April 24, 2025 • 33 mins
is episode of “The Unstoppable Leadership” Podcast, host & Leadership Coach Jaclyn Strominger is joined by A.I. Professional Chris Hood for an in-depth look at what Artificial Intelligence is actually capable– and more importantly– INCAPABLE of.
Artificial Intelligence is more than a buzzword. It’s impossible to go more than a few minutes scrolling through social media without seeing news, product releases, and hype videos surrounding all the latest Artificial Intelligence Start-Ups.
The Problem? So much of what you’re seeing is misinformation. Chris Hood has been working in the field of Artificial Intelligence for many years, including spending 6 years working directly with Google. He knows that while there is a lot of power in utilizing A.I. correctly, putting too much value onto Artificial Intelligence can be costly as well– for both your customers and your employees.
There are companies out there who are willing to outsource many aspects of their businesses to A.I., and it’s leading to a substantial loss of clientele. While there are customers who may prefer not to speak with a human being, there are many others who will immediately feel deeply disconnected to your brand if they can’t access Human Connection and Emotional Intelligence– two traits that A.I. can never possess.
If you’re in a leadership position, knowing and understanding BOTH the benefits AND the limitations of Artificial Intelligence can be the difference between moving ahead, or falling behind in your market. If you’d like to learn more, feel free to reach out to Chris Hood directly by visiting his website at www.chrishood.com, and check out his book “Infaillable” available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DV5SRJZZ/
Takeaways:
- Learn About What the True Capabilities of A.I. Are
- Start With Full Transparent Disclosure About A.I. Usage
- Share a Vision That You Are Unsure Of
- Plenty of Consumers Just Want to Talk to a Real Human Being
- Emotional Intelligence is Uniquely Human… And We Crave It.
- A.I. is Hindering Basic Communication & Critical Thinking
- Customer First– Then Figure out the Technology
Links referenced in this episode:
- Official Website: www.chrishood.com
- Chris’s Book “Infaillable”: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DV5SRJZZ/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrishood.ig
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishood
- Blog: https://chrishood.com/blog/
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Chris Hood
- “Infaillable” by Chris Hood on Amazon
Mentioned in this episode:
Thank you for listening
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Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight - Welcome
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(00:57):
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to another edition of the
Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. I am Jaclyn Strominger,
your host and on this podcastwe hear from absolutely amazing leaders
and their game changinginsights. And today we are going
to hear from Chris Hood. Now,what you are going to get from this,
(01:19):
I just want you to understand,listen to this, because this is going
to be your change in yourbelief in AI. Whatever you're thinking
about, trust me, it's probablynot the right thing. Or maybe it
needs to be changed. Chris isa wealth of information and will
get you thinking about AI inthe absolute right way. So why should
(01:41):
we listen to Chris? Well, he'sa strategist, he is an author, he's
a speaker, and he has become apivotal thought leader in integrating
customer success with digitalStrategy. With over 35 years of experience
in business and technologydevelopment, Chris has built a reputation
for fostering customer centriccultures. And he is the author of
(02:02):
Infallible and CustomerTransformation, which offers profound
insights into aligningbusinesses with technologies like
AI and evolving consumerbehaviors. So, Chris, we could talk
and I could go on about allthe great things you've done, but
welcome to the UnstoppableLeadership Spotlight podcast.
(02:22):
Thank you so much. Great to be here.
Yeah, so we were talking, youknow, obviously pre show and you
know, AI as I was, you know,we shared. I don't think there is
a day that goes by in themedia that you don't hear somebody
talking about AI. So how you,you wrote this great book, I can't
(02:46):
wait to read it. So I have toapologize, I have not read it yet.
But AI in the workplace bringsfear, excitement and a whole bunch
of things. What is the thingthat you would like leaders to know
and understand about AI?
(03:07):
Yeah, I mean, I think the factthat it's in the media every single
day is part of the problem.You know, if, if there's one thing
that all people listening tothis podcast can take away after
this conversation, I'm hopingit's to shift your mindset to do
a little bit more explorationand learn a little bit more about
(03:29):
what the true capabilities ofAI actually are. And I think because
as you mentioned, not only insocial media, but also we've grown
up with movies like Terminatoror War Games for the last 40 plus
years that all focused onvarious elements of AI. So I've often
(03:50):
said that we've gotten ourunderstanding of AI through movies
and media and television. Oneof my favorite shows of all time
actually is Person ofInterest, which follows along with
that show. Yeah, it followsaround with an AI that predicts people's
fate. Like, so when we startto buy into this belief system of
(04:15):
what we are told about AI,most of which is hype, then it clouds
the actual understanding andtrue capabilities. So all of the
fears that you kind of touchedon, I'm going to lose my job to AI
or AI is going to take overthe world. Right. All of those things
are being perpetuated becauseof the media and marketing and, you
(04:38):
know, everybody talking aboutit at conferences and so on. And
so, yeah, I hope that in theshort time we do have together that
we can really start to dissectthis and shift some of your understanding
so that you can be a littlebit more critical in your thinking
and approach to how you wantto integrate AI into your business.
(04:59):
You know, I love what you'resaying and I, you know, when you're
talking about person ofinterest, obviously that's, you know,
it's following your AI, isfollowing the person around. And
of course, war games, all Ikeep thinking about is, do you want
to play a game? Right. Youknow. Right. And that's not really
what AI's AI. I mean, it is,but it's not, it's not the be all
end all. So if I'm a leadertoday, what do you think is the best
(05:23):
way to. I'm going to startwith the question of how do you bring
AI into the workplace? And,and as a leader, do it with, without
the fear of your team. Becausealso on the other side of it, you
(05:45):
know, the customer side of it,and I, and I will ask your opinion
on this too, is like the firstcustomer any company has are the
employees. So how do you know?How do we not keep their fear out?
Yeah. So there's two elementsthat you're touching on here. You've
got the employees and you'vegot your customers. And I think actually
(06:06):
you handle them mostly thesame, but slightly nuanced. Right.
