Matt Arnold

Strategist, educator, and sensemaker for teams navigating complexity.

Collaborative Sensemaking: Agreement is Not Alignment

Learn why teams can leave a meeting feeling aligned yet execute different versions of the same decision.

Spot False Alignment Before Teams Drift

Use the Collaborative OS to identify which outcome is dominating team behavior and what may be getting sacrificed.

Diagnose Team Drift Using a Simple Framework

Leave with a simple tool for identifying false alignment and strengthening shared understanding on your team.

Take Away a Practical Alignment Diagnostic

Most leaders think their team is aligned. What if they aren’t? MtL reveals hidden gaps and builds habits to get clear and act as one.

CEO, Board Advisor, and Creator of MtL

Unison

Oracle

Compusult Limited

SAIC

Peter DiGiammarino

Professional CEO, Executive Director, and Creator of Manage to Lead (MtL).

MtL Course Designer and Co-Instructor

Stanford University

Genentech

UC San Francisco

Kaiser Permanente

Joyce Reynolds Ph.D.

Cohort 17

Cohort 18

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://youtu.be/Jv3Ed6JxnLk">MtL is a learn-by-doing Executive Alignment System. </a>Your organization is the case. In ten weeks your leadership team builds a simple cadence of collaborative habits. Get clear on what you aim to achieve by when. Assess where you are now and why change is required. Choose the few initiatives that matter most, then launch, guide, and govern them to your next state. The result: a team that plans, operates, and governs as one.How it WorksDo short prep on your own. Then you and your team join weekly two-hour live working sessions with other teams, including instruction, practice cases, role plays, and guided application to your case. You get real-time feedback from teammates, cohort peers, and instructors, supported by the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://youtu.be/EIJ9opgLaUI">AI-powered IntelliVen Operations Advisor (IVOA) workspace</a>. What You GetShared clarity your whole team owns. A small set of initiatives ready to run with owners and checkpoints. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://youtu.be/8CXAiqiIDho">A Plan-Do-Review rhythm</a> that sustains performance and growth, grounded in seven simple truths leaders often overlook. Get Clear. Align. Grow.

Learn the MtL Executive Alignment System. Plan, Operate, and Govern as One.

Nail your Mandate and build your Enterprise Change Framework

Most teams think they're aligned. They aren't. Find and fix disconnects.

Map, manage, and mature your core processes

Know What to Watch and How to Measure It

Conceive, Launch, and Guide Strategic Initiatives

An organization.
Its leader.
The leader’s team.

To maximize your experience, bring:

Clarify or define an important initiative. 
Accelerate growth and improve performance. 
Engage openly and actively for meaningful impact

Come prepared to:

Professionally financed management teams driving to complete value creation initiatives.

Organization, unit, and function leaders driving change initiatives to grow faster and perform better.

Owner-Operators who are ready to transition but whose organizations are not transition ready.

If you know your people skills are in the way, this workshop is for you 🙏

Information Architect & Author

Abby Covert

Author, teacher and community leader in the field of information architecture

Summer 2026 Cohort

Have you ever watched someone skilled at knowing what to say, when to speak, or how to frame a decision so others could engage? If so, you’ve already seen effective sensemaking in action.Sensemaking is the deeply personal process we use to understand complex, messy, and/or ambiguous situations so we can make better decisions and take more thoughtful action.This often looks like intuition or common sense. In reality, it is more about pattern recognition, discernment, and timing, developed in context to your lived experience.This workshop is about the timeless part of sensemaking. Which isn't the tools, templates or technologies. The timeless part of sensemaking is the people part. Have you ever felt like ...<ul><li>Other people are always in the way of your good work</li><li>Your team or stakeholders is where awesome plans go to die</li><li>Your desk looks like a good place to bang your head in frustration after your last meeting</li></ul>Don't bang your head on that desk, sensemaker. This workshop can help you see how this is all a game and you are just not playing to your highest ability yet.In this workshop we are going to breakdown how other people impact our work, and what we can and CANNOT do about it 🔮

Below are three outcomes you can expect from using this time to improve your sensemaking skills with Abby as your guide. 

Improve how you navigate other people

Practice discernment

Play with peers

Sensemakers looking to feel less frustrated and alone in their practice.

Anyone for whom the "people part" is in the way of the "making sense" part.

Systems thinkers who struggle to connect with stakeholders.

Come with a real collaboration challenge. Leave with a clear forward plan.

