Most learning programs are built with good intentions and the wrong instincts. More content, more polish, more explanation. Somewhere along the way, we started confusing activity with learning and clarity with impact.
Many programs look effective from the outside. The slide decks are polished, facilitators are confident, and participants appear engaged and attentive. Yet once the session ends, little actually changes.
In this episode of The LX Ops Show, Jason Gorman sits down with Ben Zugay to unpack a quieter, more demanding idea, that real learning is designed, not delivered. What follows is not a framework or a checklist, but a philosophy rooted in respect for learners and an insistence on doing the hard work upfront.
Listen to the podcast on your favorite directory:
From Explaining to Designing
Ben has spent years inside learning environments that seem successful on the surface but fall apart when tested in real work. The issue, he argues, is rarely effort or intent. It is design.
“Teaching is not talking at people,” he says. “It’s creating conditions where learning has to happen.”
That shift, from explaining to designing, changes how learning is conceived. Instead of asking what needs to be said, the focus moves to what learners need to do. Learning becomes an experience shaped by action rather than a performance measured by presentation.
Making that shift is difficult. Designing meaningful action requires judgment and restraint. It means cutting content that feels important but does not earn its place, and trusting learners enough to step back and let them engage with the work.
Why Busywork Breaks Trust
One of the sharpest moments in the conversation comes when Ben talks about busywork, not as a minor design flaw, but as a failure of respect.
Adults know when a task does not matter. They may complete it and even do it well, but disengagement sets in the moment they realize the work is artificial.
Ben is clear about the consequence. If a task does not require real thinking, it does not produce real learning.
This is where many programs quietly fail. Activities are added to signal engagement. Breakouts are used to fill time. Reflection is prompted without a clear purpose. On paper, it looks learner-centered. In practice, it teaches people to go through the motions.
Good learning asks something of the learner. It introduces friction, slows people down, and forces them to think. Most importantly, it signals that their time and intelligence are being taken seriously.
The Power of Constraints
One of the more counterintuitive insights Ben offers is that freedom is not what learners need most. Constraints are.
When everything is open-ended, people hesitate. When boundaries are clear, thinking sharpens and decisions follow. A well-designed constraint focuses attention and gives learners something concrete to push against.
Time limits, defined formats, and specific goals are not restrictions. They are teaching tools.
“The boundary of the task determines the depth of the thinking,” Ben explains.
This idea shows up repeatedly in effective learning design. Less scope creates more focus. Clear edges build momentum. Constraints make progress visible and meaningful.
The mistake is assuming that autonomy means a lack of structure. In reality, autonomy thrives inside thoughtful limits.
Respect as a Design Principle
Running through the entire conversation is a consistent throughline, respect.
Respect shows up in the choice of tasks, in the willingness to let learners struggle, and in the discipline to remove content rather than pile it on. It appears in the decision to design experiences that matter, even when lecturing would be easier.
Ben’s approach treats learners as capable adults rather than empty vessels. It assumes they want to do meaningful work and can rise to the challenge if the work is worth doing.
That assumption changes how learning feels. It also changes what learning produces.
Designing for What Comes After
The real test of learning is not what happens in the room, but what happens after people leave.
Do they approach their work differently? Do they make better decisions? Do they carry the experience forward into real situations?
Those outcomes cannot be forced with content alone. They have to be designed into the work itself.
Ben’s message is not flashy, but it is demanding. It asks learning leaders to stop performing and start designing, to trade comfort for clarity, and to trust learners enough to give them real problems to solve.
In a world full of noise, learning built this way stands out quietly, and lasts.
Listen to the full conversation with Ben Zugay on The LX Ops Show or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Podcast Transcript– Jason Gorman with Ben Zugay
Jason Gorman (00:01)
Hello and welcome to the Learning Experience Operations Show. My name is Jason Gorman and the host I’m joined today by Dr. Ben Zugey. And so I asked people to write something, you the way that they want to be introduced. I’m going to read verbatim, Ben, what you gave me. You gave me business professor, consultant, and the second most handsome person on this podcast episode.
Ben Zugay (00:26)
Jason, you should really come up with better ways to introduce your guests. Man, just an insult right away.
Jason Gorman (00:28)
So, ⁓
we’re already off to a great start. mean.
Thanks everybody for joining. That’s it for this episode. No. Thank you for coming on. Really appreciate it.
