A Leader’s AI Roadmap with Farshad Asl (Part 1)

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Perry Holley:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:
And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. You guys are in for a treat today. Number one, because we brought a guest in, we took a little pressure off Perry from having to create another piece of content. But really what we’re going to talk about today is really the treat and we’re going to talk about what everybody’s talking about, AI and leadership. And I’m going to introduce you to a good friend of ours in just a minute. Before I do, I want to encourage you to go to MaxwellLeadership..com/ExecutivePodcast There you can click on this episode.

Chris Goede:
You can leave your name, your information. Maybe if you have a leadership challenge or a question that we can unpack for you on a future episode, do that. Maybe you’re thinking, hey, I need a leadership coach. Or maybe I want training. That’s what we do. That. That’s our day job and we do this for fun every Thursday for you. But that’s what that’s for.

Chris Goede:
So I want to encourage you to do that. Now, let’s talk a little bit about our guest. Let’s talk a little bit about what we’re going to talk about today. I had the privilege over 13 years ago to meet this young Man. And I say young man because he looks much better than me. He works for Bankers Life. He’s a regional director, one of the top regional directors for Bankers Life. And we met at a conference or a training and we began to connect.

Chris Goede:
And I heard his story and I thought to myself, john Maxwell’s got to hear this story. So like any leader, he takes action and figures out where we’re going to be at the next event. It was Exchange in Boston and he said, I’m going to be there. So he is there, he’s a part of that. And he got to sit down and have lunch with John and share his story. And since then has been a huge part of our organization, been a huge fan of our organization. But the most impressive thing we had him yesterday, spent some time with our team, was that he takes and applies everything that he’s reading that he’s learning. So even with this podcast, we challenge you all the time.

Chris Goede:
Take what you’re learning and have your team listen to it. And then before you start your next team meeting, go around the room, tell them what’s important, pull out some conversation. That’s what he did and has been doing for years. He has authored five books. The most popular one probably Amazon best sellers, no excuses. This is the 10 year anniversary this year of that book. And then what we’re talking about today is the AI Leadership roadmap. So, Farad, thank you so much for being here.

Chris Goede:
Thank you for the journey. Thank you for being a friend of John, of Mark Coles, myself now Perry. Yeah, you don’t have a choice. I’m bringing him into the family. I’m in. You’re in. Talk to me just a little bit about that journey and then I want you to lead it up to this book and what made you go after and attack AI from a leadership standpoint, because that’s your ultimate passion.

Farshad Asl:
First of all, great honor to be here. I mean, everything you said, you’re so kind. I mean, I have to make sure I have this part before I’m speaking in any way. I just use it as introduction.

Chris Goede:
Before you get home tonight. I’m going to send it to Mina. Listen to this before walks into the house.

Farshad Asl:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Very, very kind of you. My journey with authoring a book started with no excuses mindset, of course, is my passion. And I grew up in an environment that you wake up in the morning to survive, hardly thrive. Then I come to us and see opportunities. I see that, you know what, this is a place that you can achieve your Dream you waking up in the morning, you can be your best every day. And then I look around, I see some excuses coming from different people around me. I said, how can I help the team and build a culture of no excuses mindset, clarity with the vision, with the mindset.

Farshad Asl:
Because clarity, I believe gives you power.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I agree with that.

Farshad Asl:
The reason I call it 2020 and most people, they know it as a 2020 book is the vision clarity in your mind the same way that your eyes should be. 2020, your mind, the clarity gives you power. So I said, you know I’m going to start writing this book. And many people say, farshad, you barely speak English. I mean who going to read your book? I said, you know, when something is being given and it’s in my heart, I don’t know what the outcome is going to be but I’m sure God will give me tools and ability to bring it to fruition. And that’s exactly what I did. No excuses. Journey has opened up many doors for me in a leadership journey.

Farshad Asl:
Getting to know John Maxwell, Chris and Mark absolutely changed my life. And yes, this is the fifth book every other year I’m focusing, reflecting on one book. A.I. Leadership Roadmap is not a textbook. It’s how to bring leadership to AI and make it more effective and taking away the fear and doubts in my. Yeah, pretty simple.

