Finding Balance in an AI World with Debby Mayen

Hi, I'm Michael Hartman. I'm Naomi Liu. And I'm Mike Rizzo. And this is OpsCast, a podcast for marketing ops pros and rev ops pros created by the MoPros, the number one community for marketing operations professionals.

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Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by marketingops.com, powered by all the MoPros out there. I am your host, Michael Hartman, flying solo Hello once again. Today though, I am joined by Debbie Mayen, Global Head of Marketing Operations and Analytics at Logitech. Debbie has spent her career at the intersection of marketing operations, analytics, leadership, and emerging technology. But one of the things that stood out during the conversation she and I had before was her perspective on AI. It was that she's intentionally pursuing a balance in AI and other things. So while she's embracing AI and new technology in her work, she's equally intentional about creating space away from screens. Through reading physical books, creative pursuits, exercise, and real human connection. That perspective led us into a fascinating conversation about leadership, technology, and what skills will matter most as AI becomes part of everyday work. So, Debbie, welcome to OpsCast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm incredibly honored to be invited.

Yeah, this is going to be a lot of fun, I think. So, I mentioned this already, like, during our initial conversation, That, you know, one of the things that stood out was that, you know, you were both simultaneously pursuing AI, kind of AI-forward stuff, but also intentionally creating space away from technology. And if I remember right, right, I think that's both for you and for your teams. So, like, where did that come from? What was the genesis of that?

I think the, to be honest with you, I think it's born from me being an '80s kid, right? And all the extremes that come with that. You know, it's, I think it comes from a place of like, you know, I was born into an analog world, but then grew up in a digital world. And so, you know, I experienced kind of major transformations in not only how we work with each other, but also how we interact with each other, right? Matured at different stages when these major milestones happened. And so, you know, the early side of it, the analog side of it, if you will, It encompassed slower productivity, but at a manageable pace, right? Information was limited to like your kind of tangible reality, I like to call it, like your immediate geographic physical surroundings. You know, we didn't have access to the world like we do today. And so I think as a result, kind of anxieties were less, but you know, it was also because there was less to consume.

Yeah.

But productivity was also less, right? And then, but then on the flip side, once things became digital, productivity kind of skyrocketed. You know, it was that mentality of because I could do more, I felt like I had to do more. Information became global, but with it, so did sort of the worries and the fears of That, that entails.

Yeah, the anxiety became real.

Yes. And so, you know, my brain had to all of a sudden, like, consume these huge amounts of, of information, and it overwhelmed me for a while. And so I think that sort of this balanced, uh, approach, if you will, came from that, is that I experienced both sides of the aisle, and I wanted to go back to that You know, more, you know, like the peace of mind that I had in the analog era, but also the productivity, the increased productivity that I had in the digital. In my mind, there had to be a middle ground. So I think that's where it's born from.

Well, and I think there's some things that just occurred to me, some things that promised productivity that I think actually have been counter to that. An example I always go back to, because I've seriously considered multiple times, I still haven't done it, Because I don't think I could ever go back now because of the rest of the world, but it's a paper calendar versus a digital calendar. Like, I think a lot of people resonate with like, it feels like my calendar is totally out of my control.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it was a paper calendar. I was the one like, okay, yeah, let's meet, right? And like, there was a little bit of, to your point, like you had to put in some effort to make that work and everyone was kind of used to it. But now there's like almost no, I mean, I can't tell, you've probably experienced this. You're at a bigger company, right? How many times do you get invitations to a meeting that just overlaps like 2 others that you already have?

Oh, so many times. Just today I was triple booked for a meeting. I was like, guys, I can only be in one meeting at a time. You know, if it's blocked, it's blocked for a reason, right? You're absolutely correct. It's We, you know, before we were in control of our time, we were in control of our calendar. Now others are in control of it, right? We've granted them that access to it in the name of productivity and collaborativeness, right? So at what price?

So do you, I mean, do you think that, how is that, that it feels like it's a little bit of just a net, because I'm like you, like I started my life Pre-digital, right? And this came up in one of our recent episodes. My son was telling me, I think kind of described to me what it would've been like. I can't remember which of the robber barons it was, right? Born in the late '80s, mid-'80s, died in the mid-1900s, right? And all the change that happened. And he's like, you probably have gone— it was like, oh yeah, I have gone through some of the same kinds of things. You know, and it's like, is it— so I think, do you think it comes a little bit more natural to us like to balance these things, you know, for people who've come through that age? Or is it something that like, how did, like, how does it come for you? Like, it feels like it's a natural thing to you to some degree. And how, like, how has that affected how you then lead?

