Episode 240 Transcript:

0:00:00 Ramona Shaw: This episode is about how you can use Gen AI to become more effective as a people leader.

0:00:07 Ramona Shaw: Here are the two questions this podcast answers.

0:00:10 Ramona Shaw: 1. How do you successfully transition into your.

0:00:13 Ramona Shaw: First official leadership role? And 2 how do you keep climbing.

0:00:17 Ramona Shaw: That leadership ladder and continuously get promoted? Although the competition and the expectations get bigger, this show, The Manager Track podcast will provide the answers.

0:00:27 Ramona Shaw: I’m your host Ramona Shaw. I’m on a mission to create workplaces.

0:00:30 Ramona Shaw: Where work is seen as a source.

0:00:31 Ramona Shaw: Of content, contribution, connection and personal fulfillment.

0:00:35 Ramona Shaw: And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead so everyone wins and grows.

0:00:43 Ramona Shaw: In the show, you’ll learn how to.

0:00:44 Ramona Shaw: Think, communicate and act as confident and competent leader you know you can be.

0:00:50 Ramona Shaw: Welcome to The Manager Track podcast. Today we’re tackling one of the most transformative topics in this time of leadership and that is becoming AI fluent. Here’s what we know. AI is not some futuristic tool that only some early adopters are currently using. AI is here as we speak and all of the last couple of years and into the future is changing how we work. It’s also changing how we collaborate and hence it will naturally change how we need to lead.

0:01:22 Ramona Shaw: So whether it is automating daily tasks, optimizing workflows, helping you make decisions, or creating a more personalized and optimized employee experience, AI is quickly moving from being a nice to have to becoming a must have in your leadership toolkit. Now when we look at statistics, 89% of business leaders are actively using Gen AI for professional purposes, but only 53% of knowledge workers are doing the same, According to the 2024 State of Business Communication Survey by Grammarly.

0:01:58 Ramona Shaw: But it gets more interesting. 61% of knowledge workers are on teams that are planning to implement AI in the next year and 52% admit that they don’t know how to use Geni tools effectively. So there’s a big gap that leaders need to address, especially since 77% of knowledge workers that use Genai regularly say it makes them better at their job. So business leaders that are high level leaders, owners, C suite and all those, those are the ones who are using it as well as knowledge workers, which in this context includes frontline managers, maybe even mid level managers, and individual contributors who work sort of in that office corporate setting aren’t using effectively. So when we talk about using generative AI specifically for people leadership tasks, we’re speaking directly to those who have one to one relationships with employees, with individual contributors, and how to help them, their team members to get the most out of their time at work.

0:03:07 Ramona Shaw: So in this episode we’ll break it all down. We’re going to talk about how AI can support you at every stage of the employee lifecycle, from hiring all the way to offboarding. We also will dive into how AI can enhance your leadership skills, helping you make smarter decisions and free up your time for more strategic work. Plus, I’ll share some practical tips for implementing AI thoughtfully and real world examples of how teams that are already reaping the benefits are using it.

0:03:39 Ramona Shaw: So let’s dive in. How let’s talk about the why. Why should managers care about Gen AI? First of all, it helps you make smarter decisions ultimately for the purpose to get better and faster results. AI tools are brilliant at analyzing data and spotting patterns, delivering insights that we which our human brains might miss. It’s just really good at looking at large amount of data and finding patterns.

0:04:10 Ramona Shaw: So think of it as having a personal sort of data scientist in your pocket or working alongside you. So whether you are strategizing for the next quarter or making hiring decisions, AI can help act faster and more confidently because you’re able to assess the data. So what I really recommend is for you to now pause for a moment and think about what kind of databases do you have access to? What kind of information is uniquely available to you or your team that you can start to assess and analyze in a new way that you haven’t done before and then use that insight and that information to develop your strategic plans, to set your goals or to optimize what you’re doing. Second, and in addition to creating better or faster results, AI can enhance employee experiences.

0:04:58 Ramona Shaw: So from onboarding to learning and development, AI is reshaping how employees interact with their work. So imagine using AI to create personalized development plans or even identify team members that are at risk of disengaging or at risk of burnout. The leading HR teams, in fact, are in this transition. In many organizations, the leading department who’s already using AI powered tools and is really at the forefront they’re looking at how do we create insights for our leaders based on all the data that we have access to.

