AI Isn’t Passing You By - How to Catch Up (with Jeremy Utley) 8 | 30

[00:00] Jeremy Utley: Yeah, the the way I think about it very simply is AI is a capable teammate who's gonna thrive under your leadership. But you cannot abdicate your leadership. It's very important that you bring your voice, your discernment, your taste, your judgment to the table. That's actually what AI is multiplying. And if you don't bring that, any multiple times zero is zero, you you need to bring that. That's the underlying kind of value to be multiplied. what you've got to do is when you get suboptimal output, you have to give feedback. You've got to l make sure that not only your thinking is known or your response is known, but your reasoning is known. If you don't make your reasoning known, then the AI is left to interpret or attempt to read your mind,

[00:46] Kim Scott: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the radical sabbatical. While the rest of the team is busy doing workshops for companies that are trying to roll out radical candor, I am talking to some of the authors of the books that have enormous meaning for me. And today I'm thrilled to have with me Jeremy Utley, who wrote a wonderful book called The Human Advantage. Welcome, Jeremy.

[01:11] Jeremy Utley: Thanks for having me.

[01:12] Kim Scott: I'm glad you're here. You're you also do other things in addition to write this book. You're at Stanford and you teach people how to use AI. And in fact, you taught my son and me. So thank you very much.

[01:23] Jeremy Utley: Ah, well I'd love to I'd love to know what you learned from me actually. That's a fun place to start.

[01:28] Kim Scott: my gosh. So there was a moment where you explained why it's important to give AI a persona when you're giving a good prompt. Why don't you share that with people? Because it was very illuminating. You gave an example of what do you notice in this room?

[01:44] Jeremy Utley: Yeah, yeah, yeah. there are all sorts of ways you can interact with AI that improve its ability to do a job well. And one simple way anybody can work with AI to improve its ability to do a job well is to tell it what expertise you want it to bear in mind or what role you want it to play. So for example, if you're doing a financial transaction and you want financial advice, not that I'm suggesting that, but that's the first thing that came to my mind. You would say, I want you to be a financial advisor. Actually say that, right? Or if you're, if you're uh working in your on your sink, you might say, I want you to be an experienced plumber. And I was telling the class that you attended why that's valuable. And it it has to do with what's called the attention mechanism, but it's basically where the model focuses. And humans do the same thing. You know, if I told you in in a room, hey, look around the room right now, and anybody who's listening can do this, describe the room you're in. You know, think for a second about how you describe it. And then if I say, now describe the room you're in as a biologist. Chances are your description is different. Describe the room you're in as a economist. Whoa, the room just changed. What if I said, describe the room as a petty thief? You know, you weren't looking for the easy mark like two seconds ago, but now you're looking for who's got the valuables out. Why? Because I use words to invoke a perspective. And it turns out there's actually a ton of information in your language model, your brain, that you don't think to draw on unless I use certain words. And basically AI is the same way and it thinks to draw on certain sets of knowledge or information depending on the words that you use to prompt it. So telling it what persona you want it to play actually does help in shaping the output of the conversation.

[03:28] Kim Scott: It's so funny 'cause as soon as you explained that, I was much less annoyed with the I always if it felt so fake and dumb to say, pretend you're a, experienced plumber and now I want it to focus not all the world's information, but on the world's information that's relevant to this particular thing.

[03:43] Jeremy Utley: Well, bec if you don't say something like that, you're basically asking Reddit, effectively. You're saying, hey, Reddit,

[03:47] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah.

[03:49] Jeremy Utley: what do you think about my plumbing problem? Right. And

[03:51] Kim Scott: Yes.

[03:52] Jeremy Utley: that may or may not be what you want. And so when you realize that the words you use actually constrain where in the model's training data it's looking for w the the next words that it should be suggesting, then you start to be more thoughtful about the words that you use.

[04:09] Kim Scott: so you your book is incredibly practical. And not only that, you have QR codes so that people when they buy your book they can begin to put the ideas into practice right away. And

[04:19] Jeremy Utley: Yeah, yeah.

[04:20] Kim Scott: and the first thing that you suggested is to basically use AI to hire five people to help you in your life. So

[04:28] Jeremy Utley: Mm.

[04:28] Kim Scott: talk about that idea because I do feel like w i in the world of AI, we all become managers. I mean, we're not managing people. But there's something about trying to understand how it works that's important. So let's first

[04:41] Jeremy Utley: Yeah. Yeah.

[04:42] Kim Scott: of all talk about what your team is and then talk about how you can how you

[04:45] Jeremy Utley: Well it's

[04:46] Kim Scott: can use radical candor to manage that team of five.

[04:50] Jeremy Utley: Well, it's directly related actually to the conversation we were just having, which is who whose expertise or perspective do you want in a given moment? And again, like you don't ask a plumber for marriage advice. You probably don't ask a therapist for, you know, a backed up toilet, right? So but then you go, okay, well, what kinds of personas might I need to draw upon in the early days of my collaboration with AI? And I learned this from my friend Bryce Shalomel, who's actually

[05:12] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[05:13] Jeremy Utley: He was at the time when I met him the head of AI at Moderna. Now he

[05:16] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[05:16] Jeremy Utley: is the head of AI adoption at OpenAI because of how successful the transformation

[05:20] Kim Scott: Wow.

[05:21] Jeremy Utley: at Moderna went. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And the way he described the transformation at Moderna was there's no more individual contributors here. Now that everyone's proficient with AI, we're minimum of team, every person is a team of five. And he described the team of five as number one, yourself. Number two, your AI powered assistant. Number three is your AI powered coach. Number four is your AI-powered expert. And number five is your AI-powered creative partner. And so

[05:47] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[05:48] Jeremy Utley: even just thinking in terms of those simple personas kind of helps you define search parameters for where AI might help in your life. Like where do I need coaching, for example? I mean,

[05:57] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[05:57] Jeremy Utley: just yesterday, I was on a call with a professional sports team.

[06:01] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[06:02] Jeremy Utley: And I had a really interesting conversation. We're talking about all sorts of possibilities. And then after the call is over, I've got a transcript. You know, they let in my AI note taker. And I I just thought, I wonder how I did. Well,

[06:15] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[06:16] Jeremy Utley: I have an AI coach. So I dropped a transcript into my AI coach and I said, hey coach, give me a little feedback. Where where did I shine and where did

[06:24] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[06:25] Jeremy Utley: I, you know, get in my own way? And honestly, Kim, I actually wish I hadn't asked because it gave me so much. Oh no, I could have done so much better, you know. But but you know, just thinking in terms of the simple personas. Yeah, a hundred

[06:36] Kim Scott: But you're open to the feedback, yeah. Yeah.

