Brick & Balloon: Balancing Operations & Innovation in a Tech-Driven World, TRANSCRIPTION

WEBINAR TRANSCRIPT

“Brick & Balloon: Balancing Operations & Innovation
 in a Tech-Driven World”

October 18, 2024

 

Featuring

Guest: Corlinda Wooden, from Wooden Consulting

Host: Brett Wooden, from Buildable

 

 

 

Brett: Just to kick things off today, we're going to discuss the brick and the balloon balancing operations, innovation in the tech-driven world. So really what we're looking at is, in this era where there's like tons of technology being thrown at us, looking to reshape our industry with AI. And organizations are just trying to figure out like, where does the operational excellence stand and where is that going? And how do we look forward to innovations, such as AI?

 

What better way to have this conversation than with Corlinda. We call this our pillow talk. We kind of discuss the industry, where it's going, operational coaching, all that fun stuff. So what better way than to kick off a webinar in October than to have a conversation with the lovely Corlinda Wooden, also known as last year’s American Bankers Most Powerful Woman in Credit Unions. So with that said, Corlinda, let's kick it off and just tell us a little bit about yourself and what do you want people to get out of the conversation today?

 

Corlinda: Well, thank you for hosting, Brett. And for those that are listening and watching, this is our first time actually doing a webinar together. So that's pretty fun, considering we've been in the financial industry space since before we were even married, actually. And so this is really exciting. So thank you.

 

As far as today, a little bit of background is, I've grown up in the credit union space and really leveraged around how can we help develop people and develop those around us. And one of the fun ways to do that is through this new tool, AI, that's coming around.

 

And so today is really talking about leadership development and how can we leverage this tool and make it the best that it can be. And for those that are wondering which one is the better half, I'm going to go with I'm the better half on today's topic. So people come first. So with that, I'll turn it back to you, Brett.

 

Brett: Yeah, we'll let people judge that at the end of this. So let's just jump in, kick it off with some questions.

 

So the first question I'll toss at you is, you know, how can leaders strike the right balance between maintaining a solid operational foundation, which is that brick, while balancing, you know, while embracing the possibilities of innovation and AI, that balloon piece of it?

 

Corlinda: Yeah, so we always joke, I mean, one of the reasons we brought in the brick and the balloon is that we joke about that within our own marriage – that there's times where you're the balloon, and you're bringing all of these innovative pieces in. And I'm saying, wait, wait, wait, let's see how this actually fits into the fold. And then there's other times, like when we go on vacation, where I'm the balloon, and I take you to scary adventures, and you're grounding to make sure that we stay safe.

 

So the same concept goes with the brick and balloon, when we think about technology and operational foundation. And so the brick in this case, is that steady, reliable piece of the organization that keeps it running, and keeps it efficient – processes, compliant, all of those pieces. The balloon in this conversation is symbolizing the potential of what innovation and AI can bring to organizations, it helps organizations elevate their game, adapt quickly, and start to explore some new different horizons.

 

So when we think about the brick and the balloon together, and what does that mean in our industries, it's really like the yin and the yang, they really complement and balance each other out. And so you've got the brick, which is sturdy enough to support growth, while also allowing the balloon to soar without getting lost or floating off into space. And so at the end of the day, both are necessary, and the brick keeps us grounded, but the balloon ensures that we're not staying stagnant. And with the brick, the balloon would drift away, but without the balloon, the organization would, you know, potentially stay grounded, but never soar to new heights.

 

 

“The brick keeps us grounded, but the balloon ensures
 that we aren’t staying stagnant.”

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

Brett: Those are great points. And now you did mention on vacations, right, that you're the balloon. I'm adventurous too, I just don't like to go down rusted water slides in Jamaica, that's kind of not my thing.

 

So we're going to be talking a lot about AI and employee development today, but one of the questions I get asked a lot, you know, working for a software development company is, how can leaders increase adoption of AI with employees?

 

Corlinda: Yeah, I think leaders can increase AI adoption by involving them into the integration process, ensure that they are part of maintaining that stability, and really reemphasizing that it is to support their efforts, not replace them. And there's been studies that show that there's a ton of psychological resistance from employees who feel that AI threatens their identity or devalues their skills. And so because of that, companies need to frame AI as a partner rather than a replacement.

