Generative AI’s capability to sift through data and produce code and narratives or provide analysis of a situation is well-known. However, its potential role as an assistant — through which one can bounce off ideas or come up with new ideas — is still being uncovered.
Only about 15% of 1,400 managers surveyed by Capgemini use AI in their daily work, report Elisa Farri and Gabriele Rosani (both with Capgemini Invent’s Management Lab) in their latest book, HBR Guide to Generative AI for Managers. Managers are not yet aware of how gen AI can help them lead teams, ideate, and manage.
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When employed as a co-pilot, gen AI becomes an efficient collaborator, handling a wide range of administrative, communication, and operational tasks, according to Farri and Rosani. When used as a co-thinker, gen AI becomes “a thought partner, engaging in conversation, suggesting new perspectives, and challenging assumptions or ideas.”
The following are some key ways gen AI can assist one on the job, both as co-pilot and co-thinker:
1. Enhancing self-management tasks
Personal productivity is a ripe area for AI, both as co-pilot and co-thinker, Farri and Rosani explain. In its co-pilot role, AI can assist with routine tasks such as email or summarizing documents. As co-thinker, though, it opens up new avenues, “to improve the depth of your self-reflection and thinking,” they state. “It can help you review feedback you receive, analyze areas for improvement, and act on them for your growth.”
2. Facilitating persuasive communication
AI as co-thinker can go a long way in preparing speeches or pitches. Start by employing AI in “reflecting on your audience, thinking about the overall story and key messages, structuring the outline and co-creating a first draft that is in line with your personal style and personal touch,” they explain. “Hone your presentation skills by analyzing past speech performances, offering feedback on delivery, tone, and body language, and engaging in simulations and exercises for improvement.”
Gen AI can also serve as an assistant to “prepare for job interviews by reflecting on your strengths, while anticipating objections on your gaps, and assisting in rehearsal.”
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3. Leading teams
AI as co-pilot will handle basic meeting requirements from meeting management to team composition. In addition, AI can help generate ideas to move things forward. For example, you can ask gen AI to “Suggest two to three good questions to ask a colleague expert,” said Farri and Rosani. “Or, ask gen AI to create a 120-minute agenda for a workshop in a table format with the headings of agenda point, title of agenda point, questions to answer, time for agenda point.”
Using AI as a co-pilot, one can “organize and structure teamwork based on a project description and high-level plans.” Gen AI can also draft reports on financial status, resources, effort required, and schedule.
4. Boosting team creativity
When it comes to employing teamwork to develop new ideas and approaches, AI as co-thinker kicks in. It plays a role in “simplifying the process of translating project needs into specific skills and rules, ensuring a well-balanced team composition and identifying the best skills mix to fill those roles.” In addition, gen AI can serve as a co-thinker to “foster idea generation a wide array of ideas and provide different perspectives to break through creative roadblocks.”
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Experiment with both the co-pilot and co-thinker roles of gen AI, Farri and Rosani urge. The co-pilot mode is best for “large-scale experiments where gen AI streamlines tasks such as analyzing data or drafting slides.” The co-thinker mode is “a better fit for specialized, tailored experiments.”
In a combined approach, they recommend, “design one task as a co-pilot that informs a subsequent task as a co-thinker — for example, data analysis informing strategy formulation. Or reverse the order — for example, reflecting on change management strategy and creating tailored communications for a target group.”
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