AI as a Practice, Augmentation Over Replacement, and Net New Value with Dr. Patrick Lynch

Gary Marra: Next on your Customer, your success. Dr. Patrick Lynch.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: What we need to think about with AI is it's really not software, it's not a project, it's practice. Vanity AI is just going to be AI that you're adopting to replace or replicate something you're doing. But viable AI is going to help you add new value.

Gary Marra: Welcome to your Customer, your Success, the Maris CX Hub podcast, bringing you insights from innovators who are excelling in their fields. M I'm your host, Gary Mara, and each episode we dive into the strategies and mindsets that drive customer centric success. Our guests share their journeys, revealing the secrets behind their achievements, with a special focus on creating great experiences. Whether you're a business leader, solopreneur, or simply someone striving for excellence, you'll find actionable advice to elevate your strategy, get ready to learn a lot, have some fun, and transform your path to success. Hi everyone, and welcome back to youo Customer, your Success. My guest today is Dr. Patrick Lynch. Patrick is the AI Faculty Lead at Hult International Business School, a Thinkers50 Radar 2026 honoree, and the author of how to Outsmart AI and Thrive, forthcoming from Routledge this July. His TEDx talk on AI and human creativity has surpassed 400,000 views. As an industrial organizational psychologist and former Accenture research fellow, Patrick has spent his career studying not only how AI ah. Works, but how humans and AI work together and why most organizations are getting that relationship dangerously wrong. He has trained leaders at companies including American Express, Boeing and ExxonMobil. Patrick, welcome to the show.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Hey Gary, it's so great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Gary Marra: You're quite welcome. We're thrilled to have you here. Now, AI is certainly a topic that comes up on almost every one of my episodes, but we do dedicate occasional episode to it entirely because it is so important and it's out there. But your perspective is going to be incredibly valued for the audience, I think. And we have not dove into this head first in quite a while. So here we go. You ready?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I'm, um, ready.

Gary Marra: You did a great job. I want to start from literally from the beginning. You put everything in a great historical perspective when we had an introductory call. So I was wondering if we could start there because I think that gives the right mindset for the rest of the discussion. Take us back through kind of the hit. You did a nice arc of the history of technology going way back to the Industrial Revolution and, and then bringing up to date and where we're at with AI right now. So can you do that for the audience? I think that would be incredibly helpful.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I think it's a great place to start. I mean, we can't escape this every day. I bet even some of your audience may have had an eye roll hearing more about AI, but it's so important because it's a foundational technology and we have been there before. We just sort of forget what we know. Um, back in the day, you know, before the invention of a precise measurement of time, uh, we would have to barter or, you know, figure something out. Let's see, uh, you herd sheep, uh, and I farm wheat. How much of your sheep is worth my wheat? We're going to have to bargain. But as soon as I had a precise measurement of time, I knew exactly the value that went in to whatever the widget was. That kicked off the first Industrial Revolution. The second Industrial Revolution is we started to do those things at scale. We wanted to get efficient. And so we see things like assembly lines and, uh, supply chains starting to come in. Third Industrial Revolution, well, I'll date myself a bit happened in my lifetime. Certainly the, you know, the computer and the intranet, having, uh, inventory, knowing where my employees are. That's the third Industrial Revolution. And now you can guess the fourth. I put really the Internet and certainly AI into that. We have more data now than ever before. So in every one of those waves, it was always a data innovation that, uh, kicked it off, and it's always unlocked new value and more value so that we're doing new things and different things. And I think that's the lesson we have to remember today.

Gary Marra: Yeah, and so if the Industrial Revolution and the PC and the Internet all kind of probably produce the same initial fear. Right. Uh, maybe in different. Maybe you'll tell me not. It's probably in the same proportion, um, but eventually the same adaptation and acceptance. Is anything making AI genuinely different this time, or is it really kind of meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: As the who once said, it's an excellent question. I want to get to the part that's different, but let me first, uh, kind of highlight on what was in the past. What we need to think about with AI is it's really not software, it's not a project, it's practice. And that happens when we have foundational technologies that are so pervasive and profound, they really just change the way we do everything. Think about this. What's the ROI of electricity in your business? I don't think that anybody can really pencil that out. Electricity was A foundational, uh, sort of innovation. Ah, but that innovation took about, you know, 40 years or so before we even started to see it in global productivity. And that's because everybody had the old factories and they were just replacing steam engines with motors. Finally somebody figured out, hey, look, we don't need to design based on, you know, how far that pulley needs to, uh, you know, turn, uh, something in, in the setup. We can just change the entire infrastructure. That means we don't need five story buildings with workers. We need one story building that can, you know, many, many workers. And we change the whole flow of things. And it takes a while. It's really a J curve. And I bet that's something that your audience is familiar with. It takes a while for things to sort of catch on. And often there's a dip even in productivity initially. Uh, eventually though, obviously we see that things like electricity have changed pretty much the foundation of everything. And, and that's why I think that we need to think about AI that way now to get to that part that's really different. And I think this is so important. All of the other industrial revolutions that we had were really taking aim at our physical contributions in labor. Um, you know, I'm sure that you're going to go down to Home Depot and rent a ditch digger because this back isn't doing it. So I'd much rather replace physical activities with machines. And that was really all the other prior revolutions. So it's different this time is, uh, we're now taking aim at cognitive contributions. And that's really what has been kicked off. We were free to get into a lot of white collar professions that were using our cognition, the way we think, the way we make decisions. And this is maybe one of the first technologies that takes aim at that. And I think that's what's fundamentally different between the prior and where we are right now.

