Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
AI is reshaping leadership, strategy, and the very role of HR. In each episode, the host Barb Bidan explores how AI drives innovation and leadership in HR with actionable insights for the future of work.
Sponsor
Wisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business.
Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of.
For more information, visit https://www.wisq.com
Beyond the Paycheck - Jeff Ostermann
===
[00:00:00]
Barb Bidan: Today my guest is Jeff Ostermann, Chief People and Culture Officer at Sweetwater. Jeff's background spans finance, private equity, and impact investing, and a decade working in business optimization and performance improvement at Sweetwater. Jeff has had a career-long interest in understanding what actually drives performance in an organization, and this work is what has eventually led him to the role and the seat that he's in today.
Sweetwater is the US's largest online musical instrument and audio equipment retailer, and their commercial model is fairly uniquely built almost entirely on human relationships. Every customer at Sweetwater has a dedicated sales engineer who knows their gear, their music, and the customer's history.
So not in a CRM-ish sort of way, but actually in a relationship way. That human touch is absolutely a staple in how Sweetwater's [00:01:00] customer experience is designed but it also is the product itself. That's what separates them from every other algorithm that Amazon might run on the same inventory in the industry.
Now AI can do or can try to do at least almost everything that those sales engineers are doing. So the question that Jeff is now sitting with is how to best reconcile this new reality. The business optimizer turned CPO is the person helping the company decide where this line belongs and what you lose if you draw it in the wrong place.
Jeff, I am super excited to dig in on this with you today.
Jeff Ostermann: Hey, Barb, it's great to be with you
Barb Bidan: I am so glad you are here. I really for our listeners to have an understanding of what makes our guests tick. I think that really helps to frame up the conversation. You came to people leadership through finance and business optimization, not through maybe the traditional path. Tell us a little bit about what led you to where you are today, your story from your point of view
Jeff Ostermann: Sure, Barb. [00:02:00] So my career really began, as you mentioned, out of finance, but finance for me was always a little bit unique in that it was never about the numbers for the numbers' sake or debits and credits. What I always had was a curiosity for how things worked, how businesses grew, how organizations could improve.
~A-and~ what I discovered early on, and maybe a little bit of natural proclivity to the analytical side of things, was that the numbers could begin to tell you a story. They couldn't tell you the whole story, but they could certainly begin to point you in a direction and open up lines of conversation and lines of inquiry that could help point you towards where an organization might need to improve or grow or get better.
~A-and~ that's really what I loved about finance to begin with, and began my career in that place. There was still a very functional component to that, as is often the case, especially earlier in your career. But as I grew in that path, that opened up doorways to begin to move into a little bit more operational aspects, complementing finance with the ops [00:03:00] side and beginning to lean in and have a little bit more of a general management approach to growing and improving some organizations, including the beginning of my time here at Sweetwater.
And then that naturally began to interface with the other big reality, ~i-is~ that organizations are, at the end of the day, are really just a big collection of people moving in a direction to hopefully serve other people really well. And so as I began looking at ways to, again, grow and improve organizations and our Sweetwater family here it began to become a lot more conversations about leadership development, people development, talent acquisition, how do you get the right people in the right seats on the bus as a means to serve others well and ultimately grow the company?
And so that's what brought about the transition from finance through ops, through people and culture role now both overseeing our HR operation, which I do, but also a portion of our headquarter campus operations. So I've still got a foot in kind of several different areas. [00:04:00] But again the natural thread through all of that for me was how do you grow and improve something in service to others?
And it's been a really satisfying journey every step of the way ~e-even~ with some twists and turns.
Barb Bidan: ~It,~ it sounds super interesting. I'm curious with the start on the finance side, but then even business optimization and that orientation around the numbers telling a story, right?
Is there anything about that orientation that you think has framed how you approach the people function being rooted in ~a,~ a data orientation?
Jeff Ostermann: Yeah, ~I th-~ I think the best or at least the best for me way to go about doing it or pressing into some of these areas is a mixture of intuition and analytics. And certainly when you look at a people function I'm not unique. Sweetwater isn't entirely unique in the idea of bringing data into some of those conversations.
But it has been a little bit of an evolution for us. I would say in the early days of our HR and people function, it probably was a little bit more relationally oriented, not so ~mo-~ much focused on the [00:05:00] analysis and some of the deeper dives into trends and KPIs and things like that. But over the last number of years, we've been able to layer in some more rigor in that area which we've also grown and scaled pretty tremendously through that time.