 

And a really cool example, or a model of what this looks like in action, comes back in the 1950s. So back in the 1950s, General Mills launched Betty Crocker cake mixes. And these cake mixes, all they asked for was just simply adding water, mixing it together, and throwing it in the oven to bake. And despite the amazing performance and how wonderful the cakes turned out, it just was sales were disappointing. And so what managers learned is that people felt like they were cheating using this process.

 

And so they, going into the whole rapid prototype, you see how things work, and you find what's wrong and go back and try it again. They brought it back out again. But this time, they removed the egg powder from the cake mixes. And they said, you need to go ahead and add your own egg and beat that into the mix. That small little change made all of those bakers feel better about themselves and sales started to boost. So today, when we think, you know, 70 years later, most cake mixes still require us to add eggs. And now we know why. And so that goes into some of the psychology of the behavior.

 

 

“Companies need to frame AI as a partner
rather than a replacement.”

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

Brett: That's interesting. I never knew that. So that shoots me being a good cook. Well, so like when you, based on these psychological barriers, what have you learned from Betty Crocker? What strategies can companies utilize when they move toward deploying AI within their organization or credit union?

 

Corlinda: So when you think about AI, the question used to be, can we. And then can we is no longer, it's now should we. So when we think about that should we, we want to go back to see what research taught us in the past about some of these different approaches. And the first thing is, I found this fascinating as well, is that when you think about delivering news to employees and thinking about, you know, different pieces, the internal communications that you want to send out, what we found is that if you're delivering good news, you actually want that to come from a human. If you're delivering bad news, you can go ahead and leverage AI because studies have shown that when you're delivering bad news, whether it's from a human or from an automated generated message, the effect is the same. However, when AI was delivering good news, people didn't feel as good about the good news. And so that's one thing to keep in mind.

 

The second is that we want to add the human touch when it's a symbolic product. So products that think about something that conveys our personalities or our beliefs, you know, oftentimes we can think about just, you know, people will use their fashion or their jewelry or tattoos to symbolize that. That's just an example. So anytime you have something of symbolic value, have the human touch. Because they did another study and what we found is that, you know, glasses. So glasses can symbolize style. And so when asked if the frames could be [made] using human or AI, people actually preferred AI. And the reason for that is they wanted that precision, that precise aspect of it. But when they said, you know, who would you prefer creating your frames, it actually came back to humans and it ties back into that symbolic use of how we identify. So that's another way to think about it.

 

And then the third is that, you know, if people have, if they identify themselves with a particular activity, so we can go back to, you know, cooking and baking again, if in that identity, they feel like the automation is a threat to their identity, then it's going to lead to reduced adoption. And so companies want to make sure that if they are targeting identity motivated customers, then they're really adding that human touch to it. But if they're not, that's when they can start to add in more AI features.

 

 

“When you think of AI, the question used to be can we;
can we is no longer – it’s now should we.

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

Brett: Yeah, it's amazing. So I attended a couple months ago, a Women in AI conference in Portland. And they had an HR individual, I think she was from Microsoft, but she had given an example, because now, of course, like the chat GPTs, and the co-pilots, and things can now essentially talk back to you. She created a whole prompting scenario of when applying for a job and getting an offer, you can actually work with AI, create the prompt in the scenario, and AI will actually talk with you through, you know, debating an offer. Maybe you wanted more money or that.

 

And one of the things that she brought up was working with AI and doing scenarios with the voice version of AI, difficult conversations, that it's finding that those difficult conversations are putting people to ease. And it's funny, she never once referenced like a positive conversation, it was more difficult. So I thought that was kind of cool, like reference of what you said, and how much AI can actually help kind of structure out those conversations as well.

 

And so when you look at what some of the executives leaders are communicating, is they're trying to figure out how do they communicate the reasoning, or the why behind leveraging AI and automation and the way it migrates. Like that psychological resistance, I think you see a lot of individuals with AI that are, like you said, there is this fear of, oh, my gosh, it's going to take my job.

 

I have friends that are designers, musicians, and they're freaking out because it's like, oh, my gosh, AI can do all this stuff for me. I'm no longer needed. And so how do you communicate that?

 

Corlinda: Yeah, when you think about that, that's actually one of the major reasons why the entertainment industry was striking is because of AI, and how do we, you know, balance that?