Yeah, I think I guess it just comes naturally to me because, precisely because I experienced it and I can tell you that I've seen both sides of the aisle. For people like my children, right, who hilariously say, you're from the late 1900s, like, that hurts my soul. But they actually do not know a world where there was no digital, where it's— I have a funny anecdote of my daughter called me from her high school Um, a couple months ago because she— her phone died and she called from, you know, regular phone. It wasn't a rotary phone, but it was just, you know, regular phone. And then when she was leaving me a voicemail, I heard at the end her asking the lady, how do I end this call? She didn't realize she had to just hang up, you know. Um, and to me, that is the ultimate analogy of the difference. Um, they haven't experienced a world where it was okay to not be exposed to everything that digital, that comes with digital, right? To, to have the world at the palm of your hand and all the good and the bad that comes from it. You know, I remember distinctly having no clue what was going on around the world. It was just, you know, what was going on in my world. So I think that's where, where it comes kind of intrinsically. Um, but when it comes, you know, in, and then in terms of like how, how I lead my team through this rapid adoption, I, you know, I like to call it the Ted Lasso approach, my favorite show in the world. It's, you know, be curious about it, learn about it, try to really understand where it can bring value and what, you know, what are you going to, gain from it? What can you lose from it, right? Look at both sides of the equation. You know, the way I see it, AI shouldn't think for you. Like, you know, it's, to me, that's a mishandling of it, right? This is where you end up with AI slap, right? It should be a tool for expanding your horizons, for Allowing you to see other points of view and information that you may not have known about before. Much like when I was a kid, I didn't understand the world around me because I didn't have access to the information. Now, I think it's the same thing. We have to approach it that way of just be curious. What additional information can I get from this tool So I can make more informed, more strategic decisions, understand the pros and cons of the technology and use it wisely. That's sort of how I like to frame it.

Yeah. I mean, I think I'm having visions of going, you know, to do a research paper in high school or college where you had to go, like, go to the library, you know, go do research, pull out the, you know, go through the card catalog, the physical card catalog. Go find stuff, go through, you know, the periodical listings, maybe pull out some microfiche, right?

I remember those days.

And then synthesizing stuff, right? You had to learn how to do that and how to just have some discernment about how you interpreted stuff. And you were like, I don't know that I was ever explicitly told that just because it's in writing, right, that it's not someone's point of view, even if it's like, Nonfiction kind of stuff. Because I think there's a— I feel like that's a piece that we're losing in all this adoption.

The critical thinking.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's that blind acceptance that what you're reading is true. I think there's a real danger there in that. You have to, that's why, again, that balanced approach has to be, um, uh, I think encouraged by all the organizations, all the people that are using it because it is very easy to slip into, you know, just the dangerous side of it, if you will. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think that's, I mean, we, there's been stories obviously of like, attorneys who are just copying stuff and it's got references to cases that never happened and, you know, things like that. So I think there's, that's, that's one of the things that worries me about all this is that it's just, you know, to the, you said the critical thinking. So, I mean, I think, I think that like this can lead to anxiety at sort of two ends of a spectrum almost. Like one is like, oh, AI is going to change everything, so I need to move quickly and adopt it. Or AI is going to fuck everything up, so I should be scared. Sorry. Not sorry. But I think between you and I, like, neither of us, I think, live in one of those extremes. So how do you, 'cause I'm sure that you feel pressure probably, right?

I do.

To do AI, as do a lot of the people listening and watching. How do you go about trying to balance that within your organization?

I think it's important to acknowledge, first of all, how important and significant of an advancement this is, right? The fact that we have these tools available to us where we can essentially converse and interact with all of the knowledge that humanity has produced. I mean, that is mind-blowing. Can you imagine what, you know, like what additional wonders we would have today if great thinkers like Socrates, John Locke, Descartes, you know, Plato, all of them had access to Claude or ChatGPT? Lord knows where we'd be today, right?

Yeah.

And I guarantee you that there is a John Locke out there, a Plato out there today, a modern-day one. That is, you know, already benefiting from this tool. So I acknowledge it. It's an advancement, um, and it's a huge one. Now, with that said, it is still a tool. It is a morally agnostic tool. Now, whether you use it to evolve or, you know, nefarious kind of purposes, destroy, it's really up to each user. So I think it's the responsibility of organizations. Excuse me, to educate their people on the capabilities and to really, you know, be explicit about their expectations with regards to how it should be used.

Yeah.

