September 30, 2025 • 15 mins
In this episode, we dig into a shift I think is non-negotiable in today’s AI-first world: you must become the director, not the doer. Inspired by Dan Martell’s framework, we explore how AI should handle the execution — while you define the outcome, set constraints, and bring the human edge.
I introduce the three pillars that separate average from exceptional direction: Vision, Taste & Care. You’ll hear how I use them in real-world workflows, the traps I fell into trying to do everything myself, and a few tactical moves (prompts, boundaries, feedback loops) that helped me step up.
If you feel like you’re driving but still stuck doing all the work — this one’s for you.
👉 Hit follow/subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes, and if this one lands, leave a review or drop me a line.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
AI isn't here to take your jobs.
AI is here to take your tasks.
The question really then becomeswill you stay stuck as a doer
versus a director?
That is the topic that we'regetting into today on the
Digital CX Podcast.
Once again, welcome to theDigital Customer Experience
Podcast with me, Alex Turkovich.
(00:24):
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as we
explore how digital can helpenhance the customer and
employee experience.
My goal is to share what myguests and I have learned over
the years so that you can getthe insights that you need to
evolve your own digitalprograms.
If you'd like more info, need toget in touch, or sign up for the
weekly companion newsletter thathas additional articles and
(00:45):
resources in it, go todigitalcustomer success.com for
now.
Let's get started.
This week and every week, as wetalk about all kinds of cool
stuff that's happening in theworld of digital CX and
artificial intelligence.
(01:06):
And today's topic is one that Ihave really taken to heart over
the last few months, which isthis notion of durable skills in
an age of artificialintelligence.
Because I know that a lot ofpeople, especially over the last
two years, really since ChatGPTlaunched, I don't know, when did
(01:28):
it launch?
Two years ago, something likethat, have been on this like AI
is gonna take my job kind ofkick.
And the truth of the matter isthat AI is making a lot of
things efficient.
You know, it's making a lot oftasks more efficient.
(01:58):
I first heard about it, and Ithink it was brought about by
this guy, Dan Martell, who isthis.
If you don't know Dan Martell,go look him up on YouTube.
He's all over the place.
But he's basically um an onlinekind of business guru speaker
kind of guy.
Says some incredible things.
He's he's uh he's a longtimeentrepreneur, longtime uh
(02:21):
software engineer, has hadseveral exits, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah.
This isn't the Dan Martell show,but one of his concepts talks
about being a director versus adoer when it comes to artificial
intelligence.
And so I felt that wasincredibly important for us to
talk about today.
(02:44):
Because when you think about thethings that artificial
intelligence can do for us, alot of them are task-based
things.
But we still need to kind oftell artificial intelligence to
do those kinds of things.
Um, but especially us in CX, Ithink a lot of mistakes that we
(03:05):
as CS, CX pros make is that welove to cling to tasks.
There are things that happenthrough the course of a
business, whether it's a renewalcycle or whether it's, you know,
some billing things or whatnot,that we love to cling to because
(03:25):
I think we have it ingrained inus a little bit that that's
where the value is.
That's the value that we provideto an organization.
When the reality of it all isthat a lot of those things can
be automated by AI.
Um, I read a BCG report thatsays basically a little over 80%
of corporate communicationstasks can be automated by AI.
(03:49):
And a lot of the stuff we dowith customers, I would buck
bundle into those corporatecommunications tasks.
And so that's where the durableskill of working with artificial
intelligence becomes becomesvery, very important.
And that's where understandingthe difference between a doer
versus a director, I think,comes in very handy, is kind of
(04:14):
important.
And so when you think about theskills of a director versus a
doer, a director is somebody whoum looks at strategy, looks at
uh at judgment calls, looks atcross-functional leadership and
how organizations are workingtogether versus a doer who is
(04:37):
sending this email or um, youknow, making sure these billing
light items are taken care of.
There's all that busy, busy workum that happens in our
day-to-day life, um, that if itwas magically moved off of our
plate, we could then all of asudden start really focusing in
(04:59):
and honing in on the things thatare important.
In fact, uh there was a recentHarvard Business Review um
article that talked about how AIis really helping to refine
managerial roles.
And it's helping managementshift the focus uh away from
(05:20):
those task-based things ontoculture and systems design,
which is so cool when you thinkabout it.
The fact that, you know, we canactually maybe take a step back,
take a breath of fresh air,focus on the culture of our
teams, the togetherness of ourteams, the health of our teams
(05:42):
and the team members, um, andfocus on systems design in such
a way that supports those teammembers, I think is where the
distinction between a directorversus a doer comes in.