And it does start with fulltransparent disclosure. We talk about
open communication andtransparency within leadership. You
have to come into this and behonest. Imagine if you were selling
(06:27):
something to a customer andyou basically said, yeah, I spent
the last five days working onthis project for you, and really
it only took you five minutesbecause you shoved it through some
artificial intelligence togenerate it. Would your customer
appreciate knowing that youused AI to do it? And yet there's
a stigma. Like, I'm not goingto tell them, like, I'm, hey, I did
(06:49):
this work. I didn't use AI todo this work, you lose trust in that
process. And there's really nodifference with employees. I would
suggest that the very firstthing you do is you say, hey, everybody,
we're thinking about lookingat AI and exploring ways that we
can use AI. We haven't madeany decisions yet because we really
(07:09):
don't understand what this iscapable of for our business. So we're
going to bring it in. We'regoing to let everybody play with
it and we're going to set upsort of a sandbox. And look, we're
going to potentially rewardpeople who come up with new and original
ideas, creative ways that theycan leverage AI for their job. We're
(07:32):
not talking about replacingyour job. We, we're looking at this
as an enhancement for yourjob. But because we don't know everything
and we don't. You don't reallyfully grasp this yet. Let's play
with it. All of us together.That openness, that transparency,
that learning process, thatprocedure, the psychological safety
of leveraging other people inthe process are all going to help
(07:56):
you be a little bit morebeneficial from introducing it into
your organization.
Yeah, I love what you justsaid. Said for a bunch of different
things. And I just kind ofwant to pinpoint a couple of key,
like listeners. As you'rehearing this, I want you to really
take away if something that's,I, I think is at the crux of everything
(08:19):
and that is transparent anddisclosure and being honest. You,
you. To me, great leadershipstarts with sharing that vision of
what you want. So when you'rebringing AI in or you're bringing
something new or whatever, thenext new thing is letting your team
(08:40):
know about it and sharing itversus the surprise and getting their
buy in.
Yeah, you just touched onsomething. You said sharing the vision
of what you want. It's okay toshare a vision of something you don't
know anything about and youdon't know if you want it yet. I
think too often as leaders, wecome across as well. I have all the
(09:03):
answers. This is my vision.Follow along with me, you know, be
humble about this. I have noclue what we're going to do with
this thing, but hey, let'sfigure it out together. I think both
approaches are excellent.
Yeah, and that's the point.It's like, because as a leader, the
best thing you can do is toshare that, but you're empowering
(09:26):
your people. Leadership isabout empowering people and helping
them rise up. And I love theidea of sharing that. So, you know,
in that same vein, what wouldyou say to A leader. How do you,
you know, how do I, how dothey empower their teams? As you
just shared, like, here's whatwe're going to do. But are there
any other key points that youwould say, you know what, here's
(09:49):
a flow, here's a process?
Yeah, I think again, you startto look at areas of your business
where you might want some sortof improvement, where you might need
some enhancement, maybe, maybeyou need five people doing a particular
role, but you currently onlyhave three people. Could AI help
(10:10):
you offset some of that? Soyou could start to strategically
look at the business and areaswhere you might find opportunities
and then explore can AI helpus in these areas? We are potentially
struggling in the other sideof this. Going back to the customer,
I would argue don't ever startwith the customer. Don't ever start
(10:35):
with saying we're going tobring AI in to fix this customer
thing. And I think that's theknee jerk reaction. A lot of what
I'm seeing out there is likehow AI can personalize experience,
how AI can help us withcustomer success, how AI can help
us with support calls and soon and so on. All of those are actually
(10:58):
flawed in reason because thoseall require some sort of uniquely
human capability that AI can'tactually duplicate. And this is where
we get into that balancing actis understanding what AI can actually
do versus what you need a realhuman person to do and then trying
(11:21):
to figure out where you canhelp the human person be better at
their job and which it'scommunicating with consumers and
not hand that over completelyto an AI. We've all been on a phone
call where it says press oneto reach this person, press two.
And we're all sitting here £ ££ real person, real person. Right.
(11:43):
This is also why you look atsomebody like Discovery that has
an entire campaign that'swrapped around, you can speak to
a real person. They are goinganti AI and robots and it's working
for them because there areplenty of consumers out there that
genuinely just want to talk tosomebody. I also use this as an example.
(12:07):
If you go to a grocery storetoday, you usually have an option.
Yes. There are self checkoutlines where you can easily, conveniently
and, and maybe you don't wantto talk to somebody, go out and do
your own self checkout. Thereare plenty of people who despise
self checkout and want toactually go and have somebody, you
(12:28):
know, support them. But inboth of those, in that situation
you actually have the choice,you have the choice of not talking
to somebody. Or talking tosomebody. And right now a lot of
businesses are looking at thisas well. We're going to shove AI
down people's throats. We'renot going to give them the option.
And what it's actually doingis it's alienating those customers
(12:51):
from your business.
Yep. You know, I am so kind ofglad that you brought this up because
I think this is it. Is it. Forme personally, it's a pet peeve.
I'm one of those people, likeI, if I call a credit card company,
if I call somebody, I want toknow that I can easily speak to a
person. I'm like, what's thedirect. Like what numbers do I have
(13:13):
to press? And I ask all thetime, what are the sequence that
I can just get right to aperson? Right. And I, and I think
this is also really importantfor leaders to understand. As humans,
we need human connection. Andit's really important for us to,
(13:35):
I believe as a leader, if youcan be like the discover and keep
the human connection in withyour customers, it's going to make
your people happy. It's goingto make your, your, your employees
happier.