Our, our CEO here at Logitech, like she has, she, I, I love the phrase that she uses. She emphasizes the importance of AI for extending the human potential. And I agree with that wholeheartedly because it emphasizes the human. In it. Use it to bring out the best in you, not to replace you. So use it to reclaim— the way I see it, the way, at least to my organization, to my teams, is use it to reclaim some precious time from the day-to-day tasks that are just sucking up all of your day and your joy. Use it to help you solve a problem that's been robbing you of your peace. Reclaim your piece, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think this idea that AI is going to replace people, it's interesting. The headlines with several significant layoffs at companies over the past several months have been, at least on the surface, said they were due to AI, right? And I think the implication that it's going to replace people, I highly doubt that's really the cause in most cases. But I'm sure there's some of that. I'm sure there's some of the belief that that's the case. And I just, I really think that's, I think what you described, right? Having it be a way to enable people to do, I've heard it called like a time dividend. I'm not sure I've totally loved that, but it's, I mean, it's a, I think it's as good as what I've heard that you now free up people, especially for knowledge work, right? I think there's a huge benefit with the caveat that is you don't just completely outsource your thinking.

Yeah, it's, you know, it, it, AI is a tool. It's never going to replace people, right? It's a tool. And one of the things that I always tell, you know, my team is, Think of AI as being something that's in service of people. It's not in replacement of them, right? AI is measured on its output, strictly on its output. We humans are not. I make it clear to my team that they are so much more than their output. They're the tight relationships that they build with our stakeholders. They are the incredible knowledge base. of our tech stack and our, just, and our systems that they bring to the table, right? They're, they're, they're unique personalities that they bring to the table. You know, it's, I have a team member who's a hobby YouTube dance instructor. I have another one who's a loving dad and he brings, he raises chickens and roosters and sometimes he brings them to the calls and we love that.

Yeah.

You know, it's—

Yeah, we have backyard chickens. I don't bring them to calls, but that's okay.

I encourage it. I'd love to see the chickens and what they're up to. But, you know, it's that humanity that makes the team such a joy to work with, and also that makes people want to work with us. And I think it's that humanity that AI cannot replace.

Yeah, I don't think so either. I think there's— it's interesting. I think it was actually my wife was talking to me about something and it was a work-related thing, but she said like really the AI stuff is, the focus has been on the computational capacity and efficiency as opposed to— and I was like, oh, that's a great way of sort of discerning. Like it's not really—

What value is it bringing beyond its computational? Yeah.

Right. And it's not replacing— so I use a platform for my coaching that I like and it's got an AI interpretation, but I found it's adapted from one that's meant for manager-direct report relationships. And there's probably a way to do this and I haven't done it yet, but it's like some of the— I get feedback, which is great on my coaching sessions, But I also recognized like, oh, part of what the feedback I got had a built-in assumption that was a manager-direct report relationship, not a coach-client kind of relationship. Right? And so as useful as the feedback was and has been in certain cases, I realized like, oh, there's some nuance here that I need to— I can't just assume it's going to be correct, or I need to try to give it more context. And so Like, could it, could I have done that well myself? No, for 2 reasons. One, like I, there's a bias built in, right? Plus I wasn't actively taking notes. Like I was trying to really be more present in the conversation and I think there's value there, but I also think there was value. It would've been value had I sat down, taken my own notes, recapped it, shared, like, so I'm torn because I have gotten out of the habit of taking notes regularly and I think that's like For me, like that part is like, we had a guest on a while ago who used AI to interpret the actual audio recordings, looking for inflections. And I thought that was a really interesting thing, but it still didn't get to like body language.

Yeah.

There's things there that I think only humans right now can truly interpret. I'm sure there's somebody out there who's going to tell me I'm wrong, but I feel like I can't read the room. Yeah.

You know, AI can't, can't, can't see if, you know, people are checked out while you're presenting something and, and signal, hey, you might need to— at least any AI that I'm aware of. Like you said, maybe somebody out there has a tool that does like, I don't know, look at their faces or whatever. But you know what I mean? There, there's so many non, um, digital signals that we still need as, uh, as, as workforce to be able to read and be productive. It's not just about output, it's about relationships and interactions. AI can help with the productivity part for output, which leaves room for the human part of it, for building those critical relationships, for making an effective organization, for, you know, just also being collaborative and Working towards a common goal. AI can't do that, in my opinion.

Yeah. I mean, one of the things I've thought is AI, maybe this is kind of what you were talking about, brings people to an average, right? So if you're weak at something, it can either amplify or fix your weakness, or if you're good at something, it can do the same there. Does that ring true to you that it can do that? Because I think when we talked about it before, you said that AI can amplify both strengths and weaknesses.

