Ep 215, Responsible Interaction With AI

Welcome to Conflict Managed. I'm your host, Merry Brown. This week on Conflict Managed, you welcome Michelle Hamilton. Most organizations treat AI like a software install, but it is a leadership challenge first and a technology decision second.

Michelle has built and led organizations across commercial real estate the AEC sector and AI consulting the common thread is that adoption works when you put people at the center of the plan not just the tools, after three decades leading major transformations Michelle started to AI companies to close the adoption gap, that led Michelle to her current role at answer rocket an enterprise AI firm that recruited her to build a new global division focused on practical AI adoption and change management.

Michelle's stance is clear. Measurable business outcomes only happen when leadership bridges the gulf between innovation and everyday execution. Good morning, Michelle, and welcome to Conflict Managed. Good morning, Mary.

Wonderful to meet you. I'm really excited to be here. I am as well. We talk so much about AI these days, and I'm interested to hear about your whole career trajectory, where you got to where you are now, and how we will talk about AI and conflict.

But before we get to that, I would like to hear about the first job you ever had as a young person. Oh, my gosh. I love that question. As a very young person, my first job, I may have not told the truth and said I was 16 and I was 14 and I worked in a pet shop.

I had such a passion for animals, so I figured out I could just fudge my birthday. They wouldn't care. They just needed an employee and I got to work in a pet shop. What a fun, potentially fun, first job.

What was it like, because I imagine a 14-year-old, me, thinking about being with animals and then the reality of, well, caring for animals are two different things. So what was that experience like? Oh my gosh, this is, wow, you are asking me to dip way back in my memory. You know what?

Actually, I really loved it because I was so passionate about the animals and the care of them. But I was also running the register, dealing with the public. They assumed I was 16 and fully capable of all of that. And I had always had a very strong attitude of, I can be capable of anything.

Age didn't really impact that for me. And so I actually loved working with the people that came in that were also so passionate about their pets and, you know, helping them to either solve problems or, you know, just connect the dots. And it was my very earliest sort of interaction with the public on that level. Love this first story because, you know, when we think about the kind of work that we do, what we end up doing for our life, and a lot of times we think about what is my passion, what are the things that I'm interested in.

But for a young person to say, hey, I love animals and this is what I'm gonna try to do and then being immersed in that world of not just animals but then finding out, working with people and what that's like. Yeah, I mean, that's really an interesting, wonderful way to enter into the world of work. So what are some other sorts of jobs you had. Before you went through university and came on the other side?

You know, so since I was always really interested in people, I definitely leaned into roles where I was facilitating conversation, supporting people through education, through teaching. So camp counselors, you know, things like that. Ultimately, I really did focus in on education, and my first degree was in K-12 art education, and then, also stayed and got a secondary BFA in fine arts while I was there. It really then led me to a teaching career in between college and grad school.

I ended up going on to graduate school a couple of years later and. Received two different master's degrees, one in glassblowing and the other in, ceramics and ceramic engineering. So you have to wonder, how did all of that lead to me doing global AI adoption and change management? But ironically, I will tell you, it is that creative iterative process and visioning process when you are making art, but you are more importantly making art for other people and working alongside people.

It is almost verbatim what I do now. Certainly with a different system, but very similar engineering practices and connecting the dots and solving problems for people by first listening and understanding what are their goals and what are they trying to achieve. And, you know, back then it was building, you know, ceramic and glass sculptures, which I still am fortunate to do today, but doing that to solve the dots and be a part of that system. That led to me working in the architecture, engineering, and construction space because so many architects were reaching out to me and really enjoyed working alongside me.

Someone had suggested that perhaps I move into business development, marketing, and it was a very natural fit after being in the classroom I taught at the college level previously. And it was a very natural fit because it was still about helping to connect the dots and solve problems for people. And then I spent 30 years in commercial real estate working and highly focused on the built environment and some of our most beautiful buildings and infrastructure problems that our country is trying to solve.

Hmm. Oh, my goodness. That's so fascinating. I love your career story and this wedding and understanding of the importance of art, the importance of creativity.

And we pay such little attention. A lot of times we think, well, it is only for the artist and we understand art in a very narrow sort of way. But I think that in all of our educational systems, if we see that there is a creative element in everything, and obviously in mathematics, in engineering, in bio, whatever, let alone in the humanities. And then in every field, selling insurance, whatever it might be, that creative impulse helps us to think about arranging our work.

What is the next innovation? How do we serve this current population and the population to come? So I love how you put your life together in all these different sort of creative endeavors, but a through line. You know, and I really, really enjoy the way that you just broke that down because so many people throughout my life have said to me, well, I'm just not creative.

Because they assume that being creative means you have to make a functional or make an object. And creativity actually belongs to the human brain and the thing that inspires us all. And I've yet to ever meet a human that is not creative in their own way. And it is, for me, I enjoy so much meeting people and helping them to express, really what are they thinking about and dreaming about, what is their creativity.

