How to Use AI for Leadership, Employee Coaching, and Development with Jon Harmeling

0:51 If you're still using ChatGPT, you're a beginner. It was a comment that kind of offended me. What is that guy talking about? Like I got over my ego a little bit and said, all right, let me check out some of these other tools. A lot of the stuff I was doing didn't really need anyone with a big brain. It just needed someone to click buttons and send and receive stuff.

1:07 And that's where I kind of stumbled across a gentic AI that could start doing the work for me.

1:11 How do you make sure that some of that time goes into the leadership, goes back to your people?

1:15 I want to be very, very cautious that there's management and there's leadership. I'm extremely intentional to define the two. Management is focused on tasks. That's getting stuff done, that's deadline. That is, I think, what people are using AI for the most is management and productivity and output. I think we incorrectly interchange the words manager and leader.

1:35 Yeah. Not the right way. So leader is focused not on transactions, but on people, not being transactional but transformational. How do we make a positive difference in the people that we lead? Never ever can we get to a point where something happens and we say, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's not my fault. AI did it.

1:49 And so that's where I think.

1:53 Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of Using AI at Work. And I have a question for you. If AI is going to save you five hours a week or 10 hours a week, or totally transform how you're spending your time, do you have a plan for what you're going to do with that time? Today's guest, we're going to dive into that as well as a few other things, but it's a very interesting topic that in 120-something episodes that we've done of this show, that question hasn't really come up, but it's something that I think about a lot because the future of your employees, one of the things that we're bringing into companies now are these role-based agents that kind of considered a chief of staff agent for

2:26 everybody in the organization, or at least those who have the AI licenses, right? Great. They come in on Monday. You know, it's already identified what they need to do for the week. It's drafted some replies to emails that they owe replies to XYZ. They're going to love it. But what are they going to do with that extra time?

2:41 And today we're going to talk to John Harmaling. He's a military veteran and a Chick-fil-A operator in Miami with roughly 90 team members that represent over 18 countries. And John's been doing a lot of thinking about this topic. And we're going to get into what works, obviously, during a busy restaurant shift, what he's learned along the way.

2:58 And we're, but we're I'm really excited about talking about his new book that is going to be coming out tomorrow. We're releasing this episode on October 26th. And John's book is coming out tomorrow. And I love the title. It's Frontline AI Leadership. And uh we're we'll dig into that. But uh welcome to Using AI at work, and let's get into it.

3:16 John, welcome to the show. Before we get started, I I guess as there, that was kind of a light introduction. Is there anything in particular that you think might set the tone for the rest of the conversation?

3:27 Yeah, uh first off, Chris, uh, thanks for having me. Uh it's always fun to have these conversations and connect with other folks that are kind of in the same mental wavelength, if that's the right way to put it. Uh it's it's just been a really, really cool season. It's amazing to think that this is AI is never gonna get any worse than this.

3:42 It's only gonna be better from here and just the incremental, uh, excuse me, exponential uh changes that it's making. It's great. The um but yeah, originally military uh had a chance to attend West Point. I taught systems engineering at West Point, so specifically project management. So I love all things systems and how do you measure it from beginning to end?

4:00 So you can imagine as we made the transition to Chick-fil-A, it's just a system of systems. Uh it can be extremely difficult to pull off some of the volume and some of the challenges. Every piece, every machine has to work, every employee has to be in position, trained. Uh, all systems go, uh, so to speak.

4:16 So um, over the last couple months, and I think this will set a little bit of the context, uh, when we initially opened the restaurant, I did hire a full-time admin director. I genuinely thought it was a 40-hour a week role. It turns out it became a 30-hour a week role, and then 20 hours, and then she got really good.

4:33 And then she got to less than 10 hours of work of administrative work per week. I felt really bad because I hired her for a full-time position. And so, and she felt bad because there wasn't really any more admin work to do. And I share that um anecdotally because we ended up finding a different role for her at another organization with the U.S.

4:52 Coast Guard nearby to work near her husband. It was great. But then who does the 10 hours of admin work per week? This guy. And the reason I did that is just I want my leaders, we call them directors at the restaurant, I want them on the floor, running operations, leading the people, serving guests, doing what we do best.

5:08 Let me deal with the invoices and the emails and the texts and the corporate, you know, requests that we have. And it just got to a point where it started being a little bit more cumbersome. A lot of the stuff I was doing didn't really need anyone with a big brain. It just needed someone to click buttons and send and receive stuff.

5:25 And that's where I kind of stumbled across uh, you know, not just AI, but AI, agentic AI that could start doing the work for me. So um I'll pause there as we kind of talk through these different transitions. But uh, I just had a lot of admin work on my plate, and AI has been uh really amazing here the last call it six months as I've really been going all in on it.

5:46 It's only getting better, as you mentioned. So uh I'm gonna kind of go off script a little bit here. And I've got a couple of questions for you because you know, in the pre-interview, it was obvious that um one of the big things that drives you is empowering or uh mentoring or supporting uh the folks that you have, over you know, 80 people representing the 18 countries that work in your restaurant.

6:10 And you know, every every leader cares about their people, but uh in the pre-interview at least it I definitely was like um I noticed uh a little extra compared to what is expected from perhaps a leader. And I want to ask you how much of that comes from because you were an officer, obviously you went to West Point, you you get an appointment as an officer.

