Michael Hartmann 0:01

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of OpsCast, brought to you by MarketingOps.com and powered by all those MoPros out there. I am your host, Michael Hartman. Today I'm joined by Andrea Atero, president of the tech services line at Trilliad and CEO of Circante, a Trilliad company. Andrea has spent years helping organizations navigate marketing operations, Salesforce ecosystems, data strategy, and large-scale technology

Welcome And The Human Side

Michael Hartmann 0:24

transformation. But our conversation is going to be less about the technology itself and more about the human side of change in the AI era. We are going to talk about why so many organizations are struggling to move quickly, how fear and risk tolerance are shaping AI adoption, why governance models may need to evolve, and what separates organizations that are actually activating AI from those that are stuck debating it. Should be a thoughtful conversation about speed, trust, process, and the trade-offs companies are making right now as AI shapes how go-to-market teams operate. So with that, Andrea, welcome to the show.

Andrea Tarrell 0:58

Thanks for having me.

Michael Hartmann 1:00

Yeah, it's great. Well, it's been a while for us to get this started. So when we talked before, um, you know, that we've talked about that for years, the hard part of operations work was building technology. But now it seems like technology is getting easier, at least more democratized, maybe, while people are, you know, while the people and process side is getting harder. So A, do you think that's true? And then B, like, what do you think has fundamentally changed that has kind of led us to that spot today?

Andrea Tarrell 1:33

Yeah, we we see this everywhere. Um, and obviously, kind of being in the technology consulting space, like we have a lot of respect for um like the very smart technical minds and technologists that build awesome solutions for customers. Um, but that soft side of change, like the human side, um, is more relevant than ever. And I think we're seeing that right now with AI and just like convincing people to use the tools and to its fullest potential. Um, that's where a lot of the hard, hard work is happening right now. And it's not a limit of the tech platform that's holding us back, but um just kind of where the rubber meets the road with the team. And um, something that illustrated this for me recently was like, I think the like the stereotypical tech founder used to be like the antisocial dude in a hoodie that like was a coding expert and was respected by all the developers. Um, but the Wall Street Journal had a headline last week where um Silicon Valley VCs are sending their their tech founders to etiquette school to like figure out how to talk at a cocktail party and uh social etiquette and social norms. And um, I just I I think that that like really emphasizes how important it is to pair the human element with the tech element, uh, if you really want to have change that sticks.

Michael Hartmann 2:56

Yeah, it's interesting. Uh it's funny that you bring that up. I didn't see that headline or that article, but um having kids who are in that kind of college age, right? I think it's interesting to see how the interactions for them are different than what I remember when I was their age. And um, you know, yeah, free internet and all that kind of stuff. And there's and there's all kinds of books like the I just finished reading a few months ago, The Anxious Generation. Well, trust be told I didn't read it, I did the audio book. But I, you know, and I I told my kids, it's like you need to read this because this is about you, right? This is but a big part of that is about how um just in general, like communication is not happening on a regular basis. There's another article I'd I'd referenced a couple of times in recent podcasts that somebody shared with me. Now I haven't dug into the research, but somebody's done some research that says it's something like over the last 10 years, and I don't remember exact 10 years, it wasn't for 2026, but say 2024 or something, there um there's been a like a 30% reduction on the average number of words spoken by people, and I think it's fairly global, if I remember right, but certainly in the in the in the North American space. So all that makes sense.

Andrea Tarrell 4:11

Well that's so fast fascinating. And and honestly, like the I think like ops folks have been on the front lines of this for for a long time, but like you can build the most perfect tech solution in the world, and if people don't use it the way that you expect, or you can't win over hearts and minds with the change that you're looking to drive, like it's just it's never gonna succeed. And I think we're just we're seeing that now more than ever.

Michael Hartmann 4:34

Yeah, I I think that's true. I mean, it's a combination of this like rapidly evolving technology plus so these other so social economic kind of things playing into it. So so oh so let's go there. Like, so how much of this is is for AI adoption, then I guess in particular specifically, is like how much of it you think is a technology one

Why AI Adoption Feels Uneven

Michael Hartmann 4:56

versus a trust one or change management, or is it something else completely that's like causing it to be a little bit because it feels like it's very uneven how it's being adopted across different organizations?

Andrea Tarrell 5:08

Yeah, I I think it's primarily a change in a leadership problem. Um I mean, okay the the tech tools are like they are what they are, they're not perfect. There's certainly like still gaps in LLMs and some of the the tooling that's available to us. But in general, like the potential of the tools has far outpaced our ability to effectively leverage them within our within our organizations. But I think too many leaders are are coming at AI with the angle of like, okay, this we're gonna use this to eliminate jobs, or we're gonna use this to like work so much harder. And um, it's just it's not really falling the they're not striking the right tone with their team. And individual contributors are looking at their heavy workload and the tools that they're being provided to do it. And when they're asked to innovate with AI, they're thinking, like, who is this for?

Michael Hartmann 6:03

Like, how many world am I gonna fit this into my day-to-day job?

