Until her first lever is played, everything Lena Ortiz has done in her maneuver has been written on her own side of the table. She has said what she wants, whose decision it is and what that person is choosing between, what she expects him to choose, how she means to move him, and what the move will need. The gate has checked that she holds it. Daniel Okafor, the chief operating officer whose decision it is, knows none of this. Then she puts the overtime case in front of him, and the maneuver touches his decision for the first time.
In The Lam System for Political Interaction, that moment is execution: the actor's chosen action entering the world. It is the only constituent through which an actor changes the target's decision matrix, and it pays for the change on the spot, before anyone knows whether the change worked. What it records is what the actor put into the target's decision. What the target made of it belongs to the next step, and the system keeps the two apart.
The constituents of a maneuver
Structure. Each line joins a constituent to one it contains.
The map shows what contains what in one actor's maneuver, from the actor down to what flows back when the cycle closes. It illustrates the structure only.
Actorα / a · A name only, performed by no oneThe person who opens the cycle and acts within it.
AgendaΑ / A · A name only, performed by no oneThe actor's long-running aim, which holds every cycle the actor opens.
Interestι / i · Performed by the actorWhat the actor stands to gain from the cycle.
- Detectionδ / d · Performed by the actorThe actor finding out who controls the resource wanted.
Targetτ / t · A name only, performed by no oneThe person whose decision completes the cycle.
Decision MatrixΔ / D · A name only, performed by no oneThe options open to the target, each weighed by what it offers and what it asks.
Preferred Positionπ / P · A name only, performed by no oneThe option that leads to the outcome the actor wants.
Adverse Alternativeψ / X · A name only, performed by no oneAn option that leads away from the outcome the actor wants.
- PerceptionΓ / G · Performed by the targetHow the target compares the options' worth before choosing.
- SelectionΣ / S · Performed by the targetThe target's choice among the options.
Objectiveω / o · Performed by the actorThe direction the actor wants the target's choice to take.
Intentionγ / g · Performed by the actorA specific action the actor chooses to move the target's options. A cycle holds one or more.
- Required Resourcesθ / q · Performed by the actorWhat the actor must hold to carry out the intention.
- ExecutionThis essayε / e · Performed by the actorThe actor carrying out the chosen action.
- A sub-cycle's interest, when the gate fails↺ Interest, under AgendaWhen the actor lacks a resource the intention needs, a sub-cycle opens whose interest is exactly that resource. It is an ordinary interest, drawn here a second time.
OutcomeΩ / O · Performed by the cycle itselfThe state the cycle closes in, one of the futures that were possible.
- Obtained ResourcesΦ / Q · Performed by the actorWhat the actor gains when the cycle closes.
- Obtained UtilityΛ / U · Performed by the targetWhat the target gains from the outcome.
- Current ResourcesΘ / R · A name only, performed by no oneWhat the actor holds now, counted.
The one act that reaches the target
Execution is performed by the actor, and it fires once for each lever, after the lever's gate has passed. Lena executes three times in her maneuver. She puts the overtime case to Daniel. Inside the sub-cycle, she walks the controller, Priya Natarajan, through how the savings figure was built. And once Priya's sign-off has come back, she puts the signed figure in front of Daniel.
Every other act the actor performs is a declaration. Detection names the options in the target's decision; the objective projects which one the target will choose; a lever projects how the target's comparison will change; required resources name what the lever will use. Each of those writes something into the record and leaves the target's decision exactly as it was. Execution is the one operation of the actor's that the system allows to write a change into the target's matrix.
A target weighs each option by its benefits and its costs, so every option has at least two cells in the matrix: what approving the move gives Daniel and what it costs him, and the same pair for leaving dispatch with the depots and for handing it to the automation program. A resource does its work by raising or lowering one of those cells. The overtime case adds to the benefit of approving: approval now comes with a cut in the overtime his critics have pinned on him. The signed figure works on the other side of the same option. Approving costs Daniel, among other things, his name behind a savings figure finance has not tested, and once Priya has signed, that cost is gone. Another actor's lever might raise the cost of an alternative or lower an alternative's benefit, and the execution records which cell it changed.