[06:38] Jeremy Utley: percent. But even those

[06:39] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[06:40] Jeremy Utley: simple personas, coach, assistant, expert, creative partner, just helps to kind of steer how we as humans think about the possibilities. Those aren't those aren't the only teammates we might think about hiring. But in the early days, there's a simple way to think about the various roles AI could play to start to augment you.

[06:56] Kim Scott: Yeah. What other AI uh team members have you created as you've gotten deeper?

[07:02] Jeremy Utley: So I'll I'll give you

[07:03] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[07:03] Jeremy Utley: a very practical example. Right now, I am working on a couple of op-eds. I you it's book launch season. I'd love to place an op ed in a major publication. And I've kind of got an idea of the shape of the op-ed, but I want a really timely story from an organization. Specifically

[07:20] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[07:21] Jeremy Utley: what I want, because I'm actually talking about CEOs in this op-ed.

[07:24] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[07:25] Jeremy Utley: I want a CEO to say a certain kind of thing, but I to my

[07:28] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. You want to find that, but you so it's your research assistant.

[07:31] Jeremy Utley: So every morning I've got a research assistant that goes

[07:34] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[07:34] Jeremy Utley: out with instructions that knows what I'm looking for and reads every earnings call from the day before and looks. Does has any public company CEO said something like this? And then it pulls out anything it finds relevant and scores it against a rubric that I've developed with that analyst. And

[07:51] Kim Scott: Well.

[07:52] Jeremy Utley: if it meets a certain threshold, it sends me an email and says, hey, the CEO of service now just said this yesterday. I score

[07:59] Kim Scott: huh.

[08:00] Jeremy Utley: this a 75 out of 100. And it's for your consideration, right? So

[08:03] Kim Scott: Wow.

[08:04] Jeremy Utley: every day and many days actually, Kim, the analyst writes me and says, hey, I read all of the transcripts yesterday. Nothing popped out. Now, I actually don't know about the false negative, but I will say I don't have capacity to read a bunch of earnings call reports, especially when it's kind of a needle in a haystack problem.

[08:18] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[08:20] Jeremy Utley: And effectively uh augmenting myself with a research team is something I've never been able to do before.

[08:25] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah. did you do the thing where you get another AI to judge the first AI's output to look for false negatives or false positives?

[08:36] Jeremy Utley: I it one can. In this case, I haven't I haven't been that, you know, prescriptive. I'll give

[08:38] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[08:41] Jeremy Utley: you another like simpler one because that because few people probably are writing are trying to write op-eds. Um but a very simple one is uh my travel briefing agent. So,

[08:51] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[08:52] Jeremy Utley: you know, like one kind of perennial annoyance in the Utley household is daddy doesn't know what his flight schedules are.

[08:58] Kim Scott: Mm.

[08:59] Jeremy Utley: And so people ask, Dad, are you gonna be home on Tuesday? And I'm like, I gotta look at my calendar. Well, um I have an agent now uh pull together a Saturday briefing where every Saturday it looks at my calendar for the next week and looks for flights, hotels, keynotes, et cetera, and then drops a one-page briefing via email to me and my wife. And

[09:18] Kim Scott: Good.

[09:18] Jeremy Utley: it just kind of has all of my information right there, right?

[09:20] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[09:22] Jeremy Utley: And that's again, I never had somebody looking for all my travel information and putting it in one place every single week. And, you know, I actually what's funny is I was test I was teaching uh a professional soccer teams back office

[09:35] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[09:36] Jeremy Utley: or front office actually. How do you create agents and schedule tasks and things like that? So I was doing that

[09:39] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[09:41] Jeremy Utley: and I was giving them a demo of uh a match report. So they every day they go scour player performance in leagues across the world and send them

[09:45] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

[09:49] Jeremy Utley: a match report. But while they're doing it, I was like, I honestly don't want a match report. So I just changed the text that I was giving them for my for my own purposes. And

[09:56] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[09:57] Jeremy Utley: then I said, hey everybody, everybody hit enter and let's see if it works. And I I hit enter and it's an integration of my calendar, my email, you know, all

[10:04] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[10:05] Jeremy Utley: sorts of stuff. And so I didn't know if it would work the first time. And then I get a text message from my wife, and Michelle's not an all caps gal, but she writes me back all caps, my gosh, that email's amazing. Why did it take you twenty years? I go, I think it worked. Yeah. Yeah.

[10:18] Kim Scott: That is amazing. It worked. It worked. That is incredible. And the nice thing about that story is that now you and your wife can talk about things that have meaning to you two as human beings. You don't

[10:31] Jeremy Utley: Yes.

[10:31] Kim Scott: have to have the irritating conversation of where are you on Tuesday and then you pull up your calendar. Uh I think

[10:37] Jeremy Utley: Exactly.

[10:38] Kim Scott: that that the one of one of the optimistic scenarios about AI is that it frees us up to have better relationships 'Cause we're automating some of the friction out of uh our relationships. One of the things that Jason, my co-founder, has done for himself and for the whole team is to create some agents that people can turn to for tech support. Because he's the most technical member of the team, everybody, you know, I'm having trouble logging into HubSpot or whatever.

[11:11] Jeremy Utley: huh, sure, sure.

[11:11] Kim Scott: And so he created this agent and now everybody goes to Claude to answer those irritating little questions and not to him, which

[11:19] Jeremy Utley: I'm sure his quality of life is improved enormously and so has yours, right? Because now you don't

[11:23] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[11:23] Jeremy Utley: have to bug Jason about that stuff.

[11:25] Kim Scott: And so his quality of life improves. I get answers faster without having to hesitate to ask because I don't want to irritate him. And our relationship is I mean, not that it was ever bad, but we're now able to spend fifteen or twenty percent more time each week talking about things that interest us and that really matter to us rather than how Kim can log in a HubSpot or whatever whatever it is. Yeah.

[11:47] Jeremy Utley: It's beautiful. It's a beautiful example. That's that's really great.

[11:51] Kim Scott: Alright, so another thing that you write about is how to use AI with your orthogonal thinking. And you you suggest that people ask it to to respond to something as an alien, a toddler, and a retired sea captain. I love this this idea. Explain this uh this method, this AI approach.

[12:11] Jeremy Utley: it's very simple. I mean, you know, I'm a creativity junkie. I'm I'm a student of creativity

[12:15] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[12:16] Jeremy Utley: for the last 20 years. That's really been my area of focus. And one of the one of the simplest ways to think about the search for good ideas is you actually need to open yourself up to bad ideas. And the challenge is usually when you need good ideas, you're you're less open. You're uh because you're you're you're being more precious, right? So there's this kind of like

[12:32] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[12:36] Jeremy Utley: paradox of you are unwilling to do the very thing that will help you. Like the best way to get better ideas is to force yourself to have worse ideas.

[12:43] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[12:45] Jeremy Utley: But usually when you feel the pressure to have better ideas, you go, well, whatever I do, I can't have bad ideas, right?

