A colleague recently said something powerful: people engage eight times more when we lead with the good stuff. That struck me. It made me wonder—can an AI tool really know what the “good stuff” is about a person?
When I asked, “Is the AI tool going to have a preconceived understanding of who that person is and lead with the good stuff?” the answer was a clear no.
That realization is critical.
The Blind Spot of Self-Awareness
Here’s the challenge: someone lacking self-awareness won’t try to “game” an AI tool. They’ll simply feed it their version of reality—polished, scripted, and perhaps disconnected from the truth of how they actually show up with others. In contrast, when that same person sits in front of a human coach, body language, tone, hesitation, and even silence reveal deeper truths. Coaching conversations unearth what software alone cannot detect.
AI is brilliant at surfacing patterns, creating prompts, and supplementing learning. But self-awareness—the root of real growth—requires honest reflection and a mirror held up by another human being.
The False Comfort of Automation
We live in an era where technology promises efficiency, speed, and scale. But growth is not a download. It’s a dialogue. A manager can’t just hand an employee an AI-generated script for self-improvement and assume it will stick. Without authentic interaction, people risk engaging only at the surface.
That’s the false comfort of automation: mistaking information for transformation.
The Future: AI and Human Coaching Together
This isn’t about rejecting AI—it’s about partnership. AI can provide structure: suggested questions, feedback logs, reminders, reinforcement prompts. It’s an incredible supplemental coaching strategy. But it cannot, and should not, replace the human element.
Because coaching is more than data. It’s the subtle art of empathy, timing, encouragement, and sometimes silence. It’s the ability to recognize when someone is defensive, when they’re ready to take responsibility, or when they just need someone to believe in them.
No algorithm can replicate that.
A Question for You
So here’s the thought I’ll leave you with:
If AI is the map, but coaching is the journey—how will you ensure the map doesn’t replace the guide?
