Managing in the Age of Uncertainty
Six Strategies for Managing a Team of Humans and Agents
It is now inevitable that every manager will have a combined team of biological and digital people — and maybe half of all managers will in 2026.
I’ve been listening to the questions, comments, the conversations about the future of managing this past year. Above all else, people are simply mind-blown at the speed of AI’s development — especially the idea that things called “databots,” “audit bots,” “quotebots,” “demobots” and so on will be sitting at the same table with humans at scale in 2026.
My belief is managing teams of real people and digital people will be the norm. It’s also why I believe the one job AI can’t replace are the managers.
In this issue of Managing in the Age of Uncertainty, I’m focusing on 6 new strategies managers can use to adapt to this new reality.
Readers of this newsletter know that my framework for managing in the age of AI is centered around being consistent as a manager. Consistency is the number one reason millennials and gen-z recommend a manager to a friend or colleague, according to my research. It makes sense: with so much change happening, a consistent manager grounds a team.
My framework includes Six Drivers of Consistency — the skills and behaviors millennials and gen-z look for in a manager.
I’ve aligned six new strategies for managing human-agent teams to each of the drivers. Remember: this is what the best people — the talent you want on your team — expect from a great manager in this moment in time. The best people are already excited to work with agents and bots — they know it is the future.
When I led Cisco’s global sales enablement team, I was fortunate, now in hindsight, to manage a software-based service that required new skills and knowledge for me as a manager. I learned this valuable nugget: software moves fast — much faster than humans.
These six strategies will enable you as a manager to focus on the strengths of humans and agents — and how to combine them into a high-performance team. Each strategy is aligned to one of the Six Drivers of Consistency that millennials and gen-z look for in great managers.
Six Strategies for Managing a Team of Humans and Agents
❶ Alignment Your people want it to be easy to align their job role to the work you care about. People on your team should be able to hold their “box” of responsibilities in their hands and know how the box shows up on your dashboard aligned to your priorities, goals, and metrics. All of this increases the odds of someone getting recognized and rewarded if they exceed expectations.
What’s new: Agents report to humans. Humans are responsible for outcomes. Agents contribute to outcomes. But both need their own “boxes”.
Strategy: Publish EVERYONE’s Box of Responsibilities
Clarify who owns what using a simple framework:
HUMANS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUTCOMES:
Sarah is responsible for: Customer insights report by Friday with 3 recommendations
Marcus is responsible for: Executive presentation—get VP approval for Q3 strategy
AGENTS CONTRIBUTE TO OUTCOMES:
DataBot contributes: Process 500 records, <2% errors, by Friday 5pm (Sarah uses this for her report)
ReportBot contributes: Generate weekly dashboard, sent Monday 8am (Marcus uses this for his presentation)
❷ Accountability Contrary to popular thinking, the best people want to own their work. They want the responsibility that allows them to take risks and innovate — they want to stand out. The best people are looking for opportunities to grow and advance.
What’s new: When agents contribute to outcomes, humans are still responsible for results. Humans own the quality of agent work—which means they validate agent output, catch errors, and add strategic judgment. This is what accountability looks like in the age of AI.
Strategy: Clarify Accountability for Agent Contributions
Make it explicit who owns what when agents are involved:
HUMAN ACCOUNTABILITY:
Sarah is accountable for the quality of her customer insights report—even when DataBot processes the data
Marcus is accountable for his executive presentation—even when ReportBot generates the dashboard
AGENT EXECUTION:
DataBot executes: Process 500 records, <2% errors, by Friday 5pm
YOU (the manager) are accountable for configuring agents correctly
❸ Process Every manager uses a process — some set of steps — to set priorities, goals, and manage a team’s performance.
What’s new: Agents typically update quarterly. Humans are evaluated annually. Your job as a manager is to align two different execution cycles. You need a new kind of meeting: The Quarterly Sync Meeting to bridge the gap.
Strategy: Run a Quarterly Sync Meeting
The Quarterly Sync Meeting keeps human-led execution aligned with agent feature roadmaps. Schedule the Quarterly sync the week after agent updates deploy and answer these four questions with your team to keep everyone in the loop and aligned:
What can the agent do NOW that it couldn't do last quarter?
What specific human tasks are agents taking on next quarter?
