MannKindDRIVE

find my level

what applies to me.

Two quick picks. No login, no personal information.

1. Pick your job ladder

2. Pick your grade level (GL)

you're on the IC / Professional ladder at GL 5. your DRIVE mastery level is intermediate.

Your level describes the rung, not the person. It reflects what your grade level asks for, not where your ability stops. Every level is fully achievable and fully creditable at its own rung. Meeting your level completely is the goal.

The Executive level is not available on this ladder. Executive level applies only to the Mgmt/Executive Ladder. Movement above a Ladder's ceiling requires transition to the Mgmt/Executive Ladder.

Awareness

See it early — risk and opportunity alike.

Intermediate

Scope: The partners your work touches. · Lead time: Before the choice is made.

Behavior

You see how your decisions land on the people downstream and surface the trade-off before the choice is made, not after. You read people as closely as you read data: who is stretched, what a room is not saying, where the stated reason is not the whole reason. When something slips, you name your part first and bring one option with it.

Upside

Catching it early and owning your part before it costs anyone else time.

Trap

Surfacing the trade-off and treating that as having resolved it.

Not yet

You read impact along your own chain; not functions you have no contact with.

Threshold condition

Honesty about what you see, including when it implicates you. Required in full at every level; what rises with scope is what it costs you to hold. Your manager judges what meeting it looks like in your role, not whether it applies.

Teamwork & Leadership

Lead from where you stand.

Intermediate

Scope: Your peers. · Mechanism: By honest persuasion; they can make the case themselves next time.

Behavior

You change what a peer does by making the case openly and showing your reasoning, not by pulling rank or working around them. You flex your own scope to teach rather than take over. You name a peer’s good work in rooms they are not in, give and take feedback in the moment, and when you disagree you say so in the room rather than after it.

Upside

Changing what someone does by showing them why, not by telling them to.

Trap

Winning the argument and calling it alignment.

Not yet

You move individuals; you are not yet responsible for how a group works together.

Threshold condition

Integrity and consistency: the same person under pressure as at kickoff. Required in full at every level; what rises with scope is what it costs you to hold. Your manager judges what meeting it looks like in your role — not whether it applies.

Solution Maker

Consistent, creative, robust solutions.

Intermediate

Scope: Your work and your partners’. · Problem: Recurring, but nobody has named it.

Behavior

You notice the thing that keeps going wrong and name it as a problem rather than absorbing it. You look outside your own team for how others have solved it, then pilot, measure and keep what works. When an approach fails you say so plainly, share what you learned, and start the next one. You pull in adjacent partners before scope becomes a surprise.

Upside

Naming the problem everyone had learned to work around.

Trap

Settling on the first workable idea without looking wider.

Not yet

You solve what recurs in front of you, not what is contested across functions.

Threshold condition

Curiosity, and willingness to look past the first workable answer. Required in full at every level; what rises with scope is what it costs you to hold. Your manager judges what meeting it looks like in your role — not whether it applies.

Execution

Commit and deliver it when promised — and build momentum.

Intermediate

Scope: Your work among others’. · Commitment: This quarter, through normal disruption.

Behavior

You manage competing priorities by naming the trade-off and asking the right person to decide, rather than quietly dropping one. Your updates lead with what is at risk, not what is comfortable. You ask for help before the work is stuck. You turn steady output into predictable throughput, so partners can make their own commitments off the back of yours.

Upside

Making your output predictable enough for others to build on.

Trap

Reporting to protect yourself rather than to inform the decision.

Not yet

You make your own output predictable; you do not yet sequence other people’s.

Threshold condition

No corners cut under pressure; transparency about risk while it is still early. Required in full at every level; what rises with scope is what it costs you to hold. Your manager judges what meeting it looks like in your role — not whether it applies.

Continuous Improvement

Stay with it over time.

Intermediate

Scope: Your team’s way of working. · Scaffolding: It holds on the team without you pushing.

Behavior

You notice a friction the team has learned to live with and make the better way the normal way — not a one-off fix that fades. You teach the method so it survives without you, and you check back weeks later to see whether it stuck. When an improvement does not hold, you find out why rather than blaming the people who stopped using it.

Upside

Making the better way the normal way.

Trap

Improving it once and calling it fixed.

Not yet

You make one change stick; the next one does not yet start from a higher floor.

Threshold condition

Treating improvement as yours rather than someone else’s. Required in full at every level; what rises with scope is what it costs you to hold. Your manager judges what meeting it looks like in your role — not whether it applies.

compare levels.

What do I need to work on to grow? Pick any two levels and scan the difference.

Awareness

Intermediate

Scope: The partners your work touches. · Lead time: Before the choice is made.

