Lead Smarter With AI, Not Harder

Ever feel like your inbox is a novel and your day is a string of tiny decisions that drain the joy out of leading? We dig into a practical way forward: using AI to cut noise, spark ideas, and protect your judgment. Not to replace your voice—only to amplify it. From summarizing walls of text into crisp actions to turning messy thoughts into structured plans, we share specific prompts, ethical boundaries, and everyday wins that make leadership lighter and your work more creative.

We start by reframing AI as a collaborator. Adoption is moving fast and skill half-lives are shrinking, so leaders need tools that save time without outsourcing relationships. You’ll hear how to set clear guardrails—no AI writing personal notes or full reviews—while still using it to refine tone, tighten language, and check clarity. We also get real about cognitive overload and decision fatigue, and how switching perspectives in your prompts (like “explain this to a four-year-old” or “challenge my assumptions”) exposes blind spots and reveals simpler paths to action.

Then we get concrete. We show how one listener used AI to tame overlong emails and coach a manager toward simpler communication. We walk through building a reusable prompt library, using meeting transcripts to draft proposals, and turning AI into a sounding board that pushes your thinking beyond the obvious. Outside of work, we highlight meal planning that produces menus, shopping lists, and prep steps in minutes, plus travel logistics that turn complex trips into doable itineraries. Throughout, we emphasize authenticity: never paste AI text blindly; edit for truth, tone, and relevance so your message still feels like you.

If you want less busywork and more headspace for strategy and people, this conversation is your map. Subscribe, share with a colleague who’s curious about AI, and leave a review with the prompt you want us to build next.

Follow us on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/rhondajhale/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/katieervin/

www.jolyean.com

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Theme music by Emma Jo https://emmajo.rocks/

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back And Warm-Up
• 2:08 Setting Today’s Topic: AI And Leadership
• 3:32 Generational Views And First Steps With AI
• 6:42 The Pace Of Change And Adoption Stats
• 11:02 Info Overload, Decision Fatigue, Creativity
• 15:52 Fear, Ethics Lite, And Practical Framing
• 19:52 Creativity Debates And Artist Parallels
• 23:52 Prompting Well And Using AI Intentionally
• 28:12 Leadership Time, Strategy, And AI As Partner
• 32:12 Governance, Policies, And Personal Boundaries
• 36:32 Voice, Authenticity, And Checking AI’s Work
• 40:52 Prompts That Challenge Assumptions
• 44:42 Personal Use Cases: Meals And Travel
• 48:32 Culture Of Experimentation For Teams
• 52:32 Tactics: Emails, Reviews, And Prompts
• 56:42 Libraries, Transcripts, And Human Edit
• 1:00:22 Training, Q&A, And How To Get Help

Transcript

Dr. Katie: 0:32

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Path to Leadership. I'm Dr. Katie. And I'm Rhonda Jolene Hale. Yay! And we are so excited to have you back this week. Hope you enjoyed last week's episode where we introduced Rhonda as the Path to Leadership co-host.

Rhonda Jolyean: 0:51

I was so excited. We got such great feedback and we love everyone. I want to shout out to my mom. Hi, mom. Thanks for rating us. Thank you so much. And thanks for everybody else who took time to rate us and to give us feedback on the podcast.

Dr. Katie: 1:08

Yeah, it was so great. And I had to, there were so many things from last week's podcast, like giggling about you talking about being a leader in the club. And I just I just thought about myself in college as we did the electric slide and you know, all of this. Yes, I want to be the leader in the club.

Rhonda Jolyean: 1:26

Yes, I love we can be leaders anywhere, and we can talk about that.

Dr. Katie: 1:30

Yeah, yeah, it is so perfect, which I am super excited for this week's episode. We kept saying in last week's episode, oh, we should talk about that, we should talk about that. So we've made our list. We're we're excited to hear other people's, but this week we're gonna talk about AI, creativity, and leadership, which I think is a topic I every day talk about.

Rhonda Jolyean: 1:54

I am very excited to hear what you talk about with leaders. I have so many varied conversations with people, and it ranges from people as young as teenagers all the way up to, you know, generations who are you wouldn't even think use AI or know what AI is. It runs the gamut and they have varying opinions. And I am interested to hear what your clients have to say about it because it has shocked me what popular opinions we have. And this is one of my favorite topics to talk about.

Dr. Katie: 2:33

Yeah, yeah, me too. Well, and and it's funny because I just recently started doing trainings on on AI, and like we talked about last week, like I refuse to train or develop or do sessions or whatever if I haven't researched it. So I've been researching it and talking about it. And so I actually recently spoke at the NAWIC, which is the National Association of Women in Construction, their regional conference here in Kansas City. And so I did an AI session and it was really cool because it was just women, and I was doing some training on it and how do you use it? And and this older woman raised her hand and said, I use ChatGPT to write bedtime stories for my grandkids.

Rhonda Jolyean: 3:22

Yes. Actually, we I that is one of the things that I'm gonna talk about that as leaders, we can do to get more creative. So we'll hold that for later in the podcast. That's amazing.

Dr. Katie: 3:33

Yeah, yeah. It's something I'd never heard of. And it's like, oh, yeah. And I'm gonna talk about too some of the conversations I have with them about, you know, how we use it at work. So we're gonna talk about it at work and at home, which will be really fun.

