May 28, 2025 • 10 mins
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Dr Jon Finn introduces the concept of Human-AI Teams as a collaborative approach where AI supports cognitive labour rather than replacing humans, similar to how the Industrial Revolution supported manual labour.
• People and businesses achieving success with AI are creating human-AI teams, not just buying tools
• Dr Finn uses AI technologies daily as team members to increase efficiency and business growth
• Experience working with a championship-winning football team that spent 54% less on wages inspired his team dynamics research
• 74% of businesses spending significantly on AI aren't getting returns due to poor human-AI collaboration
• We should focus on team transformation rather than digital transformationÂ
• Brain state management is key to unlocking the benefits of human-AI collaboration
• Using the snowmobile metaphor: you're on the snowmobile, AI is helping you move faster toward goals
• Exercise: identify AI team members you already have and tasks AI could help with to increase happiness
Remember you're only ever one Brain State habit away.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, habit Mechanics.
It's Dr John Finn here.
I hope you're having I hope youcan hear those birds singing
behind me.
I hope you're having a greatweek so far.
So I'm walking to work, so Ithought I'd do a quick pod.
Now what I want to talk about ishuman AI teams, so that is,
(00:25):
teams made up of humans andmachines.
It's not humans being replacedby machines, it's humans being
supported by machines.
Just in the same way that theIndustrial Revolution supported
manual labour, we now havemachines that can support
(00:51):
cognitive labour.
And this is what I see isemerging People who are getting
success from AI technologies,and some are.
If you just look at some of thetestimonies we we're getting
from the people we're workingwith, they are getting seismic
advantages or the other peoplethat are not either using AI
(01:14):
technologies or or getting themost out of them.
And what's actually happeninghere is that the people and the
businesses that are gettingsuccess, they're not just buying
a tool or an AI bot or an AIsystem.
They are actually creatinghuman AI teams and again, it's
(01:42):
for the individual as well, soyou can create your own human AI
team.
So I have my own human AI team.
I use AI technologies daily andthey're like team members.
They can do the tasks that Iwould otherwise pay humans to do
, but they help me to do thingsmore efficiently and effectively
(02:05):
in a way that helps me to growmy business and help others to
do well and create growth.
So these machines they are nota threat, they are not a
competitor.
They are a team member, and theway that we harness the power
(02:28):
of human AI teams is throughhuman AI performance psychology
the new field of psychologywe've created and we are
pioneering now.
I've not heard anyone else talkabout it in these terms, but I
think this is the way forwardsand the foundations of my
(02:50):
professional career began inelite sport and predominantly
team sports, and I was veryfortunate to be able to work
with a professional footballteam, and I was 24 years old, I
was working on the first teamstaff.
I was in there making,contributing to selection
(03:13):
decisions and everything elsethat goes on when you're part of
that senior group, or theleadership group, if you like.
So I was in a position where,beyond my years and I was really
lucky and part of that, part ofthe interesting thing with one
of those teams, a football teamI worked for is we won the
(03:35):
league title, won the league onetitle, english professional
football by spending, if mymemory's right, 54% less on
player wages than the teams thatcame second and third, you know
, on average.
So we were able to essentiallyget much more out of our talent
(04:06):
pool and that really and it wasactually a UK record for the
that season we broke the UKrecord for the least amount of
money spent for the most amountof league points gained.
That was one of their big fourdo like a quite an in-depth
analysis of of football in theUK and that's what the numbers
(04:28):
that emerged were.
So we were really doingsomething special as a team and
I just got fascinated by thatand I thought what is going on
here, how are we able to do this?
And that sparked my PhD work,just looking at one aspect of
that, which was how we were adeveloping talent.
(04:49):
But it also led to thedevelopment of our leadership
models, a spark of thedevelopment for that and our
team models, our team powermodel.
So I've been thinking aboutteams for a long time in my
professional life and you know,going backwards from that, I've
been part of sports teams sinceI can remember.
(05:11):
You know whether it was playingfootball in the park or, you
know, playing rugby or cricketor football or for different
teams, and then you know throughto university, et cetera.
So, and I played decent levelamateur sport and I play decent
(05:31):
level amateur sport, so I reallyhave a deep knowledge of teams
and what makes them work, and Ithink that this is the right
approach to take.
(05:51):
With AI, it's a human AI teamand the AI is a team member and
it can help you to do your jobmore effectively.
And again, we can do this atthe individual level, so you can
have your own team.
And if you go you know, if yougo backwards people have in
history and even right now,although AI is disrupting this a
(06:14):
little bit people have beenhiring virtual assistants now
for maybe 10 years.
So it's the same kind of thingthat AI can do a lot of what
virtual assistants used to doand that frees up the virtual
assistants to do something else.
