August 20, 2025 • 21 mins
Georgie Holt set herself a radical challenge: Could she completely remove herself from the operational side of her job using AI? In this conversation, Georgie shares how she used ChatGPT tools to build systems that dramatically reduced the time she spent on hiring, communications, and day-to-day decision-making.
Georgie is the co-founder and CEO of Flight Story, which she co-founded with Stephen Bartlett. It’s the media company that is home to The Diary of a CEO - the second biggest podcast in the world, with over 1 billion streams and over 11 million YouTube subscribers.
Georgie walks us through her process for identifying what to automate, how she built a custom GPT to handle interviews, and why she believes this technology can be a game-changer - especially for women in leadership.
You’ll learn:
- How Georgie saved 20–25 hours a week with AI
- The custom GPT she built to run candidate interviews
- Why she created a "writer’s room" AI model inspired by Hollywood
- How AI can help leaders double down on emotional intelligence
- The two areas Georgie now spends her reclaimed time on
This is part one of a two-part conversation that explores the future of work, leadership, and how to use AI to elevate (not erase) your humanity.
Follow Georgie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgie-holt/
Listen/watch Diary of a CEO: https://www.youtube.com/@TheDiaryOfACEO
My new book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here:
https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/
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Credits
Host: Amantha Imber
Episode Producer: Sam Blacker, The Podcast Butler
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What if you tried to make yourself completely replaceable, not fired,
not demoted, but voluntarily handing over every operational part of
your role to AI. That's exactly what Georgie Holt did
in just sixty days. She built AI tools to take
over twenty five hours of work a week, and she
(00:24):
says the experiment has changed her leadership forever. You might
not have heard of Georgie, but you will definitely know
her work. She is the co founder and CEO of
Flight Story, which she co founded with Stephen Bartlett, and
it's the media company that is home to Diary of
a Ceo, the second biggest podcast in the world with
(00:44):
over one billion streams and over eleven million YouTube subscribers.
By the end of this conversation, you'll know exactly how
Georgie got AI to replace huge portions of her role
as a CEO. We go through step by step how
she did it, including the AI tools she built herself
(01:04):
despite not being a programmer. So if you've ever wished
you could hand over the grant work without losing the
magic of what makes you you, this episode is going
to change the way you think about your job, your time,
and your role, especially if you're a leader. Welcome to
(01:28):
How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies
for optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber.
I want to start with a quote that I read
of yours, which said, I'm trying to kill myself in
sixty days and in brackets I'm going to put with AI.
(01:51):
Can I remove myself entirely from the organization and could
it run without me? Is what I'm trying to test. Georgie,
can can you tell me what the last few months
have looked like with your experimentation for yourself into AI.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It's been incredible. I mean, I'm still here, I'm still alive,
although maybe this is the robot hologram for myself, and
actually it was completely successful. It's been an extraordinary test.
I think sort of not just from ANAI an experimentation
point of view, but almost from a psychological point as well.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I think as leaders, we get.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Sucked into the operational machine. You get sucked into the scheduling,
the timelines, the projects, and some of my most inspiring
leaders have really had a strong emotional intelligence and have
really worked out the psychology of an organization. It's the
intrinsic motivations of the people within it, the intrinsic motivations
of a company itself, like it's purpose, it's vision, it's
(02:49):
north star. And I wanted to test that theory that
I could give all of the operational load to at all,
like a build gpgpts to help me scaloes out. I
could use other tools like report et cetera to enable
me to put the operational expertise into a machine. It
has been honestly revolutionary for me. I have got so
(03:10):
much time back, and I found time that greatest gift
of all things, by spending time learning new skills and
techniques to improve how I operated as a leader in more.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Of the functional things. And if I can give myself.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Back time, I believe it's one of the most important
things that I can do for the company because I
can spend more time on the people in it. And
it's now freed up a huge amount of time for
us to focus on twenty thirty. So we now have
this ambition to look at the next four years ahead.
Where will it be by twenty thirty? And I don't
think if I'd have not sort of gone on the
project to trying to kill thee myself in the operational
(03:46):
side of me, I would have had that time to
deliver this vision that we're working on right now.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
So it's been amazing. I've loved it.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Georgie.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I'd love to step through just practically the process that
you went through to kill the operational pattern. So can
you take me through, like how did you even identify
what were the tasks that you were doing that could
be delegated or outsourced or unamented to AI.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's a great question. I sat down with my EA Michelle,
who's absolutely amazing, and I said, Okay, we're going to
kill me.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
You're going to kill me.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So let's start with the basics. Let's look at our schedule.
