Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by Elmo the Complete AI Workforce Platform.
Speaker 1: It unifies HR, payroll and rostering on one platform with
Speaker 1: native AI that turns connected data into trusted answers. You
Speaker 1: can act on the best prepared person in the room
Speaker 1: wins right. But when your day is back to back meetings,
Speaker 1: unread emails, and conversations you haven't had time to think through,
Speaker 1: preparation feels like a luxury you can't afford. But Joseph
Speaker 1: Lyons has a better answer, and it comes down to
Speaker 1: how he uses AI. Joseph is the president of Elmo Software,
Speaker 1: and I love this conversation because he isn't just talking
Speaker 1: about how he uses AI in theory. In this chat,
Speaker 1: he pulls back the curtain to share how he's using
Speaker 1: AI every single day in super practical ways. We get
Speaker 1: into the personalized daily intelligence brief his entire exec team
Speaker 1: wakes up to every morning. We talk about how he
Speaker 1: turned a six hour strategy workshop transcript into something that
Speaker 1: was actually usable and actionable, and the way he now
Speaker 1: roleplays tough negotiations and difficult performance conversations with AI, including
Speaker 1: on his drive to work. Welcome to How I Work,
Speaker 1: a show about habits rituals and strategies for optimizing your day.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, doctor Amantha imber Joe. I want to
Speaker 1: start with this ELT productivity agent that you have built.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what this is and what it does?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think we have been fortunate in that
Speaker 2: at Elmo, we've been able to deploy a pretty amazing
Speaker 2: tool called Glean and that's like an enterprise AI layer
Speaker 2: that we've got and it integrates with all of the
Speaker 2: various systems that we have. So we've got, you know,
Speaker 2: obviously our g suite, We've got Slack, which is used
Speaker 2: extensively Salesforce, a range of different tools. And then what's
Speaker 2: exciting about that platform is that it's actually allowed us
Speaker 2: to build agents in natural language. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: you need to have an engineering background, you don't need
Speaker 2: to understand how to code. You're pretty much able to
Speaker 2: describe what you want the agent to do, and then
Speaker 2: it connects to the data sources and runs. So what
Speaker 2: we've been able to do for our ELT is actually
Speaker 2: build a productivity agent and then it allows us to
Speaker 2: pretty much run.
Speaker 3: For daily for each of our exec team.
Speaker 2: It connects all of the applications that they've got and
Speaker 2: it pulls together a prioritized daily brief, summarizes all the
Speaker 2: key emails that we need to do, outlines the next
Speaker 2: seven days of meetings, any sort of open action items.
Speaker 3: It surfaces and flags.
Speaker 2: What's high importance, what might need to go to the board,
Speaker 2: any key customer meetings, or any major risks or escalations.
Speaker 2: So it's been a massive timesaver for all of us
Speaker 2: in the exec and it makes sure that we're acting
Speaker 2: on the things that we need to do, and it
Speaker 2: is delivered beautifully into Slack every morning for us.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. And so does every member of the ELT
Speaker 1: get their own personalized version of that report based on
Speaker 1: what they need to know?
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is absolutely amazing. How much time do you
Speaker 1: reckon that has saved you in terms of all the
Speaker 1: things that you need to be across Joe.
Speaker 2: I think it's not just saving time about planning for
Speaker 2: that day, but it's also saving time in between a
Speaker 2: very full meeting schedule because it allows you to have
Speaker 2: a reference guide and a layer to move through the day.
Speaker 3: So I reckon it's saving at least than an hour
Speaker 3: or two a day.
Speaker 1: Now. I know that you know using AI to improve
Speaker 1: how effective we are with meetings is pretty common. But
Speaker 1: tell me about a six hour workshop that I think
Speaker 1: you attended this week, and tell me how you used
Speaker 1: AI for that, because that is a very long workshop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. I mean it's a big time commitment.
Speaker 2: It was an important strategy workshop that we were running,
Speaker 2: and we had a number of senior execs that were
Speaker 2: in there, and there were some important strategic conversations that
Speaker 2: we needed to get through, and I found that Zoom
Speaker 2: AI companion it really only gives you kind of a
Speaker 2: surface level, bullet point recap of what was discussed then,
Speaker 2: particularly when you're talking about a six hour conversation that
Speaker 2: could cover a range of different topics. We did get
Speaker 2: a zoom summary of it, but I found it didn't
Speaker 2: provide us the full detail and get to us a
Speaker 2: clear set of outcome. So I went back into Zoom
Speaker 2: and that actually pulled out the full detailed transcript of
Speaker 2: the day and I uploaded that into Claude.
