18 articles
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More personal than your competitor
An advantage is not a more expensive offer but a more personal one. How AI helps you work faster, more tailored and more personal, without losing your own voice.
After a training session, all participants receive the same email. Thank you for attending, here are the slides, see you next time. It is polite and everyone does it. That is exactly why no one remembers it.
Imagine that every participant receives an email that refers to what they said during the day, asking what that person can move forward with now. That is not a big step in content. It is, however, a step you could not take before, because you did not have the time for it.
At the bottom of this article is a prompt that lets you make one standard message personal for your next client, feel free to copy it.
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Complex is not the same as complicated
You repair a car by looking for the cause, not a team. I explain why that difference matters and where we often go wrong.
A few years ago we were driving back from France. And then the lights on our dashboard started to come on. Orange and red lights, usually not a good sign. It was Sunday and we still had a few hundred kilometres to go. We did get home. But we needed someone who knew about these things. And the mechanic did what a good mechanic does: he searched. First in the engine, then in the parts and then in the parts of those parts. Until he found a small filter. He replaced the filter and all the lights went out.
I tell that story in a workshop on strategic thinking, because it fits so beautifully. There is one cause, you find it and you solve it. I think we are trained to think like that. And that is exactly why things go wrong when we start thinking like that about something that is not a car.
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Why your SMART goal remains a wish
A SMART goal sounds solid, and yet nothing often comes of it. What is missing when a goal only comes from your head, and how I make it SMARTER.
Recently an entrepreneur told me about his dream. He wanted to build a place where young entrepreneurs with an idea could go. There they would get guidance and a network, with all the trimmings. I said: 'That is an incubator, that is actually super cool.' So I asked what was holding him back. And he said: 'I would have to win the lottery first.'
I looked at him in surprise. And I asked what his business plan was for those young entrepreneurs then. All play the lottery together? It sounds like a joke, but it touches on something I see in almost every workshop on goals. We formulate wishes, and we call them goals.
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We think in lists, not in connections
Deleting one line in Excel cost an organisation its collaboration. Why lists hide what is going on, and how you learn to draw arrows.
Have a look at your own notes from the last meeting. Chances are it is a list. A few points with asterisks in front of them, something you scribbled next to it later, and then another asterisk. In a workshop on strategic thinking I predict to the group what their notes will look like later. And that is usually right.
That is actually how we were raised. We are trained to think in lists. I do not mind that, until you make decisions based on that list. A list does show what is there. What relates to what, you do not see in it.
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Prompt package, six metaprompts that question you first
Six prompts to copy that let your AI ask the right questions first, for an email, a plan, a doubt, a difficult conversation or your own assistant.
You might already know the principle: your AI writes better if it is allowed to ask what it is missing first. Only, on a busy Tuesday afternoon, you have little desire to come up with that prompt yourself every time. That is why I listed the six I use most often myself. Copy, fill in the brackets, paste.
What you get
Six prompts for situations you recognise: a sensitive email, a plan you need to write out, a text for people you do not know well, a choice you are doubting, a difficult conversation and the instructions for your own assistant. They all end with the same reversal: ask first, only then write. They work in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini.
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Model, app, environment: know which layer you are in
ChatGPT, Claude, VS Code, Cursor, Craft Agents: beginners often lump them all together. I work with three layers, and they help you choose.
At the end of a long workshop day, I asked the group what they took away from it. And one participant said something I have not forgotten since. He had used two programmes side by side all day. And only now did he realise they were two different things. Another participant did not see the added value of an agent app, because 'I already have ChatGPT'.
Those are actually questions everyone has. Only not everyone dares to ask them. And they all have the same cause. We talk about AI tools as if they are one thing. But actually there are three, slotted neatly into each other.
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Your feeling comes first, your mind comes afterwards
Our feeling is already there before we start thinking. I explain how that works, and why emotional awareness actually begins in your body.
