The costly moment
A situation in which a stated value and the pressure of the moment point in different directions, and people are watching the decision. What the leader does then is what the organisation learns. A value that holds only when it costs nothing is decoration.
Evidence grade: practice A widely adopted practitioner model with clear provenance.
Use it when
Reading culture; deciding on a launch against an exhausted error budget; the brilliant jerk; the shaded report.
Where it stops working
It rests on experience. People recognise it so readily that nearly every scenario in the competency is built from one.
Where the standard uses it
- CC-5Values, integrity, and ethical judgment under pressureWhat you do when the right call is the costly one.
Used alongside it
Cite this model
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). The costly moment. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, TEC.costly-moment). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/techniques/costly-moment