A Field Guide to Running AI at Work
Own the Human Half
The human system every company forgot to build
Your company adopted AI faster than it learned to govern it. This is the playbook for the person handed the hard part.
The human system every company forgot to build
Your company adopted AI faster than it learned to govern it. This is the playbook for the person handed the hard part.
The tools work. That was never the problem. What no one built, at the same speed, was the human system around them: someone to bring people along on the why, someone to own each tool, someone to announce what changed, someone to check the data, someone to decide what is safe to share, and someone trained to keep it running when the first person leaves.
Most organizations built the left half. This book is about the right.
Done right, none of this is red tape. The catalog, the owners, the shared goal, they exist to do one thing: connect people and make the work clear. So that everyone, even the people who never build a single tool, knows who is building, who can help, and what you are all trying to do. And done well, it is not bureaucratic at all, it is a company where people experiment safely, the wins get celebrated out loud, and the work feels alive.
That is connection. That is clarity. And together, that is belonging, the quiet thing that makes AI actually take hold.
Communication, Governance, and Data. Building fun tools is easy, and living in the wild west of AI is a thrill. But making these three actually hold takes thoughtful work, a person, a team, the human half of AI. And dare I say it, that work can even be fun.
Most organizations built the power. This book is the rest of the building.
Two of the tools you get: who owns AI, and how to choose what to build first.
The ownership team: two co-owners, one small bench.
The Build Score: which AI idea to build first.
The two one-page tools are free, and land in your inbox the day the book launches, August 15th. The full field guide and the editable workbook are the reader’s edition, unlocked with the code in the back of the book.
Your first moves, on one page.
Find your weakest pillar in two minutes.
The whole playbook in an afternoon read.
None of this needs a platform or a budget. It needs a few named owners and a few kept habits, grouped into four areas.
Rate four pillars across four levels, Absent, Ad hoc, Owned, and Reliable. Your lowest row is where the next breach or outage hides.
Absent: no named owner, AI is nobody’s job. Ad hoc: someone helps when asked, no backlog. Owned: named co-owners, a front door, a scored backlog, and people aligned on the why. Reliable: owners, backups, and a backlog everyone sees.
Absent: no catalog, tools spread by word of mouth. Ad hoc: a few people know, everyone else rediscovers. Owned: a catalog and a steward keep it current. Reliable: one place to check, changes announced, wins loud.
Absent: anyone can change or share anything. Ad hoc: some reviews, no rule for what ships. Owned: reviews and versions on shared tools. Reliable: no silent edits, a review before anything ships.
Absent: data is pasted in and forgotten. Ad hoc: some fresh, some a quiet guess. Owned: owners, dates, and access rules are set. Reliable: live or dated, classified, measured, and checked.
The book launches August 15th. Leave your email and we’ll send the two one-page tools straight to you that day.
Thanks. The Governance Starter Kit and the Maturity Self-Assessment land in your inbox the day the book launches, August 15th.
Have a reader code from the book? Enter it here.
Reading the guide is step one. The workshop is the day your team uses it together: an honest assessment of where you stand, and a prioritized plan for where to begin. Built for teams evaluating or starting AI.
That was my job. I led process change and AI adoption across some of the largest healthcare, automotive, and retail brands, owned AI products in production, and saw both the promise and the wreckage up close. Then I built the human systems, the ownership, the reviews, and the communication, that make AI actually hold. If your team is living the chapters in this book, let’s talk.
Take that 2-days-to-2-hours automation. It didn’t work the first time, the results weren’t consistent enough to trust. So I parked it in the backlog, tagged ‘not ready, check again in three months,’ and kept checking. A year of quarterly look-backs later, the tooling had matured, I tried again, and it held. That is the whole method in one story: park what isn’t ready, and have the discipline to come back when it is.
“I’d recommend James every day and twice on Sunday. He’s an outstanding leader of people who makes the most difficult scenarios seem simple, and the way he did it, with humor and inclusion, left a profound impact on me.”
The teams that make it last are the ones where people know what exists, who owns it, and what is true. That is connection. That is clarity. And it is yours to own.
Start with the free tools