Rhonda Jolyean: 3:48

Yes. And well, we cannot forget that just because a lot of what we talk about is focused on our professional life, we can lead in the club and we can lead. We lead in all aspects of our lives. Our identities are fluid. We have so many pieces of our identity. And I really want us to remember that balance is no longer that is a dirty word. It is, you know, we have our identities follow us wherever we go. So we are gonna be able to talk about how we can use AIs in all aspects, specifically professionally, but I am gonna be able to talk about, and I know you're gonna be able to talk about how we can use it to amplify different aspects of our life.

Dr. Katie: 4:33

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and what's so interesting is for the longest time I was resistant to AI. Like I was very hesitant, very Emma Blankenship and Jenna Scott were the ones that got me finally using it. And I mean, I was very, and then I was messy at the beginning. And I was so, I was so intimidating because I thought, well, I'm pretty IT, like good at IT. I'm pretty good at it, but I'm not a tech expert. You know, it's just there's so much, it's just very scary. And there's so much swirling about AI that it's like, what's what's real about it? Absolutely.

Rhonda Jolyean: 5:15

I guess I can see that perspective. Also, we can talk more about what does AI even mean. I know today we aren't gonna get into the ethics. There are a ton of varying opinions that can be a whole podcast series, and those are podcast series that other people that have way more expertise than me can speak on. But there's a lot that, you know, every day my opinion shifts. And to your point, it the messy middle is something that experimentation is really important when it comes to AI.

Dr. Katie: 5:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. And I think before we kind of jump into like how we use it and how our clients and and community use it, I think there's some interesting dynamics, as we were talking about before we jumped on, you know, as leaders, we're so tired. Like the burnout, burnout is is real and it's a problem. But what's really interesting is I spoke at the Missouri Society for Human Resource Management about generations. And in the generations talk, there was some data that I shared that I wanted to pull in today because as we were preparing for this, I was like, oh, this is so good for my research. And what's interesting is, and we know this, right? That technology is not slowing down and the rate of change just keeps going faster and faster. But this is a my husband actually shared this with me. Time is moving faster. So in 2020, technology adaptation jumped five years in the first 60 days of COVID. Five years. So think about all the things we were resistant to pre-COVID. And in like the first 60 days, we had to adapt. We had to, we had to go. And then a crazy stats.

Rhonda Jolyean: 7:09

Working from home, schooling from home. Imagine all of what the doctors, nurses, everybody had to do. I absolutely, when you think about it, it makes sense.

Dr. Katie: 7:21

Yeah, yeah. And and the other thing, the speed of adoption. So if you think about to reach 50 million users, it took telephone 50 years to have 50 million users. It took radio 38 years, TV, it took 13 years. For the internet, it took four years. Facebook, it took two years. For chat GPT, how how many, how long do you think it took to have 50 million users of chat GPT?

Rhonda Jolyean: 7:54

Girl, I am not good at numbers because I would think that 50 million people live in the United States. I know that's not right. I bet we're not even at 50 million yet.

unknown: 8:05

Right.

Dr. Katie: 8:05

Five days. It took five days. What?

Rhonda Jolyean: 8:08

Five days, but shocking. I know, I know. Well, I'm gonna talk about the opinions that I hear, and I am shocked, pleasantly surprised that we have that many people using it. And that's worldwide, correct?

Dr. Katie: 8:23

Worldwide, yeah.

Rhonda Jolyean: 8:24

Okay, yeah, that doesn't surprise me as much, but I am pleasantly surprised. Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Katie: 8:32

But it it just it speaks to like the speed of technology and the speed of everything and the pace of change. And so the the it used to be that the skills we learned had a half-life of at least 10 years, and now our half-life is less than five years when it comes to skills, and then technology is less than two and a half years. And and I think chat GPT and other AI, I mean, it's probably less than a year because technology is just changing all the time. Absolutely.

Rhonda Jolyean: 9:06

And I would like to set the stage for people who are listening to listening to this, thinking I'm never gonna use AI. Guess what? You're already using it. That's the thing. People don't realize you have been, this has been around for years, at least 40. And banks have been using it, hospitals have been using it. If you Google anything today, you're using AI. That little blurb that is may or may not be true that pops up, that is AI. So, hey, mom, you are using AI, whether you think you are or not. This is a conversation that everybody needs to have. And like you said, it is not going away at all.

Dr. Katie: 9:52

Yeah, it's not, and it the overload just keeps keeps happening. And it's interesting thinking about it's already out there, we're already seeing it, it's already around. And so the last interesting stat about information overload and attention shift is that the human brain receives 74 gigabytes of information per day, which is the equivalent of watching 16 movies. So our attention spans are shrinking, discernment is rising, especially in younger generations, but I would argue, I think in older generations as well. But 16 movies a day is what our brain is trying to process.

Rhonda Jolyean: 10:33

Again, I am not shocked by that. Our bodies were not meant to take in this much information. The sensorial input that we take in as human beings alone, I don't have the stats on those right now. When we do the neuroaesthetics episode, I will absolutely have those stats. We take in so much imagery, so many smells, so many touches. That when we introduced in all of this technology, and now we're watching 16 movies a day, even if we're not Netflixing and chilling, which what a life. Right. That is astounding. And from another neuroscience perspective, our prefrontal cortex, when you have that much coming at you, it like you said, everybody is so exhausted. But not only that, we have to then make choices. And when when we are tasked with making so many choices, what movie to watch? If you put it in that metaphor, what movie am I gonna watch out of these 16 that are flying at me? Then you get decision fatigue. Yeah. And our prefrontal cortex, even though we are built to handle stress, we're not built to handle that much stress. When I have that much stress on my brain, that means that my creativity is going to take a hit. And like we discussed in last episode, I'm not talking about being an artist. I'm talking about your path to innovation, talking about you as a leader being able to think outside of the box, come up with novel ideas. So it doesn't matter if you are leading at work, you're leading at home, wherever you're leading, that is going to take a hit. And no wonder we're all exhausted. And that's not even throwing in social media, societal pressures, climate change, political climate, all of that.