Yeah. Just to touch on that,we talk and I'm sure you've probably
(13:56):
had an episode previouslyabout this topic that one of the
most critical traits of aleader would be emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence, justby definition, is a uniquely human
trait. There is no artificialintelligence on the planet that can
have emotional intelligence.It can't be empathetic. And yet all
(14:21):
of these core values that welook at as a human to say, well,
I'm going to have aconversation with an employee about
a difficult situation orconflict resolution, even from a
consumer who is calling you inlooking for that support. And they
are frazzled because they'vejust gone through some chaotic event
(14:41):
in their lives that actuallyhas nothing to do with why they're
calling in. And you're goingto hand that experience off to some
artificial entity, like thesetypes of experiences, the, the emotional
intelligence, the empatheticresponses, those are all uniquely
(15:03):
human. And those areexperiences we as humans crave. You
are not selling your productsor services to a robot. You are selling
them to other human beings.And so why would you ever want to
actually hand thoseexperiences off so that they become
(15:25):
more artificial?
Yeah, it's so true. It's soimportant to understand this because
I don't ever want it toreplace a human when they're talking
to me about a product, acustomer. As you said, the emotional
intelligence and havingempathy and being able to relate
(15:47):
to People, People, you know,and I think it's some. It, it's,
it's, it's something that weneed. You know, having communications
verbally is something thatleaders need to foster more in. And
communication is so importantin the workforce. And we were not
meant to just. And I have to,you know, not to go on my soapbox
(16:12):
here, but as an older personin my 50s, I still like the phone.
Yes, text does matter for somethings, but I think that we need
to teach people the art ofcommunication and the art of conversation.
It's a trait or a skill thatyou can call it that we are drastically
(16:34):
losing. There are two primaryskills that artificial intelligence
is corrupting. The first iscommunication, as you just said.
And part of that is alsosocial media. Right. Technology over
the course of the last 10years has drastically changed the
way we actually communicate.So it's not totally because of artificial
(16:57):
intelligence, but it'sincreasing it. And critical thinking.
Critical thinking is actuallydeclining directly because of artificial
intelligence. And so when youstart to lose those human traits
of basic communication andcritical thinking. Yeah, we are dooming
ourselves in the process. Imean, to your point about communication,
(17:21):
imagine if I showed up. OrI'll say, imagine I didn't show up.
And who you are talking toright now is the agent version of
Chris Hood with the artificialintelligence voice. And you were
conducting this interview inthat way, the conversation would
be completely different. Itwould be unauthentic, it would be,
(17:41):
you know, not genuine. And yetthere are companies out there that
are putting in placeartificial intelligence agents to
run interviewing processes.Like, you get a call from an agent.
Hello, I am with this companyand I'm here to ask you questions.
(18:02):
Thank you for your response.Right. Like, what's your first instinct?
Well, I don't want to work forthat company. They don't care about
me. Right. So we have tocontinuously think about it in these
contexts because otherwise we,as I said, we are dooming ourselves.
Yeah. All right, so I have akind of a going backwards a little
(18:24):
bit. What made you write the book?
Yeah, so the first reason Iwrote the book was because I was
seeing all of this stuffonline and social media about AI
and I was like, but that's nottrue. Like, that's not, that's not
how it works. I put the veryfirst sentence in the book in the
(18:45):
opening, says, I should havewritten this book sooner. And I genuinely
feel that way. Like this book.Book is probably something that I,
I could have written threeyears ago, four years ago. But as
I started to See the hype ofAI increase. It also started to generate
a failure or you know, I callit an ideology around artificial
(19:10):
intelligence that was notaligned with actually reality. You
know, you think about likeeven a belief system. I'm not going
to suggest to anybody who, youknow, everybody out there might have
different religious beliefsystems, but artificial intelligence
has now become one of thesereligious style belief systems that
(19:34):
it could be infallible orinfallible. This is where I, so I
shove AI in the middle of it,which gets to, you know, the title
infallible. But, but yeah,that, that belief system, the ideology
of artificial intelligence iscompletely reshaping how we look
at technology, how we dobusiness, how leaders are responding,
(19:57):
how consumers are interactingwith your business. And I thought
that it was a really goodreason really to go and dive into
this and what that beliefsystem was.
Yeah, no, and I really, and Iapplaud you for writing it. You know,
when I, when I think about, I,I think the biggest thing that we
as, you know, as leaders andwhether you're a CEO or you're running
(20:22):
a team or the, you're the CEOof you to not forget about that human
connection, you know, and I'mgoing to go back to, you know, I
don't even know when it was.I'm going to just say in the 70s,
this is again, I'm datingmyself here, but there was a commercial
(20:44):
and I believe. Well, I'm notgoing to say which airline it was
because I actually don'treally remember. But the gist of
the conversation was there wasthe head of a company, he had his,
all his salespeople standingall around him and he said, we just
lost our longest customer. Andwhat he did is he handed out plane
tickets and he said, we'regoing to get on the plane. We've
(21:07):
gotten used, okay, we'vegotten used to faxing. Right. We've
gotten used to, you know, thephone. We need to be in front of
our clients and we need to seeour clients, we need to shake their
hands. And he handed them allplane tickets. And then, you know,
he, they, the sales team askedhim like, what are you going to do?
(21:30):
He goes, I'm going to go seethat client that we just lost.
Yeah.
And, and that's what I thinkof AI that way too. Right. In the
sense that we've evolved, butwe have to always remember again
to going back to the humanelement and that emotional element,
the emotional intelligence. Wecannot forget about that part of
(21:53):
it as leaders.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.Continuing with your Plain story.
I've often suggested and I'vehad conversations with American Airlines
and United Airlines. You know,I've consulted with them and I've,
I've asked point blank, whenwas the last time your CEO flew somewhere
(22:16):
coach and sat next to somebodyand just experienced that for themselves
and talked with a consumernext to them. Most CEOs are void
of any type of actualconsumption consumer experience.