So— Yes. I mean, if you think about it, right, I think intellectual awareness, self-awareness is the key here. Because AI will always try to make the person interacting with the tool happy with their output because, you know, that's, that's so you keep using it, right? They don't, they don't want to give you an answer you're not happy with. And then you're like, I'm not going to use this. It's a self-survival mechanism, which is expected. So if you're a person looking for validation, right? If that's your purpose in the interaction with AI, obviously the tool is going to try to validate your train of thought, try to make you happy so you keep returning to it. And that to me is the real danger. You know, it'll, if you are not careful about contextualizing what it is that you need from that AI interaction, then it can go down a real, you know, it can really enhance weaknesses. Like it can really say, excuse me, it can really, you know, validate assumptions that are completely flawed that could then bring you to a poor position amongst, you know, let's say leadership. If you're presenting something and they call something out as untrue or, You know, inherently flawed that AI told you was real. So I think that it's the key, as I mentioned in the beginning, the key is that intellectual self-awareness. What do you want the tool to do? Be very explicit, be able to really communicate what you need from it and really elaborate what results you're expecting. from it. I think that's where people nowadays struggle a little bit with. Yeah, they tend to say, you know, vague requests without contextualizing it. I think that's the danger.

Yeah, I think, I think my big first aha moment with, with LLMs in particular was going from those vague kind of questions to like almost things that were like The prompt was longer than the answer.

Yeah.

You know, and then having an interactive thing. But so one of the things that I think you talked about with me before is that one of the things you've started doing very intentionally is doing your own thinking first and then using an AI tool to challenge the conclusions as opposed to outsourcing or replacing your thinking. Um, I, I'm curious, like what was, what was the catalyst for that and how has it affected your thinking and how you use the tools?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you think about it, the reality with AI is that in, in AI doing the thinking, right? Not you, is that it's always gonna be flawed. Why? Because there, there's always data that it inevitably does not have access to. We all have data in our brains that is not documented anywhere, no matter how much you say you do, you do it. It's not documented anywhere.

Have you seen any of those, those videos of people who are like, it's usually like kindergarten kids who are told, give directions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Oh, I haven't. Oh, go down that road with me. But I think, but it's a point, your point is like, there, we all make assumptions, right? It's like, you know, do you have—

Yeah, we all make assumptions. There's so many details that, that are Part of it that make all the difference.

Yeah.

And so AI does not have access to it, so it's inherently going to be flawed. If you tell it to think for you, it's inherently going to be flawed. It doesn't have the legacy knowledge that you have. It doesn't have the, you know, again, the relationship knowledge that you have, like from interactions. So to me, the way I like to use it is I like to come up with my own, you know, thoughts, my own, you know, my— do my own thinking. And then use AI as sort of the devil's advocate to, to then, okay, I tell it, find flaws in my thinking. Really, you know, figure out the weak points and go, you know, ha— have a full-on debate with me about it.

Yeah.

And that's, it's made a huge difference. I've been able to identify so many flaws in my thinking this way because, but the same premise that I had access in my brain to information that you know, AI didn't have. I also have biases because it's in my own brain. So I'd much rather use the extensive knowledge that AI has to challenge me than to support me. Because that's, ironically, that's how it will best support me.

Yeah. No, I think that's true. And it's, I mean, it's like one of the things I've always liked in a culture is one where you get that from a human, right? So whether it's a manager, somebody reports to you or a peer or whatever, right? Is having someone who, having an environment where you're willing to have that back and forth, play devil's advocate. I think it makes the output or decision or direction or strategy, whatever it is you're trying to do, You get the best answer, right? And you understand like if there are flaws or risks or like it all comes out.

Absolutely. You know, it's, you, any, any point of view that isn't stress tested is an incomplete one, in my opinion.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah. Yeah. So it, but instead of me having, you know, 'cause my team, I, I do it a lot with my team members too, but We all, we're all incredibly busy. I can't stress that's every thought I have with people all day long, right?

Right.

So that's, that's where it's been a huge, um, uh, uh, asset for me. 'Cause now I have AI to just go back and forth with it. Like, hey, where am I getting this wrong?

Right. Uh, so are you using it more like devil's advocate or challenge it? Or are you also, or is, or maybe this is implied, right? Are you looking for what are my blind spots or bi— like you said biases, right? Do you think it's, mm-hmm. All of it or part of it?

