Your Secret AI Advantage (You Already Have It)
When I speak to companies about AI, I share a secret: The communication skills that make you a great leader make you great with AI too.
Every executive asks me the same question: “How do I get my team to use AI effectively?” The answer surprises them. The communication skills that make you a strong leader are exactly what make AI work. If you can brief a team member, you can prompt AI. The principles are identical.
Imagine walking up to your new salesperson and saying just three words: “Write a sales email.”
What would happen? They’d stare at you, confused. They’d ask who the client is, what product you’re selling, what tone to use. Yet this is exactly how most professionals approach AI with vague, three-word commands. Then they wonder why the output disappoints them.
The Hidden Connection
When I teach executives to Think Like A Magician, I show them how precise communication creates powerful results. In magic, if I give my volunteer vague instructions, the trick fails. If I say “pick a card,” without context or guidance, chaos follows. But when I communicate with clarity and intention, magic happens.
The same principle applies whether you’re directing a team member or prompting AI.
Think about the last time you delegated a project successfully. You didn’t just say “create a presentation.” You provided context about the audience, outlined key messages, specified the desired outcome, and clarified what success looked like. You communicated with precision because you understand that clear input creates clear output.
This is why professionals who excel at human communication naturally excel with AI. You’ve already mastered the hardest part.
The Three Elements You Already Use
In my work with organizations from NASA to NASCAR, I’ve observed that effective leaders consistently use three communication elements. These same elements make AI prompting powerful:
1. Context Setting
You never assume your team knows the background. When you assign a project, you explain the situation, the stakeholders involved, and why this work matters. You paint the full picture because you know assumptions lead to misalignment.
With AI, this translates directly. Instead of “write a proposal,” you provide the same context you’d give a team member: “We’re pitching to a healthcare company struggling with patient scheduling. They value efficiency and have a conservative culture…”
2. Specific Direction
Great leaders learned long ago that “do your best” produces inconsistent results. You specify exactly what you need: tone, format, key points to cover, and boundaries to respect. You’re specific because specificity drives performance.
This skill transfers seamlessly to AI. The professional who tells their team “I need three actionable recommendations backed by data” naturally tells AI the same thing. The precision is identical.
3. Success Criteria
You define what good looks like. Whether briefing your CFO on a board presentation or your marketing team on a campaign, you clarify the outcome you’re seeking. You’ve learned that without clear success criteria, people guess and usually guess wrong.
With AI, you apply this same discipline. You don’t just ask for “a report.” You specify: “The report should be two pages, executive-level, with clear recommendations that our board can act on immediately.”
The Perception Shift
Here’s what fascinates me as someone who studies perception in business: The professionals who struggle with AI often see it as a technical challenge. They think they need to learn “prompt engineering” or master some new digital skill.
But the professionals who immediately get powerful results from AI? They see it differently. They recognize AI as simply another team member who needs clear direction.
This shift in perception changes everything. Instead of feeling intimidated by technology, you’re applying communication skills you’ve honed for years. You’re not learning something new. You’re leveraging what you already know.
Why Your Experience Gives You an Edge
After performing for and training thousands of business leaders, I’ve noticed something compelling: The very challenges that taught you to communicate clearly with humans make you naturally effective with AI.
Consider what you’ve learned through experience:
Vague instructions waste everyone’s time
Missing context leads to wrong assumptions
Unclear success criteria guarantee disappointment
People (and AI) can’t read your mind
Every communication mistake you’ve made and corrected throughout your career has prepared you for this moment. Every time you refined a delegation process or clarified expectations with your team, you were unknowingly preparing to excel with AI.
The Compound Effect
When you model clear communication with AI, something remarkable happens. Your team starts to notice that the same precision that makes their AI interactions successful also improves their human interactions.
I’ve watched this transformation in companies I work with. Teams who master AI prompting through clear communication suddenly find their meetings more productive, their project briefs more effective, and their overall organizational communication sharper.
The discipline of crafting clear AI prompts forces you to think through:
What you really want
Why it matters
What success looks like
What constraints exist
This thinking benefits every interaction, not just those with AI.
Your Next Conversation
Tomorrow morning, when you open ChatGPT or any AI tool, approach it exactly as you would a talented team member. Give it the same context, specificity, and success criteria you’d provide to your best performer.
Watch what happens. The “generic garbage” transforms into useful output. The frustration disappears. The tool begins delivering value.
But here’s the real magic: Every time you practice clear communication with AI, you’re reinforcing the very skills that make you an effective leader.
You’re not learning to work with AI. You’re using AI to become an even better communicator.
The professionals who recognize this connection will build organizations that thrive in an AI-enhanced world. They’ll do it not through technical mastery, but through the timeless skill of clear, intentional communication.
You already have this skill. Now you just need to apply it.
