Scott Morris, former police officer, actor, and now CEO of PropulsionAI, joins Leaders and Legacies to share powerful insights on leadership, trust, and transformation. He dives into the critical distinction between “fit” and “fitting in” and explains why trust is the foundation of any successful team.
Morris believes HR is broken—not because of people, but because of a mindset that prioritizes compliance over productivity. He argues that businesses must shift focus from task-based job descriptions to outcome-driven roles, unlocking creativity and efficiency. He also explores how AI, when used as an augmentation tool rather than a replacement, empowers leaders to drive meaningful change.
With experience spanning law enforcement, Hollywood, and entrepreneurship, Morris delivers hard-hitting truths on leadership. He emphasizes the importance of transparency, humility, and paying it forward—lessons every leader should embrace.
Want to learn more about Scott Morris' work? Check out his website at https://www.getpropulsion.ai.
Connect with Scott Morris on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mscottm.
Key Points & Timestamps
- 00:01:09 – 00:01:30 | Introduction to Scott Morris: From police officer to actor to AI entrepreneur.
- 00:02:55 – 00:03:41 | Lessons from law enforcement: The role of trust and perception in leadership.
- 00:04:32 – 00:05:12 | Building trust in business: Why customers and employees won’t engage without it.
- 00:07:44 – 00:08:48 | Entrepreneurship and humility: The reality of building a business.
- 00:09:49 – 00:10:48 | Paying it forward: How leaders can support others and build lasting impact.
- 00:14:08 – 00:15:18 | Are HR leaders pioneers or cautious players? The need for innovation in HR.
- 00:16:49 – 00:18:10 | AI as an augmentation tool: Why leaders should embrace technology, not fear it.
- 00:24:00 – 00:25:30 | What’s broken in HR? The shift needed from compliance to business enablement.
- 00:28:42 – 00:31:00 | Fit vs. Fitting In: Why hiring for outcomes, not tasks, leads to real engagement.
- 00:31:59 – 00:33:11 | How PropulsionAI transforms job descriptions into business-focused roles.
- 00:33:26 – 00:34:02 | Where to connect with Scott Morris and learn more about his work.
Transcript
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.
00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.
00;00;51;10 - 00;01;03;03
Craig Andrews
Today I will welcome Scott Morris. He was a police officer in LA. Not just a police officer. He was also an actor. And hopefully maybe at the same time maybe not that I don't know. We're going to figure that out.
00;01;03;03 - 00;01;09;06
Craig Andrews
But he is also the founder and CEO of PropulsionAI. And that's a,
00;01;09;06 - 00;01;30;22
Craig Andrews
that generates intelligent job descriptions written by AI and uses a unique blend of human and artificial intelligence to help organizations achieve clarity about roles that accelerates hiring, simplifies screening and and onboarding, and it improves almost every aspect of talent management.
00;01;30;24 - 00;01;36;27
Craig Andrews
Tied to that, one of the things we're going to talk about is that notion of fit versus fitting in.
00;01;36;27 - 00;01;46;05
Craig Andrews
Scott believes that HR is broken and wants to fix it, and he believes AI is a part of the solution. So Scott, welcome.
00;01;46;06 - 00;01;52;02
Scott Morris
Thank you so much. I've been excited and looking forward to meeting with you. And I'm honored that you have me.
00;01;52;04 - 00;02;12;13
Craig Andrews
Yeah. No, I and I've been looking forward to it as well. You know, and the you know, you asked me why why I want you on the podcast and, you know, it was really I went when I looked at what you were working on and I looked at what you were doing, I thought I just want to talk to this guy because I think you have some.
00;02;12;16 - 00;02;25;28
Craig Andrews
At least for me, it's going to scratch an intellectual edge I have. And if I have that itch, I think there's probably some other folks are going to have it as well. So I'm really looking forward to it. But first off, police officer in LA,
00;02;26;00 - 00;02;28;23
Scott Morris
A long time ago. But yeah, that's where I started.
00;02;28;25 - 00;02;29;13
Craig Andrews
I think of,
00;02;29;13 - 00;02;31;00
Craig Andrews
what was it, Robert Duvall?
00;02;31;00 - 00;02;32;25
Craig Andrews
What is that movie colors.
00;02;32;27 - 00;02;35;07
Scott Morris
Color shot and colors. Yeah.
00;02;35;10 - 00;02;35;27
Craig Andrews
Yeah.
00;02;35;27 - 00;02;38;03
Craig Andrews
What year were you on the force?
00;02;38;06 - 00;02;42;05
Scott Morris
Back early 90s. So it was, I'm revealing my age, but,
00;02;42;05 - 00;02;42;24
Scott Morris
yeah, it's,
00;02;42;24 - 00;02;44;26
Scott Morris
it was a long time ago.
00;02;44;28 - 00;02;48;08
Craig Andrews
That was a tough time. That was. That was the Rodney King days.
00;02;48;13 - 00;02;55;00
Scott Morris
I came in right after the King episode, and I actually went into Foothill Division out of the Academy, which is where the King incident happened.
00;02;55;02 - 00;02;59;12
Craig Andrews
Wow. What was the atmosphere like then?