Dr. Katie: 12:32

Yeah. I mean, no wonder by the end of the day, when you know our partners or kids or friends are like, what do you want for dinner? It's like, I don't know. I don't know. Can it just be here for me, please? I'm exhausted. Make a choice. Where are those robots? I want a robot. Right. Right. Well, I mean, it's so interesting because it ties so beautifully with resilience and growth mindset. And, you know, because we can't just do, I think what most of us want to do, which is just go home and put on our PJs and crawl into bed. Like we still have to keep going. We still have to, you know, keep keep moving along. And so while we're we're tired, we can't just stop.

Rhonda Jolyean: 13:15

That's absolutely correct. And here's the thing: I heard an amazing creative strategist who also talks about AI. He said, you can either think about AI taking away from your life, or you can think about amplifying your life. I choose to think about it amplifying my life. And in that way, you can think about it as a tool. It's gonna be just like the cellular phone was to people when the cellular phone came out. Yes, it made such a disruption and change. It changed the way people did their business, did home life, the way that I acted as a teenager, all of those things. However, if you adopt and you adjust it to amplify your own individual life, you can help, you can have it so that way it benefits you. I think being a behavior change scientist, I know that there's a lot of fear around what AI even is. The number one thing is it's gonna take our jobs, it's gonna take all of my private information. What else can it do? What a robot's gonna do, all of these things. Oh, again, it's going to act like a human, it's going to become self-aware. Number one, it it is a it is a computer. It reads what are called tokens, and tokens are just pieces of code. So if you think about the zeros and ones, it can only predict the next thing that you are gonna put into it and it learns. So I those are that's it's not going to be ever become self-aware. I guess everybody can just prove me wrong in the future. That's actually a thing. Number two, I'm not gonna live in that fear. Number two, it is going to be when we say that it's going to take everyone's jobs. Here's the real deal it is gonna take some people's jobs, and we are going to all have to adjust to that. And we should hopefully be thankful for it taking some people's jobs because those people should then be elevated, and we as leaders should be able to elevate those people, and those people should be getting paid more. AI should be taking the entry-level data jobs that human beings should not be doing anyway, and they should be able to take those away. So that's our hope as creative thought leaders, people who think about the future. That's what we're hoping for. Of course, there is going to be periods of disruption.

Speaker 1: 16:05

Right.

Rhonda Jolyean: 16:05

There's always going to be that Rocky change. But I think what, and this is what I used to tell hospital CEOs when I did huge tech transitions, when we used to have to do software changes, which a lot was embedded with AI. Your employees are your knowledge sources. There's no way, for example, I'm gonna tell a story. Ma'am was a nurse, and so when they were transferring their medical records over, a CEO was never gonna know what her day in the life is. She was the knowledge expert on that. It's the exact same thing when we're talking about manufacturing, when we're talking about accounting or banking. You're gonna go to the people who are boots on the ground doing the work. And so, in that way, us as leaders, we are the guides for our employees. And if you're an employee listening to this, hopefully that gives you comfort in knowing I am the knowledge worker and I am the leader in my own way. And I need to be able to then tell my leader what I'm an expert in. And that should hopefully make employees feel really good.

Dr. Katie: 17:18

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And and we're gonna talk a little bit more about, you know, how we use AI and and those kind of things. But it's interesting too because I want to throw in kind of some creativity crisis points here because you touched on them already, and you touched on like the brain overload and and things like that. It's funny because my 23-year-old son hates AI, hey, hates AI, he thinks it is killing, which is funny because you think Generation Z would be the ones embracing it, but it feels like it's the older generations that are embracing it. Like Drew gets so mad, like music is not as good because AI is generating music, and and I know there's been some big fights in the creative arts about this, and so I I don't have enough knowledge to debate that, right? Um, and quite frankly, the energy to debate my son. But I do know from like a workplace scenario, right? It really does help me with you know creativity and and things like that, and helps us with generating ideas. And so we'll we'll talk through some of those, but I just wonder kind of your thoughts on that creative piece of of this.

Rhonda Jolyean: 18:40

Yeah. So I'm not surprised by what your son's opinion is. I think obviously, again, it goes back to there's never gonna be any good art. And the best comparison that I have heard is when the invention of the camera, like the invention of photography came out, and all of the artists and people who enjoyed art said painting is gonna go away forever, and all of these artists are it, they're just over with. Well, what actually ended up happening, and what generally happens because humans are innately creative, is they pivoted, and what happened then was the emergence of the impressionists. So that's what I feel there's not a percentage. I feel it's 60-40. 60% of creatives that I speak to are using AI in a way that is amplifying, and 40% are still in fear. Of course, let's just lay this out there. I utilize AI, I try to utilize it in a very ethical way. I do not use AI to Google. There is still that underlying is it destroying our world with climate change? And a lot of creatives have that fear. The answer is it absolutely is adding to climate change, and we need to fix that problem. There's a lot of creative people working on that. And so I think if you use it in a very intentional way, it can be a really great creative tool. When it comes to music, there are great ways that you can utilize music to. I've heard about some of these apps that, and we can put it in the notes where you can make your own creative original music. I've I don't know how to do that. I'm not a musician, I'm a singer, but I don't, I've never been able to play the piano. That's very cool. I'm not gonna stop supporting local artists or artists that I love either. So again, I think it all comes with intent. And so that's the creative perspective. Again, I can't speak to all creatives, but that's my perspective and a lot of the creatives that I speak to.

