Chapter 5: Step 2 — Defining Where You Want to Go (D)

The Temptation to Leap

"So now I have clearly explained my current situation, that is D′ on my cloud diagram" Sarah said, reviewing our work from the previous session. "I stay quiet in leadership meetings. It shows up as deferring to whoever spoke last, I look down at my notebook when the CEO calls my name or I just stay silent.

What's next, figuring out what I want instead?"

"Yes, in a way. We need to define the future state."

"Easy." She sat forward, decisive for the first time in our conversation. "I want to be the kind of leader who walks into that room and is heard. The one the CEO turns to first. A voice that holds its ground."

I paused. "That's a great aspiration. But it's not what we can use for your future state, or D on your cloud, yet"

Sarah looked confused. "Why not? That's what I want."

"I know. And that's exactly why it's dangerous to start there."

The Aspiration Trap

Here's where most people go wrong when it comes to leaving behind a problem they have today and where the approach you will learn diverges sharply from conventional wisdom.

When asked "What do you want instead?", our minds leap to ideals. We imagine the finished product, the transformed self, the perfect outcome. Sarah pictures herself as the commanding voice she's admired in others her whole career. David envisions being a calm, secure leader who lets his team rise. Each of them has a vivid picture of who they want to become.

These aspirations feel motivating. They give us something to strive for.

But they are traps.

Why? Two reasons:

1. Aspirations Contain Assumptions

When Sarah says "I want to be the voice the CEO turns to first," she's already assumed she knows what success looks like. But does she? Her model of "being heard" comes from watching others, people whose internal experience she cannot know. Perhaps those leaders she admires are terrified inside. Perhaps their "presence" comes from a different source entirely than what Sarah imagines.

Starting with an aspiration means starting with assumptions about how to get what you want. The cloud process is designed to surface assumptions, not begin with them embedded invisibly in your destination.

2. Aspirations Limit Solutions

This is the most counterintuitive point, so stay with me.

When Sarah defines her goal as "being the voice the CEO turns to first," she's already constrained her solution space. She's decided what success looks like. But what if the most powerful version of Sarah isn't a commanding voice at all? What if her breakthrough is something entirely different. A quieter authority, a particular timing, a way of holding the room that doesn't look anything like the leaders she's been modelling? Something she can't currently imagine because she's been fixated on one picture of what "being heard" means.

By specifying the end state too precisely, you close doors before you know they exist.

The Power of Negation

So if D isn't your aspiration, what is it?

D is simply NOT D′. It's the negation or reduction of your current behaviour.

Let's make this concrete in a table:

Notice what's happening here. D isn't a grand vision. It's simply NOT what you're currently doing. This might seem underwhelming compared to "commanding presence," but it's actually far more powerful.

The Universe Behind the NOT

There is a name for that entire universe of possibilities, and it's worth saying plainly, because it's one of the four pillars this whole approach rests on: inherent potential.

Goldratt put it as an instruction he tried never to break — never say "I know." The moment you decide you know what D should be, you've closed the door on every possibility you hadn't yet imagined. The illusion of knowing is exactly what the NOT dissolves. When Sarah refuses to name her future state as "a commanding voice," she isn't being vague — she's refusing to foreclose. She's holding the space open for a version of herself that neither of us can yet picture.

This is why writing D as the negation isn't a modest, technical move. It's a quiet act of faith in what's possible. D is not a blank — D is inherent potential: the whole field of what you could become, kept deliberately open. To name D too soon — "speak with measured authority," "trust my team" — is to reach in and pin one option to the board, and in doing so to deny all the others. Every named future is a door closed on the futures beside it.

So the NOT does two things at once. It honours where you are — D′, the self that got you here — and it refuses to decide where you're going. It keeps inherent potential alive in the diagram, right up until the cloud itself shows you the way.

Sarah Finds Her D

"Let me try again," Sarah said, putting aside her vision of being the voice the CEO turns to first. "My D′ is that I stay quiet in leadership meetings. So D would be..."

"NOT stay quiet in leadership meetings?"

"Exactly."

She looked uncomfortable. "But that doesn't tell me what to do."

"Precisely. And that's the point. We don't know yet what you'll do instead. That's what the cloud process will reveal. If we decide now that D means 'speak with measured authority,' we've already assumed we know the answer."

Sarah's D: NOT stay quiet in leadership meetings.

Notice: no mention of "commanding voice." No vision of being a transformational leader. No assumptions about what "speaking up" looks like in practice. Just NOT what she's currently doing.

"This feels... incomplete," Sarah admitted.

"Good. The incompleteness is the doorway. If it felt complete, you'd have closed down the possibilities before we've explored them."

David, the Other Side of the Same Step

The same trap catches David from the other direction.

When we worked his D′ in Chapter 4 — I take back work after setting up delegation — and asked him to define D, he didn't reach for a commanding image. He reached for a virtuous one.

