1 00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:07,320 Welcome to the new Manager podcast. 2 00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:16,120 I'm your host, Kim Nichol. Hello and welcome. 3 00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:19,000 I am glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. 4 00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:23,200 I'm continuing to learn and think about AI. 5 00:00:23,480 --> 00:00:28,080 It's a huge topic. I've been really appreciative of 6 00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:31,680 the messages and the comments that I've been getting from from 7 00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:35,680 you and from some of your other Co listeners. 8 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:40,640 Learning how you are actually thinking about AI as a tool set 9 00:00:40,640 --> 00:00:44,920 and using it is so interesting. So that offer still stands. 10 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:49,440 The invitation is still open. If you want to tell me about how 11 00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:54,600 you are using AI and why, or if you're not using it at all and 12 00:00:54,600 --> 00:00:57,200 why, tell me. I'm really curious to know. 13 00:00:57,440 --> 00:01:01,240 Comment on the episode. If you listen through Spotify, 14 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:04,400 you know how to do that right in the app. 15 00:01:04,760 --> 00:01:09,560 And otherwise you can leave me a message through LinkedIn or 16 00:01:09,560 --> 00:01:13,800 through my website. So for today, I wanted to start 17 00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:19,280 with something very specific and even simple. 18 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:23,320 And one of the reasons I'm excited about this is because I 19 00:01:23,320 --> 00:01:27,480 find that when we're feeling overwhelmed and when there's a 20 00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:32,720 lot of complexity, it's easy to go into a freeze mode. 21 00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:36,160 And the thought might be I don't know where to start. 22 00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:40,920 And so I won't start at all. Or it might just turn into kind 23 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:44,200 of like a shutdown and a withdrawal based on there's 24 00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:48,040 already too much for me to do. And when we're feeling that 25 00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:52,680 overwhelmed, it's like our curiosity can't come online. 26 00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:57,920 So thinking about what something small that might be helpful for 27 00:01:57,920 --> 00:02:03,040 understanding you know what this is and how to use that like 28 00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:08,160 value those small little ideas or those small steps because 29 00:02:08,520 --> 00:02:15,320 that is often I found the best way to make real progress when 30 00:02:15,320 --> 00:02:17,520 you are learning about something new. 31 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:22,320 So the one idea that I want to share with you today that I 32 00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:25,160 think will really make a difference in how you think 33 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:31,080 about AI and how you use it. This comes from an author, Ethan 34 00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:37,280 Moloch, and he wrote a book called Co Intelligence Living 35 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:41,120 and Working with AI. This is on my book list. 36 00:02:41,120 --> 00:02:45,600 I haven't read it yet, but I can tell you that there is one 37 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:51,280 passage in this book where he's laying out some guidelines or 38 00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:54,720 rules for working with AI and one of them really stood out to 39 00:02:54,720 --> 00:02:56,440 me. This is what the rule is. 40 00:02:56,440 --> 00:03:03,720 He says treat AI like a person, but tell it what kind of person 41 00:03:03,720 --> 00:03:07,520 it is to get the most useful output. 42 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:12,240 Give the AIA clear context for the outputs you need. 43 00:03:12,640 --> 00:03:15,960 The more detail and insight you can provide in a prompt, the 44 00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:21,040 better the AI can make the appropriate language token 45 00:03:21,040 --> 00:03:24,960 predictions to generate useful outputs for your task. 46 00:03:25,480 --> 00:03:29,240 So to kind of distill that to get back to this simple 47 00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:34,080 principle, it's these two parts. Treat this tool like a person, 48 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:37,760 but tell it what kind of person it is. 49 00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:43,360 Do you want it to be an expert? Do you want it to have a like an 50 00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:46,080 encouraging demeanor or approach? 