Hey, what's up, Toby? We are to episode 34 of
the Process Debt Podcast, and we're going to
dig right into AI today. AI. What does that mean
in your world? I don't know. It means a lot of
things. But what I wanted to talk about today
is that AI has done a couple things for us in
that it is... It has enabled us to increase our
inputs. We can create content like we've never
been able to before. It's raised expectations
exponentially on what will be created. If anybody
in the workplace hasn't been asked to run it
through AI or tried to figure out Am I the only
one not using AI then? They're a little behind
the curve right now. Yep. Yes. So this expectation
to be leaning into it. Yeah. Yes. And what I
realized is this like over the last couple of
weeks is that I have a bit of AI overwhelm. Say
more about that. What's that? I mean, because
you use it as much as any of my friends do. Yeah,
I use it a lot. Where is it coming from? The
ability to create content doesn't necessarily
mean that you're more aligned. And so therefore
you have higher expectations to do more things.
And my challenge has been not necessarily knowing
what my output or my outcome should be. And so
now this thing is overwhelmed for you. Cause
I love that you use the word overwhelm. I think
that I feel that, you know, that word resonates.
Monkey on my chest kind of, you know. Yeah. It's
like, it's like a, it's like an increased pressure
to perform, but not necessarily knowing what
the rules of the game are. Yeah. So it's it's
almost like it's you know, it's it's like having
a helicopter parent that like where like the
dad was really really good at baseball, but he
was only good to like Make it to be a high school
all -star, but his goal was always to be the
college of ours All -star and so he knows all
he knows a lot and he just puts this pressure
on his kid Yeah, like I feel like that's for
me. That's fair with all these expectations but
can offer no guidance kidding they can not explain
how to go to the next step. It just can run you
through the mechanics. Yeah, it's just a lot
of, it's a lot of, it's a lot of added pressure.
And, and that, that is, it's been a little rolling.
Yeah. Are you feeling that, you know, cause we
talk a lot about process and some of the debt.
Some of this is old expectations for new ways
of doing work. How much of this sits just with
you? How much of it are you feeling in a process
context working with people upstream and downstream
of you? Are they expressing that or is it mostly
the self -imposed overwhelm that high performers
often inflict on them? That's interesting. I
think the challenge is with AI, you have people
when they receive something, they have a higher
expectation that it's going to meet their expectations.
without sharing what their expectations are.
It's interesting. Chris, let me say that back
to you. So you think that as a working team,
people's expectations have now increased because
AI is in the world, but they're not doing anything
different to communicate what it is that they
need. Correct. AI will magically translate whatever
you historically did into something I want. Yes.
That sounds very Star Trek, like Earl Grey hot.
kind of order up your magic tea, right? Yeah,
but it has done nothing to communicate how do
I land it? How do I? Well, one of the things
that I've thought about recently is that, you
know, talking about AI paradox, is that when
the internet came, it was providing information.
And so if you go back to the Guinness Book of
World Records and why they started it, it was
you know, from the Guinness company, the beer
company, the beer company wanted to stop fights.
And so they did the Guinness book of world records.
So if you wanted to know who was fast, who was
the fastest person in the world, you had the
Guinness book of world records, right? Like that's
why this thing came into play, right? Well, the
internet comes around. So now we have, we have
more knowledge. at our fingertips than we've
ever had before. Chris's world record, book of
world records and Toby's book of world records,
which now might conflict and there's no final
official. Yeah. Now we have Jenny Ai, which is
just a really good storyteller. Yeah. A very
confident storyteller too, right? Very confident.
And so the expectation of the humans doing the
work, it's for them to almost match the cognitive
bias of what's expected. And so what's interesting
is the throughputs haven't changed. Like strategy
hasn't changed or maybe it has changed. I don't
know. But like, I think the, I think Geni will
change a lot of things. It's going to, it's going
to revolutionize coding. It's going to revolution
a lot of things. But I think in larger orgs,
unless they're strategically aligned, it will
create a lot of sinews that just go out and look
for, look for solutions. Like it'll replace,
it'll replace fast, it'll replace slow thinking,
slow methodical craft, like our ability to be
craftsman. Chris, what's, what's interesting
about the, I love the word paradox that you used.
I feel like the, you and I've talked about this,
maybe even on the podcast. I did a lot of process
re -engineering on the heels of Sarbanes -Oxley
compliance work. That legislation was introduced
and as it was a result of the Enron's and MCI's
just horrible corporate malfeasance. People doing
wildly inappropriate and very modern things.
They were just, you know, 20 some years early
in their misbehavings. And so the thought was
not... It's not enough to report financial numbers.
We have to understand whether or not we trust
the underlying process. And the only way we can
trust a process is if we can verify it. Yep.
And so a lot of this work meant, you know, now
having somebody else review the task before you
finalize it. And so in the accounting world,
they called it park and post. Someone could make
a journal entry, but someone else would have
to review it and then they would post it. So
we had two sets of human eyes on it. Yep. Well,
We talked about paired programming once upon
a time, and that was this revolutionary new way
of instead of having one person code in a second
due QA, it's live collaborative QA. But again,
two humans, two sets of eyes. So now in this
world of AI, we have sometimes half of a human
paying attention and randomly throwing prompts
in, not doing that strong editorial work, which
as every writer knows is probably the most painful
part of writing. is having to go back and edit
your own stuff. But then we throw it over to
somebody else without a second review and we
treat it as fact. And so now generative AI allows
us any so much of this, you know, constructing
something that with, with limited prompts, whether
it's the gen AI other components, we're letting
the machines do a lot of this thinking or this
production. Um, but that we've removed some of
this scrutiny, some of the rigor around the throughput.
