Since artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT hit the mainstream in the spring of 2023, I’ve been fielding questions about whether it can be used to create operating manuals, also known as standard operating procedures.

The short answer is absolutely. It can generate text that tells you how to do a toilet reset or replace an electrical box. (The good news is that it also says it is dangerous and should be done by a licensed electrical contractor.) 

There are, however, some issues you should be aware of. To understand these issues, you need to know a little bit about what is behind ChatGPT and other “generative” AI models. 

ChatGPT uses AI technology to allow you to have human-like conversations and much more with its chatbot. It is built on a generative pre-trained transformer, a language model trained to generate human-like conversational text. 

ChatGPT bases its responses on what its language model has learned from a huge repository of information. It generates an answer based on a specific “prompt” given by the user. A prompt can take the form of a question, such as, “How do you do a toilet reset?” It also can be the description of a situation or other group of parameters. 

So, sure, it can be very useful if you need to draft a missing procedure quickly. 

Using AI Wisely

However, if you think it can be used to generate all your procedures from scratch with zero human intervention, let me explain why you might want to think that through. 

Let’s start with the limitations stated clearly on ChatGPT’s home page as of this writing:

May occasionally generate incorrect information;

May occasionally produce harmful instructions or biased content;

Limited knowledge of the world and events after 2021.

Additionally, Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO of the Marketing AI Institute (www.marketingaiinstitute.com), said: “Large language models make stuff up all the time, and there is no clear path to solving for this limitation.”

“This is so critical for business leaders to understand as the adoption of AI writing tools skyrockets.”

“You cannot rely on generative AI tools to get names, places, dates, sources, numbers, facts, truth, etc., correct. You need humans in the loop.”

Think of ChatGPT, etc., as an apprentice who doesn’t understand the nuances of your business, but who has access to a big library of information, who you then ask to take their best shot at assembling a manual. (If this idea doesn’t give you pause, it should.) Would they know the right framework, integration and contextual nuisances for how you run your business?

Here are seven reasons it takes more than words on a digital device or a page to have a repeatable, complete systematic system to address operating manuals and SOPs:

1. A framework that unifies this all and provides structure is critical, or you can end up with SOPs that amount to a bunch of individually written ransom notes. This takes the right box organization chart, depth chart and flow of communications chart. Understand that the box org chart functions as the “bingo board” of boxes you need to cover with manuals specific to each role. 

2. What you put in and what you leave out matters. There is a balance of too much information and not enough information. Plus, there’s stuff that could work against you.

3. Tonality is vital as well. They know when you’re yelling at them as things are in bold, caps or in color, or you create a don’t manual. If you have kids, you already know how well they listen when all you say is don’t. 

4. Who gets involved in the process and when is also key. Have you ever been to your town hall meeting, a house of worship meeting or even a meeting at your own company? When too many people are involved, it doesn’t usually turn out well. 

 For example, they went in trying to design a horse, but with too many involved or the wrong people involved, they ended up designing a mule.

5. Integration is super important because many activities that go on in a contracting business impact other positions at the company positively or negatively. It’s like a relay race where you keep dropping the baton vs. successfully handing it off and completing the race.

6. Knowing how to get buy-in from the staff from the very beginning of this process.

7. Properly rolling out all these procedures the right way.

You see where I’m going with this.

Human Editing is Essential

That said, the technology is evolving at light speed. Today, ChatGPT’s knowledge is limited after 2021, but Google (Bard) and Microsoft (Bing) have already given their chatbots access to the web, so it’s only a matter of time. 

The reality is that my blog and other public-facing content (including the box chart) likely will be used to train the models. I’m not mad about that. What does concern me is the result we will get, which won’t just be created from my content but rather a mash-up of different approaches and content the model thinks seems right, resulting in a “Frankenstein” procedure at best. 

Be that as it may, let’s assume for a moment I’m wrong, and the technology eventually gets to the point where it can generate complete and useful manuals. Someone will still need to edit them because the system likely will still be putting out random stuff that is wrong or conflicting (Frankenstein) that you’ll need to correct or remove. 

It takes a lot of discernment about what to put in an operating manual (the 80 percent of what you do day-to-day) and what to leave out (the 20 percent weird stuff that only happens occasionally).

It also takes human sensitivity to know what the tone must be and how long they should be for ease of adoption and maximum legal protection. 

So, you may be able to generate content using AI but, in the end, you’ll need to do a lot more editing than you might think to ensure all the manuals are accurate and in sync with each other. 

Do your research

Once you have the manuals in hand, the challenge becomes how to get buy-in on the front end and then roll it out the right way to ensure the staff does not only adopt but also embrace them and keep them in the culture. That part needs to be done by humans who understand what needs to happen to keep the manuals in the culture for the long run.

I know you may think I’m biased, but I love technology! Technology with a purpose and knowing what it can and can’t do is key, too.

To me, this sounds like a lot more uncertainty about what the result will be and more work than buying a package of proven, integrated templates that are 90 percent completed for you from a real person who can field your questions and support you through the process (regardless of who you buy them from).

I know you’re crazy busy. I know you’re looking for an easy way out of creating and implementing manuals in your company. And we’re all human, so it’s easy to think it’s an inexpensive way to get what we want and need.

My mission has been, and continues to be, to help my fellow contractors run their businesses with less stress and more success, so if I thought this was the answer, I would be the first one to stand behind it. Instead, I urge you to educate yourself beyond this column and think this through.

If the conversation about ChatGPT has inspired you to get moving on putting operating manuals into place in your contracting business, great! Manuals and SOPs done right will allow your business to grow and for you to finally get your life back. 

I don’t want you to start down a path where you end up with yet another group of procedures that collect digital dust in your Dropbox or One Drive account because that doesn’t serve anybody.

Questions? Comments? Email me at al@7powercontractor.com. 

Interested in seeing what my integrated manuals look like? Go to www.7powercontractor.com/soms and request a free 30-minute meeting if you want to know more. l

Al Levi teaches contractors how to run their businesses with less stress and more success. To learn how to get control of your business and grow the right way, go to 7powercontractor.com/jumpstart and get The 7-Power Contractor Jumpstart Guide today.