Standard Operating Procedure

§ The Standard Year · 4–8 employees

A card game of office politics, misinformation and greed. The Board issues four words. The CEO writes a memo around them, and it travels down the ranks — where everyone below may quietly change up to two things. You are paid on your own net worth, not the company's. Highest total at the end of the fiscal year is named Chairman of the Board. Everyone else is laid off.

One quarter, six steps. Four times over.

1. 1 · Board words

   The app deals four

2. 2 · CEO drafts

   15 words maximum

3. 3 · It climbs down

   Two changes each

4. 4 · Read aloud

   By the last hand

5. 5 · The meeting

   Five minutes

6. 6 · Pass or fail

   Then Breaking News

Read time about six minutes. Or watch the orientation reel.

I. Onboarding

Roughly five minutes.

1. Set the deck aside

   Pull the HR Violation cards out of the attribute deck and keep them apart for now.

2. Assign ranks

   Pull exactly the Employee ID badges for your headcount — the device tells you which — and deal them face down. Highest rank is CEO.

   4–5 employees: the CEO turns theirs up and appoints their VP, the VP appoints the Director, and so on down.

   6 or more: everyone turns theirs up at once and reads out their name and title. Write your starting rank on your Book of Record.

3. Deal Secret Identities

   The CEO deals one to each employee, face down. Do not reveal it. It carries a quarterly objective and a bonus — and a fine if a colleague works out who you are.

4. Pay signing bonuses and deal starting attribute cards by rank

   Signing bonus and starting cards

   Rank	Signing	Attributes
   CEO	$5,000	2 cards
   VP	$4,000	2 cards
   Director	$3,000	3 cards
   Manager	$2,000	3 cards
   Associate	$1,000	5 cards

5. Shuffle the HR Violations back in

   That is your attribute deck for the year: 90 cards in 62 designs. Leave room beside it for a discard pile. When the deck runs out, shuffle the discard and keep going.

6. Open the app

   On one phone or tablet. Choose your headcount and it runs the year for you. It is at corporateladdergame.com/device and needs the unlock code printed inside your box.

Quarterly salary

Salary is paid every quarter, at whatever rank you hold at the time it is paid.

II. The quarter

Phase one — the memo

Who sees what. Rank decides how much you know.

With several Associates, the Manager picks which one gets the memo. The rest still attend, take payouts and hold their 1:1s. At four employees there is no Manager.

Drafting and editing. The CEO drafts in the app using all four Board words, in 15 words or fewer. It then passes down in rank order. Each employee below either retypes it exactly, or changes up to two things — a word added, deleted or swapped, or a mark of punctuation. The lowest rank reads the result aloud.

It passes when 3 or more Board words survive.

What that looks like — the Board wants Ferret, Microwaving, Bagpipes, Yodeling.

FERRET and YODELING survived, so only 2 of 4 made it — the memo fails, the CEO is an Associate by next quarter, and the VP has some questions about whose bagpipes those were.

Phase two — the meeting

A five-minute timer starts under the result. Ask questions, play Perk cards, negotiate, bribe and blame each other for the edits — starting with the CEO and working down. Press End discussion to finish early; positions are then final.

On a failed memo, before anyone is paid: the outgoing CEO collects $1,000 per surviving Board word, pays a $1,500 mismanagement fine, and is demoted to Associate. Everyone from VP down moves up one rank — each badge passes to that person's direct report. Associates are immune to HR Violations this quarter, and where several are seated the Manager picks the new Manager.

III. Cards & closing

The three attribute cards

What to do the moment you draw one. Each card carries the same cue in its corner.

• Skill

  Play it face up. Put it on the table in front of you. Everyone can see it, and it stays live all year unless someone negates it.

• Perk

  Keep it in hand. Nobody else knows you hold it. Play it whenever you choose — often the right moment is later than you think.

• HR Violation

  Do it now, then discard. Resolve it the moment you draw it, out loud, then put it on the discard pile.

Violations go to the discard pile once resolved — and when the draw deck runs dry, shuffle that pile and carry on.

The executive decision

Only after a memo passes. The app prompts the CEO to promote or demote one employee. Promotion: they swap badges with whoever is one rank above. Demotion: they drop to Associate and everyone below moves up one. The Board then approves or rejects. Approval stands. Rejection reverses the decision and fines the CEO $1,000 for poor judgement.

Breaking News closes the quarter. Some of it helps, some of it hurts, some of it does nothing at all.

The Associate retention bonus

Every quarter, pass or fail. Every Associate collects $500 for each other Associate at the table. Four Associates means $1,500 each — the bottom of the ladder's compensation for having the least information.

Separation of service

After the Q4 review.

1. Write your ending rank on your Book of Record.
2. Play any last Perk cards — nothing that changes the hierarchy now. Fold the money into your fiscal year total.
3. Circle your guess at every colleague's Secret Identity. Say so when you are done. Nobody reveals anything until everyone has locked in.
4. Reveal, starting with the CEO and going clockwise.
5. Total up the bonuses below, then open the FY Comprehensive Audit Report in the app.

Your objective pays for every quarter you hit it, not once. A Saboteur who saw the memo fail twice collects $4,000.

The Secret Identities

Eight in the box, one dealt to each employee. Each carries a quarterly objective and a bonus for every quarter it is achieved. Three are disclosed here; the remaining five are disclosed upon hire.

IV. Two other ways to play

Same badges. Same app. Different year.

Both of these run on the same device, from the same opening screen. Choose your headcount and the app offers whichever versions your table can support. Each has its own orientation reel.

The Small Merger — 6–8 employees, nobody plays for money

Two employees arrived with an acquisition and are hiding in the org chart. The company wins by naming both of them. The Merger wins by climbing the ladder without being named. Cash never enters it.

• The Board's four words belong to the CEO alone — everyone below edits blind, so an honest clumsy edit and a deliberate one look identical.
• Every employee below the CEO must change exactly two things. Not "up to" two. With no money on the table, an optional edit means only traitors would ever touch the memo.
• Memos stay at 15 words or fewer.
• One of the two knows the other. The other does not know them back.
• The app shows a handover screen between turns, so passing the device along never exposes the next employee's private brief. Wait for it to unlock.

The Small Merger in full →

The Merger — 9–20 employees, two rooms, two devices

The company has merged. Split into two rooms that cannot hear each other, each running its own copy of the app. Each room drafts for its own department — but department is dealt independently of room, so roughly half of any room is quietly working against it.

• The memo climbs upward here: an Associate types in the VP's handwritten note and it passes up the chain. Each employee may correct up to two words.
• The CEO files the official text as a hidden answer key before the clock starts. It must be at least 15 words.
• Scoring at the end of each quarter: 5 points for each of the four key words in the right place, 1 point for every other word in the right place, and 1 point per colleague a VP names correctly — which breaks ties.
• Four quarters, then both rooms come back together for the result.

The Merger in full →

V. Quick reference

The Standard Year, face up on the table.

One quarter, in one line. The app deals 4 Board words → the CEO drafts a memo using all four, 15 words or fewer → it passes down the ranks and each employee may change up to 2 things → the lowest rank reads it aloud → 5-minute meeting → 3 or more Board words survive = it passes → pay out, then Breaking News. Four times, then the audit.

Highest personal total at the end of the year is named Chairman of the Board. Everyone else is laid off.