So it's also been necessary to do that going beyond intuition and gut and laying in ~some,~ some deeper analysis. But I think the complement of those two areas is really been the key. It's been art and science, and I believe that having that finance background that is a little bit more numbers-oriented has certainly been an ad-advantage in this space because where in some places we may have leaned or excessively leaned into just the art and gut on some decisions, we ~c-~ now can complement that with some more analysis and rigor to hopefully get us to a better place.
Barb Bidan: I feel like that theme is gonna come up maybe a little bit, the combination of art and science~ w-~ as we dig in on the commercial model. I'm actually very intrigued around obviously, a company focused on human relationships. In the intro I talked a little bit about some of the changes that AI [00:06:00] is bringing to all of our spaces.
But I love the concept of the dedicated sales engineer, right? Who I said that in a relational way but not in just a CRM sort of way, truly know their customer. I would love to hear how you're reconciling that approach that sales engineer, that humanistic approach, and the fact that we now do have tools that can probably help those humans do that job even better.
What's on your mind as you reconcile those two things?
Jeff Ostermann: Yeah. ~To,~ to answer that question, ~y-you~ really have to go back into the foundation of how we ever ended up in this model to begin with. ~A-and~ the beginning of the story for us is back in 1979. Our founder, Chuck Surack, was ~a,~ a local musician here in northern Indiana, came off the road after playing ~m- ~music with a group for a little while, and decided at the core of it, he wanted to help his friends make ~m-~ more music.
And so he started a small recording studio out of his VW bus. I don't know that you could call it a studio. It was ~a,~ a recording bus. And then, [00:07:00] and expanded that to a studio in his garage, and then started tinkering with some equipment and eventually started retailing the gear. But there was never a vision in there to really start and grow a massive retail operation.
It was really, truly at its heart, let's just help some people make music, and these are our friends, and you bend over backwards to take care of your friends. No ask is too big when you care deeply about them. And as the organization did start growing, Chuck started hiring other people like that who turned into these sales engineers you reference.
But the heartbeat was always the same. It was, of course, we need to generate some revenue and have a profit margin that pays the bills, but it was always about helping other musicians like us make music and fulfill their dreams, whatever those might be. If it's just playing in the garage with some ~fran-~ fans and friends, or if it's going on the road and building a career.
Whatever the scale is, we wanted to be there to help them. And ~we just--~ It worked. That level of [00:08:00] heart, that level of care, the word spread organically over time that, hey, this is an organization with a heart, with people that really care deeply. And now we happen to have 600 of those sales engineers serving millions of customers across the country every single year.
And because that's so central to the ethos of who we are, when the conversation around AI began to come up ~a,~ a few years ago, we really ~put-- ~drew a line in the sand, put a stake in the ground, however you wanna say it, that we weren't going to compromise the human element of who we are. But we're also a very innovative company.
We've been at the forefront of a lot of e-commerce related innovations over the last 20 plus years. And so we weren't gonna run away from AI as an opportunity for enhancement and improvement. And so one of the phrases we use a fair amount around here is that we just wanna treat AI like an Iron Man suit that we can put around the human being and help them be more [00:09:00] powerful give them superpowers, if you will, to serve our customers even better.
But none of it works for us if there's not a human being in the middle of it, steering it, guiding it, making the decisions with heart, and that's just something we're gonna be completely uncompromising on.
Barb Bidan: Yeah, that's such wise advice too, right? I do feel like thematically we're all out there trying to ~to ~think about in our own businesses, what are the pieces that need to stay uniquely human. And for Sweetwater's business, that was ~in-~ an inherent piece of what made the business what it is, right? So hanging onto that and committing to that seems integral, right?
And then wrapping AI as a helper around that, very literally, like the suit analogy I really where is the human relationship then most critical in that sales engineering process and that relationship with your customers? And where can AI serve as the Iron Man suit for the sales engineer?
Jeff Ostermann: Yeah, great question. It's really integral at [00:10:00] every step along the way. Our sales engineers, and for those listeners who may not be familiar with the model, the way it works is we do have an e-commerce platform. We have a website. You can come order from us on the website. But if you're a first-time customer, you've never ordered us, from us before, it doesn't matter if you're buying some guitar picks or a $10,000 guitar, as soon as you place that order, you're gonna get a same-day phone call from a real live person that's a musician, that's expertly trained on the products and the gear that we sell.
They're gonna introduce themself by name to you and let you know that they're there to serve you. They're there to care for you. They're there to answer any questions you may have over any point in your music-making journey, however long that lasts. And for many of the ~custards we,~ customers we serve, that lasts a lifetime.