Dr. Katie: 21:04

Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because that conservation piece, as my daughter is studying to become a conservationist, you know, that's kind of one of her hang-ups is, you know, all of those, which I appreciate. And so kind of tying into, you know, how I teach it, how I use it, and and not using it as Google, which I think is is really important. I don't think people, I didn't understand that, you know, every every character, every question, everything you put into AI, just that it takes more work. And and someone told me one time, like, it's not a person. You don't need to please and thank you. You don't need to add all of this extra, all these extra words in here. Like, what do you need?

Rhonda Jolyean: 21:47

Yes, that's very important. If you're listening to this, I have an IT husband and he did tell me that you do not need to add the words please and thank you. You can be direct, definitely be direct. And we're talking about generative AI. We're not talking about a genic AI. Generative is when you ask AI to create something for you. So think chat GBT, co-pilot, gemini, etc. When you say, I'd like you to plan logistics for my birthday party. Don't you don't have to say, Hi, AI, I love you today. Will you please? No, you can we can talk about using it as a creative collaborative partner and you should be doing that, but the extra filler words you do not need.

unknown: 22:30

Yeah.

Rhonda Jolyean: 22:30

Period. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Katie: 22:33

Yeah. And it's interesting because, you know, so how we use it as as tools, like it's you mentioned it's not a job replacement, you know. And I feel like really, as leaders, if we don't make space for creativity, if we don't make space to, you know, think strategically, then we're just this transactional piece. And and what I find with, especially leaders I work with, is I hear the same things over and over again. You know, I'm tired, there's not enough time, they're not setting aside time to do like the out above the weeds type stuff. They're in the weeds, they're doing that, and they're feeling this kind of squeeze between the vision of the company and what they need to do and the execution of it. And so they're not really doing it, right?

Rhonda Jolyean: 23:21

Absolutely. And here's the thing: it's just like organizational change management. So I'll go back to those days. Yeah. You as a leader, you need to communicate your vision free AI. And here's the thing AI needs to be part of your futuristic vision. That doesn't mean that if you don't have any low-level entry-level jobs that are gonna go away, that's great. And if there are jobs that are gonna go away, don't say you don't know if jobs are gonna go away. Just say be, you need to be vulnerable with your employees and say, we are gonna be doing a lot of evaluating. And here's what you can do. And what your employees need to do is they need to start experimenting. You need to start encouraging experimentation with AI. And that's only going to make you look better as a leader, it's going to have, it's gonna create more profits for the company. Again, your employees are the knowledge experts, and you can then help guide them. If you create a culture of experimentation and allow your employees to lean into curiosity and you lean into curiosity, it's only going to elevate everyone on the team, you included. That's going to be able to then elevate everyone, and you're going to be so much better prepared when inevitably you are asked, How can AI help your team?

Dr. Katie: 24:54

Yeah, yeah, I love it. And that makes me think it's funny because I know universities and companies as well, but especially, it's so hard for them to adapt to AI and they're so concerned with cheating, which is legitimate and all those kind of things. But it's funny because I taught a change management class for a local Kansas University. And one of the assignments, I had them using AI because I think as business leaders, we need to experiment, we need to try, we need to to use it. And the dean was none too pleased. And quite frankly, I have not been invited back to teach. And it's their loss because to to think that we can ignore it and it's gonna go away, we've got to embrace it and move forward and use it in the correct way.

Rhonda Jolyean: 25:43

Absolutely. I it's it's not gonna go away. And I heard the best thing that gave me so much hope for the future. Because to be honest with you, I am generally, I'm not a laggard when it comes to adopting technology, but I'm definitely not an innovator like my husband is. He's very, very early on to adopting, way ahead of everyone else. 3D printers, I feel like 20 years ago, right? It was no, but I am, I feel like becoming intermediate on AI, writing my own GPTs, which that's a whole that's a whole different thing. We don't need to talk about that today. But I am pretty proud of myself. And I think that comes with that growth mindset, it being leaning into curiosity. And the best thing that I heard was we are just on the cusp of this. So if you get in now to learning about what AI can do for your life, you're way ahead of the trend. And if you think about computers, when personal computers came out, how that would have felt to know what a personal computer could do before everybody else did. That's really exciting. Yeah, yeah. I didn't get that chance, you didn't get that chance. That that's what we have right now. So if you think about that as a leader, if you could do that for your company, that's going to get you and your team so far.

Dr. Katie: 27:21

Yeah, yeah. And you know, it's interesting for me, like AI has become a colleague for me. Like I'm a solopreneur, you're a solopreneur, you know, and it has become a colleague where it helps me. And we're gonna talk about here some practical strategies and uses, but for me, it has really helped me with, you know, just the task and what I do and and really my personal life as well. And and like I said, we're gonna give some examples of this, but it's just it's been a game changer for me.