A director is going to take astrategic lens, is going to look
at the org overall, it's goingto look at the vision overall,
is going to look at all thesethings that AI, you know, really
(06:06):
honestly shouldn't be doing, butis going to, you know, going to
give everybody the bandwidth tolook at the human side of things
a lot more than we have been inthe past, where we've been so
focused on, you know, gettingthese little tasks done, get
this PowerPoint written, getthis spreadsheet together.
All that stuff is like, youknow, things that if they're not
your reality just yet, um maybepartially because of technology,
(06:30):
but partially because of skillset, they they will become your
reality in short order.
I think if you look atspreadsheet and PowerPoint
design, I mean that's somethingthat ChatGPT still really can't
do today, but Claude can.
Recent update to Claude actuallyis quite powerful in terms of
(06:53):
how it handles spreadsheets andmakes spreadsheets and makes
PowerPoint decks.
I know we have Gamma and acouple other platforms that do
PowerPoints for us, but for anAI native tool to do that kind
of stuff, I mean, you know, it'sjust a matter of time with all
of these kinds of things.
And so I really think, I mean,the I'm rambling a little bit,
(07:15):
right?
Um, but I think the goal of thisis to um hopefully give you a
little bit of pause and a littlebit of reflection time to think
about, you know, your day-to-dayand how much you're really stuck
in the tasks.
And of those tasks, how much ofthat can you automate so that
(07:35):
you can actually focus on yourgig?
And I'm look, guys, I'm not I'mnot just talking about
management and leadership here.
I'm I'm talking to theindividual contributor as well.
Director doesn't mean leader,director means how you interface
with these things and thesetools, right?
(07:56):
If you're a if you're a customersuccess manager, you're in the
weeds, you're trying to clawyour way out of a hole that
you're in because you've got allthese QBRs coming up and you
have uh, you know, three or fourescalations on your plate, and
you have all this stuff thatyou're dealing with and you're
trying to get over the line.
There are things you can dotoday to ease the load.
(08:20):
Whether that's building yourselfan account review chat, custom
GPT, or having your ops team dothat for you, you know, whether
it's really looking into thethings that you do that are
manual that can be automated foryour own workflow.
You don't have to wait for anops team to go do that.
That is being a director versusa doer.
(08:43):
You are actively delegatingthose mundane tasks to a tool
that can do it just as well, ifnot better, no offense.
Right.
Now the other thing that DanMartell talks about in the
context of this doer versusdirector mentality is the
(09:07):
durable goods that we as humanshave over artificial
intelligence that are going tohelp us, I guess, enhance that
director level side of things.
Those three things are what hecalls vision, taste, and care.
(09:28):
Right?
So vision is we kind of alreadytalked about it.
Vision is the overall picturefor what it is you are doing in
your role to help your customerssucceed or to help your team
members succeed or to helpcross-functional partners
succeed.
How are you putting all thatvision together?
What is the vision for yourrole?
(09:50):
What is the vision for yourteam?
What is the vision for yourinteraction with this customer?
That that vision is a is a veryhuman thing.
You're not gonna prompt AI forvision around XYZ.
That's just not like a thing.
I mean, you can try, but I don'tknow what you're gonna get out
(10:10):
of it.
The second thing is taste.
So you know, his the examplethat he uses is is like taste in
music.
That is a very individual thing.
People have all kinds ofdifferent individual tastes in
music.
My son hates my taste in music,and his is interesting as well,
(10:33):
right?
Um people have different tastesin music, and that and those are
things that you know artificialintelligence can't necessarily
um grasp.
And so taste becomes animportant thing when you're
talking to an individualcustomer, you're getting to know
them, you're getting to knowwhat tick what makes them tick.
And being able to really hone inon that by being a director
(10:56):
versus a doer is super, superimportant and gives you the edge
as a customer-facingprofessional.
And the last bit is care andemotional intelligence.
I know, you know, care is aninteresting word in the context
(11:16):
of where we are today, you know,socially, politically, all that
kind of fun stuff.
I'm not really gonna go there.
Um, but care is an innatelyhuman thing.
And again, this director versusdoer mentality, but the more you
can have artificial intelligencetake that doer stuff off of your
plate, the more you can spendtime on emotional intelligence
(11:41):
and really paying attention andlistening to your customers and
listening to your team membersand listening, you know, to your
stakeholders so that you canthen in turn feed the vision and
the taste.
