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Special seriesIn progress4 parts (+5 coming)Started July 4, 2026

Builder-Leader Field Guide

A nine-part, do-it-yourself companion to the book: one exercise per chapter for leaders crossing the AI build gap.

Nine parts, one per chapter of Builder-Leader: The AI Exoskeleton That Crosses the Gap. Each one is a thing you actually do, not a thing you read: a scorecard you run on yourself, a pilot you size with your own numbers, a harness you inventory, a first Saturday with Claude Code. The full exercises live in the book's public repo; these posts are the standalone version.

Start at part one, the fifteen-minute build-gap scorecard, and work through in order. Or jump to whichever exercise meets you where you are.

Interactive artifact

Field Guide Toolkit

All nine exercises in one place: the build-gap scorecard, the pilot-ratio calculator, the harness inventory, and six more. Run the whole field guide in one sitting instead of hunting across nine posts.

Open the toolkit →

The series

Parts so far

  1. shipped7 min

    Which Side of the Build Gap Are You On? (Run the Scorecard)

    Part 1 of the Builder-Leader field guide. An eight-question scorecard, run on yourself in fifteen minutes, for which side of the build gap you're really on.

  2. shipped7 min

    Hear the Three Tiers (and Name the Failure Mode)

    Part 2. Three listening drills: hear whether a conversation is about the model, the app, or the harness, and name your org's real failure mode.

  3. shipped8 min

    Why Your Org Can't Cross (Run Your Own Pilot Numbers)

    Part 3. Compute your own pilot-to-production ratio against the 88% failure pattern, and find which crossing myth is quietly eating your budget.

  4. shipped7 min

    Inventory Your Harness: The Six Components

    Part 4. The six components of a harness, a one-page inventory of which you have versus actually use, and how to pick the first one to build.

  5. Coming July 12, 2026

    The Five Leadership Primitives Already Transfer

    Part 5. A self-audit of the five leadership primitives against the skills you already use on people. Most of what runs a harness got you to senior.

  6. Coming July 14, 2026

    Your First Saturday With Claude Code

    Part 6, the first one in a terminal. Five exercises for weeks one and two: install Claude Code, bootstrap a harness, rewrite real work, write a skill.

  7. Coming July 16, 2026

    Build the Harness Out (Weeks 2 to 6)

    Part 7. Four moves for weeks two to six: turn what you do twice into a skill, split memory, spawn your first agent, ship one real thing.

  8. Coming July 18, 2026

    From One Operator to a Team (the Phase Everyone Skips)

    Part 8. Solo operator to two: share a skill without drift, name the three failure modes, and test whether you're ready to add a third.

  9. Coming July 20, 2026

    Leading From the Other Side (the Month-Three Checkpoint)

    Part 9, the finish. The month-three checkpoint: name how your leadership looks different, audit your archetype, and check that builder-leader stuck.

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