How managers can use AI to boost team communication skills

Melissa: I wanted to play that role of the transition between people and technology and helping people through that period. I find that I can bring value to technology projects where I can bring the human element. And like on the human side of things, I'm helping executives and leadership teams with their strategic planning and thinking about the impacts of these technologies and how that will therefore change and shape the workforce.
Jimmy: Welcome back to The Ways of Working podcast, your weekly dose of practical tips for senior leaders who are looking for a performance edge without burning themselves or their teams out.
Today, we are talking to director of Tech with Heart, Melissa Crawford. Melissa, welcome.
Melissa: Thank you. Nice to be here.
Jimmy: Honestly, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. You are somebody I look up to so much. And for those of you who don't know Melissa, she is a hugely experienced HR professional, but with a twist and we'll find out a little bit more about that later on. And she is recognised as one of the most influential HR professionals in New Zealand through a number of accolades, awards, and recognitions, and I'm sure she'll tell us about some of those. But Melissa, before we kind of dive into what we want to talk about today, the exciting world of technology and HR, just tell us a little bit about your journey, how you ended up here today and any career highlights that have kind of prompted you in the direction you've gone.
Melissa: Wow, how do I put that succinctly? So, I started off my career in technology. So, out of school, I did a technology degree. I was really excited about technology because I thought it was fast-changing, fast-paced and I'm a very learning-curious person, so I was excited that it would be constantly evolving and changing. And then I worked in that field for a while, and in those early days where it was the transition from paper to technology where people were learning how to use computers really for the first time. And I played quite a pivotal kind of role where I was able to kind of you know, people were very fearful of computers at that time. "Yeah, the computers are going to steal our jobs", all of those fun things. And helping that transition for people to see the value that they could add and the efficiencies they gave, the ways that it could help them. So, it was very much already starting to do that kind of cross between people and technology. But the more I got involved in technology projects and big, global rollouts, I really started to be concerned about the people element. I felt that they weren't really being taken into account as as much as they should. So, I completely pivoted my career and spent the next 25 years upskilling on like people and organizational psychology and behavioural skills. So, focusing on what I call the glory parts of HR. So, playing with all the the, you know, high-potentials and engagement and culture and leadership, diversity, inclusion. All those kind of elements, and not so much the what I call the tough parts, the ER ER and payroll, and those elements. But really much more in that strategic space. And across lots of different industries, so again, I was really I really enjoyed swap swapping industries and looking at kind of culture shifts within organizations and the changes and impacts that executive teams have on the culture of an organisation, I found really fascinating. So, I did that for a long time, but I I felt this real urge coming again. And I guess, one of the you know, you talked about highlights, one of the highlights of my career in that space was when I worked for Air New Zealand, rolling out a global positive psychology project for two years, which we launched to all 12,000 employees globally and that was definitely the project of a lifetime. And it made such impacts on our people and really lifted the culture. And that was a, yeah, pretty magical project to be a part of. So, I learned a lot during that time. But yeah, I felt this shift again coming. I I felt that sometimes HR departments weren't really thinking about technology and the impact that it was going to have. And I was seeing that same wave coming with robotics and artificial intelligence and all those elements. And I didn't want to just watch it at a distance, I really wanted to be a part of it. And again, I wanted to play that role of the transition between people and technology and helping people through that period. So, I stepped out of my career and went and did my master's degree, and focusing on artificial intelligence and how that can be used to lift leadership in large corporates. And from there kind of started this new journey, and I really love the combination. I find that I can bring value to technology projects where I can bring the human element, and like, on the human side of things, I'm helping executive and leadership teams with their strategic planning, thinking about the impacts of these technologies, and how that will therefore change and shape the workforce. Because I was a bit concerned about HR teams planning those things for the future when they didn't really understand the technologies that were around and the technologies that would impact. So, I wanted to sort of help with their upskilling process.
Jimmy: I love that. That intersection of technology and HR, see, keeps coming back for you in cycles, doesn't it?