Gary Marra: Interesting. So the other thing you said that I think is interesting that I want to get out there is you said that AI can be the problem when you think it's the only solution. What does that mean, given what you just said?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I am on calls, uh, almost every week now with executives or teams that are struggling with this. And we get very, very focused on the technology. I'm really shocked at how much we're talking about the AI when we're facing the biggest change management challenge with people that we've ever had in human history. Uh, so yeah, the problem is we get laser focused. We just get into our silos. There's going to Be some, you know, uh, night riding in on shining armor or, you know, that magic bullet that's going to solve the problems. And it's really just not the case. Um, A.I. is going to augment or automate different kinds of tasks and people are really concerned about the automation part. Can it do my job for me? And really, if you look at the data, it can do portions of your job probably better than you. It can certainly do more data analytics faster than I can. It's faster than I can even code it. I can just ask question and get something back if I'm doing an analysis. And I think that's true for most people in many businesses. But it's just portions of tasks. And in fact, the more routine kinds of tasks are the ones that are going to get automated first. Maybe you do have some workers that are just doing those kinds of routine things and you see the headlines all the time of those routine workers. Their jobs might be affected sooner than later. But a better question to ask is how do you augment and get new? I'm not alone. Most of the economists that are looking at this, it just doesn't pencil out if you're just going to use AI to replace workers and tasks because it's not going to solve all their jobs. The reason why you have, say, three workers and you can automate some of their stuff, maybe you get even a third. Let's be aggressive. So if I could automate a third of three workers, I almost have a full fte, a full employee that I could hire. But the truth is you had those three workers because they had specialized tasks, they had special knowledge. And it's not just so easy as automating all that out, like, uh, maybe having a better CRM, uh, that I can, you know, contact to sales leads and such that might benefit all of them a bit, but it's not going to do all of their jobs. And so this is really where, if we're just thinking that AI is going to be the solve, we've really missed the boat. And I think that's what, you know, I'm trying to help people manage, uh, this change of what net new do we do? The only way that we get out of this is adding new value and doing something that we didn't do before. And this is true even with those other foundational technologies, as I mentioned, electricity, you can't just, you know, plug it in and have the machine do something that the worker was, uh, already doing. You had to reimagine what's possible. And that is really where the secret sauce is.

Gary Marra: Yeah. No. Brilliant. And now I'm kind of joking, but not really. Uh, now, as a podcast host, I certainly use AI I put it could format a nice prep document for my guests.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Ah.

Gary Marra: A lot quicker than I can do. But I certainly hope no one thinks it can replace the podcast host or. Or specifically the guest. So this is why we're here. But, um, you know, two AI guys talking to each other might not be particularly interesting. So there. There's my quick example, but I, I think that's it. What we've talked about, this show, now this is a customer experience. Face show is really. It's there as a tool to help the m. Mainly the employees, more than. More than the clients necessarily, be more efficient in whatever they're doing and bring out that special uniqueness that you just said.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I think it's a great example, Gary. I mean, the technology has enabled you to do something you didn't do before. You're certainly adding new value. Uh, could you even imagine that you're doing this five years ago? Probably not. But the technology enables you to add net new value. We're reaching lots of people that we couldn't do as a benefit of technology. Um, I put these things into two camps. It makes it a little bit easier to think about it. Vanity AI is just going to be AI that you're adopting to replace or replicate something you're doing. But viable AI is going to help you add new value. And I think that you're a great example of adding new value to what you do and to your audience through the tools. So the tools are enabling, they're not replacing. And frankly, we've all seen the AI slop when stuff is, uh, fake. Uh, it has a very short, uh, half life. I just finished a conference with chief HR and learning and development officers on this as, uh, I call this the Alice effect. When you start to see a technology the first time, it's like, wow. Um, Gary, let me ask you a personal question. Did you make yourself into an action figure, uh, when that fad was going on?

Gary Marra: No. No.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Well, I bet many of you I've

Gary Marra: done the caricatures, I've done those.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: You know exactly what I'm talking about. We were all tempted to do that. And, um, yeah, even as a professor, it certainly was below me. Right. Well, no, I have a cadre of these, you know, images I made myself. All kinds of different things. But the thing is, if one of those hits your inbox today, it gets an eye roll because we've seen there, been there, done that. So we've habituated that that's sort of the new normal, and we have to use the tools to go beyond that. So that's the difference. Um, we just are really speeding up the expectations and how fast what we think is possible. And I think that that's a good thing. We need to think about what's net new, what's net more, what is going to be a value add. And that is what leaders should be focusing on in their company, companies today.

