Top Down GenAI: Three Principles for Leaders
If you’re in leadership, I’ve got news for you:
Integrating generative AI into your organization is not a typical digital transformation. Not really.
This is what digital transformation looks like:
Buy shiny new software. Give everyone training videos. Dump implementation on your overworked IT department. Burn the ships so no one can go back to the old ways.
This is different. This is change management.
Change management is your domain, my leader friends.
That means unless you are fluent in generative AI, you will have no idea what this strange, wonderful transformation should look like for your people.
You won’t know what an AI-powered work day feels like. Or how to scale it.
Here’s the good news:
Learning this is actually fun! Unlike stupid school, amiright? (I’m kidding!! Sheesh. I come from a family of teachers.)
Okay - ready?
Three principles for leaders:
PRINCIPLE 1: KNOW THY GENAI
Leaders need to understand, and consistently use, genAI.
If that sounds like a chore, you haven’t tried yet. Because nobody has shown you.
That’s on us.
If you can’t get training (and I highly recommend training), here’s what you can do on your own:
Open up ChatGPT.
Grab a colleague.
Tell them that you’re both going to ask ChatGPT for help on a work thing.
BTW, it doesn’t have to be work. It can be that you’re going to learn how photosynthesis works. Or what a data lake is and why it’s important. Or come up with a new way of evaluating applicants.
Why do this with somebody? Many reasons: It’s more fun. It keeps you brainstorming. It keeps your brain from sliding back into old fixed mindsets.
But most importantly, it keeps you talking like a human, which is the best predictor of success.
Learning ChatGPT, even at this level, will help you understand - and get a feel for - what an AI-powered workday looks like.
This will help you set new benchmarks and expectations for your team.
PRINCIPLE 2: KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE
The biggest mistake I see leaders making is asking, "How can AI help us?"
It’s too broad.
It’s like waking up each day and saying “I wonder how electricity can help me today?”
Imagine you're a building contractor. You probably walk onto a construction site and decide what needs to be done, and for each task, you have a tool.
Generative AI is that entire tool belt. It’s got it all.
You don’t start by working out what each tool does.
You focus on what you need to do. Then you use the tools to speed that up or be more efficient or whatever.
Focus on the value you want to drive, and then use AI to make it happen.
PRINCIPLE 3: TRAIN, TRAIN, AND TRAIN SOME MORE
Get training for your team.
Yes, I do that. But use somebody you trust, I don’t care. Just make sure that you’re not confusing “training” with “show and tell” by somebody in your organization.
Meaning, if you’re going to get in shape, there’s a big difference between using a personal trainer vs just grabbing some jacked dude and asking him for help.
Training is a skill. And in this case, it involves behavioral change. It’s not just showing them what button to push.
The best part of all of this?
It will change your life.
Nobody takes home a CRM system and makes their life better. But learning and mastering GenAI will genuinely change the way you do everything.
Let’s do this. Lead the way, leader friends!
AI NEWS OF THE WEEK
LLama 3!
Meta just dropped Llama 3, and it’s better than expected. For you and me, that means a more powerful AI assistant built into stuff we use all the time, like WhatApp and stuff like that. Could be cool…
Microsoft gives us the Deep Fakes
Microsoft’s research team has dropped a paper on us describing talking faces. That sounds lame - but check out the demos of uploading an avatar and watching it come to life. Not available yet - probably because it’s gonna upend humanity.
Argh! Robots!
I don’t know what to make of Boston Dynamics. They delight us with their robots, but the Verge isn’t wrong with calling it’s all-electric humanoid robot a swiveling, shape-shifting nightmare. I mean, sorry but just LOL.
Generative AI Tips
If you are in a position where you have to show somebody how to use something like ChatGPT, lean more towards creativity and less towards productivity.
It’s tempting to just be like “You can do this task like this, super fast!”
And that’s great. But the challenge is sometimes they lock onto that use case, and they use it, but then they don’t really expand or iterate on that case.
Instead, do some fun stuff. Learn something brand new. Get them conversing with this thing to see how human it is.
It’s a more effective way of getting them excited. And excited people learn on their own.
That's all for now, friends! See you next time.
