A Call to Real Collaboration

This is not a team.

Let’s be honest: it's common for dysfunctional patterns to emerge at work, and patterns are hard to break. Sometimes the biggest barrier to collaboration isn’t disagreement, but dismissal. We don’t always mean to, but we can tune people out when their style doesn’t match ours. Even the most well-intended teams can fall into the habit of ranking ideas by who said them, not what they offer. It takes conscious effort to move beyond our comfort zones and resist the pull of solo glory. The strength of a good team lies in the struggles we overcome as we build together, not the accomplishment of one superstar or savior. As we introduce AI tools to our teams we need to understand how individuals are using them and honestly assess the results. This takes a shrewd eye because each of us might feel bolstered by the freely distributed praise we get from a virtual agent. I asked ChatGPT about this tendency the other day. One of its responses: “Flattery is built into the model—it’s not insight, it’s interface." Cringey, yes. But a teachable moment worth sharing: The technical term for this is Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback (RLHF) where AI learns from human interactions and is reinforced to behave in ways that keep you interested. If praise gets better engagement, the model learns to offer more of it. Not to fool us but to serve its purpose of keeping the user engaged. We humans are burdened by something a virtual agent is not: limitations. When bandwidth is thin and money is tight, we tend to freely pass along stress and forget to be generous with compliments or recognition. This leads to disengagement. In this way virtual agents can present a paradox of a valuable new teammate that poses a threat to our rapport with each other. We can fake a positive vibe but we need to sharpen each other's thinking and fuel trust. Collaboration is not a performance; it’s a practice. We don’t need to be perfect. But we do need to be present for each other.

Things to Consider:

• Are we listening to understand, or waiting to speak?

• Do we acknowledge how an idea is said more than what is being said?

• When someone shares a half-formed thought, do we help build it—or shut it down?

• Are we giving credit out loud and often?

• Do we offer praise that’s grounded in specifics, not just positivity?

• Are quieter voices finding airtime—or just airtime filler?

• Do we reflect on what ideas we resist—and why?