I Skip-Leveled My Manager. He Found Out. We Hugged.

Here is how I did it. Total time: TWENTY-THREE minutes.

I sent his manager a calendar invite at 5:47am on a Wednesday. Subject line: "Quick alignment." No body.

The body is the WEAPON. An empty body is asymmetric.

He accepted in eleven minutes. Eleven minutes is SIGNAL.

An exec who responds in eleven minutes at 5:58am is HUNGRY for what comes next. Hungry execs are the only execs WORTH skipping to.

I prepared exactly three points. Always three.

Lists of two are HEDGING. Lists of four are PANIC.

1. The roadmap is misaligned with the north star.
2. Two reports are quiet quitting and one is loud quitting.
3. The org chart is a MOAT around the wrong person.

The meeting ran twenty-three minutes. He NODDED twice. He did not take notes.

Not taking notes is a TELL. The man was committing it to memory. That is when I knew the plan had LEGS. ⚡