Gary Marra: Yep. Awesome. So that's the next question. You'll lead right into it. What a segue. Thank you. Uh, most organizations today say they're implementing things AI strategically. Right. It's like the old Seinfeld line we've talked about on the show. Do you want to have fun? Or you're just saying you want to have fun? So you've trained leaders at companies that are pretty sizable. We mentioned them in the introduction. What does the AI strategy look like on the ground that's effective? And what's the biggest mistake? Which is. That's probably the more important question. What's the biggest mistake you see companies making?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Yeah, we're hitting on some of that mistake right now is just looking at, like, a piece of software. It can't be treated like a piece of software. And I know that this is really hard for folks because we're in the hangover of the digital transformation that I bet a lot of people had heard about. You know, you've been digitally transforming for 10 years. You took a piece of, uh, a set of paper and you digitized it, and that was, you know, called a success. Um, we can't think about it this way. AI is not a piece of software, and it's going to be much more of a, you know, a lifestyle. And so that's why I say it's not a project, it's a practice. And that means as a practice, you have to prepare yourself to continue to get better. Uh, one of the things that, uh, you might know about me is I've done a lot of endurance sports, for example, and, uh, you know, about a dozen marathons, including the Boston Marathon, which I think is close to your. My heart. And, you know, when you are doing some kind of a discipline like that, no matter what it is in your life, you know that, uh, in your profession, you can always get better. There's always something new. And so this is the way I would start to think about with, with AI. And one of the biggest, uh, challenges that leaders face in implementing the strategy appropriately is just don't get caught in uh, that, that mindset of you know, this is what I was doing and it's going to be a one and done project but much more of a practice, something that I'm going to be improving on. Um, yeah, there's a lot of bits of that. I like the BCG model, Boston Consulting Group and it's not really theirs but it's in the literature and they hang on this a lot. About 70% of the improvement is going to be through your people and your processes. Um, the rest of that is going to be either through data or through some automation. So they call it the 702010 and only 10% is the math part. So the point is the majority of this has to be focused on your people. Uh, as we look into this more and more what we're finding is AI is intensifying work. I can illustrate this. In fact, back in the day at Accenture, one of the first studies I did with them was whether or not were people checking their email on the beach over the weekend. That was Head nine news because before I had a cell phone I couldn't reach you after the nine to five. Mhm. So uh, executives, employees started to do that. We all know that it's ubiquitous. What's the last thing you do at night and the first thing you look for in the morning? You're constantly being connected and you're doing more work. So now that's, that's kind of old news. But what's new now is the way AI is affecting that because very soon you may have a bot, you may have an agent, you may have some kind of a work process that are kicking off and those things are going to be pinging you really 24 7. And this is what we're finding as companies uh, are adopting AI workers are, their work is intensifying, their work is breaking down boundaries or barriers. So they're doing things that used to be somebody else's job because they're unable to do that and they're just doing more things, they're multitasking. This has been shown over and over again in the literature as we've looked at companies and maybe you see that too. You're in fact stretching yourself to do more. So we need to be mindful that this is really a change management of what you're going to be doing with people. And it's not just about a technology. If you're just putting your emphasis on the technology, your focus attention on the technology, you kind of miss the boat.

Gary Marra: Yeah. And one thing I just want to re. Emphasize there, you said something very important that we don't, we have talked about, but we don't emphasize up. It's the data aspect of it. If you're, you, the, the data has to be good because without that you're just, you know, I mean, it's proverbial garbage in, garbage out. Right? So.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Well, it's a great point, Gary, because, uh, I think that you must agree, you probably see in the news every day some company is touting the great success of AI and, and all the great stuff that it's doing for them, and yet another headline says this stuff sucks and there's no ROI and what are we doing with it? And it's really, for this exact point is there's a range of business risk or complexity that AI should be applied to and there's a range of capability in the moment that AI is capable of doing. And the success stories fit in the sweet spot where the ask met the capability. So if I, uh, if I have, you know, some kind of a tool or a process, like maybe I want to, you know, manage my salesforce leads a little bit better through my CRM, I can probably now query that data and get insights on things that folks bought from me, where they were in the relationship, who they last spoke to way faster than I used to, when I used to maybe have to have somebody code me, uh, some kind of an interface with that. Um, so that's when AI wins. That's where the capability is meeting the business risk. But if you're asking it to replace all your customer service, or if you're asking it to drive, uh, all of your financial strategy, watch out because you're probably over your skis on its keep on, on, on the business risk that you're really willing to turn over to AI and its capability, it's outmatched and we should not be applying AI there. So when you're seeing the headlines that it, you know, and they always say AI fails, which I have to laugh because the other part of that is maybe I didn't train my employees appropriately. Uh, so that's the other piece to remember. So look for a game board, if you will, of where you're going to apply AI and look for the sweet spot. You want to make sure it's within the capability and that it's within the business risk that you have to manage. And as soon as somebody is trying to, you know, sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, that it can do something that it can't you're really going to get into trouble. And you're, you're probably going to see that AI fails for all kinds of different reasons. So.

Gary Marra: Yeah, and a lot of my career was spent in financial services and investment management and asset servicing and transaction processing. And it, it would petrify me to implement it there because if you do something but you book the wrong FX or something like that and the rate moves, forget it. You have huge losses, um, coming up. So I love that you said that, that you have to think about it in the proper context and get it, uh, where it fits. Right. So what is the problem you're trying to solve? And is this the right technology to help me do it?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: And Gary, I think it's a great point. You know, maybe all of us in our home, if, uh, something breaks in the kitchen, you know, your, your partner's calling, hey, come and fix this. You grab that toolbox and you go do the best you can. But I'm looking at a job that is clearly beyond my expertise. That's when I'm going to call the plumber. I'm going to call the electrician. So it, it, it's a, it's a match of the, the job and the tools that plumber and tech. That plumber or technician may show up and use the same tools to solve the problem, but they had the expertise. And you cannot assume that the tool is going to bridge all gaps in expertise. Your expertise still matters. Your foundational expertise matters. This is called the AI wall. So in many cases, AI can augment, uh, and bridge your capabilities. It's great at brainstorming. For example, Procter and Gamble, I bet you use one of their products today. They, uh, used AI to brainstorm new product ideas. And guess what? They did great. The teams did great, individuals did great. But a financial services firm like you said, can you imagine this, Gary? They had it. People use AI to write their marketing ads. Guess how well that went? Not so good. So it doesn't bridge all technical expertise. You still need that foundation. And if you have it, you can use the same tools to do better. The same way the plumber or the electrician is going to use maybe the same tools in my toolbox better than me.

