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Can AI Write Your Purpose and Values?
Episode 2923rd August 2023 • Reimagining Work From Within • Within People
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Explore the intersection of generative AI and organizational culture in our latest episode. Within People partner Emily Shelton and co-founder Laurie Bennett delve into ChatGPT's potential to shape business purpose, vision, and values. Sharing their AI experimentation, they discuss the delicate balance between the convenience of AI and the human essence that drives authentic culture creation.

Listen now to uncover whether AI can truly capture the depth and passion that human experiences bring to building purpose-driven organizations.

To learn more about the work we do go to withinpeople.com

Get the Guide to Bringing Values to Life and The Guide to Finding Purpose.


Transcripts

Emily Shelton:

Hello, and welcome to re imagining work from within.

Emily Shelton:

My name's Emily Shelton, and today I'm joined by our co founder, Laurie Bennett.

Emily Shelton:

We will be talking about generative AI, specifically, chat GPT, and

Emily Shelton:

whether or not it can or should write your purpose, vision, and values.

Emily Shelton:

It's a doozy of a topic, and we're excited to have you joining us.

Emily Shelton:

How are you feeling, Laurie?

Laurie Bennett:

I'm feeling good.

Laurie Bennett:

It's great to have you on our side of the microphone for a change.

Laurie Bennett:

Emily's usually the person behind the scenes in the room with the headphones

Laurie Bennett:

on, making sure we all sound great.

Laurie Bennett:

But here you are.

Laurie Bennett:

On our team this time,

Emily Shelton:

yes establishing a new level of empathy for our guests today.

Emily Shelton:

And the discomfort that comes with stepping behind the mic is very real.

Emily Shelton:

But I'm really excited.

Emily Shelton:

I'm really excited to work, have worked on this episode and to be on the podcast.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, it's the one thing chat GPT can't do for us yet is

Laurie Bennett:

record podcast episodes, unfortunately, but maybe soon, hopefully not.

Laurie Bennett:

Well, that's kind of the theme, isn't it?

Laurie Bennett:

Of our conversation, which was like, are we, are we about to be.

Laurie Bennett:

Made irrelevant by the bots.

Laurie Bennett:

Are they coming for our job?

Laurie Bennett:

If 30% of all jobs are going to be automated in some way by 2030, so

Laurie Bennett:

says McKinsey, how are we going to do in the face of that as folks who

Laurie Bennett:

like to help people articulate their culture and can the mystical, wondrous,

Laurie Bennett:

scary genius that is generative AI.

Laurie Bennett:

Do what we do.

Emily Shelton:

Mystical and wondrous is definitely something that I was feeling

Emily Shelton:

in my initial workings with ChatGPT.

Emily Shelton:

Like, diving in, you hear all of these people talking about it, but they're

Emily Shelton:

talking about it in so many different ways that it's almost a little intimidating.

Emily Shelton:

It's like, what is this thing?

Emily Shelton:

And is it gonna come and take my job?

Emily Shelton:

Can it do that?

Emily Shelton:

We're gonna find out.

Emily Shelton:

Heh heh heh.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, I had the same feeling with it, like, I think it's

Laurie Bennett:

worth saying that neither you nor I are in any way experts on the world of AI.

Laurie Bennett:

We are some lay folk who have had a play with it in the context that

Laurie Bennett:

we're going to talk about today.

Laurie Bennett:

And I, but I think there's something amazing that comes from that.

Laurie Bennett:

I think, I don't know about you, but.

Laurie Bennett:

I sort of found myself beginning to kind of talk to the, to the bot as if it was

Laurie Bennett:

like an, I needed to give it instructions, but after a while I was saying thank

Laurie Bennett:

you for the answers it gave me.

Laurie Bennett:

I was being polite and how I asked my questions as if somehow behind

Laurie Bennett:

the scenes, there was a being of some kind that needed my humanity.

Laurie Bennett:

It's just, it's so weirdly kind of convincing.

Laurie Bennett:

That it's talking to you.

Laurie Bennett:

Oh, absolutely.

Laurie Bennett:

That you

Emily Shelton:

feel like you gotta talk nice back.

Emily Shelton:

It praises you.

Emily Shelton:

It tells you congratulations on your successful role.

Emily Shelton:

And so you do feel like you have to reciprocate a little bit.

Emily Shelton:

If it's being so polite, I'm gonna be kind back.

Emily Shelton:

But there's also that little, like, thought in the back

Emily Shelton:

of my head of like, Wow.

Emily Shelton:

If robots ever take over, I'm not going to be the one that was mean to them.

Emily Shelton:

So I'm going to continue to be very polite to our generative AI units personally.

Laurie Bennett:

I like that.

Laurie Bennett:

Hedging, hedging your bets just in case.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah.

Laurie Bennett:

. . We had a play, right?

Laurie Bennett:

We decided what, what can it do?

