Staci Thomas, you are a professor of practice at the Olin Business School at Washington University. Thank you for coming in today. And I'll say as a graduate of the Olin Business School, it is the best business school. Thank you for having me. I wholeheartedly agree. I do think it business school and I have the I have the luxury of teaching in a couple of our programs so yeah it's a fantastic place to work. Have you been a professor at other schools? I have not been a professor at other schools. I've actually had kind of a circuitous career path if you will. I started my career actually as a translator in the Air Force and that kind of once I once I left the Air Force I morphed that into a career in marketing and international marketing, right? Because I wanted to be able to use that. - Translator Air Force. - Yes. - What language? - Mandarin. - Mandarin Chinese. - Yes. - Okay, and how did you become so proficient in Mandarin Chinese? - So, the military has a school in Monterey, California, luxury, you know, living in the lap of luxury in Monterey, California. It's the Presidio, the Presidio of Monterey, and at that school, they teach most of the world languages, right? You don't get to choose which language you're going into. You have to take a test that's called the Defense Language Aptitude Battery. And based on your scores on the test, they assign you to a language based on your skill set. Were you in the Air Force? Yes, I was. So we got some stuff done, Pat. So how did you end up in the Air Force? Tell me about that. You know, I always wanted to be in the military. It was when I was a kid, I had two or three little career paths in my mind. You know, everybody says, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I never really knew, but I knew I loved culture. I loved language. I still really embrace those two things. There's something that I'm just very passionate about. It's a hobby as much as anything. And so, you know, even as a kid, I would read, I loved fairy tales from other countries, right? I really just wanted to understand how culture functioned and it kind of became clear that language is such a huge element of culture. You can't understand a culture if you don't know the language. - So, or did you find that maybe their fairy tales are maybe different, but the morals are common? - The morals are pretty common for fairy tales are actually super similar, Right, you know the character changes but the plight of the character is always kind of the same But nonetheless, it was you know between that and just I don't know I had this drive for maybe I don't know if it's a discipline or structure or something that That I really I like I'm comfortable in that space And so I always wanted to be in the military and I knew when I walked in the door to sign the papers I said I'm not doing this unless I can be a translator What did your folks think when you're like, I'm going to the Air Force a very supportive they were very support Are you from a military family at any level not at all? Okay, not at all You know, I my grandfather was in World War two Okay, but yeah other than that. No not at all from a military family It was something that was just me running rogue. I guess And I think yeah, that's there's probably actually a little bit of that running rogue, if you will, call it that. That's just kind of, it was, I was ready to go. It was, you know, 18 years old and I'm like, let's do this. - Okay, so you went high school to Air Force? - High school to Air Force and I went into, I did some studies while I was in the Air Force, but then I didn't complete my degree until it was out of the Air Force and I was working in marketing. And so yeah, so I was working full time, going to school at night and then international marketing just kind of morphed into marketing corporate communications. I was working for industrial companies, industrial and product manufacturers, and I moved into biotech. And eventually it was kind of like, I really want to use my language again. I want to use that Mandarin again. And so I went back to school. By this point I had a master's degree, but I wanted to maybe teach in some respect. I didn't want to be an elementary school teacher, even a high school teacher. I wanted to work with adult learners, but-- - You wanted to go pro. - I didn't know that I wanted to go pro. I didn't think that. I didn't know if I wanted to put in the work to go pro, if you would, right, to be a producer. It's a lot of work. But what I did do was think, maybe just as, you know, like a hobby, I'll volunteer. Do ESL or something. But to finish that degree, I had to do a teaching practicum, and in that practicum, because of my background, they placed me at the engineering school at Washington University, right? Because they have a huge Chinese student base, and because I had this background in industrial product manufacturing and biotech. All right, so it made the most sense to them, at least at that time. And then from there, I just kind of made the jump over to the business school and I've been there. I've been there now for 12 years. Okay. So you, fair to say from, you know, on your way to becoming a professor, you didn't really know you were going to be a professor. I didn't. And so what do you think? How's being a professor? It's amazing. Right. And I think the reason that I love it is because I feel like I'm actually, I am doing something different every day. I get to work with so many different people that have so many strengths and neuroses. - Right. - Right, and the challenges are kind of never -ending, but the scope of conversation is incredible. And I think that that's probably one of the things that I love about it, is I love learning, and I kind of mentioned that when I was a kid, I just really of this process of learning, whether it's about other cultures or within that's, I'm hell on trivia night, I'll give you that. So if you got trivia night, I'm your person of call. - Okay, you got a ringer here. Did you enjoy, like when you were in school, did you enjoy learning the assigned work or did you enjoy learning what interested you? - Yes and yes, I enjoyed doing the assigned work as long as I understood the purpose behind the assignment. - Okay, so as - To qualify. - Yes, and to give you a really good example of that, I remember it was, I think it was algebra two, and I had a teacher who, she was teaching us logarithms, and I remember it so distinctly, 'cause you know, and this was back in the '80s, and we had a chart in the back of the book, right? You had to reference this chart to complete the formula. And I raised my hand in class, and I legitimately asked the question, 'cause I wanted to know, I'm like, how do you actually use This yes, because you know as we used to say back then you're not gonna have a calculator in your pocket all the time Yeah, they're way off But I was we're not gonna have this chart in her pocket all the time What's the practical application and she sent me to the principal? Because the principal had the answer or because she didn't care if you know, she thought it was insulin Yeah, to ask okay, what's the practical application because it was just do the work. Did you ever get the answer to that? I never did get the answer. I still don't think I know the answer. Of like, Logmarythic, the only thing I can think of is the shape of a curve. Right. You know, the rate at which something increases or declines. And this is not something that I use every day. And I think, you know, back then I didn't understand what's the point. How often do you use it? I don't. Yeah. Yeah. I don't. It's The only time I use it is when I'm charting something, it's like, do you want to see this in a logarithmic rate of increase versus exponential? Right. And I'm like, no, that's too much, and I'll take it back down to exponential or linear. But with that in mind, all of that being said, it really has translated that little moment in my life has kind of translated to a teaching philosophy that I have, And that is that anything that I'm producing or anything that I'm asking my students to produce has to be something that they can apply today in the real world. Right? That's a really good philosophy. Well, you know, because I think there are students that leave school because they're thinking, you know, this is stupid. I don't need to be doing this. I could be out earning money. I've got, I've got enough knowledge to go do that. I don't need to kind of stick out this last bit. - Well, and let me give you this, right? You can go on YouTube right now today and watch a lecture from an MIT professor. - Yeah. - And any topic that you want. And so, you know, everybody's questioning the value of higher education, especially at the cost of higher education. And I do tend to ask myself every day, what am I bringing to the table that you can't get on YouTube, right? But then the secondary element of that is I actually did the math on what a single class costs for undergraduates. And so my mindset is always, is this a $300 day? So every student, every class they attend is roughly $300. Yeah. Well, that's not nothing. And - Those days add up, and I guess as you're talking, I'm thinking, yeah, that's insane. And I'd paid for all that stuff in business school. And I guess what it does primarily is it's easy to not sit down and watch YouTube on how to do something academic, to listen to lecture. School does, one of the things it does is it's like a trainer. It's like if I've now got a time and a place where I need to be. Yeah but therein lies a little bit of an issue that I'm seeing with our students and that is they don't know that they have a time or place that they need to show up right and then the question I asked them is okay this is a $300 day are you okay with skipping this? Yeah it sounds like you're sort of on the top side of a bigger issue when he's right there. - It is. - And so what do you teach then? - So I teach a course in management communication and that's with our undergrads. And that's a big course. It's a monster with a lot of moving parts. We have every undergraduate business student asked to take the course. That one has a focus on how to write, public speaking. And we also have a big career track in that. And so we're trying to prep the students for the workforce. And I'll give you an example of some of the things that we're seeing there. And that is because it is so difficult to find strong professional talent, we have