They're, they're not going outinto the field. You know the old
TV show Undercover Boss,right. Like no one's actually doing
(22:39):
that. You know, evenUndercover Boss, I've argued, is,
is an example of how you canget insights into your operations
and employees. But no one isdoing that from a consumer perspective
is sitting there and it'slike, oh well, we have a marketing
team, we have some agencywho's doing that for us. No, it's
your responsibility as aleader. Your number one responsibility
(23:01):
is ensuring that yourcustomers are happy and that you
understand what your customersneeds are. And in my first book,
Customer Transformation, ittalks about this process which as
you're alluding to with AIright now, everybody is focused on,
well, let's start with AI,let's bring AI in, let's then figure
(23:21):
out what AI can do for us and,and then we'll figure out how do
we pitch this to ourconsumers. And it's so backwards
that you may get into aposition where you are building something
that doesn't even require AI.And so I've kind of started to simplify
(23:42):
this where it's, you have tostart with your customer first, you
then will figure out thetechnology last. And even after you
figure out what the technologyis, maybe you're going to use AI
because there are plenty ofsolutions out there that will solve
your customers problemswithout you ever having to touch
(24:04):
AI. And if you can simplifythat process, customer first figure
out what their problem is thatyou want to solve, then figure out
what the technology is goingto be and then maybe you want to
introduce AI in that process.Think you're going to be a lot more
successful.
Yeah, I love that. You know,customer first should always be that.
Always, you know, think ofthat customer first. It really is
(24:26):
important. So you know, asyou're, you know, as we're talking
about, you know, AI and thecustomer, you know, what are you
seeing out there like asyou're talking to people, you know,
what's the, what are otherpeople, you know, experience with
(24:47):
AI that maybe can actually goback to the leaders and saying like
what other people areexperiencing, like or dislike, besides
just hitting the phone like,because, you know, we all hate that.
Yeah, I do think a lot of itright now is all bandwagon, right.
It's like I just have to jumpon this because, you know, fear of
missing out, if you want tocall it that, fomo. But everybody
(25:08):
is kind of just jumping onlike, oh, we need AI, let's figure
it out. And that's I think thebiggest problem because again, a
lot of this we, we talkedbeforehand, you know, this isn't
really anything new in termsof technology. When websites came
out, everybody said, oh, Ineed a website. And, and then overnight
(25:30):
everybody became web designexperts. And then, you know, in 2000s,
Apple obviously brilliantlysaid, hey, you need an app for that.
And then so everybody wasrushing out to get apps and everybody
overnight became mobile appexperts. And AI is just the next
part of that trend. It's like,oh, well, I need AI and everybody
(25:53):
overnight has suddenly becomean AI agent or some sort of expert
in the topic, which, whichnone of them really are. So this
is a continuous type of cyclethat we experience. But because of
that, I think right now it'sthe bandwagon effect. Everybody is
jumping on to we need tofigure out how we're going to use
(26:15):
AI. And the problem with thatis that they're trying to force something
that doesn't necessarily needto happen. And so I, I don't think
we've reached quite yet.There's, you know, we, we have this
thing called a hype cycle andwe're up in this hype, you know,
location. And then the nextstep is sort of called this trough
(26:38):
of disillusionment, which iswhere you basically realize that
all of the investments you'vemade and all of the rationales you've
had to introduce AI areactually not panning out. The ROI
isn't there. And now you'relike, ah, now what do I do? So we
are slowly starting to reachthat point where people are starting
to, you know, realize,recognize the analytical or, you
(27:02):
know, the results of theirprocess and implementations and you
know, it's not necessarilylooking good. No matter what you're
going to read online, you'regoing to read a bunch of stuff that
says ROI at all time high. Youknow who the ROIs are at an all time
high. All of the companies whoare selling AI to you to use it for
something that you don't need.Right. I go back to you mentioned
(27:25):
the 70s, it's the pet rock of,you know, 2025. That's where we're
at right now, it's, you'rebuying something you don't need,
making a bunch of other peopleextremely wealthy in the process.
And so if you can recognizethis, it goes back to what we started
with. If I can shift yourmindset so that you actually see
this and recognize it, thenyou as a leader are going to be in
(27:48):
a lot better situation.
Right, right. Well, that is sotrue. Right. It's, you know, understand
that right now it's not the beall, end all. And don't think that
if you're not in it, you'remissing out or that you're not, you're
not a good leader becauseyou're not using it. You know, use
(28:09):
your, use your skills to oftrue communication. And as you said,
customer first.
Yeah. And look for anybodywho's listening, who's thinking,
oh, this is just one of thosenaysayers who don't really know what
they're talking about orwhatever you want to say. Which again,
(28:29):
personally, I don't reallycare. You know, I wrote a book on
AI that I spent, you know,over a year researching. My first,
my first AI project was in1999. I have been working with AI
for years. I teach atuniversity level AI courses. I worked
for Google for six years whereI helped organizations implement
(28:52):
AI. And I can give you a wholelist of people who I direct. What's
funny is that we've been usingAI in devices. If you have Netflix,
you've been using AI and maynot have realized it. Authors who
are like, well, AI is the helpyou writing. You've been using grammar
checkers, which is technicallya form of AI for 30 plus years. Spell
(29:13):
checkers, you know, anotherform of AI. And yet all of a sudden
it's now new. It's something,you know, revolutionary. I am working
with two companies. I've gottwo companies. One is a startup,
we've been funded, it's an AIcompany. I've got another new startup
that I've just, you know,begun working on this year, which
is an AI company. I'm notagainst AI at all. I live and breathe
(29:37):
it. I just know what it can doand it can't do. And that I think
is the message that Icontinuously want to hone in is don't
fall for the hype, understandwhat their true capabilities are,
figure out what your customersactually want. It may or may not
be AI and most likely rightnow it's not AI. And then go and
(29:58):
figure out how you're going todo it.
Right. You know, Chris, Icould talk to you forever about and
for like keep talking aboutthis for hours and hours because
it's such a huge topic for me.Because I think there's so many things
about companies where they doforget about the customer. And it
was, you know, even like the,that phone conversation, you know,
it's like, I just want to talkto somebody. And then through all
(30:22):
the different aspects of whereAI is going right now, you have a
wealth of information andknowledge. So how can our listeners
continue the conversation withyou directly, connect with you, see
what you're doing, learn aboutyour two companies? Because that's
always great too, because wealways love promoting new companies.
