If you have ever sat in a meeting where everyone is right and nothing moves, you already know what this book is about.
Two parties, both protecting something that matters. Both arguing from a legitimate place. Both convinced the other side is the problem. The conversation circles. The cost climbs. And eventually someone caves, or someone walks, or the whole thing gets parked for next quarter.
That moment is what Rising Above the Clouds is for.
What the book is
Rising Above the Clouds is a working guide to the Evaporating Cloud — the method at the heart of how I dissolve organisational conflict. The book teaches the Perry Approach, the version refined through aviation, healthcare, manufacturing, and the public sector.
It is short. It is concrete. It is built for use, not display. You read it once to understand the method. You return to it whenever a cloud needs working through.
Why it matters for HPtE
The 3Cs Model gives you a diagnosis — where organisational conflict lives, at the borders between Commercial Responsibility, Customer Value, and Culture. High Performance through Engagement gives you the strategy — what to do about it at scale.
The Evaporating Cloud is the how. It is the conversion mechanism. The thing you actually do in the room when the conflict is in front of you.
Without the method, HPtE is a framework. With the method, HPtE is a practice.
That is why Rising Above the Clouds sits at the centre of the Living Practice. Everything else in the practitioner pathway — the HPtE Practitioner Community of Practice, RIC the AI coach, the deeper courses — extends from this one method. Get the cloud right, and the rest follows.
What you’ll find inside
- The five-element structure of the cloud, and why each one matters
- The full Perry Approach, step by step
- Worked examples drawn from real organisational conflict
- The assumptions that hold conflict in place — and how to surface them
- How to use the cloud when you are in the conflict, not just observing it
Take a look
Read the book free online, and come back to it whenever a cloud needs working through. When you are ready to practise the method on real conflicts, with RIC beside you and the HPtE Practitioner Community of Practice around you, the book is part of the curriculum in Level 1: The Practice.