AI As A "Cognitive Acid Test" for Leaders, with Eric Saylors

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[00:00:35] Eric Saylors, welcome to the conversation today. Thank you so much. I'm super excited to be here. It's a real pleasure to be with you. You're joining us from California. Despite my background, I'm in Salt Lake City area in Utah. And today we're going to be talking about AI as a cognitive acid test for leaders. I really love this framing. I'm excited to have this conversation with you today. You have a really unique background, and I'm excited to pick your brain and for you to be able to share your expertise with my audience today.

[00:01:04] As we get started, I wanted to share a little bit about Eric's background. Eric Saylors is the author of Quantifying in Negative, Sense Making in Risk Assessment, and the Seven-Year Active Shooter Study. He is a fire chief with over 30 years of experience and holds a doctorate in leadership from the University of Southern California. In addition to serving as product lead or HEN Technologies, Eric currently serves as fire chief. Over the course of his career, he has served in every rank firefighter, medic to fire chief.

[00:01:33] His operational experience includes assignments on ambulances, fire engines, ladder trucks, and heavy rescue unit. He has responded to and managed a wide range of incidents, including high-rise fires, large commercial fires, wild land urban interface incidents, basement fires, and balloon frame construction fires. Prior to joining executive leadership, he served as battalion chief on in downtown Sacramento, one of the busiest operational areas in the region.

[00:02:01] In addition to his doctorate, Chief Saylors holds two associate's degrees, a bachelor's degree in finance, and a master's degree in security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School. And I could go on such a unique kind of career, and I think that's something that is so fascinating to me as I interview so many different people, that we all tend to have these super unique types of backgrounds.

[00:02:25] Yours is one that led you towards doctoral studies and leadership, but from a totally different path than like I took or like a thousand other people I've interviewed. So anyways, thank you so much again for joining us. Before we dive on into the conversation, anything you would like to highlight by way of your background or personal context? You know, it's always weird to have your bio read back to you when you're sitting there thinking to yourself, who is that person?

[00:02:46] And just to land on the fact that all of our backgrounds are so unique, they seem like these tortured studies, but if you get down to the principle, the problem with me, I decided years ago my mission in life was to reduce human suffering. And I know it's abroad, but it is exactly what I'm here to do.

[00:03:08] And that is what's led me on this, you know, trial of different studies, different degrees, into career choices on how can I reduce human suffering. And that's been my lifelong mission. It'll continue to be my lifelong mission. And I think most of us that wind up at these weird pinnacles in life have this principle catalyst that is driving us in this direction that nobody can map out predictively looking at someone's life path, right?

[00:03:36] You just look backwards and you go, oh yeah, here you are a fire chief with a doctorate in 30 years. And you're starting to delve into AI development now. Well, and that's a good segue, I think, into forward discussion for today. And I was really fascinated, you know, as I was preparing for this conversation and even in our re-interview as we were discussing your move into AI development and AI integration.

[00:04:01] And, of course, I think all of us are grappling with that a bit today, you know, whether we want to or not, we're grappling with AI in the workplace, AI in leadership. And the smart ones are trying to figure out how this, you know, what role this plays and how to leverage it, re-skill, up-skill in the use of AI so at least we don't get left behind, right? And hopefully we can be conversant in it and have some skill in it.

[00:04:28] But you talk about it in terms of the cognitive acid test. And that's how I framed it up at the beginning when I introduced this episode. AI is the cognitive acid test for leaders, particularly when things get tough. What do you mean by that? Like what role is AI playing? You know, in addition to technological disruption, it's reshaping the workplace, displacement, all these things that we're talking about. But it's specifically in relation to leadership.

[00:04:55] So this is this, these are these emergent ideas that come together when two things slam into each other that you wouldn't expect, right? But there they are and you see them happening. So a lot of my history has been really storytelling. It is communicating what agencies do, what they don't do, what their values are, why it's there.

[00:05:13] And as I moved up through the ranks and got into executive leadership and read more about what that means to be at the top, top spot, you realize 80% of your job is talking. Like you're really there to communicate. You both have to communicate up. You have to communicate to your elected officials, the people that you serve, right? The overall community.

[00:05:36] You have to communicate down, down to the people that are coming onto the agency that need to be onboarded, understand what the values are, why the culture exists. This is your constant job. So some people think that they're going to get at that peak point and they're going to be managing budgets. No, really? I spend 80% of my time talking. Now, words matter. They matter significantly. And you have to be able to communicate multiple narratives up and down.