And how are they thinking about the problem that is, you know, facing them, and then translating that previously into buildings and now into AI solutions. I love that so much. Yeah, I taught for a very long time philosophy and at a rural university. And so lots of hunters and, you know, want to talk about philosophy art.

And a lot of times people do think, well, yeah, I'm not creative. And I say, well, the way you set up your deck line, right? All of those are choices. And you're making these choices in these certain sorts of ways.

And the people who are more or less successful has a lot to do with what they see and how they put it together. And that is a creative expression. You know, creativity is not just, you know, scrapbooking or making these sorts of things, that you can't have a product that you put on Etsy. That is one way to think about it.

But the way we arrange our life, the way we arrange our, you know, oh gosh, I love our architecture. I love that you've been doing that and thinking about design and functional design and all these sorts of things to show the importance of today, right? The economy of today is so much thought work, which means we have these problems, whatever they may be, how are we going to find solutions? And that is largely through creativity.

And then we have the systems, the functions that support it. You know, and I really like that we're sort of headed this direction in this conversation because since I do spend, you know, all of my time now, working with enterprise companies around the world, helping them to solve their AI problems, they are oftentimes really surprised when I actually want to talk to their teams. Yes, I need to talk to the key stakeholders, to the leaders, but I actually want to talk to the team and I want to hear from them.

What is it that they are ideating? What are they wishing for, dreaming for? I joked the other day I was doing a presentation and I said, sometimes I feel like I get to be the AI tooth fairy because I have a team behind me of probably the most brilliant data scientists, AI architects, AI developers that have been building AI systems for, gosh, 13 years now. And whatever my clients say to me, whatever those conversations look like.

Just like with the art, I begin to visualize and picture existing AI systems that I understand as of today, but then I also get to realize that I have this team of unbelievable, brilliant minds that I can go back to and be that bridge. Once again, be the bridge, be the person that is translating what a team of human, you know, knowledge workers are doing and wanting to a people of, you know, a group of technologists and be that bridge and that translator. And more often than not, my technologists say, sure, what else do they need?

And it really does. I mean, the AI tooth fairy is a ridiculous thing to say, but, I get to be in the business of making people's dreams come true by helping them to solve very complex work problems through using AI but not replacing their people because I have a very strong belief in that, because of the creativity piece that you and I have been talking about. I really appreciate that. And one thing that I appreciate is this idea of solving real problems.

So we can solve problems, but if we're solving imagined problems, then we're not going to get the solution that we need. And so if I'm just talking to, let's say, the C-suite, obviously, we need what they see, what their vision is. But if they're not actually doing the day-to-day, then what they think needs to happen because of what they think a particular problem is may not actually get it if I don't talk to the person who's actually implementing it. What are your pain points?

What would really be helpful? In theory, this sounds helpful, but sometimes in theory, that thing causes problems, causes more headaches. It's not actually solving for what we need. I agree.

Making assumptions that you, as a C-suite leader who perhaps has thousands of employees underneath you, it's a very complicated role. But more than likely, you are not having a lot of conversations with some of those knowledge workers, not, you know, at the bottom, at the mid, at the top, on a day in and day out basis and truly understanding what does their workflow look like and how are they getting to the end point. And by implementing an AI strategy by, you know, what we have really seen over the last four years, our leaders assuming if I just bring AI to the company, everybody will use it.

It's going to work great. We're going to make all of this extra money. Yay. And they forgot to take a humanized approach first.

They forgot to actually truly understand the people that have built and served them and then begin breaking down what those individual contributors, departments are doing and solving for. And then analyzing that so that the AI systems that they are either having built for them or that they are investing in are actually very targeted to their specific needs, not just as a global Band-Aid with an assumption that it will bring the ROI because it is being proven again and again, that adoption is remaining low because there has been no training.

Other than maybe some slides from IT. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Whatever kind of change we're talking about, whether we're bringing in AI, we're bringing in whatever change, if we don't do that work up front, it's most likely not going to do what it is that we think or what we want for a variety of reasons.

Because the people it affects, they haven't, you know, the lack of buy-in, the lack of knowledge, the lack of just feeling like, hey, I'm doing this day in, day out. Why has nobody consulted me? You know, or just like something like return to work, you know, like being in person. You know, do we need to be in person?

Why do we need to be in person? Nobody has talked to me about, you know, the impact on myself or my work or my collaboration, right? And so when we have these decisions that are just handed down or the change that is handed down, the likelihood of actually achieving is very low. And the buy-in, the adoption, the sorts of problems, if we don't do the necessary work up front to solve for what we really want to achieve.