Chris Goede:
Love it.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, I love it. Well I noticed in the start of the book which by the way it’s really just a catalog of ideas and links and products and I think any leader that’s I know for myself is I know a little bit but I didn’t know how much I didn’t know until you started categorizing it in this. It’s really a resource I think every leader should have. But early in the book you talk about I’m going to read this because it’s said weaving together three things that matter most and you talk about the mind being strategy, clarity, vision, the heart, empathy, values and purpose and the tool. AI is a partner to help innovate, grow and make better decisions. You talk about that especially for our leadership audience that’s listening to this give

Farshad Asl:
us some context behind just like no excuses. I do this reflection every morning. I have my rule of 5, 15, 20 minutes, maybe 40 minutes reflecting, praying and creating content. Writing one paragraph or one page. So one of these morning in my mind was how can I bring value to this AI and leadership Most Gen X, my generation in executive role, how do they feel about AI? The same way I do you know, I want to ignore it. I want to say it’s not true. Yeah, it’s not for me. So I.

Farshad Asl:
I started signing, looking online, signed up for a course with UC Berkeley up north in California. And I said, I want to be a student of leadership and a student of AI so I can bring them together.

Chris Goede:
Together? Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
Every night, couple hours. And then this became my journey. And I. Every morning I was reflecting, I started writing something. Mind, heart, and the tool. The mind is a strategy, is a clarity. The heart is the empathy, love of leadership, the core values. And the tool is AI.

Farshad Asl:
And this becomes an unstoppable force. And any of them alone will remain behind. I mean, you’re going to fall behind if you don’t have any of them. AI by itself increases the speed, but leader gives the direction with integrity.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
And without it, unfortunately, this great tool that can be a great tool can take. Take us the wrong directions. So that’s where everything started with the mind, heart, and tool.

Chris Goede:
I love that. Right. Because a lot of times when we find a tool, we’re like, yes, let’s do it. Like, let’s close the gap of speed. And I love your comment about the heart and the mind of making sure we’re going in right direction so that we’re using that tool to produce the results that we’re looking for. Now, everybody, when they talk about AI is. Is talking about replacing people. We were just talking a little bit.

Chris Goede:
I heard you guys having a conversation earlier about organizations that are looking to do that, and you talk about in the book about it actually amplifying leaders and what we’re doing, not necessarily replacing it. It may replace some roles, but if we can look at it and think about it more from amplifying what we do than replacing us, I think that’s a powerful mindset shift. And you would say that’s true. Talk to us a little bit about your research and your thoughts behind that.

Farshad Asl:
Yeah, we’re just talking about that. Some articles online is talking about replacing managers and all middle managers, I think you said.

Chris Goede:
Right. Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
The book is consistent with the message, but there’s something missing on that article is very important. I think if your takeaway from this podcast is only this, I think we are good. The manager needs to make the choice to learn AI and learn leadership. This is not the time to plateau and say, I’m a manager. I’m good with external reports. I’m going to hold people accountable to numbers only. And I don’t want to move. I don’t want to do anything if you’re not willing to change will be replaced.

Farshad Asl:
But if you learn leadership, the skill of communication, love it, connection, building relationships, and you learn AI, you will be irreplaceable in this area. At least for the reason of AI, you won’t be replaced.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
Because you know how to use it and direct it the right way.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, it’s good.

Perry Holley:
So continue on that thought though. So AI, it’s got so many functions. Again, it’s a resource guide of the ways AI can be used. But we’re talking to a leadership audience and I can picture many leaders thinking well that’s good for the analyst and for the accounting people and for the. Give me a little bit of a sales pitch for why a leader should. You were just, you were just starting to just now about why leaders should care and how they should think about AI. Should they? And maybe we talk a little bit about steps they can take but give me the overall if I’m going to inspire somebody to. You really need to be looking at AI.

Perry Holley:
Why, why does a leader need AI?

Farshad Asl:
Augmentation over automation. Partnering up with AI It’s a tool out there. This is a tool. This is an agent in the future who are going to learn the way you behaving, responding to your text messages, emails, the way you thinking your habits and going to help you save time on the repeated tasks that you’re doing. And freeing up your time gives you to become a better leader. If you are a good leader with AI, you will become better. And if you are not a good leader, unfortunately not much hope, not even,

Chris Goede:
not even AI can solve that problem.

Farshad Asl:
No, we can.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, that’s awesome.

