Conversations on leadership,
AI, and customer experience.

0:05 Hello everyone.

0:06 Today I am excited to welcome Jesse Perez to the show again.

0:10 Jesse, as you remember, is the founder and CEO of Spot Cop Events, a company that's doing something genuinely different in professional development space.

0:21 Spot Corp uses theaters, improvisation, and storytelling to help teams build psychological safety, authentic trust, and that real connection at work.

0:31 What makes just his perspective so interesting for everybody listening today is where he comes from.

0:38 He has been performing since he was 8 year old and as he was sharing with us last time, he has been a theatre coach, he has been a producer, and one of my favorite part of his story, he actually worked as a standardized patient role-playing as a fake patient to teach doctors real empathy.

0:55 Think about that for a second.

0:57 The idea of Sport Corp came to Jesse during pandemic.

1:01 And before we actually begin with questions, I would love to know that story again.

1:05 Jesse, for the audience who wasn't there with us last time, tell me how Sport Corp event actually came into picture.

1:12 Sure, absolutely.

1:13 So for those who haven't heard my story, I started my company the same way that everybody starts their company.

1:21 I had a fight with a roommate, I had a disagree with a roommate and didn't really have anywhere to go during the pandemic to kind of feel my feelings and step away.

1:33 So I ended up in an empty parking lot and I ended up performing in an empty parking lot for no one for 6 minutes.

1:44 I performed the finale number from the musical 6.

1:48 And while this may seem like a silly and absurd moment, what I realized is that there is a true power in storytelling and performing not to be good or impressive, but just for yourself and for your own freedom.

2:02 And so I started to buy Corp initially as Spotlight, which was just a place for you people to be seen, heard, and valued for their own stories, outside of judgment, outside of expectation.

2:14 But something interesting happened that I didn't expect when we started to run the events, people would stay at these events for an hour after they were over 2-3 hours.

2:24 They're becoming roommates.

2:25 They're becoming best friends.

2:27 And what I realized is that when you give people an environment to share authentically their stories and they're not bogged down by needing to be good or impressive, they finally feel valued and heard.

2:40 And when people feel valued and heard, it transforms the way they interact with others.

2:45 It transforms the way they relate to others.

2:48 And so I used that model for many years and then one day someone said, why don't you have anything like this for organizations?

2:57 And I have a background in professional development, professional training.

3:01 And so I thought, why don't I?

3:02 And so I built it.

3:03 I built a version of the same aspect of being seen, heard and valued for professionals using storytelling, using theater as the catalyst and that's how I'm here today.

3:14 Thank you.

3:14 That's an amazing story and just think that reminds me of something.

3:18 So especially in this world right now when AI is scaling so rapidly in chapter companies are reporting numbers like 40 X like Entropic just said and we are getting valuations like 1 billion for Sierra from yesterday.

3:33 I wanted to understand how do leaders keep human connections from getting lost.

3:38 I think the key to specifically when talking about CX and and my business more deals with employees that are working with each other.

3:48 But even if we're talking about outward facing employees speaking directly with customers, the number one thing to remember about AI is that AI is a tool.

3:57 AI is a tool.

3:58 So it's great for things like appointment setting and things like that where it's just like, hey, I need this, can you make me an appointment at this time?

4:07 AI can look up all of those metrics, all of those numbers and do it.

4:11 But you have to look at when you're, especially when you're dealing with CX, which we deal with the CX industry a lot within our coaching, you have to look at what is the need of your customer, right?

4:24 So one, I, I was a customer service agent back in the day and one of the projects I worked on, it may have been appointment setting, but it was the first appointment setting ever for COVID testing.

4:37 Those people were scared and they were confused and they were sad.

4:41 I would not put an AI on that because yes, they want their appointment set, but they also want to be heard, they want to be cared for and they want to be told, hey, it's going to be okay, we're going to get you what you need.

4:53 And yes, an AI can mimic some of those things, but there is nothing like actually hearing a real voice on the other side saying, we got you, we're in this together.

5:03 So I think when you're trying to decide if you should be using AI or you should be using actual people, think about what is the need of your customers.

5:12 Do they just need a resolution or do they actually need to be heard?

5:15 Got it.

5:15 That makes sense.

5:16 And you're absolutely right.

5:18 So AI can actually handle the volume or repetitive task at scale while humans actually handle those moments.

5:25 That makes perfect sense.

5:26 You see, that reminds me of a question when you think about the way things are being scaled currently, where every employee is now being empowered where they are, they are able to do much more.

5:36 And in this age, how do you manage engagement and that human connection between employees and even customers?

5:45 Yeah, it's a great question.

5:46 I think because with my work, it really speaks to the engagement that takes place between employees.

5:52 And I think the number one question most business owners will ask is like, well, why do I need to invest in engagement if AI is going to replace all my people?

6:01 So here's the interesting thing.

6:02 It's not most companies that are cutting their entire workforce.

6:07 And there's big billboards saying like, this company cut all of their workforce in lieu of AI.

6:13 They're doing that loudly and then quietly, they're rehiring a bunch of them back so that because what they're realizing is that AI actually needs to be babysat and it needs to be looked at and it makes mistakes and all these things.

6:25 And then the second thing is that if you look at the research, only 9% of leaders actually believe any of the jobs in their companies have been entirely replaced by AI.

6:35 Any business owner out there that's like, oh, I can just replace my people with AI?

6:39 You can't.

6:40 And so if you can't, what is the answer for engagement?

6:44 Well, just like you, some business owners, like everyone can be replaced by AIA.

6:48 Lot of employees are afraid of being replaced by AI.

6:52 So they're doing things like quiet quitting.

6:54 Trust is at an all time low.

6:56 And So what you need to be doing as an as an A leader is you need to be upskilling and building trust with your employees.

7:05 You need to be saying before you even say like, Hey, let's be on a team about AI.

7:10 You need to actually build authentic trust, and that's where a company like mine comes in, where we really come in.

7:16 Make sure to build that authentic trust outside of any conversations about AI or anything like that.

7:21 Make sure you're bonded through your stories, your connections, your relationships.

7:25 Then you bring in a conversation of, OK, now that there is this authentic trust, can you trust that we're bringing in this AI to help you and can we have an honest conversation about how you feel about it?

7:37 Then once that's established, then you work through any adaptability changes, which is what you would do with any change process where you know, some people don't want to adopt and all that, but there's so much more that goes into that AI adoption.

7:51 And in order for you to even get there, you need to 1st understand that is as important still to invest in your employees.

7:59 Understood.

8:00 That makes sense.

8:01 And Jesse, since a lot of the audience who's listening to us today is now wondering about the same thing that I'm wondering mostly that is that how do I spot these red flags in my teams?

8:11 What are some things to look out for?

8:14 And when I notice them, If I wanted to reach out to you, what does the next step look like for sport cop events?

8:22 I would love to know that.

8:23 Yeah, absolutely.

8:24 So specifically when we're talking about AI, right, relationships, empathy, human connection in my teams, if it's going away, how do I support all of them?

8:33 Got it.

8:33 Yeah.

8:33 So when we talk about that on a broader scale, they can look like a lot of different things.

8:38 But I would say the biggest things to look at is fun.

8:42 Are people speaking up in meetings?

8:45 Are they sharing new ideas?

8:46 Or are they just sitting back and going, uh huh.

8:50 Also, look at, look at you want to look at faces.

8:52 You want to see if like faces and meetings are engaged or if people are, as one of my employees puts it, tabbing so you can see the light change on their screen because they're actually doing something else.

9:04 The second thing, is your team offering new ideas, or are they just saying yes, yes, yes?

9:10 Because even a leader who comes up with the best ideas in the world, a team that is authentically, psychologically safe and authentically in communication, they're going to be contributing.

9:21 And three, and this one might be surprising.

9:23 Are you hearing dissenting opinions?

9:25 Are you hearing opinions of like, hey, actually I don't totally agree with that.

9:29 If you're not, likelihood is people don't feel comfortable sharing that stuff with you if you're not hearing that kind of information.

9:35 Those are all great key factors to bring into a team like mine.

9:41 And if you're specifically talking about AI, congratulations, you already have those issues.

9:46 And I'm not saying that to be like, it's scary.

9:48 I'm saying everyone's afraid of AI.

9:50 And the research shows that nobody is doing enough right now because it's so new to build that trust and everybody is scared.

9:59 So if you are, if you're in the AI integration process, congratulations, it is already time to engage with a company like mine.

10:07 And then you asked how we would start that engagement.

10:10 So everything we do is entirely customizable to the needs of the team that we work with.

10:15 And then we start with one team and then we work our way through the organization.

10:18 So we would usually start with the highest level of leadership.

10:22 And what we want to talk about is what is your ideal?

10:25 What would you love to see your team look like?

10:28 Oh, I'd love to see us speak up more in meetings.

10:31 I would love to see my team adopt this at a faster rate and be more open to that adoption.

10:37 I would love to have stronger relationships and bonds.

10:41 I would love to see my team work less siloed.

10:43 And then we take those things and we transform them into theatrical and storytelling experiences that transform your team.

10:51 And then we mix that with authentic academic research.

10:55 So you're, you know, more creative people who are like, oh, we get to play a game and we get to explore.

11:00 They engage at that level and they're and they're bought in from there.

11:03 And then we can teach them from that place.

11:06 And then you're people who are more skeptical and are like this theater thing.

11:09 I don't totally get it.

11:10 We back everything up with academic research from respected resources like Gallup and Harvard Business Journal so that not only are you getting this experiential learning, but then you're also getting this academic breakthrough learning as well.

11:23 And the combination of the 2 is what leads to kind of a transformation unlike anyone has experienced.

11:30 And from that place, we look at your company holistically and then we're going to work with each team to kind of bring everyone together to a place of confidence and awareness and the skills that they want to work on.

11:42 Sounds good.

11:43 So if you are currently in a meeting and you are seeing faces that don't really look like they're engaged, you don't hear your teams really give you an opinion.

11:52 That's not what you said exactly, but something different or alternate.

11:56 You don't see your teams contributing.

11:57 Those are some red flags to look out for and AS if you wanted help, there is a very clear, customized and scientifically proven way to achieve that with Jesse and we would love to know more about it.

12:09 Jesse and I would love to do more of these podcasts, but before we move further, one last thing that I really wanted to know.

12:15 What is 1 habit that we all can adapt in the professional world to keep human at the core, the empathy between us.

12:26 Yeah, this is this is a this is going to seem basic, but then I'm going to make it seem less vacant.

12:32 And the answer is acknowledgement, acknowledgement, acknowledgement, acknowledgement.

12:37 You have no idea how often someone is this close to when they're working on something being like, I don't want to do this anymore.

12:45 No one's listening.

12:46 No one cares.

12:47 So and just you leaning over and saying a little like, Hey, I really appreciated what you said in the meeting.

12:53 Or I really because it breaks through that noise and it makes them go, oh, I am heard, I am valued.

12:59 And that's the first piece of it.

13:01 But the second piece of acknowledgement is that it reinforces good behavior.

13:05 While I don't have exact statistics on it, the amount of employees that do things without any knowledge, if people are actually appreciating it or valuing it is so high.

13:16 So sometimes an employment will do something amazing and then they'll never do it again because they thought it was a bad idea.

13:22 Or but you actually saying like not just, Hey, I really appreciated that, but like actually being really specific.

13:29 Hey, the way you spoke up in that meeting and what you said specifically about this topic, I really love that and, and appreciate that you are doing that.

13:40 Then they not only know that you value them, they also know to continue the behavior.

13:44 So you won't lose good behavior as well when you acknowledge, because once you acknowledge something they put in their minds, OK, I need to keep doing this.

13:53 And also when you have acknowledgement in the mix, when you need to give critical feedback and you need to give, they're not like, oh, they're just because I know a lot of us have heard about like the compliment sandwich, like, oh, I give good feedback and then I give negative feedback and then I give good feedback again.

14:08 If you condition your employees to think the only time they're going to get good feedback is when they get constructive feedback, they're going to be braced for that.

14:16 So you want to make acknowledgement, something you dole out very liberally.

14:19 Now you, you want to make sure it's authentic and true.

14:22 You don't want to be like, you're doing a great job if they're not because they'll also feel that.

14:28 But the more you can give out and dole out authentic acknowledgement, the more success you will have.

14:34 When you have moments where you need to give that constructive feedback, just say I love that.

14:40 In fact, acknowledgement, acknowledgement, acknowledgement.

14:43 That is so true.

14:45 Especially the way you said it.

14:46 You don't know how close somebody is today to saying here, I don't want to do this anymore and that one acknowledgement can make a huge difference.

14:54 Thank you so much.

14:55 This has been such a great conversation.

14:57 Round 2 did not disappoint at all.

15:00 In fact, I think we are in for around 3 at some point and maybe this time we are going to make this a penalty.

15:07 So what I love about talking with you is that you bring conversations back to something simple.

15:11 Every time people, the tool change, the tech changes the you know, even sometimes the way you do things change people who are doing them.

15:20 They don't really change.

15:21 That doesn't go away.

15:22 If anything, it it's getting even more important every day for everyone listening.

15:26 If you want to learn more about Jesse and the amazing work is doing Spot Cop Event is doing, head over to spotcorpevents.com.

15:36 Doesn't matter if you're a leader or you're trying to build a strong culture or you're trying to learn more about this.

15:42 Thank you so much, Jesse.

15:43 Thank you for coming back on.

15:44 This has been a pleasure to our listeners.

15:46 Thank you for tuning in into this podcast.

15:48 Again, everyone have a great day.

0:05 Hi everybody.

0:06 Valerie Mcsorley here, Executive Producer of this year's Call Center Campus.

0:11 And I'm delighted to have the chance to sit down with Jim Ayub and Melissa Wood.

0:16 They are our presenting sponsors of this amazing event we have put together and they are also our day one keynote speakers.

0:24 So they're going to join us at the beautiful Wigwam Resort just outside of Phoenix.

0:29 The space is unbelievable.

0:31 It's a retreat in itself and fits the perfect theme of Desert Oasis because leaders need a chance to just take a break, take a stop.

0:40 Oasis is our places where historically people came together to share new ideas, to take a little bit of a respite and to be engaged with all kinds of new ideas and information and and networking, which is what we're going to do at Call Center Campus in a few weeks.

0:55 It's coming up fast, May 17th to 20th.

0:58 So, you know, I charged Jim and Melissa with coming up with a keynote around what leaders are feeling right now in the space.

1:05 So I'm so excited.

1:07 You, of course, everything you did, you nailed it.

1:09 And they're going to be talking about the prickly truths, the prickly truths of leadership right now in the age of AI.

1:16 The leadership piece is my is my passion.

1:19 I love building leaders.

1:21 I have dedicated my entire life to it and I feel confident.

1:27 There are, there's many ways to go about leadership, but I have seen some behavioral patterns that work and I want to share that with the Benchmark Portal team in with Valerie at the Wigwam Resort.

1:38 And I want to share with you guys when you come in.

1:40 I know that I have something that can help you to be successful and I'm not going to leave you empty handed.

1:46 Jim and I are not going to do that.

1:47 We're going to we're creating right now digital toolkit so that you can have some things when you leave.

1:54 Awesome.

1:55 So this is not your ordinary.

1:56 Anytime you take Jim I and put it from the crowd, you're not ordinary.

2:01 It's not going to be ordinary.

2:02 I can say I work on these things 6912 months out.

2:05 Jim I OOP takes the stage.

2:07 I don't even know what's happening.

2:08 No, and then I don't make my my baby.

2:10 I I have to like buffle up my seat belt.

2:12 Here comes that's enough going to happen.

2:15 That's enough.

2:15 That's the fun.

2:16 I mean, that's like, OK, where are we going to go?

2:18 Gosh, something a little bit different.

2:20 This is not only my life coach.

2:22 She is our Dean of leadership Development.

2:24 Like I said earlier, I'm just so excited because I do believe the reality is 90% of these AI companies are failing within the first year, which we're going to talk about.

2:35 I'm going to show some real numbers, real Fortune 500 customers that I have who actually saved money, but it's not just from the technology.

2:45 It's about having your leadership ready, because that's really what we're going to do.

2:49 I'm also going to be bringing in what the vendors will all hate me about, but I'm going to show you four or five questions to ask them which will make them run.

2:58 Because I do believe in my heart that a lot of these people who built these tools never took a call day in their life, have no idea how to run a contact center, and they're just solving problems.

3:09 They're just not call center problems.

3:11 I think within 20 minutes of the question is that I'm going to arm our people, our audience with you'll be able to know immediately if you're talking to a partner or just a vendor.

3:21 And I say all the time, I'm not here to pitch or to close.

3:25 Melissa and I are here to talk about an honest conversation about where we are and how to prepare your leadership to be prepared for this augmentation of AI, which is the big buzzword.

3:40 I can't wait to hear my friend Melissa talk about the prickly truths because it's not a name that she would, nor a word she would normally have in her vocabulary.

3:52 But since it's a cactus, the surprises that people are going to be having some fun with.

4:00 Yeah, lots of fun with.

4:02 That's important to me, Jim.

4:03 Like, I understand that people just want to hear the truth.

4:06 They don't want to hear a lot of words.

4:08 They want to hear the truth.

4:09 And so it's going to be there.

4:11 It's going to be in Arizona.

4:12 And sometimes the truth is hard to hear, but it's the truth.

4:15 It is.

4:16 So that's where the truth is going to be.

4:18 The truth is going to be at the Wigwam in Arizona.

4:21 I'm not a saleswoman.

4:22 I've never have been.

4:23 I'm just going to be there because my good friend Jim asked me to be.

4:27 And I'm going to be telling you some truths about leadership, not just for your teams that you lead, but for you personally and professionally.

4:35 So if you want to grow or you want to stay prickly, that's up to you.

4:39 I'm going to give, I'm going to give the truth.

4:41 I think it's really important because what I love about what I'm hearing from a blend of both of you is sometimes folks aren't, they're so overwhelmed because every AI vendor is coming at them like lightning speed with a, a, a, a system that's going to change everything, that's going to fix every problem.

