People Strategy Forum Powered by CompTeam
AI in the Workplace: What's Really Happening
Hosted by Sam Reeve
David Dean and Sam Reeve examine the documented and undocumented systems of work, the inbox as a behavioral record, AI as a third presence, and why human judgment and lived consequence remain essential.
Conversation summary
This conversation begins with a realistic question: what value can AI create when the way work is documented differs from the way people actually accomplish it? David describes two organizational systems—the documented process and the undocumented behavior through which employees adapt, negotiate, and keep work moving.
Email, chat, meeting transcripts, calendars, and approval conversations form a behavioral record of that second system. David and Sam use approval delays as a practical example: the root cause may be missing information, an overloaded approver, conflicting interpretations, or a relationship that needs attention rather than another technology investment.
The discussion then turns to AI as a third presence in the relationship between a person and an organization. AI can be cultivated like a highly capable junior coworker, but it cannot carry lived experience, lived consequence, judgment, or accountability. The episode closes by reframing AI adoption around curiosity, self-realization, shared definitions, and the continuing value of working people.
Five key insights
- The documented and undocumented systems must both be understood before AI can improve real work.
- Shadow tools often represent employee survival and adaptation to missing resources rather than simple resistance or misconduct.
- Email, chat, meetings, and calendars preserve behavioral evidence about delays, workload, communication, and hidden coordination.
- A controlled process interview captures intended steps; organic workplace conversations reveal the human dynamics surrounding those steps.
- AI becomes a third presence that must be cultivated in relationship with both the person and the organization.
- Lived experience, lived consequence, judgment, and accountability remain human sources of value.
Questions answered
What are the documented and undocumented systems of work?
The documented system describes the expected process. The undocumented system contains the adaptations, conversations, constraints, and human decisions required to make that process function in practice.
Why does David resist the labels shadow IT and shadow AI?
Those labels can obscure why unofficial tools exist. Employees often create them because expectations remain in place while approved tools, funding, information, or capacity are missing.
How can leaders begin using behavioral evidence?
Start with a shared operational pain point, examine the communication and calendar evidence around it, and ask a chain of curious questions until there is enough insight to have the right human conversation.
What does it mean to call AI a third presence?
AI participates in a three-way relationship with the individual and the organization. Its usefulness grows through context, cultivation, aligned expectations, and a clear understanding of its limitations.
Why will people continue to matter?
People carry lived experience, understand downstream consequence, exercise judgment, and remain responsible and accountable for decisions in ways AI cannot.
Conversation guide
A realistic mindset for AI
Watch at 3:47 →Why organizations can slow down and clarify the value AI should create before accelerating.
The documented and undocumented systems
Watch at 4:58 →Where the real opportunity for AI appears beyond the official process.
Shadow tools as survival behavior
Watch at 6:35 →Why unofficial technology often reflects the pressure to meet expectations with limited resources.
The inbox as a behavioral record
Watch at 8:02 →How email, chat, and meeting transcripts preserve the workplace dynamics missing from process documentation.
Approval delay as an operational signal
Watch at 9:14 →Using communication and calendar evidence to understand why a familiar process is stalled.
Controlled sessions and organic evidence
Watch at 14:20 →Why a process interview captures different information than everyday workplace conversations.
AI as a third presence
Watch at 16:10 →Cultivating AI through a relationship among the person, the technology, and the organization.
Lived experience and consequence
Watch at 18:52 →Why judgment and accountability continue to distinguish human contribution.
Behavior in, behavior out
Watch at 23:35 →How shared definitions and awareness of bias improve the behavioral context supplied to AI.
A message for working people
Watch at 29:07 →David closes by recognizing the people whose work and human value remain essential.
Timecodes link to the corresponding moments in the original conversation.
Edited transcript excerpts
Speaker labels and punctuation were reconstructed from automated transcription and edited for readability.
“It is okay to slow down. Let’s understand the right mindset needed to understand what value AI will have for a person and an organization.”
“I talk about two systems from an organizational standpoint. There is the documented one, and then there is the undocumented one.”
“People are doing this to survive in their jobs because there is an expectation, and they are using what is available to meet that expectation.”
“Where is that undocumented behavior documented? It is documented in our emails, our chat messages, and our meeting transcripts.”
“Sometimes it may not even need to be AI to solve the issue. It may just be a conversation with someone who does not understand something.”
“A controlled session has an ultimate goal. The organic space—the meetings, email, and chat around the process—can reveal the real human dynamics.”
“AI is a third presence, and you have to develop a relationship with AI because it is an assistant in many different ways.”
“Humans understand lived experience and lived consequence. AI will never understand that in the same way from a decision, accountability, and judgment standpoint.”
“You bring up the old adage of garbage in, garbage out, and replace that with behavior in, behavior out.”
“I want to say thank you to all the working people in the world. You matter, and you will still matter in this AI-changing world.”
Explore the related concepts
Related articles
Original episode links
Continue the conversation
Explore the book behind these ideas, bring the conversation to an audience, or learn more about David’s work.