[00:06:06] And that means you have to be able to think about what you are saying and what it means to you. Now, the reason why I say this, this is a slamming of two topics coming together that I wouldn't expect is that I've been studying the storytelling and this leadership for multiple years, knowing that that is your key principle. And then I dive into another project using AI in the fire service, right? So cognitive overload for incident commanders has always been an issue.

[00:06:30] And I have been working with two PhDs at MIT to develop AI that transcribes what is said over the radio, categorize it for them, pull it together, and then hand it to an incident commander on their gross neurological default so they can make good decisions. It's kind of pulling the signal out of the noise, right? So as we're going through this project, I realize something that is obvious to most, but I'm watching people get their radio traffic transcribed myself as well.

[00:06:59] And it comes to you that what they think they're saying and what they're saying are two different things, right? If they're not practiced, if they're not rehearsed, what is coming out of their mouth versus what is living in their head, two totally different things. You're losing a lot of communication when those two things are disconnected. Now, I'm starting to put these pieces together going, wait a minute.

[00:07:21] I realize that even myself, getting put in front of city councils or, you know, congressmen being asked these critical questions that catch me off guard. Sometimes if it lands out of my frame, if I'm not well rehearsed, I will say something that I didn't really actually mean. So I need to be able to practice for that. Now, watching this AI transcription happen, I realize, wait a minute, this is an amazing asset test for me myself.

[00:07:47] I can actually go in and I can use AI in a useful way, not just to simply, you know, ask it ridiculous questions, but I can say, hey, look, there are eight basic narrative framings that I am going to use to communicate a story, right? I am either going to relay information. I'm going to use a springboard story to get action. I'm going to use a branding story that communicates what we do, right? I'm going to use a future story that reaches out and tells us where we're going.

[00:08:16] Now, AI, here's my framing. Here's a story I want to tell. What does it sound like to you when I read it into you, right? What does it look like when it's actually transcribed? Now, what I find when I do this, this is why I call it a great asset test for myself, is I will find that what I thought I was saying wasn't actually coming out.

[00:08:34] And I needed to go back and rethink about what my principles were and then learn how to leverage that so that if I do get asked an outlier question, I can always land back on those principles and hit it out of the park if I need to. So what AI has really allowed me to do is almost have a mere reflected back at myself on what I'm saying, how I'm saying it, whether my narrative framing is correct.

[00:09:00] If I have to shift it over into something different to actually land on my audience, right? Because it comes down to there are moments in your life that the words matter so much that each one is going to be important and impactful and you want to be good at it. That is ultimately your job. At the executive leadership, you become the face of the entity.

[00:09:23] And that entity's survival is largely going to depend on how well you can dig into those values, pull them up and express them in a clear way. Yeah. So are you utilizing it almost as the sounding board coach where you can, you have it kind of preloaded with these different cramings and then you can practice and try these different dialogue approaches,

[00:09:47] sharing the information you're trying to share and then get reflective feedback back on like what you're trying to share, how you're trying to say it. So, you know, if it's actually landing the way that you're trying to land, is that right? It is. It is. And that's the surface level. So it can give you that mirror to come back, but it should also give you the opportunity to self-reflect and really dig deeper into your own beliefs and where you stand on this, because that's where you want to get to. So I'll relate some personal stories.

[00:10:17] In 2013, I had to make a very hard decision in my career. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. There's a little bit of damned if you do, damned if you don't. And I had to make this decision. And I remember sitting in front of a computer looking at the decision I was about to make and realizing I better make this based on principles, because either way I'm getting called to the carpet on this. So what do I really care about? Why am I here?

[00:10:44] When I say that I'm here to reduce human suffering, it was an evolution of this process. And I sat back and everything that we do, everything that I do in the fire service, everything that everybody, it's about patient care. It's about getting the person out of the building burning, you know, the burning building. It's about getting to the person on CPR. So every decision I'm going to make is going to be based on patient care. My number two priority is the health and welfare of the firefighters. So I want them to come home as well. I don't want to go to any more funerals. I want them to survive physically. I want them to survive their career mentally.

[00:11:13] So those are my two principles. Now, if I have those principles and they truly, they sit in my heart, I believe in them. Decision I make when I get called to the carpet, I'm going to be able to land back on that. Now, that process for me, you know, it took years. It took years to work my way through it. Using, be able to rep my through, be able to rep myself through that now. Using AI as a cognitive assetist. I can get to some of those levels much faster, right? I can rehearse that more and more.