6:31 How much of that and and folks I want you to to hear this with John's book, he's not keeping a penny, he's actually giving all the proceeds of this book to the employees. Um, again, a sign that somebody cares about their team. How much of this is just your your nature and how much of it comes from you know leading uh soldiers in high discipline environments like uh like you did?

6:57 Gee, great question. So I think a couple things. You know, number one, just with the military, to me, it seems like the quickest way to earn someone's respect is through servant leadership. And so I I was fortunate to see that demonstrated, whether it was at West Point, whether it was in um, you know, serving all across the country, whether it was going to Afghanistan and, you know, where stress level is through the roof, uh, type thing.

7:17 So I just think servant servant leadership really just brings out the best, I think, in in folks. But I want to be very, very cautious that there's management and there's leadership. I'm extremely intentional to define the two. Management is focused on tasks. That's getting stuff done, that's deadline.

7:32 That is, I think, what what people are using AI for the most is management and productivity and output. I'm right there with you. I've been right there with you for a really long time. I think we incorrectly interchange the words manager and leader, uh, not the right way. So leader is focused not on transactions, but on people, uh, not on not being tran uh, you know, transactional but transformational.

7:55 How do we make a positive difference in the people that we lead? And so that's where I think to kind of set the stage for the rest of our conversation is there's managers and there's leaders. And so as AI rolls out and it starts taking some of these tasks off our plate, it frees up time. I refer to that as the capacity dividend.

8:12 And what do you do with that capacity? What I did do for a long time is just what else can this AI thing take off my plate? What else can I be more productive at in the output? And I started creeping away from some of the in-person leadership stuff that I was doing to a lot more of sitting behind a laptop and managing stuff.

8:30 Nothing wrong with that. However, I then just asked the question, I was like, I wonder if this thing can help me be a better leader, not manager. And so that's where a couple of these aha moments have just really started to come out. And there's so many amazing, you know, call it prompts, call it workflows, uh, you know, way you can use these tools and use the same tools, but just ask different questions and approach it from a different way.

8:54 And it has really just elevated my leadership, which honestly, even saying that sentence sounds a little bit arrogant, but um, it has just elevated uh it it nudges me in different areas and says, hey, John, I don't know if you know, but that employee just finished their second full week working at your restaurant.

9:11 Now would be a good time to go check in with them. Uh, you know, hey, John, this employee I saw on this channel and your Slack channel, they went home early yesterday because they weren't feeling well. Did anyone ask them how they're doing today? It's like, you know, just some of these simple kind of nudges uh that have really helped.

9:27 And I've had a chance to build out a couple different tools we can dive into uh here in a little bit. But um, you're right. AI gives us time back. What do you do with that time? My suggestion is don't always use it for management stuff. Let's get it over to do leadership stuff.

9:41 So I again, just from that, we're kind of go gonna go off script a little bit. And I definitely want to dial into this idea of uh leadership and management um and how AI can support honestly, one person doing both of those things. And you know, the way I heard it was a manager says do it, a leader says let's do it.

10:01 Um and that that's always stuck with me uh from since early in my career. So one of the things on this this concept of of leadership and management, I can tell you that you know, the people listening to this, if you're running a team, if you're running an entire business, um I think you know the the better nature of all of us wants to be the leader and not the manager.

10:23 However, the demands of the open loops that come with leading a team, leading a business, or just having a role in an organization where the expectations are high and you know, a family and wanting to pursue um you know self-development or or whatever those pursuits are, the the leadership uh aspiration seems like something that and that that Eisenhower decision matrix would be important, but not urgent, right?

11:42 Um and those tend to be the things that uh I'll get to it tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes. So uh I definitely want to make sure that we we jump into that. And I don't want to spend what you're doing in the restaurant is fantastic and and certainly uh shows a level of of caring for um your your team.

12:00 And I want to give you a chance to kind of talk about what that looks like in that environment and how you think that translates into construction, manufacturing, life sciences, private equity, wealth management, whatever the industries, technology, whatever industries are listening to this podcast now.

12:15 So maybe we'll we'll just start there. Um kind of share with me and the listeners uh your your approach to leadership and management in the Chick-fil-A environment and how you think that might translate to somebody who's in a completely different uh industry.

12:32 I let's go real deep real quick, Chris. Uh I'm not sure if you've uh taken any therapist classes or something, but I'm gonna turn you into a therapist here. Let's pause for a second and think crazy and let's assume, God forbid, I pass away this week and my funeral is next weekend. Is anyone gonna get up on stage?

12:51 And what if they get on stage and they give my eulogy and they said, you know, I want to speak about John and his life? Uh one of the things I remember most about him is his fantastic uh Google reviews online. Uh I I remember him uh growing catering. Uh, I remember he had one of the best labor costs we could possibly like who gives a flying crud about any of that stuff?

13:14 Those are all good things. Please don't mishear me. But it we spend so much time on all of these different data points and metric metrics. I understand we're running a business, but at some point, pause and think about your own funeral one day and your eulogy. What I hope is that people get up on stage and say, you know what?

13:31 John helped me through a really difficult time I was having in my personal life. Uh I was, I just arrived to the United States. John gave me a job. He helped me learn English. He helped me pay for this, he helped me with college that, a letter of recommendation here. Uh, I mean, just like those type of moments, that's what I hope people one day speak about uh the life I've lived.

