Ep247 Kim Resch - Learn AI Yourself and Build Your Company's Due Diligence Framework

Kim Resch 0:00

It's not just pick up the instruction manual and you're ready to go. It's where you're taking yourself in this arena of AI, which is your mind can't think of all the things it can do for you. So it's hearing what other people are doing that's going to expand your realm of how you use these tools.

 

Mike O'Neill 0:22

Welcome to Get Unstuck and On Target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with confidence and vision, but also to achieve groundbreaking results. I'm your host, Mike O'Neill. I coach top-level executives on the power of ethical leadership to forge teams to be as united as they are effective. In each episode, join me for insightful conversations with leaders just like you, providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward. Let's get started. Every leader I talk to wants to hand AI off to somebody else, it, a vendor, a new hire who gets it, and I get why. But the leaders who actually pull ahead are the ones who realize this one they can't delegate; they have to learn it themselves first. Today's guest has spent her career translating exactly that kind of complexity for the people at the top. Stick around. My guest today is Kim Resh. She's the author of several books, including AI due diligence, and so you want to learn AI. She spent 25 years helping Fortune 500 and high-growth companies not just adopt new technology, but govern it. And she brings that same lens to AI. What I'd like to talk to Kim about today, it's a little bit of a different take, and that is AI. It's different, but then it's not. And Kim is going to help us kind of unpack that. And I'm looking forward to learning from you. Welcome, Kim.

 

Kim Resch 2:14

Thank you. Glad to be here,

 

Mike O'Neill 2:18

Kim. You've watched companies go through all types of technology changes: the internet, mobile, the cloud shifts that probably at the time felt disruptive. But for those companies that figured it out, the leaders, what did they do that actually was good that enabled them to adapt well as a company.

 

Kim Resch 2:45

Yeah. So over the years, we've had all these great things that that are transformational happening. You know, and it's mainly been on the tech side. Is most of these we talk about. So that it was so dependent on their tech teams and the advice from their vendors. There are a lot of these transformations. There were just a handful of top vendors that they could trust, and and then their IT could follow it up. And so, what I'm seeing with AI is that it it's the biggest transformation we'll go through probably in our lifetime. It's so exciting, but it's very different to to companies of all sizes.

 

Mike O'Neill 3:23

You know, I think what I would like to do, if you don't mind, to kind of set the stage. You know, I remember when some of these things came along, the the leaders kind of said, "Well, that's an IT issue. They'll kind of help us get through that. They were very dependent on others, be it internal IT or the vendors, I want to look at this from a leadership standpoint. When leaders are dependent on others, such as internal IT or these vendors, I'm not saying that's bad. But what are the potential risks when you're that dependent on others?

 

Kim Resch 4:01

Well, with AI, the risk is is that this is a company wide decision, and it it affects every stage of the company. I I find companies just having a lot of discussion and around where this fits, who owns it. So a lot of times that's getting pushed over to with the IT team, I was actually working with one company. It was about 100 person company, and they'd actually pushed the whole AI realm from researching it to integrating it to what tools we'll use to managing it to the service desk person. So, yeah. So I think a lot of a lot of leaders just really need to step back and say, you know what, this is different. I have to learn AI myself. You know, with something like the cloud or an ERP, you can sit through one little training session, and you're up and running on your new system. With this, it's an entire industry that you have to use within the whole company, so they have to learn it first. And really, I wrote the books because I saw that leaders needed to kind of step back, and that's why I wrote AI Due Diligence. Is it's really a thinking process, a framework to go from let's just sit down and see what AI means to this company. Write a good positioning statement that can be shared with the whole company to say this is what we feel AI is to our company, and this is the boundaries. This is what we want it systems we want it to touch. This is what systems we don't want to touch. This is how we want to handle data that flows through our AI systems, and so I found this framework just really let companies step back and breathe. But one of the biggest awakenings in doing this is that leaders and, of course, the entire organization just needs a good AI 101, and everybody's hungry for that. And so I then wrote, "So you want to learn AI? Because it's really what I was saying to people, and it's written in that frame. Just like, okay, here's the basics. Let's just talk about what does an LLM mean. You know, it has a glossary in the back, and so it's something that can be sent out to the whole company, and and in doing that, I found that just confidential executive AI 101 sessions is what's needed in a lot of companies. Then they can step back into those basics of just learning it, positioning it in the company, and then taking it through a thinking process on on what it's going to touch and how you want to manage it in the company.