Melissa: Definitely. And I just believe that that is the future, is how to optimize the best of both. And even a leadership, and we'll probably talk about this further, but I see a really big change coming where leaders are really going to have to understand how to navigate both.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Melissa: So, I wanted to play an active role in it, so I steeped in and did that. And then that sort of started this shift with my new career, and I was again finding some faults in in our system that we still box people. So, even, you know, if you think about most of your recruitment systems, the first application box will ask you what department you're applying for a role in. And at number one, I'm stuck. I don't want to pick just HR and I don't want to pick just technology. I want to
Jimmy: Don't pigeonhole me, I've got more skills than that.
Melissa: Exactly! And, you know, you're really halving my skill capability to do that and we My little phrase at the moment, is it a talent shortage or is it a talent wastage? Because there's so many elements like that where people have so much broader skill sets and they're not allowed to utilize them. So,
Jimmy: Oh, my god. I love that. I love that. Even the going down to the practical conversation manager to employee in that one-on-one, what skills are you not using you that we could get more out of you? Or that would allow you to magnify your impact, you know, the little questions that just make all the difference to people, unlocking them.
Melissa: Exactly! So, I had one role that was pretty exciting where I had to exit very forward-thinking executives created a role that allowed me to use both. But then as often happens, those leaders left. And so then I was looking around thinking, "Well, where else am I going to get an opportunity to be able to use both of those skill sets?" And I really felt like it was so timely with all the shock factors that came with COVID. You know, companies really starting to think about future, really thinking about how to shape the best of best for their people and how to utilize technology. So, I decided to take a leap and created my own business to make sure that I could work on both. So, hence came Tech with Heart. And the name was very meaningful because it was very deliberately saying, "I have both of these. I'm very passionate about future technology, but I also have a great heart and human element to me."
Jimmy: I remember when we met a couple of years back at the Boss Hack and the whole emphasis of that was technology for people or technology to make a difference in the cultural environment. And obviously, you and I both intersect in that cultural space, and I'm a nerd, so I love that whole idea of how can we get technology into the workplace to make it more efficient, more effective, more impactful and more engaging. You know, I think there's a lot a variety of things here. I'm fascinated You mentioned that project that you were doing with Air New Zealand where it really had this massive impact on the culture. Could you give us just a couple of insights of if you're trying to build a culture of positive connection, of positive trust, of positive engagement, what are the two or three things that that project helped leaders do that our listeners could have a crack at when around their leadership table when they're thinking about their future?
Melissa: Yeah. So, it did a number of things. For a start, it was the only project that had been rolled out across the entire organisation. So, it impacted, this was at Air New Zealand, so it impacted the baggage handlers, the pilots, the aircraft cleaners, the marketing department, the finance department, all aspects. And we deliberately structured it so that we didn't have a class of pilots, and a class of customer service, and a class of cabin crew, etc. We mixed them because it was about people psychology, and we're all on an equal, level playing field. And and that by itself was magic because it meant that cuz normally you know, especially in big companies, the more senior have their Oh no, we'll have our own special session. And so, we had to really to frame it and say, "Well, this is about people and this and you have great experiences that somebody else in that room could could learn from. And actually, they've got life experiences that you can learn from. So, this is a level playing field." And so, that was really interesting, and we've got a lot of traction and people started to see the executives even on a in a different frame because they'd never seen them in that more of personal exposure.
Jimmy: It breaks down those tribal preconceptions as well. Like, oh, those people over there are different to us, so we can't get on with them. And then oh, those people, they're looking at us funny, so we can't be with them. So yeah, I love that idea. We do the same thing in ways of working. We mix teams up and mix people up so they have to interact with those teams they work with, perhaps, or those teams that they've been emailing for years. And then go, "Oh, so finally I get to meet you face-to-face or virtually," depending on the context. But it makes such a difference, right? Breaks down those tribal barriers of oh, you're the bad people, and we're the good people.
