Talk it through with Aurelius
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Aurelius · Work & Leadership
Knowledge + Guidance

What if my model is wrong and someone acts on it anyway?

You build the numbers the whole company leans on. When a plan goes wrong, you feel it first — as if your one wrong assumption caused the damage. That is not fear of bad math. That is the weight of every decision in the building, carried alone, on top of your own work. No model is the decision. It is one input a team uses to decide. If you have let people treat your spreadsheet as the verdict instead of a tool, you have taken on a job nobody gave you and nobody can actually do. You are not the last line of defense. You are one voice at the table, with a pod around you who can check your assumptions, carry the uncertainty with you, and own their share of what happens next.

◆ How this problem reads on the two dials
GuidanceKnowledge
More coaching
A little to learn
1:1 with AureliusWith others (a Pod)
Some one-to-one
Practise with peers
The core issue is a boundary the person must choose to redraw with their team, not a skill they lack — so coaching leads and teaching supports.
How the two dials adapt to you →
What’s really going on

You did not sign up to be the last line of defense for every decision this company makes. Your job is to build the clearest model you can with your team — not to guarantee the future. Say the uncertainty out loud. Let others own their share of the choice.

🔒 What you’ll build togetherUnlock by starting
A moveBefore you share a model, write the three assumptions most likely to be wrong — and hand that list to the room, not just the output.
A moveAsk your pod to each name one number they would challenge, before the meeting, not after the decision fails.
A moveStop presenting forecasts alone. Bring one other person from your pod to own the uncertainty with you in the room.
A moveWhen a decision goes wrong, ask what the group chose to do with the model — not only what the model said.
A moveSet a standing review with your team: once a quarter, check which assumptions held and which did not, together.
PractiseAssumption Audit · a Pod of 4 · 30 min

What changes unlock by starting

  • You stop absorbing the company's decisions as your personal failures.
  • Your pod starts naming risk out loud instead of leaving it all to you.
  • Meetings include the uncertainty, not just the number.
  • You can build a model and sleep, because the decision was never yours alone.

Related problems

One object, two jobs: a public answer to a real problem, and — the moment you start the chat — Aurelius’s live plan for your version of it.