By
Viewed
2,360
Please choose the correct answer for each question below:
Questions: 0/1222
Correct: 0
Translate:
all the research that I've seen
especially the last kind of three years
is what it all points to is that boring
and basic stuff like emails like
responses
summarization very simple data analysis
across the board those are in the top
five use cases everywhere so the real
Roi at the moment for me is just giving
people back time and that's a beautiful
thing because like I said we can't buy
time time is finite that's kind of the
big the big promise of
AI you're listening to how to make a
leader a leadership development podcast
from Big think plus where we take the
best ideas from the biggest Minds in
Learning and Development and distill
them into actionable insights I'm your
host Hannah Bieber today we're talking
about Ai and specifically how to use AI
in the context of learning now I'm
pretty sure this is not the first
podcast episode you will have listened
to on this topic IPC but I'm confident
that you'll want to listen to this one
today I have the pleasure of speaking
with a learning technology expert
extraordinaire who lives breeds and
works in all things learning Tech if
there's a tool out there on the market
that you're curious about then chances
are he's likely tried it Russ Stevenson
has spent nearly two decades in the L &d
learning technology space working for
corporations such as trainline and Tesco
and currently as the chief learning
strategist with steel these thoughts his
company where he advises L&D teams on
how to improve their performance with
technology and AI I'm a big fan of his
newsletter which is packed full of
insights on the latest and greatest in
learning Tech and tools and also plenty
of memes in today's conversation Ross
will share his thoughts on the best ways
to be thinking about and using AI tools
in the context of learning he'll be
sharing some tips on the best ways to
use chat GPT as well as some of his
favorite tools in the space right now
let's get straight into
it Ross so great to have you on the
podcast today uh you are somewhat of a
learning technology wizard so I would
love to hear how you got here and if you
could walk us through you know the last
10 or so years of your
career yeah firstly thank you for having
me lovely to have a conversation and um
yeah it sounds like my superhero origin
story which I'm probably going to
remember very differently every time
someone asked me for it so the todr as I
say to a lot of people is I have been in
the hr/ DBS for about 17 years never
planned to be here my whole education is
in technology I was supposed to be
software engineer building products and
all that stuff over in cicon Valley that
didn't happen I kind of fell into this
industry and it was kind of a strange
marriage of I think very quickly I
understood there was a real lack of
digital technology understanding in this
industry digital learning wasn't really
a big thing kind of 12 years ago when I
kind of first dropped into it you know
now it has been all the range and um the
last 10 years in particular have really
just been focused on L&D from a
technology perspective so what I mean by
that is I've had really odd role titles
and roles that you won't consider
traditional L&D but fundamentally what
they focus on is saying how do we
transform what we know as workplace n&d
which for most people with this kind of
really strange quasy education model
that kind of doesn't really work in the
workplace because of how we live and how
we work and how do we start to use
different types Technologies whether
that's platforms whether that is
different tools that we could bring in
to actually help people move more
towards performance so I know we talk
about learning a lot as in the industry
but the reality is when you're working
for big you know 5500 companies the end
goal is performance it is the bottom
line it is getting that Roi so a lot of
my time was spent on building digital
systems Building Products that were able
to let people get the knowledge they
needed to perform nowadays I'm on my own
so I'm solo I I do my own thing I think
the uh popular term is solo founder that
I see on uh on LinkedIn so I have my own
business I do my own thing basically
what that means is uh for those of you
who may know already I have a newsletter
about learning Tech that I've had for
years that
thankfully people subscribe to they
engage with they pay me for which is
great so in a weird way it sounds odd
for my job today but it's fundamentally
taking all those years of knowledge
helping people to understand how they
can apply that and then I also work with
companies as well specifically on we've
got Tech how do we acquire Tech what's
the right Tech how do we use that
intelligently obviously intelligently
being the key word there because anyone
can buy Tech but actually buying the
right stuff and use it intelligently is
the biggest thing so I said tldr but I
wasn't very much tldr but basically 10
Years Learning Tech making it work for
people and basically just helping people
unlock the um the power of it I love
that and thank you for for sharing I I
love the full story I do love that you
mentioned you never really intended to
end up specifically in the L &d industry
and this is a conversation that I'm
having over and over with multiple
guests it's always interesting to hear
how people got here and I love how you
talked about using technology for like
connecting people and connectedness
especially as you said technology is so
overwhelming right now I think it can
make people feel isolated you know we've
had a a podcast conversation about
multiple Generations in the workplace as
well I think that can have a part to
play as well so I think just grasping
that understanding of technology and how