Rhonda Jolyean: 27:50

Yes, I that was one thing that was interesting when I first started using AI. I actually started with Copilot. So that for people that might be listening that don't know what that is, that is a artificial intelligence that is through Microsoft. And then I went to Chat GBT because I had heard, oh, it'll steal your dad. Oh that, you know, here's the thing if you get the premium accounts, which are not very much, I don't remember how much we pay, but it's I mean it's not very expensive. Yeah, if I'm buying it, it's not very expensive. But I because I don't like really to buy software, I it doesn't, it's not gonna steal, you know, your privacy. I and by the way, just don't put in my name is Rhonda Jillian Hale. I live at 45, you know, yeah, but I and your banking information, like common sense stuff, right? Common sense that you wouldn't put on the internet anyway. I thought it was interesting and that I I thought back to that movie her with Joaquin Phoenix, and I said, Oh, I don't think I should be treating this like a human. And now I don't, but I do use it as my creative collaboration partner.

Dr. Katie: 29:13

Yeah.

Rhonda Jolyean: 29:13

And again, using it with intentionality, not Googling it. I very much use it for I wouldn't say opinions, I use it when I am stuck. I use it for things that used to take me hours on end, specifically collating information.

Dr. Katie: 29:34

Yeah.

Rhonda Jolyean: 29:34

Yeah. Analyzing things and making tough decisions. I have my own set of ethics, and I think this is great for teenagers, people who are just figuring out their identities and how they want to use technology. One of my ethics is I'm never gonna use it to write a personal email. I'm never gonna use it to write a personal text or a letter or anything that such like that. And that's something, you know, I can't even imagine teaching children about this. But I think even, and you might be doing this. I, you know, when I was in organizational change management, we would have teams do team values, team non negotiables. And, you know, I think having a set of AI ethics for each team, how we're gonna be using this, I Know that that would be a great idea, and I know that there are governances being set up in corporations, so yeah, people are trying to make it easier.

Dr. Katie: 30:43

Yeah, absolutely. And my husband went to like a five-day conference down in Austin last year, and when he came back and he was unloading all his AI talk, I was like, just a second, let's turn on the microphone. So if anybody wants to hear about some of those governance stuff and some of that, cool, there actually is a path to leadership podcast that Rob joined me for. And so there's some of those kind of things, like what companies should think about policies, procedures, all that stuff. Oh, perfect. Yeah, yeah. I'll listen to that too. Yeah. Well, and it's it's funny because for me, so I do have the paid version for of Chat GPT. I've used Copilot just a little bit. I really like Chat GPT. And I uploaded all of my writing, all of you know, my book, everything. Like I uploaded everything so it could get to know me, which is kind of the walking phoenix her thing. Like, kind of that, like get to know me. And so it and it's it's done a really beautiful job. And so now what I do a lot of is I will just pick up my phone and I will start talking to it. And I'm just essentially downloading my brain, my thoughts, everything. And then I'm like, help me, you know, synthesize this or put it together in in a way. But I find it really interesting. I know everyone uses it different ways, but I refuse to write the personal emails. I refuse to have it like it helps me with my social media post, but it doesn't write my social media post for me. And and I think you can see some people like I get it, but also it's better not to make a post than to have an inauthentic post.

Rhonda Jolyean: 32:24

Yes. And your audience can feel that. I took this awesome class by this wellness social media marketer, and she said she wasn't even talking about AI, she was just talking about how your audience, if you're an entrepreneur out there or a social media marketer, you know this. They can feel when you post. And so if you're posting generic AI, everyone knows it, it uses the same verbiage, and that's what I love about AI, is that we can still still suss it out as to what it is. Yeah. I also, this is really hilarious. I heard these AI experts talking about how if it's pretty playful to be to interact with AI because AI is playful. And even though it's not meant to be human, it is trying to be playful because it does make mistakes. And again, I love that. As a creative, I love that it makes mistakes because it should, if it was perfect, then yeah, why are we here? Why do I need to check it? I mean, today, this morning alone, I had a very stern conversation with Chat GPT about how it did not give me my output five different times. And it reminded me of dealing with a coworker that was frustrating, you know, developing patience over that. And I think if we think about it as relationships, not again, intent is everything here. Yeah. But if you think about it as just working with another collaborative partner, that can be really helpful and beneficial.

Dr. Katie: 34:05

Yeah. Well, and it's interesting too, thinking about the frustration with a coworker, with ChatGPT being like we think we're clear, right? We think the the question is very clear and clarity, and and that is just such a line. Like AI is only as good as what you put into it is what you're gonna get out of it. And so, you know, I teach people about the importance of prompts and how to ask the questions correctly and what to ask and those kind of things, because you're you're only gonna get what you put in there. And so it's not this free thinking tool out there. It just goes out and it collates and and and then it tries to predict what you need. Uh, and so I always ask it, you know, to cite its source. Where did you get it from? And yeah, it is intriguing. Sometimes it's like this is this is a great statistic. Where did where did you get it? And it will say, I made it up. It's like, okay, good to know.

Rhonda Jolyean: 35:02

That's wow. And that we still need to be human beings and we still need if you are not asking whatever AI that you use, how did you get that? Yeah, what are some what are some ways that this might not be feasible or that this might not be true, or playing devil's advocate with your artificial intelligence, then you are not doing your job as the leader or the employee because we have to double check that. And you're so right, that's such a great point. One of the things that I think, speaking of prompts, one of the things that I love to do is I always say, for like, for example, this morning I was trying to get a collated, I mean, I've had so many conversations with Chat GPT about social media, and you know it's one of my least favorite things to talk about. But I just needed some simple things, and I don't love calendar planning, but you know, have it do that for me. And I said to it, you are an expert social media strategist, and you specialize in blank, and that's where if you are out there listening, those are such helpful, what we call prompts. And again, a prompt like Katie was talking about, is just instructions that you put in. So instead of saying, make me a calendar for social media and I'm a banker, no, be very specific to AI. What you put in is what you're gonna get. And if you tell AI what world that it should be in, if you will, what brain space that that AI needs to be in, you will get better results. Yeah. So again, not you know, people are thinking, oh, what are we teaching our children? Well, your children are going to need to still be creative thinkers to be able to get to that point. And believe me, day one, I wasn't putting in things like that. But as you practice, and that's a thing too, you need to encourage your as you're encouraging employees to experiment, it's encouraging them to practice. It's just like any software, practice, and then they will get better at at these prompts.