So look, this this stuff isn'tlike tactic, super tactical
digital CX stuff, but I thinkit's incredibly important
(12:06):
because what we are doing on adaily basis is working with this
technology in ways that maybe alot of us haven't totally
mastered yet, totally figuredout yet.
But this concept of directorversus doer was a huge unlock
for me and really got methinking about it it started
(12:28):
this flow state with me aboutwhat are all the things that I
can have Chat GPT or Claude orGemini do on my behalf that I
don't really need to do or Idon't want to do.
And that made a massivedifference in how I just worked
with artificial intelligence andalso how efficient I got at
work.
(12:49):
So I hope that helps you out.
This particular concept issomething that I am going to be
talking a lot more about.
And specifically, one of thethings that I wanted to bring up
with you all is a project thatI've been working on that I'm
very, very excited about, whichis essentially a digital CX
masterclass.
(13:10):
Um I'm working on this six-part40-ish module master class that
is going to essentially take youthrough the building blocks to
the implementation of a digitalCX program, all the way from
(13:31):
inception and ideation andexecutive buy-in, all the way
through design, tooling, orgdesign, RFPs, um, you know,
long-term sustainability of aprogram, those kinds of things.
Um, and I'll be talking a littlebit more about that.
I hope to have a first versionup, maybe by the end of the
(13:54):
year, something like that,because it's gonna be a little
bit of org to get it together.
Um, but I'll definitely let youguys know um what that's all
about.
If you want to check out um andget on the wait list for it,
you're more than welcome to atdigital customer success forward
slash masterclass.
You can read through what theplans are for it, what it's
gonna entail, what it's gonnahave in it, um, and would love
(14:18):
your feedback on it as well.
I've given a lot of you, the uhregular listeners, a little bit
of a preview.
Um so reach out to me if youhave any questions on it, happy
to answer those for you.
But um super excited about this.
It's been a pet project of minefor a long time.
I've been thinking about thisfor a long time, and I'm just
I'm now at a place where I canactually take thought and turn
(14:38):
it into action, partiallybecause of this director versus
doer thing.
I'm just saying.
Um but I've hope you enjoyedspending this 15-ish minutes
with me.
Um, I look forward to chattingwith you again next week on the
Digital CX Podcast.
For now, I hope you have a greatweek ahead.
We'll talk to you soon.
Thank you for joining me forthis episode of the Digital CX
(15:01):
Podcast.
If you like what we're doing, uhconsider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
audience and get moreinformation about the show and
some of the other things thatwe're doing at
digitalcustomersuccess.com.
I'm Alex Dergovich.
(15:21):
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
AI isn't here to take your jobs.
AI is here to take your tasks.
The question really then becomeswill you stay stuck as a doer
versus a director?
That is the topic that we'regetting into today on the
Digital CX Podcast.
Once again, welcome to theDigital Customer Experience
Podcast with me, Alex Turkovich.
(00:24):
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as we
explore how digital can helpenhance the customer and
employee experience.
My goal is to share what myguests and I have learned over
the years so that you can getthe insights that you need to
evolve your own digitalprograms.
If you'd like more info, need toget in touch, or sign up for the
weekly companion newsletter thathas additional articles and
(00:45):
resources in it, go todigitalcustomer success.com for
now.
Let's get started.
This week and every week, as wetalk about all kinds of cool
stuff that's happening in theworld of digital CX and
artificial intelligence.
(01:06):
And today's topic is one that Ihave really taken to heart over
the last few months, which isthis notion of durable skills in
an age of artificialintelligence.
Because I know that a lot ofpeople, especially over the last
two years, really since ChatGPTlaunched, I don't know, when did
(01:28):
it launch?
Two years ago, something likethat, have been on this like AI
is gonna take my job kind ofkick.
And the truth of the matter isthat AI is making a lot of
things efficient.
You know, it's making a lot oftasks more efficient.
(01:58):
I first heard about it, and Ithink it was brought about by
this guy, Dan Martell, who isthis.
If you don't know Dan Martell,go look him up on YouTube.
He's all over the place.
But he's basically um an onlinekind of business guru speaker
kind of guy.
Says some incredible things.
He's he's uh he's a longtimeentrepreneur, longtime uh
(02:21):
software engineer, has hadseveral exits, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah.
This isn't the Dan Martell show,but one of his concepts talks
about being a director versus adoer when it comes to artificial
intelligence.
And so I felt that wasincredibly important for us to
talk about today.
(02:44):
Because when you think about thethings that artificial
intelligence can do for us, alot of them are task-based
things.