All of it, especially, you know, it depends on what it is that I'm tasking it for, right? So recently, or recently, like a year now, yeah, a year ago, we completely overhauled our analytics framework. And, you know, that's a big move because you're essentially resetting how people think about numbers they've been reporting on forever, how they look at these metrics, you know, right? I didn't take that decision lightly. I had an extensive debate. You know, I put down like my, what were my thoughts, why I was going that way. I wrote down the whole thing and I fed it into our AI model and I said, okay, I need you to do a postmortem on this. Assume that this has been executed. What did I, what went wrong? Right. And so it, it went through every possible scenario and told me what went wrong. And then with that, I, I tweaked it. The, the, you know, I was like, oh wow, damn, I never thought of that. That I'm so glad I, you know, that came up. I tweaked it and then I came back and I said, okay, I've tweaked it. Now tell me where, what, you know, play devil's advocate. Where do you, where, where, why, where do you disagree and why? And that it gave, it fed me the ammunition I needed for if people are challenging it, I can thoroughly explain why we're going in this direction.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think analytics is a great, like analytics reporting is probably a great place for, for that because like, I know when I've, teams before, when I've asked people or when I coach people or manage people and I put 'em in a position where they're gonna report numbers, so I wanna give people opportunity. One of the things I always tell them is like, put yourself in the seat of someone who doesn't really know this stuff very well. And like, what are they going to see? Like, just take out what you know and take it like, what's— hey, there's this one data point that's out of whack with everything else, right? You need to explain it, right?

Yeah.

You could just say like, the explanation could be it's an anomaly, it's, you know, whatever it was, right? But you got to have an explanation because that's going to stand out. Because humans are pattern recognition animals, right?

Exactly. And that's how you build trust.

Yeah. So, it's like, don't just throw up a slide to hear the numbers, right? Have a slide and anticipate these questions. And it sounds like that's what you were doing, to some degree, that's what you were doing with this new analytics model, was like going through that process of preparing yourself for all the challenges that might come up with it.

Yeah. It's, you know, if you're going to make big changes in an organization, you better be able to defend it. And AI has been incredibly helpful for arming me with the, with, you know, that, that data.

Yeah.

How can I, how can I, what, what, what are some potential issues I may face that I need to answer for? It's, if I can't avoid them, then I better be able to answer for them.

Absolutely. Yeah. I was gonna say like, that it may not change what you ultimately do, but at least it makes, forces you to think through, Why you're making that decision, right?

Exactly. And it's— I can't, I can't say that I would have done that pre-AI. I mean, I would like to think I would, but there's just no way I could, I could come— I could, you know, have access to somebody for that long to, to have that feedback. And so that's been incredibly helpful. It's been, it's been a game changer for me in that respect.

Yeah, and that makes sense to me. So So, something, this actually came up in a recent episode where Mike and Naomi and I were talking, and Naomi asked us the question, like, on net, right? Has AI been a positive or a negative for people in ops roles? And I think another thing that came out of that is this, like, and I've heard this multiple times recently, it's really stuck with me, is like, how important in this new world where AI is sort of embedded in so many things, or at least being, You know, trying to be, is this our ability to be human, right? We talked about this earlier, right? Like, how do you, I mean, do you think that that's true, that like having like human skills is gonna be more important in the AI-enabled world? And then like, why and how do you prepare for that?

Oh, I think it's gonna become the most precious commodity. I mean, if you think about it, you're democratizing Knowledge to everybody. So where, you know, back in the, in the, the medieval ages, right? The ones who could read were the ones that held the knowledge. They had that advantage. So knowledge itself was an asset.

Yeah.

But now you're democratizing access to all of the information that humanity has produced. And so with that, what's the differentiator? So what do you do with that information? How creative are you? How, how, what is the, what is the humanity that you bring behind what you do with it? I think that's the, that's gonna be the key differentiator for how we value how we work with AI. What's, what do you do with it?

Yeah. I mean, it's the difference between, there's this silly quip, maybe you've heard it, right? Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit and wisdom is knowing not to use it in a fruit salad.

I love that. Yes, absolutely.

Right. And it's like, I think that's, you know, maybe it's like because I'm older, right? This idea like, you know, or it's like youth is wasted on the young kind of, right? Like if I only knew, but I wouldn't change anything. It's just, I think there's like that discernment that you learn through experience in life could be lost. And what really worries me, and I think we have kids who are maybe similar in age or yours are a little bit behind mine or whatever, but like, I don't want to go down a whole rabbit hole about the education system, but I do worry that the skills we just said are going to be most important are not at all what they're taught.

Mm-hmm.

They're taught to memorize facts and regurgitate them, and they're not taught to think critically. They're not, because of technology to some degree, right? Their ability to interact with people in a human setting is degrading, my opinion. So I think there's stuff out there that would support that, but that's a concern I have too. If we're saying that that's going to be a more important skill It's not the skills we're teaching our kids.

I mean, you're absolutely right, but I also think that these are skills that I don't think can be taught. I think they, even though you learn them, but you learn them through your day-to-day human interactions, right? Through, you learn to read the room. By growing up in the education system and seeing how people react to things that you do, right? Kids learn real quickly that when parents frown, they're not happy with what you did, so they don't do it again. You know what I mean? It's things like that. And so, I think that it's the soft skills that really I think the younger generation needs to develop. They need to, it's, you know, as I mentioned before, it's, output is not the only thing that measures the greatness of a team. It's also all of these kind of soft skill related, I mean, for lack of a better word, like outputs as well. You know, how good are they at building relationships? Because that's critical. If you're in an ops role, you need to be able, you need to be, a master at building relationships cross-functionally to get anything done because we don't own everything that we're responsible for. So we have to be able to build those relationships. How are we preparing our children for that? I don't know, to be honest with you.