13:53 So now you consider that as kind of a North Star. So when you finish a day's work and you get home, did you do management stuff and deadlines and tasks and check boxes and submit reports? I hope so, and I hope you did a wonderful job. But did you make any time for leadership stuff? And the leadership stuff almost never has a deadline.

14:12 It's almost never on a list of to-do things. It's just, I'll get to it at some point. Oh, by the way, I never actually got to it type thing. So again, AI has just been phenomenal to even structure my own day, to go out and set up one-on-one meetings, to have these coaching conversations, to really read between the lines on some of these, you know, either text messages or threads, or just kind of nudge me left and nudge me right and just make sure, hey, John, you did make this promise last week.

14:39 Did you ever follow up with that person on what else they need to do to get that promotion to shift leader? And so I just encourage folks, whatever industry you're in, people are people. The founder of Chick-fil-A was famous to say, how do you know someone needs encouragement if they're breathing? Everyone needs encouragement, right?

14:56 So just take a second and really think about your own funeral one day. I know that's such a wild thought to think, but are you leading and working in your organization in a way that if your funeral was next weekend, you'd be proud of the way people talked about you as a leader?

15:10 It's a great place to start, actually. So, you know, that opens up this conversation about as a leader, as uh as an as a user of AI and somebody of influence within an organization. You should be seeing a difference in how long it takes you to do some of the things that used to dread, or guys, don't call me, uh, you know, I'm gonna go dark because I've got to do this emergency.

15:36 And then once you start using AI, you're like, oh, that was a five-minute emergency. It's been handled. So, you know, as a user of the tools and as a listener, you're you're obviously getting some impact from this. And, you know, it brings me back to um uh the book Four Hour Work Week from Tim Ferris.

15:53 And in that book was the first time I got introduced to this concept of like, what are you gonna do to fill the void, right? If you create these systems and that sort of thing, you're gonna have this, you're gonna have uh available time. I'd say bandwidth in the business environment, but you're gonna have available time.

16:08 And that was like a big chapter in that book. And it was, it was like, you know, the idle hands of the devil's playground kind of thing, right? Like, are you gonna uh hit the bar earlier because you can? Are you gonna play video games or are you gonna go out there and actually learn to cook or take a martial arts class or whatever?

16:25 And this fits this fits in with that same kind of theme, and it's something that I've been thinking about a lot because as we go into organizations and we get their their teams tuned up and they're starting to use the tools and agents are supporting their output, automations get introduced. How like the individuals themselves, which certainly applies to you, John and the listener.

16:46 Um like if I'm no longer doing the thing and I'm like orchestrating or architecting what needs to be done, most of your employees are gonna have like that is not what they've been trained to do. Um, and as a leader, maybe you've ascended through an organization and you've kind of gotten better at it, but it's maybe that's not your your natural state of being somebody who looks at the big picture, you're just, you know, I once had a mentor told me there's nothing that brute force and sheer ignorance can't solve.

17:14 So a lot of us uh operate at that, especially when we don't have the plan and we don't have the um the clear architecture. So with these five hours, if AI has given the listener back these hours, how do you make sure that some of that time goes into the leadership, goes back to your people?

17:31 Yeah, for me, my big word of 2026 is intentionality. And so just even like you and I hanging out today, you know, Chris, we we we didn't just accidentally click on a link and join here. You know, it was communication. It was us sitting down and talking about let's having a conversation together. Same thing with coaching, same thing with one-on-one, uh, same thing with helping your employees get through, you know, their goals or whatever it might be, is just please be intentional.

17:53 I think leadership, again, I'm not talking about management, I'm talking about leadership. Making an impact on people, I think has to be intentional. It doesn't just accidentally happen. Yes, you can lead by example. Yes, you could be the first, first one in the door, last one out, take out the trash, clean the toilets, do all the servant leadership stuff, the gross stuff.

18:11 You know, you can do all those kind of things. But I just really do think you have to be intentional with it. Now, if we're using this example that AI saves five hours of work, maybe four hours of that goes back into more productivity, more output. Perhaps you're in a season where you just need to make uh payroll, you know, and you just need to pay your bills, you just need to get by.

18:28 What a great time to continue adding, you know, to that productivity. I'd really encourage folks to sit and think, are you the only one using AI in your organization, especially if you're in a leadership role? Or have you maybe done an AI stand down day and say, everyone come into the conference room.

18:43 I'm gonna show you some crazy stuff. Maybe, Chris, maybe you could do the output of three people if you just stop and see what this tool can do for you. And it's not just, I think so many folks are still using AI as a as a chat bot, as an information gatherer, as a thought partner. I think that's great.

18:59 That's awesome. If you're still in that phase of AI, please know that it will do stuff for you. If I do stuff for you, it will do some mild things for you. So if you go into a task and it's repeatable and it definitely does not need a high level of human judgment, that is a great AI agent workflow candidate uh all day long.

19:19 So uh, but to go back to answer your question, Chris, I I just really think we do have to be intentional with our time. Uh, you know, and AI can even do that for you. Maybe, maybe you say, make sure you block off this 30 minutes of my calendar, or hey, set up that meeting with Chris. I want to have that one-on-one and talk about him, you know, working hard towards that promotion to be a manager.

19:39 So yeah, just want to be very intentional with that time.