Speaker 3: What came back.
Speaker 2: Genuinely kind of blew me away, because what it did
Speaker 2: was it captured all of the wisdom and intelligence of
Speaker 2: everything that we discussed, the strategic decisions that were made.
Speaker 2: Also the ones that were still opened. It pulled together
Speaker 2: all of the key themes and the changes that the
Speaker 2: room agreed on. It then tabled for me the next steps.
Speaker 2: It summarized who were the key owners, and then it
Speaker 2: reorganized everything by topic and sort of the chronological order.
Speaker 3: Of the day.
Speaker 2: I then prompted it again to pull together an artifact
Speaker 2: which I could use to share and cascade with the
Speaker 2: team members that weren't in there, and then a full
Speaker 2: email and common structure that I was allowed enabled me to.
Speaker 3: Use that to cascade to the rest of the team
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: So it was pretty mind blowing and kind of went
Speaker 2: a much larger step further than what you would typically
Speaker 2: get with Zoom.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting and just the value that you got
Speaker 1: from taking that out of Zoom's AI companion and into Claude.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me some of the things that perhaps
Speaker 1: you were thinking about when you were prompting Claude to
Speaker 1: get the best possible output from it, and whether you
Speaker 1: know you used the thinking model or just on AUDO,
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'd already used Claude to prepare, help me
Speaker 2: prepare the agenda, help me prepare and consolidate some of
Speaker 2: the pre context and materials, and then you know the
Speaker 2: outputs in the objectives of what we had for the day.
Speaker 2: So Claude already had the context of what I was
Speaker 2: hoping to achieve for the entire workshop, and then having
Speaker 2: the full transcript and conversation that was following that it
Speaker 2: already had connected the dots between the conversation and what
Speaker 2: the goals were. So it was then simple to be
Speaker 2: able to prompt it in saying based on everything that
Speaker 2: you knew of what we wanted to achieve the entire
Speaker 2: span of the conversation. And then we were really conscious
Speaker 2: while we were in the meeting, like no one needing
Speaker 2: to take notes as you typically would. We would actively
Speaker 2: talk to the AI and make sure that we were
Speaker 2: clear on capturing actions that needed to be done or
Speaker 2: owners or timeframes. So it did make the summarizing of
Speaker 2: the full day far easier because it did capture everything
Speaker 2: that was spoken.
Speaker 3: Throughout the day.
Speaker 1: I love the idea and something we do at Inventium
Speaker 1: is that if we are gathering in person for an
Speaker 1: off site or something like that, generally Granola is our
Speaker 1: meeting transcription tool of choice and we will just pop
Speaker 1: a phone with granola running in the middle of the
Speaker 1: workshop room, and it just allows us all to be
Speaker 1: so much more present because no one is needing to
Speaker 1: take notes, no one is needing to capture things on
Speaker 1: a whiteboard. And then because we've got that full transcript,
Speaker 1: we can put it into any AI tool that we
Speaker 1: want prompted in ways that are going to get the
Speaker 1: best output. So I love that example, Joe. Now, something
Speaker 1: that I would imagine your job as president of Elmo
Speaker 1: involves a lot is negotiating. Can you tell me how
Speaker 1: you've used AI to help with negotiations?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we're also fortunate that we've deployed a
Speaker 2: tool called Gong, which is also a pretty mind blowing
Speaker 2: platform because what it does is it captures every single
Speaker 2: interaction that we have with our customers, so every call,
Speaker 2: every meeting, any piece of content that they've engaged with,
Speaker 2: any presentation or even voice messages that may be left.
Speaker 2: So it gives us a complete history of the relationship
Speaker 2: with had with either a new customer that we're looking
Speaker 2: to engage with or an existing customer as well. And
Speaker 2: then I guess where it gets really powerful is when
Speaker 2: you feed that history into AI. Before I walk into
Speaker 2: a conversation or a negotiation. Because what I've been able
Speaker 2: to do is extract all of the intelligence from any
Speaker 2: of the pre meetings that have occurred with some of
Speaker 2: our team. I can upload the detail of the partnership
Speaker 2: contract that we're trying to work through. What I can
Speaker 2: then do is prompt and explain kind of what my
Speaker 2: commercial position is, what theirs may be, Prompt and understand
Speaker 2: what is some of the likely objections that might come
Speaker 2: out of the discussion, and then help define pretty much
Speaker 2: a cheat sheet that I can keep hoping during my
Speaker 2: laptop in the call, and effectively it's kind of mapped
Speaker 2: out what the game theory of that negotiation might be.
