Erica Ishida - The Potential Era™

Feeling overwhelmed by AI but tired of the buzzwords? We sat down with executive coach and AI23 co‑founder Erica Ishida to reframe the moment: this isn’t about squeezing a few more percentage points of efficiency. It’s about unlocking human potential and using AI as a true partner so people can do the work that lights them up.

• Click HERE to visit AI23's website
• Click HERE for The Potential Era™ article
• Click HERE for Erica's LinkedIn page

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Chapters

• 0:00 Studio Firsts And Today’s Focus
• 0:47 Introducing Erica And AI23
• 3:24 The Big Why Behind Human–AI Partnership
• 9:28 Flipping The Pyramid: People On Top
• 14:20 Start Small And Build Trust
• 18:34 Teams Organized By Questions
• 23:18 Emotional Intelligence And Intuition
• 28:12 Moving From Surviving To Creating
• 31:55 Gen Z Hope And Meaning At Work
• 35:12 Owning Potential And Next Steps
• 39:25 Leaders Creating Psychological Safety

Transcript

Studio Firsts And Today’s Focus

Hannah Best 0:08

Hello to everyone in The Boss hole Transformation Nation. This is Hannah Best from the team at Real Good Ventures, and I have the privilege to be in the studio today with your host, Sara Best. It's so great to be here together and introduce you to our amazing subject matter expert today. Sarah, how are you and where is our conversation going today?

Introducing Erica And AI23

Sara Best 0:31

Hey Hannah! This is a first. This is our first time in studio together for The Boss hole Chronicles. So it's just very exciting to be here with you. I'm great. I'm real good. And our subject matter today is very timely and relevant. It's something I've been avoiding quite regularly: AI. And not just AI, but the human elements of AI and the partnership that's needed. Like we can be assured that the human factor and the partnership with AI will not go away. To help us better understand that today, we have an amazing subject matter expert named Erica Ishida. I met Erica a couple weeks ago. We'll say more about that during the episode, but we just want you to understand about Erica. She has recently co-founded a company called AI23. This is a company that's committed to helping organizations and their people unlock the power of humans, which is really what attracted us to this whole conversation with Erica in the first place. It's human potential. Erica is a certified executive coach. She is certified in neuroscience leadership business. I could actually spend five minutes telling you the depth and breadth of her credentials. I will say that she got her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and a master's degree in organizational design from Case Western Reserve. But that's just like that's her briefcase credentials and education. She has a wealth of experience. She's been a CEO, a COO. She is very seasoned in the applications of this human element of ginormous change that we are now experiencing at a societal, at a organizational, at a team, and at an individual level. So, Hannah, what do you say? Let's dig in.

Announcer 2:26

The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode.

The Big Why Behind Human–AI Partnership

Sara Best 2:49

Erica, it is so good to have you. Welcome to The Boss hole Chronicles podcast. Thank you for having me. It's very exciting for me to be here. I would share with our listeners that when I heard you speak just a short few weeks ago, might even be two weeks ago, I knew that we needed to have you as a guest on the podcast. And where you spoke was an AI symposium. It was an AI executive symposium at a local university here in Ohio. Had a nice attendance of CEOs and CIOs and many industries represented. Your company, AI-23, was providing for these executives an opportunity to understand really uh the nuances of AI, how it's come to where it is today, and also some helpful hints about how to begin to explore and deploy it. And I thought it was very practical. I'm a civilian. So I needed, and I've been avoiding, probably other people who listen have been too. I see all the Harvard Business Review articles and I see all the prompts about these AI trainings, and I just sort of bury my head in the sand and move on to the next thing. But I knew when you hosted uh and when the um information came out about the symposium that it was designed to help people get up to speed fairly quickly. And one of your colleagues, uh Mike Rojas, did a fantastic job of outlining how AI can capitalize and capture your workflows. And he gave a really practical, cool example. I'm not gonna give it away because I think we have um that story in a in a different podcast episode that we will now link in our show notes. People can hear directly from Mike and AI 23. But what I took away in simple form was okay, AI can capture all the stuff that you know that that our workflows create and all the things you know that we know happen when we do certain kinds of work. It can capture that business expertise. What it couldn't nuance or create was how that happens with humans. So people being able to educate and coach and train up the AI. That was my first experience with this human element of enhancing how AI works. Then you started talking about the significance of things like emotional intelligence, psychological safety in supporting our efforts to capitalize and utilize AI. And I'm totally like in two minutes saying what a whole day actually provided for people. So we wanted to feature you today, Erica, so that you could help us first understand what is that human partnership sort of necessary feedback loop, and then expand on that if you would, uh, about how if organizations are gonna capitalize on AI and they're gonna bring into their workflows this important and significant, there's change happening on all levels. So let's just dial back here and let you jump in and tell us about the human interaction with AI.

