AI Won't Fix Dysfunctional Teams

Hey, this is Tim, and welcome to the Student Life Podcast, where we explore the everyday challenges and big questions of life through a biblical lens while navigating the realities of a secular world. Enjoy. Yo, what up, family? So, uh, right out the gate, we're gonna start with, uh, like, so I'm gonna do an AI podcast today. Now there's, again, there's a lot of experts on it. I'm not going to talk about it in the way that you probably think, so I'm going to ask you to just stay with me. Just stay with me, track with me. And then, like I said, you know, we're going to be jumping around, so I want to come out the gate with this one. Of course, I mean, let me back up. I'm Tim Pratt Jr., your host. Like I could edit that, but no, we're going to do it raw today. Pause, as my kids say. We're just going to flow. All right, so Uh, AI won't— AI— I want to talk to you from the title of AI won't fix dysfunctional teams or your organization. Now, before I start, you have to understand that, uh, I'm an agile coach and I've been through the, like, Scrum Mastery, technical project manager, senior level roles in the context of senior agile delivery manager, senior technical project manager, again, and All of that type of stuff. Good stuff. Uh, I don't know everything, but I'm pretty well versed in that area and I will never compare agility with AI. However, is that what I do wanna say is that just like some of the similarities with agile ways of working and hey, we're gonna become more agile and use the language but not address the core problem. I see AI kind of in a similar light. And what I mean by that is AI doesn't transform your organization. AI will not transform your team. Hear me and hear me well, please. It accelerates the system that already exists. I'm gonna say that again. It accelerates the system that already exists. So one more time. AI doesn't transform your organization, let alone your teams. It accelerates the system that already exists. One thing. So I read a lot of books and like I've kind of studied the history of Kanban, project management, uh, agility, and these type of things. And kind of how like every generation has had kind of like this next big thing. You can even go back to when the auto, um, cars, the assembly line, and all this type of stuff. Every generation, for the most part, I believe, has had their next big thing. Like the dot-com bubble, again, the manufacturing lines and all of that. And today it's AI. Um, it, it's It's artificial intelligence and all these different type of things. Again, you have experts in this area. I'm not going to say I'm completely ignorant in it. Like I spent a lot of time studying, of course, for my role and just being in tech. Also too, like I wouldn't say that I'm an expert in it by any means, but I feel like I'm well competent in it and a lot to learn. And so before, like before then, like I say, every generation had like what they would probably say, oh, this is the silver bullet, this is the next big thing. And it helps advance things on into the next. And so one thing I want to be absolutely clear though, that I think that never changes, is that I don't believe any tool— it can help and it can help make us better, but I don't believe no tool, no quote unquote silver bullet replaces strong leadership, good leadership. Now with AI, you might say, well, Tim Pratt Jr., you probably don't need as many leaders and managers and things like that. And that could be true, but at the end of the day, it still doesn't replace the need of it. And I don't know, that can be a tenseful statement of kind of we look at depending on what that is, statistics we look at, we can kind of go any way with that one, you know. But again, that's another conversation for another day. But hey, we can argue both points. And I think it's a really good argument on both points. But technology here is an accelerator. It's not, what I'm trying to say is not the replacement for leadership. I don't think that's, I don't even think it's just a replacement for Uh, just human beings. Again, can you scale and do things and all that? Yes, but like, man, oh, that's touchy. So let's just keep it on a leadership and organization standpoint. So what does that mean? Um, so I don't think— I think a lot of times that leaders and organizations, stuff like that, they typically think about AI in a vacuum. But again, AI it enters the system, it enters the existing system. So like now we have to think about data and all of these type of things. And what I'm trying to say here is that like what Tim's is, as it enters an existing system, like the culture, the existing workflows, the relationships between people, like if relationships were hard, then what do you think? Like AI is not gonna fix it. And again, existing leadership, their knowledge, their vision. Like, if these foundations are healthy, in my opinion, oh man, AI creates tremendous leverage. But if these foundations are crap and horrible, Lord have mercy is what we all need to be praying. And so if they are unhealthy, like, essentially, man, AI is just— it's going to expose and accelerate those weaknesses at a rate that I don't think nobody's going to understand. I think you're just going to see more frustration and just like, it's just going to be at such a faster rate. So dysfunction, like, kind of like going back to the Agility, again, not trying to compare the two, but we arrived at— we, we— it kind of shined a light on dysfunction, and instead of addressing dysfunction, we blamed other things. And so that's why I just believe like a lot of this stuff, man, it's really not neutral, it's, it's an amplifier. I mean, it's like they used to say, like, with money, money typically amplifies who people really are. Again, I'm not trying to compare AI to just money and Agility, but I'm if you track the trend, it's like, okay, man, wow, it is. I, Tim Pratt Jr., I can see that. And so when you have an organization or a team, even if you look at yourself, like, I remember somebody saying, and I might be