Laurie Bennett:

You know, it's generative AI is popping up in so many different places right

Laurie Bennett:

now, not just in the world of business and the world of kind of the human side

Laurie Bennett:

of business and HR, where we've seen it writing policies, writing job ads

Laurie Bennett:

responding job ads in some cases But kind of how far can we take this because in

Laurie Bennett:

my playing with it up until now, kind of getting it to synthesize information for

Laurie Bennett:

me and turn that into something that's not just a, a kind of summary of something

Laurie Bennett:

that I'm interested in, but actually write something interesting about it.

Laurie Bennett:

It's, it feels like it's got a real power in that space.

Laurie Bennett:

And it just.

Laurie Bennett:

Got interesting one day to think about, hey, we spend a lot of time working

Laurie Bennett:

with leaders and businesses around the world, helping them articulate the

Laurie Bennett:

foundations of their culture, what we call a purpose framework, this kind

Laurie Bennett:

of holy trinity of purpose, values, and vision, these core statements

Laurie Bennett:

that sit at the heart of a culture and really kind of underpin the DNA of a

Laurie Bennett:

business which are notoriously Tricky.

Laurie Bennett:

To write and to come to, and for lots of different reasons, but the question we

Laurie Bennett:

asked ourselves was, well, how would a bot do if given the task of doing that?

Laurie Bennett:

So we, what did we do?

Laurie Bennett:

We, we dreamt up some businesses and we used our own.

Laurie Bennett:

And we kind of fed the bot some information about ourselves and then

Laurie Bennett:

set it loose to see what it could do.

Emily Shelton:

We came up with a few different scenarios and we really

Emily Shelton:

took the time and space to play with this tool and see how it works best,

Emily Shelton:

when it works best, what language to use to get it to work best.

Emily Shelton:

And yeah, the results were very interesting.

Emily Shelton:

We were able to get some pretty tangible.

Emily Shelton:

Purpose statements pretty usable, credible purpose statements

Emily Shelton:

in a matter of a few minutes.

Emily Shelton:

So yeah, do we want to, do we want to dig into that a little bit, Laurie?

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, I mean, let's talk a bit about , , what did we find in

Laurie Bennett:

that, these are hypothetical situations in most parts some of them we sort

Laurie Bennett:

of tried to align a little bit like some of the clients we've worked on

Laurie Bennett:

and using ourselves as well as a, as a guinea pig in the process, but give me

Laurie Bennett:

a sense of kind of what it was like.

Laurie Bennett:

Asking a robot to come up with this instead of what we're more familiar

Laurie Bennett:

with, of kind of a room of people.

Emily Shelton:

So there were definitely times where I felt like me and the

Emily Shelton:

robot, we got caught in a loop.

Emily Shelton:

. Interestingly, there were times where I was starting to get a little frustrated

Emily Shelton:

and had to kind of pull out of what I was doing and reassess the way that

Emily Shelton:

I was communicating with this tool.

Emily Shelton:

We'll speak to that a little bit more.

Emily Shelton:

But my initial response was, holy cow, this is wild.

Emily Shelton:

So the very first thing that I did without giving it any real

Emily Shelton:

information was So I had said, I am a interdisciplinary consulting

Emily Shelton:

firm who needs a purpose statement.

Emily Shelton:

Give me a purpose statement and that's all the information that I gave it

Emily Shelton:

and it generated something very concise and like fairly usable.

Emily Shelton:

I mean, if not generic purpose statement and that was with very little prompting.

Emily Shelton:

So to me, yeah, yeah, that was that that blew me away.

Laurie Bennett:

And it does that, right?

Laurie Bennett:

And my understanding is it does that by kind of looking out

Laurie Bennett:

there into its mega brain of the internet and saying, okay, right.

Laurie Bennett:

What are all the purpose statements that are out there?

Laurie Bennett:

How are people talking about this?

Laurie Bennett:

And what should a purpose sound like in this space?

Laurie Bennett:

And, but kind of what it gave us was something pretty meaty, right?

Laurie Bennett:

It was kind of a few paragraphs of things talking about a

Laurie Bennett:

whole bunch of stuff, which.

Laurie Bennett:

Doesn't exactly subscribe to the within way of framing a purpose.

Laurie Bennett:

So we kind of used a few more prompts.

Laurie Bennett:

After that, didn't we, to kind of get it to shorten itself up and

Laurie Bennett:

get itself into the right tone.

Laurie Bennett:

What was the journey that you went on kind of with your bot

Emily Shelton:

so I had said at the start, I work for a multidisciplinary

Emily Shelton:

team of growth strategists and coaches who work alongside leaders, helping

Emily Shelton:

organizations grow with intention.

Emily Shelton:

As an aligned team, can you help us write a purpose statement?

Emily Shelton:

And what it gave back was pretty meaty.

Emily Shelton:

At Business Name, our purpose is to empower organizations to achieve

Emily Shelton:

intentional growth and foster unity through our multidisciplinary team

Emily Shelton:

of growth strategists and coaches.

Emily Shelton:

We partner with leaders to create a shared vision, align teams,

Emily Shelton:

and unleash their potential.

Emily Shelton:

By providing tailored strategies and fostering a collaborative environment, we

Emily Shelton:

enable organizations to thrive, driving sustainable success and positive impact

Emily Shelton:

in an ever evolving business landscape.