00;02;59;14 - 00;03;10;15
Scott Morris
Hence tense. But you know what? Like, here are a couple of, of, I think, learnings that I took. I mean, I took a lot out of the experience, but there were a couple of things that were really prominent.
00;03;10;15 - 00;03;22;28
Scott Morris
The first is that you can have four people that are standing on four different corners of the exact same intersection, and they're watching the exact same accident, and yet they perceive it really differently and perceive what happened very differently.
00;03;23;03 - 00;03;41;26
Scott Morris
And I think that's an important lesson, especially for any of us that are running businesses or growing businesses. Right. Perspective and it matters. The other lesson that came out of that was the value of trust, because you asked what was the atmosphere like at that time? And my answer was it was tense, but it was tense because there was a tremendous lack of trust between the community and the department.
00;03;41;28 - 00;03;56;19
Scott Morris
And I think to a certain extent, we, you know, we see that steam playing out again and again in that particular profession. But the issue of trust is one that pervades almost everything that we do. So I think those two things were really formative in in my early career.
00;03;56;21 - 00;04;05;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And I mean, trust that's something we talk about. You know, for us, we do marketing and high ticket services and,
00;04;05;06 - 00;04;16;24
Craig Andrews
you have to build the challenge there is you have to build a lot of trust in a short period of time. And there are ways to do it. And people get focused on the wrong things. They're like, well, hey, we're doing this, we're doing that.
00;04;16;24 - 00;04;24;01
Craig Andrews
We're doing this other thing. This is all wonderful. I'm like, yeah, but they don't trust you, and they're not going to buy from it until they trust.
00;04;24;01 - 00;04;32;06
Craig Andrews
And you know, if you're a police officer, they're not going to buy what you're, you're selling. They're not going to buy your protection if you don't have trust.
00;04;32;08 - 00;04;42;18
Scott Morris
Yeah. We say in our company, we say we've got to earn the right to make that sale, to ask for that sale. We've got to earn that right with people. Yeah. And that's all about building trust.
00;04;42;21 - 00;04;44;16
Craig Andrews
So you were also an actor?
00;04;44;18 - 00;04;45;05
Scott Morris
Oh, yeah,
00;04;45;05 - 00;04;47;14
Scott Morris
that was before. That was before being a cop.
00;04;47;16 - 00;04;50;28
Craig Andrews
Really? Yeah. What? And what sort of,
00;04;50;28 - 00;04;52;03
Craig Andrews
TV shows? Movies.
00;04;52;03 - 00;04;56;20
Scott Morris
Oh my gosh. Okay, so going way back. So I did a film. I had a,
00;04;56;20 - 00;05;09;19
Scott Morris
a role in a film called Elvira, mistress of the dark. And I don't know whether you remember she was. I mean, some of the audience may not remember her, but she was an early 80s, mid 80s kind of, character on television.
00;05;09;19 - 00;05;12;04
Scott Morris
And she did a feature film and, and I got, I.
00;05;12;04 - 00;05;14;04
Craig Andrews
Remember that I remember Elvira.
00;05;14;07 - 00;05;18;16
Scott Morris
First movie, did a film with Tony Danza called She's Out of Control, and that
00;05;18;16 - 00;05;34;06
Scott Morris
I had about five minutes in this movie. But the thing that like, for me, was so memorable about the whole thing was that the casting director called me, and which never, ever happens, right? If you're an unknown actor. And I was the biggest sort of D-list if, you know, g worst kind of person in Hollywood.
00;05;34;06 - 00;05;49;27
Scott Morris
But the casting director called me and he's like, hey, I've got a role for you if you want it. And I was like, oh my God, I've made it. And it turns out it says, like this little five minute bit part, which it was just an honor to be called for a role rather than going in and, and reading for the role.
00;05;49;27 - 00;06;01;00
Scott Morris
And, you know, it was it was a cute film and it was a vehicle for for Tony Danza. And it was great to meet him and the, you know, the people that were there. And funny enough, in that same,
00;06;01;00 - 00;06;01;28
Scott Morris
film,
00;06;01;28 - 00;06;05;19
Scott Morris
and now I'm, I'm blanking on him. He was a character from friends, and he just died.
00;06;05;19 - 00;06;05;28
Scott Morris
But,
00;06;05;28 - 00;06;06;19
Scott Morris
Matthew,
00;06;06;19 - 00;06;12;23
Scott Morris
Oh, God. I don't know why I'm blanking on his name, but he that was one of his first roles was in that film as well.
00;06;12;25 - 00;06;15;08
Craig Andrews
Wow. Was he on on cheers.
00;06;15;08 - 00;06;16;28
Scott Morris
Terry. Matthew Perry.
00;06;17;01 - 00;06;17;15
Craig Andrews
Okay.
00;06;17;15 - 00;06;23;17
Craig Andrews
Oh. Friends. Friends, right. Yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. That ketamine. Yeah.
00;06;23;24 - 00;06;24;21
Scott Morris
Yeah.
00;06;24;23 - 00;06;33;19
Craig Andrews
So what's I mean, so, you know, the big question in Hollywood is, you know, you always see who you see on, on the screen.