recruiters that are really looking at our students sophomore freshman year. And so if you want to go into investment banking, for example, you're really starting that process as a freshman, and you don't know when when you're 18 years old, you shouldn't know. - Wow, so you got scouts out, it's just like professional sports. - It really is, but what we're hearing too is, and this is 82 % of recruiting organizations are telling us students lack professionalism. - What is professionalism? - So within the context of my course, to look at that as, yes, you have to show up. Yes, you have to be physically and mentally present. - That's a little bar right there. - It seems like a little-- - Physically and mentally present means I'm just listening. - You know, well, but listening is such a thing now, right? You know, when you live in a world where everything is just short snippets, when people don't even process information unless it's 30 seconds, right? Now I'll ask you this question. You go on social media, you look at a post, it's got a video. What's the first thing you look at before you decide you're gonna click that video? - How do I use social media? - Most people, look at, how long is video? - Yeah, people don't read. - How long is video? Yeah, and that's, you'll see at the top of, you know, you go online, you look at an article and it'll tell you at the top, it's a four minute read. - Oh yeah, it does, doesn't it? Right because we just don't have the attention span that we used to and so it's a challenge in the classroom Not just to get them there, but to keep them Mentally engaged do we not have the attention span or do we have so many competing priorities at any given moment? Yes, and yes, okay. Tell me about that. Yeah So our attention span is definitely shorter than it ever used to be and you've heard the phrase right? It's shorter than a goldfish Yeah, which is that - Which is pathetically short. - It's pathetically short. You know, and most of the time, it's like at any point in history, most of the time people listen to respond and not to understand. And so that's something that we are really coaching students on within the class is, okay, now I want you to look at me and talk to me about what I just said, how you interpret that, how are you gonna synthesize these two concepts? - That can't be done. - You would be so surprised at the response I get. And it's, you know, or the blank looks of, I'm not sure how to do this. And so it's really a coaching process. - Let me interrupt you quickly, which is then what's their objective when they are at school? - So I would love to say it's to learn. - Okay, but you don't feel like you can say that. - I think for some students, it's definitely to learn. and I could tell you what students those are in my classroom almost every semester. Within the first couple weeks, nah, two weeks. - Okay, so you'll benefit, benefit of the doubt them for a couple weeks. You're like, I knew I was right about that. Okay, got it. - But then I have others because again, this is, when I say it's a big course, I mean, it's a very time consuming course. It's the biggest one we have at it's four credit, so they're with me four hours a week. And I would argue some of them, the minute they come in, it's just about how do I get the job? I want the job. And that is part of the course. So I help them get the job, but they'll ignore kind of the rest of the content. You know, we get to teamwork elements and they're difficult on a Um, they're not applying the previous course concepts. They're not at all thoughtful about how they're, how they're communicating with their teammates or whether or not they're contributing. In a way that's visible. And I think, you know, you have this dilemma. Some students go, well, I gave, I gave them so many ideas. They didn't use any of them. And I'm like, yeah, but look at all of these deliverables that you didn't touch. Yeah. Your focus seen on a small part. And I interrupted you as I just did again but I asked you a professionalism you said okay you got to be there and you got to be physically present mentally present and what else is like if you're talking to your class professionalism is. Listening, asking questions, being coachable. You don't know everything. Look at me and say you don't know everything and that's actually really interesting because you know they're teenagers And I guess teenagers have always thought they know everything. But the number of students that will go into an internship and say, I have the idea that's gonna save this company, is really surprising to me. And so I think humility is-- - That happens? - That happens a lot. - They show up with their manifesto for the company. - Very much so. I have my million dollar idea, let's do it, right? Or this process is broken, let me fix it. And the issue there is really kind of in a way comes down to audience orientation. You don't have the context, you don't know your audience, you don't know what the background of this issue is, but you know they come in with, you know, I know how to do a linear regression and some financial modeling, so I'm gonna change the world. Wow, that would that, I guess, is that unaware to do that? Or is it inexperience? I think it's, or is it hubris? I was gonna say hubris, but I didn't want to be, I don't know, hubris takes us, that's why I got to awareness. It is awareness itself and other awareness. And I think broadly speaking, our students, we're kids now, I'll just say kids, people don't have the real -world experiences of just simply interacting with others that we used to have back in the 1900s. It's an interesting thing. I mean, if you turn off the internet for a year, people will be walking out of their houses like they're coming out of bomb shelters and they'd be like, Oh, it hurts. And like they in for you know, at all the neighbors are sitting on the stoop. They're talking, they're learning, maybe they pick up, sweep up the street a little bit and all that stuff that, you know, born in, I was born in the seventies and, you know, all that stuff that I remember. But the, the other question I had a follow up is why is it so hard to listen? - I think it's so hard to listen now because we expect to be entertained when we listen. - Okay. - Right, if it's not entertaining or we can't immediately apply it, there's another option, right? I can move on to the other option. And so, you know, if I imagine students that are sitting in my class and I'm not engaging them, They have a laptop or phone right there in front of them and they know they have homework They have them they have a hundred other things that are on their mind So just break that stuff out right then and there and all the time doesn't drive you nuts It drives me nuts. It's a constant. How do you not pick that up and just snap it over your knee? I am pushing for it to be a Corporate or a policy. I was gonna say corporate, but yes policy no electronics Unless you're allowed it now It's really difficult to teach a course sometimes because you need electronics to teach it. You want them to have their laptop to do the work. - Yeah, and we'll touch on this later, which is you are trying to put them in a real world scenario as much as you can. I mean, it happens in the corporate world where, especially on these Zoom calls now, or teams or whatever you have, where somebody's there, they're present and all that, but they kind of got some stuff going on on the side, right? - They do, and you know, and it's, what's really interesting is when I was younger if somebody told me if I was if I had a behavior that was unacceptable and somebody said stop that right which could come from anywhere could have come from the neighbor up the street stop doing that right we all work together you respected pretty much any adult or any authority who gave you that kind of feedback without question nearly without question yeah and so but what I'll see now is I give them that feedback and they stop but as soon as I look away they're back at it and I find this to be just a really interesting phenomenon because it's not about there seems to be less concern about whether or not a person finds it disrespectful right like do I find it disrespectful that you got on your phone so they're a little confident a little too soon yes But I also think too, it's just, I feel like there's just such an enormous lack of other awareness and the value of others. And you think about it, it's like, okay, young people don't wanna have kids anymore. Young people want to work remotely. All of these things that it's just, okay, I wanna isolate, isolate, isolate. And you really can't. You have to be able to interact with others. And again, this is exactly what our employers are telling us. I need them to be able, I know they can do the math. I know they can work Excel. I know I can train them in this. I have the accounting software. I need them to have a conversation with me. I need to be able to talk to a client. Yeah. - I mean, you have a few more years of life experience than I do, but we probably heard the same thing growing up. - Two, two years, maybe. - Maybe, we're both in our 30s. And so, So we're not we I'm not well, maybe we're not You heard likely growing up that you know those kids who not to use computers are gonna run the world And they kind of weren't wrong at that time and place right, but it's inflecting or Possibly there's a part there's a part inversion going on right now Which is look especially that with that advent of AI, or we've always had AI, but in its current form, AI, you know, the guy who can make an Excel sheet spin is not as important anymore. Not nearly as important. So it's, what I'm pointing out ultimately in a really long and sort of clumsy way is that these things are starting to flip flop, which is now your people person who can, you know, sit there and have a meaningful conversation, look someone in the eye, stay on point, and respectfully listen to, even if they don't want to, by the way, and they have it, they're introspective, meaning that afterwards they could be like, okay, I hated every minute of that, but maybe they were right. Well, and you ask yourself, what did you learn from it, right? Every conversation has a lesson. Even if it's a negative conversation. There's still a lesson, you know, you have the opportunity to reflect on how you managed that. - Yes. - Right? Or what did you hope to get out of the conversation in the first place? This is something