(30:42):
Yeah, the easiest way to dothat is just find me on my website
so you can reach out tome@chrishood.com really easy C H
R I S h o o d.com and on mywebsite you will find my blog, previous
podcast, my books, how toreach out to me. If you want any,
(31:03):
any advice, all of it ispretty easy to find right there.
Chrisoood.com awesome.
Well, thank you so much, Chrisfor being a guest on the Unstoppable
Leadership Spotlight podcast.And listeners, please reach out and
connect with Chris and if youhave enjoyed this conversation, please
hit subscribe, share it withyour friends, let your colleagues
(31:27):
know about it. Our goal is tocreate amazing leaders. If we can
make great leaders, maybe wecan make a change in the world. So
I'm Jaclyn Stinger. I am yourhigh performance coach and the host
of Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. Thank you all
for listening and again, makesure that you subscribe and check
(31:50):
out Chris's website as well.Thank you so much.
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to another edition of the
Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. I am Jaclyn Strominger,
your host and on this podcastwe hear from absolutely amazing leaders
and their game changinginsights. And today we are going
to hear from Chris Hood. Now,what you are going to get from this,
(01:19):
I just want you to understand,listen to this, because this is going
to be your change in yourbelief in AI. Whatever you're thinking
about, trust me, it's probablynot the right thing. Or maybe it
needs to be changed. Chris isa wealth of information and will
get you thinking about AI inthe absolute right way. So why should
(01:41):
we listen to Chris? Well, he'sa strategist, he is an author, he's
a speaker, and he has become apivotal thought leader in integrating
customer success with digitalStrategy. With over 35 years of experience
in business and technologydevelopment, Chris has built a reputation
for fostering customer centriccultures. And he is the author of
(02:02):
Infallible and CustomerTransformation, which offers profound
insights into aligningbusinesses with technologies like
AI and evolving consumerbehaviors. So, Chris, we could talk
and I could go on about allthe great things you've done, but
welcome to the UnstoppableLeadership Spotlight podcast.
(02:22):
Thank you so much. Great to be here.
Yeah, so we were talking, youknow, obviously pre show and you
know, AI as I was, you know,we shared. I don't think there is
a day that goes by in themedia that you don't hear somebody
talking about AI. So how you,you wrote this great book, I can't
(02:46):
wait to read it. So I have toapologize, I have not read it yet.
But AI in the workplace bringsfear, excitement and a whole bunch
of things. What is the thingthat you would like leaders to know
and understand about AI?
(03:07):
Yeah, I mean, I think the factthat it's in the media every single
day is part of the problem.You know, if, if there's one thing
that all people listening tothis podcast can take away after
this conversation, I'm hopingit's to shift your mindset to do
a little bit more explorationand learn a little bit more about
(03:29):
what the true capabilities ofAI actually are. And I think because
as you mentioned, not only insocial media, but also we've grown
up with movies like Terminatoror War Games for the last 40 plus
years that all focused onvarious elements of AI. So I've often
(03:50):
said that we've gotten ourunderstanding of AI through movies
and media and television. Oneof my favorite shows of all time
actually is Person ofInterest, which follows along with
that show. Yeah, it followsaround with an AI that predicts people's
fate. Like, so when we startto buy into this belief system of
(04:15):
what we are told about AI,most of which is hype, then it clouds
the actual understanding andtrue capabilities. So all of the
fears that you kind of touchedon, I'm going to lose my job to AI
or AI is going to take overthe world. Right. All of those things
are being perpetuated becauseof the media and marketing and, you
(04:38):
know, everybody talking aboutit at conferences and so on. And
so, yeah, I hope that in theshort time we do have together that
we can really start to dissectthis and shift some of your understanding
so that you can be a littlebit more critical in your thinking
and approach to how you wantto integrate AI into your business.
(04:59):
You know, I love what you'resaying and I, you know, when you're
talking about person ofinterest, obviously that's, you know,
it's following your AI, isfollowing the person around. And
of course, war games, all Ikeep thinking about is, do you want
to play a game? Right. Youknow. Right. And that's not really
what AI's AI. I mean, it is,but it's not, it's not the be all
end all. So if I'm a leadertoday, what do you think is the best
(05:23):
way to. I'm going to startwith the question of how do you bring
AI into the workplace? And,and as a leader, do it with, without
the fear of your team. Becausealso on the other side of it, you
(05:45):
know, the customer side of it,and I, and I will ask your opinion
on this too, is like the firstcustomer any company has are the
employees. So how do you know?How do we not keep their fear out?
Yeah. So there's two elementsthat you're touching on here. You've
got the employees and you'vegot your customers. And I think actually
(06:06):
you handle them mostly thesame, but slightly nuanced. Right.
And it does start with fulltransparent disclosure. We talk about
open communication andtransparency within leadership. You
have to come into this and behonest. Imagine if you were selling
(06:27):
something to a customer andyou basically said, yeah, I spent
the last five days working onthis project for you, and really
it only took you five minutesbecause you shoved it through some
artificial intelligence togenerate it. Would your customer
appreciate knowing that youused AI to do it? And yet there's
a stigma. Like, I'm not goingto tell them, like, I'm, hey, I did
(06:49):
this work. I didn't use AI todo this work, you lose trust in that
process. And there's really nodifference with employees. I would
suggest that the very firstthing you do is you say, hey, everybody,
we're thinking about lookingat AI and exploring ways that we
can use AI. We haven't madeany decisions yet because we really
(07:09):
don't understand what this iscapable of for our business. So we're
going to bring it in. We'regoing to let everybody play with
it and we're going to set upsort of a sandbox. And look, we're
going to potentially rewardpeople who come up with new and original
ideas, creative ways that theycan leverage AI for their job. We're
(07:32):
not talking about replacingyour job. We, we're looking at this
as an enhancement for yourjob. But because we don't know everything
and we don't. You don't reallyfully grasp this yet. Let's play
with it. All of us together.That openness, that transparency,
that learning process, thatprocedure, the psychological safety
of leveraging other people inthe process are all going to help
(07:56):
you be a little bit morebeneficial from introducing it into
your organization.
