Genies, Interns, and the Myth of Lazy AI: Anthropic’s 4D Framework & The Future of Entry-Level Work

01People have their anchors. College students are distr I mean, Gen Z is distrustful. It's not just Gen Z, but you know, that's where we're you know, we've seen these commencements and things like that. So that's where it's kind of popping up. I feel like that that opening line for every one of them is is changes everything. One of the things that I'm teaching in fluency courses, so they're they're they're how-to's. Fluency is a little bit different. And so I try to weave it in because it can be somewhat boring. You know, really fluency is just being able to speak ⁓ speak the language and understand, really deeply understand the language, right? You know, and anthropic has the 4D framework. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but it's the one that I like because it's only four. There's a there's tons of frameworks on how to prompt, but this is a framework on like the core competencies you need to be good with AI. So I'm teaching this and it starts with delegation. Like what are you what task are you going to give This AI? Is it worthy?

02You know, that's another piece that we've talked about before. Does it have enough value for me to spend time on this? And if it does, okay. Can AI help me with it? Now I will delegate that task to AI. Then you have to be very good at describing. So the second D is description. So you have to describe what that task is. So that means this goes back to our earlier point the 25 years of experience. If I can describe really clearly exactly what I want, I'm doing capital allocation. I have five projects. I want to use NPV and IRR. This is my hurdle rate. I know that because I've already done the math. You can help me, you can verify that, on and on and on, right? If I can describe the problem clearly, sometimes prompts take 20 or 30 minutes to write. If you really want the AI to do it right. A lot of people want this to be a genie where they talk for two seconds. So delegation, description, and then diligence. Did you now look? This is the human part. So maybe you've only spent a little bit of time with the AI, right? To tell it what to do and it sped your process up.

03Well, here's where you have to slow down again in the diligence phase. You have to be an auditor of the AI. That's your job now. That's a that's part of the job if you use AI every day, is going through and saying, all right, I'm gonna be methodical. This can't go to a client or be outwardly facing, can't go to my boss. Unless I've gone through and I fact checked everything and I feel like I deeply understand what's going on here. Now you got to that point though a lot faster. You would now have a spreadsheet in 30 minutes. Took you 30 minutes to write the prompt. It took it two minutes to kick out a spreadsheet that would have taken you four or five hours. So now your turn is I'm gonna spend an hour just going through it. And reviewing the work. That's the diligence. And then the last one is discernment. Do I even send this? Do I even agree with it? And that's very human. That's the part that you can't offload to an AI. If you make a decision on a marketing campaign and say, Hey, I did this because the AI told me it would be good. That doesn't fly. So I love this framework.

04I like the four D's. I think it cements things that ⁓ so anthropic came up with that, not Jim. I just like to teach that framework because I think it shortcuts a lot of those questions and really ⁓ well what if the AI's wrong? Well, were you diligent? You know, did you go through and check it? Because you have to. You're moving the AI from being a genie to being an intern or being a a a you know, I mean like you're you're you're treating it more like a person. Like a tool. Yes, a person, but it's not really a person. It's just selecting the next best character. So it is a tool to help you speed up your processes. And I think people really need to get their mind around that. Yeah. I just think like in you know, working for large consulting groups, when we, you know, you send a team in and you have, you know, ⁓ you know, you have senior team members, you have junior team members, people go in, they you start working on a project. ⁓ th those are all the things that we do. We we we delegate work. We we you know give them, you know, sources to use.

05We ⁓ we review their work, right? We don't take work from a from a ⁓ a junior team member and just throw it right at the client and slap the company name on it and and ⁓ and push and you and ship it out the door. People are doing that with AI. And then once you touch that hot stove, you either change the way you behave with AI, or you just throw up your hands and go, I'm never doing this again. that a hundred percent doing it. Right. And I think that, right? I mean, like people are cementing in again, kind of like these anchors, you know, that that are mental anchors for them and and their opinion. Because maybe they didn't do a ⁓ you know, a process driven way to use this tool, right? They use the tool in the most rudimentary way. ⁓ you know, we talked about these we thought, I mean, you and I have kind of talked about this at length, that we thought these digital native next generation that's coming up would at some level know how to use the tools or know that they had to learn the tools and We're seeing that, well, one, no, that's not happening.