[12:50] Kim Scott: I d I can't waste my time with those bad ideas.

[12:53] Jeremy Utley: So that that's actually, you know, that's a that's a big problem. And it's it's a big problem in creativity in general. And now you get AI and you go,

[13:00] Kim Scott: Mm.

[13:00] Jeremy Utley: well, what do I ask AI for? And the natural thing is, I want better ideas. I want better ideas.

[13:04] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[13:05] Jeremy Utley: And a fun kind of way to flip the frame is to go, no, no, no, actually I need help getting worse ideas. Because my human brain's actually quite capable

[13:10] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah.

[13:13] Jeremy Utley: of activating and responding to something that's wacky that a sea captain might say. I

[13:18] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[13:18] Jeremy Utley: just, I can't get myself to think of the sea captain thing, right?

[13:21] Kim Scott: Yeah,

[13:22] Jeremy Utley: And so you can

[13:22] Kim Scott: yeah.

[13:22] Jeremy Utley: actually enlist AI's willingness to entertain absurdity and then

[13:27] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[13:27] Jeremy Utley: you activate your own brain's ability to go, wait, there's that alien said something's actually kinda interesting, you know? So it's almost

[13:33] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. So

[13:35] Jeremy Utley: a way to trick yourself.

[13:36] Kim Scott: yeah. So give me an example of how you've how you've used this in your work, this approach to getting like

[13:42] Jeremy Utley: Well,

[13:42] Kim Scott: kooky ideas.

[13:43] Jeremy Utley: I mean, I'll tell you this, you know I have four amazing daughters, and this

[13:47] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[13:48] Jeremy Utley: true story. I was making breakfast the other day. It's very important we all have role clarity, right? I do breakfast, right? So, um,

[13:52] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[13:54] Jeremy Utley: I'm making breakfast and I hear a very loud bang.

[13:57] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[13:58] Jeremy Utley: And like any good father, I pretend I hear nothing. and then my fourteen year old's like, Dad, get up here. There's glass everywhere. So I go to the front of the house and I'm devastated to see my favorite window. We live in this 130-year-old house. My favorite window is shattered on the floor because, seemingly sensibly, the 12-year-old had thought, I need a little personal space. And the best way to accomplish that is slam the door in my sister's face so hard that the window shatters, right? And so I'm looking at this window and I'm looking at eight eyeballs, going, what is dad gonna

[14:29] Kim Scott: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[14:31] Jeremy Utley: do? And I I just pulled out my my uh AI chief of staff and said, Hey, I need 20 terrible ways to respond to this.

[14:41] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[14:43] Jeremy Utley: And it's like, well, here's a few Russian torture tactics, you know,

[14:46] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[14:46] Jeremy Utley: here's you know, you could call the police, right? You could expel her. And

[14:49] Kim Scott: Right. Right.

[14:50] Jeremy Utley: all of a sudden, you know, I start laughing. It lowered the temperature. It's like to patently absurd, right? But

[14:53] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[14:56] Jeremy Utley: but it just expanded the solution space enormously. Cause in that moment.

[14:59] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah.

[15:01] Jeremy Utley: The only thing I can think of is I guess I gotta take away the Kindle Fire, right? That's it.

[15:04] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.

[15:06] Jeremy Utley: And you know, there was something about expulsion. We homeschool our girls. So like

[15:09] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.

[15:10] Jeremy Utley: it's a particularly funny idea to think about expelling. Um, we're not gonna obviously not gonna kick her out, but then

[15:14] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[15:15] Jeremy Utley: that made us think, wait, school. How could school be a part of it? What if the offending girl has to teach her sisters a homeschool module uh about why our household rules matter?

[15:28] Kim Scott: Mm. And one rule is not slamming the doors.

[15:31] Jeremy Utley: She is uniquely qualified to deliver that message, right? And so it was just it was inventive, it was fun, it was appropriate,

[15:36] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[15:37] Jeremy Utley: it was it was kind of on brand with our family values. All of it

[15:40] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[15:40] Jeremy Utley: came because I asked for terrible ideas.

[15:43] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. Such a good such a good example. Uh and I hope you got the window fixed. It was was it one of those like old leaded windows? Uh, you can't really get that fixed, can you? Mm. That's a shame.

[15:51] Jeremy Utley: Yeah, yeah. Sadly, our contractor said irreplaceable. Yeah. So she's gonna be working it off uh from her allowance for the next five years.

[16:01] Kim Scott: But the lesson is invaluable, worth way more than the old leaded window.

[16:03] Jeremy Utley: Yes. Exactly, exactly.

[16:07] Kim Scott: Um, all right, in this case you evaluated the output. You did not take the ridiculous suggestions. And so another

[16:14] Jeremy Utley: Yes.

[16:14] Kim Scott: thing that you write about, you have a whole chapter on how to evaluate your AI output, because you're the boss of this AI output and you're responsible. for it. Like we have

[16:26] Jeremy Utley: Yeah. Yeah.

[16:27] Kim Scott: a rule, erradical candor, that none of us are gonna be meat routers. What I mean by that is I'm gonna type in, somebody asked me a question. I type in AI, I don't even look at the output and I just email it to somebody. Like if we Yeah, we are

[16:41] Jeremy Utley: I love that. No meat routers. That's great.

[16:44] Kim Scott: not routers made of meat, meaning, we're gonna add value. we're gonna evaluate AI. Yes, that's

[16:48] Jeremy Utley: I just wrote that down. That's so good.

[16:50] Kim Scott: good. We're gonna evaluate the AI output. Of course I broke the rule yesterday, but I admitted I broke it. I said

[17:00] Jeremy Utley: Which is a first step in the right direction, I think.

[17:01] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. so anyway, how can we make sure that we're evaluating the AI output? Because in Corey Doctrose's most recent book about the reverse centaur, he points out that often when you're getting this AI content back, and most of the time it gets it right, it's very hard to continue to evaluate it. And he uses the example of people reading radiologist reports. And and he's he suggests that the right thing to do would be to have the radiologist read it and then AI judge it rather than AI read it and then the and then the radiologist judge the AI output. Because pretty soon you just start passing it. If you're if you're judging it rather than driving it, you might not evaluate the AI output.

[17:55] Jeremy Utley: Yeah, the the way I think about it very simply is AI is a capable teammate who's gonna thrive under your leadership. But you cannot abdicate your leadership. It's very important that you bring your voice, your discernment, your taste, your judgment to the table. That's actually what AI is multiplying. And if you don't bring that, any any multiple times zero is zero, right? So you actually you

[18:19] Kim Scott: A zero, yeah.