And so this relationship isn't designed to be transactional. It's not just, "Hey, let me clerk an order for you." It's, "Hey, no, I really genuinely want to get to know you and what your ambitions and goals are." ~That,~ that's a [00:11:00] little bit unusual for some customers. They've never seen a model like that.
They've never encountered somebody that actually genuinely cares that deeply. But that individual, once they make that connection with that customer, ~i-~ is then responsible for not just being available to them if they call in and when they ~ca-~ call into that person's direct line, but they're actually responsible for proactively reaching back out to that customer at least a couple times a year, checking in, seeing how they're doing, seeing how we can be helpful.
~A-~ and being helpful really is the essence of it. This isn't a hustle sale. The beauty of it for us is that the vast majority of our customers, it's a passion-based business. They got into music 'cause they love it deeply, and so we don't have to hard sell you on anything. We don't have to convince you of anything.
We just genuinely want to be a resource and steer you in the right direction. And so that, those touchpoints, if you think about it in the context of any relationship, whether it's a friend or ~a,~ a partner or a [00:12:00] child, ~the,~ the relationship is important at every step along the way, from the moment you meet them to all of the investments and touches you have at every single step along the way.
And that's both in substance, it's content, tone, empathy, caring, curiosity That is something that we just don't see AI being able to fully replace. And so that human touch has to be the place ~that,~ that we continue to center ourselves. Now, that being said, you asked how does AI enter into that or where can it enter into that?
And one of the things we have been engaging with is those sales engineers are responsible individually each for serving hundreds and thousands of customers. That's a lot of information to retain. It's hard to remember everybody on a first-name basis all the time. And so we do have systems and tools that we wrap around those sales engineers' notes that they're able to take about customers and now AI-enhanced tools that allow them [00:13:00] to tee up the most relevant information for them to talk about at any point in time.
So if they know that a customer is interested in a particular type of gear the tools we now put at the fingertips get that information to them in as quickly and as relevant a ~pr-~ process as they can. So they're not wasting that customer's time fumbling around for information, not talking about things that would be most relevant to them.
That just augments their naturally human capabilities, allows them to focus on what they do best, but makes the process way more efficient.
Barb Bidan: Yeah, I can see it just helps them do the human pieces better, right? It's ~less~ less difficult to retain the facts, right? Or have the facts at your fingertips. And so you can be empathetic. You can catch up on what the
customer's been doing, um,~ With-~ on their musical journey, that kind of thing.
I picked up on something else that I think you are doing different. ~I'm--~ I would imagine you realize this, but in so many relational sales processes companies split~ the,~ the [00:14:00] roles of the person who makes the sale from the person who owns the relationship long term sometimes. And I imagine there was some decision-making there, right?
Around not having a separate sort of support function, that kind of thing. What was ~the,~ the thought process behind that one person that you retain for the duration of your journey as a customer of Sweetwater?
Jeff Ostermann: Yeah. ~The,~ the more people you introduce into the process, the more opportunities there are for cracks to show up. And we can see that, any of us in some of the other organizations, including sales organizations or retail organizations you may deal with. And if you get handed off from a salesperson to a customer service person to a shipping person to, all these different departments, sometimes quite literally ~the,~ the phone drops off and suddenly you're not having a great experience.
Or you may have three really good people, but then one person that doesn't know what they're doing, and that hinders the whole experience. So we really have wanted to keep it focused in one [00:15:00] relationship with an expert level person. We do have a separate support department that when the issues get extraordinarily technical, that we can hand them off to those people.
But in terms of technical capabilities and able to troubleshoot and navigate issues that somebody may have ~it--~ be having with their gear they've purchased from us they're even more expert in some ways. So we do have that available as a handoff. But you're exactly right ~th-~ in that we've just found that the more we can build trust with that one core person ~that,~ that is able to solve almost everything you may encounter as a customer the more ~that,~ that breeds loyalty and satisfaction and customers who wanna come back and keep talking with us and buying from us.
Barb Bidan: I feel like ~you,~ you walked right into the HR analogy with this one, 'cause that to me feels like ~what we would, what... myself anyway,~ what I would hope for a really great HR business partner-type relationship to be, right? Where
They are the primary point of contact for the client, but sometimes something does get~ r-~ pretty deep and technical on the compensation side.
