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The Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast explores the real-world strategies behind building strong work culture, improving organizational culture, and leading with clarity in today’s fast-changing business environment.
Hosted by leadership expert Nicole Greer, this podcast features conversations with business leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs who are shaping modern business culture through effective communication, leadership development, and intentional management practices.
Each episode delivers practical insights into leadership and business, including topics like team communication, project management, career growth, and creating workplaces where people perform at their best.
You’ll gain actionable tools, frameworks, and leadership skills you can apply immediately through coaching concepts, real-world examples, and professional development strategies, whether you’re a manager, executive, business owner, or emerging leader.
If you're looking for guidance on building a thriving organizational culture, improving communication, or advancing your leadership career, this podcast is designed for you.
Learn more about training, coaching, and courses at https://vibrantculture.com
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/build-a-vibrant-culture-nicole-greer/
For speaking inquiries: https://vibrantculture.com/speaker-kit-request/
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Want to be a guest? Send your request to podcast@vibrantculture.com
[00:00:00] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer, and they call me The Vibrant Coach, and I have another, I know, amazing vibrant guest on the show today. His name is David Dean. David Dean is an author, a speaker, and a business AI realist who explores how artificial intelligence reshapes work, judgment, and accountability in organizations.
[00:00:23] Nicole Greer: Did you hear the word accountability? David, everywhere I go, they're like, "Accountability. Accountability." Anyway, in organizations let's see, rather than focusing on AI capabilities, he examines the human elements that remain essential, so don't miss that. How people navigate uncertainty, where accountability lies when AI assists in decision, and what holds organizations together when technology accelerates faster than clarity.
[00:00:52] Nicole Greer: His philosophy is grounded in a simple truth. You might wanna write this down. It's a simple truth, okay? AI doesn't understand confidence, risk or consequence, but people do, and that's why people still matter. David Dean, I'm so glad you're here. Welcome.
[00:01:11] David Dean: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
[00:01:13] Nicole Greer: Yeah, so good.
[00:01:14] Nicole Greer: So listen, he's got a book out it's called An Inbox Between Us, right?
[00:01:19] David Dean: It, it's An Inbox Between Us.
[00:01:21] Nicole Greer: So I, I am reading this book, and I was like, "Wow, this guy is really onto something." So talk a little bit about the importance of the inbox.
[00:01:30] Nicole Greer: What do we need to understand about our inboxes in our companies?
[00:01:33] David Dean: So in an organization, there I write about this concept that there's kind of two contracts. And so there's the official contract, which is basically all of our company values our standard operating procedures, how we present internally and externally how the company generally operates.
[00:01:51] David Dean: So job descriptions, all those different types of things. That's official contract. What I talk mostly about in the book is the unofficial contract, which is really how the company actually runs behind the scenes. So all the decisions, all the dynamics and really to kind of summarize that, if you look at a job description, at the very bottom it says, "Other duties apply."
[00:02:11] David Dean: Yeah. That's really what I'm referring to with it. And, and the one thing around these different times, types of dynamics is that those dynamics are typically, like, in our heads, lived experiences. Water cooler conversations, all that kind of stuff with it and, and working through all those dynamics, through that process.
[00:02:31] David Dean: We don't know what that is. A lot of people, like especially organizationally, they don't know what it takes to actually get the work done, with it. So what I call is the inbox is when AI has entered this relationship for a company, that is a landing zone for all of that second aspect of the contract, is it's not all just in our heads.
[00:02:54] David Dean: It's in our emails, our transcripts, our instant messages back and forth. All of the behavioral dynamics on how we get work actually done is living in that data. And now that AI is here it can now point to that location and reveal all kinds of information relating to those dynamics.
[00:03:16] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:03:17] Nicole Greer: That's right. And so he talks about this on page two and three, so I'll ju- just so you can get this in your head, everybody, every organization operates on two intertwined layers. The first is the documented operating model, the ones leaders design and formalize, and the second is the less visible but far more influential, the behavioral operating system.
[00:03:38] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Right? So- Exactly ... so, David, I go into companies and, and I'll do training, right? Mm-hmm. And that's the formal way we're trying to tell people- Mm ... "Lead like this." Mm-hmm. But then they leave the training and maybe do something completely different.
[00:03:52] David Dean: Yep. Yep.
[00:03:54] Nicole Greer: So it's like, whoa, we really need to study this.
[00:03:57] Nicole Greer: Okay, so you say that the inbox is the real workspace. For most employees, the inbox is where, where work feels tangible. And isn't that the truth? What's the first thing people are not supposed to do at the beginning of the day? Check their email.
[00:04:12] David Dean: Yes.
[00:04:13] Nicole Greer: Yeah. But, but they do. Yeah. I mean, like- Right ... we really, the, the email is driving our work, so, Mm-hmm
[00:04:19] Nicole Greer: so talk a little bit more about inbox being the real workplace. I think that we should touch on that again.
[00:04:25] David Dean: Yeah. So the, the real workplace is, is that while there's official steps in the things that we do every day- Yeah ... most of those steps have hidden steps that are surrounding it or beneath it in order to accomplish that.
[00:04:43] David Dean: So it's, that conversation of like, "I need to go to John," and then j- John goes to Susie, and then Susie goes and does this stuff, and then comes back and brings it back to me, and then I can do my next step. All of those kinds of organizational dynamics, they're not documented anywhere. No one just knows.
