A Leader’s AI Roadmap with Farshad Asl (Part 2)

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. I’m just going to start by saying if you didn’t listen last week to part, we’re going to call it part one. We’re doing this on the fly here. We asked Farshad to stay and do part two because we’re talking about a book of his that Perry and I both jumped in, read it, devoured it, we got yellow highlights and marks up here. It’s really changed the way that we’re using AI as a leader. And it’s AI Leadership Roadmap. And we’re going to go a little bit further.

Chris Goede:
We’re going to talk about culture with AI, we talk about ethics, we’re going to trust. We’re going to talk about burnout in this episode.

Perry Holley:
But to set the stage there too,

Chris Goede:
I think I got a good call. See, the CEO’s roadmap to prompt engineering and business success so far Shot is not just someone that’s learning about the technology. He’s actually been applying and has been in his business. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about even further today. Before we get started, I want to encourage you to go to MaxwellLeadership.com/ExecutivePodcast. There you can click on this podcast and you can leave us a question, a comment, or if you there, you can download the show notes too, which, by the way, we’ll have a link and more information about how to pick up Barshad’s book. So if you are here for the first time, go back. I’m just kidding.

Chris Goede:
Stay here. Farshad is a dear friend of ours, dear friend of John Maxwell’s, Mark Coles, myself. We’ve known each other for years. A top regional manager for Bankers Life and a guy that I admire who takes leadership principles and applies them to what he’s doing both personally and professionally so far. Shad, thanks for being here again today. All the way from la.

Farshad Asl:
Thank you.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, all the way from LA to be in studio with us, we spare my expense. That’s right. That’s right. So as we start today, you talk about in the book build versus the buy decision when it comes to this AI. What do you mean by that? Where is it? What? What’s Driving that part of the content in the book.

Farshad Asl:
You know, many leaders, they ask me, should I develop an app system process just off the shelf? Yeah, buy something, I got it. So it depends on your project. I mean I like to start a small focusing on one problem and use off the shelf. And if I want to tailor and customize something for my organization on the side, I will continue doing that while I’m learning from this off the shelf already. AI, AI system. So if you want really something quick to try and become AI ready culture, build it up, use one of the off the shelf, start getting busy, spend half an hour a day using it, but at the same time think I leave it long term. My unique need for my organization, what kind of system and processes I need and you can do both of them at the same time. Start the smart, start quick and gain the experience before it’s too late.

Chris Goede:
One of the things that Farshad recommended to us in last week’s episode was find a gold mine in your business. And to your point, maybe you identify those. Pick a small one.

Farshad Asl:
Yes.

Chris Goede:
You know, and then let’s start with off the shelf. And then maybe, maybe as you get into it a little bit further, then you may need to develop a tool for AI tool that allows you to help your business. So I love that. Find that gold mine, start small and then make the decision.

Perry Holley:
One thing I enjoyed last week, we just touched on it, but it had to kind of ring to it because we talk culture a lot. It’s really what we’re all about is how do you develop this leadership culture. But you mentioned building an AI ready culture and I thought that’s a real challenge for a lot of leaders. It wouldn’t be for me. I’m quoting you. It’s about nurturing curiosity, fostering collaboration and empowering every individual to innovate. I can’t think of a leader who wouldn’t want that on their team. But when you think about how should you be investing to develop an AI culture, it’s more than just the product, more than just the use case.

Perry Holley:
This is bigger to me. It seems like a culture is how we do things, how we think, act and interact, thinking, how does AI going to fit into that?

Farshad Asl:
You know, technology alone doesn’t drive transformation, People do. So yes, I have the technology, but without people there’s no transformation in my organization. That’s right. So with being transparent, having some empathy and sympathy during the process, because some people, they’re going to resist, they’re not going to like this upfront. They’re fearful of their own position title jobs. But be clear with this communication, be transparent and that’s how you’re going to start. I always start with people before I start with technology. Yes, I gained the knowledge about technology but if I don’t have the support and team around me and around this technology, this won’t be a successful process.