Ben Zugay (00:39)
Ha ha ha!
Of
course, it’s my pleasure. Thank you for the invite. yeah, I almost wrote Jason, you have to read this verbatim, but I figured that you would. So I’m glad that you did.
Jason Gorman (00:55)
Well, there, so as we’ve talked about, this show is really all about people in different areas in education and how our jobs are changing in the making of educational stuff. And you’re coming at this from a couple of different angles. You yourself are instructor. So you’re working on the front lines with students, right? You’re in the classroom. You’re also doing the work of
of writing and researching, right? That end of things. Your expertise is in entrepreneurship and business. And I think that is really relevant also to the operations piece of doing stuff. And so I’m happy to have this conversation that gets to any of those dimensions of your work and what you do.
But I want to lead off with a question that I ask everybody. I think you can interpret this any way you want to with regard to any of those things that you do, but what was the thing that ignited your interest and passion in the work that you do?
Ben Zugay (02:05)
Yeah. So again, thanks for having me. I’m really excited for real for this conversation. So, okay, what got me into this? And I’ll say what got me into kind of teaching and learning in general. So I worked for myself. I started my first business when I was 14 years old and I kind of early on developed an entrepreneurial mindset and just I realized that I kind of thought
about things a little differently than some of my peers, you even in high school, just from a work perspective. And I really liked working for myself. It was really fun. It was also kind of fun to hire some friends, you know, at an early age to help clean cars. And then I also early on in my career, I did work for others as well. And kind of the biggest name on my resume is Disney. And that was…
pretty early on in my career post college. I really, really loved working for Disney. so much so I grew up like a big Disney fan. Okay, great. I then started as an intern at Disney in college and worked like picking up towels off the pool deck and then worked my way up into a management position at Disney. And I just fell in love with the company. I fell in love with the actual work that I was doing. A lot of it was kind of like
leadership focused and training and helping get the most out of others. And I loved my job at this time. Keep in mind, this is early in my career. I’m on Facebook at the time and I’m looking at all my other friends and you know, they’re just getting to their careers. And what are they saying? They hate their jobs. It is the most miserable thing on the planet that they can think of. And I was like, hmm. I and this sounds like, vote for me. Like, yeah, not running for office here. But I was like, man, how can I help other people?
like to find a career and a job that they love as much as I love what I do. So I was kind of really pointed towards this idea of education. And I thought I could get in front of individuals who, I was a first generation college student, I could get in front of others who maybe needed some more guidance just like I did. And I can help mold and shape in just a, did you think about this? Hey, did you know this opportunity existed?
So I started to go down the teaching and learning, you know, this is what I wanted to do further because I had that entrepreneurial mindset that I developed from a young age. I also found that as soon as I got my first taste of the teaching and learning kind of industry and started, you know, I taught my first college course, I realized that this industry in higher education for the most part is aligned with my entrepreneurial mindset specifically that we trade
value for money and not time for money. We are much more focused on outcomes and making sure that the process is ethical. ⁓ You know, we’re not micromanaged. So I find that, you know, an entrepreneurial mindset is really beneficial in my industry and in my institution specifically. And I want to clarify, you know, I’m not saying like I don’t work long hours, things like that. But, you know, I get paid for my expertise, ⁓ get paid for the value that I bring. So
Why did I get into it? To kind of sum up, I found a cool way to help other people. I thought that it was an industry that fostered my entrepreneurial mindset. ⁓ And then I found an environment that was interesting, exciting. I got to continuously improve, evolve myself as well.
Jason Gorman (05:38)
And what’s your work like now? What’s a week in the life of Dr. Zugay look like?
Ben Zugay (05:44)
Yeah, it varies. So I’m at primarily a teaching-focused institution, although I do keep busy with research as well. But it is primarily a teaching-focused institution. So a lot of teaching focus. I am also currently the department chair within the business department. So that kind of extra administrative work has been…
kind seeping onto my plate with that position. So kind of interacting with the institution at a higher level, being the mouthpiece for institution down to faculty, and then kind of follow that backwards as well, being the mouthpiece for faculty back up, kind of the chain. each week looks different. It’s kind of like working for Disney. People always ask, what did you do at Disney in management? And it’s like you kind of sometimes you just put out fires, you know, that’s kind of the best way I described working at Disney. Yeah, constantly.
you know, teaching and learning. I’m constantly evolving. I don’t like to sit and kind of recycle the same content, right? So I’m constantly adjusting content. I had the worst first day of the semester this year because an hour and 10 minutes, but it still was great. But it was just.
overall as it as they rank it was the worst one because an hour and 10 minutes before the first class of the semester I’m like I’m totally doing something completely different and I’m I’m like dripping sweat you’re going to yeah so I just I love to constantly tweak and adjust and push myself push students so to answer the question what is a typical week look like it totally varies it is currently a mixture between teaching research and administrative work from an education perspective
Jason Gorman (07:04)
wow.
