🚩Tactical Memo 092: I Was the Reason My Team Was Confused

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"Which one are we using this week?"

My team asked me that while we were building workbooks for a corporate training event.

They weren't joking. They were confused.

And I was the reason.

Every week I showed up with something new. A different AI tool, a different way to draft, a different "this is the one." I was excited, and I thought excitement was leadership.

Meanwhile the workbooks had a date on them.

The team spent their energy figuring out which direction I wanted that week. The work moved slower, and I was the one slowing it down.

It happened to be tools. It could have been a template, a meeting format, a new process. The pattern is the same: a manager who keeps changing the call mid-project is asking the team to absorb every change on top of the work.

So I made one call. One tool for all the main work, and we stayed there until the date.

The workbooks got done. And the lesson stuck harder than the tools did.

Here is what I do now, on every project with a deadline on it.

1/ I make one call and say it out loud

At the start of the work I tell the team what we're using and that we're staying there until the deadline.

For the workbooks it was Claude, for every draft and every edit. Same tool, start to finish.

Saying it out loud is the part that matters. A decision that lives in my head is a decision the team has to guess at, and by Tuesday they're guessing.

Once it's said, nobody has to ask which one.

2/ I keep my experiments to myself

I still try everything that comes out. I do it on my own time, on my own work, and the team doesn't hear about it.

Before the workbooks, every experiment I ran became a team announcement. Each one cost them an hour of figuring out whether this was the new normal.

Now nothing reaches the team until I've used it for real and decided it earns a place on a future project.

Testing is my job. Absorbing my tests is not theirs.

3/ I define what the call covers

"We're using one thing" only holds if everyone knows what one thing means.

On the workbooks, the call covered every draft and every edit. If it was going into a workbook, it went through the one tool.

Side tasks were open. Nobody cared what people used for those, and saying so out loud kept the rule from feeling like a leash.

The line held because everyone knew where the line was.

4/ I let the team get good at one thing

Once we stopped switching, people stopped learning tools and started learning the work.

They found what worked for our workbooks. They shared it with each other. The output got better week over week because nobody was starting over on Monday.

Every switch resets a team to zero. Holding still is what lets them compound.

A team that's good at one thing beats a team that's been introduced to five.

5/ I revisit after the deadline, never during

Changing the call happens between projects.

When the workbooks shipped, then we looked at what had come out and whether it was worth moving to. Some of it was. We moved on the next project, not the current one.

Switching mid-project is how I created the confusion. Switching between projects is a decision.

The deadline sets the rule. The rule protects the team.

I was the most excited person on my own team, and my excitement was the problem.

The teams that ship are the ones where nobody has to ask which one we're using this week.

Make one call for the work in front of you. Say it out loud on Monday. Hold it until the date.

What I did with the workbooks, one call on where AI fit and everyone held to it, is the smallest version of what Management for Hybrid Teams builds. Every recurring task your team does, sorted into human, agent, or both, with one owner and one check, on one page. AI stops being another tool nobody opens and becomes part of how the team works.

If your team is asking which one you're using this week, that's the course: maven.com/justinbateh/managing-a-hybrid-team

Until next time,

Justin Bateh, PhD
Founder and Editor
Tactical Memo

P.S. When you're ready, here's how I can help:

1. Project Management That Actually Works: the 7-step system to plan, lead, and finish without winging it.

2. AI Project Management: every core workflow in Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini, so your team learns the work once.

3. Management for Hybrid Teams: leading people and AI agents on the same team.