Well, you know, and you began to touch on something that I actually want to back up to is you were discussing the return to work. I actually have a theory regarding why AI adoption, why there is so much fear surrounding it. Well, first of all, people are afraid of losing their jobs, of course. But in the last six years, because we are truly just six years out of when, you know, COVID first hit, these last six years have been some of the most frightening, fast-moving six years in history.

And humans have been going through change and pandemics since the beginning of time. But this has been brought down and boiled down to such a short period of time. And now adding an AI lens on top of that, and because everyone is seeing that it changes every 24 hours, and it is coming at people faster and faster and faster, they don't know what to believe, they don't know what's true, what's a lie, and people are living in a very fear-based brain because. They don't know what to expect, and more than likely they've seen the old movies about AI destroying the world.

And so I really love to sort of share that theory, though, with some of our business owners that we work with, because I say, your people are not resisting because they don't want to be your best workers. They are resisting because they have been living in fear for six years, and now you're asking them to adopt something that they don't understand, and they don't understand why they're adopting it, and all they're more than likely thinking about, as humans that are self-sustaining and must watch out for themselves.

How is this going to impact me? How is this going to, is my job going to go away? What will happen to my children? I mean, your mind begins to really future cast.

And so there does become a disconnect unless you address that up front and you fully explain to your team, I'm investing in you, I'm investing in the work that you're doing. I don't want to replace you. I actually want you to become the best AI users for your job. But here's the piece that I just love, Mary, with all of that is if teams, the teams that I see that are the most successful, is it actually allows those knowledge workers to not only scale up and add in additional skills and continue to grow within their roles and within the organizations, but it also, because the AI is working alongside them as a thinking partner.

It allows them to actually stand up from their desk and not spend 10 hours staring at a blue screen and speak with other human beings, collaborate, talk to customers, talk to clients, go back to doing what you and I are doing, which is looking at each other in the eye, and having a human conversation as opposed to just sitting in thousands of data points and typing all day long and being lost in a screen. And I think AI does have an opportunity to allow humans to connect with each other a little bit more elegantly that way.

You said so many wonderful things. And it is a really good reminder about where we are, you know, six years out, that the world has just rapidly changed. I mean, it's changed so much in the past 100 years, but in the past 10 years, the past five years, it's just, the rate is staggering. So we have that along with lots of uncertainty, loss of trust in organizations, right, on both ends, that company loyalty, where you can have 30,000 people, you know, just dismissed or the email you can have so this lack of loyalty from the organization to the employees but then also quiet quitting and the job hopping, where does my loyalty lay it's not to the organization and so there's there's just so much going on and we know the world is changing and change is not going away but how it's implemented how we're expected to think about it.

Is this you know i learned this thing but now we're not doing it anymore now i learned this thing now we're not doing anymore? What do I take seriously? What do I not take? I mean, there's just so much going on.

And to say people are lazy, they don't want to work, they don't want to learn, is just not the right narrative to go with because it's just not true. No, I would agree with you. It is not true. But I think that people are not necessarily being supported in understanding what is there for me.

Because at the end of the day, we truly are self-preserving creatures as we have had to be since the beginning of time. So even thinking about when you are implementing, you know, an AI strategy in a company and. It's one of the reasons why sometimes I'll suggest to leaders, let's first talk to your employees about what's in it for them. How can they tie back what my team is coming in and educating them on?

How can they actually use it to improve their personal lives, their personal productivity? But now, how can we tie that back to 10 business use cases so that they see, oh, wait, I understand now. So me planning this amazing vacation for my family and thinking about the planes, the trains, the automobiles, the budget, you know, all of those things actually does tie back to a very specific, repeatable use case at work. It actually helps to shorten the gap inside the human brain in adoption because we are thinking of ourselves and we are thinking about what can I do to make my life better and.

Now, we can tie those together so much more elegantly, I think. It becomes a far more streamlined realization of how the AI strategies and workflows, that I work with teams on, why those end up making sense so much faster. That's really interesting. As you were talking, I was thinking about this discussion we've been having in our culture about work-life balance.

What is it? What is it not? And, you know, some people want to just erode. There is no, you know, we're just people and we're in different sort of circumstances.

And others want to say, no, there are these hard divides. But what I hear you saying is this sort of integration in comfort and ease. And if I learn it and use it here, I can learn it and use it there. Can you talk a little bit about that with work-life balance and how using these different sorts of systems and integrated approach?

Yeah, absolutely so. I'd be really glad to. You know, one of the ways that I recommend to friends, family, colleagues, or certainly clients that they think about from a work-life balance standpoint. Oftentimes, humans work best by ideating out loud, by moving around, moving their bodies, taking a walking meeting.