Yeah, I love what you justsaid. Said for a bunch of different
things. And I just kind ofwant to pinpoint a couple of key,
like listeners. As you'rehearing this, I want you to really
take away if something that's,I, I think is at the crux of everything
(08:19):
and that is transparent anddisclosure and being honest. You,
you. To me, great leadershipstarts with sharing that vision of
what you want. So when you'rebringing AI in or you're bringing
something new or whatever, thenext new thing is letting your team
(08:40):
know about it and sharing itversus the surprise and getting their
buy in.
Yeah, you just touched onsomething. You said sharing the vision
of what you want. It's okay toshare a vision of something you don't
know anything about and youdon't know if you want it yet. I
think too often as leaders, wecome across as well. I have all the
(09:03):
answers. This is my vision.Follow along with me, you know, be
humble about this. I have noclue what we're going to do with
this thing, but hey, let'sfigure it out together. I think both
approaches are excellent.
Yeah, and that's the point.It's like, because as a leader, the
best thing you can do is toshare that, but you're empowering
(09:26):
your people. Leadership isabout empowering people and helping
them rise up. And I love theidea of sharing that. So, you know,
in that same vein, what wouldyou say to A leader. How do you,
you know, how do I, how dothey empower their teams? As you
just shared, like, here's whatwe're going to do. But are there
any other key points that youwould say, you know what, here's
(09:49):
a flow, here's a process?
Yeah, I think again, you startto look at areas of your business
where you might want some sortof improvement, where you might need
some enhancement, maybe, maybeyou need five people doing a particular
role, but you currently onlyhave three people. Could AI help
(10:10):
you offset some of that? Soyou could start to strategically
look at the business and areaswhere you might find opportunities
and then explore can AI helpus in these areas? We are potentially
struggling in the other sideof this. Going back to the customer,
I would argue don't ever startwith the customer. Don't ever start
(10:35):
with saying we're going tobring AI in to fix this customer
thing. And I think that's theknee jerk reaction. A lot of what
I'm seeing out there is likehow AI can personalize experience,
how AI can help us withcustomer success, how AI can help
us with support calls and soon and so on. All of those are actually
(10:58):
flawed in reason because thoseall require some sort of uniquely
human capability that AI can'tactually duplicate. And this is where
we get into that balancing actis understanding what AI can actually
do versus what you need a realhuman person to do and then trying
(11:21):
to figure out where you canhelp the human person be better at
their job and which it'scommunicating with consumers and
not hand that over completelyto an AI. We've all been on a phone
call where it says press oneto reach this person, press two.
And we're all sitting here £ ££ real person, real person. Right.
(11:43):
This is also why you look atsomebody like Discovery that has
an entire campaign that'swrapped around, you can speak to
a real person. They are goinganti AI and robots and it's working
for them because there areplenty of consumers out there that
genuinely just want to talk tosomebody. I also use this as an example.
(12:07):
If you go to a grocery storetoday, you usually have an option.
Yes. There are self checkoutlines where you can easily, conveniently
and, and maybe you don't wantto talk to somebody, go out and do
your own self checkout. Thereare plenty of people who despise
self checkout and want toactually go and have somebody, you
(12:28):
know, support them. But inboth of those, in that situation
you actually have the choice,you have the choice of not talking
to somebody. Or talking tosomebody. And right now a lot of
businesses are looking at thisas well. We're going to shove AI
down people's throats. We'renot going to give them the option.
And what it's actually doingis it's alienating those customers
(12:51):
from your business.
Yep. You know, I am so kind ofglad that you brought this up because
I think this is it. Is it. Forme personally, it's a pet peeve.
I'm one of those people, likeI, if I call a credit card company,
if I call somebody, I want toknow that I can easily speak to a
person. I'm like, what's thedirect. Like what numbers do I have
(13:13):
to press? And I ask all thetime, what are the sequence that
I can just get right to aperson? Right. And I, and I think
this is also really importantfor leaders to understand. As humans,
we need human connection. Andit's really important for us to,
(13:35):
I believe as a leader, if youcan be like the discover and keep
the human connection in withyour customers, it's going to make
your people happy. It's goingto make your, your, your employees
happier.
Yeah. Just to touch on that,we talk and I'm sure you've probably
(13:56):
had an episode previouslyabout this topic that one of the
most critical traits of aleader would be emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence, justby definition, is a uniquely human
trait. There is no artificialintelligence on the planet that can
have emotional intelligence.It can't be empathetic. And yet all
(14:21):
of these core values that welook at as a human to say, well,
I'm going to have aconversation with an employee about
a difficult situation orconflict resolution, even from a
consumer who is calling you inlooking for that support. And they
are frazzled because they'vejust gone through some chaotic event
(14:41):
in their lives that actuallyhas nothing to do with why they're
calling in. And you're goingto hand that experience off to some
artificial entity, like thesetypes of experiences, the, the emotional
intelligence, the empatheticresponses, those are all uniquely
(15:03):
human. And those areexperiences we as humans crave. You
are not selling your productsor services to a robot. You are selling
them to other human beings.And so why would you ever want to
actually hand thoseexperiences off so that they become
(15:25):
more artificial?
Yeah, it's so true. It's soimportant to understand this because
I don't ever want it toreplace a human when they're talking
to me about a product, acustomer. As you said, the emotional
intelligence and havingempathy and being able to relate
(15:47):
to People, People, you know,and I think it's some. It, it's,
it's, it's something that weneed. You know, having communications
verbally is something thatleaders need to foster more in. And
communication is so importantin the workforce. And we were not
meant to just. And I have to,you know, not to go on my soapbox
(16:12):
here, but as an older personin my 50s, I still like the phone.
