How ChatGPT Can Make You a Better Board Member (and Leader)
In our professional lives, we are all regularly faced with topics that we are not experts in or even understand. Heck, that’s one the reasons I started PrepOverCoffee in the first place…to help leaders in a variety of roles access easy to consume content for various business situations that might impact them.
The need for understanding is typically most urgent when we are (1) making a decision, (2) identifying an opportunity, or (3) preparing for an interview in a new industry, for a new role leveraging our transferable skillsets, or even for that coveted board seat. In these situations, you need to quickly grasp a number of key concepts outside of your specific expertise. If you’ve ever done a google search, the results can be overwhelming and are not presented in a way to quickly organize your thoughts.
This is where ChatGPT comes in, though this use is often overshadowed by the fear of “it’s coming for my job” to concerns in the educational setting about cheating.
I have a more measured view of ChatGPT, and I am a writing enthusiast and a professor. I do not think ChatGPT is going to replace me in either area.1
I also am old enough to remember how the “end was near” in the 1970s and 80s when scientific calculators hit the mainstream. Even then, with all the concern about cheating, the real result of scientific calculators was that they changed how teachers taught math, with less focus on the “correct answer” and more focus on showing how you got to that answer. This “show your work” approach actually helped students understand the functions of math better than ever before. And, I think ChatGPT is simply the latest in a long line of innovations that is scary because it forces us to change, but once the dust settles, we’ll be better for it.
As we explore using ChatGPT to enhance your skills in a professional setting, who better than Duran Duran, who’ve weathered and persevered through all of the change and innovations of the last fifty years (and recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees), to act as our lyrical tour guides in sorting things out?
“Too much information” - ChatGPT provides the context that Google lacks.
When a topic is novel to you, I view ChatGPT as just the first research step in a multi-pronged approach to gain true understanding, enabling you to intelligently discuss a topic in a meeting or interview. For example, Google is terrific for finding a vast amount of information on any subject. Depending on how well you use and leverage the advanced search operators2 and how much knowledge you already have about a subject to create better quality searches, Google can be very “on point.” But what if the subject is new to you and you haven’t figured out how to think about it conceptually?
What Google tends to lack is context, especially when you are trying to organize your initial thoughts on a topic efficiently to determine the areas you want to dig deeper into. Or when time is severely limited (such as you’ve been asked to join a call in 10 minutes) a shorter summary that allows you to understand foundational concepts while touching on areas you want to focus more on is a great way to start.
Here, I’ll walk through a few examples of how ChatGPT can enhance your skills as a board member. Note, the illustrations are for example only - but if you’d like to read them in detail, you can make it easier on your eyes by clicking each to expand.
Example 1: Using technology to better understand the rules and laws that apply to you as a board member.
For example, directors (especially new directors) tend to ask a lot of questions about the laws and rules that apply to their role on the board and board service.
Now, let’s assume this individual knew there were some “rules” that apply, but it’s their first board role and the company does not have a lot of onboarding yet. The basic answer above gives them some context, and also some additional information about fiduciary duties. Let’s take the term “fiduciary duty” a step further, and compare the results from Google, and the results from ChatGPT:
Note, Google just provides some links, but you are going to spend time reading and digesting the information presented and mentally sorting out what might be helpful. Conversely, ChatGPT offers a great overview, and if requested, can provide references (more on the“work in progress” ChatGPT reference feature later).
Taking it a step further, it’s usually helpful in understanding a concept to include some examples. Thus, a follow up “chat” might include the question, “can you offer some examples of how directors might violate their fiduciary duties?”
Again, Google and ChatGPT both provide good information, but when you are trying to formulate a context for understanding, I think ChatGPT is better.
Example #2: Using ChatGPT to strengthen your understanding and ability to analyze information provided to the board, such as financial information.
Example #3: Or even using ChatGPT to help you spot trouble on the horizon in data that isn’t necessarily in your wheelhouse.
Example #4: Using ChatGPT to understand opportunities to expand the value of a board.
Some of my clients are smaller companies whose boards are constantly evolving. As they mature, a question that may come up is whether the board needs certain committees and what those committees might do.
As you can imagine, the availability of information presented with basic context is valuable not only in the boardroom, but in any business setting and in virtually any role.
“I’m on the hunt” - Using ChatGPT to understand the industry and enhance your depth.