[00:11:42] I can dig into, okay, why are you really here? When you're standing in front of the state assembly, testifying on active shooter events, and you're guiding the direction of where the nation is going to go when they respond to active shooters. Why are you here? When they ask you hard questions, how are you going to dig into, all right, this is what I stand for. This is why I'm here. And so using AI as a tool like that has helped me find those foundational beliefs much faster

[00:12:10] than waiting for years to get rep through over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's so useful, I think, for all of us. Because how often do we find ourselves in those types of situations? You know, more often than not, we find ourselves in kind of the daily routine. And so it's, you know, hopefully we're not finding ourselves in these really difficult, life-altering types of situations daily. And sometimes we might, depending on the role, we might.

[00:12:36] But part of the reason why those are so challenging is because they're somewhat rare. We don't tend to find ourselves in them all the time. And so we don't get as many reps in them, right? And when we don't get as many reps in them, then we don't, you know, we don't get to practice that, you know, strengthen the muscle. We don't get to practice them as often. And so naturally, you know, we're just not as practiced in them. We just don't get, you know, we're not going to be as fluid. We're not going to be as just and as natural with it.

[00:13:03] So having any opportunity to get more practice is always going to be useful. That's why any sort of role play is going to be helpful when you're dealing with difficult situations. Any opportunity to rehearse is going to be helpful. And so, you know, in this case, using a tool like, you know, an AI resource is going to be super helpful because you can practice as much as you want. And you're going to get instant feedback. You're going to be able to get that reflective opportunity instantaneous, which is super, super helpful.

[00:13:30] It's one of those aspects, you know, that didn't even exist several years back. You know, it's infinitely scalable, right? Like not just for you, but, you know, once we have this tool, anyone can use it across all the fire services, across all the emergency services, across, you know, executive leadership, across all organizations, right? It is. Let's talk about, you know, practically logistically, practically how you do this. I'll start with, once again, some personal experience.

[00:13:56] I want you to imagine that you've got to relay the message to a set of parents that their child isn't going to survive. This has happened to me a few times in my career, right? Now, when this first happened to me, I realized, oh, every word that I say is going to be ingrained in these people's memory for the rest of their life, right? I am going to live in these parents' heads forever. Whatever. And everything that I say or don't say is going to have a massive impact. I do not want to mess this up.

[00:14:26] Now, that was a scenario that I put in early, early on in my career and then over and over again. And you're relaying information. You have to be very careful about what you say. Now, that was hugely impactful to me. And what a lot of people don't realize is when they talk about leadership, that is going to happen to you more and more. The higher you climb that ladder, right? As an event for me as a young paramedic or a young captain, that happened.

[00:14:55] I got a pretty good narrative. I could rep it very quickly. It happened enough. But what I didn't see coming was that eventually that was going to be my main purpose in life, was to be able to tell impactful stories like that and know how to do it and pick the correct narrative. So, we say, yeah, a lot of times you don't get many reps at this. And most people don't until they land in that peak spot. And sometimes you figure out too late that that was actually your job, right?

[00:15:24] That's actually why they put you there was to tell that story. And it's a little bit like showing up at the Super Bowl without actually doing much practice in football. You landed there. You're like, okay, I'm the best. Well, you haven't practiced much. And now you are just going to get rolled. That is what communicating is like. So, we have never really tackled this much in leadership. We talk about a lot of nebulous concepts.

[00:15:50] But coming back to communication as being your key critical feature is one thing. But then giving you a sandbox to practice in is where AI came in for me as, oh, my goodness. This is a logistical way to actually do this, to go back and practice some of these reps that I see coming. So, logistically how this works is with pretty much any model, you can give it boundaries. You can give it constraints.

[00:16:18] And you can say, hey, look, I want to tell, for example, a future story. I want to tell a future story. This is our vision of where the agency is going. Put the constraints on that. Here's what I'm going to talk about. And you can talk about it. And you can read back what you transcribed. It'll actually interpret it for you. And you can say, okay, look, I don't think I got the key message across. Let me try that again. You can get as many reps as you want in a very short period of time. You will see your message become fine-tuned.

[00:16:48] And to that point to where every word starts to matter. The transitions work together, right? Humans are not, they don't have a perfect memory. They chunk things, right? It's when they remember things, it's more like a painted picture and less like a photograph. So, you're trying to get to the point where your message paints a picture. They're going to fill in the details for themselves, right? But you want to throw this beautiful photo up of what the vision looks like in the future.

[00:17:17] That takes practice. And the great thing about having this mirror back at you is you can read it and say, well, you know what? That's not what I wanted to say. Let's start it over again. Let's start from a different starting point and land in a different conclusion. You might come to an ability like I've had a few times where I thought I was talking about a future story. And after I repped it a few times, I realized, wait, I've chosen the wrong narrative frame. I'm actually talking about values. Let's back up. Let's put some constraints on this.