"I want to be the kind of leader who trusts his people," he said. "Who lets them rise. Who can sit with the discomfort of not controlling the outcome."

Another great aspiration. And the same trap.

"David, what's the assumption baked into 'trusts his people'?"

A pause. "That trust looks like not intervening."

"And what if trust looks like something else? What if your breakthrough isn't 'trust' as you currently imagine it, but a different relationship with the work entirely, one we can't picture yet?"

He sat with that for a moment. Then, slowly: "So my D is just... NOT take back work after setting up delegation?"

"That's it."

David's D: NOT take back work after setting up delegation.

Where Sarah's aspiration was about acquiring a voice she doesn't yet have, David's was about embodying a virtue he doesn't yet feel. Different textures, same trap. Both versions of D close down the discovery before it begins.

The NOT — for both of them — keeps the door open.

The Language of D

How you phrase D matters. The key principle: D is NOT D′.

Keep the NOT Explicit

D should explicitly negate D′. Don't convert it to a positive alternative.

• D′: "I take back work after setting up delegation"
• D: "NOT take back work after setting up delegation"

The NOT does important work. It points away from your current behaviour without assuming you know where you'll land.

Avoid Identity Statements

D should negate a behaviour, not claim an identity.

• Wrong: "I'm a trusting leader" (identity/aspiration)
• Wrong: "I let my team complete their work" (positive alternative)
• Right: "NOT take back work after setting up delegation" (negation of D′)

Identity statements are aspirations in disguise. Positive alternatives assume you know the solution. NOT keeps the door open.

Match the Grain of D′

D should negate D′ at the same level of specificity.

• D′: "I revise emails repeatedly before sending"
• D: "NOT revise emails repeatedly before sending"
• D′: "I delay all decisions until forced"
• D: "NOT delay all decisions until forced"

Mismatched grain creates confusion and makes the cloud harder to work with.

Avoid Overcorrection

A subtle trap: don't swing to the opposite extreme.

• D′: "I work until midnight" → D: "NOT work until midnight" ✓
• D′: "I work until midnight" → D: "Leave precisely at 5 PM" ✗ (overcorrection)
• D′: "I stay silent in meetings" → D: "NOT stay silent in meetings" ✓
• D′: "I stay silent in meetings" → D: "Speak up constantly" ✗ (overcorrection)

NOT D′ is simple negation. Overcorrection is a new behaviour that swings to the opposite extreme. Stay with NOT.

Your D Discovery Process

Now do it with your own material. Return to the D′ you identified in Chapter 4.

Step 1: Write Your D′ Again

State your current behaviour clearly. This is your starting point.

Example: "I accept meeting invitations automatically without assessing their value against my priorities."

Step 2: Add NOT

Simply put NOT in front of your D′. That's it. That's your D.

Example: "NOT accept meeting invitations automatically without assessing their value against my priorities."

Step 3: Hold It Against the Rules

Read your D back against the rules above — keep the NOT explicit, negate a behaviour rather than claim an identity, match the grain of D′, don't swing to the opposite extreme. Most first attempts fail on one of the four, and they fail in the same direction: towards something that sounds more actionable.

• "NOT accept meeting invitations automatically" ✓
• "I evaluate invitations against my priorities before responding" ✗ (positive alternative — assumes you already know the solution)
• "Decline all meetings" ✗ (overcorrection)
• "Be disciplined about my time" ✗ (aspiration)

Final D: "NOT accept meeting invitations automatically without assessing their value against my priorities."

Why This Feels Uncomfortable

If you're feeling frustrated that you can't define your grand vision as D, it is OK. That frustration is data.

It means you've been carrying an image of your transformed self—a picture of who you want to become. That picture isn't wrong. It's valuable. But it doesn't belong in D.

It will reappear in A, the unified outcome we'll discover in Chapter 8. That's where your deepest aspirations live. That's where the purpose behind both D and D′ reveals itself.

But we have to earn our way there. First, we need to understand what achieving D wiil give you—that's B, the benefit of NOT doing your current behaviour. Then what D′ gives you—that's C, the benefit of your current behaviour. Only then can we discover what both are really trying to achieve.

The Perry Approach is a journey, not a leap.

Having, As Not Having

There is something deeper in the “NOT” than a technique for keeping your options open, and it is worth talking about, because it changes how the whole method feels to live with.

This way of thinking is not new. Two thousand years ago Paul of Tarsus wrote to a fractious community in Corinth and set the posture out in a single sustained sentence (1 Corinthians 7:29–31): those who have wives should live as though they had none; those who mourn, as though not mourning; those who are glad, as though not glad; those who buy, as though the thing were not theirs to keep; those who deal with the world, as though not engrossed in it.

Five times over, the same construction. The repetition is the point. He is not carving out an exception for one difficult case, he is describing a way of holding everything, possibilities included.