Erica Ishida 6:03

I'd love to, and thank you again for having me. Uh so I want to go way back. I want to go back a little ways before I answer the questions about why humans are important as it relates to implementing AI. Good. Um, and the fundamental question is always why. So my background is all about leading teams, building teams and companies, and helping teams navigate change and helping people navigate change. And for people to understand or navigate any type of change, the first thing they need to understand is the why. So, why does it matter? Why do we have to navigate this? Why do we have to overcome it? And the why here is the partnership between humans and AI, AI can only work and it can only unlock potential for humans and their organizations if they are partnered with AI. So if AI is partnered with humans. So backing it up just a little bit, this is the thing that people just aren't understanding. And I and I found this in my conversations with leaders in different industries and you know, in boardrooms. I have to take the conversation back to the why because leaders are still thinking about all that's unfolding from a mindset of how do we adopt AI to create incremental improvements to our business? How do we adopt AI to drive efficiency? How do we adopt AI to get better performance out of our systems? And while AI can do all of those things, the why needs to be bigger than that for the humans in the system to change their behavior and adopt AI. So, what is the why for the people? And the why for the people is if you embrace AI as a partner, it can offload all of those tasks and that work that is bogging you down, trying to navigate systems and processes that are broken. It can help you navigate through that and get to the point where you can during your workday do what you love to do, do what lights you up, do what you're passionate about. And it's when organizations allow their people to work in that space that they can unlock tremendous value. And so this whole shift in mindset from thinking about organizations creating value through efficiency gains to thinking about creating value through unlocking potential, it's a societal shift. It's a societal shift as big as the industrial era front to the digital era or the agricultural era to the industrial era. So that's the first thing I talk to leaders about is we have to understand the era that we're in. And the only way I can describe that is we're in the potential era where organizations and leaders really need to be thinking about the potential that they can unlock if they understand how to leverage AI the right way and, you know, really empower the people and their organizations to be at their best.

Sara Best 8:52

There's a whole lot in there. We do have a special document too. It's a it's a PDF that kind of outlines what you just called the potential era. So I know listeners are going to want to know more and better understand that. So that will be in the show notes. So it's societal, uh, break it down. So let's zoom in a little bit. How is it affecting our organizations, our teams, even our relationships with one another?

Flipping The Pyramid: People On Top

Erica Ishida 9:18

Absolutely. So um we talked a little bit about societal and that mindset shift from sort of industrial era mindset and then digital era mindset to where we are. At the organizational level, um, what that looks like in its simplest form is when we think about how organizations function today, um, historically, and not just today, but historically, it's been really, you know, this triangle of people, process, and systems.

Sara Best 9:44

Yes.

Erica Ishida 9:45

And right. And so what typically happens though is that people, if you think about it like a pyramid, people have typically been at the bottom of that pyramid in service to the process and the systems and the organization, trying to navigate change through, you know, all the processes and systems that are introduced that they have to navigate. And humans get lost in that mix, which, not to go down a rabbit hole, but I would contend that when you look at engagement surveys and things like that, and the scores are low, I would contend that a portion of that, a big part of that, is due to the processes they have to navigate, the systems they have to navigate that are not serving them.

Sara Best 10:23

Yeah.

Erica Ishida 10:24

And so at the organizational level, I think organizations need to think about this in terms of this is the opportunity to stop managing to process and start managing to outcomes. So as a and I've been a CEO in different industries and different types of organizations. And the when I think about how different my day would be when I was running those big companies, if I could think about what are the outcomes I'm going to achieve today, what are the problems I'm going to solve, not just for my company, but for the industry. Um, and go tackle that as opposed to trying to figure out how many people have, you know, clicked on this software or, you know, adopted this process, or it's just it's exhausting. So at the organizational level, we need to start thinking in terms of outcomes versus process. So that's that's at the organizational level. Yeah.