19:42 Yeah, I think that's a great takeaway for the listener. Um, you're getting all this time back. One of the stats is showing that with AI, once people get really good at it, they actually end up working more. Not doing more work, but actually working more hours, uh, which is this paradox that's kind of interesting.

20:01 So if you're listening to this, um, I I I love this idea of being intentional about setting aside some of that time. And it may start with, hey, let me show you what I'm doing with AI. Let's get together, let's I'll buy the lunch or I'll bring the donuts. Uh, let's get here a little early. I think it's a good thing.

20:18 You bring the Chick-fil-A. Yeah.

20:19 You bring the Chick-fil-A or have it cake. That's right.

20:22 Yeah. Um, no, you're so yeah, you're you're you're exactly right. I mean, every everything, um, everything you had just mentioned. So I I definitely think you have to be super intentional. Something that I'm really trying to figure out is just getting into this deep work flow state type system with using AI.

20:37 And one of the things maybe this will help someone else uh out there. So deep work is just, you know, you're locked in, there's no distractions, you're just cranking stuff out left and right. But what happens when you're using AI and you send it on a run and you need seven to ten minutes for it to do its thing and spit back out at you?

20:53 What are you doing for those seven to ten minutes? If you're like me, you go to the next tab over and you start working on another problem. Here's the problem, here's the problem with that problem is it starts getting into this context switching. So now I'm focused on this catering and growing catering sales and I'm locked in.

21:08 There goes AI. Now I'm gonna focus on scheduling. Crud, now I have to go back to catering. And so I just encourage folks if you're really trying to get into that deep state, uh, call it, or you know, flow state or deep work, try to stay in the same problem area uh that you're focused on. So even if you're running a couple different AI tabs, see if it could all be attacking the catering in this example or the schedule or whatever that might be.

21:31 Uh, but that's something that's really helped us out here in the last couple of weeks.

21:35 Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Uh I'm I'm a victim of that with Chat GPT, Claude, Grokbot all running on two or three different computers simultaneously. Um it feels like you're getting a lot done. And and there is, um, for sure, but somebody's still got to act on that stuff, right? So, and I like this, I like this idea of what do you do with that that six or seven minutes um because uh you know you can't go deep on anything in six or seven minutes, but boy, if you had some advice on what do I do, instead of open up another tab and like ride the lightning kind of thing.

22:12 Um any like what do you suggest?

22:16 Well, if I can offer just two more thoughts. So as we start to as we do our best to measure how much time AI gives back to us, you got to include the entire process. So if AI gives, let's see, I'm sorry, it a three-hour task, AI does it and it saves you two hours, but it's still you still need 30 more minutes to review all of the work to go in and tweak stuff.

22:38 It didn't just save you, you know, a certain amount, it saved you that amount of time plus the 30 minutes of review. So I think as we kind of go back and be like, wow, that did it so fast, well, how much more time did you need to check its work? Strongly, strongly encourage people, please keep a human.

22:51 You have to keep a human in the loop at some point. Yeah. But never ever can we get to a point where something happens and we say, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's not my fault. AI did it. Oh, I'm not responsible. AI told me to do it. If anyone in your organization or you yourself are doing that, you need to pause.

23:06 That is the exact opposite of what ownership should be with this technology. Someone needs to be uh the owner of this. And the other thing I'd say, Chris, just with when it comes uh in terms of time, if AI saves you an hour of time, was it a full 60 minutes in a row or was it 12, six minute blocks, you know, in a row?

23:24 Or did I do that math right? Uh 12 five minutes, five minute blocks uh in a row. So basically, is it you know, is it fragmented spaces and you add it up and call it an hour, or did it really save you a whole hour of time? So I think as we start trying to measure the time before. Before using AI and after using AI, I think you really have to take a step back and think about how much extra time did it take to review?

23:46 Uh, and was all the time returned back to you this capacity dividend. Was it fragmented or was it all one big group at a time? And one more as a bonus. Did it did using AI for some of these systems and tasks, did it create more work for somebody else? So maybe for me, I save two hours of my day. It's fantastic.

24:06 Let's send it over to Chris in accounting. And now Chris in accounting is like, I have multiple more hours of work. What are you talking about? And so again, just think through your entire system of systems, if it truly saves time uh across, you know, from start to finish.

24:20 So I want to I guess kind of shift gears once again. Um there's there's certainly a difference in a way that uh a tenured, seasoned CEO is using generative AI and the new college graduate first job. And I don't have a lot of insight into how you know a team 25 years or younger are using these tools. You've got an entire workforce of those working working with you.

24:55 Um so I want to just kind of ask, like based on what you're seeing, and I know that it's not like necessarily exclusively knowledge work that they're doing or anything like that, but what what's their position on it? Like, are they comfortable using it for work? Does it require training?

25:07 Yeah, great, great question. I'll I'll caveat this. I'm not sure for my industry and my role right now, we are um we're we're in the front lines of hospitality. Our team does not sit behind a laptop. We don't have desks, we don't have cubicles, and that's one of the reasons I called the book frontline AI leadership.

25:25 I think there's great AI books, I think there's great leadership and AI leadership books. But how do you do it in a frontline AI leadership where not all of us are sitting behind laptops? I will say for most of our, we we don't try to hire young adults. We just happen to hire young adults. Uh Chick-fil-A or even quick service restaurant industry tends to be a little bit of a younger crowd, uh, at least in my experience.