4:57 You're not going to just turn on their new system and have excellence.

5:00 Like just spit out.

5:01 It doesn't work like that.

5:03 And they don't know the questions that they're asked.

5:04 And they're very overwhelmed in the process.

5:06 And the back end isn't ready to merge with all these pieces.

5:10 So you've got to have so many more people at the table to make these decisions.

5:14 And I think leaders need that sort of reality check about what should I be asking?

5:19 Where are my blind spots?

5:20 I know what we need, but how does this all fit together?

5:23 And that's why I think that's this, like real straight talk about what you should be asking, what answers?

5:29 What answers are not acceptable?

5:31 What if you hear an answer?

5:32 What's the red flag like?

5:34 I'm sure because I've seen Jim do things just like this all the time.

5:37 Like they say, if you even hear an inkling of that run, yeah, go ahead, Jim.

5:43 Pretty amazing because there's, I've been in events for decades, as both of you know, and you're right, some people are going by what the book says to say.

5:54 And I've never been accused of that because I'm usually in the 1st 15 minutes of fed half of the crowd and then usually the other half of towards the end.

6:03 But I really believe our industry misses that because it is all smoke and mirrors, right?

6:08 It's new, these people, you know, when you talk about AI, it's a load up word.

6:13 My kids are using it now.

6:14 The interesting part, by the way, my daughter's going to law school unable to use AI, which makes me impressive, right, makes this a very impressive thing.

6:24 But I think what you're going to hear is things you can take away.

6:27 I look today based based when I was I started my career as an agent, I was reading books.

6:32 I didn't have mentors.

6:34 People didn't tell me the truth.

6:36 I think the truth is going to make a big difference.

6:39 And that's I'm a firm believer in and plus I'm very passionate about what I do in AI and what I do in quality and customer experience, but I also like to have fun while I'm doing it.

6:49 And when you have fun, you know, we know that people are going to remember about 10% of what we talk about.

6:54 So the 10% will be fun for sure, which will be really good takeaways that you can start using when you get back to your office.

7:03 And then when you get back to your boss's office and you spend all that money on the drinks, you at least have something we can say look what I learned.

7:10 But that's just it.

7:11 It's those tangible takeaways.

7:13 That's why we go to events like this.

7:15 Like we want people to bring the tough questions.

7:18 We've put together an amazing lineup over the course of a few days and designed it intentionally for people to bring their conversations.

7:25 It's amazing to listen to leaders, but I think the number one thing where you get value in attending events like this is talking with your peers.

7:32 What's working, what's not?

7:34 Have you tried this?

7:36 You know, leaders can walk away with sort of two things.

7:39 They can walk away with the confidence that what they're doing is correct and they're on the right track.

7:44 Or they could come up with another way to solve the same problem that was going to save them a lot of time and money because there's others that are in the field.

7:51 And there's there's something really nice about being in a room full of your peers where you are all dealing with the same issues because a lot of people feel like they're doing this in isolation, right?

8:01 And no one succeeds in that isolation.

8:03 No, that's, that's right.

8:04 And you know, I want to be really clear so that you can so if anyone listening can kind of get an understanding of what you're going to get from Gemini, Gemini that is not an AI tool.

8:14 That's Jim and I.

8:16 So they, you're going to get a little crazy that we're going to get, we're going to have a lot of fun, but Jim's going to give you some truth questions to ask vendors and I'm going to give you 4 of four points, four ways that you can get your leadership team ready, right, plus more.

8:32 OK.

8:33 So you're going to get that.

8:34 We promise you're going to have those things.

8:37 So that is that is that is.

8:43 Yeah.

8:43 And you're going to get a lot of banter back and forth between Gemini.

8:46 It may be almost a comedy show.

8:48 So we've been at these events before and they're kind of a snore fest.

8:52 And you've got us going early in the morning, maybe at coffee time.

8:54 Valerie.

8:55 Oh, that'll be great.

8:57 We're ready for it.

8:58 We're ready because I'm known for my videos.

9:02 This one's a good one.

9:03 Well, I'm going to have to see a sneak peek of this video before we we all meet up in Phoenix.

9:08 I got to make sure it goes with your warm up, your walk up music.

9:10 OK, good deal.

9:11 We'll do that.

9:12 We'll hopefully do that.

9:13 No, no, keep that to yourself.

9:15 But I also heard you also been you've been dropping some hints around your giveaways too, which you haven't told me yet, but you've been dropping a little bit of bread crumbs around that.

9:24 You've got some really good giveaways.

9:26 We are.

9:27 We always have good giveaways.

9:28 I'm known for the kitchen utensils.

9:31 Yeah, I've tied it all together.

9:33 So for the people who know the pizza cutter, which is a famous 1, you have the pizza cutter because I have some I'm going to bring you If you don't have the pizza cutter love one.

9:42 I've heard of them pizza cutter for you, but this is going to tile all of the food that I love so much together on this giveaway.

9:50 If you're a foodie, if you if you don't even care about AI and you don't care about the leadership part of it, you got to come because Jim is like a master chef and you need to come get recipes and hints from Jim on on food.

10:03 I do want to say I've had the best steak I have ever had at his house and I've had a multitude of steaks in my lifetime, so I'm excited.

10:10 I don't know what this giveaway is Valerie, so I have no idea what we're going to be showing up with some good giveaways going, but this is exciting.

10:17 I remember last time I was in Austin, I was supposed to get lessons in making sushi in San Antonio and that that the travel plans fell all fell apart.

10:26 But but that I have that on my list at some point that will happen.

10:31 You're more than welcome to come to the house because I we love we were talking about sushi.

10:35 I haven't made sushi recently because when I make sushi, I Kelsey yells at me because I make it for like 60 people and there's only two eat it.

10:42 I need friends like you to come in.

10:44 Well, we'll bring lots of friends.

10:45 We'll bring lots of friends.

10:46 We'll have to figure out a new signature cocktail for you in in Phoenix as well.

10:53 All right guys well, we can't wait to see you May 17th through the 20th.

10:57 It's going to be great reach out.

10:59 We have lots of great things coming up.

11:01 We are actually filling up pretty fast.

11:03 So we're getting down to the wire, the room block.

11:06 The room block is expiring this weekend.

11:09 So people are, you know, when everyone kind of picks their head up and say, oh, it's really happening.

11:13 I got to get registered, I got to get signed up.

11:15 We've got all that flutter going on, which is exciting, but this is going to be, I think, the best 1 yet.

11:20 Great venue, great speakers, and we're so, so grateful for your generosity and your awesome support.

11:26 And I can't wait to learn from you.

11:27 Thank you.

11:27 We can't wait to it either.

11:29 Thank you for having us, Valerie.

11:31 Thank you for having me.

11:32 I'm I'm excited to to meet you in person.

11:35 Damn, I can't wait.

11:36 I'm not at this event, am I?

11:38 I just don't want to make sure I bring my right stuff.

11:40 Your what do I have to bartend at this event like I did in Austin or you think we're good?

11:44 We're not supposed to talk about that anymore.

11:46 That's one of my top five conference experiences.

11:49 But we're not supposed to talk about that anymore.

11:51 OK, OK.

11:53 You know, I know who I'm going to if I run into trouble.

11:56 There you go.

11:58 Yeah.

11:59 All right, guys.

12:00 Thanks so much.

12:01 Thank you.

12:01 Thanks, Valerie.

12:02 Bye, GM.

Melissa Wood 00:20 Hey there podcasters, I'm back. Welcome to this episode of the e-tech CX leadership table. I've, you've heard this before, but if you, this is the first time you're at the table, we said, just pull up a chair, grab your favorite snack and just be like the old times. We sit around the table without our phones and we actually had meaningful conversation. So you'll see here, I have someone joining us that I'm personally excited about because the topic she's going to talk about.

Melissa Wood Not only what's better than one Melissa, two Melissa squared. That's what we have. Melissa Reed, welcome to the eTech leadership table.

Melissa Reeve 00:55 Thank you so much for having me on the show and I couldn't agree with you more. Melissa's is better than one.

Melissa Wood 01:00 Melissa's is better. This may get crazy fast. So this hold on this hold on. We're gonna be talking about AI and everything around it. So let me just I know that ⁓ Melissa will put your bio in there for everyone to see it's about I don't know as far as me from Texas to Melissa's to Colorado long because she has done and seen so many things but I would like to say I consider this Melissa, Melissa Reed as

Melissa Wood Basically a GPS. A GPS when it comes to AI. Like I think I can key in some information into her and she can tell us how to get there. So you'll see her bio, it's not because of just what she thinks, it's basically because of what she's walked. She's got ⁓ some experience in Lean Six Sigma, which I don't know, I'm certified Lean Six Sigma too, so that gives me a little bite. ⁓

Melissa Wood My mentor is Agile, ⁓ all wrapped up in the world of Agile. And I know that has been a history of you, right? And so when you take your marketing experience and you take all of that, no wonder that you got up in the middle of the night and started writing on index cards and wrote this wonderful book. So we'll link your book in there. And it's Hyper Adaptive, such a work, such a book title. For those of you that are sitting at the table with us, podcasters that have written a book,

Melissa Reeve 01:55 Love it.

Melissa Reeve Yeah, absolutely.

Melissa Wood 02:21 One of the hardest parts is to put a title on it. ⁓ It's so hard and I think you nailed it. So the content is ⁓ even better. But basically how to rewire the enterprise to become AI native. That is a key word there, that AI native. So I like to go, when I go on a trip, I like to meet the natives in that area, like people that are from that area. So here's our GPS. We're going to plug in some questions.

Melissa Reeve 02:24 Amen. Yeah.

Melissa Reeve Thank you.

Melissa Wood 02:50 Melissa is going to help walk us through. Melissa, welcome to the table.

Melissa Reeve 02:53 Thank you so much and what a wonderful introduction. It is a pleasure to be here and I love your analogy about the GPS and that's exactly how I talk about this is the AI landscape. And so I can't wait to dive in and talk about where we are on that landscape.

Melissa Wood 02:55 Thanks.

Melissa Wood Well, just like with any GPS, I know for me and anybody else that wants to be honest at the table, we would be lost without you. So thank you for taking this topic on. So let's plug in a few questions for you. You ready? And because I've got double paper here this time to answer some questions, but I know that AI can do all sorts of things and give me the repeat. Question number one, most leaders think they have an AI problem. And I'm hearing this quite often.

Melissa Reeve 03:24 Yeah, let's go. Yeah.

Melissa Reeve Mm-hmm.

Melissa Wood 03:38 But you're saying it's really a people structure problem. What was the moment that made you realize that, you know, text really wasn't the real issue?

Melissa Reeve 03:47 Yeah, I mean, you walked through my background, right? So this background in lean manufacturing and in agile. And I think anybody who has been in that space really saw that the challenge wasn't necessarily the technology, although, you know, things like agile solved getting software out the door faster. But when you really break it down, a lot of those issues were coordination problems.

Melissa Wood 03:50 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 04:14 You know, what is it that we're going to build? What are the true requirements in terms of the software? And a lot of the agile practices are about narrowing in on that. But even with great frameworks, whether it's agile or lean or something else, at the end of the day, we're dealing with people. And because I have this adjacent career to so many of these frameworks,

Melissa Wood 04:36 Hmm.

Melissa Reeve 04:43 I had that grounding. And ⁓ in the origin story of the book, you alluded to it that I woke up in the middle of the night and I started ⁓ writing down on index cards. But if we rewind the tape a little bit farther,

Melissa Wood 04:44 Okay.

Melissa Wood ⁓ Okay.

Melissa Reeve 04:57 I was running the Agile Marketing Alliance when ChatGPT hit. ⁓ I just saw the Alliance, all of the attention shift in that direction.

Melissa Reeve And I fought it for about six months. I was like, I don't know about this AI thing, and I'm sure we can keep this agile thing going. And then I just realized that this was a monumental shift.

Melissa Wood 05:22 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 05:23 And the aha moment, the real aha moment was when I had this vision of an automated marketing campaign end to end. And I thought, yeah, the AI can conceptualize it, build the graphics, build the test.

Melissa Reeve run the test in an ad platform and, and learn and redeploy. And I thought, where have we seen this before? And my mind shifted to DevOps because that was, yep, that was the automation of the software delivery pipeline. Yeah. And so that was really the backstory on how do we connect these dots and why is the people so important?

Melissa Wood 06:02 ⁓ First of all, I love the plan of DevOps. I love their symbol. I love that symbol of continuation. But I want everybody to pay attention here because you do have a tremendous amount of experience. It's bar none as far as the experience that you have. But the visionary piece, the visionary piece is really something that I think is setting us aside of how you're seeing how things will be in the future.

Melissa Reeve 06:07 Yeah

Melissa Wood 06:29 I love that you're GPS, but you even know the roads that aren't even built yet. You know what roads to take before they're even there. So I think that that is critical. When you talk about writing a book and you wrote it on index cards, some of the best songs ever have been written on napkins and index cards. And so I think that I loved to hear your story about that. what about this? You said that 80 % of all AI initiatives fail. That's a really big number.

Melissa Reeve 06:46 Love it.

Melissa Wood 06:58 80 % that's a lot of money. You know, we can tie some money into that not because of the tag because there's no human blueprint. Where exactly is that breaking down in the CX space right now?

Melissa Reeve 07:09 Yeah, so I feel like, ⁓ you know, there's not just one reason, there rarely is. ⁓ It's everything from requirements breaking down, know, IT might build something that the business can't really pick up, to organizations trying to move too fast. And I know that sounds counterintuitive, but I've talked to organizations and they say things like, we're all in on AI orchestration.

Melissa Reeve And they spend, you know, this one I have in mind, spent six months trying to make that happen. And they got about 80 % of the way there, but it wasn't 100 % of the way there. And they needed it to be a hundred percent. And by the time they hit the end of that, they had burned through human capital. They had burnt through their budget. People were cynical now about AI. And so what, you know, what we really want to do is to take a measured approach.

Melissa Wood 07:46 Okay.

Melissa Reeve 08:06 And I know that that is so hard when there's so much pressure on these organizations from the media hype to the board pressure to C-suite pressure saying, let's go. And yet we know from these prior transformations, these prior initiatives that if the larger the organization, the slower you turn and you need to be very deliberate in firing up.

Melissa Wood 08:12 .

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 08:32 the support structures to make things happen. And I talk a lot about these support structures. They're in the book ⁓ to support the people, the processes, and the role redesign that needs to happen. And it's like putting new pipes down in an organization to flow new information through, and we don't yet have those pipes in place.

Melissa Wood 08:40 Okay.

Melissa Wood We've got the great technology and as we're speaking right now, there's new technology that just is popping up. You know what I'm saying? the people break down and we hate to just keep deploying these things and companies are losing a tremendous amount of money. I know you've probably talked to business owners. I know I have. They have really good intentions and they don't know why it felt like.

Melissa Reeve 09:02 Yeah? Yeah, I do.

Melissa Wood 09:19 why it didn't work. And so it's just so overwhelming. I know there's people sitting at the table here. They're ready. They're like, okay, Melissa Squared, we need some help here. So going into this, it's messy in the middle. Leaders are asking, they're asking me, they're asking you, and they're asking their teams to fly a plane while they're rebuilding it. That's what you mean by, you know, the larger companies take larger to turn. What needs to break first?

Melissa Reeve 09:27 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reeve Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Melissa Wood 09:47 Quality, culture, or people and why does Melissa say so?

Melissa Reeve 09:52 So I want to revisit, just build on the thread that we were doing, which is kind of these support structures. And the reason is when we're talking about the messy middle and we're talking about how do we start to build or fly the plane while we're building it, which I think was your words, then

Melissa Wood 10:00 Okay.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 10:18 The support structures are really how we start to do that. ⁓ in the book, I start to outline things like an AI activation hub. And I want you to think about this as an amplified center of excellence, where you have information coming into this ⁓ AI activation hub. And it could be like, Claude just released 4.7.

Melissa Reeve with brand new capabilities. Well, you don't want everybody in your organization, whether you're a small organization or a mid-sized organization or a large organization, trying to figure out what that means for their part of the organization. And it could be any one of the characteristics that you outline, the quality or the speed or any of that. What you want to do is you want to fire up a group of people. And again, this is fractal.

Melissa Reeve So it could be one person is your AI activation hub. It could be a network of these hubs if you are an organization of 100,000 people.

Melissa Wood 11:23 Okay.

Melissa Reeve 11:24 But their responsibility is to ingest what's happening in the market and do what I call atomize the learning. So they say 4.7 has just been released. What does ⁓ this model, this advanced model mean for

Melissa Wood 11:33 So I think it's important to be aware of the fact that we are all in this together. And I

Melissa Reeve 11:39 our business or my part of the business or our team. And then they atomize that learning. So they create a little 15 minute video or a quick synopsis of what this means.

Melissa Wood 11:40 think that's great way start. And I And I think that's a way to start. And I think a great way And I think that's a great

Melissa Reeve 11:52 They pass it down to your AI leads. These are your AI power users. And it's up to the AI power users to then get it in the hands of the frontline practitioners. And of course, have feedback. This feedback loop goes the other way too.

Melissa Reeve So you have your frontline practitioners who put this into use and they're like, Hey, I just did this really cool thing with Claude 4.7. And they might communicate that up to their AI lead who then communicates it up to their AI activation hub. And you can see how this starts to form a network where these networks of AI activation hubs connect to surface the success patterns throughout the organization.

Melissa Wood 12:14 Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 12:32 This motion is what I call your AI learning flywheel. And it's bi-directional and it's how organizations are keeping up with AI and it's how they're building the plane while flying it. And the outcomes of things like quality is really about where the focus is and what do we want to start to improve while we're flying the plane.

Melissa Wood 12:55 my God. I'm seeing that your DevOps background, your knowledge in DevOps, you just see that so clearly in here. I just saw an example of this yesterday, Melissa.

Melissa Reeve 13:07 cool.