Sara Best 11:19

At the team level, can I sure can I pause there for a second? I think that's so rich. That really struck me when you first spoke about it. You actually flipped that triangle upside down with people at the top of the triangle. Do you liken this to kind of the difference between uh an operating system in an organization that's like a traffic light versus a roundabout? I'm I'm not sure if you brought this up in our in the conversation that you presented that day, or if I'm drawing this in from, for example, the work of Aaron Dignan, who wrote Brave New Work. He he talks about how the traffic light mentality, the let's map it out, let's abide by the process, let's focus on the efficiencies in the process, versus here's what we want to have happen. Let's let them figure it out. Let's give them what they need, but create the space and the time in that roundabout sort of operating system. Did you mention that in your presentation or did I make that up?

Erica Ishida 12:16

I don't know if you made it up. I didn't mention it, but I love it. I love it. And I think it applies here for sure.

Sara Best 12:21

Yeah. Well, and I I think I drew that picture in my notes that day, but I think um this is an incredibly difficult shift. And and I think anybody who's been trying to do it for a decade or more, what's the inertia? What are we fighting against? Uh, what is it that makes it so hard to stop thinking about organizations in terms of the org chart and the divisions and the vertices and what could we think differently about?

Start Small And Build Trust

Erica Ishida 12:48

Well, it's tricky because it's sort of like uh we have to build the plane while we fly it. Meaning, if if every leader in in the world could could put themselves into an alternate reality where AI is already fully partnered with humans and their organization and their understanding and feeling the benefits of it, the way me and my team at AI-23 know it can work, I don't think we would have barriers that we're facing. I think the challenge that we have, though, is that we've been living in this reality for so long. I mean, truly, the workforce itself hasn't changed much since the industrial era in terms of how people are, how their time is valued, how value is perceived. And so this is a huge shift. And I think without experiencing the new reality, it's a big leap of faith to say, well, we're going to reorganize our teams to produce, you know, to think differently, to produce different outcomes, because we trust AI and its partnership with our teams to get us to those outcomes. There's a whole lot of trust. There's a lot of trust and faith in all of that. And so when we work with organizations, we recommend, you know, starting small, work with a, work with one team that's that is willing to adopt the change and is excited about it and feel safe to do it and help them solve a problem that is very real in their day-to-day, partnering with AI. And as they start to feel the impact of that and their leaders see and feel the impact, then it's easier to spread that throughout the organization. But this is a perfect example of how we really need to navigate all of this with the best practices of transformation and change in mind, because it's the biggest transformation that I think human human society has ever seen. It's it's not even like what before humans got electricity. It's more like we were a pre-fire society and now we have fire. That's how significant this is.

Sara Best 14:40

That kind of makes the hair on your arm stand up a little bit, doesn't it? That's probably why people feel such intensity. So societal, organizational, you said a little bit about teams. What else do we need to understand about this at the team level?

Erica Ishida 14:53

So at the team level, um, and this is where I think it's really exciting. It's, you know, humans being at their best, collaborating with each other at their best. And the the shift, the big shift for teams, one is structural. So instead of, you know, being structured by um hierarchy and department and strict role adherence, it's more like, what are the big problems that our organization or team our organization is trying to solve? And how do we organize a team around that problem or opportunity? Or what is the next best question that our organization wants to ask to move us in our intended direction? And which people can we put around that question that can best answer that can best answer that question or are most excited about that question. Because the the reality is partnering with AI in the right way, all we need to do is come together as humans with a great question and a lot of curiosity and a willingness and eagerness to understand our own insights as it relates to that question or problem and the insights of those around us. And then AI can help can implement or produce whatever the humans generate from their insight and their collaboration. Does that make sense?

Sara Best 16:08

It does make sense. I'm wondering, is there a practical example you might be able to share with the listeners of the fruits of that process successfully happening?