 

Mike O'Neill 6:53

You know, Kim, I actually have both those books that you're referring to, and I was kind of curious about which came first. And it sounds like the due diligence came first, and you kept getting questions. Let's talk about that part first, okay? I'm asking the question from the perspective of leaders. Our listeners and viewers are leaders, and they're all, in some form or fashion, doing what we're talking about right now, but you said something was very interesting to me, and that is, as a leader, particularly at the top, it sounded me you stressed the importance that get in front of this as quickly as you possibly can, and understand. You may not use these words, but understand that AI is going to permeate everything that we do,

 

Kim Resch 7:44

right?

 

Mike O'Neill 7:45

And therefore, we have to be mindful of that, and therefore, take from a strategic standpoint, really understand that's going to be the case. But then you kind of caught my attention when you said that somebody's got to own it, and in your experience, I know you work with organizations of all sizes, but are you seeing something emerge that is more predictable? Are organizations looking to a certain department of the tape that lead more than others, or are you seeing groups being formed for the exact purpose of implementing,

 

Kim Resch 8:23

yeah, I love that question because I'm a real believer in using the employees that you have and upskilling, reskilling. If it's a small company, it's a champion. Even just working with a company with five people in it, and the one thing that I hear through companies of all sizes is, we need to hire AI people. We need, you know, one person from a property management company just asked me, you know, what, who do I bring in? Who do I hire? I'm looking at all these people to hire to bring in, so that I can get AI into my company. It's like, oh, you know that's a big step back moment to say. First of all, somebody has to know your business, not just sell you workflows and automation. And so, it's a perfect opportunity to take individuals and that have a passion for it and upskill them, and have that person on the team, so that can be a working group, it can be a task force, or it can be an individual. If you're a small company, that's the one thing that I really promote.

 

Mike O'Neill 9:31

You know, you also came to realization that this is complicated, and the decision makers are-they may feel equally in the dark, or maybe even more so, because it's moving so very fast. I'm glad you made reference to that second book, and I'm not here to promote your books, but I had I can tell you I have I've not read them from cover to cover, but when I open the book, so you want to learn AI, my first impression was that this was going to be a. For dummies, that is not what I'm seeing here. It's written, at least what I saw, is written from a perspective of it's complicated. It's moving fast, and if you'll just stick with this, you will have far more familiarity with this, and you. when you say who do you bring in, AI is so new. The most seasoned AI experts,

 

Speaker 1 10:29

right,

 

Mike O'Neill 10:29

only have what? How much time have they been dealing with AI?

 

Kim Resch 10:33

Well, a year or two. That was this all hit us, and you know, except you know, there's a lot of people that know AI have been working on AI for 20 years from a you know professors and things like that, and that's what I found. I've been doing AI 101 sessions around different towns, and and other options are to bring in people that that almost teach it as at a professor level, and really I've done a lot of just senior communities, just they're curious too, you know. As seniors want to be out there and they want to be using it, and it's and so I tried to write the book to focus on somebody that just wants to get involved at that level, or it could be a whole company of people that just really need to get that baseline, and I just have had this skill through my entire career to be able to take complex items and put it into a form and communicate it kind of very quickly, you know. So that's what I have done in my career. I've always been in innovative tech, starting mainly in financial and digital commerce and things, and and I started my company, Creative Commerce Group, just to do that. I go in, what I like to say, right in the middle of the room, I and and execute the projects. So I work with the leaders and the tech teams and the entire company, and I'm able to communicate it from both of those levels, and and that's really why I'm able to write these books. It's it's it's scary to write an AI book because it's it's out of date the next week. There's something new, so you just kind of have to put a stake in the ground and go from there.

 

Mike O'Neill 12:17

Kim, you and I know each other from in other settings, and I love that term, middle of the room. And I think I could see how well you are so good at that. We're talking about what Formosus viewed things as very technical, but explaining technical in a way that everybody can relate to is a gift. And it sounds like you've spent most of your career taking the ability to understand it, but convey that information in such a way that others can understand it in equal fashion. When you step back and look at AI, there's everybody is an expert, whereas nobody is an expert,

 

Kim Resch 13:01

right?

 

Mike O'Neill 13:02

But from your expertise, what are people getting wrong about AI?