I can consistently talking to my students about when they start rattling off and I'm like, okay, but what do you need? Why are you going into this conversation? Why are you writing that email? What is it you want to achieve? Are you hoping to persuade, to inform them, to build a relationship, what is it that you want to achieve? And I think, you know, that helps quite a bit for them to just proactively go, okay, what is my action? - Had they thought about that before? I imagine you get like a thousand yard stare when you ask that question. - I do, I do. And so, you know, and sometimes I'll see this when they'll come to my office hours and they're upset about something. Say they're upset about a grade and they just kind of start, they don't rail on me, but they start pushing back on it and I'm like okay but what is it you would like to achieve in this conversation today how do you want to walk with the knowledge I'm not going to change your grade what are you hoping to achieve yes right yes like you gave that to me I didn't give it to you and yeah and I think those moments those are incredibly strong teaching moments of you know just asking them to okay reflect for a second one second one second on what it is that you want and who you're talking to right like what are my drivers what are my motivators because that should change the way that you approach most most of your communications and the way that you've listened as well and so you're you're really for those who are mentally present and listening you're providing like a really good window into kind of how everyone a little bit older than is thinking about it and anyone who's sitting across the table to hire somebody has been has wised up to this or also wouldn't be the one hiring. Right. Right. Exactly. So you need to get with this. Exactly. And you know you asked again what are points of professionalism and I will bring it to this other point of professionalism that I'm hearing. And this relates a lot, DEI is such a buzzword, right? And so we hear a lot about DEI, but the one thing that our recruiters keep coming back to is they're like, nobody talks about generational gaps. - It's extremely important. - It's extremely important. And we need people who are full of different generations and how those generations were raised, how they function within the workplace, what those expectations are, and even if you don't like that boomers are used to work in 50 -60 hour weeks, you don't have to like it, but you need to understand that that's very much a generational workplace behavior, right? - Yes. And there's actual, there's a lot of, they may find over time that there's a lot of efficiency that comes along with that level of partitioning. I mean, you can just leave all that stuff at work. - Yes. - You know, and like your weekends, you don't have to have your computer sitting out. And when you're on vacation, you can actually go on vacation. So you're setting up boundaries is what you're doing and you I don't know maybe it's just so far different now that sort of an amorphous lifestyle in that way is totally fine but I think there's a lot to be said for having it creates balance in my opinion at first blush I don't believe it feels that way because you're like oh I'm locking myself into this but you can give yourself a mental pass by saying, I don't need to be thinking about that right now. - You try not to, right? But I do think older generations work is life, right? And so as much as you do want to compartmentalize, a lot of people don't, right? Like I don't compartmentalize very well. I teach most of my, almost all of my coursework in the fall. So in the spring, I am air quote, off. I'm never off. Yeah well you mentioned earlier it's it's a bit of a hobby as well. Yes right and I guess maybe it's that whole do what you love and you never work a day in your life. Yeah no I think there's a lot to that but I think the you're always working is never more has never been more true than it is now. Right well you can't it's difficult to unplug, especially when you don't want to, right? It used to be I could go home at five o 'clock and nobody thought about calling me at five o 'clock at night. No, it's dinner time. Right? Nobody would do that. You didn't call, you didn't ask people to work after hours, and now it's just, you know, I literally have a little note at the bottom of my email that says, "Although I'm an email after hours, I do not expect that of you. Yeah, that's nice. Do you mean it? I do mean it. Okay, even more nice. Yeah, no, I know. I'm mentally keeping score like you. You know, I did, you know, there's the law of reciprocity sort of rearing up a little bit. Yeah, and you know, I will say too, I think because I'm a professor, if I email after hours, I think like maybe my teaching assistants or even my students feel like they have to respond And they don't. They don't need to respond. - Well, they're sort of right and wrong. - I don't expect them to respond. - I know, but you notice when they do. You know, you're right. It's kind of like, okay, you think they care. - Yeah. - You know, and I didn't have an expectation, but it's kind of like when you write someone a handwritten note and you get it, you're like, you didn't have to do that. - It sends a message, right? Like all of these behavior, send a message of professionalism. - Do you talk about handwritten notes ever? - All the time. - There's nothing more powerful right now. - There's nothing more powerful, and everybody looks at me like I'm an alien. When I say no, when you interview for the role, sit down and write a note to every single person that you talk to, and put it in the mail. - I have such a strong believer in writing that, and I didn't you know I had a mentor who's unfortunately passed away but he used to just bang on me constantly and he goes you need to write X number of notes per week and he goes especially the people who haven't been relevant to you in the last six months he's like life's a team sport he's like make sure that you're in you know you don't do it just because you're sort of always plotting. But he's like, these are people important to you. And just everyone's always helped somebody, right? In some way, you say, Hey, that little thing you did. Thank you. That mattered, right? That little thing that you did mattered. And I the fact that I remembered that little thing tells you that it mattered to me. And I want you to know that, right? It's a nicety, it's a courtesy, I feel like it's a little bit of a lost art. We literally got a lot of, so there was a podcast guest chair that like a week or two afterwards, we got a handwritten note and everyone here has held it and been like, that was so nice. - Right, and then if you put it on really nice paper. - They won't throw it away. - Right, I even say I'm like the type of paper you use matters. - Well, it's so funny 'cause we said, we said this was so nice, I didn't even notice what the card was. - Right. - You know, we just opened it, we were like, what a nice guy. Scott, right? Yeah. I'll remember that. Like if I see him broken down on the side of the road, I might stop and pick him up now. You know, but here's, I'll give you this dilemma that that's actually happening a lot is, I get the question of, well, can I just use AI to generate that? I'm like, you can. You can. You can. Are they gonna know? And I'm like, probably not. But I feel like you're kind of in the point. Yeah the idea is to take a timeout and to do some thinking on your own. Yes it makes you a better human. It does. I believe it does. It makes you a better human. I'm willing to even make that a judging criteria. You're finding employers are making it a judging criteria. So how much interfacing are you doing? like how are you getting these words from the employers like how do you oh so I had it recently had a project right we're making some changes at the business school and we've got a couple focuses specifically on experiential learning right we want students actually doing the things that they would be doing in the workplace right so we're working with more organizations to provide students those opportunities we're also doing individualized learning tracks right and so students have the opportunity to craft kind of their own distinction. And so maybe you study finance, but you want a distinction in investment banking. And so students can craft that themselves. But then the other thing, and these these elements were coming from our recruiters, we talked to recruiters, what do we need? What do our students need? And, and the last one was increased professionalism would be really great. And that when it actually came in, as we talked to recruiters, that one comes in really high that this is this is something that we need to get out of out of students from every school but we really you know wanted our students to understand under I want my students to understand a different level right and this is kind of my project at the school but I went I want our students to understand it at a different level and that if you focus it on the people around you rather than yourself, right? Then it becomes so much easier. Because the question I'll get is, is it okay for me to wear this when we have a course client in the classroom or a guest speaker in the classroom? And I'll go, well, what do you think they're gonna wear? And then all of a sudden it's, oh, I guess I shouldn't, right? And I said, well, yeah, stop thinking about what you want or what you can or should. I'm like, take that word, you out of it. And if you shift it to the other person. In a general sense, you'll never, uh, regret not being the worst rest in the room. Oh, you'll never regret it. Right. It was funny. We went to, I was trying to teach her, we have two boys or 10 and eight. I was trying to teach them that, which is you guys look like you're going to a rock concert every time you got like t -shirts and like all this stuff on and and granted i'm not terribly formal today but in general i was trying to teach them this this cold hard truth i suppose these days which is you're gonna get treated how you look absolutely and so if so i said we're gonna go to charlie ghettos and we're gonna put on a coat and top because that's a place that used to be coat and tie exclusively. And now you can go there anyway you'd like. And so the guy running the place, we got there and he walked up to our boys and shook their hands, gave him his card and