The Four Cores is the four axes that support this book's method: stop generative AI before anything is finalized; the top executive decides how time is used; what you publish is a factual Line; and peak months are set only a few times a year.
Three Standards This Book Stands On
In fact, there are three rules that have long been taken for granted in other fields. This book applies those three rules to the way companies that deliver goods and services run their websites. Introducing new tools is not one of the rules referred to here.
First: Don't change your systems during busy months (a change freeze).
It's the same reason a shop doesn't replace its cash registers during the year-end rush. The top executive decides not to rebuild the website during the peak month, and concentrates that month's hands on deliveries and quotes (Chapter 2).
Second: Base goals on last year's results for the same peak month.
The top executive sets goals from last year's records, not from a feeling that "we can probably manage about this much" (Chapter 2).
Third: Text that goes outside the company goes out only after a person has finalized it.
Drafts written by generative AI go out only after a person has checked any names, dates, and amounts not found in the records (Chapter 8).
This book has just one method. Employees leave a Sheet during the regular months. In the four weeks starting 30 days before the peak month, they publish the Line, the Closing, and the Entrance based on that Sheet. During the peak month, deliveries and quotes are run with that Line and Sheet. When it is over, the top executive leaves the Three Lines in the Internal Memo.
Four cores run through this method to keep it steady. In this book, they are called "the Four Cores." Think of them as the axis running through the center of a spinning top.
These four cores also support the running of stretch goals. When an ambitious goal is set, people hurry and try to do many things at once. They have AI write more and more. Everyone moves in their own direction. They build momentum with emotional claims. They make every month a do-or-die month. The Four Cores exist to stop those four kinds of hurrying. That is why, even with an ambitious goal, you can change the way you work and reach it calmly.
The First Core: Stop generative AI before anything is finalized.
Names, dates, and amounts are decided by people. AI writes text very quickly. But it sometimes writes numbers that aren't in the records as if they were real. If you stop it here, you can catch wrong numbers before they reach the client (Chapter 8).
The Second Core: The top executive decides how time is used.
The top executive decides how employees use their opened hour. Progress is checked by the Sheet left behind, not by the time spent at a computer. That way, work doesn't fragment from person to person, and preparation gradually builds up as a company asset (Chapter 5).
The Third Core: What you publish is a Line that states facts.
For which project, under which conditions, with which specifications: these facts are what go on the website. With "heartfelt care," prospects have nothing to judge by. When the facts are written, they can tell before inquiring that "this looks like a fit for us" (Chapters 3, 4, and 6 through 11).
The Fourth Core: Set peak months only a few times a year.
A peak month is a month when work concentrates. If you made every month a peak month, there would be no regular months left for preparation. Because you limit peak months to a few a year, room opens up between them (Chapters 2 and 12).
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