How Leaders Should Really Use AI  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast]] - Full Title: How Leaders Should Really Use AI - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/e82947aa-30ab-438b-ad90-6364deed954c ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **AI Enhances Strategic Thinking** - AI can significantly enhance a leader's ability to think strategically and make faster, smarter decisions. - The key is not asking AI for answers but using AI to ask the right questions to unlock business growth. Transcript: John Jantsch So how is AI impacting or at least enhancing a leader's ability to think strategically? Geoff Woods That was the question that changed everything for me, John. At the time, I was chief growth officer of a large public company out of India called Jindal, steel manufacturing company, global footprint, about 100,000 people. When I saw AI for the first time, ChatGPT specifically, I very much saw the future. But when I started using it, I was asking myself all the wrong questions. I was asking, how do I use this to write a better email? And I was so disappointed with the output. I felt like it was a waste of time. I already got too much to do. I don't need to learn a new tool to help me do something that's as low value as email. But then I thought, what matters most as a leader? And that's when I came, what if your ability to think strategically was the difference between growing your business or going out of business? And what if I could use AI to enhance my ability to think strategically or to help me make faster, smarter decisions. That was the unlock. Because what I realized, John, my entire career, I had built, I had helped a lot of companies scale by asking leaders the right questions. It's not about having the right answers. It's about having the right questions. And I thought, oh, I've been asking AI questions. Could I turn the tables and get AI to ask me the right questions or better ones? ([Time 0:01:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e09622c4-c1db-4deb-804c-89e7a0e0ce47)) - **AI as Thought Partner, Leaders Lead** - AI acts as a thought partner while leaders remain the thought leaders. - Leaders must challenge AI outputs and apply human judgment to avoid mediocrity and replacement. Transcript: John Jantsch Yeah. And you actually, I think a lot of people initially looked at the tools and thought, oh, I can be faster. I can automate. I can do tasks. And I think you're the first person that I came across, at least, calling it a thought partner. And I think that really is the way to look at it. Right. And one of the things that I find is challenging about it. Sometimes you ask it a question and you almost get the sense that it's thinking, what do you want me to tell you? What do you want the answer to be? As opposed to you going to it and saying, I don't know the answer. What should I be asking? Geoff Woods And that idea of thought partner, I think that changes everything, doesn't it? And AI is your thought partner. That makes you the thought leader. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is important because I actually think one of the greatest risks is people abdicating their responsibility as the thought leader. And you see it already. You see people who are asking AI to generate an email and you can totally tell they just copied and pasted the response with no human judgment, editorial oversight. That's a path to mediocrity. That's how AI replaces you. But if you recognize that as the thought leader, you are in the driver's seat, defining the scope of the prompt, giving it context, telling it the role you want it to be, asking it to interview You so it can accomplish a task. And then when it delivers the result, you don't believe it. You don't trust it. You challenge it for biases and assumptions. You make sure it's factually based and not hallucinating. You make sure you're applying your own judgment and discernment. ([Time 0:03:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9ff17ffc-9cf0-4caf-a0ce-5a9961a20aba)) - **Prioritize the Vital 20% Tasks** - Focus on the 20% of priorities that drive 80% of results instead of trying to handle all tasks. - AI can take over tactical 80% tasks so you can concentrate on strategic work. Transcript: John Jantsch One of the things that I think keeps a lot of people from having this strategic focus, being the thought leaders, that there are a lot of business owners that listen to this show, at least, Are kind of in the operational weeds most of the time. How do you see AI as a tool to maybe get them out of that so they can either be more strategic or spend more time face-to with people? Geoff Woods I'll tell you that question is very normal. It's also, I would suggest, not the best question to ask. Prior to writing this book and then prior to being chief growth officer of Jindal Steel, I had built a training and consulting company based on a very popular business book called The One Thing, which I'm sure a lot of people have read or heard of. I've had the authors on this show. There you go. So I partnered with them to turn their book into a company. People