Speaker 3: I don't just rely.
Speaker 2: On the intelligence though what we've got in Gong obviously,
Speaker 2: make sure that I'm always speaking to the humans that
Speaker 2: have engaged with customers or prospects as well, because it
Speaker 2: is important to get that human overlay as well.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, Joe, is there an example of a meeting
Speaker 1: you know that you've had in the last few weeks
Speaker 1: that you know maybe has required some tough negotiation and
Speaker 1: just some specific examples of how that has helped you.
Speaker 1: Because it sounds incredibly powerful. I'm very aware of gong.
Speaker 1: We don't personally use it an inventium, but yeah, a
Speaker 1: super cool tool. Yes, I'd love to hear an example
Speaker 1: maybe of where in this AI world do you approach
Speaker 1: the negotiation differently and got to a better result than
Speaker 1: you know three or four years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a partnership agreement that we were looking
Speaker 2: to strike and this has only happened just over the
Speaker 2: last couple of weeks. We had what their position was
Speaker 2: on the commercial terms, what mine and the businesses were
Speaker 2: both on pricing, on contract duration, and on some of
Speaker 2: the sort of technical components. So it allowed me to
Speaker 2: prompt it to say, well, where were the points of
Speaker 2: contention and help empathize what the partner's position was, but
Speaker 2: most importantly what ours was, and then what would be
Speaker 2: some recommended solutions that we could come to terms on,
Speaker 2: and most importantly, how to kind of build a talk
Speaker 2: track and an empathy layer so that we could actually
Speaker 2: reach a conclusion. And fortunately we've just had sign off
Speaker 2: and we're moving forward with getting a contract stood up,
Speaker 2: so it did actually work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome. I would imagine that that would also change
Speaker 1: your kind of mental and emotional state going into a negotiation,
Speaker 1: which can obviously be quite stressful situations.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean I think it allows me to feel
Speaker 2: more confident knowing all of the variables, feeling really prepared,
Speaker 2: knowing what's transpired before, and then knowing what the points
Speaker 2: of contention are and then you know what option AB
Speaker 2: or C might be on how to respond to that.
Speaker 1: Now, something that I know a lot of people use
Speaker 1: AI for is role playing conversations. And I would love
Speaker 1: to know for you as the president of an organization,
Speaker 1: and I feel like people think of, well, you're running
Speaker 1: an organization, like surely you're confident, you don't need to
Speaker 1: like you know, PA for meetings, like you know you've
Speaker 1: got it. But I know that you do use AI
Speaker 1: in this way, Jo, And i'd love to hear like
Speaker 1: a couple of examples of where and how you've used
Speaker 1: AI to prepare for tough conversations.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's a good question, Amantha.
Speaker 2: I recently had a pretty difficult performance conversation with a
Speaker 2: team member that I needed to have and wanted to
Speaker 2: make sure that I was really well prepared and that
Speaker 2: I'd thought through how I was going to frame that
Speaker 2: feedback the specific examples, and I quite often use the
Speaker 2: drive into work as time to think. And I have
Speaker 2: connected Clawed Voice directly through so I can actually speak
Speaker 2: to it in my car. So I was able to
Speaker 2: just in a conversational way explain the situation, explain the
Speaker 2: person that I was dealing with, the specific challenge that
Speaker 2: we were having to face into the feedback that I
Speaker 2: needed to provide. And it was amazing what it came
Speaker 2: back with in terms of giving me a pretty cohesive talk.
Speaker 3: Track and how to approach it.
Speaker 2: And I could then refine it based on further prompts
Speaker 2: to make sure that it was engaging, that we got
Speaker 2: to a clear outcome, and that it was a mutually
Speaker 2: beneficial conversation.
Speaker 1: And how are you prompting the AI in that kind
Speaker 1: of an instance, Like how much or how little information
Speaker 1: are you feeding at the start of that conversation if
Speaker 1: you like, in the car, I think.
Speaker 3: The more the better.
Speaker 2: So it's explaining who the person is on the other side,
Speaker 2: what role they're in their history, either working with us
Speaker 2: or it might be a customer for example. You know,
Speaker 2: what are the key challenges or the opportunities that we're
Speaker 2: needing to work through being as specific as you possibly can,
Speaker 2: so that the AI has full context of the environment
Speaker 2: of what we're chatting about.