Farshad Asl:
So people are very important in this process for sure.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. When you talk about people and being in that process. I want to come back for just a minute because so many people, when they think about culture, they think about the, the interaction between the people. I love what you said though. It’s how we do things, it’s how we run meetings, it’s how we tackle problems. It’s it. And then you have the communication piece with each other throughout that process. You’re not saying let’s, let’s completely abandon that.

Chris Goede:
You’re saying let’s use it as part of a tool to set that structure up as to, to be a part of our culture.

Farshad Asl:
Yeah. And very transparent with the team.

Chris Goede:
And the team.

Farshad Asl:
This, this system is working. This system is not working. This is what we have learned and, and engaging them. I learned this from one of the books, the five dysfunction of a team.

Chris Goede:
Yes.

Farshad Asl:
When there is no trust, the team gonna fall apart. Same thing applies here. We need to create that trust towards AI system. And as a leader, if I’m not communicating this in advance, all the doubts, all the fear gonna slow down our organization. You’re gonna reduce the trust and they’re gonna think okay, my leader is bringing AI because eventually thinking about reducing the number of staff. But that’s not the, the point.

Perry Holley:
That’s right.

Farshad Asl:
Yes. Our staff that they might be replaced. But it’s by their own choice. Right. Not because of the AI.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Perry Holley:
Well that so interesting. We have a large client. They asked me to come speak and about innovation and I said it would be irresponsible of me not to address AI. They are consultants. And truly if you need a consultant, you can go to AI and say here’s my business challenge, blah blah blah and it’ll tell you what it thinks based on what? But these consultants had. Well, I think the organization had two fears. One, they’ll be replaced by AI that nobody will want their consultancy. But two, the second fear was that the consultants would lean so heavily on AI that they don’t bring any additional value that they would just give an AI response to the client that the client could have easily gotten themselves.

Perry Holley:
So my answer in that was something I discovered it was called hitl. Human in the loop. I think you would support this. I didn’t ask you about this, but that if you’re not the human in the loop, I can get a lot from AI, but then I have to be the one that brings the value, that interprets that or applies it to that particular client. And that human in the loop really spoke to me. Is that even in my work. We’re leadership consultants. I’m a leadership consultant.

Perry Holley:
I can easily use AI to cipher a lot of things.

Chris Goede:
But here’s what you should do.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, but I’m the human in the loop. I’m the interpreter of. For that client in this situation at this time in history. Based on what? Everything I’ve known from, you know, AI has helped me. But am I on the right path here?

Chris Goede:
Is just a human in the loop. I like that.

Farshad Asl:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, people don’t need hype, they need trust. And there’s a good bumper sticker right there.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, they don’t need hype, they need trust.

Farshad Asl:
And leaders bring trust.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, yeah.

Farshad Asl:
AI doesn’t.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
So of course, even if I’m brainstorming with AI and getting some ideas, I have to be the cornerstone of the trust here. And as a coach, as a consultant. Remember last week we talked about 1080 10, John Maxwell’s process of creating content. Same thing applies. The final 10 is the credibility that a consultant firm can bring to the table. Yeah. You know, I don’t get John Maxwell content because it’s created by AI or is created by. I get it because I know John has approved it.

Farshad Asl:
I know Chris has supervision on this. I know Perry is on top of it. That credibility is a final 10%.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
AI is here. AI is going to support. Yes. But I am putting my core values on the line that this is me, this is my content. So that’s the direction we’re going.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
So we brushed on this last week, maybe twice, but we didn’t ever define what it was. But I told for Shah that I just seen an article in an AI newsletter that I read every day. I’ve really gotten. I look forward to reading what’s going on. But Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, who has a company now, an AI company called Block, announced that he’s going to fire 40,000. No, 4,000 employees. The whole middle management structure, because. And I’m going to read, he says that managers, they just passed information from one group of people to another and that AI can do that.

Perry Holley:
He said now he’s going to have three roles, builders Problem owners and player coaches who develop talent. If you’re not in that, you’re going to fire all the management and replace him with AI. So this was something we touched on last week and I think about this culture resistance to AI because it’s going to replace me. Now you’ve addressed it several times that you’ve got to do more than that. But I do think this, this was like this is going to get a lot of play that he’s a big name and he’s going to blow out 4,000 jobs because of AI.