Well, you definitely strike me as somebody who doesn’t shy away from a challenge, wants to mix it up in what you do. But also, I would imagine just that as a person who is trained with a terminal degree, you’ve got to have some rigor to what you do. And I’m really curious about what kinds of operational lessons
have you carried over from your work at Disney, from your doctoral studies and program, right, that carries into your practice with the classroom? Not just in the classroom, but preparing to teach, teaching everything that comes with it.
Ben Zugay (08:02)
Yeah, so I think Disney had the biggest impact on me from a culture perspective. Disney has in the best way ruined me because I am very, very, very aware of the product for lack of better terms that I put out to others. So we have this saying or we had, I don’t know if it still exists, I’m sure it does in some form or fashion at Disney, and we said, regardless of your position, you are always on stage. And what that means is whether you are in front of
paying guests within the theme park or you are in a what we would call backstage or behind the scenes area and you’re helping other employees you are always performing for them you always want to be mindful of the appearance of everything that you’re doing and it’s not just physical appearance but it’s you know how you’re presenting your documents how you are addressing of course the physical appearance how you are speaking ⁓ like everything tells a story about what you do so that has really impacted my teaching
that has really impacted the consulting that I do, I am very aware of the power of a brand. I am very aware that students take my class because of me. I am very aware that some students don’t take my class because of me, because the expectations are clear, this is who I am, this is what I do. And same thing from a consulting perspective, if my name is on it.
Like there is no, I will go to the ends of the earth to make sure that it is as close to perfect as possible. So even though, you know, I’m sweating last minute, you know, right before the beginning of the semester starts an hour and 10 minutes, I’m switching everything. When I’m there in front of students, it’s like they wouldn’t have a clue that I was just literally like taking a paper towel and doing this like five minutes before I walked into the room. So just that, I, God.
Jason Gorman (09:45)
I love that. I
just gonna say, about 12 years ago, was at Disney for a conference and my family went and then I went with them. We spent a day at Disney and I had that experience. Although I didn’t really know I had that experience until the next day I went to Universal Studios and we were going, which I loved, I actually really loved Universal Studios. This was amazing though. We were going in, we were like getting our tickets.
And as we’re getting our tickets, I glance down onto the table next to the person who’s doing them, and there was like a manual there for like rules for how to do their job. And I was like, man, Disney would never have its shirt untucked like that. It was just so striking. what? That’s a thing I wouldn’t have seen at Disney. It was just, it was a very interesting moment. I hear you.
Ben Zugay (10:31)
Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, and on
the surface too, like let’s just do the universal Disney comparison, right? Like our name tags are shaped the same and whatever. like, you know, a snapshot, it’s like, oh yeah, 30,000 foot. It’s like, oh, they’re theme parks. They have the name tags this way. They have the hometowns. Entertainment, but when you look at the detail and when you look at what matters and when you look at ultimately what people are paying for and or are interested in, and when I think about students who take my class, it’s because they are interested in walking out of each and every class, period.
with something tangible that they can immediately apply in the world of work. Like we don’t talk, I research. Great, I’m a big believer in science, of course, and researching and the power of that and things like that, but it has to be practical. We have to apply it. You mentioned rigor before. Rigor is critical, but we also have to meet rigor with relevance. So that is part of why a student would take a class with me because they know that.
what they’re going to get. It’s those little details when you start looking down. Sure, Ben’s a guy who teaches a class just like the person next door, just like the person next door. We all have the same name tags, right? But when you get down to it, the employee handbook is not sitting out in the table in Ben’s classroom, right? No, it’s tucked away just like Disney. So I’m very mindful of that. And that in the best way has ruined me because I am, for lack of better terms, like a perfectionist, at least in my mind.
when it comes to the brand that I present to the world.
Jason Gorman (12:04)
There’s gotta be some downside to that. like, is, what is like, yeah, what’s the downside?
