How Your Next Move works

Step 1 · Before the session

Writing it down is where the clarity starts

Within 24 hours of booking you receive your onboarding letter, then your preparation sheet. Its questions ask for your goal, why it matters to you, what should not happen, where you stand today and the questions you want answered. You send your answers back two days before our session, and key points are enough. Your questions become the agenda of our session.

Before we meet, I send you one paragraph that states your goal in my words. You confirm or correct it at the start of the session, so the hour works on the right question.

• Writing shows the open points
  People rate their understanding lower once they have to explain it step by step in writing (Rozenblit and Keil, 2002).
• What you write yourself, you remember
  Across 86 studies, self-generated information was remembered better than information people only read (Bertsch et al., 2007).
• The person who brings the issues sets the agenda
  Andy Grove at Intel asked for a prepared outline before every one-on-one; Bill Campbell compared two written top-five lists to find where the hour should go.

Step 2 · The session

Sixty minutes, all of it about you

• Minutes 0 to 5, your goal. We confirm your goal and agree what this hour is for.
• Minutes 5 to 15, your situation. The people involved, the forces at work, what you have tried, and the real issue behind your questions.
• Minutes 15 to 40, working it through. Questions that test the assumptions behind the decision and open new options. Where it helps, I add my view as an advisor.
• Minutes 40 to 52, your next move. The smallest step with the most leverage, with a date, written as an if-then plan.
• Minutes 52 to 60, your close. What you take from today in one sentence, and your first step.

The session follows the solution-building approach of Peter De Jong and Insoo Kim Berg: your outcome first, then what already works, then the gap that remains, where I bring in 26 years of building companies.

Your next step is yours to own. In Extreme Ownership, the former Navy SEAL officers Jocko Willink and Leif Babin describe the leader who takes responsibility for the outcome and for the next move, without waiting for anyone else. The step you leave the session with is written in your words, with your date.

• A specific goal beats good intentions
  Specific, challenging goals led to higher performance than “do your best” goals (Locke and Latham, 2002).
• An if-then plan gets the first step done
  Across 94 tests with more than 8,000 participants, if-then plans had a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006).

Step 3 · Within 24 hours

Your next move, in writing

• Your priorities as you set them, and the points we agreed for each
• My core observations: what works, where I see a gap, and the questions to take into the next step
• The one recommendation with the most impact
• Your next step, with its date
• The recording and the transcript of our session

• Written words stay
  A review of research on patient memory reported that 40 to 80 percent of medical information is forgotten almost immediately; written information is remembered better (Kessels, 2003).
• Structured debriefs improve performance
  Across 46 samples, debriefs improved effectiveness by about 25 percent on average (Tannenbaum and Cerasoli, 2013).

Research findings are averages across many studies and settings. They show what tends to work, never a promise for one person or one decision. The studies support the individual elements of the process; none of them tests this three-step package as a whole. Full sources are in the handbook (PDF).