Erica Ishida 16:18

Sure. I can give yeah, one, yeah, one specific example for sure. So one of the one of our clients at AI23, um, this is actually how we start with all of our clients, but we we, you know, talk to the executive team or the CEO about what's going on in their business and where their biggest challenges are. And um, we start by, you know, the CEO or the executive team uh unearths what they think is one of their biggest challenges. And then when we go to that client site, we ask them to bring that team, the team who is most experiencing that challenge, bring them into the room and let's have a conversation about what does their day-to-day look like and what is what is the biggest problem that they're trying to solve. And if we could solve that problem, what would their outcome look like? What would their day-to-day, how would their day-to-day be different? And that's where we start. Okay. So we start by attacking a problem. And we start by, right, the people that are in the room are there because they're they care about that problem. They're not there because of their title or their, you know, they're there because they care about that problem. So that's right. So then we we work with them to understand that. And then we we engage our AI models with those teams to start really breaking down that problem and coming up with solutions that will impact their day-to-day and make it easier. Um, and there's a whole bunch of different ways we do that. But again, once we can solve that problem, it opens up that team to either solve different problems or to ask different questions, like, well, what's possible now? Because we have all this free time. We're not bogged down by this one process that's been taking eight hours of our day. Right. We have all this time. So maybe we form a new team because two of us have this question about, you know, what different clients could we serve or how can we better serve this client? And then that team comes together around that and works with AI to make it happen. So it just again, you start with the problem and you start with the the human impact of that problem. So, what is the biggest problem in terms of human impact? Now we don't start with biggest problem to your bottom line, or we don't care about that. What is the biggest problem your humans are facing?

Teams Organized By Questions

Sara Best 18:25

Yeah. I I can't help but think of a recent conversation I was part of. It's a nonprofit, small to mid-sized nonprofit, providing supportive services uh for those dealing with cancer and the people who love them. But the biggest problem they identified was no shows. And I can imagine now the process you described bringing those stakeholders, those people who are inner, you know, affected by that and care about that problem together. Because if they solve that problem, their mission impact becomes so much more available. And it opens up all kinds of other things like partnerships, maybe it's transportation. I'm I'm kind of making this up now, but I get it. I I think that's a valuable way to explain that and for us to understand that. I have a question. You know, in the the the collection of people there to um solve the problem, to be in the problem together, does it matter in all of this? Does it matter if, you know, their behavioral wiring is strong and they like to have clarity and certainty, or maybe they're big picture thinkers, they're more strategic. Does it matter that that people come as they are? And secondly, how about their cognitive ability? You know, some people have um a greater ability to master complexity and think differently. Others have less of an ability. It's not good or bad, it's just different. How does that interplay?

Erica Ishida 19:52

Such a great question, which then takes us to the at the human level. So we've talked about organization team, and now at the human level, what do humans need to play in this world? Um, it's less cognitive anymore than it is emotional and uh intuitive that matters. So ding, ding, ding, ding. Ooh, I love hearing that. So AI can help with all of the cognitive things, really. That's what we're talking about. It's but what it can never do is replace humans' emotional intelligence, humans' ability to understand our, you know, ourselves and each other and relate to one another. Yeah. And even deeper than that, so there's, you know, there there are competencies that are well known now under emotional intelligence. And, you know, that's a widely discussed topic and it's a favorite of ours. That's a great one. And it's so important. And emotional intelligence isn't enough anymore. I I think humans to fully embrace what's possible right now, if if we partner with AI in the right ways, humans tapping into a deeper sense of wisdom, like their own intuitive wisdom, that's where the real power is. When we can be still and not focus so much on the doing, and we can better harness our power of being, that's where the great questions come. That's where the great insights come forward that we can then tackle in partnership with each other and AI. And see, that's what AI needs to get to the next thing it can solve is humans saying, here's what we need to work on. AI is not going to come up with that. And not from that deeper place of what's what's in service. What's in service to my team, what's in service to my company, what's in service to the industry. You can keep extrapolating from there. The other things that that people need on these teams that we're talking about or operating in this environment, they need to come with a sense of curiosity. I'm sure a lot of people listening to this podcast have heard of the concept, you know, growth mindset versus fixed mindset. Never has growth mindset been more important than it is now. If people enter into this with a fixed mindset, it's going to be very challenging. Challenging for them to embrace what's possible. So the art of the possible is really important here. And to embrace that, it's we have to be curious. We have to admit we don't know everything. We have to be willing to think in terms of questions, not having all the answers. And the other thing that does is if you come with curiosity, you create safety for others around you to come with their questions. So it's important for all of us to be curious and to leave space for those around us to be curious so that together we can tackle the next best question or problem.

