← The Amazing Intern - Turning Your A.I. Curiosity Into Confidence
The Amazing Intern - Turning Your A.I. Curiosity Into Confidence
Ep 108 - A simple message to those who feel stuck in first gear with AI
00:12:50
Loading summary
Transcript8 lines
- [00:00]
AT&T Business Wireless Salesperson
Not every sale happens at the register. Before AT&T business Wireless checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sale or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time.
- [00:24]
Vanta Advertiser
Sometimes AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.
- [00:31]
Kerry
Hey, it's Kerry. Hey. This week on the show, I'm sharing
- [00:33]
a recording I made on the highway. In between a busy week of presentations and workshops, I'm going to share a data point that might open your eyes. It might even hit home. I'm seeing a lot of consistencies in the folks that are showing up in workshops around being kind of stuck in first gear, not really understanding how to get the bigger value out of AI personally or professionally. So I'm going to talk about that and maybe give you a tip to help you shift gears a little bit and get a little bit more out of your AI tool.
- [01:00]
Okay?
- [01:01]
So if that sounds interesting to you, stick with me and I'll share that recording on the other side of the music.
- [01:12]
I have been traveling and speaking and presenting over the last few weeks in both workshops and keynotes to groups of 10 to 200. And I'm noticing something that I wanted to talk about with you today because you might be feeling this too. And I'm noticing how common this realistic situation is for a lot of the people when it comes to looking at a tool like Chat, GPT or Claude or AI in general. And that's we're stuck in first gear. When I ask folks if they are comfortable using a tool, if I ask them if they use it daily, I am seeing so many more people now raise their hands. But when I dig a little deeper, what I'm finding is all of those hands are using it in a very sparing way, meaning they're using it to reshape an email, or they're using it to spell check a document, or they're using it in some small way that they have seen as the limit for the tool. Okay, so that's why I say they are kind of driving or spinning in first gear. The ant. There's a number of reasons for it. I did a presentation this week where I used some data that said this was for non profits, but it applies across other boards. In the other reports that I was looking at is 92% of the organizations that were polled in this particular survey. There's about 4 to 500 organizations polled, about 92% acknowledged or said yes to AI being used in their organization. Now, that doesn't mean it's widespread and it's organizationally fixed or there's a strategy or a policy. What they're saying is somebody in their organization was using AI, was fairly loose. 92%, but only 7% said that they are realizing any meaningful difference in their work using the tool. So 92% admit or said yes to tools being used in the workplace and only 7% said they found a meaningful difference. And I'm finding that in a lot of the rooms that I'm talking to is there's a huge difference. This is the gap, this is the productivity gap right now between using it and benefit it from. So if you find yourself kind of getting comfortable spinning in first gear, you are not alone. This is very, very common. It's documented and I'm witnessing it with my own eyes. So I would share with you that there is so much more for you from a benefit point of view, from a productivity point of view, from an efficiency point of view. If you just approach from the mindset of always curiosity first. But it's a contact sport and you've got to dig in and talk. So the first tip I want to give you if you are feeling, if you are one of the folks that can relate to using a tool but not finding tremendous benefit from it, I would share with you my amazing intern mentality, which is talk to it, give it feedback and context as you would if a person was sitting in front of you. As I said in a presentation last week, imagine that an intern came to your work and sat next to your desk for your use only, and it was highly capable, high available, and adaptable. What would you have it do to bring value to your day? Okay, think of that one thing. And it's got to be more than just spell checking a document or making sure that an email has the right sentiment. Those are not value shifting exercises. Those are not meaningful improvements to your work. What I'm talking about is finding something that allows you to have a problem solving partner to solve for the busy middle. If you haven't heard me talk about the busy middle before, I say that all projects on a computer, or all projects in general typically fall into three phases. The first phase is thinking about the project, the ideation phase, maybe outlining the approach, or just figuring out what we're doing and why we're doing it. The second phase is the work. It's the mental and physical work. It's the exertion of something. It's the busy middle. And the third phase is the perfection phase. It's where you bring your expertise and polish and you make the piece finished. Most of us spend a majority of our time in the busy middle. We exhaust ourselves mentally, we exhaust our time and this is where we find ourselves on the productivity treadmill. And I share that, myself included. I am very guilty in this. I have hired people for their expertise, for their experience, but I pay them on a daily basis to be mostly busy, right? So in other words, if I'm looking at those three phases that I just talked about, I'm hiring them for phase three, right? The expertise to polish the finish. Right. The perspective and the insights. But