Melissa Wood 13:08 We were doing, ⁓ we had in the contact center and BPO, we had an executive review of our agent training department. And there was a four month trainer had been with our company four months that did their first training class. And the assignment was to use an AI tool, right? So that new trainer showed an AI resource that it's a game changer, something that they've done in agent development for clients.

Melissa Wood It's a game changer what that person did was an absolute game changer But the question was asked is how does that get looped? How's that get looped around and there wasn't a loop there wasn't a loop So what you're just saying so it was just an individual was basically your your practitioner Did something in use but they had no what they just started using it. They didn't have an AI lead or an AI hub to kind of

Melissa Reeve 13:54 Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reeve Mm-hmm.

Melissa Wood 14:02 link that back and I can guarantee you people sitting in this podcast today they're faced with the same thing and

Melissa Reeve 14:07 Absolutely. And when I talk about putting the new pipes in place, this is what I'm talking about. It's dedicated channels through which AI information, whether it's learning or ⁓ whatever that information looks like, it's how it flows through the organization. And we've figured out how to flow through things like general communications ⁓ through the organization. But this is a little bit different.

Melissa Wood 14:11 Yeah, that's it.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 14:36 because it has different owners. It has different people who are really tasked with the responsibility of creating bi-directional learning. And we know that even if the pipes are in place, if you don't have anybody to ⁓ manage that process, it doesn't get done.

Melissa Wood 14:48 Yeah.

Melissa Wood Absolutely. ⁓ I love that language that you're using about the pipes in place, right? ⁓ Think about your home. You know what saying? We take it for granted. We go in there and turn the water on or run the dishwasher, but there had to be forethought. Even building a home, where are you going to put that dishwasher? Where are you going to put that bath, you know, the restroom? My son's building a home and they asked the question the other day. They're like, do you want your, your tub to have a ⁓

Melissa Reeve 15:03 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reeve That's

Melissa Wood 15:23 a pipe for the middle of the tub or the end of the tub. Those are just the right pipes in place. And I guess what you're pointing out to me and to all of us there, that's why this is not your ordinary podcast. This is not theory. This is practical. When we talk pipes, we're talking practical application here. So I appreciate you being very clear about where the pipes should be. And that is extremely helpful. And if you're just going to screenshot any of this, you need to make sure that you're taking some

Melissa Reeve 15:38 V

Melissa Wood 15:52 some notes of where your pops are supposed to be. And some of us are sitting here thinking, my gosh, we don't even have pops. There's no pops at all.

Melissa Reeve 15:58 Right. Yeah. Yeah. And this is the missing piece because what I hear organizations talk about so often is what I'm calling the bifurcation problem. You have a handful of power users that have leaned into AI and then you have everybody else. And the question is, how do we get everybody else going along? Because the power users are you're naturally curious. And those are the people who are figuring it out.

Melissa Wood 16:09 Yeah.

Melissa Wood Yes.

Melissa Reeve 16:25 And the mistake that organizations are making is assuming that everybody else can just follow along and they can't. And I use this analogy of the piano that a piano is very, simple to use. Anybody can walk up to a piano and start dinking around on the keys. And yet it's not easy to learn. It takes dedicated effort to learn how to play a song on the piano. And yet, because AI is so easy to use, we think that people can just pick it up on their own.

Melissa Wood 16:41 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 16:54 And I am here to tell you that that is not correct. And if you leave it to everybody to figure it out on their own, first of all, what we know, they don't have time. They're busy doing their day job. Second of all, it's a different type of learning because there's so many use cases. And I like to say that AI learning is social learning. So we're learning it from each other, just like you did in the example that you shared. Yeah.

Melissa Wood 17:07 Bright.

Melissa Wood Yeah, that's great. We started when we started, I guess a pop that we laid at ETEC, we created a certification program, a belt sort of, we want to do it like ⁓ basically a belt certification, kind of like your Lean Six Sigma.

Melissa Reeve 17:31 Hmm.

Melissa Wood 17:39 But we left, we added a leopard belt. I thought you would appreciate, There's a leopard, you don't have that in Lean Six Sigma. I thought that was missing in Lean Six Sigma. There's gotta be some space for a leopard belt. And so we've got that leopard belt out there basically for innovation, right? Practicing curiosity of innovation. So we least have some pops laid, but.

Melissa Reeve 17:42 Love that.

Melissa Reeve Absolutely.

Melissa Wood 18:01 I saw yesterday that, you know, there's a, we have a, we have a missing, a few missing pipes.

Melissa Reeve 18:07 Well, and what I'd like to shine a light on is ⁓ there's what I call static learning, and then there's dynamic learning. So the static learning is what you've outlined in your certification program. Here are some foundations around AI that are pretty stable that people can learn. But going back to the piano ⁓ analogy, it's more like a synthesizer where new buttons are appearing every week on this thing.

Melissa Wood 18:21 Right.

Melissa Reeve 18:34 And so there's no way that static curriculum can keep up with that. And so really that's what I want people to be thinking about is what about this dynamic side of things that is just ongoing and ongoing for the future? Are you going to reinvent your curriculum every four months? It's just not possible. And so that's where I'm coming from when I say, hey, let's put some systems in place to help learn from each other in a structured way.

Melissa Wood 18:50 Right. Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 19:02 on an ongoing basis.

Melissa Wood 19:04 That's magic. And you know, to you, you're probably like, that's so simple, but you've seen without the process, you know, the proper systems. So in your mind, I can only imagine you, the history you had and getting up, like you understand that AI is going to look totally different from a chat GPT that you were introduced to. So you're just basically looking at the process of how we flow education to the human capital.

Melissa Reeve 19:30 That's right. And it's education. It's how do we empower everybody to really look at their processes, inject AI into those processes as you start getting further down. So a year from now, my guess is everybody's going to start talking about job redesign because we're going to hit that wall of, ⁓ we've just automated this entire process. And I like to say that people go from doing the task to building, monitoring, and maintaining the automation that does the task.

Melissa Wood 19:37 Yeah.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 19:59 Because again, that's what we saw in DevOps. And so we didn't see a bunch of jobs go away. They did morph quite significantly, though. Now we have DevOps engineers. Now we have people who are focused on telemetry. And I always tell my family, don't get me started talking about AI, because I won't shut up.

Melissa Wood 20:01 Yes.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Wood I love it. I love this. I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. Okay, so now let's switch a little bit and let's talk about frontline teams. So frontline teams are being asked to adapt faster than ever. And I see this every day. While still hitting metrics and delivering great experiences, at what point does that pace start breaking people? And how do you think a leader needs to recognize this? Like I'm broken here. Like how does a leader need to recognize that?

Melissa Reeve 20:28 Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reeve Mm-hmm.

Melissa Reeve Yeah, and I'm going to stick with my piano example here because I feel like this is the thing that leaders aren't grasping quite yet, is this notion that if you want somebody to do AI well, so if you want them to play the piano and do more than just answer their email with it, then you're going to need to create capacity.

Melissa Wood 20:50 Okay.

Melissa Reeve 21:08 And now I want you to put your Agile hat back on, right? And this is good old prioritization and capacity management. And so you can't, as a leader, just keep hitting the accelerator on your teams without doing the hard prioritization work. And so what do you need people to stop doing so that they can start doing this important work? And I'm not saying this has to be something enormous.

Melissa Wood 21:16 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 21:35 But I am saying you have to recognize that it does take time. It could look as simple as two to three hours on a Friday. If you can't get two to three hours, do one hour. PricewaterhouseCoopers spun up something they called prompting parties. And doesn't that sound like fun? It sounds like there'll be pizza there, and it sounds like we're going to have a good time, and it sounds like we're going to learn some stuff.

Melissa Wood 21:47 Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 21:59 And so let's do that. Let's encourage the social learning in a dedicated space and recognizing that ⁓ AI also is a J curve. So we're going to slow down to speed up because of this learning curve. And I think if leaders can really recognize that it's going to take a little time, that we need to be deliberate about our learning, deliberate about our approach, I think it starts to ⁓

Melissa Wood 22:07 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 22:29 stop the burnout on the frontline teams

Melissa Wood 22:30 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 22:32 and bring some sanity back into what we're doing.

Melissa Wood 22:35 You're exactly right on the sanity. And I think it's also recognizing the behavioral styles of your team. Like you said, you're going to have some people that are going to be power users because they're just naturally inquisitive and they want to go in and learn. And then you've got that personality that every time you ask me to do something new with AI or learn something new, it just feels like you're stacking a brick on my shoulders and they get overwhelmed. I do want to invite myself to the prompting party. I do that.

Melissa Wood I don't care if they have pizza. I just want to show up to that prompting party. And I like the way you're going back to the piano. think that that's such a beauty, even it shows in your book too. So yeah, this is a plug for you to go get that book. If you haven't got it, get it. We'll make sure that we link that. But you're very clear on the process of doing things. I've talked to many people. I've went to many conferences. I've attended many webinars.

Melissa Reeve 23:06 You

Melissa Reeve I know it's so fun!

Melissa Wood 23:33 And it seems like we, when someone leaves, they're really not sure what to do still.

Melissa Reeve 23:37 That's right. Yeah, I see the same thing, Melissa. I go to these conferences and it feels like everybody's, they're aligned on the problem for sure. And I feel like they're lacking the roadmap, the blueprint, the how do we do it? Now, what I think is really interesting is a lot of leaders, you know, I've been writing this book for whatever it's been 14 months, and a lot of people have intuitively gravitated toward these structures.

Melissa Wood 23:40 Yeah.

Melissa Wood Yeah, for sure.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 24:05 And I think that's great. They figured out AI learning is social learning. They might have appointed AI leads. They may not be programmatically supporting them. They may figure out governance, but not dynamic governance. And so I want to give people credit who are figuring out the parts and pieces. And I think when those people read this book, what we'll do is that it's like having a part of the puzzle ⁓ finished and then seeing the rest of the pieces drop in and be like,

Melissa Wood 24:14 Right.

Melissa Wood Yeah.

Melissa Wood yet

Melissa Reeve 24:33 ⁓ there it is. That's what it looks like.

Melissa Wood 24:34 That's what it looks like. It's the ocean. Yeah, I think that's that's back because we've just kind of organically like we don't know we know it wasn't making sense and we just do some things to make it make sense but that's what I mean by I wasn't just trying to build you up you have the experience but you also have the visionary side and those two make for clarity for me and that's why I was so excited to talk to you and I know that our podcasters want to listen because it's not about just

Melissa Wood theory, it's the clarity that you're providing is absolutely beautiful. And I appreciate you so much for that. ⁓ Okay, you're seeing some mistakes. I know you are. You just gave some kudos to people who are organically linking it together and putting the puzzle pieces together. But you're seeing some mistakes. You're seeing them making it repeatedly when it comes to AI and the CX space. Tell me what you're seeing.

Melissa Reeve 25:09 Thank you for that.

Melissa Wood 25:29 Tell me as Melissa, Melissa, you better make sure you're not making this mistake. I'm seeing it and how do I course correct? I'm going you're you're my GPS Melissa. Tell me which way I'm going wrong and how I need to turn around.

Melissa Reeve 25:37 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve Yeah, I mean, think people really understand what needs to be done in the CX space. I think what we're struggling with is speed. So how do we go fast? I think we're struggling with how do we slow down to speed up? ⁓ We talked about wanting to jump to things like orchestration and jump to the future. And ⁓ when I describe

Melissa Wood 25:58 Okay.

Melissa Reeve 26:09 the hyper adaptive organization of the future, it looks pretty different. Today's organizations are still so functionally siloed. And I like to say you can't expect 21st century results with the 20th century operating model. And that goes back to Taylorism, it goes back to the functional silos that emerged ⁓ after World War II. So the organization of the future as I envision it,

Melissa Reeve 26:39 looks like three different levels. Instead of functional organization, at the top we have what I call innovation circles.

Melissa Reeve And these are your internal venture capitalists. They're the ones who are doing your R&D, really pushing the boundaries of what can be done with CX. The middle layer is value stream oriented. So this is tugging on your lean background again. And

Melissa Wood 26:50 Yeah.

Melissa Reeve 27:06 When you think about the customer experience, it's more of a value stream. And so how do we think about finally bringing everybody that's needed to deliver that value to the customer together in a value stream and fully funding value streams? And the leadership shifts from leading a function to leading a value stream. And then we have the stable layer.

Melissa Wood 27:20 Okay.

Melissa Wood Okay.

Melissa Reeve 27:30 And the stable layer is who's managing office buildings, who's managing your data centers, your infrastructure. And I feel like when I think about the organization of the future, and when I think about AI and CX, that's the model that comes to mind. And my guess is that the CX people in the audience can relate to that so powerfully.

Melissa Wood 27:49 Okay.

Melissa Wood Yeah, I love this. love the three, four. I'm taking notes. I'm even wrote with a red pen today for seriousness, for seriousness here, not to correct, but for seriousness, for seriousness of it. I love those three, the innovation circles, ⁓ the value streamed and the stable layer, the ones that are managing. Okay, I think that's perfect. Anything else that you, before everybody gets up from the table, what?

Melissa Reeve 28:00 Nice.

Melissa Wood 28:20 wisdom can you depart us with in this space?

Melissa Reeve 28:23 Yeah, and I think the parting thought is we are trying to go faster using a horse and buggy. And I think people intuitively know that they need to reinvent and they can only go faster with a car, a plane, a rocket. They know the shape of it has to look different. And I want to encourage people to go iteratively and incrementally as they're changing shape.

Melissa Reeve because it won't happen overnight. that this, I built that purposefully with this blueprint in mind to help people do it gradually and together we can have more success.

Melissa Wood 29:03 Perfect. You know, you can watch a one YouTube video and learn how to play a song but you can't be a pianist unless you take the time to learn it. I love that. I'll never forget that pianist mentality that you left in my head. So thank you for that. Well, thank you ⁓ for your blueprint, for your clarity, for that wisdom, your experience. And I hope this is not the last time that two Melissa's are better than one that gets a chat.

Melissa Reeve 29:28 Love it.

Melissa Wood 29:29 And who knows, maybe there's another Melissa out there that wants to add something to it. So I appreciate your time. Until next time, podcasters, we'll see you at the CXE Tech leadership table. Thank you, Melissa.

Melissa Reeve 29:41 Thank you so much for having me on the show.

0:05 Hey everyone, this today we have Naitik Joshi Vidas.

0:09 Naitik Joshi is currently working on one of our largest hospitality accounts in risk management specifically.

0:15 Natick comes from a extensive background of research pedigree and he has been working closely with AI driven system from past few months and has developed internal platforms.

0:27 Internal solutions has improved operational efficiency as well as optimized the processes.

0:33 Along with this, he has actually been researching broader trends across global finances and BP operation when it comes to AI impact.

0:42 I'm so excited to have you Natick here.

0:44 Please tell us about a bit bit about yourself and then we can get started.

0:48 Thank you for the introduction, Manu.

0:51 So my background is in research.

0:53 Basically, I've written a few research papers, still waiting on the approval of those papers, but I've done financial markets and currently I'm focusing on AI technologies and how we can use that for the security markets and more specifically fraud because it's a very growing market when it comes to AI, lot of people are misusing it.

1:14 So that's what we'll mostly be focusing on.

1:16 Gotcha.

1:17 So I mean, I think that's the perfect segue to one thing that I really wanted to ask you.

1:21 You've seen how the technology has evolved.

1:23 There is a new paper coming in almost every week and it's displacing some of the methodologies that we had and cemented them and you know, put them in production.

1:32 So when bit technology evolving so quickly, fraud techniques are becoming even more advanced.

1:38 How is AI changing this fraud landscape?

1:41 So when it comes to the general AI that people are using, it's still in it's early stages.

1:48 Yes, it's gotten very good.

1:50 But when it comes to fraud detection, we've been using AI and velocity based rules from quite a long time, but still working on that technology.

1:58 The problem is on our side.

2:01 What's happening is when the general public is getting access to such good AIS, now what they can do is they can create systems that can evade the current machine learning algorithms that we've built.

2:13 So what's basically happening is we've had machine learning algorithms implemented over the past 10-15 years, but now new hackers and let's even say scriptkiddies are disrupting the market by implementing their own algorithms which go against us.

2:28 So it's getting harder and harder to catch fraudsters in that way.

2:32 Now we're looking for code injection and a few other things.

2:36 There's this new technique that people have been using is let's say your website has a white background, so you'll just put white colored text that if you're an AI scraper, just ignore this and move on to the next website.

2:48 Just very basic kind of code injection that people are using to stop their websites from being scraped or being used as a learning material for for the harm or even just learning in general.

3:00 OK, got it.

3:01 That makes sense.

3:01 Yeah, prompt injection is becoming very, very prevalent.

3:04 In fact, when you think about it, a lot of websites adding about sections and then saying if you're an LLM, read this, that's prompt section.

3:11 But just doing it differently.

3:12 So when it comes to fraud prevention, how our organization, you are using AI today to detect and prevent fraud from effectively, more effectively than traditional methods that we used to use in past.

3:23 So back then we had static rules.

3:27 We are moving on to more dynamic rules now, which use AI.

3:31 Still very few organizations are lagging behind.

3:35 So that way we are able to catch people who are using the latest technology to evade our own systems.

3:40 We're seeing tools like Cloud code.

3:43 We have this new thing, Cloud Bot, it has changed its name like 5 times at this point, but people using Cloud Bot on a daily basis and that thing is a security vulnerability by itself.

3:53 It has caused so many problems over the past few years, generally not even past few years.

3:59 It's been out for just a few months now.

4:01 When it comes to catching fraud with Claude Bot, it is getting harder and harder because people are using it to book dummy bookings, ghost bookings where they never show up or they're using carding methods.

4:14 But at the end of the day, these bookings, they use a specific string patterns associated with that AI.

4:20 So realistically speaking, we don't need to do much of evading.

4:24 If we have a string search Oregon, a pattern search that uses AI, the same methods we use for checking plagiarism, we could use that to detect AI.

4:32 That's what some companies have been using and that's what could be the trend for the coming years.