So I think if anyone in a high impact.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Role or a leadership role, and your sort.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Of operational pain point is often your schedule, Like how
do I shot up for everybody? And I just said,
let's start the basics. Let's just look at my week,
Let's look at my schedule. I looked at my schedule,
and hiring was one of the areas that I was
spending the most time in, and I was reflecting that
quite often in the hiring process, I'm thinking about feedback.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I'm writing feedback down.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I maybe don't pay full attention because I haven't had
time to sort of be completely immersed in a candidates
experience and background. And I worked out that I would
say sometimes up to fifty percent of my schedule is
interviewing people, even whether we you have roles, don't have roles.
I'm just super curious about meeting the best talent in
the world. So I thought, I'm probably spending anything up
(05:09):
to like twenty to thirty hours a week in the
admin of interviewing. So I filt out a tool which
are called Scout, which has enabled me to, I think,
save twenty to twenty five hours a week so I
can be completely present in an interview.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So what it does.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I have given all of the context and information about
our company, all of the great hires we've made, all
of the culture and values we have, I have helped
it understand the type of characteristics and traits that I
would like to fire in a new candidate. We are
beta testing a tool at the moment called it's a
working title just Culture Test, which allows people in the
(05:48):
interview process to sort of pre interviewing have a flavor
and a taste of what it might be like to
work here, and they're given some scenarios, they're given some
scoring metrics on sort of how they think about the
world and themselves. And I think it allows them to
shut with autonomy and independence before entering into the interview process,
and it allows us to understand is this person aligned
(06:10):
to this particular role and the values and the traits
that we've expect. It doesn't mean anyone technically passes or fails.
It's an alignment process because I think it's really important
for anyone in an interview process to have the visibility
and understanding of whether I am a good fit because
I having interviewed myself or I think it can be
frustrating whether you're sort of in this sort of ambiguity
in an interview process. We've got out a tool called
(06:32):
culture Test, which allows people to have a peak under
the hood. It allows us to understand how aligned they are.
So I've let them a lot of the information about
culture Test and what kind of traits and characteristics we were.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Looking for in certain roles.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So in the pre interview stage, now.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Essentially I can feed it the candidate CV.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I can feed them, the potential culture test results, any
referrals or information we have about that candidate pre interview.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It gives me kind of an.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Overview of what that candidate strengths are, what potential some
of the watch points are, and then it gives me
four amazing questions to ask the candidate in the interview
based on the role requirements. Then any watch points that
I think it needs to be qualified, so I go
completely prepared into the interview. That takes about.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Forty five seconds.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Now, so I can go in completely prepared in forty
five seconds. I can be completely present in the interview
as well, because I'm not searching or seeking another question.
I'm trying to qualify answers. And then I have these
four questions that I know what I'm looking for and
searching for.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It means I can.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Then drop my feedback into the tool as well, and
it gives me a completely consolidated candidate overview of the interview,
my feedback, their culture test score and whether they're aligned.
And then I basically debate backwards and forwards with the
tool to say whether I actually no, I felt that
in the room they were a little bit more excitable
(07:53):
or they seemed really passionate and dedicated, so perhaps the
read of the feedback isn't correct and we end up
with a fantastic summary that we can share with the candidate.
And it allows me to almost remove any bias that
I might have as well, because sometimes it will catch
me on something be adjusting in real time or sort
of saying that you spend longer with this candidate than
the other candidate. Is that something you need to reflect
(08:16):
on what time of day it is as well. I
tend to work much better in the afternoons and later.
Stuff I've interviewed someone in the morning, it can say
you interviewed them in the morning. Was there something that
we needed to change the time on? So it's allowed
me to build a framework and reduce hours and hours
of time and show there's a human in an interview
as well, where I'm just in deep curiosity mode, not
thinking necessary about I'm going to structure every question, how
(08:39):
I'm going to make sure that the feedback is correct.
I can just read their body language. I can ensure
that I'm present and really attuned to what I think
that they might bring and what we can offer them
as a candidate. So it saved me dramatic amounts of
time every single week.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I love that example. I want to digg into how
you built that, Like is this something that anyone can build,
you know, with a tool like report, which is a
vibe coding tool for mere mortals who are not programmers.