[00:04:57] David Dean: It's just our natural human intuition, like who to g- go to, how to work out an issue and problem with that standpoint. So that hidden layer of how we behave at work, that is all, all that conversation, all those dynamics. Now, is it perfect? No, because it's missing the most critical element, the person.
[00:05:18] David Dean: Like me, every- there's everything I still know as a part of that. So the, that undocumented behavior, it's a relationship between this behavioral record and my dynamics, people to people, as a part of that. So, even though this behavioral record exists, it's only part of the picture, but a lot of times no one realized that that picture is a potentially visible, in those dynamics.
[00:05:43] David Dean: But we do kind of do that. Like, it's all sitting in our heads. We, we behind the scenes think about it, and we just naturally react. And I think in this exploratory aspect around AI and when I was trying to figure out, putting this book together, is people need to be reminded how they behave at work in order to really understand this relationship of AI coming into the workplace.
[00:06:08] Nicole Greer: And so, you just said, let's see if I can get it right, people really need to know how they behave. Is that kinda what you just said?
[00:06:15] David Dean: Yes.
[00:06:16] Nicole Greer: Okay. So David, my favorite question to ask leaders is this: What is it like to experience you?
[00:06:27] David Dean: To experience me is, I would say is that I'm authentic. That's a critical trait that I try to establish for myself- Yeah
[00:06:36] David Dean: is that when you have an interaction, no matter if I'm talking to a leader of 100,000-employee company or I'm talking to, a frontline employee, I'm the same person consistently. And to me, people like predictability, they like transparency, and the more I can be predictable and transparent in the kind of individual that I am, the more they're gonna naturally trust me and believe what I have to say.
[00:06:58] David Dean: Yeah. And so that's kind of what I try to do.
[00:07:00] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And, and so don't miss how beautifully David just answered that question. And, and my, my question, what is it like to experience you, is, is the challenge I think that's in this book. Like, you got to understand you're, you're operating and you have these behaviors, but you may not be conscious of them, right?
[00:07:17] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm. And so look how conscious David was of, of his answer, right? So maybe this can, th- this can help us. All right. So the next thing that I, I kind of, marked in here was as we're doing this work, we're looking at our inbox, we're looking at AI, we're looking how we behave you say culture as an outcome, not a variable.
[00:07:36] Nicole Greer: So I, I'm want- trying to help people build vibrant culture. So how do we put what you, you teach in your book to work to help us build a more vibrant culture?
[00:07:46] David Dean: So the biggest thing that with any type of culture, first of all, it takes time- 100% ... to build a culture, with it. So, AI coming in magically saving the day, dramatically changing stuff, that, that's not reality with it.
[00:08:00] David Dean: What I like to say when it comes to the demographics of people, 79% of a workforce is what I would generally classify as AI survivalists. And what I mean by that is, is that they're not, they're not for, they're not against, they're just doing their jobs. This is just another tool, and they're just trying to figure this out with it.
[00:08:20] David Dean: But to a certain extent, sometimes they're drowning through this like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what this n- needs to feel like with it as a part of this. So my, ... In culture change, the only way to truly change culture is un- is s- self-realization. And so- 100%. So the so the opportunity
[00:08:40] David Dean: Like, where I see the value of AI is it's, it's not that next tool. It's how can we utilize AI to rediscover ourselves and put a lens on the challenges that we face every day and figure out a way to move forward for that and, and change how we organizationally behave. And ultimately, on an intimate level you can do that, with it, and that's where I talk about the inbox.
[00:09:06] David Dean: So, as an exercise what I tell people like, like, "I don't know how AI can be effective for me in the workplace." Well, you know everything. You know what you do. You know all your issues. You know your problems with that. Start writing your story. Start putting that out there. Open up your mobile phone, open up that note, hit dictate and just blurt it all out.
[00:09:27] David Dean: Get it all out. Think of it as a self-help or, aspect- Right, therapy. Yeah ... just get, yeah, therapy- ... on that kind of stuff with it. And now you have a whole bunch of information. If you throw AI at it, what does that tell you? What... ask, start asking questions. Where's there opportunities? Where are there challenges?
[00:09:46] David Dean: All this kind of stuff. But then if you turn it around and say, "What does this mean to my dynamics within the workplace?" And start asking those questions with it, then you start realizing where there may be opportunities, to self-improve or go a different path with that. And that scales, not just as an individual, but that can be done as a team and that can be done as a whole organization.
[00:10:11] David Dean: Mm-hmm. And that's really the only way to change culture and bring AI into this ecosystem.
[00:10:18] Nicole Greer: Okay. Well, before we, before we started the podcast, I was kind of checking in with you, because I think you're really smart and I'm gonna learn a lot from you. But I was like, "Oh, my gosh, this, this whole thing, AI is like a new employee."
[00:10:31] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm. And so that's kind of what's, what was in my brain. I was like, "Oh, I didn't even think of it that way." Like, we have this therapist or counselor- ... or this person who can hold up a mirror for us based on, on what we're, what we have going on. So talk a little bit about how AI can operate as a real presence inside of our businesses.
[00:10:52] Nicole Greer: You talked about it just now, but w- if I was going to practice what you just said, what might I do as an individual contributor? And then if I was, like, a team leader, how would I actually bring AI in as, like, one of our team members?