 

But when it comes to the psychological resistance… You know I love data, I geek out on stats all the time. So a recent Gartner survey revealed that 22% of employees fear that AI may replace their job in the next five years. So what that data tells us is that it is crucial for leadership to communicate openly about what is the intention behind AI, and really emphasize that AI is all about supporting our people first approach. So within our organization, we are a people first organization, and we really want to leverage AI to strengthen our roles rather than replace them. And so that's a big piece.

 

Another piece is that, you know, going back to the data, it's been shown that employees can perceive AI and automation as undermining their identity. And if that is the case, then you want to frame your communication so that employees know that when they implement AI, they're still using their own skills, and AI is just there to be like an assistant to them. It's not taking away their unique aspects that they bring to the job.

 

And if we think about going back to an ad, an advertisement for your employees, let's say you're trying to describe a machine that helps them cook better. You don't want to use the ad that says, this machine will handle all the cooking steps at the touch of a button. Because, again, if they've identified with being a great cook, that takes away from their ability to assist. So instead, you want to use that ad that says, you know, this machine is going to guide your cooking process, and it's going to prepare the meal with the help of the user or the baker. And so that's another component.

 

And then I love to tie this back to some of the tasks that we just hate doing. And I always joke and think about, you know, the office movie and those TPS reports. And so, you know, for those of us in the credit union space, sometimes it's just getting those board reports ready. And so, if AI can help do some of those mundane tasks that we dread doing, and we can focus on doing things that are more exciting and problem solving and using our creativity, then why the heck not, you know. And so get people excited about what it can do for them, and how it can free them up.

 

So when they have that time, maybe it's doing those other strategic initiatives, but maybe it's also developing in themselves. You know, what do they need to do? What are some things they want to do to for their own career development?

 

 

“22% of employees feel that AI may replace their job
in the next five years.”

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

Brett: Yeah, and it's interesting. There are so many questions or builds on what you said. But, you know, I guess one kind of just random question I have for you is, so what was it last week, Nvidia and then Tesla rolled out their robots, which even in our household kind of prompted our younger daughter. She's like, I want to watch iRobot, because someone is suing Tesla, because the things that were launched were, I guess, kind of similar. So my question to you is, how do you feel like, you've got AI itself, but now you have AI integrated within some of these robots. What are your thoughts on the robots? Like, do you envision that someday tellers will be standing, you know, Tesla robots in the teller window?

 

Corlinda: Well, this is where the brick and the balloon come in, because I've always believed in the model, meet people where they are. And so you have gone down that direction where you're like, yeah, I totally see that happening. And I'm always like, no, I mean, maybe it'll happen, but I don't think it'll be adopted.

 

Because when you think about that particular channel for a credit union, a branch channel is something where people want to see other people, like they're choosing that channel for a reason. They're going out of their way to drive there and, you know, commute there for a reason. And so, no, I don't see those robots being used as tellers. And if they are, I think it might be something where the organization could use that expense elsewhere.

 

Brett: Okay, that's good. But so, other things, especially with you kind of at one point in your career, overseeing retail call centers, what are some other forms of communication advice that you would give kind of when implementing AI?

 

Corlinda: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is to humanize it whenever you can. So it can be using conversational language or adding expressive elements, which we just learned from our daughter the other day that when people use emojis, they're called millennials now. That's so millennial of you to use emojis.

 

But nonetheless, I think emojis can actually add, as another tool to humanize the AI interface. And so that would be something, you know, we actually saw a study again where a financial AI tool that was providing financial advice through a chat forum, they actually saw higher engagement from the users that were getting that financial advice when they mimicked that human behavior. So it's just a nice way to create a more relatable experience for folks.

 

 

“I think the biggest thing is to humanize it [AI]
wherever you can.”

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

Brett: Yeah, it kind of reminds me of that. I mean, I know this is really small, but when we did the net promoter surveys within our organization, we were doing one through five. Like, how do you how do you rank us? Would you refer us to a friend? How was our service? Five being the best, one being the worst. Yeah, we really didn't get like a lot of responses or people got confused and would think one is great and then five.

 

But we switched those emojis. So like one is an angry face and then the five is – and all of a sudden it was like our net promoter score service level, all of that went up because people could relate more to that kind of image.

