Tell your hardest call

The eight questions

Write the way you would talk to another CEO at eleven at night. We edit for clarity, never for comfort.

1. The chair. Who are you, what does the company do, how big is it, and how long have you been in the seat?
2. The call. What was the decision? When did you first know you would have to make it? What did the options actually look like on paper?
3. The room. Who did you talk to before deciding, and who did you not talk to, and why?
4. The night before. What were you afraid of? What did you tell yourself? What did it cost you personally?
5. The morning of. What did you actually do, in what order, in what words? What went wrong in the execution?
6. The bill. What did it cost the company, and what did it save? Which number surprised you?
7. The verdict. Knowing what you know now: right, wrong, or still unclear? What would you do differently in practice?
8. The next person. A CEO is one month from the same call. What are the three things they need to hear?

And one block of numbers

The numbers are the part that makes a story useful rather than merely interesting, and the part the next CEO actually searches for. Headcount at the time, people affected, what it cost or saved, days from knowing to doing, one metric before and after. Bands are fine. We label them self-reported and we do not audit them.

What we promise

• You see the final draft and can pull anything before it runs.
• No third party is described in a way you would not say to their face. We will ask you about this directly.
• No pitch. Your product gets one sentence in the first section and appears nowhere else.
• No fee, in either direction. A story can never be bought here, which is the only thing keeping the archive worth reading.
• You get the share kit: a post in your own voice, a card with your numbers, a five-slide version, a badge. We will not ask you to reshare a link.