Getting Garbage from AI? You're Not Prompting. You're Just… Chatting.

You’ve been there, right?

Staring at your screen, another project looming. You think, "I'll just use AI for this." So you open up ChatGPT or Gemini, type in a request... and get back the most generic, useless, corporate-speak nonsense you’ve ever seen.

It's frustrating. You see other people getting these "outsized results" with AI, automating half their workload, and suddenly having all this time for strategy and the stuff that actually matters. Meanwhile, you feel like you're stuck in a conversation with a very clueless intern. You try again, get another bad result, and eventually just give up and do it yourself.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the secret. The problem isn’t you. And it’s not the AI.

It’s the approach. You're treating AI like a search engine. You’re chatting with it. But the people who are getting incredible results... they're not chatting. They're building workflows.

And that shift in mindset makes all the difference.

Stop Automating, Start Systematizing

Let's get one thing straight. The goal here isn't to "automate" your job away. That’s a trap alot of people fall into. They think the endgame is to create a system so perfect that they don't have to do anything.

But think about it... if AI can do your entire job from start to finish without any of your input, then what are you needed for? You’ve just successfully automated yourself into irrelevance.

This isn't about replacement; it’s about leverage. It’s about using AI as a powerful tool that makes you better, faster, and more effective at what you do.

I've been building systems to make work more effective for a long, long time. Way before AI was a thing you could talk to, I was part of a massive project at Sony to bring together all this messy data from across Europe. We were basically using fancy spreadsheets, but by creating a reliable system—a workflow—we helped Sony become the most profitable electronics business in the world for a while.

That’s the power of a good system. The tool itself doesn't matter as much as the process. Now, we just have a much, much smarter tool.

Your First Step: Think Inputs and Outputs

So how do you start building a system?

You stop thinking in terms of one-off questions and start thinking in terms of Inputs and Outputs.

It's a simple idea, really.

• An Output is a tangible, repeatable thing you produce in your job. A weekly report. A client brief. An outline for a presentation. A social media calendar.
• An Input is everything that goes into creating that output. The raw data, the customer context, examples of what "good" looks like, your brand's tone of voice... even the expertise that's just floating around in your head.

You can't create amazing art from thin air. An artist's inputs are their years of practice, their inspiration, their unique perspective, and the actual paints they use. If you give them garbage materials, you can't be surprised when the output isn't a masterpiece. It's the exact same thing with AI.

Your job, as a workflow-builder, is to stop being lazy with your inputs. Instead of just giving AI a vague command, you need to provide it with all the high-quality ingredients it needs to produce the amazing result you actually want.

Let's Make This Real: The Syllabus Example

I do this all the time when creating a syllabus for a new course.

The "Chatting" Approach:
"Hey Gemini, write me a syllabus for a class on nonprofit HR management."
The output? A bland, generic document that sounds like a Wikipedia article. Utterly forgettable.

The "Workflow" Approach:
This is totally different. The goal is to build a repeatable process.

• My Desired Output: A compelling syllabus that speaks directly to the pains and aspirations of a real nonprofit HR manager, written in the Weaver Education brand voice.
• My High-Quality Inputs:
  1. A full transcript of the actual class lectures.
  2. Our internal brand style guide so the AI knows our exact tone.
  3. Transcripts from five interviews I've done with real nonprofit professionals, so the AI understands the exact language they use to describe their problems.
  4. Our detailed "Alex, the Overwhelmed Professional" customer avatar.

See the difference? I'm not asking for a syllabus. I'm handing the AI a complete recipe and a pantry full of gourmet ingredients. The AI's job is simply to do the assembly. The result is consistently amazing.

It's funny... this idea feels so modern, but it’s ancient. The Roman legions dominated the ancient world not because their soldiers were superhuman, but because they had an incredibly reliable, repeatable system for everything—marching, logistics, building camp, fighting. Their workflow was their weapon.

This is the same idea. Just with a new, powerful tool.

Your First Assignment

I want you to try this. But don't open an AI tool yet.

Just open a blank document.

Think about your job. What is one, small, repeatable task that you do over and over? Something that's a little bit of a grind?

Write it down. That’s your Output.

Now, list all the things you use to get it done. The documents you reference, the examples you look at, the questions you ask yourself in your head. Those are your Inputs.

That’s it. That's the first step.

You're not just a user of AI anymore. You're a systems builder. And that’s how you go from getting garbage results to getting a real, measurable edge in your career.