Ben Zugay (12:07)
Absolutely there is. and like,
well, I mean, first of all, obviously, like, that’s what I think it is. And like, clear, obviously, it’s not like, but I think, you know, there can be, especially like early on, like when I had when I really was discovering this is how I saw the world, you know, it was like, it was to the point where I was waste, I was being wasteful with the time that I had.
I was like, there comes a point where it has to be good enough and you have to go because of constraints and circumstances and things like that. And again, like I said, I wanna be very mindful of the presentation to the outside world. I’m mindful of it, but nothing is perfect and what I have is not perfect and it never will be. But what I value from that is just this awareness of it.
of this awareness of you are always on stage, of this awareness that the little details can make the biggest difference. The little, the small things, when all things are equal, the small things will get you over the finish line compared to somebody else. And I’m grateful for that from a Disney perspective. And yeah, I feel like I’ve been definitely like doing a better job at managing that, especially with as time goes on, you know, probably a little less rigid.
as time goes on. ⁓ But yeah.
Jason Gorman (13:32)
It can be a trap
a little bit, like chasing down that last like 3 % to get to perfect is great. It can be to your detriment.
Ben Zugay (13:42)
Absolutely. Diminishing returns for sure. And I’m a big like, okay, lay something out to me. I’ll quickly see it in my mind. And I’m like, okay, is the juice worth the squeeze? yeah, I a quick evaluation of that. So I’m mindful of what I take on because I want it to be done at a high level. But I’m also like, okay, there does come a point where it’s good enough and it’s still gonna be great, but it’s not perfect. But I’m striving for that perfection, you know, in my mind.
Jason Gorman (14:12)
Yeah, so I’m curious about the few things that in your mind are just really non-negotiable. I what are the things that somebody who doesn’t do the work that you do?
should need to know, right? Somebody about what you do that you do, that you feel is just really critical that just makes or breaks your students’ experiences.
Ben Zugay (14:35)
Yes.
I have found, especially going back to get my doctoral degree and I was in a doctoral program that was not filled with other academics explicitly, like some of them were industry professionals. And this was highlighted during my doctoral program to a certain extent, but also I knew this beforehand, so I’m not explicitly calling out the doctoral program. But I find that in, I think people have a misconception of
what teaching actually is. I think a lot of people are like, well, I know a lot about topic X so I can teach it. Because all you have to do, especially in college, because all you have to do is stand in front of a room and just talk at people, right? And that’s teaching. I like really, feel like people, I know a lot about this so I can teach it. And that’s not the case. Like, so.
Your question was, you know, what is something that, you know, people who don’t do what I do on a daily basis, like what is something that I want them to know? that, is that a fair? Okay.
Jason Gorman (15:34)
Yeah, yeah,
what do you do that is critical to really making your students’ great?
Ben Zugay (15:45)
Yes,
you have to stop and check for understanding continuously. I think so many people have this misconception again that like you are, if you’re designing a learning experience for someone and there is no measurement, there is no stopping and checking if there’s understanding, you are not designing a learning experience. You are designing content for someone to consume passively, whether that’s in person or whether that is online, it doesn’t matter.
Jason Gorman (15:49)
Mm.
Ben Zugay (16:12)
There has to be points where you check for understanding and in higher education, we call that, or in education, we call that formative assessment because you’re forming your ideas. They’re not perfect. They’re not, you you’re not at the finish line. You’re forming your understanding of things. So those feedback loops for students to be able to practice, get feedback, things like that, that’s critical and that’s what teaching actually is. So then when you get to the test, the test is not a surprise.
the students have had practice with the test material, the students are confident going into the test. If students are going into a test and they are scared, whoever your learners are, and they’re going into that final piece and they’re nervous about it, and they’re not really sure how they’re gonna do, that’s a problem for the educator. That is the educator’s problem, not the student’s problem. So I think something that I want people to know is teaching is not talking at people. Teaching is not
just one way, it is about formative assessment, feedback loops, and the feedback and that formative assessment, that doesn’t have to come from you. It can come from peers. It can come from the self, the student themselves. It can come from you. It can come from somebody outside the organization. It doesn’t matter, but there needs to be a place pretty consistently where you’re stopping and saying, where are we at? Where’s our understanding? And adjusting along the way. If you go in with a roadmap and you’re like, we’re
barreling on through no matter what. Again, all you’re doing is designing content for somebody to consume passively and you have no idea if it’s sticking or not.