Emily Shelton:

So my next steer or prompt for chat GPT at this point was that I would

Emily Shelton:

like for our statement to be concise and 10 words or less specifically.

Emily Shelton:

So from there, it took us to Guiding growth, uniting teams,

Emily Shelton:

empowering organizations to achieve extraordinary results.

Emily Shelton:

I gave it one more prompt.

Emily Shelton:

I said, we have a fairly informal culture.

Emily Shelton:

Can you update the statement accordingly?

Emily Shelton:

And from there it took us to fueling growth, uniting teams, achieving

Emily Shelton:

extraordinary results together.

Emily Shelton:

Pretty on point.

Emily Shelton:

Beautiful.

Laurie Bennett:

Pretty beautiful.

Laurie Bennett:

Purpose people.

Laurie Bennett:

You could see that on the About Us page of interdisciplinary

Laurie Bennett:

consulting firm, couldn't you?

Laurie Bennett:

Absolutely.

Laurie Bennett:

And you'd think, all right, I understand what they're, what they're about.

Emily Shelton:

But something I wanted to note was that if I, if we didn't know

Emily Shelton:

going into this conversation with chat GPT, what we wanted the result to be.

Emily Shelton:

I think that there would have been a lot more back and forth to try to

Emily Shelton:

figure out how to get to that statement.

Emily Shelton:

So luckily, we're professional purpose statement creators, and we knew kind of

Emily Shelton:

what to do or where we wanted to steer it.

Emily Shelton:

But without that prior knowledge, I think we could have gotten

Emily Shelton:

lost a little more easily.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, I think you're right.

Laurie Bennett:

We've got a pretty specific formula for what a purpose statement needs to look

Laurie Bennett:

like and how a set of values , should work, what a vision statement should do.

Laurie Bennett:

But I think understanding those things helped us prompt and query the bots

Laurie Bennett:

in a way that really got us somewhere really believable really quickly.

Laurie Bennett:

And I think, you know, the The playing that I was doing in that space was,

Laurie Bennett:

first of all, kind of plugging in within and, you know, we have a purpose

Laurie Bennett:

statement, a set of values and a vision statement right now, of course, as we.

Laurie Bennett:

But it was sort of watching the way the bot interpreted what I fed into

Laurie Bennett:

it and played back some really kind of pithy statements that sounded

Laurie Bennett:

pretty fun, really, and kind of had me thinking, okay, this actually kind

Laurie Bennett:

of works, you know, our, our purpose that it gave us after a couple of, Of

Laurie Bennett:

instructions only from me was the idea of cultivating purpose led cultures

Laurie Bennett:

for inclusive authentic leadership and growth which is super aligned to what

Laurie Bennett:

we're doing and when I asked for it to Relax the language a little bit.

Laurie Bennett:

It said fueling purpose growth and authentic leadership in kick ass cultures

Laurie Bennett:

It really likes the word kickass.

Laurie Bennett:

Sorry.

Emily Shelton:

It does.

Emily Shelton:

It really likes the word kickass.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah.

Laurie Bennett:

Continue.

Laurie Bennett:

I'm glad it did for you as well.

Laurie Bennett:

It's not just learning that my slightly weird way of saying things

Laurie Bennett:

is the way that things should be said.

Laurie Bennett:

So, you know, I think the What was interesting about it was that with so

Laurie Bennett:

little input and so little time, it was spitting out phrases for things

Laurie Bennett:

that were extremely compelling.

Laurie Bennett:

The kind of thing you've seen on websites of companies that have

Laurie Bennett:

invested thousands of dollars and thousands of hours sometimes in, Coming

Laurie Bennett:

up with these kinds of statements.

Laurie Bennett:

And in some cases, I think the stuff that, that the bot came up with

Laurie Bennett:

quickly actually sort of scanned a little better and sounded a little

Laurie Bennett:

better, even than purpose statements that I've seen out in the world.

Laurie Bennett:

Definitely.

Laurie Bennett:

Which really leads us to ask, look, is this a.

Laurie Bennett:

A viable way to start working on these elements of your culture in your company.

Laurie Bennett:

Kind of think of the time saving there would be for your executive.

Laurie Bennett:

Think of, oh my gosh, of what you could spare yourself of these convoluted,

Laurie Bennett:

sometimes difficult, challenging, soul searching conversations that happen inside

Laurie Bennett:

teams to, to yield this kind of statement.

Laurie Bennett:

In the human process that we tend to run,

Emily Shelton:

right?

Emily Shelton:

No, I mean, absolutely.

Emily Shelton:

Even thinking about the way that this is able to sift through information.

Emily Shelton:

If you were able to do some sort of large team survey and then have chat

Emily Shelton:

GPT sift through your data, what would it be able to pull out for you?

Emily Shelton:

I think, I think it could be a really helpful and useful support tool, but.

Emily Shelton:

We're missing one main ingredient or one big piece and that's the people and the

Emily Shelton:

people's stories and the life experience that an individual brings to the table.

Emily Shelton:

Did you feel that in, in what you were getting back from Chat GPT?

Laurie Bennett:

You can't help but know that, right?

