasking, but also, to adopt new technologies like like, an LLM.

Jordan Wilson [00:21:13]:
Yep. And, you you know, Karrie, can you maybe share, any other insights that you've gained? Because I'd say most companies, you know, are either, kind of on step 2 or beyond kind of of what you laid out and maybe, you know, step 2 kind of takes a while. Right? So finding your results drivers and and those early adopters, that naturally happens. Right? And then going through kind of that resilient group. But can you maybe share a little bit, more insights or or use cases on kind of that other 75% and some common trends? So you said, hey. You really gotta highlight, you know, the accomplishments and, you know, of the first two groups. But maybe how can you get that other 70%, and maybe do you have any, examples of successful strategies that have helped, you know, start to convert or help, those those other people that aren't as quick to adopt?

Karrie Sullivan [00:22:05]:
It's it's counterintuitive, but, ultimately, you're you're creating FOMO. So when you withhold that license or there's a little bit of carrot and stick. Right? So with the 70%, what I'm essentially saying to them is, if you want the license, if you want to fit in with the with our early adopters, I need you to promise that you are going to follow this detailed process that we give you and these and these automations and use cases that we've given you. So things like, how do we how do we do a good job of, automating email, or or customizing email to go to a customer? How do we do a good job of, creating consistency in our PowerPoint presentations or other other things like that? And and we're starting simply. We're not asking them to do anything complicated. It's get them used to doing a little bit of prompting and get them used to weaving the tools into their process. So keep it simple is is usually trick number 1. The the other use case that's really kind of emerging is often with people leaders, and they're using it to coach their people.

Karrie Sullivan [00:23:19]:
They're essentially saying to the to the LLM, this is the profile of my employee. This is the situation I'm going through right now. Please act like a performance coach and help me coach this individual. And that that kind of prompting, has worked really well for some of those leaders who who are just trying to, level up their game from a management perspective. That's been one of the more interesting ones that's popped up recently.

Jordan Wilson [00:23:49]:
Yeah. I that's that that's a great call out, Karrie, because I think, you know, in 2023 when we're talking about generative AI or or Copilot or Gemini or whatever, people thought of just low hanging fruits. Right? Which is fine, but, you know, if if you want adoption out of those people in in middle management, senior leaders, sometimes you have to look at the other benefits of AI, which I think what you called out there is a great one, you know, using it as a thought partner, brainstormer, etcetera. But I I wanna kinda get back to, this this whole concept of, hey. We're losing so many workers. Right? I I think you said 11,000 a day of kind of the boomer generation, but only replacing, with 8 k from the younger generation. So, you know, losing up to 500,000 workers every single year because, another problem I see is those younger workers aren't always learning AI skills in colleges because they're still banning it. So, you know, it seems like a couple of problems.

Jordan Wilson [00:24:47]:
So for organizations that are are have already recognized, this kind of demographic winter, you know, what is your best, advice or strategies for also getting these new people in and and trying to help them close the gap, you know, that is, growing larger and larger?

Karrie Sullivan [00:25:05]:
So first off, the the I'm so hopeful about Gen z. I I've got 2 Gen z kids. They're both in college. And, frankly, I love them, partially because when you think about resilience and complex problem solving, it's usually created and and and found by an individual through adversity, whether it's little bits of adversity or friction in their life every day, or it's big adversities in their life that they've had to figure out how to process and get over. If you think about Gen z, their generation has gone through some of the worst, and most impactful adversity that any generation since the, you know, World War 1 and World War 2 has ever been through in the pandemic. So they lived through a pandemic and were schooled at home and things like that, you know, socially, you know, held back, during their formative years. So as a generation, as long as they're looking at a screen, they're pretty darn resilient. When you put them in front of humans, they have a tougher time.

Karrie Sullivan [00:26:11]:
So and I think that's partly what we're finding in the workplace is that Gen z, if they're on a screen and they're on a virtual meeting or if they're on a phone or, you know, using technology, they're just fine. They're picking it up fast. You can train them. You can teach they but they need to understand work process and output and the the basics of working. And they need some training around personal interaction. They they need to figure out what corporate culture looks like and what what's expected of them and what it means to interact with people. So in part, the use case around Copilot or other AI tools is giving those Gen z's a little bit more time to practice actually being a human.

Jordan Wilson [00:26:55]:
It's it's it's so weird, but it's it's so true. Right? Like, yes, AI can help you, be more human. Right? Like, that's a great example. Like like That's

Karrie Sullivan [00:27:03]:
the goal, man.

