February 3, 2025 • 51 mins
What happens when a tech engineer becomes a leader in a world increasingly shaped by AI? Meet Drew Saur, a career coach with a unique perspective on transitioning from technical roles to leadership positions. Drew shares his own transformation journey from engineer to COO, and now to a career coach. Promise yourself the insights you need to transition from being a mere problem solver to an opportunity creator. Drew sheds light on his six-pillar methodology, emphasizing the importance of recognizing one's value proposition and leveraging networks to propel career growth in the fast-evolving tech industry.
Discover transformative career strategies through the eyes of tech executives who harnessed relationship-building and storytelling to break through career stagnation and advance to top leadership roles. Drew also discusses the nuances of mentorship and sponsorship, especially for underrepresented groups in tech. By understanding the difference between having a mentor and a sponsor who actively champions career growth, tech professionals can effectively navigate their advancement paths. It's a conversation rich with real stories and practical advice on how to inspire teams and influence strategic decisions.
AI tools are not just reshaping industries but also transforming career coaching practices. From platforms like ChatGPT to ResumeWorded, Drew explores how AI can enhance personal branding, automate low-level tasks, and even provide tailored coaching. However, he urges tech leaders to maintain authenticity and personal input in their professional narratives. Dive into the ethical and strategic implications of AI in leadership, as Drew discusses the need for curiosity, experimentation, and understanding AI's role in reshaping organizational structures. The episode concludes with a look at how tech executives can strategically integrate AI tools to stay ahead in a competitive landscape.
Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome RVA to Inspire AI, where we spotlight
companies and individuals in theregion who are pioneering the
development and use ofartificial intelligence.
I'm Jason McGinty from AI ReadyRVA.
At AI Ready RVA, our mission isto cultivate AI literacy in the
greater Richmond region throughawareness, community engagement
(00:24):
, education and advocacy.
Today's episode is madepossible by Modern Ancients
driving innovation with purpose.
Modern Ancients uses AI andstrategic insight to help
businesses create lasting,positive change with their
unique journey consultingpractice.
(00:44):
Find out more about how yourbusiness can grow at
modernagentscom, and thanks toour listeners for tuning in
today.
If you or your company wouldlike to be featured in the
Inspire AI Richmond episode,please drop us a message.
Don't forget to like, share orfollow our content and stay up
(01:07):
to date on the latest events forAI Ready RVA.
In today's episode, I'm thrilledto introduce Drew Sauer, a
career coach who specializes inguiding tech executives to their
next level leadership success.
He's the founder of Drew SauerCoaching and his unique
six-pillar methodology hashelped countless tech
(01:28):
professionals transformtechnical prowess into strategic
leadership.
As a former tech COO, he'scoached 100-plus leaders to
executive roles, leveraginginsights from the top to
accelerate their success.
His approach is refreshinglyhands-on, focusing on real-world
actions and measurable outcomesas he helps others navigate the
(01:50):
often tricky transition fromtechnical expert to effective
executive.
As AI reshapes industries atbreakneck speed, his insights on
integrating tools like ChatGPTand Resume Worded offer a
powerful edge for anyone lookingto stand out.
So if you're eager to learnabout how to thrive in a rapidly
(02:13):
evolving landscape, buildingleadership skills, leveraging AI
and propelling your careerforward, this is the
conversation for you.
Please join me in welcoming ourguest, drew Sauer, to Inspire
AI.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Hey, jason, happy to be here.
Thanks for having me on theshow and thank you for joining
us today.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Can you start by telling us a little bit about
yourself and your business?
And, of course, you'reinterested in AI.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Of course.
Of course I mean it starts withprobably a little bit of
background on my career, whichis I spent most of my career in
technology.
I started as an engineer andcoder and worked in financial
services, mostly in the New Yorkarea, and I had a great career
working on various technologysystems, going through the
different sort of phases oftechnology platforms, all the
way up through kind of cloudconversions in my last role, and
(03:02):
I was actually the chiefoperating officer ultimately of
a tech organization in New Yorkwhere I had a very large team I
had like 750 people and it wasgoing great and at a certain
point my boss decided to retire.
That's kind of what happenedand I had to figure out what did
I want to do with the secondhalf of my career?
And while I love the job, I lovethe company if you know,
(03:23):
financial services there's a lotof auditors and regulators and
things like that and I decided Iwant to do something different
and that's when I shifted overinto this executive coaching
business, mostly because thatwas an area that I sort of
struggled with this executivetransition in my own career and
I saw a lot of my staff havingthe same challenge and that's
when I launched it and so that'swhat I've been doing the last
(03:43):
four plus years is helping techleaders sort of grow their
careers and get into theexecutive ranks.
And in the context of ourconversation today, obviously
related to AI is a huge bothopportunity and challenge to a
lot of tech firms and a lot ofsort of tech leaders in terms of
what's next, and so that'sreally where my interest comes
from, mostly from what AI can dofor us.
(04:06):
Then, obviously, from my careerperspective is okay, what does
that mean to everybody and theirjob?
So that's a quick littlehistory of how I got to where I
am today.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, I believe we're all at that turning point,
whether we've recognized it ornot.
It's interesting to hear howyour career transitioned into
this field and then how you'remaking another pivot into
technologies that will advanceand make your field of interest
thrive even more.
So can you walk us through yourcoaching methodology?
(04:36):
How did you tailor it to techexecutives?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Of course, and what I would say is the major message
that I have for all kind of thetech leaders and people I work
with is the idea that it's not abigger version of your job,
it's a different jobfundamentally.
And most of us who grew up insort titles like vice president
and we get rewarded for delivery, we get rewarded for doing the
right thing on time, on budget,high quality, and then at a
(05:11):
certain point that changes right.
And that's really where I focus.
And ultimately there are kindof six major pillars that I work
with people on, and it's thisidea of, first off, how do you
get the role, and then, secondly, how do you thrive in the role?
And to get the role isrelatively straightforward, but
you have to think a little bitdifferently about it.
So the first thing you need issort of an offer and a value
(05:34):
proposition answering thequestion of why would somebody
hire you as, say, a vicepresident?
Right, it's not just that youcould do the job, it's not just
that you're ready for the job,because there are a bunch of
other people who want that jobtoo.
So what is your unique thing?
So I kind of help people figureout what is their unique value
and how to sort of position that.
Then you need leads, which, asyou grow in your career,
increasingly becomes based onyour network and recruiters and
(05:57):
relationships.
So you got to figure out how todo that.
And then, ultimately, it'sabout selling yourself for the
role, right, which is just partof what needs to be done.
You know, myself included, nota lot of people like to sell
themselves.
It's just not necessarily acomfortable thing, but in order
to have a bigger impact, it'sone of the skills that you need
to build.
So that's another thing that Iwork with people on.
So that's kind of the basic.
(06:18):
You know, offer, leads andsales is how you get the role.
But what about when you'rethere?
Right, and ultimately, theexecutive role really is based
on three things that you need tofigure out right.
One is this kind of amorphousterm around executive presence,
which is basically the questionof do other people see you as an
executive, which means thequestions you ask, the way you
engage, the things you talkabout.
(06:38):
You need to think about how todo that at the executive level.
And then, ultimately, it'sabout kind of relationships and
results, right, and as you go upagain, relationships become
more and more important, becauseit's not necessarily about
getting it done, because you nowhave teams to do that.
It's about putting the rightpeople in place, getting other
people on board with what youwant to do.
So, ultimately, those are kindof the six things that I work
(06:58):
with people on and, in terms oftailoring it right, that six is
pretty much good for everybody.
That's the map, but obviouslyeverybody has a slightly
different history, a slightlydifferent story, and so that's
really where, when I work withpeople, it's like OK, where are
their strengths, where are theirchallenges?
And we typically work on theone or two things that they
really need to focus on, andthose tend to make the biggest
difference in their career.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Right, ok, so just to recap, you've distilled down
through your coaching programand six pillar framework One,
the offer to the leads, and thenthree sales, and then you kind
of have another side of it whereyou are helping them develop
their presence and theirrelationships and understand
(07:41):
what results to go after.
Is that what I heard, right?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Exactly Like you think of it as two.
Is that what I heard?
Right?
Exactly Like you think of it astwo halves of the equation.
Right, and you know you needboth to succeed.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Right, okay.
And so by tailoring you knowthis specifically to tech
executives.
You're bridging their deeptechnical expertise with their
executive mindset, so that givesthem an ability to uh determine
what their measurable value isto the outside world and and be
able to express that throughwhat their unique proposition.
(08:11):
What did?
Did you say unique?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah, unique value proposition and a simple way to
understand it is when, whenyou're in a tech organization,
you're working with othertechnical people, right?
And they they know what youknow.
They have a similar background.
They get it.
And as you become a leader, youincreasingly work with people
outside of technology.
It might be in product, it mightbe in sales, marketing, legal,
right across the enterprise, andthose people don't have the
(08:34):
same background, which is why,again, the way you communicate,
the way you engage, has to bedifferent, because they have a
different background than you doand they're not as steeped in
the technology, they don'tunderstand probably as much as
we do, and so that's really oneof the things you need to adopt
to be successful.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Indeed, yeah, okay.
What are some of the mostcritical leadership skills you
would say that tech executivesin 2025 should adopt?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I would say there's two classics and kind of
one new right.
And the classic two are sort ofagain this kind of vague
concept of executive presence,but really it's the question of
your ability to convince otherpeople to do things right.
So, how well can youcommunicate, how well can you
influence?
Because, again, at the moresenior levels, you can't do it
alone, you need other people andyou need to be able to convince
them.
(09:24):
So this kind of communicationability is one.
The second one, which is kindof again classic and perennial,
is sort of the strategic mindset, right, which is the question
of what do we do next?
Right, and that's a questionthat, again, executives are
asked to answer, which isunderstanding the technology
front, the competitive landscape, the environment, everything
else, and answering thatquestion of what do we do next.
(09:45):
And those are true decades agoand they're still true today.
I do think that the tech fluencyis that third piece and it's
becoming increasingly important,particularly with this
conversation today, because ofAI and what that is really doing
to change everything.
Right, if you think about thelast few years of technology,
they were for technologists,right.
(10:06):
If you think about moving tothe cloud, to a non-technologist
, what does that even mean Ifyou put a product or a marketing
person up against a AWS console, what would they do?
They probably wouldn't knowwhat to do, right?
But if you give them chat, gpt,everybody knows what to do.
You just ask questions and youtalk to it, and so suddenly this
technology revolution.
Right is not just fortechnologists, it's for
(10:28):
everybody.
And so what, what are theimpacts of that is going to be
very important for all theleaders.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah yeah, so definitely communicating complex
ideas would be a game changerfor the the tech executives,
being able to learn the newskills and apply them on the job
, while communicating themeffectively to their customers.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's an important notethat all tech executives should
hear to stay relevant andeffective in their field for
sure.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow many tech leaders struggle
transitioning from technical toexecutive roles?
And how do you help themspecifically to bridge that gap?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I would say that the main struggle and this is kind
of what we talked about a littlebit before, but there are two
main struggles One is people getrewarded for this execution
mindset, the get it done mindset.
That is absolutely critical.
It's important to everyfunction to get it done well, on
time, high quality, etc.
As you sort of peer to theother executives, and one way I
(11:46):
often talk about it is thisservice mentality versus a
partnership mentality.
A service mentality is wheresomebody says, hey, drew, I need
you to do this.
Here's a project.
It's really important to thecompany.