Gary Marra: Mm mhm. Very fitting analogy because right over there is my kitchen. And the dishwasher blew up last week, leaked all over the place, went down through the ceiling. So I am dealing with plumbers, electricians, contractors to dry it out. So. Awesome.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Got it. All right, we're gonna see this with AI too. We're gonna see.

Gary Marra: Oh, my gosh. It's been that. That's been my whole week, by the way, just dealing with that stuff. Okay, so, um. Oh, we're going to shift gears a little. So we mentioned your Thrive model. So walk us. You have a book coming out this summer, so walk us through that model without giving away too much, uh, but, uh, tell us about the model.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I'm happy to help folks. I hope that they get something out of this. There's six components to this model, but I'll cover them in sets of two so it's a little bit easier. Uh, Thrive is an acronym, and I'll just mention along the way, uh, where those words fit. But the concept is what's important. The first question you've got to ask naturally is what do you do and what should the AI do? So this is the T and the H in the model. The first T is transformative engagement. What do you need? What are you all about? What do you. What's your unique value? And by the way, it's probably going to be decision making. It's probably going to be empathy. It's probably going to be creativity, really. And no matter what profession you're in, and the H is high productivity, what do you want the AI to do? Because the last time I checked, you know, it can do stuff wicked fast. Um, just the same ways that, you know, submarines outswim us, planes outfly us. The AI can out, you know, automate some parts of our jobs. And we should probably do that, but it needs to be appropriate, as we've been talking about. So that's the T and the H, um, the R and the I, and thrive. Resilient adaptability. You have to commit to continuous learning. We've been saying this for a long time. You've got to decide what are the new things that you need to learn and make a commitment to m learn them. And by the way, this is the hardest thing. The data show we need to train not just our employees to have that mindset, but our executives. So it's no time for anybody to be out of school. We all have to decide what things we want to do and what do we want to do better. And that's where the eye comes in. That's imagination and creativity. The things that we're going to be able to augment are the things that make us uniquely us. And that is great news, because AI is just not as good. It's just not as intuitive as you are. Uh, especially if you're in sales or customer Service. You know that you're being strategic when you manage that just the right way. And believe me, AI should augment you doing that, not replace. And then the last two bits are value through ethics and efficient optimization. The value through ethics is really important. Hey, look, this stuff is biased. Uh, if you're in financial services or you're touching something like that, be worried. You should be. Because the onus on you to get this right and make sure the AI isn't doing something wrong is higher than ever. And if you make a hiring decision that's biased, guess who's accountable? It's not the AI, it's you. So we've got to make sure that we're doing this appropriately. And then that efficient optimization is really just a gut check. Go through the rest of those steps. Make sure that you're doing the right things the right way to add value. And I think by putting the whole Thrive model together, it's a checklist. It's a set of questions in the book that you can ask yourself. You can use it with your team. You could even do it as, uh, something for the organization to see. Uh, are you tracing that North Star? I think that's what I like a lot about the model.

Gary Marra: Brilliant. I love it. And, um, I look forward to that booking about certainly shortly. What I love there is, yeah, people are going to start blaming their hires or their mistake and blame the A.I. right. Pretty soon. Um, if they haven't started doing it already. Right. So that's going to be an interesting one for sure. Um, all right, so I want to keep going with these because you have another, um, kind of template that you use. You have something called the AI Quartet, which I want to hear about. There are four archetypes for how people relate, uh, to AI which I think is interesting because we talk a lot about on the show about disc profiles. Uh, you know, the red, yellow, green, um, and blues. Right. From, um. You're surrounded by idiots. And that whole template, because when you're relating to clients or employees, the high D. I'm not. I'm a green. I'm not a high D. The reds conflict with me sometimes. It kind of sounds similar to that a little bit. Maybe it's not, but shoot, tell me all about it.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: It very much is great. I'll lay this out for you. But I can think I can illustrate this even more quickly. Do you. Did you ever have a pet rock?

Gary Marra: No. Um, actually, yeah. I had a rock collection when I was a kid. With what?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Yeah, I knew it when I first Met you. I knew you were a rock guy like me. Um, for those of you who might not know, you know, Certainly in the 70s, it's super popular to buy a pet rock. People forked over four bucks, put a face on it, gave it a name. And, uh, we even do it with TIA pets and other kinds of things. We have a proclivity to personify pretty much anything. Have you named your car? A lot of people name their vacuums. Hazel, by the way, is one of the most popular vacuum names. And, um, we do this with ships or other kinds of infrastructure. Airplanes get names, things like that. So we just personify stuff that we use. And this is going to be happening with AI, and this is where the cortech comes in. We're going to be judging the AI, not like a software or a piece of technology, but much more like a teammate. If you've named your bots, for example, my mom calls her, uh, her guy Clark, um, which is really her chatgpt. We start to build relationships with these things for better or worse. And that's really across two dimensions. You have to look at whether the tool has a certain amount of capability. So is it good at what it does? And you have to look at its charisma. So we literally are perceiving these things as being kind of smart teammates. And much like a teammate, you start to put them into these categories. We really want to have stuff that works well. We want it to be a great partner for us. That's our champion AI. When something is working for you, you can rely on that tool. You probably have given it a name just like you would a teammate, but it doesn't always work. And, in fact, you might have some of these in the business right now. Castaway. That's when the castaway AI is like, it's garbage. It doesn't work. I don't want to touch it. We've seen these things with software, but now when the AI is more capable, it has more weight. And so we have castaways that we want to get away from. Uh, it's great if you get, uh, cogs. Those are things that are good at their tasks. So they're kind of in between. They have a little bit less charisma, but they're good on capability. But we have to watch out for charmers. And this is the last part of that quartet. The charmer has all of the fixings, as if, you know, it's that phone tree when you call the bank and it, uh, uses your name.