No, I think I'm not expecting an answer on that, but like I said, I've heard this multiple times, like the differentiator is going to be in these I don't even like to call them soft skills because they're just skills, right? Human skills. And if that's going to be the differentiator, I do see, like, I don't see a lot of that kind of skill being developed in younger generations.

Absolutely. And I do think that, you know, they were crippled by having a period of time where all the interactions had to be digital. You know, not, not criticizing why it was done. Like, that's— I have no, no opinion on that. But I am— what I am seeing is that, you know, I recently hired for a few positions and, um, one of them was, was, you know, uh, entry level. And I very much noticed that gap. There was an inability to connect with me on the call. There was an inability to sort of Attempt to build that relationship.

Yeah.

Even if it's just a short one in an interview, right? You know, depend— and I even had some that, you know, I very clearly saw that they used AI to write their resume, which is fine. I have no, you know, I don't judge that. Go for it, use it. It's a productivity tool. But then, but use it to enhance what you've actually done, not to make things up, right?

Right.

And be able to speak to it. So, Yeah. I think this generation is so fearful of what's coming down the road because of AI that they don't realize that they need to just work their people skills, their creativity, their humanity. That's what's going to get them ahead.

Yeah. I think that's a really good point. So is that like when you have— I'm curious, just trying to organize my thoughts here, but the In that scenario, I'm just curious, did you give feedback to that person?

I did.

Okay.

I did. Yeah. I told them they're a lovely person, you know, but here's what I would recommend. And then I, you know, gave them some feedback so that, 'cause I want them to succeed. I want them to find the job where they're coming. But if nobody tells them, how will they know, right? I think that's also part of the problem is people are afraid to give constructive feedback. Um, because they're afraid of how it's gonna be received. So I'm not in that camp. Like I said, I'm an '80s kid. Um, so we don't wanna hurt someone's feelings.

Yeah.

But sometimes you have to, like, I don't, I think you can communicate it without hurting people's feelings. It's just your intent has to be clearly communicated. Yeah. And my intent was to help. So I think it is our jobs as the older, uh, professionals, more, or not older, I should say the more experienced, wiser professionals. Uh, you know, older but wiser. Um, I think it is our job to really, whenever we see something that is clearly getting in the way of somebody's, uh, ability to grow, you know, we should, we should express it to them because you can't always see what's right in front of your face. And so as long as you are able to communicate it in a, in a kind but effective way.

Yeah.

Then I think that'll make all the difference. You know, it's our job.

I think of, you know, a couple, you know, maybe half a dozen, dozen times in my career where I've had to have that kind of conversation with someone. And it took me a long time, actually, probably the first time I was a manager, like I would've, I almost didn't want to do it again because it was such a, horrific experience. But part of that was because, you know, for whatever reason, right, I wanted everybody to like me or, you know, I wouldn't want to upset any people. And like, sometimes that just comes with the territory. And I think I've switched, the way I've switched my view now is like, it's people deserve the honest feedback. It doesn't give you license to be a jerk about it.

Yeah.

Exactly. And I think people, so like when I've, especially when I've inherited teams, right? A big part of what I've had to do is like establish trust because I think once you, you can't do that very well if you haven't already established that you've got, like there's a trusting relationship that you do want the best for the person, even if that means, hey, this is probably not the right fit for you, right? Kind of thing.

Yeah. I mean, as a manager, it's our job to develop our teams, their skill set, help them grow professionally. And sometimes it's the hard truths that they have to hear, and it's for their benefit.

Right.

Someone who's not thriving in their role is most likely not happy. So have that conversation. Is this really what you want to do? What are the roadblocks here? What can we do here? Do we need to find a different path for you? Let's work together and find out what that is, right?

Well, I think the flip side is true also is that if, especially in the case of say someone who's, I hate to put it this way, but not pulling their weight, right? if you're a leader and you're not addressing that, right? Everyone sees it, right? It's not like it's an unknown thing usually.

Yeah.

Now there might be reasons why things are going on in personal life, but like if you've got a relationship where you can understand that and how it's affecting somebody, like something outside of work or whatever, but like not doing something about it is not okay. I mean, I think there's lots of people out there who've experienced someone, a scenario like that, right? There's an obvious issue and it gets ignored.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, you end up alienating your top performers too, right? So, it's a delicate balance of supporting people, and everybody goes through things. You have to, you know, you have to be understanding, but you also have to be transparent with both sides of the aisle. Right. And so, the hardest thing that you can ever do is when you come to that point where you can no longer continue on the path that you're on, right? So, it's, as the manager, you have to decide, okay, can we reverse the situation or do we need to part ways?