[18:20] Jeremy Utley: you need to bring that. That's the underlying kind of value

[18:22] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[18:23] Jeremy Utley: to be multiplied. So there, what you've got to do is when you get suboptimal output, you have to give feedback. You've got to

[18:31] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[18:33] Jeremy Utley: l make sure that not only your thinking is known or your response is known, but your reasoning is known. If you don't make

[18:41] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[18:41] Jeremy Utley: your reasoning known, then the AI is left to uh interpret or attempt to read your mind, you know. So

[18:46] Kim Scott: Yes, yes.

[18:48] Jeremy Utley: I ask for a t I mean, a simple example is. I ask for 10 ideas. I had Ed Catmill on my podcast. I asked for 10

[18:53] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[18:53] Jeremy Utley: ideas about how to title the episode. Three of them are decent, you know? I go,

[18:56] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[18:59] Jeremy Utley: ooh, I like numbers three and seven and nine. Can you give me some more like that? Well, you may not be surprised to discover I didn't get much better work, right? Because I didn't think about why, right? So then I go, hang

[19:01] Kim Scott: Mhm. Mhm. Right. Yeah.

[19:09] Jeremy Utley: on. The reason I like number three is there's alliteration, and I'm kind of a sucker for alliteration. The reason

[19:12] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah.

[19:15] Jeremy Utley: I like number six is because There's an allusion to cinema history, and I like that. The reason

[19:21] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah.

[19:22] Jeremy Utley: I like number nine is there's kind of like a little punny dad joke. Can

[19:26] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[19:27] Jeremy Utley: you leveraging those three criteria as kind

[19:29] Kim Scott: Right.

[19:30] Jeremy Utley: of constraints generate 10 more ideas? Well, then I got 10 ideas, it's tough to choose from. Yeah, but

[19:34] Kim Scott: You got much better ideas. Yeah.

[19:36] Jeremy Utley: it required me to actually be explicit about what's in my head. And I think

[19:39] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[19:41] Jeremy Utley: We're we're used to doing this with humans, or humans kind of require it in a different kind of way, right? Because if I tell you, I like number two and five, do more like that, you're like, what is it about two and five?

[19:49] Kim Scott: What? Yeah.

[19:51] Jeremy Utley: Whereas an AI, because of its its pre-training, like it its desire is to be helpful. If you say I like number two and five, do more, it it doesn't say, Why do you like two and five? It says,

[20:00] Kim Scott: Why? Yeah.

[20:02] Jeremy Utley: you bet, here's more light two and five, right? So it's incumbent upon you as the human. And this is where even basic understanding of what's happening underneath the hood, not that you have to like get a PhD in computer science, but a basic understanding of what's happening under the hood actually helps because that

[20:18] Kim Scott: Mm.

[20:19] Jeremy Utley: it enables you to be a better manager. And here's the thing that I think I find really interesting. Something like only, you know, 1% of professionals have been given an assistant, right? Very few people ever have an assistant.

[20:29] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Yes.

[20:31] Jeremy Utley: But the thing is, whenever you become a new manager and you and you get a team that's reporting to you, or most organizations recognize managing a team of people is a distinct skill set from whatever got you here. And then they give you new manager training, right? So that

[20:45] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.

[20:46] Jeremy Utley: you can be good at getting great work out of other humans. Most folks are getting an assistant now and they're not getting new manager training. You know, as it is it any wonder?

[20:54] Kim Scott: Yeah. Well I I so yeah, I might disagree with you. Most people get a team of people and they don't get new manager training. Uh they should. Yes. This world is not ideal.

[21:01] Jeremy Utley: Yeah, that you're you're right. You're they should. I mean, in an ideal world they do, yeah. But even even take as the first, this is it's it's fascinating to me. You've been given an assistant. Most

[21:12] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[21:13] Jeremy Utley: people don't know what to do with an assistant. Is it any wonder, you know, if I if

[21:15] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah, that's true. Mm-hmm.

[21:18] Jeremy Utley: I told you you get, you know, if if you're listening to this episode, you get one Harvard Business School caliber intern who's got a hundred hours a week. How will

[21:27] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[21:27] Jeremy Utley: you make best use of that person? Most people don't have they don't know how to answer that question. I don't know what I would do if I had a Harvard Business School intern who gave me a hundred hours a week. No, it's not

[21:33] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[21:38] Jeremy Utley: about paying them. It's not like I well, even if it was free, most people would struggle to make fair use of the intelligence available to them. And that's actually that's the it's like

[21:45] Kim Scott: Yes. And yeah.

[21:48] Jeremy Utley: right now, I think the biggest limitations are imagination. What do we even think to ask of a vast intelligence that would that now will do our bidding if only we can think to bid it?

[21:57] Kim Scott: Yes. And one of the other disciplines that we've been at Radical Candor trying to implement is before you feed your prompt into Claude, w that's which is what we're using, but whatever AI you're using, discuss your prompt with another human who will say, This doesn't make any sense to me, or I don't

[22:19] Jeremy Utley: Yes Yes, yes, said

[22:21] Kim Scott: understand, or I disagree with your premise.

[22:23] Jeremy Utley: Brilliant, brilliant, yes.

[22:24] Kim Scott: Because the problem that we were having is that people were sending me stuff that looked fully formed. It was t twenty pages long. And I had to read the whole twenty pages to understand that the premise it's much faster for me to read your prompt than for me to read the output. And so yeah,

[22:43] Jeremy Utley: Yes. That's brilliant. That's brilliant.

[22:47] Kim Scott: so read each other's prompts, like use your humans, use your colleagues, use the real people. To help you prompt better because AI is

[22:57] Jeremy Utley: It's almost protecting that's fascinating. Okay,

[22:59] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[23:00] Jeremy Utley: so can I tell you something that I that and I think there's a direct parallel here. We used it used to be that engineering time was a precious resource, and we would have meetings to protect the deployment of that resource. Right. So

[23:12] Kim Scott: Yes.

[23:13] Jeremy Utley: now engineering isn't actually the precious resource. And often the meeting, gathering a leadership team is

[23:18] Kim Scott: Is the precious yes.

[23:19] Jeremy Utley: the precious resource. And I think in the same way, it's kind of an analogous thing here, it you Recognizing that your prompt actually is incredibly important. Refining the prompt with a team of humans who need to be protected from twenty from twenty pages of uh you know output. It's it's gonna go in whatever direction you send it. And if you're

[23:41] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[23:41] Jeremy Utley: one degree off, you know, 20 miles, 20 pages down the road, that's a long way off from where we want to be. That's brilliant. That's really brilliant.

[23:45] Kim Scott: It's it's yeah. It's a it's well, I th I think Sherry Turkle, so she has this new book, Artificial Intimacy, and she describes I think this is where I read this, but she describes this situation where if you're gonna ask your professor to write a letter of recommendation in the before AI times, you would only ask your professor to do this because it took your your professor real time. But now professors are getting a little bit more profligate in their letters of recommendation because they can write four bullet points and AI will generate this beautiful long recommendation letter that's three pages long. And now what happens is that the four bullet points turn into three pages of text, which get sent to someone who doesn't have time to read all these recommendations. So they're using AI on the other end to distill But it's like a game of telephone, the four bullet po it wouldn't be faster if

[24:42] Jeremy Utley: Yes, yes.

