Who carries the agreement?

A useful agreement can give different people different reasons to participate. The difficulty is seeing what each person has to carry while the others receive their part. This worksheet follows the asset, the work, the customer relationship and the people affected by the result.

Use it with Chapters 6 and 9 of Infinite Upside, in a book-club conversation or to examine an arrangement you know. You can keep personal details out of the discussion by using the invented example below.

Start with every person

Draw one row for each role. Separate roles even when one person fills several: owning equipment, operating it and finding customers involve different work and exposure. Include people who bear consequences without receiving a share of the proceeds.

For each row, record what is known. Mark an inference assumed and a missing fact unknown. A blank does not mean there is no cost or obligation. It means the group has not established the answer.

In the Manhattan account, the building and PCH wanted different things from the same garage. In Chapter 9, asset owners, operators and independent brokers contribute different capabilities. Those arrangements invite more useful questions than whether everyone receives the same percentage.

An invented weekend booking

A furniture owner supplies forty chairs and four tables for a Saturday event. An operator inspects, transports, sets up, collects and cleans them. A booking agent found the customer. Two delivery workers are booked from 8 to 11 a.m. on Saturday. The venue opens for access at 9 a.m.; the event begins at 11 a.m. Equipment is reserved from Friday at 3 p.m. until its return on Sunday at 10 a.m.

These are invented facts, not a transaction from the book. Prices, payment dates and change permissions have deliberately not been supplied.

The agent's fee may be easy to see while the operator's cleaning time is easy to miss. The owner may have reserved capacity before collecting money. The workers' reserved hours matter even though they do not own the furniture. None of those observations settles the right price. They show what a price discussion still needs to account for.

Make your own table

Copy the five columns above. Give each role a turn to describe its row before the group revises it. Then make three passes:

1. Follow the work. What must someone supply before another person can perform? Include checking, communication, maintenance and the work after the customer leaves.
2. Follow the money and capacity. Record actual payment dates where known, not just totals. Which person commits time, equipment or cash before receiving anything? Which alternative use becomes unavailable?
3. Follow the uncertainty. For each unknown, name who could establish the fact and what would count as an answer. Keep hoped-for benefits separate from committed ones.

If two people give different accounts of the same promise, retain both descriptions until the difference is resolved. An agreed total can conceal a disagreement about who does the work.

Change one fact

At 6 p.m. on Friday, the customer requests twenty more chairs. The original forty are reserved; the additional twenty are not. No change has been confirmed.

Ask each role what it needs to know before responding. The owner needs to check availability. The operator needs to check loading, transport and setup capacity. The agent needs a clear account of what can be promised. The delivery workers still have the original three-hour slot. The venue needs a layout that works.

Now record who can confirm the change, how the other roles learn about it and which rows need revising. Do not quietly assign the extra work to whichever person seems most accommodating. If the answer is still unknown, leave the request unconfirmed in the exercise.

Bring the table back to the book

For a group discussion, compare the Manhattan parking arrangement with Growth Through Contracts. Which benefits come from a useful match between the parties? Which depend on work that must keep happening? In the broker example, whose payment calendar changes when money arrives late, and whose commitments continue?

Before the next book-club session on trust and contracts, each reader can bring one row they initially overlooked. A disagreement about that row may be more revealing than a vote on whether the overall deal sounds attractive.

Reading alone, choose an ordinary shared commitment, such as a family event or a group project. Name one contribution you usually notice and one you tend to leave out. What would you need to ask the other person before describing their part accurately?