But you can do it at theindividual level, so you can
have your own human AI team andyou can get seismic results,
(06:35):
like we're seeing.
But also at work, you can build.
The priority should be to buildhuman AI teams and if you look
at the data on organisations.
The last big set of data I sawon this was by, I think, the
Boston Research Group, and theycited in their research that
(06:57):
about 74% of businesses that arespending significant money on
AI, they're not getting any realreturns.
And again, if you dig down intoit, it's because humans and AI
are not collaborating well.
It's because humans and I arenot collaborating well.
(07:20):
Now, that's always been aproblem in digital
transformation, where someonesays you buy this digital system
and it's going to revolutioniseyour business and invariably it
doesn't work out quite likethat.
Businesses, you know, sometimesget there eventually.
It doesn't work out quite likethat.
Businesses sometimes get thereeventually.
Just, the PC took a long timeto get to become effectively
used in organisations, forexample.
But I think AI is different.
(07:40):
It isn't just.
It isn't just a digital tool,it's like a team member.
So I also think we need to moveaway from talking about digital
transformation and start talkingabout team transformation and,
of course, the currency of teamtransformation is human high
(08:04):
performance, psychology and thething that underpins that is
brain state management.
So I think to unlock thebenefits or to scale the
benefits of ai because manypeople are unlocking the
benefits and you're forming ahuman AI team and it helps you
(08:34):
to move faster.
If we use our snowmobilemetaphor, it's like you're on
the snowmobile, the tech is yoursnowmobile the AI and it's
helping you to move faster upthe mountain towards your goals.
And I think that's going to bea really helpful starting point
to just start creating a betternarrative around ourselves and
(08:54):
the journeys that we're going on, but also about what the AI
tools can actually bring to ourlives.
That we're seeing in our ownlives, but also our customers
lives.
But the key is brain statemanagement.
We can't get away from that.
That is the thing that's goingto unlock all of this.
(09:15):
So I hope that was interesting.
It got you thinking.
My mind's racing with ideasaround this now.
I think it's really exciting.
So you know, maybe as a quickexercise, just start thinking
(09:36):
about your little team thatyou've got just for yourself.
You know, even if you've gotlike a new iPhone, for example,
that's just it's not a passivedevice anymore.
It's got generative ai builtinto it, for example, and other
uh ai features.
So these things are becominglike team members, these
(09:57):
technologies, and just have alist and maybe think about some
of the other tasks that you doevery day you may not like doing
.
Is there a another ai you canemploy to help you to do that
task more efficiently andeffectively, so that you don't
have to do the work that youdon't want to do?
You can focus on the work thatmakes you happy, and if you're
(10:23):
interested in the happinessequation, you can check out
chapter seven of train yourbrain for the higher revolution.
So enough from it, from me.
Enjoy the rest of your day andremember you're only ever one
brain state habit away.
Hello, habit Mechanics.
It's Dr John Finn here.
I hope you're having I hope youcan hear those birds singing
behind me.
I hope you're having a greatweek so far.
So I'm walking to work, so Ithought I'd do a quick pod.
Now what I want to talk about ishuman AI teams, so that is,
(00:25):
teams made up of humans andmachines.
It's not humans being replacedby machines, it's humans being
supported by machines.
Just in the same way that theIndustrial Revolution supported
manual labour, we now havemachines that can support
(00:51):
cognitive labour.
And this is what I see isemerging People who are getting
success from AI technologies,and some are.
If you just look at some of thetestimonies we we're getting
from the people we're workingwith, they are getting seismic
advantages or the other peoplethat are not either using AI
(01:14):
technologies or or getting themost out of them.
And what's actually happeninghere is that the people and the
businesses that are gettingsuccess, they're not just buying
a tool or an AI bot or an AIsystem.
They are actually creatinghuman AI teams and again, it's
(01:42):
for the individual as well, soyou can create your own human AI
team.
So I have my own human AI team.
I use AI technologies daily andthey're like team members.
They can do the tasks that Iwould otherwise pay humans to do
, but they help me to do thingsmore efficiently and effectively
(02:05):
in a way that helps me to growmy business and help others to
do well and create growth.
So these machines they are nota threat, they are not a
competitor.
They are a team member, and theway that we harness the power
(02:28):
of human AI teams is throughhuman AI performance psychology
the new field of psychologywe've created and we are
pioneering now.
I've not heard anyone else talkabout it in these terms, but I
think this is the way forwardsand the foundations of my
(02:50):
professional career began inelite sport and predominantly
team sports, and I was veryfortunate to be able to work
with a professional footballteam, and I was 24 years old, I
was working on the first teamstaff.
I was in there making,contributing to selection
(03:13):
decisions and everything elsethat goes on when you're part of
that senior group, or theleadership group, if you like.
