Player/Coach Handbook¶

Player/Coach Reference Guide — V1 Worksuite AWE (Agentic Workforce Era) | April 2026 | Internal

Unfamiliar term? See the AWE Glossary.

1. What Is a Player/Coach?¶

A Player/Coach is a senior IC who carries two obligations at once: they deliver their own work products (the Player half) and they develop the people assigned to them (the Coach half). Every IC at Worksuite has exactly one Player/Coach.

This is not management with a new title. Management — in the traditional sense of information routing, prioritization, and decision approval — doesn't exist at Worksuite. The Org World Model handles information. STOs handle decisions. ICE, DPEV, and D3 handle process. Player/Coach exists for the thing none of those replace: human development.

The model is explicitly borrowed from Jack Dorsey's From Hierarchy to Intelligence: individual contributors, Directly Responsible Individuals (our STOs), and Player/Coaches. The Player/Coach keeps the people dimension intact while the world models carry the coordination load.

What you own: - Regular 1:1s with every direct report - T-SEMS health signals for your directs - Growth: helping directs take on bigger work products and, eventually, become Player/Coaches themselves - Delivery feedback: translating objective data (from agents) into human feedback that moves the needle - Your own IC work products — CSBs, TSBs, Initiatives, whatever you'd own without the Coach half

What you don't own: - Prioritization of your directs' work — the STO owns that, anchored to the Operating Principles - Decision approval on their work — D3 resolves disagreement among peers; the CSA breaks ties - Work assignment — customer need drives CSBs; BSAs engage TSAs directly; nothing flows through you - Information gatekeeping — the Org World Model is the anti-bottleneck; you don't sit between your directs and the context they need

If you find yourself routing information or approving decisions, you're drifting back into traditional management. Stop.

2. Who Is a Player/Coach?¶

Today	Over time
Every WLT member is a Player/Coach for their function's ICs.
Senior TSAs are Player/Coaches for other TSAs.	More senior TSAs become Player/Coaches as the team grows.
Senior BSAs will be Player/Coaches for other BSAs.	Senior BSAs take on Player/Coach responsibility as the business SA team matures.
Core Function ICs (Sales & Marketing, Finance, Security & Infrastructure, People Success, People Experience, Worksuite Services) report to their WLT owner as Player/Coach.

Every IC has exactly one Player/Coach. No dual-reporting, no matrix. If you're a Player/Coach, your directs know it and you know the list.

Becoming a Player/Coach is a deliberate step. It is not a promotion. It is a broader set of responsibilities layered on top of your IC work. The CEO (as CSA over the SA Group) assigns Player/Coach responsibility based on: demonstrated delivery, T-SEMS health of people they've informally mentored, and appetite for the growth half of the role.

3. The Two Halves¶

3.1 Player — You Still Build¶

You are, first, an IC. You own work products. You ship. Agents measure your STO performance the same way they measure everyone else's.

Why this matters: - You stay in the work, so your feedback to directs is grounded, not theoretical. - You stay credible — your directs watch whether you ship. - You don't become an information router or a meeting-scheduler. Worksuite doesn't have room for those roles.

Typical Player load: ~60–70% of your time on your own work products, ~30–40% on the Coach half. If those ratios invert for more than a couple of weeks, something is wrong — usually a T-SEMS issue, an underperforming direct, or too many directs. Escalate.

3.2 Coach — You Grow People¶

You are, second, accountable for the people assigned to you. Not their prioritization, not their decisions — their growth and health.

The Coach work is: - 1:1s. Your primary forum. You own the cadence and the agenda structure. - T-SEMS health. You are the first line of detection for wellbeing, engagement, motivation, and satisfaction signals in your directs. - Growth. Every direct should be demonstrably more capable a year from now than they are today. - Delivery feedback. Agents objectively measure STO criteria. You deliver the feedback in a way a human can hear and act on.