06and there's maybe even a harder, you know, or a deeper anchor for those folks about distrusting it. ⁓ because, you know, they're they're being told I mean at some level I've heard kind of some of the s the the the resentment is, you know, saying, ⁓ well, I don't need a college grad. I don't need a you know, I don't need to get a ⁓ a ⁓ you know, a a entry level person into my company because I have Chat GPT and I've got Claude and and I'm like, well Yeah, but who runs the company in twenty years? Where is apprenticeship if we just get rid of all of the, you know, the new entry level jobs? I mean, at some point that's completely myopic. Right. Right, right. We're not investing in and you know, whatever whatever metaphor you want to use about sending the elevator back down or paying it forward. But ⁓ there's there's something to be said there about ⁓ it's a it's a ⁓ it's a real obtuse point of view and comment to say out loud. And yet a lot of people are saying that. Right. I for me, all it's done is pushed entry level work.

07to a higher level of sophistication. So now if I'm an attorney and maybe I had somebody writing my briefs, but now I don't need somebody to write the brief anymore. My entry level person is there to learn how I write the briefs and how I think at a higher level about the output I just received from the AI, how I go through the discernment and the diligence that is necessary. So teaching those skills. So we need people that understand AI, use it. in a sophisticated manner. And then we need to be teaching our entry level employees that. So that's that is the new entry level. I just feel like we're moving it up. We're moving it up because we won't have companies. I mean when everybody wants to retire at some point. So you're gonna have to bring somebody along with you. I it's very short sighted. I think so. I think the the idea that ⁓ again that you know it's it's kind of both sides are betting poorly. We've got a a kind of a younger generation that is betting and and kind of anchored on ⁓ you know a level of distrust.

08and I mean it's not that it's un an unearned distrust at some level. I know one of the other areas that you know, I'm talking to folks here who do creative, right? And creative is hitting a ⁓ kind of a ⁓ watershed moment around music, around art, ⁓ you know, photography, ⁓ how much is possible with AI generated content and that there's this pushback on AI generated content and advertising. ⁓ you know, ⁓ the these ⁓ It i the the the there's some social good in it, right? I mean, I think we're living in an interesting time where I think we are doing better at not making everything ⁓ you know, just purely on body image and ⁓ you know, being, you know, not body shaming folks and and trying to be a little bit more inclusive than maybe the the the eighties and the nineties that ⁓ we grew up in. ⁓ Probably said a lot of things as a young person that would get me canceled if there was a tape recorder running f forty years ago. Sure. I mean, everybody's a little bit more on their Ps and Q's at this point.

09But, you know, having AI as a tool, I mean, does you know, I mean, there's this kind of, you know, this divide, right? I mean, you have folks trying to look the best they can with, you know, still using like filters and stuff online, and yet we don't want necessarily AI generated, you know, commercials and and and models in, you know, ⁓ clothing, apparel, cosmetics. ⁓ So there's this pushback. We've got these folks on the other end, folks our age and and and ⁓ older who are looking down at it and saying, you know, ⁓ well it it it just doesn't work or it's not accurate and I I I'm too old to ⁓ to invest into learning. I mean, that's really what it is, right? I mean, the four Ds from anthropic are not you know mind-blowing. points. I mean they're they're they're pretty simple. Yeah, they're they're simple. People aren't using them and they're not thinking that way. But they're so simple that they're easy to teach. And hopefully you can get a few people in the class to go, ow. You know, somebody asked me so it was Wednesday of this week.

10I taught one, and somebody asked, somebody who always asked the best questions. I told him it was an excellent question. We had already gone through the framework though. And the question was, well, how do I make sure that it's right, essentially? You know, ⁓ but it was much more eloquent than that, you know, and it was phrased in a way that, you know, made you kind of think a little deeper. And I said, That's excellent, excellent question. You're thinking the right way. That's diligence and in the 4D framework, and that's your job. That's what you have to do. Like I said, you just shortcutted 30, 40 minutes of your life. Now it's there. You're not staring at a blank sheet of paper. You need to make it sound like you, you need to deeply understand it, and you need to make sure that it's right. And if you have twenty-five years of experience. 30 years, 40 years of experience doing that thing, built and you have that foundation, you can look at it and poke holes through it pretty quickly. I can look at a spreadsheet and go, that doesn't look right.