getting ahead of myself, but it was like, man, we need to ask AI less what it can do for us sometimes and ask AI what is it showing us about ourselves. And this person was basically very disorganized. It was like, hey, I'm, I'm really scattered and AI is just making it sound better. But he did the deep work. And so I think, like, again, we have to lean in and ask the harder questions, uh, and a lot of times we don't, we don't like that. So, so what, what do I mean? Um, I'm not saying, again, please don't hear what I'm not saying, I'm not saying AI isn't powerful. It absolutely is. It is probably the most groundbreaking thing that we have seen on massive scale. It's been around for a while. Like, I remember turning up, and this might be very elementary, but I remember like when I used to play Madden and college football and these games back in the day, and I would turn artificial intelligence way up because it's just no matter the hardest level you played on, the computer just got super easy. And then what, when I turned it up, uh, the AI all the way up, it was like, okay, they're a little bit more challenging. So again, even in like little things and way past that, it's been around for a long time. Some people have been playing with it way— it's just more, especially the, the LLMs are just more accessible to the everyday person, of course. Um, and, and one of the greatest values of AI is that, um, Like it, it does it to me. It exposes friction much sooner. I think that's a good thing if we lean into it. I actually think that's a gift. Uh, cause like to me, the mistake is believing that technology fixed the issues again, like we were saying earlier, when in reality leaders had, like, they have to confront what the technology has revealed. I'm gonna say that again. Leaders have to confront what the technology is revealing. So I think getting to that friction faster can be a good thing. Now, uh, here's the tension. I say some people have been caught up in bad decisions when you think about livelihood and all of that, and that's not fun, that's not cool, not at all. And in the same breath, I do think it's been showing leaders, hey, see what I've been saying? We're here faster. What are we going to do? This has always been a problem. We've always said this. What are we going to do? So again, those bottlenecks that it exposed, those constraints, those dependencies, it forces, in my opinion, leaders to have to solve them. They just can't think AI is going to like go around it. Like exposure does not mean transformation. Exposure means you need to do something so there will be transformation. I hope I'm— I'm hoping I'm saying it right. So when it comes to the marketplace, like one thing I've noticed in working with high-performing teams, like more so in the software and even in ministries, was that they became some of the earlier AI adopters. Like the healthy high-performing teams, they did. They didn't become healthy because of AI. They were already healthy. And what AI did with them is, like, because I was actually just talking about this the other day, what AI did with them is that it helped them move faster. Which meant, oh man, I wish I had this in my notes, which meant that they also encountered, like, although they encounter organizational constraints faster, like dependencies, again, like we were talking about approval delays and handoffs and unclear ownership and like just all these cross-functional things, service, like before, like they still had ways around that. Like they were like, oh man, we've been doing this. So, you know, we might have to make some architectural decisions. We might have to get ahead of this here. So AI, they were just like thinking it through even faster. Uh, not, not that they didn't have problems, but it's like they were already high performing. Again, I know I sound redundant here, but the teams that wasn't so high performing, the teams that, ah man, it's like, woo, like that were already struggling, kind of not the best leadership, man, I, I'm not even gonna get into that. So again, I was seeing like the early adopters seem to be the high performing teams, um, that were already again used to like um, really, really like cross-functional ways of working, I should say. Like, again, in the ministry, like, I'm, I'm seeing it, like, and you got— you have some pretty dope voices out there with this, and I'll, uh, but I'm gonna go ahead and give my commentary to it. But I'm beginning to see a similar pattern in the, in the local churches. A lot of local churches, they're excited about AI, but again, many of them haven't stopped to ask, how does it fit our mission? How does it fit? How, how is our leadership navigating this? How do we deal with this when it comes to governance? That's a big word right there. Uh, and I'm not saying like in a, in tell, I'm just saying like governance. Do, do you have, are you bringing in somebody that can help you with governance now in your, in your local ministry? Uh, how are you handling with it when it comes to communication? Are you vetting that stuff or is just AI slop all over the place? Uh, because again, I, I just believe without intentional stewardship, everyone just starts to use it differently. It's just a free fall. It's the wild, wild west and everybody think they sound good. And then the next thing you know, you look up down the road and instead of increasing effectiveness, it's just inconsistency and confusion all over the place, all over in the local church, all over in your teams, all over your small business. Like, I'm not, I'm not like, seriously, but for real, like, that's why we have to bring in people that can help us submit ourselves to people. And you can push back, like, that's the whole part. That's what I love about coaching and consulting. Um, like, people push back on me and I'm like, okay, like, that's fair because again, like, it's looking at their context, but Even when they push back, I'm still trying to make sure that they— I serve them in a way that they have really explored this. And then, you