Melissa: Absolutely. And this was quite revolutionary at the time. It had sort of hadn't been done before and everyone was like, "Woah." It really made a difference and people started to see sort of see that. And also, it was a positive psychology program, but it was very focused on the individual. So, we were very careful with the way we communicated it and marketed it out to the teams that it it didn't have a we're trying to do this to build productivity in our company, or we're trying to do this to lift engagement, we're or we're trying to It was literally all our marketing campaign was, "If you want to apply this to how you spend time with your children, great. If you want to apply this to the sports team that you coach, great. If you want to apply this to your marriage, great. If you want to apply this to, you know, your aspirations in life, or your finances, or whatever, fantastic." This is And, in fact, the tagline was, "It's all about you." Like, so the project was called Realise Your Potential, and it was the tagline was, "It's all about you." So, whatever you want to apply it to. So, I think that was great. And that relaxed people a little bit that there wasn't a hidden agenda. And we and we also didn't pressure people to kind of come on it. We kind of let some early adopters kind of come through, and that spread the word quite quickly. And people And we were we were literally, myself and the CEO, getting emails almost every day on different people on how it had impacted their life. It was magical. And, you know, to our CEO's credit, we went through the GFC during that period, and he didn't pull the project.
Jimmy: Wow. Because it clearly was making a massive difference in the people's lives.
Melissa: Yeah, he could Exactly, exactly. So yeah, and the fact that we also launched it globally and it was all employees, that meant that there was a common language. So, and and even some quite complex psychology phrases like your reticular activating system, or your cognitive dissonance. We did talk about some of those terms and then you would hear someone saying, "Oh, I think I've got a bit of cognitive dissonance going on here." And everybody knew what that meant because they'd been on that program. Or, and if somebody didn't, then they'd say, "Oh, I want to go on that course soon because I want to learn what that is." And so, it started this flow.
Jimmy: So, you're starting to shift the language of an organisation and the thinking patterns of an organisation just by talking about stuff, right?
Melissa: Yeah. We did also say that we wanted We weren't forcing them on a timeline, but we basically wanted every employee to go through it, because from what I've seen and what we know happens, is sometimes leaders will say, "Oh, don't worry. You don't need to do that program. It's not compulsory," or, "Oh, we're busy now, so I'll pull you off that course. Don't worry about that." And that's It does a disservice to the individual, it doesn't give them that opportunity. So, we wanted to create a level playing field so that wasn't nobody would be making a decision on whether that person gets to go or not. It was kind of like everybody will get to go, sure, you might have different time frames and especially it was a lot of work working across our engineering base, and our pilots, and our call centres, and some of those areas around logistics to make sure we could manage, you know, aircraft maintenance suddenly didn't have nobody working in the department. But yeah, it was spectacular and I just loved seeing the impact. And the facilitators, we had 70 facilitators globally.
Jimmy: Wow.
Melissa: And they were like a dream team. And for for the two years of the project, you know, staying passionate. And even to this day, I remember being in the building and seeing one of the facilitators bump into another facilitator and it was just like a a family, which I loved. And so, everybody on that team holds that project close to their hearts.
Jimmy: And Air New Zealand at that time, you know, I remember when I first moved to New Zealand, Air New Zealand was one of the cultural icons of how to do it right and how to do it well. And I think a lot of that came from this project. And it made me think of one of the activities we do on on Ways of Working which is how do I want to show up? And I remember talking to There's a I was working with an institutional bank and one of the senior sales directors in the institutional bank was He was known to be a bit of a hard hitter, you know. He would walk into meetings and like, "Right, results." And he would go home and walk in the door on his phone, "Close the deal. Make it happen." And ignore his kid, ignore his wife, and it'd be sort of pacing up and down in his study. And so we did this activity with him, and I remember him coming back into the office into the next session in tears, and he said, "I really listened on that how do I want to show up piece, and I've started changing the way I go into meetings. I'll hang outside for a couple of minutes and I think about how do I want to appear when I walk into that meeting. And I've also started doing the same thing at home, and I can tell you now, my marriage was on the rocks. I can tell you now, my kids were scared of me. And so, what I do now is I finish the phone call around the corner, then I drive into the driveway and the first thing I do is I kiss my wife, I hug my kids, and then I go and continue my phone call because I want to show up like Dad,"
Melissa: Yeah.
Jimmy: "not this institutional banking sales director." And it's a cultural shift was profound. And it just made me came back to me as an example of something that we do that that you modelled here, that this isn't When you shift the culture of an organisation, you're not just shifting the way they are at work, you're shifting everything about the people who work in that organisation. It's a whole people change. And that was, I think, beautifully articulated.
