How are you integrating the use of AI into your business? Are you incorporating it yet? Our guest today is Dr. Sandra Metzger, who is a lifelong pioneer in education and she shares with us some practical strategies to start using AI in your business.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Your willingness to learn is the ultimate competitive advantage in business.
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ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Dr. Sandra Metzger is the founder and co-owner of Inspired Pathways Group, LLC, where she partners with businesses and educational institutions in leveraging artificial and human intelligence to innovate and overcome unique challenges. Dr. Metzger holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and a 2023 Machine Learning and Data Science certificate from MIT, reflecting her ongoing commitment to innovation and transformative thinking. Drawing on 27 years of experience, Sandra collaborates with leaders and organizations to establish ethical frameworks that guide responsible AI learning and implementation, enabling sustainable growth and meaningful impact. In addition to working on projects with partners, she frequently speaks at conferences and teaches graduate courses. She also serves as a Research Chair for Doctor of Business Administration students as they work with industry partners to solve real-world problems. Beyond her professional endeavors, Sandra and her husband are enjoying their first year as empty nesters with their two dogs.
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TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Tom DuFore (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise team. And as we open today, I’m wondering how you integrating the use of AI and artificial intelligence into your business. And I know there’s a lot going on, it’s in the news, but are you using it? Are you incorporating it? Are you just dabbling with it, maybe trying it out? Have you done that or are you fully integrated? Well, our guest today is Dr. Sandra Metzger, who’s a lifelong pioneer in education and new technology, and she shares with us some practical strategies to start using AI in your business.
(00:49):
Now, Dr. Metzger is the founder and co-owner of Inspired Pathways Group, where she partners with businesses and educational institutions and leveraging artificial and human intelligence to innovate and overcome unique challenges. She holds a doctorate in education leadership and a 2023 machine learning and data science certificate from MIT reflecting her ongoing commitment to innovation and transformative thinking. Drawing on her more than 27 years of experience, Sandra collaborates with leaders and organizations to establish ethical frameworks that guide responsible AI learning and implementation, enabling sustainable growth and meaningful impact. In addition to working with projects with her partners, she frequently speaks at conferences and teaches graduate students, and she also serves as a research chair for Doctor of Business Administration students as they work with industry partners to solve real world problems. Beyond her professional endeavors, Sandra and her husband are enjoying their first year as empty nesters with their two dogs.
(01:45):
You’re going to love this interview, and I’ve had the good fortune of knowing Sandra now for several years, and originally we connected as she was an instructor for one of my doctoral courses. So let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
Dr. Sandra Metzger (02:00):
Thanks for inviting me. I’m really happy to be here. My name is Sandra Metzger and I have claimed the title Learning Solutions Architect, and my company is Inspired Pathways Group.
Dr. Tom DuFore (02:16):
Really, the big driver for why I wanted to have you on the show is really just to talk about this idea of artificial intelligence in business and leveraging that. And as it’s becoming more and more prevalent, it’s in the news all the time. My experience, especially in the small business community, is it’s not being widely adopted or utilized for a variety of factors, but largely I think just because people don’t really know what to do with it. It’s like this thing sounds great, but what do I do? How do I use it? So in what ways have you found organizations, companies, business leaders, create an environment where they’re using AI tools along with the human capital and that human expertise that’s part of their business?
Dr. Sandra Metzger (03:04):
Yeah, well, I think you bring up a really good point, and that’s having an approach that is how do we combine AI with our human capacity? Because there are definitely businesses who are out there trying to replace people, and I don’t think that’s the way we want to go. But when I first started experimenting with AI, and this was even prior to the release of ChatGPT, which was already two years ago, I saw it as a tool, a way that software works and a tool that could be used. And over the last two years especially, I’ve begun to see it as a way of working and interacting, not just a tool, because it continues to develop and its potential is so… I mean, every day there’s something new coming out.
(04:03):
And so if we think about using it like a tool, then we’re always behind in our game. We’re always like, well, I haven’t learned how to do that. Thinking about having an approach with AI or having an AI mindset and understanding how to engage with my own expertise and leverage AI becomes more of a partnership or a collaboration. So how do we leverage this collaboration without feeling overwhelmed all the time by not having the latest skill with the tool?
(04:43):
And so where I see people and myself included in my own business, where I see it working really well is when you begin to collaborate with it and look at it like a team member. And like any good team member, you should know who that team member is, what they’re capable of. You should put some requirements on it. How do you behave in our business and what are our goals and our values? And so when you start approaching using AI with that mindset and with this collaborative nature, it changes how you approach using AI. That’s a good way to start anyway.