Or is this something where you built a GPT and
chat JPT so or did you have a programmer help you?
What did that look like?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I built it in a GPT. I sat down and
mapped out the process end to end. I worked with
GPT a lot, so it has a understanding of who
I am, how I work, or you know, the kind
of leader in sort of character I am, and so
it sort of understands some of my watch points when
I'm interviewing with somebody. And then I sat down with
our data scientists. I said, look, I think I've got
(09:38):
something here, and I would like to spend some time
just qualifying whether you think I have to And we
asked the GPT to build it. So we challenged it
to build it for us, and I gave it everything
that I wanted to achieve. I spoke to it a lot,
so it wasn't just entire I kind of had a
conversation with it, explained my pain points, explained what I
wanted to create, what I think I wanted it to show,
(09:59):
what it needed to do for me, and we went
back and forth like a team, and we brainstormed with
the GPT and eventually it builds itself.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
If you think Georgie's first DAI experiment was wild, wait
until you hear what she built next. In the second half,
she opens the door to her AI writer's room, a
team of virtual creative spiring partners she calls on to
challenge her thinking and sharpen her storytelling. And the implications
for leadership are huge. So stick around because what she
(10:31):
shares next might just spark your own I could automate
that moment. If you're looking for more tips to improve
the way you work can live. I write a short
weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped
me personally. You can sign up for that at Amantha
(10:51):
dot com. That's Amantha dot com. That is amazing. I
love to hear a couple of other examples of where
AI has completely changed your workflows.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I have this deep feeling around AI that it is
one of our greatest tools. But my fear is that
it will sometimes take away the most important thing that
we have, which is our ability to summarize intellectually really
important problems and challenges.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Because I think one of the biggest skills that a leader.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Can learn over time is the ability to assimilate and
summarize information and then take that information you distribute it
into an organization, distribute it into a team, understanding how
the sales team might want to receive it, understanding how
a data science.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Team wants to receive it.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Because your job as a leader is to take a
team on a journey with you. So I took inspiration
from the great writing machines of the world, and I think,
and I looked to Hollywood, and I looked to Hollywood Studios,
and I looked at the great narrative creators in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I thought, well, what do they have. They have a
writer's room.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So quite often they will have building out narrative or
building out scripting. They will have multiple writers attacking a
challenge or a storyline from all different perspectives, and they'll
all come together to debate and discuss those different points
of view. And I thought, well, what an interesting thing
to try and build Because I don't want chat GPT
(12:24):
to write for me, but I want it to challenge
what I'm writing. So I asked it whether I thought
it could build out a writer's room for me, and
we would have different personas as each writer to anyone
from the sort of the format and the function expert,
to the disruptor, to the emotional story arc to the
person who maybe wrote for sort of more jeopardy and
(12:47):
danger like. So I basically constructed a writers I said, look,
what are the eight archetypes of a writer's room.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
That you might find in Hollywood?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
What are the great script writers?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Do you think we.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Could build out a writer's room or all of those
personas exist? And if I write something and I can
call on you, I can literally say, please bring the
writer's room to this piece of communication.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And challenge it.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
So I now have a writer's room to everything that
I create, which I think I have got to a
good enough place.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I will then put it into.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
The writer's room and they'll challenge it and say the
emotional art isn't strong enough.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Or this could be format about that.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Actually, the disrupture will come in and say, you could
create such a more compelling narrative if you put in
a little bit of jeopardy, so they don't write for me,
because I am extremely conscious and I think it's one
of our greatest challenges that we are going to lose
some of the things that make humans extremely special, and
(13:43):
that is storytelling, and that is the ability to summarize
and distill information to the world in a way.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
That is well understood.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And I think about Google Maps, It's like, when was
the last time you really remember the direction to somewhere
unless it was somewhere within sort of twenty miles of
your home.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
So I am concerned that we're.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Going to lose our way, and we're going to lose
how to remember how to do things and do things
well in the same way we just rely on Google.