What higher-level work can humans spend more time on?
Who owns what going forward?
❹ Mindset Millennials and gen-z are looking for managers who are authentic to themselves. The best people want to know how you think and how you’re wired.
What’s new: Because agents can do more work every quarter, your team needs to understand your decision-making processes about how the team of people and agents will evolve.
Strategy: Publish Your Decision-Making Framework
Your people want to know the rules. Tell them explicitly how you will decide when work goes to agents versus humans. Share your decision-making framework:
Work AGENTS do:
High volume, repeatable tasks (processing 500+ records)
Speed matters more than nuance (weekly dashboards)
Clear parameters can be set upfront (<2% error rate)
Example: DataBot processes customer records
Work HUMANS do:
Requires judgment or ambiguity (analyzing patterns, making recommendations)
Relationships are essential (stakeholder management, executive presentations)
Strategic thinking needed (evaluating options, setting priorities)
Example: Sarah analyzes customer insights and presents to leadership
❺ Facts A team can only have one, single scorecard of success. Your people can only exceed expectations if they can communicate with facts to prove it. Your people expect you to operate from a common set of facts aligned to your goals and priorities — to assure the team you will objectively evaluate results, agent or human.
What’s new: Agents need to be measured, too.
Strategy: Build a Two-Column Dashboard
One column for your people. One column for your agents. The whole team — biological and digital — measured against the same priorities, goals, and metrics. Both columns show how work—human and digital—contributes to what you’re accountable for. This makes it clear: humans and agents work on the same priorities, but contribute in different ways.
HUMAN WORK (left column):
What outcomes humans are responsible for
Skills required
Progress on deliverables
AGENT WORK (right column):
What agents are executing
Volume/speed/accuracy metrics
Version updates and capabilities
❻ Listening Your people want you to know what’s working and what’s not before it’s too late to make a change. Your people are already talking among themselves. They want you to tap into it and be as current as they are.
What’s new: Your front-line people are likely the ones working with your agents day-to-day. Tap into their experience.
Strategy: Make Skip-Level Meetings a Standing Commitment
Nothing sends a clearer signal about your commitment to your people than your behavior. Make skip-level meetings with up-and-coming high potentials a regular part of your calendar. Meet monthly with your top performers two levels down. Ask:
What's working with our agent integrations?
What's getting in your way?
What complexity work do you wish you had more time for?'
Document their answers. Reference them in team meetings.
Your Homework: Build Skills Pathways and Feature Roadmap
In the end, the best people want to grow and advance — regardless of how many agents are on the team. The absolute best people are already imagining new ways to use agents to get work done.
A new career conversation is evolving: one based on a skills pathway for humans and another based on a feature roadmap for agents. Spend time this quarter preparing for the differences:
Strategy: Build Two Pathways — One for People, One for Agents For every human on your team, build a human skills pathway. For every software service or agent on your team, build an agent skills roadmap. These two pathways are how you show your people that skills and results associated with those skills are what get recognized and rewarded. It’s also an important exercise to imagine how future agent roadmaps might intersect with a human pathway — the best people want to own their work, including the work of their agents.
In Summary: Principles of Managing in the Age of Uncertainty
I left Cisco to answer this question with research and evidence: What does the manager of the future look like? What are millennials and gen-z seeking in a manager? Which behaviors, tactics, skills or processes matter? What’s it going to take to attract and keep the best people over the next decade? In short, how to be a great manager.
Based on this research, the core philosophy of this newsletter is rooted in one idea: successful managers in this moment in time, for this generation of talent, need to be “career dot-connectors.” The next-gen doesn’t expect to spend their entire career on your team — that’s an idea boomers grew up with. A job on your team is like a chapter in a career story to the current generation. If you want the best people on your team, you have to connect the dots between roles on the team and the career opportunities of the people working on the team.
What is the“Age of Uncertainty”? If the industrial age was about taking predictable steps up the ladder, the age of uncertainty is about finding or discovering the path of a career without any predictable steps, without an obvious ladder — it’s why being a career dot-connector will differentiate you as a manager.
How to be a Great Manager in the Age of Uncertainty: Be a Career Dot Connector is available on Amazon.
What kind of manager are you? Take my free self-assessment and learn about yourself.