AI has become integrated into our lives. I’m sure we will continue discussing whether it’s constructive or destructive for quite some time. Certainly it’s been a boon to science and medicine. But does AI squelch creativity? Plagiarize? Important discussions to have. Surely we’ve all benefited.

But to date, AI doesn’t enable the systemic journey a user’s brain must take to discover and apply their core values for personal decision making.

HOW VALUES-BASED, BRAIN-BASED DECISIONS ARE MADE

When people ask AI for advice, they’re largely provided with amalgams of historic information. But this doesn’t enable the neurochemical, very complex, values-based and largely unconscious decision process that would guide users to the:

• core values-criteria in their brain
• that represents their beliefs, culture, norms, and history
• and form the singular, unconscious, and subjective outputs (actions, decisions, behaviors)
• that emerge when a mixture of the brain’s limbic system, prefrontal cortex, and dopamine
• cull choice criteria from the decision maker’s
  • • history
    • mental models
    • personal beliefs
    • time comparators
    • private assumptions
    • norms/culture
• and represent the neural activities
• beyond the amalgamation of external sources.

In other words, there’s a whole lotta neural processing that must occur before a values-based, personal decision can be reached. And it can’t be done with information.

INFORMATION DOESN’T GENERATE PERSONAL DECISIONS

Don’t get me wrong. Information is vital once values-based criteria are in place. But providing information before the neural work has been completed causes resistance – the reason sales pitches, leadership requests, coaching interactions face so much opposition: the Other’s beliefs, norms, history, assumptions are overlooked and potentially provoked.

Decision making is largely unconscious and uniquely personal – a complex, systemic process that involves much neural organization. Until

• the system (the person, family or team) understands and agrees to the risk of doing/thinking anything different;
• the system (person, family or team) understands the full set of foundational elements (history, rules, beliefs, etc.) that have mitigated the status quo and must be shifted;
• the system (person, family or team) understands its risk of change (and the risk of change must be less than the risk of staying the same) and knows how to manage it with minimal disruption;
• the new is congruent with the core beliefs and values of the system;

no new decision will be taken regardless of the need or the efficacy of the information. And the time it takes the decision maker to figure all this out – sometimes a protracted period as we work at piecing together all the elements residing in our unconscious – is the length of time it takes to “come to a decision”.

To make a personal decision, people must align the presenting facts against their biases, values, assumptions, emotions, history, beliefs, reasoning approach, future needs, hopes and fears, then understand and manage risks, all before choosing the actions to take, before making a decision.

Otherwise the new information will compete with what we already assume is true and has been logged in our neural circuits. But it won’t shift core decision criteria, regardless of how necessary or important the information.

AI could help by sequencing and simulating neural processing and actually make values-based decisions quick and efficient.

Sample

WHAT IS A DECISION?

Decision making arises from our neural circuits. Outcomes – behaviors, actions – are merely expressions of the originating beliefs and identity of the system, and require Systems Congruence for change to be acceptable. Even the most necessary information won’t be accepted unless the system believes it’s not at risk.

To choose a new action, to ensure any decision is congruent with the system and won’t cause disruption, specific neural circuits must be discovered, and the systemic, personal elements at the core of all values-based decisions must be managed:

Mind/brain: AI largely focuses on adding ideas (content) to the mind. But the brain is where decision criteria are stored, and that’s unconscious.

Misinterpreting incoming content: Due to the way brains ‘listen’, people only accurately understand 10-35% of the information offered. I wrote a book on this.

Managing the status quo: We are each comprised of several systems administered by our mechanical brain processes. Each activity we perform, all of what we believe, resides in neural circuits that maintain Systems Congruence. New decisions threaten congruence and must be approved by the original system so it doesn’t feel at risk.

Repositioning/reevaluating belief hierarchy: Making a final decision involves a process of weighting values, history, assumptions, and cultural norms and comparing them against future gains/losses…a process unique to each individual and largely unconscious.

Comparators: All change/values-based decisions require comparing historic activity and the decisions that led to the status quo.

Once these have been addressed (a sequential process) and the system feels congruent with the change, users are ready to make a decision and information is needed.

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

AI requires prompts to trigger answers. But the questions currently used prompt historic, amalgamated information and don’t get to the unconscious elements of values-based decision making. Here’s why.

Standard questions elicit data and are biased by the wording, intent, and goals of the questioner – often making assumptions that don’t comport with the user’s unconscious or getting to their specific circuits necessary for decision making. Additionally, people interpret what’s said or any information offered according to their existing neural circuits that represent their history and personal beliefs.

When writing my book WHAT? Did you really say what I think I heard? I discovered that we ‘hear’ (understand, recognize) according to the historic circuits that have been developed over time in our brain ensuring we interpret incoming words according to what we already know and believe. Anything outside these circuits get misunderstood, or misinterpreted.

Due to the way brains ‘listen’ (filled with distortions and deletions) listeners accurately hear only 10-35% of what’s been said. In other words, what we hear, or read will be translated into some version of what we’ve heard or read before and not necessarily an accurate interpretation of the initial intent of the question.

Certainly information that’s far outside what’s already known has no neural circuits to accurately translate it. (Note: I’ve invented a Learning Facilitation™ model that works with the brain to first generate new neural circuits to accurately translate and retain new knowledge.)

When coaching sites use AI to pose questions to help users manage their emotions or make personal decisions, they offer stock questions in hopes of inspiring introspection. But these, largely, don’t enable one individual, with one set of unique problems, a unique history, and unique set of neural circuits to make a values-based decision that is congruent for their beliefs and values. They certainly do not enable users to self-generate unique queries to sequentially lead them through their neural decision making.

To make a values-based decision people must generate unconscious prompts through their own neural circuitry.

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS™

In 1988, I read Roger Schank’s book Tell Me a Story that said the only way to find an answer that was tucked away in the brain was to pose a good question. But he never explained what a ‘good question’ was. I already recognized that questions are biased and assumptive and couldn’t understand how it was possible to discover bias-free answers. I became intrigued by the possibility of generating a question that

• had no biases, assumptions, or principles that would prejudice the answers;
• would get to the specific, unconscious, neural circuits where values-based answers are stored.

As an original thinker, I then spent 10 years figuring out the elements involved to ensure personal decisions could be easily made:

• the sequence necessary for the Responder to discover their existing values, patterns, specific reference points;
• the route to the specific neural circuits that held the values-based criteria to match a congruent answer;
• the specific words, sequences, and sentence structures that would get to the specific neural circuits where values-based choice criteria could be found and managed for congruent, systemic change;
• the ability to hear/recognize the next question to formulate to enable the listener’s (user’s) brain to take the next step in the decision-making sequence;
• the specific hierarchy of decision criteria that lead to a values-based decision;
• the perceptual position the Responder had to be in to hear the question without bias.

I eventually invented a new form of question (Facilitative Questions™ FQs) that is brain-directional and leads the Other to the specific neural circuits necessary to cause change and values-based decisions.

To enable AI to facilitate personal decisions, I believe a rules-based FacilitationAI is needed to prompt sequences of self-generated FQs. Since each FQ that appears is self-generated from a user’s answers, and formulated singularly in unique sequences, none are generic. They can also be used singularly in specific circumstances, like helping customers provide feedback.

FQs can provide a new area for AI:

• life/personal coaching;
• personal/team decision making;
• customer feedback.

I’m happy to discuss and provide examples in detail, but fear adding more specifics in this article will lead to AI developers stealing my IP without the full set of rules. Please contact me to discuss. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.