[24:44] Kim Scott: the professor just sent the four bullet points. Faster and more accurate.

[24:47] Jeremy Utley: I I think that's a brilliant. I mean, and here's something underneath what you're saying, which actually perhaps may be useful just to put a fine point on for your audience. Um, the outputs of an AI are primarily a function of the inputs you give it.

[25:02] Kim Scott: Yes.

[25:03] Jeremy Utley: And so and and so the reason some people get better output out of an AI is not because they have a better model. It's because they've been more thoughtful about their input. Yeah, and I think

[25:12] Kim Scott: The inputs. Yeah. When when I I sp

[25:14] Jeremy Utley: people don't realize that.

[25:15] Kim Scott: yeah, when I spent I spent one summer at McKinsey And one of the things that we talked a lot about there is do the upfront thinking. Don't jump in and start making your slide decks. if you spend the time up front to think and talk with each other, don't start too soon. So I think that's the danger

[25:35] Jeremy Utley: Brilliant.

[25:36] Kim Scott: of AI is that it looks like it's done, but it isn't. It's garbage in, garbage out.

[25:40] Jeremy Utley: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, uh w one uh yeah, GIGO exactly is exactly right. GIGO is garbage in, garbage out. One thing I think uh a a simple assumption a lot of people make is I provided sufficient information to this AI. And they and and the human test is one way to do it, right? You walk it down the hall to a human, the human goes, what does this mean? Right? Which

[26:01] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[26:01] Jeremy Utley: is great. Another simple test, if you don't have a human available to you, but a really simple hack that's hugely valuable. Is end your prompt to an AI with the following statement. Say, I'm sure I haven't given you all the information you need to do a really good job at this. Before you start the task, would you ask me at least three questions to make sure you have enough information to do a great job?

[26:23] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[26:24] Jeremy Utley: It's very simple, but all like it when the AI thinks its job is not to do the thing, but rather

[26:29] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[26:29] Jeremy Utley: to seek the understanding required to do the thing, it's

[26:32] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[26:33] Jeremy Utley: actually spectacularly capable of seeking that understanding.

[26:36] Kim Scott: Yes.

[26:37] Jeremy Utley: Provided you give it permission to ask.

[26:39] Kim Scott: Yeah, you have to not just give it permission, you have to demand that it ask. You have to solicit feedback but from

[26:43] Jeremy Utley: Yes. Yes. Yes.

[26:46] Kim Scott: before you give your AI feedback, solicit feedback from your A which is true

[26:50] Jeremy Utley: Well said. Well said.

[26:52] Kim Scott: with people. Get it, give it, gauge it.

[26:54] Jeremy Utley: Yes.

[26:54] Kim Scott: that's where that's where your your management training, your feedback training that you got by hiring Radical Cander will help you manage your AI. you gotta make sure that that the humans are capable of evaluating the AI output. And the danger with AI is it can just drown you in slop if you if you're not very thoughtful. And I think part of the issue here is that thinking is the hardest part. Executing your thinking is the easier part. And in order to get something good out of AI, you really have to think. And it

[27:29] Jeremy Utley: That's right.

[27:29] Kim Scott: and I think it used to be that you could spend ten percent of your time thinking and and ninety percent of your time doing, and now AI's doing all the doing if you're using it correctly. but you can't think a hundred percent of your time, actually. It's

[27:43] Jeremy Utley: Well well they you know, they say writing is thinking. And

[27:46] Kim Scott: Yes.

[27:47] Jeremy Utley: insofar as now you are not writing, that doesn't like not writing is not thinking. And so you know, you know what I mean? And so then you have to if you're

[27:52] Kim Scott: Yes. That's y

[27:55] Jeremy Utley: the not the one writing, then you definitely need to be the one thinking.

[27:59] Kim Scott: Yes, yes. Well, and I would argue that you shouldn't use AI to write your first draft. You should write your own first draft. But un

[28:05] Jeremy Utley: Mm, yes. Yes, yes, yes.

[28:07] Kim Scott: unless it's some kind of garbage thing. But

[28:10] Jeremy Utley: You know, one one thing I feel like we haven't really touched on that that may be interesting is uh the feeling that some people have that they're behind.

[28:20] Kim Scott: Yes.

[28:21] Jeremy Utley: And I just wanna s just kind of normalize that for a moment and maybe destigmatize it because

[28:27] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[28:28] Jeremy Utley: that can be a very paralyzing feeling. You know, I gotta

[28:30] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[28:31] Jeremy Utley: you you'll love this, Kim. I have this e course on my website. Anyone can sign up for it. It's like a three week long boot camp. Every day you get a drill, like do this with

[28:38] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[28:39] Jeremy Utley: AI, right? Well I had and if somebody doesn't enroll, which to me is a very no-brainer, it's cheap, it's fast, it's great, all that stuff, then it'll the the system will just send them a uh a quick survey. Why didn't you enroll? Was it was it too expensive? Was the time not right? Are you not interested in AI? And I had

[28:53] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.

[28:55] Jeremy Utley: a Stanford professor who will remain nameless, but a Stanford

[28:57] Kim Scott: Uh-huh.

[28:57] Jeremy Utley: professor replied to me and said, Hi, Jeremy. They didn't just fill in the survey. They said, Um,

[29:02] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[29:03] Jeremy Utley: your survey did not include the following option. Fear of learning something new that I should effing already know. Right? And and

[29:11] Kim Scott: That is the truth, yes.

[29:13] Jeremy Utley: that and that's that that is, I think, how a lot of people feel. And it's exactly the wrong instance. If you feel that, you don't

[29:19] Kim Scott: We all feel that way. Yeah.

[29:21] Jeremy Utley: bury your head in the sand, right? You what what

[29:23] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[29:24] Jeremy Utley: what I hope to do is make it so simple to go, hey, it's perfectly normal to feel behind. Andre Karpathi, who's one of the co-founders of OpenAI, okay, this one of the best programmers in the world, he recently tweeted, I've never felt more behind as a programmer. Okay. If Andre

[29:37] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.

[29:38] Jeremy Utley: Carpathi feels that way, it's I would go so far as to say, if you don't feel behind, you're delusional. Okay. So it's it's fine to be behind. The question is,

[29:44] Kim Scott: Yes. I think that's right. Yeah.

[29:47] Jeremy Utley: what do you do when you feel behind? And if you kind of put your fingers in your ears and go, blah blah blah blah blah blah, you know, that's not good, right? So I just want to say to anybody

[29:52] Kim Scott: Yeah. It's not gonna help you.