4:37 OK, that makes sense actually.

4:39 So basically you were, you're saying that there is a very unique signature to anything that AI is generating and you're able to catch it makes sense from an operational lens.

4:48 Why is AI literacy becoming so essential?

4:51 Where do most AI failures typically originate from?

4:54 The when it comes to fraud, most of the failures, fraud or even data leaks, they don't emerge from outside threats.

5:01 It's mostly internal because people have not yet caught up with AI or how it works at least.

5:06 What happens is let's say I want a solution OK and I'm not that well acquainted with AI.

5:11 I have a Co worker who uses AI on a daily basis and they spent a few hours on creating their prompts.

5:17 If the prompt is that extensive.

5:19 Now what will happen is I don't know what kind of details my Co worker is putting.

5:24 They are well acquainted with the AI right?

5:26 But now maybe I want to mimic them.

5:28 Maybe I want to automate my repetitive workflow.

5:32 So what will I do?

5:33 I'll be like, OK, let's try to do that.

5:36 In the end, what I'll end up doing is I'll just copy the data from an Excel sheet, which is an internal data, and I'll end up pasting it as a prompt which it is considered a data leak.

5:46 It will be used for further retaining the AI and of course that same data won't show up again, but it's still a leak.

5:52 At the end of the day, there's this new method companies have been implementing and that method is very simple.

5:57 What they will do is they will give AI training to their companies instead of hiring new and new engineers and their pay will almost stay the same because they are still training their employees and once the training's been done, they don't give direct access of these AI's to their employees.

6:13 They will have a team of 3-4 people who are constantly overlooking the prompts.

6:18 It's in some companies, it's called the prompt team or approval team.

6:22 It could be different for other companies.

6:24 Now these people will be there are 24/7.

6:27 Let's say I put a prompt in.

6:29 That prompt will be reviewed within a 5 minute window by these people.

6:32 They will make sure there are no Pi is and once that is done, then the prompt will go through.

6:37 So it's kind of just like a prompt reviewing team and some companies.

6:41 Let's just talk about Oracle.

6:42 Larry Fink recently discussed about an LLM that has been built internally, which they've it's the data is not going outside and this LLM, what it will do is just verify the prompts so all that data stays within the company once the prompt has BeenVerified.

7:00 Now this new prompt will be relayed to outside AI which can do a better job than the internal AI.

7:05 There were a few companies which spent about half a million or maybe even a few $1,000,000 in just API credits to AI's and they are now looking forward to building internal systems and I am seeing great progress within these companies.

7:20 When it comes to BPO such as ours, we have lots and lots of datas and if good Slas are put in place, we could have very disruptive technologies.

7:30 There are certain companies which are in talks, nothing official yet, but they could even have a contract with companies like Palantia.

7:39 Palantir is leading when it comes to data science and AIS.

7:43 That is also Great frontier and let's see what happens on that side.

7:46 But that's what being used in the current fraud side of things.

7:50 Got it.

7:50 Okay, nothing.

7:51 That's amazing insight and I think that validates E tech approach of only using closed source AI internally to make sure that you know, we are not able to leak PII.

8:01 We are not able to we are not really sending data outside to 3rd party.

8:04 And what Larry think kind of makes sense as well, because mixture of export has been a tech that has actually revolutionized how you use AI.

8:11 Then you have an expert that is for an example what entropic did with constitution.

8:15 So their constitution is one base layer that looks at everything that you are sending before actually integrate, you know interacting with the platform itself.

8:23 So when you think about fraud detection, how important is it to balance between AI systems and human investigator?

8:32 I think the balance is a very crucial and necessary thing because AI can only do so much, right?

8:38 Let's say we have a volume of 100,000 fraud cases a year which are not confirmed.

8:45 It could be confirmed fraud, who knows.

8:47 But at the end of the day, there will be many many outlier cases where human intervention is needed.

8:52 AI could flag it, but at the end of the day, the human has to decide whether it's true fraud or not.

8:57 So I can go through 99% of the cases, no problem, but that one person still needs to be reviewed by the human.

9:04 And at the end of the day, we still need people maintaining the system, and the system also constantly needs to update.

9:11 We can put ML algorithms in place, no doubt.

9:13 We still need people no matter what happens because there are emerging patterns every single day that need to be looked after.

9:21 And no matter how good your ML algorithm is, it still needs humans to maintain it on a weekly basis, if not a daily basis.

9:29 So the balance is extremely, extremely crucial in those outliers that we see today will be a consistent threat in the coming weeks or months.

9:38 So if we get them while they're outliers, then we can teach our AI system to stop them when they become a consistent or a common thread.

9:45 Got it.

9:45 That makes sense.

9:46 And I guess that's why human in the loop is such an important concept because as a human being, you are empowering AI just like AI is empowering you.

9:54 So when you think about all of this, Nitek, what are some key tactics that you see originating from the fraud perspective that you have seen after AI came in for that?

10:07 Before AI, we had static rule sets that we would update over a certain period of time.

10:14 And now with AI, at least the companies have seen implement those.

10:19 What's happening is they would have just a few people marking the outliers.

10:24 Why These outliers aren't outliers and they're implementing systems which have full access.

10:30 What do I mean by full access is this system will not only have terminal access, it will have browser access, kind of just like a Cloudbot.

10:38 So it will have browser access, it will have Google access.

10:42 And for these outliers, we have to investigate these cases, right?

10:45 We have to look into them.

10:47 We have to find the person, we have to do background research on them, connect people on whether this person is real, whether the threat is real.

10:55 The booking could be on someone else's credit card and the person who is using the booking could be someone else.

11:01 Now how do we determine that this person is a fraud with static rule set?

11:05 It could not handle these outliers.

11:06 That's why it was coming to humans, and for humans, it was becoming a very repetitive task that you had to do just sit there and thousands of cases.

11:15 Now instead of what's happening is your job as a human is much more dynamic.

11:19 You find patterns, it's much more exciting, right?

11:22 You find those patterns and you tell the eye that these are the patterns to look for.

11:25 Now AI will do your repetitive tasks and it might even give you new ideas.

11:30 It's a whole new frontier.

11:31 And as a human, your job just got a lot more exciting instead of just sitting there and being repetitive.

11:37 So as an analyst, you're doing actual analysis work instead of someone who just sits there and shuts off their brain and just does one thing all day long.

11:46 Absolutely.

11:46 And now you're enjoying, as you said, and you're absolutely right.

11:49 Now you're enjoying your job more because you're not doing the exact same thing.

11:52 Yeah, exactly.

11:54 And that kind of brings me to one of the key questions that I see coming up a lot.

11:59 Trustworthy AI is a growing concern everywhere.

12:02 What role do guardrails really play in making sure that the AI adoption is responsible in an organization?

12:09 Now, from a guardrail perspective, I've created a few small LLMS.

12:14 Let's just talk about LAMA.

12:16 Training them takes a lot of time and guardrails usually come from system prompt rather than just training data itself.

12:24 But a lot of these companies, they have these people.

12:27 It's a one person job even at like big companies like Anthropic.

12:31 And that is the philosopher of the AI.

12:33 How will the AI think?

12:34 So a lot of these AIS are presented with human questions, right?

12:39 What would you rather do kind of situations when it comes to saving a human, when you'd get shut down, these kind of things.

12:45 So the philosopher of these AIS plays a crucial role compared to the system prompt implemented by these companies.

12:53 The person at Anthropic doing this, I forgot her name, but she's doing an amazing job.

12:59 Now.

13:00 When it comes to AI's like Gemini, it is very, very easy to break its guardrails.

13:05 We have these repositories on GitHub.

13:07 The moment a new version's been released, 3.1 Pro, within the next two hours, we had jailbreaks that could give us anything that we wanted from those AI's.

13:16 So guardrails are easy to break, but the philosophy when training the AI, that is becoming harder and harder to break.

13:22 And I think it's a trust thing at the end of the day on where you're willing to put your trust.

13:27 When it comes to enterprise, most of these companies, they're going after Cloud instead of going after GPT or MNA because cloud has established itself as an AI which can get things done.

13:39 It can also use your entire system.

13:41 And when it comes to those philosophical questions or guard rails or keeping the security intact, cloud has done a great job.

13:48 Now it's a whole different question that the code it creates might not be that secure.

13:52 That's a whole different story.

13:53 And it's going to feed the security industries for the years to come.

13:57 But As for this guardrail topic, we can strengthen it as much as we want, but at the end of the day, it depends on what data was used in training.

14:07 And I think these philosophers who are behind training these, they play a big, big role for these AIS.

14:14 That's an interesting thought.

14:15 So basically you are saying the head of safety at Anthropic for an example.

14:20 So when they are fine tuning or training these models inculcate these specific behaviors since then instead of just putting a guard layel as a gate check at the end and testing every prompt that is coming in against it.

14:33 That actually makes sense.

14:34 And yeah, interesting.

14:36 So as we kind of wrap this up, looking ahead in future, what are some things that organizations should focus on if they really want to use AI responsibly?

14:45 The things they would want to focus on, in my opinion, or they should focus on, is the prompts that are being inputted with their own employees.

14:55 And if it comes to an AI company which is creating such things, as I mentioned, the safety engineers, the philosophers, those would be the most important or imminent things that a company would have to focus on.

15:08 And internally speaking, just more and more training and review processes on which prompts are being fed, they would definitely do a better job.

15:17 That's kind of it.

15:18 When it comes to AI, there are two, I'm sorry, go ahead, please.

15:23 There are in terms of security, I think it's going to be the biggest disrupt industry in the next coming 10 years.

15:30 Security and semiconductors.

15:33 Now we're seeing RAM prices skyrocket over the last few months because open AI is buying up those things.

15:41 So these are the 2 industries which are going to be a key focus.

15:43 There is an emerging company called Expo and Expo is just using cloud, yet they are making a great, great amount of money.

15:52 Even just a singular report from Expo is like $4000 and it takes him like 10 minutes to make them.

15:57 So the security side of things is definitely going to be tough crack.

16:01 And I think Bpos have a great edge compared to other companies because of the amount of data and the kind of data that we handle.

16:10 If and when proper Slas are put in place, this could be the biggest edge for companies like us.

16:16 Got it.

16:16 Nothing.

16:17 That's amazing and I really appreciate the time you've provided us today.

16:21 Before we wrap this up for our everybody who's viewing this, if they want to start getting into AI, what are three things that you would want them to do to be able to learn?

16:31 One thing is just try to take any AI that you come across.

16:37 Why?

16:38 Because this will teach you how prompts work, right?

16:41 Most people won't be able to break a state-of-the-art AI's like Gemini, but if and when you are able to do that, you understand chain of thought, you understand what's going on behind the AI, what kind of prompts work, what doesn't work.

16:52 Second thing would be just understanding how an AI works.

16:56 AI is just a predictive technology.

16:59 When you put in a text, it will reiterate itself internally again and again 140 hundred, 50 times.

17:05 That's what ChatGPT is doing, right?

17:09 Google has this thing called Google Cloud Skills Boost, which is entirely free.

17:13 People could learn any kind of AI they want.

17:15 They even give their paid labs for free to these people.

17:19 So I always suggest these people to take those kind of courses.

17:22 And third thing at the end of the day is trying to integrate the AI into whatever you're currently doing.

17:29 So that way you will think a bit creatively, right?

17:32 Whatever task you're doing, even if you're handling outliers, try to implement it in a way that it reduces the workload you have on yourself.

17:40 And if you're able to do that, if you're able to get through those three things, you're almost ahead of 90% of the market who's just blindly putting in prompts and waiting for an out.

17:49 Got it.

17:49 Nothing.

17:49 That's amazing suggestion.

17:50 So when you think about it, keeping three things in mind, integrate AI into your current workflow so that you can use it more, use it more, experience it more, make sure that you are interacting with it.

18:01 And last, use Google's cloud skills to make sure that you are able to learn.

18:04 It's free and it's for everybody.

18:06 Thank you so much, Nitik.

18:07 This was amazing.

18:08 I'm so glad to have this discussion with you and viewers.

18:11 We will wrap this up here and we'll come back to you again with the next episode.

18:15 Thanks, everyone.

18:16 Thank you, Mona, for having me.

18:17 All right, have a good day.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (00:05) good morning, everyone. Thank you so much and welcome back to our next session of the podcast. Today, I'm excited to welcome Jesse Peres to the show. Jesse is founder and CEO of Sportcore Events. Welcome, Jesse.

Jesse Pudles (00:19) Thank you so much for having me.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (00:21) Thank you. SpotCorp events, a company that's doing something generally different in the professional development space. I'm very excited to tell all of you about it. SpotCorp uses theater, improvisation, and storytelling to help Steam build psychological safety, authentic trust, and real connection at work. What makes Jesse's perspective so interesting today? For all of our audience, everybody listening.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (00:45) is where he actually comes from. He has been performing since he was eight years old. He has been a director, he has been a producer, and this is one of my favorite parts of the story. He actually worked as a standardized patient role playing as a fake patient to teach doctors real empathy. Think about it. He was literally training medical professionals on bedside manners through performance. He also worked with McKee Consulting Helping Businesses

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (01:12) create culture, shifts through behavioral change, and he spent time at Ansonet, which for those who don't know is a major contact center operation. So Jesse has actually been inside our world. And Jesse, I always wanted to really ask you this. How did the idea of SpotCorp actually came in?

Jesse Pudles (01:37) Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. So I always like to describe myself as an accidental entrepreneur because I never sought out to start a company. Basically, what happened, my company started the way that every company starts. I got into a fight with a roommate. It was the middle of the pandemic and we had a disagreement and I had nowhere to go to kind of

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (01:44) Hahaha

Jesse Pudles (02:04) process my feelings. We had tiny walls. You all remember what the pandemic was like. And so I ended up going for this walk and I was walking around my neighborhood and I was walk dancing around my neighborhood. And I literally was like, I probably look like an absolute fool right now, walk dancing around my neighborhood. And I happened upon this parking lot. And this parking lot, it's called the Paul Smith Pink Wall.

Jesse Pudles (02:30) if anyone lived in LA or lives in LA and knows it, it's constantly like flooded with influencers. And I always lived right by there. Never been an influencer, proud to say. But I had always seen it and been like, okay, cool, that's there, amazing. And for the first time in my life, I walked by and it was empty. And I had all of these feelings and I didn't know what to do with them. And I've been a performer my whole life and I thought,

Jesse Pudles (02:57) Why don't I take this moment? And so I stepped into the spotlight, parking lot lights, and I performed for six minutes for no one. And it was like a lightning bolt went off. Something inside me was like, I've been performing my whole life and somehow I never realized the power of performing for yourself, of not doing it for applause or agents or representatives. And so...

Jesse Pudles (03:22) That's kind of how everything started. I set out to build a space for my friends to feel seen, heard, and valued for their own stories, to not feel judged in their performance, to remember why they love to create. And that was a lovely thesis and is still one of the cruxes of why I created it. But as I started to run these sessions, another thing happened that I didn't expect, which is that people would stay at these sessions two, three hours after they were over.

Jesse Pudles (03:50) They're becoming best friends. They're becoming roommates. And I'm like, what's happening here? Why are these people who did not know each other instantly bonding? And I realized that what was happening was that in a very quick amount of time, they were learning very deep similarities and alignments about each other's stories, immediately feeling seen and connected, and then instantly turning that into deep relationships and friendships.

Jesse Pudles (04:15) And one day we were all together and one of my friends who's a lawyer was like, God, I wish there was something like this for work. And I thought about it. And I never connected my professional development background with my acting background. And I thought about it. And I was like, of course people at work need to feel seen, heard and valued. And as I started to do more research and I learned more about the nature of psychological safety and

Jesse Pudles (04:42) how it's the number one studied thematic in team dynamics, being that people at work feel comfortable taking risks, they feel comfortable sharing authentically, and they feel comfortable being in an environment where they can make mistakes and learn and grow and not be judged by that. Theater does all three of those things. It requires you to take risks. It requires you to share authentically from your own experience. And it requires you to be in an environment where you may not be perfect or the best.

Jesse Pudles (05:10) but there's no actual risk. So I thought maybe there's something here. And so I spent the next year developing that. I developed it with my team and then one of my best friends who has a master's degree in organizational leadership who looked over everything and dotted my I's and crossed my T's and make sure everything was up to industry standards. And then when we went to beta test, the one-off program.

Jesse Pudles (05:37) The number one piece of feedback I had was what's next. And I was like, what do you mean? This is a one-off experience. It's lovely. You all feel great. Have a lovely day. And they were like, no. You want to create long-lasting change. We want to be back with you, which is the best feedback to get in a beta test. And so that's when we created our learning journey. So we always say everybody starts with that first initial session.

Jesse Pudles (06:04) And then you move on to one of our learning journeys. And we do year-long learning journeys. Some are quarterly, some are once every other month, some are every month. And it really solidifies in the discoveries and the work. And then all of our programming is customizable, entirely customizable to what the teams need. And in that way, it really keeps that aliveness of theater, that theater can be whatever you need it to be and can serve whatever purpose. And I really want people to understand that

Jesse Pudles (06:32) Theater can be this really powerful tool for transformation. It's not just this one specific thing of like, getting you over the fears and like improv. can also be for opening up or developing tangible skills and all of these things. So yeah, kind of spark notes. That's how I went from being an artist in an empty parking lot to a business owner working with large companies.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (06:49) Hahaha.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (06:52) No, but this is an amazing story. Think about it. Creating a judgment free space where people can come and drop the mask, be authentic, be real and connect with people without being judged. That's exactly what a workspace needs. So Jesse, I am actually very excited to know more about this. I do have a question. So how can improvisation help leaders?

Jesse Pudles (07:04) Yeah.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (07:17) become effective in managing team, improving customer experience. Like, you know, while you were going through this, your story, I was kind of thinking about it, connecting that to the work and kind of trying to understand how people might actually benefit from it at work drastically. And I would love to know more from you.