Gary Marra: Wow.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Uh, unfortunately, I can't get to what I need. And I hate using those phone trees. And it. Or it doesn't understand my words. So you put those four together, you get that, uh, the champion, the castaway, the cog and the charmer. And it's across those dimensions again. You have to look at, uh, not just what the AI can do, but the charisma, which is something that's really coming from me, my perception of it. And the thing is, Gary, these things can change from day to day. You know, um, if it works great on Tuesday, but fails me on Thursday, it might have gone from a champion, uh, to a castaway all in the same week. And that's what is so complex. And you know what that reminds me of my teammates, the people I'm working with today. Exactly the same way.

Gary Marra: True.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: There are some people that just, you know, they're usually they're good, but they have a bad day too. So I think we have to think about it much more like that.

Gary Marra: That's interesting. Yeah. Now, I do have agents and I do have names to them just so I know what they are. But, um, that's. That is, that is fascinating.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: So.

Gary Marra: That's right, because it, you know, I do love it, but I do have frustration with it because something simple like a format. For now, I do a silly online golf society. It's not silly. It's actually pretty popular. Um, but I do post for it and I use it. But the format, it would get it wrong all the time before I had to learn how to do the agent right and really give it the formatting. But even now I'll do show notes or something like that, and it will still not put the link in or put too many hashtags in or something like that. And it's great, but then it just kind of has a bad day or two and which, uh, I, you know, I don't understand it, but I think that's what you're describing.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Well, uh, you know, many of us have a visceral reaction when I mention one word. Microsoft Clippy, remember? So freaking annoying. Uh, it was often in our way, we wanted to try to get off the screen. And yeah, so it. The difference from, you know, a calculator to any of these things is they, uh, they trick you really into thinking that they're, um, they have these, uh, personalities. This, uh, is a very common thing. If you've ever used different tools, for example, ChatGPT to Claude, uh, to Gemini, they have a, uh, different warmth, uh, and they even use these kinds of things in the programming language. So it's not just our human, ah, proclivity to personify these things, but the manufacturers themselves, the providers are tuning their personality in different ways, and you can adjust them yourself to some extent. And so, yeah, it's a real thing. And I think that we need to understand that there's both pluses and minuses with that. Uh, the difference is that, you know, my calculator, I didn't really, um, I certainly thought it was very reliable. Maybe at best, it was a sort of a cog in this model. It's always very capable and reliable. But these tools are touching other things. And if you're touching your customers, you have a really high expectation for it to meet what, uh, you need. And that's where you get that, uh, I'm going to throw it under the bus today. It didn't. It didn't format. Right. And I'm doing rework. I hate that.

Gary Marra: Yeah, no, you got to be careful with it in front of customers, that's for sure. All right, I got a whole bunch of more questions for you. We're getting a little short on time, but I want to. I'm going to switch gears here because I wanted to get to this topic because it drives me crazy. And we were talking earlier in the show about, you know, uh, replacing people and et cetera. Um, the AI, The AI and layoffs narrative drive me crazy because you see a lot of companies out there announcing 4,000 layoffs, and they blame AI 5,000. We're not talking three or four. We're talking 5,000, 15,000. And it's almost become like this default explanation for workforce reductions. So I don't know. I don't buy it always. So what do you think is really happening out there? And, um, what's. What's the scoop, do you think?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Yeah, well, you know, it's hard to talk, of course, with platitudes, uh, and say it applies in every case, but, uh, I had a good colleague, Tom Davenport. You can look, look him up. Uh, they did some great research in Harvard Business Review just in January on this, and they looked at earnings calls over the past six months of executives doing exactly that, saying, hey, look, uh, AI is automating, uh, these things, and we're just going to let these workers go. And they basically said, that's bogus. That's not really happening. There's more lip service to AI than, in fact, um, you know, tasks being replaced by it. Now, there could be other economic reasons that it's happening. I'm not saying that Those layoffs didn't happen. But the reason of uh, sort of uh, scapegoating AI as it, um, maybe that they're trying to prop uh, up the firm because they want to be AI first. But it might be a smokescreen to really what's going on. Uh, the truth is, again, the J Curve, we are not seeing the global impact of this. And there's a phrase that I think you have to hold on to. When it bleeds, it leads. You watch the 6 o' clock news and unfortunately the tragedy is usually the thing that happens first. It's not the puppy dog tail, apple pie, blue sky story that's going to happen at the end of the news because it always grabs the headline. And unfortunately the layoffs do happen. If you dig a little deeper, there's lots of companies that are hiring. Uh, IBM is one of them. They have changed the hiring strategies. In fact, they're looking for a lot more new workers because they realize that, uh, they're going to age out and they're going to have talent problems. Deloitte, uh, is another one that has made a big commitment, uh, for hiring new, new hires with new skills. There's another, another company, I think it's PwC, that has rearranged their training centers to make sure that, uh, going from something, you know, like multiple dozens down to maybe, maybe 10 or so, because they want to make sure they're building centers of excellence, that kind of news does not hit the headline, but it's happening. It's a lot harder for a company to even announce that they're going to be hiring, you know, 10,000 versus letting go 10,000. So just take a beat. Uh, I think the history on how these innovations get adopted again, the J curve and electricity, uh, took at least 40 years. Some say it takes longer. And do you know the tech boom that we've recently all agreed we lived through in the 90s, that took about 20 years to really show up in the productivity data because again, offices were just not set up, uh, for all that silicon, all the PCs, all the databases. And we're going to see this with AI. So I'm not saying that all of that, um, job displacement isn't happening. I mean, I've got young kids, uh, they're in college right now. If you've been listening to a lot of the speeches right now in the US we have a lot of graduation ceremonies. Anytime a, uh, KeyNote speaker mentioned AI, they're getting booed off the stage. And that's because people have that fear. But I'M trying to say if we lean into this a little bit and understand there's more opportunities in front of us, there's going to be net job growth, we're just going to be doing things in new ways and I think that's what we have to lean into.

