The Laszlo Bock
Framework
Work Rules & Evidence-Based People Operations
Laszlo Bock represents one of the most distinctive thinking patterns in their field. Laszlo Bock's approach, captured in this framework as mental models, decision heuristics, and the signature questions they would ask.
The work rules & evidence-based people operations framework distils Laszlo Bock's documented approach into a .md skill file you can load into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM in seconds.
Where most AI personas generate generic output, this framework is grounded in real documented work: interviews, writing, published frameworks, and the specific decisions Laszlo Bock made when it mattered. Use it for decision-making, writing, strategy, or any situation where you want your AI to think with Laszlo Bock's distinctive patterns rather than a default model voice.
A glimpse of Laszlo Bock's thinking.
Most organizations dramatically underestimate how much their people practices are built on unexamined assumptions inherited from whoever designed the system decades ago. Bock's operating premise, drawn from fifteen years running People Operations at Google and validated in his book *Work Rules!*, is that you can apply the same hypothesis-test-iterate loop to human systems that engineers apply to products. The second premise is that most managers hold too much power and employees too little, and that reversing this ratio, carefully and deliberately, produces both better decisions and higher engagement.
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Five specific models, each named and explained with concrete examples, unlocked with purchase.
"What does the data actually say about whether this practice improves outcomes, and who collected that data?"
4 more questions in Laszlo Bock's voice are unlocked with purchase.
Full list of anti-patterns unlocked with purchase.
The full framework adds: detailed explanations of all five mental models with real-world examples, the decision heuristics Laszlo Bock actually used, remaining signature questions, the complete list of anti-patterns, a copy-paste activation prompt, and a worked example.
Unlocked the moment you purchase. ~2,000 words total. Delivered as a Claude Skill and plain .md within 60 seconds of checkout.
- ✦Core philosophy: 2–3 sentences grounded in Laszlo Bock's documented worldview
- ✦Five signature mental models: each named, with concrete examples from their work
- ✦Decision heuristics: the concrete rules they actually used
- ✦Signature questions: five questions that sound like Laszlo Bock, not a generic MBA
- ✦What they would NOT do: the anti-patterns this framework rejects
- ✦Copy-paste activation prompt: drop straight into Claude or ChatGPT
- ✦Worked example: the framework applied to a realistic scenario
- →laszlo-bock.zip: a native Claude Skill. Upload to Settings → Skills in Claude, or unzip to
~/.claude/skills/ - →laszlo-bock-framework.md: plain markdown. Works in ChatGPT Custom GPTs, Gemini, Claude Projects, agent system prompts, anywhere
What it does with a real question.
A founder is deciding whether to take a large but difficult client.
Take it only if you can name what "difficult" means. Founders usually decide this one on gut: the revenue is tempting, the dread is real, and neither feeling is data. Before you sign, turn the dread into specifics. Is the difficulty unreasonable scope, slow payment, a client who treats your people badly, or a buyer who is demanding but fair? Those are different problems with different prices, and only some of them are worth charging for.
The part founders skip is who absorbs it. A hard client doesn't land on you, it lands on whoever staffs the account. If you assign your strongest person, you are quietly taxing your best performer and raising their odds of leaving, which can cost more than the contract earns. If you assign your weakest, you will lose the client and burn that person. So decide up front who carries this, and ask them, not just tell them.
My position: take it, but not on the client's terms. Price in the difficulty with a premium of 20 to 30 percent over your standard rate, write the scope and change-request process into the contract, and set an exit trigger you agree on before the first invoice, such as a defined number of scope breaches or a late payment.
Next move this week: sit down with the person who would lead the account, walk them through the real terms, and let their willingness, or hesitation, make the call with you.
The full framework carries five models, decision heuristics, signature questions and a worked example.
Written by claude-sonnet-5-5 with this framework loaded, 2026-10-11. Checked automatically for length and for copied framework text.
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Works as a Claude Skill (.zip) and as a plain .md for ChatGPT, Gemini & every LLM
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Inspired by the documented thinking of Laszlo Bock. A mental-model toolkit, not a literal representation. Delivered as a .md file compatible with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and any LLM.