I have a feeling some people are going to disagree with today’s take, but I’m fairly certain that this is the correct take on the discussion of AI and whether or not to lay off your employees in instances where you could.
Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.
IN TODAY’S ISSUE
News, Updates, & Upcoming Events
Feature Content: Catholics Don’t Do Layoffs Because of AI; We Up-skill
Heavenly Hustlers
[read time: ~10 min | word count 2, 141]
Events:
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Catholics Don’t Do Layoffs Because of AI; We Up-skill
I have recently become AI-pilled. In last week’s issue I mentioned how Hark.com has been a game changer for us both at Catholic Founders and for my recruiting business.
AI Skeptic
In the past I’ve dabbled with some AI tools but never found them particularly useful except for things like taking my client’s job description and turning it into a Roosevelt Talent version of the same JD with our extra information on it. I also used it frequently as a search tool.
But other than that I wasn’t really impressed.
Tools like Lindy and N8N were too hard for me to understand or to get to work reliably.
Then I heard about Instinct and Muse on a podcast. People were saying it was incredible. So, I tried Muse given they cited the fact that Meta had less lag time because they had more compute.
With my first use, I was able to triage emails while holding my baby on a flight. So, it was useful, but not groundbreaking.
A few days later I heard that Hark dropped. A few weeks prior I heard Brett Adcock, the founder, on the My First Million pod speaking about how this thing blew his mind (he built it to serve his use cases). Given I’m a fan of his way of thinking I decided to try it.
Bam.
It felt like I was teleported into the future.
Hark started off by making suggestions on how it could help me. Unsubscribing from hundreds of marketing emails. Managing my calendar better.
It was nice. Felt cool, but then I realized it can actually go around and click things for me as if it were a human.
It really hit me how powerful it was when I asked it to research and create an event for my DC Catholic Founders meetup. I needed the mass time, and a place close by for breakfast. It did that, checked if they accepted OpenTable reservations (they did not). Then it drafted the copy for the Luma event page. I made a few adjustments and it was pretty much ready. I didn’t have an image yet, but I could have Karen do that.
Wait… maybe Hark could do it I thought. So I asked it to make an image. It was not on brand. I said, go find all the other events and make this one match that style. Boom. It was good.
Then I had it go through our database AND my LinkedIn connections and find all the Catholic Founders in DC for me to invite. It drafted emails according to my usual style to almost all of them (in some cases, after finding their emails from Apollo). I then made edits and sent out those invites.
This all took me maybe 45 min. It would have usually taken me 2 ish hours not including the lag time for Karen to make the graphic (time difference).
All this is to say, I was not the most gung-ho on AI. Now I am because I see how much time I can save.
To Replace an Employee or Not?
Fast forward to about a week after I started using Hark, I realized two of my subcontractors could be 100% replaced with Hark if I set it up to run the same tasks on a time I preset or a trigger that I pull.
But I chose not to.
It’s not the right thing. They only work very part time, but they need the work, that’s why they are working for me.
So, instead of replacing them, I am having them scale up their abilities and learn how to use AI to replace their own jobs. And then I’ve instructed them to start thinking out of the box on how they can use Hark to help them do more and help the rest of the team do more.
It will take time to train them up to start taking more agency, but this is exactly the point.
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Thank you to Aaron for sponsoring this work. It helps us keep Oscar paid.
Elevated Work
Most of the tasks these two admin were doing, were wrote, repetitive tasks that I needed done and didn’t want to be doing myself. They were not tasks that required much mental bandwidth other than basic attention to detail to do it well each time.
Now, the key challenge at this junction for me was to decide, am I willing to not be lazy, and put in the time to train them up to do something even better and more valuable for the company?
There are totally other things they can do that are more valuable. I don’t have to look far. The only barrier is my willingness to take this leap. Yes, teaching them some new things to focus on requires a bit of my time, but… it’s good for them.
No longer will it cut it for them to just be doing something an automation an do. They are now required to level up. To push themselves to think more critically about how they can be helpful.