00;06;33;19 - 00;06;45;18
Craig Andrews
And then often there's somebody different in person, you know, like, you know, Jack Nicholson is, like, absolutely terrifying on one screen. I'm like, you know, I don't know if I'd one be in a, dark room alone with.
00;06;45;21 - 00;06;50;01
Craig Andrews
I may not come out, but here he's nice and funny,
00;06;50;01 - 00;06;50;16
Craig Andrews
whereas,
00;06;50;16 - 00;06;54;14
Craig Andrews
Tommy Lee Jones, you know, has a reputation for just being a jerk.
00;06;54;16 - 00;06;56;05
Scott Morris
Oh, gosh.
00;06;56;05 - 00;06;59;08
Scott Morris
Well, I mean, I hope that's not true because I'm a huge fan of his, but,
00;06;59;08 - 00;07;14;01
Scott Morris
But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've never I think I'm really, really lucky. I never met anybody that I thought was was a jerk. People were, you know, professional and nice and and, I mean, I think that's kind of a theme that's kind of woven itself through my career, not because of anything that I've done.
00;07;14;04 - 00;07;18;28
Scott Morris
I think just dumb luck. But I've had the fortune to be around some really good people.
00;07;19;01 - 00;07;24;14
Craig Andrews
So first acting, then police officer, then HR.
00;07;24;16 - 00;07;28;02
Scott Morris
Yeah, kind of. I went through a I had an entrepreneurial stint in there,
00;07;28;02 - 00;07;30;20
Scott Morris
with a software training company and
00;07;30;20 - 00;07;31;16
Scott Morris
then
00;07;31;16 - 00;07;44;23
Scott Morris
a little bit of time, I, my actual formation of business was in the on the learning and development side. So I was building learning programs for, for a couple of different businesses. And that was the very beginning of the.com days as well.
00;07;44;25 - 00;07;45;19
Scott Morris
And I,
00;07;45;19 - 00;07;46;00
Scott Morris
I had,
00;07;46;00 - 00;07;58;21
Scott Morris
my first startup experience. I was convinced I was going to parachute out a millionaire because everybody else that I knew was, you know, and you see how well that's worked out, cause I'm. I'm still going. So. Still. Yeah.
00;07;58;23 - 00;08;03;18
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, it's, you know, it's it's one of those things where,
00;08;03;18 - 00;08;11;04
Craig Andrews
it's, you know, a probably a higher probability than going to Vegas, but there's a lot of the same mentality.
00;08;11;04 - 00;08;13;25
Craig Andrews
And, you know, a lot of it is,
00;08;13;25 - 00;08;19;20
Craig Andrews
you know, kind of like in the intro, there are people who believe the world's broken and they feel like it's their mission to fix it.
00;08;19;20 - 00;08;23;17
Craig Andrews
And and that's the wonderful thing about entrepreneurism is,
00;08;23;17 - 00;08;30;14
Craig Andrews
you know, I think the true entrepreneurs, even when they fail, they don't regret it. They,
00;08;30;14 - 00;08;31;29
Craig Andrews
you know, they're.
00;08;32;02 - 00;08;48;10
Scott Morris
Well, it's. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a learning process for sure. And it is an absolute masterclass in humility because you recognize at least I did. And I don't know whether every founder's journey is the same, but I thought I knew a lot about a lot. And as it turns out, I know close to nothing about almost everything.
00;08;48;13 - 00;08;49;28
Craig Andrews
Yeah.
00;08;50;00 - 00;09;07;27
Scott Morris
So, you know, it's just it's just humbling every day when you come in and like in a big company, you're like, oh, our marketing team is, you know, kind of horrible. And then you get out there and you start doing it. You're like, oh God, marketing is hard, you know? Yeah. And all of a sudden the criticisms of the past get like revisited on you because you're now accountable for the whole thing.
00;09;07;27 - 00;09;14;08
Craig Andrews
So yeah. Yeah. I think for me, the the, the biggest wake up call and
00;09;14;08 - 00;09;14;24
Craig Andrews
I actually
00;09;14;24 - 00;09;30;15
Craig Andrews
on the last podcast, I was talking about this to somebody who have worked in, you know, fortune 100 companies and then went off and started his own thing. And for me, I think the most humbling thing was when I left corporate America and I started my own business, I've been successful.
00;09;30;18 - 00;09;49;13
Craig Andrews
All of a sudden, I realized the number of people it took to make me successful. Yeah. And I felt like crap because I never gave them the recognition they were due. I just didn't understand how much they did to make me successful.
00;09;49;15 - 00;10;04;17
Scott Morris
I'll go this other step beyond that, just in terms of, like, what's driving me these days and and a lot of what I'm driven by is just trying to pay it forward because I have been the recipient of so many people who owe me nothing and hardly know me, who are working hard to try and make my company propulsion I successful.
00;10;04;17 - 00;10;12;13
Scott Morris
And you know that mentality. And I think it exists largely around a lot of founders and I, I, I
00;10;12;13 - 00;10;13;23
Scott Morris
work every day,
00;10;13;23 - 00;10;16;12
Scott Morris
to try and do that for others.