Gary Marra: Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm glad you said that actually because I forgot about that. I wrote myself a note to ask you about that. The graduation speech is uh, the people are getting booed. When they mentioned AI it was like geez, uh, wow, it's even a little much for me. So okay, uh, couple more questions. So we talked a little bit about uh, some of the bigger companies but what does this look like? Maybe. I know this is kind of a detailed question but um, for a small to mid sized business that doesn't have the budget for a chief AI officer, six figure implementation budget, what is it? What do you think it means for them?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Yeah, I still think the fundamentals are there. It's just that you're going to scale and scope and I think that's a good thing. I think there's more opportunities. I haven't met any small to medium sized business that still doesn't have things that they can't get to every day. Yeah, uh, and this is the liberating part. I would certainly look for the low hanging fruit things that are those routine tasks and look for tools and train the people to absolutely adopt that. You know Salesforce, most of us have some kind of CRM. No matter what you're using, uh, Salesforce has been out there certainly with that and there it's amazing the number of tasks that it can do better that just a few years ago wasn't possible. So if I was a small and medium sized business rather than with fear, I would look with fascination on what is it that I could ask the tool to start to do. That is certainly a time suck and if I could free that up, what, what else can I do? And I think it's a great example because in most small to medium enterprise it's unlikely that they're going to find entire uh, tasks that they uh, want. Uh, they'll have tasks go away but not people going away because there's going to be things that you want your folks to be doing. So I, I just think that it still scales. It's just that it might be even a better opportunity than an enterprise client. Uh, and here's the reason why. Those enterprise clients, the big businesses and one of the reasons why we're not seeing the ROI is Something called technology debt. Uh, in a simple way of thinking about it, you've made some investments and you're settled into a certain way of doing it in whatever your pipeline is. But you're also saddled with bad data. We mentioned this earlier, you have a lot more data to clean up. If I'm a small medium enterprise, I might have data to clean up that's bad, but I know exactly where it is because it's more manageable. That's an opportunity, folks. Lean in, get that data cleaned up. You're going to be able to free up your decision making and capacity to do even new things. Maybe there's a new product that you want to have, maybe there's a new market that you want to tap into. Maybe you just want to make your people smarter at managing the ones that they have now to get more value. So those are the opportunities that I see and they're going to happen faster and small to medium enterprise than they will with the big companies that are dealing with a lot more technology debt and a whole lot more bad data.

Gary Marra: Exactly. I just think at a big company, and I've worked in big companies, it's unbelievable to think through how you can implement it, um, correctly and succinctly and consistently just because that not only just different people, different processes, different locations, the data is in different places. I just see that as a logistical nightmare, um, and, and ripe for error. And even though you're automating, it's still, you're automating wrong. You, you could automate something incorrectly, but you're not alone.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I just, just to build on that top executive at Home Depot just said this in a, in a great interview. They said, uh, they've been looking at AI for different customer service and coding things. What they found was as they implemented it for one task, it just kicked the can over to some other part of the business. And if I'm in a small medium enterprise, I have, I have a smaller box, you know, that I need to worry about activity in, uh, enterprise, you're, you're really going to see a problem. They're hitting the same thing as they're, they're going to have to look at it more holistically. This is why I, I remind people it's a practice, it's not a product. Don't think about it as something that's surgical. Think about something that you're going to be doing more like a flywheel. And it's going to have to happen throughout the business and small medium enterprise. You have a Faster opportunity to realize that value than if you're in a big business.

Gary Marra: Brilliant. Awesome. So let's wrap up this segment. One last question. If a leader listening right now, manages a team and wants to start leading differently, what's the first thing they should do Monday morning? What's one move you want to tell them to make?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I stay curious. Passionately curious. Um, you know, if you're, if you're a leader, if you're so lucky to be in that situation, of course you're going to be cautious. You didn't get to that position without having, uh, appropriate hesitation of about that. But be curious. Be passionately curious to look into what's next new, and you might unlock value that you didn't find was there. That is a blessing. So lean into that. Stay curious.

Gary Marra: Passionately curious. Love it. Awesome. Let's hit the segments. All right, everybody, it is time for does it Hold Water? My favorite segment. This is when I asked our guest to be our resident expert witness for the day. I read them a quote, a piece of thought leadership, and they let me know if the defense case holds water or not. You ready?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Great.

Gary Marra: All right. This is going to be an interesting one because it just, it brings everything together that we just said. The quote is, when the pace of change exceeds an organization's ability to absorb it, leaders feel it first. Does the defense case hold water?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Well, uh, if you're asking me, I mean, this is, uh, passionately true for me because I see this, uh, every day. In fact, the data are backing this up. It's so funny. We've been seeing the headlines about how many workers are fearing of AI, usually because of fomo. You know, they're going to miss out or fearing up fear being obsolete. FOMO executives have anxiety about this because the pressure is on them. Maybe, maybe in an inappropriate way, like the, the amount or speed, uh, they are being asked to make gravity fall faster. And the last time I checked, you know, it's just not gonna work that way. You can't make it fall any faster. So they're feeling, uh, a lot of pressure. They're reporting a lot of anxiety. I hope that's not the case. I want to help people get some peace, um, of mind about this. And it doesn't mean that you can't take it seriously. I think you're gonna have to take it seriously. But the evidence is that the expectation pressure on them is very real and they're feeling it. So definitely I think that it holds water.

