The Words You Speak Show Your Values
New technology reveals authenticity and core values in our speech
Technology is advancing at breathtaking speed. It seems like every week we’re treated to news about new breakthroughs in science, medicine and societal relations—all due to technology. One burgeoning technology that will have huge ramifications for how we work and live is Artificial Intelligence (AI).
According to Reuters news service, the technology is being used to parse the language of business leaders and determine if they are speaking the truth. As the technology has been deployed to analyze major corporations’ press or stockholder calls, inconsistencies were discovered:
"We found that IT sector executives' tone was inconsistent with the positive textual sentiment of their remarks," said Schnidman, who advises two fintech companies behind the analysis.
In other words, the AI technology was able to detect what the business leaders’ words didn’t explicitly express: there were problems brewing, even if the leaders were trying to paint a rosier picture of their companies’ prospects.
In fact, “Within months of the comments, companies including Volkswagen and Ford were warning about a severe shortage of chips hitting output. Share prices in auto and industrial firms fell. IT executives now said there was a supply squeeze.”
These leaders were doubtless trying to protect their companies’ financial interests. But in doing so, they misled people who perhaps needed to know about what was really going on in their industry and the impact it could have on society. Some business leaders are now carefully crafting statements they can read verbatim so they don’t trigger the AI detection with off-the-cuff remarks that could reveal what’s really going on.
While this AI speech technology isn’t perfect and won’t always make accurate predictions, its development is a good reminder about the need to have conscious leadership across all industries.
For too long, businesses have primarily looked out for the best interests of only certain stakeholders or stockholders. Facebook is facing such allegations now--that it puts profits over the wellbeing of its users. It’s a win-lose mentality (in order for my company to win, someone has to lose). The long-term damage that causes to other stakeholders is incalculable.
Conscious leaders embrace a different approach: acting with integrity and focusing on the larger community of stakeholders. As John Mackey shares in his book Conscious Leadership:
“If we think of business as a community of stakeholders that are connected through mutual interests and benefits, then we can appreciate that leadership’s job is to create value for every member of that community in a continuous series of win-win-win decisions. Because we are so used to thinking in terms of win-lose, it can be difficult for many leaders to make the shift to this new way of thinking.”
Now is the time to make that mental shift and consider the win-win-win options in business. Technology like the new AI speech analysis will make it more challenging to be selfish and mislead others. But instead of relying on technology to hold others accountable, conscious leaders hold themselves accountable for having integrity, thinking long term and creating win-win-win solutions.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
Contact her to develop your conscious leadership and transform your organization into the workplace of the future.
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