25:46 Folks, it's their first job, maybe second job, working through college, those kind of things. Uh these young adults are definitely using AI. There's no doubt about it. Are they using AI to make nuggets and waffle fries and and you know, freshman's lemonade? In our case, they're we're not. Uh, me and my leaders are doing a lot of that kind of at the very high level, running the business, working on the business, not necessarily in the business.

26:08 I will say though, I do think there's a huge shift from if anyone has thought about or used SEO search engine optimization for your business, take a second and now shift over to ask engine optimization or AEO. So it what we see is a lot of our young adults, I'm grabbing my phone here, instead of you know going into Google and doing a search, they're gonna grab their phone.

26:29 I'm traveling to Miami this weekend with my family. Give me three places I should go eat. Now, what does it give you? Is it a Google result result or is it chat? Is it Claude? Is it Manis? Is it Grokba? Like, is it, you know, are they recommending you in your business? So if that's something for your listeners, if they've not actually sat and thought about, I would take some time and do one of those ask engine optimizations and figure out are you the recommended bank or construction company or private equity, you know, company?

26:57 Or what about like, hey, I'm looking for Chris, Truth in Lending, what are some of the best AI business podcasts that are out there? Give Chris an email. That's how we connected. You pop up on there. Great. I mean, great, you know, kudos to you, but you guys are doing great. And so a big part of that is managing your online reputation.

27:15 So whether it's Google Reviews or Yelp or Chris's website referencing me and my website referencing Chris, uh, there's just a whole science to it. It's just a whole different, you know, it's kind of a wild, wild west right now. So I'd encourage your users, if you're not asked some of those questions, try to do it.

27:30 And the whole reason I got on that topic is because so much of our young people these days are genuinely going to AI first, even for some of the most like basic or simple questions. Let's let's ask the robots, you know, what they can do. Of course, there's plenty of memes, there's plenty of funny videos and silly pictures and all that kind of stuff.

27:48 Uh, but today's young adult is very technology heavy. I don't think anyone would be super surprised about that. Uh, but I would say there's a great opportunity to use AI to really reach some of those young adults. So for us, any of the tools, any of the prompts, any of the embedded agents that we have, my team has embraced it.

28:06 Uh, and there's that part's not been not been an issue. We just really, really have to be cautious using AI, especially if you have access to sensitive information, social security numbers, credit card, guest information, all of that. Just a reminder, maybe it's the first time you heard it. Please be super safe as you use these tools and don't insert anything, a medical, you know, situation, uh, immigration status, that kind of stuff.

28:29 Don't put that into the tool. The tool doesn't need that information. So definitely sanitize it as much as you can.

28:36 You know, and you you mentioned that you happen to be in hospitality, um, but the same thing would apply to a lot of our client base construction and manufacturing, right? They're getting younger folks and and they're on the floor or in the field. So I'd be curious to I'm gonna start asking that question when we're on site with clients.

28:54 How is your team in the field using it? So okay, I want to shift gears now to uh discussing the book. Um I love the title, Frontline AI Leadership again. Uh listeners, you're listening to this on Monday, October 26th. The book is coming out tomorrow, but you could go today and we'll give you all that information at the end of the thing.

29:12 So a coup a couple of questions. First off, um, it sounds like you were able to get the book done pretty quickly. And normally that's not a at least from what I caught in our conversation. Um how did you get it done so fast?

29:28 Yeah, so for me, I I've been using some version of AI for at least the last two years since we even opened the restaurant. And then over the last call it six to eight months, really trying to figure out what is agentic AI. And if I can't, just a caveat. Um, I have a little bit of a commute to get to work.

29:44 It takes about an hour. So I try to use that hour very effectively. I listen to podcasts, uh, which, you know, it's just it's just such an awesome way that you and your colleagues, you know, be able to just share information and just think. So whether it's podcasts or audiobooks or some of those kind of things.

29:58 And I was listening to someone uh on a podcast, and they said, if you're still using, uh, you know, I'll be candid, they'll say, if you're still using Chat GPT, you must be a noob. You're a beginner, uh, you need to get over to this new thing called Claude and Cowork, and it can do agents for you. And anyway, it was it was a comment that kind of offended me.

30:18 And this is many months ago, uh, long before kind of where we're at in terms of where we're recording today. But I remember he said that you're a noob if you're still using the tool that I just spent a couple hours using, and I felt offended. And I was like, wait a second, what is that guy talking about?

30:32 Like, what is an agent? Like, I want to learn more, I want to lean into this a little bit. And so it, I got over my ego a little bit and said, all right, let me check out some of these other tools. And I started getting into the Claude and the co-works and some of those type things. And so I'm getting back to your question is that for two years and really heavily the last six to eight months, I've been really leaning into this AI stuff.

30:53 But then with a twist at the end, just trying to use AI not just for management, but for leadership. And the more I talked about using AI for leadership and for significance, not just for success, a lot of my peers, whether it was at a Bible study, a business group, fellow Chick-fil-A operators, uh, just different groups I meet with, it was just kind of one of those, like, I never thought about that.

31:13 That's an interesting approach. I've never even thought to do a, you know, a prompt like that to try to who is unrecognized on my team and could use some encouragement. Like, who has ever used a prompt like that? And so the more I started talking about this topic, the more it started getting some traction and it felt like a niche.