00;10;16;12 - 00;10;24;26
Scott Morris
Because I it's, it's amazing when you're on the receiving end of it and, and it matters a lot. Yes. It's a loan for sure.
00;10;24;28 - 00;10;48;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and I mean, I think that's problem for a lot of founders is there's a sense of aloneness. And some people join vestige feel, you know, vestige or other masterminds to feel less alone. And those accomplish that. But at the end of the day, you know, when, you know, maybe you meet with your mastermind once a month or, or whatever, and you're you're sitting there day to day and you're like,
00;10;48;11 - 00;10;49;25
Craig Andrews
crap, I gotta do all this.
00;10;49;25 - 00;11;01;24
Craig Andrews
And and you have it's hard to be completely transparent, you know, you don't want to sit there and tell your team, I'm terrified of these things, right? Yeah.
00;11;01;24 - 00;11;09;21
Scott Morris
It's because you don't get that luxury, right? You get you get to say that when you're in a company, you don't get to say that when you're leading. You know, the the whole effort.
00;11;09;24 - 00;11;13;26
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. So anyway,
00;11;13;26 - 00;11;15;01
Craig Andrews
so you started,
00;11;15;01 - 00;11;18;06
Craig Andrews
I'm missing the path. How did you end up in the air?
00;11;18;08 - 00;11;24;17
Scott Morris
Yeah. So so I actually, I was a partner in a consulting firm, and we did,
00;11;24;17 - 00;11;31;11
Scott Morris
work primarily with public institutions. And a part of what we did was air transformation and a part of what we,
00;11;31;11 - 00;11;32;05
Scott Morris
did was,
00;11;32;05 - 00;11;33;01
Scott Morris
technology,
00;11;33;01 - 00;11;37;11
Scott Morris
transformation and business efficiency and those kinds of things. And,
00;11;37;11 - 00;11;39;10
Scott Morris
it was out of, out of, you know,
00;11;39;10 - 00;11;47;13
Scott Morris
a former client who called and said, I'd like you to, you know, be the head of HR or and, and I, I took the job.
00;11;47;16 - 00;12;06;10
Scott Morris
But I had been surrounded by people that I learned sort of the HR knowledge base from. And then, you know, I think a lot of at least the way I practice HR, I think there are two mindsets in HR and they're both necessary. I just, you know, I think I don't think they should be in equal measure.
00;12;06;12 - 00;12;29;00
Scott Morris
But there is one mindset in HR that's very compliance. And risk management oriented. And that, you know, I can't be disrespectful of that. I think it's absolutely necessary. It's just if it's the only tool in the toolbox, I think the organizations in, you know, in a in a hard way, the other mental model around HR, and it's the one that I hope that others see me in.
00;12;29;00 - 00;12;48;28
Scott Morris
It's certainly where I see myself is really about workforce productivity, thinking about how to enable people and help them to be more satisfied at work, more productive at work, ultimately to contribute more. And there are so many I like. I like that. So because there are so many levers that you move one way and you get one result, you move another way, you get a different result.
00;12;49;00 - 00;13;08;06
Scott Morris
And it's it's a giant, you know, puzzle to unlock. How do you simultaneously drive an organization forward and elevate the people at the same time? Yeah. And that's, that's the mindset that that I really have. And in the practice of HR and early in my career, I was fortunate to be surrounded by a bunch of people who thought the same.
00;13;08;08 - 00;13;24;02
Scott Morris
And I think that's enabled me as I took on chief people officer roles, which I've you know, I think I said a second ago, I think it's almost 20 years now that I've been in a C level role in some organization, 15,000 down to 250. Right?
00;13;24;04 - 00;13;28;21
Craig Andrews
You know, a group of people I've been talking to a lot are people that are going into health,
00;13;28;21 - 00;13;32;27
Craig Andrews
health care to drive change. They're trying to bring transparency to,
00;13;32;27 - 00;13;48;19
Craig Andrews
company sponsored plans or trying to bring down costs. And it's interesting. All these people are, you know, the marketing folks would call pioneers. They represent 16% of the population that sees the world is broken, and they wouldn't be on the leading edge of things.
00;13;48;22 - 00;14;08;23
Craig Andrews
And so they go around talking about how they're there to break the status quo. They're going to disrupt things. And my comment to them is, I don't know, but I have a feeling that there are very few pioneers in HR. I have a feeling that they represent the other 84% of the population, that when they hear, you know,
00;14;08;23 - 00;14;15;15
Craig Andrews
you know, break up the status quo and, you know, you know, all these type things, it just terrifies them.
00;14;15;18 - 00;14;28;26
Craig Andrews
And I'm kind of curious, what's your take? I mean, are there pioneers in HR or are they just do they tend to be more cautious people looking for what's kind of proven and, and safe?
00;14;28;29 - 00;14;40;07
Scott Morris
Yeah. Look, I mean, I think to, to paint an entire profession or entire group of people with a single brush is I think we if you and I tried to do that, we would inevitably be wrong.
00;14;40;07 - 00;14;53;04
Scott Morris
I think, you know, the relationship between the chief people officer and the CEO is going to largely be responsible for how the organization moves writ large.