0:05:35 Ramona Shaw: And so stay engaged in those conversations and look at how can you leverage these insights for you. It allows you to have more time for strategic thinking. One of AI’s biggest perks is automation. It can handle repetitive tasks like scheduling, summarizing meetings, drafting emails or writing reports, or maybe more specifically draft reports for you, which means you spend less time on this admin work that’s often time consuming for more valuable tasks and things that really address the big picture goals. The fourth reason is simply that it’s providing you a competitive edge.

0:06:14 Ramona Shaw: The business world is changing fast and leaders who embrace AI will stand out. I also predict that not too far out in the future, the question of how you’re using AI, how you’re leveraging AI, will be part of every interview conversation. And if you say, I don’t really know much or I’m not using it, or I’m not familiar with some of that, that will likely cost you some points. So you not only improve productivity, but you also position yourself as a forward thinker who inspires trust and innovation in your team.

0:06:45 Ramona Shaw: Especially true for those of us who are in a generation where we’re sort of moving into the later part or the second part of our career and a lot of the new employees are moving into the organization, are a lot more tech savvy and just anticipate, expect and assume that their leaders will be innovative and embrace technological transformation and change. And if you’re the kind of manager who resists it or pushes it back, it may turn into retention challenges or will lead to your team doing things behind your back without you being aware of it.

0:07:18 Ramona Shaw: So those are the four main reasons why now, in this episode particularly, I want to focus on the employee life cycle that AI can support. That really means making your life as a people leader, as a manager, smoother and more impactful. And I want to break this down step by step. So all of it starts with the hiring process. There are a lot of tools such as HireVue or LinkedIn Talent Insights that leverage AI to screen resumes, analyze candidate videos, or even predict culture fit.

0:07:53 Ramona Shaw: Now, I have a whole lot of thoughts around the fact that AI is trained on biased data and how we need to pay attention to that. But good models will try to mitigate the biases, but you can’t fully take yourself out of it. And you definitely need to challenge what outcome these tools produce based on what you’re looking for. So, for example, I’m a big believer of people who come from diverse backgrounds.

0:08:22 Ramona Shaw: I don’t believe that for many roles we need university degrees. That’s my personal view. And I actually think that people who have gotten creative in moving up and learning on their own bring huge value to organizations. But if AI models are trained on sort of the standardized way of thinking that many people have learned at universities, the tool may disqualify or underestimate the talent and the qualities that those people that that have risen up through alternative path would bring to our teams. So that’s just a quick side note.

0:08:55 Ramona Shaw: But then in addition to seeing how AI can be used in hiring and creating resumes, you can ask Generative, let’s say chatgpt. I’m also, I’m also a big fan of Claude and Perplexity to provide interview questions. And to be really clear in your prompts, we’re not looking for the standard questions like what are your strengths and your weaknesses? You want to get really specific in what kind of role are you entering for? What’s the profile of the candidate that you have in front of you?

0:09:25 Ramona Shaw: What’s the specific goal that you’re trying to achieve with this process, what skills or qualities you’re trying to assess, and then what kind of questions are you looking for? Behavioral questions or thought provoking questions that test critical thinking and then seeing what comes out of that. So supporting the resourcing of candidates and then helping you in those interviews. That is one way that AI can help.

0:09:51 Ramona Shaw: By the way, if you don’t have a standard hiring protocol or like a framework that you go through or HR isn’t leading it or you don’t like it or whatever that may be, giving some parameters into one of those AI tools and then asking it to provide suggestions on a hiring process or a matrix or even a scaling tool to assess different factors of your candidates can be a great way for you to become more efficient and effective in your hiring as a leader.

0:10:20 Ramona Shaw: Understanding and harnessing the power of AI is not just an advantage anymore, it’s becoming a necessity. If you want to rise in your organization and you have 5, 10, 20 more years to go, there will be no way around but to get involved and to embrace AI as a way to achieve business objectives. And that applies to the vast majority of departments and professionals. And if you’re in a role where you think, yes, this is likely going to impact me too.

0:10:55 Ramona Shaw: Get started and download our ChainAI Quick Start Guide for Leaders. You will not only learn more about AI as a technology, but more importantly will address how it’s going to impact you as a leader, what skillsets you’ll want to develop in order to be well equipped during this time and ultimately become AI fluent and AI savvy. This is an easy way to get started. Familiarize yourself with the concepts, learn some practical tools and frameworks to leverage it right now in your role as a manager.

0:11:27 Ramona Shaw: Head on over to arcova.org free toolkits.

0:11:32 Ramona Shaw: Or check out the show notes or.

0:11:34 Ramona Shaw: Captions for the link. We’ll see you over there.