[00:11:06] David Dean: Yeah. So I think the biggest thing is it's, it's a companion, Okay
[00:11:10] David Dean: to it. So, so from a certain lens standpoint if you've ever seen the movie with Michael Keaton, Multiplicity, they made duplicates of themselves, throughout it, and they, not all of them lined up the same way. They're not an exact copy. There's deviations, things that it does well and other doesn't do well.
[00:11:28] David Dean: And so if you think about AI, like, if I start... because it's really what it's there is to industrialize human behavior, and so I'm making copies of myself to basically offload tasks and certain types of things with that. But with those dynamics, what I kinda... They're like, "How do I make these work for me?"
[00:11:46] David Dean: And I, and what I usually say, "Imagine yourself eight years ago, where you were at professionally. Still very intelligent individual, but you don't have all that lived experience and lived consequence, from those past eight years. How would you help a younger version of yourself to become you?"
[00:12:05] David Dean: And that's essentially how you would approach instructing, crafting, documenting AI to be effective for you to get to that point, with it. And only you know how this works, with it. So that's why I said it's a relationship, it's a cultivation with this. Now, when it comes to a, a leadership and workplace standpoint if you want people to adopt these behaviors, messaging is critically important because a lot of the kind of messaging, "We're gonna replace you, you need to retrain, retrain because eventually, you're not needed anymore," like all of that dynamic, that's not real, and, and the reality is, is that humans are needed.
[00:12:44] David Dean: It just some people may forget at the top on why humans are needed, which is part of the reason why I, I wrote the book on there. The biggest thing is that a lot of that AI writing that's out there is r- at that level, and w- when I was putting this together, I'm like, "Something needs to be written from proximity."
[00:13:02] David Dean: The ground level people that are going through this, it, it... Someone needs to understand how they are dealing with this change. From a messaging standpoint, if I was a leader and I was rolling out AI, I would say, "Hey, you guys do amazing work, and the reality is, is that because of what we hired you for and we're throwing all of this undocumented behavior at you, we need to give you breathing room, and that's what AI is gonna here to help.
[00:13:31] David Dean: Because the one thing is we haven't really got to take true advantage of your possibilities and capabilities as a human." Yes.
[00:13:37] Nicole Greer: Yes. "
[00:13:38] David Dean: So let's give you the breathing room so you have the time to learn, time to cultivate, and time to do what humans do best, is think creatively around issues and problems, and that's why we put you in there to begin with."
[00:13:53] David Dean: And that's really that long-term relationship, because if we do it at as an individual level, we'll grow as a company, and the whole company will move forward.
[00:14:01] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So I love what you just said. So let me say it back to you, David, just so- Sure ... so I think I've got it. Well, one thing that I believe, if you go to my website, it's right on the front page, is that people have this thing called untapped potential.
[00:14:15] David Dean: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:15] Nicole Greer: Right? And so I think what I heard you say is that, AI comes in to be a companion, a tool that we use, use it the right way. It helps take things off my plate so I can really put my creative, innovative neurons to work on this work in front of me. 'Cause I, I, I, I talk to people all the time, David, and they're like, "I just go meeting to meeting to meeting- Mm-hmm
[00:14:38] Nicole Greer: and then I stay till 8:00 and do my work." Yeah. And they're just grunting stuff out instead of slowing down, getting AI to grunt things out, and- Mm-hmm ... bring their true genius to the table. Is, is that what you just said?
[00:14:52] David Dean: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:14:54] Nicole Greer: Okay, good.
[00:14:54] David Dean: Yeah.
[00:14:55] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:14:56] David Dean: Yeah, no, it's because it comes down to lived experience and lived consequence.
[00:15:00] David Dean: That's why we value people in that, and if we don't give them- Mm-hmm ... enough time to make mistakes, learn, and be creative to work around those mistakes with it, we're, we're not utilizing people to, to, to their full potential. And I think here's... This is the best example. It's a very tragic example, but this is the best example- Okay, give it to us
[00:15:19] David Dean: to represent this. We can handle it. So several well, now it's a couple months ago that terrible situation that happened at LaGuardia where the, the plane hit the firetruck. You know which one I'm talking about? So the pilot had to make a six-second decision whether to swerve or hit it dead on, and so in that six seconds, all of his lived experience, lived consequence had him make a decision.
[00:15:45] David Dean: He knew what, how it was gonna affect him, the pilot, and all of their families in the long run versus all of the passengers that were on the plane. He made his decision and, and that was, and that's all from lived experience and lived consequence. W- now, that's a very more serious, but people make decisions like that every day in a small, intimate aspect within the organization.
[00:16:09] David Dean: That's why we value them with it. And so the idea is that we need to be able to prop up people to make hard decisions like that every day, and if we can give them the breathing room to cultivate that even more by utilizing AI to kind of offload some of the stuff, this is why we want people in positions and to deal and address those situations.
[00:16:31] Nicole Greer: Mm. Crazy good. All right. So when you say offload your work, so I mean, I, I, I... In December, you know what I did, David? I went to Chicago, and I did this weekend where you learn about AI, like, drinking from a fire hose kind of thing. Mm-hmm. And I have notes for days and recordings, and, like, I cannot get to it because of my workload, but like- Yeah
[00:16:55] Nicole Greer: they were like, "You could set up an agent to do this, and you can do this, and you can do that, and you can do this, and you can do that." And so I haven't used all of that great information that I got at this weekend diving in, but I thought, "Oh, gosh, I've got to figure out AI so I don't get behind." So what are the things that AI can do to offload our work and help us so that we can bring more p- more people's genius to the table?
