By Dr. David Rock
Right now, around 1% of managers and leaders in organizations get high quality coaching each year. We believe that number should be 100%, and that AI can get us there.
Yet, for this to become a reality, an AI coach can’t just be there to help you set goals or ask Socratic questions. It needs to be a highly sophisticated system that truly understands humans and human learning, and interacts with people in ways that make them better leaders.
To be clear – this is not the path that the big GenAI providers are on, where the race is on to be the tool that provides answers as fast as possible. For some of us, this feels reminiscent of the search wars, when Google competed with firms that few young people have heard of, including AltaVista, Lycos, Excite, infoseek and Hotbot. Google won that war by shaving seconds and then milliseconds off of search times. When you’re hungry, a couple fewer seconds for your AI to find you the tastiest thin crust pizza within a 10-minute drive might be compelling, and there’s definitely a role for an AI that focuses on speed in answering everyday or technical questions. However, when it comes to helping managers and leaders be more effective at understanding, motivating and developing their teams, simply giving these folks a quick answer might not do the trick.
At the NeuroLeadership Institute, we believe that the best AI tools for managers and leaders will actually be like great leaders themselves. Not just providing answers all the time, but helping people think better for themselves. Both role modelling great leadership, and helping people get smarter at the same time.
Think of this as a whole different type of AI. An AI built on a different set of DNA. Still having access to the world’s knowledge, but interfacing with humans in a whole different way. One that solves not for speed, but for the learning and growth of the recipient. Solving not for volume of information, but for how much a person truly “gets” an idea, and is motivated to act on it. This is an AI that truly understands how humans learn and grow, that can read the mental state of people in real time and know just how to support them in that moment.
How should this kind of AI be measured? Not by the speed with which it provides an answer. But by its success rate at conversations that make people better managers and leaders.
Fortunately, we’ve been working on this idea for 26 years. Ready to learn more? Reach out and book a demo of our AI named NILES, and see it in action for yourself. –> Book a Demo Here