 

But it is amazing. You know, it is amazing. The thing that's really fascinating is the conversation of like how you're using tech and AI within the call centers, the branches. And there's credit unions I talk to that are like, you know, we're not allowing it. We're blocking ChatGPT. And then you have others that are like, I think they're using and I'm not sure.

 

And so it's really fun kind of watching this evolve and see how different leaders communicate that as well. And so, you know, as leaders kind of push forward in these advances of technology, how can they avoid the risk of leaving employees behind who feel overwhelmed by the rapid changes? And so, you know, there's a book that's written in the 70s called Future Shock. I actually read it in college. And really what future shock is, with all these rapid changes and things in technology that people are experiencing, is they get in this future shock status or state of mind where, and that’s really where I think things are moving faster than policies, procedures, government, and so they kind of get like this head in the sand or this is going too fast. How can they avoid feeling overwhelmed?

 

Corlinda: Yeah, I think, you know, oftentimes what's beautiful about credit unions is that we are people helping people. That is the motto across the board, right? And so with that, you’ve got long-term employees who are oftentimes in your organizations and so you can even relate to it as like when you are rolling out a new loan origination system or a new account opening system, or maybe you do a core conversion, you know in those instances you’re leveraging technology, your switching it up and so they’ve got to learn how to do things differently. And so same thing when it comes to AI. You know, it’s essential for leaders to offer that continuous education, those reskilling programs, and really provide a space for them to be able to voice their concerns or questions.

 

And so with that, leadership should be establishing some of the regular feedback loops and engage, you know, how are the employees doing with this? You know, are they engaged with it, is it helping them, or are they still having some fears or some confusion along the way? Another aspect is leaders can encourage early adoption by creating those tech champions. Back in the day we used to call those the ninjas and so they were the subject matter experts of something. And so in this case, if you’ve got this champion that is really excited about the new tool, they can help bring that excitement and teach some tips and tricks as others are learning to use it, if they’ve been struggling. So that just creates, well it does a few things.

 

One it creates a mentorship culture and so maybe these folks hadn't worked together in the past and now they've got a new friend that they can reach out to. But it also helps bridge that knowledge gap and make sure that nobody feels like they're being left behind.

 

 

“Leaders can encourage early adoption
by creating those tech champions.”

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

Brett: Yeah, those are great points and I I've seen a lot of organizations create kind of like an AI committee where they meet biweekly and they're bringing in like one, just a great example of one. They created a committee. They got one individual from every department and they actually helped create the policy for the organization, and then they also put in place like the data governance. One of their really cool things they put in there was all of their AI in the beginning will be human-led, machine-supported.

 

First off, being transparent that you are using AI with your membership customer base and then you still have some of the data itself that can be biased and things. In that women in AI conference I went to in Portland there was a whole session on that and it was amazing. Some of the illustrations, someone said find me a successful CFO in an organization and of course it had this like older gray haired white male with glasses on and a bookshelf behind. And she was like, you know, right off the bat we look at the white older male but some of the other biases that it has is that all smart people wear glasses and all smart people have to have tons of books behind them right? And so that's really where you know in that AI committee that you develop is kind of focusing on, there's like a list of things to focus on, so you're not missing and utilizing AI in the in the wrong way. And you know, so I guess what we're going to kind of throw back to you is like how? How can an organization adopt emerging technologies like AI as a way to develop and invest in their employees?

 

Corlinda: Yeah, this is the part that is actually my most favorite. Like my personal why is to develop and empower those around me – that’s what I do in my consulting business today. And so this is probably my most favorite question, so I'm going to throw a lot of the different answers at you for this one.

 

But when you think about Gen AI, so generative AI, it has those transformative opportunities and that's really where we can take this and personalize learning experiences for folks. And so when you think about learning paths today, you know you may have to invest in outside resources because maybe you don't have a strong training team today.

 

You don't have a team that can create content or you know, stay in the know of everything. Oftentimes where we see this happening, change happening quickly, is like with regulations or laws. And so in this instance, leverage AI to make sure that all of your procedures and your training materials are updated and the content is consistently evaluated and updated. So that's one aspect, and that is also like a TPS report task, right? Like that's not the fun stuff that the training department wants to do.