would always say, how do I just get through all my 80% tasks so I can free up time to do the 20% priorities that drive 80% of the results? Wrong question because Parkinson's law says work expands to the time you allow it. There will always be more 80% tasks than there is time. So you can spend all day trying to clear your plate and it will just keep filling back up. The opportunity is to say, I'm just going to start focusing on the 20% priorities that drive 80% of the results. I don't even worry about the 80% tasks. If we're going to go through the learning curve on using AI, let's go straight to the 20% that's going to drive 80% of the value and learn there. ([Time 0:04:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b758d487-13b8-41fe-b337-0d73b6948e9d)) - **AI Helps CEO Restructure Debt** - A CEO struggling with debt restructuring gained hope quickly by using AI as an expert interviewer and strategist. - AI recommended non-obvious strategies considering cultural nuances, leading to business progress. Transcript: John Jantsch Can I share an example of what this looks like? Make it real. That was my next question. I wanted a real world application. Geoff Woods Yeah. So I have a very simple framework for when I write prompts. It's called CRIT, Context Role Interview Task. If you only take one thing from this episode, that's it. Like, I literally want you to get a sticky note. I'm holding it up. And in Sharpie, it says Context Role Interview Task. You give AI lots of context. You then assign it a role. This is where you tell it to become a certain type of expert. Because it's been trained on so much data, like 200 to 500 million books worth of data. You literally describe any type of expert. It can simulate it at your fingertips. Massively powerful. So that's context. That's role. Interview. This is where I turn the tables and I say, interview me. Ask me one question at a time, up to three questions to gain deeper context. That is literally what I type word for word. So rewind it and type it out. And then your task is whatever you want AI to do. Here's a real example. I was presenting to a group of CEOs and I asked them, what are the biggest problems you're facing in your business right now? If we can just solve them, it's going to unlock a new level of growth. The question itself, John, is strategic because I really don't care about AI. I care about making businesses grow. One CEO looks at me and says, I got a big problem. I run a manufacturing company here in the US. I leased all this equipment from this company in Japan, but things have shifted in the market. The debt structure is killing us. We're going to go bankrupt if we don't get it restructured. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. What have you done? And he lists five strategies he's deployed and said, I feel like I've done everything and none of this has worked because the board in Japan is refusing to restructure the debt because They think they'll lose face in Japanese society. I have no next step. We're probably going out of business. Can AI help? That's my other sticky note, by the way. I have a sticky note on my desk that says, how can AI help me do this? I have these two on my desk. One that says, how can AI help me do this? And the other that says, context, role, interview, task. You put those two sticky notes on your desk, game over. So I pulled up a screen and I wrote, context, role, interview, task. Here is the actual prompt I wrote. Context, I'm a manufacturing CEO. I leased all this equipment from a company in Japan. Things have shifted in the market. The debt is killing us. We're going to go bankrupt if it doesn't get restructured. I feel like we've tried everything. And then I listed all five strategies he had deployed. None of it has worked because this is a public company in Japan. The board is refusing to restructure the debt because they think they'll lose face in Japanese society. I have no next steps and I fear we're going out of business. Your role is to act as an investment banker with deep expertise in restructuring debt. Interview me. Ask me one question at a time, up to three questions to gain deeper context. Then your task is to generate five non-obvious strategies I could deploy to get the board to restructure the debt. That was the prompt. For those of you who are listening to this, you might be thinking, whoa, I didn't know you could talk to AI that way. This is why this is not Google. So here's what happened. AI turned the tables. And as an investment banker with deep expertise in restructuring debt, it researched 2,000 years of Japanese culture to ask, do you have any relationships with any influential executives In Japan that the board would respect? John, I turned and looked at the CEO and he goes, oh my gosh, I would have never asked that question. I actually do. And then it asked two more questions just like that and came back and said, here's your five non-obvious strategies. Number one on the list, the saving face consortium. It said, you have enough relationships with all the right people in Japan. Approach them to acquire your debt. Give them really favorable terms. Your