All courses / AI Boss / Module 6 / Chapter 29
Learning objectives
After the lesson the participant can:
- Compare the three accounts of the manager's future and the evidence the chapter gives for each.
- State, for each management function, what systems take and what stays with the manager.
- Write a role charter with decision rights per function, a never list and a time budget with a protected floor.
- Identify the findings that would weaken or refute the thesis that the role is transformed, not abolished.
Key concepts
- Transformed, not abolished
- Work that concerns the work, such as assigning, sequencing and measuring, moves towards systems under written delegation. Work that concerns the person, such as deciding a consequence, developing a skill and noticing ill health, stays with the manager and gains weight.
- The standard of the good manager
- The AI boss is acceptable only where it frees a manager to do what the evidence on good managers describes, such as coaching and building psychological safety, and it must be evaluated on whether it does.
- Role charter
- A versioned artefact that binds the manager's other artefacts to a person: for each function what the manager decides, what systems do under which profile, what may not be delegated, and to whom the manager escalates.
- Time budget and protected floor
- The share of working time assigned to each function and to conducting agents. The default floor is at least 35 per cent on M4 Development and M5 Care together, with a recorded decision on what happens to time saved.
- Horizon register
- A register that labels trends for the role as observable, expected or speculation, with signals that have owners and thresholds, so that the organisation can see whether a projection is coming true.
Interactive exercises
Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.
Interactive exercise 1 · Match
Competence areas and their evidence
Match each competence area of the transformed manager with the evidence that Chapter 29 says belongs in the record.
Interactive exercise 2 · Scenario
Two signals in the horizon register
Apply the thresholds of Hansa Mutual's horizon register for the team-leader role, HZN-HM-MGR-01, to the situation below.
Teaching plan
| 15 min | The teacher presents the three accounts of the manager's future and the point at which the parallel with the security architect breaks. |
| 15 min | Participants complete the table of what systems take and what stays for each of the five functions, then compare it with the cited evidence on effective managers. |
| 15 min | Discussion of span of control, the vendors' human-agent ratio labelled as speculation, and what an organisation should measure before and after widening a span. |
| 35 min | Exercise: participants write a role charter and time budget for a line manager from a two-week diary, real or estimated. |
| 10 min | Closing: the four findings that would weaken the thesis, and the author's projections read as his own labelled judgement, not as findings. |
Discussion
- The chapter says conducting agents is the smaller half of the transformation and leading the people the systems direct is the larger. Does that match what you see in organisations that deploy agents?
- Time saved by ShiftWise went to home visits with staff because a decision record said so. Where does time saved by systems go in your organisation, and who decides?
- The most plausible alternative to the thesis is that relational work could be done by peers, HR or coaches outside the line. What evidence would persuade you either way?
Written exercise
Exercise · 35 minutes
A role charter with a time budget
Write a role charter for one line manager whose team works with an AI boss: Mikael Strand, Jana Petersen or a manager you know. For each of the five functions write what the manager decides, which system acts under which profile and at what degree, and the stop right. Name a human decider for every M3 Consequence class. Write the never list of what the manager may not delegate. Build a time budget from a two-week diary, real or estimated, with shares per function, a cap for conducting agents, a share for unassisted practice and a protected floor for M4 Development and M5 Care. State the decision on what happens to time saved and the triggers for review.
Deliverable: A role charter in the form of ROLE-NR-MGR-01 with decision rights per function, never list, time budget with floor, decision on time saved and review triggers.
Self-test
Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.
What did AIDR-0633 decide about the time ShiftWise saved Mikael Strand?
Show the answer
D. The saving goes to the staff, and the span of control is not widened before the review of the commission
His diaries showed about a day a fortnight saved. The charter shows where it went: home visits with staff rose from about 15 to 25 per cent of his time, protected by a 35 per cent floor for M4 and M5.How does the chapter label the image of a manager of one human and twenty agents?
Show the answer
B. Speculation, because no study known to the book has measured it and what is observable points the other way
The number of agents is set by the human attention available to verify them, and automation bias rises under multiple-task load. Widening a span is therefore a recorded decision with a baseline and review date.According to the chapter, where does the parallel between the line manager and the security architect break?
Show the answer
A. The architect's AI team drafts policies, whereas the line manager's systems direct and measure people
The mandate manifest, verification with seeded errors and the role as an artefact transfer to every line manager. But because the manager's systems act on people, leading those people is the larger half of the transformation.