Home / Stage 02 · Teammate
02/03

AI as a Teammate.
Build persistent helpers.

Stage Two of Three
4–8 weeks to fluency
i

Stop re-typing context every morning. A teammate is a prompt that lives somewhere, knows your job, has your docs, and gets sharper every week. Build narrow. Iterate weekly. Reject "do-everything" teammates.

A · Anatomy

The 4 ingredients of a real teammate

5 min read
Recipe
More recipe than prompt.
Skip any of the four and you're back to a generic chatbot.
01 · INSTRUCTIONS Persistent role & rules The "always do / never do" list. Voice, format, audience, definition of success. "Always include 1 risk per recommendation. Never use 'leverage' or 'synergy.'"
02 · KNOWLEDGE Real documents Templates, past good work, brand guidelines, glossaries. Examples beat instructions every time. Upload 5 of your best past memos. Watch the quality leap.
03 · STYLE 3–5 voice samples Your actual past writing. This is what makes the output sound like you, not a McKinsey deck. Paste your last 5 emails. Tell it: "match this voice exactly."
04 · GUARDRAILS What to never do Specific failure modes you want prevented. Be explicit. Hard rules work. "Never fabricate numbers. If a fact isn't in the docs, ask me."
Where they live
Pick the right home
ToolBuild it as
ClaudeProjects (private workspace with docs) or Skills (modular instructions that travel)
ChatGPTCustom GPTs with files plus actions. Shareable in your org's GPT store.
GeminiGems that see your Drive, Docs, Sheets, Calendar natively
CopilotAgents in M365: Outlook, Word, Teams. Best for IT-governed orgs.

Rule of thumb: Build where your data already lives, not where you wish it lived. The friction of moving data kills good teammates.

B · Prescriptive

See a real teammate. Build your first.

15 min to set up
A teammate I actually use, then your turn
SEE Board Memo Drafter

A real teammate, built once, used weekly.

Instructions:

Setup You are my board memo drafter. Audience: 7 PE board members who skim before flying. Voice: direct, plain English, no buzzwords. Always: 1-page max, lead with the headline takeaway, include 1 risk per recommendation, end with the specific ask. Never: invent numbers, use "leverage" or "synergy," start with "I am pleased to..."

Knowledge uploaded: 5 past board memos that landed well, our company KPI definitions, a glossary of internal terms, our brand voice guide.

How I use it: Paste raw notes from the management meeting. Hit go. Edit the draft for tone (10 min), check the numbers (5 min). Ship.

Before this teammate: 2 hours per memo. After: 15 minutes. Once you build one, you can't go back.

DO Build your first this weekend

Five steps. Ninety minutes.

  1. Pick one task you do 3+ times a month. Examples: weekly leadership update, 1:1 prep, client follow-up, RFP response, hiring scorecard.
  2. Write the instructions. Use the 4 ingredients. Be specific. Include 3-5 explicit "never do" rules.
  3. Upload 3–5 real examples of past good work for that task. Skip this step at your peril; instructions alone produce generic outputs.
  4. Use it daily for a week. Every time it gets something wrong, note it.
  5. Iterate Fridays. 15 minutes every Friday for 4 weeks. By week 4, it works.

The first one feels like overkill. The second one takes 30 minutes. By the 5th, you wonder how you worked without them.

C · Recipes

6 teammates worth building

Pick one. Build it this month. The instructions below are the starting prompt; layer your own knowledge and voice on top.

Sales

MEDDIC Call Synthesizer

PROMPT You are my sales coach. From the attached call transcript, extract: Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identified pain, Champion. Flag what's missing. Then draft a 4-sentence follow-up email in my voice that references 1 specific pain and proposes 1 concrete next step. No buzzwords. No exclamation points.
Feed it
5 past won-deal emails, your ICP, your standard discovery questions.
Brand

Voice Calibrator

PROMPT You rewrite drafts in our company voice. Voice rules: confident not cocky, plain English, no exclamation points, sentence fragments OK, never "we are excited to announce." Reference the 10 attached examples for tone. Keep the substance identical, change only the voice. Flag any factual claims you can't verify.
Feed it
10 examples of your strongest writing. The 3 worst examples to avoid.
Finance

P&L Variance Analyst

PROMPT You analyze monthly P&Ls. From the attached actuals vs. budget, identify the top 5 variances by dollar impact. For each: state the variance, propose 2 plausible causes (one operational, one accounting), suggest 1 specific question for the line owner. Never invent numbers. If unclear, ask.
Feed it
Your chart of accounts, the prior 12 months of P&Ls, known seasonality notes.
Leadership

1-on-1 Prep Coach

PROMPT I have a 1:1 with [name] in [role] in 30 minutes. Their recent context: [paste]. Generate: 3 questions to surface what they're not saying, 1 specific piece of feedback worth giving today, 1 thing to celebrate, 1 thing I should ask their help on. Direct, no fluff.
Feed it
Your last 6 months of 1:1 notes, their last review, their stated goals.
Strategy

Board Memo Drafter

PROMPT You draft 1-page board memos. Audience: 7 PE board members. Voice: direct, plain English. Always: lead with the headline takeaway, include 1 risk per recommendation, end with a specific ask. Never: invent numbers, use "leverage" or "synergy." Output exactly 1 page.
Feed it
5 past board memos that landed well, your KPI definitions, your glossary.
Ops

SOP Drafter

PROMPT From a description of a recurring process, draft an SOP. Format: Owner, Trigger, Inputs, Steps (numbered), Outputs, Edge cases, Escalation. Each step must be actionable by someone unfamiliar with the process. Flag any steps with unclear ownership.
Feed it
3 existing SOPs in your house style, your org chart, your escalation tree.
D · Quality

Good teammates vs. bad teammates

Quality Bar
Tell them apart at a glance
A real teammate
A glorified prompt
  • One narrow job, done well
  • 5+ real examples uploaded
  • Explicit "never do" rules
  • Used 3+ times per week
  • Iterated every Friday
  • You'd recommend it to a colleague
  • Tries to do five things
  • No real examples uploaded
  • No guardrails or "nevers"
  • Used twice, then forgotten
  • Never edited after day 1
  • Sounds like generic AI output
Failure modes
Click each to see the fix

The trap: "A teammate that helps with all my writing." Sounds powerful. Outputs bland.

The fix: Narrow to a specific deliverable type. "Drafts board memos" beats "helps with strategy." Build a second teammate for the second deliverable.

The trap: You write great instructions but skip uploading docs.

The fix: 5 strong examples beats 10 paragraphs of instructions. Every time. If you only have 1 hour to build a teammate, spend 50 minutes curating examples and 10 writing instructions.

The trap: Set it up, use it once, never come back.

The fix: Friday afternoon, 15 minutes. Look at the worst output of the week. Add 1 instruction. Add 1 example. Ship.

The trap: A team-shared GPT/Skill that everyone uses and no one maintains.

The fix: One human is accountable. Their name is in the description. They own the Friday iteration. Without an owner, decay is inevitable.

Do this

Try this quarter

  1. Build one teammate, narrow. One task. 90 minutes. This weekend. Don't try to design the perfect one.
  2. Feed it 5 examples. Your actual past work. The examples teach more than the instructions.
  3. Iterate weekly for a month. 15 minutes every Friday. By week 4 it works. By month 3 you have 5 teammates.
Next up · Stage 03

AI as an Operating Layer

Once you have 3-5 teammates, the next move is agents that run whole workflows on a trigger. The frontier, but real, and worth piloting carefully.

Continue →