we can use it you know harness the power
of technology to make ourselves better
in our jobs and also to connect each
other is something that I love that that
you just mentioned what is an opinion or
perhaps a hot take that you hold around
learning technology that is maybe a
little little bit controversial Bo I I
don't know if it's controversial I just
think much to kind of what I was saying
earlier on I just think there's a
surreal misunderstanding and underuse of
what I would call intelligent digital
technology use I think we have so many
apps we have so many different bits of
Technology but people barely scratch the
surface it still as sounds me all these
years later where I'll go into companies
and have you know really powerful tools
like a Microsoft teams or a slack but
they just use it to message each other
they have no idea about the capabilities
beyond that and I think for all of the
technology that's available all of the
money that's spent out the industry from
a tech perspective L&D is worth about
400 billion I think the last time I saw
it is that I met very few people that
really understand how to leverage it to
help them I find more people that cause
himself problems with the tech and blame
the tech rather than trying to spend the
time to understand the tech so um I
still think and that for me really
hasn't changed over the 10 years is that
what I class as digital intelligence is
severely lacking in the hatron L&D world
and the answer to that would be I think
a lot of people have always gone well
text not my thing I don't think you can
say that anymore because the world is
run on digital Tech just saying Tech is
not my thing or I can't use Tech is
it's not the way forward unfortunately
as brutal as that is so well that's why
I'm very excited to have you on today I
personally have been a subscriber to
Russell's newsletter for a while and I
know on LinkedIn you share really great
informational videos as well kind of
walking through new technologies that
you're evaluating and using and kind of
sharing stories around how best to apply
them in L &d setting so I think it's
going to be a great conversation today
I'm I'm excited
what is a common misconception about Ai
and L &d that you'd maybe like to clear
up oh oh my how much time do we have I
mean that's a I mean there's many things
there's many things I I I really think
we're in this I don't know Matrix like
environment at the moment where I feel
like everyone and their dog is an AI
strategist at the moment like trying to
give me some kind of expertise or or
something like that I think the thing
for me that really stands out is to kind
of clear up is that it's much more than
tools I think people really get
themselves lost in this oh my God it's
like a million AI tools and I have to
know how to use this this and this and
the center of it for me is really about
it's a new framework really for the kind
of next stage of whatever you want to
call this error is that we've kind of
had this one framework for the last
let's say 10 15 years which is web 2
where you can read information you can
build your own information online and
then you know some super nerd won't call
this web free but if we class it as the
kind of web free version is that now
you're able to have context and have
conversations with information and data
and I think in that is there is a
philosophy of actually understanding how
does that stuff work and why is it
useful we're getting so excited about
all of this stuff we don't really ask
the questions of well what could be
unintended consequences like where could
this go what can we learn from stuff so
I think the biggest misconception is
it's just thinking as tools it's just
thinking like I'll go off and I'll learn
how to use chat GPT and uh I can use AI
it's mad really in my opinion it's like
the shiny new toy you know that's in the
room at Christmas time and you just want
to and you're neglecting you know the
trampoline in your backyard that is you
know that you for years and works well
so with these new AI tools and like you
said people are kind of seeing the tools
I've got a per these new tools and then
I'm good to go and I'm going to be you
know advancing ahead of my career what
would you say is the biggest mindset
shift the L &d Pros should think about
as they start integrating Ai and new
learning technology into their work yeah
I think the biggest mindset shift is
more going to be
around why we using this stuff like lot
of anything L&D in most Industries is
kind of still being product minded and
saying you know what are the problems
where actually trying to solve and you
know I make fun of this online a lot and
people who see my stuff will see that I
probably share way too many memes piing
fun of this that I have conversation
with companies is yeah they there's too
much of just chasing tools it's just
like oh my God I've seen this new tool
and I I'll use other toour now but
there's so many companies that I work
with that they just don't know the
problems they don't know the problems
they're trying to fix they basically got
a tool and they're trying to find a
problem for it which is the worst case
scenario to be in so the mindset shift
for me is understanding that this whole
AI era right now is actually more about
Behavior change it's more around I
mentioned before about the framework of
if we kind of Imagine well even imagine
we look at the last 20 25 years the way
we've kind of looked at the world is
through Google search so it's become a
verb Google we say we're going to Google
we're going to find information we're
going to do that and now in the last few
years we kind of mve to this framework
of oh my God I'm going to converse with
information now I'm going to ask
questions we're going to have natural
conversation that is a huge shift and
we're having it at work as well where