Laurie Bennett:

And as you know, we've been doing this work for a decade and if you asked me

Laurie Bennett:

what the most important ingredient.

Laurie Bennett:

in this recipe ought to be?

Laurie Bennett:

The answer would be people.

Laurie Bennett:

And the conversation and the belief system and the motivation and inspiration

Laurie Bennett:

and passion and humanity that comes from their experiences and what they

Laurie Bennett:

want to grow in their organization, you know, that's the, that's the stuff

Laurie Bennett:

that makes the words more than words.

Laurie Bennett:

And I couldn't help feeling as we were going through the process with

Laurie Bennett:

the bot that the words sounded great.

Laurie Bennett:

They, they, it was something that was clearly missing from behind them, which

Laurie Bennett:

was, I didn't have any sense of Where those words were coming from, what

Laurie Bennett:

they really meant to people, you know, ordinarily when we go through a process

Laurie Bennett:

of working on a purpose statement or a set of values, there's people's

Laurie Bennett:

voices and emotions and, and cares and hates that sit in those words for

Laurie Bennett:

you by the time you get to that point.

Laurie Bennett:

And it felt a little empty.

Emily Shelton:

Yeah.

Emily Shelton:

Hollow.

Emily Shelton:

That was the word I was going to use.

Emily Shelton:

Absolutely.

Emily Shelton:

And it's.

Emily Shelton:

The, the process of getting those values and getting to those purpose,

Emily Shelton:

that's what helps align a team too.

Emily Shelton:

It's airing of those feelings and those grievances and those, this is what

Emily Shelton:

works and this is what doesn't work.

Emily Shelton:

That's how you then together are able to co create something that

Emily Shelton:

actually represents you and the business that you're trying to create

Emily Shelton:

versus just spitting out some pretty words that might feel on brand.

Emily Shelton:

But who's backing them?

Emily Shelton:

Like, where's the why?

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, I think that as we were going through it, you and I were chatting

Laurie Bennett:

about an analogy for what it feels like and what we came up with was that kind

Laurie Bennett:

of the difference between a barbecue, for example, or a meal that's been

Laurie Bennett:

sort of, the love's been put into it, it's the, Food's been cooked slowly

Laurie Bennett:

in the smoky barbecue, there's been love and emotion put into it versus

Laurie Bennett:

something that you kind of peel out of a packet and throw into the microwave.

Laurie Bennett:

You know, both of them, both of them contain nutrients, but the impact of one

Laurie Bennett:

and the experience of consuming one over the other will be completely different.

Laurie Bennett:

Oh, absolutely.

Emily Shelton:

Yeah, I'm from North Carolina originally born in Charleston,

Emily Shelton:

South Carolina and I was going to ask you, Laurie, have you ever been

Emily Shelton:

to like an all day barbecue where someone broke out the smoker at 8am?

Laurie Bennett:

I have.

Laurie Bennett:

Oh really?

Laurie Bennett:

And it's, I have, not sadly in Carolina, that would be the place to do it, but

Laurie Bennett:

not only have I done that, but I've.

Laurie Bennett:

I've become mildly obsessed with the idea of it and watched sort of the, those shows

Laurie Bennett:

where people compete at that kind of thing as well and where you, you know, this

Laurie Bennett:

isn't just a way of feeding yourself but a kind of whole identity and sense of.

Emily Shelton:

It's a ritual.

Emily Shelton:

It's a heritage.

Emily Shelton:

It's, it's passed down through generations.

Emily Shelton:

It's not just about like the cut of meat or the spices that you use, but it gets

Emily Shelton:

down into like the type of wood chips that you're using and when and why.

Emily Shelton:

So like, it's really somebody putting thought and care into

Emily Shelton:

every step of the process.

Emily Shelton:

And to me, that just felt like that is a great analogy for the work that we do.

Emily Shelton:

We put.

Emily Shelton:

Love and care into every step of the way.

Emily Shelton:

And if we have this chatchy BT version, yes, it looks like barbecue,

Emily Shelton:

but it doesn't have that hickory smoke or that really thoughtful

Emily Shelton:

seasoning or the massaged in olive oil, you know, it's just microwaved.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, and I, you know, that led us to the question of, look, I think, I think

Laurie Bennett:

it's fair to say the kind of conclusion of our play here was you can write a

Laurie Bennett:

super convincing purpose statement, set of values and vision statement in

Laurie Bennett:

a remarkably short amount of time, not entering a whole bunch of data into the

Laurie Bennett:

system that would at face value, Looked like a really compelling, convincing

Laurie Bennett:

and possible purpose framework to underpin a culture in an organization.

Laurie Bennett:

And that was kind of mind blowing.

Laurie Bennett:

And at the same time, my advice and our advice and conclusion at

Laurie Bennett:

the end of it was don't do this.

Laurie Bennett:

And not just because we don't want the bots to take our jobs, but.

Laurie Bennett:

There's something fundamental missing from this process, and that is the people

Laurie Bennett:

and the process and the journey that teams and leaders go on in, in actually

Laurie Bennett:

going through the process of finding this language and crafting this language for

Laurie Bennett:

themselves from their own experiences is Is the hickory smoke, and the love,

Laurie Bennett:

and the time that's invested, and you don't get to just shortcut those things.