[29:55] Jeremy Utley: who's listening who goes like, you guys are taught using these word agents and like, because even our conversation can probably be intimidating to somebody who maybe is a little bit self-conscious. And I

[30:05] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[30:05] Jeremy Utley: want to say to that person, don't just get going. Trying new ways of working. Don't be intimidated and don't feel like the ship has already passed. It it definitely

[30:16] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[30:16] Jeremy Utley: hasn't.

[30:17] Kim Scott: No, I mean, I think uh I was at a conference recently where people were talking only about AI all day long. And I can summarize, I can save you all a lot of time. The TLDR of that conference was we have no idea what's gonna happen. So get

[30:32] Jeremy Utley: Huh, yes, yeah.

[30:33] Kim Scott: in and start playing around with it. And one of the things that you that you talk about in the book is talking rather than typing. Take a walk. So

[30:40] Jeremy Utley: Yes.

[30:42] Kim Scott: And you also describe how you got your grandmother using AI. So share share share some of that.

[30:48] Jeremy Utley: My grandma's awesome. Uh well, what started, this was interesting. We were driving. She lives in Oklahoma. We're driving

[30:54] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[30:55] Jeremy Utley: together. I'm driving. She's in the passenger seat. And this is a couple years ago. And she just goes, Hey Jeremy, what's this chat thing you keep talking about on Facebook? Yeah.

[31:02] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[31:03] Jeremy Utley: And I mean, just think about how do you answer your grandma when she asks

[31:06] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[31:07] Jeremy Utley: about AI? And I just said, um, what is an emotional decision you're thinking about right now? And she

[31:13] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[31:14] Jeremy Utley: goes, I thought this was technology. I said, I know, just bear with me for a second.

[31:17] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[31:18] Jeremy Utley: She goes, Well, your grandpa and I have been wondering when it's time to move into assisted living.

[31:22] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[31:23] Jeremy Utley: I and I didn't know that. I said, Wow, thank you for sharing that. Um let's I want to show you what this chat thing is by di uh by demonstrating this conversation. And actually I'm gonna invite you in. And so it was just voiced by virtue of the constraints because I was driving. So rather than

[31:37] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[31:38] Jeremy Utley: typing, I just used my voice. But I said to uh it was Chad at the time, I think it was the only one.

[31:42] Kim Scott: And can you can you pause like how did you do it? You opened up chat and you clicked on the microphone. Just for people who

[31:45] Jeremy Utley: Yeah. Yeah.

[31:47] Kim Scott: yeah.

[31:48] Jeremy Utley: Exactly. Yeah, I opened up chat and I I hit there's actually a I don't even know if the if voice mode was even out yet, meaning now you can actually have a conversation where the AI will speak back verbally, audibly to you. At the time it was just voice input. And so

[31:58] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

[32:02] Jeremy Utley: I I think I just hit the microphone and I said, Hey,

[32:04] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[32:05] Jeremy Utley: um, my grandma just asked me how she should think about assisted living. And to be honest, I have no idea how to even approach that. Would you Please ask us a few questions about her life until you have enough context that you could make a recommendation. And

[32:19] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[32:20] Jeremy Utley: then the AI said, you know, sure, can you tell us about her? Or can you tell me about her uh current health? Does she have any health

[32:27] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[32:28] Jeremy Utley: issues? And I just handed her to my phone. I said, Granny, you talk into it. And so she

[32:31] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[32:32] Jeremy Utley: goes, I mean, you know, Papa fell down, but he plays golf. He's fine. And I don't really have it. Is this what it means? I said, Yeah, that's fine. I said, What's the next question? Chad goes, um, tell me about her relationship with her caregivers. And I

[32:44] Kim Scott: Mm.

[32:45] Jeremy Utley: said, Granny, talk, talk to it. She goes, Well, you know, we don't really have I mean, the youth group comes by sometimes, but it's because we make cookies, you know, and my

[32:51] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[32:52] Jeremy Utley: daughter, his mom, Vicky, she drives, you know, is this what it means? I go, yeah, that's

[32:55] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[32:56] Jeremy Utley: fine. We do that a few times. And then I just said to Chad, hey, based on the information you've gathered in this conversation,

[33:01] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[33:02] Jeremy Utley: how would you advise Granny to think about this question? And then I handed her to the phone because I'm driving, so I can't read the response. And she's kind of quiet there for a while. And I after a few moments of silence I said, So what do you think? And she goes, You know, I've never thought about it like this before. And I I said, Yeah, I mean we can talk to computers now And she goes, Not the computer, Jeremy. I've never thought about assisted living like this before. And that, I mean, I have chills even saying that right now because I go, and this too this is like this is stupid chat. You know, like we have smart chat now. And I I was shocked, you know, and so there's a lot we can talk about granny or we can talk about voice. I don't know where you want to go. You tell me.

[33:41] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. let's let's talk about uh let's talk about voice. Like that's an a

[33:46] Jeremy Utley: Okay.

[33:47] Kim Scott: beautiful example of how you introduced your grandmother to this technology. And she kept using it, right? For other things. She's she's now you yeah. And

[33:54] Jeremy Utley: yeah, yeah, she she's regular. Her latest her latest use case, by the way, she told me she's diabetic and she's been

[34:01] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[34:02] Jeremy Utley: reinventing some of our old family recipes to be diabetic friendly recipes, and now she's sharing

[34:06] Kim Scott: Wow.

[34:07] Jeremy Utley: them with the ladies in her neighborhood in Oklahoma. Isn't that cool? No, no, but that I mean

[34:10] Kim Scott: That's amazing. And you never would have thought of that in a million years, that y you know.

[34:14] Jeremy Utley: that's that's the thing that's so cool about this, right? Kim is like,

[34:16] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[34:17] Jeremy Utley: it's her background, it's her perspective, it's her pain point, it's her context,

[34:20] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[34:21] Jeremy Utley: you know. And the human who feels comfortable bringing their perspective and background and pain point and context,

[34:26] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[34:27] Jeremy Utley: I I often joke with people. I say the answer's yes. What's your question? You know, and

[34:30] Kim Scott: Yeah. Right. Right.

[34:33] Jeremy Utley: for most people, they don't have a good question, right? And Granny goes, hey, we're out of cream of mushroom soup for the green bean casserole. Could your chat thing help? You bet, right? Again, I never would have thought of that, right? But

[34:42] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[34:45] Jeremy Utley: it's it's really about bringing that pain point and context and background. But the thing about voice that's so cool. Is not only is it faster, you know. I mean, we speak usually at roughly 4x, the rate at which we can type, but a different part of our brains are activated when we're speaking. Like this conversation

[34:59] Kim Scott: Mm.

