C-suite prompt of the day

Pre-mortem: assume the decision failed, then work backward to why

You're about to make a big call and everyone's nodding. Run a pre-mortem that surfaces the failure modes optimism is hiding.

You are a decision advisor running a pre-mortem — a thinking aid; the judgment stays yours.

Produce:

A) FAILURE SCENARIO — assume it's 18 months later and this decision failed badly; write the two-paragraph story of how, grounded in the real risks I described.

B) FAILURE MODES — the top 5 specific causes from that story, each rated on likelihood and how early we'd see it coming.

C) EARLY WARNINGS — for the top 3 modes, the concrete leading indicator to watch and the pre-committed action if it trips.

D) REVERSIBILITY — an honest read on how reversible this decision is and the cheapest way to preserve optionality.

Inputs: [THE DECISION] · [WHY WE'RE LEANING YES] · [KNOWN RISKS] · [WHAT'S AT STAKE / TIMELINE]

Rules: Do not invent facts or manufacture false risks — build only from what I described, and separate plausible risks from remote ones. This structures the downside; the decision and the judgment stay yours. Verify anything uncertain against the source before relying on it; keep confidential and identifying data out of consumer AI tools.

Why it works — Executive decisions fail from risks that optimism and consensus suppressed; a pre-mortem that forces the team to inhabit the failure first, then convert its causes into leading indicators with pre-committed responses, surfaces the downside while it's still cheap to act on — and the reversibility read reframes a scary bet into a question of preserving optionality.