And that's not always possible, let's say, if you are a remote worker or you work in a building with, you know, 800 other people. But one of the things I really like with AI is the ability to use it in transcription mode or in voice mode so that you can step away from your desk, step outside with some fresh air. So every day, I'll take my dogs for a walk for, you know, for a half an hour. But I will tell you, Mary, during that time, I actually am using the transcription mode to work through some pretty complicated strategies.

Geez, I'm asking it to go out and do some research for me. I'm asking it to document ideas that I'm thinking about as I'm breathing fresh air, as I'm walking, as my body is moving. But another great way to do that is to even think about the utilization of voice mode. So most of the main models do have a voice mode built into them.

So, and I'm even thinking, because you do have this incredible specialty in conflict and conflict management. We all, as humans, deal with conflict, and by the way, that can be your own internal conflict with yourself or external, at work or with family. Voice mode is a really great way for you to ideate some of your thoughts and feelings out loud with a safe partner, something that can give you perspective. Now, it is helpful to explain to that voice mode ahead of time, hey, you're going to be playing the role of my husband, my colleague, my office mate, my, you know, whatever that might be.

Here is their job. Here is what they do. I recommend not using names because we really do need to keep, you know, both HIPAA and HR and PII very, very, you know, high level. And it's incredibly important.

But you don't have to necessarily use a name. It can be a speak out loud moment where the model actually is going to talk back to you. And you can say, I need you to help me think a little bit more clearly. Boy, here's my side and I'm really upset and here's what I think is going on.

You're going to play the role of this person. More often than not, if you have properly told the model ahead of time that they are playing the role of someone else, its job is going to be to say, wow, I hear you, and that does sound complicated. Have you ever thought about it from this perspective? Or I wonder if this person is thinking about this.

How have you approached this conversation with them? First of all, it allows you to speak out loud, which helps us as humans to de-escalate a little bit. We are not ruminating in our brains, pretend conversations, but we also have a thinking partner that sounds human enough to get us to begin to ideate and talk back and forth with, at least to help us step forward a little bit more as we are trying to figure out how to handle that conflict. As you're speaking i have a lot of thoughts and i think about what's best versus what's realistic and right so ai is available for just for most people who have access to the internet and not everybody has access to, a loved one or a therapist or an ombuds or whoever it might be, and i absolutely agree the more that we can say something out loud that we have to put it into words it takes you know when we articulate something we get out of that rumination and when we start putting it out there and then to have something give it back.

And so where is the place for like an AI model to do that? And then how do we, because I mean, where AI will be in 10 years versus where it is right now, right? And I think about the age that I'm at, I can use AI in a certain sort of way because I know what I'm looking for, right? I know if I ask something about, conflict and it gives me an answer that's not right.

Well, I know it's not right because of everything else that I know, right? So with advice, right, how much stock should we put in an AI model if we are, you know, and when should we, can you talk a little bit about those concerns and worries? Absolutely. And I think you are definitely touching on something that can be a dangerous point.

And I really want to call this out. AI is not a human. It is built on a prediction of what you potentially want to hear. It is based on research that it may or may not have done.

It definitely can hallucinate. So I definitely want people to understand advice that it gives you is not human advice. It is a machine predicting advice. And there is no way, shape, or form that you should take that advice, but you should use that advice to allow your own human brain to think about stepping and moving forward.

And there certainly have been instances where AI models that were misprogrammed by their originators have caused a great deal of problems with humans. Now, we can say that with just about anything. We can say that with a chat room in Facebook. We can say that with just about anything.

Honestly, it is not the AI model's fault. It is the programming behind it. And it is, as you indicated before, it is very hard to say where it's going to be in 10 years. Today's the worst it's ever going to be.

But I think you are touching on an important point. This is not a real human. But one of the things that I do teach people is the more you tell it about what you are working on. So I coach that you should always think about who, what, where, when, why, how, in an emotional context.

If you build that into your conversation, You have now informed the model much more up front what you're going to be talking about. If it is bringing you back facts and it is bringing you back, well, you know, I think you should do this. You actually, as the thinking human being, have all of the autonomy to say, prove that to me. Show me exactly where you got that from.

What scientific evidence are you basing that on? What behavior analyst are you, suggesting that you are representing here? You actually get to say, I don't believe you. Proof it to me.

You show me exactly where you got that from. But of course, you and I both know AI has been built on the entirety of the internet. And it turns out the humans that built the internet also have lied. There's a lot of truth out there, but there are a There's a lot of lies built into it.

And so you still have to be the human in the loop, the thinking partner, the one that remains clear in how you're going to use it. But your point of bringing it up from a safety standpoint, I think, is incredibly important. And understanding that there, you know, if you indeed are really truly in crisis... Or you are having a crisis at work and you need conflict management, you absolutely must bring a human into that.

Someone who is fully trained in what they do, a real human therapist, a conflict management resolutionist, whatever that role might be. Ideating and using your mind and your mouth to work through ideas is simply one thing that you can try doing and know there are caveats like anything else. I think that's just really important to think through what is this technology? What is it for?

