Join us on Coach What Matters as we dive into the world of AI with a User's Guide to Wiser AI. Many of us are using AI for effective messaging, brainstorming, and image creation, but are we using it with an understanding of the AI's programmatic intentions? In this podcast, Leslie Szymborski and Cesar Flores share their first-hand learnings as well as the challenges and pitfalls of everyday use of AI, including:

• Mirroring and Echo Chambers: Discover how AI can subtly reflect your own biases and create an echo chamber, especially during long conversations. Learn strategies to challenge AI's recommendations and avoid one-dimensional responses.
• The Truth About Hallucinations: Unpack the concept of AI hallucinations – when models generate incorrect information without knowing it. Understand why this happens, how often, and what you can do to ensure reliable answers.
• Detecting Bias: Explore how AI models can develop biases based on your prompts and usage patterns. Learn how to be explicit in your requests and understand the impact of compute power on answer quality.
• Multi-Model Approach: For complex tasks like coding, hear why using multiple AI models (e.g., Grok, ChatGPT, Claude) can provide more robust and accurate results.
• User Beware: Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the user to be aware of AI's limitations and implement checks and balances to ensure accuracy, especially when dealing with critical or private information.

Outline:

1. Introduction: Integrating AI into daily life (messaging, brainstorming, images) and the need for wiser usage.
2. Challenges and Pitfalls of AI:
   • Mirroring the user and creating echo chambers.
   • The one-dimensional nature of AI vs. human interaction.
3. Strategies for Effective Prompting:
   • Moving beyond search-like queries.
   • Role-based approaches for better recommendations.
   • Challenging AI's ideas: asking for advantages, disadvantages, and reasons not to follow recommendations.
4. The Impact of Compute Power and Model Erosion:
   • How compute power affects answer quality.
   • The erosion of quality in long conversations and shortcut-taking.
   • The importance of checks and balances.
5. AI Hallucinations:
   • Defining hallucinations and why they occur.
   • The increased likelihood in longer conversations.
   • Resetting conversations and clearing browser data for fresh interactions.
6. Detecting and Mitigating Bias:
   • How word choice and usage patterns influence bias.
   • Differences between free and paid models.
   • The importance of explicit instructions.
7. Multi-Model Usage (for complex tasks):
   • Why using multiple models is beneficial for coding and other complex problem-solving.
   • Examples of different AI models.
8. Conclusion: User responsibility, awareness of limitations, and implementing guardrails for safe and effective AI use.

Host Leslie Szymborski and guest Cesar Flores, CEO of Coach What Matters, discuss the concept of psychological safety and its vital role in business success, innovation, and high-performing organizations. The episode begins by defining psychological safety, a term pioneered by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, as a shared belief among team members that the team environment is safe for taking interpersonal risks. It's a climate of mutual trust and respect where individuals feel comfortable being themselves, continuously learning, and openly discussing mistakes.

Key Takeaways:

• The Current State of Psychological Safety: A Gallup poll revealed that only 28% of US employees in 2025 strongly agreed their opinions count at work, a slight decrease from 20174. This highlights the ongoing struggle leaders face in balancing a supportive environment with traditional command-and-control methods.
• Defining Psychological Safety in Practice: Flores defines it as an environment where employees can bring their "best self to work" and feel confident in taking risks, making mistakes, and challenging ideas. However, this does not mean "anything goes". It is not a license for oversharing, a conflict-free zone, or a guarantee that one's ideas will always win. Instead, it is a balance of healthy discussion, sharing, and listening.
• The Role of Leadership: Leaders are responsible for setting the tone for the entire employee experience, starting from the pre-interview process. They must be willing to balance three key concepts: psychological safety, emotional intelligence (self-awareness and building relationships), and compassionate candor (being honest with employees about performance in a non-ambiguous way).
• Great Teams vs. Flawless Teams: The most effective teams aren't those that make the fewest mistakes, but rather those that are most willing to discuss them and learn from them. Conversely, a team that rarely shows mistakes might be too comfortable, not growing, or led by a strong personality who prevents new challenges. Leaders should allow teams to "self-heal" from within rather than intervening immediately, which can be detrimental.

Tune in to learn more about how to cultivate a psychologically safe workplace that fosters growth, trust, and high performance.

Meet Cesar Flores, CEO and Enterprise Coach, Coach What Matters, LLC.

Executive Coaching can lead to a 70% increase in individual performance, a 50% increase in team performance and a 48% increase in organizational performance.

Hear about Cesar's path to Enterprise and Executive Coach.

With overwhelming evidence that business coaching makes a profound impact on individual and organizational performance, what keeps company leaders from utilizing business coaching?

What advantage can an enterprise coach give the CEO role? Solid coaching provides a partnership between coach and coachee, offering a mirror to CEOs and executives which exposes blind spots. Coaching provides an accountability feedback loop on behaviors and can help a business move from current state to desired state when the partnership is collaborative, confidential, and trusting.

Ultimately, why does coaching matter?

Listen to hear what it takes to see significant results from a great business coach!