But you're not handing [00:16:00] off your shared customer to the compensation team. You're bringing in, you're, like, phoning a friend and bringing in ~addit-~ additional expert, and how that feels to the client, or in your case, the customer, is a lot better than that idea of being handed off, which feels like exactly what's happening.
You don't feel ~s- ~super valued or like your primary person really knows you all that if they have to hand you off to answer a question, versus, "I know what you need. Let's pull in who can help with this." Because I pulled it over to HR. I'm, I wanna dig in on your team a little bit more, 'cause you're having to, I'm sure, grapple with these same issues, right?
Around what pieces stay human, what pieces can be primed for automation or AI within your own team. Where are you at on that journey within the HR function?
Jeff Ostermann: Yeah. So we're approaching it very much the same way. And it's interesting that you mentioned kind of the parallel between the sales side and the HR side, because one of ~the,~ the frameworks that we've layered in, we introduced a number of years ago to help shape the culture and the training and the development [00:17:00] our team, we ~re-~ refer to them as our five imperatives.
It's kind of our behaviors. Little bit different. A lot of companies have values statements. We have behavior statements. And one of them that we talk about that's actually the biggest, most significant one is wowing the customer. But what we talk about with our teams all the time is everybody is our customer.
And so sometimes that's the external customer that's buying the guitar, microphone, or turntable. Sometimes that customer is the candidate that we're recruiting to come work for Sweetwater. Sometimes the customer is actually our colleague that sits down the hallway from us, and all of us all the time have an opportunity and a responsibility to wow them, to go above and beyond, and to serve them as well as we possibly could.
So you're exactly right, is our approach and mentality in HR is no different than our salespeople that are trying to work with an external customer, is we do want to provide that same level of care and ~conser-~ service, even though most of the customers, so to speak, that we're serving are internal or soon to be [00:18:00] employees.
But then again, in a similar way, we are looking for ways that AI can enhance what we do. And we do use a third-party recruiting platform that that has some AI enhancements that are allowing us to~ en-~ engage and focus and find the best candidates, for example, that we're looking for. So we've empowering in that way.
But where you see some news headlines out there right now about organizations turning over their recruiting to bots and, automated responses and in some cases even some lawsuits out there about people being inappropriately dismissed or TNT'd, from a job opportunity, we still have real live recruiters sitting there talking to people, calling them up, having conversations because it just wouldn't be authentic for us to do anything other than that.
We can't say this is the type of company we are when it comes to our customers, but then when we go to talk to a candidate, for example, suddenly you're talking to a bot or ~a, a,~ a chat engine and not a human being. So we do very much [00:19:00] take the same approach, but then try and utilize AI where we can to drive out some of the maybe more mundane administrative skills and responsibilities so that those individuals and human beings can focus on doing what they do best, and that's build and grow relationships.
Barb Bidan: Yeah, I think y-you,~ y-you ~are probably more so than any guest that I have had on the degree to which Sweetwater seems anchored on what is critically important to their business is just so clear. And I suspect that shows up in your ~imper- in your~ imperatives in a way that it is not unclear for team members, I'm guessing, as to what matters, what is rewarded at Sweetwater, what is valued in terms of behavior, ~and~ and then everything else can fall into place around that is what I'm thinking as I'm hearing you, right?
If you don't lose sight of that, you don't get confused about what you should be doing with
AI or not with AI, what needs to be human, if you keep what actually [00:20:00] matters central, which you've been super clear about. And I think a lot of companies think they're clear about it, but I do love how clearly you've been able to articulate that for us. you have also lived on both sides of this a little bit, right? Like the optimizer you in kinda your prior ~wor- prior~ work and the idea of finding efficiency, that kind of thing. The culture ~offer...~ officer protecting the things that we're talking about right now, protecting the human aspects. How do you balance those instincts to make sure you're striking the right note with what Sweetwater needs from you as a chief people officer?
Jeff Ostermann: Yeah. ~P-balance~ is the right word, and so we talked about those five imperatives. ~A,~ a couple of the other ones that we talk about in there that ~ch-~ that lends itself toward the optimizing side is not just wowing the customer, going back to that idea of relationships, but we also talk about obsessing over details, getting things done, which really means moving at pace, moving at speed.
We talk about driving [00:21:00] continuous improvement, so again, carries with it that idea of optimization. And then the final one is developing the future and we always talk about the people are the past, present, and future of Sweetwater. So when we say develop the future, that's about personally developing yourself, developing your colleagues and teams around you and but still it has that idea of improvement.
