Using AI for You and Your Team: What Has to Be in Place First

AI is a new piece of equipment on your information floor. Most businesses are running it without ever asking what it touches. Hello everyone. I'm Dr.

Mike Donaldson and this is the Readiness Report. Today we are going to talk about what has to be in place before you and your team start using AI at your work. Most teams are already using it. Let's be real.

They're using Chappie GPT, Gemini, Claude, whatever they found, whatever they're playing with, whatever they're testing. No one asked for permission. No one wrote any rules. It just started happening.

And you cannot manage something you have not acknowledged. In case you're wondering why you should be listening to me, I have 20 years of experience in manufacturing using lean to remove waste and improve processes. Along the way I earned a doctorate in business administration specializing in entrepreneurship. So basically learning how to build businesses.

I also earned a project management professional degree along the way. I have sat on both sides of the table both as the operator as well as a consultant. I know exactly how things fit together and I can guide you on how AI fits into all of this. Before we start this episode please take a moment and subscribe.

You can drop any comments or questions to me. You can reach me at ThodosAI . com and I will be happy to get back to you with an answer them personally. If you're wondering where your business stands with AI readiness, I developed a readiness assessment that is free.

There's no obligation, no email needed. You can do it within five or 10 minutes answering 10 questions and you'll get a snapshot of where your business stands on AI readiness. You can also find that at ThodosAI . com and the link is in the show notes.

The question isn't whether your team should be using AI. The decision has already been made. It was done without the meeting, without a policy, and probably without you, unfortunately. The real problem is no one told them what not to type into the chat window.

For example, a customer complaint could come in. It goes directly in with all of the contact information. We could have the account numbers, all the data included. A pricing sheet.

could get loaded in just to be cleaned up. A critical document for your business could be loaded in with all kinds of proprietary information and no one even thinks twice about it. It feels like getting help, but it's a gap that needs to be fixed. In manufacturing, we would never put a new machine in place without knowing exactly what it's going to touch and how it's going to impact the parts.

This also includes process. It could be a supplier change. There's something called a first article inspection. It's very detailed where you have to ensure Any changes that happen, this includes new machine tools, new processes, machine moves, anything that changes in the process.

And this is key for aerospace. You need to make sure that everything works and everything is tight and solid. This includes all the documentation, all the processes, all the tech sheets, everything meets the spec. And all of this happens before Parts actually go into production.

AI is that new piece of equipment. You have to treat it as such. It's new to your floor. It's on your information floor, or it's making decisions for you.

That's a gap, and it is not the technology. It is simply an awareness that you need to bring your team up to speed on. So this is where Foundation First plays in. AI accelerates what already exists.

That's good or bad. It doesn't matter what it is. what the state is, it'll move it faster, and it'll do it quietly. Gaps will get exposed very quickly.

Now, if your team already has habits of protecting that data and information, your AI is going to sit safely on top of those. But if those habits are not in place, gas will get exposed very fast, and some exposures can happen, and they'll happen quietly. Here's an example. An owner needed one thing.

They were loading in a contract. That was signed with their customer and they were wanted to know all the shells and shell knots that are within this contract Easy task sounds simple and AI can handle it The problem is is the entire file went in unedited it had the client names the scope details the payment items the payment terms Contract value all of it was in there Nobody ever asked what needed to come out first Now the before as I said the whole contracts in sensitive items, terms, all that's in there.

The after, what it should look like. The client name, payment terms, contract value, it's all stripped out, it's all redacted. Only the relevant sections needed for the task go into the AI. AI still finds the clauses within seconds and that exposure never happens.

The tool did not change, the awareness did. Here is where Some extremes can come into place. There are two. One is silence, and the other is something else.

Silence assumes the team knows better. They assume that they know what to do, they know what to include, so they never say a word. Or they think it's an IT problem that they'll address someday. Only someday rarely comes, if at all.

The other extreme. This is an outright ban. AI, absolutely not. Full stop.

No one is to touch it. It sounds responsible, but it's not. What ends up happening is things will go underground. It'll push everyone to use the AI behind your back in secret some other way.

So it won't work. It'll create more problems only now they're even more hidden. What would work instead? Treat it like any other shop floor rule or policy that you have for the company.

It is a short plain list of what goes into AI and what absolutely stays out. You explain it once, you post it visibly, and you repeat it for every new hire that comes in. It should be part of your onboarding policy. Again, this is not a technology decision.

This is a floor rule that you must implement. So here's where you start. Step one, you have to have a conversation with your people and your team out loud, face to face. not a memo that you send or an email that you send that no one reads or they just glance.

It doesn't go into some policy folder somewhere that no one ever opens. It'll take you about 15 minutes, that's all, if that. Step two, you must clearly name what the off -limit categories are and why. It could be customer financial data, not could be, it should be your customer financial data for sure, employee personal information for sure, and anything under an NDA.

Then look at your unreleased pricing. You won't want that in there. Anything at all that you feel is proprietary that you do not want exposure out within the world of AI. Step three.

Give the team a place to ask questions when they are unsure. Mistakes will happen when there's no one to answer the questions that people have. So you have to set that up so they can clearly get their answer if something is unclear. Step four.

and this one gets missed. You had the discussion, write it down. One page, at least three things that will never ever get pasted into AI and why. You need the why so people clearly understand why it's so important they do not put it in there.

Now if you were a solo owner, this still applies to you. You are the team. You are handling all the contracts, all the details, all the finances. So when you are using AI and loading things into that chat window, you need to ask yourself these same questions.

Should this be in there? Am I exposing something? What do I need to fix? Set up your own list for yourself if that helps.

Now the key things that you need to take away from this episode is your team already decided to use AI. Everyone is out there using it. Your job now is to decide on purpose what never goes into it. Your assignment for this week is you need to write that one pager.

Be clear, be concise, and make sure when you have your discussion afterwards, you post it where everyone can see it. Sounds simple, but it works. All right, that's all I have for you on this topic, but next time on The Readiness Report, we're going to talk about the data. myth and how much data your business actually needs to benefit from AI.

If you've received any benefit from this podcast, please give me a review. It helps to show out. It helps me out, makes me feel good too. If you know someone else that could benefit, please forward it on to them so they can listen as well.

As always, I'm Dr. Mike. Thank you for listening and you have an excellent day.