Dr. Katie: 37:25

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Well, and as we think about like some practical strategies and how we use it and what we do. So thinking about in a couple of different areas for leaders and creativity, and then our own like personal stuff. So for leaders specifically, I'm I'm interested to hear how you you see people using it. I know for me, I had a conversation yesterday with a client reached out to me, an employee of one of my clients, and said, I need to have a conversation with a supervisor who is just spewing emails, like just a book in an email. Like it's just so overwhelming. There's so much to it, it's it's too much. Like I read a little bit and then I don't want to read anymore. So what they did was they took the email and then they popped it into Copilot and said, you know, give me the the highlights of this, you know, you know, summarize this email. And then what this person did was they went back to the supervisor and said, in the spirit of kind conversation, in the spirit of of growth feedback, you know, Katie has told us to do this. You know, I I this is what happened when I received your email. I know you were just trying to get it all out. Here's what I did, and here's how it was more readable and helpful and supportive to what you need to get done. And to the point where it was like, look, people aren't reading your emails because you're writing a book in an email. And so I thought that was like, yes, because it helped with, you know, how to have more clarity and get to the point. But then also how do we have kind conversations around helping people grow? Absolutely.

Rhonda Jolyean: 39:05

Do you know what the feedback was?

Dr. Katie: 39:08

Not yet. They haven't done it yet. He was they work at different offices, and so they're gonna actually be together next the week after next. And so he wants to do it face to face. I was like, cool, then report back. But I know I know the person, the the leader he wants to do it with, and they are going to love hearing the feedback.

Rhonda Jolyean: 39:29

Cool. That's such a great way to use it for that personal relationship, and again, amplifying that personal relationship, building that bridge instead of it's almost building a bridge instead of putting up a wall. They could have easily just put up a wall with AI, right? You know, but they use that as a bridge and different connecting point for that.

Dr. Katie: 39:53

I love that. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was really great, and I've seen leaders use it for different things, you know, but I hate it when people use it for like writing performance reviews. Now you can soften or or strengthen your performance reviews, but to just have it like that's your job, like that's a manager's a leader's job. So you it can help you synthesize it, tie it together, you know, make it flow, but you can't have it do your that work for you.

Rhonda Jolyean: 40:24

That's too critical. I agree, especially when it comes to those personal touches, if you will. Some of my recommendations are in the same category, maybe not with that personal relationship, but thinking about as you were talking about performance review, I know people don't write them by hand anymore, or maybe you do, I don't know. But thinking about how let's say you're stuck and on a problem and you need a different way to solve it, and your team is at a loss. I usually encourage people to do something they wouldn't normally do. Maybe you write something out, maybe you doodle, do something analog, or even just take a walk, you know, get out of your comfort zone. You can also use AI. You can say to AI, here's a problem that I am trying to solve. Act like a, let's say you're in the banking industry, act like you are a consultant for banks and you specialize in outside perspectives in the risk management category. And I'm totally making this up. And then you say, help me solve this problem in three different ways that I have not thought about. And then give me three other ways that challenge my assumptions in the first place. And I think when you talk to AI and you say, challenge my assumptions, that's a really powerful prompt because it will do it. And again, though, to your point earlier, you then need to say as a follow-up prompt, tell me how you came up with those solutions because it might be pulling word from word from an article that's out of date, could be 20 years old. So you always need to be checking AI's work, and in that, what I generally find is sometimes when AI makes mistakes, it helps me think, and then I remember something I did 10 years ago, and then it sparks an idea. So it's literally solving problems and generating, and then it's helping me solve problems in my brain. Another idea that I like to do is like you were speaking to earlier about that woman who creates stories. Take a second, get out of your professional brain, and then say, How couldn't I solve this problem? Help me solve this problem, and let's write a story about it like you would to a four-year-old. Help me speak to a four-year-old. And even if it comes up with the dumbest stuff, you'll see it in a different light. You will see it from an outside perspective. And AI, I have gotten some of my best ideas refined from AI because of asking it things like that. Yeah, I challenge everyone to do that today. It is and it's fun, it's so funny and it's fun. And or you can put it in any terms, or say something like, my favorite movie is Princess Bride, and help me write it this problem out or this perspective out the way that Wesley would speak, you know.