debt gets restructured. The board saves face. I look at the CEO. He's holding back tears. He looks at the people in the room and he says, I haven't slept in 90 days. I've literally been making peace with the fact that we are going out of business. In less than 10 minutes, I got hope. Two months later, John, my phone rings and it's a text message. And it says, the ball is moving. I actually think this is going to get done. What if your ability to think strategically was the difference between growing your business or going out of business? ([Time 0:07:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2382ef39-af62-4844-ad8b-664fd74cd54a)) - **Lead AI Cultural Shift Wisely** - Reassure people AI shifts skills and processes rather than eliminates jobs. - Use AI to free people from low-value tasks and focus their strengths on key company priorities. Transcript: Geoff Woods Yeah. And this is why the AI-driven leader is a leadership book more than an AI book. Yeah. You have to be practicing this yourself and understanding what it can do and what it cannot do to be able to lead this change. I went back in history, John, and I studied all the past technological disruptions from the printing, the steam engine, assembly line, electricity, internet, because I found myself Thinking, haven't we been here before? History repeats itself. What can we learn from our past to guide our future? What I realized is that technology has always changed the skills we apply and the processes we follow. And that is all a job is. So if you think of it like an algebraic formula, job equals skills applied times processes followed. So my guidance to leaders is first and foremost, know that formula. Because if somebody's afraid of losing their job, and maybe you are, I used to be, by the way, educate people that their job is a series of skills they apply and processes they follow. Here's the good news. At one point in time, they did not have the skills to do the job. They did not know the processes to do the job. What they did have was the ability to learn. AI is going to make certain skills less valuable and certain skills more valuable. Let's have a conversation about what those skills are. And the processes, the way we're doing things now, that's going to change, but no biggie. We're going to invent new processes. Here's where I think this becomes the great liberator. Most people spend most of their time doing three things, checking email, slacker teams, sitting in meetings, and then doing their to-do list. Most of which is filled with 80% tasks that drive 20% of the results, and then some 20% priority sprinkled in. But if we're being really honest, most people spend most of their time doing the things that do not deliver the greatest results. So what if there was a technology that could actually liberate you and free you from all that low-level tactical stuff so you finally had the space to breathe and focus on the 20% priorities That drive 80% of the results but give you superhuman ability when you do it. ([Time 0:13:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ff456776-dbb6-4bc7-8efa-3526f2e908d5)) - **Use AI to Improve Decisions** - Use AI to support decision-making by providing context, asking clarifying questions, and recommending aligned choices. - This reduces unconscious biases and accelerates valuable decisions. Transcript: John Jantsch And that's the whole decision-making process. A lot of business leaders, you know, weigh pros and cons. They'd ask people, they'd research. How is AI transforming, you know, how we make decisions today? Geoff Woods It's really tough to read the label when you're inside the box. And we are making decisions with lots of biases and assumptions. Some we're conscious of, some we are unconscious of. I love when I have to make a decision, going to AI and writing crit. Context, I have a decision I have to make. I'm between these. I did this morning. We're between four options for a technology product we're building. And I gave it tons of context about each of the options. Your role is to act as my thought partner. In this case, you're also a world-class. You're not only my thought partner, you're a world-class chief product officer who's great at asking questions to identify what is the true source of sustainable value that we can Build a competitive advantage around. Interview me, ask me one question at a time, up to five questions to gain deeper context. Then your task is to make a recommendation on where you think we should focus because it's going to be most aligned with our strengths while leading to a defensible, sustainable, competitive Advantage. ([Time 0:16:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7542c183-c91f-40f0-8317-f7ca636af894)) - **AI Rewards Growth Mindset Leadership** - Leaders who invest in their people and enable AI-driven work see exponential ROI improvements. - Those stuck in old mindsets risk being replaced by AI-driven peers, not AI itself. Transcript: Geoff Woods I think AI's role in leadership is enhancing us as leaders in terms of our ability to think, our ability to challenge our biases and assumptions, our ability to make