Simin Cai is the President and CEO at Go!Foton.
Leaders must balance intuition and reason to guide conversations—an art that’s increasingly shaped by the presence of AI in our lives.
But no, this is not simply another AI article. Instead, it’s all about us. I see most of the conversations around the development of artificial intelligence as going in one direction only: How we can train AI models to catalog and parse human knowledge. But what if AI is also training its users?
I am not suggesting anything nefarious. Rather, in the act of helping AI systems understand human communication, I see us making the implicit patterns of our social intelligence explicit. This may have unintended positive consequences for how business leaders communicate since it’s often our assumptions that get us into trouble.
What AI Teaches Us About Communication
I enjoy thinking systematically using a philosophical framework. As the CEO of a photonics company, I like to look through multiple lenses when examining communication in the workplace and I am especially alert to the unseen patterns we take for granted.
For example, how many times have you had to re-prompt ChatGPT with what seems frustratingly obvious? What you are actually doing is breaking down intuitive processes into systematic components. In this new world, we have had to explain how to walk.
In the same way, I believe if we as leaders become more attuned to the hidden elements that shape our conversations, we can realize that our interactions are much more than the words we choose. Here is what I have learned from working with AI, and how we can use these insights to prevent misunderstandings and improve communication.
Making The Invisible Visible
In his book, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, Charles Duhigg identifies three types of conversations: Practical conversations about issues, emotional conversations about feelings and social conversations about identity. As a reader thinking systematically, I have seen how these elements also exist in each conversation and how the focus on an issue can get derailed by the emotions it ignites. Addressing those feelings then becomes a new issue that takes center stage over the concern of the original issue.
The pattern identified by Duhigg appears everywhere once you start looking. Classical rhetoric identified it through logos (reason), pathos (emotion) and ethos (credibility). Psychology sees it in the idea of transference, where team members unconsciously react (reason and emotion) to leaders as if they are parental figures (identity). If all that sounds complicated, well, it is and it isn’t. We process these three factors automatically and immediately all the time—it is how we make sense of life itself. Yet when broken down, the interplay is nuanced and fascinating.
Think about meeting with a team member about a drop in performance. Before raising the issue, I need to judge whether it is worth the risk. Will managing their emotional response become a bigger problem than the original concern? It may only be worth proceeding if I already know how to drive the focus back on course should this happen. It may require acknowledging their vulnerability and creating a safe space for them to express their concerns first.
Based on this, I suggest leaders do a communications audit on their awareness of the three factors of issue, feeling and identity, in whichever form makes the most sense. Constantly bringing them to mind may not only surface the unconscious biases we all have, but bring a new level of transparency to how we engage with employees, management and other executives.
Auditing Communication Patterns
Daniel Kahneman was the first psychologist to win the Nobel Prize for economics, so he knows a few things about cross-training the mind to bridge disciplines. What he calls “System 1” thinking is fast and intuitive and serves us well in casual interactions.
But leadership communication also requires engaging “System 2” thinking: The slower, more deliberate thinking that allows us to monitor issue, feeling and identity. When leaders proactively practice deliberate thinking in System 2, the hope is that it can close the gap to System 1 thinking. While these systems remain distinct, intuition and reason can become more mutually informing over time.
In a communication audit, this means getting honest about where we default to System 1 when System 2 is needed—and vice versa. If you tend to focus solely on issues, practice monitoring emotional cues. If you are highly attuned to feelings but avoid difficult topics, develop protocols for addressing problems directly. I have found even simple structures like setting clear agendas for one-on-ones and following up important conversations with written summaries will help.
Just as AI development forces us to make implicit patterns explicit, regularly review important meetings for hidden dynamics among everyone: Which elements tend to get overlooked? When do misunderstandings typically occur? Where do emotions tend to overtake issues?
This systematic approach can turn communication from an unconscious process into a leadership skill that can be developed and refined over time.
From Awareness To Action
I believe that just as AI development has forced some of us to understand the communication patterns we take for granted, leaders who learn to read these patterns create more resilient and adaptable teams. High-stakes environments are a kind of testing ground for this idea.
Research on high-reliability organizations (HROs) like aircraft carriers and emergency departments shows that systematic awareness doesn’t make communication more rigid or mechanical—instead, it makes it more adaptable. The work of American psychologist Karl Weick has also revealed that staying sensitive to context in environments with no room for error requires mindfulness instead of being dulled by routine.
The ultimate goal of taking a systematic approach to communication is to make our conversations more intentional, not more mechanical. AI may not be our primary focus here, but taking an objective lens can help ensure our conversations count while never losing the richness implicit in human interaction.
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Source: Originally posted on Forbes