Microsoft is unleashing generative AI on the workplace imminently, according to Slate.

At Microsoft’s New York release event on Thursday, I watched as it revealed products that simplify and automate some of the worst parts of office life. The company demoed a text generator that can read long Word documents and write blog posts highlighting the most relevant points. It showed another feature that allows you to prompt Copilot to summarize a slew of unread messages from an email-happy co-worker. The technology can also read transcripts of meetings you miss and note the most relevant parts, or allow you to query the full discussions. Even simple updates like prompting Copilot to create a header image for a slide deck seem quite useful.

Slate

So maybe this can partially automate some useless tasks that are taking up our time. But if they are useless, do they need to be done at all? Are they adding value at all to begin with?

Here is some advice I would give young people new to the workplace:

1. When people give you assignments, repeat them back to confirm you understand them. If they are still not clear, put them in writing and ask the person assigning the task to confirm. In most cases, they will like this.
2. Keep a running list of things you have been asked to do, when they are due, what their status is, and any problems/obstacles/questions you are encountering to getting them done. Look at and update this list every day.
3. Give updates on your tasks without being asked. When you have a question, encounter an issue, or realize you may not be able to meet a deadline, talk to the person assigning the work early and often about it. They will like this. Often deadlines can be moved or you can get help, but this gets harder as a deadline approaches.
4. Keep a calendar. Look at it and update it every day.
5. Make it a habit to take notes in all meetings and phone conversations. You don’t have to be a court reporter. Try to capture assignments and decisions. At the end of the day and again at the end of the week, look through all your notes, list new assignments, and move them to your assignment list.
6. Basically, you want to be a rock solid and reliable “set it and forget it” employee. This doesn’t mean you do everything perfectly all the time with no help. It means that when someone assigns you a task, they know you will either do it perfectly and on time, or much more likely, you will come to them with updates and issues that need to be resolved to get the work done. Once they assign it to you, they don’t have to think about it again until you walk through the door.
7. #1-6 are kind of it for maybe your first year. Once you are a master note taker, list and calendar keeper, at some point you will find yourself helping others to get organized. One day, you will find yourself tracking and communicating the work of a small team of people. Which brings me to communication…
8. Reading, writing, and speaking are all important, of course. But what is really valuable as you start moving up the business ladder is starting to get a sense of how to communicate a message to an audience. I try to ask myself three questions before preparing a document or presentation: (1) Who specifically is my audience? (2) What is the take home message I would like my audience to hear and understand? and (3) What decisions or actions would I like my audience to take after hearing and understanding my message? Get this down, and at some point you will not just be the back office “getting things done” person (although you can make a perfectly good career of that if you want to), but you will find yourself in front of customers and senior management explaining things and adding value for your organization.
9. Maybe it doesn’t need to be said, but take some time for humanity. A little small talk and banter is how humans connect, and as long as it doesn’t get out of hand it is positive for productivity. When you work in an office, get in the habit of saying hello when you get there and good-bye before you leave. It is annoying when someone just evaporates at 5 pm and you had an important question for them. If you need to vanish at exactly 5 pm, stick your head in at 4 pm and ask if there is anything critical people need from you during the last hour of the day. This is really helpful. If you don’t need to vanish at 5 pm, stick around for a little while and review the happenings of the day with co-workers. Every once in awhile, move the banter to a local eating or drinking establishment. This is how productive, creative, innovative teams are built and I see this culture vanishing.
10. Notice I didn’t talk much about working from home. I just don’t think it works well. Try to be there in person as much as possible.

Now, do any of the things “generative AI” can do in the short term address anything above? I’m skeptical but willing to give it a chance. A big reason for all that note taking, list and calendar keeping/reviewing/updating I do is to form a big picture in my brain of what is going on in my organization and how I can add value to it. Even if a computer can form that big picture, that is not going to put it in my brain. Maybe a computer can go through a transcript of a meeting or phone call and pull out decisions and action items. It certainly should be able to keep a calendar and do scheduling. It might be valuable if first thing in the morning the computer would say to me “consider doing this thing next” or “consider doing one these two (or three) things next”, and this would always fit into some bigger picture goal of getting everything done on time, on budget and to a high standard. Maybe virtual reality will solve some of the problems with working from home eventually. I doubt we will be there any time soon, but I also don’t doubt the computers will get better at this over time.