Dissolve the conflict between where you are and where you want to be.
Most of the conflicts that hold us back aren't between people — they're between two things we want at once and feel we can't have together. Stay safe or grow. Cut cost or protect the culture. That either/or has a structure. Once you can see it, you can dissolve it.
Rising Above the Clouds teaches you the Perry Approach to the Evaporating Cloud Method — how to map the structure of a conflict, surface the assumptions holding it in place, and build breakthrough options that honour both sides. The same method that has dissolved conflict across aviation, healthcare, manufacturing and the public sector.
You'll learn it alongside David and Sarah — two very different conflicts, dissolved step by step by the same ten-step method.
New Here? Start With
About this Book
About Karl Perry - the AuthorForewordAbout the Perry ApproachPart One — Foundations
Why conflict matters, where the Perry Approach came from, and how the method works as a whole.
Chapter 1: Why Conflict is Your Secret WeaponChapter 2: Development of the Perry Approach to Evaporating CloudsChapter 3: The Perry Approach to the Evaporating Cloud MethodPart Two — Building the Cloud (Steps 1–7)
One chapter per step. Each takes a single move of the Perry Approach and deepens the work Chapter 3 walked through at altitude. David and Sarah appear as paired cases throughout — two conflicts dissolved by the same method.
Chapter 4: Step 1 — Identifying What's Really Happening (D′)Chapter 5: Step 2 — Defining Where You Want to Go (D)Chapter 6: Step 3 — Surfacing the Benefits of D (B)Chapter 7: Step 4 — Honouring What's Working: Benefits of D′ (C)Chapter 8: Step 5 — Finding Your Unified Outcome (A)Chapter 9: Step 6 — Reading the CloudChapter 10: Step 7 — Identifying the Undesirable Effects (UDEs)Part Three — Evaporating the Cloud (Steps 8–10)
Challenging the assumptions that hold the conflict in place — first the technical assumption (C–D′), then the adaptive belief (A–C), and finally weaving the technical options and adaptive shift into a single coherent solution.
Chapter 11: Step 8 — Surfacing Options on C–D′Chapter 12: Step 9 — The Adaptive Shift (A→C)Chapter 13: Step 10 — The Unified SolutionPart Four — Applying the Practice
Taking the method from the page into daily life — and discovering that the method, practised beyond a single cloud, becomes the way you think.
Chapter 14: Daily ApplicationChapter 15: The Way You ThinkSources & Further ReadingFrom Reading to Practice
Reading the method and dissolving your own conflicts are two different things. When you're ready to move from understanding to capability, Rising Above the Clouds — The Course takes you there. Inside, you'll find:
- RIC — the Rapid Improvement Coach — an AI coach trained on the Perry Approach that guides you through your own clouds, step by step.
- A discussion tab — ask your questions and get answers as you work through the method.
- Membership of The Conflict Club — practise alongside others, dissolving real conflicts together in our weekly sessions.
Free to read, free to share
Everything here is given openly — years of practice and research, with nothing held back behind a paywall — so the method can reach anyone who needs it.
The simplest way to support the book is to pass it on — share it freely with someone wrestling with a conflict of their own.
This book is open-access and reader-supported — online for anyone who needs it. If this book helps you, please support it — buy Karl a coffee or donate by clicking the link.
Always free, never obligatory.