Glossary
The operating vocabulary, defined before it's used.
Nine terms that show up in every Snapshot, Diagnostic and readout. If a document we hand you uses a word, it's on this page. AI employees for owner-led businesses that serve clients: each does one job, and a person reviews what it sends.
- Human Dependency Tax
- The coordination cost that builds up when work depends on someone's memory — a pending quote in a text thread, a fact only the owner holds.
- Read the full guide to the Human Dependency Tax
- Operational Straitjacket
- What happens when a business reshapes its workflow to fit a generic software platform. It frustrates the best employees most.
- Read the full guide to the Operational Straitjacket
- Gatekeeper Logic
- A closeout rule that keeps a job open until the required evidence exists. Pressing a button doesn't count as done.
- Handoff
- Work moving between people or systems. It's finished only when the receiver accepts it with enough context to act.
- Exception
- Work the standard rule can't handle. Healthy systems give each exception a named owner. Unhealthy ones send them all to the founder.
- Record of truth
- The single location for a fact, plus the rules for who can change it — so tools stop drifting apart.
- Owner (of work)
- One named person accountable for the next action. Not a team, not a channel.
- Decision boundary
- What a role can decide alone, what information it needs, and what gets escalated. Without one, delegation just routes work back to the founder.
- Operating rhythm
- A recurring weekly review where numbers lead to decisions, each with an owner, a due date and evidence.
See the vocabulary applied to your own workflow.
The free Snapshot measures your Human Dependency Tax in about 15 minutes.