 

Kim Resch 13:09

As a company, I think they're bringing in vendors that are saying there's a lot of people just you know hanging up their company flag and saying I can automate your company. I can cut this many employees down in this many. You'll save money. You'll be better, you know, at what you do and all this. And they're like, yeah, who who wouldn't want that? So I think they're jumping into AI through some of this automation and workflow vendors. That and and that's the stuff that's going to change. That's where you really have to know what you're trying to accomplish, and the big picture is what it means to your brand and to your customers. Is it the best experience? I mean, we've all experienced trying to call that restaurant now that put a bot on, and you're not able to get through to a live person, you know that is a frustrating customer experience. So they're looking at kind of the time saving, the money saving aspect of AI and jumping into it at that level, and and that's a that's a dangerous kind of framework to get into. So we talked about how you know vendors. You know how do vendors just knowing a certain part of it, and that's another big thing is that you have to look out for people that you're placing with AI to their knowledge. How broad is their knowledge? You know, do you want do you want some mile wide and an inch deep, or mile deep and an inch wide. You know, it's like that's for the leaders to say what you need in your company, and and so before bringing in any of those vendors, that's where I felt the need for due diligence to happen to just say let's talk to every avenue of our company to see. What we really need, and and and use your company as that information. We're all seeing in the news companies laying off, you know, some of the biggest brands are laying off hundreds of 1000s of people saying it's AI, whether they're saying it or they mention AI, and the media picks that up, and you know they're they're doing that in a dangerous aspect of knowing they need to refocus their money, how they're spending and their budgets around AI to bring it in. So they're freeing up that money by laying off people, and we'll see that they start bringing people back with AI experience.

 

Mike O'Neill 15:40

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, and that is the the headlines do tend to report all the jobs that are being cut. But I'm now beginning to see stories, and companies are realizing they cut too deep, too fast, and they're going back to the exact same people and say, "We want you back. It may be we want you back not because of your AI expertise, but you know our company, you know our culture.

 

Kim Resch 16:07

Yeah,

 

Mike O'Neill 16:08

and yeah, if I heard you correctly, what you're kind of encouraging leaders is before you are tempted to bring in a vendor and let the vendor guide you through this. That it's best that there's discussion, exploration first within the organization.

 

Speaker 1 16:29

Yeah.

 

Mike O'Neill 16:29

So, am I hearing that part correct?

 

Kim Resch 16:32

Absolutely. Yeah. And I've I've broken it down into 10 like enterprise control zones to think about. You know, 80% of them are the usual suspects, but then there's new things that we have to look out for. Safety, you know, we it's not just workforce safety anymore. We have incredible safety issues. Every cyber team out there is nervous about this. There's also cognitive dependency. There's a complete different issue that we're that we're planning for and trying to get ahead of with systems that are getting ahead of us, and that is these systems now have all your data and they are making decisions for you. They're they're even dripping it into emails that are going out from your your employees that are sending things out, it is taking your information and massaging it in a way that is representing your company. So you have to get in front of all those things. The other area in the 10 zones is governance and policy. Everybody's talking about governance and guardrails. You know, is like really that word "guardrails. Guardrails that is so out there in the media, everybody's talking about it, but nobody's doing anything about it. And that was really the catalyst of AI due diligence. It's like, okay, here are the guardrails. Here is a framework. It's a good old analyze session that we used to have back in the old days of just looking at it from all aspects and making sure that you've hit every element of

 

Mike O'Neill 18:08

it. You know, you mentioned the 10 categories, and we can get technical really fast.

 

Speaker 1 18:13

Yeah,

 

Mike O'Neill 18:14

but again, you've mentioned three categories. Are those the three that you see most often as being needing particular emphasis on, or did you just pick three?

 

Kim Resch 18:26

I just see those as unique to AI. I mean, of course, everything you know. There's a lot of companies with governance departments, you know, but that's those three areas are just three that really need a change of thinking of how you're currently doing it. You know, I I've met with very large government organization that IT went to the risk department to say, okay, what are we doing about AI? And this was a year ago. What what we need a policy, and risk is going. I don't know, you know. Try HR, you know, and so the the normal steps that you would have to put controls in place may not work for AI for you. You know, every company is different, and I find the first thing is that companies just need to sit down and say which of these 10 do we want to focus on? All 10, or let's at least talk through all 10, and maybe a few of those are different for AI for you.

 

Mike O'Neill 19:32

You know, you mentioned in your writing that it's actually the byline in in your book: three words, clarity, control, and confidence.