00;14;53;07 - 00;15;18;09
Scott Morris
And the reason for that is if the CEO is just looking at HR for compliance factors, it's hard to to move that boulder even if you're a more progressive person. So you could be a progressive person and work in a non progressive environment and have a harder time doing the kinds of things that you want. So I think we have to be a little careful with, you know, the assessment of, of kind of what the sticking point is for sure.
00;15;18;16 - 00;15;42;03
Scott Morris
There are an awful lot of organizations that are not thinking about, especially today, about embracing technology as a liberator. But I think the, you know, the the factor that drives them is not about HR. It's about human beings. Go back to 1967. I was not alive, but there was a huge sort of technological release in 1967, and I don't know if you know it.
00;15;42;03 - 00;15;57;19
Scott Morris
It was done by Texas Instruments. It was calculator. Yeah. And at the time, you know, everybody thought that the calculator, when it came on the scene was going to put bookkeepers out of, out of work. And, and I'm sure that there were a lot of people that leaned in and were like, oh my God, this is a great device.
00;15;57;23 - 00;16;20;20
Scott Morris
And a certain number of people that, you know, tried to push it away and keep it at arm's distance. Fast forward in 1983, Lotus releases one, two, three, which was a really early green screen version of a spreadsheet product. And at that time there was an equally big uproar that one, two, three and spreadsheets were going to put financial people out of the workforce.
00;16;20;20 - 00;16;49;23
Scott Morris
And in fact, the opposite became true. But here's how it became true. Those financial people released or the the forward thinking, once released, the way that they had been delivering value and adopted a new way of delivering value. The old way was about calculations. The new way was about strategy and analysis, and the fact that they didn't have to do the calculations led them to have the bandwidth to do other things that they had probably wanted to do anyway.
00;16;49;23 - 00;17;04;14
Scott Morris
They just got caught up in kind of the old world. I think we're at an inflection point right now with the advent of artificial intelligence. If you look at the things that AI is really good at, it's good at batch processing, it's good at analyzing,
00;17;04;14 - 00;17;11;12
Scott Morris
large quantities of data. It's good at text generation, but there are a lot of things that it's not good at.
00;17;11;14 - 00;17;44;10
Scott Morris
And so, you know, I hear a lot, especially because of, you know, what we do and what I'm talking about it on a regular basis. AI is going to take your job, and I just don't buy that because I haven't seen that historically. What I think is true is that people who embrace AI are going to take the jobs of people who don't, because they're going to have the capacity to do these other forward thinking, more progressive things that their organizations want them to do, and that in reality, many of them probably wanted to do and just didn't have the capacity to do.
00;17;44;12 - 00;17;48;01
Craig Andrews
Yeah, I, I usually referred to AI as the,
00;17;48;01 - 00;18;05;19
Craig Andrews
my underpaid, graduate research assistant. Yeah. And, you know, wait until it unionize. Yeah. Wait. Yeah. But, you know, kind of the concept is, you know, these professors basically build their careers on their grad students that do all the grunt work.
00;18;05;19 - 00;18;13;18
Craig Andrews
But the grad students still need the professors because the professors have some unique insights that help direct their work.
00;18;13;20 - 00;18;14;24
Craig Andrews
And I think this and their.
00;18;14;24 - 00;18;17;28
Scott Morris
Training, their grad assistants how to think which is which is a good thing.
00;18;18;00 - 00;18;21;02
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so,
00;18;21;02 - 00;18;24;03
Craig Andrews
yeah, I
00;18;24;03 - 00;18;32;27
Craig Andrews
now I, you know, I consider myself a, you know, pretty good writer, you know, as, as, as a marketer. But the things,
00;18;32;27 - 00;18;42;17
Craig Andrews
I can churn out a lot of text. What I don't find that does well is figure out how to craft a story, to move somebody emotionally in specific ways.
00;18;42;19 - 00;19;01;08
Scott Morris
Yeah, 100%, which I think and I know we'll talk about this later, but I think this is one of the things that makes when when in your intro you describe propulsion, I as a mix of human and artificial intelligence. I actually think that's what makes us massively different is it's not a hand off to. I just like what you're talking about.
00;19;01;08 - 00;19;21;22
Scott Morris
The crafting of that story. I don't know how you you. I use Claude from anthropic. I use quite a ton. I use ChatGPT a ton, but it always follows the same pattern I provide an idea. I take some input from the from the what is generated by the generative by the Lem. And then I work with that idea, and I suggest other things.
00;19;21;22 - 00;19;52;27
Scott Morris
And then we go through this back and forth and I'm talking about literally it feels like collaborating with a human being. But the collaboration is successful. And I think this is the salient point, the collaboration successful because the mental model that I go into it with, I am not looking to hand off the task I am looking for and augmenting portion of my capability with things that either technology is going to do faster than me, or in some cases, better, because I think it's arguable the clod is a better writer than I am.
00;19;52;29 - 00;20;15;19
Scott Morris
In terms of, of of phrasing those kinds of things is certainly Claude is a faster writer than I am, but I'm still a better thinker than Claude is. And so I enter into it with that mental model that this is a partnership. We built a product that does that exact same thing. Our product is not a hand off, but it is an augmentation of the expertise in each one of our users.