11Then that's just because I've looked at so many spreadsheets. You know? So and you know, and and you can intuit things, you know, that you know that make you look like a wizard and you're not really a wizard. It's just you've already made that mistake five hundred times. And so somebody who's a junior analyst gives you something and you go, Okay, here's what I'd like you to do. I'd let's go back and think about this a little bit, because XYZ. And you do that really quickly and it makes you look like a wizard, but really all it is is just learned experience. So you've got to use that learned experience with whatever AI puts out to you. Yeah. I think ⁓ the maybe one of the things to kind of like, you know, as as we've talked about the methods, we've talked about, you know, the kind of the point of view of kind of for folks like us who are practitioners, who have built a a career around skill development, not just ⁓ hard skills but soft skills.

12and then, you know, we we have both ⁓ had a ⁓ Privilege and the responsibility of mentoring folks as ⁓ we build our businesses and have built businesses over the years. ⁓ you know, I think, you know, if there's something to maybe kind of land on here is, you know, where is the new responsibility? You know, I think we've we've talked about what, you know, creates the moat or creates the ability for success. We've talked about what, you know, ⁓ the investment that's maybe necessary to get. ⁓ to make that something that is more ⁓ solid than ⁓ than than a genie in a bottle but is is has you know some real ⁓ structure around it but you know kind of what what do we need to do now as ⁓ you know leaders and and managers you know kind of what's this takeaway that you know we need to maybe have here? I don't I don't think it's changed. I mean, this is the first thing that popped in my mind. This is not scripted. I don't think it's changed. We have to develop our people. We have to focus on the people that are around us. We might talk about AI because we're interested in it.

13You and I. But the AI is really just, and I say this constantly too, not just in sales environments. The AI, if it really saves you time, if it's making us more productive, and I know there's a debate around that too, but if it's really making us more productive, then that productivity could show up a lot of different ways. I would argue that as a manager, it should show up in more time spent with your people and more time growing, you know, doing the mentoring, showing them how you're using it. Teaching these new skills if you already have acquired them. That's I think it's a people focus. I I think that's where managers need to dive in. They need to understand their people better. They need to teach them so that the company has longevity. That's that's where that's where I see we should spend, we should focus. F for me, I know I've had to like look at how I interact with folks in the in in containing my expectation.

14I think that, you know, the the like from a from a personal flaws kind of a perspective of like wanting, you know, more out of folks, which is great because I want to elevate folks and I want fo I I believe that, you know, everybody's got a lot of capacity and capability inside of them. But ⁓ you know. I think here it's for me it's kind of showing folks that like I am learning and curious right now and you should be too. because I st demonstrating. Yeah. By doing. There's a yeah, there's a modeling component here that you know, if we lead with distrust, I don't think we're helping this ⁓ next generation of of leaders by creating a you know a cohort of folks coming up through ⁓ through the ranks who are not curious, who who who are wildly distrustful. I think if you ask most really successful people what their Biggest accomplish me, I was asked this recently. My wife was asked this recently because we own a business and one of the employees who was new said, Hey, well what is your y what is the thing that you've gotten the most out of this?

15It was a good question by a young person. And ⁓ we said, Hey, the ⁓ the most value we've gotten out of this is, you know, growing people in their careers. We didn't think we didn't realize how impactful that would be on us and how that would make us feel. But that is the most rewarding thing that we've done is people that didn't necessarily know things, didn't have skills, and now they've worked with us for four or five years and they have those skills and they have their own ideas and they're thinking differently. That's the coolest part. Easy. Like it's not even a debate over, ⁓ well, you know, I really like the money. I mean, yes. But you don't really get that money without like a purpose or like a deeper value that you're deriving from it. And it's the people. And I don't think that's changed. And I think all these stories right now that talk about, ⁓ where we're using AI to cut people. I mean, that really kind of marginalizes, you know, humans and it shouldn't be that way. And that's why people get frustrated with. The commentary, I think that's creating some of the distrust.

