Can ChatGPT Make You A More Effective Manager?

Read Time: 4 minutes 14 seconds

Artificial Intelligence isn’t coming. It’s here.

Just six months ago, OpenAi launched ChaptGPT to the public. And what started with a flurry has quickly cascaded into a full blizzard.

According to Zain Kahn, editor of the AI Newsletter Superhuman, more than 1,000 AI tools were released in April alone.

And just like me, I bet you’re wondering how to ski this new slope safely despite the avalanche danger. I mean, a new tool every hour is a lot to keep up with.

Here’s the playbook I’m running:

1. Ask smart people for help. Well-intentioned guides are extremely valuable in times of dislocation. A number of them are pitching in on today’s edition.

2. Run experiments. Nothing accelerates learning like action. We’re using AI to help with writing, meeting transcription, marketing, and even coaching in our business (more to come on this).

3. Act decisively. When experiments bear fruit, we’re going to smash the accelerator. Why? I suspect that the gains will be greatest for those that move quickly, and the advantages will be extremely short-lived.

For today, let's get started with the help of some experts.

A Reasoning Engine

First, I think it’s important to put these tools in the right context.

According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, "The right way to think of the models that we create is a reasoning engine, not a fact database. They can also act as a fact database, but that's not really what's special about them – what we want them to do is something closer to the ability to reason, not to memorize."

This distinction was unlocking for me. While we can get some lift from using them as super search engines, the real power comes from working with them like assistants or sparring partners. Except these assistants never tire and have been trained on nearly all written knowledge through 2021.

A word of caution: Because it assists you through reason and not exclusively facts, it can lie to you. So before you take an output at face value, it might well be worth double-checking depending on your use.

Now let’s get started.

3 Levels of Prompts

For today, I’d like to show you a few ways to get an immediate ROI from using ChatGPT. If there’s interest, we can delve even deeper into future issues or explore other AI productivity tools.

Basic Prompts

I found the most useful basic prompts help accelerate learning. Where Google makes the most likely information available, ChatGPT provides the synthesis.

That’s what you’ll get with basic prompts.

For example, every addition of Superhuman includes a sample prompt to help you experiment with ChatGPT.

I’ve modified a couple to showcase how they can be used for management.

One additional tip. Don’t be afraid to regenerate a response, even without adjusting the prompt. The variations can be pretty wild, and sometimes, the second time is the charm.

Finally, Zain shared a few more prompts yesterday that are simple in design but powerful in their results.

Intermediate Prompts

Perhaps the most leveraging insight to move from using ChaptGPT as a super search engine to a research assistant is realizing you can ask ChatGPT how to use ChatGPT.

While this might seem meta, you’ll quickly see that these “trees” create huge cascades of value. Aadit Sheth, also known as “Mr. Prompts,” shared this in a recent newsletter. He’s going to help us out with taking our prompts up a level of sophistication.