Be careful using ChatGPT to write emails for you…
So yesterday I received an email from one of my colleagues with some feedback on a proposal I’d put forward – and as soon as I started reading it I was really confused because it wasn’t the warm tone I was used to from this colleague, and it wasn’t a very long email, and used lots of big long words, sounded overly formal and took soooooo long to get to the point.
I was so confused and then it dawned on me ‘perhaps she’s used chat GPT’ – so I asked her and she laughed it off and sent me the prompt she’d used – a short one liner which was brief and to the point over the concerns she had over my proposal (which I actually wholeheartedly agreed with)
However I was pissed – like really pissed. Not only was it a massive waste of my time wading through treacle in that email to get to the point, but I could smell the bullshit a mile off and it felt very inauthentic.
I’ve reflected on it overnight, and there’s a feedback model I swear by from Kim Scott called ‘Radical Candour’ – it’s all about being able to be direct when giving feedback because you’re in a trusting caring relationship with the colleague you’re giving the feedback to.
Well using ChatGPT to construct a waffly BS email sits squarely in the ‘Manipulative Insincerity’ quadrant – it sends the message to the person reading the email that you didn’t trust them enough to be able to have an open, brief to the point conversation, you didn’t feel you could be direct with them and you didn’t deem them important enough to take the time to explain yourself in your own words.
Now I know that’s not how this colleague feels about me – we have a very strong open relationship and she was just rushing trying to be efficient with her time. But actually it’s a false economy because as good as AI is, human beings aren’t stupid and they can smell insincerity a mile off, and ChatGPT emails (without thorough detailed prompts) absolutely reek of it.
So next time you come to write an email and you think you’re being clever saving a bit of time with ChatGPT, just maybe give it a second thought and what the implications could be, because emotional equity takes years to build up in a professional relationship – but it can be eroded in seconds – and it’s a steep price to pay.