0:11:36 Ramona Shaw: Now the second phase in the employee lifecycle is onboarding. So let’s assume you’ve hired, you’ve negotiated the contract, contract signed. Now we’re moving into the onboarding phase. There are a lot of tools like notions AI or ClickUp that generate 30, 60, 90 day plans that you can give to new hires as sort of a draft roadmap. Now, one of the things that we teach with 30, 60, 90 plans is that it shouldn’t actually for most cases, unless you have a very unexperienced new hire who’s really learning everything from scratch.

0:12:09 Ramona Shaw: But for that’s the exception. But for everyone else, you want to co create that 30, 60, 90 plan, but give them a job description and give them additional tools and descriptions of what that person’s responsibilities are and then use a tool such as notions AI or a Microsoft copilot or ClickUp AI or ChatGPT to ask it for that draft 30, 30, 60, 90 plan. That’s one part. An additional part is to provide personalized training paths.

0:12:40 Ramona Shaw: What are these training modules that someone needs to go through and set that up? Oftentimes we may realize like, okay, they get, I guess they need like compliance training. Then they need training on our key tech stack and tools that we use. But you can also feed it a chop description and say like, in addition to all of this, what are additional skill based training modules that they might be interested in? And another suggestion, and this comes from personal onboarding experiences, is that when this new employee joins the company, for them, this is day one. For everyone else, it’s just another day.

0:13:14 Ramona Shaw: They’re all in the midst of conversations, they’re on the midst of projects or initiatives. And this person who’s coming in on day one, they’re trying to catch up. But oftentimes they can only catch up on either what has been documented in writing or based on emails that they get looped into or current conversations that are taking place. But if we tell someone like, hey, I want you to be part of this project group and support them with the transition of the database from one tool to the other.

0:13:48 Ramona Shaw: And your role will initially be to learn. And then at some point I’d like you to represent our team as a stakeholder onto this IT project of transitioning a database, I’m making this up. But anyways, if that person would have meeting summaries that were captured from the past project meetings that may have taken place for the last two months, and the candidate can spend a couple hours skimming through the Summaries of these meetings that gets them up to speed so much faster. And they also see who are the different players and what are their roles.

0:14:24 Ramona Shaw: So when you know you’re going to hire someone new and you think ahead a couple of months, okay, someone else is going to join me, they’re probably going to be on this project team. Ask for this project team to record with Zoom AI or other AI or teams has the AI feature that lets you record and then summarize meeting notes or meeting transcripts for them to do that and to capture it somewhere where it’s accessible to new employees.

0:14:49 Ramona Shaw: New hires will come in, they feel like they’re not missing a beat and that you actually had some foresight into their onboarding process. Now, of course, all along the way, onboarding cannot be automated. We do need the human touch. We do need weekly check ins to build trust and report. And I think this is just stating the obvious. The third step after onboarding now is performance management. Or we often refer to this as performance coaching. Really more so, we want to provide feedback.

0:15:20 Ramona Shaw: There are platforms like Culture Amp that provide ongoing engagement surveys with feedback recommendations. We can also develop personalized plans with AI tools analyzing performance data. If you have some measurable data that AI tools can assess to identify learning opportunities, that’s one way. It’s also good to use these tools to prepare for feedback conversations or to write clear, useful performance reviews that motivate employees while also staying honest. As you might have heard in one of our episodes around feedback, according to research done by Kruger and Danisi, about a third of the feedback that we provide actually hits home and approves the employee.

0:16:07 Ramona Shaw: A third of feedback provided does nothing, and a third of the feedback provided actually does the opposite. It demotivates the employee. So getting good at providing effective feedback that motivates employees while being direct and providing learning opportunities is a really important skill. Most managers have to learn this the hard way and they have to learn this on the job. So use these tools to say, hey, here’s an employee.

0:16:35 Ramona Shaw: This is what happened. This is the kind of feedback I need to provide. Help me prepare for it, ask me questions, help me prepare for that conversation to make sure that the message comes through very clearly and directly. Doing it in a kind way and in a way that leads to their growth and also motivates them to do better. You know, try a few different ones if you have access to them to see which ones you like, but they can be great at helping you provide feedback.

0:17:03 Ramona Shaw: Similarly, with coaching, when you notice, hey, I want to Motivate someone and engage them into a new project that maybe they have some hesitations about how can I present this project to them or this initiative to them in order to get their buy in. Similarly, when it comes to change management, when there are changes on a team, there are changes in someone’s responsibilities. Use these tools to help you communicate more effectively, to support your employees.