it's not just saying I'm going to go off
or build a course on my own or
researches on this own I'm going to have
a conversation with an entity that
allows me to kind of draw these insights
that I wouldn't have been able to have
done 18 to 24 months ago so there's a
far bigger behavioral shift in
understanding that this is a new way of
working a new framework of how do we
create information how do we gather
information how do we simulate
information and then how do we put that
into action but like most things in life
is I don't think that's really seen yet
for a lot of companies what they see are
tools what they don't understand is if
you give people a bunch of tools and you
don't give them the right behaviors and
take them on the journey you will suffer
for that later on so it may feel like
now and you see the headlines like you
know AI saves me x amount of time or
this productive it's like it's really
interesting to me how do they measure
that like how do they measure
productivity how are they measuring all
those things so I think the the biggest
mindset shift is just getting around at
the fact that this is a real Behavior
change and behavior change takes a lot
of time and companies want this change
to be in a couple of weeks because they
see all the big headlines of ai ai ai
but actually you know to really kind of
take advantage of it you're probably
looking at years it's not a sexy thing
to say but in reality if you're looking
to get the most out of it and you're
looking to say how does my company move
from a multi-million dollar company to a
billion dollar company you know that's a
probably multiple year multiple decade
journey I think that's really the same
for these generative AI tools at the
moment because a lot of them are still
kind of very gimmicky they're kind of
fun but it you still see for most people
most organizations it's really hard for
them to kind of place and say well is
this actually helping us or is this just
kind of the the cool thing right now but
can it help us you know many many years
down the line so yeah the biggest
mindset shift is is definitely looking
at that treat it as more of a behavior
change project rather than saying this
is just a training project where we're
going to get a tool we're going to train
people on this for two weeks and then
they're going to go off and they're
going to be Superstars and the company's
going to be very productive that's 100%
not going to happen and I think a lot of
that is false flag and and I see data
online already where I'll see people
saying yes you know we've had a thousand
people use this tool that's not really a
metric that you want to invest in the
metric you want to invest in is saying
you know chat GPT saved me $10 million
in two years those are the kind of
things you want to look at that we don't
talk about so yeah in some look at it as
a behavior and change project that
you're part of versus saying we're just
going to train people on a new tool cuz
they are new tools but they're part of
newer technology that the world is now
experiencing so there's a difference
there as opposed to what we're currently
used
to I think it's interesting the point
you make around it being kind of a
longer term project and mindset shift I
think I'm guilty of the shiny new toy
syndrome almost I know what in our prior
conversation I had asked you and propose
a question today around the idea of give
me a case study who's using AI tool
who's doing it well and you kind of
responded to me that we don't really
have that yet because it is such a work
in progress so I do think it's
interesting that we have these new tools
and we think that they're going to kind
of work immediately it's this Silver
Bullet that fixes all and streamlines
all processes and improves you know the
learning process so I think I'm guilty
of that mindset too yeah and it's really
hard right because look Roi is different
for everyone in terms of their context
so and I say this to people all the time
it's like for some companies having a
tool that helps people craft better
emails could be hugely beneficial for
them or helps them craft better copy in
what they're working on as a marketing
team be hugely beneficial for them but
that same context based on a company of
10,000 people that's f500 that works in
the financial industry that's not going
to help them so their use case and their
context and their Roi is different so
the thing I look for particularly in
case studies is
saying it's looking at something
incredibly specific in that's had that
marginal gain and I think you'll find
lots of stuff at the moment especially
in the l andd space where it's like
content content content and there's
little things where it's like you know
review my content and do this they
they're great you know contextually for
that but I mean when we talk about case
studies it's kind of like I'm looking at
like a huge company that's kind of done
the last five years we looked at this
and these are the things that we've
improved and this is the how tangible AI
was in there I from what I see in my
research I just I don't think there is
anything that I would look at and saying
is kind of like high level right now but
then again I don't expect that because
the technology is so new it's kind of
one of those things where people hate
when I say it's like yeah well come and
talk in 10 years time a lot of
Technologies now we can talk about at
this moment because they've been around
for so long and we can see the success
like you know you got only got look at
streaming like everyone laughed at
streaming when it first came out like
everyone was on Netflix who like who are
these people they're not going to do
this now it's the biggest thing but you
can't see that at the time it kind of
takes all that time to say oh my God you