way faster decisions That are way more valuable. But I think what's more valuable is what's our role as leaders in an AI-driven world. There are companies that are going to use this to cut heads. I think they have the wrong mindset. Your number one asset in your company is your people. And for every dollar you put in, you might be getting $1.20 or $1.50 out right now. With this technology, you could put $1 in and be getting 10 out, 100 out, 1,000 out, a million out. If I have that kind of asset in my company, I'm not trying to get rid of them. I am trying to make them AI-driven and then strategically add more because the ROI is so good. Now, what I do think is going to happen is that the number, the revenue, the profit, the throughput is going to massively go up with the same headcount. Those, however, that's for those that are willing to adopt a growth mindset and view this as an opportunity and are willing to let go of who they've been so they can reimagine who they Can become. That is not going to be everyone, John. They're going to be people that are very stuck in their ways, that view this as a threat, that just cling to the way things used to be. ([Time 0:17:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/762044dc-9fa8-4970-af67-44e943e48a76)) - **Lead AI Adoption with CRIT** - Leaders must own AI adoption by casting vision, defining strategy, and walking the talk themselves. - Use the CRIT framework (Context, Role, Interview, Task) to create strategic AI prompts for impactful results. Transcript: John Jantsch And so you probably encounter leaders that are still asking the question, like, what do I do first? How do you advise somebody that, hey, here's how to start integrating this into your leadership practices? Geoff Woods First, you have to recognize that this is not something you delegate to IT. Yeah. Because this is not about the technology. Right, right, right. This is about casting a new vision for your future. It is about defining your strategy for how you are going to win. Because whatever you thought your competitive advantage was, would it serve you to evaluate if it's still defensible? Or what's changed when so much is changing? And then, so you cast the vision, you define strategy, and then you have to lead the change. Which means you don't delegate this to IT and say, figure it out, or to HR and say, go figure it out. You view this as a leadership priority. You must first walk the talk, which means you have to become an AI-driven leader. I'm showing you how. Don't worry about using it to be your Google. Don't worry about using it to write a better email. Use it as a thought partner for the 20% priorities that drive 80% of the results. How? Two sticky notes, John. One sticky note on your desk that says, how can AI help me do this? Because every day you're going to be doing something that matters and you're going to be doing it the old way. Relying on your human processing power. This sticky note is going to get you outside the box. And you're going to go, huh, how can AI help me review my financial statements? Real use case, by the way. What would that prompt even look like? And then I saw the other sticky note. Context role interview task. Context. Here's my financial statements. Drag and drop. Role. Your role is to act as a strategic CFO who's world-class at telling a CEO the top five non-obvious insights about their business based on their financials that they should know that They don't know. Interview me. Ask me one question at a time, up to five questions to gain deeper context about our business. Then your task is to tell me what those top five things are. ([Time 0:19:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/735f51fc-7ec2-405c-9ff5-52fcdd4edd87)) ## New highlights added December 31, 2025 at 4:44 PM - **Saving A CEO With A Prompted Investment Banker** - Geoff used CRIT live for a CEO whose leased equipment debt threatened bankruptcy and got five non-obvious restructuring strategies in minutes. - The CEO found an immediate path forward and reported progress within two months. Transcript: Geoff Woods I was presenting to a group of CEOs and I asked them, what are the biggest problems you're facing in your business right now? If we can just solve them, it's going to unlock a new level of growth. The question itself, John, is strategic because I really don't care about AI. I care about making businesses grow. One CEO looks at me and says, I got a big problem. I run a manufacturing company here in the US. I leased all this equipment from this company in Japan, but things have shifted the market. The debt structure is killing us. We're going to go bankrupt if we don't get it restructured. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. What have you done? And he lists five strategies he's deployed and said, I feel like I've done everything and none of this has worked because the board in Japan is refusing to restructure the debt because They think they'll lose face in Japanese society. I have no next step. We're probably going out of business. Can AI help? That's my other sticky note, by the way. I have a sticky note on my desk that says, how can AI help me do this? I have these two on my desk. One that says, how can AI help me do this? And the other that says, context, role, interview, task. You put those two sticky notes on your desk, game over. So I pulled up a screen and I wrote, context, role, interview, task. Here is the actual prompt I wrote. Context, I'm a manufacturing CEO. I leased all this equipment from a company in Japan. Things have shifted in the market. The debt is killing us. We're going to go bankrupt if it doesn't get restructured. I feel like we've tried everything. And then I listed all five strategies he had deployed. None of it has worked because it's a public company in Japan. The board is refusing to restructure the debt because they think they'll lose face in Japanese society. I have no next steps and I fear we're going out of business. Your role is to act as an investment banker with deep expertise in restructuring debt. Interview me. Ask me one question at a time, up to three questions to gain deeper context. Then your task is to generate five non-obvious strategies I could deploy to get the board to restructure the debt. That was the prompt. For those of you who are listening to this, you might be thinking, whoa, I didn't know you could talk to AI that way. This is why this is not Google. So here's what happened. AI turned the tables. And as an investment banker with deep expertise in restructuring debt, it researched 2,000 years of Japanese culture to ask, do you have any relationships with any influential executives In Japan that the board would respect? John, I turned and looked at the CEO and he goes, oh my gosh, I would have never asked that question. I actually do. And then it asked two more questions just like that and came back and said, here's your five non-obvious strategies. Number one on the list, the saving face consortium. It said, you have enough relationships with all the right people in Japan. Approach them to acquire your debt. Give them really favorable terms. Your debt gets restructured. The board saves face. I look at the CEO. He's holding back tears. He looks at the people in the room and he says, I haven't slept in 90 days. I've literally been making peace with the fact that we are going out of business. In less than 10 minutes, I got hope. Two months later, John, my phone rings and it's a text message. And it says, the ball is moving. I actually think this is going to get done. ([Time 0:08:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bf5ed9d5-2052-43ab-b421-9dbbce2bb200)) - **Jobs Are Skills Times Processes** - Jobs equal skills applied times processes followed, so AI shifts which skills and processes matter most. - Leaders should re-skill people and redesign processes to amplify human strengths with AI. Transcript: Geoff Woods And this is why the AI-driven leader is a leadership book more than an AI book. You have to be practicing this yourself and understanding what it can do and what it cannot do to be able to lead this change. I went back in history, John, and I studied all the past technological disruptions from the printing, the steam engine, assembly line, electricity, internet, because I found myself Thinking, haven't we been here before? History repeats itself. What can we learn from our past to guide our future? What I realized is that technology has always changed the skills we apply and the processes we follow. And that is all a job is. So if you think of it like an algebraic formula, job equals skills applied times processes followed. So my guidance to leaders is first and foremost, know that formula. Because if somebody's afraid of losing their job, and maybe you are, I used to be, by the way, educate people that their job is a series of skills they apply and processes they follow. Here's the good news. At one point in time, they did not have the skills to do the job. They did not know the processes to do the job. What they did have was the ability to learn. AI is going to make certain skills less valuable and certain skills more valuable. Let's have a conversation about what those skills are. And the processes, the way we're doing things now, that's gonna change, but no biggie. We're gonna invent new processes. Here's where I think this becomes the great liberator. Most people spend most of their time doing three things. Checking email slacker teams, sitting in meetings, and then doing their to-do list. Most of which is filled with 80% tasks that drive 20% of the result, and then some 20% priorities sprinkled in. But if we're being really honest, most people spend most of their time doing the things that do not deliver the greatest results. So what if there was a technology that could actually liberate you and free you from all that low-level tactical stuff so you finally had the space to breathe and focus on the 20% priorities That drive 80% of the results but give you superhuman ability when you do it. That's pretty exciting. Is that some fantasy? No. That's my life. That is my life now. That is the life of my team. That is the life of all the companies that we work with in our executive network called the AI-Driven Leadership Collective. ([Time 