Stop Asking AI for the Answer
Hi Leaders,
When you open an AI tool with a problem, what is your first instinct?
Do you ask, “What should I do?”
It is an understandable question. AI will happily give you an answer. Usually a clear, confident, well-organized one.
But there is a risk hiding inside that convenience.
You may get a better answer without becoming a better thinker.
Simplifying Perspectives
One of the most useful shifts we can make with AI is to stop treating it like the expert in the room.
Instead, treat it like a thinking partner.
Bring your own reasoning first.
What do you think is happening?
What approach would you take?
What assumptions are you making?
Then ask AI to challenge you.
Where does my reasoning fall apart?
What am I overlooking?
What is the strongest argument against my position?
That changes the interaction.
Instead of outsourcing the thinking, you strengthen it.
And this may require some unlearning.
Many of us built our careers in environments where expertise meant knowing the answer. Good work took time. The experienced person was the person others went to for direction.
AI disrupts some of those assumptions.
The challenge is not simply learning how to prompt it.
It is learning when not to accept the answer it gives you.
Getting Started
Try this with one question this week.
Before asking AI for an answer, give yourself five minutes.
Write down what you think first. Do not polish it. Just reason through the problem.
Then give that thinking to AI and ask:
“Take my argument apart. What am I missing?”
When it responds, do one more thing.
Choose one assumption in the answer and test it.
You do not need to question everything AI produces.
You do need to keep the habit of questioning alive.
Because fluency is not the same thing as accuracy, and a confident answer is not necessarily a considered one.
The opportunity with AI is bigger than getting answers faster.
It is having a thinking partner that can challenge us whenever we are willing to be challenged.
And that requires a different question.
Not: What should I do?
But: What am I not seeing?
Learning starts with unlearning.
Happy unlearning!
Katy Caroan
Empowering Leaders to Stay in Demand