31:30 And so using AI, again, as my thought partner, uh, I just said, Do you think there's an opportunity to put some of the stuff we've learned and put into a book? And so it searched, you know, did its thing and said, Yeah, I do think there is an opportunity. But specifically for you, John, you're in a frontline industry.

31:47 Folks don't have desks, they don't have cubicles. We're in the hospitality industry, we're in the service industry. Uh, and you're also an actual Chick-fil-A uh operator. You're a business owner. So the credibility there, I think there's an opportunity to say I'm not just an academic person who's putting together some thoughts.

32:03 This is actual, you know, lessons learned in real life trying to run, you know, a multi-million dollar business with 90 people. And in some cases, we'll serve, you know, thousands of people uh per day. Like it's it's just very busy. So I think there's a credibility opportunity there. And so with AI, I think it's very interesting for folks who are familiar with ghostwriting, right?

32:23 So maybe a senior executive, celebrity, whoever, they talk with someone, they share their stories and they go back and forth. And that's kind of how they write the book. But I think you can also use AI to do that. Hey, here's some of the leadership lessons I've learned. Here's how I define leadership versus management.

32:38 How do we do this? How do we do that? What do the research say on some of these topics? So uh for the last few months, I've just been really, really grinding into this, putting in hundreds of hours to really just try to get together a solid, concise piece of work that I think will be really helpful for people.

32:53 As you mentioned, Chris, I'm not going to make any money for this. If I talk about trying to live a life of significance, you know, if book sales uh potentially could be that opportunity to try to help my employees and make a few bucks for them. So my goal is just to help people right now. As I mentioned earlier, if folks get up on stage uh at my funeral one day in the eulogy and just said, I read John's book or I heard him on that podcast and he helped me out, uh, that's a win in my book.

33:19 And I'll tell you, man, like uh I've been uh I guess an entrepreneur my entire life, but I've always kind of shared lessons learned, right? Just in a conversation at the networking thing, whatever. And once you get this book out, it's gonna surprise you. Five, ten years later, somebody's gonna, you're gonna meet somebody and they'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know your book.

33:40 Actually, I got it 10 years ago, and it, you know, something in there changed the direction of my life. So you've got I mean, I'm sure you've seen it in your military service, but um, in the the business side of things, uh, you'll be surprised the the miles that the message will travel. It's a pretty cool thing when it comes back to you and like it was such a small effort, but it had a big impact on folks.

34:01 So um well, Chris, you you mentioned the the four-hour work week book. I mean, how long ago was that written? And I don't know if you can see my screen. I don't know if you can see my screen over my left shoulder, but there it is right there. It's on my bookshelf. So um yeah, it's just very cool. And that is very specifically when we were doing this ghostwriting.

34:19 It's just I don't want to write a book that's a list of prompts because we all know that a new language model is gonna come out tomorrow and everything's gonna be outdated. It's just how do we write in this framework? Uh, and that framework that's gonna, you know, live on through all these different language models and tools that pop up.

34:33 So that was a very intentional approach to the book.

34:37 Okay. Well, let's talk about what's in the book.

34:40 Good stuff. So, in terms of in terms of a framework, uh, three things we put together. So machines do, right? AI does the stuff for us, managers decide. That's the accountability piece. And then also, and then leaders develop. So it just kind of walks you through the three steps of that, a little bit of a crawl, walk, run, uh type process.

34:57 So just to assess someone at the very beginning and just say, hey, if you get these five hours back in your work week, what are you doing with that time? What are you doing with that capacity dividend? Are you just doing more management stuff, or are you going into leadership, or do you not even know?

35:10 Which maybe that's even the question right there is you're right, it is saving time, but I'm still working 40 hours a week. I'd caution some of the leaders out there. Unfortunately, I think there's some people that are gonna take 40 hours of a work week, actually accomplish it in 35 hours, and then stretch it out to 40 and just kind of waste some more time there.

35:28 So I do think, especially if you're in a salary type role, I just gotta get to Friday at 5 p.m. and clock, you know, clock out for the day and get my full paycheck. Are they still doing 40 hours of work even with AI? Is it the same 40 hours, or are they now able to do a lot more productivity? So just pause and think about that.

35:46 But this first section is gonna be machines due. And that just kind of walks through all the different things that that AI is able to do. And then also how do you do it in a safe way? What task should you choose to actually have AI be a piece of? And so if it's something that requires a lot of human judgment, you want to definitely have the human in the loop a heck of a lot more, even to a point where it's like, Chris, this is not uh a candidate to be replaced by AI.

36:10 This definitely needs a human to be a part of it, or maybe it's something that requires very little judgment and it's very repeatable, it's very verifiable. That might be an excellent candidate to have AI do the majority of it. And then we move to this next section, which is gonna be the managers decide.

36:26 And I cannot stress enough that, like, yes, we use the term a human in a loop, but ownership, I think, is such a big piece of what is gonna go missing here over time, and not say this AI made me do it, AI said this, AI said that. It's just no, this plan did not go well. Chris, you are being held accountable for this regardless of tone.

36:48 You choose the way you do. And what you cannot say is point to Claude Cowork and be the robot told me to do it. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, don't, yeah, we cannot do that. So I just think that's a very intentional conversation is let's talk about what tasks we're gonna automate with AI, and then what is the output we're looking for?

