The Filter That Protects Your Professional Edge

LIFT Newsletter 036

Four questions that separate strategic thinkers from AI followers.

In July 2025, Deloitte delivered a $440,000 consultancy report to the Australian government.

The report was riddled with fabricated academic citations, false references, and quotes wrongly attributed to Federal Court judgments. The government demanded corrections. Deloitte agreed to a partial refund. Future government contracts will now include stricter AI-usage clauses.

Their reputation took a hit that money can't fix.

Here's what went wrong: Deloitte used Azure OpenAI GPT-4o for early drafting, then relied on "human review" to catch errors. But the review failed to verify the most basic elements—citations and references.

They treated AI like a research assistant instead of a creative writing tool that "hallucinates" plausible-sounding but completely false information.

In 2026, your ability to evaluate AI-generated content isn't just useful. It's your professional immune system.

The managers who get promoted are the ones who present solutions that work, not just solutions that sound smart.

THE EXECUTIVE 4-QUESTION FILTER

Before you present any AI-generated insight to stakeholders, run it through this filter:

1) What are we optimizing for? Speed, cost, revenue, risk, quality, trust, or time-to-decision?

2) What did it ignore? Constraints, stakeholders, second-order effects, edge cases.

3) What could hurt us? Reputation, compliance, customers, people, or strategic alignment.

4) What evidence do we need before we commit? What proof validates this before we move forward?

These four questions take 90 seconds.

They would have saved Deloitte $440,000 and their reputation.

Want to strengthen your foundation for critical thinking?

The ability to ask these questions consistently comes from inner clarity about your values, priorities, and professional standards.

If you're ready to build that foundation, our self-paced mastercourse LIFT From Within helps you develop the internal compass that makes critical thinking automatic, not effortful.

This week, use this filter on one AI-generated piece of information before you share it with your team or stakeholders.

Your human edge isn't knowing more than AI. It's knowing what questions to ask.

If you want the complete system—step-by-step guidance with templates and scripts—our self-paced mastercourse was built for this season.

LIFT from Within (Self-Paced Mastercourse) comes with bonus tools that help you follow through, not just feel inspired:

✅ Reflection journal to sharpen self-awareness

✅ Reset tracker to lock in micro-habits

✅ Self-coaching visual slides to stay steady in the chaos of daily life

It’s already mid-January 2026, so don’t wait for “the perfect time.”

Ready to build momentum from today?

LIFT Your 2026 here