Homer: “There's three ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way and the Max Power way!”
Bart: “Isn't that just the wrong way?"
Homer: “Yeah... but faster!”
I think about this Simpsons episode often when people talk about AI.
In the space of a couple of years, we've gained tools that can draft reports, summarise meetings, analyse documents and write emails in seconds. Used well, they're transformative. I use AI myself almost every day.
But there's a risk hiding behind all that new capability. We become so focused on doing things faster that we stop asking whether we're doing the right things in the first place.I've started noticing it in some of the work I see.
The email… beautifully written. The grammar… flawless. The structure… impeccable. And yet it just doesn't sound like the person who sent it. The tone feels generic. The language is slightly over-polished. It sounds convincing, but something doesn't quite ring true.
None of those are AI problems. They're judgement problems.
Anyone can produce a polished briefing. The harder skill is recognising when a senior colleague is really asking a different question, when a stakeholder is likely to react badly, or when the recommendation is technically sound but misses the mark politically.
That's why one of the biggest management challenges over the next few years won't be teaching people how to use AI. It'll be helping them know when not to trust it.
AI is an incredible accelerator. It can get us to a first draft in minutes rather than hours. It can automate repetitive tasks and remove a huge amount of effort. What it can't do is decide whether the work is worth doing in the first place.
Producing the wrong briefing in half the time isn't progress. Crafting an eloquent response to the wrong question isn't progress. Automating work that doesn’t matter isn't progress.
In many organisations, AI has removed one constraint: producing content. That makes another constraint even more important: judgement. For managers, I think that changes the conversation.
Historically, we spent time coaching people on how to write, analyse and present information. Increasingly, we’ll need to coach people on how to exercise judgement, with questions like:
- What's the question we're trying to answer?
- Does this actually answer it?
- What's missing?
- What assumptions has the AI made?
- Does this reflect our organisational context?
- Would you be happy putting your name to this?
When anyone can produce a polished first draft, the differentiator is no longer who writes fastest. It's who asks the best questions. Who spots what's missing. Who exercises sound judgement when the answer isn't obvious. That's something no language model can do for us.
AI is changing the way we work, and managers should absolutely help their teams embrace it. But we should be careful not to confuse speed with value. AI can help us write faster. It can conduct complex analysis. It can supercharge our productivity. But it still can't decide what's worth producing in the first place. That's a judgement call. And no matter how good AI becomes, someone still has to make it.
Gareth Russell is an accredited executive coach, master facilitator and Association for Coaching group mentor