It's just personal and team and professional improvement. And so when you wrap all that underneath the umbrella of wow the customer it gets back to that idea of relationship being central to who we are. But that's why we do all of those other things, but we talk, we teach, we train on all those concepts continuously and that's really important to me ~i-in~ my role because again, I referenced earlier the level of growth and scale we've achieved over the last 10 years.
The reality is, as most organizations get big a lot of what made them who they are gets watered down and sometimes [00:22:00] devastatingly and as we began to grow even more rapidly a number of years ago, we knew that was a risk, and we wanted to be proactive and pushing back on that story that a lot of organizations end up falling prey to.
And so the level of intentionality with which I focus, our team focuses, really our whole leadership team, I'm also very privileged that this isn't just an HR function. Our CEO preaches this ~a-as~ much, if not more so than anybody. Our whole executive team is fully aligned with it. So many of our senior leaders are fully aligned with it 'cause it really is a group effort.
It can't just be an HR function thing to drive this. But I do get to be a voice of it. Sometimes I get to be the reminding voice of it, if you find little pockets where it's drifting or coming off center a little bit. But I think it is elevating those themes that you referenced of you have to be keeping people front and center, but also always looking for those opportunities to drive and improve and grow and optimize.
But again, that's all in service to the [00:23:00] customer. If you do all those things well, we fundamentally believe the growth and the profitability and all those other things will come and we've been very fortunate to have that be true since 1979 for us. So we know that it works.
It's worked for us which gives us confidence to not even try for a second to deviate from that. Why would we change the model when the model's working well?
Barb Bidan: ~A-agreed. ~And I have this conversation from the point of view of ~we didn't go... ~we went into this with an AI lens, and I feel like what we had is~ a, ~a culture-based conversation that I think has been really refreshing on the this episode, right?
Because that is not always we sometimes go deeply down the tool path yet I feel like this cultural conversation has probably led us to great clarity around what would or would not land from a tool or technology or optimization perspective at Sweetwater, and I think a lot ~that~ that our listeners are going to be able to apply themselves as well.
I'm gonna bring us into [00:24:00] the lightning round at the end of the show, so just a few quick hit questions to take us home before we wrap up. So just your sort of what immediately comes to mind~ on~ on these things today. So what is one AI tool that your HR team is actually using today and finding helpful?
Jeff Ostermann: Yeah. So ~we've~ we've actually built through our technology team, we've built an internal internet-based AI engine. And so we've begun to utilize that as a tool for our team members to be able to get at least surface level assistance into our HR group. How do I access payroll?
How do I do these things? So again, easier questions where our team members may in the past have needed to reach out to somebody to just get basic information we can now point to them to that internal tool, and they can get some guidance on some of those things without necessarily needing to tie up one of our HR team members with those questions.
And then that frees those HR team members up to, again, be able to engage [00:25:00] in those situations that really do require more of a human touch and aren't just surface level information. So we're still relatively early stages with that, but we like what it's doing for us so far and just bringing a bit more efficiency, but then ~a-~ again, ~allow,~ allowing our team members to engage in those places where it makes more sense.
Barb Bidan: So the Iron Man suit for your own team
to be able to service your internal customers. Love it. I feel like there's probably more than one answer to this question, so maybe pick your best one. What is one people decision that you would absolutely never let AI touch at Sweetwater?
Jeff Ostermann: The final hiring decision would never turn that over to a bot, never turn that over to anything like that. We have to live with and be friends with and be colleagues with everybody that comes into this team. And we've said for many years, every individual that comes to work at Sweetwater, you're either adding credibility to us or taking it away.
And somebody needs to own that decision. A human being needs to own that decision and believe in that person and be prepared to develop them and coach them [00:26:00] and serve them at, in being on their own team. And so that has to be a human that's making that call.
Barb Bidan: Completely. I feel like our listeners have heard this a dozen times across several different guests, right? Is that ~the~ the human needs to own the decision. The AI can maybe support that decision, but a human still needs to own the decision and ~the~ the sort of ramifications of that, be they positive, negative, or otherwise.
What is one thing that your early experience, be it business optimization, finance et cetera taught you that someone with a, just a traditional HR background might miss in the CPO role?
Jeff Ostermann: Ooh, that's a good one because I've met so many good HR professionals during my time in this function that I don't know that I would necessarily say there's anything I would expect them to miss. ~B-but~ I would say that I believe coming out of the finance background, one of the things you find in the numbers is-- ~a-and~ as you dig through numbers, you discover the ability to always [00:27:00] peel back layers.
