David sat back from his cloud. Sarah did the same with hers. Both had reached the same place — the diagram on the page, every element articulated, the unified outcome at the top, the two needs branching beneath it, the two incompatible actions anchored at the bottom.
David looked at his and said, "I can see the whole shape of it. And I still feel just as stuck as before."
Sarah, in a different room a hundred miles away, said almost the same sentence.
If you have worked through Part Two honestly, you may be in the same place. The diagram is complete. The logic is visible. And yet the knot has not loosened.
That is not a failure. It is exactly where this chapter begins.
From building to reading
Building your cloud was detective work — and it moved in a particular direction. You started on the right side of the diagram, at D': the behaviour you could see, the pattern that repeated. From there you worked leftward. You deduced D, then surfaced the needs — C and B — and finally arrived at A, the unified outcome both sides serve. Right to left. From what was visible to what was structural. Deductive reasoning: observing what is, and tracing the logic back to why.
The work now shifts — and so does the direction. We move from building to reading, and we read the cloud left to right. Starting at A, following the necessity claims outward: In order to have A, I need B. In order to have B, I need D. Then the lower branch. Then the collision between D and D'.
The same five elements remain — A, B, C, D, D' — but they stop being a list and start being a logical structure with a grammar. Reading left to right, you hear the full weight of what D and D' are carrying. Both branches trace back to the same unified outcome. Both needs are legitimate. And by the time the grammar delivers you to the conflict, you feel the entire structure pressing down on the point where the two actions collide.
That feeling matters. It is what makes the next chapter possible — where we ask what this structure is costing you. The undesirable effects are not consequences of D and D' in isolation. They are consequences of the whole cloud, the full chain of necessity from A outward. Reading left to right makes that chain audible before we name what it costs.
This chapter teaches you to read your cloud the way a facilitator reads a cloud.
Reading the cloud aloud
A cloud has a grammar. Once you can hear it, you can listen for where it tightens.
Read yours out loud, following this pattern:
Upper branch: In order to achieve A, I need B. In order to have B, I want D.
Lower branch: In order to achieve A, I also need C. In order to have C, I want D'.
The conflict: But I cannot be in both D and D' at the same time.
Notice what the grammar does. It does not say I have to choose between B and C. B and C are both needed. They are both legitimate. They both serve A. The grammar names them as complementary, not opposing.
The conflict sits one layer below — between D and D'. That is where the two routes collide. You cannot stay the same (in your current state) and change (to your future state) at the same time.
This distinction is often missed on first reading. The felt experience of the cloud is "B versus C": a war between scalability and quality, between voice and seat, between letting go and holding on. The structural truth is different. B and C are not at war. D and D' are. The needs are complementary; the actions are mutually exclusive. Read the grammar carefully and the conflict moves to where it actually lives.
Here is David reading his cloud aloud:
In order to have sustained leadership impact, I need a team that can run without me, bandwidth for strategic work, and reach beyond what I can personally touch. In order to have those, I need NOT to take back work after setting up delegation.
In order to have sustained leadership impact, I also need certainty about quality, protection of credibility, and a clean track record the organisation trusts. In order to have those, I need to take back work after setting up delegation.
But I cannot both take back work and not take back work at the same time.
And Sarah:
In order to have sustained senior influence, I need my expertise informing decisions, a voice in the room, and influence with the CEO and her peers. In order to have those, I need NOT to stay quiet in leadership meetings and defer to whoever spoke last.
In order to have sustained senior influence, I also need belonging in the inner circle, the seat itself, and preserved relationships. In order to have those, I need to stay quiet in leadership meetings and defer to whoever spoke last.
But I cannot both stay quiet and not stay quiet at the same time.
Read your own version slowly. Notice which arrow tightens in your body as you say it. Notice where you pause without meaning to. Notice when you want to argue with the sentence as you read it.
The grammar is doing its job. It is exposing the logic as a sequence of claims rather than a felt fact. Claims can be examined. Felt facts cannot.
Sitting with the conflict
Read all the way through and the grammar leaves you in a particular place. Not at A. Not at B or C. At the conflict between D and D'.
This is the move most practitioners hurry past. The instinct, the moment the conflict surfaces clearly, is to start solving it. To reach for a tactic. To negotiate. To find some clever third way. To do anything other than stay with the thing that is uncomfortable.
Do not hurry past it.
Sit with the D vs D' conflict. Hold it where it is. Let it be uncomfortable.
If you have built the cloud well, what you are sitting with is real. Two actions, both pointing to legitimate needs, both serving the same outcome, and neither one possible while the other holds. That is not a problem to be solved at this moment. It is the structure the next chapter — and everything that follows — surfaces from.
Practice: Reading your own cloud
Before you move on, take an hour with your cloud and do two things.
- Read it aloud using the grammar. Upper branch, lower branch, conflict. Notice where it tightens in your body.
- Stay with the D vs D' conflict. Do not solve it. Do not negotiate it. Hold it long enough to let the pressure on both sides be felt. The instinct to start solving arrives the moment the structure becomes visible. Resist it. The conflict needs to be felt before it can be examined.
If you can, do this with a Thinking Partner. Reading the cloud aloud to another person changes how you hear it.
Closing
You can now see the structure of your conflict — not as a feeling, but as a grammar. Five elements, connected by arrows that read as necessity claims. The conflict sits between D and D', not between B and C. The needs are complementary; the actions are mutually exclusive.
If you have read the cloud aloud honestly, and stayed with the D vs D' conflict long enough, something has shifted. Not the cloud itself — but how you hold it. The felt tangle has become a logical structure. And logical structures can be examined.
That examination begins in the next chapter, where we ask what the conflict is costing you — the compromises the cloud forces when both pressures bear down at once.
What's Next
In the next chapter, you'll surface the undesirable effects — the compromises the structure forces when both pressures bear down at once and neither will give way. The cost of the cloud becomes visible, and the destructive cycle reveals itself. The next chapter walks you through it, step by step. You can work through it on your own or with a colleague, at your own pace.
Support for this step
Reading your cloud aloud and sitting with the D vs D' conflict — long enough to feel the pressure on both sides — is the work most practitioners hurry past. The instinct to start solving arrives the moment the structure becomes visible. But the conflict needs to be held before it can be examined.
RIC — the Rapid Improvement Coach is an AI agent built specifically to support you through the process. RIC reads the cloud with you, holds the D vs D' tension without rushing toward solutions, and helps you hear the grammar — in order to have A, I need B; in order to have B, I need D — until the structure feels real, not abstract. You choose when the cloud rings true; RIC holds the reading and does not let you rush past it.
The Rising Above the Clouds course includes access to RIC, chapter assignments that coach you through each step with your own cloud, and weekly Conflict Club sessions where the method comes alive with real conflicts and real people.
Rising Above the Clouds - The Course
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