know this works and it it works really
well and these are the case studies to
to say that but it's really all based on
people's point of view your context is
again very personal in how does this
help you and I know people that feel
like they have been transformed in some
ways I'm using these tools which is
great but it's it's it's I say it's very
personal on that as opposed to
I have my business hat on and I think
about Roi in performance increases in
terms of actual monetary gain curious if
from people that you've worked with if
you do have any anecdotal stories or
just examples of how a client or a
company you've worked with has used an
AI tool effectively and maybe you know
we're not seeing the ROI yet but what
are some of the positive impacts that
you've seen or an example of how that's
really been put in practice Yeah I
suppose there's a couple me some of them
are very what I call boring and basic
however I think boring and basic is is
probably very hot and very sexy right
now because let's be frank we'd rather
AI do the stuff we don't really want to
do and to allow us to do the exciting
stuff rather than whatever reason people
seem to want AI to do the exciting stuff
like the writing and the building and
then what what gets there for us whereas
I'm more like no get it to automate you
know responses for lead generation or
get it to look at how is it going to
improve your process in creating user
stories as product team or a tech team
or answering support queries get it to
do those things so then you can go off
and do those other components so in
terms of specifics I think this one I
can't name the client but we're just
talking about there so working with
their product team to look at and most
product teams only product people
listening between product and Tech teams
you're always creating these user
stories where it's basically like your
fictional users and how they use the
product and what they want to do now for
these product teams they can build
hundreds of these especially if they're
a huge organization with huge products
and that can be incredibly time
consuming to do and you've got to take a
bunch of notes from interviews and
whatnot and structure them and turn them
into this for me that is something
that's kind of pretty ripe for these
generative AI tools at the moment
because it's one specific task you could
template that and you could just
basically say here's a template of what
good looks like and then what we're
going to do is basically give you all on
notes this is what good looks like this
is the template create this for us and
and then you can create these user
stories which sounds really small but in
that circumstance that team was able to
save like eight hours over the course of
a week as a team so it doesn't sound
huge but for them that's like wow you
know time is money you you can get more
money you can't buy more time you know
another one with a different Tech Team
where looking at ticketing support so
most companies have a ticket and support
system where a user will raise a ticket
to say oh I'm locked out of my laptop or
I can't use the printer on site and
usually there's like a system somewhere
that kind of helps filter that it gets
scheduled over to an engineer you got to
wait to the engineer to come back but
you can put a first layer of an AI
assistant in there that basically just
says well am I able to deal with this
query based on a knowledge base what
I've discovered which is quite
interesting is that most of the time a
lot of the queries that come into these
people can be solved by the user they're
really simple things like password reset
about using that certain application or
request at all you know I think in one
case there was like something like 65%
of requests could have just been
answered by the user it was just them
being lazy and not looking for
information your computer I know that's
exactly have you just restart have you
the on andof button 100% yeah so I think
time is a very interesting metric in all
of this stuff because people look for
like the real grandiose use cases like
they want to see you know one person
businesses and all this rubbish and AI
running everything I'm not really
impressed by that I'm more impressed by
well we're already overloaded how do we
kind of help us take some of the stuff
away that so repetitive really kind of
bugs us down and allow us to do the
human stuff companies I worked with
where we've looked at doing stuff for
performance reviews and performance
reviews Bots that helps coach managers
and gives them resources to help prepare
them for performance reviews and then
helps them hopefully anyway give a
better quality performance review
experience same with onboarding as well
so onboarding at a lot of companies can
be really choppy but for small companies
to kind of really struggle because
there's usually not a lot of resource to
focus on onboarding but you can
introduce kind of AI enabled components
like a AI buddy that basically helps new
starters and managers alongside those
processes in terms of getting them the
right information at the right time
getting questions answering quick things
you know just real lwh hanging fruit I
think one more bigger one and it's it's
not one of mine it's a public one from
an Australian mining company called BHP
mining where um I was reading something
one of their team put out about they
were looking at their leadership
framework and this a couple of years ago
and they were basically saying you know
they pay McKenzie it was 1.6 million
Aussie dollars to come and do a
leadership framework for them and they
were like well why don't we just stick
it into chat GPT and say chat GPT this
is our framework this what we're trying
to achieve this is where we are to today
and just use it as a thought partner and