 

The second one is really personalizing learning pathways, and so individualization is one of my top five strengths, so I really believe in as much as we can individualize things for folks and personalize things for folks, the better we can see the outcome for them. And so if you can leverage AI to really personalize it based on this individual and their career history and where they want to go in the future, beautiful. That takes some heavy lifting off creating that plan.

 

Another one is when you think about Gen AI can also offer some simulation scenarios. So you know you had talked about the scenarios with the session that you went to and it was talking about, you know, difficult discussions. Well, in this case that's an example of that immersive simulation scenario. So you can create a simulation that dynamically responds to decisions and interactions, and so that really helps in those, you know, unpredictable, real world scenarios that folks are trying to prepare for.

 

Another one is when you think about skill gaps. So let's say you've got somebody and you know you've got a way to be able to take some of their outputs or their performances and put that into the AI and say, hey, what are some skill gaps that are present for this individual? And then you can create that customized plan again that helps them in getting their ongoing skill development in that area.

 

And then the last one is really when you think about mentorship and feedback. And at first when I was thinking about this, I was like, gosh, that seems kind of weird, because it goes back to the whole robot concept of, you know, having AI be my mentor. But really what that means is it's giving you real time feedback, and so oftentimes you can just put it into AI and say, you know, give me feedback on what this is and you can get real time feedback. Whereas when you're trying to do that with maybe your boss or a mentor that you've got, you know, life is busy. Meetings happen and maybe you don't get to have that interaction in the moment, and so this allows that in the moment support.

 

 

“As much as we can individualize things for folks
and personalize things for folks,
the better we can see the outcome for them.”

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

Brett: Yeah, it is amazing. Some of the conferences in speaking about AI and things is a lot of times people use AI to like, hey, can you look over my email? Can you create me an email? Can you respond to this? But I think if you start utilizing AI in some sense where my favorite is like throw your website on there and say, hey, what is my competitive advantage? And maybe even throw on some competitors’ websites on there and say, hey, compared to these is my competitive advantage still there?

 

There's a lot of cool things you can do, like even have it tear apart your bio, your resume, you know, and you get that real feedback and it's funny. We had Miles on the webinar a couple months ago and he was talking about health care is starting to use generative AI because people will tell AI the truth if they're like sick or if they have that weird rash where sometimes they get embarrassed if there's a human right there. They're not going to go, hey, I'm having really bad side effects. But they find that they tell the truth to AI. Kind of going back to your point where they have like some of those difficult things sometimes are easier to say when talking with…

 

Corlinda: Yeah, the bad news, right?

 

Brett: Yeah, yeah.

 

Corlinda: That makes me think of too, when you're thinking about that, of spitting it in, I just did an exercise with a leadership development workshop earlier this week. And one of the things I encourage people to take action on for themselves is to create their own personal SWAT. So you know, oftentimes as organizations, especially as we're going into strategic planning season, you know you'll do a SWAT, which is the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the organization. But why not do that for yourself?

 

And how cool is it like what you were saying? That's where my mind went, is like you could actually plug in all of your data and say, OK, help me understand what are some threats? Because that's sometimes the hardest part for folks. Or what are some opportunities? I think folks can really identify their strengths and weaknesses, but I think it would be cool to actually use that tool in that way.

 

Brett: Yeah, and even with ChatGPT, one of the cool things that workshop I went through is you can now actually start training the chat GPT – LLM, the Large Language Model on you. So you can go into the settings and put in your LinkedIn profile, put in your bio, any nicknames you have or any of that, and it's phenomenal. I mean it starts to like learn, like learn you. Which it definitely would see that I have a bad Lego spending habit.

 

But the, so I guess you know one of the things that I wanted to ask too is this is kind of another random question, but as you were in your role, your past role, and you would have to write like eight reviews, right? What do you say to employees that that say, hey, this is awesome, I have an assistant to write reviews for me now. How do you think about that? I know you talked about the positive and then you know some of the other stuff, but what would you recommend on like writing reviews using generative AI?

 

 

“You can now actually start training the ChatGPT – LLM,
the Large Language Model – on YOU.”

-Bret Wooden

 

 

Corlinda: I'm gonna say yes and –and I wanted to say but, but I don't like saying but; I like saying and instead, but in actuality it's like, yes if you've got your right coaching structure in play right? So what I mean by that is when a best practice when you're thinking about writing performance reviews is to have monthly interactions, monthly one-on-ones with your employee and use a template like a one-on-one template and you're documenting you know what are some of those goal achievements that you've had, what are some proud moments that you've had, what are some things you're working on for your own personal development right?