[00:17:18] Nicole Greer: We can have better meetings where we're solving the problems using our lived experience, as you say, which I love that, your lived experience which is not found in AI, right, your lived experience. Mm-hmm. So how, how do y- how would you suggest people go about doing that?
[00:17:34] David Dean: Yeah. So the, the biggest thing is that it takes a long time to understand how to utilize a tool effectively.
[00:17:41] David Dean: Just because it's thrown out there, it doesn't mean, like, how is this directly relevant to what I do every day- Mm-hmm ... with it.
[00:17:48] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:48] David Dean: So from a front door standpoint that's why I talk about self-realization and organizational discovery, is that what do I need to know? What do I need to stay up on?
[00:18:02] David Dean: And and what is happening with that? Get my thoughts organized with it. And, and that's why I think utilizing, downloading your story, and your story could be every day, it could be, for the week, all that kind of stuff. But start asking, like, what really matters to me? And, and being able to ask AI and point to that behavioral record.
[00:18:25] David Dean: What meetings are coming up? What do I need to be ready for? How do I prepare with this? So thinking in terms of, like, you have just hired a copy of yourself, and you are going to say, "Hey, can you tell me this?" Or, "Can you take care of this for me?" And but the, the hard thing is, is design.
[00:18:47] David Dean: You know- Okay ... I mean, that's what you're trying to be like. You-- I'm gonna go build an agent. I'm gonna do, do all these different types of things. And from a tooling standpoint, that's gonna take time and cultivation, with it, and it's gonna talk a, take a lot of practice understanding.
[00:19:01] David Dean: But understanding how you explain things and explain human behavior to other people Practice doing that against AI and see what you get out of it. But do it as questions, do it as instructions, and see what that means from that dynamic. Because what you start realizing is, and this is one of my main critiques for a lot of solutions out there, why they're ineffective for people, is they never spend the time understanding how you behave and how you do the things that you do every day.
[00:19:33] David Dean: And that's why change management is such an issue when it comes to AI, because there's a lot of assumptions in that kind of documented, presented way we organize, but that's not really how we work. We work over here with it. So the only real way to do that is understanding behavior. And so those start with all of your general organizational dynamics that you do, your questions, the things that you need to know, things you need to stay on top of with that.
[00:20:00] David Dean: Start asking those things and start seeing where is there a step-by-step process? Where is there something repetitive? Because if I had to go look it up here and then look it up here and then go again this, what if I just asked these questions in sequence and say, "Spit me out an answer," for this?
[00:20:18] David Dean: Now I'm more up to date, to a certain extent. And that cultivation over iterations eventually starts getting your mind acclimated on like, okay, this is what this relationship looks like, this is what this dynamic looks like.
[00:20:34] Nicole Greer: Okay. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. So, yeah, y- the, the agent thing the, the lady that was teaching this class, she said that she taught it how to book her flights for herself.
[00:20:45] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm. 'Cause she has these same criteria, like you're saying, like, "I, I want this, I want that. I don't want a seat there. I want a seat like this, and I want da-da-da, and I don't wanna fly between these hours." And so she did sit there, I guess as you're saying, and cultivated her thought process as she goes through p- booking flights, and now she just tells ChatGPT, "I need to fly to San Francisco on Tuesday."
[00:21:07] David Dean: Yep. Yeah. And, and that's what I'm saying is- ... self-discovery, I mean, that's the best way to understand how it can apply AI. And, and so, and that's why I said practice that. Practice how you behave, what you need, document that, and what does that reveal?
[00:21:23] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's so good. Okay. All right. So I think we're kind of talking about chapter two, which is Human Patterns Behind Process Bottlenecks.
[00:21:33] Nicole Greer: Talk a little bit about that chapter right there, 'cause we get in our own way is what I thought when I read that title of that chapter. I'm like, we... Hello, everybody, you get in your own way. You're creating some bottlenecks, right?
[00:21:46] David Dean: Yeah. Well, yeah. And well, and some of it is the human workplace dynamic.
[00:21:51] David Dean: So for an example that I refer to a lot is the approval process. Almost every organization has s- some kind of business process that's relating to approvals.
[00:21:59] Nicole Greer: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:00] David Dean: So, so if you as a company- got together and basically say, "Okay, what approval process is just-- it's not working at all, with this?
[00:22:13] David Dean: Why? Like, why is it not working?" Well, a lot of times, based on how it's officially documented, it's really unclear, so the only way to do is to go and talk to people and, see what's going on relating to that. And the challenge with that is, is that m- a lot of people don't reveal why it's not working with it.
[00:22:36] David Dean: Or they don't have time or are relevant to it. So, this is why I talk about understanding the behavioral record, is that if you look at people's emails, you look at people's calendars, look at chat messages and meetings, and you look at, like, comments that are made and certain discussion points that are related specific to, like, that approval process, it starts revealing a picture.
[00:22:57] David Dean: That picture may be when it hits that stopping mechanism, it may be that that person-- There, there is no tool to solve it. It may just be a conversation. Because that person that's making that approval doesn't feel like they have the authority to make that decision, so they invite a bunch of people into the conversation to basically work through, and that delays the whole process with it.
[00:23:19] David Dean: So maybe it'd just be like, "Hey, you-- we have full confidence, full trust. Make the decision. You don't need to invite anybody else with that. You're not gonna be penalized or anything like that." Or if you look at that person's calendar, they're booked for like three weeks. They're never gonna get to anything, or approve anything relating to that.