Spending happens here
Execution is where the resources a lever was declared to need leave what the actor holds, one of each, exactly as declared; the gate before it and any escalation spend nothing. When the overtime case goes to Daniel, Lena gives up the overtime data and some of her standing with him; when the signed figure goes, the sign-off goes with it.
They go whether or not the lever works. If Daniel had read the overtime case as a depot problem and no reason to move the desks, the data and the standing would be spent all the same. The price of a lever is paid at execution, and the reading that says whether the price bought anything comes after. Giving a lever up before its execution costs nothing; after it, the resources are already gone.
Gone from Lena's holdings, the resource turns up in Daniel's decision. The overtime data, which was hers, is now part of what approving offers him, and the exchange a maneuver makes can be seen here at its smallest scale: something the actor held, given up so that the target's choice looks different.
The symbol and one line
Execution is written with the lowercase Greek epsilon, ε, when the actor performs it, and the Latin e when the record points at it. It is lowercase because each execution is one event belonging to one lever. The second lever's execution reads:
Read aloud: the actor performs the execution of the second lever, under the objective of the only interest, and it yields one change: from the second cost of the only preferred position, in the target's decision matrix, take away the second lever's only required resource. The arrow here means "has this effect". The system uses the same arrow for a projection elsewhere and tells the two senses apart by what stands on its left; only an execution can stand there in this sense.
The line puts the spending and the effect in one place. The resource after the minus sign is the one the lever declared, which is why execution can spend it without anyone having to judge what the act cost. The cell before it is the target's.
What execution claims, and what it leaves to the target
An execution records what the actor did and the effect the actor meant it to have. It does not record that Daniel was moved. That is perception, the target's reading of the comparison once the lever has landed, which comes next and belongs to the target. The record holds the two as separate entries: Lena put the signed figure in front of Daniel, taking away a cost of approving; Daniel then read the savings as finance's number. When they agree, the lever worked as projected, and when they disagree the record holds both halves of the disagreement.
That lets the actor tell apart two failures that look the same from outside. In one, the act was made as declared and the target read it differently: the lever was the wrong one for this target, or the right one at the wrong time. In the other, the act that reached the target was not the one declared. Lena goes in to show the overtime saving, the conversation turns, and what Daniel hears is a complaint about the depot managers. The record says the overtime case went in, because that is what was declared and executed, and the perception that follows is set beside an act that did not quite happen.
How it goes wrong
Playing a lever whose work has already been done spends resources for nothing. Suppose the overtime case had carried Daniel on its own, and Lena could see that it had. The second lever would still be live, and executing it would spend the sign-off, and before that her standing with Priya, on a decision that no longer needed them. The move for a lever whose purpose has been met another way is to moot it, which has its own essay; once the lever is executed, that chance has passed.
An act can also cost more than its lever declared. Lena goes to Daniel planning to spend the overtime data and her standing, and in the room promises him a quarterly report on the desks' overtime to settle the matter. The promise is a resource spent, and nothing declared it, so the record does not count it. What she holds afterward is overstated by a commitment she will have to honor. The record can count it only if it is written down as what it was: another lever, with required resources of its own.
A lever can also come too late. One executed after the target has, in practice, made up their mind spends its resources on a decision already settled. The system holds the selection back until the levers still in play have been read, and the target keeps no such rule.
Is this lever ready to be played?
A reading aid for the actor's judgment. The system applies only the first check, the gate; the rest are the actor's. Check in order and stop at the first that is not true.
What the record teaches
Each execution sits in the record with the lever it played, the resources it spent and the cell it changed, and beside it the perception that followed. Over many maneuvers those pairs show an actor where their levers work.
Some actors tend to add to the benefits of the option they want: better data, a stronger case, a more generous version of the offer. Others tend to raise the cost of the alternatives, making doing nothing look expensive. The record shows which habit an actor has and, set beside the perceptions, which targets answer to which. A chief operating officer who moves when the preferred position improves and does not move when the alternatives worsen is worth knowing about before the next maneuver with him. Every execution also states what it spent, so the record gives the actor what moving a given person has cost them, lever by lever, over years.