But we still need to kind oftell artificial intelligence to
do those kinds of things.
Um, but especially us in CX, Ithink a lot of mistakes that we
(03:05):
as CS, CX pros make is that welove to cling to tasks.
There are things that happenthrough the course of a
business, whether it's a renewalcycle or whether it's, you know,
some billing things or whatnot,that we love to cling to because
(03:25):
I think we have it ingrained inus a little bit that that's
where the value is.
That's the value that we provideto an organization.
When the reality of it all isthat a lot of those things can
be automated by AI.
Um, I read a BCG report thatsays basically a little over 80%
of corporate communicationstasks can be automated by AI.
(03:49):
And a lot of the stuff we dowith customers, I would buck
bundle into those corporatecommunications tasks.
And so that's where the durableskill of working with artificial
intelligence becomes becomesvery, very important.
And that's where understandingthe difference between a doer
versus a director, I think,comes in very handy, is kind of
(04:14):
important.
And so when you think about theskills of a director versus a
doer, a director is somebody whoum looks at strategy, looks at
uh at judgment calls, looks atcross-functional leadership and
how organizations are workingtogether versus a doer who is
(04:37):
sending this email or um, youknow, making sure these billing
light items are taken care of.
There's all that busy, busy workum that happens in our
day-to-day life, um, that if itwas magically moved off of our
plate, we could then all of asudden start really focusing in
(04:59):
and honing in on the things thatare important.
In fact, uh there was a recentHarvard Business Review um
article that talked about how AIis really helping to refine
managerial roles.
And it's helping managementshift the focus uh away from
(05:20):
those task-based things ontoculture and systems design,
which is so cool when you thinkabout it.
The fact that, you know, we canactually maybe take a step back,
take a breath of fresh air,focus on the culture of our
teams, the togetherness of ourteams, the health of our teams
(05:42):
and the team members, um, andfocus on systems design in such
a way that supports those teammembers, I think is where the
distinction between a directorversus a doer comes in.
A director is going to take astrategic lens, is going to look
at the org overall, it's goingto look at the vision overall,
is going to look at all thesethings that AI, you know, really
(06:06):
honestly shouldn't be doing, butis going to, you know, going to
give everybody the bandwidth tolook at the human side of things
a lot more than we have been inthe past, where we've been so
focused on, you know, gettingthese little tasks done, get
this PowerPoint written, getthis spreadsheet together.
All that stuff is like, youknow, things that if they're not
your reality just yet, um maybepartially because of technology,
(06:30):
but partially because of skillset, they they will become your
reality in short order.
I think if you look atspreadsheet and PowerPoint
design, I mean that's somethingthat ChatGPT still really can't
do today, but Claude can.
Recent update to Claude actuallyis quite powerful in terms of
(06:53):
how it handles spreadsheets andmakes spreadsheets and makes
PowerPoint decks.
I know we have Gamma and acouple other platforms that do
PowerPoints for us, but for anAI native tool to do that kind
of stuff, I mean, you know, it'sjust a matter of time with all
of these kinds of things.
And so I really think, I mean,the I'm rambling a little bit,
(07:15):
right?
Um, but I think the goal of thisis to um hopefully give you a
little bit of pause and a littlebit of reflection time to think
about, you know, your day-to-dayand how much you're really stuck
in the tasks.
And of those tasks, how much ofthat can you automate so that
(07:35):
you can actually focus on yourgig?
And I'm look, guys, I'm not I'mnot just talking about
management and leadership here.
I'm I'm talking to theindividual contributor as well.
Director doesn't mean leader,director means how you interface
with these things and thesetools, right?
(07:56):
If you're a if you're a customersuccess manager, you're in the
weeds, you're trying to clawyour way out of a hole that
you're in because you've got allthese QBRs coming up and you
have uh, you know, three or fourescalations on your plate, and
you have all this stuff thatyou're dealing with and you're
trying to get over the line.
There are things you can dotoday to ease the load.
(08:20):
Whether that's building yourselfan account review chat, custom
GPT, or having your ops team dothat for you, you know, whether
it's really looking into thethings that you do that are
manual that can be automated foryour own workflow.
You don't have to wait for anops team to go do that.
That is being a director versusa doer.
(08:43):
You are actively delegatingthose mundane tasks to a tool
that can do it just as well, ifnot better, no offense.
Right.
Now the other thing that DanMartell talks about in the
context of this doer versusdirector mentality is the
(09:07):
durable goods that we as humanshave over artificial
intelligence that are going tohelp us, I guess, enhance that
director level side of things.
