When someone leaves, their work should not leave with them.

01The day after

Everything stopped when Priya left.

For three years Priya ran renewals. She also triaged partner escalations, kept the pricing sheet honest and was the only person who knew why two enterprise customers were on custom terms. Her title was Account Manager. None of the rest was written anywhere.

When she left, the title was easy to post. The work was not. Renewals slipped, escalations bounced between three people, and the pricing sheet stopped matching the contracts. The team learned what Priya did by watching it break.

A written role makes the work visible before anyone leaves. It names the purpose, the responsibilities, the decision rights it holds and who fills it today. When the filler changes, the role stays.

02The distinction

A title describes a person. A role describes the work.

One person usually fills several roles, and one role can be filled by more than one person, or by a person and an agent together. Separating the two lets you see what the team actually carries, who carries it, and what happens when someone moves.

03Three principles

Make each role something you could hand over tomorrow.

1. 1

   Start from the purpose, not the person.

   Write the outcome the role exists for in one sentence, then the responsibilities that serve it. “Keep every partner contract renewed on terms we can stand behind” tells a new filler what matters when the task list runs out. Don’t write down Priya’s calendar. Write down what Priya was for.

2. 2

   Attach the rights to the role.

   A role carries the decision rights it needs: renewal terms within list price, say, but not pricing exceptions. When rights belong to roles rather than people, authority survives a leave, a promotion or a reorganization, and nobody has to rediscover who can sign.

3. 3

   Name every filler, including software.

   Say who fills the role today and how. If an agent drafts renewals and a person approves them, write it down: one role, two fillers, a clear line between them. Co-filling is normal. Hiding it is what causes trouble.

04In Particulars

Roles with fillers you can see.

Each role sits on the team’s charter with its focus and responsibilities. People are circles and agents are tiles; a co-filled role is one pill in two halves, and a role nobody fills says so. When a filler changes, the role stays put and the charter keeps the history.

Illustrative team. The role holds the work; the filler can change.

05What becomes possible

Hand over the work, not just the laptop.

With roles written, a departure becomes a handover: the next filler gets the purpose, the responsibilities and the role’s history. You can also see the shape of the team: roles with nobody in them, people holding too many, and agents doing work nobody assigned.

• Find the roles that exist only in one person’s head.
• See who is carrying more roles than anyone agreed to.
• Give an agent a role, with limits, instead of a login.

“Titles are universals. Roles are particulars.”

The Particulars thesis