So I was in a position where,beyond my years and I was really
lucky and part of that, part ofthe interesting thing with one
of those teams, a football teamI worked for is we won the
(03:35):
league title, won the league onetitle, english professional
football by spending, if mymemory's right, 54% less on
player wages than the teams thatcame second and third, you know
, on average.
So we were able to essentiallyget much more out of our talent
(04:06):
pool and that really and it wasactually a UK record for the
that season we broke the UKrecord for the least amount of
money spent for the most amountof league points gained.
That was one of their big fourdo like a quite an in-depth
analysis of of football in theUK and that's what the numbers
(04:28):
that emerged were.
So we were really doingsomething special as a team and
I just got fascinated by thatand I thought what is going on
here, how are we able to do this?
And that sparked my PhD work,just looking at one aspect of
that, which was how we were adeveloping talent.
(04:49):
But it also led to thedevelopment of our leadership
models, a spark of thedevelopment for that and our
team models, our team powermodel.
So I've been thinking aboutteams for a long time in my
professional life and you know,going backwards from that, I've
been part of sports teams sinceI can remember.
(05:11):
You know whether it was playingfootball in the park or, you
know, playing rugby or cricketor football or for different
teams, and then you know throughto university, et cetera.
So, and I played decent levelamateur sport and I play decent
(05:31):
level amateur sport, so I reallyhave a deep knowledge of teams
and what makes them work, and Ithink that this is the right
approach to take.
(05:51):
With AI, it's a human AI teamand the AI is a team member and
it can help you to do your jobmore effectively.
And again, we can do this atthe individual level, so you can
have your own team.
And if you go you know, if yougo backwards people have in
history and even right now,although AI is disrupting this a
(06:14):
little bit people have beenhiring virtual assistants now
for maybe 10 years.
So it's the same kind of thingthat AI can do a lot of what
virtual assistants used to doand that frees up the virtual
assistants to do something else.
But you can do it at theindividual level, so you can
have your own human AI team andyou can get seismic results,
(06:35):
like we're seeing.
But also at work, you can build.
The priority should be to buildhuman AI teams and if you look
at the data on organisations.
The last big set of data I sawon this was by, I think, the
Boston Research Group, and theycited in their research that
(06:57):
about 74% of businesses that arespending significant money on
AI, they're not getting any realreturns.
And again, if you dig down intoit, it's because humans and AI
are not collaborating well.
It's because humans and I arenot collaborating well.
(07:20):
Now, that's always been aproblem in digital
transformation, where someonesays you buy this digital system
and it's going to revolutioniseyour business and invariably it
doesn't work out quite likethat.
Businesses, you know, sometimesget there eventually.
It doesn't work out quite likethat.
Businesses sometimes get thereeventually.
Just, the PC took a long timeto get to become effectively
used in organisations, forexample.
But I think AI is different.
(07:40):
It isn't just.
It isn't just a digital tool,it's like a team member.
So I also think we need to moveaway from talking about digital
transformation and start talkingabout team transformation and,
of course, the currency of teamtransformation is human high
(08:04):
performance, psychology and thething that underpins that is
brain state management.
So I think to unlock thebenefits or to scale the
benefits of ai because manypeople are unlocking the
benefits and you're forming ahuman AI team and it helps you
(08:34):
to move faster.
If we use our snowmobilemetaphor, it's like you're on
the snowmobile, the tech is yoursnowmobile the AI and it's
helping you to move faster upthe mountain towards your goals.
And I think that's going to bea really helpful starting point
to just start creating a betternarrative around ourselves and
(08:54):
the journeys that we're going on, but also about what the AI
tools can actually bring to ourlives.
That we're seeing in our ownlives, but also our customers
lives.
But the key is brain statemanagement.
We can't get away from that.
That is the thing that's goingto unlock all of this.
(09:15):
So I hope that was interesting.
It got you thinking.
My mind's racing with ideasaround this now.
I think it's really exciting.
So you know, maybe as a quickexercise, just start thinking
(09:36):
about your little team thatyou've got just for yourself.
You know, even if you've gotlike a new iPhone, for example,
that's just it's not a passivedevice anymore.
It's got generative ai builtinto it, for example, and other
uh ai features.
So these things are becominglike team members, these
(09:57):
technologies, and just have alist and maybe think about some
of the other tasks that you doevery day you may not like doing
.
Is there a another ai you canemploy to help you to do that
task more efficiently andeffectively, so that you don't
have to do the work that youdon't want to do?
You can focus on the work thatmakes you happy, and if you're
(10:23):
interested in the happinessequation, you can check out
chapter seven of train yourbrain for the higher revolution.
So enough from it, from me.
Enjoy the rest of your day andremember you're only ever one
brain state habit away.
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