Melissa: Yeah. And with the facilitators, we didn't just have HR facilitators, you know, we specifically I had engineers, I had pilots, I had cabin crew, I had finance, technology, and I had them from all different parts of the business and all parts of the globe. And that was exciting, too, because the point of it was when they were being facilitated, they weren't thinking it was kind of like an HR kind of thing. It was kind of, "Oh, wow. There's Barry." And very specific about the facilitators I picked, in that they were people that if somebody saw them up front teaching that Realise Your Potential class, they'd be like, "Yeah, he role models that stuff every day," or, "She role models that stuff every day." So,
Jimmy: Love that.
Melissa: Yeah, and it was such a powerful thing to be able to do that content over and over again, as well. And I think it's definitely been pivotal to, you know, decisions I've made following that, and the way I kind of live my life. Like, even starting my own business, which was a massive leap of faith for me from from being in the corporate world all my life. You know, there's a phrase from that course around, "Out of discomfort comes growth." And so, whenever I'm in those kind of moments, it's kind of like, "Great." I know what this is, I'm growing. And so, I kind of lean into those things rather than being afraid because, yeah, it's exciting.
Jimmy: Absolutely. You got to stretch yourself a little bit and feel and sit in that discomfort, knowing that your comfort zone is growing behind you, right?
Melissa: Yeah.
Jimmy: So, and it is, it's a huge leap of faith to go out and and to do your own thing, especially when you've had that security blanket and teams and infrastructure around you, to suddenly go, "It's me and my team now."
Melissa: Yeah, exactly! Yeah, for sure.
Jimmy: "My team of me and the cat."
Melissa: [laughter]
Jimmy: And I want to get to the artificial intelligence piece, but one of the things you you mentioned about the tangental moments in your career have been when there's been some sort of technological leap and the people weren't necessarily able to keep up or you felt there was opportunity to support people through those transitions. So, the adoption of computers, the adoption of kind of the internet for everybody and computers for everybody. And now, of course, we've got the start of the artificial intelligence revolution. Tell us a little bit more about what you're seeing and some of the challenges that you're seeing leaders facing today.
Melissa: Around artificial intelligence, particularly?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Melissa: Yeah. So, I guess a couple of things that makes me think about. I mean, the very topical one at the moment is the Chat ChatGPT. And actually, today, I think it is, launching in Paris, Google are launching their Bard, which is the competitor, well, they're not going to call it a competitor, but Alternative product. an alternative product. And then, of course, Microsoft put in a huge investment into OpenAI, which is who that made ChatGPT. So, they've got another version of their Bing coming out shortly, as well. So, there's some really interesting stuff happening in that place. So, that's got a lot of noise and that's also, I've been intrigued, it's got some noise from people who wouldn't normally take notice too much of the future tech trend or AI. They've delved a little bit deeper into it, which I'm pleased about. But I think they've delved in it out of fear.
Jimmy: I think that's what we're seeing, right? We're seeing a lot of people go, "Oh, my god, is my job at risk? Oh, my god, what am I going to do?" And so they're almost in that amygdaloid or fight or flight response versus the alternative.
Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, and I see the alternative as being exciting. How can I leverage this technology? How can I use this technology? You know, like even just the other day, I was looking through my task list and then I went, "Ha! Well, there's two things I can use ChatGPT for. Let's get on there and and let it help me." So, one of them was a conference that wants me to speak in Australia and they were asking for my bio and I thought, "Oh, I had a bio." And I thought, "Oh, maybe I should just zhoosh, you know, zhoosh it up a little bit." I was like, "I know who can zhoosh it up a little bit, [laughter] ChatGPT, because I hate having to write things about myself."
