For leaders, managers, and innovators who want to commission a Think Wrong Intensive for their organisation—and need to make the case to their CLO, VP of Learning & Development, Chief People Officer, or CHRO. Everything in this kit is designed for that specific conversation.
This kit is built for the person making the case—the internal champion—and shaped around the person they are making it to: the CLO, VP of Learning & Development, Chief People Officer, or CHRO who controls the budget and evaluates the programme against a specific set of organisational criteria. Understanding the difference between these two people is what makes this kit work.
The CLO or VP L&D cannot approve a programme they cannot connect to a stated strategic priority. This section gives you the language to make that connection. Personalise the opening paragraph with the specific initiative, then forward the rest.
Context: [INSERT one sentence connecting the programme to a live organisational priority. Examples below—choose the one that fits:]
For an AI deployment context: “We are scaling AI across [FUNCTION/BUSINESS UNIT] and the decisions being made about deployment architecture, use case selection, and adoption assumptions are resting on premises that have not been tested against evidence.”
For a growth context: “We have [N] significant growth bets committed for [YEAR/QUARTER] and the market assumptions underlying most of them were formed in [YEAR] before [MARKET CONDITION] changed.”
For a transformation context: “Our [TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME] is twelve months in and the framing of the problem it was designed to solve has not been examined since the programme was commissioned.”
The organisational challenge: The decisions where untested assumptions are most expensive—AI deployments, growth bets, market entries, and transformation initiatives—are being made at [ORGANISATION] right now. Those decisions rest on beliefs that were formed inside the organisation, confirmed by our own success, and have never been tested against external evidence. This is not a failure of intelligence or diligence. It is the predictable result of operating inside a governance system that was built to measure outcomes but was never designed to surface the difference between what we actually know and what we assume.
What this programme addresses: The Think Wrong Private Intensive is a structured, three-to-five day capability-building programme that develops four specific practices across the participating cohort: framing the right challenge before committing to a solution; distinguishing what the organisation knows from what it believes; identifying which assumptions, if wrong, would change a capital allocation decision only the CFO or CEO can authorise; and designing the smallest credible test that converts belief into evidence before capital commits. These are not frameworks. They are practiced skills—applied to live organisational challenges during the programme and transferred through a structured facilitation capability that participants carry back.
Why now: [INSERT the specific decision or initiative that makes this timely. The more specific, the stronger the case.] The cost of discovering a wrong assumption after capital is committed is 10–100× the cost of testing before it. For decisions in the €[X]M range, the maths are not close.
Recommended next step: A 30-minute conversation with Solve Next to scope a private cohort for [ORGANISATION]. Contact hello@solvenext.com.
Every CLO or VP L&D evaluating a programme proposal works through the same five criteria—whether they articulate them or not. This map shows you where Think Wrong Private Intensive sits on each criterion versus a typical executive education or bespoke L&D alternative. Use it to anticipate the questions before they are asked.
This is the two-page document in L&D design language that the CLO forwards to their team for evaluation. It describes the private intensive as a capability-building programme—in the vocabulary that learning designers and L&D leaders actually use. Adapt the format and participant count for your context and forward this section as a standalone document.
Programme title: Think Wrong Private Intensive—[ORGANISATION NAME]
Provider: Solve Next · solvenext.com
Format: [3-day / 4.5-day] immersive cohort intensive—private organisational delivery
Cohort size: 15–24 participants—capped to preserve application depth and conversation quality
Proposed participants: [FUNCTION / LEVEL / INITIATIVE—e.g. “Senior leaders across Strategy, Innovation, and AI functions involved in [PROGRAMME]”]
Learning objectives—by programme end, each participant will be able to:
1. Apply the Deflection Point discipline to reframe a live organisational challenge before solutions are committed—moving from the problem as presented to the problem as the evidence suggests it actually is.
2. Classify every significant belief underlying a high-stakes decision as either untested assumption, testable hypothesis, or validated knowledge—using the Certainty Map and PAK framework—for any challenge, with any team, in any governance context.
3. Identify which assumptions, if false, would change a capital allocation decision only the CFO or CEO can authorise—using the Super Vital Assumption discipline—and sequence evidence-gathering to resolve the highest-risk unknowns first.
4. Design the smallest credible evidence-generating action bounded by affordable loss—using the Make Stuff and Bet Small practices—that converts a Super Vital Assumption from belief to evidence before capital commits at scale.
5. Facilitate a structured assumption-surfacing session with any team inside the organisation—applying the methodology independently within 30 days of returning.
Transfer methodology: Every practice is introduced in a facilitated session and immediately applied in the same session to a live challenge—either the industry fieldwork (field-based format) or the participant’s own live organisational challenge (Activator format). The final session is a structured transfer: each participant applies all four practices to their own live decision and leaves with a tested assumption map, a designed small bet, and a 30-day application commitment. Transfer is built into the programme design, not dependent on participant motivation.
Assessment approach: Three tangible artefacts per participant constitute the programme’s assessment evidence: (1) Certainty Map for a live decision, produced on Day 2. (2) Super Vital Assumption ranking with small bet design, produced on Days 3–4. (3) Escalation question answered with named capital-consequence assumptions, produced on Day 4 evening. Participants who meet the facilitation standard earn the Certified Serious Capital Activator™ designation.
Curriculum provenance: Think Wrong: How to Conquer the Status Quo and Do Work That Matters—third printing, 2025. Published in English, Spanish, and Arabic. Application history: Genentech, JP Morgan, Microsoft, Airbus, the White House, NATO, Starbucks, Deloitte, Stanford University.
Faculty: Programme designed and led by Greg Galle (co-author, Think Wrong) and Louise Kyhl-Triolo (European Programme Lead), with Solve Next senior facilitators. Facilitation ratio: one facilitator per six participants.
