Everything you need to make the case to your manager for a seat in a field cohort: the short version, the email, the approval document, your own numbers, and the four objections.
You want to attend a Capital Activator Intensive™ in the field, and someone has to approve it. This kit gives you the short version for a hallway, an email to your manager, a one-page approval document, the questions to answer with your own numbers, and answers to the four objections you are most likely to hear.
Use it in order, or take only what you need. Every template has bracketed fields; fill them with specifics from your own work. A request that names a real decision is approved more often than one that describes a program.
I want to spend four and a half days at a Capital Activator Intensive in [LOCATION], on [DATES]. It builds one practice: finding the capital-building opportunities we cannot yet see, and testing the assumption underneath a decision before we commit money to it. I would bring it back to [THE DECISION YOU OWN], and I would come back a Certified Capital Activator.
Subject: Request to attend the Capital Activator Intensive, [LOCATION], [DATES] [MANAGER NAME], I would like to attend the Capital Activator Intensive in [LOCATION] on [DATES]. It is four and a half days inside an industry at a visible turning point, used as a laboratory for one practice: identifying capital-building opportunities and testing the assumptions beneath them before capital commits. Why now: we are [TIME] from committing [SCALE] to [DECISION]. The assumptions underneath it have not been formally tested. I would bring back the four capabilities—Identify, Imagine, Test, Align—and apply them to that decision within thirty days. The seat is $5,000 (€4,350), all-in except travel and accommodation. I have attached a one-page summary. Can we discuss this week? [YOUR NAME]
Request: Capital Activator Intensive™ in the field · [LOCATION] · [DATES] Participant: [NAME, ROLE] What it is Four and a half days, half classroom and half field, inside [INDUSTRY] as the laboratory. Fifteen to twenty participants from different organizations. Powered by the Think Wrong methodology. What it builds Four capabilities, practiced five ways: identify the capital-building opportunity worth pursuing; imagine and develop the strongest options; test the Super Vital Assumption—the belief that, if wrong, would change a capital allocation decision only the CFO or CEO can authorize—through the smallest credible action; and align the people who must carry the move. What comes back A Capital-Building Opportunity Portfolio, a set of Super Vital Assumptions, My Capital Canvas, and the Certified Capital Activator™ credential (Level 0), earned on demonstrated capability. A small bet designed for [DECISION], run within thirty days of return. Investment $5,000 (€4,350) per seat. Includes the program, facilitation, fieldwork access, meals during the program, and one year of Next Lab | Activator™. Travel and accommodation are the participant’s own. Why now [DECISION] is [TIME] from a commitment of [SCALE]. The assumptions beneath it have not been tested.
A generic return-on-investment table persuades nobody who controls a budget. Four figures your organization already holds make the case better than any benchmark we could print.
The capital, headcount, or program spend attached to the decision you would bring.
Weeks or months until the money is hard to recover.
Write-down, rework, or the cost of carrying the wrong answer another year.
If the answer is your CFO or CEO, say so. That is the level the escalation question is built to reach.
Set the seat price beside those four figures and let your approver do the arithmetic.
There is no group rate and no discount. Where budget is the constraint, the option is timing: a later cohort, not a lower price.
Four and a half days against a decision measured in months. Name the decision and the date it commits; the question becomes whether the week is worth taking before that date, not after it.
It is not training in the sense of a course. It builds a practice you apply to a named decision within thirty days of return. Set the seat beside the four figures in Asset 04.
That is the point. Working on someone else’s industry removes the defenses you bring to your own. The industry is the laboratory; the capability transfers to the decision on your desk.
This is not an innovation program. Its output is a capital-building opportunity tested against evidence, and a question that reaches the person who authorizes the capital.
The moves the participant could not see before the Intensive, each tied to the capital domain it builds and specific enough to act on.
The beliefs that, if wrong, would change a capital allocation decision. The bridge from the Intensive to the governance conversation that should follow.
The participant’s own live challenge, the assumptions beneath it, the small bets designed, and the next governance conversation required—written to be read by a sponsor.
Level 0 on the capability ladder. Earned on demonstrated capability across all four capabilities, not conferred for attendance.
The week closes on the question every Solve Next engagement closes on. Bring your answer to the person who asked what you learned.
“Of the assumptions we surfaced—which ones, if wrong, would change a capital allocation decision that only your CFO or CEO can authorize?”
Questions about any of this, or a version for your own organization: write to Solve Next.