0:17:33 Ramona Shaw: Okay, now the last stage in this employee life cycle is off boarding in many sort of standard processes around offboarding. There’s an exit interview, often with hr, but I do recommend that you have, even if that takes place, that you have conversations with the employee too. And then you look at either the transcript, if you were allowed to record that, or you just feed your takeaways into a tool, a gen AI tool, and you ask it and you challenge you of what kind of takeaways you have and how you can implement this.

0:18:06 Ramona Shaw: In those cases, you really use those tools not to produce an outcome for you or to automate something, but to help you as a partner would that some mentor would, or as a coach would by asking you some questions. It cannot replace a human being, but sometimes human beings aren’t available right when we need them, or there’s something that we may not feel comfortable sharing. And in those cases, leverage these tools to better prepare, to better reflect, to gain new insights that you otherwise would miss.

0:18:38 Ramona Shaw: Now, similar to the onboarding, when it comes to offboarding, there’s a huge handoff process, like the knowledge handoffs that need to take place. AI can help to document, to summarize projects and then make sure there’s a seamless transition. When someone resigns or you letting someone go again, look at the meetings that they’re still having and ask them to record those meetings and then be able to store them. Then make the summaries of these meetings accessible.

0:19:06 Ramona Shaw: That way whoever takes that task on next can catch up. Similarly, there are a lot of tools that will observe someone work and through the observation of the workflow they’re going through, create an sop, a standard operating procedure, outlining what different steps need to take place. The AI takes screenshots and puts different task items bullet points. Those automations are really useful because oftentimes, if you get two weeks notice, at least in the us there’s a lot of pressure to get a lot of stuff done within a short timeframe when they’re already half checked out or fully checked out, to then ask.

0:19:42 Ramona Shaw: In addition to letting everyone know what you’re doing and saying bye to everyone, maybe finalize some work I’m also going to ask you to create SOPs for all the things that only you know how to do. I don’t know, for some people that may work well. For others, you might not be able to do that in a reliable way. So AI tools can be great way to document knowledge that would otherwise be lost and it reduces the stress for both you and the departing employee. Okay, now let’s talk about strengthening your leadership skills with AI.

0:20:16 Ramona Shaw: Because leadership isn’t just about managing tasks right now. We’ve talked a lot about the tasks within the employee lifecycle, a little bit about communication, but it’s also about inspiring people and driving results. So here’s how AI can help you strengthen those core leadership skills. First, let’s talk about emotional intelligence. AI tools are pretty good at doing sentiment analysis. They can gawk the team’s morale and flag potential issues before they escalate.

0:20:50 Ramona Shaw: And this can give you a chance to address concerns proactively and support a positive work environment. Now, I’m saying this, but I’m fully aware that some of you don’t have access to tools that will allow you to do a sentiment analysis. Some tools are available and your company may allow you to use them. It can be plugged in just for meetings or just for conversations with clients to then do a sentiment analysis of even the written email conversations that can be monitored and assessed with AI in the way that you’re compliant with AI regulations more broadly within your organization, or just meetings where you can plug it in and then listen to team members talk and maybe pick up some points of friction that we as humans would otherwise not notice.

0:21:39 Ramona Shaw: So just keep that in mind. Even if it’s not available to you now, know that that is coming and be on the lookout and see how you can sort of, you know, get involved or be part of a pilot group within the regulation and the policies available, how you can leverage it. It’s also a great tool to analyze these complex data sets and then practice critical thinking. You can visualize teams productivity Trends Based on KPIs, you can assess project risk and you can help your stakeholders make more informed decisions.

0:22:15 Ramona Shaw: But also when you feed a data or you’re presenting every port or something and you feed it a tool and you say, how can I think about this topic more critically? What questions should I be considering? What objections are there? What’s a contrarian view to what I’m presenting here? It sparks that thought process. And yes, we should all be doing this without the use of Gen AI. The truth though is many of us don’t. Either we don’t have time or we may not be good at it, or we know we should be doing it and we might think we’re doing it, we’re just not doing it so in such a great way, or we just don’t even realize that we should be doing it. So there’s a number of reasons why that Critical reflection, critical thinking often get skipped.

0:23:04 Ramona Shaw: So that’s the second one. The third one is actual communication. Tools such as Grammarly for business, and there are a number of others can polish your writing. And it helps you make sure that you’re clear and you’re responding in an empathic way when needed. To me personally, looking at all the writing that I do and having Grammarly run through it has helped me fine tune my language in so many different ways.