That's we leave the house and we hand over the
direction of our journey to somebody else. I would hate
to think we were handing over our creativity and our
consciousness to something.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
That's really cool and sorry, just to give me an
idea of like how you've built this, Is this the
one GPAT that you've built, or have you built several
that each have a different voice that you can call,
and what does it look like in practice?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
It's a GPT called the writer's room that I'll either
I can either go into it specifically and say I've
written a piece of comms, or I want to create
a narrative memo for the business on the specific topic,
and I need to make sure that it's relevant for
a sales team, a marketing team, and a social team,
but also the data science team. This is what I've written,
(14:52):
and someone will, you know, they will take its particular
GPT and challenge that. Or if I'm writing anywhere in
my GPT any chat, I can call on it, like
I say, writer's rim, Can you kin'd just come and
check this for me? And sometimes it hallucinates and I
have to go, Okay, no, I don't think you've got
that quite way to go back out. So I am
super aware that it has sometimes it's limitations, but I
(15:14):
think it's an extraordinary ally. I think AI is an
extraordinary ally to women in the boardroom and women in leadership,
because I think there is a generalized perception, and I
say generalized, and I don't mean specifically that men bring
logic and practicality to a boardroom and extremely efficient operationally,
(15:41):
and I mean this is a very generalized perspective where
women bring high amounts of human intelligence, emotional intelligence, powers.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Of persuasion powers.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Think four dimensionally constantly being sort of playing four D chess.
We make that decision over here, what does it mean
for this team over here? How do I get that
team over here to really understand the purpose of what
we're trying to do over there when it actually it
may impact what they're doing over here in a negative ways.
So they're very good sort of thing that I'd say,
the four D image And imagine if you and where
the areas have perhapsally felt a little bit less confident,
(16:15):
you know, the logic, practicality, operating, and I mean very generalized,
you had a superpower in your immediate zone or sort
of influence that you can absolutely double down on your
superpower with complete confidence that logic, practicality and operations is
being taken care of. Imagine a world where that happens
every single day and women realize that suddenly you can
(16:36):
save time. Logic, practicality, operations can be built and used
and built elsewhere, which you can then choose to use
not to use whenever you need to. Imagine that space
that women could operate in and Suddenly leadership actually becomes
the human intelligence in the room, the emotional intelligence in
(16:57):
the room, because you're going to be able to hand
over practicality, frameworking, strategy to an extent, operations to your
copilot in AI, whatever tool that you're using, and the
board is completely different. And that excites me massively because
I think, when moving towards in the next decade, who
(17:17):
brings a human intelligence to this room, who brings the
emotional intelligence to social IQ?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Who are they?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Because they are the leaders of companies, they are the
purpose drivers, they are the mission creators. They're the people
that can galvanize a room human beings to go with
you on a complex, interesting, intellectually challenging and stimulating journey.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Imagine that.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I think it's going to look entirely different.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
In the next five years. And I am immensely excited
about that.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I love that, And it's I think a good segue
into understanding, like, you're obviously using AI to augment your work,
like with the writer's room, but you're using it to
save tens of hours probably more per week. Can you
give me an example or two where you've really consciously
used that time that you've won back to applied. You
(18:08):
know what you've just been describing.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
I use it predominantly and primarily on people. And I
would say future planning. But the idea that I can
now take process away and spend it on people instead,
that twenty minutes that you can spend with a teammate
or a team or you know, someone that you work
(18:31):
with but maybe not work alongside, is so invaluable. And
I mean, we'll get into first principles, but one of
our first principles of our companies were in person first.
I think there is no greater experience in life than
working on an audacious goal with a group of ambitious
people and achieving it and doing it together and in person.
(18:53):
And I go back to how I learned, how I
grew as a leader and as a co worker. I
had the unique experience of doing it in person for
twenty years. I learned pace, urgency, great leadership qualities and characteristics,
terrible leadership qualities and characteristics. So every minute that I
(19:17):
have saved, I spend it back with people and on
future planning, because if I'm thinking about the future and
then spending time with the people working on them now
and understanding their vision roadmap, experiences challenges.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I will only plan for.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
A better future towards the purpose that we're building for.
So it absolutely goes back to spending time on people
and planning, and it is a gift. And I have
extremely strong feelings about leaders who don't spend time with
people and teams, because it is a huge loss. When
you look at the definition of a company. I think
(19:53):
Steven speaks about at this a lot, it's a group
of people. That is what a company is. So if
you're not spending time your most precious resource and the
thing that matters most, which is the people, then you're
never going to succeed as a leader and a company
in the way that I would like to see people
do it.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
What I love most about Georgie's approach isn't just the
time that she's saved, it's what she's chosen to do
with it. She's proof that when leaders use AI intentionally,
it can clear the clutter and create space for the
most human parts of our jobs, like listening, inspiring, and
imagining the future. Now. As a special bonus this week,
(20:32):
I'm releasing a part two of my chat with Georgie
because when we spoke, I couldn't help it go extra
deep and dive into behind the scenes of working with
Stephen Bartlett and making Diary of a CEO, which is
one of my favorite podcasts. So hop back into the
podcast speed and click on part two of this interview,
where we go behind the curtains of how Diary of
(20:55):
a CEO actually gets put together and how they grew
it into one of the most downloaded podcasts on the planet.