goes, thank you for dressing up for dinner tonight. - That's amazing. - And he noticed it like that. And I said, if we'd walked in with our KHTR T you know, it just kind of were hanging out, he wouldn't even noticed us walking in the room. - And I bet you got better service. - We did. Everyone commented, like the boys look great, you know, Sarah looked beautiful, you know, I would think me and everyone noticed. - So there's some interesting research that came out of Harvard with a man named John Antonakis and it's called charismatic leadership theory, right? But the whole premise behind this and the analogy that he uses is you have a price tag around your neck, right, no matter where you go. And that is your value. And a lot of that, well, all of it, right, at that first glance is what do you look like? And a lot of that you can't control, right? Does your chin jut out too much or your teeth a mess? What is it, right? And so you have elements of this that you cannot control. And so, and they actually even did this test with kids to kind of say, all right, do kids see the same thing? And so kids couldn't understand necessarily like, you know, who would you vote for was the first one, right? Like who would you vote for to adults? And it was, they just showed them pictures and everybody was picking the same man, right? I'm always gonna vote for this person. Everybody picked the same person based on what they look like. And so with and it would be who would be a better boat captain, right? And they picked the same people, right? Over and over. And so it was this assessment of competency and likability that's just based on a photo, which is you really can't control what you look like. And so the second tier of the research is, okay, how do we change that? How do we change the price tag through charisma, right? Like How can we increase our perceived charisma? And they ultimately determined a set of behaviors, both verbal and nonverbal behaviors, that increase your charisma by up to like 60%. - Really? - Yeah. - Would you remember any of them? - Oh, sure. It's like moral imperatives, right? This is a critical thing for us to achieve because we have a moral duty to humanity. or contrast where another one, it's the whole not only but also ask not what you can do for your country, right? - Yeah. - And so these very, you know, these time -tested rhetorical principles. - They're like devices. - Yes, yeah, but they're, you know, they're largely language -based and a lot of them, you know, there's also some nonverbals, like how do you move? How do you use space? How is your executive presence? But these were things that are coachable. - Yes. - Right? These are things that are learnable. And so, you know, a lot of people say, "Okay, well, you're just naturally charismatic." - Perhaps. - But the research says no, right? The research says some people are just coached their whole life, right? - I would say that there are people who, just their mannerisms, by way of coincidence, right, just are sort of more engaging than others. - They are, and posture matters, right? And this comes through other research. Posture matters, the way you move your hands matters. But it's actually, it's a really interesting research and I work with a lot of students to try and integrate this into their-- - How do they feel, how do students these days feel about that? Where they seem like, they might feel Unjust that you know we could look at just a couple mug shots basically and say that's the guy we want It is unjust We still do it right as we say don't judge a book by its cover. We judge book by covers all day every day Well, it allowed us to get through the process of evolution your kids walked into Charlie Jito's Yeah, and we're judged. Yeah, right as soon as they walked in the door. And so it's happening. And you know, actually, this is the first day of class. I do this. I have a slide that says, you don't know me, but you've already decided if you like me. - Yes. - And then I'll tell them. I'm like, I'm gonna leave the room. I want you to talk about me and I want you to just tell your peers how you judged me. What did you use to judge me? - And do they report this to you? - They do. And so I come back, my trick is, I'm like, you don't have to tell me what you said, but tell me what you heard. Right? And it comes back with hair, smile, energy, right? Whatever the things are. And I say the same thing, so not my credentials at all. - Right. - You did judge me on my credentials. - And that sounds about right. - Yeah. You judge me on the fact that I said Hello, when you came in the classroom, you judge me on what I look like, how I'm moving, whether I seem engaging. And then I throw out the big spoiler and that is, I did the same thing to you. - That's pretty good. - And so I am, I'm like, that's basically what our core center's on, is how are you presenting yourself to the world? And you can see, some of them are lounge back and they sit up a little bit or they, you know, they pulled the hood back. - Right, no, no, you do. Like, they're kind of being like, it's kind of nice to see that the competition's still existing and that despite all things, there is the kind of survivor instinct to not be left in the dust. - Exactly. - And I think that's brilliant the way you introduced that. From the jump. - Yeah, from the jump. And that's it. I'm like, there's only one chance I have to make this point. And it is right here right now. Yeah. I mean, they'll remember that forever. I hope so. Yeah, they will. And hopefully maybe they sit up a little straighter at their job interview. I hope so. I mean, that's part on the interviewer as well. It is, you know, if they're in there just kind of not terribly inspiring, you know, a lot of people tend to mirror. And so they do. And, you - They do, and there's such a thing as the stress interview. - What, tell me about that. - Oh yeah, no, our students sometimes get the stress interview, which is kind of a good cop, bad cop interview. So they'll have somebody who interviews them, gets them through the gateway, and then they go in and they talk to somebody who's just awful, right? Tells them, asks them a question, and then tells them that's stupid response. And I've had students-- - And this is by design. - This is by design. - 'Cause you know, they're a whole thing. And I'm not saying it's a good tactic. I'm saying we are seeing some of it. But the whole objective is, I wanna see how you respond under pressure. Are you willing to defend your idea? - Okay. - Right? And I had a student that came back and said, "I just walked out." - Not a stressed person. - Like, okay. - And they walked out 'cause they didn't like being treated that way and that's fair that's fair it's it's it's unfortunate because we all have to shovel for some period of time I shoveled for a long time yeah I did a lot of shoveling myself yeah and that that seems to be barring I guess nobody it's kind of the trajectory that's that's the journey is that you've got to start somewhere and get better. - Right. - And maybe one day you can put down a shovel. - Yeah, exactly. - Pick up a different kind. - But here's the thing, once you've shoveled for a while, you're never afraid to pick up the shovel. - You're not a use it. - Yeah, you know how to use it. You're not afraid of it. You don't get mad when you have to use it, right? And you also realize, okay, I wouldn't ask anybody else to use a shovel if I wouldn't the shovel? Well, yeah, that's that's the problem though is that you get you when someone is too good to pick up the shovel, it's infuriating. Yes. Because you're like, I can't believe I'm trying by surrounding myself by people who won't do that. Yeah. You know, and you're just like, come on, just and I do it. I will give washi students that they will pick up a shovel. Uh huh. You know, they will do the work. They're pretty gritty. I will give them that. Yeah. No, well, that was, that was my experience. And then while she does a good job of, you know, uh, perhaps you got some of this in the Air Force, which is does a good job of, of creating team. Uh, and you're not sort of maybe dehumanizing the way it can occur. Uh, but are de -emphasizing the individual and you're emphasizing the team, which is, I think for a lot of people, you know, by the time you're doing an EMBA, most of us have sort of been through the process of like, I'm not the only reason this company works. But some people are really-- - We are expendable. - Yeah, we are expendable. Actually, someone could replace me. - Yes. - So let me ask you this. - What do you think are three great interview questions? If you were interviewing someone. - Oh gosh. - But what would be your top three? Why are you here? - No, the why are you here, right? That one's always coached. They always have the perfect response for that. You know, I think the passion question is fascinating because most people really have no idea what they're passionate about, Right? But they're happy to say, "Oh, I'm a very passionate person." And when I say, "Well, what are you passionate about?" They don't have any idea. Right? Especially if you're 22, 23. Yeah. And so, you know, and I think another really great question is, you know, what do you think we could improve at this company? You know, assuming they've done the research, Right? What is something about this company? You know, I know you're going to tell me all of the reasons you want to work here. What's the hang up? - All right. - Right? Like, what would be your hang up? What would be a reason you might not want to work here? Yeah, I could come up with, you know, anything I would say off the cuff would probably not get me hired. You know, and I actually had that question asked of me when I went to Wash U or some version of that. And they said, what's gonna be the most challenging thing for you to work here? And my answer was, it's the culture. - Yeah, I mean, just like in academia in general. - In academia, right? Because I was coming from corporate. I was coming from a business place. And so it was so autonomous that I didn't know what to do with it. - Yes, okay. - It's so autonomous and so siloed that that was just really unusual. - School or work was? - Work. - Like corporate, I mean. - Yeah, no, school, academia. - Yeah. - It was very siloed. - Okay, meaning that econ's econ, history's history and-- - Yes. Yeah, and like I could if I wanted to go weeks without talking to a colleague. - Well, talk to