If you listen to the business headlines these days, you might conclude that artificial intelligence should be used for everything.

How many times a week are you in a virtual meeting where you can literally see in the reflection of someone’s eyeglasses that they are doing something else?

Not “kind of distracted.” Not “quickly checking something.”

Completely somewhere else.

It happened to me this week with a vendor we are considering working with, and it was so rude and off-putting that it immediately changed my perception of them. It is one thing to fake attentiveness with the occasional nod and a half-hearted, “Yeah, good point.” It is another thing entirely to be visibly engaged in something else; smirking, smiling, reacting, even laughing at whatever is on your screen while someone else is speaking. Seriously, dude?

That is not multitasking. That is messaging.

And the message is loud and clear.

In a business world obsessed with efficiency and productivity, many professionals convince themselves that multitasking is harmless, even necessary. But the reality is, every time you divide your attention in a meeting, you are sending a series of powerful subliminal signals.

The question is: what exactly are you signaling?

Here are five answers.

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If you haven’t heard the news yet, AI has changed everything.

Historians may eventually look back on this moment as one of the great pivot points in human productivity.

From a business perspective, I see it as a major pivot point in business acumen.

For decades, leaders have been trying to get their sales teams to become more data-driven—using customer insights, prescription trends, territory analytics, and performance dashboards to make smarter decisions.

Now something new has entered the equation.

AI.

In a world driven by data, data analytics, and now artificial intelligence layered on top of it, entirely new challenges are emerging for sales leaders and the way they coach their teams.

Whether companies have formal policies about AI or not, their sales teams are already using it.

Last week, I was immersed in a fascinating project focused on building sales leaders' business acumen in the pharmaceutical industry.

A major part of the program focuses on how sales leaders coach their teams using sales data, helping them interpret prescribing patterns, identify opportunities, and take the best actions to grow new prescriptions and revenue.

Many readers of this blog tell me their favorite posts are the ones that feel very real, very practical, and that “hit home.”

I think this one will do exactly that.

Before getting into a very interesting story, let me start with a few questions that leaders ask me all the time:

• “I need my team to make better business decisions—what can I do?”
• “I manage a team with very different personalities—how do I get everyone working together effectively?”
• “How do you rebuild a strong culture after a difficult situation on a team?”

These are not theoretical leadership questions. They are real-world challenges that leaders face every day. And interestingly, they all came together during a recent conversation I had with a sales leader while conducting subject matter expert interviews for a new business acumen simulation we are building.