Why the First Answer Isn't Always the Best One

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Hi!

I’m writing this from the San Francisco airport where I just ordered a coffee from a robot. Weird. I just wrapped up a visit with Google, one of my favorite clients, and now I’m waiting for my flight to Orlando, where I’ll be speaking to a room filled with 5,000 HR professionals.

I'll be talking about the impacts of Generative AI on knowledge work—how these tools will change not only what we do but how we do it. Specifically, I’m interested in how they’ll shape the way we solve problems, spark creativity, and, perhaps most critically, how they’ll affect our ability to question assumptions and imagine new ways of doing things.

What fascinates me about this moment in tech isn’t just the tools themselves—it’s how quickly we embrace them, often without realizing what we’re giving up in return. Generative AI promises convenience: tasks that used to take hours are now automated in seconds, freeing us up for other things. But here’s the catch—what happens to our ability to struggle with a problem when the answer is always just a prompt away?

In many ways, creativity and critical thinking aren’t born from ease—they thrive in friction. It’s in the discomfort of not knowing that we force ourselves to ask better questions, push through dead ends, and arrive at solutions we didn’t think were possible. But when the technology smooths everything out, we risk skipping the messy parts that lead to real innovation. The danger isn’t just that we’ll become passive users of tools—it’s that we’ll stop questioning whether the first answer is the best one.

And that’s the paradox I’ll be diving into at the conference: How do we harness the benefits of Generative AI—its speed, its efficiency—without losing the very skills that make us creative and adaptable? How do we teach ourselves, and the next generation of workers, to pause and interrogate the easy answers instead of defaulting to them?

I think about this a lot, especially as someone who straddles two worlds—one foot in the cutting-edge spaces of AI, the other firmly rooted in the complexities of human creativity and problem-solving. We’re at a cultural inflection point: It’s not just about learning to use new tools, but about asking what kind of thinkers we want to become in an age where answers come effortlessly.

I can’t help but feel like this conversation is just beginning. What’s at stake isn’t just the future of work—it’s the way we cultivate curiosity, resilience, and the kind of thinking that doesn’t settle for the obvious solution. Because in the end, the tools we use shape us just as much as we shape them.

The Stories That Shape Us: Lessons from The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I recently finished reading The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and I believe it’s one of the most significant books to emerge this year. Coates calls it “part memoir, part travelogue, part writing primer,” but it’s so much more—a meditation on the stories we tell ourselves and how those stories become the backbone of culture, beliefs, and identity.

The book takes Coates to three pivotal places: Dakar, Senegal, where he visits the departure points of slave ships; Chapin, South Carolina, where he attends a school board meeting debating the potential banning of his own work from curriculums; and the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where he seeks to understand the realities of a place he’d only read about from afar.

It’s no surprise that The Message has stirred controversy, particularly given the state of the Middle East right now. But what I found most compelling—and I think this may have been missed by some—is that this book isn’t about one geopolitical issue. It’s about the power of stories and myths and how they define us, not just as individuals but as societies.

1. Stories are the foundations of culture and belief

One of the most poignant threads Coates weaves is how stories shape the way we understand the world. He references how, during slavery, a popular narrative dehumanized Black people as inferior, making their pain and exploitation feel tolerable—mundane, even. That narrative wasn’t just accepted; it became a foundational belief, reinforced for centuries through academic studies and political policy.

Reading this, I couldn’t help but reflect on how the stories we absorb over time can solidify into unchallenged truths, influencing everything from politics to our own personal identities. It’s a reminder of just how powerful these stories are—and how easy it is for them to go unchecked.

2. Stories have the power to shatter narratives

The only thing that can dismantle a story is another story. That’s why who gets to tell their story is such a powerful tool in shaping societal beliefs. Coates explores this in the context of historical atrocities—think about how narratives justified the Iraq War, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War. These events needed public support, and that meant shaping stories that “othered” certain groups, silencing voices, and justifying the unjustifiable. [Also see, Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, this has been mass media’s playbook for decades.]

This idea feels particularly relevant now, as book bans gain momentum in the U.S. and journalism becomes an increasingly dangerous profession all over the world. When stories are silenced or suppressed, it’s always an indicator that something larger is at stake.

3. Writing is a form of resistance

One of the aspects of The Message that resonated most deeply with me was Coates’ dedication to writers. For him, writing is a tool to disrupt the status quo, to provide a platform for the voices that aren’t being heard. He reflects on how he sought out those voices in conflict zones, using their stories to uncover truths that are often overlooked or ignored.

This made me think about my own consumption of media and stories. For instance, I realized that most of what I know about Sudan comes from second- or third-hand sources, filtered through Western perspectives. I haven’t read anything directly from a Sudanese person’s experience.

That realization led me to River Spirit by Leila Aboulela, a novel that provides a deeply human perspective on the British conquest of Sudan in 1898. Through this story, Aboulela brings to life the tensions between colonizer and colonized, between Christianity and Islam, and the struggles for independence.

Listening to Sudanese voices is more important than ever as they are currently fighting to survive a terrible civil war that has unleashed famine, violence, displacement, and disease on a civilian population. Listening to their hopes and fears and hearing them tell their own stories with their own words is a radical act of solidarity and an investment in our shared humanity.

Coates’ message about writing as resistance felt like a call to action. It’s not just about telling our own stories, but about seeking out and amplifying those that challenge the dominant narratives we’ve been fed by our governments and our culture.

Books are dangerous because they change minds. Stories are dangerous because they seed new possibilities. And in a world that often feels rigid and polarized, that danger might be exactly what we need. In a time where narratives are increasingly controlled and voices are being silenced, Coates reminds us that writing remains one of the most powerful tools of resistance. And the question we should all be asking is: whose story isn’t being told?