Yes, text does matter for somethings, but I think that we need
to teach people the art ofcommunication and the art of conversation.
It's a trait or a skill thatyou can call it that we are drastically
(16:34):
losing. There are two primaryskills that artificial intelligence
is corrupting. The first iscommunication, as you just said.
And part of that is alsosocial media. Right. Technology over
the course of the last 10years has drastically changed the
way we actually communicate.So it's not totally because of artificial
(16:57):
intelligence, but it'sincreasing it. And critical thinking.
Critical thinking is actuallydeclining directly because of artificial
intelligence. And so when youstart to lose those human traits
of basic communication andcritical thinking. Yeah, we are dooming
ourselves in the process. Imean, to your point about communication,
(17:21):
imagine if I showed up. OrI'll say, imagine I didn't show up.
And who you are talking toright now is the agent version of
Chris Hood with the artificialintelligence voice. And you were
conducting this interview inthat way, the conversation would
be completely different. Itwould be unauthentic, it would be,
(17:41):
you know, not genuine. And yetthere are companies out there that
are putting in placeartificial intelligence agents to
run interviewing processes.Like, you get a call from an agent.
Hello, I am with this companyand I'm here to ask you questions.
(18:02):
Thank you for your response.Right. Like, what's your first instinct?
Well, I don't want to work forthat company. They don't care about
me. Right. So we have tocontinuously think about it in these
contexts because otherwise we,as I said, we are dooming ourselves.
Yeah. All right, so I have akind of a going backwards a little
(18:24):
bit. What made you write the book?
Yeah, so the first reason Iwrote the book was because I was
seeing all of this stuffonline and social media about AI
and I was like, but that's nottrue. Like, that's not, that's not
how it works. I put the veryfirst sentence in the book in the
(18:45):
opening, says, I should havewritten this book sooner. And I genuinely
feel that way. Like this book.Book is probably something that I,
I could have written threeyears ago, four years ago. But as
I started to See the hype ofAI increase. It also started to generate
a failure or you know, I callit an ideology around artificial
(19:10):
intelligence that was notaligned with actually reality. You
know, you think about likeeven a belief system. I'm not going
to suggest to anybody who, youknow, everybody out there might have
different religious beliefsystems, but artificial intelligence
has now become one of thesereligious style belief systems that
(19:34):
it could be infallible orinfallible. This is where I, so I
shove AI in the middle of it,which gets to, you know, the title
infallible. But, but yeah,that, that belief system, the ideology
of artificial intelligence iscompletely reshaping how we look
at technology, how we dobusiness, how leaders are responding,
(19:57):
how consumers are interactingwith your business. And I thought
that it was a really goodreason really to go and dive into
this and what that beliefsystem was.
Yeah, no, and I really, and Iapplaud you for writing it. You know,
when I, when I think about, I,I think the biggest thing that we
as, you know, as leaders andwhether you're a CEO or you're running
(20:22):
a team or the, you're the CEOof you to not forget about that human
connection, you know, and I'mgoing to go back to, you know, I
don't even know when it was.I'm going to just say in the 70s,
this is again, I'm datingmyself here, but there was a commercial
(20:44):
and I believe. Well, I'm notgoing to say which airline it was
because I actually don'treally remember. But the gist of
the conversation was there wasthe head of a company, he had his,
all his salespeople standingall around him and he said, we just
lost our longest customer. Andwhat he did is he handed out plane
tickets and he said, we'regoing to get on the plane. We've
(21:07):
gotten used, okay, we'vegotten used to faxing. Right. We've
gotten used to, you know, thephone. We need to be in front of
our clients and we need to seeour clients, we need to shake their
hands. And he handed them allplane tickets. And then, you know,
he, they, the sales team askedhim like, what are you going to do?
(21:30):
He goes, I'm going to go seethat client that we just lost.
Yeah.
And, and that's what I thinkof AI that way too. Right. In the
sense that we've evolved, butwe have to always remember again
to going back to the humanelement and that emotional element,
the emotional intelligence. Wecannot forget about that part of
(21:53):
it as leaders.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.Continuing with your Plain story.
I've often suggested and I'vehad conversations with American Airlines
and United Airlines. You know,I've consulted with them and I've,
I've asked point blank, whenwas the last time your CEO flew somewhere
(22:16):
coach and sat next to somebodyand just experienced that for themselves
and talked with a consumernext to them. Most CEOs are void
of any type of actualconsumption consumer experience.
They're, they're not going outinto the field. You know the old
TV show Undercover Boss,right. Like no one's actually doing
(22:39):
that. You know, evenUndercover Boss, I've argued, is,
is an example of how you canget insights into your operations
and employees. But no one isdoing that from a consumer perspective
is sitting there and it'slike, oh well, we have a marketing
team, we have some agencywho's doing that for us. No, it's
your responsibility as aleader. Your number one responsibility
(23:01):
is ensuring that yourcustomers are happy and that you
understand what your customersneeds are. And in my first book,
Customer Transformation, ittalks about this process which as
you're alluding to with AIright now, everybody is focused on,
well, let's start with AI,let's bring AI in, let's then figure
(23:21):
out what AI can do for us and,and then we'll figure out how do
we pitch this to ourconsumers. And it's so backwards
that you may get into aposition where you are building something
that doesn't even require AI.And so I've kind of started to simplify
(23:42):
this where it's, you have tostart with your customer first, you
then will figure out thetechnology last. And even after you
figure out what the technologyis, maybe you're going to use AI
because there are plenty ofsolutions out there that will solve
your customers problemswithout you ever having to touch
(24:04):
AI. And if you can simplifythat process, customer first figure
out what their problem is thatyou want to solve, then figure out
what the technology is goingto be and then maybe you want to
introduce AI in that process.Think you're going to be a lot more
successful.
Yeah, I love that. You know,customer first should always be that.