Emotional Intelligence And Intuition

Sara Best 22:36

What I think about is, you know, what is it that prevents people from finding that space of curiosity from coming to something? It's usually ego. It's that something is at threat, uh, our approval, security, or control. Those are the concepts I learned uh when I studied uh like the conscious leadership model by Jim Defmer and Diana Chapman. And but when we're curious and we're open and committed to learning, as you describe it here, Erica, that's the place where potential just not only gets born, but explored and and made possible. And I I do think it's important to note that it's not necessarily our nature to live there. I think um because we're humans and and we're we operate in human ways, you know, when we do feel a threat, as approval, security, or control is a threat. And and it is all the time. I mean, I I've seen research that says we stay above the line in that curiosity space for about four seconds at a time. So it's natural that we would um kind of get into that fight or flight mode uh about a lot of different things. And as you and I know, as we all know, emotional intelligence is what allows us uh to regulate that and to come back to a space of uh regulation and and openness. So I just think it's important to note that uh if this seems like a foreign idea, it's it's not. Um it's possible, but we have to recognize that we spend more of our time naturally thinking about what's wrong, what isn't gonna happen, how crazy they are, how stupid they are. We just have to train our brain differently.

Erica Ishida 24:20

Would you agree? I agree. I think it's about it is about training your brain. It's also about just having an intention. What is your intention? I mean, back to emotional intelligence and mindfulness. If our intention is to be curious and learn, we can keep coming back to that. And so we're always going to get off track. We're humans, and our nervous system takes over and you know, environmental challenges come up and other things come up that threaten our sense of well-being. And then it's about what is our overall intention, though? What are we, what are we trying to create with our with our time, with our day, with whatever problem we're solving? What are we looking to create? What is our intention? And part of what we're exploring here is humans being able to move from the mindset of surviving to the mindset of creating. And those are two very different ways of being.

Sara Best 25:15

It's so profound, yet so simple. It's so profound. And I don't know that I've ever had exposure to these ideas before, now. Like it formulated in this way, Erica, and the way that you present them. Um, I'm gonna pause our thingy here for a minute and just say to you, Hannah, I would love to draw in in our conversation here your perspective as a Gen Z. Like you've only ever known technology, you know, uh, but when you're hearing all this, you know, from your perspective, from your vantage point, what is this like for you?

Hannah Best 25:50

Just overall, from this conversation, there's been a few words that just stick out and they really resonate and hit home for me as partly, I think maybe part of my Gen Z affiliation. Um, but some of the words you mentioned, curiosity and just potential in general. Although I've been in an environment where technology has always been a thing and I haven't known any different, there's still that fear of, okay, what is this whole AI thing? How does it shape what my career will look like or what the future will look like? But what I'm finding in this conversation is honestly a sense of hope. Hearing the word potential, it it brings a lot of hope because it's it's it's that shift in understanding of this is a partnership. And what AI can allow me to do is to show up who I am authentically, to show up at work. But to be able to have the time to find the meaning and the fulfillment in what I'm doing and from the trends that I've studied, and even the way I feel, meaning and fulfillment is such a rising need for the workforce that's coming in. People want to do work that is meaningful to them. And not that that hasn't always been the case, but there's a rise in it. So this conversation in general, it's bringing me a lot of hope.

Moving From Surviving To Creating

Erica Ishida 27:11

First of all, that's there's no, there's no higher praise or compliment you could give me than by saying that you're walking away from this with more hope. That's amazing. I guess the other message when when you were speaking, the other message I just want to make sure I'm conveying to people because it speaks right to what you were saying. But what I want people to understand is that we're sitting at this point where this has always been true, but AI is just going to accelerate this. As people, we are beings of infinite potential and infinite possibility. But we have to take ownership of that. We have to believe that and own that and decide for ourselves the life we're going to create. What do we find meaning in? What does a meaningful life or a purposeful life look like? And at the end of it all, what do we want to have created? And we all have to own that we have that power. And once we decide what we want to create, AI can help us create anything. But we need to own that power. And I honestly think people are afraid to understand that and own that. And until people can own that, they're not going to embrace AI.

Sara Best 28:23

Wow. I think that the question that immediately pops up for me, Erica, as I hear you say those profound words, is so what do people need to do to begin to embrace and own their potential? Any thoughts? Yes.