Well, that's crazy. It's crazy, right? But and that's not me. I'm not, you know, I'm not happy in that kind of a space. And so, you know, it's something that I, you know, I get to talk to students. And so that's good. But it is, it is something I needed to know. Oh, I needed to be aware about. I needed to navigate when I when I went into academia. Because you'll see we all sit in the same room. Yeah, I think like the overflow of information between people who know what they're doing is so it helps me all the time because as you know great or smart as I think I could ever be you you're not right and you know and on the best teams it's you know your output is greater than the sum of the parts yes and you know I love those situations and so you know and so I try to create them where I can. - And so is that something you're trying to impart upon your students of how to create that condition or that circumstance amongst a group of people? - Yeah, you know, and it's interesting because I think we were talking about, do people self -reflect? - Yeah. - Right, do you have an awareness of others? But likewise, do you have an awareness of yourself? And so this is a funny little exercise that I do with my students, and that is when we work on teams, one of the requests that I have of them is I want you to do a Zoom meeting and I think that this is a great idea really for anybody who wants a little bit of understanding on how you function on a team. So I want you to have a Zoom meeting and I want you to record it. And I said, I'm not interested in watching it. I'm not going to watch this video. I don't want to know anything about it. This is for you. And so when they come back into the classroom, I want you to take that transcript. We're going to upload that that to AI, and we're gonna ask some critical questions. - Oh, wow. - What percentage of the time did I speak? What questions did I ask that drove the conversation forward? Right, and what ways did I push back on other people's ideas? And so, you know, we kind of just go through this little bit of a list of questions to see, okay, am I actually, am I a contributing member of this team? And what ways am I obstructing progress? Right? Am I always saying no? - Okay. - Right? Do I crush souls? - Yeah. And sometimes so, there are managers out there that are fabulously effective. - Yeah. - And for some reason, the team doesn't defect. and they are just 'cause they feel so great when they nailed it. - Right. - 'Cause the praise does come, maybe, eventually, but that must be excruciating. So you're putting this transcript into chat GPT in, is the classroom there? - They do it themselves, right? So we'll all be in the classroom and I'll tell each of them, I want you to do this as an individual project, just so that you get an understanding. And so, you know, and some students might, you know, we had an hour -long meeting. - That could be a real beat down. - It can be a real beat down, right? Well, it's certainly an eye -opener. - Yeah, for sure. - And, you know, and I, you know, the question is then, okay, let's reflect on that. And I would like to know, what is it that you would change about your approach? Because it's not good to be the person who, you know, you spoke the least in that meeting, but it's so not good to be the person who spoke all the time in the meeting so what what is the archetype here like what who who should they be in that meeting you want to be the way that I would put this is kind of gosh I want to say it's it's always good to be a captain right you want to you want to help other people get where they need to go right and so I So I would say, you know, if you're right there in the middle, because one of the questions that comes up, too, is did you speak to everybody, right? Did anybody, you know, the person who spoke 5 % of the time, did anybody ask them a question? Did anybody try and engage them in this conversation? And once you start getting those sorts of things out there, and people go, okay, it's not necessarily just the and you spoke 5 % of the time, it's the fact that nobody else asked. - Right. - Right? And so, you know, if you can find a space where you're somewhere in the middle, right, but what you're really doing is leaning on other people to pull in their strengths, that's gonna create a really fantastic team, right? If everybody is saying, okay, how do I capitalize on the people around me not just dominate not just try and avoid it right how do I how do I bring in a positive approach to or a culture of saying yes mm -hmm even if the idea is garbage you say tell me more yes tell me more right we're probably gonna pitch this but tell me more tell me more yeah right because then all the sudden people feel valued - Yeah. - And they give you more. - What if the person shouldn't be valued based on how much, like, well, you're actually saying more and actually your value's going down in my mind? - Yeah, that's a thing. - Yeah. - Right? You know, and that's, in those points, it's a really, 'cause this will come up, right? And you'll see this in the workplace too. It's like, well, I do all the work. And I go, okay, - Well, maybe that's the problem. - You do all the work because you do all the work. - Right, maybe you're not giving other people a chance to thrive, right? Or maybe you're taking action without consulting with other people. Is everything that you're doing being used? What is, you know, what's the value that you're actually bringing? Are you just busy? - Mm -hmm. - Right, and so I think it's always interesting when you go, okay, maybe this person is not an executor. right? They're not an executor, but they're a fantastic relationship builder. How do you maximize that? How do you maximize it? Maximizing is, I think what's implied in that is the idea that you've discovered that fact. So how do you even go about discovering, you may have the meetings about a subject that they're not comfortable opening their mouths about. So you don't even know that they're a very social person. They're just like, their plan is I don't keep my mouth shut because I don't know what's happening right now. Maybe I can get myself over to where I need to be at another time. And there's a lot to be said for a person who will say, OK, this is not an area of expertise for me. I'm not comfortable engaging that. Because I think then you've sort of put that out there. but you also kind of realize, okay, maybe this isn't a space where I'm gonna thrive and I need to figure out how I can contribute, right? - Yeah. - But you know, the older, the older I've gotten, the more I focused on trying to figure out what I do well. - Yeah. - And to amplify that, because there's certain things I'm never gonna be good at, right? - What are things that you absolutely suck at doing? - I am horrible at data analysis, hate it, hate it. And with that, it's like, okay, when I know I need to do it, I have to lean on other people, right? Or at least I have to have those checkpoints. And the other thing I know I need, I'm not a particularly disciplined person. And so every day for me is a checklist, every day, with timestamps from this time to this time, this is what I'm doing. - You're too interested in too much stuff. - I am, I get really diverted. - Yeah. - It's easy for me to fall down a rabbit hole and I could give you a hundred, I fall right down one right now. - So I don't even know, is it discipline or just it's more important to you to finish this little dive you're on and you'll just deal with the consequences of not jumping over to what you're supposed to be on. - There is that, right? And then, you know, you've procrastinated and some people call it procrastination and I'm like, I didn't call it procrastination because I gained so much from that exploration. I used to call it procrastination. My teachers would say, "You're really procrastinating." I never felt that way. And I'm finding that I don't procrastinate. I just don't put pen to paper till I know it's more efficient. Yes. And you know, and I think, yes, I'm a percolator. later, right? And so I like to gather information and then percolate on that for a while before I put pen to paper, for example. But, you know, and I think that once you start recognizing what your strengths are, and you can focus on those rather than trying to improve your weaknesses, you're much happier. - Yeah. - Right? - You just kind of shed all that. - Yeah, I was a lot happier when I said, you know what, I'm just terrible at data analysis. I have to figure out a different way to manage that when it arises. And once I started, once I made that my project, figuring out a solution to that, I was so much happier, right? 'Cause that's more interesting to me. - Well, yeah, I mean, if you don't like doing it, they're, for every person who doesn't like it, there Who do hate it? So if you're if you're a manager, what what are your kind of your guideposts for managing if you were Perhaps you do but if you were sitting on top of an organization What would be sort of your your mental guideposts and how I'm gonna manage this team? Oh gosh You know, I think Yes identifying what my people do well Right. I think that's the first thing The second thing is, you know, I can't, you cannot underestimate the value of a common vision. - Yes. - Right? And a lot of times we think a team is aligned on something and they're not. Most of the time they're not. And so, you know, really drilling into what does that common vision look like? Because, you know, language is a funny thing and I might interpret that vision a little bit differently than somebody else on the team or I might prioritize certain elements differently than another person on the team. And so sometimes, you know, even chunking that a little bit further into, OK, right now of the mission, this is the focus, right? Keeps things really driving forward. But, you know, the other thing is to and this is going to sound really funny in the age of social media sentiment analysis, right? Is like, what's working for you today And what isn't working for you? And having that open transparency, because when you avoid conflict, you just create an environment that breeds more of it. - It's toxic. - It's toxic. It's a festering wound. And so I think having a transparent culture, right? Where you say, okay, let's air the Greek, the classic Seinfeld, the airing of grievances, right? - Yeah, you gotta do it. - Yeah, and it's ugly, and I think a lot of people don't wanna feel like they aren't liked. And so we avoid saying things, because we're afraid it's gonna offend a person, and it's like, well, but we can approach those things in a productive way, so that we get our team on track and moving forward, and so, you know, I think-- - That's so tied to the clear statement of objective, meaning which is, if we can battle this out, but as long as we know that it's on the name of this greater good-- - It's North Star. - Yeah, we can plow through it. - Yes. - And it's just, there's not enough time to sit and fester, let's just keep going. - Keep going, and-- - Take the steps. - Yeah, I'm a huge believer in, as soon as you know something, say something. - Yes, yeah. 