Future-Proofing Work With AI and Smarter Tech

(01:43) Understand where opportunities exist but remain untapped, focusing on improvements that can drive better outcomes.
(03:16) Use technology to manage repetitive and administrative tasks, allowing people to concentrate on work that creates a deeper impact.
(05:33) Technology delivers timely, accessible information at the point of need, enabling confident decisions and reducing reliance on memory or guesswork.
(08:10) Build confidence for employees by offering tools and systems that allow them to learn, adapt and perform without unnecessary pressure.
(10:12) Prevent the loss of valuable talent by ensuring technology supports operational processes, enabling people to focus on leadership and relationship-building skills.
(14:23) Provide leaders with just-in-time guidance and proven approaches to handle complex conversations and challenges with greater confidence.
(20:17) Capture and preserve organizational knowledge by using modern tools to document, repurpose and share the expertise of experienced individuals.
(25:51) Regularly evaluate established practices to determine what remains effective and where new approaches can drive improved efficiency and outcomes.

Wisetail website

Savii website

Descript

Audio

Donna: Whether we're talking about AI, whether we're talking about the future of work, we move forward together faster and more strongly than we go by ourselves.

And oftentimes, our ability to even imagine, it's better with people. It's a team sport.

Evan: Donna Herbel is a leadership strategist, systems architect and champion of human-centered ai. She's the founder of Blue Phoenix Learning and co-founder and COO of Savii with decades of experience as a hospitality training and development executive. Donna helps organizations turn chaos into clarity through practical strategies, people first leadership and just the right touch of tech.

She's worked with leaders across industries. Always focused on unlocking potential and making growth simple and sustainable. A dynamic speaker, certified executive coach and past president of Chart, the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers. Donna is passionate about helping people lead with purpose and possibility.

Donna, welcome to Wise Tales.

Donna: Evan, so great to join you today. Thank you so much.

Evan: I wanna touch a little bit to start our conversation about using AI and technology. You've talked before about using it to fill in some of those gaps, not to replace people, but to empower them. So where should owners and operators start with identifying some of those gaps?

Donna: That's such a great question, even, and I think it's on everyone's mind, right? There's the difference between what's wonderfully interesting and a. Actually helpful when you get all the hubbub about AI and what's new and what can it do and how fancy is that? And I think for business owners and those that lead teams, the biggest questions are, really, there's really three places where I think it's most helpful or most important to start.

And I think number one is where are the opportunities we currently can't capitalize on? Where are the gaps? Like where's the wishlist? So for example. If we knew more about customer feedback when we launched a new menu item, like on day one by noon versus waiting for leg time for client feedback. Can that lead to process improvement, increased revenues, marketing improvements?

Probably so I think, I think part number one is, start with what you wish would happen. And then I think part two, the big piece for owners and operators that are really looking at where does AI and technology fit? There's also this place where we are expending time and effort. In highly repeatable, number crunching, look it up.

Just kind of the administrative part. You know, I talk a lot about let tech do what tech does well so people can do what people do best. And when you think about your business, think about your operations. You can find the places where, for example, in the hospitality industry, you have a leader or a manager who's not on the floor, not interacting with employees, not touching tables, talking to guests, and being dialed into the business because they're back number crunching on the spreadsheet.

Well, if we let technology be more efficient at filling out the blanks, providing some of the immediate data. Formulating those key points, red flags, highlights, you know, kind of silver bullets. We can let people take their time in the places where they truly make an impact in the places that technology simply can't.

And then I think the third, the third place is kind of fun and interesting. And I use the example of Google Maps, right? When I was, you know, when I was driving around like a land pirate with a stack of maps next to me on the front seat of the car, I never dreamed of a future where I would have a navigator.

Know exactly where I am and tell me where to turn through. The speakers on my car like that seemed to bridge too far. and here we are today. And so I think the third part to really think about is where is your current strength or current greatness, where you could reimagine it better for your client experience, better for your guest experience, and better for your employee experience.

I think those are the big three.

Evan: I, so I think those were fantastic. And this may be an order. This may not be an order. We'll see how it goes, but I really, I like that wishlist, right? And so if we think about the fact that. We've all been encouraged for a long time to think about smart goals and, how do we draft and all of those things.

But taking an even broader look at where you want to make business improvements and looking at even some of those strategic areas. You mentioned guest satisfaction or how a new menu item is doing. So it sounds like it's not just. What can I do from a wishlist perspective, but how can I do it more effectively and efficiently?

How can I get the right data to make a decision that will impact tomorrow? Is that accurate?