that team in that context they were
saying you know not everything was great
but they were really impressed by most
of the stuff it came out with and they
were looking at and saying well you know
what actually we could take a lock from
here and then take that into other
humans and then use this to start doing
stuff ourself and what was interesting
about that is that something that would
have cost a company $1.6 million to go
and get an outsourced company and
there's no guarantee
that actually they're going to get what
they want they could actually bring that
inh housee and use tools to say well how
do we keep this close to us and what
we're doing and have more control over
that and give us different points of
view and help us build structures and as
simulate best practices from other
companies to do that all the research
that I've seen especially the last kind
of three years is what it all points to
is that boring and basic stuff like
emails like
responses summarization
very simple data analysis across the
board you know you go to Gallup McKenzie
BCG Harvard all the reports say the same
thing those are in the top five use
cases everywhere and that makes sense
because if we get that stuff done and we
can do it to a decent level then we can
go do the human stuff which is more like
I've got more time now to actually go
speak to a stakeholder and really
understand their pain points and have a
conversation and build a better product
instead of being drowned
in 400 emails from the business around
all of these components so I the real
Roi at the moment for me in these use
cases and kind of little mini case
studies is just giving people back time
I that's a beautiful thing because like
I said we can't buy time time is finite
so for me anyway that's kind of the big
the big promise of AI I'm not so
concerned about other components of
automating my life and being boring as
hell and just sitting around and
watching the world go by
[Music]
chat GPT we've already referen a couple
times that we definitely cannot have
this conversation without digging a
little bit deeper into chat GPT it's a
tool that everyone has access to and
everyone has used I'm sure in some
element in both their professional and
working life yeah so question for you to
get a little bit more into the
nitty-gritty how should l& Pros be using
chat GPT effectively and what are some
of your guidance on best tips and tricks
to effectively prompt chat GPT my first
controversial point would be do you need
to use chat GPT I would say before any
tool go figure out your problem so I
have to say that and doing what I do
like Define your problem and then figure
out if AI is a tool that can help you
with that if you do decide and you go
down that road and it is Chap GPT so I
think this is Ed andd perspective
what's really obvious is content
creation is the hot sexy thing for
people in L&D with any of these tools
for me that's kind of like 2% of its
power and unless you really understand
how to prompt it and you've really got
kind of a clear mind of what you want to
achieve what success looks like you're
not going to get a good result and I
think we've all seen stuff online where
people are like I can create a course in
2 minutes and blah blah blah like yeah
but let's be honest 99 .5% of them utter
crap because no one puts any thinking
into that so my first thing would be
just kind of move away from content
creation a little bit and then I look at
other components of so in my own
practice what I found very beneficial is
how do I use it as a a thought partner
or a critical thinking partner so what I
mean by that is you know I write a lot I
look at a newsletter as a product I
build a product every week that goes out
to like four and a half 5,000 people I
spend 20 hours on it a week I am lost in
my own mind half the time so to get a
critical view from something else that
is not me or a devil's advocate or to
challenge my ideas or just say are these
3,000 words just a bunch of rubbish that
I've done while drinking too much tea or
is there something in there that's going
to help someone yeah like that is
profoundly helpful and I look at that
from many different types of work so
companies that I've worked with where
people in sales teams as an example when
they're responding to proposals and I'm
saying well if you're not too sure how
to respond to an email drop it into chat
GPT and basically look I got this email
here's a scenario here's what I think
you know give me Devil's Advocate what
are the unintended consequences if I say
x what am I missing here so this is
beyond using this tool for creation it's
all about challenging you it's hit and
miss sometimes I must say sometimes
you'll look at it and it's just like oh
God that's that's rubbish but sometimes
if you structure what you're saying I
that's the real key thing here you still
need to have really good Clarity of
thought and structure your writing you
can call it a design partner or in L
andd and say you know I'm building this
Workshop or I'm working on this program
here's what I'm considering doing what
else could I consider you know these are
the challenges or these are the pain
points there just a lot of use in there
for me with that and I think for me
personally I use it a lot for that just
as a sounding board the other two I
would say is research system so I say
chap GPT e for this I think perlex is
probably better than chat GPT in that
domain and research as in so there's two
fold so there's a very simple stuff of
here's a PDF report summarize that for
me that's cool but I think the other end
of it is that you let's say I do a lot
of work in when I'm doing keynote
speeches I'm basically given a thesis on
a topic and what I want to understand is
what the pros and cons of that thesis so
what already exists in the world to do