'cause it's not gonna get better with time. - Yeah, and you know, and that takes some vulnerability. - I don't mean just in work, really. I mean, just in general, when you know it, say it. - But you do have to be able to, you have to be able to share yourself a little bit, right? You have to make yourself vulnerable, in that you want other people to feel like they can't approach you and say, "Hey, this is something that I'm experiencing. "It's a little bit of a challenge. "How can we get through this?" - We'll just get your (both laughing) You know, you said you could do this. - It's a right. - No, I would never do that. But like, so yours is, you would be really taking stock of, okay, who are the players on this team? What's the best position for them? - Absolutely, you know, because everybody wants to-- - How do you do that? Like, how do you sort of figure that out? - It's tough, right? Reading the room is, It's tough, some people are just inherently bad at reading other people. It happens to be something that I do pretty well, right? But I will kind of bucket these strengths, right? And I have kind of a big long list of things that I consider to be workplace strengths, right? Discipline, analytical skills, the ability to intake information, the ability to regurgitate information, 'cause you're very different, right? And so, you know, and I'm kind of always keeping an eye on, some people are very strategic, some people are so tactical. I'm a tactical person, right? I don't wanna ever set your battle plan, but if you tell me to get my team up that hill, I got this. - You got it. - I got this. - Okay, - We just said Stacey Loose, she's-- - Yes, and that's the truth, right? That is something that I will brag about. If you tell me where you need this to go, I'll get it there. - And don't you dare tell me it can't be done. - Kind of, right? - Yeah, I'll figure it out. - Or tell me it can't, and I'll figure it out, yeah. - Yeah, no, that's what resonates. - Yeah, and so, you know, and a lot of times people, people aren't even aware of what they do well. And so, you know, just kind of watching how they interact with work on a day -to -day basis, how they interact with people, or don't on a day -to -day basis. I'll give you an example. Students, I have had on my course evaluations say Stacey has favorites. Of course, everyone does. Well, and that was kind of my thought for a long time. But then I realized I was like, no, you know, interestingly, what I'm not good at is small talk, right? I'm not good at like pinging multiple people. - You're too much of a deep diver. - And that's it, I love the deep dive. And so, you know, I'm fewer friendships, deeper conversations. - It's like, I can't call that person back because I've never talked to him for less than two hours. And now six months has occurred, has elapsed and now I just got a call and say I'm sorry I think literally think about calling you every day but I I know we talked for two hours yeah and how long do you want this podcast to be yeah I mean seriously how many days you got right exactly and that's you know once you start kind of figuring out it's like I'm gonna take this criticism or what I would consider criticism Stacy has favorites and say okay well where is that coming from and it And it is coming from, yeah, there are students that I have that come to my office and we will sit for an hour. - There are people I've gotten to know. - Yes, and those to me, that's where I find the value in life. And when I'm working with a team, I want that with my teammates to the greatest extent possible. But I would argue that the opposite is also very much of strength those people who can connect they go to a party and they can work the room that's a strength oh it's ridiculous right there they're they can connect people um you know they know who to go to when they need things and you know honestly that's just not something that I do particularly well right I do I'm okay I'm okay but I'm much better if someone said here's your mission, we need you to work this room and find out five things from everybody, whatever. It sounds like you're back, all right. - Yeah, I could do that. - I could do that. Because, but maybe on a more social basis, it's not something that you would naturally gravitate towards. - Yeah, it's not something I love, right? - Right, what's the point of that? I didn't get a little piece of information. - And you know, let's bring that back to you again. I need to know the why. Why am I doing, why do I study logarithms? Why do I need to work the room? What's my objective? - Yeah. - Why am I communicating? - I understand. So as we're talking, I'm sitting here wondering, so with our shorter attention spans, we grew up in an era of longer attention spans. - Yes. - Which helps for things like theory of mind. - Yes. - Okay, so What is, do you think, the cost of theory of mind with the shortening attention span? Do you find that up -and -comers have more trouble reading the room and understanding what's going on here? - Yeah, I think there's a whole lot at play with this, right? I think that, yeah, if you can't pay attention to a person, you can't read them, right? if you're not doing self -reflection because now we have this culture of everybody's a winner, right? Everybody gets the award. It's super self -focused, right? Then you don't have a motivation to read others because the world revolves around you. It's okay if they're losers. Come on. You know, I had actually - That's how you make winners. You gotta lose for a bit. You have to lose. And that's, you know, I tell my kids this all the time. I'm like, "The best thing you can do is screw up." Yeah. Right? I'm like please go do just do it quickly though. Like it's not trying to do stupid things, right? Like I don't here we are we live in a culture where every parent has life 360 on their kids phones and they track them I refuse to track my children. Yeah, I kind of don't want to know I refuse to do it I want them to have the freedom to Make mistakes. Well, and also the cost of doing is making you nervous wreck. Why would I do that, Right, but I just, it's not fair to them. I feel like I'm taking something away from them if they don't have to make difficult choices. Right, like I could lie to her and say I'm going to the library when I'm actually going to visit my girlfriend. - Yeah. - You know, and it's like, okay, well, that's a moral dilemma that I want you to struggle with. - And let's see if you can get away with it by the way. - Yeah, I don't want, yes. - So crafty you are. - And if there are consequences, then that's also a lesson. And so I feel like I would be doing my kids a disservice and that's it. I will add this in here. This was super interesting to me. I had a PhD student that I was working with and she was on the medical campus. But her research centered on autism and her theory is that autism is an evolutionary result of technology. - I'm seeing, I think I'm getting that. - Yeah. - Well, 'cause theory of mind and autism sort of run together. - Yeah, and so her theory is, you know, if you think about the characteristics of children that have autistic traits, shorter attention span, not necessarily comfortable with touch, right? Often they prefer electronic voices to human voices because it's more predictable. And so, yeah, it's a very interesting theory. - And has this been got hard one to study because there's so many variables that it'd be hard to control for. - Yeah. - But it's, so how are they approaching, this is a theory at this point, has it been tested? - You know, she was testing it at the time, right? I haven't checked in with her to see what that ultimately looks like. But yeah, you know, she's been, what I thought was super interesting, and I actually said this to her. I said, what I'm finding intriguing here, is that you always think of evolution as a positive. And her answer is, isn't it? No. But her case was in a world with this much technology, aren't they better suited to the world to come? You mean autistic who has autistic yeah who has autistic characteristics that make them better suited to a high -tech world yeah I mean and they they are perhaps the tools available allow them to be more functional in our world than maybe 50 years ago yes is that is that what you're saying that's exactly yeah that's exactly what she might be saying yeah yeah I don't know enough to say yeah I don't either but I you know my cursory understanding with that my experience is that yes I think that it would it's very fact -based sort of communication and that the theory of mind in this and I'm talking about male autism female autism is is a whole different deal right but yeah I think I can see based on what I know that it would be an easier way to get along. - Yeah, and I am a tech fan, you know, I use it. I love how it makes my life a little bit easier, or a lot easier in some cases, but I also have a big sticker on my laptop that says social media seriously harms your mental health. - Yeah, and you believe that. - Oh, 100 % believe that. And do you touch on that in your classes? Yes, absolutely. You know what's interesting is, you know, is you don't do social media, is that correct? Well, I mean, no. Are you on it at all? Yeah, I mean, I have an account like a Facebook account. Yeah, and that's, I run in that same kind of thing. I opened it up. I was like, got invited to be a friend like eight years ago. I guess it's pathetic. Yeah, no, I'm kind of the same way. But When I tell my students I don't do social media, they're puzzled, right? They're baffled. How can you live your life and not have social media? And then they get an internship. And they come back and they go, "Oh my God, you literally don't have time." I said, "No, of course I don't