know, ultimately it's like, okay, if that's the direction you want to go, but then let's make sure, hey, these are what the risks may be. You might be willing to accept those, that might be fair for you, but I want to make sure that that's called out and just things were clearly documented and all of that type of stuff. So again, what I'm trying to get at ultimately is to show you is that although I open the episode and say, hey, AI won't fix your organization or your team. It's because it, uh, it accelerates the system that it enters. Also too, I'm saying that the issue isn't AI, it's the absence of a shared understanding, shared training, shared knowledge, shared way of working. So again, it's nothing wrong, like the excitement should be good, but even in the excitement being good, you still have to understand strategy matters, governance matters, training matters. And you want really good— this word right here, stewardship. You want stewardship. You want to manage it well. You want to bring order to it, or you're going to have the most chaotic environment. You're just gonna have— just, man, then you got to bring somebody and probably pay them a lot of money to clean it up because then they deserve it now. Because you could have, could have been a little bit cheaper on the front end if you would have brought in a consultant. And so again, man, like, that's, that's what we just have to think about, uh, when we're navigating these things. Um, so when— what you might say, when— well, when do I get the chance to blame AI? Like, we're often avoiding the harder leadership conversation. Like, what? Okay, no, again, the deeper question is— to me, the deeper question is, or the deep— the deeper questions are, and I wrote these down: do we trust each other? Are our priorities clear? Does everyone know who owns what? This, this goes back to that way of working in governance and stuff like that. When you get— can people disagree safely? Do we actually have healthy systems? Hear me and please hear me. These questions have always existed no matter the technology. These questions existed long before AI and they will exist probably long after AI. We want to make sure that we're asking the right questions. We want— because this is the thing, AI, in my opinion, It can't create trust. It can't create clarity. It cannot— well, I mean, you might argue some of these things, but I mean, to me, it can't create ownership. It can't create healthy conflict. It can't create culture. And it dang sure can't create leadership. Not create it. Now, it can help you with it, and I mean, like, really help you in all of those areas, but I don't believe that it can create it, especially trust. So again, like, what What does AI actually do well? Like, what does it do well? Because again, like, I'm not trying to stand on it because I'm really putting the pressure. I'm saying that it's neutral. But for those that say, oh, I love AI, you know, I love it, man. Okay, I really like it too. So I'll speak from my experience just in a very light way. And I've been a butcher word, but it helps me synthesize like a lot, enormous amounts of information. It saves me hours of reporting, especially when that, that project management and coaching space, it gives me just a strong thinking partner. Uh, just some basic things in the time I used to spend, like gathering all of that, like all that analytics and metrics stuff and data and quantitative and qualitative data. I can spend so much more time coaching, so much time making sure that the project is tracking. That's where like instant value has been for me. And that's, like, because this is— it's allowed me to be more of a proactive leader, a creative leader, thinking through and sitting with people, helping navigate and manage and steward conflict, creating more space, creating more space for leadership. Like, that's just the simplicity of it out the gate. And truthfully, like, that's really huge to me because one of the things I used to always say is like, do you want me spending more time talking about my team and reporting about them, or do you want me actually being with them? And now being a senior agile coach, looking at spanning across multiple teams, focusing on certain areas when it comes to team maturity, team health, and things like that, and even working with some ministries, that's huge. So again, man, just with the data, the analysis, the Thought Partner, the automation, like, it just, it gives me so much time back. So I, I love it. The intentionality that I'm able to lead with, uh, spending more time with my family, like, even like I said, again, in the ministry sense, how I coach and do some counseling. Not like— and just getting to trends faster and sitting with things and praying and asking God for help and guidance, because now I have— I'm able to work through context a lot more and just, just those type of things. So what should you do as a leader? What should you do before investing heavily in AI? I would say invest in understanding it first. Yeah, go play with it. Like, get you the $8, $20, whatever, or how much ever they cost now. Get you something. Go play with it. You know, explore, especially if you aren't doing it now. But also to invest in understanding it. Submit to people that really know it. Like, submit to them, man. Like, it's just submit to them, understand it, and then understand your organization. Y'all should already, already understand your organization and what you're doing, because a lot of people are leading out here and don't even understand what they doing, and that's dangerous. I have a YouTube video for that, by the way. It's called Awareness and Leadership Frameworks or something on my YouTube channel. You go to www.timothypratt.org and it'll link you straight to it. This is actually the latest video of this episode, uh, I think, or it might be number 2. But anyhow, uh, know your people, know your culture, know your systems, know your mission, um, know your strategy. Stay adaptive, stay true to the mission, flexible in approach. I know it's