51 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:50,080 Like you might imagine it as your really smart, eager 52 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:54,160 assistant. What kind of person do you want 53 00:03:54,160 --> 00:03:55,840 it to be? And I think that's so 54 00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:59,240 interesting because when we're in the course and flow of 55 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:03,720 everyday life, we're simply meeting people as they are 56 00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:07,680 appearing to us. We very rarely think, you know, 57 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:09,800 what kind of person do I want you to be? 58 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:12,840 We're more like, what kind of person are you and how are we 59 00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:16,160 going to work together. The only time we might kind of 60 00:04:16,160 --> 00:04:19,760 back up a step and ask that question is when we're thinking, 61 00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:23,640 who do I need to talk to in order to address this kind of 62 00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:26,240 issue? Do I need to talk to this kind 63 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:28,720 of expert? Do I need to talk to that kind 64 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:31,800 of person? Who is the person I talked to in 65 00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:35,480 order to, you know, get some help with this kind of problem? 66 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:41,160 So when you're working with an AI tool, right, like Claude or 67 00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:45,960 with ChatGPT are, you know, two of the very popular ones, you 68 00:04:45,960 --> 00:04:48,200 can think about it as, OK, I'm going to talk to it like it's a 69 00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:55,480 person, but I need to tell it what kind of person it is. 70 00:04:56,320 --> 00:05:00,880 And this actually dovetails really nicely with a resource 71 00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:05,280 that one of my students shared in an earlier cohort this year 72 00:05:05,600 --> 00:05:07,680 in my communication strategies class. 73 00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:13,320 And the student had shared with me this thing, this framework, 74 00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:16,760 it's called a race prompt framework. 75 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:24,640 And R stands for role, A stands for action, C stands for 76 00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:28,040 context, and E stands for execute. 77 00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:33,520 And the idea is that this framework is a structured 78 00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:39,160 approach for AI prompting. Like the thing you say that then 79 00:05:39,280 --> 00:05:41,960 AI will respond to the prompt it responds to. 80 00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:46,480 And it will guide you through these four steps of defining 81 00:05:46,480 --> 00:05:51,840 what is the role that your AI should be, what is the action 82 00:05:52,280 --> 00:05:56,800 like, the specific task that you want the AI to do? 83 00:05:57,320 --> 00:06:00,320 What is the context? So what's the relevant 84 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:07,040 background and execute? What are the expectations for 85 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:10,360 the delivery, what you want the result to look like. 86 00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:16,280 And so it's this, you know, systemic method to help organize 87 00:06:16,280 --> 00:06:22,160 your thinking so you can give clear instructions to your AI 88 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:26,080 tool about what kind of person they are, what you want them to 89 00:06:26,080 --> 00:06:31,280 do, what the bigger context is, and what exactly is the output 90 00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:33,960 that you want. Now, what I think is really 91 00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:38,520 interesting about this is I can see this as a way to help 92 00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:44,480 develop your thinking skills when it comes to delegating to 93 00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:49,280 regular humans. Like if you had to delegate work 94 00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:54,160 to a human, it would also be really helpful for you to think 95 00:06:54,160 --> 00:06:59,000 about what is their role here and maybe you need to clarify 96 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:01,080 for them. Here's the role I want you to 97 00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:05,400 take with respect to this assignment or this project. 98 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:07,920 You want to be clear about the action. 99 00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:11,880 What's the action you want this person to take at? 100 00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:14,320 What's the bigger context? What is the additional 101 00:07:14,320 --> 00:07:18,120 background that they will need to understand in order to be 102 00:07:18,120 --> 00:07:22,360 effective at following through with your ask and then execute. 