I'm putting you in charge, goget it done.
And now I've got to execute it.
But I am effectively a serviceprovider to them.
They define what needed to bedone and I'm getting it done.
(12:06):
Eventually I need to be part ofthe conversation of what should
we do?
Right, and that's kind of thattransition where, if you're used
to basically getting aninitiative, getting a project
and then executing it, gettingyourself into those
conversations is sometimes achallenge.
And it's also a challengebecause you're really good at
that thing, probably right.
(12:29):
So people love it when youexecute and what do they want
you to do?
They want you to do more of it.
So this is why it is a strugglesometimes, because you have to
be the one to break yourself outof it right, which means that
you need to engage differently.
You need to ask some differentquestions.
You need to basically make themsee that you can do other
things, and that's really one ofthe things that you know when I
help people.
You know in my coachingpractice, there are questions to
(12:50):
ask, there are ways to engage,but ultimately it's the how do
you get them to see youdifferently and show that you
are ready?
Because just doing your jobreally well, unfortunately, is
not enough these days.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Right on.
Yeah, it sounds like you'rehelping people make a mental
shift from becoming, or frombeing, a problem solver to an
opportunity creator.
Exactly, yeah, and it's morethan just organizational
strategy, it's like personaldevelopment strategy.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, because it's a lot about how you think about
yourself, how you think aboutyour job and how you engage with
others, and it is I use theterm reframe Right.
You need to reframe the way yousee the world and change it
from again the sort of executionmindset to an executive mindset
, right, which is what we're alltrying to do.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, managing tasks to inspiring teams and
influencing strategic decisions.
Absolutely, that sounds good.
Thank you for digging into thatone with us, sure, so how do
you measure the success of yourcoaching engagements?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
This one's a pretty straightforward one, right?
Ultimately, it's do people getthe jobs that they want?
Right, and I work with peoplewho are trying to move up the
ladder, whether it's a manager,director, director to VP, and
the ultimate, you know, measureof success is did they land that
role Right?
In a broader sense, I'm alsotrying to help people take more
control over their career right,because a lot of times people
(14:16):
do the job and then they hopethey are seen, they hope they
did it enough.
They don't really know how thepromotion thing works and
they're just kind of waiting,and so, ultimately, my sort of
main goal is to give people moreagency in their own career
Right, so you understand thelandscape, you understand the
rules and then you can setyourself up for success in a
(14:37):
much faster way, right, sothat's my goal is to get them to
the job, but ideally muchfaster than they would have
before they started working withme.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, it's pretty straightforward.
It just reminds me of JerryMaguire's show me the money
statement, right, Like, yeah,you can be my coach all you want
, but I'm, you know, I'm lookingfor you to to increase my
income or give me my promotion.
That's, that's what it amountsto.
It sounds like that's prettyawesome.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, that's the idea .
There's a lot of coaching.
I mean, coaching can be veryvaluable in many different
scenarios, but for for for meagain, coming from the tech
background, coming from thedelivery background, I'm big on
outcomes, so to me, that outcomeis the clearest way to know
that you've added value, andthat's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Totally, and tell us what inspired you to become a
career coach anyway, andparticularly for tech executives
.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, and it's I did.
It mostly comes from kind oflived experience.
Right, and I had a great careerand, as I said, I started as a
coder.
I was doing projects.
I worked for Accenture, whichwas a consulting firm, and did
great.
So every couple of years I didgreat work, I got promoted,
great work, got promoted.
And then I was at a company andI was a director, ready for
executive director promotion,and for that I was equivalent of
(15:53):
a VP in our world and I workedreally hard.
I got a great bonus, I got agreat rating and I didn't get
promoted and I had great mentors, great supporters, but they
gave me this sort of genericadvice around well, it takes a
little longer.
Build your executive presence,you need to be seen more.
These things that weren't superhelpful for me.
So I decided to kind of doubledown, work even harder, had a
great next year, got an evenbigger bonus, all was great.
(16:13):
And I still didn't get promoted.
So that was two cycles in a rowthat I didn't get promoted.
And that's when I realized that,okay, something isn't right
here, I'm not understanding thisworld, and sort of took a step
back, looked at kind of what thewhat the executives were doing
versus what I was doing, andthat's when I really had this
epiphany that it's like, oh, itisn't just working hard and
(16:33):
doing more, it's doing different, right, and that's one of those
things that, as soon as Ifigured that out and again I
focused on some of the stuff wetalked about in terms of
relationships and changing theway that people saw me and
generating more strategic ideasand things like that I got
promoted, I got executivedirector, managing director, and
then, as I said, I was thechief operating officer and it's
that sort of mid-careerlinchpin that made all the
(16:55):
difference for me.
And I saw that again in my ownstaff who were trying to grow.
They often had the same problemand it seemed to me as both a
common need for tech leaders,because a lot of people kind of
feel that stall point in themiddle of their career and there
really wasn't a lot out there.
There was all this sort ofgeneric advice, but not the
tactics of OK, literally what doyou say when you want to go
(17:16):
meet an executive.
I thought I could add someunique value there and that's
why I decided to launch my ownbusiness.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Wow, yeah, you mentioned this at the beginning
and just now, just briefly, canyou tell us what your go-to
statement is on how you helppeople make that mental shift
between doing more or not doingmore and just doing something
different?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, and this idea that it's not a bigger job, like
that's the ultimate thing, isthat you cannot hard work your
way into an executive role.
That's just not the rules.
That's not how people judge you.
There is a relatively clearline and it's much easier to see
on the other side, like if youask any executive, they're very
able, very easily able, to judgewhether they think someone else
(18:02):
is an executive Before you getthere.
It's very hard to see, butthere is a relatively bright
line and again, it's thisrealization that it's not more
of what you're doing, it'sadding new things that you
didn't do before.
Right, that's the mostimportant piece.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Indeed.
So being passed over forpromotions in the past had
inspired you to commit, at somepoint in the future, to helping
others and supporting them onpreventing them from hitting the
same pitfalls that you hityourself.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, great.
Okay, can you maybe share us asuccess story where your
coaching significantly impactedsomeone, specifically an
executive's career?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
impacted someone specifically an executive's
career.
Yeah, happy to.
And you know, one of myfavorites is something that I've
seen repeat a few times, but Ithink it very well illustrates
how quickly things can change ifyou do the right things.
And so this was a gentlemannamed Shelly.
He worked at Microsoft, he wasa director there, and he came to
me and he basically wanted towork with me because he had had
that conversation right.
Again, it's very similar to myown situation, like very well
regarded, like done really well,was well rated, and he talked
(19:11):
to his boss about gettingpromoted and his boss had said
yep, absolutely, you know,you're on the track, but it'll
probably be basically two orthree years.
That was kind of the timelinehe gave him.
And so he came to me and he'slike I don't, I don't really
want to wait two or three years,I want to start looking around.
And so we started workingtogether and one of the things I
(19:32):
always sort of recommend forpeople is you know, as you learn
some of the stuff that we doaround relationships and
engagement, you know, if youhave a day job, particularly,
you have a practice ground,right, go try these things out,
because it's like any new skill,new habit.
You need to figure out how itworks, you need to kind of build
it in and be comfortable withit.
And so an assignment Itypically do with people is say
okay, I want you to go meet withother executives, I want you to
(19:53):
go have a differentconversation.
Don't make it an executionupdate.
Don't give them status.
Talk to them about theirproblems, what are their
strategic challenges?
Just have a differentconversation.
And so we started doing thisand literally less than three
months later, his boss came tohim and said hey, you know again
Shelly was his name.
It's like hey, I've heard a lotof great things from other
(20:15):
leaders in the firm because hehad been going out there and
meeting various managingdirectors and VPs and stuff like
that.
And he basically said andyou've made a real difference
and I'm going to put you up forpromotion.
Said and you've made a realdifference, and I'm going to put
you up for promotion.
And he did.
And he got promoted within sixmonths.
And you know, he actually didend up leaving and he's doing
another thing and he actuallygot sort of a senior vice
president position outside,because he kind of continued.
(20:37):
But I always love that storybecause that's often what people
hear oh you're doing great, butjust give it some time.
Right If it's give it some time.
But just give it some time,right, if it's give it some time
.
That's code word, for you'renot showing the behaviors that
we want to see, and I hope thatif I just let you do some more
stuff, you'll kind of naturallypick it up.
But these things are verylearnable and so you know this
(20:58):
story and this again thishappened a few times where when
you practice it, suddenlyopportunities open up.
So that's an example of onewhere, again, it's just adding
new behaviors can make adifference and it can happen
quite quickly.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah.
So from this particular example, this associate was a senior
director and, stagnant in theircareer trajectory, wasn't
getting much support fromleadership.
They then went and hadconversations based on your,
(21:32):
your impactful approach.
Right, you're coaching themthrough this, this relationship
building, executive presence, uh, awareness type, uh pillar,
right?
Um, they were able to get theirpromotion.
They jumped to another companyand got another promotion, and
(21:53):
so on and so forth, um, doublingtheir, their salary.
That's amazing.
I would love to meet thisperson honestly and get their
get their side of the story, butI know it's confidential so I
won't ask.
Yeah, no, it's great, all right.
(22:13):
What strategies do you suggestto help underrepresented groups
advance in tech leadership?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
That's a great question and it's one of those
things that the core skills andthe core things you need to do
are the same, but forparticularly underrepresented
groups, my advice always is,again, the storytelling and
communication skills become evenmore important because if
you're in a situation where yourvoice is going to be heard less
potentially than others, havingthose skills, being able to
(22:38):
make yourself heard, is critical, and that is a skill set that
you can build.
But also, you know this,mentorship and sponsorships are
key right, being exposed to andgrowing your own relationships
and having a network outsideright.
And so it is, you know, thesame advice I give anybody, but
it is something that do moreright Again, communication and
(23:00):
networking being the two kind ofcore pillars of meet more
people learn more about whatthey do, learn more about what
the challenges and the needs areof the organization or whatever
job you want, but really putyourself out there.
more is usually the fastest wayto address that.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, so I think most of our audience would be fairly
familiar with what a mentorshipis, but can you explain what a
sponsorship is?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah, A sponsorship program is just a more formal
version and this obviouslydepends on the company and what
their particular goals are.
But a mentor is somebody whocan go to advice.
A sponsor is someone who isactive in your career growth,
right.
And so a sponsor is somebodywho will basically look out for
you and say, hey, there's a newopportunity over here and
(23:47):
so-and-so would be a greatcandidate, and they try to
expose you to hey, you shouldtry for this.
It's not necessarily thatthey're going to give you things
, but they're supposed to keepan eye on it from their
presumably more senior perch andhelp sort of grease the wheels,
if you will, and get you tomore opportunities, see more
things and actively help yougrow your own career.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Oh, that is cool.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
That's a relationship .
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I need to explore myself.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
They're harder to get , but they are very valuable if
you can get them.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
In your experience, are sponsorships well understood
between the requester and thesponsor?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, and I would say and I can give you the question
originally was aroundunderrepresented groups there
are.
There are often formal programsor for women or minorities or
things like that, where thereactually is a commitment to say
yes, this is kind of amentorship, but it's also
somebody who's going to keep aneye on you, somebody who's going
to help you identifyopportunities, and oftentimes
it's a it's a more subtlerelationship between you and a
(24:45):
mentor.
A mentor can easily become asponsor if they become an active
champion and they think you cando really good things, right.