16Not I shouldn't say I think. That's creating some of the distrust. So yeah, I think it's just a I think it's a paradigm shift the way we think about it. How do we teach our people to be more productive? ⁓ and if they're more productive and they're actually adding more value, then that makes room for even more people to come on and add even more value. That's the way we should be thinking about it. Yeah. No, I think and and as we as we talk with our clients and as we get to do both the training and and some of the projects that we're getting to to get ⁓ we get pulled into, I mean, both of us have kind of come from a background of of ⁓ value creation. And and I think you have to really believe in it, right? And believe that like value creates opportunity. you know, that that that it's not ⁓ Value doesn't create shrinkage, right? I mean it it doesn't create this this idea of of, you know, everything's gonna be more efficient so we don't need people. It j it creates new opportunities. Yeah, new opportunities and you should lean into that.

17⁓ yeah, business is hard and costs rise every year. the same article every year, the end. So the but there's still companies that win because they produce outsized values, outsized value. So they outrun the costs. Their revenues outrun their costs by a large margin in some cases because they're investing in in value to the customer or to their employees. That's a whole nother philosophical thing, but I definitely have a strong take on it. So I'll leave it alone for now. But that is why they win, is because they are intensely focused on how much value can I give my customers and employees, the people. And then their sales increase as a result of that. It's not about cutting cost to get there. If you're cutting cost somewhere along the line, you're devaluing something. You're that's a conscious decision to devalue something. If you cut the cost to add value to the customer or to the employees, I think that's winning. I think so too.

18So we've talked about the pushback ⁓ you know, on on the younger end of the spectrum, ⁓ and and the fact that ⁓ we've got folks that are looking at AI and and AI related stuff and saying, you know, I mean and to the point of just, you know, heckling it from the crowd, boo. We've seen the other side where we've got folks who are ⁓ you know, ⁓ experienced operators who are anchoring to a point of view of distrust or just ⁓ but I think both of us have approached it with the folks that we talk to with you you have a distrust and I think your distrust is based in misunderstanding. Yeah, I think it is misunderstanding. I don't think it's laziness. I don't think it's necessarily fear. I think it's just not having enough it's time constraint. I don't have enough time to learn these new frameworks. And so if folks would be curious and take a chance to learn, ⁓ they could get over the the distrust pieces, they could figure out how they could create value.

19There's still value, like you said, for us to continue to work with folks to to develop our people, develop their skills, develop their ⁓ not just their hard technical skills, but these soft skills and for them to learn the value of reviewing. that work? I mean like you know the what what what are the four D's again? The first one is delegation. And then you need to describe. So description. And then diligence. So review everything. And then before you send it out, is it really what you want to send out? Like have I used my human judgment and not just so discernment? Right. And so great framework that, you know, is not anything new under the sun. We we we could go pull that framework out of ⁓ you know, a nineteen eighty-two, you know, b business New York bestseller. We could we could pull it out of something on the shelf today. ⁓ but we're pulling pushing folks that those things are true because they're true.

20And the f ⁓ ⁓ the fact is is that if you will embrace ⁓ a little bit of a pattern to l ⁓ build some the ⁓ the skill, build build the the familiarity, build the muscle memory. then, you know, you're gonna have a much more natural swing when you're at when you're at bat. Yeah. It might be a paradigm shift, but I think it's one that you should make. Veer, thank you so much for your time today, as always. I appreciate you. Yeah, well I mean ⁓ this is always fun to do and t to dig into and so ⁓ we'll let everybody know that they can find our ⁓ podcast anywhere that they subscribe to their favorite podcast, Apple Music and Spotify. they can find our newsletters on LinkedIn. Yeah, you can you can see us on YouTube. sorry if that scares you once you see us. But yeah, I mean we're we're out there, we're everywhere. We're also willing to have conversations with you, so please reach out to us, leave comments ⁓ below. And ⁓ we would love to get in touch with you, talk to you about AI literacy, fluency, that way You can get your people up to speed.

21So, well, it's another great ⁓ episode of ⁓ functional executives. You can find us at functionaleexecutives.com. And we hope to hear from you guys soon. Bye. Thanks. Alright. Hey thanks for your