Perry Holley:
Just follow along with that.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Is there a mistake that you see leaders? Is it just pure rejection of. I don’t need it. It’s not for me.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. Like what’s the, yeah, what’s the pushback on it from leaders?

Farshad Asl:
We need to take start taking action as leaders is our responsibility to create the awareness in the organization because people are right now already feeling about AI that this is going to replace me as a leader. I want to be proactive. I have discussions with my team that this is not going to replace you, this is going to improve you bring accuracy and speed to, to our business and we’re going to utilize your skill set in different area so it won’t replace it. I want you to be familiar with AI. The areas that you can utilize AI and become better in action is the greatest sin for leaders. And I truly believe that one of the reasons I got involved with this book. I said, I want to lead this. I got to get ahead of this AI before my team asking what we’re going to do.

Farshad Asl:
I want to figure it out as a leader. Then I said, you know what? I’m going to share it with my. My colleagues, my mentors, my other leaders in the organization. And it became a book.

Chris Goede:
So I love that Barshad is known for that. When he’s learning, he wants everybody else to learn, and he wants people to be better around him than they were when they came to him or part of it. And so he’s. He shares this stuff all the time. So to your point, a lot of leaders may be pushing back. People may be pushing back. You talk about culture, you talk about different things, but maybe there’s a leader out there that’s listening right now, and they’re like, where do I start? Like, what would you encourage the basics right now for a leader to start using AI in order to help them and their leadership, as you talked about, become a better leader, maybe even in the culture of the organization?

Farshad Asl:
Yes. The three areas they’re gonna start, but they’re gonna start with one problem. Because the biggest mistake is I get involved with five different issues. Let’s find one pain point in the business. In the business.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
Then we start piloting it. At the same time, we bring a team together and say, okay, this is what we want to do. You are part of this pilot. Then we keep improving. We can get some feedback and keep improving. And then becomes a business plan, becomes a game plan, and expand it to other areas. Let’s say the pain point right now for me is recruiting, for example.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Farshad Asl:
I want to bring AI to simplify the process, save time, bring a speed and accuracy to my recruiting process so I can focus on communicating with those recruiters and candidates, share my vision rather than sitting here replying to 100 emails or reviewing 1,000 resumes. Right. Narrowing down all of those, saving time on the task. That usually takes someone hours to review all of them. So, yes, start with one. Start simple, small, but something that is impactful, like area of recruiting is a big impact area. But it’s one area.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Farshad Asl:
And then after this, you see the improvement and results, then you shift into another area. You have a game plan, you have a blueprint. Blueprint. Right now.

Chris Goede:
It’s good.

Farshad Asl:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
One thing, I know this is to be true, but you said the place to AI is only as good as the prompts you give it. And so I’ve. I’ve learned a bit about writing some prompts, playing, playing around with it. But then you, you actually label this prompt engineering. So this seems like a very important. If you’re going to use this tool, I need to know how to get the most out of this tool. But too many leaders and maybe I’m just speaking for him, is that when you say engineering on the back of something, he’s out.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I’m not doing that. Yeah, that’s too complicated for me.

Perry Holley:
Explain maybe just the prompt in itself. And then your idea about prompt engineering is almost like a discipline of how to get the most out of AI.

Farshad Asl:
You know, asking the right questions in the right way so we can get the best out of AI. It’s very simple. At the beginning I was asking very vague questions and the answers, they were disappointing. I mean like far off. Until I learned to specify a little bit and say, act like salesperson, act like a marketer here as an expert. So I’m bringing AI’s focus to that area with all the massive information that AI has. And then I start giving examples, say I need to respond to this marketing project, give me three bullet points, what I need to focus on. I give an example, the percentage of the results I’m expecting, and then AI gonna, gonna do exactly what you ask for.

Farshad Asl:
Very close. You know, John Maxwell, in one of the conversations I had, one on one, he said, first shot, follow the rule 10, 80, 10. In all my books, all my projects, all my articles, the 10% is a framework, 80% is the legwork. The final 10% I’m responsible to review and put my stamp of approval. Same thing with AI prompting is the first 10%.

Perry Holley:
I like that.