Jason Gorman (17:47)
And I love that, that feels timeless and we’re in this moment where the world is changing incredibly quickly. And I think this means that how we do the work that we do, right, needs to change along, you know, just as quickly.
And I’m curious, in your work, making great experiences for your student learning experiences for your students or any other aspect of your work, what are the challenges that you feel like have been popping up in the last year or two to how you operate?
Ben Zugay (18:26)
Yeah, I think the general challenge that I would say would be making sure that I’m designing experiences that students are interested in participating in and engaging with as opposed to just getting through and just like making it be something that’s like, check the box off, wipe that off. Because to your point, things are changing quickly. And if we give students
Jason Gorman (18:43)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Zugay (18:53)
BS, they will give us BS back. So I don’t care if you’re in higher ed, know, K-12, you’re in corporate L &D, it doesn’t matter. Like if you give people BS to do, they’re going to give it right back to you. So it has to be meaningful and impactful. So how am I addressing kind of this idea that I want students to be interested and engaged and participate in the learning as opposed to just checking a box?
I, you mentioned timeless and that is I try to come back to as many evergreen principles as possible because things do change so rapidly. So I feel like some of these things are somewhat evergreen and it’s just kind of the, yeah, I try to make it as evergreen as possible. So here’s how I’m addressing this. Specifically, I always try to tie content to tangible student outcomes that are relevant.
to students that are interesting to students, that are tied to the student experiences. When we tie content to students and ask them to, how does this relate to you? How does this relate to your experiences in whatever capacity and whatever field you’re in? That makes content meaningful to students. And it’s not just BS in one ear, out the other, and you’re just another class for them, or you’re just another check the box off, because I went through this training at work, right? So when we make content meaningful and apply it to students,
which artificial intelligence can help us to do, right? We can make things more personalized and relevant, but you also don’t need artificial intelligence to do this too. It’s just, can do this in the good questions that you ask. And I find that in general, when you ask questions, good questions to students or learners, they give you good responses and they’re not interested in cheating and BSing their way through. So I always approach my courses with kind of like, kind of like a workshop approach where there is immediate application. I mentioned this before to their work,
Jason Gorman (20:35)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Zugay (20:47)
to their careers where they literally like, here we are, you leave here today and you have another tool in your toolbox, go use it tonight when you go to work. I have a lot of adult students. And even I have a lot of non-adult students as well, but just again, applicability for our content. I’m always mindful, again, just thinking about how can we get students to be participative and interested in what we’re doing. I always make sure that we are hammering home the why.
of what we’re doing and it’s not a superficial why and it’s even more impactful when you can tell me why this is important. So, you know, starting content, starting a lesson, of course, everybody, you you do training and development and learning about, tell them why it’s important. No, have them tell you why it’s important. Even if it’s like halfway correct because they don’t have a full understanding of what you’re doing yet, get them thinking and have them sell it to themselves instead of sell it to you. Way more power.
Jason Gorman (21:41)
So I’d love to come at this from a, I love this from the educator’s perspective and I’m kind of curious to almost ask the same question from the entrepreneur’s perspective. So, you you are creating a learning experience that your students are gonna respond to that’s meaningful to them, that’s giving them a sense of connection to their future aspirations. And still there is a kind of,
⁓ a way of working that ensures that those kinds of things happen. And I wonder, as an entrepreneur, how you think about this. So let me just try to ask this question in crystallized way. What is one habit or mindset that you think that people who do create learning experiences should have that
a business, a startup might employ that we might not think to employ as a teacher, a professor, a learning experience designer.
Ben Zugay (22:46)
I want to reiterate and make sure I’m on the right path. So what is like one type of mindset, if you will, like one way of thinking?
Jason Gorman (22:48)
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Mind,
mindset, habit, yep, way of thinking.
Ben Zugay (22:57)
to instill in the rest of your employees, for example.
Jason Gorman (23:02)
Well, so is there something that a person who’s a good, successful entrepreneur might do that might not be a natural motion for an educator, but could be useful in a time where the world is accelerating fast?
Ben Zugay (23:09)
Yeah, sure.
