AI Just Taught My Team Something I Don't Know

Have you ever wanted someone on your team to learn something new...

But then realized you'd have to be the one to teach them?

And you don't have the time.

Or maybe you don't even know enough about the subject yourself.

So you start thinking through the options.

Should I find a course?

Send them to a conference?

Hire someone to train them?

Or just put it off until we have more time?

I've been there.

And here's the frustrating part.

You want your team to get better. But helping them get better becomes another thing YOU have to do.

Which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it. 😂

Because isn't the whole point of building a team to create something bigger than what you can do yourself?

Well, something happened recently with Athena (my AI) that made me think about this differently.

And I want to show you why.

I needed my team to learn something I couldn't teach.

We've been building Athena, our AI employee, to do a lot more than answer questions or summarize meetings.

One of the things we've created with her is something called the Dojo.

Think of it as a training space for our team.

Except instead of me sitting down and building lessons, finding resources, teaching classes, and checking everyone's progress...

Athena handles much of that work.

Here's how it works.

We tell Athena what we want our team to learn.

We tell her what we want them to be capable of doing when they're finished.

And then she builds a proposed curriculum.

Not just a random collection of articles.

An actual learning plan designed around the outcome we want.

She brings it back to us.

We review it.

We discuss what needs to change.

And once we approve it, she gets to work.

She finds existing videos, articles, podcasts, and other resources that can help teach the material.

And when she can't find something that covers what we need?

She creates the missing lessons herself.

Sometimes that's written material.

Sometimes it's an audio lecture.

Whatever makes sense for what she's teaching.

Now, that alone is pretty cool.

But it's not the part that impressed me most.

Four people on my team just learned things I don't know.

We had a problem.

Some of our team members needed to get better at using GitHub to manage our projects.

Now, if you're not familiar with GitHub, don't worry about the technical details.

The important thing is that it's a tool we use to manage a lot of our development work.

And our team needed to become more capable with it.

Here's the catch.

I'm not a GitHub expert.

Not even close.

I don't have the expertise to teach advanced GitHub techniques.

And I certainly don't have the time to sit down and create a training program for everyone.

So we gave that job to Athena.

She created the curriculum.

We approved it.

She gathered the resources.

She invited the team into a training program she named Dojo Kata.

And then she started teaching.

This wasn't a one-hour webinar where everybody watches a video and then goes back to work.

Athena worked with them over several weeks.

She shared lessons.

Gave them exercises.

Asked them to reflect on what they were learning.

And had them discuss their progress together.

But here's where it gets really interesting.

She wasn't teaching everyone the same way.

You know how two people can sit through the exact same training and walk away with completely different levels of understanding?

One person gets it immediately.

Another needs an example.

Someone else needs to actually try it before it clicks.

That's normal.

People learn differently.

And Athena started learning how each person on the team learned.

She worked with them in the group.

But she also communicated with them individually.

She paid attention to what they understood.

What they were struggling with.

And how quickly they were progressing.

Then she adjusted how she helped them.

She wasn't just delivering information. She was helping people actually learn.

And by the time I recorded this, four people on our team had learned advanced GitHub techniques that I don't even know how to do.

Let me say that again.

My team learned skills that I, their leader, don't have.

And I didn't have to become the expert first.

That's HUGE.

This made me realize something about how we think about leadership.

I think a lot of leaders unintentionally create a ceiling for their employees.

Not because they want to.

But because they assume that if they want their team to become better at something, they have to be the ones who teach it.

And that creates a problem.

Because what happens when your team reaches the limits of what you know?

Do they stop growing?

Do you have to go learn everything first so you can turn around and teach them?

Do you keep paying for outside training every time someone needs a new skill?

I've started thinking about this differently.

I don't want my employees operating at 80% of my capabilities.

I don't even want them operating at 100%.

I want them operating at 110%.

I want them to know things I don't know.

I want them to be able to solve problems I wouldn't know how to solve.

I want them making decisions that are better than the decisions I could make on my own.

Because if everybody on my team can only do what I already know how to do...

What have I really built?

A company that's limited by my knowledge?

That's not what I want.

And I don't think it's what you want either.

This is where AI starts getting really interesting to me.

A lot of the conversation around AI is still about the little things.

Can it summarize my meeting?

Can it write an email?

Can it make a to-do list?

Sure.

Those things are useful.

But I think we're missing something much bigger.

What happens when AI doesn't just help your team do the work, but helps your team become better at the work?

Think about that.

Instead of AI simply doing a task for someone, it helps that person develop the skills to do more.

Instead of your employees becoming more dependent on AI, they become more capable because of it.

And instead of every training need coming back to you, you can focus on something that's actually your responsibility as the leader.

Setting the vision for what your team needs to become.

That's what we did with Athena.

We didn't have to know every lesson she would teach.

We had to know the outcome we wanted.

We still reviewed and approved the curriculum.

We still had to make sure the training was moving people in the right direction.

But we didn't have to be the teachers.

And that's a pretty important distinction.

Because I don't believe the job of a leader is to know everything.

I believe the job of a leader is to help build a team that can accomplish things beyond what any one person could do alone.

Including the leader.

Here's the part I keep coming back to.

Four people on my team now know how to do things I don't know how to do.

And I couldn't be happier about that.

I don't feel threatened by it.

I don't feel like I need to catch up with them.

In fact, I hope they keep learning things I don't know.

Because every new capability they develop is another capability our company has.

My knowledge no longer has to be the limit of their growth.

And that, to me, is one of the most exciting possibilities of AI.

Not replacing people.

Not just making people faster.

Helping people become more capable than they were yesterday.

That's the kind of AI I'm excited to build.

And it's the kind of team I want to lead.

Can I ask you something? 🤔

What's one thing you wish your team knew how to do better, but you haven't had the time or expertise to teach them?

For me, it was advanced GitHub project management.

Now four people on my team know more about it than I do. 😂

What's that skill for your team?

Hit reply and tell me in one sentence.

It can be something as simple as "I wish my team understood reporting better" or "I need someone to get better at managing projects."

I read every response, and I'd genuinely love to know what's holding your team's development back.

Want to see Athena's Dojo in action? 👇

I recorded a video showing how Athena created the training program, worked with our employees, and helped them learn skills I couldn't teach myself.

For the doctors reading this 👨‍⚕️

Our AiM (AI & Marketing) Rounds community has been growing, and the conversations are getting better because more doctors are sharing what they’re actually trying, questioning, and figuring out in real time.

We’re talking about practical AI, marketing, what’s working, what isn’t, and how all of this actually fits into a medical practice.

No pressure to be an expert. No need to have the perfect answer.

Just doctors learning from doctors.

If you want in, reply “JOIN AIM” and I’ll send you the WhatsApp link.

A few things worth checking out 👀

Just sharing a few things I've been exploring lately:

• 🤝 Let’s connect: I share more of my AI experiments, failures, and what we're learning on LinkedIn.

• 📘 Book I keep thinking about: The Delegation Trap — exploring what happens when leaders stop being the bottleneck.

• 🤖 What we’re building with AI: A look at what we’re working on with AI

• 📖 Currently reading: The book on my nightstand right now

• 🛠 Tool I’ve been using: GoHighLevel (GHL) — keeps the important stuff in one place.

Was this email helpful? 💬

I'd love your quick feedback.

❤️ Yes — this gave me a new way to think about my team.
💛 Interesting — I hadn't thought about using AI for training.
💜 I'm still figuring out how AI could work with my team.

Just hit reply with ❤️,💛, or 💜.

I read every response, and it helps me know what I should write about next.

— Atiba