Hey Reader,

Welcome to the 26th edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here).

One idea from me first, three links that go deeper on it, then two things that have nothing to do with work. Let's get into it.

1 Idea from Me

Judgment is a muscle.

Two years ago a client brought us a brief that sounded simple: help our individual contributors drive more impact on their own.

On the ground it looked like this. Someone would flag that customers in one category were churning, and then walk away. Now it was the leader's problem.

What "more impact" turned out to mean

When we dug into the brief, it came down to one recurring moment. Leaders were getting a steady stream of problems from smart people and very few recommendations.

Daniel Debow has the cleanest description of this I've found (first link below): 5 levels of bringing a problem to your boss.

There's a problem.
There's a problem, and here's what I think caused it.
Problem, cause, and here are some things we could do.
Problem, cause, options, and here's the one I think we should pick, and why.
I found it, I fixed it, and I'm keeping you in the loop.

The client wanted people at level 4, but most were at 2 or 3. That gap is judgment.

We built it by trial and error

We designed a program to close the gap. The first cohort didn't go well. Most companies would have cut the program right there. But our client believed in the direction, and most importantly, our ability to respond to feedback and adapt.

Dozens of cohorts later, the program has an impressive track record of impact stories, and along the way we did something I hadn't planned. We read every survey response and interview we collected and coded them for the behaviors that separated the people who drove impact from the people who stayed order takers.

9 behaviors survived, 3 for each motion of the loop we teach: seek, make sense, ship. A few of them:

Open with how and what. Delay why. Hold that order for the first 3 or 4 questions in any conversation meant to surface information.
Go where your view is weakest. Collect the perspective you're missing before you conclude, especially the one you expect to disagree with you.
- A finance leader in one cohort read the legal documents herself before negotiating with legal, so she could feel their pain points instead of guessing at them.
Sort and drop. Put the mess into a few buckets and name what you're leaving out.
Lead with the answer. Recommendation in the first sentence. Let people pull you down into the support.
- One engineer now teaches his team to cut the "how we got here" and open with the conclusion.

None of these is judgment on its own, but run together as a process on a real problem, they produce it.

A working definition

One engineer raised the same problem twice. The first time, he raised it as an issue and waited to see if a discussion happened. Nothing did. 6 months later the same problem resurfaced. This time he led with "this is what I'm going to be doing," asked for agreement, and shipped.

My working definition after two years of watching this: judgment is what you build when you take the part of the picture only you can see and add the parts other people see. Then you work it into a recommendation and ship it to the people who decide. Then you take the feedback you get and update your POV and ship again. And you just keep repeating this loop. On consequential problems with real stakes.

You start with your own view because nobody else has it. You add other views since nobody, including the CEO, sees the whole thing on their own. The hard part is the last step, because a list of options feels safer than a recommendation. But safe is where impact goes to die.

The more people in a company do this, the faster the company moves.

Running the loop on our own business model

Here's an example of how I'm running this loop to improve my judgment as a business owner. Three companies have asked to license the method, and each wants it slightly differently. One wants to certify its own coaches and license seats for several hundred people. Another wants a small paid pilot before anything bigger. A third wants to train its own trainers next year.

So I ran the loop on our business model. I chatted to a friend who had built licensing at another company and asked how it broke. I had Claude make a report on how 12 companies like FranklinCovey license their IP. I took all this input and developed it into a shape I liked: one annual price per seat, one price to certify a coach, a custom first engagement. Then I shipped it: page live, sent to a buyer. Her questions came back within 10 minutes. By the next day some of my answers were our new rules. And I'll just keep doing this, letting reality shape my next action.

Your move

Treat judgment like a muscle. Pick one big hairy problem on your plate, one you feel like dodging at a level 2 or 3. But don't play it safe. Carry it to level 4: try to understand it better, seek the views you're missing, sort them into a POV, and ship it to someone who can tell you how you're wrong. Then soak up that precious feedback and update.

Get attached to the loop, worry less about the outcome. The people I've watched build real judgment are still happy when their recommendations turn out wrong, because they know what to do differently next time.

If you want help installing that loop in your team, hit reply.

3 Things for Work (in L&D)

How to be an effective early stage employee. Hint: be helpful. (Daniel Debow, Medium)

The essay behind the five levels, from a product leader at Shopify. Read it for the honest line that getting to level 4 and 5 takes courage and judgment, and those are hard skills to develop. The role of the manager bit at the end really got me thinking.

🏋 Effort ≈ 7 min read

Effects of Message, Source, and Context on Evaluations of Employee Voice Behavior (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2012)

The research behind "bring a recommendation, not a problem." Researchers ran lab studies varying who spoke up, what they said, and when. Speaking up was rated more favorably when the message came with a solution attached, when the speaker had credibility, and when the timing fit.

🏋 Effort ≈ 3 min for the abstract (full paper is paywalled)

Developing expert political judgment: The impact of training and practice on judgmental accuracy in geopolitical forecasting tournaments (Judgment and Decision Making, 2016)

Philip Tetlock's team spent four years in forecasting tournaments run for the US intelligence community. A training module that took less than one hour improved accuracy by 6 to 11 percent over the control group, every year, and practice added its own independent gain. Judgment is trainable, and the reps count.

🏋 Effort ≈ 25 min read

2 Things for Life

How to Unclench (Jonny Miller)

A friend of mine spent months writing this, and it shows. An interactive essay with stories, science, and guided practices, and the whole thing rests on one move. You notice where you're bracing, and you let go. Jonny's work has been transformational for me. Start with a cold shower.

🏋 ~35 min read or listen (take it in pieces, it's worth it)

Magic Eye (Magic Eye Inc.)

Yes, the 3D pictures from the nineties. They still post a new image every week but we bought a book off Amazon. You can't force the pictures to appear. You relax your eyes, stop trying, and it arrives. The cheapest hit of wonder and curiosity I know, and a surprisingly cool 20 minutes with a kid.

🏋 as long as you need

That's it for this week - enjoy your Sunday!

I'll be back in two weeks ✌️

Andrew

P.S. 👉 Next week we launch something I've been building all summer with Al Dea. The Talent Leader AI Lab: 12 senior talent leaders, two months, and one live initiative that you're actually measured on. Every session is the loop above, run on your real work, coached by your peers, with AI workflows we'll teach. You're reading this before the public launch. 🚀 Details here.

Andrew Barry

[3-2-1] Judgment is a muscle. Here's how to train it.