And really asking, did it create what I believe
was requested? And so to your point, it almost
feels like not only are we not hitting the expectation,
but almost we're surrendering the verify under
the belief that this system is self -verifying.
And so we just simply trust what's being produced
out of these chatbots. So it is alarming as we
think about faster code, we think about faster
social media posts and creation. And it causes
a dissonance, you know. Somebody hands it over
with confidence, but it doesn't meet any of our
expectations and it feels off. Well, and think
about like, we're already inundated with emails.
We're already inundated with tasks. We're inundated
with tools. And GEN .AI is just another input
into our already crowded brain. Yeah. It just
doesn't like that leads to burnout. It's just,
it's just the way that it works. Like there's
no way around it. Well, so Chris, let's, I think
that the burnout is the common theme that bad
process. That's how it typically manifests, right?
We're like, time out. I'm going to walk away
because it's blowing my mind. So if we put on
our process that lens, we realize this AI train
is not stopping. Oh no. And it shouldn't. And
so just like it was with the internet and all
of a sudden it's like. I don't have, I only had
three phone messages on my machine when I came
back to my physical phone and somebody says,
yes, but I sent you a 700 emails that you never
read. You also need to now learn how do we consume
what AI is generating. So what are these thoughts
about avoiding burnout and much higher inputs,
higher expectation of outputs, but our throughput,
our ability to be present to the work and really
manage it in a way that we can own it? and have
some accountability for. What are some things
that you've been kind of stirring around or sitting
with? Yeah, and we don't have time today. Maybe
we should talk about this in the next podcast.
But I just finished Calport's book on slow productivity.
And I think that this is where this thought really
came from, which is like, if you look at most
systems that are successful, they're almost always
a pull system. The work is done and then they
pull the work in, right? And unfortunately, knowledge
workers are almost exclusively pushed work upon,
right? So the boss asks for something. The, you
know, your colleague asks for something. You
have a report, like almost everything is just
added. And so with gen AI, like the challenge
is it just becomes easier to add. And there's
only, you know, there's only 24 hours in a day.
And I had a colleague once that said, You know,
how's it going? He's like, well, I'm only working
part time, only 12 hours a day. I'm like, that's
awesome. Yeah. And what a horrible, what a horrible
scenario to find yourself in. Like, oh yeah.
I know that there's days where even on the longest
day, very productive day, I'm super aware of
the 17 things that I've left unfinished. Oh yeah.
And honestly, I think the more productive I am,
the more aware I am of what's unfinished because
I've got them all organized. That's why I was
able to be so productive. I think that's what
gets lost, is if we can slow down and do the
one thing and do the one thing well, and it aligns
corporately with where you're headed, then magical
things can happen. But if it misses, or if everybody's
just doing all the things because they can do
it faster, not everything needs a sports car.
They're not out farming the fields with a Ferrari.
There's a John Deere tractor out there having
a grand old time. That's right. I love the right
tool for the job Yeah, you said something a second
ago that I want to go back to as well And it's
the one thing one thing for the day that makes
sense if you operate in the world with a single
stakeholder That you're serving on a given day.
I Think a lot of us whether you're inside of
one business serving multiple stakeholders Not
just your manager, but maybe a downstream team,
depending on the jobs you're working in, with
so many stakeholders. And I've not read this
latest Cal Newport book. So now I'm going to
have to add that to my podcast or my Audible
series. Notice I didn't say book on tape, which
is still very much the 19th, 19 hundreds of me.
So I like very specific about Audible, I guess
now. So slow productivity. What is your thought
about how you're serving multiple stakeholders?
You and I talk about this a lot, whether it's
direct manager, manager's manager, executive
over the team, upstream, downstream. How have
you synthesized that idea of getting super prioritized
around the day? I mean, Toby, I just said it.
I just told you earlier I was overwhelmed. So
I have not been doing it very well. Nice and
more uncomfortable pressure. I do think, you
can kind of wrap it up here, but I do think that
what I'm going to take away from just these thoughts
are, I have to get very clear on what the outputs
are so that I'm not wasting time on useless outputs
or useless assets. And so if my stakeholders,
be that my clients, my customers, or even my
boss or boss's bosses, If they're not interested
in seeing something that I create or I craft,
then really it's just me kind of buying into
that corporate stress that we think is responsible
and it's just chewing us up. Chris, I love that.
It also kind of speaks to the alignment piece.
What you're producing doesn't make sense to aligned
stakeholders that should have the same interests.
and desire the same outcome, then that's probably
a different conversation. Yeah, for sure. I apologize
for throwing some more overwhelmed fuel on the
fire. Let's talk about really sensitive topics
in future sessions. What else is creating stress?
Yeah, let's put the weight on that. I mean, I
think it's good because I think you get to these
points and you have to decide what you can control
and get very clear. You know, if you talk to
people like, well, I don't talk to people, but
if you read stuff like Buffett from Buffett or
Gates and they're like successful people are
focused. Right. And that yet, like when you're
oftentimes like that's a miss for me, me corporately,
right. It's like, I just, I lack that focus because
it's like, cause it can change so often. And
GNI is not making that any easier. I love that.
All right. We've finished another. We'll catch
you next week, man. The input output throughput.
All right. Talk to you later, man. See ya. Bye.