Hard to Fire · Chapter 8 · Diagnostic worksheet

The Sponsor Map

Sort the people who know your work, spot where the advocacy is thin or concentrated, and choose one honest next conversation.

This map won't tell you whether you're safe. It will tell you whether you've mistaken a warm contact for an advocate.

Step 1 · Sort the relationships

Who has seen enough to say something useful when you're not there?

Put each person in the column that matches the evidence and reach they have now. Not the column you hope they grow into.

Before you turn this into amateur intelligence work

Do not solicit confidential HR, legal, transaction, customer, employee, regulated, or restricted planning information. Legitimate context helps. Gossip with a spreadsheet is still gossip.

Step 2 · Read the gaps

Which gap can hurt you most?

Choose one. If several apply, start with the one closest to an actual decision or concentration risk.

No Sponsor

Nobody is positioned to defend your work in a close call.

Try this: Give the strongest Potential Sponsor one direct view of your judgment this quarter.

Sponsors in one department

One departure or reorganization could remove all your advocacy at once.

Try this: Develop a cross-divisional relationship through shared work.

Many Allies, weak senior advocacy

Being liked isn't the same as being represented.

Try this: Identify a senior person who has seen some of your work and belongs in Potential Sponsors.

No legitimate Information Source

You may learn about change late.

Try this: Build a genuine relationship with someone who can share authorized context without restricted details.

Your largest advocacy gap

Choose the gap that can hurt you most. Warm contacts are nice. They are not automatically advocates.

Step 3 · Choose one next conversation

Useful work first. Honest conversation second.

Don't ask for sponsorship. Give the relationship evidence it can honestly support.

Which relationship is closest to the gap?What useful, non-transactional action comes first?What is the next honest conversation that action can support?

Your next move

Name one relationship, one useful action, and the honest conversation that can follow.

Maya's Sponsor Map

Maya had one real sponsor: her VP of Product, who had seen her catch a pricing error in his board deck. Useful evidence, real standing, and one obvious problem—it was all inside Product.

Diana, the SVP of Sales, had cross-divisional reach but stale evidence. Maya's move wasn't to ask Diana for sponsorship. It was to give Diana fresh, useful work to see, then have an honest conversation about it.

Don't be weird about it

Don't mine people for gossip or manufacture executive proximity. Showing up at a leader's gym, lunch spot, and parking level is not relationship-building. It is how you become the subject of a security briefing.

Build the relationship through useful work. If every interaction points back to what you want, the other person will understand the transaction before you finish the sentence.

Who has seen enough to say something useful when you're not there?

Sponsors

Potential Sponsors

Allies