Andrea Tarrell 6:06

Well, I'm yeah, like is this so the CEO can get a raise? Is this so I can like like produce more hours? Like, like who is this for? And um, I feel like there's not enough messaging and communication and like trust building around like this can be a tool for all of us. Like it doesn't have to be a tool that lets you turn 40 hours of work into what used to take 60 hours to to output. Like this can be a tool for us to all be more effective, to live more balanced lives, um, to generate better outcomes for the company, but also for individuals. Um, and I I feel like we're we're overdue for a narrative shift around like what is AI and what who is it really for?

Michael Hartmann 6:51

Yeah. I mean, and it feels that point about individual contributors. I don't even think it's a due to individuals contributors. I think also middle managers are under a lot of pressure. Yeah. Uh I think and you know, it feels like we're recording this late May 2026, and it feels like in the last few weeks, it feels like almost two, three, four a week, there's announcements of companies cutting workforce. And on the surface level, they're saying a part of that is AI driven, right? So if you're coming in as a leader saying we need to be doing more with AI, and you're hearing as a person in these organizations about all these jobs being lost, like, like why would I spend the time if what you're trying to do is eliminate my role?

Andrea Tarrell 7:35

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I I I feel like those headlines of the mass layoffs because of AI are are not doing any favors for the cause. Um because the vast majority of those of those layoffs don't even really appear to be AI or efficiency led. It's just like a convenient label to excuse why you're having to trim trim your workforce. And I think that that like AI is gonna take your job narrative, like has a lot of team members rolling their eyes because it's like, okay, the person in the C-suite that's making that proclamation doesn't even know what their day-to-day job is. Like, right. So, like, how how are you gonna automate away a job that you don't even understand or don't even like don't even understand why it exists? Um and thinking about AI adoption in an organization, like I um I think it's less about like resistance to change in general and more like how how do we give people a reason to want to change? Like, what's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if if folks are leaning in? And how do we create space for for that change? Because if your plates already full, you have like X number of hours to execute like the tasks that are on your plate, you're you're not gonna be able to pull up and spend an hour or two like redefining your workflow or testing different LLMs or like researching new tools or learning new things. Uh we have we have to create that space for learning and evolution. Um, and it it can't just fit in the cracks of like what else is happening day to day.

Michael Hartmann 9:12

I would love to get your take. So there was somebody who I admire, uh CMO on LinkedIn, I guess it was last week. It may have been over the weekend, but certainly within the last week, it posted something about how like adding that that extra layer of work on top of an already busy person is not likely to be successful. And the claim he was making was that essentially feels it because I kind of pushed back. I was like, to me, this is not all that much different than other technologies that have come in and could innovate and make a job more efficient or whatever. And his take on it is like this feels fundamentally different. And I'm I'm torn because I don't know if it feels fundamentally different because it's like where we are in the middle of it, or if it truly is different than say, I don't know, the steam engine, right? If you go far enough back. What do you think?

Andrea Tarrell 10:05

I one of the pieces that feels different to me is um like a lot of talk about like making work more efficient assumes that like the outcome is like the output will be higher. So like if I have four clients and now I can use AI to be 30% more efficient or save X number of hours, then maybe I can service eight clients in like the same amount of time.

Fear, Workload, And The Narrative

Andrea Tarrell 10:29

Um, but what we're seeing happen more often is like small tasks are getting compressed. So what used to take 30 minutes now takes five. Um and what's being done with that extra space is not more output, but higher quality. And that's really hard to quantify and really squishy. And so I think like measurement frameworks and how we think about productivity is gonna need to evolve to keep up with that.

Michael Hartmann 10:58

Yeah.

Andrea Tarrell 10:58

Um because I like many of the stats that I see about from AI tools are like, okay, we took this workflow from three hours to whatever time frame. And um, but CEOs are looking and CFOs are looking at that and saying, like, where did that time efficiency go? Like, it doesn't mean we are all of a sudden hiring X percent less people, or people all of a sudden have eight hours of free time if they never had before. Um, like there's a very long backlog of things that can fill people's plates once things are made more efficient in the day-to-day. And so it feels like it's harder to capture some of those efficiency gains or measure it than it has been before.

Michael Hartmann 11:40

Yeah. I mean, to me, one of the things I've seen, or I I think would be a a benefit of sort of getting that more of that time back. So I'll take I'll put it in the terms of like a market, like a demand gen marketer, right, who's gonna build out campaigns and say they've got this great idea and it ends up working well, and they go like, oh, this is our audience. So rather than sort of segment that audience into smaller chunks, it is because there's time constraints, you sort of cast a wider net that's a little less, a little more generic, a little less on point for any one of those subsegments, and um, and then you kind of hope for the best. Where I think like now, if you could take that and go like, actually, I can now, because I've got more I've got a time benefit from using AI, I can then narrow those into four separate things that are all part of one big thing and get better messaging and better results for each one of those, like that's a multiplier effect on output or yeah, output, but results. Like, and I think that to me is like, but you're right, like how do you measure that?