Yeah,
yeah, so okay, great. Thank you for clarifying. So I would say in general, ⁓ entrepreneurs, we are very opportunity focused, right? So when things change, we don’t kind of say what the hell and just like sit on our hands. We are very opportunity focused. So my original thought was like, well, you should have an entrepreneurial mindset. And that means a whole bunch of things to a whole bunch of different people and we can unpack that if needed. But one of the things to me when I think about the entrepreneurial mindset,
is that opportunity focus, right? So in research, we call it a kind of entrepreneurial alertness. Are you aware of opportunities that exist that you can take advantage of to benefit yourself? So I think there’s plenty of ways that we can view as the world changes around us, you can either sit on your hands, complain and talk about kind of the good old days and you’ll complain about it or
we can say there’s a huge opportunity here for us, for me as a faculty member to be an innovative teacher. And then I would say, after you figure out how to innovate, then you can go teach others how to do it. So then, hey, you can even make money doing it. From a corporate perspective, again, that entrepreneurial mindset, like when you hit that wall, like, are you just gonna stop or are you going to say like, okay, I don’t see a wall, I see a window. I see an opportunity here for us to make things better and constantly improve.
that because that could be a lot for somebody if you don’t normally look at the world that way. I think it’s really important to just be realistic about how to approach this so you have a chance of succeeding. I love the phrase, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, right?
that you can’t shove the whole thing in one bite at a time. So this idea where, you you want to be more entrepreneurial, you want to be more opportunity focused, you want to say like, okay, AI is scaring the living hell out of me. I haven’t, you I’ve kind of sat on my hands, but you know you need to do something about it. Focus on one area within your work where you can start to apply AI. And we can talk more tangibly about exactly what that could look like. But I would just say that opportunity mindset, that opportunity lens where
Problems aren’t problems, problems are opportunities. I think that would be beneficial for just about anybody.
Jason Gorman (25:42)
Let’s talk about the AI thing. Give us, get, get, are, what are some things that come to mind as you were just talking through this, this last thing you were saying, what are the opportunities we should really be looking for?
Ben Zugay (25:54)
Well, I think nobody really knows the future, right? And of course, and anybody that tells you like, here’s what the future will be like, there’s probably very few people who have a really good pulse on that. But you know, we could say with confidence that AI is going to continue to make things personalized, just based more personalized, just based on where it is currently and where it has been, right? But I do believe that from an AI perspective, we need to be mindful.
of what we can control, is ourselves, our own behavior. So I would say like, I’m trying to build on the last answer. Approaching our work with this lens of like, okay, I need to be adaptable. I need to be entrepreneurial and I need to stay excited about updating things pretty constantly. And again, that can feel overwhelming. So how do we actually do that? How do we do that kind of one bite at a time? How do we infuse
AI into what we do, especially if you’re starting at nothing. So how to take that first bite, I would say really focus on one area of work. Think about what is your weakest spot from a performance review perspective, from a student review perspective, from your own understanding of who you are. Or think about where is the biggest area of impact that your job has.
⁓ So, you know, it might be this slice of what you do has the biggest impact on the organization the students things like that that could be an area of focus or do something that excites you because this is gonna be new and scary and challenging so you Might as well kind of enjoy it too. So pick an area of your job that already excites you Then kind of go down that rabbit hole and start looking up some strategies and some tools that exist and experiment Do not be scared There are so many free trials and demos that come with just about every AI tool that you can imagine
And then talk to other people. Look at what other people are doing. But after you’re looking at these tools and you’re looking at these free demos and things like that, and you’re talking to others, make this your own. Because if you just straight up copy what somebody else is doing, it’s like wearing somebody else’s pants and it never feels right. It never fits. It’s uncomfortable. And you’re like, did you wash these even? I don’t know. Why are they kind of wet over here? You you’re like all the weird things. So I would say you have to make it your own still.
So you can’t just like, okay, this was off the shelf and now this is what I should do. Like you have to make it your own because if you don’t make it your own and you’re wearing someone else’s pants, you’re gonna try it. It’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna be uncomfortable. You’re gonna be like, see, like I shouldn’t have done this because it didn’t work. And it’s like, well, cause you didn’t make it your own. And then you’re back to the, well, sitting on your hands and not making it work. know, early on, if you’re getting new to this, I would say stick to just making one change at a time.
If you’re trying to multitask early on and trying to change a whole bunch, it could be a disaster. So how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And then I would say even more tangibly, talk to Claude, talk to ChatGPT. Like start there, share your goals. Like literally type in as much detail as you can. Say, ask me some questions about this so you can map out your teaching and learning experience that you have within your workflow. And then pick one area that’s outlined from you and Claude or ChatGPT.
and then pick that area to take your first bite out of.