Farshad Asl:
Yeah, 80% AI going to do the work. The final 10%. As a leader, I need to make sure this is matched with my core value. It’s meeting my expectations. And then that’s 10, 80, 10 that I brought to this AI leadership roadmap.

Chris Goede:
I love that because you see a lot of people I know when I’m getting AI emails or context and doesn’t necessarily align with, with the core of who the person is or the program or the company that’s coming from. And then you go, hey, they didn’t apply that 10, 80, 10. So I love that the 10%’s the prompting. That back 10% is making sure that it’s in alignment with how I wanna communicate the program I wanna create. And that’ll help you kind of steer that through that process. So I love that. And I was just thinking about this too. John was way ahead of his time.

Chris Goede:
He was AI before AI. He wrote a book called Good Leaders Ask Great Questions. Right. So even in the dialogue of people. Right. Yeah, right. And, and, and having learning lunches and having meetings. Right.

Chris Goede:
It’s all about that first 10% of asking the right question. And I think AI and this prompting that you’re talking about is the exact same thing. Now we got leaders again, businesses. Let’s shift a little bit. By the way, in the book, tons of examples.

Perry Holley:
I was just.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And for those that are on YouTube, you can see Perry’s looking through the book. There’s a playbook of prompts if you’re listening. When you get a chance, we’re going to tell you how to get a hold of this book on Amazon. There’s just tons of content in there for you to be able to apply

Perry Holley:
do’s and don’ts of prompting. Yeah, the structure of a great prompt and then we’ll talk about the prompt playbook.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, in there. So let’s talk about gold mines in a business and from an AI standpoint. Okay. And you talk about, man, there are some gold mines in them. They’re hills. And being able to do this. Give us some examples. Give the listeners some examples of a gold mine that may be in their team or in their business that they should be aware of.

Farshad Asl:
Obviously, AI can help in many, many different areas. Every business has areas that I call it goldmine for me is recruiting, sales, process, marketing, prospecting. For you is maybe reviewing your content.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. You know, some of training, coaching. Yeah, right, right.

Farshad Asl:
As a leader, I need to sit down and come up with gold mines. The areas that AI can elevate my business. I cannot ignore it. Even, even when, when I’m doing a training. I have my training outline. I’m brainstorming with AI. Is there anything else I can add to this? It’s my content, is my training, my outline. But I want to improve it.

Farshad Asl:
And all those research, the studies I need to do, all the percentages, the statistics I need to pull, AI can do that in like three minutes for me. So you’re going to elevate my training? The. The content is mine. The homework, the 80% is done, the final 10%. Now I have to sit down and revisit and say, okay, is this now something I want to present? Am I going to add value now? The gold mine in areas I’m using it for sure is recruiting, sales, marketing, and narrowing down all my resumes for me. So what is yours?

Chris Goede:
Yeah, what’s your gold mine?

Perry Holley:
So you mentioned earlier that you started looking into AI and then you said I should share this with my team and then I should share this with my greater organization. Did you find the organization AI ready or did they. Did you have. Was that a hill to climb or were they ready for you or did you have to convince to sell that? How do you make your organization AI ready?

Farshad Asl:
Most people, they want to ignore it, but AI is already here. You like it or you don’t.

Perry Holley:
It doesn’t care if you like it or not.

Farshad Asl:
No, it doesn’t care. So we do have percentage of group, group of people, they just gonna resist, not interested. I’m doing my papers, I’m doing my Excel, I’m doing all of this, which is fine. But the awareness is there has been created a group of people that are curious, they want to learn, but curiosity is not enough. It’s action time right now. There are many leaders there are curious right now. They want to learn, but they’re not taking action. I, I think you’re falling behind right now.

Farshad Asl:
It’s time to get on on this. Learn and start acting. Start creating a AI ready culture as leaders. If you ask me for a show, where, where am I? Am I late to this? I’m start creating AI ready culture. Start communicating that this is how we’re going to use AI in our company, in our organization. So people have the awareness, bring down the level of fear and bring up the certainty that we are not here to replace you. If you choose to improve yourself, the managers in that particular article that me and you were discussing before this, and I’m sure we can talk about it more, they are the people that are part of group one. They are ignoring it.