Jimmy: [laughter]
Melissa: I chucked my old one in there and I said, "Okay, update this a little bit. It's for a tech conference, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And it came back with the thing and I was like, "Yeah. Yeah! That's pretty good, actually." And it saved me having to kind of focus on it. So, it's not like it wrote it from scratch. I put in my ideas. But I think this is where people have a bit of a bit of a misconception. You're still leading it, it's still an element of you involved in the development of it. But it adds a little bit of shine to it, so, you know, that was great. And so, I think people should be thinking about how can I utilise this, rather than the fear element of it. I think it will definitely rival some traditional elements of roles because of the speed and efficiency. So, if somebody's an incredible writer, they're always going to be an incredible writer. But there's a lot of people who aren't incredible writers. But they know what they want to say, they just don't know how quite how to express it. And this might allow them to put in what they want to say and then get it sorted for them. Just like spell check corrects people who haven't got very good spelling, calculator
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa: Exactly, calculators helped people that, you know, don't want to instantly do the maths in their head. You know, back in the day, you had 26 volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica and your knowledge was about how much you could store in your head and, you know, repeating mathematical times tables by rote. And then it evolved to, actually, you don't have to memorize everything. It's not about being smart and storing stuff, it's about being able to find that information or find somebody else who can help you with that that information. And it's more about context, or how you can utilise that information, is actually the strength. So, I just see it as an evolution of that. And I'm really excited.
Jimmy: Yeah, I'm the same. I'm super excited by it. And one of the conversations we had in one of our exec round tables recently was on the topic, and and I need to get you in to talk to to our masterminds as well on this topic. But it was actually, we believed, by the end of the session, there's a lot of fear at the start, but by the end of the session, we believed, actually, if I'm a senior leader in an organisation and I want to communicate something, artificial intelligence can assist me to communicate more effectively, more quickly because I can write my comms for my strategy release, or I can write my roadshow notes, or whatever. I can have ChatGPT rephrase it to a left and right-brain version. I can have a summary done, I can have the key talking points done for a speech, I could have it made into a video script in seconds. But also, it allows me to refine what I'm saying and to share that on a more wide audience. The other great piece, and I think the skill build, and you can fill in the gaps for me here if I'm off-track, my belief is the skill build for leaders right now is learning how to leverage it through how do I ask it to give me the things I need, the prompt engineer kind of concept. And And how do I input stuff effectively so it gives me something really productive back? Because as you say, if you just go, "Write me a thing," it only has a certain frame of reference. If you go, "Take this and turn it into that," that's much more effective, right?
Melissa: Yeah. And like I wrote something the other day and then I thought, "Oh, I wonder if I'll I'll blow it up if you could add some humor, like what it might add." So, I said, "Okay, you know, rewrite that again, add some humour." And when it wrote What it wrote, I was like, "Yeah, no. That's not that's not me. I wouldn't use it that way." So, I didn't use it. So, it's not like, you know, you still have your involved. There's a lot of people talking about ChatGPT and they've never used it. So, they've just read stuff and they're just regurgitating or or they're adding fear and the likes, because they've they've got a concept of what it is. So, first thing I would say to them is, have a go. Just get in there and you might be surprised. And it can actually be liberating. So, like I said, if you're not a good writer, this could help you. And it's like people that don't speak another language, and they can use tools that help them be able to speak in a language to somebody, and it's it just opens up new worlds, right? This is the same sort of thing, so like programming, computer programming, it can code for you, it can write code for you. So, there's a lot of people who may have some great ideas what they want to do, but they don't have the coding skills. And suddenly, just like being able to learn a foreign language, this will be an enabler. So, yeah, it's pretty powerful. But at the moment, obviously, it's it's got some little tweaks to it that need to be done, and that's just going to evolve and evolve. But you do need that lens, like I looked at the comedy stuff and was like, "Yeah, that's not really me." Likewise, you know, sometimes it might put some quotes in there from it's combined, it's from Jimmy Crawford and put it from Pennsylvania University because it's just collected a couple of things. And unless you actually check that and go, "Hang on a minute, is there a Jimmy Crawford?" You know, it's just picked up You know, it picked up my last name, picked up Pennsylvania and tanked them together. So, it's got a bit of a credibility thing that you've got to um check at the moment. I heard a great example. Somebody had asked it to compare two models, and it gave a beautiful summary of the two models. But the only thing is, the second model didn't even exist, actually, because the person had been given the wrong name of the model. And so, ChatGPT had given this beautiful summary of the difference between these two models, one of them Wow. So yeah.
Jimmy: So, the the moral of the story here is don't rely on it to create from a blank sheet of paper for you and know what you want as an outcome and direct it towards that outcome you want in terms of your comms, or your strategy document, or your model that you're pulling on to justify something.
