🦊 Be the fox first

Your skip-level can smell a pitch from three floors away.

So don't pitch. Go in as the fox — quiet, curious, gathering. Find out what's keeping them up at night before your roadmap review. Find out who's been defining the narrative around your team.

Then, when you walk into that review: you're not defending your plan. You're solving their problem.

Book a 15-minute 1:1 with your skip-level before the next roadmap or planning review. Come with one question: "What's the thing you're most worried we're not solving right now?"

Don't pitch. Just listen.

Then go home and make sure your roadmap answers that question by name.

"A prince must be a fox to recognize traps and a lion to frighten the wolves." — The Prince, Ch. 18

The trap Machiavelli saw: leaders who show their strength too early, before they've mapped the room. The fox phase isn't weakness — it's intelligence collection. The lion moment lands harder when you've already earned the context.

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