American System | Hamiltonian Education

One-Page Diagnostic Checklist

People & Seat Design Diagnostic

Use with leadership or alone. Prefer facts over aspirations. Yes / Partially / No + short note. Checks stay in this browser only. No account required. Prefer one question at a time? Open the guided diagnostic.

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Seats & dependence

We have named 1–2 critical seat families (roles where loss of two long-tenure people would break delivery or knowledge).
Leadership has named at least one critical seat family that will not be designed as a permanent short-cycle temporary or visa labor seat (Module 5 required output).
We can point to where short-cycle temporary or visa labor is a bridge vs a permanent design assumption.
Failure mode check: Any critical seat still designed as permanent short-cycle temporary or visa labor coverage is treated as a capacity risk, not a neutral staffing choice.
We know which critical seats would fail if two long-tenure people left in the next 90 days.

GWC + American System question

We run standard GWC (Gets it, Wants it, Capacity to do it) on open and critical seats.
We also ask the American System question after GWC: Does this seat design reduce dependence on short-cycle temporary or visa labor and build institutional knowledge that stays? (This is an additional filter question — not a change to the native EOS People Analyzer.)
Open seats still assume (or no longer assume) “we can always contract or visa our way through.”

Scorecard & visibility

The Scorecard includes these locked capacity metrics (verbatim) for a named seat family: (1) pipeline health for a named critical seat family; (2) retention of institutional knowledge in critical seats; (3) share of critical seats held by long-term American workers.
Operators who own the seat family own those metrics (not only Finance/HR).
A green cost/fill Scorecard can still be treated as a problem if capacity metrics are red or missing.

Process & Level 10

Level 10 IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve) is used when capacity is slipping and cost still looks fine — not only when headcount is short.
Accountability Chart makes critical knowledge and decision rights visible (not only interchangeable boxes).

Anchors (shared language)

Team can state the Elevator logic: when elevators stopped needing a dedicated operator, work moved into higher-skill design, maintenance, and system roles — design should elevate work into higher-skill American roles, not only eliminate hours.
Team can state the Freedom Haulers / sovereign pipeline idea: replacing short-cycle temporary or visa labor CDL capacity with American veterans who already hold the skill is a workforce and pipeline decision, not only a cost line.
Posture: Operating in the United States is not workforce-neutral. Seat design either builds lasting productive capacity or rents weakness.

If the outline isn’t enough, view the 90-Day Sprint. Back to Start here.

Diagnostic result: Where is our biggest gap — seat design, GWC-only hiring, missing capacity metrics, permanent short-cycle temporary or visa labor design on critical seats, or Level 10 that never IDS’s capacity vs cost?

90-Day Action Plan Outline

This is a starting outline, not a full managed engagement. Paid implementation support (e.g. 90-Day Sovereign Capacity Sprint) sits behind deeper facilitation, accountability, and cross-module integration.

Days 1–30 — Diagnose

Name 1–2 critical seat familiesOutput: Written list + why they are critical
Required: Name ≥1 critical seat family that will not be designed as a permanent short-cycle temporary or visa labor seatOutput: Leadership-signed design choice
Map where knowledge lives and where short-cycle temporary or visa labor coverage is structuralOutput: Simple map (seat → knowledge risk → labor type)
Flag any critical seat still on permanent short-cycle temporary or visa labor design as capacity riskOutput: Explicit failure-mode list
Run GWC + American System capacity question on those seatsOutput: Pass/fail + capacity notes per seat
Check Scorecard for locked capacity metricsOutput: Present / missing / owner

Days 31–60 — Redesign

Redesign one seat family for elevated work and knowledge retentionOutput: Seat description + pipeline step
Define a simple pipeline step (internal or veteran/high-skill American path where relevant)Output: One concrete pipeline action
Add locked Scorecard capacity metrics (verbatim) for the named seat familyOutput: Metrics live on Scorecard with operator owners
Align at least one Rock to a locked capacity metricOutput: Rock statement + owner + metric link

Days 61–90 — Execute & Embed

Run Level 10s that IDS when capacity slips and cost still looks fineOutput: Documented IDS examples
Lock seat design + metric pair for the next quarter; keep the signed non–short-cycle-temporary-or-visa-labor design choice visible on (or referenced by) the Accountability ChartOutput: V/TO / Rocks / Scorecard / Accountability Chart hand-offs noted
Hand implications to Vision (Module 1), Rocks (Module 2), Scorecard (Module 3), Process (Module 4)Output: Short hand-off list

Success check at day 90: One critical seat family has a non–short-cycle-temporary-or-visa-labor design choice; no critical seat remains on unchallenged permanent short-cycle temporary or visa labor design; at least one locked capacity metric is live with an operator owner; Level 10 has used IDS on capacity vs cost at least once — so People design builds lasting productive capacity rather than rents weakness.

Full facilitation, seat-design support, and ongoing Chief of Staff-style support are available on request.

Soft cross-reference (BMC)

BMC Module 5 (Workforce Strategy) applies the same American System filter in Canvas language. Preferred path for teams new to the filter: free BMC series first, then EOS. Teams already running EOS may start here and still use BMC diagnostics alongside — no mandatory sequence.

Open matching BMC companion

Related policy: Issue 5 – Sovereign Workforce

Workforce as Productive Capacity: People Under a Hamiltonian Filter