Dr. Tom DuFore (05:33):
You make a good point here in really talking about this responsible use, ethical use of artificial intelligence, incorporating that into business. You’re starting to go down that pathway. So as a leader of an organization, how can you really make sure that you’re honing in or staying in this responsible use or ethical use?
Dr. Sandra Metzger (05:55):
Well, the first thing would tell any business leader is that if you aren’t learning how to use AI and learning what it means for your organization, and that doesn’t mean going back to school, but it does require a little bit of investment in some up-skilling. You can’t outsource this. It has to be part of your role as a leader that you understand what’s going on. And then, if you as a leader have done a good job being clear about your business’s value proposition, about your values, your framework for doing business, just all the things that make a really tight business, then you can train, and literally it’s training and AI, whatever tools, and there are tools that come… AI comes in the form of tools. It’s just doesn’t act like normal tools, but you can train the tools that you use to function the way you want your business to function.
(07:07):
I think that one of the things that I find often is that we criticize AI for being biased, but it’s trained on human intelligence, right? It’s trained on the knowledge base that we’ve given it. And so you have a lot of say in how the AI helps you do your work, and if you’re getting a lot of bias in the output, it’s probably time to just take a look at what you’ve been giving it or how you’ve trained it.
Dr. Tom DuFore (07:40):
I think that’s great in terms of how you describe if your organizational values are clear and the staff and team know about that, that makes a lot of sense. I guess maybe taking it a step further is how do you make sure that the artificial intelligence you’re using is lined up with those values or how do you make sure that this “bias” you’re talking about, we want it to be biased toward the company values? How do we help educate and teach at that?
Dr. Sandra Metzger (08:10):
Okay, one of the things that it’s really important to understand that these are machines that learn, but they feed on data. And so as a non-tech person… I mean, I’m not a developer. I was an educator, still am an educator, but I’ve learned a lot about tech. And so some of these words can be intimidating to the non-techies, but really, it’s just what information do you have that can be read by an AI? And an AI can read video now, images, text. When we talk about what is your business all about, if that is in any form of organized data, you can train the AI to work with you and your business. So your website, your onboarding documents, anything that you have that says who you are and what you do, all of that can be used.
(09:19):
Now, if you don’t have that, you have some work to do because… And you should’ve been doing that work anyway. I think. I think anytime you have a business, you want your information to be organized, and now we have a very important audience and that’s AI. So if you can organize your information and have your data in formats that the AI can read, then you can help it understand who you are, what you do, and it can also give you really great feedback. Here’s our website. Is my message clear? Here’s the infographic that we made. Does it align with our values? So it can see, read, hear this data, and you are giving it that data. If you don’t give it data that you have, it goes on the data that it was previously given in its training. So that’s why you have a lot of control over how AI works for you and your business.
Dr. Tom DuFore (10:30):
I know this is news to me in terms of it’s trained a certain way, but you can custom train how it thinks and may end up responding to you. And speaking of that and going this direction, how might you encourage business leaders to close those skill gaps with these types of emerging technologies and AI being the big one right now, but how would you advise someone to maybe or encourage them to skill up and start learning about this? What are some things they could do or maybe even just a few actionable steps?
Dr. Sandra Metzger (11:03):
It’s funny, ironic that AI can be an amazing assistant to help you learn how to use AI. The answer isn’t all that far away from probably where you are and where you think you are as a starting point. So before we talk about the gap, I think it’s really important to understand that what you already know and your areas of expertise matter significantly. So there have been several research studies that have come out lately showing the difference between an expert in a particular area using AI to accomplish something that they wouldn’t normally want to accomplish, and someone who is not an expert trying to accomplish that.
(11:55):
So for example, writing a business plan, if you already know how to write a business plan and you use AI to help you write a business plan, it supercharges your ability. And if you don’t know how to write a business plan, you’re still going to be able to write a pretty darn good business plan, but there are some gaps there that you can fill in with AI. However, I think we have to remember that or encourage each other that our expertise matters. And the more you use AI, the more you’ll probably stay awake at night every now and then thinking, what good is my intelligence if this thing can do all this stuff? And so we wrestle with that as we continue to use new versions of these models that keep coming out.
(12:50):
Once you know what you want to do, when we talk about gaps, we’re assuming that you understand where you’re starting from and where you want to be, and there’s a gap there. So being really clear about where you want to be, what are the outcomes you want? And this is no different than what I’ve done as an educator my entire career. What are we trying to accomplish and then work backwards from that. So how are we going to accomplish that? And being able to ask those really good questions regarding that gap, understanding who you are as a learner or how learning works, put that together with AI, have some good conversations and you have within seconds usually really good up-skilling plans.
