I work in technology. You might say I work on the forefront of some. But I must admit, when I hear someone lead a conversation with the statement, “We need an AI strategy,” my spidey-senses start to fire. Danger. Danger. Danger.
I don’t just mean AI. The statement could be any of the following…
We need a machine learning strategy. We need a big data strategy. Let’s hire a data scientist. We need podcast strategy. When you hear someone in your company talking like this, you can sound like the trillion dollar coach, Bill Campbell, by asking the group, “What problem (opportunity) are we trying to solve?”
This very exchange is why I wanted to have Neil Sahota on Helping Sells Radio. I wanted Neil to save us from the insane conversations we’re having about all the different strategies these so-called visionaries are telling us we need.
Neil Sahota is an IBM Master Inventor, United Nations (UN) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advisor, Faculty at UC Irvine, and author of the book, Own the AI revolution: Unlock your artificial intelligence strategy to disrupt your competition.
Even Neil says, in the subtitle of his book, that we need an AI strategy.
Spidey-senses.
So I asked him about that. “Why did you put that phrase in your subtitle?"
He answered with a story about a head of a major law firm who’s asks himself about artificial intelligence, "I know we should be doing something with AI. What is it?”
Neil helps this person reframe the question.
Most people think in terms of problem first, then leaping to finding a solution.
Neil says we need to insert “opportunity” between those two.
Problem > opportunity > solution.
He asked a simple question: “What keeps you up at night?”
The manager answers, “Talent. We are struggling finding the right lawyers to hire who fit us and are effective in court. We are losing too many court cases and our employee turnover is way too high. I wish we could be better at hiring.”
Problem 1: Ineffective hiring
Problem 2: Low business results (losing too many court cases)
Opportunity 1: Improve employee retention with better hiring
Opportunity 2: Improve win rate in court. Get new clients.
Neil goes on to explain to the manager that he can solve both problems and take advantage of these opportunities with AI. “Did you know AI can solve this today? With AI, we can build profiles of your candidates based on 56 phsychological traits and tell us which candidates are a good match for what you are looking for?”
“We can do that?” says the manager.
Now we can talk about AI as a solution, but only because we started with the problem and then got specific about possible opportunities.
Neil helped us get there.
More about Neil and his book
Neil was kind enough to create a special page on his website for you, Helping Sells Radio Listeners. If you want to learn about AI, without the distractions of the hype, Neil’s book is for you.
Check out his website here > https://www.neilsahota.com/helpingsells/
183 Neil Sahota Finally! Someone Talks About AI in a Language I Understand