I’ve become a big fan of ChatGPT and often use the tool in my daily work as a copy editor and brainstorming partner.  Recently, I’ve experimented with using ChatGPT during facilitated sessions.  Using ChatGPT or other Artificial Intelligence (AI) can save time and increase efficiency in many processes.

Here are three examples of how I used this app to help the team work efficiently.

1. Refining Team Norms

In one meeting, a 14-member team drafted their Team Norms. These norms outlined the expected behaviors to which they would all be held accountable. After working on this, the team sketched out eight distinct behaviors, which still needed to be edited and cleaned up. In the past, I would assign a small subgroup to finesse these norms AFTER the team meeting; however, this time we used ChatGPT during lunch to polish their norms. The team reviewed the ChatGPT “cleaned up” norms, made a few minor edits, and agreed to them. This saved the team at least three hours of time (three people meeting for an hour to manually edit the norms plus additional meeting time to share their work with the team for final input).

2. Drafting Mission, Vision, and Values

I used ChatGPT before, during and after another team session to help this team write their mission, values, and mission statements more efficiently.  Prior to the team meeting, I interviewed each person and gathered their inputs on the mission, vision, and values.

For the mission statement, I asked ChatGPT for three versions. During the meeting I shared these versions, and they used them as a starting place for the team to write their own drafts. They pulled out key words or phrases that they liked from each of the samples which gave them a good starting place and saved time. Later, when finalizing their mission, we asked ChatGPT to “clean it up” and while the team preferred their own version, they did switch out a few words pulling from the suggestions of ChatGPT. 

For the vision statement, I asked ChatGPT for three samples and provided information from my interview that was relevant. ChatGPT wrote long vision statements with three sentences each.  So, I also asked it to write a few one sentence vision statements too. In the meeting, I shared the three long samples and two short ones.  They discussed what they liked about each and then used that input to draft their own versions, saving time and getting them to final product sooner.

For the values and behaviors, we only had time in the meeting to determine the values and list on post it’s the corresponding behaviors.  A writing team was assigned to work together after the meeting to draft a clean version of the values and behaviors for the team to review.  When I was typing up the notes, I asked ChatGPT to draft the values and behaviors using a sample that I shared with them that they liked where there was a value, a headline, and then a descriptive paragraph.  In mere seconds ChatGPT generated a great start.  I had to redirect ChatGPT once because it interpreted “environmental responsibility” as the environment of the office, versus sustainable environments.  I shared that draft with the team in my notes as a possible starting place to save them some time.

3. Brainstorming Future Problems and Headlines

In a session designed to identify future problems in an industry in 2040 and beyond, the team was assigned to identify three significant potential problems, draft a compelling headline, and then write a story about the problem. Once the team had identified the problems, ChatGPT quickly came up with creative headlines and in seconds wrote amazingly detailed stories about these problems.

The team experimented with things like “write a headline that would appear in Time Magazine” and “Write a headline that would appear in the National Enquirer”.  It not only saved produced highly creative, and detailed stories, it was also fun and energizing for the team. The team needed to guide ChatGPT by telling it how many words to make the story, what voice to use, and who the audience was. Within minutes, they had compelling headlines and fully drafted stories that would have taken hours to write.

In each of these examples, ChatGPT was an AI tool that we used modestly to propel us forward, brainstorm new ways to write something, edit and copyright for us. In almost every situation, the team made some modifications to the outputs of ChatGPT.

Some best practices if you decide to experiment with ChatGPT or AI during a session:

1. Be sure you are well acquainted with how your AI platform works, and how to guide and re-direct it to get the outputs you need.
2. Get permission before the session from the client.  Not all clients may be comfortable with this.
3. If the client is comfortable, it’s also important to know how familiar the team is with the tool, and what if any, education is required for them to be able to use it.
4. Use it as a tool, but not a replacement for human thinking and input.
5. Share your screen as you type so all can participate or do this on long breaks.
6. Encourage sub-teams working to use ChatGPT if it is helpful.
7. Be cautious about inputting any sensitive or confidential information.  (I often put “ABC” instead of a company or person’s name and then replace it later in a Word document out of an abundance of caution.)
8. If it is not working or the team is not energized by it, stop using it and go back to your traditional methods.

Summary

My belief is that we will find more ways to integrate AI tools into our live sessions to spur ideas, increase our efficiency. Experimentation with open-minded teams will increase our ideas on how to use these tools to expand and improve our outputs. 

About the Author

Leigh Ann Rodgers, Founder of Better Teams, Team Consultant Academy, and FORWARD, is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator with 20 years of experience in the human development field. Leigh Ann is a skilled meeting facilitator, trainer, and coach working across the globe to help leaders cultivate teams that are happy and high-performing.

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