[00:17:47] We're now going to tell a value story, right? Now let's start working my way through a value story. This is a little bit like my son is a freshman football player. He's quarterback. This is a little bit like him getting a bunch of reps before game day, right? You might be running the wrong play. You might be practicing the wrong play, getting perfect at it. Well, that's a little bit like you might be choosing the wrong narrative construct, right?

[00:18:14] You might be getting perfect, but it actually doesn't fit where you're supposed to be. And you don't figure that out unless you rep it a ton of times. So it's analogous to a flight simulator. I'm also a pilot. So I spend a lot of times in flight simulators, especially when I'm doing my instrument rating recurrence training. And I will look at this AI and I'm like, well, this is actually like a flight simulator, but it's not a flight simulator. It's a storytelling simulator, right?

[00:18:43] It is my ability to look at myself and say, okay, how do I get through this? So that's logistically how I do it. Um, I stole a lot of this from these frames from my doctorate program. Interestingly in the economics course at USC, it was dual top between an economist, obviously. And the other one was a professional actress. She was a very known, well-known famous actress, right? And I'm thinking to myself, how is this going to work? We're at a doctorate level. I'm going to learn a lot about economics.

[00:19:12] Uh, and then I got this actress. So we had to do, we had to do these studies and then present out. And this professional actress would then critique us on our body language, our tempo, how we would talk right now. This is coming from a true professional and I'm sitting here going, holy cow, this is actually what I really wanted. Um, and she would break down how well we were bringing these stories across and whether we

[00:19:41] are framing them correctly. That's when I came across the eight type of narrative structures. That's when it came across how words matter. When you say them, you actually have to believe it when you say it, because the audience is going to detect immediately whether you're BSing them or not. Right. And she was a method actress. So she was good at getting into the headspace of somebody else. And I love the reps that I had with her, uh, because she was candid.

[00:20:10] She was brutal. She was honest. If you were not doing a good job, she was, she was telling you in a very clear and honest way. Sometimes it hurt at the heart, but you realize no idea to get better. So taking that experience and then bridging it in when, when the chatbots come out and AI starts to surface, because none of that was around when I was doing my doctor, right? It started to come out. I realized, wait a minute, I can actually kind of recreate her with some constraints, right?

[00:20:38] And I can do this to myself and I can get better and better at telling these stories. So I've testified before the state assembly in California twice on two different topics, right? You talk about a potential nerve wracking scenario, right? You're looking at, you know, the highest elected officials in the state of California, and they are asking you hard questions about mass killings and active shooters. Um, I was repped and prepared as much as I could have been.

[00:21:05] I did land on my values, but boy, I wish I had this tool before I did that twice. Cause it wasn't around. And I would have asked it things like, Hey, okay. Now that we've got my narrative down, now that we know my values are coming from, I've got you into constraints. What type of questions do you think I'm going to be asked? Right? Let's, let's, let's turn on pro mode or the highest level. Now I want you to go back and look at, you know, either this committee or this state assembly. What type of questions do you think they're going to ask me?

[00:21:31] Now it might not get all of them, but boy, it is a little bit like in that metaphor of playing football. What type of defense do you think they're going to run against me? Right? Am I, am I prepared for, uh, blitzes on every run? What am I going to do if, if they come after me personally, or if they have a different alternative and they think that they're going to, you know, ask me questions that catch me off guard. I love this. I, that is fascinating that you had an econ PhD course like that.

[00:21:59] Um, that is amazing. Uh, I'm, I'm kind of jealous that that was your experience. Um, this has been a fascinating conversation, Eric. Uh, I know at the time I probably need to let you go. Um, but before we wrap things up, I just want to give you a chance to share with audience how to connect with you, find out more about where they can find your books, uh, and then give us a final word for it today. So, um, you can always find me on LinkedIn or Facebook. Um, uh, if you reach out to me, I, I will reach back to you. You can also email me at my personal email address, which is eSailors, the number eight

[00:22:28] at gmail.com. Um, the final word for leaders is you may have an idea of what your job is stepping into that top role. And I'm going to tell you from experience, it is communicating when things go wrong. It is you communicating. You are going to do very little and talk a lot.

[00:22:53] And when it comes to communicating, you better know where your values are. You better know thyself because people who are good are going to dig into it and they're going to find it out. So know thyself and be ready to communicate that and make sure that you align with the values of your agency. Thanks so much. It's been a pleasure. And I encourage the audience to reach out, get connected, find out more about what you're going to do for you. Check out the books, check out all of his great stuff. And as always, I hope everyone can stay healthy and safe.

[00:23:21] They can find meaning and purpose out each and every day. And I hope you all have great. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the podcast. We hope you stay healthy and safe and please join us again soon.