Donna: I think that's a hundred percent accurate. And it's not just, it's not just data, it's data and information. I think of the things I've always found most exciting about technology, and this comes from my history and my way back machine, as you know, leading, leading learning and development in the hospitality industry.

At the point of need, it's the point of question. If you're on a cooks line with, uh, you know, over a griller, over a broiler, you're not going to call a timeout and check the binder like here's what's gonna happen. You're either gonna know, there's gonna be some kind of point of work that helps you or you're gonna guess those are the big three.

And so when you think about how can technology help at point of intervention? So number one, I think there's speed to information, right? Because it's information. That allows us to make business decisions fast enough and right enough if we're doing it right, fast enough and right enough to capitalize on opportunities in our business.

But then I think part two is if the goal is to have the right information at the right time to do our best work and delight not disappoint, then we gotta be able to put those resources. Where people are working. and technology does that so incredibly well, compared to, like I said, you either know, which you had to, if you, if you learned it four weeks ago, may the force be with you.

I mean, good luck. You must have amazing recall. I know I don't. Or if you can find it. You've got a trade off, right? Or maybe you can find a coworker or person next to you, but same question, are they? Right? Right. And then, like I said, the kind of the third piece that I think is really interesting in the age of technology and AI is it just gives so much more confidence, that I got what I need.

Even if I know what I know, even if I do what I do and I'm super great at it, I have confidence that there's a fallback plan no matter who's standing next to me. And that's important.

Evan: We have talked, at various times on this podcast about competence and confidence, right? And if, especially as we're talking about frontline workers, there is a real desire to have that retention play to ensure that we have. Employees who are gonna stay with us longer term than they might not if they weren't quite as competent or quite as confident.

And so it sounds like, and I know it, talked about this in your bio a little bit, but really empowering those, those people, using technology not to replace, but to give that level of confidence.

Donna: Yeah. so, so two piece. Is on confidence and con and you know, confidence. And confidence, right? one of the things that I've seen change dramatically working with frontline employees, in, and again, I kind of tap, tap to the way back machine, but this is probably even 7, 8, 10 years ago. There was a point in time when a new employee or a manager would come in and we'd say, great news.

We have seven binders of information. Anything you could possibly want to know you can find. And they were like, that's amazing. If I pulled out seven binders in front of a new hire today, they would be like, are we building rockets? Like, how hard is this job? Oh my goodness. and so, so I think part of the confidence is can I find what I need when I need it?

Can I do it or get access to it without feeling foolish or looking dumb? There's a lot of sensitivity to, I wanna appear knowledgeable even if I'm still a learner. And so I think on the confidence side. AI and tech does a lot of that because you can kind of choose, right? You can choose if I want, if I wanna ask people questions, I can do that.

But if I'm concerned, my first couple weeks on the job of looking like, I don't know if I can do this, give me a safe place to get myself right and build up my confidence, not just in having the information, but the confidence that if I got into deep waters, I could figure it out. That's really what confidence is about.

And on the competence side of what I love about, technology in competence is. When we think, and I use the example of like what makes a great restaurant manager, it's not spreadsheets. Spreadsheets do not, you know, the ability to do like pivot tables and multi tabs. That doesn't make great, that doesn't make a great restaurant manager, but great restaurant managers today need to have that, that competency right there need to be able to work database spreadsheets and data elements.

But if we look at what makes a, what makes a truly great restaurant manager, truly great leader, high interpersonal, builds relationships, able to manage conflict, right? skillset. If you have to choose, then I think technology helps us choose for those competencies that make a great restaurant manager versus saying, you know what, you're so good with people.

You can't handle the tech side of the business. You can't fill out the spreadsheet, you can't do the reporting, right? You struggle with these elements and, and we don't have resources to help you. So we can't take that kind of risk, with regard to like compliance or payroll or information or reporting.

And so we down throttle the high touch, high interpersonal, and we traded off for. A very basic level of technology use, and we miss some amazing talent with that trade off. And so I think the competence side is you don't have to take people who are amazing at their core work for the business and require them to uplevel their competence in older systems, tools, and processes that frankly don't work that great.

Evan: And I, so, and, and I told you before I was gonna try and go through 1, 2, 3, but that is really, a, a pointed sort of explanation of that number too. Let humans do what humans do best. And let technology do what technology does best to get to that certain level of competence, right? We've, you know, whether it's a, a c plus or a B minus, you get the job done.

But really hoping to find those a plus people who can handle the, the human portion of leadership and development of their teams, of their businesses, of their locations, whatever that might look like. One of the things, so I loved your, uh, your example of Google Maps because I, I I'm an old, old school MapQuest person myself.

