From Informed Decisions: Conversations and Q&A
with Randall Craig and
Ronja Francoeur

About this session: 

Sharing trends and strategies in artificial intelligence, and offering some ideas on how to better leverage it in your organization.

•  Wiring AI and leadership together

•  Moving from Incremental vs Strategic AI

•  AI and Risk

Topics Discussed (with timestamps)

•  Welcome and intro from Ronja (00:00)

•  Introductory comments from Randall: Trends and strategies for using AI in the workplace (00:57)

•  Leaders do not need to know everything, and they don’t need to be expert in AI either. And yet, leaders feel uncomfortable that they don’t know “enough” about AI, and they don’t know the “hows.” Is this anxiety and apprehension an expression of normal impostor syndrome and insecurities? What is the pep talk we need to feel secure as leaders? How do we manage those feelings? (27:26)

•  One CEO shared that he saw his role as portraying himself as the dumbest person in the room and allowed his team to be the experts who advised him. Is this a good mentality for leaders to adopt with AI and allow more knowledgeable people to lead? Do you suggest this? (31:57)

•  What happens when your leaders or middle managers are resistant to adopting AI? (35:16)

•  People like to point to AI hallucinations (i.e., the errors it makes), and they use this to say how human contribution trumps AI output. Yet, we know that humans make mistakes, too. Why are we hyperconcerned about AI errors when the data tells us AI can make less errors than humans? (37:31)

•  Given that association management firms handle data for many separate client organizations, how should AI tools be used without violating confidentiality or client data ownership when using LLM platforms like ChatGPT or Copilot? (41:33)

•  It was speculated that in the age of AI, emotional intelligence would be highly valued in the workplace. Do you think that is still true? We see AI calibrating and improving at a faster rate than anyone expected? And what will be the human-only skills that will be valuable in the workplace? (45:45)

•  What are some best practices for AI note-taking and recording? Permission, sharing parameters, filing, and such? (50:36)

•  Do you think usage, or overreliance on, AI will affect our critical thinking skills? Is AI rotting our brains? (54:22)

•  You can watch hours and hours of content offering examples of how to use AI to ‘hack’ your life and your work, and you will find endless examples of workflow shortcuts, but you will not find any examples of how individuals—and in our case leaders—can use it for self-improvement or self-growth. Why do you think these examples of how AI might be used to create greater self-awareness and better working relationships are not readily available? (59:10)

•  Help us wrap our arms around AI’s capabilities. Many leaders now are older—they are less likely to be the early adopters and experimenters—and many still use ChatGPT and the link as a search engine. What will it take for people to understand that the sky is the limit when it comes to how they can use AI? (1:00:40)

• The gap between technical employees and non-technical employees is really shrinking. Non-technical employees can now ask generative AI how to do things or ask it to do technical tasks for them. How will this impact the workplace? (1:01:43)