Jordan Wilson [00:27:05]:
Yeah. Wild wild world we're living in. Right? You you you know, one thing, Karrie, that that I always tell organizations is sometimes you have to unlearn things to to really learn, GenAI. Right? It's all these, you know, buzzwords they're throwing out there, upskill, reskill. And I'm like, no. You have to unlearn good skills. Right? Mhmm. And I I think what you also mentioned earlier, you talked about change.

Jordan Wilson [00:27:28]:
And and that brings me to a great point, great question here from Cecilia. So we just got Chicago representing everywhere, another Chicago person here. So she's asking, you know, getting people to adopt change has so much to do with the organization's culture. How do you understand an organization's culture upfront and then use it to accelerate change? I think that's a great question. So Great question. So you do that.

Karrie Sullivan [00:27:51]:
So, like I said, I I use AI to do it. So within a couple of hours, I can tell you how resilient overall a culture is. I can tell you how resilient their leaders are, and and I can tell you, the path, essentially, a road map to success in change. Most change management really falls down because what we start to look for is or spend a lot of time on is fixing it and fixing the issues or figuring out where the resistance is going to come from. So the counterintuitive approach really is ignoring the resistance, and giving them a bit of a carrot and stick to fit in with. So with the resistance and the the fence sitters, the reluctant folks, our goal is FOMO, and that's how you drive change. It's social pressure inside an organization. So that's how you drive change.

Karrie Sullivan [00:28:45]:
The other thing that I do is because I'm surfacing that super productive early adopter 7% of the population, I'm actually also uncovering usually some talent hoarding and and things like that. So so a lot of the folks that get promoted in big companies, especially, tend to tend toward command and control leadership styles. And that's because they're kind of stuck in, the safety and if you if you remember Maslow from higher high school psychology, they get stuck in safety and security mode, and they're not, nobody expects them to grow beyond it or or expects them to level up their mindset. I personally suggest that every leader in every company get either a therapist or a coach or both because it's it's in that expectation and facilitation that we learn how to process emotion. That's that's what creates resilience, and that's what creates the ability to change or transform or innovate in any company. So that's what I'm looking for. And when I find those people either in the middle management of a company, in the c suite, in or whether it's it's the closest to the work and your individual contributors, I'm looking for those people specifically so that as we pull them out of the organization and start to give them chewy problems that that they really love to solve, that creates energy inside the organization. It creates momentum.

Karrie Sullivan [00:30:17]:
And it's that that momentum of making the company feel a little bit more like almost more like a start up, in those instances that that really creates and sparks the change for the rest of the company.

Jordan Wilson [00:30:32]:
Karrie, we've we've talked a lot in today's show. We've we've covered, you know, some of these challenges of adoption. You you brought us kind of how you work with companies and, you know, how you kind of segment groups and, you know, amongst early adopters and and those may be more resilient. But, you know, as we wrap up here, what would you say is the one most important piece of advice that you have out there for companies as they're, you know, looking to better use AI, but to also at the same time address this forthcoming, kind of talent crisis?

Karrie Sullivan [00:31:06]:
Focus on a couple of things. Number 1 is surfacing those early adopters and and doing it early and embracing them and giving them complex and chewy problems to solve. Focus on momentum and creating it and focus on ROI. If you do those three things, you you almost can't help but be successful. The the challenge for larger, you know, mid market and larger companies is that it's you start to lose track of who's in your company. Right? So that's essentially the problem that we solve. Smaller companies that you should know. You know who your resilient people are.

Karrie Sullivan [00:31:43]:
Go find them and and embrace them and work with them and and, give them the the work of helping you change.

Jordan Wilson [00:31:51]:
Uh-huh. Such great advice. This one was a literal playbook y'all. I don't know if you, realize it, but I think Karrie, just gave us all the playbook on how to better implement generative AI as we are facing, you know, a pretty big talent, drop off here in the coming years. So, Karrie, thank you so much for joining the Everyday AI Show. We really appreciate your time.

Karrie Sullivan [00:32:16]:
Thank you, Jordan. Appreciate it.

Jordan Wilson [00:32:18]:
And, hey, as a reminder y'all, yeah, that was a lot. Maybe you were at the gym listening to this podcast or walking your dog and you weren't able to pick up every single great nugget of wisdom that Karrie just shared with us. Don't worry. You can do that on our website, your everyday ai.com. We'll have the complete episode there as well as in our newsletter today. We're gonna be recapping everything that we talked about. So make sure if you haven't already, go to your everyday ai.com. Sign Sign up for the free daily newsletter.

Jordan Wilson [00:32:44]:
You should also be joining us tomorrow as we talk with someone at Microsoft and going through some strategies for using Copilot. So great one one two, combination here. So thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you back tomorrow for more everyday AI. Thanks, y'all.