0:23:33 Ramona Shaw: And it’s not just that it’s updating what I do and making it better. I’m also learning by observing the changes that it makes. And so my writing gets better because I see suggestions and I’m paying attention. And then next time I write it, I already know how to better phrase it. And also, you’ve probably heard this many times before. There are a lot of sort of levers that people use in their language to soften it. It could be, hey, I just want to ask and we’re softening what we’re saying versus taking a strong stance.

0:24:03 Ramona Shaw: So if you’re someone who knows, oh, I don’t come across as assertive as I sometimes need to be. Tools like Grimmerly or these AI tools can help you improve your style because you give it specific prompts. You can say, you know, look at this email. I want to make this a notch more assertive and it will give you suggestions on how to do this. Okay, so as we’re wrapping this up, we talked about emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and communication as the leadership skills where I can be of great support.

0:24:34 Ramona Shaw: Now let’s talk about best practices for AI implementation. Adopting AI is more than just downloading some tools, although that’s a good start. It’s about integrating them thoughtfully into your leadership style. So what I recommend is starting small. Pick one area to experience with. It may be automating meeting notes, using AI to prepare for feedback conversations, or using it to evaluate your written communication.

0:25:01 Ramona Shaw: But build confidence in one area first before you expand your applications. That’s number one. Number two, be transparent. Be open with your team about how AI is being used and why. So using AI to monitor engagement or you’re feeding it data to assess Certain trends, and especially if it’s related to data that involves them, it’s important that they know and that you do this in order to improve the team dynamics, in order to provide them the right learning opportunities and to coach them in an effective way. It’s not about micromanaging or controlling and that when you’re upfront and then you follow through with these kind of behaviors and message, that’s what builds trust.

0:25:45 Ramona Shaw: So, one, start small. Two, be transparent. Three, focus on upskilling. Just like you’re learning how to use AI effectively, help your team learn how to do this. You might host workshops or roundtables, or you do tutorials on how to do this. Remember that statistic, 52% of knowledge workers say they don’t know how to use tools effectively. And you can help with that. You can change that. Okay, so that’s number three.

0:26:14 Ramona Shaw: Number four, embrace ethics. AI isn’t perfect, so always review its outputs, not just for inaccuracies, but also for biases, especially in sensitive areas like hiring or performance management. So start small, be transparent, focus on and stay involved and embrace the ethical aspect and lean into ensuring that this is ethical. So to come to a close on this, like I said earlier, start small. Really identify one task or one skill or one aspect of your, your people, leadership and explore different tools.

0:26:47 Ramona Shaw: Look at how to automate it or how to elevate the task or optimize the workflow. Have conversations with your peers, talk to your HR team or your tech team about what’s on the roadmap for them, what you can anticipate coming their way, what kind of data they have access to, and so forth to stay engaged, push the boundaries a little bit, to also demonstrate to your team and to the organization that you are ready to be part of this transformation.

0:27:15 Ramona Shaw: And you want to see how you can make the most of AI for your team and for the organization. It’s coming, right? We can’t stop the train. And you want to be a leader on that front as much on this line and how it will impact work and your leadership as you want to be a leader in your actual profession. If you think I go, I just don’t have time for this. Give it 15 minutes every week. That’s it. Block out a half an hour every Friday.

0:27:43 Ramona Shaw: Reflect back on your week. And you think like, what’s one thing that I wish I would have automated? Let me give it a shot. Or engage in sort of online communities on Reddit or elsewhere, or attend a conference or do some trainings, listen to this podcast or if you want to go further, check out our resources on the topics of AI for managers. You will find those in the Show Notes. So with that said, thank you for joining me today. I hope that if you still feel overwhelmed or like it’s too much that this helped you give a bit of an outline on where to start and what’s possible.

0:28:15 Ramona Shaw: If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out and visit arcova.org for resources and additional training opportunities for you and for your team to help adapt and implement Genai Tools. Thanks so much for tuning in. We’ll see you next week. Bye for now. If you enjoyed this episode, then check.

0:28:32 Ramona Shaw: Out two other awesome resources to help.

0:28:34 Ramona Shaw: You become a leader people love to work with. This includes a free masterclass on how.

0:28:39 Ramona Shaw: To successfully lead as a new manager. Check it out @archova.org/masterclass. The second resource is my best selling.

0:28:48 Ramona Shaw: Book the Confident and Competent New Manager.

0:28:51 Ramona Shaw: How to quickly rise to success in.

0:28:53 Ramona Shaw: Your first leadership role.

0:28:55 Ramona Shaw: Check it out at archova.org/books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there. You can find all those links in.

0:29:02 Ramona Shaw: The Show Notes down below.