What are its limits? And if just as hopefully we wouldn't take the AI or even just using something like Google as our doctor, right but we can most of us ask questions like hey oh you know this rash or hey what does this indicate you know to think should i do i need to go to the emergency room it gives us some some kind of, jumping off point but if we think it's telling us what to do then we have a misunderstanding of what technology is and so much i think of education today is being technologically literate in the sense of what is it what is it for what is my role what is my responsibility, does it have any responsibility, right?

What is its? Well, it is an object. And so we need to think, okay, it's an object. What is it doing?

What is it giving back to me? So what are its legitimate uses? And as you said, anything can be, you know, used against its use, right? Cars can do one thing, but if we use it for something else, it could be.

You know, and so we, you know, alcohol is one thing. And if we use it irresponsibly, and then we mix cars and alcohol together, then we have real big problems. So we think about intended use, what it's good for, and when we fool ourselves, right? And so I think a real, you know, we talk about emotional intelligence, but we probably need technological intelligence so that we understand what it's for to not sell it short, but to not oversell it and ask it to do something in the year and the month we happen to be in because we know it changes that it's not fit for doing.

Correct. I like that. That makes perfect sense. And it ends up tying back to...

If leaders of organizations are not providing exactly what you just said as an education source for their employees, it is not going to go the way that they had hoped. It's just not because they do not understand how to use the technology. Technology, even an easier way that I help explain it to people. I recently was working with a magazine editor who did a story about AI.

And so he and I were talking and he said, you know, it's a tool, but we all can use it. And I said, here's what I want you to think about. If you went to a construction site and the construction site was filled with tools, Anybody can pick up a hammer. Anybody can pick up a hammer or a screwdriver or a big piece of machinery.

And if you say to them, build a building, well, I guess they can kind of find some pieces of wood. But if you have not trained them in how to actually use the equipment, you would never trust them to build a building that you could inhabit safely, securely, that you know, the ground underneath has been properly prepared, why would you trust just handing a group of people tools and just say, build a building? And it is, in such a simplistic way, very, very similar. Yeah, that's really strong because I think, as you were talking, I was thinking just about hammers and how many times I have hurt my fingers because even not using a hammer properly or where you're supposed to hold it, and holding it down.

And yeah, that's so simple. And I think that there's this idea of like, oh, we've had computers for a very long time. You know how to use a computer, you need to know how to do this. It's the same, right?

And you know, point, click, and it's this, almost belief like oh I should be able to but then I hit this wall because I don't really understand and now it becomes complicated and we have like all these sort of roadblocks that pop up, along with when we think about generation gaps and just different gaps and experiences that I might have for my co-worker so this thing is easy for my co-worker and it's not for me what am I supposed to do about that you know there's all this stuff going on, which could be solved if we take seriously.

The the adoption piece well first of all what we're going to do so the beginning piece and then the actual execution instead of what i see is, these you know i'm going through this point click thing of how to use it which is usually put together before all of the bugs are worked out because people are taught how to use it and now they're getting feedback about the problems and then the thing changes you know it's just it's a mess when it actually comes to straightforward, narratives and not only how to do it, but the why.

Why are we doing this? You know, and I really like, Mary, that you brought up the generational gap because, you know, I'm talking to a lot of senior leaders who are in my age bracket that are saying, well, I'm bringing in all of these young people. They'll just solve it for us. They know how to use AI.

They can figure it out. Well, first of all, the AI that most of the world is used to using is only four years old. My own son, who, you know, is in the workforce now, my youngest child, was a freshman in college when it came out. And he was banned all four years from using it.

Foolishly on the university's part, but that's a whole other podcast episode. But I will tell you, relying on young people to just solve your AI problems is also not a strategy. Well, here's where I actually think it can be an amazing strategy. My son's 24-year-old brain is far more malleable than mine.

It moves faster. I mean, my brain moves really fast, but. He has, you know, quite a few years below me for his brain to move fast, fast, fast. His ability to adopt technology definitely moves faster than mine.

But I have got so much tribal and systemic knowledge built into business leadership, and how you work as a team, as an organization. How are you thinking about today, tomorrow, and into the future for an organization? Talk about a fantastic time for generations to come together. The younger generations that are coming in and being just said, here, you figure it out, you solve it.

They can't necessarily solve it because they are not coming from that lived experience. It is on my generation, your generation, to translate that lived experience and lift up that younger generation below us. But it is also on that younger generation below us who perhaps are adopting a little bit faster to not assume that the people above them, because they are not as quick at using AI. Aren't smart people.