Emily Shelton:

I'm so sorry, Laurie.

Emily Shelton:

I have a dog that's barking.

Emily Shelton:

I'm gonna go get him before we start hearing him on the mic.

Laurie Bennett:

And the barking dog is called Drolls.

Laurie Bennett:

Drolls.

Laurie Bennett:

Right, which again, again, if you were going to.

Laurie Bennett:

Like, how do you tell me you're from the South without telling

Laurie Bennett:

me you're from the South?

Laurie Bennett:

Oh my gosh, and

Emily Shelton:

I actually found out over the weekend, so we had already

Emily Shelton:

been working through this, and we had already written our article

Emily Shelton:

and used this, this metaphor.

Emily Shelton:

I found out over the weekend that one of our buddies from North Carolina

Emily Shelton:

is now doing barbecue competitions.

Emily Shelton:

He's literally traveling the South.

Emily Shelton:

He's been in Arkansas and Kentucky, and he's going to win!

Emily Shelton:

Christian Maloney, shout out to you!

Emily Shelton:

Yeah, so we're, we're really coming from the land of barbecue over here.

Emily Shelton:

Oh my goodness.

Emily Shelton:

Okay.

Emily Shelton:

. So, Laurie, we know, we know what not to do.

Emily Shelton:

We know we shouldn't do this.

Emily Shelton:

Why?

Emily Shelton:

What are the real reasons here?

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, I think we.

Laurie Bennett:

I came up with three of those when we were thinking about it, of what would, what's

Laurie Bennett:

really missing from this way of working into purpose and values and vision, these

Laurie Bennett:

core parts of your culture, if you're going to ask a bot to do it for you.

Laurie Bennett:

Which I know probably sounds reasonably obvious at face value, but I think there's

Laurie Bennett:

something in working in this way that really highlights what's so important

Laurie Bennett:

about this work and the process for doing it IRL, I guess, with real human peeps.

Laurie Bennett:

And I think the first one of those was that the power of this is in the people

Laurie Bennett:

and in the humanity that these kinds of statements need to Encapsulate and

Laurie Bennett:

symbolize and represent, you know, the purpose statement doesn't, isn't just

Laurie Bennett:

a business is why it's a representation of what the people in that business

Laurie Bennett:

are most passionate and committed to doing in the world and what, how

Laurie Bennett:

they want to serve other people in some way in society that to support

Laurie Bennett:

them to To operate in a certain way.

Laurie Bennett:

A set of values is a contract between people about how what we expect of

Laurie Bennett:

each other and how we will show up for each other and what makes us successful

Laurie Bennett:

in how we work with each other.

Laurie Bennett:

In that way, so to, to pull those people, pull people out of the equation

Laurie Bennett:

just simply doesn't make sense.

Laurie Bennett:

And I think if you take the people and the process away, you lose the

Laurie Bennett:

opportunity to cause a conversation in your team and in your business

Laurie Bennett:

that's about surfacing this diversity of imagination, of passion, of like, I

Laurie Bennett:

thought I said soul searching earlier.

Laurie Bennett:

I think there is an aspect of that of really starting to get down to, well, why

Laurie Bennett:

am I here and how, what's most important to me about the way that we work with

Laurie Bennett:

each other and where do we want to go?

Laurie Bennett:

So you're pretty.

Laurie Bennett:

spectacularly missing the point of the exercise if you miss

Laurie Bennett:

out on those conversations.

Laurie Bennett:

It's those stories and beliefs and convictions that come from real

Laurie Bennett:

people that fill the words that you finish up with, with meaning.

Laurie Bennett:

You know, one of the things that we always say when we're working with

Laurie Bennett:

clients, especially around purpose was the objective here is not to

Laurie Bennett:

create something that sounds sexy.

Laurie Bennett:

We're not building a marketing slogan or a tagline for our brand.

Laurie Bennett:

We need something that sounds true and that when we speak it, it actually kind

Laurie Bennett:

of reaches back into what we care about most and communicates that back to us.

Laurie Bennett:

And when we get to hear what The people we work alongside care about most.

Laurie Bennett:

When we get to hear what the founders of our businesses really care about

Laurie Bennett:

most, that's what gives real meaning to the, to the words that we put forward.

Laurie Bennett:

Absolutely.

Emily Shelton:

That's what motivates us to step in line

Emily Shelton:

and, and work alongside a leader.

Emily Shelton:

If we have a better understanding of what's motivating that leader, and then

Emily Shelton:

they too understand why that matters to us, it's only going to create alignment.

Emily Shelton:

And like, Stepping in unison into the future.

Laurie Bennett:

That's, that's right.

Laurie Bennett:

Hey, because when you first, so often when you first ask people what that is,

Laurie Bennett:

they don't all say the same thing, right?

