Grappling with the Gray #131: Giving away the keys to the kingdom?

Why are we so enthusiastically embracing our own dumbness?

That's the question that drives the conversation when Deb Coviello, Stewart Wiggins, and K Kimi Hirotsu Ziemski join the ethics panel for another episode of Grappling with the Gray.

Here is our topic:

You look over the report written by a team of your employees and smile inwardly. It’s professionally formatted, with table of contents, meaningful-sounding headlines, and compelling bullet points.

But as you begin reading through it, your internal smile fades. You quickly recognize it was AI generated, with no human contribution whatsoever. As polished as it looks on the surface, when "you dig deeper,” as one workplace expert put it, “it lacks real substance and meaning, and may not make any sense at all."

Now you need to expend time and effort calling in the team, explaining why their work is unsatisfactory, and give them clearer guidelines for getting the job done… or simply do it yourself.

There’s a new word to describe this: Workslop, defined by HBR as AI generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.

Of 1,150 U.S.-based full-time employees across industries, 40% report have received workslop in the last month. HBR estimates for an organization of 10,000 workers, this results in over $9 million per year in lost productivity.

Why is this happening? Is it inevitable that every new tool accelerates our collective laziness and irresponsibility, or is something else going on? And what can we do about it?

Meet the panel:

Deb Coviello, aka the Drop in CEO, is an author, speaker, podcast host, and silver medalist curler who coaches C-Suite leaders of today and tomorrow to navigate challenges with confidence.

Stewart Wiggins joins us from Paris.  He is Chief Advisor at Induna Advisors, working to significantly increase company revenue by developing positive client reports and establishing solid business relationships.

Kimi Hirotsu Ziemski is Founder of KSP Partnership, providing project management and project leadership courses and workshops to improve team dynamics and communications.

#ethics 

#leadership 

#integrity 

#accountability 

#culture