To Use or Not to Use ChatGPT

To those who worry or complain that ChatGPT is destroying creativity, individuality, and integrity, I would reply, "AI is a great tool; we should learn to use it properly." I'll give occasional examples on this blog in forthcoming posts, starting with this one.

I'll start with this example. Let's say you just saw the worst presentation imaginable to upper management by Aziza, a new employee of Misterioso, Inc. and one of your promising direct reports on the team you manage. Aziza is a deeply experienced technical analyst but completely inexperienced in addressing nonacademic audiences. This fulltime job is her first out of academia. You want Aziza to succeed, so you want her to learn from her weak presentation experience.

You decide to write Aziza an email about the situation, so you give AI this prompt: Write a peptalk for Aziza, a new teammate, who delivered a poor first presentation to management. In response, ChatGPT produces the following 9-paragraph, 372-word message in 10 seconds.

Subject: Embracing Growth and Learning from Every Presentation

Hey Aziza,

I hope this message finds you well! First and foremost, I want to commend you for taking on the challenge of presenting to our management team. It's not an easy feat, and you demonstrated courage by stepping up to the plate.

I understand that you might be feeling a bit disappointed with how the presentation went, but I want you to know that everyone has been there at some point in their career. The most important thing is not how we start, but how we grow and learn from each experience. Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind:

It's a Learning Process: Every presentation is an opportunity to refine our skills. The more we practice and learn from our mistakes, the better we become. Treat this experience as a valuable lesson in your professional development journey.

Feedback is fuel for improvement: Constructive feedback is a powerful tool for improvement. Reach out to those who attended the presentation or ask your colleagues for their thoughts. Embrace their feedback as a means to refine your future presentations. Remember, it's not about criticism; it's about growth.

Celebrate Your Effort: Presenting to management is no small task. You took the initiative, and that alone is commendable. Celebrate the fact that you had the courage to step into the spotlight and share your ideas. The more you expose yourself to such situations, the more comfortable and confident you'll become.

Focus on Progress, Not Perfection: Perfection is an unrealistic standard. Instead of aiming for flawless presentations, focus on making progress with each one. Small improvements over time lead to significant growth.

We're a Team: Remember that you're not alone in this journey. We're a team, and we're here to support each other. If there's anything specific you'd like assistance with or if you just need someone to bounce ideas off, don't hesitate to reach out. We've got your back!

Lastly, take a deep breath and remind yourself that setbacks are a natural part of any learning process. Your commitment to improvement is what will set you apart. Keep your head high, learn from this experience, and I have no doubt that your next presentation will showcase the progress you've made.

You've got this!

Best, 

[Your Name]

Looks good, right? Maybe not. AI is truly amazing for creating this content in nearly no time. As for whether it is focused writing, I'm not so sure. Any reasonable manager should ask at least three questions before even going to AI:

1. Is writing the best way to communicate with someone in this situation? Would a face-to-face chat in a dark corner of your company cafeteria or even a video call make more sense? Aziza and you understand that a meeting is imperative to maintain Aziza's privacy. Wouldn't writing be too distant in its delivery and too permanent as a record?

2. Does the presenter really need feedback? Would a simple question or two do, such as "How did the presentation go?" Who knows how Aziza might answer? Maybe she'll say, "I wasn't myself because my mother just had a stroke." In that case, you might offer Aziza paid time off to attend to her mother. But what if Aziza instead said, "I did a poor job of merging data and their value to the company," and then she mentioned her weaknesses as purposefulness, completeness, organization, style, and body language (eye contact, hand movements, enunciation), then she would be a great candidate for presentation skills training. Aziza will be an excellent presenter if she addresses all those issues with a promise to work on them every workday. As her manager, you wouldn't be able to add much to such a brilliant self-assessment. Let the presentation skills coach take over.

3. Am I the best person to provide the feedback? Likely, no. The presenter might be better off getting feedback from a non-employee communication coach skilled in all aspects of oral presentations.
But say I decide to write Aziza an email because of our busy schedules in different cities. Might the artificially generated text serve as a start of my writing process? Again, I'm not so sure, for at least two more reasons:

 
1. The content is too general. Perhaps Aziza failed to summarize her data. Or she stated too many obvious points. Or she repeated those points too often. Or her structure was confusing. Or she often distracted her audience mid-sentence by twirling her hair, looking up to the ceiling or down to her shoes, or moving around aimlessly, frequently, and quickly. The content in the AI-generated piece just lacks such specifics.

2. The content may not suit your communication style. You might feel the message title, "Embracing Growth and Learning from Every Presentation" and the closing "You got this!" are too patronizing. Perhaps you feel "Hey" is too unlike you. You may not be a big fan of the introuctory sentence, "I hope this message finds you well!" which couldn't be farther from the way Aziza feels after her poor presentation. You may like even less the useless transitions "First and foremost" and "Lastly." You may despise the courteous closing "Best," as it shows limited care. You'll have to reshape a lot of language to own it.

The bottom line is this: Does the original AI-generated draft spur serious reflection or encourage creative laziness at best or shirking responsibility at worst? To be continued.