Last week in a workshop on emotional intelligence I talked about the house you buy. You go to visit it and you stand in the living room. And somewhere inside you it thinks: I am going to feel good here. At that moment the decision has actually already been made. The calculation only comes later.
At the bottom of this article is a prompt that helps you to notice where a feeling is located in your body.
The illusion of the rational person
We like to live in the belief that we are rational beings. We think that we constantly make conscious choices. But that is actually not correct. What ends up in your shopping trolley is largely impulse. And the biggest financial decisions in a human life are exactly the ones most driven by emotion. I am thinking of the house and the car. If you were to buy a car purely on features, it is perfectly comparable to others. And yet you buy that specific one, because it looks nice.
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Create your skill at the end of the chat
Not every task needs a skill. I would create one for work you do often, and only at the end of a good chat.
Should I create a skill to choose a new washing machine? I get that question in some shape or form in almost every workshop. Since everyone knows what skills are, it keeps coming back. And my counter question is always the same: how many washing machines are you going to buy? Maybe one every ten years, if things go well. So I would not create a skill for that.
For the tasks where it does pay off, you will find the question I ask at the bottom of this article.
The washing machine test
A skill is a fixed method that your AI can call upon. It contains the steps, the quality criteria, the tone and the format. You write it once. And after that, your AI follows the same path every time. That is where its value lies, and also its limit.
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One agent for everything is like one employee for everything
An assistant that knows everything and is allowed to do everything loses the overview. Why specialised agents with their own defined context give sharper results.
Imagine a small business with one employee who does everything. The accounting, the marketing, the customer service, the planning and the product development. It might work for a while. But we both know how that ends: everything mixed up, nothing quite right, and a head that overflows.
Yet that is exactly how many people set up their AI. One assistant, one conversation, all knowledge and all tasks thrown together.
If you want to divide your own questions into domains, you can copy the prompt at the bottom of this article right away.
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Learn to see through AI, not memorise the buttons
A workflow that works today might break next month after an update. Why understanding how AI works yields more than memorising features.
Everything I told you before the summer is in the past. That is how I sometimes start a workshop, half joking, half serious. The AI world has completely changed again in a few months. Fortunately, the principles remain the same.
That second sentence is what it is all about.
At the bottom of this article is a prompt you can use to test whether you understand what an AI feature actually does.
What happens after an update
I saw it recently with someone who had built a beautiful content workflow. An assistant that wrote texts in a recognisable personal style, carefully set up with examples and instructions. It worked for months. Until the underlying model received an update. The next morning, everything sounded different. The personal style was gone, and no one knew exactly why.
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AI is not Google: you are the answer machine
Anyone who uses AI as a search engine gets confident nonsense and thinks less for themselves. Anyone who uses AI as a thinking partner becomes sharper. The difference lies in the direction.
'If you use AI in a stupid way, it makes you stupider. If you use it in a smart way, it makes you smarter.' I say this in almost every workshop, and usually people laugh. Then it goes quiet, because everyone recognises themselves in the first half of that sentence.
Feel free to copy the prompt at the bottom of this article, so you can let AI challenge your own answer.
The search engine habit
Most people have been trained by search engines for twenty years. You type a question, you get an answer, you move on. It makes sense that we use AI in the same way. The window looks like that too: a box, a question, an answer.
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The critic in your group is your best creative asset
Good ideas often die in the second after they are born. Why real creativity needs the critic, and why you should make something tangible as quickly as possible.
You know the moment. You are in the shower or you are sitting in the car, and suddenly you have a great idea. Eureka. A few seconds later the first thought arrives: yes but, that will never work, because. And there the idea dies, even before it had the chance to become something.
In my creativity workshops I call that the eureka and death pattern. Everyone recognises it. And the solution is not what most people expect.
At the bottom of this article is a prompt with which you can look at an idea with your AI in three separate rounds.
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Let AI ask you questions first
You do not write the best prompt alone. With one sentence at the end you let AI question you first, and you become sharper in your own thinking.