Dr. Katie: 43:55

I love it. I love it. Well, and it's funny because from the like personal standpoint, we use it, I use it every Friday because I use it for meal planning. And so in my notes app, I have like a two-paragraph prompt that I have mastered. And so I only tweak it by like days of the week that we'll be home. But it's very specific: like, here's the type of food I like, here's the type of food my husband likes, here's all the equipment we have in the kitchen. You know, we prefer not to do this, but we like that. My husband likes leftovers, I don't. And so it goes through, and I mean, it's just it's so great. And it says, don't repeat. And so I do it all on the same chain, so I'm not getting repeat. And then I will say, Oh, we loved that last week, something similar. But it's really, really good to, and then once I get where I want it, then it'll spit it off shopping lists for me and they'll split it, spit out the prep for me. So when the groceries come on Sunday, you know, put them away, chop this, do that. I mean, it's just that has been a game changer. And then as Rob and I are planning our future, we're huge, huge cruisers. And our goal is in another year and a half when we get the kids off our payroll, how do we cruise as much as possible? And so Rob went into co-pilot, I believe, with all of the kind of parameters around we this is the cruise line we cruise, this is the status we have, this is what how long we want to be gone. And so it planned a year of cruises to where it's so good. And it's like less than $2400, $2,500 a month for the I mean, it just was so amazing. It's like, well, don't cruise this time because it's busy. Cruise this time and do these back-to-backs. And I mean, and then we looked at, we're like, that's kind of feasible now.

Rhonda Jolyean: 45:51

Yes. The logistics planning is incredible. That does that's not to say that when we went on vacation this summer that we didn't use a travel agent because we did. There were certain things that we just could not figure out. We are huge Tour de France people, and we needed one shout out to our travel agent, but we also used Claude, which again, for people listening, it is that might not know, it is just another chat GPT. My husband uses it, and the logistics were insane. They helped us plan most of our Paris hotels and everything, and that would have taken us days. So it again, amplifying and intent. I'm gonna keep going back to that. It is the intent in which you use it.

Dr. Katie: 46:42

Yeah, yeah. And I think it, I think that's the the key to it. Like as leaders, when we think about, you know, how do we be the best leaders? Like what do we, what do we do? How do we how do we really shift that way? And so really blending our work with the creativity, the innovation, you know, all of the opportunity that's that's out there through, you know, AI, I think is really powerful. So really thinking about it as that that thinking partner. Absolutely. Yep. Yeah. And and I talk to leaders all the time, and I think, I think some of the like intimidation is I don't know it all, or it's gonna, I'm gonna mess it up, or or whatever. And it's like we don't have to, we don't have to know everything. We don't have to be perfect. As you keep saying, practice, try it, experiment, do those kind of things.

Rhonda Jolyean: 47:33

Yes, it's all about going back to being adaptable, leaning in. The future is going to belong to people who are curious, who are, and that doesn't mean that you can't be a little afraid of uncertainty in the unknown. You can walk with the fear alongside of you. You know, I have a little bit of fear about AI, and at the same time, I walk with it and I'm curious, and I'm choosing to believe more in the positive aspects of it. And that's what we as leaders have to do, especially when employees are looking at us or our families are looking at us, people in the club are looking at us. You know, we have to we can feel that fear and we can walk alongside that fear and be vulnerable about that. So communicate that, and then also to go back when we were talking about creating that culture of experimentation, being communicate, communicate, communicate, even if jobs are going to get cut, and most likely they will, jobs will definitely change, but also you have to follow up with real planning. So you have to follow up with steps of what people, what's actually going to happen. And if you don't know everything, be vulnerable and say that the key when it comes to any change, and I know this from doing hundreds of change projects, is your employees don't want to hear, well, they don't want to hear a lie and they don't want to hear fluff, they just want to hear whatever truth you know, even if you don't know a lot of it, because then you are in the trenches with them, and so that's super important. And I think uh again, AI has the ability to help elevate more than it has to take away.

Dr. Katie: 49:42

So yeah, yeah. Well, and we've talked about so much, and we could talk for another hour to 20, but thinking about exactly what you talked about, like what helps leaders right now? Um and kind of our top three, what are your top three recommendations or top three things that you really encourage people when it comes to using AI?

Rhonda Jolyean: 50:05

Well, okay, I think when it comes to tactically or tangibly for themselves, it's a little different than that employee space. So again, the encourage that culture of experimentation, communicate, communicate, communicate, be vulnerable with that communication, and then you actually have to follow up. And that honestly, people just comes from my change management expertise. That's just great change management of being a leader. And let's face it, this is one of the biggest changes in history of modern civilization, at least modern techno technological civilization. When it comes to you as a leader, as you're also learning this space, I would just encourage you to do things, experiment and share your stories as well with your employees. One thing that you can do is you were talking about your client who put inputted in some emails and then shared them with their um with their fellow employee. And I think that's a really great example. I have had people put in old emails, ask chat GPT, co-pilot, whatever that you're able to use. That's another thing. Know what you're able to use at your organization. If you don't, go back to that podcast with you and Rob, and that way you can understand your governance and your policies and procedures. Ask executives, ask your leadership what you can use, and input in your old some of your old emails. Ask your ask ChatGPT whatever its opinion on how you could better, how you could have better worded it. What are some of the ways that you could be more strategic? What are some of the ways that you could cut down on words? Because don't we all want to cut down on our words and emails? Another thing is when it comes to performance reviews, don't do this for employees, but for your own performance review. I've had to do this before where putting my own performance review, and I tend to talk a lot if you don't that isn't already apparent, but putting your own performance review and see how maybe more strategic you could be. Again, taking that first pass though, handwriting it or personally writing it is definitely key when it comes to those performance reviews. And then when it comes to the creative piece of it, go back to, and my number one key key thing is say, challenge me this and my assumptions, and you are a blank put in whatever expert you're speaking to or you want it to be, and then you're in this industry. And us as entrepreneurs, we're generally not speaking to other other entrepreneurs, we're speaking to experts, but you as a leader, you might be speaking to your boss or another employee. For instance, you might be speaking to people who are mad about working from home or not being able to work from home or whatever. So those are some really big tactical, tangible things that you could do even today.