a cliché statement now, but all that stuff matters. Like, technology works best when leaders understand what they are trying to improve, like what they are striving to do when they know why it matters. So like, again, we want to learn AI. We want to stay curious, start small, incrementally get better, incrementally develop. Know your mission, know your why. Here it goes again. Understand your system. Systems thinking is so important. And then start thinking scale. And a lot of times you might need somebody to help you with that. So the organization to me, in my opinion, that thrives, man, it won't necessarily be the ones with the most advanced AI and like all, like all the super geeks and stuff like that, for lack of better terms. And I say that humbly because I can geek out on a lot of different stuff, but they will be the ones that remain rooted. In my opinion, they will be the ones who remain rooted in their values and adapting their mindsets and, um, and just shifting like that agile mindset in their methods. Like, true to the mission but flexible in the approach and the methods. Adapt. They'll steward technology instead of chasing it. Hear me. Thank you, Holy Spirit. They will steward technology instead of chasing it. So again, like, when it all comes down to it, I just believe that many people will remember, they will come to learn that leadership, not software, is what shapes culture. It can help, but it doesn't shape. And then culture ends up shaping the leaders. So again, whether you are a business, a nonprofit, a local church, an independent ministry, the principle always remains the same, man. Please hear me: healthy leadership multiplies the value of healthy tools. Healthy leadership multiplies the value of healthy tools. I hope— look, and now I'm just— I kind of track with my notes a little bit, but, um, y'all know I'm a bullets in point person, then I just be talking. But, but listen, this, this is just free game, as they say. And I have a podcast, a YouTube video on this as well. It's a lot of stuff out there, and there's some people out there, man, that can nerd out to have me like, how in the world did they create that and bring all that together. And it's so dope and it's so fascinating. Sometimes I'm just like, okay, like, I would never probably use that. I shouldn't say never, but I just, you know, it's noise to me right now. Not— it's not good, it's just noise to me. And the reason I say that is this: it could be intimidating sometimes. Start small. Figure out why you need it and why your organization needs AI. Don't get caught so much caught up on the hype. I'm not saying that it's bad. I'm just saying these people a lot of times are so far ahead of the game. Start small. Start with somebody that can meet you where you are and incrementally help you build up. But first and foremost, you need to understand why you want to use it, why you need it, why do you think it can help. Now, a good coach and consultant, especially this, like, deep in this domain and understand it, or you might need two of them. They can help you clarify your message. Sometimes, again, you might not even have the full language to it. That's why we have to be willing to submit ourselves to people that do and allow them to guide you through it. And then, you know, play with it and things of that nature so you can learn it. But learn it for your role, learn it for your organization. If you're the leader, like, over the entire organization, like, especially like when you're dealing with walking in with a lot of luck, a lot local churches. No, why? You got to wrestle with that. And I'm telling you, man, a lot of leaders— I've sat with so many of them, I've been one— even some of the best visionaries and even some of the best, like, people with a stewardship mindset, they can struggle with the rate that this thing moves. They've already been struggling, and they can really struggle with this. So just I say humbly submit to this suggestion to you. Just ask the Lord, hey, help me bring somebody and let me submit. Feel free to go back and forth with them, challenge them. There's nothing wrong with challenging your coach and consultant, you know. Be respectful and know why they there. Now, like, when people bring me in, are you gonna challenge me on 9— 9 times out of 10, 9 things out of 10, and just agree with everyone? I'm probably like, okay, you might need to go find a better coach. But respectfully challenge them. Thought spark. But remember, you solicit their help and then just roll with it, man. So that's, that's my advice to you just off the cuff. Um, I hope you— I hope this helped, especially if you're in a ministry setting. AI is not the devil. It's not inherently evil. Um, I don't— I hope people are not letting it just build their sermon from scratch and they're not deeply studying the Bible and not turning into a— turning to AI for, you know, wise counsel, consulting scripture. Like, we should have been doing all this stuff anyway. This should just be an enhancer, in my opinion. Um, so that's a whole nother conversation. But, uh, man, I just— I hope it helped you a little bit. And if you want to have a conversation, man, let's connect. And I don't know some of these gentlemen and ladies personally, but I feel like I have enough— I can get access to them that if you're really, really serious about it, either I can point you to them and their companies, or I'm sure they can point you to one. Uh, so just reach out to me again, www.timothyprattjr.org, uh, if you're in doubt, and you know, we can have a conversation first. And that's why I want to collaborate and do kingdom work, man, and, and build with people, because I don't have no everything, but I probably know somebody that do know what you're trying to figure out, and vice versa. Love you all, man. Be blessed. Thanks for joining me today on the Student Life Podcast, and remember Learning never stops, and wisdom grows as we seek truth in both scripture and life. And until next time, keep walking faithfully and thinking deeply. Be blessed.