# The CEO who practised being CEO
**Runtime:** ~18 minutes
**Tenet:** AI + Clarity + Growth
**Format:** Solo narrative
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## Cold Open
"Fighter pilots don't learn to fly in combat.
Surgeons don't learn to operate on living patients.
Athletes don't learn at game speed without practice.
But somehow, we expect new CEOs to make bet-the-company decisions from day one. No simulator. No practice runs. Just... good luck."
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## Segments
### 1. The Rookie Mistake Problem (4 min)
- New leaders make their biggest errors in first 90 days
- The curse of the new broom: sweep too hard or not at all
- Why MBAs teach analysis but not judgment under pressure
- The missing piece: no safe environment to practice
### 2. What Pilots and Surgeons Know (3 min)
- Simulation culture in high-stakes professions
- The concept of "flight hours before first real flight"
- Deliberate practice at game speed
- Why business hasn't adopted this
### 3. The Enterprise Sandbox (5 min)
Core concept:
- AI scans breaking news, generates enterprise challenges
- User plays CEO making real-time decisions
- Dashboard shows simulated market/customer/employee response
- The Special Projects Team reveal: what a crack squadron would have done differently
Demo scenario:
- "Tariffs just hit your supply chain. What do you do?"
- Walk through a decision tree
- Show how the simulation responds
### 4. Special Projects Methodology (4 min)
What makes innovation teams actually work:
- Insulation from BAU
- Direct access to power
- Expertise fluidity
- Fail-fast culture
- External perspective
Historical parallels: aerospace innovation, Amazon's two-pizza teams, Spotify squads
### 5. What You Can Steal (2 min)
- Build your own crack squadron
- Safe-to-fail probes
- External perspective by design
- Pre-mortem everything
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## Quotable Moments
- "Pilots don't learn to fly in combat. Why do we expect CEOs to?"
- "Sandbox your strategy before betting the business."
- "The organisations that build real new things are the ones that create protected spaces - sandboxes where different rules apply."
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## Production Notes
- Could include audio of flight simulator / surgical training environment as sound design
- The "reveal" moment (what the Special Projects Team would have done) needs dramatic treatment
- End with practical application, not just concept
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**Status:** Draft
`#podcast` `#enterprise-sandbox` `#special-projects` `#ai-tools`