Twelve Tools for Reading Any Room

The stories are where the method came from. This is the method on its own. Read the stories once. Come back to this page before the meetings that matter.

WhenAny situation where the outcome matters: a deal, a hire, a market, a family decision.

HowWrite three sentences. Surface: what is being said. Stratum: what the people involved need, fear and protect, and who they answer to. Deep Structure: what is happening that nobody in the room controls. If you are unsure which layer something belongs to, ask: could anyone in this situation change it before the deal is done? If yes, it is Stratum. If no, it is Deep Structure. Then read the three together and write the cut as one sentence: given [the force], [this person's] [fear] is settled by [my move]. At Entebbe it read: given that Amin wanted the Indians gone, the officials' need to process people quickly rather than search them was settled by a tired Monday-night desk and gold inside talcum powder bottles.