 

Kim Resch 19:44

Yeah,

 

Mike O'Neill 19:45

walk us through what that looks like, particularly for a leader who's starting from zero.

 

Kim Resch 19:50

Yeah, and I like to say that this might be as simple as just letting a leader be in a confident. Space to say, I don't know. This is different, and that is an emerging thing I'm hearing, even from some of the biggest technology brands out there that say the leaders are going. We don't know, and we're not going to know, and it's changing so quickly. But if you're thinking it through, if if you have your arms around what the company is thinking, and your top people have identified vulnerable areas as a leader, if you go through this process, then you do have some clarity, you do have some control, and you it will give you confidence. I work with leaders that just need to go back to a board to say, "We just invested a million dollars in this. What's the ROI? And we all know that the ROI for AI is not there in a lot of cases. If it, it's very hard to prove. So setting up a path to monitoring and trying to get an ROI is a big part of of due diligence.

 

Mike O'Neill 21:10

Kim, you have a very impressive resume. The companies that you have worked for or with are name brand type companies. I know you work with large companies and growing companies. Yes, my question for you is: In your experience, which size organization is best positioned to embrace AI right? Is it the big players, or might it be smaller companies who do this right,

 

Kim Resch 21:44

and that I can't answer as far as the size of the company that's going to get it right. I mean, I think it's going to be so different for every company, and they all have their own nuance in this. And you know, I see companies of all sizes just either lock down their employees. That you know, let's not. You can't use your tools. I don't want to give away any data. We can't use AI here. And of course, the story being told told online is that people are then using it on their phone or at home and emailing it to themselves because everybody's hungry for it. Everybody loves it. It is happening. The other side of that is that that companies let them use every tool out there and just experience, experiment with it. I actually talked to somebody last night that works for somebody a very large technology brand who said that's that's exactly what they told them, and not only did they tell them to just experiment away, you know, and giving them some tools to do that, but they're giving them a token budget every month that they have to meet to, as an employee, to actually experiment with it. So I think that's great, you know. And they were using enterprise tools, so they were locked down on their system, but letting them experience what they could to really match up to their company. That's that's a start way. So, a small company, a big company, it it's what worked for that company and and what they their goals are.

 

Mike O'Neill 23:17

Well, I'm glad you reframed that. I didn't mean to box you in terms of size of the companies, but what I think what I was assuming is that big companies would have more of a command and control mindset, whereas Mallers might be a little bit looser. And what I'm hearing you say is, I don't what what's the right word that you describe that companies who say let's stay within the platform, but we want to encourage you to go out and use these tools. Is there what term do you use to describe companies who have that mindset versus the lockdown mindset?

 

Kim Resch 23:52

Yeah, and just entrepreneurial, really. You know, so you know if you can imagine somebody. One thing I like the story of that that a leader has a new intern come in to the financial department who says you know or a new employee and says I just noticed this this this and and they and the leader would go well that's an intern I have people that's worked here for 25 years you know it that's who I'm this is what we're doing for our company, yet they're bringing in AI. If the AI said this to one of their employees, they would trust it in a minute. So that trust is has that trust cycle has really changed. So it really has leveled the playing field for younger employees that that now have these tools and this mindset that can think out of the box for your company, and and I and I want to get back to mature. If we could hit on not back to, but if we could come back to mature workers, but companies of of all sizes, where I see the framework, and because I'm going back to your original question. Where I see the framework works best is in mid to mid market regulated companies, kind of that 5 million to 500 million. You know, somebody a you know huge global brand. They have they've been on the top of AI for a long time. They have multiple teams. You know, it something like this might be better for a department within a very large global company. I think good good department leaders will want to get their team thinking of how we can use AI best in their realm. But for for this, I think a leader that that wants to really step back and and look at the company from this will is is really in that regulated zone mid market 5 million to 100 million.

 

Mike O'Neill 25:52

Thank you. You also want to comment about the mature employees?

 

Kim Resch 25:55

Yeah, I do leadership discussion series across the U.S. right now. I just started this up. I was just having one in St. Louis, and this came up, and it really matches into a lot of companies are thinking, well, we got to get AI expertise. So we hear that that you want to bring that in, or you need to train your employees. And then the other thing that we keep hearing about is kind of the human in the middle. How do we keep a human aspect to all this stuff that's happening in in the digital world, and I really see. And this was a trend in this leadership discussion: is that the mature worker, I say mature, experienced, you know, worker really has a hands up in all of this that you know we have the experience, we have the knowledge, we have the skills for communicating it, and so it can't be discounted in a company to keep that expertise in your company because that's what the AI tools really need to keep a human aspect to AI in your company,

 

Mike O'Neill 27:01

I'm glad you mentioned that. You know, Kim, people are listening, are watching this episode, and they're kind of going, "Oh my goodness, Kim's talking about all these companies that are well along here.