If you like today's show, make sure you hit follow
on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.
How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of
the Warringery people, part of the cool And Nation
What if you tried to make yourself completely replaceable, not fired,
not demoted, but voluntarily handing over every operational part of
your role to AI. That's exactly what Georgie Holt did
in just sixty days. She built AI tools to take
over twenty five hours of work a week, and she
(00:24):
says the experiment has changed her leadership forever. You might
not have heard of Georgie, but you will definitely know
her work. She is the co founder and CEO of
Flight Story, which she co founded with Stephen Bartlett, and
it's the media company that is home to Diary of
a Ceo, the second biggest podcast in the world with
(00:44):
over one billion streams and over eleven million YouTube subscribers.
By the end of this conversation, you'll know exactly how
Georgie got AI to replace huge portions of her role
as a CEO. We go through step by step how
she did it, including the AI tools she built herself
(01:04):
despite not being a programmer. So if you've ever wished
you could hand over the grant work without losing the
magic of what makes you you, this episode is going
to change the way you think about your job, your time,
and your role, especially if you're a leader. Welcome to
(01:28):
How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies
for optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber.
I want to start with a quote that I read
of yours, which said, I'm trying to kill myself in
sixty days and in brackets I'm going to put with AI.
(01:51):
Can I remove myself entirely from the organization and could
it run without me? Is what I'm trying to test. Georgie,
can can you tell me what the last few months
have looked like with your experimentation for yourself into AI.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It's been incredible. I mean, I'm still here, I'm still alive,
although maybe this is the robot hologram for myself, and
actually it was completely successful. It's been an extraordinary test.
I think sort of not just from ANAI an experimentation
point of view, but almost from a psychological point as well.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I think as leaders, we get.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Sucked into the operational machine. You get sucked into the scheduling,
the timelines, the projects, and some of my most inspiring
leaders have really had a strong emotional intelligence and have
really worked out the psychology of an organization. It's the
intrinsic motivations of the people within it, the intrinsic motivations
of a company itself, like it's purpose, it's vision, it's
(02:49):
north star. And I wanted to test that theory that
I could give all of the operational load to at all,
like a build gpgpts to help me scaloes out. I
could use other tools like report et cetera to enable
me to put the operational expertise into a machine. It
has been honestly revolutionary for me. I have got so
(03:10):
much time back, and I found time that greatest gift
of all things, by spending time learning new skills and
techniques to improve how I operated as a leader in more.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Of the functional things. And if I can give myself.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Back time, I believe it's one of the most important
things that I can do for the company because I
can spend more time on the people in it. And
it's now freed up a huge amount of time for
us to focus on twenty thirty. So we now have
this ambition to look at the next four years ahead.
Where will it be by twenty thirty? And I don't
think if I'd have not sort of gone on the
project to trying to kill thee myself in the operational
(03:46):
side of me, I would have had that time to
deliver this vision that we're working on right now.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
So it's been amazing. I've loved it.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Georgie.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I'd love to step through just practically the process that
you went through to kill the operational pattern. So can
you take me through, like how did you even identify
what were the tasks that you were doing that could
be delegated or outsourced or unamented to AI.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's a great question. I sat down with my EA Michelle,
who's absolutely amazing, and I said, Okay, we're going to
kill me.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
You're going to kill me.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So let's start with the basics. Let's look at our schedule.
So I think if anyone in a high impact.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Role or a leadership role, and your sort.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Of operational pain point is often your schedule, Like how
do I shot up for everybody? And I just said,
let's start the basics. Let's just look at my week,
Let's look at my schedule. I looked at my schedule,
and hiring was one of the areas that I was
spending the most time in, and I was reflecting that
quite often in the hiring process, I'm thinking about feedback.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I'm writing feedback down.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I maybe don't pay full attention because I haven't had
time to sort of be completely immersed in a candidates
experience and background. And I worked out that I would
say sometimes up to fifty percent of my schedule is
interviewing people, even whether we you have roles, don't have roles.