So they're always wanting toshow your value and add to it,
and really it's one of thosethings that you can kind of
figure it out based on what arethey willing to do for you,
right?
If they're willing to answeryour questions and give you
advice, that's awesome andthat's a mentor.
If they're willing to start tosay, introduce you to new people
(25:06):
, then you start to move on tothat sponsorship because they're
taking active action and usingsome of their own network or
opportunities to move you along.
So that's a great way to kindof test where you are.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, yeah, I think I think it makes a lot of sense
to inspect for your inner circlewhere you you get the most
support from and can leveragetheir influence in helping you
take the appropriate steps andopen the right doors.
So yeah, thank you.
It really resonated with me tohear you say that storytelling
(25:38):
and developing executivecommunication is pretty much on
point.
For any tech executive.
It doesn't come natural but itis definitely coachable.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
How do you think tech executives stay relevant in
such a rapidly evolving industry?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
What I would say is it starts with kind of this
lifelong learning, right?
I mean, particularly if you'vebeen in technology.
It's just one of thoseindustries that just continues
to evolve and you know we cantalk a little more about AI in a
little bit, but it's one ofthose things that is just going
faster and faster.
So being a lifelong learner,staying curious, is one of the
most important things andparticularly as you kind of move
up in your career, it'simportant to note that you know
(26:23):
the actual technology becomesharder and harder to stay on top
of.
There's only so manytechnologies you can master,
whether it's a coding languageor a tool set or something like
that.
So understanding again some ofthese more transferable skills,
like strategic thinking and theinnovation communication we
talked about, but also askingyourself what is the impact of
these technologies.
Your job, particularly as anexecutive, is not necessarily to
(26:46):
code, but it's to say what isthis going to do to my business,
my industry and everything?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
else.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And so that's really where you want to sort of
continue that.
And this is just another plugfor the networking and peer
learning, because one of theeasiest ways to do that is to go
meet a bunch of other peoplewho are also thinking these
things and share ideas.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, definitely the lifelong learning piece and
staying curious, having aninnovation mindset, are all
skills I think that are superimportant for leadership of the
future.
So you just touched on some ofthe technologies.
I'd like to know yourperspective on how you see AI
influencing career paths of techexecutives and possibly the
(27:27):
next decade.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, and so predicting the next decade of AI
influence is going to be verydifficult.
We can start with the idea thatit's only going to get more
powerful from here, right, andso I would say that you know
this again, this idea of techfluency.
You just need to keep up withwhat's going on, what the
possibilities are, and there arereally two halves of the
equation that you need to thinkabout, right?
(27:50):
One is how does AI impact theproducts and services that we
offer, or whatever company youare, because it's going to be
embedded in everything.
And the other one, which ispotentially even more
challenging, is what does thatdo to the organization, right?
What does that do to the jobs?
(28:10):
What does that do to the skillsets as certain jobs become, you
know, augmented via AI?
Some may become replaced via AI.
Where are the places that youknow human innovation and
engagement really shine, andwhere are places that you know
might make sense to?
You know, have an AI agent orsomething like that?
Do it.
So, again, thinking aboutbusiness and organization are
probably the two major piecesthat will be key for figuring
out how AI is going to influenceanybody's career going forward.
(28:35):
Yeah this one really resonateswith me.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
AI Ready RVA as you know, I'm part of this podcast
is developed and powered by AIReady RVA.
As you know, I'm part of thispodcast is developed and powered
by AI Ready RVA's leadership.
I think it's important foreveryone to consider, whether
you're an executive role or not,how prepared you are for the
future, where AI is literallyintegrated into every aspect of
our businesses and, as youpointed out, having that
(29:26):
technical fluency and ability tolearn from these experiences
and effectively integrate AIinto the products and processes
like you said, and, of course,the strategies to be able to
drive your organization'ssuccess.
that is key to a successfulfuture for many, if not all,
leadership.
I think I completely agree.
Okay, yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
So let's dig a little deeper and talk about how AI is
transforming the field ofcareer coaching, specifically
and particularly for executivesthat you work with.
Yeah, it's an interestingquestion, and it's a good one,
because the stuff that I'mseeing, even in my own business,
is very parallel to what'sprobably going on in many
different businesses, and so thefirst aspect is all the basic
stuff can now be done by AI orchat, gpt or tools like that,
whether it's sort of cleaning upyour resume, writing a cover
(30:05):
letter and you know.
So basically any of the simplethings like bad grammar or
spelling mistakes or things likethat should all be sort of gone
right.
And there are also things evenin my own practice I have and it
just because it's fun for melike I built an agent on chat
GPT which basically I loaded upall of my training, all my stuff
(30:27):
in it, and it's a way forpeople to interact and get some
feedback based on the way Iwould do things, you know, based
on everything I've learned.
So just this idea, you havethis kind of virtual coach which
is a version of me that seemsto be pretty accurate.
I mean, it's only going to getmore accurate over time.
So again, then I have to thinkabout, you know, even in my own
business.
So then, what's my value ifthere's an AI that can answer
most of the questions?
And it sort of comes down to Ithink the best example here is
(30:49):
the idea that, okay, ifeverybody has access to AI,
suddenly every resume, everyLinkedIn profile should all be
pretty good, right, it's as ifyou had a professional writer do
it.
So, if they're all pretty goodand what used to work, which is
well, it was just badlyformatted, all this kind of
stuff, if that goes away, whatis the differentiator?
And that's where it goes backto our storytelling and our
(31:12):
focus, which is the AIs can'ttell you what you're really good
at.
The AIs can't tell you right nowwhat the hiring manager is
looking for and understandingthe problem.
They kind of give you an idea,but it's still much more art
rather than science, right, andthat sort of value proposition,
the value matching andultimately the communication, is
the thing that AI isn't quitethere yet.
And so again, this idea of youtake the low-level tasks and you
(31:35):
have a tool that can do it foryou, right?
Whenever I have to writesomething, I can always have a
first draft or get some ideasfrom ChatGPT, but then I have to
make sure it's what I want tosay, yeah.
So what I would say is, insummary, it really is having an
AI do the base work.
All the easy tasks aresomething that is what I'm
seeing in my business.
So what other people are goingto see elsewhere?
And again, this idea of okay,so what's the art, what's the
(31:58):
thing that will make you standout, is really where you need to
think about how are youdifferent than the AI and what
it can do, and that's the thingyou need to bring to the table
as your differentiator.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
So you built your own GPT so your students, if you
will, can talk to you whenyou're not around.
I'm just curious how, yeah,have you seen that feedback from
them yet?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I mean, I've had a few people doing it and I've
gotten some really good feedback, and the difference is and this
is where you know againthinking through AI, right?
So AI is generic and has most ofyou know it's read the entire
internet and can talk about youknow pretty common stuff, they
can talk about pretty commonstuff, and so what that means
again, I might happen to do itthrough ChatGPT versus Cloud or
(32:45):
something else, but what thatmeans is the advice it gives
tends to be the advice it giveseverybody, and so part of my
coaching practice is trying togive people advice that isn't
the same as what they can readon the internet, right?
Something that's differentbecause ultimately, that's what
we're trying to do is you needto differentiate yourself, you
need to find something different, and so I have you know just
little things about.
(33:05):
You know particularly the way Isuggest people interview, the
way I suggest they write bulletsis slightly different, because
I focus very much on that techexecutive, right.
So it's different advice.
And so getting an AI to knowthe way I would do it and answer
it the way I would answer it,you know it took a little bit of
time and effort, but having hadpeople change it.
They've told me, and I sort ofset it up to be like okay, as
(33:27):
Drew would say, you know, pick aphrase for me and then he would
give advice based on that.
So it is very tailored to myspecific philosophies, which is
what you know I teach everybodyin the community.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Did you provide them a set of prompts or are they
just learning how to use itbased on their own specific
knowledge of GPTs?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Right, and so what my job was and again it's you know
.
I'm sure there'll be moreversions and it'll get better,
but basically you know, becauseI've done everything on video
now and things like that, like Ihave, you know, hundreds of
pages of transcripts and thingsbased on me talking about.
You know the way that Iapproach things, and so I loaded
that up to to GPT and then Ihad to do like and like
(34:06):
everything else.
You have to do a little bit ofreinforced learning.
I would ask you questions andit would answer in a way that I
wouldn't, and then I'd have toput in your instructions and say
, well, no, you need to.
You know sort of match thisstuff Exactly, you need to do X,
y.
So it did take a bit of training, and so that's when my clients
say, hey, what do you think ofthis cover letter?
It then goes as well as Drewwould say here's the structure,
(34:27):
here's the structure we use inDrew Sauer coaching and it will
coach them on the way we do it.
So yeah, I mean, most of themhave some experience with
ChatGPT, but helping them sortof get the most out of it is the
goal.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Nice.
And last question on that topichave you tried operator yet?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I have not tried operator yet.
I am curious in terms of whatit can do, and this is where you
start to get to that again,that agent level of it can
actually take actions on yourbehalf.
That is another line that wegot to think through.
It's one thing when it's givingyou feedback.
It's one thing when it's givingyou ideas.
It's one thing when it's givingyou feedback.
It's one thing when it's givingyou ideas.
It's another thing when it'staking actions.
And you know that's that isgoing to be a new world to
(35:07):
explore and we can talk aboutthis in a little bit, but that's
a great example some of thethings that you're gonna have to
think about as a leader goingforward yeah, of course okay
well, tell us a little bit moreabout specific ai tools or
platforms that you use in yourcoaching practice.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
We heard a little bit about what you've offered your
students.
What do you use and how doesthat enhance the experience for
the tech executives and maybeeven how have they been?
How has that impacted your work?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Sure, and you know, for example, one of them and you
know specific affiliations.
There are a couple of toolslike this, but is a a tool
called Resume Worded, which is atool with an AI engine that is
specifically designed to look atresumes and job descriptions,
and what it's trying to do isunderstand what the job is
looking for and give youfeedback on your resume based on
that.
(35:56):
And again, what is it good atthat we're, as humans, aren't as
good at is that it can easilydigest all the specific nuances.
It doesn't forget a word.
It doesn't it good at thatwe're, you know, as humans,
aren't as good at is that it caneasily digest, you know, all
the specific nuances.
It doesn't forget a word, itdoesn't get tired, it doesn't
skim over certain sections ofthe job description, so it can
look at it holistically and do areally in-depth analysis of how
well it matches.
And that's very useful because,rather than spending time
(36:17):
reading it, in like two secondsit can tell you oh, it talks a
lot about data architecture orcustomer service or cloud or
whatever it is, and I don't seethat in your resume, so it can
quickly tell you the things thatare missing.
You know, but like everythingelse, it's not perfect, right,
sometimes it highlights wordsthat don't make a lot of sense
to the human, but that's a tool.
(36:37):
Again, just from a workflowperspective, makes it very easy
to review and score resumes.
It can figure out what is aquote, unquote, good bullet
again, which is a subjectivetask, but it's really able to do
that.
So that's kind of the mainthing.
And then things like you know,chat, gpt, in terms of you know
role play exercises and pitchesand interview prep and things
like that.
Those are things that I'veencouraged kind of my clients to
(36:59):
use as well and they can bevery helpful too.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Do you just back to your your chat bot, do you?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
do you have a nickname for it?
Yeah, I call it it's.
It's Andrew, so it's sort ofthe Android version of Drew.
So that was yeah, that was whatI came up with.
Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Now gone through some of the some of the tooling AI
advancements, let's talk alittle bit about advice.