Laurie Bennett:

And there's a, when leaders of an organization in particular don't have the

Laurie Bennett:

same understanding of the reason why they are in business, or the impact they want

Laurie Bennett:

to have in the world, or what it is that actually defines the way that they want to

Laurie Bennett:

work with each other, you know, so often those, that language exists in a business,

Laurie Bennett:

but the The meaning of that language is interpreted so differently by different

Laurie Bennett:

people and having this conversation and going through the tough bits that are

Laurie Bennett:

kind of the temptation is to skip those difficult conversations and the time it

Laurie Bennett:

takes to have them and the challenge and sometimes debate that comes from them.

Laurie Bennett:

But really it's in, it's in that the heat of those kinds of

Laurie Bennett:

conversations that we find alignment.

Laurie Bennett:

As teams as well, which is so important.

Emily Shelton:

Honestly, , I've been chewing on this and really thinking about

Emily Shelton:

this for the last few weeks, but sitting here having this conversation, I'm feeling

Emily Shelton:

like still, like I'm getting new insight.

Emily Shelton:

Just thinking about those beautiful words that, that chat GPT spit out

Emily Shelton:

and how five team members might interpret them completely differently.

Emily Shelton:

Like, even just the, those values are going to be interpreted and,

Emily Shelton:

and taken in different directions.

Emily Shelton:

And it actually, what that could do is create misalignment.

Emily Shelton:

It could do the opposite of what you're trying to do.

Laurie Bennett:

Right.

Laurie Bennett:

And I think, you know, that comes to the sort of the second

Laurie Bennett:

point of why we don't do this.

Laurie Bennett:

And that's really anchored in authenticity.

Laurie Bennett:

This idea that our identity comes from within us.

Laurie Bennett:

Right.

Laurie Bennett:

It's not an aggregation of what's going on outside and the kind of pre chat GPT

Laurie Bennett:

shortcut that we've experienced leaders wanting to take is approaching developing

Laurie Bennett:

these elements of their culture by looking at what their competition is saying and

Laurie Bennett:

trying to sort of find a space to own or a way of differentiating themselves

Laurie Bennett:

from what other people are saying.

Laurie Bennett:

And we came to sort of ban that behavior to some extent within our

Laurie Bennett:

client process of you can't go and see what your competitors are saying

Laurie Bennett:

until you've explored what's important to you because your purpose and

Laurie Bennett:

your values come from within you.

Laurie Bennett:

They're about what is most authentic about the way that you work.

Laurie Bennett:

They're not about what makes you different from other people.

Laurie Bennett:

The good news is that what's most authentic about you is usually the

Laurie Bennett:

thing that makes you most different from other people and in a way

Laurie Bennett:

that you can really show up to and live up to and that feels true.

Laurie Bennett:

And there's, there's something about just the very way these, the generative

Laurie Bennett:

AI works and these large language models work, which is that they.

Laurie Bennett:

Scour everything else that's out there and in some ways that's an amazing resource

Laurie Bennett:

to have that they can get out there and and flip through millions of data points

Laurie Bennett:

in milliseconds and come up with something for you, but it's kind of the opposite.

Laurie Bennett:

approach that is needed, which is not what is everyone else out there saying,

Laurie Bennett:

and therefore what kind of aggregation of that makes sense for us, but rather,

Laurie Bennett:

who cares what anyone else is saying?

Laurie Bennett:

What do we want to say?

Laurie Bennett:

And how do we kind of bring the gumption and the confidence to say what's most

Laurie Bennett:

and find what's most important to us, rather than feel like we're swayed by what

Laurie Bennett:

everyone else is saying in this space.

. Emily Shelton:

Wow.

. Emily Shelton:

Really beautifully said and just really inspiring.

. Emily Shelton:

I think that a lot of people tend to look outwards and externally

. Emily Shelton:

when thinking about who they are and what role they play in the world.

. Emily Shelton:

And just.

. Emily Shelton:

To redirect that and say, Oop, you're looking the wrong way.

. Emily Shelton:

Turn inward.

. Emily Shelton:

It's just such a powerful message.

. Emily Shelton:

Because that's where you're going to find your magic and your unique role.

. Emily Shelton:

You're not going to find it by looking around you.

Laurie Bennett:

I think that's it, right?

Laurie Bennett:

If you, you feel like you're playing a role.

Laurie Bennett:

Like as in a kind of your cast in a role, if you step into some words

Laurie Bennett:

that feel like they're brought from somewhere else, as opposed to getting

Laurie Bennett:

to be yourself, which is so powerful.

Laurie Bennett:

And I think, you know, when you think about what a statement of

Laurie Bennett:

purpose and a set of values and a vision can be used for in terms of.

Laurie Bennett:

Communicating a kind of collective alignment inside an organization, but also

Laurie Bennett:

attracting people towards your business who share those same kind of passions and.

Laurie Bennett:

Inspirations is really powerful.

Laurie Bennett:

And I think to be able to put out there, look, this is who I am.

Laurie Bennett:

And we want people who can share in this.

Laurie Bennett:

It's a contract, not just for us, but with us and our, and our employees, with us

Laurie Bennett:

and our customers, with us and the people who we serve, who work kind of, who work

Laurie Bennett:

with us and who we work for in this space.

Laurie Bennett:

And.