(13:41):
When I meet with clients, they’ll say, “No, this is going to take a long time.” I’m like, “Give me an hour. I’ll show you what to do in an hour.” So it really happens quickly if you have that framework and the framework isn’t any more complicated than, where do I want to go? Where am I now? How do I get from here to there? And you can work on that up-skilling.
Dr. Tom DuFore (14:04):
As you’ve grown in this, and you’ve been an educator for many years, how would you say your experience in education, as a business owner, as a leader, how would you say that has shaped your perspective on leveraging and utilizing AI in various business contexts?
Dr. Sandra Metzger (14:25):
That’s an important question and it’s a great opportunity for me to do a little shout-out here just for a second, which is that I have been an educator now 28 years. I would not have even dreamt of doing anything in a business realm if it hadn’t been for people like you, Tom, who were part of the Doctor in Business Administration program where I was teaching, teaching about teaching, not business, teaching. And so you and some of your fellow students as you graduated and began to give me advice on how to start a business and run a business. So yes, I now have some experience with education and business.
(15:15):
So for me, it’s really that intersection of theory and practice. And I’ve always been really excited about learning theory and then how that applied, how technology, how we could leverage technology for learning. And along comes AI and all of that, not just, yes, I had some basic expertise in that, but the opportunity to then apply that with AI has been unexpected, but very rewarding because learning, being able to learn is our biggest skill. It’s the biggest skill that we need to have right now. And so learning, adapting, which is always part of learning.
(16:09):
And so what I feel like is I have this opportunity through my business and through my teaching practices to research what’s happening. When I’m teaching, I’m actually practicing some of that. I’ve been teaching in a master’s program for artificial intelligence and writing curriculum for that, which would’ve been outside of my comfort zone, but I got comfortable with being uncomfortable. And then consulting, again, applying those ideas and getting on the ground frontline feedback and just having that loop. So it just feels like a really good place to be where I get to experience all of it at once, and it’s all really messy most of the time.
Dr. Tom DuFore (17:03):
Absolutely. Well, one of the things I always like to make sure we include is you mentioned your experience and background and now running your own business, is making sure people have a chance to get a hold of you. If they’re listening to this saying, “Boy, I really like what Sandra is to say. I’d love to maybe see how she can help my business or help me to learn or grow as a leader or our organization implement some of these AI tools and techniques,” how can they get in touch with you?
Dr. Sandra Metzger (17:28):
Sure. I have a website, and it’s inspiredpathways.org. Through that website, you can also connect with my online community. I have a learning platform this winter now. We’ll be some asynchronous sessions, but also some synchronous virtual meeting groups and things like that. So I love learning with other people and creating learning experiences. So that’d be great. Reach out. There’s a way to make an appointment and happy to talk to people.
(18:03):
And I do think it’s important for people to know that this isn’t a huge consulting gig. You can learn so much from just a few hours of talking through what you’re doing, what your processes are. I am here to connect people with super intelligence, so it’s really, really fun. I’m having a lot of fun doing it.
Dr. Tom DuFore (18:36):
Wonderful. Well, we’ll make sure we include the links to your website in our show notes and how to reach out and join up with your sessions that you’re running for your synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities there for someone who says, “Boy, yeah, that sounds interesting. I’d like to learn a little bit more about this and learn from someone who knows more than I do on this subject.” I think that sounds wonderful.
(18:58):
Well, Sandra, this is a great time in the show. We like to make a transition and we ask every guest the same four questions before they go, and the first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it.
Dr. Sandra Metzger (19:12):
I worked really hard for quite a while on a learning platform when I was working for a software company, and it did not rise to the level of priority for the CEO, and it became a miss. And it wasn’t so much of a miss, as in we made mistakes along the way, but it really felt like a loss to me, and I actually had to mourn the loss of something that mattered and that I had invested a lot of time in. Like most of the misses that we have, it taught me a lot, and I’m really grateful for the experience.
(19:59):
For one thing I did learn, I am prone to optimism and I can promise to have things accomplished that I probably don’t have control over really getting them accomplished. And so taking a good look at how much I tell people, “Yeah, we can do that.” Now, I just said that about AI, but really, we can do that. And then also, I have used every single lesson that I learned making that. We were about 75% done with that product, and I learned so many things and none of it has gone to waste. And so even earlier today, I was working on something. I listed some requirements and I thought to myself, I wouldn’t even know how to explain that if I hadn’t learned how to explain that for that other thing. So our learning never goes to waste. Sometimes it lies dormant for a while, but never goes to waste.
Dr. Tom DuFore (21:04):
Let’s look on the other side then. You talked about a miss. That turned into a make, but let’s talk about a make a win, a highlight.