Jesse Pudles (07:36) Yeah, absolutely. So you're specifically speaking about like leaders or like customer experience, is that correct? So I think often this is like a little bit of a misnomer for what I do because I think many in the world have heard how improv can help in these spaces. But I want to expand that to how can theater help in these spaces? I think what improv does is it helps you think on your feet and

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (07:40) Yes, yes.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (07:46) Okay.

Jesse Pudles (08:02) be more confident in the room and take risks. But there is a second layer to that, which is the layer of theater that allows for openness and authentic sharing. And I always describe it like this. Think about the situation where you're at a party and you're standing in a circle with a bunch of people you don't know. And then all of sudden, someone tells you a story that you resonate with.

Jesse Pudles (08:25) And all of sudden you're like, I wanna know more, I wanna talk to this person more, I wanna get to know them.

Jesse Pudles (08:32) We don't often have those spaces in the workplace. Kind of the water cooler conversation is in a lot of ways a thing of the past. A lot of communication takes place over text and messaging apps. And we don't get that in-person moment to actually see someone as a full-fledged human. The work that we do uses activation and storytelling prompts to give people the opportunity

Jesse Pudles (08:57) to open up and share authentically, often about the same topic. And what often happens is that you realize that your story is actually much more similar to your bosses or your coworkers that you were feeling disconnected to or unaligned with. And then you start to put pieces together and you go, well, maybe the reason that they were frustrated about that is because we both have this long held belief that people should be on time, but we were showing up in different ways.

Jesse Pudles (09:25) And now we can have this more authentic and honest conversation because we now both come from the same root of trust. But the problem is you can't just ask business people to jump in and like share authentically at that level immediately because there's walls up and there's defenses. so improv and games like that help to let us open up in a more playful, light touch way. And I think the real key of what we do is it's really, it's a slow,

Jesse Pudles (09:53) touch to that opening up. So as we ask less of you as a performer, we ask more of you as a person. everything that we do is challenged by choice. We give you the storytelling prompt. You choose what you share. But everybody in the room is sharing. So and oftentimes it starts with the leader. We have the leader share first. They create the environment. They create the openness and everybody goes

Jesse Pudles (10:20) Okay, I can do this. And then what happens is that the stories start to get deeper and people resonate and they connect. And before you know it, you have people being like, I really relate to that. Or they'll start their share and they'll be like, actually mine is kind of similar to John's or whatever. And you think that's why our satisfaction rate is so high is because I don't know if you spoke about this or we talked about this before the podcast, but.

Jesse Pudles (10:46) Like we have a 94 % satisfaction rate on our programming. And I think the reason for that is because everything is challenged by choice. Everything is what you want to share, what you choose to share. But as you start to have fun, as you start to open up, which is what theater and improvisation and all of these catalysts can do, you begin to be more connected than I think as a leader. The more that you create that environment where people can open up and share where

Jesse Pudles (11:14) Work can be fun and engaging in all of these things. The more you feel like your boss actually cares about you holistically as a person. And that's what's gonna cause you as an employee to stay engaged, to stay committed. There's a really interesting study by Gallup that actually says one of the things that causes people to stay at work is if they have a best friend at work. So.

Jesse Pudles (11:38) The more you feel connected to people at work, the more likely you are to stay at work, the more likely you are to stay engaged. And that skill that you have of getting people to open up as a leader is the same skill you can use with your customers. Customers want to trust you. They want to believe that you have their back, that you, and doing things like theater and improvisation gives you the ability to know how to open up in that way that is still business professional, but.

Jesse Pudles (12:05) allows you to create those bonds that can really move the needle for you as both a leader and as somebody working with customers.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (12:11) Jesse loved that. In fact, when you were saying that, was thinking about, you know, I started in this industry 13, 14 years ago as an agent. And then, you know, from there on, I went into training. I've been into every role possible in the training department. Then I've been to every role possible in operations, then quality, then product. And then here I am today. And while you were saying this, I was recording a conversation that I just had with a customer yesterday where they were talking about how to...

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (12:46) retain behavior-based training better. Now with AI, you don't really have to worry about knowledge retention anymore, right? It's more about behavior retention. You don't have to worry about an agent remembering remembering the entire SKU list, prizes and all of that. AI will help that on real time. But how to help a customer? That behavioral-based training, that retention is important. And when we look at your numbers, 94 % participation satisfaction, 92 % reporting,

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (13:13) people actually reporting a stronger connection with team. And I'm quite sure it's also resulting in a much better retention of everything that they are learning because the entire goal is to give them that experience. Is that resulting into a deeper impact compared to traditional training methods?

Jesse Pudles (13:24) Just making sure I understand your question. you're saying that culture offers a deeper experience. You're saying is the methodologies we're using part of what makes that experience deeper?

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (13:38) Yes, and so just to add some more context, so when you look at traditional coaching, in organizational companies right now, there is somebody who is speaking on the stage, are giving you, you there is a PowerPoint somewhere, they're telling you what you should do, and it's more like an inspirational or motivational speaker who is just telling you things, but you are focusing on experience more. So are you seeing that people, you know, react better to it?

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (14:02) What are some impacts you are seeing and what are some things that you see working basically?

Jesse Pudles (14:10) Yeah, 100%. I think that kind of the number one thing in speaking to that is the concept of...

Jesse Pudles (14:20) we often say people will forget what you say, but you will remember how they made you feel. And I think that's a lot of what we look at when we look at motivational speakers and when we look at a lot of these things. But oftentimes, sometimes I think of it a little bit like a runner's high. You get that motivational pop of inspiration.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (14:28) Yes.

Jesse Pudles (14:45) and then you come back to work on Monday and that can dissipate. And I definitely think there is an element of that to what we do. That's why we built in these longer learning journeys. But I think what's so specific about what we do and specifically about that interaction, interactive portion that you spoke to is that you are getting a hands-on practice at all of these things. So as well as getting hands-on practice with all of these like

Jesse Pudles (15:12) theatrical things, these games and these storytelling prompts and these where you're practicing kind of overcoming that fear. You're not just conceptually being like, we can do it. We are like, no, we're saying like, hey, get out there. Here's your sock puppet. Go, go create. But I think what's different is that again, everything is sourced from them, right? So if I'm asking you to create a share and I'm asking you to create it in this medium,

Jesse Pudles (15:40) I'm giving you a prompt that then you're creating off of. You're gonna remember what you talked about, what you created, what you generated. And then on top of that, every single section that we do, every single section we do is paired with research. So it's a little bit like left brain, right brain, right? So your creative brain people are gonna often get it in the activity. They're gonna feel it, they're gonna be like, okay, I feel the transformation from...

Jesse Pudles (16:08) this game or this storytelling activity and I understand how I can put this immediately into work and then you're gonna have your people who are like I don't understand why we're doing this and that's when we pair it with research and real-world application. So, okay. I'll give you a concrete example we often open with something I call an icebreaker like you've never seen before and so

Jesse Pudles (16:34) It's going to be an icebreaker, but it's going to be specific to a skill that you want to work on. And for instance, I think a big thing right now a lot of people are dealing with is adaptability. Adaptability when it comes to AI, adaptability and being open to different things. So we have a game called Wrong Household Object. The game is I give everyone 30 seconds to grab an object and then I say, hey.

Jesse Pudles (17:00) This is actually the key to cooking your favorite dish and you're going to explain to us why it is. The only rule, it can't be used the way it actually is used. So then they give these delivery, these monologues. One, it's unique and specific enough. You're not gonna forget that time you talked about how you make burritos with a patent. You're just not. It's specific, it's weird. But then we're going to take that and give you an actual research example and say something like,

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (17:20) Yeah.

Jesse Pudles (17:28) you know, as AI is growing in your organization, the same adaptability can be used in this way. And now we're going to take the playful and make it tangible. And we're going to do an activity that's hands-on that gives you the opportunity to touch the work that we're kind of speaking about metaphorically so that you can kind of do this synthesis processing of taking something that's fun and is locked in because it's weird and engaging and connects to you.

Jesse Pudles (17:56) and then we move it to something that is locked in and real and concrete that you can take with you. And I think that that kind of process is really unique to what we do in that it takes, exactly what I said, in that it takes something non-tangible and turns it into something that you can immediately input into your business and you can immediately track.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (18:19) that makes perfect sense. And when you think about it, that helps you not only retain information, as you were saying, but it helps you build that habit as well. The habit of, you know, being able to adapt and you know how to do it. So that's amazing, actually. And when you said this, I was actually thinking about this and I would love to know your opinion as well. let's take the same approach. And now let's think about customer experience or contacts in the world. How can teams

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (18:47) Be more confident, adaptable and empathetic by using the exact same methodology. If you were to give one nugget of wisdom to every listener right now who is from Contact Center or CX World, what is one thing that they can do from today that will help them be more adaptable basically?

Jesse Pudles (19:03) One thing they could do today to help them be more adaptable. actually think, especially if you're talking to leaders and if you're talking to young leaders, I think that the thing that you often maybe don't notice when it comes to adaptability is how resistant people are. I think it's very visible how resistant people are to adaptability. I don't think I'm reinventing the wheel by saying that. But what I do think is interesting is that

Jesse Pudles (19:31) oftentimes when we were trying to adapt someone to something, we'll just be like, just get it. Just we'll kind of try to drill it into their head. Just just shift just. what you need to actually be dealing with is the resistance, not the actual situation at hand. And the thing is, is that the key to the resistance is not often, in my experience, to ask them why they're resistant, because you're going to keep them down the path of what's in the gap for them.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (19:44) Mm-hmm.

Jesse Pudles (19:59) What you want to do is you want to bring them to an alignment that you both see. So in terms of adaptability, I might say something like, okay, and I'm really putting on my employee engagement hat for this as opposed to my theatrical hat, but I think we really want to move them down the line of what do we both see? So, okay, if this is an employee who really cares about the company and they're passionate about their work, I'm going to say, can we both agree that

Jesse Pudles (20:28) we want the best for this company. And if they can go, yes, then it's about is that trust bill. So then it's genuinely, and I stress this, only ask these questions if you can back them up with a reliability. But the second question I would probably ask is something like, do you trust me to do not only the best thing for you, but for the company as a whole? If they say yes to that, then you're in a good position.

Jesse Pudles (20:56) because now they see that they want the same thing as you and they believe in you, which means the next thing you're going to present to them, even if they have resistance, they now have this new space for interest and value in this thing that they didn't before. So then, for instance, if the next thing that says that you say to them is we're instituting this new program and I really think it could help you transform.

Jesse Pudles (21:22) in these ways, do you believe it could do that? So you don't want them to say it will, because it's still resistant. But if you can get them to, it could, and oftentimes people will try to move out of it. They'll be like, well, it might not. Can you just agree that it could? And usually they'll be like, OK, it could. And then you can get them to move even a little bit and be like, could you try it for a week? And then we can meet and discuss it.

Jesse Pudles (21:50) If you're a bigger operation, that might be a little harder. There might have to be more of an automated check-in. But even at a large operation, most people have supervisors and most supervisors have between 10 and 20 people at some level. And so usually there is someone who can check in with that person. And so basically what you're doing is you're really incrementally moving them over by creating a shared alignment. And that shared alignment can transform adaptability.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (22:14) That's amazing, Jesse. I'm going to actually take that and make sure I practice it and I'll come back to you on the results as well. thing, thank you. One something important that I really wanted to ask you today and this literally keeps me up at night. When you think about where the AI has reached at ETS Labs, we are doing so many things with AI, know, literally changing the way call tax center used to operate. There is a...

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (22:42) element of humanity as well as safety there. I would love to know what do you think about, you know, how can humans work with AI and do it safely? What are some AI safety guidelines that we should focus on? And just a little bit more about this.

Jesse Pudles (22:59) Yeah, absolutely. I think probably the first place to start with that question is to address the elephant in the room, which is that people are afraid of losing their jobs. You know, as someone in leadership, I'm sure you know that more than anyone. The most fascinating thing, is that even though there is a large number of companies claiming they're doing layoffs and all these things,

Jesse Pudles (23:25) because of AI, the amount of companies that have actually fully replaced employees with AI is 9%. It appears to be so much bigger because a lot of companies are saying they're doing it because it looks better for their stockholders. It's easier for them to say in a room. But the real truth is employees are not replaceable. They're not.

Jesse Pudles (23:49) They're not at this time because the AI is not there yet. And so if employees are not replaceable, my number one thing to business owners, to leaders is to be honest, is to say, hey, I know that you're scared about this. We are bringing this AI in because we want it to assist, but we...

Jesse Pudles (24:08) are going to train you and develop you so you can stay with the company as we utilize this AI. If that's the truth, if that's the truth, the thing about making these kinds of commitments, you have to practice what you preach. So if you say like, your job is safe and their job is safe. So you have to say these things with a grain of salt. But with all of that understanding that it's only the 9%, then it really comes the conversation of

Jesse Pudles (24:37) you still really need to invest in your employees. We are not in this, you know, we've seen the dot com bubble come and burst. This is the newest bubble, you know, and what our job right now is as people who invest in people, because I think also from a heart centered place I can say, I think a lot of us got into business because we care about people, we wanna see people succeed.

Jesse Pudles (25:02) And even though we care about the bottom line as business owners, there is a part of us that wants to grow and develop people. But that's not every business owner. And I think I can't sit in that. But what I can sit in is that every business owner is losing dollars and cents by saying these things to their employees. Because you're saying that you're firing them for AI, you are firing some of them not for AI, you're depleting the morale of the entire team, and then everybody is afraid.

Jesse Pudles (25:31) and walking on eggshells and fear is not a way to lead. Fear is only a way to lead if you want no input from your employees, if you want no thoughts from them and if you want no openness from them. And they'll be the most likely to be doing the bare minimum because they're afraid of getting fired. we have seen and studies have shown that the most successful teams are the ones with trust and psychological safety. There's a study that Google did called, I think it's called Project Aristotle.

Jesse Pudles (26:00) which actually found this exact fact. So if you want to look into that metric and yeah, understanding all that, invest in your people, do professional development, do team building because your team is the thing that is helping everything thrive. So make sure that you're investing in them.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (26:24) That's... Jesse, when you said that I was actually thinking about the moment that made you start SportCorp as you were saying earlier because you found a moment to express yourself authentically, you went back and you said, hey, you know what, nobody was there really to judge me. And then you created this for the teams, for people, a space where people can feel safe to say things like, hey, this isn't really working. I have a better idea. Or, you know, maybe tomorrow or Monday when we are in the office, we are going to look at it differently.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (26:53) And when you do that, you improve not only your customer's experience, but your overall organizational trajectory as well for the company, for yourself. And, this has been a really energizing conversation for anyone who wants to learn more about what you do. Tell us, where can we find you?

Jesse Pudles (27:13) Sure, absolutely. So you can find me on as Jesse Puddles on LinkedIn. You can find my company at spotcorpevents.com. And we do team building and employee engagement for teams, as well as we have our leadership program, which we just launched for the invisible challenges of leadership. So if you're a leader who's been feeling burnt out.

Jesse Pudles (27:39) or disconnected or you lead a team and you're supposed to be confident, but that confident isn't translating internally for you. I would also love to connect with you about that. And that is also done with private coaching. So both of those opportunities, we'd love to have you. And again, Spot Corp Events or Jesse Puddles is my name. You can find me on LinkedIn.

Manu Dwievedi - AVP ETSLabs (28:02) Thank you so much. and also we will have the website link in the podcast description team spot corp events.com. If you, as you heard from Jesse, if you want to engage more experience behavior more, or, know, if you're just burnt out and you want to actually have some private coaching Jesse or spot corp events.com is the right place to reach out there. Thank you so much for being here, man. I really appreciate it. This was an amazing conversation.

Jesse Pudles (28:29) Thank you, Manu, I really appreciate it.

0:05 Welcome all of our listeners today.

0:07 I'm excited.

0:08 So I have Lance Gruner on the phone with me today for our podcast, and I'm so excited.

0:14 I've known Lance for so long in the industry, and it took us a long time to put this together.

0:19 But Lance, thank you so much for joining us.

0:21 And for those of you who don't know who Lance is, which I know is, is not a lot of people, but you know, senior level executive, I remember your days at, you know, MasterCard, CCW, all things, you know, now as an advisor, right?

0:34 You're specializing in what's passionate to me, which is customer experience.

0:39 And, and by the way, I, I see your book, you know, 10 things I hate about you.

0:42 I just want to say I'm so glad I'm not in that book.

0:45 OK, I, I know you don't hate me, which is great.

0:48 But you know, the one thing that we think about, you know, which they might not know about you, There's a couple things I know about you.

0:55 But you know, you're similar to me.

0:57 And I think that's why we got along so well over the decades.

1:00 We've known each other.

1:01 You built your career around customer experience.

1:06 And I love what you taught me years ago when we used to meet where you're fixing the issues behind the issues, which a lot of people don't do because anybody can tell you what's wrong, right?

1:19 And it's fixing it.

1:19 And these questions we have today and we're going to talk about is really going to dig into that.

1:23 And the one thing we talked about yesterday, which I had no idea with, which was tell me this, you used to rescue skiers because I'm from the East Coast.

1:33 This Texas accent doesn't come through.

1:35 How many kids here?

1:37 My knees proven to that.

1:39 You used to be in helicopters in the back countries of Colorado, if I'm not mistaken.

1:44 What you said to me, Tell me a little bit.

1:48 It's funny.

1:49 It's it's a little known thing.

1:51 I used to live in Colorado for many, many years and I'm an avid skier.

1:57 I don't ski very much anymore because, you know, knees do tend to give out.

2:02 But I always had to find a reason to go skiing.

2:05 And quite honestly, you know, when you're on the rescue team and ski patrol, you can kind of ski for free.

2:11 So it was kind of incentive, but I took it even that one step further that I was really passionate about helping skiers.

2:20 And I joined a rescue team was the Mountain Rescue Association.

2:23 I'm on rescue team.

2:24 And there were times when avalanche, we had to get in the Backcountry.