Andrea Tarrell 12:46

Yeah. How do you say that thanks to AI, like we move the needle on on click-through rate, or we move the needle on like opportunity influence for this certain content channel? It's um, it's really hard to draw those like super crisp conclusions.

Michael Hartmann 13:04

Yeah, and then you get into things if it's thinkers in the marketing rate, you get into the whole like is attribution and like what should marketing be measured on anyway, right? And who gets credit for it? And I think it it's like it it's a little bit of a circular problem that doesn't have a real good answer. I hadn't thought about the the that squishiness of be able to measure the impact outside of uh the efficiency one. I like that's a really interesting point there. Um, so do you like do you think that some of this challenges is really is it because this is such a different thing and that there's this fear of replacing jobs, or do you think it's just is there inertia in some of these organizations that is preventing that? Like to your point, like not creating the space to to build on that of those skills and capabilities?

Andrea Tarrell 13:54

Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm torn because that there definitely are some parts of this shift that are like new and novel and unprecedented. Um, but there's a lot of similarities with like every wave of tech change that has come before it. And I think maybe the the primary thing that's different is it's just faster and the fear factor is dialed way up, like the the narrative around like you're gonna be left behind, you're missing an opportunity, your job's gonna be eliminated, you're gonna become irrelevant. Like, there's so much negative talk about it that it um it's just it's it's a lot of noise. So yeah, I'm I'm torn on like is it is it same old, same old? Is it like new and novel? Um, I think it's a little bit of both.

Michael Hartmann 14:41

Yeah. So like one of the things that I hear people say is AI won't replace your job, but you know, people who use AI more efficiently will could replace your job. Like, what's your do you think that's like I think we talked about this before, but like how do you think about that? Does that resonate with you? Um, and then how are you seeing that play out in reality with the way leaders are were working with their teams?

Andrea Tarrell 15:05

Yeah, I I think that that is very, a very true statement when you think about it at the organizational level. Like, and we we've tried to talk talk through this with our our team internally at Circonte and Trilliad as well. Because if you're not evolving, somebody else is evolving. And we're not looking at our team saying, like, oh, if you're not using AI, we're gonna replace you with someone who is. But the reality is like our competitors are are racing to figure out how to be more efficient, be more nimble, um, charge higher rates, deliver the same outcomes in less time. And if they crack the code before we do, like we're all we're all gonna be out of jobs. Like we're we're just slowly gonna start losing more deals. We're not like so, and we can't control the future unless we actively participate in it. So we want to disrupt ourselves so that we as an organization don't get disrupted by um people that are more nimble and able to embrace change.

Michael Hartmann 16:04

So yeah, so and then there's this pressure, like it feels like everyone's being told like go go do quote, do do AI or yeah, incorporate AI into your day-to-day activities uh and to do it fast. But then there's seeing, I think then there's you hear stories about um IP being exposed and things like that, right? Um, so how how are you seeing people manage that I guess tension for lack of a better term, between yeah, wanting to move fast and to like to minimize the risk you're talking about while also minimizing the risk of potential downside of AI being incorporated?

Andrea Tarrell 16:47

Yeah, I I feel like AI is challenging us to redefine like how we think about security and governance more generally, because um organizations that are super conservative in their in their posture towards that, they're just they're not invading. Like their teams are frustrated because they're filling out 14-page questionnaires about like the security of a tool that they want to just like pick up and tinker with. And um, so IT and security are becoming bottlenecks and um barriers to innovation rather than leading the organization through this change. Um, what we see happen more often than not is like shadow IT popping up in response to that. Like if it's too hard to get approval for a new tool, people are just gonna sign up for a license with their personal email address and use it on the side. And that to me, that's the worst possible outcome because um you're not mitigating risk, you're just removing your visibility to it. And um that's not the solution.

Michael Hartmann 17:49

It's so funny because I was thinking I I know some companies that like they restrict access to uh like LLMs in general, right? Uh through IP stopping, but here's what they don't stop, right? 100% our personal devices. Yeah, and it's it's funny you bring up the the shadow ITs. Like this reminds me, the reason I was sort of laughing is because this reminds me exactly the same thing I dealt with when I was doing, I was asked to take on a uh an initiative to try to reduce uh what I would call is like not reduce, it's sort of a similar thing, right? The the initial was like go reduce cost on support as revenue was increasing, and typically it'd been in parallel, right? The way I framed it was twofold, right? One, I want to bend the cost curve for sure, but that doesn't mean we are going to cut costs, we're just gonna change the rate of growth, which is a different thing, and we're gonna capture more of it. But in the process of doing that, working with the support teams and the leaders, like it turned out because there was no centralized sort of knowledge base of ways to provide answers quickly to customers when they came up, is they all had these, they had a document on their desktop or a spreadsheet, or they had their own little database. So they already had the solution that we were proposing, even though there was resistance at the top, yeah, that we should do something centralized. It feels like this is why I'm like, it feels this is why I struggle with like, is it really different or not? I yeah, to me, because I've gone through something like this personally, where I'm like, yeah, like I think the way you address it is not to say it's gonna replace your job, it could, right? We do need to adopt adapt to it and adopt it. But the way that I in that case, right, it was like this is gonna free you up to work on the more interesting, challenging issues, right? If that's what you care about. Now, if all you want to do is come in and check a box and you know, you know, we solve some things, then it's probably not the right thing for you. This is probably the same case for AI tools. So I mean, are you seeing stuff like that too? Like where that messaging is kind of not going through the way they expect it to as leaders are communicating.