Yeah.

It's incredibly painful. It's incredibly heartbreaking.

Yeah. But it's—

That's the hard part of managing.

Yeah. I mean, leadership's not for the faint of heart.

No, it's not. Everybody, I think there's a lot of people see leadership as a way of growing career-wise, because for so long, that's what we've been told. You should aspire to be a manager, to be a director, to be whatever. But I know so many people who ended up in managerial roles, and they said, God, I wish I could just go back to being an individual contributor. Um, you know, the reality, the reality is—

A lot of information for the people who do that.

Yeah. The reality is, you know, it, it might not be for everybody and you can grow quite a bit in an independent contributor position. It's not, you know, that's what I think we need to normalize is an independent contributor still brings an incredible amount of value to the company.

Yeah.

My father-in-law never, you know, he's, he's a, he's an incredible engineer. Companies call him left and right all the time to consult. He never managed anybody. He was like, no, I don't, I don't, I, I want, I'm good at what I do in engineering. I'm not good at managing people, so I'm gonna stick to my lane. And that's, and he grew his career quite phenomenally. I think that, that kind of self-awareness is also critical nowadays.

Yeah, I, I have a friend, former colleague that was a salesperson. He ended up at another company and he got promoted to be a sales manager. And I think in less than a year, he had opted back to going to be a salesperson. He was like, I want to be selling. I don't want to be managing sellers. And I was like, wow, good for you, right?

And that's perfectly okay. I think that's where this cultural shift needs to happen is to say, that's totally fine. You know, it's a lot. It's a lot because you have to, you know, You have to do your job, but then you also have to manage other people's growth, other people's, you know, their evolution as well. And it's not for the faint of heart. It's not for everybody. And that's okay.

No. And it's not— I think there's a lot of people who end up in those roles and think, oh, I'm just going to tell everybody what to do. Maybe they don't totally think that, but like, If they're honest with themselves, that's part of why they think they want to be in that role. But it's like, that's, you can get compliance in the short run.

Yeah, exactly. It's in the end, it's, you have to become the person that decides what are the priorities, and then you have to manage your team on it and say, okay, now you decide how you're going to execute on that. And then, yeah, I mean, like, that's, that's the key difference. Can you Can you make that leap?

Yeah. And then you have to deal with unplanned stuff like that. Somebody worked for me who was a key contributor, got cancer, and we had to support her and like figure out how we kept things going until she figured out if she was going to be able to come back or not. Like, it's like, that was just the reality. Yeah.

Life happens.

Yeah. So what, I mean, we talked about some of these soft skills, hence quote, right? What other things are you seeing with like, you know, people coming into the workforce now that are skills that they need to be practicing and learning as they come in?

I mean, you know, I mentioned before that ability to build relationships, but I think also the most critical one is the ability To take feedback, right?

Yes.

I've seen so many people that take it very personally when there's any feedback involved. And I keep telling my team, listen, you know, good or bad, we should always accept every piece of feedback. We actually learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. If you're not failing, you're doing it wrong. You're not taking enough risk. You're not growing outside of your comfort zone. So I think that is the most critical kind of soft skill that people need to really learn, is that ability to take constructive feedback, is the ability to, you know, the humility to understand that you don't know everything. You can always learn more. There are people that you can always learn something from everybody. I always assume I'm missing something. I always assume there is something I can learn here from this person. This person has points of views, experiences that I've never experienced that I should learn from. The day I assume that I don't need to learn anything, that's the day I'm retiring. I'm like, mm, no, I, I, I can't grow anymore. You know?

Right.

Um, I think that's the key, you know, characteristic that people should really work on.

Yeah, I think that's, well, I think, and, um, I'm gonna, so I'm gonna tack on my own because this is how I go, but I think this ability to take feedback, I think the other part we talked about a little bit is I think it's still, you still need to retain critical thinking, like a different type of critical, because sometimes you get feedback that is not like, you can go like, oh, you can accept it, but you need to go like, yeah, do I need to do anything with this? Do I not need to do anything with it?

Yeah.

Because sometimes it's, I mean, I think I've heard this from other people. I don't know where I've heard it from. It was like, you know, if you, if there's like, don't take advice from people you would like that. Yeah.

Sometimes people just want to be, feel what they want to feel seen and heard. And sometimes the best thing you can do is listen.

Yeah.

