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The companion
What the AI labs are selling as intelligence is really artificial computing: phenomenally fast guessing, built by people who mostly measure cleverness in maths problems. Actual intelligence also includes wisdom, perception, and hearing the “all good” that makes you check in on a colleague. So let the machine take the computing. The rest of intelligence just became your whole job.
1. Ground your Copilot
Most people's only contact with AI is a lobotomised corporate Copilot that claims it can't see the document it is sitting inside. But it has one genuine superpower: access to your company's data. Asking it to base its answer in that data is called grounding, and it is the difference between a generic answer and a useful one.
“I'm dealing with [the situation]. The outcome I would like is [the outcome]. Search my emails, my team conversations, my SharePoint documents and my OneDrive for the background on this, then give me three options for what I should do next, each supported by what you found in my files.”
Leader's note: never ask a grounded tool an ungrounded question. If your team is getting rubbish out of Copilot, this one habit is usually why.
2. Reverse prompting
Prompt engineering is dead. You no longer need two pages of strict instructions to trick the model into performing. The models are now good enough to figure out what you want, if you let them interview you first.
“I want to [goal]. Before you do anything, ask me questions until you understand exactly what I want, the resources I have available, and the job I need you to do. Then go and do it.”
Leader's note: this is also how good delegation works on humans. The briefing conversation is the work.
3. The Greek words, as promised
Kirsty promised these on air, so here they are. The ancient Greeks refused to use one word for intelligence, the way they refused to use one word for love. Sophia is wisdom. Phronesis is practical judgement, knowing the right move in this room, with these people. Nous is intuition, the grasp that arrives before the reasoning does. Metis is cunning, street smarts, reading the game. Episteme is knowledge and techne is craft. AI is racing up the episteme and techne charts. Phronesis, nous and metis are the leadership ones, and they are not in the training data.
4. Build your own ideas dump
Kirsty's bot: a small tool built in Claude Code that catches every "oh, you should watch this" before it dies in a notes app that says "jelly leave as much as possible." Claude Code is a personal developer that lives on your desktop. If you can see it on the internet, it can build it.
“Build me a personal ideas dump. I want to paste in recommendations as they come at me and have you categorise them: things to watch, things to read, music, marketing ideas. Teach me as we go, and keep it simple enough that I will actually use it.”
Leader's note: the point is not the tool. The point is the feeling of building one, because a leader who has made something with AI talks about AI completely differently.
1. The gentle hand raise
For the person who talks for the entire meeting. Do not fight dominance with dominance. Start by staying receptive and interrupt in this order: adjust your body language and lean in, then raise a small, gentle hand, and only then speak. Interrupt with your eyes first, then your hand, then your words. When you do speak, keep it warm: “I'm really enjoying listening to you. Do you mind if I contribute and add some things?” You will get the floor without anyone losing face.
2. Complaint to desire
Write down the three complaints you have made most recently, at work or at home. “You never flag risks early” becomes “Can you flag risks to me by Wednesday?” Rewrite all three, then notice which version you would rather receive. A complaint can always be articulated as a desire, with much better results. And when someone does what you ask, give them the win. You are correcting behaviour, not administering shame.
3. Choose your lane
Audit your last five asks. A submissive ask leads with I: “I'm aware we're close to the deadline, are you going to be able to hit it by three?” A dominant ask leads with you: “You need to get this finished by three.” Both are fine. What corrodes trust is the middle, where the language says one thing and the energy says another. Submissive is I. Dominant is you. The middle is where it gets messy.
Transcript coming soon. It will live right here, in full, for every episode.