Andrea Tarrell 19:56

Yeah, yeah, no, I I see exactly what you're what you're seeing there. And um, the example of like reps with their own spreadsheets and Google Docs and like things saved to their desktop or saved to their like notes on their phone or whatever the case, like um I mean everyone has to find a way to get their job done. And yeah, if you make it too difficult to go through the the the main channels, people are gonna find side doors to accomplish what they need to accomplish and keep things moving in their job.

Michael Hartmann 20:26

So I mean that thing about this stuff is being

Measuring Quality Gains Versus Time

Michael Hartmann 20:30

hidden from like if you don't open up that, then this stuff is gonna happen, it's gonna be hidden from you is a really big thing I don't think a lot of teams think about.

Andrea Tarrell 20:39

Yeah. Yeah, I think that like the best hope is to make like the the secure way of doing things the easy way of doing things. Like give your team the tools that they need to do their jobs, give those tools access to the data um needed to provide context to to power some of those LLM conversations and like pro make that the default versus like forcing people to find these side doors to to get what they get done what they need to do.

Michael Hartmann 21:09

So so I guess this is to some degree this implies like they're using frameworks for governance and whether it's data, technology, things like that that are rooted in uh do we call pre-AIs or a term for like pre-AI world um models that like seem like they don't work as well today because there's I mean, the one thing it feels like there's a proliferation of this, like these small one-off tools with like purpose built with AI underneath the hood that solve specific problems that people can get used very quickly. Um, so is that I mean, do you think that's part of the problem? Is that the that mindset of like how you m you manage this from a governance standpoint and the technology and risk management has got to change?

Andrea Tarrell 21:56

Yeah, I I do think the pendulum is swinging the like the But a different way than it has for the last decade on the talk of point solutions. Because for the last several years, we've been talking about okay, how do we eliminate point solutions, bring everything onto a central platform or system of record, and um like eliminate tools that do the same thing? But with the way that AI has moved, to your point, like there's a lot of individual things that do a task super well. And so instead of like, okay, it has to be all on a single platform, it's like how do we connect sort of all this infrastructure so that we're not copying data, we're not moving things around in an insecure way, um, but we're picking like the right tool for the task. And also recognizing that with how quickly things are moving, the right tool for the job in six months from now may be totally different than what's the best like now. And how do we make it like how do we prevent like being handcuffed to vendors? How do we make it easier for our teams to experiment and move quickly? Um, so that the narrative on that has totally shifted.

Michael Hartmann 23:01

Yeah. So for the audience that we have as ops people, like, how should they be thinking about managing this speed and versus agility versus control and risk management, those trade-offs between those things? How should they be thinking about doing that?

Andrea Tarrell 23:19

Yeah, I um I mean, I feel really strongly that speed and agility are like that's the top priority right now. Um I'm with you. And too many organizations operate in like a slow, very waterfall thinking decision by committee type of approach. Um, and it's just it's resulting in organizational gridlock where nothing gets approved and um folks have to work around the system. If it's like a six-week approval process to run an experiment that takes like all of six minutes, you're you're on like the wrong side of the the risk to the risk to speed trade-off.

Michael Hartmann 23:55

So no, I don't think that's just a a a theoretical thing. It feels like that's been a real experience that you've you see.

Andrea Tarrell 24:01

Oh yes, we we we see that we see that a lot, unfortunately, in our in our customer orgs. Um that's crazy. And something that our our team talks about internally that um I I love as a concept is like asking yourself what is the blast radius of a mistake. Like if it's if it's oh that's an interesting way of thinking about it. If the impact can be continued, cleaned up, triaged quickly, it's probably not that big of a deal. And you you don't need to have sort of a really robusture around like mistakes that will cost you very little. Like building an email in production versus a sandbox is an example of that. Like the maximum damage of of doing it wrong in prod is usually not that high. Um, but on the other hand, if if a oops moment is

Security Bottlenecks And Shadow IT

Andrea Tarrell 24:47

like, okay, you're losing data, you're getting fines, you're the next big headline, like obviously you need to have your talks narrow on a on a from a security perspective. So, like, what are another an alternate term for that is like Amazon uses the term like one-way door versus two-way doors.

Michael Hartmann 25:02

Yeah. Like I think you're the one who told me about this now that I think about it, because I've been that's been in my head a lot lately.