Gary Marra: That's interesting because, yeah, I agree because I Think sometimes you don't have enough sympathy, empathy for leaders who are under that pressure. And now I kid around. I've done this on the show a bunch of times. What are you doing about AI? We have to do something about AI because it's the age of AI and you better do something. What are you doing? And we've talked from a CX perspective, a client experience perspective. That's the exact wrong way to go about it. It's. What client problem are you trying to solve? What's the right technology? Well, it's the people, the process. Then the technology is the right way to go about it. But people are saying, oh, there's this AI thing, there's a fomo. What we got to do something with AI. What are you doing about it? And if you don't give me your AI thing for the next quarter. So people, it's, it weighs on them. Um, but I think it's interesting because I, I feel like sometimes though, it's the employees that will feel it first, um, because they're the ones that are going to get sent packing first.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: So, yeah, I think, I think they're, they're, you know, it's. Beer is an equal opportunity employer here, so definitely across the board. But yeah, um, if you see the executives have the pressure on them, that's very real. This has been, uh, evidenced in the literature in a lot of surveys now that they're definitely feeling the, uh, fear. But you see global surveys again, employees, Joe Schmo on the street, lots of fear with AI, but do you know that it also varies globally? In the US we're pretty high on the AI anxiety, uh, scope. But if you go to other countries, like India, uh, is one of them, uh, there's much more acceptance of this. So there's also something cultural going on. Uh, there's one more. We talk about FOMO and, uh, fobo. There's also fomu, which is fear of messing up. Uh, the executives and the employees, I think both feel that, but the executives sooner because they have probably the budget, they're getting the pressure to be IAI first. And I roll my eyes as well. I understand the flavor of the moment. And we're all just getting kind of sick of hearing this. So the pressure is definitely on those executives. But we have to remember, yeah, our employees, our teammates, they're probably feeling it as well. The funny thing is, Gary, some of them are still going on with their own tools to do things that the business can't. They're subscribing to tools on their own to make themselves look like rock stars because the business is slow. So I see the fear and the motivations on both sets, but the fear by executives, it's very real.

Gary Marra: Yeah. Interesting that. I thought that'd be an interesting one, and it sure was. Great job. Let's hit chip shots. All right, everybody, it's time for chip shots. Our shorter form questions, more personal, but still professional in nature. We try to go three for three or four. Uh, sorry. We try to go with three or four, time permitting. Try to go three for four. Can you tell it's baseball season? We trying to get both my sons to go 3 for 4 this weekend. So we'll, uh, see. All right.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: The book question.

Gary Marra: We always start with the book question. Patrick, what is one book that has significantly influenced your professional personal life, and how did it impact you?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I was wondering if I could just reach in my bookcase again.

Gary Marra: Do it. Yeah, we had somebody do that a couple episodes ago. Do it.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I think it is here. Uh, it's gotta be influenced by the great Dr. Cialdini. Um, I was at ASU, and I was a student of, uh, Cialdini, and, uh, all of the different ways that influence works, for good and for bad. The flywheel that are in our head of automatic responses, uh, the need for reciprocity, the need for comfort, and managing risk. And I think it's definitely influenced my career. Not so much that I talk a lot about those topics specifically, but what a great practitioner. Here's a guy who's not just an academic, but went out and he wore. He learned all this by being in sales, being in customer service, and seeing it firsthand, trying those techniques. And I think that, uh, I never want to forget to, uh, reach out and see how things are working with real people in real life. And I think that that's always inspired me.

Gary Marra: That's brilliant. Because that question is, how has it influenced you? And you're the first one to come up with a book on actual influence. Nice. Love it. Absolutely love it. All right, now, this one. I am dying to know this one. If you could spend the day shadowing any real current leader in any industry, who would it be, and what would you hope to learn?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Well, I got to cheat a little bit on this because certainly, uh, I know that he's passed on, but it has to be Walt Disney. Uh, one of the things in the book that I talk about is because the book is largely about how you're unlocking your own, uh, creativity and innovation. And, you know, Disney had A different set of rooms. And it's rumored whether these rooms are real or not, but they were different perspectives to take when you're kind of coming up with an idea. So you think about something about the Disneyland layout of that park. What an innovation. The hub and spoke style, the different kinds of experiences and the attention to detail that he had to bring that to life. And he didn't do that just by having a great dream, because, you know, dream without action, uh, isn't going to get you anywhere. He pressure tested that. So I really would love to be shadowing him to learn more about, you know, how he managed and certainly this creative process that, uh, he earned a PhD way before I did.