Speaker 1: Now. Obviously, as a leader, like you're getting so much
Speaker 1: input from so many sources, you're getting I would imagine
Speaker 1: weekly reports from different teams, different functions. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me how you're using AI to synthesize all that information
Speaker 1: that must be incoming in your world.
Speaker 2: That's probably been the biggest game changer for me, and
Speaker 2: particularly in the last few months. I'm sure many of
Speaker 2: your listeners and most leaders would experience this. You find
Speaker 2: yourself getting different reports in different formats from five or
Speaker 2: six different functions, and each presenting their own complex data sets.
Speaker 2: They might have their own perspective, and in many cases
Speaker 2: there's not really any single person that's holding the full picture.
Speaker 2: So what I've experienced particularly lately is that now I
Speaker 2: can ingest the range of different information I can pull.
Speaker 2: Sales data in might be marketing metrics, it might be
Speaker 2: customer insights, it might be performance cross border with different currencies.
Speaker 2: It might be product and engineering updates as well. So
Speaker 2: I can ingest a lot of different formats and data sets,
Speaker 2: and what I'm finding is that the AI can now
Speaker 2: produce really cohesive and consistent and useful reporting, which I
Speaker 2: think previously would have taken hours and hours and hours
Speaker 2: to consolidate. And what I'm seeing is that the quality
Speaker 2: is incredibly high because it's spotting patterns across the data
Speaker 2: and things that I may have missed if I've just
Speaker 2: read each report individually.
Speaker 1: And how is that set up behind the scenes? Is
Speaker 1: that an automated process now is that you're manually uploading
Speaker 1: documents to Glean or to claude, Like, what does that
Speaker 1: look like behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: So initially it had been using claw to be able
Speaker 2: to pull that together in prompting it, in defining a
Speaker 2: well formatted set of materials that are structured with clear
Speaker 2: recommendations for.
Speaker 3: The week ahead.
Speaker 2: And now we're in the process of being able to
Speaker 2: automate that utilizing Glean with an agent, which means that
Speaker 2: on a weekly basis, I've got all of the inputs
Speaker 2: of the reports coming from different teams and functions, and
Speaker 2: then producing a format and an output that I've landed
Speaker 2: on as being the format that's relevant, that provides cohesion
Speaker 2: across the metrics, but then more importantly, recommendations and insights
Speaker 2: for me to act on that.
Speaker 1: Sounds absolutely amazing and such a timesaver as well, to know,
Speaker 1: Joe clevisely like a large part of a leader's role
Speaker 1: is strategic thinking. And you know, I think in the
Speaker 1: AOL conversation we hear so much around all the productivity
Speaker 1: benefits and the time savings, but I feel like people
Speaker 1: talk less around how it is augmenting the quality of
Speaker 1: their thinking. Like I'd love to know, Joe, you know
Speaker 1: some other ways that you use AI to stress test
Speaker 1: your thinking, to bounce ideas around, you know, anything that's
Speaker 1: improving the quality of your thinking. How are you using
Speaker 1: it in that way?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Pretty much.
Speaker 2: Any input that I'm getting where my instinct to respond
Speaker 2: to it may not be as quick and I need
Speaker 2: some time to think about it. So it might be
Speaker 2: an email, it might be a Slack message, it might
Speaker 2: be you know, just the thought that's come to me
Speaker 2: after a meeting. I'm very open and willing to just
Speaker 2: feed that into a claud or whatever model that I'm using,
Speaker 2: and then prompted to help me evaluate what the issue
Speaker 2: with is, what the challenges are, how am I consider
Speaker 2: it and give me two or three options about how
Speaker 2: to move forward with it? So it's increasingly becoming my
Speaker 2: system in pretty much everything that I'm doing, which is
Speaker 2: allowing me to be far more productive and more effective
Speaker 2: in the moment for what that issue is that's coming
Speaker 2: my way.
Speaker 1: Amazing, Jo, it has been so great having you on.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's not every day you get to
Speaker 1: speak to the head of a company just really transparently
Speaker 1: around how they are using AI and how it's really transformed,
Speaker 1: like really a lot of what you do in your
Speaker 1: role as president of Elmo. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for sharing and for being so practical with all those
Speaker 1: examples that you have given.
Speaker 3: Thanks Amantha, it's been great talking with you.
Speaker 1: If you want to explore how Elmo is building AI
Speaker 1: into how Australian organizations manage and develop their people, head
Speaker 1: to Elmosoftware dot com dot au and of course to
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Speaker 1: I Work was recorded on the traditional land of the
Speaker 1: Warrangery people, part of the Coulan nation.