Gosh, I don't know how we did that. Still staggering to me that we had 17 pages for a 12 minute trip across town, but. I like how you explain the differentiation and sort of the nuance between data and information. And so we spent a lot of time talking about, competence and confidence. I would love to just understand when you talk about at the point of need, talking about the frontline, but as we think about leaders.

Right. We know that they need certain levels of information also, not just data on those spreadsheets, although I'm sure we have some Excel gurus in the listening audience that are like, no, no, no, no. We really need experts in in Excel, not me. But, as we think about the information leaders need at that point of need, how does technology help support leadership development?

Donna: Yeah, such a great question and I, and on, and I think this is one of the biggest areas of growth and opportunity, when we talk about tech, smart tech and how can smart tech help. So. Of course there's data, right? There's what's going on with the business. Let me make leadership and strategic decisions, and there's information.

What's the policy? The what's the procedure? What's common practice? What do I need to know? But when we talk about great leaders now, and I believe in the future, especially in the future, the ability to lead people through dynamic and changing circumstances. It has always been part of the leadership equation, but it's showing up differently today.

I think it's shown up differently a lot in our restaurants, whether that's employee expectations, guest expectations, how do you respond to chaos when. It's your, it, it's your first, it's your first shift with the keys to the car, and you gotta respond to something without necessarily having the experience or the context to do that Well.

And so when we talk about that idea of how does, how does technology and AI function into leadership? Number one, every person who steps into leadership is coming into that role with a different skillset, a different toolkit, and a different set of experiences. None of those experiences translate. Great.

And for especially new leaders, new shift supervisors, new managers, if this is their first time leading people, the two places that show up most consistently of areas of, I don't know, you call it uncertainty or anxiety or whatever, it's performance management. What happens when I have a person who is not doing amazing things and how do I do that?

How do I navigate that conversation well, to help them and take care of my business, right? What's that fine line between, I'm here to be a coach and a helper, but part of my responsibility is to provide leadership to everybody who came to work and came to nine today, or came to work and came to state at day.

If you're in the lodging side of the business versus, how do I create space for you as an individual to grow? That's a hard. Space to navigate? Where can technology help? A couple of things. There's a lot of frameworks, right? And as trainers right on the education, if, you have the gift of working with an organization that has really good training systems, you probably have some exposures to frameworks and case studies and things you can use.

But when you learned it. Was not, when you're about to go talk to Joe. And Joe is an individual, right? Joe, and I may have rumbled before, or maybe this is our first time talking about like, Hey Joe, we've got stuff. Or maybe Joe's worked with, a leader or a manager who didn't have great standards, or was just tired of pushing on standards, right?

So while training can prepare you, generally for a future moment in time around a competency. Using technology that's pre informed with best phrases or best practices from your best leaders who have talked to some version of Joe 5,000 times over the last 10 years who have like versions, right?

The ability to kind of check in or even role play in practice, even if I don't have someone I can call, right? 'cause I might have to talk to Joe in 10 minutes. I may not have the opportunity to talk to a supervisor or someone else and get help, like, we're here and we're gonna go for it. Ready or not.

Here we come. A point of technology can give me just in time, just for me access. And help me think through or provide feedback using pre-trained information, right? You don't wanna just, it's kinda like saying, Hey Google, I'm gonna do a performance management conversation. How should that work?

Google's good, not that good. But something that's pre-trained with here are best practices, here are tips, here are phrasing, here's some things that might happen. How are you gonna prepare for that? Or suggestions, can be really powerful. And I think Goes far, the large language models that are available today, just really do a nice job of being able to take.

A natural question and provide some kind of guidance or response. And of course, you know, the user still has to use good judgment. and they still have to make sure it's authentic for them. And they don't get to say, you know, chat, JP chat GPT, maybe do it. Like that's not a thing. But, but that, but that leadership point of navigating challenge.

Navigating interpersonal conversations, and being able to try on different hats and different examples rather than figuring it out when you're live and the stakes are high. I think that's incredibly valuable right now on the leadership side with regard to, large language models, AI and tech.

I think that's a big opportunity for leaders.

Evan: So one of the things that I find really compelling about that is, is absolutely that that role play and everyone probably is, is rolling their eyes. I just. I just rolled my eyes because it's uncomfortable. It's, it's hard sometimes, but in my mind that, using tools, technology sort of removes some of that awkwardness too, and it gives you a little bit more of that practice in a space where you don't feel maybe.

As vulnerable, or you can still, you know, just, just practice your speech beforehand. One of the areas, I'd love to get some information from you. We have, we've all read, we've all heard the generational differences in the work environment right now. And I would imagine in hospitality, in restaurants, there is a whole slew of generations that are currently, currently in those spaces.