I always like to help ourlisteners learn a little bit
more about how they canintegrate AI into their
decision-making processes.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
What's your?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
advice for them.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
I mean, my advice right now is to use it to test
hypotheses, expand ideas and becreative.
Right so it is.
An advisor is kind of the rolethat I would sort of advise
myself most people to actuallyuse it in, right it is.
Again, for those of you whoknow how AI works, it is still a
semantic engine.
It's basically predicting textbased on having read effectively
(38:00):
the entire internet, and itactually is really good at that
and can come up with a lot ofgood ideas.
But it is not, at least at thispoint, grounded in irrefutable
logic and it can still make mathmistakes and things like that.
And so what I tell people isuse it to stimulate your
thinking, validate your thinking, test yourself.
You know I'm personally notquite ready to have it in a
(38:20):
decision making perspective,because I don't think we
understand enough about that,but I do think using it to help
balance your own intuition andprovide you a great advisory
service is probably the best usecase for it at the moment.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
So no agent reasoning for you tomorrow, then huh.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, I mean, it depends on what it is right and
this is where part of it is.
As I said earlier, like I comefrom a financial service
background, right, that's whereI worked for many, many years
and would I put an AI agent incharge of like real money,
meaning like millions orbillions or trillions of dollars
?
Absolutely not.
If I'm ordering from DoorDash,you know like what's the worst
that can happen is it gets thatyeah right, exactly Right.
(39:06):
So if I get okay, that's that Iwould probably be willing to try
.
And that's really where, as abusiness person, you want to
think about.
It's like every decision is isa risk adjusted decision, right,
what is?
What is the impact, what is thelikelihood that what I want to
have happen happens?
And then what is theprobability that something will
go wrong?
And those are the same kind ofthinking you want to think about
in terms of what would you putAI in charge?
And a lot of that is we don'tknow how good these things are
(39:29):
going to be.
So you want to think throughthe downside cost.
So if this goes wrong or betteryet, when this goes wrong, what
happens and what's theconsequence?
Right, and If you'recomfortable with that, again,
doordash curly fries instead ofmy spicy fries, you might be
fine.
A million-dollar cash transfernot so good.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, so you're saying it's like a blend of
science and art and what we needto consider when we keep
decision-making and that sort offorward thinking with these
technologies to ensure riskmanagement strategy is upheld.
Well, I got you.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
All right.
So let's bring it back up justa little bit, or tell us how AI
is reshaping what it means to bea successful tech executive.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
I think the main reshaping I would say is, you
know, again, the core decisionsthat we talked about in terms of
strategy and communication arethe same, but the context is now
much different and I thinkthere's going to be a much
stronger push for people tostart embedding AI because, they
see it, it looks really good onthe surface, right, you know,
basically, having an initialconversation looks really
(40:36):
powerful.
It's only until you get in someof these deeper ones that you
start to see where some of theboundaries are, some of the
flaws are, and so my guess isthere's going to be a huge push
from whether it's the businesscommunity, whether it's
customers themselves, to say,hey, give us more AI enablement.
And, as a leader, you're goingto have to sort of think how to
navigate that.
What are the right decisions tomake?
What are the best things to do?
So?
(40:56):
Understanding, particularly likethe ethical and business
implications, right, we you know, most people who are in this
space have heard of exampleswhere you know AI is making
decisions on loans.
And, again, if you know thebackground of AI, you know
there's no specific logic.
People don't know exactly howthese things come to a decision
and if, again, you're makingthese things that affect
people's lives.
You just need to be verythoughtful about sort of the
(41:18):
ethical and businessimplications of these kind of
things.
So you know this idea of whatcan you delegate, what can you
not.
I think these are going to becritical challenges that are
going to, you know, test a lotof the leaders in the next
decade.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, yeah, I'm hearing that story of how you
see the world right now, with AIand integrating it into more
and more critical processes andthings that touch, you know,
financial services, and itsounds like the differentiator
will be those that can executeit safely, ethically, within a
(41:53):
risk-averse manner, to createthe right guardrails, and all of
that to ensure that thegenerated outcomes are the most
appropriate outcomes and thatyou're keeping the customer safe
.
And that's where you know thefuture is and that's where the
big money and the big impact is,I think, personally.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, and it meaning, if you can solve that problem,
there are lots of opportunities,lots yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
But, in general, like to be a successful tech
executive tomorrow or in thefuture, you need to be able to
seamlessly integrate AI intodaily workflows, regardless of
how much money it is making foryou.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Agreed.
I don't think it's somethingthat you know.
Maybe there are a fewindustries here and there, but I
think it's almost everybody'sgoing to have to address this
for their company.
No matter what you do, it willbe part of your decision making
going forward.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, so what do you think some of the mindset shifts
are that are crucial forexecutives to work effectively
across or alongside the AIsystems.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, and this again ties back to some of the themes
we've already talked about,which is we're entering a world
where there aren't necessarilyeasy answers, right.
So you need to be curious, youneed to do experimentation,
setting up limited trials,trying things out, trying to
figure out where the boundariesare, figuring out again this
kind of partnership model.
Right, ais aren't magic.
I mean, they feel like itsometimes, but what is the role
(43:19):
of the AI?
What is the role of the humansin the organization?
What is the right like in thispartnership idea is probably a
good one to say how do you bringit together to get the best of
both?
And you know, just buildingthat trust little by little.
So, again, you're comfortablewith where you're using it and
understand the risks involved.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, I think the balance is between trust and a
healthy skepticism, to ensurethat the AI remains a tool that
enriches human decision makingand doesn't self-destruct on our
behalf.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Yep agreed.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Cool.
And what do you think aboutadvancements in AI and
automation?
How do they affect executivesin tech?
Speaker 2 (44:02):
I mean, I think in terms of AI and automation,
there's two, one of which wealready talked about, which is
it's going to change the org,your business, your structures,
your teams, pretty significantly.
I think the other one that wehaven't talked as much about is
the competitors.
So it will enable a new crop ofpeople to create products and
services that are going topotentially not take a lot of
(44:23):
capital to create, to come outof you know sort of left field
and be a little surprising.
So I think, whatevercompetitive analysis people do,
you probably need to widen theaperture a bit, like look
broader to see what else couldbe coming, spend more time
trying to figure out what elsecould be done here, and this
sort of complication between youknow that competitive threat
versus the risks, governance andethics right Is that balance is
(44:47):
going to be kind of critical interms of, okay, how do you
deploy this in a way that isgood for your business and done
in a well-managed way?
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Right.
So less effort on theexecutive's part for execution
and more higher-level innovationin governance.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, that rings true for me as well.
So, finally, how do yourecommend tech leaders leverage
AI in developing their teams andthemselves?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
I mean, I think one of my favorite use cases for AI
right now is just learning,right, and it's this idea of
having a personalized, you know,sort of agent that can help you
learn and understand yourdifferences.
And just kind of a quick storyhere is you know, my daughter.
She's now a freshman in collegebut you know, we were studying
for the APs.
I was helping her and she wasdoing AP physics and we're doing
(45:41):
electricity and magnetism andit's, you know, trying to find
out you know, some complicatedthing about induced currents and
things like that.
But basically watching thevideos and reading webpages only
gives you so much, but using achat, gpt, you can actually say
so, am I thinking about this,right?
Is it kind of like this?
And what will happen is it'llgo well, that's close, you
(46:03):
almost have it, but here's thedifference and it will give you
a specific thing that will helpyou understand why your
understanding may not be 100%.
And so task learning and Ithink there was a recent study
from Harvard that sort ofvalidated this.
But task learning can besignificantly accelerated by AI
when it's designed to help coachyou and sort of test you and
help you grow.
So that is a huge opportunityfor everybody.
(46:25):
Whatever skill you want tolearn, having an agent that can
help you is huge.
So you've got to think aboutthat for your teams.
You've got to think about thatfor the emerging skills.
That's one of my favorites.
The other is automation right,this idea that you know, before
it was sort of effectivelyhard-coded automation right, you
could sort of codify, you knowa process and put in bots that
(46:46):
execute the process as defined.
But now, with AI agents, it canbe a little more fluid right,
it can be approach-driven and Ithink that's going to have a lot
of impact on the internalprocesses of an organization.
And, of course, productivityright.
As you've seen, with just basicwriting and marketing copy and
things like that, chat-to-pd canjust do it much faster Legal
review much faster.
(47:06):
So there's this impact onproductivity.
And those are kind of the threeareas I would say is you can
definitely leverage AI to makeyour teams and your organization
better.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
I, for one would love to learn how to leverage AI to
recognize my own skill gaps andpersonalize my professional
development in a smart way.
Given everything that I knowabout myself, if I could hand
that over to a bot to scrutinizeand give me, you know, honest
(47:37):
feedback about where I currentlystand, where I want to remain
relevant, I think that would bea tremendous tool to provide the
public and, of course,organizations.
I think about how important itis to upskill the entire
organization with these skillsets.
(47:58):
It's not just about putting anew tool, an intuitive tool, in
front of them.
It's about how do they designtheir work experience around
that tool and make the most useof it.
How do you train them and allof that, and I think those are
extremely important questions toask as leaders in today's age.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
All right.
Well, that was fun.
Last but not least, drew, thisis one I like to take away with
everybody to get to know you alittle bit better, a little bit
more on a deeper level and asense of where your mind is.
You know, as a dreamer, if youwill Tell me if you had any
(48:41):
superpower, what would it be andwhy?
Speaker 2 (48:48):
to be and why?
Yeah, that is a great questionand I'll answer it in the
context of what I do now, right,which is career growth and
coaching and things like that.
And I think in there and thisprobably won't be surprising
based on what we've talked aboutfor the last little bit is sort
of this idea of sort of perfect, persuasive conversation, right
, the ability to talk tosomebody and convince them to do
something.
I think if I had that as thesuperpower, that would be the
one I would choose, because,again, you can only do so much
(49:08):
as yourself, any organization,any big dream, anything you need
to do.
You need other people and oneof the key ingredients is to
actually, you know, get them onboard.
And so I think that is thesuperpower, right.
I mean, I think it is an actual, attainable superpower.
Obviously not perfectcommunication, but you can get
really, really good at it, andso, rather than kind of the
Superman superpowers, I alwaysthink you know what would
(49:29):
actually help, again, my clients, my business and just the world
in general, and then I thinkwould be that, so, if you can do
the communication right, solvesa lot of problems, build some
trust and you can get momentumfor those things that you think
are important to yourself.
So that's why I would choosethat.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, and I think about communication because, yes
, I agree, it is a brilliantsuperpower.
You said at the beginning, likeif you can communicate really,
really well, you can get peopleto do anything, right.
So that's, that's in and ofitself, um, mystical right.
And beyond that it's you canfix anything with communication,
too right, like if you know howto how to work with somebody,
(50:09):
um, you can build bridgesinstead of burning them, right,
and you can do all sorts ofwonderful things to make the
world a better place.
So I second your superpower ofcommunication so thank you.
Yeah well, drew.
That's the end of our episodetoday.
(50:29):
I really appreciate your time.
It's been really excellentconversation.
I know I learned a lot and Ihope that the executives or the
aspiring executives around uswill listen in and and gain some
, some helpful tips from you.
Um, in this conversation Um, Iknow they will anyway, and um,
(50:51):
and if they want to reach out toyou, what?
What would you tell them to do?
Speaker 2 (50:56):
I mean, if they want to reach out.
I mean it's, you know, drewSauer, you can look it up.
I have, I have my, my YouTubechannel.