that and I think as a research assistant
again I found these tools really really
useful so when I'm going to giv these
Keynotes that I'm going to have a
balanced view of where might I have my
own biases and where's the stuff that
kind of makees sense and data agrees
with or you know what am I dubiously
speculating on I don't have data kind of
to actually back up with and using it as
a research assistant to compile that is
you know again I'm just amazed by that
consistently in terms of speed quality
structure and actually how that helps me
build better products in what I'm doing
and then the final one would be around
you data analysis like most people that
operate in their own businesses I have
loads of data touch points whether
that's from financials engagement all
these kind of different things the
ability for me to take any kind of type
of surveys or CSV files or whatever and
drop that into these tools and have a
conversation and just say you know well
I'm looking to do this what can you see
here in terms of a pattern or I want to
get a sentiment analysis bunch of data
that I've just taken from a thousand
people you know help me get to that
quickly that saves me time I thought
partnering research system data analysis
and then my bonus one would be
definitely using it as a skills coach as
a foundational level to try and kind of
help you role plays but role play of
chat GPT in terms of I'm trying to learn
this new skill I want to practice this
skill help me do that I really like the
multiple personas that you presented
there for track GPT you know moving away
from content creation but a thought
partner a research assistant a data
analyst just like an interesting way of
thinking about it so thank you for
sharing so I have noticed from some of
your work I love the quote where you
mentioned that with the current state of
AI use for work is like giving a Ferrari
to a 5-year-old so where some people
don't have the skills experience or know
how to use it effectively so what are
some of the biggest mistakes that L&D
professionals specifically are making
when it comes to using these new Ai and
learning technology tools yeah the
biggest thing for me is not
understanding the fundamentals so what I
mean by that is that we spoke earlier on
that I look at these as more than just
tools what we've basically introduced
into our framework as a new technology
now yes I am a tech geek but I think the
best way to leverage and maximize tools
from a technology stat is to understand
at a very base level how does it work I
think this is even more important with
generative AI because we have this
caveat of
hallucinations where these tools can
make up stuff because they're basically
looking at patterns and they're creating
their content from that and we have to
just recognize that it will lie that's
part of the package it's a feature not a
bug until these tools improve too many
companies ignore that and actually you
should embrace that you should
understand that that's going to improve
your use of it and the way it improves
your use is understanding when it's the
right time to use it for a project and
when it's not to look at the sensitivity
level and then for the user how do they
not just at work but in life how do they
create the behaviors and skills that
helps them spot stuff like you know when
we talk about misinformation or fake
news or any of that stuff I mean you
know look they were recording this it's
election day as we've spoken about in
America I've never known a time over the
last few years where you know
misinformation fake news generated
pictures videos from AI have been so big
and we're going to have a struggle in
organizations in people actually
understanding that when is the right
time to use this stuff based upon
limitations we just have to recognize
that in all things in life there is
risks and there is limitations but that
comes down to just getting clear on the
fundamentals and there is I say that is
I work with too many teams where the
first question is how do I use this tool
no no no we need to go back and think
about how do you understand what gener
of AI is then say okay I can then go and
make the right decisions so when my
company does give us AI tools I can be
clear on here's where it's going to be
really helpful for me here's where it
could be harmful but here is how as I as
L&D Pro can make smart decisions on
outputs how do I evaluate them how do I
challenge them how do I have what ch for
and I don't think that's a big task but
the fundamentals of that I'm literally
talking about you could go and watch a
half hour YouTube video and you're
sorted as a beginner as an everyday
human with this stuff but my personal
opinion is that will 10x your output
with performance in these tools and I
see too many people making mistakes
because they don't have that knowledge
so they'll make mistakes in the
potential of the tools they'll make
mistakes in how they're deployed tools
and I think in the the L &d and HR Arena
we deal with too much sensitive topics
for that to happen we really need to
have people who have a clearer
understanding on yeah it might be great
to build a conversation of all but
actually is that going to be the right
thing for us to do is that going to help
us deliver on what we want to do or are
there going to be risks there that we
can't take on due to the sensitivity of
that information so for me it's really
just getting those fundamentals if you
can get the fundamentals it will help
you out so
much do you have any any other guidance
or maybe like a framework um with teams
that you've worked with to ensure that
this you know for example we have a team
that doesn't really use any AI tools or
learning technology tools they want to
introduce new tools how would you ensure
that that experience is positive and and