00;20;15;21 - 00;20;29;12
Scott Morris
And what our customers are telling us is that that produces a far better result, that they would never go to ChatGPT for what we do because of that collaboration, because ChatGPT is asking you to lead it and our product is leading you.
00;20;29;15 - 00;20;33;22
Craig Andrews
Yeah. That's. No. And that's interesting. The,
00;20;33;22 - 00;20;37;22
Craig Andrews
and then my gears are turning. I'm trying to figure out, okay, how did you do this?
00;20;37;22 - 00;20;50;25
Craig Andrews
But that's, kind circling back around, I think the people in the future, you know, the most productive workers in the future are going to be using AI as a tool.
00;20;50;28 - 00;20;51;25
Scott Morris
Absolutely.
00;20;51;27 - 00;21;06;10
Craig Andrews
You know, my my my wife said, you know, I think I need to start learning AI. I'm not sure what to do. It's like, can you have a conversation? And she's like, it's like you're just having the conversation with computer. It's like the old Star Trek movie, you know, where Scotty picks up
00;21;06;10 - 00;21;06;17
Craig Andrews
or,
00;21;06;17 - 00;21;07;21
Craig Andrews
yeah, Scotty picks up the,
00;21;07;21 - 00;21;09;22
Craig Andrews
the mouse and starts talking,
00;21;09;22 - 00;21;11;01
Craig Andrews
hello, computer.
00;21;11;03 - 00;21;40;24
Craig Andrews
And he's sitting there trying to have a conversation. But that's kind of where we've gotten and you can you at least in a lot of the stuff that I'm doing, you know, if I'm writing out, I'll ask ChatGPT. I'm like, give me ten ways of saying this. Yeah, almost never do I use word for word one of the ten ways it comes up with, but it helps stimulate some thought, helps me look at the problem differently, like, oh well.
00;21;40;26 - 00;21;45;25
Craig Andrews
And then I then I start exploring and I may have it further develop that concept.
00;21;45;27 - 00;22;03;26
Scott Morris
And I think that is the very best use of the technology that's in front of us. And it has that technology evolves. Our way of using it is kind of evolve as well, but it's you know, rarely do we have a hand off. Like you can't go back to my one, two, three example from Lotus. Right? Just because you have a spreadsheet program doesn't build the spreadsheet for you.
00;22;03;26 - 00;22;26;27
Scott Morris
It just gives you a way of building it faster and doing the calculations for you and automating some tasks. But you still have to be thoughtful about what it is that you're trying to tell the story about. With those numbers and and ultimately, you know what? Where are your proof points? So I think that's going to be a model that we that the most successful deployment of artificial intelligence follows for, for a while.
00;22;26;29 - 00;22;39;04
Craig Andrews
Well, and there's an argument out there that one of the most at risk programs, computer programs from AI is a spreadsheet. You know, because.
00;22;39;06 - 00;22;40;18
Scott Morris
Wouldn't that be ironic?
00;22;40;20 - 00;23;03;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. But I mean, that happens that happens. I mean, the product that saved Apple was the iPod. Apple was, you know, barely profitable until they launched the iPod. Go to Apple's website today and try to buy an iPod. You know, they came out with another technology that obsoleted that right? Right. That doesn't mean Apple went out of business.
00;23;03;06 - 00;23;10;24
Craig Andrews
They're still one of the I don't know where they are one, 2 or 3. They're they're one of the top three companies in the world by market cap. They're
00;23;10;24 - 00;23;22;07
Craig Andrews
and so I, I think the analogy flows with, with AI, it's not going to replace you unless you just stand at arm's length and say, I'm not touching it.
00;23;22;09 - 00;23;47;20
Scott Morris
Right. And but you know, people who rode horses when the automobile came out went through that same thing, right? They're not I mean, certainly horses are not obsolete, but we're not riding them every day to work. And, you know, I think you can take any technology. And that pattern is is going to hold people that embrace it and learn how to make themselves better with it and deliver higher value are certainly going to subsume the people who don't.
00;23;47;23 - 00;23;57;16
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Now, one of the things that you told me was you believe HR is broken and and one of your goals is you're trying to fix it. What's broken.
00;23;57;18 - 00;24;19;05
Scott Morris
Yeah, I mean, I think the mindset is I think the mindsets broken. I think I think we allow ourselves I think in the profession, we've allowed it to become more about compliance than it should be. And again, I don't, you know, I recognize the purpose of risk management. But risk management is playing defense. And today business is just moving too quickly.
00;24;19;08 - 00;24;42;14
Scott Morris
And so if you are not saying, you know, a portion of my portfolio is going to be about risk management and getting people in here who can who can handle the aspects of that that are important, right. If that's not what you're doing and it's subsuming sort of everything that you that you are in the profession, then I do think that is a that's a broken model of, of practice for forward thinking.
00;24;42;14 - 00;25;06;26
Scott Morris
People are thinking about business enablement, which means that you have to get out of. And I think this is another thing that's broken in the profession, is that we we as practitioners have allowed it to become about HR rather than recognizing that if I were the CFO, I'm about the business, the way I'm driving the business forward is through a set of, you know, financial planning and analysis and good accounting.