[00:23:36] David Dean: So those kinds of dynamics is why a lot of these bottlenecks happen. Some of them are interpersonal, and some of them, are overload, psychological safety, all different types of dynamics with that. And so is it gonna be 100% accurate? No. But there's enough signals in there to point you in the right direction to potentially address the problem, and then you don't even need a tool, because if it's working and there's a human process, it's just authority or decisions or whatever, go work it out.
[00:24:08] David Dean: Go figure it out. Then you'll keep moving forward
[00:24:11] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So you, you, you mentioned that there's all these data points in our Slack messages, in our emails, in our calendars. So how do we inte- get AI to look at that? Or is that what you're proposing, is that we bring AI in to kind of look at our calendars, look at what our email is saying, look at our Slack channel?
[00:24:30] David Dean: Yeah, so, because you have access to it, because and just as a word of caution, it's not like everyone has access to all, everything with it. When you use AI, especially from what I call from a self-service standpoint, you have access to these. Like, there are copies in your inbox for you to discover as a part of, and things that have been permissioned to you with that.
[00:24:53] David Dean: So all you have to do, and it's not just one, one question, it's usually a series of questions to get to that point. But it's, think of it as story building. I'm having an issue here. What does this information tell me? Here, here, and here. Okay? Yeah. So, and then how do I... So now I have information from all these.
[00:25:15] David Dean: Now, what is the big picture? What is this saying, with it? And what that's saying is, what are you trying to look for? I'm trying to understand why is it taking so long. I'm trying to understand, where is it sitting. I'm trying to understand these particular things with it. What are signals?
[00:25:31] David Dean: Because that's a critical thing, because when I wrote this book, this is almost a year and a half ago now, there's a lot of gates now because a lot of the companies have a lot of the large language models have realized on how much information can be revealed in these dynamics, and there are some laws that are starting to come out because of performance, and using AI against from a performance standpoint, and which is rightfully so.
[00:25:58] David Dean: But it doesn't mean that there aren't signals and dynamics that can be discovered and worked out to understand how that's not about performance, it's understanding process and understanding those bottlenecks with that. So, so you got to work, you got to ask the right questions to understand what those signals are.
[00:26:15] David Dean: But it is a degree of neuroscience if you think about it, but if you take neuroscience and break it down, it's like what is the issue? What is the problem? What's going on here, in, in humanistic language. It's gonna point you in the right direction, and then you can go have conversations.
[00:26:29] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So, wh- when you're talking about that I'm, I'm an entrepreneur, and so- Mm-hmm
[00:26:34] Nicole Greer: I have to sell a lot, right? Mm-hmm. And so I was thinking, sometimes just, just actually just this past week I w- or, and this morning I was thinking about it, I sent out three proposals last week. Mm. One person came back and was like, "Yes, let's absolutely do this." And I was like, "Yay." And then I got a second back that said, "Can you tweak this?
[00:26:56] Nicole Greer: We decided we didn't want to go with eight hours of training. We only want four." Mm-hmm. And so of course my heart was broken, 'cause I wanna do eight. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. And so I was like, "Well, why'd they make that choice?" And then I, then a third one it's like I've been ghosted. I'm like, "Where are these people?"
[00:27:09] Nicole Greer: Yeah. I spent two hours on the phone talking to them. Yeah. So what I'm hearing you say is like, I could have the same kind of conversations at work, like, "Why won't this VP say yes to this thing I want to do?" Mm-hmm. Why, why, or whatever. I could take the conversations, because I use Zoom and I record stuff, I could take that transcript, I could take the proposal itself, I could take the email I sent, put it in chat or Claude or whoever, and I could See what the patterns are, what's going on there, and really analyze that.
[00:27:44] Nicole Greer: Is that right?
[00:27:44] David Dean: Yeah, and, yeah, and, and even separately, even prior to doing that, because there's other pieces of the equation and this is where it, it gets interesting, is in that inbox, it's very intimate, the information that's in there. So you essentially can build personality profiles on yourself and other people, appropriate ones, to understand how they work and, and those dynamics around it.
[00:28:13] David Dean: Because right now it's intuition, but when you have an external person, there's information out there, like LinkedIn, they may have been on, presented, there's transcripts of them talking, like especially leaders and that kind of thing. You pull all that stuff down a- and you can ask, "Can you build me a personality profile based on all this dynamic-
[00:28:32] Nicole Greer: Stuff, yeah
[00:28:33] David Dean: in here?" Now I have a proposal. Why is it not working? What is the gaps? Where's their thinking at, relating to that? So connecting these two dots, and so how can I build an action plan to approach this that may convince them in order to maybe say yes? You may not be successful, but at least you feel like you kind of did everything that you could do in that regard, because there may be hidden things that they're not revealing why, within, that kind of stuff with it.
[00:29:00] David Dean: So, but but that's why I'm saying all of our behaviors and our voice tell all kinds of stories. So that's where I say it's a story builder. That's what AI is. It's building stories. And so, and if you... And we're storytellers, and so let's build our stories and make things happen and discover what we can do.
[00:29:17] Nicole Greer: Yeah, and I, I just, I'm, like, having a major a- a- aha over here, 'cause it, it would be the same internally 'cause I, I coach a lot of people executives, and these executives, they know what they're doing. Mm-hmm. They know the widget they're making. They know how to sell the widget that they're making.