4. 1:1s¶

4.1 Cadence¶

Direct	Recommended cadence
New direct (first 90 days)	Weekly, 30–45 min
Steady-state direct	Biweekly, 30 min
Direct going through a stretch or struggle	Weekly until resolved
Direct who is themselves a Player/Coach	Biweekly, 45 min — half on their work, half on their coaching

You own the cadence. You adjust based on T-SEMS signals and delivery data, not calendar preference.

4.2 Default Agenda Structure¶

This is a starting point, not a template to read line-by-line.

Personal check-in. Family First. If something is going on outside work that affects them, you should know. Ask, listen, don't fix unless they want you to.
T-SEMS temperature. Wellbeing, Engagement, Motivation, Satisfaction. Short, honest. One or two sentences on each is plenty.
Current work products. What's in flight. Where are they stuck. What would make next week easier. This is not status — agents handle status. This is judgment and blockers.
Growth. One thread across 1:1s — what are they working toward, and what's the next step. Revisit monthly; don't re-open every meeting.
Feedback both ways. You give them one piece of feedback. You ask for one piece. Small, specific, frequent.

4.3 What 1:1s Are Not¶

Not status meetings. If you find yourself asking "what did you ship this week," read the Org World Model first.
Not decision meetings. Disagreements go to D3 among peers, not to you.
Not prioritization meetings. The STO on a work product owns prioritization.
Not skip-levels in disguise. You are a peer with extra responsibility, not a layer.

4.4 Notes¶

Take notes. Store them somewhere the Org World Model can index (default: a Granola note or a file in the worksuite-ai-context repo, whichever your tooling points to). Shared growth notes are visible to the direct. Private concerns (T-SEMS, performance, sensitive context) are private until you need to escalate to VP of People Success.

5. T-SEMS Health¶

T-SEMS is owned by the VP of People Success. You are the first line of detection for your directs.

Dimension	Plain-English question	Signal you're watching for
Wellbeing	Are they healthy, rested, sustainable?	Burnout language, hours creep, weekend work, Family-First violations.
Engagement	Are they leaning in?	Proactivity on CSBs/TSBs, quality of ICE Specs, D3 participation.
Motivation	Do they care about the work?	Energy in 1:1s, initiative on PSBs or Initiatives, appetite for stretch.
Satisfaction	Are they glad they work here?	Belief in the Mission, trust in the WLT, candor about frustrations.

Escalation paths: - Minor drift → address directly in 1:1. - Sustained issue you can't move → loop in the VP of People Success. She owns People Success; you own detection. - Anything touching Core Principles violations (Family First, Fairness) → escalate immediately, regardless of size.

T-SEMS signals flow to the CEO first before broader rollup. Preserve that.

6. Delivery Accountability¶

6.1 Agents Measure, Player/Coach Delivers Feedback¶

Every work product has objective STO criteria — BCs ship in ≤3 days, TSBs in ≤3 weeks, ICE Specs anchor to the Big 3 and an Objective, etc. Agents measure compliance. That means the scoreboard exists without you.

Your job is to deliver the feedback in a way that: - Is timely (days, not quarters) - Is specific (points at the artifact, not a vibe) - Lands with the human (you know them; the agent doesn't) - Drives behavior change (not "try harder")

6.2 What Good Feedback Looks Like¶

"Your last three BCs shipped on day 4. The Org World Model shows the slip came from Verify each time — specifically, waiting on BSA sign-off. Talk to Priya about a standing 30-min window at 3pm each cycle, or pull her into Verify earlier. What would work?"

Not:

"You're slipping on BC time caps. Fix it."

The first is a Player/Coach. The second is noise.

6.3 When a Direct Isn't Delivering¶

Check T-SEMS first. Delivery problems are often health problems.
Check context. Are they mis-scoped? Mis-paired? Blocked by something upstream?
Name it in 1:1. Specific, with data.
Plan a path. Usually: smaller next milestone, tighter check-in cadence, removal of a specific blocker.
If no movement in 2–3 cycles: loop in VP of People Success and the CEO (as CSA, if the direct is an SA).

You do not put people on performance plans. People Success owns formal performance process. You own early intervention and human feedback.