00;25;06;28 - 00;25;25;09
Scott Morris
But ultimately, my focus is still principally about the business itself. And I think a lot of people in the practice of HR, this is certainly not exclusively because there are a bunch of brilliant HR people who are deeply rooted in the business of the business, but I just don't think it's the majority. And that's that would be my comment about it being broken.
00;25;25;09 - 00;25;51;00
Scott Morris
Right? We need more HR professionals, especially more HR leaders, to be migrating toward that mentality that says, my job is the bottom line of this organization. The way I'm going to help get there is thinking about workforce productivity, about employee engagement, about belonging and inclusion, about bringing people together to solve problems, about creativity. All of the human factors that go into the business.
00;25;51;00 - 00;26;01;01
Scott Morris
I would almost rather see the profession be called human factors, even though that as an academic meaning I'd rather see it called human factors than human resources, you know?
00;26;01;03 - 00;26;06;07
Craig Andrews
And for the second time when you were talking, my mind went back to a conversation I had with an attorney.
00;26;06;07 - 00;26;07;13
Craig Andrews
I was, I was,
00;26;07;13 - 00;26;22;19
Craig Andrews
president, my HOA and myself and another one of my board members were meeting with the attorney, and we just started telling us, we telling some story and we said something, and he kind of smiled and he's like, all right, so we're never going to say that again, because why?
00;26;22;19 - 00;26;30;21
Craig Andrews
I said, you know, create a little bit of liability, albeit true. You know, what I was saying was true. But the thing that,
00;26;30;21 - 00;26;40;10
Craig Andrews
and so that's kind of the compliance end, but the one thing I knew about this attorney, as well as most good attorneys I've worked with, is they were there to help me accomplish my goals.
00;26;40;10 - 00;26;57;17
Craig Andrews
Yes, they were there to help me. He was there. The reason we were meeting was he understood. I had some goals and he was there to help me accomplish the goals. I said something that gave him the heebie jeebies and a very nicely said, okay, we're never going to say that again. And,
00;26;58;00 - 00;27;00;18
Craig Andrews
but the focus was on accomplishing the goals.
00;27;00;18 - 00;27;05;17
Craig Andrews
And, you know, anybody can say no. Saying no is easy.
00;27;05;17 - 00;27;17;07
Craig Andrews
Finding solutions is hard. And I think that's where that's entrepreneurs get that because that's the whole point of entrepreneurism is finding solutions to problems people have.
00;27;17;15 - 00;27;21;16
Scott Morris
It's not it's not risk avoidance. It's risk management.
00;27;21;19 - 00;27;22;12
Craig Andrews
Yeah.
00;27;22;15 - 00;27;54;19
Scott Morris
Right. And you are managing that risk along with a bunch of other things that you are also managing. Yeah. You know, if we had if we have a perfectly legally insulated system, but nobody cares internally about what we do and people are not engaged. You know, Towers Watson did a study that suggested that fully engaged employees tend to produce 16% more than we pay them on the other end of that, if you are fully disengaged, you are producing 60% of your payroll value.
00;27;54;21 - 00;27;55;14
Craig Andrews
Yeah.
00;27;55;16 - 00;28;08;11
Scott Morris
So we're losing point four of an FTE of full time equivalent for every fully disengaged person we have. And from Gallup's research, we know that only about 30%, 31% as of their latest survey,
00;28;08;11 - 00;28;09;11
Scott Morris
from from
00;28;09;11 - 00;28;18;02
Scott Morris
that was published actually this month, about 2024, 31% of the world's population is fully engaged.
00;28;18;05 - 00;28;23;16
Craig Andrews
Does this tie into your concept of the difference between fit and fitting in?
00;28;23;18 - 00;28;42;04
Scott Morris
Well, I'm not sure it ties into that particular mix. We could talk about that if you want, but it absolutely ties into fit because here's here's a problem that we see in the workplace. And over my 25 years in the profession, it's a super common problem. Most managers, when they think about, look, I'm going to put a new role on my team.
00;28;42;07 - 00;28;44;29
Scott Morris
They race over to air and they say, we're going to
00;28;44;29 - 00;28;52;22
Scott Morris
I'm adding, you know, a person of my team and I need to get something out on the web. And HR says, okay, what does it do? What's the job? What's the job description?
00;28;52;24 - 00;28;54;02
Craig Andrews
And you say.
00;28;54;05 - 00;29;10;24
Scott Morris
Give me somebody like Bob. And HR laughs and they say, well, that's not a job description, right? So maybe they give you a template and you go back to your desk and you start to fill this template out. But the only thing that comes out of your your head are tasks. I have this fire burning on my desk, and I don't want to feel the pain of that anymore.
00;29;10;24 - 00;29;33;01
Scott Morris
I'm going to put that in that job and you're like, I need these three things done. And right now we're stepping off. That example steps off in completely the wrong direction for employee engagement. And for productivity and ultimately for low turnover, because nobody gets engaged by tasks instead. And this is what we are working hard to help become a reality.