[00:29:34] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm. They know the marketplace. They know all the stuff.
[00:29:37] David Dean: Yeah.
[00:29:37] Nicole Greer: But it's the dynamics between this VP and that CEO and this CFO and this and that and the other, and wow, you could really start to understand which makes these people that are part of the decisions in your future, how you could really learn to navigate the, the corporate ladder, I guess.
[00:29:57] David Dean: Yeah, and I actually, so after I published the book, I've been doing a lot of newsletter articles, like expanding on this. And I actually have one that I call it the Observant Climb, and it takes two individuals where they're basically doing the same thing. They, they have leadership, and they wanna move up.
[00:30:15] David Dean: Right. And so, but it comes down to intent, because AI can be u- be used in not great ways and, and, and it can also be used in positive ways with it. So, you know- Of course ... person A chose to harvest, I use the term harvest because that's really what it is, is harvest information out of emails, how things were said from a leader, what d- what matters to them, all those different types of things, and create those dynamics.
[00:30:44] David Dean: But the goal for them was to tell them everything they wanna hear. Influence them behind the scenes to get to that position, with it. Where the other person is, "I just wanna understand how to be a better leader and how they communicate. So I'm gonna use that same information and say, 'What are ways I can change the way I talk and interact with leaders?
[00:31:05] David Dean: What is ways I could practice this so that when I engage with leaders, with or around it?'" And then that person eventually gets gets to it, and they've been cultured. They've been trained to acclimate to that demographic, where someone who's kind of weaseled their way into that, and they really can't handle what that role actually does with this.
[00:31:25] David Dean: And so that's when I'm talking about the use of AI in those kinds of dynamics.
[00:31:30] Nicole Greer: And, I often think about people... I, I, I consider myself, I'm gonna think you're the same way, David, but you correct me. But like, like I, I am ambitious.
[00:31:39] David Dean: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:40] Nicole Greer: Right? Like, I wanna do good. I wanna get ahead. I wanna support my family.
[00:31:44] Nicole Greer: My daughter's getting married. I wanna have a big, fat wedding. Like, I mean, I, I wanna have this big, vibrant life, right? Yeah. And I'm just sitting here thinking, somebody who's got ambition in a great way, you know- Mm-hmm ... 'cause sometimes people think ambition is, like, an ugly thing or something.
[00:31:59] Nicole Greer: Right. I don't un- I'll never understand that because there's so mu- you're like, "Life is a big, juicy apple. Let's take a bite out of it," kind of thing. Mm-hmm. And so if you, if you have that ambition what a partner AI could be to help you really see the nuances of what you're saying and, and look at your your interactions, how you're emailing people, what you're saying to them, and how you could just be so much more effective.
[00:32:24] Nicole Greer: What a game changer for your career. Mm-hmm.
[00:32:28] David Dean: Yeah, exactly.
[00:32:31] Nicole Greer: I mean, it's- Like, don't miss that, everybody.
[00:32:33] David Dean: Yeah. I mean, that, that, and that, to me, that is really the, the generation, like, where that... Because it comes down to ROI and value. So where am I gonna get- 100% ... the biggest bang for my buck? It's by understanding how I work and how I behave is really gonna...
[00:32:49] David Dean: And, and where my challenges are, and then taking action appropriately for that. It's really the frame of mind and starting point, but then it's also a relationship, with it, is like understanding what this kind of symbiotic relationship is going to be in the long run, and it's gonna take time.
[00:33:09] David Dean: There's no instant answer in this dynamic. Because whether you do that, not everyone else does with it, and you have to kind of accept that reality with it because everyone moves at different paces in this regard. So, and you don't wanna penalize them. It just, it takes time for them to work that out and figure that out with it.
[00:33:29] David Dean: So be patient, but you can still take advantage of that and, and move forward, and the best way to do it is to self-discover.
[00:33:37] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And, and what's really important about what you're saying is that, we all have blind spots.
[00:33:44] David Dean: Mm-hmm
[00:33:46] Nicole Greer: Big fat ones. And the su- and, and a lot of what I do as a coach is help people see their blind spots, dave, when I first started doing this, they're like, "Coaching is for high potentials, and you bring in your high potentials and they get coached and they become even greater." Well, what has happened is that coaching is almost like, "We love this guy, but he has a blind spot, and here's where it is.
[00:34:09] Nicole Greer: He's blunt. He's too direct." Mm-hmm. "He's too intense. Can you coach him? 'Cause we love the work he does-"
[00:34:15] David Dean: Mm-hmm ...
[00:34:15] Nicole Greer: the tech- technical stuff, but it's not pretty over here." Mm-hmm. And I'm just thinking, wow, that could be, like, a coaching assignment.
[00:34:23] David Dean: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:34:24] Nicole Greer: Take your last 12 emails-
[00:34:26] David Dean: Yep ...
[00:34:27] Nicole Greer: put, put them into ChatGPT and ask these five questions, or ask five questions on how you could improve.
[00:34:35] Nicole Greer: Wow.
[00:34:35] David Dean: 100%. Yeah, and that's the point of my book, is that I don't have a lot of solutions, like, specifically. It's all a f- a way of thinking, because it's not gonna be me that's gonna solve this for everyone. I need to be able to equip everyone so they can either solve it themselves, or people like yourselves see an opportunity to create solutions for other people to kinda help figure this out.