0:13:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9af9634e-0402-43ff-8581-df2817221f5f)) - **Use AI To Reduce Decision Bias** - Use AI as a thought partner to challenge biases and accelerate decision-making by providing structured context and roles. - Ask AI to interview you and recommend the option most aligned with strengths and defensible advantage. Transcript: Geoff Woods I love when I have to make a decision going to AI and writing crit. Context, I have a decision I have to make. I'm between these. I did this morning. We're between four options for a technology product we're building. And I gave it tons of context about each of the options. Your role is to act as my thought partner. In this case, you're also a world-class. You're not only my thought partner, you're a world-class chief product officer who's great at asking questions to identify what is the true source of sustainable value that we can Build a competitive advantage around. Interview me, ask me one question at a time, up to five questions to gain deeper context. Then your task is to make a recommendation on where you think we should focus because it's going to be most aligned with our strengths while leading to a defensible, sustainable, competitive Advantage. ([Time 0:16:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1197754a-8312-44f5-be7d-9b545a11ddd0)) - **Make People Your AI Multiplier** - Companies that upskill people with AI will massively increase output without proportionally increasing headcount. - AI-driven organizations will gain advantage by making people exponentially more productive, not by cutting them. Transcript: Geoff Woods There are companies that are going to use this to cut heads. I think they have the wrong mindset. Your number one asset in your company is your people. And for every dollar you put in, you might be getting $1.20 or $1.50 out right now. With this technology, you could put a dollar in and be getting 10 out, 100 out, 1,000 out, a million out. If I have that kind of asset in my company, I'm not trying to get rid of them. I am trying to make them AI-driven and then strategically add more because the ROI is so good. Now, what I do think is going to happen is that the number, the revenue, the profit, the throughput is going to massively go up with the same headcount. Those, however, that's for those that are willing to adopt a growth mindset and view this as an opportunity and are willing to let go of who they've been so they can reimagine who they Can become. That is not going to be everyone, John. They're going to be people that are very stuck in their ways, that view this as a threat, that just cling to the way things used to be. AI will not take their job. Someone who's AI driven will. ([Time 0:18:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/53f7947c-58ff-4b70-aaa0-09bb82e4e7c1)) - **Lead The AI Change Yourself** - Make AI a leadership priority rather than delegating it to IT or HR and model AI usage yourself. - Use two sticky notes: 'How can AI help me do this?' and 'Context, Role, Interview, Task' to start daily practice. Transcript: Geoff Woods First, you have to recognize that this is not something you delegate to IT. Yeah. Because this is not about the technology. Right, right, right. This is about casting a new vision for your future. It is about defining your strategy for how you are going to win. Because whatever you thought your competitive advantage was, would it serve you to evaluate if it's still defensible or what's changed when so much is changing? And then, so you cast the vision, you define strategy, and then you have to lead the change, which means you don't delegate this to IT and say, figure it out, or to HR and say, go figure it Out. You view this as a leadership priority. You must first walk the talk, which means you have to become an AI-driven leader. I'm showing you how. Don't worry about using it to be your Google. Don't worry about using it to write a better email. Use it as a thought partner for the 20% priorities that drive 80% of the results. How? Two sticky notes, John. One sticky note on your desk that says, how can AI help me do this? Because every day you're going to be doing something that matters and you're going to be doing it the old way. ([Time 0:19:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2bf3a279-d87b-4592-a36f-865c03392694)) - **Review Financials With An AI CFO** - Apply CRIT to routine reviews like monthly financials by uploading statements and assigning a strategic CFO role. - Ask AI to interview you and highlight five non-obvious insights to inform priorities. Transcript: Geoff Woods Context, here's my financial statements, drag and drop. Role, your role is to act as a strategic CFO who's world-class at telling a CEO the top five non-obvious insights about their business based on their financials that they should know That they don't know. Interview me, ask me one question at a time, up to five questions to gain deeper context about our business. Then your task is to tell me what those top five things are. ([Time 0:21:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bbc5befc-7d2b-4576-87c8-4df08f959384))