The phrase in Greek is “hos me” — "as not." He was not telling people to give up what they had, nor to pretend they did not have it. He was pointing to a third place entirely. To hold what you have without letting it close around you as final. Have it, but loosely. Be it, but not only it.

That is precisely what the NOT in D asks of you.

Hold the behaviour that got you here, as not the whole of you. Hold the direction you are heading, as not yet decided. I recently watched a popular TV programme about settlers in the prairies in the US. One of the characters said “Uncertainty is the home of possibility”. It is in the same spirit as Pico Iyer. In his book, The Upside of Uncertainty, he writes about the idea of making uncertainty your home rather than resisting it, describing it as a "delicate dance between fear... uncertainty, impermanence, possibility, hope, and strength.”

When Sarah writes NOT stay quiet in leadership meetings, she is not abolishing the careful, considered self who learned to stay quiet — that self is real, and it kept her safe for years. Nor is she pretending it was never there. She is holding it as not the whole of her. The quiet is still hers; she is simply no longer only the one who stays quiet. The behaviour is named, honoured, and loosened. Held open rather than defended or destroyed. A positive aspiration ("a commanding voice") would slam a new identity shut just as firmly as the old one had. A simple opposite ("speak up constantly") would do the same. Only the NOT keeps her in the open posture — having her current self, as not having it. Holding it long enough for something genuinely new to arrive.

This is why the NOT is not a half-measure. At this step, the open hand is the answer.

And there is one more thing to notice, because it reaches well beyond this chapter. You will return to this move. Once Sarah has shifted — once not staying quiet is simply how she now works — that new way she will be operating will become, in time, her new current state, her new D′. At some point she will need to negate again. That is key to continuous ongoing improvement of oneself.

What Sarah Realised

By the end of our session, Sarah had something far more valuable than her vision of being the voice the CEO turns to first.

She had openness.

"I've been carrying this picture of the leaders I admire," she said. "But I never stopped to ask what I'm actually doing that's different from them. I just assumed I needed to become a different person."

"And now?"

"Now I see it's about NOT doing what I'm currently doing. NOT staying quiet in leadership meetings. What I actually do instead — that's what we'll discover."

"Exactly. And here's what we don't know yet," I said. "We know you want to stop staying quiet. But we haven't yet named what speaking up would actually give you — and it's almost certainly more than you can picture from inside the old pattern."

Her eyes lifted, curious. "More than just being heard?"

"Far more. Naming what change would give you is where the energy to make it comes from. That's what we explore next — in Chapter 6."

Sarah's cloud was beginning to take shape. She had her D′ (where she was) and her D (NOT D′). David's was taking the same shape from his side of the room. But the real work — understanding why each of them was stuck between D′ and D — was just beginning.

Chapter Reflection

You've walked through the discovery process with the meeting-invitations example. Now do the same with your own D′ from Chapter 4.

Add NOT in front of it. That's your D.

Then one question, and it is worth writing the answer down: what did you reach for first, before you reached for the NOT? Most people have a picture ready — the leader they would be, the calm they would feel, the version of themselves who no longer has this problem. Name it, and keep it. You are not discarding it. You will need it in Chapter 8, when we come to A, because that picture is pointing at something you want and cannot yet see clearly.

Write your D statement:

"D′: [current behaviour]. D: NOT [current behaviour]."

Looking Ahead

You now have two pieces of your cloud:

• D′: Your current behaviour—specific, observable, positively phrased
• D: NOT D′—the simple negation of your current behaviour

But clouds don't dissolve just by naming endpoints. The real insight comes from understanding what each position gives you.

In Chapter 6, we'll surface B — the benefit of D, what NOT doing your current behaviour would give you. Then, in Chapter 7, we'll go after C — the benefit of D′, what your current behaviour is already giving you. This is where transformation becomes possible.

The Perry Approach reveals this: You're not stuck because you're weak or broken. You're stuck because both D′ and D are serving you—and you haven't yet found a way to honour both.

What's Next

In Chapter 6, you'll surface B — what change would give you. Then in Chapter 7 you'll uncover C — what your current behaviour is protecting. This is where transformation becomes possible. Everything you need is in the next chapter. You can work through it on your own, at your own pace.

Support for this step

Staying with NOT D′ — resisting the pull toward aspiration, overcorrection, and positive alternatives — is simpler to describe than to practise. The temptation to leap to a grand vision of your transformed self is strongest at exactly this point, because D feels incomplete. That incompleteness is doing the work.

RIC — the Rapid Improvement Coach is an AI agent built specifically to support you through the process. RIC holds the NOT with you, catches aspiration when it slips in disguised as clarity, and tests your D against the traps this chapter names — overcorrection, identity statements, positive alternatives. You choose when the formulation feels right; RIC keeps the door open until you do.

The Rising Above the Clouds - The Practice includes RIC, a discussion tab with the author, and membership of the Conflict Club.

Rising Above the Clouds - The Practice