I'm just super curious about meeting the best talent in
the world. So I thought, I'm probably spending anything up
(05:09):
to like twenty to thirty hours a week in the
admin of interviewing. So I filt out a tool which
are called Scout, which has enabled me to, I think,
save twenty to twenty five hours a week so I
can be completely present in an interview.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So what it does.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I have given all of the context and information about
our company, all of the great hires we've made, all
of the culture and values we have, I have helped
it understand the type of characteristics and traits that I
would like to fire in a new candidate. We are
beta testing a tool at the moment called it's a
working title just Culture Test, which allows people in the
(05:48):
interview process to sort of pre interviewing have a flavor
and a taste of what it might be like to
work here, and they're given some scenarios, they're given some
scoring metrics on sort of how they think about the
world and themselves. And I think it allows them to
shut with autonomy and independence before entering into the interview process,
and it allows us to understand is this person aligned
(06:10):
to this particular role and the values and the traits
that we've expect. It doesn't mean anyone technically passes or fails.
It's an alignment process because I think it's really important
for anyone in an interview process to have the visibility
and understanding of whether I am a good fit because
I having interviewed myself or I think it can be
frustrating whether you're sort of in this sort of ambiguity
in an interview process. We've got out a tool called
(06:32):
culture Test, which allows people to have a peak under
the hood. It allows us to understand how aligned they are.
So I've let them a lot of the information about
culture Test and what kind of traits and characteristics we were.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Looking for in certain roles.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So in the pre interview stage, now.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Essentially I can feed it the candidate CV.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I can feed them, the potential culture test results, any
referrals or information we have about that candidate pre interview.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It gives me kind of an.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Overview of what that candidate strengths are, what potential some
of the watch points are, and then it gives me
four amazing questions to ask the candidate in the interview
based on the role requirements. Then any watch points that
I think it needs to be qualified, so I go
completely prepared into the interview. That takes about.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Forty five seconds.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Now, so I can go in completely prepared in forty
five seconds. I can be completely present in the interview
as well, because I'm not searching or seeking another question.
I'm trying to qualify answers. And then I have these
four questions that I know what I'm looking for and
searching for.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It means I can.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Then drop my feedback into the tool as well, and
it gives me a completely consolidated candidate overview of the interview,
my feedback, their culture test score and whether they're aligned.
And then I basically debate backwards and forwards with the
tool to say whether I actually no, I felt that
in the room they were a little bit more excitable
(07:53):
or they seemed really passionate and dedicated, so perhaps the
read of the feedback isn't correct and we end up
with a fantastic summary that we can share with the candidate.
And it allows me to almost remove any bias that
I might have as well, because sometimes it will catch
me on something be adjusting in real time or sort
of saying that you spend longer with this candidate than
the other candidate. Is that something you need to reflect
(08:16):
on what time of day it is as well. I
tend to work much better in the afternoons and later.
Stuff I've interviewed someone in the morning, it can say
you interviewed them in the morning. Was there something that
we needed to change the time on? So it's allowed
me to build a framework and reduce hours and hours
of time and show there's a human in an interview
as well, where I'm just in deep curiosity mode, not
thinking necessary about I'm going to structure every question, how
(08:39):
I'm going to make sure that the feedback is correct.
I can just read their body language. I can ensure
that I'm present and really attuned to what I think
that they might bring and what we can offer them
as a candidate. So it saved me dramatic amounts of
time every single week.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I love that example. I want to digg into how
you built that, Like is this something that anyone can build,
you know, with a tool like report, which is a
vibe coding tool for mere mortals who are not programmers.
Or is this something where you built a GPT and
chat JPT so or did you have a programmer help you?