Jason Gorman (29:13)
I this. I’m going to ask you a question about, so I worked in higher ed for a long time, 10 years inside, inside universities and colleges. anybody who’s listening who works in higher ed will recognize this immediately. then people who haven’t, the culture of higher ed is its own animal. It’s just so distinct from other kinds of work cultures.
And one of the things that tends, not 100 % true all the time, but that tends to be true in higher ed, is that people tend to not adopt new ideas and ways of working as fast as in other workplaces. And for anybody in a higher ed setting or in a setting where their organization is moving a little slower than they want to move, do you have any advice or tips for people who not only
need to change their own work, you need to use AI to change your own work, but to influence their organization to be better, are some ways that somebody could do to make that happen?
Ben Zugay (30:24)
Two things come to mind. One is a quote that I will absolutely say is mine, but we all know this has been said for years and this is not mine. So it’s not mine. ⁓ But this by no means is this mine. But for somebody who’s like, I still don’t want to do it. don’t, whatever. I think they’re early, especially early on with AI, there was a lot of fear associated with this is going to take your job, right? This is going to take your job. And then somebody.
Jason Gorman (30:32)
Okay.
Ben Zugay (30:47)
super smart was like, no, AI is not gonna take your job. The people who use AI are going to take your job. So you have to remain relevant. You have to remain on top of things. And I hate to approach it from a fear-based, you know, only like type of answer, but like the reality is this is here and this is the worst that it will ever be. The way that, I’m not gonna explain AI, because I’m certainly no explicit like in the nitty gritty expert, but like we all know that
it continuously learns and it’s exponential, right? So this is today, this is the worst it will ever be. This is the dumbest it will ever be. It will only get better. So it’s not going away and it’s gonna get better. You need to kind of step into that because other people are and those are the people that are going to be potentially taking jobs. So that’s the fear-based, okay, but maybe a little shaky a little bit. The other perspective I would say, and this is maybe more organizationally focused.
is why, to revisit why you do what you do from a customer perspective. So whether that is your customers, you know, paying traditional business customers or whether that would be students and students being customers is a whole nother topic, whatever. But let’s just say like the people that we serve, customers or students, why are you doing what you’re doing? You’re doing to serve them, right?
let’s just focus on students. When students leave your institution, there is an expectation from the businesses that will be hiring them that they have a certain level of competence. For the longest time that competence was maybe related to something, maybe like a hard skill that your school institution was really good at teaching and developing, or maybe it was more of that soft skills, know, maybe the teamwork, things like that. But in addition to that, now the expectation is that you know,
how to apply generative AI in the workplace. So you are doing students a disservice by not teaching them how to use these tools on a daily basis.
That means that that is a lot of work for us because we shift how we do and what we do. But I go back to my earlier comments of saying like, just pick one area of your class, your process, whatever, to apply AI, to make a change with an assignment where you just start to change your course over time because students need to know how to use these tools over time. So to answer your question,
to speak to institutions or leaders or individuals who are kind of on the fence and a little slower. I would say it’s here, it’s as dumb as it will be, people who use it will, and it’s really smart right now, right? It’s really great. So people who use it are going to be taking jobs, not AI. So that is the fear based. And then from an institutional perspective and for leaders and things like that, who are you serving and why are you serving them? And you are doing a disservice if you are not helping
those individuals to leave your institution with the best possible product. From a teaching and learning perspective, need, students need to know how to use these tools.
Jason Gorman (34:03)
Great. I have just one more question for you. after we’re done here, I will ask you a question for me to ask my next guest. But I have a question for you from my last guest, His name is Zach Wagner. Zach is the CEO of an AI consultancy. He has a long background in educational technology and product.
Ben Zugay (34:12)
⁓ geez.
Jason Gorman (34:26)
here’s Zach’s question ⁓ How do we see startup culture changing and how to what it takes to be successful changing and what different skills and mindsets That we need now
are different than what we needed 10 to 15 years ago.
Ben Zugay (34:47)
Okay, how is startup culture changing?
mean, the lowest hanging fruit is you could do more with less, right?
Jason Gorman (34:53)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Zugay (34:53)
Startup culture is changing because you can do more with less. This allows the barrier of entry to be reduced even further for so many people.