Founder, TEDx Speaker, exec educator

Duke Corporate Education

Warner Bros.

Lloyds Bank

Ghirardelli

Emeritus

Rich Watkins

Creator of Let's Go Model, executive educator, TEDx speaker, artist

Cohort 1

A lot of collaboration advice (listen to everyone, be nice) sounds good, but evaporates on contact with the messy reality of real work. Getting things done with people is a hard craft not a "soft" skill. So what actually works?This workshop gives you a tried-and-tested framework to see what's really happening in any collaboration - to see the dynamics that underpin collective performance - and find the actions and conversations that will get things moving.You will leave with:<ol><li>A powerful framework for collaboration - to clearly see the five forces shaping success</li><li>A practical way forward for a real situation you're dealing with right now</li><li>A coaching approach you can use to reliably unstick others - your reports, your peers, or anyone who comes to you for help</li><li>A clearer picture of your own collaboration habits - your superpower and your blind spots</li></ol>This workshop is new to Maven but has been run with over 10,000 leaders - from start-ups to non-profits to global teams at the world's biggest corporates.

You have some experience and influence - but want to get more done through others - you likely lead teams, projects, or partnerships

Avoiding Conflict Is Not Neutral. It Is a Strategy.

Decision Researcher, Speaker, Founder

University of Bath

Dr Shah

Decision Strategist | Speaker | Founder-Educator

You did not get to where you are by avoiding hard things. You got here by being thoughtful, fair, and willing to do work others would not. So when you find yourself postponing a conversation, softening a difficult message, or working around someone instead of confronting them, it does not feel like avoidance. It feels like patience. Like reading the room. Like being the reasonable one.That is exactly the problem.The co-founder conversation you have deferred for months. The team member whose performance you keep accommodating. The boundary you have not set with your biggest client. The feedback you soften until it carries no weight. Each one looks like wisdom from inside your reasoning. Each one is quietly compounding into a bigger version of the same conflict, with higher stakes and less room to manoeuvre.This workshop is for senior professionals, founders, and leaders who have noticed the pattern in themselves and want to do something about it. You will learn to recognise when fear of conflict has shaped a decision, see the cost the avoidance is producing, and walk away with protocols to intercept the next avoidance before it becomes the next crisis.

Students learn to recognise when fear of conflict is shaping their strategy, intercept the avoidance, and lead the conversations they avoid

You will recognise fear of conflict shaping a decision before you make it

You will map exactly what you are protecting in your current avoidances

The protocols that intercept avoidance before it becomes a decision

You bring one specific conversation, decision, or relationship you have been postponing and are ready to look at honestly

A current avoidance you are willing to examine

You can hold the possibility that what you have been calling patience or strategic timing may also be quiet avoidance

Willingness to see your own pattern

You can engage with a six-stage decision framework and apply it to your own situation rather than asking for prescriptive advice

Comfort with frameworks and structured thinking

The Founder Who Built It With Someone

The Senior Leader Who Inherited the Team

The Senior Professional or Partner Who Does Not Want to Be Difficult

Agentic AI

Coding with AI

AI Workflows

Claude Code

OpenClaw

Vibe Coding

AI Evals

AI Transformation

RAG & Search

AI for PMs

AI for Engineers

AI for Designers

AI for Marketers

AI for Founders

Product Sense

Product Discovery

User Research

Prototyping

Growth

Analytics

Tech Foundations

Strategy

Influence

Leadership

Career Growth

Machine Learning

LLM Ops

Context Eng

Security

System Design

Figma

Design Systems

Visual Design

Design Strategy

Automation

Content Marketing

Demand Gen

Go-to-Market

Product Marketing

Positioning

Social Media

Brand

B2B Marketing

SEO & AEO

AI for Leaders

AI Governance

Communication

Management

People Operations

Exec Presence

Storytelling

Goal-setting

Personal Brand

Fundraising

Everyone

Operators

Data Scientists

Business Analysts

User Researchers

Customer Success

Project Managers

HR Professionals

Sales People

Lawyers

Finance

Investors

Real Estate

Educators

Creators

Executives and senior leaders who set strategy, lead teams, and drive organizational outcomes.

Project managers who organize and oversee execution of initiatives, timelines, and cross-functional delivery.

Executive communication — presenting to boards, writing memos, running all-hands, and high-stakes messaging.

Developing leadership skills — inspiring teams, building culture, navigating organizational complexity, and driving results through others.

Day-to-day people management — 1:1s, feedback, performance management, hiring, and team operations.