Whether you are years into a career in a certain industry, or embarking on a new area, understanding the key issues for the industry and the competitors for your business are critical.
For example, ChatGPT can give quick insights related to competitors.
And ChatGPT would allow you to formulate questions related to things like “how is the company differentiating from these competing organizations?”
Is the answer perfect? No. For example, as an old insurance gal, I would have liked to to see something about underwriting and a bit more about claims as these are the keys to profitability in insurance. But, for a quick overview, it gives a lot of great insights, a solid basic understanding of the issues and an ability to have a conversation about them.
And, if I pulled some keywords and concepts out of the overview and expanded my research, I could quickly learn more and continue to build on the basic foundational context and understanding of key issues.
“You know just what it takes and where to go” - Leveraging ChatGPT for strategic thinking (and preparing for board interviews).
One of the things you can do with ChatGPT that is significantly more difficult with Google is to tie two concepts together. For example, you know that blockchain might provide a lot of opportunities for the business you are serving in, but you aren’t sure where the best places to leverage the technology. Chat GPT can help. In the board context, this is also a great tool to develop questions for management.
“Is there something I should know?” - Using ChatGPT for issue spotting, training, and other considerations in complex matters.
One of the most difficult things in a business setting is anticipating potential issues and obstacles surrounding a new idea or pursuit. This anticipation, aka issue spotting, is another great way that ChatGPT differentiates itself from more traditional search engines.
For example, I often get asked about the risks and issues surrounding accepting new investment money from outsiders. Again, any technology tool, including ChatGPT, is not replacing a lawyer, accountant, or other advisor on the specific considerations and goals for a particular business. Where it does add value is that it can help in understanding some of the risks that come with third party funding, and allows founders to start thinking about how they would like to position themselves to be ready when the investors come knocking.
Even in the context of board onboarding, which as you know is near and dear to my heart, ChatGPT can help you develop a pretty good initial outline.
We are “all looking for new place to drive” - Using ChatGPT to identify competitive opportunities and trends in the industry.
As boards and leaders consider where their strategic plans should lead the company next, ChatGPT can offer a springboard for strategic conversations related to untapped opportunities. Or, in the case of a board interview, some great topics to bring up during the often lengthy interview process.
“I need a reason…too much learning got to show…” - The trouble with references.
One of the features that ChatGPT hasn’t fully developed yet, but that offers tremendous value, is references. Note in the examples above I request that ChatGPT provide references. In the 15ish questions I asked while writing this article, the vast majority of reference “links” were broken. When I googled the source and title, the articles themselves, or something very close, usually appeared. So ChatGPT has some room for improvement, and like any technology research or even a basic internet search, users need to validate the information through cross-references and information from credible sources.
“Buy time, don’t lose it” - Prep fast to create more time to ruminate for deeper understanding.
As our friends at Origami Day know, time is the most precious resource. Thus, the most critical aspect of using technology to improve your understanding of various business concepts is saving time. Time that you can spend enhancing communications, improving service, investing in your corporate culture, finding ways to flush bias out of your decision-making, solving problems that you now have the context to understand, or just relaxing and listening to Duran Duran to give your hard-working brain a rest.
ChatGPT is yet another advancement in making information available to the masses in an equitable fashion, limited only by a user’s ability to ask a relevant question. My hope is that it will continue to be free, but I’ve been around long enough to know that with everything that is good (and popular), fees will likely follow. In the case of Twitter, fees even follow when the product isn’t that good.
So whether you “won’t cry for yesterday” and embrace the opportunities,
or stay “lonely in your nightmare” of impending robot invasions,
AI technologies are here to stay. Why am I not worried about ChatGPT, or whatever comes next, coming for my job or yours? It’s because I believe that it’s not what you know, but how you apply it that matters. These technologies simply allow us to understand and analyze our world more effectively, ultimately enabling us to personalize the new knowledge with our own life experience to make connections and innovate as only humans can….well humans, and of course, furkids.
Want to see how ChatGPT would write this article? Click here. It is clear that the “machine” has not spent a lifetime obsessing over the lyrics of Simon, John, Andy, Nick and Roger. It also likely never spent hours debating which member of Duran Duran it would like to marry (like I did for the majority of my fifth through ninth grade school years).
In addition, in my “informal” surveys of students and clients, very few people even know that search operators make their searches better, let alone use them.
“...how you apply it that matters.” So true!