There's a lot of institutional knowledge that has been, held by people who have been there for a very long time. We are starting to see retirements. We are starting to see people leave and oftentimes a lot of that institutional knowledge of the whys and where force, maybe in a binder somewhere, but also maybe in someone's head somewhere.

What do you recommend? Beyond, you know, the role play and all of those experiences when it comes to things like that, how do you recommend that handover takes place? How do you create sort of that codification around what people know? Because they've just had years of experience.

Donna: So I think that's such a fun question. For two reasons. So when I think about, and I, I love that we kind of jump off with role play 'cause we would always laugh and we were like, it's time for a role play. And people would be like. That's a terrible idea. And we get every, it's not, it's not like every, it's not like every training professional doesn't know by and large people hate role plays.

They are, however, ridiculously effective. That's,

Evan: So good.

Donna: That's why we do them. So, but the second part of that is when you think about how we teach, how do we teach people? The unwritten rules or the nuances, right? And that's, you know, we, we'd normally say, well go talk to so and so. Or here's a video of so and so giving an example, right?

Here's kind of a video of them talking about how do I fill in the blank? How do I calculate food cost? How do I make a menu? How do I deescalate concerns? What do I, you know, how do I manage my utilities line on my p, whatever that is, right? You've got people who've learned things over time, and I think there's two things that today's environment does differently than ever.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a minute if you'll, if you'll bear with me. I'm gonna talk to the life about, regional training unit managers or training managers. Many organizations that are decentralized organizations, they might have a specific location with like really good systems or really good operations where people really learn the business.

And we've often said, gosh, if we could just have this best trainer in this regional training location, train everybody on this one thing, wouldn't that be great? Well, today you can. So you can do that a couple of ways. You can have an individual, kinda like we're doing now, literally record a Zoom, or record, record a whatever.

They can do a screen share, they can do the demo. and then AI tools can do a couple of things with that. They don't have to go in cold. 'cause that was always, that was always the problem in old school, right? We'd say, well do a recording. And it'd be like, okay, well here's the two hour video of, you know, how to make a schedule, which was fine.

If you were learning to make a schedule, but if you were practicing making a schedule, they're halfway through, like, oh, I forgot this thing. You're not gonna invest that two hours again, right? You're gonna be like. Here's what I need to know. And so being able to take that tribal knowledge from an expert and just capture it and then use some of these machine tools to recut it, repurpose it, so there's long form content, where you can take that video, you can export the audio, into you know, a variety of different tools.

That can. and some will actually just, take the audio, run it into a transcription, take that transcription, put it into nail LM and say, look, take this transcription, make it make sense, like a logical flow that makes sense for the user. Put headings or chapter titles on it. Now let's take that information and let's go back and slice up those videos into chunkable content.

And then there's even editing tools. I'm not a big name dropper, except sometimes I am 'cause I have favorites. So Descript is one where you can take that video element, the script will actually take the video, run the transcript, and then you edit the video. Like you edit a Word doc. So you don't have to hire, you know, a third party master editing suite.

And there's some other tools as well. I mean, when I think about the tools that Wisetail has available for like some of your client base, tools like that exist, I think. We just don't, we just don't always have the conversation about beyond this moment in time, how does this look over the next three years, the next five years.

How many times, you know, what, what is the cost and time and money, for people being uncertain or doing it wrong? And what's the value of having your best expert provide the demo your subject matter expert, literally provide the information. Provide, provide the training and the teaching. And I think every place where we can just capture great work in the flow can add to that body of knowledge can add to that repository.

So when your top expert gets promoted or leaves or retires, they're leaving their expertise behind instead of taking it with them.

Evan: And I, so I think that's compelling in so many levels. We have had, some content experts, uh, Jason Berkowitz from Arrow Up training. Who happens to be a, a, content partner of Wisetail, but just very singular focus on restaurant expertise. And he is a huge proponent of just filming people, doing their day job, filming people.

Not only does that create compelling content and, and people engage with people like them, but it also to your point, captures some of that institutional knowledge in a meaningful way that can then. Evolve over time. 'cause sometimes we don't want all of the things that people do captured for posterity purposes.

We recognize where things have gone off the rails.

Donna: True story. There's moments where you're like, and nobody should ever do this again, and we're not gonna put it in a video, but they should never. Yes.

Evan: but I think that responds to a multitude of, of use cases and. I think we have come such a long way from having those binders. I remember the alphabetized, I remember them in chronological order, and every which waited Tuesday. You could never figure out how to organize those binders in an effective way.

Gosh, that was not that long ago.