Andrea Tarrell 25:08

I love it. It's like if you could just walk back through, like, oh, I don't want to do that, like don't overthink it. But if it's like, all right, this is a permanent decision that's gonna have lasting consequences, right? You obviously need to think about those a little bit differently.

Michael Hartmann 25:22

Well, I love the I love the addition to that model or framework, the the blast radius one, because I think they're kind of addressing two different sort of components of a decision-making process. When one is if I make this decision beforeward, can I undo it and go back to where I was or go to another door? The other one is if I go through that door, am I exposing our uh me or position to a risk that is actually one that is, even if I could go undo it, right? Once it's out there, it's out there.

Andrea Tarrell 25:53

Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Michael Hartmann 25:56

Uh okay. Yeah, I like that combination. That's a that's a really interesting way to do it. There's probably a good someone's gonna come up with a good acronym for that. Um, kind of uh some sort of good matrix will come out of that, you know. Yeah. Um yeah, so that's interesting. The um like I still struggle with like I don't think a lot of companies or organizations think about trade-offs like that, right? They think they they don't think of them as a kind of a spectrum, or in this case, right, two dimensions at least. So um how are you how are you trying to get your clients, or it sounds like you do a lot of this internally too, applying what you do with your clients. Like, how are you doing that with clients, like getting to start to think a bit differently? Um, because I did like the one thing, like I said, I'm struggling with like is this a fundamentally different thing than past big changes? Like the one thing that does feel like it is is different is that the amount of new stuff you're pointing about, like six months from now, things are different. Like, I've been here struggling. I invested in building out a lot of deep knowledge about me and how I work with ChatGPT, it just happened to be the one I used. I keep hearing all these great things about Claude. I'm like, should I jump and move and like all that work? And I'm like, I I can't decide, but then like they're gonna leapfrog each other. So, like, is that I mean, are you like is that really the fundamental change that's happening now? Is it's just happen changing so quickly, and it's hard to like go like, how am I locking myself into something I can't undo?

Andrea Tarrell 27:25

Yeah, yeah, I think the the concept of like shelf life is rapidly evolving because I mean we we used to talk all the time doing CRUB and marketing automation implementations, like you want to build for the long term, like you want to pick a platform that you're gonna be on for the next three to five years and not make architectural decisions that you're gonna have to undo. Um, I just don't think that's the the reality anymore. I mean, like the the big LLMs like Chat GPT, Claude, Gemini, um, it's been fascinating to watch how like one pulls ahead, one drops behind, one pulls ahead, one drops behind. And where my head is out, that is like I don't want to pick a winner or like make a long-term commitment to any platform until I absolutely have to. So like shorter term contracts, allowing our team to choose the tools that they want to use to for different types of tasks, um, and testing the models against each other, um feel feels like where we need to be right now. Um I've gotten to a place where most sort of like routine queries, if I if I have the time, I I'll put it in the Gemini Claude Chat GBT. And it's fascinating to see where some miss and where some don't. And um it's just a great sanity check that like we're not really ready to hand over the full keys to the yeah, the AI overlords just yet. Like they're human in the loop definitely needs to still be in the picture um because no no model is getting it right 100% of the time.

Michael Hartmann 29:01

Yeah, it's interesting. I've I've only done what you described a few times. I should probably get back to trying that. But one thing I did do recently was we're was collaborating on a project with someone, and I was using ChatGPT. That person was using Claude and uh generated something out of Claude. I used Chat GPT to evaluate it, tweaked it. Like I think the combination ended up being something better than either one of them would have done by itself, too.

Andrea Tarrell 29:25

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a there's a lot of value in that. Like multiple team members using different models and using it to come up with the best possible output.

Michael Hartmann 29:36

Which like now gets back right back to this like, how do you like this is why that idea of giving people a little more freedom to pick and choose what they're comfortable with, as long as the I I think I think this is where this is where the problem of these people are thinking that middle managers are gonna be less and less relevant, right? I think this is where they can play a role is like evaluating the the output, you know, and guiding and and helping people, independent whether or not they know how the LLMs all work, which they probably should know, at least to some degree. But like that to me is one of these fallacies is out there, is like, oh, this work is gonna come out and it's gonna be better, more efficient, etc. But is it really?

Andrea Tarrell 30:21

I mean, yeah, who's the judge of that?

Michael Hartmann 30:24

Right. I mean, what somebody I heard talking the other day, and I think he kind of alluded to something like this in earlier in our conversation today, is that if you are a low, you know, a bottom 50% kind of person of whatever it is you're producing stuff that you can now use LOM, like you're gonna your work is gonna get elevated. But if you're in the top 50, it's actually gonna bring it down because the the models essentially are geared towards getting to the middle, right? What's average or typical? And and like I I think that's when I started hearing that, I was like, oh, that fundamentally describes my experience, right? With this with when I'm dealing with something that I know really well, I don't find the output is good.

Andrea Tarrell 31:09

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann 31:10

Are you seeing that? Like, does that ring with true with you too?