103 00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:27,880 Be specific in in telling them what is the format or the style 104 00:07:27,880 --> 00:07:31,680 or the expectations of what the final thing should look like. 105 00:07:31,960 --> 00:07:35,440 You might even have an example. You might even say make it look 106 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:39,120 similar to this. So I think this is really 107 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:41,880 interesting when we think about, you know, kind of what does it 108 00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:47,320 mean to be a manager in a world where AI is is also now here. 109 00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:49,720 And there are lots of different ways to use it. 110 00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:55,960 And one place to start is to ask yourself this question, OK, if 111 00:07:55,960 --> 00:07:59,280 I'm going to treat this tool like a person, what kind of 112 00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:04,160 person do I want it to be? And understanding that because 113 00:08:04,160 --> 00:08:09,760 it requires you to slow down and be very intentional in thinking 114 00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:12,960 about, oh, like this is what I'm looking for. 115 00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:19,720 You can then bring that same skill set to working with 116 00:08:19,920 --> 00:08:23,400 people, right? Like you can bring that same 117 00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:29,120 process of thinking through how can I be specific in conveying 118 00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:33,320 what I want, how I want this person to approach this thing. 119 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:36,880 I think it's interesting too, because of course, with AI we 120 00:08:36,880 --> 00:08:40,280 get results generated very, very quickly. 121 00:08:40,559 --> 00:08:44,680 And if you get a result you don't like, you can then respond 122 00:08:44,680 --> 00:08:49,200 and say, oh, OK, I need to be more specific in giving this 123 00:08:49,200 --> 00:08:51,760 instruction or giving this correction. 124 00:08:51,960 --> 00:08:57,160 Try it again, but now do it this way or take this and change it 125 00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:00,160 in this way. And so there is a little bit of 126 00:09:00,560 --> 00:09:03,520 an engagement where it goes back and forth. 127 00:09:03,520 --> 00:09:06,920 It is an iterative approach and it can actually happen very 128 00:09:06,920 --> 00:09:12,280 quickly because the time it takes for your AI tool to 129 00:09:12,280 --> 00:09:15,880 generate something that you can then see and evaluate will 130 00:09:15,880 --> 00:09:17,840 happen a lot faster than with a human. 131 00:09:18,040 --> 00:09:20,280 With a human, you might go through this process. 132 00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:22,600 They say, I got it makes perfect sense. 133 00:09:22,600 --> 00:09:27,400 They come back three days later and you're thinking, oh, OK, I, 134 00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:31,720 I wasn't clear because the result you've given me is not 135 00:09:31,760 --> 00:09:35,000 what I actually had in my mind, what I was expecting. 136 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:37,320 Let me see if I can explain this a different way. 137 00:09:37,680 --> 00:09:40,760 So I think there's some interesting ways that using 138 00:09:40,760 --> 00:09:46,080 these tools in this way can help prepare you to delegate and to 139 00:09:46,080 --> 00:09:48,360 work with humans even more effectively. 140 00:09:48,680 --> 00:09:52,120 Because ultimately it's just asking you to think more deeply 141 00:09:52,400 --> 00:09:58,040 and more precisely about what are you asking for and how can 142 00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:01,680 you provide the context or the examples? 143 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:06,280 How can you give that to whoever you want to take it and do 144 00:10:06,280 --> 00:10:10,040 something with it in a way that will be effective. 145 00:10:10,560 --> 00:10:16,320 So that's the idea I wanted to plant a seed for and offer a 146 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:19,440 resource for. For some of you, this might be 147 00:10:19,440 --> 00:10:23,440 really basic. For some of you, this might be 148 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:26,600 really helpful. And you know, hopefully it kind 149 00:10:26,600 --> 00:10:29,960 of falls somewhere in between. I think it's, it's neat, 150 00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:32,120 especially when we think about communication. 151 00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:35,440 Are there ways that you can practice where it feels low 152 00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:38,360 stakes? And often with humans, 153 00:10:38,720 --> 00:10:42,320 everything feels high stakes because there's a real human 154 00:10:42,320 --> 00:10:46,760 that you're communicating with. And there can be the fear of if 155 00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:51,560 I do this incorrectly, then I will, you know, make everything 156 00:10:51,560 --> 00:10:54,160 harder for us, or I will create friction. 