This opens up immense opportunities for people who before had the ideas and the chutzpah, if you will, had to get that word in, but did not necessarily have maybe the capital or the funds to hire a web designer to whatever, right? For all these jobs that can be automated now. So startup culture,
feel like is opening up. There’s so many more doors that are open and available to so many more people now.
But that also causes its own set of challenges as well, where now the marketplace looks a lot different than it was, and you’re cutting through, or you’re trying to cut through even more noise than before. So in many ways, again, the lowest hanging fruit is, well, you could do more with less, which is great because that opens up access and opportunity to so many more people. At the same time, that opens up access and opportunity to so many more people.
Jason Gorman (36:16)
Yeah, yeah.
Ben Zugay (36:18)
So then your next, or one of the other questions was like, what skills and things like that then are needed today that weren’t necessarily needed before? And I, I know there’s a good answer for this, but the first thing that came to my mind is like, you still need like the opportunity, like orientation mindset. You still, from a tangible perspective, you still need to be a good marketer. I mean, even, maybe even more so now with opportunity orientation because,
There’s so many tools that can talk to each other and things like that, but nobody’s out explicitly stating here’s how to connect all the tools. You have to figure that out yourself. So you have to be opportunity focused. Further, from a marketing perspective, like we just said, there are so many more, there’s so much more noise. So how are you going to cut through that? So I don’t, I know there’s a good answer to what, you know, what do you need now versus 10 years ago, but I think, and I’m a big believer in fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals, right?
And maybe that’s the answer that I should have said is like what’s needed today more than ever is fundamentals. ⁓
because business is still business.
It’s just we have different tools to help us with that. But at the end of the day, like if you have, I could have a Ferrari sitting in my garage, but if I have no clue how to drive it, it’s just a really expensive, pretty looking thing sitting there collecting dust and it’s not useful. So you can have all the tools and bells and whistles in the world, but if you don’t understand the fundamentals, if you don’t understand gas pedals on the right, brakes on the left, here’s how to shift, here’s how to.
put the right octane gas into that supercar, the car’s useless. So I don’t have a good answer for your question or for Zach’s question.
Jason Gorman (38:07)
No, for Zach’s question. I will say,
actually, I had a, I don’t know, some similar question for Zach today. And he answered a couple of my questions in similar way, just as you have today. You talked about what’s important for your students, is linking up what they’re learning to something real in their lives. And we talked about how this is a timeless idea. It’s an evergreen idea.
And I think that’s true with your answer here too, right? The answer is not the technology. It’s not the new thing. It’s not about trying to hurry up and acquire some new skill that is a totally new skill. It is about going back and checking in with what really matters and re-upping, like doubling down on that thing. And I don’t know. I just want to point that out as a good and welcome theme because I think it’s really easy.
For me, I’ll just just speaking for myself to feel overwhelmed by the rate of change and and maybe one way to combat that overwhelm is just by saying no the the most important thing is it is that I am in touch and grounded in the things that matter and that I am doing those things and just enabling myself with these tools but not fundamentally changing what I’m doing if is that is that what you’re saying?
Ben Zugay (39:29)
Yeah,
absolutely. you know, mean, business at the end of the day comes down to basically two major metrics, customer acquisition cost, how much does it cost you to get a customer? And then how much are they worth to you over their lifetime? Those are the two things. So like there’s all these vehicles that can help you, you know, get to those things. But at the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. So yeah, these are, these are relatively timeless principles and there’s all sorts of bells and whistles and the rate of change is rapid and you can
get overwhelmed quickly. But what are you trying to accomplish from a business perspective, from a teaching perspective? At the end of the day, whether AI is here or not, those goals are probably very similar whether AI is here or not. So fundamentals, go back to it. And again, to reiterate the elephant thing, use a fancy tool every now and then. That’s great. But like, just pick one or two.
You just start there.
Jason Gorman (40:27)
Fundamentals, eating the elephant one bite at a time. We’ll leave it there. That is great advice. Thank you so much, Ben, for joining.
Ben Zugay (40:36)
Thank you so much for having me. Fun conversation. As you can tell, I’m a verbal processor, but ⁓ I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Which is why I was like, yes, let’s talk. This was great. Thank you so much. And congratulations on all the success too with the podcast. And yeah, really appreciate your time.
Jason Gorman (40:42)
Me too.
Perfect.
Thanks a lot, Ben.