Role
That job needs a defined outcome.
It needs clear authority.
It needs boundaries.
It needs an owner.
It needs evidence that proves the work was completed correctly.
Worker and Machine · Split management-and-control teaching view
Manage the worker.
Control the machine.
Manage the work like an employee. Control the system like powerful machinery.
Left side · Work design
Manage the worker
Training
Operational training is the process of encoding how the work is supposed to function.
That includes policies, examples, procedures, decision rules, approved patterns, prohibited actions, source hierarchy, tool instructions, escalation triggers, validation routines, prior outcomes, and lessons from failure.
Supervision
The answer is not more conversational supervision.
The answer is evidence.
The manager should not have to ask whether the agent felt confident.
The manager should be able to inspect the work.
Performance
Measure the operating result: successful completion rate, defect rate, rework required, human intervention rate, unnecessary escalations, missed escalations, boundary violations, validation failures, rollback frequency, evidence quality, time from assignment to accepted result, and the percentage of work completed autonomously inside the approved scope.
Trust
Autonomy is earned through repeatable evidence.
Only then should the trust envelope grow.
Right side · Risk and containment
Control the machine
Access
Which systems may it access?
Which sources are authoritative?
What changes may it make?
Constraints
Every meaningful assignment should define a bounded work envelope.
Inside that contract, the agent can work.
Outside it, the agent must stop.
Validation
It does not know an action is reckless unless that risk is represented in its instructions, context, tools, permissions, or validation controls.
You are managing the integrity of the work.
Reversibility
How can its work be reversed?
What conditions require escalation?
What must remain human-controlled?
Containment
An agent is not accountable.
The accountability remains with the people and systems that authorized the work.
The columns converge
Management Must Become Executable
To make agents useful, organizations must encode what good work means, who owns the decision, which source is authoritative, what authority has been delegated, which controls must run, what evidence is required, when work must stop, and when a person must intervene.
That is not merely an AI implementation exercise.
It is organizational architecture.
Ignore the first, and the agent remains a toy. Ignore the second, and the agent becomes a hazard.
Complete canonical copy and evidence
The Worker Manual
One article identity, one metadata spine, three interfaces. The canonical Worker Manual contains the complete argument, operating contract, scorecard, promotion model, dated source register, restrained inline citations, and visible references.
Evidence posture. Current external sources support architecture, risk, evaluation, accountability, and capability statements. The thesis, employee/machinery metaphor, checklist, scorecard, and promotion model remain Tony Malott's operating synthesis.
Read the complete Worker ManualOpen References and Evidence