People often ask me about the perfect prompt. Which template, which order, which magic words. My honest answer surprises most participants: I do not write my best prompts alone. I let AI question me first.
Below this article you will find the prompt package with six metaprompts that question you first, free for Members.
One sentence that changes everything
The technique is called the metaprompt, and it is almost embarrassingly simple. You describe what you want to achieve and what a good result looks like. Then you add one sentence: 'Ask me three to five questions first before you start.'
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Six coloured cards and no advice at all
A simple peer coaching exercise using the colours of the Six Thinking Hats. You do not give ideas, you just hold up a mirror. And it works.
There is one exercise from my creativity workshop that participants almost always take home. Not a tool, not an app, not a framework with a long name. Six coloured cards and a strict rule: you are not allowed to give advice.
If you have no one to practise with, copy the prompt at the bottom of this article and let your AI hold up the cards.
How the exercise works
You work in a duo or a trio. One person talks about an idea or a challenge they are working on. Something real, not a made up case. The other listens, holding six coloured cards.
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The EPIC Method: from AI strategy to daily practice
Four habits that turn an AI strategy into daily practice, for individuals, teams and entire organisations.
EPIC is how you turn strategy into daily practice. It works for individuals, teams and entire organisations.
At the bottom of this article you will find a prompt that lets you apply the four habits to a single task straight away.
Why strategy alone is not enough
Most AI adoption programmes fail for the same reason most change programmes fail: they focus on the tools and forget the people. EPIC turns that around. You do not start with a project, but with the work you already do. Four habits: Everyday tasks, Pair learning, Iterative feedback and Continuous improvement.
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The Cognitive Agility Framework: five human capacities
Flexible thinking, emotional intelligence, collaborative intelligence, intuition and innovation: the five capacities that AI cannot automate.
Cognitive agility is the uniquely human ability to adjust your thinking and your emotional and social approach, so that you find your way in messy, unpredictable situations. It is not a single skill, it is a meta-capacity.
At the bottom of this article you will find a prompt to look with your AI at which of the five capacities you already use.
Five capacities, one meta-capacity
I have named five capacities that together form the core of cognitive agility: flexible thinking, emotional intelligence, collaborative intelligence, intuition and innovation. Together they form the CAF, the Cognitive Agility Framework. These are not abstract concepts. You can see them, you can train them, and they are becoming increasingly valuable now that AI is taking over the predictable work.
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The Superworker Model: five levels of working with AI
From Status Quo to Elevate: five levels that show how professionals and teams grow their relationship with AI, and what each level requires of people.
The Superworker Model maps out five levels of how professionals and teams grow their relationship with AI. It is not about speed or efficiency. It is about what becomes possible at each level, and what each level requires of the people in the system.
At the bottom of this article you will find a prompt to map out your own work task by task.
A map, not a ladder
The five levels are called Status Quo, Optimize, Redesign, Reinvent and Elevate. The model is not a ladder you climb once. It is a map of possibilities. Different parts of your work can be at different levels. The goal is not to reach the highest level everywhere, but to consciously choose where you put your energy and attention.
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The Drift and human compute: what you do not outsource to AI
Why your judgement gets weaker if you give all your thinking to AI, and why human attention remains the scarce computing power.
This is the part of the AI conversation that gets too little attention: what happens to your own thinking when AI takes over most of it.
At the bottom of this article is a prompt that helps you choose which thinking you keep for yourself.
What is The Drift?
If you outsource cognitive work to AI (the research, the writing, the analysis, the decision support), something subtle starts to happen. The muscles you do not use start to waste away. Not spectacularly, not overnight. But steadily.
The Drift. You no longer read the full report, because the summary is good enough. You no longer form your own opinion before you check what AI suggests. You no longer do the slow, sometimes boring work of really thinking something through, because there is a faster way. And one day you notice that the judgement you are supposed to bring to the table has become weak.
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