 

So if you've got those topics and you're capturing the answers to those topics on a regular basis then yeah plug those into Gen AI, have them come back out and say yeah this is what was done over the course of a year and plug that into the review process. Now if you don't have that structure in place and you're leveraging AI then it starts to become like an inauthentic tool and it's just pulling from the space out there, versus pulling from specific individualized data.

 

Brett: Yeah, the other thing I was kind of thinking of is, I used to have the bad mistake when writing reviews of like I give somebody a meets all instead of like it exceeds or far exceeds, and they're like you always do this and then I get in the review and they'd be like so if I always do that why did you give me a meets all and I'm like so I could see kind of AI helping with that, saying okay this language here needs to be adjusted to at times or sometimes those kind of things.

 

Corlinda: Before you go to your next question I have another thought on that. So the other piece of that is calibration. So I was literally in a coaching session with somebody yesterday and they said, yeah our company is going through calibration right now so it's like where all of the employees’ reviews are calibrated at the higher level of the organization to say, okay are we in line with each other, are we being consistent across the organization? And that exercise is sometimes really painful to go through. It's a long, long time of time, you're reviewing a lot of data, so I think that would be another space where you could look at and say, okay based on this data set, are we being consistent across the organization and that would be another way to leverage it too.

 

Brett: Piggybacking off what we've been talking about, so you know how do you see jobs evolving with AI and what strategies should HR and leadership employ or deploy within the organization?

 

Corlinda: Yeah you know we've talked about how it can take some of those mundane tasks away, and so that's really how I see jobs evolving, is just some of those you know reports or some of the basic data entry type things that can be substituted and shared with AI. So when that happens though, HR and leadership really should be looking at redesigning job descriptions and incorporating those new responsibilities, such as interacting with AI so like oftentimes now, it's do you have experience with Microsoft office? Well now it's going to be, do you have experience with AI tools?

 

And then because Gen AI isn't going to replace the jobs outright; it is going to change the workflows and the roles. So you can reassess your team structures too and reshape those job roles with that filter that encourages the AI collaboration, especially when you've got critical thinking and emotional intelligence as key components of that.

 

And the other thing is really you know from a higher up strategic level is, this is strategic planning time for many and it's thinking about, how can we build in this time and resources within our HR teams or our leadership teams so that we are continuously iterating and adapting our plans and evaluating, you know, how does this affect our hiring strategies, are we using up-to-date requirements? So that's something to think about.

 

The other thing is thinking about, oftentimes organizations will have like an organizational development, maybe it's not a particular role but it is a concept of supporting for employee engagement. And when you think about that organizational development or people development piece of it, you want to prioritize that these training programs are focused on upskilling and reskilling. So that person that may have had to do those TPS reports day in and day out no longer is doing that, so what skills do they need? So maybe it is delivering difficult conversations, maybe it's more emotional intelligence, but provide those training programs to help upskill and elevate if we're asking them to elevate how they're using their mind.

 

 

“Gen AI isn’t going to replace the jobs outright;
it’s going to change the workflows and the roles.”

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

Brett: Yeah and it's amazing like one of the job descriptions I was reading last week, I think it was like the prompting engineer, so now there's kind of individuals that organizations are deploying in their organization, where it's teaching people how to prompt within you know like Microsoft Copilot or Clod or Genesis, like all of those out there. And I thought that's such a cool thing because I do think that's going to be a skillset that is needed in the next six months, of how are you prompting AI to do specific tasks and things for you?

 

Corlinda: That makes me think of, you'll know the technical term, but like when the AI art first came out and I remember when we were trying to create a gift for my sister-in-law, as she was going through chemo. And it was like that first time I played with it and put a prompt in. It was like the worst imagery that came back and then I started to learn quickly like how I needed to adjust my prompting skills. And then you know at the end of the day we got this beautiful output, but that's what I was thinking of as an example that ties with that.

 

Brett: It’s funny, there's a funny designer meme out there for graphic designers that says, ‘I’m not worried at all, I can barely get clients telling me like how to make a logo or a flyer right.’ That's such a long process. But the last, I mean it probably won't be the last question, but what challenges should organizations anticipate when leveraging AI and how can they address these?