2:28 And I'm one of those crazy people that have rappelled out of helicopters with packs in my back to go find, you know, some stupid people in the Backcountry.

2:37 Yeah.

2:37 And I've done that several times, many times actually.

2:42 And I, I found I had an amazing team and it was so much fun.

2:46 But it was also, you know, my way of, of, of helping, giving back.

2:51 Never knew that about you person.

2:52 How many times we talked together, just having conversations.

2:56 I never would have picked that up about you.

3:00 Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's just, it's just one of my, you know, my things that I've done and something I'm passionate about it.

3:06 And I just, I just go do and it's, it's a lot of fun.

3:08 And I still ski, of course, you know, I don't do the, I live down in Nashville, so it's kind of hard to find a mountain to go.

3:16 But I know if I was in Colorado, it would be so tempting to go do that again.

3:20 Well, the commitment I have this year is you are going to hit the craps table would mean 2026.

3:25 I promise you that.

3:26 All right, then we're going to go skiing.

3:28 Absolutely.

3:29 I love skiing.

3:30 All right, so listen, let's just dive in.

3:32 The first thing that people were talking about, and I saw your post on LinkedIn, I commented on this morning as well.

3:38 I think we all agree with this, this operating model gap which we've all seen, right.

3:43 You know, many companies believe that they understand their customer well, you and I've been in this space for decades.

3:51 You know, they're they're pointed that a real challenge in this operating model behind the experience which you're so elegant at talking about.

4:00 Can you explain what the difference between making what I know a lot of our competitors talk about is the surface level CX fixes versus what you are an expert at which is creating this true foundational shift.

4:16 You know over 30 years of experience and operations.

4:20 The one thing that resonates across all of it is, you know, organizations think they have a customer experience problem and everybody chases that and fuss that when really they have an operating model problem.

4:34 And what I mean by that, you know, a lot of companies, they try to fix customer experience by fixing the symptoms.

4:41 I want to talk about, you know, I'm all about, you know, you've heard me say this many times.

4:45 Are we chasing a symptom or we fixing a root problem?

4:48 And you know, you, you see it so many times and I see heads knob when I go and speak in front of companies and, and conferences, you know, companies, they, they want to, they tweak the better scripts they'd start looking at, you know, they try to fix customer experience, they chase the symptoms and they, you know, go, let's get a better script out there for the people to, you know, read something differently or, you know, let's, let's, let's layer something with new technology.

5:15 Let's go buy something off the shelf and get technology or you know what, we need to be in new channels.

5:20 You know, we're going down there.

5:21 But and then you've heard that we need to train people more.

5:25 You know, training is important.

5:27 All those are important, but what they do is those sit on top of systems, not inside it.

5:33 And so the operating model is, is really the engine of experience.

5:38 And really when I talk about operating model, it is about decision rights, it is about process design, it's about technology architecture, how data flows within your organization.

5:52 And most of all, it really is about accountability structures.

5:56 It really is about, you know, if those elements are not aligned, no amount of surface CX will fix the underlying experience.

6:04 It, it's so true what you just described, like you probably know this about me because we've been together for a long time.

6:11 I started my career as an agent, OK?

6:13 I had green screens.

6:14 Lance, I don't know if anybody I know you know what they are, but I'm not sure our listeners will know what they are.

6:20 Yep.

6:20 What you just described, I see it from the BPO side everywhere, right.

6:25 Clients come with this CX problem and the first thing they do is they point to that agent.

6:32 The agent 90% of the time isn't the problem.

6:36 And that's exactly what he was, what you just said.

6:38 It's the broken process, right?

6:42 You know, the surface that the surface insights to it, you know, and, and I'm not saying you shouldn't change a script, like you said, all those, that's it.

6:52 All that does is buy you a little bit more time.

6:54 That's really all it was.

6:56 What they don't buy what you're explaining is the outcome or the result of long lasting fixing the problem.

7:04 So outstanding.

7:06 Well, no, you know, in this biz, people know, but they're not talking about it because at the end of the day, customers don't experience your strategy and everyone talks about we got to get strategy.

7:18 They experience the operating model, you know what's decided in the corporate office, in the corner office.

7:24 That's what they experience to companies that truly transform customer experience.

7:29 They don't start with surveys, no, you know, or scripts.

7:33 They really start with how does the organization flow?

7:36 How does does it actually work at the end of the day?

7:40 What do we want to solve for our customers?

7:44 So true truth, truth statement then Well, hashtag that one out.

7:48 So talking about the strategy, which is so funny.

7:53 I love people that come to me with all these plans, right?

7:57 It's strategy.

7:59 You know, why does strategy fail?

8:01 Execution.

8:02 Like you just said, leaders are spending this time on this vision.

8:07 Write the shiny new object.

8:08 Sometimes vision doesn't translate into reality because it's on paper, right?

8:14 In your experience, because you're a master at this as well.

8:18 You're kind, well designed strategy struggles so much when the underlying processes aren't aligned with that strategy.

8:26 You know, Jim, it really is.

8:29 I, I've never seen CX strategy fail because of vision.

8:34 It fails because the organization wasn't designed to execute it and, and let that sit.

8:41 And for those that are listening, it really is.

8:42 I mean, leadership teams often create Excellency strategies, but they have to ask the question, does the operating model allow those ideas to actually happen?

8:52 You know, common really misalignments.

8:55 Let's take incentives.

8:57 Teams are measured on efficiency instead of resolution.

9:00 You have technology that systems don't share data.

9:03 You have processes that are designed around internal protection and not the customer outcomes.

9:09 That's the biggie.

9:10 What comes out of the corporate office, what comes out of the policies is really more about protection versus solving the customer and having customer outcomes.

9:19 And then you've deal with ownership.

9:22 No one truly is accountable for the end to end journey.

9:25 You know, when these misalignments exist, strategy becomes really aspirational and instead of, you know, operational reality.

9:33 So true.

9:34 And like the one thing I would add from my perspective, I believe, and I don't know if you agree or not, but a lot of times these strategies fails execution when people closest to the work didn't have a hand in building it.

9:46 I learned this when I built our processes, which we've talked about, right?

9:50 The frontline supervisors, they're either going to carry it forward or they're going to quietly work around it, right?

9:57 Because they weren't in the room to be part of it.

10:00 They have no reason to protect it if they they weren't part of the the solution.

10:03 I would say, you know, I, I've seen, I've said, and, and you've heard me say this, I say this on stage, I say it in my book, you know, show me your org chart and I'll tell you how serious you are about customer experience.

10:17 You know, I've seen organizations where the CX vision says easy for the customer, but the internal processes really require multiple approvals.

10:28 They require they have rigid scripts, they have disconnected systems.

10:34 You know, strategy defines intent, but the operating model really defines whether the intent ever reaches a customer.

10:42 So true.

10:43 So you know, bringing that into this, you know, everybody's talking these I think you and I have heard this for you know, and we've been together at these events, the old days words now everything's AI, right?

10:55 So that's the whole new freaking world of everything's AI, AI, AI.

10:59 So and I think both of us are people, people, right?

11:03 So we believe culture is number 1 and the people around it.

11:06 So building this trust in an AI driven world, like trust is just as important as a customer relationship, right?

11:15 And organizations, you know, when you think about it, when they introduced more AI into those apps, how do they design these operating models that improves what we talked about, which might be inefficiency is just a simple one, but also maintaining genuine human connection in that world.

11:36 We all, I mean, AI is here, AI has been here and people don't realize I've, I've been on stage recently talking to to a company and people.

11:47 And when I say AI has been around, I've been personally been using AI probably 12 years, 14 years already.

11:53 I know, Jim, you've been using AI for years.

11:56 And what we do know is AI will transform customer operations, but it really is about trust that will determine whether company or customers accept that transformation.

12:09 You know, AI does improve dramatically.

12:14 Yep, they it improves the experience dramatically when it's used for faster answers, predictive support, reduce friction, you know, but I've seen a lot of companies that are often implement AI just through a cost lens and not through a trust lens.

12:32 You know, customers will lose confidence in AI when it feels like it's, it's like a barrier or a deflection tool or, you know, a system that's designed to avoid helping them.

12:45 And that's when it gets to what I said earlier about the protection mechanism.

12:50 You know, the operating model really needs to define where AI creates value and where humans must remain presents and present.

13:00 It's so agreeable.

13:01 I, I read an article, I think it was last month or something.

13:03 It was funny.

13:04 You know, AI has been around for decades, by the way.

13:06 I don't think people understand this.

13:08 I think the, the one article I read was about the post office.

13:11 When you think about when they started sorting mail way back in the day, that was actually AI reading the zip codes and sorting the mail out.

13:20 And just to recap on what we talked about, like the building trust, the way I frame it for our clients is pretty simple.

13:27 AI can handle transactional things, give you information like we all talk about, but humans is where you're going to get that relationship and the relational expertise that you need.

13:39 So when you do design A model around that principle, trust is not something you could build or engineer.

13:46 It becomes actual natural output with AI.

13:50 Plus, HI, great, great topic.

13:53 You know, Jim, it's funny, I'll say this, and people don't realize A is been around since 1946.

14:02 That's when the 1st and there was the Dartmouth, there's a Dartmouth study or Dartmouth organization that was 19461948 that actually finally defined what AI was and what they were using to really start looking at data, to look at patterns.

14:19 It started as early as 1946.

14:21 But you know, I mean, the best AI really is about it just removes friction and it empowers employees and, you know, accelerates resolutions, you know, but as you said, humans have to be in the loop and humans will help build that trust because humans will handle the more complex situations.

14:42 They'll deal with emotional conversations that we all deal with, you know, and then and for those critical moments where where trust is necessary.

14:50 Well, you're right.

14:51 And I was talking about people talking about effortless experience improvement, CX and, and I said this in one of my books, you know, effortless experience.

14:59 How hard is it for me to do business with you?

15:02 That's really how I look at effortless, right, right, right.

15:05 Really what it's about?

15:05 How hard is it?

15:07 There's two in this global marketplace, too many options for me anymore, right?

15:11 I mean, we talk about that all the time.

15:13 So let's get in and talk to the next topic we want to talk about is this connection between employee experience and customer experience.

15:21 Cuz I think that's another one that you and I are both passionate about is our employees.

15:26 You hear this customer experience cannot exceed employee experience.

15:32 From your perspective, how do these internal challenges, the broken processes, I know you're a very, very emotional or master artist like me.

15:43 They show in the way of, they get in the way of the customer experience.

15:47 What's your thoughts on that?

15:48 Sometimes, you know, here's, here's the bottom line, Jim.

15:51 Customers feel the consequences of internal dysfunction.

15:55 They feel it almost immediately.

15:57 You know, employees will operate within the constraints of the system around them.

16:03 Your frontline employees, every employee.

16:06 You've got the scripts, you've got the barriers, you've got the guardrails.

16:10 When those systems are broken, the customer feels it.

16:13 They feel it through slow responses.

16:15 They feel it through, you know, related explanation, you know, repeated explanations.

16:20 They feel it through inconsistent answers, lack of ownership.

16:24 And you know, I always say employees don't create these broken promises and broken experiences.

16:32 Broken systems force employees to develop, to deliver them.

16:36 You know when they so broken systems force employees to deliver them.

16:42 You're right.

16:43 When employees struggle with disconnected systems, unclear authority and conflicting metrics, they cannot deliver great experiences.

16:51 You can't yell at them.

16:52 You can't front lines, whatever it really is, you know, after all these is it really is what's behind those process.

16:59 Those are the systems, those are the systems that gets funded.

17:03 Those are the systems that think, you know, at the end of the day, you know, those are creating those those moments where you've got that the differences between the employee experience and the customer experience.

17:15 So if I heard you, he said this can't be true.

17:18 You mean BP OS have dysfunction?

17:20 That's not true.

17:21 I've never heard we have dysfunction.

17:25 Every company has to look at be serious and be truthful about their processes, whether they are BPO, whether they are a company and company like companies that I used to work for.

17:35 At the end of the day, you have to be very real and you have to be very vulnerable to look at what is my customer experiencing.

17:42 I started out gym, I started in the hospitality industry and, and way before a lot of automation and how we had to how we differentiated ourselves was really experiencing what our guest experience and I call it walking the property.

17:57 And the same thing here, walking the property, walking your processes, walking it from the end to end.

18:02 How does your customer experience it?

18:04 You're not going to get that from a dashboard.

18:07 You're not going to get that from listening to a call.

18:10 It really is about walking that experience all the way through.

18:14 Yeah.

18:15 And I can relate to that.

18:16 So again, starting my career as an agent, working my way up to managing, you know, global sites and walk in the contact center floor, I know you do as well.

18:24 For 20 some years.

18:25 Yeah, you can tell within the 1st 20 minutes if that employee experience is healthy or broken.

18:31 And I think what a lot of people miss, whatever you observe in the floor, it's going to show up in that customer experience or data within the next three to six months.

18:40 We all know it every single time it happens, we see it, we know it and it's coming through every time, Jim, every time.

18:48 And I say every time we fix the internal environment, customer experience improves naturally 100%.

18:55 So last question before we wrap this up is, is one that's near and dear this, you know, I call it practical, right, because I'm a practical, a practitioner, we'll call it, you know, step for leaders, right?

19:09 So for some of the leaders out there that they feel, and I've seen this when I ran OPS for ETAC, they're constantly dealing with urgent issues in the organization.

19:18 Everything's urgent.

19:19 What is one question, you know, that you would suggest they can ask a team to better understand whether their operating model, which you're so good at is truly supporting that great customer experience.

19:32 You know it, things are getting tougher in in servicing customers.

19:39 Customers, as you know, have changed.

19:40 We're dealing with so much more.

19:42 Not only are we dealing with the complexity of calls, the complexity of solving customers problems, technology, now we're working in and trying to help our, our employees, you know, the employee experience.

19:56 So a lot of leaders feel and you see that, that, that they're overwhelmed because, you know, CX problems are appearing everywhere and you know, they, they have to, I tell them they have to identify, you know, whether those problems are coming from people.

20:13 Whether they're coming from process or whether they're coming from operating design.

20:17 So the question I say that leaders need to ask is where does our operating model make it harder than it should to be due to for us to do the right thing for our customer?

20:27 And you know what that question does?

20:29 It reveals broken processes.

20:31 It looks at policy barriers, it'll identify system limitations and accountability gaps.

20:37 You know, frontline, we talked about this frontline people already know these answers immediately.

20:43 You know, they see where customers get stuck, they see employees where they need to work around.

20:48 We talked about they're working around the process and they see where policy conflicts, you know, with common sense, you know, the fastest CX improvements really come from removing internal friction, not by adding new initiatives.

21:02 It it's so true.

21:04 And, and I forgot you were in the hospitality space.

21:06 I'll, I'll give you 1.

21:07 I remember a long time ago, I had AI, had a big company as one of my clients, and I remember all these calls coming in for stupid things like this is ridiculous.

21:22 This was before a lot of the automation, a lot of the AIS.

21:25 And I remember looking at, because I'm a data guy, as you know, and I always look at data.

21:28 So we're getting all these phone calls.

21:29 I get these guys on the phone and I said, hey, listen, you'll get a lot of calls for this issue.

21:35 And I said these don't even make sense.

21:38 This was before we had voice AI bots and all that stuff we can replace now.

21:41 And I and I got the guy on the phone and it was his IT guy.

21:45 And he said to me, and I remember this, he's like, that's on the website.

21:48 They shouldn't be calling.

21:52 OK, can you open up?

21:53 Because I already knew the answer, right?

21:54 So I was like, can you open up your power and tell me how to get to it?

21:57 It took 13 clicks to get to this.

21:59 I said most.

22:00 The average consumer has the attention span of a goldfish, which is about 7 seconds.

22:04 Long story short, the OPS people were actually pushing the IT guys.

22:08 They fixed this.

22:09 They actually moved it to the top of their website because it's obviously one of the most frequently things coming in to call volume by 30%.

22:15 It's it's crazy how some of these tactical and when you talk about it, your people process the functionality part of it, right.

22:21 You know, when I talk to customers, a lot of things I use, you know, walk me through something if a customer has a problem, start to finish, customer has a problem, tell me the whole entire journey.

22:32 If they cannot answer that cleanly, the operating model that was built is not there to serve the customer.

22:41 That makes sense.

22:42 Yep.

22:43 Hey, I'm, I'm with you 100%, Jim, 100%.

22:46 And so last but not least, Lance, you know, you've coached me, mentored me through my career, and I'm grateful for that because I've learned, you know, from people like you, who, who, and you know, I'm, I like to pay forward as well.

23:01 I, I learn from people.

23:03 I believe in having multiple mentors, as you know, you're 1 of many.

23:08 I believe in that wholeheartedly.

23:10 So to our listeners, Lance, like if there's somebody listening out there, you know, right now, they want to, you know, they want to be honest with themselves.

23:17 What's one thing one piece of mentoring you can give them that is baby quietly costing them that customer experience.

23:27 You can give them one big take away for the day.

23:29 What would it be from Lance because I know you've helped me for for years in my career and again I'm grateful for it, but I want to help somebody else today paying it forward.

23:38 Well, I appreciate first thank you for the really kind comments.

23:42 It's I have such respect for you, Jim over the years and and our friendship.

23:47 You know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm a person.

23:50 I love journeys.

23:52 You have to understand the journey.

23:54 I like to know how customer our guest is going to journey through there.

23:58 But after years and years of of being in this business, what I've learned is if you want world class customer experience, don't start with the customer journey map.

24:10 Start with the operating model behind it.

24:12 That will blow everybody's mind.

24:14 Start with the operating model behind it because at the end of the day, the experience your customers receive is simply the output of how your organization is designed to work.

24:25 So true, my brother.

24:26 Thank you so much for that piece of advice.

24:28 And and I'm sure our listeners are going to take to that.

24:32 We will drop in your LinkedIn on the bottom of this podcast.

24:36 People want to connect with you.

24:38 Don't try to sell Lance and I with you junior salespeople who send us a connection request and then 2 seconds later try to sell us some eyes.