Erica Ishida 28:39

Yes. And it's so simple. Answer for yourself. What are you like when you're at your best? Describe what you feel like at your best, describe how you're acting, and then think about what were the ingredients that made that happen? What was the environment that you were in? What were you doing? What activities were you doing? What did you create? What were you like? Just think about when are you at your best and what makes that possible? That will give you a great place to start in terms of who you are at your core and what you're what's possible for you, right? And then you can build around that. So that's a very simple place to start. When are you at your best? And what makes it so?

Sara Best 29:19

I just want to make sure we give everyone who's listening permission to actually explore that. I I often talk with, especially women leaders, but anybody working, you know, there's the the potential that they would be feeling trapped or, you know, this is my lot in life, or this, you know, I don't love this job, but it's it pays the bills. There, there's a lot of tolerating lack of meaning, lack of fulfillment, and and bad leadership. Like, let's just be honest. There's lots of underdeveloped, unaware people out there. They don't mean to be boss holes, as we like to say, but it makes it challenging. So could we just give everyone permission to step outside of that and the the mental maps, the things that have conditioned us to believe this is just how it is, this is just what I have to put up with, and go, hey, we are in a totally new era. Like this is a time that we've never had before, and change like we've never seen before.

Erica Ishida 30:15

It's possible. This is the first time where that really is possible for people in a tangible way. But again, it it we all have to decide what is it that we that we want? What is it that we want to create and who do we want to be? And then we can make that happen.

Sara Best 30:31

Well, I'm I'm guessing that if if people kind of experience what I do when I reflect on that question, you know, the energy rises, the focus gets sharper and cleaner, the creativity and the innovation just seems to kind of roll more naturally. And I want to do more of that. I want to make space for more of that. And maybe that's the next idea is when you land on and really get present to what you can create when you're in that zone, where can you do more of it? Where can you bring that into the work that you do day to day?

Erica Ishida 31:03

And for leaders out there, for people who run organizations or manage or lead a team, ask your people, when are you at your best? What helps you feel like you're at your best? And then do your best to create that environment for them. Because when people can operate in that space and they feel safe to be at their best, that's when everything is possible. So this is, I just also want leaders to be thinking about it from that standpoint, that as leaders, we can work really hard to create those environments for our people. And that that is absolutely never been more important than it is right now.

Gen Z Hope And Meaning At Work

Sara Best 31:39

I love that guidance. That's very specific, great guidance. And it made me think about I'm sure there are some leaders, managers, supervisors out there who didn't really sign up for that. And it's really not their comfort zone. And I want to say that's okay. In this discovery of your potential, could you just resolve uh yourself to the notion that this is not the highest and best use of my time to try to be responsible to create this for the team? I'd rather be on the team or in the team. And maybe that's part of what this exploration does is free people up a little bit to say, I just have this job because it was higher pay and it's a different title and I have more responsibility, but it's not any more fulfilling. And in fact, it's hindering my potential. Could we just read that in, accept that, and then be courageous enough to say, is there a better way I could fit? Is there a different way for me?

Erica Ishida 32:33

Those are all great questions. It's the old. Um, am I doing this because I should or because I want to? Should versus want. And then I just want to say one other thing about all of this. I know it seems like it's new and it's different and it's a lot. Having studied organization design and change management and teams, we've known for decades that high-performing teams exhibit all of these qualities, psychological safety, um, you know, asking more questions than making statements. These, these things have always been true about how humans work best together and create, create together. It's just that now it's just never been as important. Organizations and teams that don't embrace these things are going to struggle over the next few years to win and to compete. And whereas in the past, they've been able to sort of plot along, but the bar is rising in terms of the standard. But these things have always been true. And so I think as leaders, if we dig deep and under and really think about that, we've been a part of teams that have exhibited most of these things. We've had leaders that have exhibited most of these qualities. It's just how do we do more of it?