Gary Marra: Way before you did. That's an interesting one. Um, certainly, because, you know, what you mentioned before is, um, the personification and the person. Now, Disney is known for personifying animals, right? And in their shows and their movies, uh, et cetera. And I was laughing because when you said that we have, ah, a nest outside our front door in a tree. And a mourning dove has been sitting on her eggs for the better part of May, and they finally hatched. So we have, uh, labeled the mother mourning dove Gertrude. So we have personified our guests in our bush outside and take her in and we wave to her every morning. And we're checking out and we're a little worried because we hadn't seen the babies. It took a while. So, uh, there you go. So I thought that was pretty funny, but great. Uh, one that is such a fascinating story and such a wonderful, um, uh, lesson in customer experience from all that organization and the way they do things, soup to nuts. Um, and so that's a great model certainly to aspire to. All right, number three, the failure question. This is a good one. This is. It gave me so many great answers from so many great guests. Is there a particular failure. Excuse me, A failure earlier in your career that taught you a lesson you still use today?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I fail so many more times than I have succeeded. Um, um, you know, it's hard to just pick one. So thanks for asking me. Thanks for me up here, guests. You know, I grew up in retail. I was working customer service even at 16 years old. And I think, you know what, I have some particular failures where, uh, I did. I was maybe trying to help customers. You stumble over your words, you say something wrong, and, uh, they don't, uh, they left, you know, dissatisfied. I have a funny story. I'm just being really transparent. I was speaking so quickly to a set of customers a little bit of drool came, uh, out of my mouth in the middle of the sales pitch. I know this is so embarrassing. You really drugged something out of me that I didn't want to admit. But you know, it's recovering the moment, um, that I still am really, you know, proud about now I still saved the sale. We're, uh, just talking about retail sales. But you know, just don't take yourself too seriously. And you know, you, you're always sort of learning, uh, in the moment and I think that I do still lean into that and maybe that taught me to have a quick recovery. Uh, in fact, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to enjoy this episode or I hope your listeners do, but I have a hard time listening to myself on, on these podcasts. Maybe it's just me, but, um, you know, that, you know, just don't take yourself too seriously and you know, you're doing the best in the moment. I think maybe customers and your boss and everybody, you know, sees that. So that was my lesson learned, uh, from kind of an embarrassing failure.

Gary Marra: Actually. That is interesting is one of the reasons I was hesitant to do this is I didn't like the sound of my own voice and I was very self conscious about it before I started doing it. And I was going, oh God, the first couple of episodes. Um, but, and now I'm totally used to it. But, um, it is interesting and a lot of people do that. You know, my, my um, little guy, he's, he's nine now, but when he heard his, he wanted to make a video and I made a video of him playing a video game. Is that really my voice like he did? You know, because you don't really hear it and so a lot of people have that concern. All right, last one. This is gonna be a fascinating one for you. I haven't used this one in a while. What is one decision making principle that guides you when the stakes are high?

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I think this is a great question, Gary. I appreciate that you put this together. Very thought provoking. One of the things I do find myself doing, especially if, uh, in high stakes, uh, situation or you're going to be making a decision, is I try to disagree or argue with myself. We've all heard about maybe playing devil's advocate is sort of a nice way. But I have an internal dialogue to say, well, you know, just before you're going to pull the trigger, uh, have you considered all those things? And what would I do differently or what would I critique? Imagine that I make this decision what, what would I, uh, have regrets about? So maybe disagreeing with myself is something that I practice. I'll tell you as a psychologist, I've looked into this. It's not enough if you're going to be doing this, uh, with your team, to only have the devil's advocate. You should also have people that are, uh, going to talk about not just why it fails, but why it might succeed or what data are you missing or how it might affect other people. So there are some other roles that you can enlist if you're really going to do this in practice. This is different, uh, kinds of hats thinking that you can adopt. But I do find as a, as a leader myself, uh, when I ran global operations or even today with smaller decisions, you know, can I disagree with myself and what is my insight from that?

Gary Marra: That's a brilliant one. Um, I use that technique all the time. And um, even in a more fun atmosphere. Um, I design golf courses online. Right. Um, for video game. But I also do some golf videos too, just for fun. But one of the things I always tell new designers is be your own critic. So when you're reviewing and testing your course, make sure you're looking at the whole thing. What's wrong with it? Or what is somebody who's an expert designer or an expert player going to find wrong with this whole, is the green too tricky? Or things like that. But it's the same thing when you're making this is to think through and try to be your own critic to make sure you're getting to the right answer rather than, I'm great, this is going to be freaking wonderful. But I do that with client meetings. Right? Where is the client going to find holes in our presentation? Where is the problem going to come? Where are they going to, you know, if we're, we're apologizing for a mistake, where are they going to poke holes in it and what is their concern? Same kind of principle. So I love that one. Yeah.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Gary Marra: Check your love.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: That's good thinking because, uh, we get so focused on the solution, we often get down a rabbit hole. We get down our silo, uh, way of thinking. And so it's just a good check. I, I just caution, you know, you, you should also think about why you should succeed and, and, and do check, you know, how others are going to be affected by it. But uh, it's a great place to start and a good reminder.

Gary Marra: Yeah, awesome, great job, great guest. Dr. Patrick Lynch. Tell everybody where they can find you.

Dr. Patrick Lynch: I am@patrickdlynch.com and the book is available on Amazon for pre order right now. If you're listening to this, sometime in July it might pop up and that is how to outsmart AI and thrive. And I would love to be friends. Connect on the website, join the club and I have lots of free tools and resources for folks.

Gary Marra: That's awesome. Free tools. You heard it here. Get out there. Look, uh, forward to the book. Thank you again for joining us. And thank you all for watching and listening to your customer success. Again, if you're listening on audio, don't forget there's the video on YouTube. And if you're watching on YouTube, don't forget the audio is available on all major platforms. That is all for today. Thanks again for watching. Bye for now. That's a wrap. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We hope you found something insightful that will enhance your experiences and drive your success. If you enjoy the episode, please leave a review and share your thoughts to help us improve the show. Don't forget to head over to marisscxhub.com for more ways to connect with me and learn more about experience management. Until next time, I'm Gary Mara, working hard for your customer and your success.