157 00:10:54,160 --> 00:10:57,480 Or there can just be this fear of like, oh, I need to get it 158 00:10:57,480 --> 00:11:00,960 right the first time. One of the things that I teach 159 00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:04,520 in my course is process, not perfection. 160 00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:08,320 So rather than, you know, trying to get the words exactly right 161 00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:11,560 before you say them or before you write them, let's get a 162 00:11:11,560 --> 00:11:16,040 really clear process in place and focus on that so that you 163 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:19,080 learn by doing rather than holding yourself to an 164 00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:23,600 impossible perfection standard and then using that to kind of 165 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:25,840 create more anxiety and hesitation. 166 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:31,840 And with AI and this idea like talk to like a person, tell it 167 00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:35,920 who you want it to be. That means you have to think who 168 00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:39,400 do I want this role to be? What is the role that I want 169 00:11:39,400 --> 00:11:43,640 this to be? My thinking is that this using 170 00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:50,360 AI tools in this way will create more low stakes, fast response 171 00:11:50,800 --> 00:11:56,360 scenarios for you to practice thinking and communicating in 172 00:11:56,360 --> 00:11:58,600 this way. You know, on LinkedIn, sometimes 173 00:11:58,600 --> 00:12:03,240 I see conversations happening in the feed and people will say, 174 00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:05,280 oh, there's always like fear, right? 175 00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:08,640 The incoming class of leaders, oh, they're not going to know 176 00:12:08,640 --> 00:12:11,000 how to do anything because they're going to use AI for 177 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:15,320 everything or whatever. And I keep thinking, you know, I 178 00:12:15,320 --> 00:12:21,960 think the people who get really good at using these AI tools, 179 00:12:22,280 --> 00:12:28,200 they might be more ready for managing people because they've 180 00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:32,920 become more practiced in thinking through these different 181 00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:36,440 levels, right? Like, who do I want this to be? 182 00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:38,960 What is the, you know, what is the role? 183 00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:41,560 What is the task I need them to complete? 184 00:12:41,760 --> 00:12:45,040 What is the context you need in order to complete that task? 185 00:12:45,720 --> 00:12:49,360 What do I want the outcome to look like? 186 00:12:49,640 --> 00:12:52,400 I mean, all of that is really useful when communicating with 187 00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:54,760 humans too. And the sooner you start 188 00:12:55,160 --> 00:12:59,360 developing that, you know, reflex and ability and skill, 189 00:12:59,680 --> 00:13:03,080 the easier it becomes to use it in lots of different situations. 190 00:13:03,960 --> 00:13:06,480 So that is what I wanted to offer today. 191 00:13:06,880 --> 00:13:10,800 Continue to be curious. And if you want to learn with 192 00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:15,920 me, then make sure that you sign up to get notified of the next 193 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:19,000 cohort. We're currently in a class, so 194 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:23,040 you can't join this current group, but get on the list so 195 00:13:23,040 --> 00:13:27,360 you're notified of when the next cohort opens. 196 00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:30,560 And of course, if you want one-on-one coaching and to work 197 00:13:30,560 --> 00:13:34,840 with me more specifically focused on your goals and what 198 00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:38,080 you'd like to experience and create in, you know, your life 199 00:13:38,080 --> 00:13:41,600 and your work, then you can connect with me through my 200 00:13:41,640 --> 00:13:43,640 website. There's information on how to do 201 00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:45,960 that. All right, thank you so much for 202 00:13:45,960 --> 00:13:48,120 listening. I hope you have a great week and 203 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:55,600 we'll talk to you next time. When you're more effective at 204 00:13:55,600 --> 00:13:57,520 work, you're happier in your life. 205 00:13:57,880 --> 00:14:01,000 And when you're happier in your life, you're more effective at 206 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:02,640 work. I can help. 207 00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:07,240 Go to my website, kimnickel.com and sign up for a coaching 208 00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:09,640 consult. It can get better.