Margaret didn’t deliver the materials to Jason right away. Timing was important. She knew language could either open a door or bounce off it. This wasn’t language meant to persuade; it was meant to replace something the firm had been depending on without realizing its assumptions about how mid-level associates should operate or how they used to operate.
She reread it for the tone. MLARD™ didn’t promise results, lower expectations, or tell people what they should want.
MLARD described a structure that demonstrated leadership, judgment, and business development earlier than firms usually recognized they existed. That was the point.
Margaret opened her notebook. At the top of the page, she read the lines she had written last night:
Good intentions are not a system.\
Assumption is not a development strategy.\
What replaces assumption must be designed.
She didn’t add anything this time. She didn’t need to.
At the firm, the days went on as usual. Meetings lasted longer. Partners checked in more frequently. Words like development and growth appeared more often. On the surface, it seemed like progress, but Margaret knew better.
Language without structure didn’t alter anything.\
It only made the absence of design more difficult to notice.
Anna was doing what the firm had taught her. She works hard, stays engaged, and waits for the path to reveal itself.
Margaret could now see the cost of that waiting, not frustration, but erosion. The slow realization that effort alone wasn’t enough to reveal direction.
Margaret knew Jason well enough to understand what would and wouldn’t work. He didn’t reject ideas just because they were new. He pushed back against them when they suggested the firm had failed.
This conversation couldn’t be framed in that manner. It had to be presented as what the firm had assumed, not as something it had never designed.
She carefully considered the first sentence. It wasn’t a pitch or a proposal; it was a question. One designed to let Jason recognize the pattern on his own. She knew once he saw it, he wouldn’t be able to unsee it.
Margaret closed the folder and set it down near her bag. MSL needed a way to correct the assumption. Jason was the one who could hear it if she said it properly.
The MSL Saga™, MLARD™, and the 85/15 Model™ are trademarks of Susan B. Silverman Consulting. The MSL Saga and all episodes © 2026 Susan B. Silverman Consulting. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution is prohibited.