Laurie Bennett:

That has to come from a sense of authenticity.

Laurie Bennett:

I think when you set out with that authenticity, then people

Laurie Bennett:

get to show up to it differently inside the culture afterwards.

Laurie Bennett:

I think the, the piece there that's, that's interesting is that you

Laurie Bennett:

could argue like, hey, actually, there's something kind of cool

Laurie Bennett:

about the sort of the way that the bot scrapes the values and purposes

Laurie Bennett:

of all the values and purposes it can find out there in the world.

Laurie Bennett:

Like, maybe that's opening our.

Laurie Bennett:

Eyes wider than we would be able to open them.

Laurie Bennett:

If we did this in a small setting of just our team, right?

Laurie Bennett:

If, if you think about kind of representation in your purpose and your

Laurie Bennett:

values and who usually gets to really contribute into those conversations

Laurie Bennett:

and in, you know, a lot of businesses.

Laurie Bennett:

A purpose statement is cooked up by a founder by themselves when they're

Laurie Bennett:

starting their business or is built by an executive team kind of behind closed doors

Laurie Bennett:

without really the ability for the wider business to feed into what they're doing.

Laurie Bennett:

So there's an argument to say, Hey, there's something kind of cool that

Laurie Bennett:

happens when you scrape the whole internet and you get the perspectives

Laurie Bennett:

and views of kind of this, the diversity that that represents.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah.

Laurie Bennett:

Until you discover one of the real big challenges that these

Laurie Bennett:

language models and AI generally are having is that they aren't.

Laurie Bennett:

All that inclusive just yet that they are built by a very small niche of people

Laurie Bennett:

in the world and that they tend to learn a kind of dominant system view and that

Laurie Bennett:

actually there's some real danger behind that not just in the case of this use,

Laurie Bennett:

but in many others, but I think that the thing that comes to me when I think

Laurie Bennett:

about this is there's a real opportunity When you're making these kind of

Laurie Bennett:

statements to hear from the organization that you work in, to hear from the

Laurie Bennett:

people who work in it and to understand what's meaningful to them en masse.

Laurie Bennett:

And it's not the same as just scraping what's out there in the world.

Laurie Bennett:

It's about listening to real people inside your business.

Laurie Bennett:

I think.

Laurie Bennett:

There's an opportunity, like what you said a little earlier around what the

Laurie Bennett:

technology here could do to help us listen to everyone in our business

Laurie Bennett:

in a new way, but I don't think that it's that's the same as assuming that

Laurie Bennett:

just because we're Harvesting the thoughts of the internet that we're

Laurie Bennett:

somehow kind of creating a statement here that's more inclusive within our

Emily Shelton:

business.

Emily Shelton:

No, there's definitely, you definitely have to take what ChatGPT spits

Emily Shelton:

back at you with a grain of salt.

Emily Shelton:

There are studies that are being done right now.

Emily Shelton:

There are studies that have shown that this is a biased tool.

Emily Shelton:

If it's scraping what's out in the internet and was created by a

Emily Shelton:

particular group of people, it's not going to include the voices.

Emily Shelton:

Of marginalized communities, so that's something that we need to be aware

Emily Shelton:

of right off of the bat and then to yeah, I think it's so interesting.

Emily Shelton:

I think that if you were to say, scrape the Internet for ideas in terms

Emily Shelton:

of core values, you might get some.

Emily Shelton:

Ideas that you hadn't necessarily thought of just because of your limited

Emily Shelton:

point of view or perspective, right?

Emily Shelton:

You might get some unique takes on what this core value or purpose

Emily Shelton:

statement could look like for me, I could see chat GPT being utilized

Emily Shelton:

as a support tool in that way.

Emily Shelton:

So we were kind of talking about it a little earlier, like doing data collection

Emily Shelton:

or evaluation around your core values.

Emily Shelton:

And then from there, now you have an ability to get multiple voices

Emily Shelton:

in without having to sift through massive amounts of data, right?

Emily Shelton:

I think that that's really interesting.

Emily Shelton:

Personally for me I have ADHD.

Emily Shelton:

So I sometimes have a really hard time getting started on a project.

Emily Shelton:

Once I get the ball rolling, I can take off with it, but looking at a blank

Emily Shelton:

page is just very difficult for me.

Emily Shelton:

So there have been times in this experimenting where I've asked

Emily Shelton:

ChatGPT to give me an outline for something that I was trying to write.

Emily Shelton:

And , Just having that place to start was super helpful.

Emily Shelton:

And I think that there are so many other ways that we could

Emily Shelton:

be using this as a support tool.

Emily Shelton:

But I think that we need to be really careful when we're talking about

Emily Shelton:

worldwide automation and how many jobs are going to be shifting in the future.

Emily Shelton:

I think that there's a way for us to use this tool as an empowerment

Emily Shelton:

tool, versus disempowerment.

Laurie Bennett:

I love that.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, it certainly got me thinking, you know, one of our clients,

Laurie Bennett:

a big retailer in South Africa that has 27, 000 employees.

Laurie Bennett:

And we've been working with them for many years, kind of developing

Laurie Bennett:

their purpose statement and helping them embed that into the.

