You Don’t Need More AI… You Need This First: The Missing Link Between Technology and Human Leadership

Welcome back to the Love Inspired Leadership Podcast. I got a great interview for you today. So, I what I'm excited to bring you today is my guest is purposeful and passionate about AI, and I know he's got some great insights, tools, and strategies for us to release the fear around AI in the experience of being able to customize the human experience of what AI represents, and also create an opportunity for you to free time, free energy, and also be able to use AI. I mean, I love AI. I'll be honest with you, with my virtual assistant and I, we can create things in five minutes where it took us five hours. I'm speaking the truth here. So, Curtis, thank you for saying yes to be on my podcast, and I'll just have you introduce yourself to my audience. Thank you.

Okay, thanks, Carolyn. Thanks for having me on. So my name is Dr. Kurt Rasmussen. I have a PhD in Industrial Organizational Psychology. I've been working with AI for about a decade now. I just recently started my own business back in September, and I specialize in human machine teaming, and specifically, what that means is I I am on the business owner leader side when you try to bring AI into the workplace to make sure you're doing it properly, and you're going to get return on investment because about 99% of AI programs fail.

Wow, wow. Okay, so I want to know what it is that these organizations, because there's a lot of organizations that still have a lot of fear about AI-they don't know anything about it. So what they don't know about there's fear. So how do you bring that understanding to these organizations? I like the human connection of what you got going on here. I mean, that's the magic for me because everything about life for me is about the people, about the inspiration to come together, to work together, to create that productivity, that ROI, as you mentioned. So, how do you invite these owners? Like, how can they discover this incredible opportunity for them to have you come in and help them,

you know. Really, really, there are a lot of people that say they do what I do, but as an industrial organizational psychologist, I'm a guy that studies workers and jobs, and I've worked with AI, so I have a unique set of skills. To quote Liam Neeson, and you know the thing really is, people can be afraid of it, and a lot of people are because they just get this vision of you know this thing taking over jobs. And at the end of the day, AI doesn't take over any job that somebody, some human, doesn't make a decision for it to do, and one of the biggest challenges I see is people often don't understand what their workers do to actually complete tasks. They don't understand that their SOP doesn't quite work the way they think it does. And the thing is, if you don't have everything set up perfectly, and you bring AI in. All it's going to do is get you to failure faster. There is a lot of expectation that AI is going to, you know, augment, make you smarter. It does not make you smarter because AI is not smart. And you know, the thing is, I I look at AI to some extent, like like a violin, so you know, so an amateur can play a Stradivarius, but it takes a maestro to make it sing. And the thing is, is the people that really get the most out of AI really are paired properly with the AI, and they really understand what to expect out of it, and how to how to really set up the guidelines. And when it puts out something, they know how to check it. And if you don't have that knowledge, sorry, it's not going to work that well. Well,

what's going to happen is they're going to get lost there. They're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of effort for nothing. See, I think people like you are kind of like these knight in shining armor rolling in to help them with the setup, with the understanding, with the context, with the connection, with the purpose-driven aspect of what AI will represent. Within their organization and their people, it's the human side that I think a lot of AI people are missing, and that's where you shine. And because of your incredible education, you bring all that previous history, all that previous knowledge, all that previous experience with you, correct?

I do, and in fact, I have six pending patents right now that are all in AI. So it's very easy for somebody to say, "Well, you're a psychologist, so you don't. It's like no, I I talk to these folks on a regular basis. I have a upcoming talk to the University of Pittsburgh for their AI department. I work with George Mason University. The the you know kind of the bottom line you said knight in shining armor. You know I kind of wish that was the way it is, but there's so many flashy, shiny things around AI and tech that when somebody like me comes in, it's not that no one will listen, but it's we often get drowned out because somebody's saying, "Hey, I can get you a 40% improvement, and you know, here's an amazing factor. So there are articles you've probably seen them, where they say, "Okay, you know, 100% improvement, 200% improvement, 40% improvement. The biggest actual improvement in efficiency occurred going from the 19th to the 20th century, when we started automating, we started putting steam plants in and electricity, and that topped out at 9% 9% And there's, there's, I've seen articles where they're like, "It'll do 1,000%, and it's like, "No, it won't. And if you think it will do 1,000% the next thought is why do I need the people,

right? Well, and we need the people because they're the human beings. That's the humanness within your business, and I think what's really cool here, Curtis, is your intersection between the technical and the AI and the humanness of the people that work for them and with them to change because it's service that people are yearning for. It's a level of service that matters that means something. That's what builds the reputation within that organization and their ROI and having people continue to buy the products from them, so I think it's very cool what you stand for. So and you do a lot of speaking too. It sounds like

I do, and just I know we're running short on time, but one thing I really want to throw out there too is, you know, can AI replace people? Sure, but if you really don't know what the people do, how can you have an engineered replacement? And I know a I know a software development company that they were spending $10 million a year on paying benefits for software developers, and they basically got rid of all their software developers to use AI. Now the issue with that really is they kept a few senior developers to make sure the AI is doing what it's supposed to be doing. But who's going to replace them when they retire? That that company literally has made sure that they have a shelf life. They're going to expire like all like milk.

Yes, well, and you know that doesn't doesn't last. There's no sustainability there.

No.

So I want to thank you, Curtis, for coming on my podcast. I think AI is a beautiful, beautiful world, and I love that you're intersecting. Like I said earlier, this this tech with humanness because that's what has to happen with AI and that that's where the I think love inspired leadership shows up because we care about people we care about our employees we care about our teams so do you have a gift for my audience

I actually don't have anything but you know, if they reach out to me on LinkedIn, I would be more than glad, especially for businesses, to give to to walk them through a quick session on how I do what I do to save them money and save them headaches.

Beautiful, beautiful. And for my audience, I just want to open your mind to the power of what AI is, and it's like Curtis said, it's not something that's taken over the world. It is something that we can integrate and implement into our businesses that has meaning and purpose and matters, and it's about the people. So thank. You Curtis for coming on my Love Inspired Leadership podcast, and for my audience, thank you for tracking with us today. And please reach out to Curtis on LinkedIn, and he's a very wise, wise soul, which you could tell. And I just invite you to take the next step with Curtis, even if you're curious about AI and you think that it could be something that would integrate into your business and increase your ROI too, so until next time, thank you for joining us, and I look forward to seeing you on my next episode of Love Inspired Leadership Podcast. Take good care.