They are the smartest people in the room. You can cross-support each other, much like in multi-generational families, where generations of people are supporting each other and lifting each other up. And I think this is an amazing time for organizations to really be thinking about, how am I bringing the population of my employees together, to bring this repository of intelligence, knowledge, and lived experiences into one room. And AI actually can end up being an incredible part of that because of its ability to document historic knowledge of a company and help to pre-educate teams that are coming in that are younger.

It's a system that I really enjoy addressing and thinking about. I love that you said that because when we think about multi-generational organizations and the potential problems, I think with technology, it can show and drive a giant wedge of just another us versus them. But really, it's what you said, it's this golden opportunity because who is going to thrive in the future? How are you going to get innovation?

How are you going to get things like belonging and people really showing up and by this supporting of one another? The technology She actually, I think, shows us in a way that hasn't been before how we really do need each other and how nobody gets to opt out. If you're older, if you opt out of technology, this is very bad. This is bad for you.

And whatever the technology is it's always going to be changing and so having that sort of, always being a learner right realizing that we always need to be doing that and so the younger generation will eventually be what we'll go through at the normal growth and development and they will be coming through and so this having a mindset that we all need to be participating in whatever is coming down not only to be profession in our own tech skills whatever that might be but in the application of it with the models and whatever we're using that we can support each other, in how we do it now.

So how we're doing it in 2026 or how we do it in 2030, constantly having those conversations so that we see, and not minimize one another, that we see, you know, you're bringing this and I'm bringing this and isn't as wonderful that we have each other so that we really are better together. Yes. And so that we actually all do have a collective voice here, which once again touches back on where I was saying, now maybe people can stand up and start talking to each other and working together as a team and talk about an amazing opportunity to talk, coach, mentor, yeah.

On both directions. And you are so right when you say you cannot use age as an excuse for technology. I'm fortunate enough that my parents are both still alive in their middle 80s and incredibly young in their minds and in their lifestyle. They love technology.

They're always asking me about, you know, AI. And it is something I've put into their hands that they have so much fun with? How do they get to use it in their 80s? How are they thinking about, you know, they both still sit on boards and volunteer in their community.

How are they giving back at a community level? Just because you're retired doesn't mean your brain is offline. Your brain is still so rich with ideas and dreams. And maybe you had a dream your whole life of something you wished you'd have known more about, talk about an amazing chance to learn more about it.

And if you are, and you mentioned being lonely earlier, there are a lot of people in this world that are incredibly lonely. The idea that you can actually talk out loud with something is not your actual human. And once again, we need to remind people, you don't take its advice. But sometimes you just need to say things out loud.

And, you know, a perfect use case that I share is I've taught my mother how to cook using the voice mode with her AI model and upload a recipe and have it read it to her one ingredient at a time. And to have her speak out loud when she gets to the next ingredient. It's laughing with her. It's talking with her.

It's saying, all right, did you get the flour put in? Did you add the butter? And she is just saying from across the room, I sure did. And it ends up, she's not just quietly in the kitchen baking something.

She's talking out loud and kind of having fun, frankly, with this AI model that's just her sous chef, and, you know, gets to do something she would have been doing anyway, but just has this little technology, which I think even for her brain gives her a little zing, like a feeling of a win. Well, look at me, you know, here I am and I'm using AI. That's so interesting. It's really lovely.

And it is stretching my own brain because I am such a personalist. I'm basically an existentialist. I love people. But I also really love technology and used in the right way at the right time.

And this is the balance. I think we want to, you know, so often we want to go one way or the other. It's all or nothing. Instead of technology is always there to serve us and we're not there to serve it.

And so really, I think being good with technology is understanding first and foremost what is true about human persons. What do we need to thrive and flourish? What is the role of other humans in our lives? And that does differ from person to person and where we are in the world and what our resources are.

But really, I think AI can help us, maybe push us to think about what does it mean to be human? What does it really mean to live a flourishing life? And what are those things that we don't need to do anymore, that we can offload, that can supplement to bring about that human flourishing? But if we just throw it away or completely embrace it full-heartedly, we're going to miss the mark of what it really means to embrace it in our workplaces and in our communities and our homes.

Well, you and I, I think we could talk a lot longer than our hour together today, Mary. You know, taking the opposite end of the spectrum and touching on what you were saying, I also have a lot of people saying, well, children and AI, that's just, it's going to ruin their education. And once again, that's a whole separate podcast episode. But I have to tell you about this amazing conversation I had with a client recently.

And I had coached her privately at some point in the last couple of years. And she was sharing with me that she and her husband and their two young boys, actually are using AI when they are taking long vacations together. And they have taught this AI that each person is going to contribute a part of the story and that the AI should be asking and pulling out questions and saying to her kids, Ooh, you know, Susie, that is a really great idea. Tell me more about that.

What do you think that the heroine was wearing? Was she riding a horse? Yeah. Asking them to dream and ideate and asking their opinions, and then even saying, wow, that sounds like that was a hard moment for the hero in the story.