Laurie Bennett:

Into the fabric of the organization and to, you know, even in doing that over,

Laurie Bennett:

over a period of years, we've been able to really hear thousands of people, but not.

Laurie Bennett:

27, 000 and that idea of gathering that amount of data and having to somehow

Laurie Bennett:

process that is really horrifying.

Laurie Bennett:

But I think to be able to believe that there might be a way to have people.

Laurie Bennett:

Contribute to a conversation like this and use the power , of AI to sort of

Laurie Bennett:

help us process and understand what's being said by that number of people

Laurie Bennett:

to be able to feed into these kinds of processes is really powerful.

Laurie Bennett:

I think there's a, there's kind of a narrative when we, you know,

Laurie Bennett:

we sort of jokingly talked about.

Laurie Bennett:

Thinking about whether these kinds of generative AI models put our jobs at,

Laurie Bennett:

at risk, but I think there's a real narrative starting to surface here

Laurie Bennett:

around the opportunity that they have to augment the way that we work, rather

Laurie Bennett:

than replace it and to focus us into.

Laurie Bennett:

Some of the things that we've talked about here about kind of how can we use this

Laurie Bennett:

kind of technology to help us pay even more attention to the humanity that exists

Laurie Bennett:

inside our organization rather than less.

Laurie Bennett:

And this is just, you know, when we talk about generative AI and how it's a huge

Laurie Bennett:

conversation right now about how that's going to shape and shift the world of

Laurie Bennett:

human resources inside organizations.

Laurie Bennett:

But even just in this little.

Laurie Bennett:

example that we're playing with here.

Laurie Bennett:

I think there's something quite exciting about what this sort of

Laurie Bennett:

technology can offer to the process of helping hear the humans in our

Laurie Bennett:

world and what they care about most.

Emily Shelton:

Yeah, absolutely.

Emily Shelton:

Beautifully said.

Emily Shelton:

Augmenting.

Emily Shelton:

I like that.

Emily Shelton:

That's exactly what this needs to be used for.

Emily Shelton:

Okay.

Emily Shelton:

So we've hinted at it a little bit.

Emily Shelton:

We've talked about the missing ingredients.

Emily Shelton:

We've talked about the ways that we want this tool to be used.

Emily Shelton:

But what is our final verdict on chat GPT?

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, I think the final verdict is please.

Laurie Bennett:

Please, from the bottom of my heart, don't feel like this is a shortcut to creating

Laurie Bennett:

these statements that really sit at the heart of your culture, maintain the human

Laurie Bennett:

process here but get really curious about how this kind of technology might help

Laurie Bennett:

you hear more of your people in a more inclusive way but make, use the The human

Laurie Bennett:

process of conversation to really get you to where you need to get with these things

Laurie Bennett:

and if you need a little bit of help with that, obviously, Emily and I are here

Laurie Bennett:

and the rest of the within partnership, but also we've got a couple of guides

Laurie Bennett:

on our website, which will help you get started on how you're thinking about

Laurie Bennett:

finding your purpose or Bringing your values to life inside your organization.

Laurie Bennett:

So please do head over to withinpeople.

Laurie Bennett:

com and check those out if you get a moment.

Laurie Bennett:

Yes,

Emily Shelton:

those are our guide to finding purpose and

Emily Shelton:

our guide to finding values.

Emily Shelton:

Both are live on our website.

Emily Shelton:

Check them out.

Emily Shelton:

I'm also going to be linking them in this podcast episode.

Emily Shelton:

Just to make it a little easier on you.

Emily Shelton:

Alright.

Emily Shelton:

But I think that wraps us up for our chat g p t experiment.

Emily Shelton:

Lori, I just wanted to say this has been a lot of fun.

Emily Shelton:

I've had a lot of fun working with you on this project.

Emily Shelton:

It felt for a moment, like, where was this gonna take us?

Emily Shelton:

It felt very ex explorative and, and I've really enjoyed diving in with you on this.

Laurie Bennett:

Yeah, it's been super fun.

Laurie Bennett:

I think just getting to play with this and see what comes out.

Laurie Bennett:

And if I'm sure there are other people playing with these kinds of ideas

Laurie Bennett:

as well, and we'd love to hear if you get the opportunity to tell us

Laurie Bennett:

about how you've been using this kind of technology around your culture,

Laurie Bennett:

we'd love to hear your stories too.

Laurie Bennett:

Alrighty.

Emily Shelton:

Thanks for listening, everyone.

Emily Shelton:

We hope you enjoyed learning about our exploration with chat, TPT

Emily Shelton:

and purpose, vision, and values.

Emily Shelton:

You can find more information about within people at within people.

Emily Shelton:

com.

Emily Shelton:

Tune into our podcast every month for more episodes on what's happening

Emily Shelton:

in the culture and leadership space.

Emily Shelton:

What's on the minds of leaders committed to change in our community and other

Emily Shelton:

future of work content you crave.

Emily Shelton:

Reimagining work from within is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Laurie Bennett:

Thanks.

Laurie Bennett:

Zingaling!

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