Farshad Asl:
I think he should people choose not to grow. You know, you mentioned he going to work on focusing on builders. Leaders are builders. Managers by nature are not builders.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Farshad Asl:
Unless if they choose to learn how to build, connect, build relationship, elevate and delegate.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Farshad Asl:
That’s the area. I think this article, if we can we add something to this that would be unless if you choose to become a leader. The importance of leadership today is more, more than ever before in the past. I keep, I keep hearing leadership is soft skills today is essential. Skills is a must. And the alignment of leadership and AI goes hand to hand right now, if I don’t know leadership, AI not going to make me better, I’m done.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
If I know leadership, AI going to make me better, improve me. Right. So that was the whole rationale behind this AI leadership roadmap.

Chris Goede:
I was just thinking about his three buckets and how they’re either going to be builders, problem solvers or people developers. Right. I wonder if those people developers then took the 4,000 that he was going to fire or they’re going to choose not or Tuesday what those people developers could do. Could they turn them into problem solvers? Could they turn them into builders? But it starts with the individual. And are you willing to do that? Are you willing to grow and to change?

Farshad Asl:
You should connect them to John Maxwell.

Chris Goede:
That’s right. That’s right. Maxwell Leadership. And we can help them.

Perry Holley:
The leader is the human in the loop.

Chris Goede:
Human in the loop. Back to looping it all the way back to what you talked about, that human thing.

Perry Holley:
That’s the three things. Builders, problem owners and coaches.

Chris Goede:
Those are all leaders people in the book you also talk about and AI at times has gotten negative press, I think about some stories to where it’s led people down the wrong path, made decisions that weren’t right, became almost like a relationship. And certain things, all these things that we hear about. But you talk about the ethics and the trust in there and we talked about the trust piece a Little bit about just, just briefly. But talk about the. Why did you address that? And the ethical consideration that we as leaders need to be taking while we’re using AI.

Farshad Asl:
I think the acknowledgement that AI has been used should be upfront. Full transparency must be guided by fairness, accountability and transparency. I mean, the privacy, security and human oversight is a must. I mean, we cannot be negligent and do not pay attention to that part.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
To me, privacy of information is very important.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
Acknowledging that this part of this project has been done by AI is perfectly fine. People understand that AI is part of customer service today, customer experience, recruiting selection. But the final 10% always comes to you and I to sit down one on one with the candidate and have this heart to heart conversation.

Perry Holley:
Connecting.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, connecting.

Perry Holley:
All right, so you had a chapter on AI fatigue and mental health. That’s not something I’ve seen in any AI discussion. What in the world. Basically that. Do we have a mental health crisis driven by AI?

Farshad Asl:
It will create some.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I was gonna say it will.

Farshad Asl:
Yeah. You know, people are gonna resist to this and push back. And some people, they’re gonna be addicted to this. Yeah, I’m concerned about that part too. You know, when I do my rule of five in the morning, I have all my gadgets off. This is my notepad, my pen. I have to create. Yes.

Farshad Asl:
If I want to elevate in the future. Yes. I go back to AI. But your first 10%, 45 minutes. The framework.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
And the final 10%, as someone who has heart for AI leadership roadmap. And I want to really serve our leaders to reduce the fear. Remove the fear. We can’t remove the fear ever, but at least remove it. Reduce it to a level that they, they understand that. One of the best advice John told gave me this was 10, 80, 10.

Perry Holley:
Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
I mean, if you ask me for sure. How do you write five books and you’re running a company doing this? First of all, they’re all interconnected. Part of my passion in life. But Based on that, 10, 80, 10 changed my direction. I was very controlling that I have to do everything, all of it, until I say, you know what? This is my voice, this is me. And with 1080, 10, I can be more productive and not AI can be

Perry Holley:
the middle lady, so.

Farshad Asl:
Good.

Chris Goede:
Love that. Well, yeah, let me jump in real quick because also I’m a big plan guy I like, you know, and maybe a control like. So I’m working on this. But you even lay out a 30, 60, 90 day plan for the leaders, give a Just a, just give a little bit of a snapshot of that. And what is in the book about that?

