Episode 08
The New Team Member
Kentaro has joined the team. The team has not agreed what role he has.
THE SITUATION
What happened
Kentaro is invited into a business team’s work. He receives access to documents, data and meetings. People ask him to prepare summaries, answer questions and suggest next steps. One person assumes Kentaro is an assistant. Another treats him as an analyst. A third expects him to make decisions when nobody is available. Kentaro tries to help all of them. The problem is that the team has never agreed what he is there to do, where his authority ends, or who takes responsibility for the work that follows.
THE WORK TENSION
What went wrong
The team added an agent before defining its role. Access to information does not establish a mandate. An agent needs to know whether it is preparing work, recommending a direction, carrying out an approved action or escalating a decision to a person.
Without that agreement, every request carries a different expectation. Kentaro is not being difficult when he asks. He is exposing the role the team never defined.
THE PRINCIPLE
Define the agent’s role in the team.
“An agent needs a defined role, not an assumed place in the team.”
Before an agent joins a business workflow, define its purpose, scope, decision rights, approval points and accountable business owner.
FROM STORY TO HARNESS
How Kentaro Harness reduces this friction
Kentaro Harness gives this relationship a working structure. It connects the agent to the relevant business context and makes its mandate, boundaries, approvals and escalation route explicit.
Explore Kentaro Harness