not disruptive so my view would be it's
it's really wider than the L&D teams and
I think this is probably and people
listen to this probably experien all the
time where very usually and I've seen
this from the last 20 years is that
you're at a company something new
happens a new bit of tech happens and
the company just decides that the L&D
team needs to make everyone use it and
that the L&D team on its own is going to
change all of these pre-built behaviors
they're going to change the culture and
they're going to embed this tour and
everything's going to happen
unfortunately the reality is that's not
true it's a whole organizational effort
and what happens is that to get the
right new behaviors you need to have
that right environment for it and L pays
apart obviously they are a mechanism in
delivering to people and helping people
with that but going back to our earlier
point there is a huge behavioral and
mindset shift in this technology and
these tools so my advice would I suppose
actually be twofold it would be looking
at you getting clear on the fundamentals
but also making sure you're connected
into the wi of organization in how are
we as an organization approaching this
as a change project so together we can
make this
successful cuz my hot take would really
be you're not going to be successful as
NY on your own like just going out there
whatever you want to do putting out a
bunch of training programs or upskilling
programs on this one tour it's not going
to make people as confident or as
competent as you might think it will
with you alone but you in conjunction
with senior Leaders with tech teams with
all the different teams that are part of
that environment that you're trying to
change can definitely make a difference
but I think L&D as the mechanism alone
it's really difficult and it's really
difficult because outside of this
conversation but you know most companies
look at L&D teams as are nice to have
rather than lack a legit serious
function that contributes to business
change in that so we're also dealing
with that in terms of huge
transformational technology being
delivered by a space in a company that
people don't really give the credit that
the industry believes it should do and
then wanting that change to happen in
and I always say you know senior exx
always want you to do stuff in a week
that needs a year to actually happen so
it's really difficult for that so yes
you can help yourself get clear on the
fundamentals but like any good L&D team
in my opinion should do is about how do
you connect with other parts who your
organization how do you build
relationships so when you do go do this
you know adoption program with training
or whatnot with that one team who
doesn't really seem open to it it
doesn't just end there if you just go
and do okay we're going to do a half day
tool training that's not really going to
change anything like it might some
people might I there some nice ideas but
very few people people act upon what
they actually experience in those
sessions so how do you make sure that
that actually is embedded by working
with these people and looking at this
whole thing as more of a you know change
transformation program which for a lot
of companies actually big companies you
know change in transformation programs
are three to five years and I hly
appreciate that is really really
difficult that is not going to be an
easy ask but my whole kind of focus this
message is that don't feel like in L&D
it lives and dies around AI adoption
being successful because of you because
it really doesn't it's also down to many
other people in the organization being
part of that process and what I would
say is the the companies that do well
with this stuff are that they adopt it
all across the field so one example of
that would be and you can find it online
on open ai's website is they did a case
study with Mna who obviously were one of
the organizations that worked on the
covid vaccine
and you know they had chat GPT for a
year but they got the whole company
involved in terms of behavior change in
terms of training in terms of embedding
that you know everyone was bought into
it and they've had the success that
they've shown in that customer story
because everyone was part of that
Journey it wasn't just open AI worked
with the L&D team to try and convince
the rest of the business to do it the
rest of the business was on board and uh
and doing that so I I would certainly
say look in L&D what we're responsible
for is of course helping people improve
their skills improve performance you're
not going to be the singular Agent of
Change in terms of bringing people into
you know the AI world and I think if you
go down that route you're not you're not
going to have a lot of success I think
focus on the things that you do really
well partner with other people to
strengthen those areas where you can say
how can we help people uh adopt this I
think that goes really nicely with your
thesis that the future is human powered
and not AI first so on that topic would
love to hear what are the top three
human skills that you think are
essential to develop in such an AI
forward workplace yes the main thing for
me and some of these are crossover so
you got to have critical thinking for
one I just you know the biggest thing
for me is and I I disagree with a lot of
the stuff online that I see but it's AI
first
and you know getting AI to do this don't
Outsource your thinking thinking makes
you human like it's it is your tool
that's incredibly powerful so critical
thinking is 100% there and alongside
that as well is so I mean people call
this problem solving you okay was
problem solving or kind of like judgment
or decision making there is that my
personal opinion is what makes us really
good in the workforce as humans you can
help use AI to help you with this is