 

Corlinda: Yeah I think the thing to think about is that it's not foolproof or perfect and so you do still need quality control and good employee judgment. And so you want to be able to validate the information and decide how and when to use, like we talked about earlier. It's not a can we; it's a should we and so you still want the human element in there to make sure that you're shooting the right way.

 

The other thing is ensuring compliance so in this discussion today we've been talking about it as leadership programs or employee development programs, but even with that there's data protection regulations and maintaining transparency and data usage. So we've talked about employee performance reviews or learning preferences, you know all of that needs to make sure that you're still compliant with that data protection.

 

And then I think you mentioned it earlier in that example from the workshop that you went to, but avoiding spreading biases. So oftentimes the AI tools can be inadvertently biased towards things based on the data that you're feeding it with. And so you just want to make sure that you're not marginalizing others when you're leveraging this tool.

 

 

“It’s [AI] not fool-proof or perfect, and so you do still need
quality control and good employee judgement.”

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

 

Brett: Yeah that's a good point and yeah it is amazing seeing that transformation. And then, and in my line of work, I talk with a lot of CIOs, VPs of IT, and things, and there is the security risk, right? Is someone going to dump in all of this customer member data, right? So I think adding that in to your policy, your conversations, definitely having someone represent on your AI committee that's representing those things that we just discussed.

 

So with that said we have five minutes left. So any last words before we open it up for questions?

 

Corlinda: Yeah, I would just say when you're looking into the future you really want to create that culture where employee development is prioritized. And I always encourage credit unions to actually put it as a part of your strategic goals and we talked earlier about leadership sets the tone, so you want to adopt that people first approach and that's going to remain critical and then you really want to just keep that continuing communication around people are our number one asset and so even though we have these different technological advancements people are going to remain our number one asset. So we just want to keep that piece and the continuous development piece. I think if you kept both of those in line then that would be something that would just help create a stronger future.

 

 

“When you’re looking into the future, you really want to create that culture where employee development is prioritized.”

-Corlinda Wooden

 

 

Brett: Cool. Thank you.

 

Corlinda: Yeah.

 

Brett: Well thank you for joining and we'll open up for questions. If you have a question feel free to throw it in the chat and Corlinda or myself will answer it. I'll give like one minute, just in case there's some questions. And as we're waiting I know we get the question a lot, do the two of you work in the same office? And we used to, but then kind of after COVID and all the video calls and things, I was running upstairs a lot, kind of in a different room to do a video call and things, so we now have separate offices.

 

Corlinda: Brett’s on the first floor and I’m on the main floor.

 

Brett: We do have lunch together every now and then though, I will say.

 

Corlinda: Yeah, when I was working for a credit union I loved to do walk and talks and we've employed that in our daily routine.

 

Brett: Yeah. Well I see it looks like Benita’s typing. There we go. So okay, here's a question. When you talk about the continuous development piece, would you recommend that be integrated into the job descriptions or kept in the goal, attainment side?

 

Corlinda: Yeah I think that's a great question. Thank you Benita. For job descriptions I think it could almost even be seen as like other duties as assigned, you know in your job we're going to ask that you continuously learn and grow. I think that would actually be a really cool bullet point. As far as the goal attainment side, it's like if you have strategic priorities or pillars or you know different themes that you've got in your organization, why not make learning and continuous development one of those pillars or one of those themes? That’s just my suggestion.

 

Brett: All right if there’s no more questions, we want to thank you all. Have a great Friday. And we're in the middle of October. We're starting to get some of the, here in Oregon anyway, fall leaves, rain, cold weather. Our heat actually turned on today, which was pretty cool. So again, thank you all. The recording will be available, for those that missed it or had to leave early, we will be sending that out via LinkedIn and via email. And again thank you very much Corlinda. And stay tuned for the next couple of months. We've got some really cool other guests that'll be joining us in November and then in December we're going to kind of do a year recap of all the tech and then we're going to talk about some of the things that are going to hit us next year.

 

So have a great Friday everybody, and thank you for joining, and thank you Corlinda for joining.

 

Corlinda: Thank you.

 

 

 

End Interview

 

Thank you for joining us!