Melissa: Exactly. You're still the moderator and you've still got to look at it and at the end of the day, be happy that is this what I want to use? Am I happy that what it's saying is correct? Am I happy that it's the right tone for for me? You know, if you and if suddenly it's full of very big words that you never use in your vocabulary, people might be, "Oh, it's bit unusual coming from you." So, you just want to make sure it's aligned with what you want to represent.
Jimmy: Absolutely. What else is coming down the pipeline, Melissa, from a technology perspective that could impact leadership teams and the cultures that they're trying to create?
Melissa: Yeah. So, there's a lot of really interesting things in the robotics space. So, obviously, manufacturing has got your kind of typical industrial robotics. But then you're starting to see really interesting elements coming in. So, the ones that I'm really enjoying are ones that are enabling people. So, where people who maybe have accessibility issues and a cross between a human and a robot serving a role. So, one of my favourite examples, which I talk about all the time, is in Japan, there's a café where the robots maneuver around to serve the customers. But the voice is coming from a person who is bedridden and can't move from the neck down.
Jimmy: Wow.
Melissa: Who would never previously be able to be part of society because of their accessibility issues, whereas now they have all the technology that enables them to see through the robot's eyes, to engage with customers, to ask them about their day, what would they like, here's the favourite special today, and engage with the people while the robot does the mechanics of the transaction and goes back to the kitchen, you know, the chef puts the plates on the on the tray, and it moves to the customer. So, that's a really nice way where you're and what I call Tech with Heart really, is you're using the best of people and the best of technology. And so, it's those that kind of augmented kind of tasks that I think we're going to see some really interesting things. And and like I sort of started to say earlier, I really believe that in the future, leaders are going to have a team where half their team are like robotics, AI, robotic process automation, transactions, uh drones maybe even, and people. So, they're going to have to be able to figure out, "Okay, how do I leverage the best of my entire group of resources? How do I make sure that the people are getting meaning also, for really getting to use their creativity and their humanness, their heart, their critical thinking. And then, on the technology side, how can I use it for the transactional, process, knowledge-crunching, that sort of thing?" So, and that's going to be quite a different skill set for leaders.
Jimmy: I mean, that's a massive transition, right? That's You're moving from soft skills and hard skills to now integrative skills and technology skills and soft skills and people skills. So, yeah. Wow, mind-blowing for leaders thinking about how do I upskill, how do I learn about this stuff. And I know it's one of the questions I wanted to ask you actually, is Yeah. if I'm a leader sitting on an executive team or near an executive team and I'm thinking, "This is a lot of new things and they're kind of blowing my mind right now. How can I find out about more? Where can I go to find out about this stuff?"
Melissa: Yeah, so I mean, information is all around. So, it really depends on what your learning style is. To do a personal plug, but I actually created [laughter]
Jimmy: Plug away, please do.
Melissa: I actually created an an e-learning module just for that, which is a really It's not your kind of corporate polished, serious one, it's really a relaxed introduction to these future technologies. So, I step through about eight future technologies, I think, like IoT, drones, AI, robotics, etc., metaverses, etc., etc. And I just introduce what it is, talk about it in plain English, give them a nice explanation, and show them some examples of what it's being used for. So, yeah, that's one way, which is a nice kind of easy, innocent way of exploring them. If you're a book reader, there's a really great book I recommend called The Future Is Faster Than You Think by Peter Diamandis and I think it's Steven Kotler.
Jimmy: And we'll link all of these in the show notes, so people can access them if they want to, the e-learning course and the like.
Melissa: Yeah. Yes. And in fact, I have actually created a code specially for my e-learning module that will give a discount for your people. So, I Yeah, I'm going to give a 25% discount to the first five people, so.