that it's solving problems is
deconstructing problems understanding
how do I fix this thing and doing that
at every stage like I said critical
thinking and this problem solving notion
they do overlap with each other but
there's still different skills where
it's like you could be a critical
thinker but you can suck at solving
problems right you can think all you
want but if you can't actually figure
out how to solve the problem and
construct that you know you're not
really going to go far on that element
and the other side of it and I suppose
this is more like the gun to my head
looking at the kind of free free things
is I'm cheat here a bit is that so I had
an article that I written where I spoke
about this concept of social influence
which I'm cheating here because you can
basically break this down into subskills
of like communication and emotional
intelligence and stuff and that is I say
social influence because like as humans
the way we work is we're a social
Society like we tell stories to each
other that's how we buy into ideas it's
how we share knowledge in that that is
not going to change with AI at all we're
still going to tell stories we still
need people to buy into our ideas to buy
into who we are to be seen and valued
like no AI tool is going to change that
for you like you're not going to get
chat GPT out on your phone to then give
yourself some kind of like social
credibility in a meeting to talk about
who you are and what you do you're going
to need to be able to do that social
influence is a real big part of life
because although people don't like it
you know you do it all the time like
you're trying to show people your
credibility in Industry you're marketing
to people about who you are and your
skills like in an organization you're
doing that when you want a promotion
you're trying to sell people into who
you are and what you're doing and so you
know critical thinking problem solving
and that social influence bit are
incredibly beneficial in terms of you
just being able to operate so which is
why I kind of do venomously disagree
with the the AI first thing that I see
with people because if you go down that
route what happens when everyone else
goes down there you're just going to be
like everyone else so you're just going
to be very much in the same field and
the people in my opinion who I work with
different companies especially at exec
level are they're great critical
thinkers they're great problem solvers
and they are great in Social influence
and I I don't think that will
change this may be a difficult question
because I know you are evaluating and
looking at learning Technologies all day
every day you had to pick a top three
favorite learning technology tools right
now what would they be so I should
preface that I think any technology can
be a learning technology so I don't look
at these specifically in the industry I
cannot not say chat GPT I just think you
know it's good it's good timing for open
I but they were really the ones that
kind of however you want to look to it
got to Market first the other one right
now that I find a lot of benefit in I
think it's great for work and for
research is a tool called notebook LM by
Google which is really just built around
I kind really describe it
like I was a AI soup up version of
notion where it's all focused on data
analysis and reports and research and
colleting notes and looking at thesis in
that so I think just across the board
that's incredibly beneficial obviously
Google was huge they got trillions of
dollars they're going to keep building
those things so that's a pretty safe bet
in what I look at as a great product
versus just a feature and I think
there's a lot of AI tools out there that
are features I think more from the
workplace learning space if you want to
you know get specific I suppose a
company that I I talk to a lot is uh is
Santa so s is a Swedish organization
they're in the learning Tech space but
they're in the AI space as well so
they've also got their own LM tune
they've got Santa Ai and I think they
are on my radar anyway they're the one
of the first companies that's really
come to Market in that space to say how
do we do all this stuff but how do we do
it specifically for work so it's secure
so how do we create assistance how do we
create workflows how to make it really
simple for people to use this at work
because the two I mentioned previously
there's always the call back to oh but
it's going to steal our data oh it's not
restricted oh how do we do this so the
SAR is interesting to me because again
going back to opena chat GPT they seem
to be one of the first ones to Market to
say well we've got an AI tour that is
specifically built for the workforce
that does those things does those things
in a secure manner and gives you a easy
way to do it I'll definitely have to
check out notebook LM I've seen a lot
about it and I'm a fan of notion so
maybe I'll have to check it out to
elevate my data and organizational game
well with that we'll wrap up today's
conversation Ross thank you very much
for your time and insights today I'm
sure our listeners will learn a lot um
and just always fascinating to talk to
someone who's so deeply entrenched and
aware of all going on around learning
and technology so we really really
really appreciate your insights today
well great well thank you for having me
love this chat to you for more from Ross
Stevenson check out his newsletter and
website steal these thoughts as well as
his LinkedIn which we'll put in the show
notes for more from how to make a leader
make sure you subscribe so you never
miss an episode we'll be back next month
and every month with more insights from
another L&D expert thanks for listening
and we'll catch you next time as we
learn how to make a leader
[Music]
Related Songs