~There,~ there's something you can discover in reading a top-line revenue number or an EBITDA number but there's numbers below the numbers and data below the data that gets you to deeper answers and deeper insights into the company. And I believe there is a real parallel as I moved into optimization and then into the people function of just having ~a--~ the same mindset when it comes to people, is there's always a story beneath the story.
~And~ and sometimes even leaders don't take the time to dig a little bit deeper and understand what's really going on, as they can stop with the surface-level behavior, whether good or bad and believe that is the substance of the issue. But taking the time to dig a little bit deeper, analyze a little bit more, ask a few more questions I believe is ~a,~ a critical skill for any leader.
Barb Bidan: For sure. And then last but not least what does Sweetwater's culture look like in 10 years if this ~n- ~next phase of tech and other transition that we're facing goes [00:28:00] well?
Jeff Ostermann: Yeah, I ~b-~ I believe we're more human-centered 10 years from now than we've ever been. We're more innovative than we've ever been. We're more efficient than we've ever been. One of the privileges again that we have is ~w-~ we've had so much consistency and stability in the culture and the ethos of the company going back to 1979.
And ~we--~ those of us in leadership here count it as a huge privilege to be able to steward that and honor that. Always modernize it, always refresh it, always stay on the cutting edge, but there's certain core things that shouldn't change. And so 10 years from now, I don't believe the core of our culture looks very different at all.
It fundamentally is still living and thriving based on those principles that have guided us for so many years now.
Barb Bidan: I was hoping that was gonna be your answer. I'm not surprised and I think that is fantastic. So I always try to take us home with a bit of a recap. I will say that this is the most [00:29:00] human that The Human Element has been, and I am totally here for that. So I feel like my recap might be a little different today than it is on other episodes.
But my takeaway is it is crystal clear that you are not losing sight of what's important through your imperatives. ~I...~ wow the customer being one, but that is only one of the things that are clear behavioral tenets for your organization. And that I think is what the definition of culture is, right?
Is being clear, holding those things consistent, and then making those things happen, right? So they're what you reward, they're what you train on they're what you hold people accountable to, et cetera, and I think that came out in some of the stories that you shared. I loved also that you talked about the combination of intuition and analytics, so art and science. I think that is~ where~ where our value comes together in leading the HR function, right? How do we rely on the tools and the data that we [00:30:00] have, but keep it distinctly human? What is that balance there? ~The~ the fact that you are also unwilling to compromise on the human elements of what make Sweetwater, so you help people make music, and AI is just the Iron Man suit that gives your team superpowers.
It just feels like with that clarity, there is no mistaking what the core is. The other pieces fall into place around that when you have that level of clarity. So I hope I did justice to some of what you shared but I did enjoy this episode a lot. I like to always leave our guest with the final word here.
So for listeners who maybe are listening to this on their way home from work what would you want to leave with listeners to think about on the rest of their drive home today?
Jeff Ostermann: First off, Barb, that's an excellent summary, so thank you. I think you recapped it really well. I think my one encouragement and when I say this, it's always a reminder back to myself, but to anybody listening today, is [00:31:00] whether your customer ~i-is~ truly ~a,~ a purchasing, buying customer, or your customer is a colleague, or your customer is a family member, I believe any time that we can truly take a moment to step into their shoes and look back at the interaction that I'm having, the interaction that we're providing and delivering to them when we can truly look through that lens and then make decisions with that in mind, it's where the best decisions are generated.
I think when it comes to this topic of AI or any other topic certainly running a profitable business, growing a business is very significant and many times there are financial and efficiency decisions that need to be made. But I believe when we make decisions on AI or anything else that run first and foremost through those lenses, that's where we have a tendency to get ourselves in trouble.
But I believe when we step back and we say, "Hey, what is really best for the customer I'm serving?" And then can I bring AI to bear on that in a way that [00:32:00] genuinely, authentically makes their lives better, and makes my employees' lives better, makes my family's lives better? When the tools can be used in that way, that's where we all win.
And so that would be my encouragement today is take the time, no matter how well you're already doing it~ m-maybe~ take an opportunity to step up a little bit and put on more of that customer lens and look back at your organization through that and then make decisions accordingly.
Barb Bidan: There is a calmness and a clarifying aspect to that approach that is fantastic and a great reminder in this world of fast change that's happening around us that maybe we don't always feel. So I think this was a great reminder for folks today. I've so appreciated talking to you.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Jeff Ostermann: Thank you, Barb. It's been a pleasure.