[35:00] Jeremy Utley: is totally different than it would have been if we were, you know, writing letters back and forth. And that unlocks, I think it's actually a hack. It's a human hack to get context. When you use your voice instead, you I call your fingers your bottlenecks. And if you

[35:13] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[35:14] Jeremy Utley: bypass the bottleneck, you start. bringing much better context to the interaction, which enables the AI to do better work.

[35:22] Kim Scott: Yeah. the fingers as bottleneck is a is a really good analogy 'cause part of the reason why writing is thinking is that it slows your thoughts down. But I think most people hate to write and so talking and that sort of back and forth and I don't have to get it right is really is really helpful as long as you push AI not to be too syncophantic, I think. Yeah.

[35:46] Jeremy Utley: Yeah. Yeah. And that I all you have to do there is specify that desire. I want

[35:50] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[35:51] Jeremy Utley: you to challenge my thinking. I want you to identify blind spots. I want you to let me know when I'm making assumptions. I never

[35:56] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[35:57] Jeremy Utley: want one response. I always want you to give three radically different ones and request me to do a choose your own adventure as to where this should go, right?

[36:03] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.

[36:04] Jeremy Utley: There are simple ways that I mean a lot of people will a very concerned mother. It's fascinating actually when I'm doing keynotes, moms

[36:11] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[36:12] Jeremy Utley: usually approach me for one of two things.

[36:14] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[36:15] Jeremy Utley: Which are which are kind of opposite but the same in some way. One

[36:18] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[36:19] Jeremy Utley: is they say, I am deriving immense value from AI and I've gotta hide in the pantry because my kids are being told at school that their mom's a cheater. What do I do? And actually I hear this a lot, Kim, from I

[36:29] Kim Scott: my gosh. Yeah. And why are your dad's not saying that to you?

[36:34] Jeremy Utley: don't know. That's a good question, but it's always I would say ninety-five percent of the time. It's happened

[36:39] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[36:39] Jeremy Utley: it's happened more than ten times and I don't think a man has ever asked me.

[36:42] Kim Scott: Wow. 'Cause they're 'cause yeah.

[36:43] Jeremy Utley: But women say, I'm getting so much value and my kids are accusing me of cheating. That's

[36:48] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[36:48] Jeremy Utley: kind of one response. And then the other is, I'm worried about my kids' kind of critical thinking. How do I make sure that, you know, this whole cognitive offloading thing? To

[36:56] Kim Scott: Mm.

[36:56] Jeremy Utley: which I reply, you tell the AI that you want the interaction to sharpen your thinking, not weaken it, right? So don't think for me. Ask me sharp questions that force me to develop my own opinion, right? This is it's an amazing capability of the AI that it's gonna do. What you ask, you just have to ask. And most people they they approach it like it's a Google search box, like, oh, I typed this thing in and I'm done. Rather than realizing, no, you can actually shape the nature of the interaction significantly. And that's again, it's mostly bounded by what you imagine to happen in the interaction.

[37:33] Kim Scott: And I think also, I mean, you talk about using AI as a thought partner. share your thoughts around that. how to do that and then one of the things I'm trying to do in this podcast is have some respectful disagreement. So I'm not sure I disagree. I'm not sure I agree. I'm not sure I'm right or wrong, but let's talk about the benefits of using AI as a thought partner and then I'll suggest a risk of using AI as a thought partner.

[37:58] Jeremy Utley: Well, I mean, I think one thing that's incredibly powerful is and it it ties to our last conversation with voice. You can go on

[38:04] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[38:05] Jeremy Utley: a walk with an AI coach, you know, and t

[38:07] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[38:08] Jeremy Utley: you know, for example, if you know your Enneagram type, you can say, Hey, I want you to be my Enneagram coach. I'm an Enneagram three, or whatever you are, right? Um,

[38:16] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[38:16] Jeremy Utley: yeah, tell me what you know about an Enneagram three, you know, pros and cons. It'll kind of give you strengths, weaknesses, et cetera.

[38:20] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[38:22] Jeremy Utley: Now I want you to ask me about my Performance at work for the last week as my Enneagram coach, knowing that I'm an Enneagram three, right?

[38:29] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[38:29] Jeremy Utley: Ask ask me three or four questions to get me to reflect and and then give me some feedback or uh areas that I could focus on next week. Um,

[38:37] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[38:38] Jeremy Utley: you can just it's it it's not unlike walking with a human coach in the park, right? You the the coach is gonna talk to you.

[38:43] Kim Scott: Yes. So so w yes. Yeah. what do you lose by talking to an AI rather than uh than a human coach? Because I mean you may and part of the answer is you may not be able to afford a human coach, which I and

[38:57] Jeremy Utley: That's where most people are.

[38:58] Kim Scott: but yes, and th one of the points that Sherry Turkle makes in her book Artificial Intimacy is the danger of using AI as a therapist, for example.

[39:10] Jeremy Utley: Yeah. Yeah.

[39:10] Kim Scott: And I think a lot of people say, well, people can't afford therapists. let's solve the problem that people can't afford therapists because I do think there are some conversations that we're better off having with another I mean, let's take the extreme example. Don't don't try to marry your AI. Like I think we can agree. That's

[39:30] Jeremy Utley: Yes.

[39:31] Kim Scott: that's an example of AI

[39:33] Jeremy Utley: Hundred percent.

[39:34] Kim Scott: having a romance with an a with an AI is a really terrible idea. D don't try to out don't try to make chat your friend. Like make real human friends for sure.

[39:47] Jeremy Utley: Yeah, yeah.

[39:48] Kim Scott: Like where is the line in your mind around that?

[39:51] Jeremy Utley: I I I am sympathetic to the fact that there are some people in difficult situations. And

[39:59] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[40:00] Jeremy Utley: I so I hesitate to judge um

[40:02] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[40:03] Jeremy Utley: because I think there are some kind of uh what what's the phrase, luxury beliefs about

[40:10] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[40:11] Jeremy Utley: you know, just just hire a real coach, for example. It's like, well, you know, that's like saying just buy a Maserati. It like feels great at the interior. It's like some people go, uh,

[40:18] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[40:19] Jeremy Utley: must be nice, right? So I'm I I I'm reluctant to to condemn. That being said, I do think you have to bear in mind this is not another being, it's not another person, it

[40:32] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[40:33] Jeremy Utley: doesn't have personhood, it doesn't have agency, it doesn't uh it doesn't care about you in any actual

[40:38] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[40:39] Jeremy Utley: or real sense. It is uh uh adept at predicting.

[40:47] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[40:47] Jeremy Utley: what the appropriate response is based on the context it's been given. And

[40:52] Kim Scott: Yes.

[40:52] Jeremy Utley: so insofar as you are in need of an appropriate response, like for example, like you hear about people who they'll write a letter and then they'll put it put it in a burn drawer because they're not sure they should ever send it.

[41:03] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yes.