Andrea Tarrell 31:14

That does ring true with me. Um, and that I do think that the the power of human discretion paired with these models is really important. Um and on that like bottom 50%, like we I see I see some folks that maybe weren't the highest volume producers in in the past era. Like now you can get Claude to spit out a like 50 page, 50 slide deck for you that like looks really smart, sounds really smart, it's really beautiful. And but when you start digging into it, it's like it it just looks smart. Like it isn't it isn't actually smart. And like that discretion of like, okay, the LLM is gonna take us through the first 70, 80 or whatever, but that human is refining the last 20 to make it really commercially viable and impactful and um just sense checking it, like that that 20% we're not we're not gonna lose the the value of.

Michael Hartmann 32:13

Yeah, at least I I always uh I want to tap like it doesn't feel like that's anywhere in the near term, right? Maybe one year. Yeah.

Andrea Tarrell 32:22

And honestly, I wonder if this problem actually gets harder over time, because to your point on like the draw towards the average, like if I'm writing an email in Chat GPT and you're writing an email in Chat GPT, and we're just sending them back and forth to each other, and the models are getting trained on like more AI output. At one point, at what point does to mean start losing variability and like everything just sort of becomes like mid? Um it'll be it'll be interesting to see how we navigate that.

Michael Hartmann 32:51

Yeah, I mean that's kind of um I a term I I like to use is like this there's a fallacy of best practices, which feels like it's a similar thing, right? Where people are like, oh, this is the way everybody does it, so we should do it that way. Yes, but yeah.

Andrea Tarrell 33:08

I'm with you 100% on that.

Michael Hartmann 33:10

Yeah.

Andrea Tarrell 33:10

I love that term, the fallacy of best practices, because they're they're best practices for a typical use case or an average scenario. It doesn't, it doesn't mean that it's the silver bullet that's gonna work for you in your exact situation that um is probably different than the person sitting next to you.

Michael Hartmann 33:28

Yeah. I mean, the way I like to think about them is what are the principles that were in that quote best practice, end quote, or the thing that was successful that can be replicated and applied creatively in different ways.

Andrea Tarrell 33:41

I I love that. Like the the principles, like why did that make that successful? And are those those same variables true in this era? If they're not, that best practice is dead. And yeah, um, I think we're we're on the front lines of a lot of that happening in marketing right now, where like the content marketing, the ABM playbook, like things that have just been like, oh, this is this is just how we do it, they're becoming less effective. And so we're gonna need to rewrite the rules. And um yeah, it's it's a brave new world for for marketing.

Michael Hartmann 34:15

Yeah. So maybe not the best book to refer to at this point.

Andrea Tarrell 34:19

Um yeah.

Michael Hartmann 34:22

Um, yeah, it's a little bit too too close to the through to the reality, maybe. I don't know, maybe not that close. Um, no, but uh so when we talked before, you talked about the difference between I think the term governance and activation, it feels like maybe that's what you're talking about, right? Is there's like a new way of thinking about how to manage this change. Like, what does that mean to you? And like how would it apply for the people who are listening?

Andrea Tarrell 34:46

Yeah, I have to give credit to my friend Corey, Corey Snow for this paradigm shift, but like reframing like governance as a function to the act the activation team. So instead of seeing governance as like the department of no, it's like the department of how to.

Michael Hartmann 35:02

Yeah.

Andrea Tarrell 35:03

Um, governance like implies that you need to be governed, you're creating rules, you're like blocking things from happening. Um, but many of our users are pretty ungovernable. So instead of trying to make them not do the things that they want to do and doing governance to them, like how do we give them the training, the tools, the knowledge, um, the data to do what they want to do in a like safe and compliant way? Um so getting the governance team or the activation team or how whatever you

Governance Shifts And Point Solutions

Andrea Tarrell 35:33

however you want to frame it to ask like what are the business outcomes that you're looking to achieve and what is the safest, most compliant way to get you there, versus like, oh no, that doesn't pass our 14-page questionnaire. So we're not right.

Michael Hartmann 35:46

We're not right, right. Like it needs and it needs to be like I think there's a lot of governance approaches, ones, even ones that I've built before, that I have, I think, a relatively mild assessment of the costs and benefits or risks and things like that, but they still take time. And it feels like that needs to be even lighter weight than what I've thought about to be like what is enough information that can be defended to say yes, we can move forward with this, right? That feels like it needs to be a pretty quick conversation as opposed to a lengthy, like you said, 14-page form to fill out or whatever.

Andrea Tarrell 36:23

And maybe that initial like blast radius assessment dictates like what path it goes down. Like if it's something that's not a big deal, like like put the 300 question security security questionnaire down. If it's something that is like significant and mission critical, absolutely do the due diligence, but like not over processing for process sake.

Michael Hartmann 36:45

Yeah. Well, and and so now I'm gonna I'm kind of laughing at myself here a little bit because like now I think the matrix that I said could be a part of this, right? The the can I go through the door and come back, or do I is it a permanent door that I'm going through or and the blast radius, that combination. Like if it's one that I can't come back from and the the blast radius could be big, like that recruit that should get more scrutiny.