Have you ever had something like that happen to you? And she said she is finding her children in the car, dreaming alongside the parents, because everybody's contributing to the story, and going one at a time, and the model's asking them, and then the model writes the full story form at the end and says, I've got it. I'm going to write this all down. You guys are all amazing.

Here's what I'm thinking. Do you want me to read you the book now? And then they're in the car and it's reading it out loud. Well, she says, first of all, that the kids feel like they got to contribute, beyond what we would have maybe thought to have asked them as we're ideating, you know, with our kids and dreaming with them.

The parents got to be silly and have fun and talk about costuming or whatever it might be in the story, but also the fact that the parents had pre-built into their AI bot, that it wanted to challenge the kids and say, hmm, has anything like that ever happened to you? How would you have handled that? So that it helps kids to begin to think about their own conflict resolution, their own emotions, things that they're struggling with. And then it turns it into a fun story at the end.

But she said, every time they get in the car now, Even if they're not going on the vacation, the kids say, can we write another story? She'll say, no, we're just going to the grocery store. That is really great. And one thing that I appreciate about me, the whole story and this idea, but, you know, so let's suppose the AI is asking questions that a critic might say, well, you should have thought to ask that.

Yeah, but I didn't. But when I hear the question being asked and I hear somebody responding, that is a kind of experience that I've had. And maybe in the future, I will now think to ask that question because I want to have that interaction. And we're a collection of all of our experiences whoever starts the experience right if we are listening and paying attention, the more so if I as I think with conflict so much of it is getting out of one of the first things is getting out of our head to get specific about what the problem is and being able to say that out loud and so, I'm all for using any tool that we can do that's going to help us to have healthier relationships with ourselves and with others, and the more we get into that habit and the practice of even thinking that I need to be doing this, maybe eventually we don't need the AI or we don't need this, that, or the other.

But, you know, let's use all the tools available that we have instead of just saying that's not an option. Like, so I grew up in the 80s and a lot of people had a thing about therapy. No, therapy means you're weak or this, that, or the other. And I'm so glad for the most part that that is an old, tired narrative.

But then people People wouldn't use it because they think, oh, if I'm a spiritually healthy person, I wouldn't need this, or if I'm a whatever, I don't need this. And so we discount a variety of different kinds of possible tools that may help us. And so sometimes we get in our own way because of fears that we have. We'll be doing together.

Right, and so I think the more we can be open. As you have said many times, being the adult in the room, being the person in the room, realizing what we are interacting with. And that's where I think it can get kind of tricky when it sounds like a person. And so, again, that depends on who we are, where we show up, how healthy we are at that particular time in our life, what the issues are.

So it isn't a one-size-fits-all. It is not. No, and it is not a one-size-fits-all. And it, at the end of the day, is a tool.

Yeah. It is a tool, just like tools have been rolling out since the beginning of time, and most tools people have resisted because they think it's going to take away the tool they were using before. It is just a tool. Now, it is a brilliant tool and it is solving some of the world's biggest problems.

And when people worry about, is it, you know, I'm afraid of it, I like to leave people with the thought that it is the bad actors behind misusing AI that are out to dupe you, steal from you, do things that humans have been doing also since the beginning of time, which is to take advantage of each other. So you must remain that intelligent human in the room, the adult, the thinker. You must always go with your gut instinct and know who you are and you own your voice, and you own your power and think that you are just learning to use a new tool so that you can continue to grow.

Love that. Absolutely. 100%. And I would say that kind of ties into how we began the conversation about creativity.

The more we develop, I don't think it's we need the left or the right brain, we need both parts working, but creativity can help us think through when somebody or something is telling us. And we can play devil's advocate. We can think, but the more we're creative, which is on us, right? And we're synthesizing, and the more we're aware that we're doing it, the more we might do it.

And ask those good, curious questions to get at what is going to be best for us or our organization, our community. I mean, I know we don't have much time left, but I want to talk a little bit more about conflict in organizations. And so let's talk about your own organization, Answer Rocket. Okay.

How do you all deal with conflict? Conflict is normal. Conflict is not the problem. It's when we don't manage conflict, we don't know how to have difficult conversations.

So when you have a conflict with a colleague, maybe your younger self versus your current self, how do you deal with conflict and how has that changed over time? So I will tell you, one of the things I really appreciate about Answer Rocket, and I'm a newer team member for them, newer leader for them. But one of the foundations of what the originators, and by the way, the founders are still very involved in the company. They have always built the foundation on the company being that every single person has a voice and they want to hear from every single person.

So if you are new to Answer Rocket, these founders that have built this, I mean, they have been building an AI company for 13 years, way before any of us have been thinking about it. They were among the first people that wanted to get on a Zoom call with me, introduce themselves, hear more about me, hear more about my family, and then hear about how we're going to be working together. It is valuing the human potential and the human collaboration. It doesn't mean that conflict doesn't still happen.

