Week 3

Evidence round

4 to 5 of you, 60 seconds each: last week's influence map.

Tell us the one broken relationship you found and the connection that is missing.

No artifact means not done.

What question did the pre-read leave you with?

One question each, 30 seconds.

If three of you are stuck on the same thing, we slow down there. Silence means we move fast.

Manage by their maturity, not your comfort

You read Grove. TRM is per task, not per person. The same mid-level engineer has high TRM on the payments service and low TRM on the service you launched last month.

The hard part: TRM changes with every handoff, so you re-read it every time.

Whose TRM are you reading wrong right now, and in which direction?

Source: Andy Grove, High Output Management

Say the level out loud

You read the three delegation grants and the intent ladder.

Now apply them. Think of the last task you handed off. Which level did you say out loud?

If you said none, which level did the other person hear?

Source: David Marquet, intent ladder

One law, two handovers

Whether you lead a team of reports or lead technical direction without reports, this law asks for the same move.

ICs hand over the component only they understand. EMs hand over decisions, not just tasks.

Both are TRM calls.

Six promotions at once

A real case: preparing six people to take power, then giving it to all of them at the same time.

Watch for what had to happen before any title changed.

The honest reasons, on the board

3 to 4 of you share one item and its reason.

The reasons cluster: job security, speed, quality, trust.

Each one feels true today. Each one is fatal over time.

Teach-back 1

One pair, 8 minutes, both speak: the framework, an owned story, and where the law breaks.

Then 7 minutes of structured discussion. Roles: one challenger, one connector, one summarizer.

Your dead proposal was not rejected

You read why proposals starve. Bring one of yours to mind now. You will postmortem it this week.

The hard part: being right gets you a hearing. It does not win support.

Buy-in is a process, not charisma

You read the three tools: PR/FAQ, DACI, early adopters first.

Apply one now. Who is the approver of your current stalled proposal? If you cannot name them, that is the finding.

Which of the three tools has your team never used, and why?

Source: Amazon Working Backwards; DACI; Everett Rogers, early adopters

Managing up: two sentences, not a deck

SCQA compresses your pitch: situation, complication, question, answer.

Your manager's manager gives you two sentences of attention. Spend them on the complication and the answer, not the background.

IC: support for a migration. EM: the headcount conversation. Same two sentences.

The meeting is not where decisions happen

Nemawashi: walk your proposal around in private, one conversation at a time, before the meeting.

If a stakeholder sees your idea for the first time in the meeting, the meeting is where it dies.

Count your private conversations before your next big ask. Zero is a plan to fail.

Source: nemawashi, Toyota

The dead RFC and the dead reorg

Whether you lead a team of reports or lead technical direction without reports, proposals die the same death.

Idea heard, person not bought.

The fix is the same too: who, then why.

From 26 seconds to 4

A real case: selling an invasive change before the metrics existed to defend it.

Watch where the buy-in work happened. None of it was in the meeting.

Read your two sentences to the room

3 to 4 of you read yours out loud.

We mark where the complication is missing or the answer is hiding.

A summary that needs explaining is not done yet.

Teach-back 2

Second pair, 8 minutes, both speak: the framework, an owned story, and where the law breaks.

Then 7 minutes of structured discussion. Same roles, rotated: challenger, connector, summarizer.

Take-home: the delegation and buy-in audit

• List 3 things you are hoarding (keeping work only you can do), with the honest reason for each
• Postmortem one dead proposal against the who-then-why order: did they buy you, or just hear the idea?

Counts as done: both lists submitted by Thursday 6pm.

Before next week

Read the one-pagers for the Law of Explosive Growth and the Law of Legacy. Arrive with one question.

The mentorship window is open tonight: book your 60-minute 1:1 through the Zcal link in the group.

Tonight you built the team. Next Friday: leading leaders, and what remains when you leave.