Write the issue down before you bring it to anyone

A Series D CEO on preparing for coaching

“Sometimes I write the issue and I don’t even submit it. This is what we need to do. I’m not even going to waste Matt’s time on this.”

That is a CEO of a 1,000-person company describing what happens when he prepares for a session with Matt Mochary. He sits down to write up a problem for his coach — and by the time he finishes writing, the problem is solved. No session needed.

That is not a failure of coaching. That is the method working exactly as designed.

The three questions

Before every coaching session, Matt asks his clients to prepare each issue in writing:

1. What is the issue?
2. What did I do to help create this situation?
3. What is my proposed solution?

That is the IPS: Issue, Proposed Solution. Three questions, a few sentences each. It looks almost insultingly simple. It is not.

Why writing beats talking

When a problem lives in your head, it stays a fog: part fact, part anxiety, part blame. The three questions force the fog through a narrow pipe, and each one does a specific job.

“What is the issue?” forces you to separate the actual problem from your feelings about it. Most founders discover that what they have been calling “a sales problem” is actually “I have not told my Head of Sales what I expect.”

“What did I do to help create this?” is the uncomfortable one — and the engine of the whole exercise. It converts you from victim to participant. If you helped create the situation, you can help uncreate it. Issues you contributed nothing to are rare; issues where your contribution is invisible to you are the norm.

“What is my proposed solution?” denies you the luxury of just escalating. You are the CEO; there is nobody to escalate to. Forcing a proposal — even a bad one — means every conversation starts from a draft instead of a blank page.

How to apply it this week

You do not need a coach to run an IPS. Open a doc, pick the problem that has been looping in your head the longest, and answer the three questions in writing. Two outcomes are possible, and both are wins:

• The act of writing solves it. Ship the solution. (This happens more often than anyone expects.)
• It does not solve it — but you now have a one-page artifact that makes the conversation with your co-founder, your team, or your coach ten times faster, because they are reacting to a proposal instead of decoding a ramble.

Then make it a habit: no issue gets raised — in your leadership meeting, in your one-on-ones, with your coach — without an IPS attached. Watch what happens to the length of your meetings.

What founders usually get wrong

Skipping question two. Writing “the issue is that marketing is underperforming” and a solution of “marketing should do better” is not an IPS — it is a complaint with formatting. The middle question is where the insight lives.

Treating it as paperwork for the coach. The writing is not the price of admission to the session. The writing is the session, half the time.

Doing it only for big problems. The IPS is cheapest exactly when the issue is small. A three-sentence IPS on a minor irritation prevents the quarterly blowup nobody saw coming.

FAQ

What does IPS stand for in the Mochary Method?

Issue, Proposed Solution. It is the written format Mochary Method clients use to prepare topics: state the issue, name your own contribution to it, and propose a solution before discussing it with anyone.

Why does the IPS ask what I did to create the problem?

Because it converts you from victim to participant. If you contributed to the situation, you have leverage over it. The question is not about blame — it is about finding the part of the problem you can act on immediately.

Can I use the IPS without a coach?

Yes. The format works for leadership meetings, one-on-ones, and co-founder discussions. Many issues dissolve during the writing itself; the rest arrive at the meeting as a one-page proposal instead of a vague worry, which makes the discussion dramatically shorter.