 

Kim Resch 27:13

Yeah,

 

Mike O'Neill 27:13

what about that leader who really hasn't done the kind of work that we're describing quite yet? What would you advise would be the first honest step they should take?

 

Kim Resch 27:25

Yeah, yeah, it does look like companies are well along, and they see these other companies, or they hear about it on the news. But for every one of those companies, there's what you know 100 small businesses out there that are getting bombarded by vendors wanting to change their business, put in bots, you know, improve their workflow, and and I think that really leads to a lot of confusion. So that leader is someone that just needs to learn AI themselves, and I had to a couple years ago, you know, really a year ago, just absorb into learning AI, and I did that by just using the tools, experimenting, getting hooked on them across a lot of different tools. We're in a mastermind together that, you know, with a a person that is just amazing, Susan Taylor King, that at teaching AI. So you see these things. I got in a great Jonathan Mask has a Facebook group that I just monitor all day. People saying, "Oh, I just use this tool. Oh, I need to do this. So you learn what other people are doing because with this, it's not just pick up the instruction manual and you're ready to go. And then, as we did, you know, do I have one year experience in it or five years experience? It's where you're taking yourself in this arena of AI, which is your mind can't think of all the things it can do for you. So it's hearing what other people are doing that's going to expand your realm of how you use these tools.

 

Mike O'Neill 29:09

I realize we have barely scratched the surface on on this topic, and I'm not going to say this well, but let me make an attempt at it. Kim described herself as good at communicating and explaining the complex. We did not get into the complex in this conversation, but what I would tell you, based on my conversations off mic with Kim, she knows what she's talking about. She understands this in a way that is relatable, and I can see why you would be sought out by organizations because you help demystify, but you also don't gloss it over. There is work to be done if this is going to be done right, and I've been somewhat encouraged by the. Number of things you have said that this is doable, but you've got to get ahead of it and stay on top of it.

 

Speaker 2 30:08

Yeah,

 

Mike O'Neill 30:09

Kim, for those who have heard what we've discussed here and they want to learn more, what's the best way for them to reach out to you and maybe get hold of your books?

 

Kim Resch 30:20

Yeah, absolutely. The books are on Amazon, or you can reach out to me directly on my website. Especially if you want multiple books, please reach out directly. In my website is kimresh.com, and that's a central point. You can get a hold of me from there, or or see about speaking options, workshops, other packages to work with you one on one on LinkedIn under Kim Resh, and all those ways are kim@kimresh.com. So just find me all over.

 

Mike O'Neill 30:56

We will put all those links in the show notes, and if you're curious, because Resh is spelled R-E-S-C-H, so if you type it in, that's that's you will find a faster if you type it in. Kim, as expected, I learned a lot. Thank you for joining me today. Yeah,

 

Kim Resch 31:13

thank you. Great discussion. Thank you

 

Mike O'Neill 31:16

for our listeners. If something that Kim said today, if it landed, that AI isn't just another wave of tech change to write out. Her books and those contact links there are in the show notes, and I'm going to encourage you to reach out to her if you want more conversations like this one with Kim. Find Get Unstuck and On Target on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen. And as you've been listening, if someone comes to mind that they may be a senior leader, they're carrying too much. We're not talking about AI. We're talking about these are leaders carrying too much without a trusted advisor in their corner. I'd love an introduction. I keep a small number of coaching relationships, and I take new clients by introduction only. So, if you'd like to reach out to learn more, the links to do so are in the show notes there. So, I appreciate you joining us, Kim. I appreciate our listeners joining us, and I hope this has helped you get unstuck and on target. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Get Unstuck and On Target. I hope you've gained insights to help you lead with confidence and drive your organization forward. Remember, at Bench Builders, we're committed to your success, your leadership excellence, and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review, rate, and subscribe to keep up with our latest episodes. This show really grows when listeners like you share it with others. Who do you know who needs to hear what we talked about today? Until next time, I encourage you to stay focused on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path. This show is powered by Media Leads. To get your next great podcast produced, go to medialeadsco.com.