What did that look like?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I built it in a GPT. I sat down and
mapped out the process end to end. I worked with
GPT a lot, so it has a understanding of who
I am, how I work, or you know, the kind
of leader in sort of character I am, and so
it sort of understands some of my watch points when
I'm interviewing with somebody. And then I sat down with
our data scientists. I said, look, I think I've got
(09:38):
something here, and I would like to spend some time
just qualifying whether you think I have to And we
asked the GPT to build it. So we challenged it
to build it for us, and I gave it everything
that I wanted to achieve. I spoke to it a lot,
so it wasn't just entire I kind of had a
conversation with it, explained my pain points, explained what I
wanted to create, what I think I wanted it to show,
(09:59):
what it needed to do for me, and we went
back and forth like a team, and we brainstormed with
the GPT and eventually it builds itself.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
If you think Georgie's first DAI experiment was wild, wait
until you hear what she built next. In the second half,
she opens the door to her AI writer's room, a
team of virtual creative spiring partners she calls on to
challenge her thinking and sharpen her storytelling. And the implications
for leadership are huge. So stick around because what she
(10:31):
shares next might just spark your own I could automate
that moment. If you're looking for more tips to improve
the way you work can live. I write a short
weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped
me personally. You can sign up for that at Amantha
(10:51):
dot com. That's Amantha dot com. That is amazing. I
love to hear a couple of other examples of where
AI has completely changed your workflows.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I have this deep feeling around AI that it is
one of our greatest tools. But my fear is that
it will sometimes take away the most important thing that
we have, which is our ability to summarize intellectually really
important problems and challenges.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Because I think one of the biggest skills that a leader.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Can learn over time is the ability to assimilate and
summarize information and then take that information you distribute it
into an organization, distribute it into a team, understanding how
the sales team might want to receive it, understanding how
a data science.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Team wants to receive it.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Because your job as a leader is to take a
team on a journey with you. So I took inspiration
from the great writing machines of the world, and I think,
and I looked to Hollywood, and I looked to Hollywood Studios,
and I looked at the great narrative creators in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I thought, well, what do they have. They have a
writer's room.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So quite often they will have building out narrative or
building out scripting. They will have multiple writers attacking a
challenge or a storyline from all different perspectives, and they'll
all come together to debate and discuss those different points
of view. And I thought, well, what an interesting thing
to try and build Because I don't want chat GPT
(12:24):
to write for me, but I want it to challenge
what I'm writing. So I asked it whether I thought
it could build out a writer's room for me, and
we would have different personas as each writer to anyone
from the sort of the format and the function expert,
to the disruptor, to the emotional story arc to the
person who maybe wrote for sort of more jeopardy and
(12:47):
danger like. So I basically constructed a writers I said, look,
what are the eight archetypes of a writer's room.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
That you might find in Hollywood?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
What are the great script writers?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Do you think we.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Could build out a writer's room or all of those
personas exist? And if I write something and I can
call on you, I can literally say, please bring the
writer's room to this piece of communication.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And challenge it.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
So I now have a writer's room to everything that
I create, which I think I have got to a
good enough place.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I will then put it into.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
The writer's room and they'll challenge it and say the
emotional art isn't strong enough.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Or this could be format about that.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Actually, the disrupture will come in and say, you could
create such a more compelling narrative if you put in
a little bit of jeopardy, so they don't write for me,
because I am extremely conscious and I think it's one
of our greatest challenges that we are going to lose
some of the things that make humans extremely special, and
(13:43):
that is storytelling, and that is the ability to summarize
and distill information to the world in a way.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
That is well understood.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And I think about Google Maps, It's like, when was
the last time you really remember the direction to somewhere
unless it was somewhere within sort of twenty miles of
your home.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
So I am concerned that we're.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Going to lose our way, and we're going to lose
how to remember how to do things and do things
well in the same way we just rely on Google.
That's we leave the house and we hand over the
direction of our journey to somebody else. I would hate
to think we were handing over our creativity and our
consciousness to something.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
That's really cool and sorry, just to give me an
idea of like how you've built this, Is this the
one GPAT that you've built, or have you built several
that each have a different voice that you can call,
and what does it look like in practice?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
It's a GPT called the writer's room that I'll either
I can either go into it specifically and say I've
written a piece of comms, or I want to create
a narrative memo for the business on the specific topic,
and I need to make sure that it's relevant for
a sales team, a marketing team, and a social team,
but also the data science team. This is what I've written,
(14:52):
and someone will, you know, they will take its particular
GPT and challenge that. Or if I'm writing anywhere in
my GPT any chat, I can call on it, like
I say, writer's rim, Can you kin'd just come and
check this for me? And sometimes it hallucinates and I
have to go, Okay, no, I don't think you've got
that quite way to go back out. So I am
super aware that it has sometimes it's limitations, but I
(15:14):
think it's an extraordinary ally. I think AI is an
extraordinary ally to women in the boardroom and women in leadership,
because I think there is a generalized perception, and I
say generalized, and I don't mean specifically that men bring
logic and practicality to a boardroom and extremely efficient operationally,
(15:41):
and I mean this is a very generalized perspective where
women bring high amounts of human intelligence, emotional intelligence, powers.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Of persuasion powers.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Think four dimensionally constantly being sort of playing four D chess.