Jimmy: Wonderful. Fantastic. So, get in quick to Melissa's e-learning course. Yeah, definitely. We need to fill that up for you. [laughter]
Melissa: Yeah. Once you've bought it, it's yours for life, and you know, you can show your husband, or wife, or kids, you know. So, for that same price, so that's a nice easy way. And also, to kind of dip into it when you want to. But yeah, that book by Peter Diamandis is great. There's obviously loads of podcasts on the topics, as well. Following people on LinkedIn, so, you know, people like me who are interested in that stuff will often post up new things. So, yeah, I would say think about what your learning style is, or maybe you've got a friend that's really up to date. So, you know, one of my best friend actually is uh she's a senior IT project manager and she'll often say to me, "Hey, what's new? And what's, you know, what have you seen?" And and I kind of give her the updates. And, in fact, she did my e-learning course and said she learned loads. So, yeah, it might be people in your network, there might be podcasts, that book's a great one, and there's, you know, e-learnings like the one one that I mentioned. So, there's loads of information out there, YouTube videos. It's really about what's going to work for you to get little bite-sized pieces to help you, otherwise, it might seem a bit
Jimmy: And I think that's it, right? So, how do I reduce my fear level and increase my knowledge level so I can use this stuff to my and my team and my organisation's advantage? That's what we're trying to get to here, isn't it?
Melissa: Yeah. And like the ChatGPT, if you've heard about it and heard about it, and heard about it, and you're already starting to form an opinion of it, and you haven't had a go at it, have a go.
Jimmy: Have a go. Press duck in.
Melissa: It's free. It's easy. Explore. And as Jimmy and I have talked about, you you can put in and and it gives you some suggestions if you're kind of new to it and not sure what to write for, but you type in what you're looking for, like, "Write me a" It can even write you posts, LinkedIn posts, and I've seen CEOs use it. So, write in what you're looking for, and then it'll give you a result. And if you're not happy with the result, or there's a you might want to tweak some sentences or you might want to say, "Oh, actually make the tone of it more professional," or "Target it for an audience of 25-year-olds," or, you know, whatever shifts you want to make, just write that, and it will keep giving you different offerings. So, yeah, it's it's a pretty handy assistant, actually.
Jimmy: It's amazing. And it's almost instant, so it can help people out quickly.
Melissa: Yeah. It's like, boom, done. Yeah.
Jimmy: I love it. Last few questions for you, Melissa. What are you working on at the moment that you're most excited about?
Melissa: So, I'm really interested in the metaverse space at the moment. It's another area that's kind of a little bit unknown for people. So, last year, I became a certified metaverse expert, which was the first one in New Zealand, so that was pretty exciting. But why I did that is, again, I'm really interested in the cross-section of people and technology. So, metaverses traditionally come from the kind of the gaming kind of world, and so metaverses are often designed by people from the gaming world. And so, if we're looking at using metaverses for the corporate world, that's quite a different dynamic. And for people who are not from the gaming world, there are some nuances. So, I'm really interested in working alongside people building metaverses to kind of look at the human element of things. A bit like when you're a pilot and you do your um flight simulation training, and it builds those neural pathways. When you come to When they come to a situation, their brain goes, "Oh, yeah. Seen this before in training. I can stay calm and I know how to deal with this. Boom. Just, you know, follow the process." Metaverses do the same kind of thing in your brain, because you're you're doing kind of simulations or you're experiencing things in there. So, I'm really interested in that psychology element of the technology and what that means for businesses. So, for example, companies could run their onboarding in a metaverse.
Jimmy: Yeah. Ex-
Melissa: Exactly. So, imagine if you had a global company and you wanted people to come for an interview in your metaverse, which was a digital twin of your real office. And when they walk in, they see your branding on the walls, they see your colour scheme, they see basically like your kind of kind of building is. And they go up to the reception, which is an avatar of a receptionist, and they welcome them, and they show them to the meeting rooms. And the meeting rooms are named the same as your building ones are named, they're in the same order. You may even take a lift to get there like would in the lift. They may even pass the toilets, I mean obviously they're not going to take their avatar into the toilet, but they may pass where the toilets are so they're used to where it is. And then, you know, they go through the process and they meet some of the people and they have their interview. But then, you know, they're lucky enough, they get the job, and when they come to actually visit the head office, because maybe they're in a, you know, different location and they get to go to head office, they feel like they've been there before. Because they have.
Jimmy: Exactly.