I have a free community forthose people who are looking to
do that and obviously I docoaching for those people who
are interested.
But you know, drew sourcom, youcan go check it out and you
know, my goal again is to helppeople get to the careers that
they want right, achieve those,those roles that they think will
make the biggest impact forthemselves.
(51:17):
And so, Jason, I appreciate youinviting me on as a great
conversation and I hopeeverybody found it useful and
thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Yeah, thanks, thanks, drew.
Take care, man, and thanks toour listeners for tuning in
today.
If you or your company wouldlike to be featured in the
Inspire AI Richmond episode,please drop us a message.
Don't forget to like, share orfollow our content and stay up
to date on the latest events forAI Ready RVA.
(51:45):
Thank you again and see younext time.
Welcome RVA to Inspire AI, where we spotlight
companies and individuals in theregion who are pioneering the
development and use ofartificial intelligence.
I'm Jason McGinty from AI ReadyRVA.
At AI Ready RVA, our mission isto cultivate AI literacy in the
greater Richmond region throughawareness, community engagement
(00:24):
, education and advocacy.
Today's episode is madepossible by Modern Ancients
driving innovation with purpose.
Modern Ancients uses AI andstrategic insight to help
businesses create lasting,positive change with their
unique journey consultingpractice.
(00:44):
Find out more about how yourbusiness can grow at
modernagentscom, and thanks toour listeners for tuning in
today.
If you or your company wouldlike to be featured in the
Inspire AI Richmond episode,please drop us a message.
Don't forget to like, share orfollow our content and stay up
(01:07):
to date on the latest events forAI Ready RVA.
In today's episode, I'm thrilledto introduce Drew Sauer, a
career coach who specializes inguiding tech executives to their
next level leadership success.
He's the founder of Drew SauerCoaching and his unique
six-pillar methodology hashelped countless tech
(01:28):
professionals transformtechnical prowess into strategic
leadership.
As a former tech COO, he'scoached 100-plus leaders to
executive roles, leveraginginsights from the top to
accelerate their success.
His approach is refreshinglyhands-on, focusing on real-world
actions and measurable outcomesas he helps others navigate the
(01:50):
often tricky transition fromtechnical expert to effective
executive.
As AI reshapes industries atbreakneck speed, his insights on
integrating tools like ChatGPTand Resume Worded offer a
powerful edge for anyone lookingto stand out.
So if you're eager to learnabout how to thrive in a rapidly
(02:13):
evolving landscape, buildingleadership skills, leveraging AI
and propelling your careerforward, this is the
conversation for you.
Please join me in welcoming ourguest, drew Sauer, to Inspire
AI.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Hey, jason, happy to be here.
Thanks for having me on theshow and thank you for joining
us today.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Can you start by telling us a little bit about
yourself and your business?
And, of course, you'reinterested in AI.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Of course.
Of course I mean it starts withprobably a little bit of
background on my career, whichis I spent most of my career in
technology.
I started as an engineer andcoder and worked in financial
services, mostly in the New Yorkarea, and I had a great career
working on various technologysystems, going through the
different sort of phases oftechnology platforms, all the
way up through kind of cloudconversions in my last role, and
(03:02):
I was actually the chiefoperating officer ultimately of
a tech organization in New Yorkwhere I had a very large team I
had like 750 people and it wasgoing great and at a certain
point my boss decided to retire.
That's kind of what happenedand I had to figure out what did
I want to do with the secondhalf of my career?
And while I love the job, I lovethe company if you know,
(03:23):
financial services there's a lotof auditors and regulators and
things like that and I decided Iwant to do something different
and that's when I shifted overinto this executive coaching
business, mostly because thatwas an area that I sort of
struggled with this executivetransition in my own career and
I saw a lot of my staff havingthe same challenge and that's
when I launched it and so that'swhat I've been doing the last
(03:43):
four plus years is helping techleaders sort of grow their
careers and get into theexecutive ranks.
And in the context of ourconversation today, obviously
related to AI is a huge bothopportunity and challenge to a
lot of tech firms and a lot ofsort of tech leaders in terms of
what's next, and so that'sreally where my interest comes
from, mostly from what AI can dofor us.
(04:06):
Then, obviously, from my careerperspective is okay, what does
that mean to everybody and theirjob?
So that's a quick littlehistory of how I got to where I
am today.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, I believe we're all at that turning point,
whether we've recognized it ornot.
It's interesting to hear howyour career transitioned into
this field and then how you'remaking another pivot into
technologies that will advanceand make your field of interest
thrive even more.
So can you walk us through yourcoaching methodology?
(04:36):
How did you tailor it to techexecutives?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Of course, and what I would say is the major message
that I have for all kind of thetech leaders and people I work
with is the idea that it's not abigger version of your job,
it's a different jobfundamentally.
And most of us who grew up insort titles like vice president
and we get rewarded for delivery, we get rewarded for doing the
right thing on time, on budget,high quality, and then at a
(05:11):
certain point that changes right.
And that's really where I focus.
And ultimately there are kindof six major pillars that I work
with people on, and it's thisidea of, first off, how do you
get the role, and then, secondly, how do you thrive in the role?
And to get the role isrelatively straightforward, but
you have to think a little bitdifferently about it.
So the first thing you need issort of an offer and a value
(05:34):
proposition answering thequestion of why would somebody
hire you as, say, a vicepresident?
Right, it's not just that youcould do the job, it's not just
that you're ready for the job,because there are a bunch of
other people who want that jobtoo.
So what is your unique thing?
So I kind of help people figureout what is their unique value
and how to sort of position that.
Then you need leads, which, asyou grow in your career,
increasingly becomes based onyour network and recruiters and
(05:57):
relationships.
So you got to figure out how todo that.
And then, ultimately, it'sabout selling yourself for the
role, right, which is just partof what needs to be done.
You know, myself included, nota lot of people like to sell
themselves.
It's just not necessarily acomfortable thing, but in order
to have a bigger impact, it'sone of the skills that you need
to build.
So that's another thing that Iwork with people on.
So that's kind of the basic.
(06:18):
You know, offer, leads andsales is how you get the role.
But what about when you'rethere?
Right, and ultimately, theexecutive role really is based
on three things that you need tofigure out right.
One is this kind of amorphousterm around executive presence,
which is basically the questionof do other people see you as an
executive, which means thequestions you ask, the way you
engage, the things you talkabout.
(06:38):
You need to think about how todo that at the executive level.
And then, ultimately, it'sabout kind of relationships and
results, right, and as you go upagain, relationships become
more and more important, becauseit's not necessarily about
getting it done, because you nowhave teams to do that.
It's about putting the rightpeople in place, getting other
people on board with what youwant to do.
So, ultimately, those are kindof the six things that I work
(06:58):
with people on and, in terms oftailoring it right, that six is
pretty much good for everybody.
That's the map, but obviouslyeverybody has a slightly
different history, a slightlydifferent story, and so that's
really where, when I work withpeople, it's like OK, where are
their strengths, where are theirchallenges?
And we typically work on theone or two things that they
really need to focus on, andthose tend to make the biggest
difference in their career.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Right, ok, so just to recap, you've distilled down
through your coaching programand six pillar framework One,
the offer to the leads, and thenthree sales, and then you kind
of have another side of it whereyou are helping them develop
their presence and theirrelationships and understand
(07:41):
what results to go after.
Is that what I heard, right?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Exactly Like you think of it as two.
Is that what I heard?
Right?
Exactly Like you think of it astwo halves of the equation.
Right, and you know you needboth to succeed.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Right, okay.
And so by tailoring you knowthis specifically to tech
executives.
You're bridging their deeptechnical expertise with their
executive mindset, so that givesthem an ability to uh determine
what their measurable value isto the outside world and and be
able to express that throughwhat their unique proposition.
(08:11):
What did?
Did you say unique?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah, unique value proposition and a simple way to
understand it is when, whenyou're in a tech organization,
you're working with othertechnical people, right?
And they they know what youknow.
They have a similar background.
They get it.
And as you become a leader, youincreasingly work with people
outside of technology.
It might be in product, it mightbe in sales, marketing, legal,
right across the enterprise, andthose people don't have the
(08:34):
same background, which is why,again, the way you communicate,
the way you engage, has to bedifferent, because they have a
different background than you doand they're not as steeped in
the technology, they don'tunderstand probably as much as
we do, and so that's really oneof the things you need to adopt
to be successful.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Indeed, yeah, okay.
What are some of the mostcritical leadership skills you
would say that tech executivesin 2025 should adopt?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I would say there's two classics and kind of
one new right.
And the classic two are sort ofagain this kind of vague
concept of executive presence,but really it's the question of
your ability to convince otherpeople to do things right.
So, how well can youcommunicate, how well can you
influence?
Because, again, at the moresenior levels, you can't do it
alone, you need other people andyou need to be able to convince
them.
(09:24):
So this kind of communicationability is one.
The second one, which is kindof again classic and perennial,
is sort of the strategic mindset, right, which is the question
of what do we do next?
Right, and that's a questionthat, again, executives are
asked to answer, which isunderstanding the technology
front, the competitive landscape, the environment, everything
else, and answering thatquestion of what do we do next.
(09:45):
And those are true decades agoand they're still true today.
I do think that the tech fluencyis that third piece and it's
becoming increasingly important,particularly with this
conversation today, because ofAI and what that is really doing
to change everything.
Right, if you think about thelast few years of technology,
they were for technologists,right.
(10:06):
If you think about moving tothe cloud, to a non-technologist
, what does that even mean Ifyou put a product or a marketing
person up against a AWS console, what would they do?
They probably wouldn't knowwhat to do, right?
But if you give them chat, gpt,everybody knows what to do.
You just ask questions and youtalk to it, and so suddenly this
technology revolution.
Right is not just fortechnologists, it's for
(10:28):
everybody.
And so what, what are theimpacts of that is going to be
very important for all theleaders.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah yeah, so definitely communicating complex
ideas would be a game changerfor the the tech executives,
being able to learn the newskills and apply them on the job
, while communicating themeffectively to their customers.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's an important notethat all tech executives should
hear to stay relevant andeffective in their field for
sure.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow many tech leaders struggle
transitioning from technical toexecutive roles?
And how do you help themspecifically to bridge that gap?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I would say that the main struggle and this is kind
of what we talked about a littlebit before, but there are two
main struggles One is people getrewarded for this execution
mindset, the get it done mindset.
That is absolutely critical.
It's important to everyfunction to get it done well, on
time, high quality, etc.
As you sort of peer to theother executives, and one way I
(11:46):
often talk about it is thisservice mentality versus a
partnership mentality.
A service mentality is wheresomebody says, hey, drew, I need
you to do this.
Here's a project.
It's really important to thecompany.
I'm putting you in charge, goget it done.
And now I've got to execute it.
But I am effectively a serviceprovider to them.
They define what needed to bedone and I'm getting it done.
(12:06):
Eventually I need to be part ofthe conversation of what should
we do?
Right, and that's kind of thattransition where, if you're used
to basically getting aninitiative, getting a project
and then executing it, gettingyourself into those
conversations is sometimes achallenge.
And it's also a challengebecause you're really good at
that thing, probably right.
(12:29):
So people love it when youexecute and what do they want
you to do?
They want you to do more of it.
So this is why it is a strugglesometimes, because you have to
be the one to break yourself outof it right, which means that
you need to engage differently.
You need to ask some differentquestions.
You need to basically make themsee that you can do other
things, and that's really one ofthe things that you know when I
help people.