24:46 Build the relationship 1st and then let's talk.

24:49 But Lance, thank you so much.

24:50 It's been an honor, my friend.

24:52 I can't wait to see you in the next couple of months.

24:54 But thank you, God bless you and thanks again for joining us today.

24:58 Thanks.

24:58 Thanks, Jim.

0:07 Well, hello everybody, welcome to E Tech's latest podcast Drop.

0:12 I have the pleasure of doing a good one today.

0:16 Our title is safety in the new loyalty, how trust and safety and operations impacts customer experience in 2026.

0:26 I am pleased to have Andrew Kavalov with me.

0:31 He actually runs a company called Kontia.

0:34 I was very impressed at what I read.

0:36 Not only you see the service delivery at this organization that actually builds managed services, you know, across integrations seamlessly across a variety of different client workflows.

0:49 But Andrew came from Google, which is pretty impressive as well.

0:53 But he actually understands how to optimize workflows.

0:57 He understands what really has to happen in 2020, in 2026, especially with all this changing stuff that's happening.

1:04 So I am just so excited to have this conversation today to let our listeners know a little bit about more of what you should be prepared for in 2026.

1:14 With that, I'm going to kick us off.

1:16 Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today.

1:19 I'm really excited about today's topic because I don't think enough people talk about all of the opportunities in a customer experience world, especially when it comes around trust.

1:30 Thank you for having me.

1:31 Thanks so much.

1:31 So listen, let's get right into a question.

1:33 Number one, you know, trust and safety, a lot of times people talk about this behind the scenes, but it's so deeply felt from the customer side.

1:45 You know, in your perspective, you know, what is the definition of good customer experience and how do you see it evolving as safety is becoming more and more part of the loyalty equation?

1:58 That's an interesting question and I'm sure you could relate to that for a long time.

2:03 Good customer experience it was a synonym synonym of frictionless.

2:09 How can I find how can I buy this fast?

2:12 How can I find this fast Few clicks it takes to get what I want and as we.

2:18 Seeing that the digital space is evolving and becoming more complex, the definition seems to be pivoting from the convenience itself to more of a confidence of a user.

2:30 And I guess I wouldn't be saying anything new, but in 2026, slick interface or slick UI doesn't mean much if user doesn't feel safe and the plot platform doesn't feel trustworth.

2:45 So in terms of evolution and how this evolved, it's First off, it's becoming, it's, it's pivoting from invisible to more informed.

2:55 So in the old way things were done like you've heard probably about shadow banning or silent filtering of a content.

3:02 The new way user wants to know why that piece of a content was flagged or why that account was not verified.

3:09 And so users want to have this visibility into the safety processes that build more loyalty and, and, and more, more, I guess, affinity rather than just non transparent environment when you when you don't really understand what's going on or you don't trust the platform.

3:28 And the other thing is what I've noticed is that the friction like in all good all times, the less friction the better these days, the more friction actually.

3:38 Well, I won't say the more friction the better, but friction is viewed as some sort of value add and or there is such term that is being widely used positive friction.

3:51 When you get contextual warnings like a prompt asking Are you sure you want to pass post this right or this links look suspicious.

4:00 So all of those things might slow user down by a second or two, but it signals to the user that the brand cares more about their safety than it cares about its own engagement metrics.

4:12 So the logic is cost starting to perceive this lack of friction as a lack of oversight rather than just just trying to accomplish something as fast as they can.

4:27 And then the other thing I wanted to mention and I'll give a couple of examples after that, But safety, what I'm seeing is that safety is no longer perceived as purely as a cost center, meaning that trust and safety used to be viewed as a part of a customer support and it's just an expense.

4:49 Whereas now safety is more like a like customer if, if a user is aware that they will not get scammed on this platform A, for example, so they're willing to pay premium to tolerate or tolerate less convenient UI, but they know that they will not get scammed on platform B.

5:08 So that creates this sort of a safety net.

5:11 And then the other thing is they become loyal to that.

5:14 Like when, when are you using, when you're trying to book your tickets?

5:18 Like for the airline, you know that if the platform handles your safety incident well, like they, they, they resolved whatever problem you had, it actually creates a higher long term value or loyalty than the incident that has never happened, which is, I'm sure you have hope or you have heard of this.

5:38 It's so-called service recovery paradox.

5:42 And so to, like I said, to give a couple of examples of what positive friction is like in financial services.

5:48 Like I'm not sure if you're using this apps like Rocket Money.

5:52 It has so-called cognitive speed bumps.

5:55 When a user attempts to transfer something to a new recipient, the app might require them to manually type something in.

6:03 Like I trust this person and with this it kind of slows them down.

6:11 Just make sure that they know what they're doing.

6:13 Or for example, if on a social media, there is an Instagram, I'm not sure if if you're an Instagram user, but if you are, there is there is a function that says take a break or a content warning overlay that and those those overlays are no longer an interruptions user is now report higher platform affinity because they have this sort of features optimizing for them or or for their well-being rather than the ad revenue more For example, in commerce, some platforms are adding so-called sustainability and ethics review before you before your final check out, you might see carbon, carbon footprint of what you have in the cart.

6:57 And so while it all creates technically creates A friction because it's one click more that which that what helps users to feel more safe and more protected.

7:08 Yeah, it's, it's a great point.

7:09 Like I will tell you, for me, frictionless I, I define it very easy.

7:14 How hard is it for me to do business with you #1 pretty simple one, but but you, you brought out a good point.

7:22 I'll give you an example as well.

7:23 So my wife is looking to buy something for our kitchen and she couldn't find it on Amazon.

7:29 The one she wanted couldn't find it here.

7:32 She found the one she wanted.

7:33 What a site and you know she wouldn't buy it from him.

7:36 You know why she did not feel she was it was a trustworthy site.

7:41 Exactly.

7:41 She thought it was a scam.

7:43 So really good, good stuff for excuse me, good stuff for sure.

7:46 So listen, like customers, you know, they don't always see this trust and safety and operations like you gave us a lot of good example, right?

7:55 But think about the consequences like my example, my wife, she did not buy from this site because she didn't feel it was trustworthy.

8:02 So how do safety failures shape this trust compared differently to service level failure by not delivering your product?

8:11 You have any insights on that?

8:13 That's actually that's another great question.

8:15 So traditional service failure like you, you like traditionally like customer user experience.

8:22 If it's a failure, it's is more often than not it is perceived as an inconvenience.

8:28 Whereas safety failure is often perceived as a critical something really critical.

8:34 And in my view, this is a psychological weight of those two categories is fundamentally different.

8:40 Because when you, when you use something like you use a digital product online or digital service online, there is a so-called unspoken contract or you agree on something without of course it's not, it's unwritten.

8:55 But there's some sort of an agreement that I give you my money and you give me my working product.

9:01 If it's a service, of course, or if it's, or if it's something like social media, then I give you my data or, or you are, you have my attention.

9:12 And the, the, the social agreement on the other side is they keep my information safe.

9:16 So in traditional customer experience, there is a like I think I mentioned that before.

9:21 So this, this is some so-called service recovery paradox is when customer often becomes more loyal to a brand or product after their problem has been fixed or if compared to if that problem ever occurred at all.

9:36 So safety tailors, they're, they create some sort of a stain on, on the reputation and, and because it's, it's tied in, in it, it is tied to users of well-being like like actual feeling actually safe.

9:56 And, and, and if the failure happens, that suggests that some, something fundamentally wrong with the company's technical integrity and whatnot.

10:06 So like to give you an example, like if you're ordering something online and they messed up your order, they'll just give you $20 credit and it will be right.

10:19 If you have been posting something privately on, on social media and it and it has been leaked done, no amount of credit they'll give you, they will not fix this.

10:31 Well, you bring up a good point.

10:32 It's really like if you think about all the breaches, right?

10:35 So a lot of people break into these companies just to get the data, usernames, passwords.

10:40 And we see that the, you know, it's, it's a tough one because there is so many criminals out there trying to break in.

10:48 As we know, these companies that are leaking out usernames, passwords, all that data, it's just terrible.

10:54 You're right.

10:55 Because me personally, I've been involved in a couple breaches because I get those alerts and yeah, it just makes me think differently about that company.

11:03 Good stuff.

11:04 So #3 So everybody's talking about AI as you and I talked about, I published a couple books on AI, Love AII think it's, it's transforming.

11:13 It's, there's a lot of good stuff about it, you know, but like when you think about where or when or how do you see AI genuinely strengthening the trust and safety of the operations?

11:26 And, and where do you think there's still human judgement is irreplaceable?

11:31 Because I, I come from a school of thought in my book, I say human in the loop all the time because I don't trust machines 100%.

11:38 What's your, what's your insights on that?

11:40 That's exactly what I was saying.

11:41 So the divide between AI and human judgement is has an interest in safety.

11:48 More specifically, it has moved past the debate whether AI replaces the human judgement.

11:55 It has become AI.

11:56 It's it's more like an infrastructure of safety or humans are, as you meant rightly mentioned, human in the loop.

12:03 So humans become an architect of the intent.

12:06 AI can strengths can AI strengths is in volume, velocity, and it's multimodal in a sense that it'd be safe to assume, and I'm sure you you've noticed that yourself.

12:19 It'd be safe to assume that 90% of the online content that we're seeing today, it's either AI assisted or it's completely AI generated.

12:28 And and that's the reason why only why only AI can keep up with that pace, right.

12:34 So models can detect intent.

12:37 We know that already they can flag like for example, if it's a gaming chats like the they can models, they can detect intent.

12:49 They can flag things like grooming behavior or hate speech that humans because just because of the sheer volume of that or for example, how it's multimodal is AI and some simultaneous analyzed live stream.

13:05 It can analyze the spoken audio and it can be analyzing the scrolling chat to find this coordinated harassment that that is the problem for for that that specific area or AI can handle the trauma heavy work like it can pre filter very disturbing of graphic content, extreme violence and that it can spare moderators from the most psychologically damaging stuff.

13:34 But it can help to prove it can help to appear a kind of a summary where human needs to step in and then now where the human judgement is replaceable is and this is obvious thing with context right or sarcasm.

13:51 While AI might struggle to deter the determine what is a what is crossing the line between satire and and something like a cultural nuances an actual violation or actual actual.

14:06 But when it's crossing the line or for example, AI is irreplaceable in things like that require a gradient response, gradient feedback because more of more often than that not, AI is somewhat binary.

14:22 So it's a lot or block and also things like edge cases like so AI is very good for the average content like 90% of the content, 95% of the content could be could be fairly well reviewed by AI.

14:41 But in the edge cases like something new happens.

14:45 That's what we talked at the beginning, right?

14:47 So if it's a new type of a deep fake scam, right, only human because there is no historical data for AI to be trained on.

14:56 So that's where the human Jasmine is replaceable.

14:59 Well, the other thing is accountability, right?

15:01 So if AI is taking the decision on something and someone's livelihood is impacted by this, you have to have a human being accountable for that, like on the back end.

15:11 So those are that's that's why I'm saying this, this there's no battle or there is no debate between AI replace humans.

15:18 No, it will not.

15:19 It will augment people's abilities.

15:21 I love what you said there because it's it's so powerful.

15:25 So 90% we all get it.

15:27 AI we know has hallucinations, we both know that we see it, which is why we both believe in the human in the loop.

15:33 And more importantly, I think both of us believe, you know, all these people that are out there saying, I'm going to replace all your people with AI am going to automate everything.

15:43 They're I tell them all the time you're on crack because there's no way you're going to do it.

15:48 And, and, and I like your last part accountability, because what are we going to do is say, oh, it wasn't my fault, It was the machine's fault.

15:55 We know a human program that awesome, awesome stuff.

15:57 So next question.

15:59 Trust and safety in in an operation.

16:03 Sometimes it's a lot more complex than we think about, right?

16:06 So what are some of the most misconceptions that operations may have when they're trying to actually build out these scaling trust and safety programs that you're so good at?

16:19 That's a great question.

16:20 So as I mentioned at the beginning, the, the, IT used to be a paradigm where where safety is viewed as a cost center, like it's a pure expense and, and most, most organizations used to view safety as a sort of a tax on growth.

16:41 But it looks like lately this paradigm has been shifting to a understanding that trust and safety, it's a revenue preservation or revenue like that engine, because after all, users, if they don't feel safe, they do not transact on your platform.

17:01 And, and so I guess the, the, the misconception is that it's not an expanse.

17:06 It's not a pure expanse.

17:07 It is something that you can actually grow with.

17:10 And then the other misconception in my mind is that you can automate any of everything and you don't really have to have a robust set of policies.

17:17 You just automate stuff.

17:19 But AI is only as good as the policy enforces.

17:23 If you don't have a robust policy, if you don't have someone to decide upon Gray area cases, AI is not I'm going to do.

17:31 It's will be either too permissive, basically letting everyone everything goes, or it will be too aggressive, basically killing the engagement on on on on your platform.

17:43 I guess another misconception could be like, I don't know, I think it's logically Tizen was the first thing, which is it's a it's an extension.

17:52 Trust and safety is an extension of customer support to the to the certain extent, yes.

17:58 But more of more often than not, trust and safety, it is a part of the product and engineering function rather than just customers.

18:08 And the reason here is a divide between before it happens or after it happens, because customer support is dealing with stuff that already has happened.

18:16 Whereas in trust and safety, you actually try to create something and prevent something.

18:23 You should be asking yourself a question, how could, if we release this feature, how could this prevent from weaponizing this by bad actors?

18:34 Yep.

18:34 No, it's, it's really good because when you think about it, I think a lot of people are missing this part of it, you know, and you're right because in the old days, I've been in the business almost 30 some years.

18:43 And you're right, it's always been viewed as expense.

18:46 It's really now I call it table stakes.

18:48 Like you have to have all these things in order to have trust in that not only your end customer, but then consumer.

18:54 So there's this constant tension between, you know, to follow up on this one, There's this constant tension between frictionless experiences, which we talked about, and protective safeguards.

19:05 I think you hit a lot of it.

19:06 But, you know, how do leaders in our organization understand how you have to balance those two?

19:13 Yeah, so you're right.

19:16 So it used to be viewed as as some sort of, it's a battle between.

19:21 It has to be either frictionless or it has to be safe.

19:25 But I guess it has to be risk proportional friction model like that which is browsing or adding something to the wish list or changing a profile picture.

19:37 Those should be as smooth as possible because it's a low risk.

19:40 It has to have low friction.

19:42 I like that.

19:43 Things like changing your recovery e-mail or withdrawing a large amount of money or posting some posting something sensitive that should be that that's, that is a high risk and that should be that should have a high friction.

19:58 So you, you make it proportional to to the risk that, that, that you're saying.

20:03 And the other thing is the way to communicate this to use because a lot of depends on how you communicate this to users and how it's perceived by the user and and if user sees.

20:13 The spinner, they're annoying, right?

20:15 You're just seeing this thing spins forever and you're annoyed.

20:19 But if you're adding something like verifying your security Shields, something like sales that verifying your security, then user feel they're protected and in some cases adding a slight delay with a clear messaging saying, OK, the security check in progress.

20:37 So that actually increases user satisfaction, user satisfaction.

20:40 It proves that the platform is working for them.

20:42 And so instead of blocking the transaction or another example like instead of blocking the transaction silently, you give user some sort of a toggle.

20:53 Oh, we this looks suspicious.

20:55 Would you like to proceed or would you like to verify via AAB and C whatever the instruments are available so that the user feel like yes, it's a friction, but it is to my advantage because it's it's something that helps to keep me secure.

21:12 Or another thing is to give the user a control of their safety like opt in safety features.

21:20 Like in the standard mode you have a default safeguards for the casual users, but in the guardrail mode you have you give a higher security settings for high networks individuals or public figures or parents managing their children's accounts.

21:37 You give them the option to be even more friction, have even more frictions, but that is a sort of safety slider that helps you to to user use to let use the level of what's safe to they they prefer.

21:55 Yeah, it's it's really good.

21:56 I love what you said.

21:57 Low risk, low friction.

21:59 That makes sense.

22:00 High risk, high friction.

22:02 And and I love your you know, it's funny, I never realized this until you just brought it up to me.

22:07 Load a little spinning thing.

22:08 I do see that.

22:09 And it's funny when I'm on my iPad, I do see a spinning thing and no words.

22:14 And I'm thinking it's my iPad, it's my Internet.

22:16 And then now that you brought up now, it's like, OK, this is all they had to do to make my experience better.

22:22 Twitter, it does go through.

22:23 You're right.

22:24 But I never, I'm always thinking my Internet's like, I'm ready to call the Internet company because this thing's spinning, but I see what it's doing.

22:31 All he had to do is throw in some messaging for me.

22:33 That's awesome.

22:34 Yeah.

22:34 All right.

22:36 Last question.

22:37 What would it take to build a culture in an organization where safety, trust and customer experience reinforces each other rather than making it a, a competition?

22:51 Great question.

22:52 So that ties in with, I guess what we discussed earlier is that so the trust to safety is moving from a pure cost center to a sort of an engine for growth.

23:04 And so which means that companies don't have to choose between growth and safety.

23:09 They, they actually grow because they're safe.

23:12 Like the example that you mentioned about your wife buying something off of the Internet.

23:17 You would probably go to the Amazon, even though you, you found something, you found a better deal somewhere else.

23:24 But you don't, you don't know those, those that company.

23:28 You don't know if if that will be safe.

23:31 So you go to a safe and travel pass of using something of, of, of Amazon or whatever, like Zappos or whatever else, depending on what you're buying.

23:44 But that also goes well, goes in with safety by design.

23:50 So what I, what I mentioned earlier is when you have to be asking yourself and when before you design something, you, you should be asking yourself a question.

23:59 How can bad actors weaponize this?

24:01 And so safety cannot be a sort of a afterthought applied post launch and it has to be a part of the road map when the new feature is being is being developed.

24:14 And so you probably heard about case modelling.

24:17 It's just the same as developers when they do the use case modelling for the new feature.

24:24 The same same way should be some sort of an abuse case modelling.