Melissa: Exactly! And so their brain's like, "Oh, wow. I know where I am." And they've almost had part of the induction of the floor walks because they did it in the simulation in the metaverse. So, that's really interesting, and there's a lot of companies leaning into doing their training, their health and safety, or some of their heavy machinery training, or something like that. They can do it very easily and cheaply in the metaverse, because they're messing with simulations. A lot of medical practitioners and hospitals are doing training in the metaverse. And geez, I'd much rather they play with a digital heart and look at how they're going to fix it than mess with me on the, you know, the surgery table.
Jimmy: [laughter] Yeah, exactly.
Melissa: So, it's got some really interesting use cases. So, that's one of the things that I'm kind of exploring at the moment and especially there's not a lot of research on the kind of the human behaviour impacts and the what's the impact of what you might do in the real world versus what you might do in the digital world, and and how they kind of play out. So, that's something that's really interesting me. Loving working with really forward-focused companies who are kind of up for a little bit of disruption. Because I'm definitely not your business-as-usual kind of girl. So, companies that are like, "Okay, we really want to think about things differently. We're creating our kind of future strategy. Can we have you involved so that we can kind of pick your brains across the technology and and people space?" So, that's really fun. And actually, spending a lot of time with executives who want some some time kind of I don't know if you'd call it coaching, mentoring, or there's a nice word that crosses those, but where I'm basically feeding them the latest trends in people psychology, future technology, and, you know, HR tech and HR kind of innovations, which they love because they it makes them sound super smart and they're I'm the kind of ChatGPT in verbal format. [laughter] So when other people were talking about ChatGPT, they'd already reached They already knew about it before it even came out because of conversations with me. So, yeah, I'm loving Somebody actually said, summarised it the other day, that I'm a super learning-curious person and my passion's kind of about learning and sharing that learning. So, whatever form kind of that takes. But metaverses are really interesting, robotics, as I said, there's some interesting, again, those human elements. I'm also doing some random stuff at the moment with looking at the future of retirement villages.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah?
Melissa: And what that might look like. So, how technology will play with that, and the human connection element, and kind of making it become a place where I'm always looking forward to going, rather than, "I'm going there to, you know, to have my last years." So, yeah, that's a really interesting little side project that I'm working on at the moment.
Jimmy: Amazing. So, I honestly, I could talk to you for days on all of these topics because we're both secretly nerds. Well, I don't think you're secretly a nerd, and I'm probably not secretly a nerd, but anyway. [laughter] If people want to get in touch with you, if people want to contact you, find out more, learn more, have that conversation, take you on as an executive ChatGPT, how do they get in contact?
Melissa: I guess you could have a look at my website, that'll give you a good kind of overview. It's also got a link to There's also a link on there to that course I mentioned, which is www.techwithheart.co.nz and my email is also on there as well, so they are welcome to email me directly from that.
Jimmy: Amazing. And as mentioned, we'll add all the links that Melissa's mentioned to the books and the podcasts, and the course, and the amazing website, of course, to get in contact with her. Melissa, thank you so much for sharing not only your wisdom, but also your heart today. It's been so cool to spend, can't believe 45 minutes has disappeared, [laughter] walking through how technology and HR and people interact. And honestly, anybody who hasn't followed Melissa yet on LinkedIn or seen her website, fully encourage you to get over there and have a crack. Thank you so much, Melissa. Really appreciate it.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please take a moment to rate and review it on whatever platform you listened on. It helps everybody else to know that you think it's good, and it helps to share messages to other leaders who are hoping to make a bit of a difference in their culture through their people. We also genuinely appreciate any comments, feedback, and it helps us to continue improving the podcast. If you have any questions about anything we covered in the show, either Melissa or I would be happy to chat. Please don't hesitate to connect, find, follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and we answer every single message, so don't hesitate to reach out. Melissa, thank you so much, again. Really appreciate you hanging around.
Melissa: Thanks, Jimmy. Great. Lovely to talk to you.
Jimmy: That's a wrap for this episode of The Ways of Working podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to hit the subscribe or follow button on your podcast platform so you don't miss our upcoming episodes. And if you have a moment, please leave us a review with your thoughts on Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast app. Your feedback helps us improve and grow our community of senior leaders seeking a performance edge. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.