Andrea Tarrell 37:07

Yeah, right. Yeah, it should be hard to request that data, request that platform or whatever. Um, like users should have to do work to to walk through that door if if that's the real implication of it.

Michael Hartmann 37:19

Well, and I love anything that's gonna get people to start thinking about things in terms of the risks and trade-offs, because I think there's very few things in in life in general that are clearly, you know, right and wrong, yes and no, right? There's a lot of gray area in life. And I think that's the like this this feels like the exact scenario where that plays a role, right? Where you've like you need to have this mindset to evaluate things honestly, right? Just because you think it's a great idea doesn't necessarily mean it's not a high risk one, or you know, even if it's an easy thing to do, right? And I think that's that's a that's a a framework and a model that I would totally support if I was in a leadership role, like because if you're teaching people to think like that, and maybe that's really like what needs to happen is these organizations, we need to be thinking about how do we get our teams to be thinking about like the criteria like that in a general sense so that that when they're thinking about things, it's not like yes or no, I should do that. It's like is the if we take the step forward of doing this thing, you know, are we are we do we feel like the upside is gonna be better than the down potential downside? And can we come back from it?

Andrea Tarrell 38:34

Yeah. Yeah. I I I feel like there's a there's a slide in the making with like a visual for that.

Michael Hartmann 38:41

I've got like in my head, I've got the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I do like I think that you you're right, that like that idea of activating and becoming more of a yes with with guardrails and sort of clear expectations about um how things are gonna operate and yeah, when you're gonna make decisions. I mean, this is gets back to a little bit of like one thing a um lesson I learned from a decision-making class I took years ago at a company that did provide a lot of training was this like the sunk cost fallacy, right? I see that so often where these are like, oh, we spent a million dollars or whatever it was, right, on this thing, like and it's not quite there. We should like keep spending more money. It's pretty with the people who are looking at it like usually know like it's not gonna work, like, and so spending more is not really the right thing to do, even though you've already spent a million dollars.

Andrea Tarrell 39:36

Yeah, yeah, I think the sunk cost fallacy is like where it's like front front and center, because that a lot of ops teams have infrastructure that they've spent years building out and refining and perfecting, and um, now there's a whole new set of market entrants that have different capabilities and different implementation timelines. And like if it's gonna take you 200 grand to optimize your existing platform to do the thing versus buying something off the shelf that um there, there's yeah, it's you you can't you can't be anchored to the past and thinking about like what are your decisions for the future.

Michael Hartmann 40:13

Yeah, I've always been a fan of trying to keep things as simple as possible because like you, like I am a big fan, I'm a big believer that speed and agility can trump, you know, even a poor strategy, right? Because if you have enough strategy and you can move quickly and you can adapt adapt or cut it if you like, and then move to the next thing. I think you've got an advantage over people who spend a lot of time on a great strategy that ultimately may work, but if it's too slow, they may miss the opportunity.

Andrea Tarrell 40:41

Yeah. Yeah. I speed and agility win every day in my book. Um because and I I feel like we we see this trade-off in like on a lot of marketing teams and even in a lot of sales organizations. Like you start the year with your strategy deck of like, okay, this is these are the activations we're gonna do, these are the strategic initiatives, and then the rubber meets meets the road of just life, and like your customers are doing new things, your competitors are doing new things, and like the faster you can adapt systems, get the date, get data in the right hands of of your internal teams, get campaigns out the door, like the organization that moves the quickest is has major advantages over one that has a perfect strategy, but is slower to react to to what's coming down the the pipeline from the like the broader universe that we all all exist in, kind of thing.

Michael Hartmann 41:34

Right. Yeah, yeah. So if if for the people who are listening or are just like if they're an organization or trying to think, okay, how maybe they're actually working on a strategy for how do I incorporate AI into our go-to-market operations and our workflows, what like what are the things you're seeing that the best organizations are doing that seem to be, I'll use that same

Blast Radius And Two-Way Doors

Michael Hartmann 41:56

like have principles that can be adopted by other places, maybe not best practices.

Andrea Tarrell 42:00

Yeah. Yeah, I I mean the the organizations that that seem to really be hitting their stride with this have like top-down support and alignment for the need to innovate and the the potential of AI in the organization. So I do think there's an aspect of like you gotta work for a team that sort of gets the vision and and sees the light kind of kind of thing. Um I'm also seeing like high-performing teams, like they they're providing their team with tools, but they're also teaching them to fish with those tools. So teaching them the principles, not just like making rules, but explaining like, okay, this is what we're trying to do, this is how we think about these things, this is how we make decisions in this era. Um, so that like as process changes are being pushed out top down, bottom up, the team is innovating and being agile and embracing change from their seat. Um, so it's it's kind of a uh so if I could boil it down to like the three things, it's like leadership alignment, um like top-down process evaluation and change. So like these are tools and processes that we can standardize across across our whole team. And then that teaching people the fish bottom-up innovation, where you're getting people the tools to be their own change agents and improving their own workflows versus waiting to be told, like, okay, this is the process that's changing because of AI.