Dr. Sandra Metzger (21:11):
My make or win is that I just finished and a couple weeks ago, teaching the course that I wrote for our master’s students on artificial intelligence. I have prided myself most of my career on being a pioneer and this whole experience of writing… I mean, I have a doctorate, but not in artificial intelligence. This was the scariest pioneering experience that I’ve ever had. And I can imagine what it might’ve been like for people on the Oregon Trail when they finally got there and saw the ocean. That’s what it felt like at the end of this course where I was like, oh my goodness, we did it, and they learned and I learned. And we’ll need to make a couple of tweaks here and there, but it is a course that is scalable and able to adapt to the many changes in AI. So for me, that’s a win. We have one set of data to prove it so far, but it felt really good in that pioneering experience.
Dr. Tom DuFore (22:25):
That reminds me in some conversations we’ve had over the past in terms of this seems to be a trend that I’ve noticed in your career that you’ve shared with me of pioneering, doing new things, new ways to teach, new content to teach, lots of new things that you’ve always been at the forefront and at the leading edge of. And most people don’t want to hang out there. So I commend you and I think it’s a wonderful thing. So glad you exist and others like you that help educate folks like me and people who tune into this that just we’re not there yet. We’re just trying to keep up if we can. I love what you’re doing there.
(23:01):
Well, let’s talk about a multiplier that you’ve used to multiply maybe yourself personally, professionally, or organizations you’ve been a part of.
Dr. Sandra Metzger (23:11):
I’ve been part so many different what you would call multipliers. And so maybe I’ll just do a quick little shout out to my Central Indiana ATD chapter and Association of Talent Development and the opportunities that I’ve had to collaborate and learn with them. I have moved back to a more rural part of Indiana, and so this might be a good opportunity to share. I am working with our mayor. It’s a fairly small city, but we’re trying to create something like this because there isn’t anything in our town. And so I have found… And this isn’t just the pioneering spirit, but you know what, it’s hard to pioneer by yourself. And so when you find yourself by yourself, you need to look around, and if there aren’t communities for you to join, make one. So that’s what I’m in the middle of doing right now with my community. I’m trying to make a space and hopefully I can come back on sometime and share how that turned out, but I know your audience are often people who are trying to make it alone. That’s no fun. You got to create a community.
Dr. Tom DuFore (24:30):
The final question we ask every guest is, what does success mean to you?
Dr. Sandra Metzger (24:34):
That I tried and I got back up on my feet if I fell down. Success to me means that I can keep going with what I’m trying to do in the sense of the outcomes for others, confidence. I always come back to confidence, like are the people or are my students, are my clients, are my children, are the people around me more confident because of our engagement?
Dr. Tom DuFore (25:06):
Thank you so much for being a guest here. And as we close this out, is there anything you were hoping to share or get across it you haven’t had a chance to yet?
Dr. Sandra Metzger (25:15):
I think I said this already, but I really like to reiterate that your willingness to learn is the ultimate competitive advantage right now in business. Take that on and not be afraid to learn, and that you don’t have to do it alone.
Dr. Tom DuFore (25:35):
Sandra, thank you so much for a fantastic interview and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So takeaway number one is when she was giving advice to owners, and she said, “If you are not learning how to use AI, you need to start.” And she said, “The big, big takeaway is that you cannot outsource it. You need to learn it.” So as the leader of your organization, you need to start figuring this out and becoming familiar with it.
(26:06):
Takeaway number two is when she talked about encouraging leaders to close skill gaps and skill up, and she said, “Well, how can you learn more about AI and how to use it?” Well, she gave a few practical steps. The first was just to ask AI, ask the artificial intelligence system you’re using, how you can use it better. It’s just a simple way to do it, and the tool itself will help teach you how to use it. If you already know how to use AI, then you can start getting more clear on the questions and types of questions you want to ask and start learning how to ask better prompting or prompts to the system. And the final question she said there was, find out where you are now, where you want to go, and then start determining how you get there.
(26:57):
Takeaway number three is when she talked about leaders and how you as a leader or I as a leader, how we are using or viewing AI. And she said, “If you’re viewing it only as a tool, you’re viewing it the wrong way.” What she said is, “You need to view it as a way to collaborate that you are collaborating with AI.” So to not just view it as a tool because of how it learns and the things that it’s capable of.
(27:26):
And now it’s time for today’s win-win. And today’s win-win comes at the end of the episode, and I thought Sandra gave a phenomenal summary or final little takeaway when she said, “Your willingness to learn is the ultimate competitive advantage in business.” I’m going to say that again. Your willingness to learn is the ultimate competitive advantage in business. That says it all. I thought that was a great succinct summary.
(27:58):
That’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise our business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.
