AI-Driven Teams: How to Transform Your Workforce

Are you struggling to implement AI effectively in your business? Wondering how to overcome resistance from your team and leverage AI for optimal productivity?

In this article, you'll discover how to get your staff to embrace AI and use it to enhance their work rather than fear being replaced by it.

Why AI Optimization Can Help Your Business

According to Jeff J. Hunter, AI consultant and founder of VA Staffer, most businesses are still figuring out how to make AI (artificial intelligence) useful. While some employees might experiment with tools like ChatGPT, many companies haven't seen meaningful results from their AI implementations across their workforce.

The benefits of optimizing your team with AI are substantial. Hunter's clients typically see a 20-40% increase in productivity within the first 30 days of implementing AI properly.

AI optimization can help your business in multiple ways:

• Allowing a small team to accomplish what previously required a larger staff
• Getting more output from your existing team members by automating routine tasks
• Enabling deeper, more strategic work by eliminating time-consuming tasks
• Empowering you to tackle projects you've always wanted to do but never had the resources for

This applies whether you're leading a team or working solo. For solopreneurs and side hustlers, AI can replace many tasks you'd typically hire someone to handle, making it easier than ever to launch and grow a business.

How to Start AI Implementation for Teams 

#1: Find Your Internal AI Point Person

Identify a point person who can champion AI implementation. This doesn't need to be your tech specialist, it just has to be someone who shows interest and understands a little bit about operations.

In this role, they will:

• Evaluate how different teams could use AI
• Identify specific use cases for each department
• Gather training data
• Implement solutions that demonstrate clear value

For example, they might discover that:

• Your sales team will benefit from inbound chatbots or AI-powered appointment setting
• Your marketing team could use AI for creating landing pages, sales copy, or email campaigns
• Your creative team could leverage AI for graphics and video production

#2: How to Proactively Overcome Resistance to AI in Your Organization

Resistance to AI implementation is common, especially from team members who fear their jobs are at risk and who believe AI can’t do their job as well as they can. 

Business owners need to navigate this transition with empathy and figure out how to help their teams to do more with AI, not how to replace them with AI.

Rather than starting with team members who are on board with using AI, Hunter suggests a starting with the resistors in your company. Why? The resistors can act as an anchor, holding back your initiatives. Get their buy-in first and you’re ahead of the game.

Here are some key discussion points to help:

Address their concerns directly: Ask team members, “What is your biggest concern about leveraging AI in your job?” Open an honest dialogue about their fears and hesitations.

Position AI as a Helper, not a Replacement: Emphasize that AI will assist them in doing their jobs better rather than taking over completely.

Focus on Eliminating Tedious Tasks: Everyone has parts of their job they don't like to do that AI can do. Maybe it’s lead lead generation, writing proposals, or repetitive administrative tasks. Identify those pain points for each team and help them build an AI assistant to perform those tasks. Use Non-Threatening Language When Talking About AI Assistants: The way you refer to and position your AI tools matters significantly in how they're received. Avoid terms like “job replacement bot” and instead use positive framing like “sales enablement assistant” or “marketing support tool.”

#3: Help Every Team Create Their First AI Persona (AI Assistant)

Resistance to AI implementation is common, especially from team members who fear their jobs are at risk and who believe AI can’t do their job as well as they can. 

Business owners need to navigate this transition with empathy and figure out how to help their teams to do more with AI-powered virtual assistants, not how to replace them with AI technology.

When introducing AI integration to teams, Hunter uses a disarming approach and doesn’t initially mention AI. Instead, he starts with, “My job here today is to hire an assistant for you. Would anybody like an assistant to take on the tasks, routine tasks or otherwise that you don’t like doing?” When team members respond positively, he continues, “Now let’s create the perfect job description of who you want to hire.”

After teams get excited about their ideal assistant and have their job description ready, Hunter says, “Wouldn't it be cool if we could magically hire the perfect assistant for you right now?” 