00;29;33;08 - 00;29;50;28
Scott Morris
We want managers to think through the outcomes. Because my comment from a second ago, HR needs to be more invested in the business. The business managers need to get out of the task and think about why am I hiring that role? What are the what are the business results that I need addressed? What is going on in my organization?
00;29;50;28 - 00;30;07;26
Scott Morris
My team, my department and my division? That is not what I want it to be, that I need this person in order to accomplish. Do I need revenue to be increased okay by how much do I need this number to go down? Do I need employee engagement to go up right? What are the business outcomes, the results that I need?
00;30;07;27 - 00;30;35;02
Scott Morris
I'll give you a perfect example. If we were going to create a role for an accountant, a totally reasonable duty that most of us would write into, the job description is follow up on delinquent accounts. But again, task based. And you got to ask yourself why? What is the point? It is a means to an end. What is the end is the end that I want to watch people come in and write emails and make phone calls and do stuff that, you know, makes me feel like there's a lot of effort going into it.
00;30;35;05 - 00;31;00;04
Scott Morris
I say, no, I say the outcome, the end that we're working toward is a number called days outstanding. It's a measure of efficiency in accounting. It's about how fast the organization collects revenue. Obviously, you make a sale. You want the money, you want the money fast, right? So rather than saying to that accountant, your job is to follow up on delinquent accounts, what our system challenges that manager to think is the real work is moving days outstanding.
00;31;00;08 - 00;31;30;11
Scott Morris
Maybe it's at 35 days and you need it to be at 14 or I mean, that might be an unreasonable expectation, right, from an accountant standpoint. But you need that number to move instead of saying the task is your job. We say the outcome is your job. That creates fertile ground for invention and innovation, because that creates the opportunity that of course, they're going to make calls and they're going to send emails, but it lets the the employee come back to me as the boss and say, Scott, if you want me to move days outstanding, shouldn't I also be doing these things?
00;31;30;16 - 00;31;50;10
Scott Morris
And I go, duh. Like, I didn't even think about that, right? Yes. Do those things because that's the outcome that's going to matter. The amount of effort matters only as a means to an end. That's the mindset shift that people need to go through. And that's what we think we were helping. I mean, that's what our customers are telling us, that we're helping them do.
00;31;50;13 - 00;31;59;26
Craig Andrews
So help me connect the dots with us. The in terms of propulsion, I where does propulsion? I fit into this whole,
00;31;59;26 - 00;32;00;23
Craig Andrews
equation.
00;32;00;26 - 00;32;32;21
Scott Morris
Right at the very beginning, when you first start thinking about a role, what propulsion I is going to do is basically interview you. We utilize artificial intelligence to drive guided questioning. That questioning is built on frameworks, very top recruiters and HR business partners, talent leaders, chief people officers. And so the platform is effectively helping you conquer a huge obstacle, which is getting what you think is significant in terms of driving your organization forward out of your head and into a usable form.
00;32;32;23 - 00;32;50;01
Scott Morris
Now, if you stopped there, you'd have a tremendous value. The platform would have catalyzed your thinking, would have provoked your your thinking, so that you brought forward better ideas, which means you're going to talk to candidates differently and you're going to manage somebody. You put in the role differently. But the platform goes a step beyond that, and it does.
00;32;50;01 - 00;33;11;04
Scott Morris
All of the writing for you takes all of your ideas, and in as little as 15 minutes, it'll write a performance based job description, an SEO optimized job posting, social media content, interviewer guides. It does compensation analysis on base salary. It will look and see what your competitors are doing online in terms of what they're posting. It's a pretty remarkable platform.
00;33;11;06 - 00;33;18;03
Scott Morris
The greatest value that we deliver is the thought process for the manager. But then we do all the collateral as well.
00;33;18;05 - 00;33;25;28
Craig Andrews
Wow. That's cool. Well, if somebody want to learn more about propulsion, I just wanted to talk to you more. How did they reach you?
00;33;26;00 - 00;33;52;08
Scott Morris
So I am happy. Like to help people with ideas. I am a strong believer. You and I were talking before and I'm I'm a strong believer in paying forward. So if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, LinkedIn.com in slash M Scott M, that's my profile. And then if you want to find us online, if you want to find propulsion, I online, it's jet propulsion home dot I get propulsion I awesome.
00;33;52;10 - 00;34;02;06
Craig Andrews
Well Scott oh you know we talked about this. I could go for another hour or two hours with you. That would be easy. But we got to wrap up. Thank you for coming on Leaders and Legacies.
00;34;02;08 - 00;34;08;15
Scott Morris
I'm really happy to have been here. Thank you for the invite. Pleasure to be with you.
00;34;08;15 - 00;34;35;09
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this
00;34;35;09 - 00;34;37;04
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.
00;34;37;06 - 00;35;00;18
Craig Andrews
Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend, or posted on the socials. If you know someone who would be a great guest, tag them on social media and let them know about the show, including the hashtag leaders and legacies. I love seeing your posts and suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss anything.
00;35;00;20 - 00;35;08;25
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe your thumbs up! Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.
00;35;08;25 - 00;37;11;00
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Alize for me.com. or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