You know in my coachingpractice, there are questions to
(12:50):
ask, there are ways to engage,but ultimately it's the how do
you get them to see youdifferently and show that you
are ready?
Because just doing your jobreally well, unfortunately, is
not enough these days.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Right on.
Yeah, it sounds like you'rehelping people make a mental
shift from becoming, or frombeing, a problem solver to an
opportunity creator.
Exactly, yeah, and it's morethan just organizational
strategy, it's like personaldevelopment strategy.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, because it's a lot about how you think about
yourself, how you think aboutyour job and how you engage with
others, and it is I use theterm reframe Right.
You need to reframe the way yousee the world and change it
from again the sort of executionmindset to an executive mindset
, right, which is what we're alltrying to do.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, managing tasks to inspiring teams and
influencing strategic decisions.
Absolutely, that sounds good.
Thank you for digging into thatone with us, sure, so how do
you measure the success of yourcoaching engagements?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
This one's a pretty straightforward one, right?
Ultimately, it's do people getthe jobs that they want?
Right, and I work with peoplewho are trying to move up the
ladder, whether it's a manager,director, director to VP, and
the ultimate, you know, measureof success is did they land that
role Right?
In a broader sense, I'm alsotrying to help people take more
control over their career right,because a lot of times people
(14:16):
do the job and then they hopethey are seen, they hope they
did it enough.
They don't really know how thepromotion thing works and
they're just kind of waiting,and so, ultimately, my sort of
main goal is to give people moreagency in their own career
Right, so you understand thelandscape, you understand the
rules and then you can setyourself up for success in a
(14:37):
much faster way, right, sothat's my goal is to get them to
the job, but ideally muchfaster than they would have
before they started working withme.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, it's pretty straightforward.
It just reminds me of JerryMaguire's show me the money
statement, right, Like, yeah,you can be my coach all you want
, but I'm, you know, I'm lookingfor you to to increase my
income or give me my promotion.
That's, that's what it amountsto.
It sounds like that's prettyawesome.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, that's the idea .
There's a lot of coaching.
I mean, coaching can be veryvaluable in many different
scenarios, but for for for meagain, coming from the tech
background, coming from thedelivery background, I'm big on
outcomes, so to me, that outcomeis the clearest way to know
that you've added value, andthat's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Totally, and tell us what inspired you to become a
career coach anyway, andparticularly for tech executives
.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, and it's I did.
It mostly comes from kind oflived experience.
Right, and I had a great careerand, as I said, I started as a
coder.
I was doing projects.
I worked for Accenture, whichwas a consulting firm, and did
great.
So every couple of years I didgreat work, I got promoted,
great work, got promoted.
And then I was at a company andI was a director, ready for
executive director promotion,and for that I was equivalent of
(15:53):
a VP in our world and I workedreally hard.
I got a great bonus, I got agreat rating and I didn't get
promoted and I had great mentors, great supporters, but they
gave me this sort of genericadvice around well, it takes a
little longer.
Build your executive presence,you need to be seen more.
These things that weren't superhelpful for me.
So I decided to kind of doubledown, work even harder, had a
great next year, got an evenbigger bonus, all was great.
(16:13):
And I still didn't get promoted.
So that was two cycles in a rowthat I didn't get promoted.
And that's when I realized that,okay, something isn't right
here, I'm not understanding thisworld, and sort of took a step
back, looked at kind of what thewhat the executives were doing
versus what I was doing, andthat's when I really had this
epiphany that it's like, oh, itisn't just working hard and
(16:33):
doing more, it's doing different, right, and that's one of those
things that, as soon as Ifigured that out and again I
focused on some of the stuff wetalked about in terms of
relationships and changing theway that people saw me and
generating more strategic ideasand things like that I got
promoted, I got executivedirector, managing director, and
then, as I said, I was thechief operating officer and it's
that sort of mid-careerlinchpin that made all the
(16:55):
difference for me.
And I saw that again in my ownstaff who were trying to grow.
They often had the same problemand it seemed to me as both a
common need for tech leaders,because a lot of people kind of
feel that stall point in themiddle of their career and there
really wasn't a lot out there.
There was all this sort ofgeneric advice, but not the
tactics of OK, literally what doyou say when you want to go
(17:16):
meet an executive.
I thought I could add someunique value there and that's
why I decided to launch my ownbusiness.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Wow, yeah, you mentioned this at the beginning
and just now, just briefly, canyou tell us what your go-to
statement is on how you helppeople make that mental shift
between doing more or not doingmore and just doing something
different?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, and this idea that it's not a bigger job, like
that's the ultimate thing, isthat you cannot hard work your
way into an executive role.
That's just not the rules.
That's not how people judge you.
There is a relatively clearline and it's much easier to see
on the other side, like if youask any executive, they're very
able, very easily able, to judgewhether they think someone else
(18:02):
is an executive Before you getthere.
It's very hard to see, butthere is a relatively bright
line and again, it's thisrealization that it's not more
of what you're doing, it'sadding new things that you
didn't do before.
Right, that's the mostimportant piece.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Indeed.
So being passed over forpromotions in the past had
inspired you to commit, at somepoint in the future, to helping
others and supporting them onpreventing them from hitting the
same pitfalls that you hityourself.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, great.
Okay, can you maybe share us asuccess story where your
coaching significantly impactedsomeone, specifically an
executive's career?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
impacted someone specifically an executive's
career.
Yeah, happy to.
And you know, one of myfavorites is something that I've
seen repeat a few times, but Ithink it very well illustrates
how quickly things can change ifyou do the right things.
And so this was a gentlemannamed Shelly.
He worked at Microsoft, he wasa director there, and he came to
me and he basically wanted towork with me because he had had
that conversation right.
Again, it's very similar to myown situation, like very well
regarded, like done really well,was well rated, and he talked
(19:11):
to his boss about gettingpromoted and his boss had said
yep, absolutely, you know,you're on the track, but it'll
probably be basically two orthree years.
That was kind of the timelinehe gave him.
And so he came to me and he'slike I don't, I don't really
want to wait two or three years,I want to start looking around.
And so we started workingtogether and one of the things I
(19:32):
always sort of recommend forpeople is you know, as you learn
some of the stuff that we doaround relationships and
engagement, you know, if youhave a day job, particularly,
you have a practice ground,right, go try these things out,
because it's like any new skill,new habit.
You need to figure out how itworks, you need to kind of build
it in and be comfortable withit.
And so an assignment Itypically do with people is say
okay, I want you to go meet withother executives, I want you to
(19:53):
go have a differentconversation.
Don't make it an executionupdate.
Don't give them status.
Talk to them about theirproblems, what are their
strategic challenges?
Just have a differentconversation.
And so we started doing thisand literally less than three
months later, his boss came tohim and said hey, you know again
Shelly was his name.
It's like hey, I've heard a lotof great things from other
(20:15):
leaders in the firm because hehad been going out there and
meeting various managingdirectors and VPs and stuff like
that.
And he basically said andyou've made a real difference
and I'm going to put you up forpromotion.
Said and you've made a realdifference, and I'm going to put
you up for promotion.
And he did.
And he got promoted within sixmonths.
And you know, he actually didend up leaving and he's doing
another thing and he actuallygot sort of a senior vice
president position outside,because he kind of continued.
(20:37):
But I always love that storybecause that's often what people
hear oh you're doing great, butjust give it some time.
Right If it's give it some time.
But just give it some time,right, if it's give it some time
.
That's code word, for you'renot showing the behaviors that
we want to see, and I hope thatif I just let you do some more
stuff, you'll kind of naturallypick it up.
But these things are verylearnable and so you know this
(20:58):
story and this again thishappened a few times where when
you practice it, suddenlyopportunities open up.
So that's an example of onewhere, again, it's just adding
new behaviors can make adifference and it can happen
quite quickly.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah.
So from this particular example, this associate was a senior
director and, stagnant in theircareer trajectory, wasn't
getting much support fromleadership.
They then went and hadconversations based on your,
(21:32):
your impactful approach.
Right, you're coaching themthrough this, this relationship
building, executive presence, uh, awareness type, uh pillar,
right?
Um, they were able to get theirpromotion.
They jumped to another companyand got another promotion, and
(21:53):
so on and so forth, um, doublingtheir, their salary.
That's amazing.
I would love to meet thisperson honestly and get their
get their side of the story, butI know it's confidential so I
won't ask.
Yeah, no, it's great, all right.
(22:13):
What strategies do you suggestto help underrepresented groups
advance in tech leadership?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
That's a great question and it's one of those
things that the core skills andthe core things you need to do
are the same, but forparticularly underrepresented
groups, my advice always is,again, the storytelling and
communication skills become evenmore important because if
you're in a situation where yourvoice is going to be heard less
potentially than others, havingthose skills, being able to
(22:38):
make yourself heard, is critical, and that is a skill set that
you can build.
But also, you know this,mentorship and sponsorships are
key right, being exposed to andgrowing your own relationships
and having a network outsideright.
And so it is, you know, thesame advice I give anybody, but
it is something that do moreright Again, communication and
(23:00):
networking being the two kind ofcore pillars of meet more
people learn more about whatthey do, learn more about what
the challenges and the needs areof the organization or whatever
job you want, but really putyourself out there.
more is usually the fastest wayto address that.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, so I think most of our audience would be fairly
familiar with what a mentorshipis, but can you explain what a
sponsorship is?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah, A sponsorship program is just a more formal
version and this obviouslydepends on the company and what
their particular goals are.
But a mentor is somebody whocan go to advice.
A sponsor is someone who isactive in your career growth,
right.
And so a sponsor is somebodywho will basically look out for
you and say, hey, there's a newopportunity over here and
(23:47):
so-and-so would be a greatcandidate, and they try to
expose you to hey, you shouldtry for this.
It's not necessarily thatthey're going to give you things
, but they're supposed to keepan eye on it from their
presumably more senior perch andhelp sort of grease the wheels,
if you will, and get you tomore opportunities, see more
things and actively help yougrow your own career.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Oh, that is cool.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
That's a relationship .
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I need to explore myself.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
They're harder to get , but they are very valuable if
you can get them.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
In your experience, are sponsorships well understood
between the requester and thesponsor?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, and I would say and I can give you the question
originally was aroundunderrepresented groups there
are.
There are often formal programsor for women or minorities or
things like that, where thereactually is a commitment to say
yes, this is kind of amentorship, but it's also
somebody who's going to keep aneye on you, somebody who's going
to help you identifyopportunities, and oftentimes
it's a it's a more subtlerelationship between you and a
(24:45):
mentor.
A mentor can easily become asponsor if they become an active
champion and they think you cando really good things, right.
So they're always wanting toshow your value and add to it,
and really it's one of thosethings that you can kind of
figure it out based on what arethey willing to do for you,
right?
If they're willing to answeryour questions and give you
advice, that's awesome andthat's a mentor.
If they're willing to start tosay, introduce you to new people
(25:06):
, then you start to move on tothat sponsorship because they're
taking active action and usingsome of their own network or
opportunities to move you along.
So that's a great way to kindof test where you are.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, yeah, I think I think it makes a lot of sense
to inspect for your inner circlewhere you you get the most
support from and can leveragetheir influence in helping you
take the appropriate steps andopen the right doors.
So yeah, thank you.
It really resonated with me tohear you say that storytelling
(25:38):
and developing executivecommunication is pretty much on
point.
For any tech executive.