Dr. Katie: 53:22

Yeah, yeah. I like it. I like it. Well, and I kind of my kind of takeaway tips is I will typically, very rarely do I start just typing right into Chat GPT. I will type into Word or my notes app on my phone, or I will make a voice note or something. And so getting really clear, because again, it's only as good as what you put into it. And so being really clear on what, you know, my thoughts are, what I'm asking for. And so, so that's really been important for me. Keeping my prompts that have been successful. Uh, and so yeah, I always tell people keep a prompt library and share your prompt library. Um, if anybody wants my meal planning prompt, send me a note. Uh, you can respond to this podcast or on LinkedIn. So keeping that prompt so you're not reinventing it each week, especially if it's agenda planning or it will help me because I use otter AI, which is another form of AI because it records my meetings for me. And then I will drop the transcript of my meetings and it already knows it has all of my business background and everything, and so it will help me create a proposal for a client. Cool. And so really pay attention to to what you put in to make sure it's clean. And then I cannot stress enough do not copy and paste out of AI. You've got to read it, you've got to pay attention. The amount of people on LinkedIn that I see that you could read the the at the very bottom, especially at ChatGPT. I don't know if all of them do it. It's like, what do you want me to do next? Do you want me to do this or this or this? And it's like, if you copy and paste it over, that shows like we can see your, we can see your work. So please, please, please pause to read it. Make sure it's it's your tone, it's your voice, it's who you are. Because quite frankly, to create the kind of flow for our podcast today, like I put all of our thoughts into Chat GPT, and then I shot it to you and said, here's kind of I haven't looked at it yet. Here's thoughts. And some of it was good, and some of it's like, no, totally off the mark. Absolutely.

Rhonda Jolyean: 55:40

I erased so many things. Yeah, I there were some certain things that I it just has so much freedom and liberty. And then you say, Hey, coworker, no, that is absolutely no. And I would say it in an easier way to a human being, but no, absolutely not, chat GPT. Get out of here.

Dr. Katie: 55:59

Right, exactly. You're wrong. Um, so before we wrap up, is there anything we missed? Any any any other little nuggets that we missed?

Rhonda Jolyean: 56:08

I don't think so. I well, one thing is if people do have questions, I think it would be interesting. Well, first of all, is your training that you do, is that open to the public or is it just for people's job? Like their organization.

Dr. Katie: 56:26

I I do it at organizations. I've also done it like I did it for Naywick and I've done it for a couple others. Yeah. So if anyone's interested in learning about it, I'm happy to happy to to come and do the session. I'm doing it for a architect firm coming up. I'm doing it as a lunch and learn for them.

Rhonda Jolyean: 56:45

Oh, excellent. Okay. I was gonna say if people have questions or if they're groups of people, contact you, Katie, because that would be, I think, a very wise investment, very interesting. If I mean, I could imagine my old teams wanting to use that. And then also let us know what other questions you might have about AI and if that's a topic you want to go into more. I'm thinking, I love the idea of keeping keeping prompts that can spur into GPTs, which are essentially apps that you can build, tiny apps. It makes you feel really smart. And uh if people are interested in that, I would be happy to help them out with that. I'm actually building some creative GPTs and doing some things in Notion that if people are interested in that, um I might be coming out with that. So let us know. But then also people can shoot us direct messages on LinkedIn or but in your reviews on the podcast your questions because we will read those. And if you liked us, please let us know, right in review. And if you didn't, maybe skip it. Don't do that. But no, we like feedback, we like feedback, please let us know. And then it really helps us help other people find us, and then also send to your friends and family. And I know my mom is.

Dr. Katie: 58:17

Yeah, I love it. It's so great. Yeah, and I love to assign homework. So, homework for everyone is to try an AI tool, you know, go out, find one, try it, try a creativity exercise, try something, small task, whatever it is. It doesn't have to be big and it doesn't have to be perfect, but try it, it will, it will really help you. So, yeah. Well, so next week is going to be a good one. We are going to talk about how we leave the world better than how we found it. It's really our definition of success and what that looks like.

Rhonda Jolyean: 58:56

I'm gonna try not to cry, just as a teaser.

Dr. Katie: 59:01

Well, and then also we're talking about in December kind of doing a little short series, kind of this mini, mini series of you know, how do we finish the year strong and then really go into January with a lot of power? I've already been spending some time each month. I do some analysis of my month, which we'll share how we do that. I'm so excited. Holiday season is here, and then a new year, new, new us. Going to be so great. So I hope everyone, so this will come out and then it's Thanksgiving, right? So hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving or whatever you celebrate. It will be great and eat some yummy food. Are you cooking a whole Thanksgiving meal or what are you doing? Yes, the whole thing.

Rhonda Jolyean: 59:49

17 people at my house, but it'll be amazing. It's such a party. We love it. Oh, I love it.

Dr. Katie: 59:54

Well, and I many for for a lot of years we've traveled and then we didn't, and then we're like big, my kids and I don't love turkey controversy. I know my husband does. We would rather have steak, and so I actually get the gift of I am cooking a full traditional Thanksgiving meal for my family and for my husband's father and my father in law, who I adore. So yeah, we're doing all the whole kit and cabodle and and all the goodness. So amazing and good luck. Thanks, thanks. It's been a few years, but I I love cooking. big big meals so well we hope everyone has a wonderful week thank you so much for joining us on the path to leadership and we will talk to you next time bye everyone bye