Only then does he have everyone open ChatGPT and tell them they’re going to build their first AI persona.

Taking this approach frames AI as a helpful addition rather than a threatening replacement.

Focus Each AI Assistant on a Single Task

Hunter recommends creating separate AI personas for different functions rather than using one AI for multiple purposes. He manages each of his personas as individual employees with distinct skills. He has Jeff’s AI newsletter persona, Jeff’s AI contract writer persona, and Jeff’s AI social media marketing persona. Because each of these personas has a unique role and goals, they require different specialization details and he would never as his newsletter persona to write a social media post.

6 Steps to Help Your Team Members Create Effective AI Personas

Jeff Hunter’s method for building human-like AI Personas starts with the end goal and works backward to give the AI everything it needs to perform it’s role effectively. You’ll need these six elements:

1. Explain what your organization does. Tell the Ai about the products and services you offer so that it has broader context for its role and specialization.
2. Determine what specific function the AI assistant will serve, its role and and specialization. Detail the particular tasks and responsibilities the AI persona will handle. This function sets the foundation for all other attributes. 
3. Tell the assistant what kind of personality you want it to embody. Rather than focusing on your preferences, define the tone, communication style, and character traits that will be most effective in serving the preferences of your target audience. Hunter also recommends using negative statements to clarify boundaries for the persona.
4. Gather examples of the types of output you want the assistant to produce. This step is crucial for quality output. Training data can include emails, newsletters, sales pages, proposals, social media posts, or any existing content that represents what you want the AI to produce.
5. Give the AI persona information about your target audience. You’ll need comprehensive details that answer questions like these: What are the desires of your team? What do they want? What are their pain points?

Once you've built this detailed persona, Hunter suggests asking an open-ended question to begin working with it. For example, if you create a newsletter writing assistant:

Based on the information I provided you, how can you help me write newsletters?

This allows the AI to suggest helpful approaches based on its specialized role rather than you directing it too narrowly.

#4: Reset Performance Expectations for AI-Assisted Workflows

When Hunter introduced these concepts to his copywriting team, he was transparent with his team about AI's impact. Writing a sales page used to take his staff three to four hours for which they were paid $500. Today, the AI-assisted workflow helps his staff deliver a sales page in 20 minutes. 

As AI helps your team perform many tasks dramatically faster and with more ease, you’ll likely need to reset workflow and compensation expectations with your teams. 

While addressing the reality that AI is changing what's possible with your workforce, you must also be careful to avoid being seen as “anti-human.” You have to give your staff an opportunity to figure out how to augment their job to create more value.

Here are three approaches to consider:

• Increase the Expected Output: If team members can now complete in minutes what used to take hours, it's reasonable to expect more productivity.
• Shift to Results-Based Compensation: For roles heavily augmented by AI, consider compensation models tied to outcomes rather than time spent.
• Allow More Time-Related Freedom: Maintain the same output while reducing hours.

How to Hire for AI Aptitude

As AI becomes increasingly central to his business operations, Hunter has made AI aptitude a core hiring criterion. He considers it an essential aspect of adaptability, one of his company's three core values alongside work ethic and caring about the job.

Hunter screens all applicants with an AI aptitude test:

1. Candidates are given assignments like creating social media content or researching a topic.
2. They're provided with minimal instructions and directed to use ChatGPT.
3. Applicants must submit their results along with a link to their ChatGPT conversation so hiring managers can review their approach.

The review focuses not on the quality of the final output but on the candidate's problem-solving process and willingness to experiment. He’s looking for the capacity and aptitude to look at the assignment and try to figure it out.

This screening helps identify candidates who can adapt to an AI-augmented workplace, regardless of their prior experience with these tools.

Other Notes From This Episode

• Connect with Michael Stelzner @Stelzner on Facebook and @Mike_Stelzner on X.
• Watch this interview and other exclusive content from Social Media Examiner on YouTube.

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