37:05 How do we measure it? And who is gonna be held accountable for this decision? Because you're not, you're sure as heck not gonna hold a robot accountable. And then the last piece is the framework, which is leaders develop, and that's where we go into let's pause on some of the management stuff and see if we can get over and get into the leadership stuff.

37:22 And that's where you start getting into coaching, that's when you start getting into uh, you know, readiness, uh, leadership development, one-on-ones. One of my favorite things I've built in the last couple of weeks, Chris, is this goals database. I have a goal outside of the restaurant. I'm sorry, I have a goal of for every single employee.

37:39 I call them team members, every single team member, it's a goal they're working on outside of the restaurant. And it's been fascinating. And so, how does AI prompt me as the leader to go in and help these individuals accomplish their goal? For example, just this morning, we had someone who had no idea about some of the scholarships that are out there to go to college.

38:01 Oh, by the way, they weren't born and raised in this country. We don't even speak the same language, Chris. So AI is helping me translate to talk about these scholarships so that they can go to class and start taking classes on Monday in their native language at the local Miami Dade College. He is thrilled.

38:18 He is so excited. I'll tell you this: I didn't know that class was offered. I didn't know it was offered in his language, and I definitely didn't know about the scholarships that were out there. You know what did know is AI. And AI said, John, here's some information for you to go into this one-on-one and help coach this young man to accomplish his goal.

38:35 He wants to be a mechanical engineer in the United States. That's so cool. I'm super thrilled about that. Uh, we have people that want to be police officers. How can AI inform me to sit down and help coach them towards? Have you read the recent statutes? Have you been working out and exercising? Have you even talked to one of our local police officers?

38:54 We have a wonderful relationship with the local cops. Let's do breakfast with a police officer, which we are doing next week. And you can ask them real questions. And it's a great partnership. What do you think this does for the retention of our team? Right. And so before you go to that other job that might pay a few more bucks or it's a little bit closer to home or whatever it might be, I guarantee because I hear it, some of our team is saying, I can make a few more bucks over there, but I feel like they really care about me over here.

39:24 And what most of them are aware of, but don't know the inner workings necessarily, is how much I'm using AI for leadership. And so I lay out a lot of these lessons learned uh in the book as we go through the leaders develop, you know, type process. So um it's just been it's been really fascinating. And so I'm I'm even right now today, as soon as we hang up this phone call, I'm probably gonna continue working on this leadership dashboard.

39:48 How cool would it be to log in? And in my face is not wow how many nuggets did we sell, how many caterings are tomorrow morning, what was our labor cost last hour? But in my face is John, you need to check in on these two people because they're going through a really difficult time. You need to check in on these three people because they all are working towards becoming a shift leader and you need to check in with them.

40:09 This guy's a new hire over here. She doesn't know, you know, how to get uh we just had a young lady who uh couldn't, she doesn't have her prescription for her eyeglasses because it's back in her home country. So how do you where do I go to go get a new eye exam? You know what I mean? I mean, I know these are very random examples, but this is real life.

40:29 And this is what we have a chance to do as leaders is to really just make an impact on the people that we lead.

40:36 Yeah. So that framework was AI does, managers decide, leaders develop.

40:44 That's right. Machines do, managers decide, leaders develop. And so the book walks you through each of those steps. It brings in some of the leadership experience, whether it's in the Army or at West Point, and then it definitely brings in a lot of the lessons learned. For example, one of the things I'm still struggling with, and Chris, if you or one of your viewers can help me out, yeah, using AI for scheduling.

41:04 Now, I know some people are like, John, that's super easy. But what I'm talking about is we cannot turn our employees into mathematical numbers that get calculated and a schedule spits out. I have spent so much time trying to figure out how do I optimize a schedule that starts slow, ramps up to lunch, comes down a little for dinner, ramps up for dinner, and then closes out the day.

41:26 But also in a very uh not only efficient, but very effective. I mean, there's just so many inputs to it. And I've run it and run it and run it. And that's one of those things that uh the human does for our business. The human does the majority of the work and AI checks it at the end and provides some insights.

41:44 For example, I might have accidentally scheduled someone for a Clopin. That's a close to open. You close the restaurant late one night, you go in early the next morning. That's probably not good for morale, right? So, hey, John, pause. You have a clopin, fix it, got it. Maybe I scheduled someone to work from uh nine to five, except it's 9 a.m.

42:03 to 5 a.m. Wait a second. That's a you know, that's a uh typo there. I need to fix it. So that's a great example in my business is the human does the majority of the work and then AI checks it. I hope to flip that around here pretty uh pretty soon, but you're gonna run into failures. I please encourage folks, do not just fully blindly accept whatever AI gives you as the answer.

42:27 Uh I don't think that's the you know, that's definitely not the right way to do it, is just pause, even do a follow-up prompt and say the biggest critic of this response, what would they say? Have AI kind of argue against itself. Um and so, anyways, I'll pause there, but uh that's been really helpful for us.

42:46 Nice, these are all great tips. Um and uh what would be like uh another part of the book that you would say was a big part of the thesis behind your positions on AI and using it in the leadership.

42:58 Yeah, that's it. I I think I think just definitely, you know, keeping um, you know, keeping the human in the loop. We already we already talked about a lot of that stuff. One of the opportunities I feel like is really, really cool is how many times do we have a chance to lead an individual, like have a human moment together.