Always, you know, think ofthat customer first. It really is
(24:26):
important. So you know, asyou're, you know, as we're talking
about, you know, AI and thecustomer, you know, what are you
seeing out there like asyou're talking to people, you know,
what's the, what are otherpeople, you know, experience with
(24:47):
AI that maybe can actually goback to the leaders and saying like
what other people areexperiencing, like or dislike, besides
just hitting the phone like,because, you know, we all hate that.
Yeah, I do think a lot of itright now is all bandwagon, right.
It's like I just have to jumpon this because, you know, fear of
missing out, if you want tocall it that, fomo. But everybody
(25:08):
is kind of just jumping onlike, oh, we need AI, let's figure
it out. And that's I think thebiggest problem because again, a
lot of this we, we talkedbeforehand, you know, this isn't
really anything new in termsof technology. When websites came
out, everybody said, oh, Ineed a website. And, and then overnight
(25:30):
everybody became web designexperts. And then, you know, in 2000s,
Apple obviously brilliantlysaid, hey, you need an app for that.
And then so everybody wasrushing out to get apps and everybody
overnight became mobile appexperts. And AI is just the next
part of that trend. It's like,oh, well, I need AI and everybody
(25:53):
overnight has suddenly becomean AI agent or some sort of expert
in the topic, which, whichnone of them really are. So this
is a continuous type of cyclethat we experience. But because of
that, I think right now it'sthe bandwagon effect. Everybody is
jumping on to we need tofigure out how we're going to use
(26:15):
AI. And the problem with thatis that they're trying to force something
that doesn't necessarily needto happen. And so I, I don't think
we've reached quite yet.There's, you know, we, we have this
thing called a hype cycle andwe're up in this hype, you know,
location. And then the nextstep is sort of called this trough
(26:38):
of disillusionment, which iswhere you basically realize that
all of the investments you'vemade and all of the rationales you've
had to introduce AI areactually not panning out. The ROI
isn't there. And now you'relike, ah, now what do I do? So we
are slowly starting to reachthat point where people are starting
to, you know, realize,recognize the analytical or, you
(27:02):
know, the results of theirprocess and implementations and you
know, it's not necessarilylooking good. No matter what you're
going to read online, you'regoing to read a bunch of stuff that
says ROI at all time high. Youknow who the ROIs are at an all time
high. All of the companies whoare selling AI to you to use it for
something that you don't need.Right. I go back to you mentioned
(27:25):
the 70s, it's the pet rock of,you know, 2025. That's where we're
at right now, it's, you'rebuying something you don't need,
making a bunch of other peopleextremely wealthy in the process.
And so if you can recognizethis, it goes back to what we started
with. If I can shift yourmindset so that you actually see
this and recognize it, thenyou as a leader are going to be in
(27:48):
a lot better situation.
Right, right. Well, that is sotrue. Right. It's, you know, understand
that right now it's not the beall, end all. And don't think that
if you're not in it, you'remissing out or that you're not, you're
not a good leader becauseyou're not using it. You know, use
(28:09):
your, use your skills to oftrue communication. And as you said,
customer first.
Yeah. And look for anybodywho's listening, who's thinking,
oh, this is just one of thosenaysayers who don't really know what
they're talking about orwhatever you want to say. Which again,
(28:29):
personally, I don't reallycare. You know, I wrote a book on
AI that I spent, you know,over a year researching. My first,
my first AI project was in1999. I have been working with AI
for years. I teach atuniversity level AI courses. I worked
for Google for six years whereI helped organizations implement
(28:52):
AI. And I can give you a wholelist of people who I direct. What's
funny is that we've been usingAI in devices. If you have Netflix,
you've been using AI and maynot have realized it. Authors who
are like, well, AI is the helpyou writing. You've been using grammar
checkers, which is technicallya form of AI for 30 plus years. Spell
(29:13):
checkers, you know, anotherform of AI. And yet all of a sudden
it's now new. It's something,you know, revolutionary. I am working
with two companies. I've gottwo companies. One is a startup,
we've been funded, it's an AIcompany. I've got another new startup
that I've just, you know,begun working on this year, which
is an AI company. I'm notagainst AI at all. I live and breathe
(29:37):
it. I just know what it can doand it can't do. And that I think
is the message that Icontinuously want to hone in is don't
fall for the hype, understandwhat their true capabilities are,
figure out what your customersactually want. It may or may not
be AI and most likely rightnow it's not AI. And then go and
(29:58):
figure out how you're going todo it.
Right. You know, Chris, Icould talk to you forever about and
for like keep talking aboutthis for hours and hours because
it's such a huge topic for me.Because I think there's so many things
about companies where they doforget about the customer. And it
was, you know, even like the,that phone conversation, you know,
it's like, I just want to talkto somebody. And then through all
(30:22):
the different aspects of whereAI is going right now, you have a
wealth of information andknowledge. So how can our listeners
continue the conversation withyou directly, connect with you, see
what you're doing, learn aboutyour two companies? Because that's
always great too, because wealways love promoting new companies.
(30:42):
Yeah, the easiest way to dothat is just find me on my website
so you can reach out tome@chrishood.com really easy C H
R I S h o o d.com and on mywebsite you will find my blog, previous
podcast, my books, how toreach out to me. If you want any,
(31:03):
any advice, all of it ispretty easy to find right there.
Chrisoood.com awesome.
Well, thank you so much, Chrisfor being a guest on the Unstoppable
Leadership Spotlight podcast.And listeners, please reach out and
connect with Chris and if youhave enjoyed this conversation, please
hit subscribe, share it withyour friends, let your colleagues
(31:27):
know about it. Our goal is tocreate amazing leaders. If we can
make great leaders, maybe wecan make a change in the world. So
I'm Jaclyn Stinger. I am yourhigh performance coach and the host
of Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. Thank you all
for listening and again, makesure that you subscribe and check
(31:50):
out Chris's website as well.Thank you so much.
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