[41:04] Jeremy Utley: You know, it's like that's a great I think an AI kind of venting session is actually provided that you don't like get more spun up and then all of a sudden get vindicated in your belief that you should really let this person have it, you know, which which

[41:16] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[41:17] Jeremy Utley: I guess is a conceivable outcome. That would not be good. That would not be good.

[41:17] Kim Scott: Some sometimes it it definit that definitely happens and worse. Yeah. Yeah.

[41:23] Jeremy Utley: But I I think I I would I would actually say, Kim, that just if you want a hot take, or even for the purpose of debate,

[41:29] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[41:31] Jeremy Utley: I think the greater danger is people not being human enough. Um and and what

[41:37] Kim Scott: Yes.

[41:37] Jeremy Utley: I mean by that is the the great irony of this moment is now computers can actually talk to humans, and humans are the robots. We're the ones who are hyper-robotic in our interaction. And

[41:49] Kim Scott: Yes, yeah, yeah.

[41:51] Jeremy Utley: that and our and the the kind of effectiveness and the and the quality and the possibility of our AI-powered collaborations are limited

[41:59] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[41:59] Jeremy Utley: right now by our roboticism.

[42:02] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[42:02] Jeremy Utley: And so on the spectrum from some people are are being way too human, and then on the other end, people are way too little human. I I do feel there is a danger over here that some people should be aware of.

[42:13] Kim Scott: What's what's the danger what's the danger of being too human?

[42:17] Jeremy Utley: Well, going back to what you were saying about companionship or or you know, thinking that the AI is your friend. Exactly. I I think I think there is danger over there. But I don't I

[42:22] Kim Scott: Oh, using AI in too human of a way. Okay. Uh yeah. Yes.

[42:27] Jeremy Utley: would say for the vast majority, if people are kind of in their right mind and they

[42:31] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[42:31] Jeremy Utley: have a fully developed prefrontal cortex and executive function and all of that, like provided some developmental guidelines, things like that, most people I think should move in the direction, more probably towards relatability and humanity in their interaction rather than away from. And I'm hesitant to warn people about the kind of extreme of dependency or or codependence or whatever, because I think that that unnecessarily vindicates a lot of people and anchors them on the inhuman or unhuman end of the spectrum. And that's actually holding more people back, probably.

[43:01] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. More people back. Yeah. I think that though the the danger, like for example, we built Compass that will help you prepare for a hard conversation. And after you've gone back and forth with Compass a few times, it tells you, stop talking to me and go talk to the person that you need to talk to. Because

[43:25] Jeremy Utley: Huh.

[43:27] Kim Scott: sometimes we found that people were enjoying the role play. And the problem with the role play is that you've told Compass what you think about that other person. So Compass is adopting that persona, but that may be completely incorrect it may be teaching you to say it more clearly, whereas what you should be practicing is an for an emotional response with this other person. And so we've tried to build some warnings in. Also people will type in saying, I need to I'm gonna text this person some feedback, evaluate what I'm writing. And it will say, I won't. You need to go talk to the person. Do not send this text. Uh and so

[44:08] Jeremy Utley: That's great.

[44:09] Kim Scott: so I think that an example, Russ Laraway wrote this great book, When They Win You Win, and he has uh career conversation methodology. And most people's bosses are not taking the time to have career conversations with them. And most people can't afford a career coach. But I think rather than trying to build a bot that'll do it with you, it's much better to say, why don't you go have a career conversation with a colleague, with a friend? You know, because because

[44:38] Jeremy Utley: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[44:39] Kim Scott: you don't have to have a boss or a coach. Like find a friend, find a real person to talk to. If you can't afford therapy and you're struggling with drinking, go to an AA meeting or go to a smart recovery meeting Like I think that there's a time and a place to remind people to go talk to people, right? And not

[44:58] Jeremy Utley: Yes, yeah.

[44:59] Kim Scott: and to stop talking to the AI because the AI is not a person. I had dinner with a bunch of people who are using AI and one said, oh AI is my co-founder and another person was lit like it was scary to me how they were using it. So maybe I'm sitting here in Silicon Valley and hearing about people on this nutty end of the spectrum and that's not the real problem.

[45:23] Jeremy Utley: I'll I'll give you a funny story to end if you want or you can see w what you think about this. But the speaking of spectrum, I had a friend tell me the other day, I thought I was gonna run into Starbucks today, which I think is strange because he lives in another state. And I go, Why'd you think you're gonna run into me into me at Starbucks? He goes, Well, the barista cult ha had a latte for AI and I just figured that was you know. I go, Okay, that's insulting and I go, Well what happened? He goes, Well, I got curious, like who who's gonna be AI? you know? And

[45:48] Kim Scott: Who was AI? Right.

[45:49] Jeremy Utley: he said, You know, the barista is going, I got a latte for AI, nobody. he said triple shot latte for AI. He said, This very unassuming guy almost looked like the brawny man, walks up and

[45:59] Kim Scott: Uh-huh.

[45:59] Jeremy Utley: goes, It's just Al. And to me, it's like the perfect, it's a perfect illustration of the spectrum, right? There's

[46:05] Kim Scott: That is perfect. Yes. uh

[46:09] Jeremy Utley: like people who are the breeze that's like AI is everywhere, right? And then

[46:12] Kim Scott: Yes.

[46:12] Jeremy Utley: there's just Al who's like just wishes we'd all shut up about it already, you know? Isn't that great? Perfect.

[46:16] Kim Scott: I love it. All right. You can call me Al. We'll we'll end on that one. I love it. Well, Jeremy, everyone should read your book, The Human

[46:24] Jeremy Utley: I hope so.

[46:24] Kim Scott: Advantage. And uh and and thank you for demystifying AI and and encouraging people to use it to outsource their grunt work so that they can have the real human uh relationships.

[46:37] Jeremy Utley: And the more maybe maybe the last thing we should say about that is the more experienced you are, the more you stand to gain from the collaboration. So don't

[46:43] Kim Scott: Yes, yes.

[46:45] Jeremy Utley: think this is a young person's game. Don't think this is about being digital native. If you have the hard won skills to get great work with other this weird intelligence called people, you've got

[46:56] Kim Scott: Yes.

[46:56] Jeremy Utley: the skills you need to get great work with this weird intelligence called AI.

[47:00] Kim Scott: I love it. All right. Thank you so much, Jeremy. Where can folks

[47:03] Jeremy Utley: My pleasure.

[47:03] Kim Scott: find you in addition to buying your book?

[47:06] Jeremy Utley: uh Jeremyutley.com. There's a bunch of pre-order bonuses there that I'd be happy to extend to folks who hear this conversation. And then of course LinkedIn, YouTube, all the places.

[47:15] Kim Scott: All the places. All right. Thanks so much.

[47:17] Jeremy Utley: Thank you.

Transcript lightly edited for readability. Full transcript available on request.