[00:35:02] David Dean: And that's really the in my opinion, the kind of the, the big change that AI is going to help. It's just we're not there yet because of how things are being communicated and how things are being presented out. Things are this lens. It's like, "Don't look up here. Look here." Oh. "This is where it needs to look.
[00:35:20] David Dean: Here." Yeah. And he's pointing
[00:35:21] Nicole Greer: at his heart, everybody.
[00:35:23] David Dean: Yeah. So, oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Pointing at his, yeah, here. And so that is the real frontier of AI, is rediscovering ourselves as a people, as an organization within it, because we have such a wealth of information available to us. You can do this personally, but when, when you're working personally, you have very limited dynamics, with that.
[00:35:45] David Dean: You may have a very thriving personal life, which is great, but, but when a work life comes into play, you have all kinds of dynamics that can be discovered and understood.
[00:35:54] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And, and I think this is what your book says, but again, correct me, is that... And, and this is what I believe about culture, is, So a lot of times when I'm teaching about culture, 'cause this is, that's my thing, vibrant culture- Mm-hmm
[00:36:06] Nicole Greer: it's like culture's this big fat thing, right? Yeah. Like a big giant circle, okay? Mm-hmm. And then we have these teams, which are little tiny circles within the giant circle, and in that little circle are those team dynamics, the in- the emails going back and forth, the dialogue, the meetings, the stuff. And whatever's happening in those little circles, all those little circles are bumping up against each other and create this thing that you can't even get your head around called a culture.
[00:36:33] David Dean: Yep. And- Yeah, and trying to get it all to work together, effectively and all that. And but then you also have your own self culture, with it. And so, and the way I like to see it is if you think about a like a molecule or an atom- Yes. Yes, yes ... how small. And, and but when you start learning about it and you start unpackaging it, then there's littler things and littler things and littler things, and you n- like you never thought that these existed, but when you put them all together, it makes atoms, which makes us.
[00:37:01] David Dean: You know- Right ... which makes the whole, ecosystem with it. The tree, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so you can see systems, when systems collaborate and they work together, it's able to frame something that works and is highly effective. So our na- natural physics of life tells that story. So if you have a lot of dysfunction, it falls apart.
[00:37:26] David Dean: It disintegrates, with it. Of course. And so, so one thing I try to say is if you think AI is gonna come in here and save the day in regards to organization issues, it's all it's... Because it industrializes human behavior, it's only gonna industrialize dysfunction in your organization even more.
[00:37:44] David Dean: Don't miss
[00:37:44] Nicole Greer: that
[00:37:46] David Dean: So that's what I'm saying. It's, that's reality. And so, and you're starting to see it, p- mass l- they mass layoffs and they're having to rehire, and then you see all these other different types of issues come up where people spend a bunch of money and, it doesn't happen.
[00:38:01] David Dean: It's because you need to go back to the drawing board and s- and rediscover yourself as a company.
[00:38:06] Nicole Greer: Mm. That's so good. David Dean, I just think I could talk to you for hours about this thing. On the top of his book, he says, "A AI is not here to replace human judgment. It is here to make the absence of judgment visible."
[00:38:23] David Dean: Yep. Exactly.
[00:38:25] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And so, and, and, and the thing about AI is, like, everybody's talking about it. And, like, and if you just step back or, and again, you're not using AI to help you really see what's going on, but you're like, there's one camp that's like, "Oh, heck yeah, use it."
[00:38:39] Nicole Greer: And then there's, like, the one, like you said, that is using it because it's there and makes my email- Mm-hmm ... better, and then there's the one that is, is like, we're going all the way out, right? So it's this- Yeah ... these three camps or whatever. But I love your human, human approach to it.
[00:38:56] Nicole Greer: And, and w- are, there's this thing everybody knows this if you've taken psychology, there's that Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Mm-hmm. And so there's, we gotta have food and shelter, and maybe now AI, I don't know. But at the very top, is this thing, self-actualization. So, AI is not gonna make you dumber.
[00:39:13] Nicole Greer: That's what some of the people say. They're like, "Oh, this is gonna make everybody so stupid." Like, they're not gonna know how to string sentences together anymore or whatever. But what David is saying is that it's gonna help you discover who you are, how you act, what your behaviors are, what works, what doesn't work.
[00:39:28] Nicole Greer: I just think it's fascinating.
[00:39:30] David Dean: Yeah. And, and the idea is that it comes down to establishing the right lens and the right relationship of what AI is.
[00:39:37] Nicole Greer: Yes.
[00:39:38] David Dean: No one's spending any time on that. Right. And so, and that's where, so that was the whole point of the book, is that people need to have the right mindset to understand entering this relationship with it.
[00:39:49] David Dean: And because that's what's essentially falling apart out there, is that we sped ahead to a certain degree and it's, and we didn't stan- establish the foundation, in order to be able to make that happen. And, and I saw this clear as day, years ago at this point because because my, what I do for work is that I've, I've lived in the productivity space, I have for my entire career, and I build a lot of solutions in the productivity space.
[00:40:17] David Dean: And so, proximity matters. And what I mean by proximity is, like, I had the opportunity to talk to individuals like yourself, people in HR, people in operations, not top level all the time top level, the more the ground level people that are- Right ... actually getting the work done. Right. The get 'er
[00:40:32] Nicole Greer: done people.