Sometimes an action isn't needed. Sometimes it's just, okay, let them get it off their chest. And then they'll feel better about it and it actually isn't a problem anymore. You're absolutely right. That ability, that critical thinking to discern between the two is also a big one.

So, say we've got somebody who's listening or watching now that's, you know, pretty early in their marketing ops or RevOps career. How would you, like, what would be your best advice to them on like how to embrace AI and not lose some of those things we just talked about?

Gosh, I would say use— so don't let AI rob you of the experiences. Don't let AI do the thinking for you. Let yourself make the mistakes. Use AI. Let yourself learn. Let yourself be curious, right? Use AI to expand your knowledge set. Don't use it to think for you. So, you know, use it to reclaim, you know, the, the, the, the minutes, hours of your day that the rote tasks occupy. You know, um, use it as a companion to help you solve a problem that's really bugging you, that's robbing you of your peace of mind. Get your sanity back. You know, it's, it's, you, it's got, it, it, AI has access to all the information out there in the world. Use it. Somebody must have gone through this at some point, you know, whatever problem is you have, use it to help you walk through it. Right.

Yeah.

And understand it better. Um, don't use it to fake it, to make it seem like you know what you're doing, cuz it will come out.

Oh yeah. Sooner or later.

It always comes out. It's, you know, eventually the fakers are always unmasked, right? Yeah. Um, be honest about your use with it. I tell people, I'm like, yeah, I use AI, you know, like I, I am, I am not great at putting together PowerPoint presentations, like creatively. Like I don't know how to make it super pretty, you know?

Same here.

Yeah, I can, I, I'm good at gathering the information, at pulling the insights, but in terms of presenting, I'm like, oh, I'm a, I'm an ops person. I'm not, you know, I don't know how to make this look pretty. So I go and use Gemini to help me spruce it up. 'Cause that's not, that's my weakness. I spend, it'll take me, 3 times as long to do it than it would Gemini. More than that, right? So use it. AI is great at doing the things that you aren't necessarily great at doing that waste your time. So go use it for that. You know, it's— help it reclaim your— the things that make you human, your happiness, your sanity, your contentment with what you're doing.

Yeah. Carve out time to read a book.

Yes. Physical books.

A real book.

Yeah. You know, it's not everything has to be digital, but also it's really cool. So it's just finding the balance, you know?

I mean, there's just something different about reading a book. Like, even like I've gotten to the point where I use audiobooks more now than I do reading books. But there's something about even with audiobooks where like you still have to imagine a scene, right?

Oh, with the audiobooks, I get distracted. Whereas with reading, I have to, I'm looking at, I can't get distracted by anything visually, right? Or, you know, at least there's less chance. So I actually absorb it better if I'm reading than audiobooks. Audiobooks, I just, I think, okay, I could be doing dishes right now as well. I could be, you know, multitasking and then I miss half of it.

Yeah. Yep. So I'm with you. The only, so it's interesting you talk about like, take the things that you, I think this is a good point maybe to end on, but you talked about like, if you, like for you, right, doing the visual part of a PowerPoint, same as me, I'm not, it's not a strong suit. It would take me a lot of time. Closing that gap, right? Improving what your output is, is one thing, but if you're good at something, Like, I, this is where you, I don't think you wanna out, like, just—

No. Yeah.

Right.

AI is not gonna be better at it than you are. Yeah. AI is not, if you're an expert at something, AI is not gonna be better at it than you are.

Yeah. And I think that's the, maybe that's where I land on this is like, use it for, use it for the things that, you know, it could make, you could make it better with that. And then use it for the things you're good at to help Like, make 'em even better, but don't rely on it. I think that's, I think the, the key then is this like self-awareness, right? Which are the things I'm actually really good at and which ones am I not?

What are you good at? What are you not? And what are you looking for from the tool?

Yeah.

Very clearly define that and you'll be able to leverage it in awesome ways. Don't let it own you. You know, you define how you want it to work for you.

Yeah, absolutely. Debbie, so much fun. Glad we got to do this. If folks want to continue the conversation or just keep up with what you're talking about or doing, what's the best way for them to do that?

Absolutely. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. You know, always, you know, I check it as often as I can. You know, I can provide my LinkedIn profile happily.

Sounds good. Well, I appreciate it. Again, thank you, Debbie. This has been a great conversation. I think this is helping. I think will help a lot of people as they're evolving. Because it feels like we're at a sort of a change in how people are perceiving and using these tools right now.

At least that's— We're definitely at a crossroads.

Yeah. So it's been good. I think timely conversation. Thank you for that. Thanks to our audience out there for continuing to support us. If you have ideas for topics or guests, or you want to be a guest, you can reach out to Naomi, Mike, or me, and we can get the ball rolling. Till next time. Bye everybody.

Thank you.