Method
How every brief is made.
Every brief follows the same five stages and meets the same standards, so you can judge any one of them the same way. Tom sets the agenda before any research runs and takes a position once it's done. The decision stays with you.
The five stages
From the questions leaders face to the decision you make.
- 1
Identify
Research scans what boards, executives and founders are facing, alongside what Tom hears directly from leaders in each seat.
- 2
Prioritize
Tom picks the ten questions in each seat with the most financial weight, reframing any usually asked the wrong way.
- 3
Analyze
Multiple frontier AI models research each question independently. Tom checks the evidence and labels every claim by its strength.
- 4
Guide
Tom sets out how you might proceed, the steps he'd take and how confident he is, with what would change his view.
- 5
Decide
You test the guidance against what only you know about your people, your numbers and your board, then make the call.
The standards
What every brief has to meet.
It earns its place.
The answer makes a material difference to financial performance, and the question connects directly to leadership, strategy or technology. If it doesn't pass both tests, it isn't in the Top 10.
The stakes are in dollars.
Every brief estimates the potential impact for a firm of 1,000 knowledge workers, with other sizes alongside, and shows where the figure comes from so your CFO can check it. An estimate, never a promise.
The evidence is labelled.
Each claim is marked Established, Emerging, Widely claimed or Unverified, with its source. Where the research disagrees, the brief says so. Weak sources are dropped rather than published.
The confidence is stated.
Every brief scores, out of 10, how confident Tom is that his guidance is the optimal path to the potential impact, and what would change that. Each quarter's edition updates it as conditions change.
How the confidence level is scored.
Every brief starts at 10. Each evidence limit costs a fixed amount, the same in every brief, so you can see exactly what each weakness costs. What's unique to your organization isn't scored. Each brief gives you the numbers to test it yourself.
| The central argument is reasoned, not shown in studies | −1.0 |
| The main evidence comes from a single firm or a single case | −1.0 |
| The key evidence is self-reported, not measured | −0.5 |
| The evidence shows correlation, not cause | −0.5 |
| The evidence comes mostly from one market | −0.5 |
| The evidence is more than five years old, or still in working papers | −0.5 |
Method version 1.2 · October 2026