It doesn't come natural but itis definitely coachable.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
How do you think tech executives stay relevant in
such a rapidly evolving industry?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
What I would say is it starts with kind of this
lifelong learning, right?
I mean, particularly if you'vebeen in technology.
It's just one of thoseindustries that just continues
to evolve and you know we cantalk a little more about AI in a
little bit, but it's one ofthose things that is just going
faster and faster.
So being a lifelong learner,staying curious, is one of the
most important things andparticularly as you kind of move
up in your career, it'simportant to note that you know
(26:23):
the actual technology becomesharder and harder to stay on top
of.
There's only so manytechnologies you can master,
whether it's a coding languageor a tool set or something like
that.
So understanding again some ofthese more transferable skills,
like strategic thinking and theinnovation communication we
talked about, but also askingyourself what is the impact of
these technologies.
Your job, particularly as anexecutive, is not necessarily to
(26:46):
code, but it's to say what isthis going to do to my business,
my industry and everything?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
else.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And so that's really where you want to sort of
continue that.
And this is just another plugfor the networking and peer
learning, because one of theeasiest ways to do that is to go
meet a bunch of other peoplewho are also thinking these
things and share ideas.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, definitely the lifelong learning piece and
staying curious, having aninnovation mindset, are all
skills I think that are superimportant for leadership of the
future.
So you just touched on some ofthe technologies.
I'd like to know yourperspective on how you see AI
influencing career paths of techexecutives and possibly the
(27:27):
next decade.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, and so predicting the next decade of AI
influence is going to be verydifficult.
We can start with the idea thatit's only going to get more
powerful from here, right, andso I would say that you know
this again, this idea of techfluency.
You just need to keep up withwhat's going on, what the
possibilities are, and there arereally two halves of the
equation that you need to thinkabout, right?
(27:50):
One is how does AI impact theproducts and services that we
offer, or whatever company youare, because it's going to be
embedded in everything.
And the other one, which ispotentially even more
challenging, is what does thatdo to the organization, right?
What does that do to the jobs?
(28:10):
What does that do to the skillsets as certain jobs become, you
know, augmented via AI?
Some may become replaced via AI.
Where are the places that youknow human innovation and
engagement really shine, andwhere are places that you know
might make sense to?
You know, have an AI agent orsomething like that?
Do it.
So, again, thinking aboutbusiness and organization are
probably the two major piecesthat will be key for figuring
out how AI is going to influenceanybody's career going forward.
(28:35):
Yeah this one really resonateswith me.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
AI Ready RVA as you know, I'm part of this podcast
is developed and powered by AIReady RVA.
As you know, I'm part of thispodcast is developed and powered
by AI Ready RVA's leadership.
I think it's important foreveryone to consider, whether
you're an executive role or not,how prepared you are for the
future, where AI is literallyintegrated into every aspect of
our businesses and, as youpointed out, having that
(29:26):
technical fluency and ability tolearn from these experiences
and effectively integrate AIinto the products and processes
like you said, and, of course,the strategies to be able to
drive your organization'ssuccess.
that is key to a successfulfuture for many, if not all,
leadership.
I think I completely agree.
Okay, yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
So let's dig a little deeper and talk about how AI is
transforming the field ofcareer coaching, specifically
and particularly for executivesthat you work with.
Yeah, it's an interestingquestion, and it's a good one,
because the stuff that I'mseeing, even in my own business,
is very parallel to what'sprobably going on in many
different businesses, and so thefirst aspect is all the basic
stuff can now be done by AI orchat, gpt or tools like that,
whether it's sort of cleaning upyour resume, writing a cover
(30:05):
letter and you know.
So basically any of the simplethings like bad grammar or
spelling mistakes or things likethat should all be sort of gone
right.
And there are also things evenin my own practice I have and it
just because it's fun for melike I built an agent on chat
GPT which basically I loaded upall of my training, all my stuff
(30:27):
in it, and it's a way forpeople to interact and get some
feedback based on the way Iwould do things, you know, based
on everything I've learned.
So just this idea, you havethis kind of virtual coach which
is a version of me that seemsto be pretty accurate.
I mean, it's only going to getmore accurate over time.
So again, then I have to thinkabout, you know, even in my own
business.
So then, what's my value ifthere's an AI that can answer
most of the questions?
And it sort of comes down to Ithink the best example here is
(30:49):
the idea that, okay, ifeverybody has access to AI,
suddenly every resume, everyLinkedIn profile should all be
pretty good, right, it's as ifyou had a professional writer do
it.
So, if they're all pretty goodand what used to work, which is
well, it was just badlyformatted, all this kind of
stuff, if that goes away, whatis the differentiator?
And that's where it goes backto our storytelling and our
(31:12):
focus, which is the AIs can'ttell you what you're really good
at.
The AIs can't tell you right nowwhat the hiring manager is
looking for and understandingthe problem.
They kind of give you an idea,but it's still much more art
rather than science, right, andthat sort of value proposition,
the value matching andultimately the communication, is
the thing that AI isn't quitethere yet.
And so again, this idea of youtake the low-level tasks and you
(31:35):
have a tool that can do it foryou, right?
Whenever I have to writesomething, I can always have a
first draft or get some ideasfrom ChatGPT, but then I have to
make sure it's what I want tosay, yeah.
So what I would say is, insummary, it really is having an
AI do the base work.
All the easy tasks aresomething that is what I'm
seeing in my business.
So what other people are goingto see elsewhere?
And again, this idea of okay,so what's the art, what's the
(31:58):
thing that will make you standout, is really where you need to
think about how are youdifferent than the AI and what
it can do, and that's the thingyou need to bring to the table
as your differentiator.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
So you built your own GPT so your students, if you
will, can talk to you whenyou're not around.
I'm just curious how, yeah,have you seen that feedback from
them yet?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I mean, I've had a few people doing it and I've
gotten some really good feedback, and the difference is and this
is where you know againthinking through AI, right?
So AI is generic and has most ofyou know it's read the entire
internet and can talk about youknow pretty common stuff, they
can talk about pretty commonstuff, and so what that means
again, I might happen to do itthrough ChatGPT versus Cloud or
(32:45):
something else, but what thatmeans is the advice it gives
tends to be the advice it giveseverybody, and so part of my
coaching practice is trying togive people advice that isn't
the same as what they can readon the internet, right?
Something that's differentbecause ultimately, that's what
we're trying to do is you needto differentiate yourself, you
need to find something different, and so I have you know just
little things about.
(33:05):
You know particularly the way Isuggest people interview, the
way I suggest they write bulletsis slightly different, because
I focus very much on that techexecutive, right.
So it's different advice.
And so getting an AI to knowthe way I would do it and answer
it the way I would answer it,you know it took a little bit of
time and effort, but having hadpeople change it.
They've told me, and I sort ofset it up to be like okay, as
(33:27):
Drew would say, you know, pick aphrase for me and then he would
give advice based on that.
So it is very tailored to myspecific philosophies, which is
what you know I teach everybodyin the community.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Did you provide them a set of prompts or are they
just learning how to use itbased on their own specific
knowledge of GPTs?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Right, and so what my job was and again it's you know
.
I'm sure there'll be moreversions and it'll get better,
but basically you know, becauseI've done everything on video
now and things like that, like Ihave, you know, hundreds of
pages of transcripts and thingsbased on me talking about.
You know the way that Iapproach things, and so I loaded
that up to to GPT and then Ihad to do like and like
(34:06):
everything else.
You have to do a little bit ofreinforced learning.
I would ask you questions andit would answer in a way that I
wouldn't, and then I'd have toput in your instructions and say
, well, no, you need to.
You know sort of match thisstuff Exactly, you need to do X,
y.
So it did take a bit of training, and so that's when my clients
say, hey, what do you think ofthis cover letter?
It then goes as well as Drewwould say here's the structure,
(34:27):
here's the structure we use inDrew Sauer coaching and it will
coach them on the way we do it.
So yeah, I mean, most of themhave some experience with
ChatGPT, but helping them sortof get the most out of it is the
goal.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Nice.
And last question on that topichave you tried operator yet?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I have not tried operator yet.
I am curious in terms of whatit can do, and this is where you
start to get to that again,that agent level of it can
actually take actions on yourbehalf.
That is another line that wegot to think through.
It's one thing when it's givingyou feedback.
It's one thing when it's givingyou ideas.
It's one thing when it's givingyou feedback.
It's one thing when it's givingyou ideas.
It's another thing when it'staking actions.
And you know that's that isgoing to be a new world to
(35:07):
explore and we can talk aboutthis in a little bit, but that's
a great example some of thethings that you're gonna have to
think about as a leader goingforward yeah, of course okay
well, tell us a little bit moreabout specific ai tools or
platforms that you use in yourcoaching practice.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
We heard a little bit about what you've offered your
students.
What do you use and how doesthat enhance the experience for
the tech executives and maybeeven how have they been?
How has that impacted your work?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Sure, and you know, for example, one of them and you
know specific affiliations.
There are a couple of toolslike this, but is a a tool
called Resume Worded, which is atool with an AI engine that is
specifically designed to look atresumes and job descriptions,
and what it's trying to do isunderstand what the job is
looking for and give youfeedback on your resume based on
that.
(35:56):
And again, what is it good atthat we're, as humans, aren't as
good at is that it can easilydigest all the specific nuances.
It doesn't forget a word.
It doesn't it good at thatwe're, you know, as humans,
aren't as good at is that it caneasily digest, you know, all
the specific nuances.
It doesn't forget a word, itdoesn't get tired, it doesn't
skim over certain sections ofthe job description, so it can
look at it holistically and do areally in-depth analysis of how
well it matches.
And that's very useful because,rather than spending time
(36:17):
reading it, in like two secondsit can tell you oh, it talks a
lot about data architecture orcustomer service or cloud or
whatever it is, and I don't seethat in your resume, so it can
quickly tell you the things thatare missing.
You know, but like everythingelse, it's not perfect, right,
sometimes it highlights wordsthat don't make a lot of sense
to the human, but that's a tool.
(36:37):
Again, just from a workflowperspective, makes it very easy
to review and score resumes.
It can figure out what is aquote, unquote, good bullet
again, which is a subjectivetask, but it's really able to do
that.
So that's kind of the mainthing.
And then things like you know,chat, gpt, in terms of you know
role play exercises and pitchesand interview prep and things
like that.
Those are things that I'veencouraged kind of my clients to
(36:59):
use as well and they can bevery helpful too.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Do you just back to your your chat bot, do you?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
do you have a nickname for it?
Yeah, I call it it's.
It's Andrew, so it's sort ofthe Android version of Drew.
So that was yeah, that was whatI came up with.
Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Now gone through some of the some of the tooling AI
advancements, let's talk alittle bit about advice.
I always like to help ourlisteners learn a little bit
more about how they canintegrate AI into their
decision-making processes.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
What's your?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
advice for them.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
I mean, my advice right now is to use it to test
hypotheses, expand ideas and becreative.
Right so it is.
An advisor is kind of the rolethat I would sort of advise
myself most people to actuallyuse it in, right it is.
Again, for those of you whoknow how AI works, it is still a
semantic engine.
It's basically predicting textbased on having read effectively
(38:00):
the entire internet, and itactually is really good at that
and can come up with a lot ofgood ideas.
But it is not, at least at thispoint, grounded in irrefutable
logic and it can still make mathmistakes and things like that.
And so what I tell people isuse it to stimulate your
thinking, validate your thinking, test yourself.