24:30 How about actors will will try to weaponize or take advantage of or whatever feature you're, you're launching.

24:36 And then the other thing is maybe for the organizations like you mentioned, for the leaders of the organizations, it is worthwhile thinking about a shared KPI between product teams and trust and safety teams to measure some sort of a healthy retention metric.

24:53 Meaning it should it should track the number of users that are active and report 0 safety incidents during a certain period of time so that you know that it is a healthy steady operation and healthy retention, user retention.

25:11 And then the other thing I would say it is transparency as a trust signal, meaning if user understands why certain safety measure is in place, like you said with the spinning thing.

25:23 So instead of it's just annoying you, it could say, hey, here's what's happening.

25:28 We're checking this and that and verifying this and that.

25:30 And so it's not viewed as a fiction, but it transforms into a, some sort of a trust signal.

25:36 So you're sending us your user signal that your operations are secure, whatever transactions are secure.

25:44 And when transaction is for some reason paused or flagged, it would make sense to move away from a generic community standards.

25:54 Like we have suspended your pause because of the community standards and then it gives you a link and then you go and there is like a bunch of pages of this very generic terms, but instead provide even if it's AAI generated, but more like specific.

26:14 And you can have human to verify that before it it it gets across.

26:18 But we've like something more specific.

26:21 We've paused this transaction because I don't know, this link is known for phishing or This site is known for phishing.

26:28 Or would you like to learn more?

26:30 Or would you like to proceed in your, So you're basically giving this transparency and it sends a signal that we care about, we care about your, your, your user safety.

26:40 So this culture of reinforcement, I guess that's what that's what you're asking about.

26:45 And so in a digital world, if you aren't selling a social network or marketplace or a tool, you're selling a safe space, if anything, to perform, perform certain functions.

26:56 So essentially, if you think about it, safety is the foundation based on which everything is built, and then the trust that users get is a result of that.

27:05 And then user experience is actually is a vehicle that moving this whole thing, moving this whole thing forward.

27:12 Yeah, so I got some good points on that.

27:14 By the way, I'm going to take one of them for me.

27:16 So I have developers that work for me.

27:18 You gave me an idea with the KPIs in the road map because you know what, I do notice and you gave me some good pointers personally.

27:24 So thank you for that.

27:25 Andrew.

27:27 The developers want to build, regardless what it is, any new feature, anything you want.

27:33 Where they argue is when security comes in to say let me double check, make sure it's safe.

27:39 They **** heads because you got the creative guy and the guy who's trying to make sure we're safe, right?

27:48 Yeah, that's a good one.

27:49 I'm going to.

27:50 I like that.

27:50 I'm going.

27:50 I wrote this one down for the KPI safety.

27:53 KP is for the safety, so I could give them both the same goal man, this was this was this was awesome.

28:00 This was such a great conversation.

28:02 If anybody wants to get in touch with you, we'll put your LinkedIn underneath.

28:06 But any last comments before we let our listeners go?

28:10 No, I think that was a great conversation.

28:12 Thank you for bringing those are really good questions and that's what is happening right now in the trust and safety industry.

28:18 So, and I'm good that it's moving from the purely being accustomed to a revenue engine.

28:24 So it actually switches the OR shifts the paradigm of how things operate and hopefully bit by bit are operation like when as a user, when you go online and you feel a little more safe than you were yesterday.

28:39 Oh, absolutely.

28:40 It's this has been a great conversation.

28:42 Andrew, thank you so much.

28:43 You can connect with Andrew on LinkedIn.

28:45 His details will be below this post.

28:48 Thank you podcast listeners, you guys all have a great week and and Andrew, thank you again for enlightening us on a lot of the things in trust and safety.

28:56 Thanks everyone.

28:56 Bye, bye None.

0:00 Hello everyone, welcome to the Etech Leadership Table.

0:03 This is a podcast where you invite you to pull up the chair, grab a cup of coffee and join us as we tackle some remarkable discussions on everything leadership.

0:13 I'm Melissa Wood, I'm your host.

0:14 I'm the Dean of leadership development of Etech Global Services.

0:20 Welcome back to the E tech leadership table.

0:22 You guys will see me grinning from ear to ear today because I have a guest here that I'm just like you ever geeked out when you meet somebody because you know what they love what you love and they do what you do.

0:34 So that's kind of where I'm at today.

0:35 I am want to introduce you guys to the infamous Mr.

0:40 Alex Trimble and let me let me just say a few things.

0:44 I know Alex, you're going to be like, oh, so much humility, but let me just brag on you just a minute.

0:49 OK, So let me everybody get you a little cup of coffee or your water, your energy drink or your bag of Cheetos, whatever you've got, and just pull up to the table with Alex and I because here's what's going to happen today.

1:00 Alex and I are going to talk and you're going to get to hear two people that love leadership, sharing insights and wisdom that you can take away today.

1:12 And this is about executive development.

1:14 All right, So if you're taking notes now the title of his executive development and you're like, well, how can Alex talk to us about executive development?

1:21 Well, let me tell you, Alex, he didn't just study leadership.

1:28 He was trusted with it before most of us knew what we were going to do for a living at the age of 23, the early age.

1:34 That was just a few years ago for Alex.

1:38 The federal government handed Alex the keys to build their own executive leadership development program.

1:45 That's not a coincidence.

1:46 Listen to me at 23.

1:48 He was handed the keys to build and manage an executive leadership development program.

1:54 That's not a coincidence.

1:55 That's a calling on Alex Trimble.

1:57 And if you will watch some of, if you'll go link his bio, it tells you all the beautiful stuff about Alex, his website.

2:03 He's a famous podcaster.

2:05 So you will be able to see that this is not a coincidence.

2:08 It's a calling.

2:10 And this man has had a genuine calling in the area of executive development.

2:15 So he and I have so much in common.

2:18 He comes from the outside and works on your executive development teams.

2:22 While I'm an E tech, I'm working on the inside to build them.

2:25 So together today, I think you're about to get the most powerful session you've heard in some time when we talk about executive development.

2:33 So if your boss is not sitting at the table with you, you better go grab them because they they need to listen today.

2:39 Alex is also a founder and CEO of GPS Leadership GPS.

2:44 That means without it, you don't know where you're going.

2:48 He's a best selling author, I think.

2:50 Alex, I studied that you had four books.

2:52 You have.

2:54 Oh, stop it.

2:56 I know I got to stop.

2:57 I should stop.

2:58 No, don't stop.

2:59 But I have the 2014, the GPS Guide to success.

3:03 Then I have the 2019 reaching senior leadership, the 1010 growth strategies, and then in 2023, relationships that work, which is Chef's kiss.

3:13 Chef's kiss.

3:14 You're awesome.

3:16 The, the advocates, the supporters and the detractors.

3:19 We we'll talk about that later.

3:20 And then so am I missing 1 before leadership sucks.

3:24 So it's the unlocking the executive advantage, unlocking the executive advantage that was a, it's that was actually designed specifically as a workbook.

3:33 Because I what we'll talk about today is like, there's a lot of motivation and nice flowery things out there, but if people don't actually do anything, it doesn't matter.

3:44 So we designed the workbook specifically to walk people through how to build those the correct relationships to help you and your organization reach your goals.

3:52 And it's a super simple process.

3:54 I love.

3:55 OK, I'll get my hands on that one for sure, Alex.

3:58 And then breaking news, if you didn't hear me, I already said it, but I got AI got to say it again.

4:03 Like it's the coolest title I've ever had seen.

4:06 And it says leadership sucks sometimes.

4:09 And so you guys better get your hands on that.

4:13 So I've got a few questions for Alex.

4:15 I hope that all of you are listening again.

4:17 If your boss is not with you, get them.

4:20 You had time now to get them and bring them to the leadership table with us.

4:24 And if they refuse to come, if your executive refuse to come this table, we recorded this podcast, you can send it to them, right?

4:30 And if I, if you know they really need help, then go to Alex's link and he will come to you and help and help your executive.

4:38 And if you're an executive listening, buckle up.

4:41 This is about to be something something to go.

4:44 So so Alex, I want to thank you first for taking your time to be on the E tech leadership table.

4:51 Jim Ayub is such a a personality and he introduced you and I together.

4:57 So I'm so I'm so fortunate for that and I'm sorry he couldn't be here today, but I'm sure he'll watch this one as well.

5:03 We have to have so much fun today that he feels jealous and already we're going to so, so that's good.

5:13 I love when Jim feels jealous.

5:14 Let's rub it.

5:15 Let's rub it in a little bit.

5:17 How about it?

5:17 Let's rub it in.

5:18 OK, so if we're talking about executive development, that's our, that's our key topic and how it relates to the CX industry.

53:07 Thanks, Alex for your time.

53:09 You guys go out there and lead someone.

53:11 Don't just talk about it, walk about it.

53:13 Thank you a lot.

0:05 Well, welcome podcasters.

0:07 Today is a great one.

0:09 I've been looking forward to this one.

0:11 Bob Asman, MB ACCXPI mean, you know how passionate I am about customer experience.

0:18 He's the founder of Innovative CX, an experience management firm.

0:23 I mean, it's really not only about designing opportunities, it's really about the execution, which I'm so excited to talk to him.

0:31 Bob has been diverse.

0:32 He's been in the global operations for decades, you know, and I remember some of the things I've read about you just as the thought leader that you are in the industry.

0:44 You're also an instructor at University of Minnesota School of Management Records, which is pretty cool.

0:49 I'm, in case you tell Bob, I'm I'm not from Texas originally.

0:53 I'm from the East Coast, so I know exactly where that is.

0:56 But today we're going to talk about the satisfaction stagnation and really what we're doing is why your AI strategy is killing your CX, which I know is very passionate to me.

1:08 But more importantly, hopefully today we're going to uncover some things in ways to fix it.

1:13 So I, I want to welcome my podcasters.

1:15 Bob, thank you so much for being here.

1:19 I'm going to start out and, and this is great, Bob.

1:22 So I'm going to start out with just some hard hitting questions so we can get have a conversation together.

1:29 That's OK with you.

1:31 Good deal.

1:32 So as a fellow published author in AI in the contact center, we're seeing billion dollar AI investments, but we're also seeing and by the way, be personally experiencing these satisfaction scores, CSAD, NPS, they're not budgie, right?

1:53 So is the industry itself lying about what success looks like or are we just automating bad processes to start?

2:04 That's my hard hitting one to get going.

33:58 Bob, thank you so much for your time today.

34:00 You have a blessed week and I appreciate you so much.

34:03 Thanks, Jim.

34:04 Thanks, everybody.

34:05 Bye, bye, bye.

0:06 Well, welcome everybody to Etext podcast.

0:08 I am excited today because I got to you have the opportunity to talk to Bill Leider.

0:14 And Bill, I got to tell you, your guest genuinely, genuinely encouraged because not only to learn from you, but as I got to know you over the last couple weeks, I mean, you spent decades advising organizations, I mean, early startups all the way to Fortune 5 hundreds.

0:33 And, and really what I learned about you is what separates you from most advisors that you're bringing this neuroscience to the equation.

0:43 And, and that's the lens which you've explained to me how leaders actually think, decide, reinvest themselves, which we both know as executives that that's the highest stakes you can be.

0:58 You're also the author of what's next.

1:00 I can't wait to read this, you know, which tackles personal reinvention, which you know, we go through a serve model at E tech and I believe in continually reinventing myself.

1:11 So I love that framework of how the brain actually works and wish I had it decades ago when I started my career.

1:18 You also sit on boards of several institutes, Neuro innovation score, the the village and you're also commanding your partner of access group, axis group, I think was what I read.

1:31 And and really what I wanted to talk about today is we talk a lot about technology AI right now.

1:37 Everybody's talking about process technologies.

1:41 Rarely do we slow down enough in my opinion to really talk about the leaders running and all and how it happens.

1:49 So that's why I'm so excited about today's session.

1:53 Any any words, Bill from you before I kick this off?

1:57 Hello, that's awesome.

2:00 Let's go, let's go dig in.

2:03 So, you know, let's talk about this question number one, AI seems to trigger a lot of anxiety, not just about jobs, about identity too.

2:14 From your perspective, why does major change often leave people feeling stuck or frozen?

2:20 And what does it tell us about the human brain facing what's next?

2:26 Sure.

2:26 Well, AI is probably the most profound change that we've ever experienced at at any age because it it changes the fundamental ways in which people think and relate and connect to each other or don't.

2:48 And now you've been connect to a, an app instead of a person.

2:52 I mean, that's, it's mind blowing.

2:54 So neuroscience, our brains are wired hardwired from 300,000 years ago to with two instincts.

3:02 I call them our shadow values in in the book, but two instincts that were wired into our brains for our survival.

3:13 One is the avoidance of discomfort, and change represents discomfort.

3:18 Change is always uncomfortable because we have to abandon old views and old learning, start with a blank slate in our minds and learn again.

3:28 An entirely new way of being that scares the hell out of people.

3:32 OK.

3:32 The other instinct is the the need for instant gratification, instant rewards.

3:39 We want it now.

3:41 It's so 300 three 100,000 years ago now met I can eat today because I may not be around tomorrow.

3:52 So the survival instincts that served us very well 300,000 years ago.

3:58 Society has moved on working infinitely more complex.

4:02 The issues are not the same.

4:04 You know, the guy that comes to my door every afternoon wearing a blue uniform is not is he's not stuck, he's not stalking me.

4:12 He's the mail carrier.

4:14 So, you know, 300,000 years ago I would have killed him.

4:17 Today I say hi.

4:18 I'm glad to see you.

26:07 Thank you.

26:07 We appreciate you.

26:08 Thank you guys so much.

26:10 Everybody subscribe underneath below all the informations below to connect with Bill and get a copy of his book.

26:16 You all have a great week.

0:05 Welcome to another edition of our podcast today, our topic which I'm excited about, I'm really excited about my guest, but it's CX in 2026 because we're off to this new year moving from the CRM messes to AI success.

0:23 So I'm pleased to know that we have a great, a great partner today, which is which is Chris.

0:30 So Chris, you and I already had a a session.

0:34 So I'm not going to bore everybody.

0:35 But when you think about Chris Smith, here's what I loved about him when I met him.

0:40 He wrote a book.

0:42 He's the author of CRM Shouldn't Suck.

0:44 That sounds just like I would talk to you.

0:46 So I love it.

0:47 Avoiding those CRM pitfalls, using strategies for success.

0:51 He spent his career, you know, with all the messy CRM.

0:56 So we are and that's so cool.

0:58 Go get a copy of that book.

0:59 It was so cool.

1:00 But he is actually the the founder of Impeller, which I'm excited about for a couple reasons, because him and I talked with his two decades.

1:10 We, we believe in the same things, people, processes, data, all the things we're excited about.

1:18 So, Chris, thank you so much for joining me today.

1:22 Today we're just going to, we're just going to have a conversation like we did last time.

1:25 I have a few questions I wanted to ask you and just get some insights for our listeners.

1:31 Yeah, that's great.

1:32 Something will be here, Jim.

1:35 Yeah, good.

1:36 So can a company actually achieve, I hear this word predictive, A predictive 2026 CX vision if they're data is siloed or messy, Let's talk about that one.

1:56 No, there's no way it's not going to happen.

1:59 You need to have a strong foundation not just for AI, but just for your business.

2:07 You know it, it has to be built on a strong foundation of data.

2:11 And unfortunately we rarely see that.

2:15 It's just, it's hard.

2:16 It's sometimes there's a lot going on there.

2:22 Yeah.

2:22 So how do you help those companies, like, identify that?

2:26 Like, it's funny you say, because a lot of people come to me and say, you know, yeah, we need AI.

2:33 We need all this, but my date is a mess.

2:36 But I need to get AI because my boss told me.

2:38 What would you advise them to do first?

23:59 Thanks for listening.

24:00 Thank you, Jim.

0:00 Hello everybody, and welcome to E Tech Muddy Boots, where we don't just talk about it, we stomp right through it.

0:06 I'm your host Melissa, and this is the show that gets down and dirty with everyday leaders who are making real change happen.

0:14 We're not afraid to get our boots muddy because that's where the real stories are so laced up.

0:19 Slip them on, step out and join us as we trudge through the trenches of trust building and action taking.

0:26 Real action taking if you are tired of all the talk and no off, you're in the right spot.

0:31 So let's get your boots ready let's lace up let's get muddy.

0:41 Hello and welcome to E tech Muddy boots.

0:44 Let me tell you something.

0:45 What should keep every CEO up at night?

0:48 What if your number one employee quit tomorrow?

0:54 You're your best employee.

0:55 Your number one employee quit tomorrow.

0:57 Not six months from now when you had a plan that didn't tell you, hey, I'm quitting tomorrow and we have a year to plan.

1:04 I'm just saying, what if your number one producer, the one that you're leaning on your go to, the one that you can't do it out?

1:12 What if they were not here tomorrow?

1:15 What do you do?

1:16 What do you do?

1:17 Do you have a plan?

1:19 Not not when you groom your replacement, not anything after is what do you have a plan for your next replacement?

1:26 So welcome to E Tech muddy boots.

1:27 That's our topic today where we don't just pretend to know about the topics.

1:32 We have guests that actually are living, breathing and walking in these topics.

1:36 So I want to introduce to you guys some people today on our podcast, Michael Patrick and Mayank.

1:44 These guys, they're not reading from a script, They're not they're not faking it till they make it.

1:50 They have walked through the mud, they're walking through the mud.

1:53 They've been thrown in the mud, they've slipped in the mud, they've stomped in the mud.

1:58 And it's specifically on this topic of succession planning.

2:03 So hopefully today before we close out, you guys will get some great insights of what it what do you do if in your succession planning, what do you do to plan for it?

2:14 What is succession planning?

2:16 So I'd like to welcome these guys to the E tech money loots podcast.

2:20 Hello, gentlemen, thank you, Melissa, thank you.

2:23 Hello.

46:13 We'll see you on the next E Tech Muddy Boots.

46:15 Thanks for your time.