Those three things are what hecalls vision, taste, and care.
(09:28):
Right?
So vision is we kind of alreadytalked about it.
Vision is the overall picturefor what it is you are doing in
your role to help your customerssucceed or to help your team
members succeed or to helpcross-functional partners
succeed.
How are you putting all thatvision together?
What is the vision for yourrole?
(09:50):
What is the vision for yourteam?
What is the vision for yourinteraction with this customer?
That that vision is a is a veryhuman thing.
You're not gonna prompt AI forvision around XYZ.
That's just not like a thing.
I mean, you can try, but I don'tknow what you're gonna get out
(10:10):
of it.
The second thing is taste.
So you know, his the examplethat he uses is is like taste in
music.
That is a very individual thing.
People have all kinds ofdifferent individual tastes in
music.
My son hates my taste in music,and his is interesting as well,
(10:33):
right?
Um people have different tastesin music, and that and those are
things that you know artificialintelligence can't necessarily
um grasp.
And so taste becomes animportant thing when you're
talking to an individualcustomer, you're getting to know
them, you're getting to knowwhat tick what makes them tick.
And being able to really hone inon that by being a director
(10:56):
versus a doer is super, superimportant and gives you the edge
as a customer-facingprofessional.
And the last bit is care andemotional intelligence.
I know, you know, care is aninteresting word in the context
(11:16):
of where we are today, you know,socially, politically, all that
kind of fun stuff.
I'm not really gonna go there.
Um, but care is an innatelyhuman thing.
And again, this director versusdoer mentality, but the more you
can have artificial intelligencetake that doer stuff off of your
plate, the more you can spendtime on emotional intelligence
(11:41):
and really paying attention andlistening to your customers and
listening to your team membersand listening, you know, to your
stakeholders so that you canthen in turn feed the vision and
the taste.
So look, this this stuff isn'tlike tactic, super tactical
digital CX stuff, but I thinkit's incredibly important
(12:06):
because what we are doing on adaily basis is working with this
technology in ways that maybe alot of us haven't totally
mastered yet, totally figuredout yet.
But this concept of directorversus doer was a huge unlock
for me and really got methinking about it it started
(12:28):
this flow state with me aboutwhat are all the things that I
can have Chat GPT or Claude orGemini do on my behalf that I
don't really need to do or Idon't want to do.
And that made a massivedifference in how I just worked
with artificial intelligence andalso how efficient I got at
work.
(12:49):
So I hope that helps you out.
This particular concept issomething that I am going to be
talking a lot more about.
And specifically, one of thethings that I wanted to bring up
with you all is a project thatI've been working on that I'm
very, very excited about, whichis essentially a digital CX
masterclass.
(13:10):
Um I'm working on this six-part40-ish module master class that
is going to essentially take youthrough the building blocks to
the implementation of a digitalCX program, all the way from
(13:31):
inception and ideation andexecutive buy-in, all the way
through design, tooling, orgdesign, RFPs, um, you know,
long-term sustainability of aprogram, those kinds of things.
Um, and I'll be talking a littlebit more about that.
I hope to have a first versionup, maybe by the end of the
(13:54):
year, something like that,because it's gonna be a little
bit of org to get it together.
Um, but I'll definitely let youguys know um what that's all
about.
If you want to check out um andget on the wait list for it,
you're more than welcome to atdigital customer success forward
slash masterclass.
You can read through what theplans are for it, what it's
gonna entail, what it's gonnahave in it, um, and would love
(14:18):
your feedback on it as well.
I've given a lot of you, the uhregular listeners, a little bit
of a preview.
Um so reach out to me if youhave any questions on it, happy
to answer those for you.
But um super excited about this.
It's been a pet project of minefor a long time.
I've been thinking about thisfor a long time, and I'm just
I'm now at a place where I canactually take thought and turn
(14:38):
it into action, partiallybecause of this director versus
doer thing.
I'm just saying.
Um but I've hope you enjoyedspending this 15-ish minutes
with me.
Um, I look forward to chattingwith you again next week on the
Digital CX Podcast.
For now, I hope you have a greatweek ahead.
We'll talk to you soon.
Thank you for joining me forthis episode of the Digital CX
(15:01):
Podcast.
If you like what we're doing, uhconsider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
audience and get moreinformation about the show and
some of the other things thatwe're doing at
digitalcustomersuccess.com.
I'm Alex Dergovich.
(15:21):
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
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