Prerequisites: None. Participants should arrive with a live challenge where capital or strategic consequence is genuinely at stake. A challenge brief is submitted one week before the programme starts.
Integration with existing L&D architecture: The programme credential (Certified Serious Capital Activator™) is the first level of a three-level Serious Capital Leadership Ladder. Organisations can use the private intensive as the entry point for a multi-year capability development journey culminating in the Serious Capital Architect Intensive (Level 2) and the Serious Capital Governor designation (Level 3—earned through live governance practice). Internal facilitation capability is built in from Level 1.
The CLO who cannot point to evidence that a programme produced capability change cannot justify renewing it or running a second cohort. Think Wrong Private Intensive produces three tangible artefacts per participant—not self-reported skill development, but observable evidence that the learning was applied to a live decision.
The individual kit argues that one better decision pays for one person’s programme. The organisational argument is different: N people making better decisions on AI deployments, growth bets, market entries, and transformation initiatives pays for a programme at scale. The question is not whether the investment is justified. It is whether this is the highest-leverage moment to make it.
| Decision type | Typical at-stake value | Cost of wrong assumption at commitment | Programme cost (20 people) | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI deployment Wrong premise about use case, adoption, or governance |
€1M–€20M investment per initiative | 50–100% of investment if wrong premise undetected at commitment | €80,000–€120,000 | 1partial course-correction on one initiative |
| Growth bet Market demand assumption never tested against evidence |
€2M–€50M per initiative | Significant write-down if market assumption fails post-commitment | €80,000–€120,000 | 1earlier pivot on one initiative |
| Market entry Competitive, customer, or regulatory premise not examined |
€5M–€100M | Entry cost plus exit cost if premise fails in market | €80,000–€120,000 | 1pre-entry assumption test on one market |
| Transformation initiative Problem framing assumed, not evidenced |
€10M–€200M programme spend | Programme delivers against wrong brief—restructuring cost plus momentum loss | €80,000–€120,000 | 1early reframe on one programme |
The table above uses ROI logic—the right frame for CFO conversations. For CLO and VP L&D conversations, a different frame works better: LFI—Learn From Investment.
The ROI frame asks: what is the financial return on this programme? The L&D buyer often cannot answer this without a 12-month lag. LFI reframes: what is the cost of not developing this capability relative to the decisions our organisation is making this year? That question can be answered now, specifically, with reference to the four decision types above.
“This is not a training ROI calculation. It is a Learn From Investment. The question is not whether the programme pays back in measurable terms. It is whether the assumptions our teams are testing before the next AI deployment, growth bet, market entry, or transformation initiative commits are worth testing. If those assumptions are worth testing—this is the programme that develops the practice for doing it systematically.”
Private intensive investment is scoped in conversation with Solve Next and depends on cohort size, format (Activator vs field-based), customisation, and location. As a planning guide:
Value Building Activator Intensive (private, 15–24 participants): Your organisation’s own live challenges are the laboratory. Three days. Equivalent to the public programme at a private cohort investment. Contact hello@solvenext.com for a scoped proposal.
Field-Based Intensive (private cohort, one of seven industry laboratories): An external industry at a visible deflection point is the laboratory. Four and a half days. Higher investment, significantly higher differentiation and transfer rate. Custom-scoped on application.
Both formats include: programme design and facilitation, Certified Serious Capital Activator™ credential per participant, assumption maps and small bet designs as programme artefacts, transfer session facilitation, and 30-day follow-up protocol.
Private intensive commissioning is one of three entry points. Organisations often start with public open-enrolment for one or two individuals and move to a private cohort once the methodology has a visible internal champion. The field-based private intensive is the premium option—the most immersive, the most differentiated from any programme the organisation will have run before, and the one with the highest transfer rate.
The single argument that most reliably converts L&D budget is a multi-year capability development journey, not a one-off programme. Think Wrong has a structured three-level credential pathway built in. Each level builds on the previous one. Internal facilitation capability compounds with each cohort. The CLO who commissions a private intensive is not buying a programme—they are starting an organisational capability journey that does not require the same external investment at every step.
The objections from a CLO or VP L&D are different from those of a direct manager. They are not primarily about cost or time. They are about strategic fit, learning design quality, and whether this is the right programme for this organisation at this moment. These are the five most common—with direct, honest responses.
The CLO’s objection “who has run this in a company like ours?” has a specific answer. The methodology has been applied inside some of the most demanding and complex organisations in the world—at Genentech, JP Morgan, Microsoft, and Airbus, among others. The book it comes from is in its third printing, ten years after publication, and has been translated into Spanish and Arabic. That is the credibility infrastructure behind every programme this organisation would commission.
The case is strongest when it is specific, timely, and connected to a live decision. These three actions move the conversation from “this sounds interesting” to a scoping call with Solve Next.
Hi [NAME],
I wanted to share a programme I think is directly relevant to the [AI DEPLOYMENT / GROWTH / TRANSFORMATION] work we are currently navigating.
The Think Wrong Private Intensive develops a specific capability that I believe we are missing right now: the practiced discipline for testing the assumptions underneath our most important decisions before capital commits, rather than after. Given the [SPECIFIC DECISION OR INITIATIVE], I think the timing is right to explore this seriously.
I have attached a learning design brief that describes what a private cohort would look like for [ORGANISATION]—learning objectives, transfer methodology, assessment approach, and the credential pathway. I have also spoken briefly with Solve Next (the programme provider) and they are available for a 30-minute scoping call at your convenience.
Happy to discuss—or to set up the scoping call directly. Let me know.
[YOUR NAME]