In this process I’ve noticed that when people are treated for so long just like task masters, especially at a such a menial level, their senses begin to dull. This work doesn’t light them up. How could you get excited about typing some things into a spreadsheet or entering details into a database?
Now, the key role I have is to wake them from their stupor and get them thinking critically. Recently Scott Williams from SockReligious came on the pod and shared something similar. He said their blue collar employees who are punching a clock had a very wrote mentality to how they operated. After all, they had been treated like numbers or robots for so long, they stopped thinking critically. But through pushing them and elevating them, they all start getting far more creative about their work.
It’s like starting up an old lawn mower that’s been sitting around for a year or two. It might run a little at first. But to get it to run properly you need to empty out the old gas. Maybe get a new spark plug, and get it kicking. Full power!
It’s not rocket science. It just requires a little bit of effort.
This is where you find yourself.
You can transform the lives of those people working for you. You can be the one to believe in them and mentor them into a higher plane of existence. But will you?
Remember, there are also upsides for you. When you do this, they becoming increasingly valuable to your team because they can do something even more productive. If they have been working with you for some time, you have the added benefit that they have context on how your company operates making it even easier for them to figure out how they can serve.
In the end, you’re also raising their value on the overall talent market. What an amazing thing.
Eventually they may create so much value for you that you can give them a nice raise. Or, if you’re unable they will be able to get a higher paying role at another company, thus allowing them to better provide for their family.
You may also just earn some real loyalty.
But beyond all this, you’ll be doing the right thing in the eyes of Heaven. These are humans deserving of dignity — children of God. They have bills to pay and families to feed.
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You’re At a Crossroads
Before my closing remarks, let’s consider some words from Magnifica Humanitas.
“A society that guarantees employment to only a small fraction of the population, despite having a high level of technical development, risks exposing many to forced inactivity, a lack of responsibility and the absence of daily tasks and stimuli, resulting in human and cultural impoverishment. This creates a paradox of material progress and anthropological regression that undermines the foundations of a just and stable social peace. For this reason, the Church’s Social Doctrine insists that access to work for all must be a high priority for public policies and economic processes, serving as a criterion for evaluating the human quality of any development model. [155]“
Here you are. Standing at a fork in the road.
Which way will you go?
You claim to be Catholic. You claim to do the right thing.
Here — in this moment, the choice is clear.
You can elevate an employee, helping them better themselves and their family.
Or you can hurt them in order to increase your profitability margins a small percentage.
Which way? Which way?
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
Reach Over 1,000 Catholic Business Owners
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Heavenly Hustlers
These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).
🤖 Luca Ambroz is building Exona Lab. Pricing and underwriting software that helps insurers insure AI risk. London, England.
🛰️ Danielle Nicholson is building Mira Intel. Drone-based monitoring and predictive analytics for ports, coastal and offshore infrastructure. New York, New York.
⚖️ Noel Bagwell is building Counsel & Clarity. Fractional legal counsel and resilience coaching for founders and leaders recovering from setbacks. Nashville, Tennessee.
💻 Michael Marinaccio is building Magnitude Consulting. Strategy, design and technology for causes and campaigns, alongside leading the Center for Responsible Technology. Washington, D.C.
✝️ JT Parker is building Five Loaves Ministries. A Catholic missionary apostolate that sends missionaries into parishes to form young people and families as disciples. Long Island, New York.
⚡ Cary Register is building R(2) Squared Electric. Commercial electrical contracting and backup generator installs for businesses across DFW. Dallas, Texas.
🌸 Rebecca Salamone is building Ambition Aligned, a community for ambitious Christian and Catholic women. Boston, Massachusetts
💧 Sydney Bui is building Kembali Water, a naturally sourced mountain water to local hospitality venues while eliminating single-use plastic waste, with plans to expand across Southeast Asia. Bali, Indonesia.
🙋♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.
Here is a huge list of various resources that we have compiled over time: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.
Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).