I mean, we are humans. And when my children were little and they'd say, well, so-and-so was so mean. And I said, well, you don't know what they had for breakfast, meaning you don't know what happened the moment before they got to you, what the stress was. So I always try to come to every conversation when I realize that there is conflict either happening between two of my team members, between myself.

What perhaps was informing it before this conversation ever happened? And how can I both quietly talk to that person about it, never publicly, never call out a behavior, you know, in a group that I have found to be disturbing, not disturbing, but that disturbed the conversation that was, you know, caused conflict in a conversation. Conversation but to simply say to him afterwards hey can we hop on the phone for five minutes I just want to check in with you I was detecting some frustration on your part I want to, make sure that you know you are being supported or if there is something going on that I'm not aware of, and I have yet to have a single person when I have initiated that phone call not to say, I'm so glad Thank you.

You're right. I was feeling something, but I just didn't know how to say it. And I appreciated you reading the room. And we talk through it a little bit.

If it's something where maybe I need to involve others and we need to have a sit-down, more structured conversation, great. Then that's what we do. But oftentimes, the other person just needed to be heard. And they felt like that their opinion or that their expertise or that their lived experience was being devalued.

And so simply by offering people a platform to speak, and to participate in a solution, I think, is one of the first steps that I personally take as a leader, but also that I see the other leaders in my organization doing again and again. They always listen, always start with curiosity and wanting to hear from you first and then bring in, you know, what are our next steps. That is so very strong. wrong, this idea of noticing.

Because when we think about belonging, we're all trying to figure out. Do people care about me? Do they want me here? Do they value what I have to say?

And we have off days, or we feel not listened to, or things go wrong in a meeting, and then a lot of times there isn't a check-in. And then how does harm come in? It's usually very small. It usually doesn't start with someone just shouting at a meeting and they're all up here, right?

It's usually a slow build narrative. Oh, they didn't want me to say this. They talked over me. But if somebody checks in, right, if we think about repair, repair is so much easier if it's just a little tiny tear than the whole thing is unraveled.

Yes. Yes. I completely agree because it absolutely... And it could be they just didn't sleep well last night.

And I have definitely had people say, oh, my gosh, I am so sorry. And I forget, you know, people tell me I'm spongy because I just read the room, probably to my own defect. But they'll say, oh, I forgot you're so spongy. No, not about you, not about the conversation.

I did not sleep last night. The baby was up again. And I have not had enough coffee. But I appreciate that you checked in with me.

And so sometimes it's just that. Absolutely. All right. So our time has gotten away from us.

So my last question for you is this. As you look into the future of work, what do you think needs to happen so that not only will all workers be treated with dignity and respect, but they'll be encouraged to thrive and flourish? Oh, wow. That is a big question.

I love it. But what a great way for us to end. You know, devaluing our workforce by assuming that they are just machines because they're using machines is, I think, one of the first mistakes that people make. And forgetting that it was the people that built your company and contributed to not only the voice and the brand and the strategy and success, but.

And eliminating them by thinking AI is either going to take their jobs or shouldn't take their jobs and forgetting, that leaders need to be walking among their people as listening bodies, not as telling. Curious. Understanding. Tell me more.

Hey, I heard your child graduate. Whatever that might be, I think is one of the first places that leaders can lean into a far more successful organization while the leaders themselves are under their own stress. And AI roadmapping and implementation on leaders is a very stressful process. But I want them to not forget the foundation of their people and their company and why it is there to begin with.

And go back to getting up from your own desk leader. Let AI be doing some of your knowledge work and walk or get on Zoom with groups and do some check-ins to remind people that you truly value their contribution. I love it. Well, Michelle, thank you so much.

I just really enjoyed our time together and your perspective on AI. It's great. Outstanding. Thank you.

I really appreciated it. And this was a lot of fun. Absolutely. Well, take care.

Michelle, thank you so much for a stimulating, interesting conversation. The more I talk to leaders in AI, the more I love it. I love this perspective of really, really reminding people of the human aspect. Right AI can be great but it's always there to serve us how can we implement it in a thoughtful, respectful systematic actually helpful way so Michelle thank you so much for your work Conflict Managed is produced by third-party workplace conflict restoration services and hosted by me Merry Brown you can find us online at 3pconflictrestoration.

com come back we have new episodes every Tuesday and if you would like and subscribe wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, it's greatly appreciated. And if you haven't had a chance to check out my latest book, which is called Winning the Generation Wars at Work, Making Your Age an Asset, it's available on Amazon. Our music is courtesy of Duff Pilot. And remember, conflict is normal and expected.

Let's deal with it. Until next time, take care. I get to run to you Without a. Song for you Without a song for you Run to me and run away like.