Team
Turn people chaos into role clarity, external trust, and standards.
Why this part exists
This part helps turn role confusion, weak standards, accidental culture, and weak external influence into a people system that can perform both inside the business and in the market around it.
Cost of skipping it
Strong people leave, demand stays fragile, and weak standards drift into culture.
What success looks like
You leave with clearer ownership, stronger standards, and a people system that works both inside the business and in the market around it.
Included chapters
- Role Architecture: Define roles by outputs and boundaries.
- The Hiring Equation: Hire against the real need of the system.
- Feedback That Works: Correct quickly without turning everything into drama.
- Culture by Design: Treat culture as the standard you reinforce.
- The External Team: Turn strangers, partners, and loyalists into evangelists around a category-of-one offer.
- Depth Before Width: Make the team you already have two to three times more capable before you add the next person.
- Negotiation: Prepare deliberately, anchor first, trade rather than give, and close with terms that hold under pressure.
Chapter 1
Role Architecture
Three people think they own the same thing and nobody owns the thing that broke. Design roles by outputs so handovers stop failing.
Chapter 2
The Hiring Equation
You are about to hire because the team is stretched. Make sure you are not hiring around a broken process before you sign the offer.
Chapter 3
Feedback That Works
You avoid the hard conversation and the small problem becomes a quiet exit. Run feedback that fixes work without breaking trust.
Chapter 4
Culture by Design
Culture is whatever you tolerate when nobody is watching. Set the standard the team holds when the founder is not present.
Chapter 5
The External Team
Your audience, partners, and past clients are part of the team. Build the small group whose word brings work in without paid ads.
Chapter 6
Depth Before Width
You think you need a new hire. You actually need the people you have to do work two levels harder. Grow capability before headcount.
Chapter 7
Negotiation
You give discounts before clients ask and accept supplier price hikes without pushing back. Run negotiations that protect margin.
Tailored review
Get the playbook tailored to your business.
Tell us what you run and what you want to fix. Alistair will read it personally and send you a tailored version of the playbook for your specific situation. Free, no commitment, 48-hour turnaround.
Finished this part?
Continue to Systems.
Apply what you learned: Draft your first SOP · Run the Stress Test