Paragraphing Powerfully

The writer of the paragraph below is Jan, a safety technician, and the reader is Lee, a safety director and Jan's manager. As you read it, look for the most important phrase in the paragraph from the reader's perspective.

Draft 1

Lee,

I performed a safety inspection of the north building today. When I entered Stairwell B on the first floor at 18:52, I smelled gas. As I climbed the stairs, the smell grew increasingly stronger until I reached the third floor. There I found an unattended, filled 20-liter can of gasoline. The can was uncapped. The unused cap was lying beside the opened can. I asked Production Manager Kim Porter why the gas can lay open in the stairwell. Porter said she was unaware of why the can was opened and in the stairwell. I reminded her that she is responsible for the safe storage of flammable substances on the production floor, including the stairwell. I immediately capped the can, removed it from the building, and placed it in the north storage shed, remedying the fire hazard.

Jan 

That 136-word paragraph is logical—chronological. Everything from beginning to end happens sequentially. Nevertheless, an informed reader would say that the most important words in the paragraph are the last four, remedying the fire hazard. Let's rewrite that paragraph, starting not chronologically but hierarchically, with the most important point.

Draft 2

Lee,

At 18:52 today, I remedied a fire hazard in the north building. I found an unattended, uncapped, filled 20-liter gasoline can on the third floor of Stairwell B. The can emitted fumes noticeable on the first floor. The unused cap was lying beside the opened can. Production Manager Kim Porter did not know why the gas can lay open in the stairwell. I reminded Porter that she is responsible for the safe storage of flammable substances on the production floor, including the stairwell. I immediately capped the can, removed it from the building, and placed it in the north storage shed.

Jan 

By starting the message with the most important point, Jan achieves at least three reader benefits:

• Enables the busy director to stop reading after the first sentence. 
• Redirects ideas that are now embedded into the revised sentences (I performed a safety inspection of the north building today, As I climbed the stairs, the smell grew increasingly stronger until I reached the third floor, I asked Production Manager Kim Porter why the gas can lay opened in the stairwell).
• Reduces the word count from 136 to 101 words (26%). 

Starting paragraphs with their key words may not always create the suspense that fiction readers want to see, but this practice does work well in results-focused business and technical writing. 

The Value of Reading Outside Your Field

I have covered the value of reading for developing writers (like me) several times in this blog. Businesspeople should see their reading as of two types: inside and outside their field. 

Reading Inside Your Field

Focused reading inside our field helps to make us subject-matter experts. This reading includes industry journals, membership magazines, regulatory requirements, company reports, reviews, and proposals to learn more about the history, trends, and goals of our industry, as well as to capture the latest news about our competitors and collaborators.

Reading Outside Your Field

Focused reading outside our field enhances our writing style. This reading includes virtually all publications not covered by reading inside your field. Of the thousands of reading types, examples include a lawyer in the investment banking field reading African history, a civil engineer in the transportation industry reading classic novels, and a military officer reading biographies. It doesn't matter much what we read outside our field, as long as the writing is of high quality. Reading beyond the concerns of our business expands the choices of expression available to us. We pick up new words and varied sentence structure unlike those typical of our field. It also raises our awareness of the world beyond our cubicle.

Good writers not only write a lot; they also read a lot—inside and outside their field. 

Why and How to Write Better at Work

Writing is such a critical skill for employees in any profession, according to numerous corporate, government, and university websites, notably the Tulane University School for Professional Advancement. I am encouraged to argue this point because so many experienced frontline, managerial, and executive staff have made this point to me.  

We are living in a time that demands good writing skills. Most employees meet coworkers, clients, and vendors through email. In effect, writing has become our primary communication mode to inform, instruct, guide, encourage, or propose to people we have never met in person. Writing is our means of proving we have started or completed an assignment; tracked a project's progress, actions, and decisions; and suggested ways of improving the effectiveness or efficiency of a process, product, or organization. Our work-related documents testify to our clarity, thoughtfulness, responsiveness, and compliance, among other factors. What we write may lead to how our managers value, advance, support, and promote us. 

For at least these reasons, we can improve or reinforce our on-the-job writing by regularly engaging in three activities:

1. Read high-quality, management-approved documents. This practice includes critically reading operating instructions, meeting reviews, incident reports, root-cause analyses, staff appraisals, project reports, internal proposals, white papers, policy announcements, client consultations, and many more messages across your organization. Make those management-approved messages your quality target for  improving your writing skills.

2. Practice professional writing daily. If your writing responsibilities consist only of replying to inquiries, then write some inquiries yourself. If all you write are descriptions of processes and events, then write about how those descriptive documents bring value to your organization. If you compose solely analytical documents for supervisory review, then graduate to proposal writing for managerial review. Find reasons to write.

3. Seek feedback from coworkers whose writing skills you respect. When you ask coworkers for their opinions and suggestions, you honor them as a highly regarded source. Get feedback from at least two sources because you might find conflicting opinions, which is not a bad thing. You will learn a lot about the subjective nature of writing assessment. Look for patterns in your writing. Are your reviewers usually finding the same issues, such as completeness, organization, conciseness, sentence structure, word choice, and punctuation? If yes, focus more on those issues in your future writing assignments. 

The next post will discuss why reading outside one's field is as critical for writing improvement as reading inside it.