have time." (laughing) I have living creatures in my house that I have to keep alive, right? Children, dogs, right? - What, I would add to - Good job. - To a degree, why would, if you're growing up, it's so hard already to manage your real life. - Yes. - Now let's add a bunch of virtual stuff in there. - That had you never discovered it, your life would really be no different. - The downside risk is far greater than the upside risk. - Well, absolutely. And you know, it's also just this measure of, if you were to say, okay, if I take a look at the things that I've done in my life, and I say, these were the most impactful moments of my life, zero were online, unless it was negative, unless it was negative. You had an online bullying situation or something of the sort, but the most impactful moments of your life were IRL, if you will. Yeah, no, exactly. And the other thing is that I say to my kids, and you know, I don't know how much they hear it, But for instance if they're outside kicking a ball around or whatever we're having fun We always laugh and have fun on the way back inside. Yes about how something happened Or even if someone gets drilled by a ball and they're hurt by time we get inside we're laughing fun But anytime I tell them like I took iPads that we don't even have in our house Good and because I was like fight instigators first of all and even if they're having a blast while they're using it, they will not be happy when they put it down. - Yes. - Right, so it always ends on a sour note. - Yes. - And so why in the hell would I want any of that to be part of their lives? - You know, Missouri just passed a law that, and governor just signed it, no cell phones in schools. From start of the day to the end of the day, - And the uproar from my kids and their friends is legion. - Good. - I know. - Yeah, I mean, talk about deaf ears. - Exactly. - I mean, literally not worried about that. - Not at all. - And they just don't know what a good move that is. - It's a wonderful move. And you know, I teach, some days I'm in the classroom from 8 .30 to 4 .30 and I don't have my cell phone with me. And you know, again, it's people are just baffled by that. You know, "Well, you didn't respond within 30 minutes." And I said, "Of course I didn't." I didn't even have my phone. - I never asked you to email me. - I know. I get 24 hours is what I get at a minimum. - Yeah, I never asked you to do that. And so, moving on into, I don't want to, like we could talk for days, it seems like, but so AI, tell me how you're telling your students to deal with the AI and how is academia, like how do you guys manage it? I mean, you're sort of telling them one thing and you might be actually doing it yourselves over here. - Yeah, it's really, it is an interesting, it's an interesting dilemma in academia because you do have so many professors that said or started off with, absolutely not. And it kind of made me laugh because I was like, well, you - Of course it's gonna happen. - Yeah. - Apps, 100%. - The bell has been rung. - The bell has been rung. It is 100 % gonna happen. And, you know, truly, I won't lie. I mean, I do think mental health issues are different now than they used to be. And, you know, I see there's much higher prevalence of it in my class. And there's also a drive. Students feel like they have to do everything, right? and you probably see it with your kids. It's, okay, how many soccer teams, how many baseball teams, what other activities, right? So there's all of these things on the radar. And so, yeah, you knew immediately that people were gonna give where they could give, right? And, you know, Generative AI made that really easy. My immediate approach was to allow it because you're going to be using it in the workplace. Now we do have, you know, there are enormous number of industries that still aren't using it because of proprietary issues, right? So you've got, you know, banking or medical fields. Education, we actually have a separate chat GPT, a WashU chat GPT for student information. So if you were using student or patient information, if you're on the medical campus, it has to run through a specific system so that you're not releasing anything that's confidential. - Yes. - Law is another one that's interesting to watch, but I-- - It's not gonna help that. I mean, if you're an attorney, I would be very worried. - You're right. - I'd be very worried. - Right, but of course, you know, you're seeing the industry as a whole pushback on it, which I think is really interesting because couldn't you, in theory, use AI to create more just outcomes for criminal cases, right? It's like, okay, well, if I look at the entire bank of people who committed this crime in the past five years and I can see what those sentences were, I can make sure I'm giving an unbiased, fair sentence, right? That seems like a good thing to me. But in academia, you know, the question is, obviously, what are the students learning? Are they learning anything at all? Right? And so, because you can use it for data, you can use it, you know, you've got now co -pilot within the Microsoft Office suite. So even if you're having to use Excel, you've got all of these resources available to you. And so the way that I'm using this is I want, I've shifted to a whole lot more physical activity within the classroom, right? I bring in, I bring in whiteboards or poster boards. I've got post -it notes and I'm like, first thing we're going to do is ID eight. And So we, you know, we walk through troubleshoot issues, but I'm like, laptops are closed, but then we'll open up our laptops and go to chat GPT or Claude or whatever they, you know, whatever they're preferring at the moment, the whatever the AI du jour happens to be. - Yeah. - Let's run it through AI and see where we missed some things. Right? And then we take a second to reflect on that. But my, my, what I tell them 'cause I'm like, you know, you're not gaining anything if you're creating content with it. It's gonna give you poor content. I can tell you, it's gonna write a C -paper. - No, that's true. And you can tell when somebody has sat down and crafted something with like really thinking and they're like, just spun something out using AI. And the argument will be, well, you know, just give it time. And I think that's true. but I think that we have to believe there is a human element of creation that is uniquely human. You know, you would like to think so, right? But it's building a massive mirror. This is what it's really doing. Yeah, it's so interesting, right? Because you've got, let's just take the creative element, you know, AI -generated art. And, you know, it was always a little vague what constitutes art in the first place. - True. - But, you know, why is AI art not art? You know, just because it wasn't drawn by a human, I don't, you know, is that art? Is poetry created by AI? Is it actual poetry? You know, and we have these demands, right? as a society, we have like these, you know, we say, okay, this is a core value of mine. This is a thing I would never give on. And, you know, it's like, okay, the environmental impact of generative AI or the impact on people's employment, right? All of these things that come up, but we're still gonna sit there and use it. - Yeah, everyone's gonna have blood on their hands. - Absolutely, all gonna have blood on our hands. You know, but it's funny how it all it shifts to write our expectations of it that things that we demand of people that use it shift. And you know, one of the one of one of the greatest examples I always I always think of is early AI days or would chat GPT early, you know, was first out, there was a shooting a school shooting in Michigan. And a different university issued a statement on it, right, issued statement to the student base saying, you know, if you need someone to talk to, right, we're, we're horrified by it. Um, we're here for you. But at the bottom of the message, it said, you know, that it was drafted by chat GPT. And the outroar was crazy, right? The outroar within the university, the outroar, you know, on, on media was just out of control. Um, you know, and so one of the questions that I had is I said, okay, but they did everything right. It was transparent, right? It was transparent. And people said there needs to be a human element, right? My students said this, you have to have a human element. This is a message that should have come from the heart. And they said the chancellor should have sent it themselves. And it might not have even been the chancellor who had it. Once you digitize something, it's a whole weird, like even though they wrote it, like just the way you're sending it, if it's ever electronic, it's like, do you lose humans? - Well, right, but you know-- - Where do you draw the line? Is we're getting out? - Where do you draw the line? And you know, but when I kicked it back to him and said, but the chancellor was never gonna write it in the first place. The chancellor has a PR staff. It was some PR person who would have written that, who would have passed it to other people within the group and it would have been refined multiple times before it went to the chancellor who really kind of just gave it a stamp of approval. So what's the difference between a digital administrative assistant and a physical human administrative assistant? And nobody has seems to have a really good answer for that. That's a tough one, right? It's a good question. What is the difference? What's the difference? Because. Are they saying that we don't care who rode it as long as it came from a from a human, is that effectively what they're saying? - It seems to be, right? But I said either way, the way that you're approaching this argument, you're saying it's disingenuous, right? That the person who signed this didn't actually write it. - You know what's also interesting is like, what human exists that they've been like, Would have meant more if it just come from like chat GBT, you know, like Charles Manson writes it, you know, and you're like, ah You know, I mean like there's an inflection point where it's like, yeah, you know, that was a nice thought I wish I didn't know they wrote it. Yeah Yeah, and you know and it's real. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've used chat GBT to I tend to be a very direct person I'm like, I need you to soften this. Yeah round out some edges here? Yes. And, you know, and that's real. And in reality, if I think about it, I go, okay, well, that's not, is that disingenuous? Is that inauthentic? Well, because I'm not good at softening it. I wanted to soften it. Well, it's hard to say now, because it's like, now you have this helper. Yeah. Yeah. The systems are incredible, though, right? Just this whole concept of, you know, a machine that can generate content, right? That you can actually just have a conversation with, but it's so easy to anthropomorphize that, to say, okay, it's like a human, and you say, okay, well, it thinks this, or, you know, it's giving me this opinion, and none of that is real, right? It's just math, it's just probabilities at scale, right? And it's absolutely incredible, the way that it just says, okay, well, what would be the likely next group of letters. Not even a word, just the likely next token or group of letters. - It's mind -boggling. - It's mind -boggling, but I think when you start, when you realize that that's actually how it works, right? It's okay, I've got this database of language, this big corpus of language, and it's just going to filter through that and say okay based on based on the information that I have these are the likely next letters and so that's what I'm going to put out there you all of a sudden go okay well now I understand where this is coming from right I understand how to communicate with it a little bit better I understand how to prompt it a little bit better um it's it's a fascinating thing to play with well especially I mean every back to the idea of people are blood on their hands it's like We Everyone knows what's happening right now. Yeah, and it's so convenient that in so useful in entertaining as well that You people just keep walking right to it right to it. It's just like zombies and I just walking right into it don't I I don't think it can go anywhere good And it's hard to imagine that it does and I don't think it can be I don't think we can stop ourselves You know, how do you pull the plug? Even if you said right? We're gonna have international laws and regulations on this So we're internationally. We're gonna pull the plug. You got bad actors. It's out there. It's done No, the bell in the highest tower has been rung. Yes, and you can't can't unring it because because if we fall behind, it's a benefit to our country to have so many people using it, because it's learning at such a rapid rate. - Yeah, and you know, here's the, right now, I mean, it's kind of amazing, right? It's sort of, in a way, it levels the playing field for businesses, right? It levels the playing field, because never before has everybody had such access to open source you know, at of this level, but likewise, you know, you do have, you know, organizations that have unlimited, well, not unlimited, but that have vast financial resources have the ability to do it even better. Right. And so while it does level the playing field in some ways, the potential for inequality with these systems is extraordinary. Yeah. I mean, the rate at harvest of information, and how do you put that information into action is, you know, you could have 20 people mining something versus one, and then they can write programs to, you know, co -late all this. Absolutely. And they're off to the races, and so there is going to be such a good thing as good at AI and bad at AI. Yeah, and you know, the quote is, you know, AI AI is probably not gonna take your job, but the person who knows how to use it is gonna take your job. - I just commented the other day and that somebody, it was like one of the first solicitation emails I'd gotten from somebody who's a consultant on how to leverage AI. Like really, I read it and I was just like, I don't remember that because that's the first time that I've been sort to outriping, like, how are you leveraging this? And it's just a turning of the tide in a big way. - Big way, right? I was here at the birth of the home computer. I remember sending my first email, which was so fun, by the way. That was so fun. - It was unbelievable. - Well, yeah, 'cause you'd send the email and and you'd call the person to see if they got it. - Yeah, that's right. - And then you'd talk about whatever it was on the email. - 'Cause it was sending it out into the abyss. - Right, how? And you'd just sit there and stare at your screen. - 'Cause yeah, you don't get confirmations that it's just, no, it's been sent. - I know, yeah. - What do you mean, think about it now? - It was so great. - What was that, like 95 or something like that? - Something like that, yeah, yeah. And I just, I was blown away and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. But this is off the charts, incredible. And if you aren't using it in your business, if you're not, even if your business isn't using it, if you're not within your role, you're doing yourself to such a disservice. - I agree wholeheartedly. And it's just like go ahead and embrace this 'cause it's really not going anywhere. - It's not going anywhere. it's not, you can hate it as much as you want. And I said, years ago here, I was just like, guys, whether we like it or not, this is here, and it wasn't even here yet. And I was like, this is occurring, and we need to embrace this. - You do, and I think, you know, the biggest mistake I think people make with it is just going in with these too big of a question without nearly enough context. - You've got, it's like so clear. You're gonna get out of this, but you put into it. - Yeah, and it's a baby step process. - Yeah, you do have to spoon feed it. - Yes. - And I'm careful about what I decide to put in there and not put in there, right? There are things that, it is probably foolhardy, meaning like it's gonna figure it all out anyway, right? But I, and we're so mindful with everything we do here, like, what are we going to put through AI? What are we not? You know, it doesn't need to know who people are. It doesn't need to know any of that. That's their decision on how they want to interact with it. So we don't use it for any, like, it doesn't interact with our databases or anything like that in a way that could ever, you know, if, because we don't know how the rules are going to be in the future. Right. Right. Like we have accounts that say, okay, this information will not be used to train our model or this information will not like really That's so untrue. It's so untrue and and then does it also mean while you're subscribed? So the moment you unsubscribe are you going to unleash all this into that larger pool of training? And the answer is yes, And so it's, it's complete BS as far as like these guardrails that they're going to put around this thing. Like, oh, we're not going to share. You have this proprietary. No, you don't. Yeah. No, there's never been a better example of a slippery slope. Yeah. Right. It's a cliff. It's insane. Um, you know, and I do, I wholeheartedly agree with you, right? And even if you said, okay, we're going to take take this data, and we're gonna use it to train our model. Can you likewise then use that data to train a different model, is that okay? And what's the line on what's already publicly available? Say for example, books, right? I can get a book at the library, is publicly available. Can I put that book into my database as a training element, right? Because now all of a sudden, well the author's not getting royalties, but I was to get at the library anyway, right? - It's problematic. - Or if your art is online and it's available for me to view any time, why can I not use that? - Yeah, there's no ownership. - There's nothing, there's no ownership. - And then you could like immediately probably scan like all the patent offices and start getting all these ideas going. - Yeah. - I mean, there's the implications of it are-- - But worse yet, there's no accountability. - Right. - Right, there's no explainability with the systems. You can't explain how they work. - Right. - It just does. - It just does. It's a black box, you cannot explain how it works and there is no accountability for it. - Until there is. at some point. But then who, right? Like we've already gone through the process of, is the developer liable? Is it the people that train it? Is it the person who used it? It's just so interesting. We all know this. Anyone who uses it, and we all are careful, and there's an ethical way to use it and not use it. And where does it interface internally in your business and so forth? And what do you shield from it? Like it doesn't interface at all, but we, those who are using it are sort of, I don't know, it's kind of like that diet mentality of like, you know, I always eat this on Tuesday nights, so it doesn't kind of count, you know? These calories don't count. Yeah, these calories don't count. And, but, you know, full well that they do. They do. And he's just kind of like, - I mean, it's on your throat. - I know, and it's so good. - Yeah, it's so good and no one's gotta know, you know? - Yes. - That's how it is. - Yes, my big concern with it though is just really, because I think it's something that we're already seeing, it's just a broad loss of critical thinking ability. And I do believe that this is gonna exacerbate that. And that to me is worrisome because, if you think about a world in which it goes away, right? Like, you know, you think about the electromagnetic pulse that takes out everything. And, you know, in that scenario, what do we say? Like 90 % of Americans would be dead within a year? - Yeah. - Right? It's a spooky situation. But even, you know, you can't, how do you come back from this, right? Like, let's So you just took it away and can we even think? Can we think? Can we write? Can we analyze? - As of right now, I think we're good. But I don't think they're turning it off right now. - They're not. They're not only-- - It's just gaining the head of steam. - Oh my gosh, the amount of progress they've made with it. You know, when chat GPT came out, what was that, 2023, maybe November? - Yeah. - Oh yeah, and it was hallucinations, and it's not very good at insights. And it's like, oh, it's amazing and all this stuff. It doesn't, it doesn't remember information like it remembers everything. It's built. The reason it works is because it remembers. It remembers everything. Yeah, it really does. Well, I'm going to wrap this up because I know we could talk all day, but Staci, thank you for coming in today. My pleasure. It's been an absolute pleasure. Yeah, it has been a fun conversation. All right, thank you. Have a great day.