Short reports from the gap between plausible and works. Fortnightly, under 500 words, and every claim carries a receipt. We change our methods in public; this is where we report what worked, and what didn't.
Fortnightly. Under 500 words. Unsubscribe is one click and no hard feelings. Privacy.
"Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind."
Brené Brown
Every company now has an AI policy. Most have never written it down, which means it is being written anyway, by rumour, one nervous guess at a time. Unwritten policies are always authored by fear.
Here is the whole governance model, and it fits on one page. Walk your operating rhythm, job by job, and give every job one of three labels.
AI runs it. The written-down work: meeting prep, progress compilation, first drafts, retrieval, the methodology question at 4pm on a Tuesday.
AI drafts it, a human signs it. Anything with consequences: the review that shapes a career, the grade that moves money, the plan the board will read. The machine does the knowing. A name goes on the deciding.
AI never touches it. The decision to kill a goal. The conflict between two teams. The judgment of a person. If it is at stake rather than written down, it belongs to humans, full stop.
One rule sits under all three, and you have seen it here before: AI augments everything that is written down. Humans own everything that is at stake.
Then the leadership team signs the page. Not a committee, not a working group, not a policy portal. A page, with signatures, on the wall if you like.
Two things happen, and the first one is the point. Swimmers relax between flags. The fear in your building right now is not the machine, it is the unflagged water, the not knowing which work is safe to hand over and which work handing over would be a confession. Clear labels end the guessing. Clear is kind. The second thing: your most expensive judgment stops being spent on work the machine should carry, which is where the reclaimed hours come from.
Ours went from habit to paper this fortnight: one page, three lists, signed. It took forty minutes and one argument, which is precisely the argument you want to have on paper instead of in a corridor. In the changelog: the line is now signed, not assumed.
Write down ten recurring tasks from your team's week. Now sort them into the three columns: runs, drafts, never touches. If the sorting takes you more than five minutes of debate, the policy does not exist yet, and your people are swimming in unflagged water. They know it even if you do not.
Draw the line.
See you in a fortnight,
Matt
P.S. Reply with the word LINE and I will send you our one-page template, the same three lists with the labels ready to argue over. And the free AI OKR Coach kit sits comfortably in the first column.