I'm paying them for phase two, the busy middle. Right? All that time that it takes to work through something, to take a blank piece of paper to something, to take that blinking cursor on the screen and turning into something productive, and it's real. That exhaustion is real. In fact, it's so real that oftentimes we become tired of something or we run out of time or we run out of care. And we don't put our effort into the third phase. We don't polish it and edit it and finish it the way we will. Good enough. We used to call it perfect enough at the agency. It's good enough. And how much good enough do we do? And how much more could you do if you could shrink that busy middle? And it's more than just editing a document and looking at sentiment in an email. So I implore you to look at things from a productivity point of view rather than that repetitive first gear notion. Okay? And I'll share with you if you are stuck, if you are wondering how is this going to work for the role that you have for the job that you have in the company that you're in. Here is a very simple exercise. Talk to it, whatever it may be, the tool of your choice, and literally say this, I do not know anything that you're capable of. I've heard good things, but I don't know how you can help me. So I'd like to share what I do, where I do it, what my job is, and some of the things that occupy my day. And I want you to share with me how you think you might be able to help. That's all you've got to do to start. That's all you've got to do to take that intern, that capable, available, adaptable intern that's there willing to work with you that needs direction and turning it into something that can give you the ideas and what you're going to get. When you have a conversation like that, what you're going to get is some ideas that might even spark more questions for you. And that's beautiful because you're going to get a list of seven to 10 things, most likely, and it's going to look like, here's a headline, a supporting sentence and maybe two or three bullets. It's not a lot, but. But if there's anything there that looks like it might be interesting or it might be valuable, just say, tell me more about that. So for instance, if you get a list of 10 things that comes back and says, I think I can help you with this, just say, tell me more about number four and you're going to get a wealth of more detail and it's going to spark some interest and curiosity and ideas, hopefully for you to say, wow, I didn't know I could do that, or yeah, how could I do that for me? And that conversation should continue just like that. You should be asking the tool questions. You should be engaging in a conversational tone, right? The ability for you to take that gift, that intern that is next to your desk, the capable, available and adaptable one, and give it direction and feedback. You're the boss, these are your rules. But these are also your questions. You need to understand and on focus pull how it can help. And the only way you can do that is to ask it questions, is to engage in a conversation. And many people, many people will look at me funny when I say you have to have a two way conversation because they'll say, this is a computer, you don't do that. And I'm, I'm, I'm telling you that is where you pull in almost all of the workshops that I do. Let me just say this. In all of the workshops that I do, I can always find somebody who tells me that they are engaging in a meaningful way with whatever tool they're using. And then when I show them the way that I talk and communicate and have two way conversations, they say, wow, I never actually thought of that. So even people who are telling me they are interacting are still leaving a lot of room on the table to have meaningful exchanges and get valuable output to understand how this can help you. I'm telling you, it's changed my daily work, it's changed my professional life. And it's not because I'm smarter and it's not because I have more resources. It's only because I put time in to be curious and explore and I literally said, do you think you can help me with this? Or if I needed to do this, how could you help? Just having conversations like that will give you so much clarity, ideas, and opportunity to put you into the I'm getting meaningful output output group rather than I'm just using it, but don't really know if it's helping group. 92% of the people said that someone in the organization is using AI. Only 7% said that they're making a meaningful difference or a meaningful improvement to the work that they're doing. The goal, the key to you becoming part of the ladder group is to have these conversations that we're talking. I promise, if you feel like you're not getting much out of these tools, if you're wondering where the benefit is, if you're wondering where the value is, if you're wondering if you're missing out, if you're wondering if you're falling behind, I'm telling you you're not. But I'm also sharing with you there's a terrific opportunity for you to find that value and to get meaningful output. Just have that conversation. I hope that was helpful. As always, the most important attribute to anything that you're going to do to get value out of a tool is your own curiosity. Okay? So until we talk again, do stay curious. All right, talk soon.
- [13:20]
Vanta Advertiser
Security program on spreadsheets. New regulations piling up an audit dread. It's time for Vanta. Vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence into one place and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clearer visibility, faster deals, zero chaos. Call it compliance or call it compliance. Get it? Join the 15,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Go to vanta.com calm.