[00:40:33] David Dean: And so, yeah, and so I ask, because a lot of times the number one artifact on, the undocumented behavior is the spreadsheet. People build spreadsheets- Like mad ... to manage all kinds of stuff with it. So when you start asking about those dynamics of why did this, why'd you create this?
[00:40:52] David Dean: Why are you using this? How does it make you feel? Like, is this working out? What's not... Like, so when you start asking all these questions and you do it, like, over many years across many different dynamics, you start seeing patterns- Yeah ... and you start seeing things that- The people think that they realize and don't realize on how they're behaving with this.
[00:41:12] David Dean: And so when I was entering like AI as, from a solution design standpoint and strategist standpoint, I'm like, we got to start at ground zero because no one's gonna understand what this means in the long run, especially when it comes down to the everyday individual with this in the workplace. So I- but no one's writing about this.
[00:41:31] David Dean: No one's writing from proximity, with it. Mm. So that's where I started. It's starting to crop up more now, with it because all of the failures- They read your book. Yeah, well, yeah, read the book. But, but like even like other people that are like AI strategists and that kind of stuff, but and, and HR and, and cha- because to me, HR is one of the most critically important groups that need to collaborate around onboarding AI to an organization.
[00:41:56] Nicole Greer: Don't miss that everybody
[00:41:58] David Dean: in HR listening. Because they are the knowledge individuals around behavioral dynamics within an organization. Yes. And so, and those dynamics and that understanding is critically important in order to truly onboard, AI to an organization. So, so bringing those people and having kind of be- them being the drivers of human behavior and acclimation into this change is critically important.
[00:42:26] David Dean: So, so th- that's kind of where I'm writing from, and I felt like it needed to be written written as about. Not up here, more for that frontline leader, frontline individual, and th- that's what I wanted to make it happen because a lot of people were suffering, through this. Oh, yes. And they didn't, they didn't know what it meant.
[00:42:44] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I bet you there are people listening, and they're like, "We've got AI going every which way to tomorrow. It's the Wild West around here. We don't know how to use it." Some of the things David said are eye-opening, enlightening even. Yeah. So how do people work with you? What do... Do you go into companies and help them figure out how to go back to the basics and start over again?
[00:43:06] Nicole Greer: 'Cause it sounds like that's what a lot of people probably need to do.
[00:43:10] David Dean: Yeah. If, if anyone's interested in learning more about me and what I do, you can go to my website, davidchristopherdean.com. If you wanna learn more about the book, Inbox Between Us, it also points to my, my website. All that information on there, but I'm an AI strategist.
[00:43:25] David Dean: I work with, with ex- executive leaders to figure this relationship out- Yes ... and build a plan and strategy, but I also help, solve problems and u- utilize AI effectively where the ROI exists, and that's the critical aspect, and especially business first, human behavior first types of mindset.
[00:43:46] David Dean: That's how I choose to do that because that's where success is.
[00:43:50] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And ROI, return on investment, everybody. Yep. So, let's not do this if we're not gonna make more money, 'cause we're in business, right? Let's, let's make sure that we're using this as a tool to help us move this sucker forward.
[00:44:03] David Dean: Exactly.
[00:44:03] Nicole Greer: And scale. Yeah.
[00:44:05] David Dean: Yeah, exactly. And what is the best ROI is self-realization, understanding how I behave so I can be more effective. That's instant ROI right there. That's why I keep pushing that.
[00:44:15] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Oh my God. You're... I love that because I ha- I have this little picture. When I, when I te- I have this program called the Vibrant Culture Toolbox, and so- Mm-hmm
[00:44:24] Nicole Greer: I can do it for 20 minutes, or I can do it for three days, right? Mm-hmm. But it's just plug and play, whatever I wanna teach. But the thing I always start with is what is a vibrant culture, and then I have this diagram where it, so it says humans, and it says talents, personality style, communication style, da, da, da, da, da, da, and then there's an arrow, and it says performance, and then it says ROI, results, outcomes, change.
[00:44:51] Nicole Greer: I mean, like- That's how, that's how it works in this world, and there's like a blind spot around that. So you're, you're just verifying that that's the case, so we have to work on the humans because the humans do the work, and AI can help us to understand how to make the humans better.
[00:45:06] David Dean: Yes, exactly.
[00:45:08] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So good. All right. So davidchristopherdean.com. Did I get it right?
[00:45:14] David Dean: That is correct.
[00:45:14] Nicole Greer: Okay. All right, so everybody go check out David. Are you... You're on the LinkedIn, because I LinkedIn with you.
[00:45:20] David Dean: Yep.
[00:45:20] Nicole Greer: Right? Okay.
[00:45:21] David Dean: All right. Yeah, that's another, that's another really good way to connect with me.
[00:45:24] Nicole Greer: Yeah, yeah. So reach out to David there, everybody, and of course, go to the Amazon immediately, immediately, right now, and get An Inbox Between Us.
[00:45:33] Nicole Greer: Like me, you'll dog-ear all the pages and you will have a great time reading that and understanding that we can really do AI in a really amazing way. I am so grateful that you've come on the show and hung out with me for an hour.
[00:45:47] David Dean: It was a pleasure, and it was great conversation, and thank you for having me.
[00:45:50] Nicole Greer: Yeah, you're so welcome. All right, everybody, go down right now and click the like button and leave a love note for David and I. We're lonely. We need love notes. So leave a, leave a love note. We appreciate you for listening. We'll see you next Wednesday on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. Thanks, David.
[00:46:07] David Dean: Thank you.