Farshad Asl:
They don’t want to change, they want to grow. They don’t want to grow. So yeah, we’re dealing with that. I think we are not 100% AI ready culture yet, but I can tell you by next year, this time is not only AI ready culture, but we are utilizing AI and bringing a lot of accuracy and speed to our process. The accuracy and the speed is something I was talking about five years ago, during maybe six years ago pandemic. I shared with my team and I have some articles on it and Forbes. Accuracy, speed, trust. This is the future.

Farshad Asl:
Accuracy and speed. AI can help us. Trust is something that leaders bring to the table. Yeah, great. If leader is not involved with AI, we’re going to lose trust faster than you can imagine.

Perry Holley:
If they’re asking why are you not.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I love that. So we talked about prompts. Last question for you, here’s the good news. We’re going to have a second session. So we’re going to do part two. And what I love about this, and I hope you are understanding, you’re hearing the examples that Prashant’s using. This is just a passion of his as an executive leader. He runs a big company, several companies, and has lived this out and has using it.

Chris Goede:
And he’s just sharing with us things and lessons that he’s learned for doing that for probably the last 12 months, maybe even before that. You’re probably applying some of these things that we maybe didn’t identify him as AI. But you talk about, in the book, we talked about prompts and then you also talk about the framework for executive prompts. So maybe there’s a leader out there. It’s a, an executive level that will be using it a little bit differently. Yesterday when you did a session for our team, I asked you the question of, hey, from an executive level, like from strategy, from business plans, like, you know, the way to use it. Talk a little bit about your research and how you as an executive are using it. Why did you put in an additional part of where you had framework for the executive prompts?

Farshad Asl:
You know, first of all, thank you. AI is no longer a buzzword.

Chris Goede:
Right, right.

Farshad Asl:
It’s just part of catalyst. Yeah, it’s there. Right. So as an executive, as a CEO, as a leader, the way that I gonna strategize and use my prompt and AI is different than my HR manager or my salesperson and I have to be laser focused on my area, become expert as a CEO, how can I use AI to my, my benefit, our benefit, my company. So the main idea is that different, different leaders need different prompts because they carry different responsibilities. As a CEO may use prompts for strategy and vision or better decision making. Marketing leader may use prompt for customer engagement. HR manager, maybe for coaching, maybe for writing somebody up, I mean, whatever it might be.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, yeah.

Farshad Asl:
So prompt engineering empowers us to actively engage with AI initiatives, whatever that initiative is. And I am responsible to know my prompting pretty well. I don’t need to know everybody’s. And if I learn that, I will be ahead of the game.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.

Perry Holley:
Well, I have more questions. Yeah.

Chris Goede:
So we’re going to ask you that you join us next week. We’re gonna, we’re gonna ask Farshad to stay and be a part of another episode. We’re just gonna dig even a little bit deeper into this. One of the things that I want you to know, and take away from this is this is. This is a playbook. What I love about this is we, you know, I have a very, very smart bookshelf in my office. There’s a lot of books that sit on there that I don’t pull off. This is like part of your toolkit.

Chris Goede:
Like, this is something where you can just pull this off and you can dig in here and it can help you become a better leader, no matter what your role is inside the organization.

Perry Holley:
So I will say one thing I really enjoyed was Farshad will give you a lot of examples, tools, frameworks. Try that. But then you gave my personal note. And so in every chapter, he gave his personal experience. And so you actually spoke to the leader about what you’ve done. So great touch. On top of all the resources, there’s a. There’s a personal touch that says, this is what it meant to him.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. So our encouragement to you today, obviously, is to share this with your team, take a bunch of notes, begin to apply. More importantly, jump on Amazon and you can pick this up really quick. The AI Leadership roadmap. Have that delivered. Get one for you and for your team so that you guys can just dive in and start really using this for what it’s to be used. Right. And I loved your comment.

Chris Goede:
Inaction should not be tied to any leader that’s listening to this. Right. We should not be stalling. We should be taking action. And this is another way that we can do that.

Perry Holley:
Fantastic. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Farshad. It’s been very. I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation. As Chris reminded you at the front of the podcast, if you would like to know more about our offerings about the book, that you can find all that information at MaxwellLeadership.com/ExecutivePodcast. You can also leave us a question or a comment there. We love hearing from you.

Perry Holley:
We’re very grateful you’d spend this time with us. That’s all today from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.

Transcript created by Castmagic.