43:17 So, Chris, uh, let me give you an example. Let's say you and I are about to have a difficult conversation. Maybe you don't know about it, but you're actually you have not been really performing very well, you've been late to work, you've been really slow, whatever the issue might be. I know we're gonna have a difficult conversation.

43:33 How about this? How about I have that practice difficult conversation with AI? What a cool way to use it is to say, and I don't have to get into your name, right? I'm definitely not putting your social security number, but I'll just say employee A. Or maybe instead of Chris, I'll say Chuck. I'm having an issue with Chuck.

43:50 Here's what I know. These are the facts. Uh, this is what my gut tells me. What do you think? And it might come back with some more information. And it might say, John, you are way too quick to dive into problem solving. You need to pause and ask Chris more open-ended questions. And maybe you'll find out that Chris, the bus schedule, the bus route he used to take to get to work just changed.

44:13 It doesn't pick him up at 6 a.m. anymore. It picks him up at 6.20 a.m., which he actually is going to be late now for his 6.30, you know, appointment. You wouldn't have known that if you just jumped right into, you know, Chris, slap your hand, get out of here. And again, so how can we have how can we prep for these maybe good conversations, but definitely some of the more challenging conversations.

44:33 How can we kind of prep for that in the privacy of just you in this AI? And I think that's a really cool use case. So that way when you step into the actual conversation, I feel much more confident. I'm I'm much uh slower to respond, maybe a lot more quicker to listen, if that's the right. I'm gonna listen more than I speak, is what I'm trying to say.

44:53 And so I think that's a really cool way to use AI for leadership is to help prep for those moments. And please, if some of the viewers and listeners don't take anything else away from this, do not let AI replace the human moments. You cannot do that. Do not send Chris a note that says, thank you for being the best employee.

45:13 Your hard work and dedication doesn't go unnoticed. We're so thankful you're on our team sent by Claude AI. With a big dash in the middle. That's right. How impersonal is that? It's like getting it's like getting the 50 automatic birthday cards you get, right, from these companies that you used to do seven years ago.

45:31 It means nothing. There's no passion in there. Now, however, maybe AI can draft a comment for me to send to you and say, that's right, I did forget. Get Chris's birthdays today. Thank you so much. Let me tweak this a little bit. Let me send it off to him. So again, I think those are a couple ways that AI can really help us become better leaders.

45:50 Very cool. Well, I I'll tell you, this has been um I'd like to have more conversations like this because I um I tend to be much more the like the analytical, the problem solver, and that sort of thing. Not at the expense. I care about the team. I care about our clients and the listeners and and everything.

46:07 Um, but I might want to set AI to give me or Grokbot or whichever agent I'm using for the day to give me some reminders that um don't forget. You know, I I guess I learned this and and I used to be in digital marketing. It said behind every click is a person, kind of thing. So I I guess I just need to remember that.

46:24 So the book is coming out again uh tomorrow. Uh you can go to John Harmeling. We'll have that in the uh show notes as well. Johnharmaling.com. Uh John, where else can can people find out more about kind of your position and where you're taking things with AI and your career?

46:41 Yeah, thank and thank you for offering that. I appreciate it. Um to make it a little bit easier if folks are listening, frontlineai leadership.com will redirect you uh to my website. My last name's not super uh super easy to remember as you're driving down the road listening to this. But frontlineai leadership.com, uh, you could order the book.

46:59 Please, I genuinely value feedback. This is not a money play. This is just to try to help people. If it helped you at all, like please let me know. If it doesn't make sense, please let me know. Like whatever that feedback is, that's that's a lot of the value I get. Uh best way to, you know, even reach me is even through LinkedIn.

47:15 We got some of the you know the content that's on there, as well as just a quick way to reach me. Email, phone number. I'd like to think I'm pretty much an open book. My personal cell phone is on the website, which is good to build those relationships. It's bad for all the spam call I've gotten today.

47:30 I think I'm up to 27 spam calls today. Um so I genuinely just want to help people. That's my goal at this season of life. And so just reach out to me. Let's connect, let's talk through this and struggle through it together. If you have, you being the the readers and the viewers and the listeners out there, if you have some cool ways you've used AI to help you be a better leader, I am all ears.

47:52 I would love to learn from you. So please reach out.

47:55 Awesome. Great show. Okay, all this stuff is going to be in the show notes. Um, I want to thank everybody that that uh has listened to this. If you got something out of it and you think that um you you know some peers who could benefit from this distinction between management and leadership, uh please forward them this episode.

48:13 I won't tell them that you did it so they don't know that that you think they need some help on the leadership. But I love the concept a lot. And I think that in the you know, the age of AI, one of the things that that I keep hearing is that the authentic authenticity, the the non-synthetic moments, the in real life events, like that's what people are craving.

48:32 So um, if you can still leverage AI as a leader, as a manager as well, um, and use it to open up some time to have those IRL moments, I think that's a big win. So um again, thank you everybody for listening. This has uh been Using AI at Work. We'll be back next week with another amazing episode. Thanks for tuning in to Using AI at Work.

48:53 Don't forget to subscribe for more conversations about how to use AI at work. And a special thank you to our sponsor, Chief AI Officer, for empowering businesses with AI education and training. Visit their website for free AI readiness assessment and AI strategy guide to help you get started using AI at work.

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