In this episode of Tim Stating the Obvious, titled Can AI Help Create High Performance Teams, host Tim Staton speaks with Dan Kasper, a former Navy SEAL Special Operations Officer and founder of PilotEer. Dan shares his journey from leading elite military teams to applying those lessons in business, scaling operations at Airbnb, and now using AI to transform how organizations build high performance teams.

Dan explains what are high performance teams: groups where members operate at their highest capacity toward a laser-aligned shared goal. Drawing from special operations, he highlights high performance teams characteristics such as diverse specialists contributing to a common objective, deep mutual understanding from shared experiences, self-policing accountability, instantaneous supportive feedback, and a culture that puts team needs first.

He stresses servant leadership as key to leading high performance teams and managing high performance teams. Leaders must make team members' personal and professional priorities matter to them, foster genuine trust, and act as a "chameleon with a backbone"—holding firm core principles while adapting styles across military, corporate, or startup settings. True leadership, he says, is lived through service, enabling people to achieve extraordinary results.

To create high performance teams or how to build high performance teams, Dan advocates fostering trust, service-oriented mindsets, and environments where individuals feel supported. In the civilian world, this means prioritizing what matters to team members to build strong connections and accountability.

After transitioning from the military—with help from The Honor Foundation—Dan found his fit in tech startups mirroring the close-knit, resource-limited dynamics of special operations. Through PilotEer, he bridges the gap between elite units (which use real-time, instrumented data) and corporate teams. The platform's "sensing AI" joins virtual meetings to offer non-intrusive feedback on interactions, tone, sentiment, and body language—acting as a mirror for self-correction, grounded in neuroscience. AI augments human ingenuity rather than replacing it, accelerating problem-solving, enabling faster iteration, and evolving toward collaborative human-AI teams within clear trust parameters.

Dan emphasizes ethical AI use, strategic alignment with goals, and the enduring need for human critical thinking. Ultimately, he sees AI as a powerful assistant in creating high performance teams, helping leaders and members reflect, adapt, and elevate dynamics in real time for stronger cultures and sustained organizational success.

Connect with Dan Kasper

Website: https://www.piloteer.ai/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-kasper-022359b7/

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