You know I'm personally notquite ready to have it in a
(38:20):
decision making perspective,because I don't think we
understand enough about that,but I do think using it to help
balance your own intuition andprovide you a great advisory
service is probably the best usecase for it at the moment.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
So no agent reasoning for you tomorrow, then huh.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, I mean, it depends on what it is right and
this is where part of it is.
As I said earlier, like I comefrom a financial service
background, right, that's whereI worked for many, many years
and would I put an AI agent incharge of like real money,
meaning like millions orbillions or trillions of dollars
?
Absolutely not.
If I'm ordering from DoorDash,you know like what's the worst
that can happen is it gets thatyeah right, exactly Right.
(39:06):
So if I get okay, that's that Iwould probably be willing to try
.
And that's really where, as abusiness person, you want to
think about.
It's like every decision is isa risk adjusted decision, right,
what is?
What is the impact, what is thelikelihood that what I want to
have happen happens?
And then what is theprobability that something will
go wrong?
And those are the same kind ofthinking you want to think about
in terms of what would you putAI in charge?
And a lot of that is we don'tknow how good these things are
(39:29):
going to be.
So you want to think throughthe downside cost.
So if this goes wrong or betteryet, when this goes wrong, what
happens and what's theconsequence?
Right, and If you'recomfortable with that, again,
doordash curly fries instead ofmy spicy fries, you might be
fine.
A million-dollar cash transfernot so good.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, so you're saying it's like a blend of
science and art and what we needto consider when we keep
decision-making and that sort offorward thinking with these
technologies to ensure riskmanagement strategy is upheld.
Well, I got you.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
All right.
So let's bring it back up justa little bit, or tell us how AI
is reshaping what it means to bea successful tech executive.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
I think the main reshaping I would say is, you
know, again, the core decisionsthat we talked about in terms of
strategy and communication arethe same, but the context is now
much different and I thinkthere's going to be a much
stronger push for people tostart embedding AI because, they
see it, it looks really good onthe surface, right, you know,
basically, having an initialconversation looks really
(40:36):
powerful.
It's only until you get in someof these deeper ones that you
start to see where some of theboundaries are, some of the
flaws are, and so my guess isthere's going to be a huge push
from whether it's the businesscommunity, whether it's
customers themselves, to say,hey, give us more AI enablement.
And, as a leader, you're goingto have to sort of think how to
navigate that.
What are the right decisions tomake?
What are the best things to do?
So?
(40:56):
Understanding, particularly likethe ethical and business
implications, right, we you know, most people who are in this
space have heard of exampleswhere you know AI is making
decisions on loans.
And, again, if you know thebackground of AI, you know
there's no specific logic.
People don't know exactly howthese things come to a decision
and if, again, you're makingthese things that affect
people's lives.
You just need to be verythoughtful about sort of the
(41:18):
ethical and businessimplications of these kind of
things.
So you know this idea of whatcan you delegate, what can you
not.
I think these are going to becritical challenges that are
going to, you know, test a lotof the leaders in the next
decade.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, yeah, I'm hearing that story of how you
see the world right now, with AIand integrating it into more
and more critical processes andthings that touch, you know,
financial services, and itsounds like the differentiator
will be those that can executeit safely, ethically, within a
(41:53):
risk-averse manner, to createthe right guardrails, and all of
that to ensure that thegenerated outcomes are the most
appropriate outcomes and thatyou're keeping the customer safe
.
And that's where you know thefuture is and that's where the
big money and the big impact is,I think, personally.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, and it meaning, if you can solve that problem,
there are lots of opportunities,lots yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
But, in general, like to be a successful tech
executive tomorrow or in thefuture, you need to be able to
seamlessly integrate AI intodaily workflows, regardless of
how much money it is making foryou.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Agreed.
I don't think it's somethingthat you know.
Maybe there are a fewindustries here and there, but I
think it's almost everybody'sgoing to have to address this
for their company.
No matter what you do, it willbe part of your decision making
going forward.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, so what do you think some of the mindset shifts
are that are crucial forexecutives to work effectively
across or alongside the AIsystems.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, and this again ties back to some of the themes
we've already talked about,which is we're entering a world
where there aren't necessarilyeasy answers, right.
So you need to be curious, youneed to do experimentation,
setting up limited trials,trying things out, trying to
figure out where the boundariesare, figuring out again this
kind of partnership model.
Right, ais aren't magic.
I mean, they feel like itsometimes, but what is the role
(43:19):
of the AI?
What is the role of the humansin the organization?
What is the right like in thispartnership idea is probably a
good one to say how do you bringit together to get the best of
both?
And you know, just buildingthat trust little by little.
So, again, you're comfortablewith where you're using it and
understand the risks involved.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, I think the balance is between trust and a
healthy skepticism, to ensurethat the AI remains a tool that
enriches human decision makingand doesn't self-destruct on our
behalf.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Yep agreed.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Cool.
And what do you think aboutadvancements in AI and
automation?
How do they affect executivesin tech?
Speaker 2 (44:02):
I mean, I think in terms of AI and automation,
there's two, one of which wealready talked about, which is
it's going to change the org,your business, your structures,
your teams, pretty significantly.
I think the other one that wehaven't talked as much about is
the competitors.
So it will enable a new crop ofpeople to create products and
services that are going topotentially not take a lot of
(44:23):
capital to create, to come outof you know sort of left field
and be a little surprising.
So I think, whatevercompetitive analysis people do,
you probably need to widen theaperture a bit, like look
broader to see what else couldbe coming, spend more time
trying to figure out what elsecould be done here, and this
sort of complication between youknow that competitive threat
versus the risks, governance andethics right Is that balance is
(44:47):
going to be kind of critical interms of, okay, how do you
deploy this in a way that isgood for your business and done
in a well-managed way?
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Right.
So less effort on theexecutive's part for execution
and more higher-level innovationin governance.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, that rings true for me as well.
So, finally, how do yourecommend tech leaders leverage
AI in developing their teams andthemselves?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
I mean, I think one of my favorite use cases for AI
right now is just learning,right, and it's this idea of
having a personalized, you know,sort of agent that can help you
learn and understand yourdifferences.
And just kind of a quick storyhere is you know, my daughter.
She's now a freshman in collegebut you know, we were studying
for the APs.
I was helping her and she wasdoing AP physics and we're doing
(45:41):
electricity and magnetism andit's, you know, trying to find
out you know, some complicatedthing about induced currents and
things like that.
But basically watching thevideos and reading webpages only
gives you so much, but using achat, gpt, you can actually say
so, am I thinking about this,right?
Is it kind of like this?
And what will happen is it'llgo well, that's close, you
(46:03):
almost have it, but here's thedifference and it will give you
a specific thing that will helpyou understand why your
understanding may not be 100%.
And so task learning and Ithink there was a recent study
from Harvard that sort ofvalidated this.
But task learning can besignificantly accelerated by AI
when it's designed to help coachyou and sort of test you and
help you grow.
So that is a huge opportunityfor everybody.
(46:25):
Whatever skill you want tolearn, having an agent that can
help you is huge.
So you've got to think aboutthat for your teams.
You've got to think about thatfor the emerging skills.
That's one of my favorites.
The other is automation right,this idea that you know, before
it was sort of effectivelyhard-coded automation right, you
could sort of codify, you knowa process and put in bots that
(46:46):
execute the process as defined.
But now, with AI agents, it canbe a little more fluid right,
it can be approach-driven and Ithink that's going to have a lot
of impact on the internalprocesses of an organization.
And, of course, productivityright.
As you've seen, with just basicwriting and marketing copy and
things like that, chat-to-pd canjust do it much faster Legal
review much faster.
(47:06):
So there's this impact onproductivity.
And those are kind of the threeareas I would say is you can
definitely leverage AI to makeyour teams and your organization
better.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
I, for one would love to learn how to leverage AI to
recognize my own skill gaps andpersonalize my professional
development in a smart way.
Given everything that I knowabout myself, if I could hand
that over to a bot to scrutinizeand give me, you know, honest
(47:37):
feedback about where I currentlystand, where I want to remain
relevant, I think that would bea tremendous tool to provide the
public and, of course,organizations.
I think about how important itis to upskill the entire
organization with these skillsets.
(47:58):
It's not just about putting anew tool, an intuitive tool, in
front of them.
It's about how do they designtheir work experience around
that tool and make the most useof it.
How do you train them and allof that, and I think those are
extremely important questions toask as leaders in today's age.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
All right.
Well, that was fun.
Last but not least, drew, thisis one I like to take away with
everybody to get to know you alittle bit better, a little bit
more on a deeper level and asense of where your mind is.
You know, as a dreamer, if youwill Tell me if you had any
(48:41):
superpower, what would it be andwhy?
Speaker 2 (48:48):
to be and why?
Yeah, that is a great questionand I'll answer it in the
context of what I do now, right,which is career growth and
coaching and things like that.
And I think in there and thisprobably won't be surprising
based on what we've talked aboutfor the last little bit is sort
of this idea of sort of perfect, persuasive conversation, right
, the ability to talk tosomebody and convince them to do
something.
I think if I had that as thesuperpower, that would be the
one I would choose, because,again, you can only do so much
(49:08):
as yourself, any organization,any big dream, anything you need
to do.
You need other people and oneof the key ingredients is to
actually, you know, get them onboard.
And so I think that is thesuperpower, right.
I mean, I think it is an actual, attainable superpower.
Obviously not perfectcommunication, but you can get
really, really good at it, andso, rather than kind of the
Superman superpowers, I alwaysthink you know what would
(49:29):
actually help, again, my clients, my business and just the world
in general, and then I thinkwould be that, so, if you can do
the communication right, solvesa lot of problems, build some
trust and you can get momentumfor those things that you think
are important to yourself.
So that's why I would choosethat.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, and I think about communication because, yes
, I agree, it is a brilliantsuperpower.
You said at the beginning, likeif you can communicate really,
really well, you can get peopleto do anything, right.
So that's, that's in and ofitself, um, mystical right.
And beyond that it's you canfix anything with communication,
too right, like if you know howto how to work with somebody,
(50:09):
um, you can build bridgesinstead of burning them, right,
and you can do all sorts ofwonderful things to make the
world a better place.
So I second your superpower ofcommunication so thank you.
Yeah well, drew.
That's the end of our episodetoday.
(50:29):
I really appreciate your time.
It's been really excellentconversation.
I know I learned a lot and Ihope that the executives or the
aspiring executives around uswill listen in and and gain some
, some helpful tips from you.
Um, in this conversation Um, Iknow they will anyway, and um,
(50:51):
and if they want to reach out toyou, what?
What would you tell them to do?
Speaker 2 (50:56):
I mean, if they want to reach out.
I mean it's, you know, drewSauer, you can look it up.
I have, I have my, my YouTubechannel.
I have a free community forthose people who are looking to
do that and obviously I docoaching for those people who
are interested.
But you know, drew sourcom, youcan go check it out and you
know, my goal again is to helppeople get to the careers that
they want right, achieve those,those roles that they think will
make the biggest impact forthemselves.
(51:17):
And so, Jason, I appreciate youinviting me on as a great
conversation and I hopeeverybody found it useful and
thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Yeah, thanks, thanks, drew.
Take care, man, and thanks toour listeners for tuning in
today.
If you or your company wouldlike to be featured in the
Inspire AI Richmond episode,please drop us a message.
Don't forget to like, share orfollow our content and stay up
to date on the latest events forAI Ready RVA.
(51:45):
Thank you again and see younext time.
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