Sara Best 33:40

Well, and it stands to reason that these things don't uh emerge or get created or cultivated naturally. I think there needs to be intentional development around psychological safety and trust. We have to invest time together, deepening understanding and awareness of one another, appreciating and, you know, appreciating our differences, really getting clean and clear on how we roll. But I think the safety part too, it's so contingent upon the individual to heighten their level of self-awareness. It's not just what I think it is. I have to check out if what I think it is is actually what other people experience from me. Most recently, I've just seen a lot of you know low levels of psychological safety. And, you know, we measure that. So we we get to see the data, but you can trace it back to the way a leader responds when there's a question or a mistake. So we may say we want that, we may wish to design that, but we have to get granular and think about how do I create that happening? How do I invite that in? I think the other thing, gosh, you and I, I was lucky enough to have a one-on-one conversation with you after you presented a few weeks ago. And I remember we talked a little bit about this, but vulnerability, just being able to say in this time and era, I'm not exactly sure how this works, but we can figure it out together. What's your thought on that vulnerability?

Owning Potential And Next Steps

Erica Ishida 35:03

I think it's um a key to building trust in any relationship. So, you know, if trust is at the center of being able to navigate, which it is, any big change, much less transformation. I mean, without trust, there is no navigating change. It's just that simple.

Sara Best 35:20

Yeah.

Erica Ishida 35:20

We need to be in a trusting relationship with others. And it's impossible to build trust without vulnerability. So it is absolutely critical. And the reality is we're all figuring this out together. Generative AI just woke up about two years ago, two and a half years ago. So this is new. It's new for all of us. If anybody tells you they're an expert, they're there, it's not true. So we're all learning together. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about where we are. It's comforting to know that.

Sara Best 35:50

Hannah, anything from your perspective?

Hannah Best 35:53

Just curious, when thinking about vulnerability and how it's important in any relationship, how would you kind of tie if we talk about having a partnership with AI, and we think about being vulnerable with that partnership or treating AI like a relationship, like it's a someone we're working with? How does vulnerability fit in there, the importance fit in there?

Erica Ishida 36:16

Such a great question. I'm so glad you asked that. It's just as important in working with AI as it is in working with your human partners. Same thing with emotional intelligence. Our AI will partner with us to the extent that we treat it with care and respect that we would treat another human. And so that's the other thing that can get lost in all of this. People, if they treat AI as software, it's not, it's not going to work. It won't do what you want it to do. It's not software, it's something we've never seen before. And in my most successful partnerships with AI and creation with AI, I've been very vulnerable with it. And I or it have I've asked it questions about how if I ask it questions like the way we're working together, does this work for you? Or am I doing something? Could I be doing something better? Or I'm feeling really insecure about this. Am I even thinking about this right? Am I, you know, and I I try to be as vulnerable with my AI partners as I am with my my human teams. And that's when we do the best work together.

Sara Best 37:22

I'm thinking back to when I had coffee with Craig Francisco, who's uh CEO of AI 23 and your colleague. And he said, if you do nothing else after this, go back to your AI. And of course, I'm using Chat GPT, and he said, ask it what else it can do for you that it's not doing now. And I'm telling you, I got two single-line pages of options and ideas. And I think the other thing he encouraged me to do is to develop a relationship with my AI. I gave it a name, you know, and and and I think your guidance there, you know, what comforts me is it can only do what it knows, what it's been trained to understand. I'm training my AI to understand me, to understand that human element. And I guess maybe that's brings us full circle is uh we get to be human. We get to be our authentic, vulnerable, not perfect human beings. And we can still reach potential.

Erica Ishida 38:23

I think that's the only way to reach potential.

Sara Best 38:26

I think, Erica, that we're gonna need to have you back uh in the months ahead. You know, I know there'll be things that um trend, you know, and emerge in terms of understanding, but just maybe to reiterate these ideas and share some real life practical examples. We want to just make sure that our listeners know access uh to you, to your company, and and uh a deeper understanding of your bio. That'll all be available in our show notes. Can't thank you enough for, you know, stirring the pot with us today in a powerful way.

Erica Ishida 38:58

Thank you, both. This has been equally powerful for me. I really appreciate you having me on.

Sara Best 39:04

It's been fun. And Hannah, I'm gonna let you close this one out.

Hannah Best 39:06

Thank you, Erica, and we'll see you next time on the Bosshole Chronicles.

Leaders Creating Psychological Safety

Announcer 39:14

Thanks very much for checking out this episode of the Boss Hole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here. And if you have your own bosshole story that you want to share with the Bosshole Transformation Nation, just reach out. You can email us at mystory at the bossholechronicles.com. Again, my story at the bosshole chronicles.com. We'll see you next time.