Michael Hartmann 43:33

Yeah, okay. I mean, I love that anyway. Uh, can I somewhat clarify on the leadership alignment piece? Is that that the leadership agrees that there's an AI benefit and that they agree on what they expect that benefit to be, and then that's communicated, or is it more of a mandate kind of thing? Like how did like what do you what do you see? Because I I could see lots of different interpretations of what that means. Yeah.

Andrea Tarrell 44:00

And I um I I feel like it has a lot of legs. Cause I mean, like I feel like every CEO on the planet right now is getting the message from their board, like, we gotta do more AI, we need to do more with AI. And then many of them are just turning around and repeating that message to their organization without a lot of clarity on like what does it mean to do AI and like how are you measuring that? And like what does good even look like? Um, I think also we're seeing a lot of CEOs beating the like we gotta do AI drum, and then like security and infosec don't get the memo. And so it's like we gotta do AI, and the teams are trying to embrace innovation, and then they're getting like handcuffed um to these giant security bustard airs again. Yeah. Um and if if it's like ops versus security, and ops is responsible for convincing security that they need to loosen their posture, that's usually not a winnable battle. Like you you really do need the C-suite to be aligned on. Like we get we have to be agile, we have to lean into innovation, we have to change. Um or it just it just doesn't end up happening. Um yeah. So it's it's a it's a it's a tough one. Like I I feel like uh the the C-suite in general is getting a lot of pressure around AI, and postures need to evolve for for their teams to to really successfully partner with them on that change.

Michael Hartmann 45:27

Yeah, it's just like something that's popped in my head. I mean, it feels like this um the challenges with evaluating the ROI or the sort of the financial benefit of adopting AI do seem like really difficult, kind of similar to what marketing has faced for years, right? I was marketing measures self as a from a financial standpoint. Um and it it almost feels like there needs to be I don't want to say no accountability to the financial performance, because that's gotta be realistic. And like one of the things like I have avoided using a lot of automated AI stuff is because I've when I tried it, like unexpectedly high volumes of transactions that each have a cost to them, right? Um and but I do think there's almost needs to be a what are the again, I'm gonna use the word principles, but what are the principles we believe we're uh in terms of like the major things we're gonna get as a benefit? And do we feel like we're making progress towards that in kind of a larger point of view?

Andrea Tarrell 46:36

I think the analogy to to marketing's measurement problems actually is super relevant because um I mean we've been chasing like perfect marketing attribution for eternity. And yeah, some things you can very clearly point to, like, okay, this is the pipe generated or the um the pipe that was matured by this marketing initiative. And like we have better metrics than we ever had before. But there's still this whole category of stuff that's like you either see the value or you don't. And like you're not gonna get a a dashboard element that tells you, like, yep, you sent a client newsletter,

Avoiding Vendor Lock-In With LLMs

Andrea Tarrell 47:13

and like you either believe in a client newsletter or you don't. Like it you either anecdotally see the value and you like see the metrics that it's performing. Um, but like there's no amount of data that can convince you that like talking to your customers is a good thing. And similarly, like with AI, I mean, there's some things we can measure, but there's there are also things like, all right, a search that used to take me 15 minutes now takes two minutes. Do we believe that faster search is valuable? Like, I would say yes. And yeah, but like are we gonna see that drop to the bottom line? Probably not.

Michael Hartmann 47:50

Like at least not in the in the near term, right? And I think that's the that's the challenge. Yeah, it's been uh this has been a fun conversation. I guess maybe I'll leave it like wrap up here. Like, is there anything we haven't covered yet that you think that um you know our audience, primarily operators, would benefit from hearing that we hadn't covered?

Andrea Tarrell 48:09

Um, I think we covered a lot of ground. Um I mean, I I think the the bottom line is like the space is evolving really quickly. The human aspect of change is equally important, if not more important than the actual tech itself. Um and ops teams who are agile and um deliver like focus on time to value of the things that they're that they're shipping, I think those are those are the teams that are gonna pull ahead and win.

Michael Hartmann 48:35

I love it. This has been so much fun, Andrea. Thank you so much. If folks want to continue with you or learn more about what you're doing or what's happening at your organizations, what's the best way for them to do that?

Andrea Tarrell 48:46

Um, I'm on LinkedIn, love to chat on LinkedIn. Um, and then we uh Trilliad.com, um, we have a great blog and um full webinar light up and um a lot of great content uh to share with listeners.

Michael Hartmann 49:00

Terrific. That's been great. Well, again, thank you, Andrea. It's been a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed the conversation. It's actually kind of crystallized some thoughts in my head. So awesome, awesome stuff. I appreciate it. Thanks to our audience out there for continuing to support us. If you have ideas for topics or guests or want to be a guest, you can reach out to Nanny, Mike, or me. We'd be happy to get the ball rolling until next time. Bye, everybody.