Farshad Asl:
I like phases and I like practical applications. I can leave that behind. There’s one page in the book, there’s a PDF link on it. The 30, 60, 90 day plan. Obviously the the first 30 day leaders assess the culture. They gotta be honest with themselves. This is my culture. You know, one of the things I really love about you, you very humble and you’re transparent about the areas that you need to improve upon and the areas that you’re really good at and you brag about it as well, which is fine.

Farshad Asl:
So if as a leader I’m not honest, hey, this area needs some work, right? So first 30 days I want to be honest with myself. Where am I with AI? Where is. Am I on a stage of phase of AI culture? AI ready culture on AI. So that’s my first 30 days. Define clear objectives, of course. Build a cross functional team, educate the organization and start a pilot. So the key word is piloting 30 days. Find one problem pain point and then work on it.

Farshad Asl:
And then we go to the second 30 days which is day 31 to 60. We start refining the strategy, learning from this pilot and transition into innovation. Implementation of AI which is the final 30 days. And a step by step, there’s a blueprint in this book is one pager holds me accountable to this process.

Perry Holley:
Yes, very good.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, it’s great.

Perry Holley:
Again, I’ll just say this is real resource guide. It’s great read but it’s a lot of resources and ideas as well as Rashad’s personal experience with that. Before I let you wrap it up, I just have to ask if I’m a leader today. There’s lots of trends, lots of new announcements. AI is moving very fast. As a matter of fact, I don’t know how you write a book like this. It’s got to be updated.

Farshad Asl:
Yes, that’s true.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, a lot. But trends that if you were a leader today, you are a leader today. Are there trends you’re watching or thinking about? Is there something that we could encourage our listeners to be foresight to be looking out?

Farshad Asl:
Is it scary? Some of the articles I’m reading, the power of AI is even scaring the people who created the AI. So as a leader, my job is to keep this under control and make sure that everything that’s happening in my organization using AI is under control. Now I don’t want to bring control to a. I want to have layers of double checking and making sure that is in alignment with our core values. Otherwise I’m not using it. I think some of the rules and guidelines every corporation, every organization should come up with is these are our core values. These are the framework that we are allowed to use AI with. Yeah.

Farshad Asl:
And not anymore. And yes, they’re big, as you mentioned. Very well. This book in a year, no good. I need to come up with 2.0 of this AI leadership roadmap and I might have to do that, but the reality is a great start. Today I see leaders will have more time to focus on their vision and what matters the most in leadership. I am super excited about that because some of our leaders, 60% of their time is consumed by stuff that we shouldn’t be involved. We created this digital noise around us as defocusing us from what matters the most in leadership and AI will help us if we create the AI ready culture.

Chris Goede:
Love it. So I’m going to wrap with this. Was listening to you and I was thinking, I was in a meeting a couple days ago with, with. With John Maxwell and he ended the meeting by saying, listen here guys, what I’m saying. I just, I just need you to know that the hardest person to lead is Maxwell, meaning the hardest person to lead is ourself. And I’m listening to you going, man, the first place I think we ought to start after listening to these two podcasts is is our self reflection.

Farshad Asl:
Yes.

Chris Goede:
And. And where are we at and where do we start and what’s that foundation? The other thing is, as I wrap up, also in the book, there’s tons of practical stuff in the book. There’s a chapter titled action checklist for CEOs and there’s 20 actions to embrace an AI. Do that after you’ve had some of that reflection. And so man, Farshad, thank you so much. Again, you can pick this book up at Amazon. Just type in the title and it’ll pop up. This came out about six months ago.

Farshad Asl:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
And we should have had you on 12 months ago and where you were thinking about it and some of the things in here. But with our schedules and everything, we wanted to get him in studio with Perry and I. So thank you so much for your. The value you added not only to Perry and I, but to those that are listening and watching around the world.

Perry Holley:
That was very good, very helpful. Thank you. And it’s a reminder, you can go to MaxwellLeadership.com/ExecutivePodcast to get more information about the book, about Prashad, and about our offerings and other podcasts in our podcast family. You can also look. Leave us a comment or a question there. We love hearing from you. Very grateful you’d spend this time with us. That’s all from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.

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