🚩Tactical Memo 071: The Kill List

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Most reviews stall in the same place.

You walk in with three options.

Clean deck. Pros and cons. Perfectly balanced.

You think it reads as thorough. Like you did the work and brought the room a real choice.

It reads as a punt.

Here is the trap.

Three options on a slide says one quiet thing to the person across the table.

"I did the analysis and stopped right before the part that was mine."

So they finish it for you.

They make the call you were supposed to make.

With less context than you have. In less time than you took.

Then everyone wonders why the decision came back half-baked.

The menu feels safe. That is the whole reason people keep bringing it.

Lay out three paths and you can't be wrong. You covered the angles. You stayed neutral. If it goes sideways, the choice was technically theirs.

That safety is exactly what is capping you.

I learned this running businesses where neutral got you nowhere.

The leaders who moved up were never the ones with the cleanest options page. They were the ones who walked in, looked me in the eye, and told me what we were going to do.

Then defended it.

Neutrality looks like rigor from your seat.

From the seat above you, it looks like someone who can assemble a decision but won't own one.

And the ground just shifted under all of it.

The clean deck used to be the work. Pulling the options, formatting the trade-offs, making it readable. That took real hours. Bringing it signaled effort.

Now AI generates five polished options before your coffee cools.

The menu was never the scarce thing. The judgment underneath it was.

Hand someone the menu today and you have handed them the cheap half and kept nothing.

So flip the whole motion.

Bring the call. Then bring the list of what you killed.

That list is the framework. Name it and run it every time.

The Kill List is the proof you did the judgment.

Not the options you kept. The ones you rejected, and why.

Here is how to build it.

1. Make the decision before the meeting. Pick the path. Commit to it on paper before you walk in. If you can't pick, you are not ready to present. You are ready to think out loud, and that is a different meeting.

2. Write down every path you rejected. Two weeks of slip. Contractors. Cut scope. Whatever you considered and set down.

3. Give each kill one reason. One line. Not a paragraph. The reason is the whole value. It shows the room you didn't ignore the option. You tested it and it lost.

4. Lead with the recommendation. The kills come right after, as your evidence. Call first, proof second.

5. Ask for a signature, not a vote. "Sign-off by Thursday." Not "thoughts?"

Watch what changes in the actual language.

The weak version sounds like this.

"We could push two weeks, cut scope, or pull in contractors. Curious where you land. Thoughts?"

That is a meeting that has not happened yet. You just scheduled a second one.

The strong version sounds like this.

"Recommending we cut scope and hold the date. Killed the two-week push, it slides us into the December freeze and we lose the quarter. Killed contractors, the ramp time eats the savings before they land. Cutting the reporting module gets us live clean. Need your sign-off by Thursday."

Same analysis sitting behind both. Opposite altitude.

One says help me think. The other says ratify my thinking.

One of those is a person who runs work. The other is a person who routes it.

The Kill List does something the menu never could.

It moves the conversation off "what should we do" and onto "do you see a reason I missed."

That is a thirty-second conversation. The menu is a thirty-minute one, and it ends without a decision half the time.

It also protects you when you are wrong.

A menu gives you cover by making the choice theirs. The Kill List gives you something better. A record that you reasoned it, out loud, before anyone signed.

Being wrong with visible judgment reads completely differently than being right by accident.

Candor is a kindness here.

The boss who lets you keep bringing menus is not protecting you. He is quietly deciding you are not ready for his chair.

Senior people are not waiting to be handed choices. They are waiting to be handed someone who already made one well.

That is the person who gets handed more.

So this week, before your next review, run it.

Make the call before the room. The Kill List is your evidence. Lead with the recommendation. Hand over a signature line, not a menu.

The options are free now. The kills are the judgment calls that are still yours.

Delegate the assembly. Never the signature.

If this helped you, send it to someone who could use it this week.

Until next time,

Justin Bateh, PhD
Founder and Editor
Tactical Memo
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