Forty Playbooks for the situations leaders meet.

“I've just been told the strategy has changed and I have to reset everything by Friday.”

“I'm behind and I have to decide what to drop.”

“I need a decision today and the team can't agree.”

“The board has asked for a one-page strategy and I don't know where to start.”

“Someone senior has asked 'what's your plan?' and I haven't got one yet.”

“Someone senior is going to try to hijack the next meeting.”

“I've got thirty minutes to run a meeting I haven't prepared for.”

“The room has gone quiet and I don't know what to ask next.”

“I'm walking into a meeting with fourteen people and no clear outcome.”

“The meeting I'm about to run is going to be a fight.”

“Two directors want different things from me and I have to pick.”

“The team is burned out and I still have to ship.”

“I'm taking over a team that's just had a bad manager.”

“Two of my people are in open conflict and I've been pulled in.”

“A new starter joined on Monday and I haven't onboarded them.”

“I've been asked to give someone difficult feedback and I've been putting it off.”

“I've inherited a team and I don't know what they should be working on.”

“A dependency has failed and I need a plan B by tomorrow.”

“The deadline moved and nobody told my team.”

“I have to ship something this week and it's not ready.”

“The project is slipping and I can't see where.”

“We've been told to do more with less and I have to decide what stops.”

“I've been asked to launch something and I don't know what users actually need.”

“A stakeholder keeps changing their mind and I can't lock the scope.”

“I don't understand why the customer isn't buying.”

“We keep building things people don't use.”

“I need to work out what's actually wrong before I can fix it.”

“Morale has dropped and I can't tell why.”

“I've been told to 'be more innovative' and I don't know what that means.”

“The team has run out of ideas.”

“Every option on the table feels the same and none of them excite me.”

“I know what we're doing isn't working but I can't see the alternative.”

“We've hit a problem I don't understand well enough to solve.”

“We keep having the same meeting and never deciding anything.”

“One person on my team is blocking everyone else.”

“I need to explain why we missed the target.”

“The dashboard says we're fine but I don't believe it.”

“The retrospective keeps producing the same three actions and nothing changes.”

“I'm being asked for metrics and I'm not sure which ones matter.”

“I'm writing next quarter's plan and last quarter's didn't land.”