7. Relationship to STO¶

This is the single most important line in the handbook:

The Player/Coach does not override the STO.

When a BSA is STO on a CSB, or a TSA is STO on a TSB, or a Worksuite Services IC is STO on an operational improvement — they have decision authority for that work product. You help them remove blockers, grow where needed, and deliver. You do not:

Approve their scope
Prioritize for them (their STO duty, anchored to the Operating Principles — Big 3, FY26 Objectives, ICE)
Overrule their technical direction
Assign them new work

If you disagree with an STO's direction, you use D3 like any other peer. Your Coach role does not give you a tiebreaker vote.

Why: Single-Threaded Ownership is an Operating Principle. If the Player/Coach can override, ownership isn't single-threaded. The whole model collapses.

8. Growth¶

8.1 The Goal¶

Every direct should be measurably more capable a year from now. "More capable" means: - Taking on bigger work products (bigger CSBs, harder TSBs, PSB initiation, cross-customer Initiatives) - Deeper judgment (better ICE Specs, cleaner D3s, faster recognition of when to escalate) - Broader reach (mentoring informally; eventually becoming a Player/Coach)

8.2 How You Do It¶

Stretch assignments inside real work. Not training programs. Pair them with a BSA or TSA on a harder customer, a larger CSB, a PSB.
Expose them to the Org World Model. Show them how to query it, how to find patterns, how to anticipate.
Co-design their growth arc. 3-month and 12-month horizons. Write them down. Revisit monthly.
Protect their time. Family First means their growth work doesn't come out of their personal time. If their IC load is too full for growth, the IC load is too heavy.

8.3 The Pipeline¶

The Player/Coach job is to make more Player/Coaches. Senior TSAs grow TSAs who grow into Senior TSAs who take on directs of their own. Same arc on the BSA side. This is how Worksuite scales without reintroducing management layers.

9. Your Own Player/Coach¶

You have one. Every Player/Coach has one.

You are	Your Player/Coach is
WLT member	CEO (Joey Boothe)
Senior TSA	CEO (as CSA over the SA Group)
Senior BSA	CEO (as CSA over the SA Group)
Core Function Senior IC	Your WLT owner (e.g., Finance Lead → COO)
Worksuite Services Senior IC	Head of Services and PayOps

Your 1:1 cadence with your Player/Coach follows the same rules you apply to your directs.

10. A Typical Week¶

No standing meetings. Player/Coach is ambient, not scheduled on top of work.

When	What
Monday	Scan the Org World Model: what did your directs ship last week, where are they at risk? Glance at T-SEMS signals.
Mid-week	Your 1:1s (whatever cadence each direct is on).
Any day a direct hits a blocker	They DM you. You respond fast — hours, not days. Often a 15-minute working session resolves it; sometimes the answer is "D3 with the other TSA."
Friday	Look at feedback you owe. Look at your own delivery as an IC — are you holding up your Player half?
Monthly	Growth check-in with each direct: are we on the 3/12-month arc we set?

Your calendar should still be mostly empty. If it isn't, cut meetings.

11. Quick Reference¶

What You Do¶

Run 1:1s with every direct
Monitor T-SEMS health — first line of detection
Deliver feedback grounded in Org World Model data
Help directs grow into bigger work products
Ship your own IC work products

What You Don't Do¶

Approve scope, priorities, or technical direction
Route information (the Org World Model does)
Assign work (customer need + BSAs + TSAs do)
Run performance plans (VP of People Success does)
Act as a tiebreaker (CSA does — Joey)

Who You Escalate To¶

Situation	Who
Sustained T-SEMS issue	VP of People Success (Diana Upson)
Core Principles violation	VP of People Success + CEO
Delivery failure after 2–3 intervention cycles	VP of People Success + CEO (as CSA if SA)
Resource contention you can't resolve via D3	CEO (as CSA)
A Player/Coach process that isn't working	CEO

Key Links¶

V1. Maintained alongside the BSA and TSA handbooks. Iterate based on what Player/Coaches learn in the first rollout cycles.