Donna: and it, and it really wasn't. And I think the other thing to kind of keep in mind, which I think is interesting for listeners who are trying to think like, what do I do with this? you don't have to go backwards , if you are in the place where you're like, they're laughing about the binders, but I have them good for you.

You're in a great place

because Yeah, you, jumped the curve, right? You didn't, you didn't go through taking, bunch of pages and digitizing the PDFs to make them make sense to realize you couldn't edit them to, I mean, you skipped all of that. You're in the best place ever. So this is your time.

Evan: Start where you are. I really, so I, I know we're, we're coming close to the end here, but I really like that. That entire idea of start where you are. We tell learners to do that all the time. Meet learners where they are, start and meet all of the people you encounter exactly where they are, but as.

Learning and development leaders as owners, operators, you can do exactly that for your business as well. You don't have to backtrack to digitize things. You don't have to sort of start from square one, which is a very daunting task. Sometimes. Just, just take where you are and you can do it incrementally.

As things come up as Joe from the, the grill retires and we wish him well take all of that and put it into a digital format.

Donna: And that's one of the things even so, um. in addition to my life, as, as an executive and as a trainer and as a coach, I'm a self-described tech hobbyist because I think what's so interesting is being able to look at our daily habits and our daily business practices and really ask ourselves the question, why do we do it like that?

And so I think when we talk about start where you are, one of the first questions is, what do we do and why do we do it like that? So if we all, if we all have a standing Monday meeting, and it's always X amount of time, and here's how we do it, okay? Why do we do it like that? Why is it always on Monday?

Check. What are we trying to accomplish? Check, are we meeting our goals or is this a time filler? And if we had to apply first principle thinking, if we had to start it all over again, today's our first day at our amazing company, would we do it like that or would we do it differently? And if we would do it differently, what might that look like?

I think that's, I think that's a powerful idea and a powerful starter. When we talk about start where you are. And that's that idea of you don't have to carry the past with you. There were some things that probably made sense in 2019 that do not make sense in 2025. There are, and I'll share just one quick kind of example.

I go to so many virtual meetings where you get X number of attendees and then X number of their AI note takers. Have you ever had that happen? Even,

Evan: Isn't that the weirdest

dynamic?

Donna: But here's what was interesting, which I thought was fascinating. And I, I had a, I, I had to wrestle with my reaction to it at first. So I had an individual who was scheduled to attend, you know, part kind of, they weren't a decision maker.

They were more of be aware of what's happening, and so they would actually just send their note takers to meetings. So at first I'm like, that's genius.

Evan: Phe.

Donna: right. So it's that, it's that pause point, but it, it forced me. And I do a lot with tech, but it forced me to really think, rethink, like.

So people take all these notes, what are they doing with them? Where are they going? How are they helping daily work? And that comes back to kind of where we started. Wonderfully interesting. Or actually helpful, actually helpful AI note taker with a pre-trained GPT and a format of how the output summary needs to look.

That's powerful. so there's, I think there's some kind of just interesting places where you kind of think. What would happen if it, what would happen if it did? Right. What would happen if it did? What would happen if we got our, we got a team of servers together to talk about their daily living and we have the ability to capture that because we all know those conversations are great and they're powerful and they're insightful.

But only a percentage of it gets to consideration for really resolving issues, really taking advantage of opportunities. What if we were faster, better, smarter? What if we could figure that out? So, yeah, so I think that's just the, that's, that's some of the, we like when we talk about start where you are.

But imagine, imagine what could happen.

Evan: I am rethinking my entire life right now, Donna. think, I think there's room for improvement for sure. I do wanna ask you one last question we ask every guest on Wise Tales. This is just fun and interesting and gets, gets us to know you just a little bit better, I think, uh, allows us to know you a little bit better.

If you could create and design your own custom bumper sticker, sort of the philosophical yes or no to bumper stickers, not withstanding, uh, what would it say and why.

Donna: That is such a fun question and I love it, and I think I could think of a lot of bumper stickers, but probably my favorite would be progress as a team sport. I.

Evan: Ooh.

Donna: I think, and I think the reason that's important is whether we're talking about tech, whether we're talking about ai, whether we're talking about the future of work, we move forward together faster and more strongly than we go by ourselves.

And oftentimes, our ability to even imagine, it's better with people. It's a team sport. So things like listening to podcasts, things like going to events, being parts of conversations, that's real progress. So yeah, that's my bumper sticker.

Evan: Oh my gosh. Donna, it has been such a pleasure having you on Wise Tales Today. I have learned an incredible amount, fascinating conversation. And uh, I do. I, I thank you for your time with us and doors always open. Should you desire to come back and have another conversation.

Donna: I love that. Thank you so much. It's been a gift to be here even. I enjoyed it.