We make that decision over here, what does it mean
for this team over here? How do I get that
team over here to really understand the purpose of what
we're trying to do over there when it actually it
may impact what they're doing over here in a negative ways.
So they're very good sort of thing that I'd say,
the four D image And imagine if you and where
the areas have perhapsally felt a little bit less confident,
(16:15):
you know, the logic, practicality, operating, and I mean very generalized,
you had a superpower in your immediate zone or sort
of influence that you can absolutely double down on your
superpower with complete confidence that logic, practicality and operations is
being taken care of. Imagine a world where that happens
every single day and women realize that suddenly you can
(16:36):
save time. Logic, practicality, operations can be built and used
and built elsewhere, which you can then choose to use
not to use whenever you need to. Imagine that space
that women could operate in and Suddenly leadership actually becomes
the human intelligence in the room, the emotional intelligence in
(16:57):
the room, because you're going to be able to hand
over practicality, frameworking, strategy to an extent, operations to your
copilot in AI, whatever tool that you're using, and the
board is completely different. And that excites me massively because
I think, when moving towards in the next decade, who
(17:17):
brings a human intelligence to this room, who brings the
emotional intelligence to social IQ?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Who are they?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Because they are the leaders of companies, they are the
purpose drivers, they are the mission creators. They're the people
that can galvanize a room human beings to go with
you on a complex, interesting, intellectually challenging and stimulating journey.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Imagine that.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I think it's going to look entirely different.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
In the next five years. And I am immensely excited
about that.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I love that, And it's I think a good segue
into understanding, like, you're obviously using AI to augment your work,
like with the writer's room, but you're using it to
save tens of hours probably more per week. Can you
give me an example or two where you've really consciously
used that time that you've won back to applied. You
(18:08):
know what you've just been describing.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
I use it predominantly and primarily on people. And I
would say future planning. But the idea that I can
now take process away and spend it on people instead,
that twenty minutes that you can spend with a teammate
or a team or you know, someone that you work
(18:31):
with but maybe not work alongside, is so invaluable. And
I mean, we'll get into first principles, but one of
our first principles of our companies were in person first.
I think there is no greater experience in life than
working on an audacious goal with a group of ambitious
people and achieving it and doing it together and in person.
(18:53):
And I go back to how I learned, how I
grew as a leader and as a co worker. I
had the unique experience of doing it in person for
twenty years. I learned pace, urgency, great leadership qualities and characteristics,
terrible leadership qualities and characteristics. So every minute that I
(19:17):
have saved, I spend it back with people and on
future planning, because if I'm thinking about the future and
then spending time with the people working on them now
and understanding their vision roadmap, experiences challenges.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I will only plan for.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
A better future towards the purpose that we're building for.
So it absolutely goes back to spending time on people
and planning, and it is a gift. And I have
extremely strong feelings about leaders who don't spend time with
people and teams, because it is a huge loss. When
you look at the definition of a company. I think
(19:53):
Steven speaks about at this a lot, it's a group
of people. That is what a company is. So if
you're not spending time your most precious resource and the
thing that matters most, which is the people, then you're
never going to succeed as a leader and a company
in the way that I would like to see people
do it.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
What I love most about Georgie's approach isn't just the
time that she's saved, it's what she's chosen to do
with it. She's proof that when leaders use AI intentionally,
it can clear the clutter and create space for the
most human parts of our jobs, like listening, inspiring, and
imagining the future. Now. As a special bonus this week,
(20:32):
I'm releasing a part two of my chat with Georgie
because when we spoke, I couldn't help it go extra
deep and dive into behind the scenes of working with
Stephen Bartlett and making Diary of a CEO, which is
one of my favorite podcasts. So hop back into the
podcast speed and click on part two of this interview,
where we go behind the curtains of how Diary of
(20:55):
a CEO actually gets put together and how they grew
it into one of the most downloaded podcasts on the planet.
If you like today's show, make sure you hit follow
on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.
How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of
the Warringery people, part of the cool And Nation
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