You see how your decisions land on the people downstream and surface the trade-off before the choice is made, not after. You read people as closely as you read data: who is stretched, what a room is not saying, where the stated reason is not the whole reason. When something slips, you name your part first and bring one option with it.

Upside: Catching it early and owning your part before it costs anyone else time.

Trap: Surfacing the trade-off and treating that as having resolved it.

Not yet: You read impact along your own chain; not functions you have no contact with.

Advanced

Scope: Across functions. · Lead time: While it is still cheap to act.

You see the risk forming two functions over and the opening nobody has spotted, and you move both to whoever can act while there is still room to act. You hold an unsentimental read of your own team’s strengths and gaps. When a conversation needs to be difficult, you start it rather than waiting for it to become unavoidable.

Upside: Seeing risk and opportunity while both are still cheap to handle.

Trap: Seeing it clearly and assuming clarity is the same as having acted.

Not yet: You read the company as it is, not the industry moving toward it.

Teamwork & Leadership

Intermediate

Scope: Your peers. · Mechanism: By honest persuasion; they can make the case themselves next time.

You change what a peer does by making the case openly and showing your reasoning, not by pulling rank or working around them. You flex your own scope to teach rather than take over. You name a peer’s good work in rooms they are not in, give and take feedback in the moment, and when you disagree you say so in the room rather than after it.

Upside: Changing what someone does by showing them why, not by telling them to.

Trap: Winning the argument and calling it alignment.

Not yet: You move individuals; you are not yet responsible for how a group works together.

Advanced

Scope: A team or cross-functional group. · Mechanism: By creating conditions and coaching; people finish more capable than they started.

You hand people outcomes rather than tasks: why it matters, what good looks like, the guardrails, the timing — and you leave the path with them. You deploy people to their strengths and back their development in the rest. You coach without rescuing. When a commitment is missed you address it promptly and fairly, having first asked what you contributed to it.

Upside: People give more than the task asked for, because you made it worth owning.

Trap: Developing someone instead of holding them to account — coaching that never closes the loop.

Not yet: You build individuals, not yet the leaders who build others.

Solution Maker

Intermediate

Scope: Your work and your partners’. · Problem: Recurring, but nobody has named it.

You notice the thing that keeps going wrong and name it as a problem rather than absorbing it. You look outside your own team for how others have solved it, then pilot, measure and keep what works. When an approach fails you say so plainly, share what you learned, and start the next one. You pull in adjacent partners before scope becomes a surprise.

Upside: Naming the problem everyone had learned to work around.

Trap: Settling on the first workable idea without looking wider.

Not yet: You solve what recurs in front of you, not what is contested across functions.

Advanced

Scope: Cross-functional. · Problem: Ambiguous and contested; people disagree on what it even is.

You take on problems where the facts are incomplete and people disagree about the cause. You diagnose at the root, separating capability, accountability, process, incentives and design before choosing where to intervene. You generate real options rather than one, and argue for the unconventional path when the evidence supports it. You build contingencies that make a bold choice a responsible one.

Upside: Finding the problem behind the problem before choosing a solution.

Trap: Treating it as a technical problem when the cause is behavioral or structural.

Not yet: You solve problems others have named; you do not yet frame the ones nobody sees.

Execution

Intermediate

Scope: Your work among others’. · Commitment: This quarter, through normal disruption.

You manage competing priorities by naming the trade-off and asking the right person to decide, rather than quietly dropping one. Your updates lead with what is at risk, not what is comfortable. You ask for help before the work is stuck. You turn steady output into predictable throughput, so partners can make their own commitments off the back of yours.

Upside: Making your output predictable enough for others to build on.

Trap: Reporting to protect yourself rather than to inform the decision.

Not yet: You make your own output predictable; you do not yet sequence other people’s.

Advanced

Scope: A cross-functional deliverable. · Commitment: Multiple quarters, through real disruption.

You own deliverables that run across quarters and functions, and you set commitments that are realistic for the people who must meet them. You anticipate what could go wrong and build the contingency before you need it. You sequence work so the team moves faster, clearing the path rather than pushing from behind. When conditions change you reset the plan openly.

Upside: Sequencing the work so the team delivers faster and still lands it.

Trap: Working harder to save a plan that needed resetting.

Not yet: You deliver the commitment; you do not yet decide which commitments the function makes.

Continuous Improvement

Intermediate

Scope: Your team’s way of working. · Scaffolding: It holds on the team without you pushing.

You notice a friction the team has learned to live with and make the better way the normal way — not a one-off fix that fades. You teach the method so it survives without you, and you check back weeks later to see whether it stuck. When an improvement does not hold, you find out why rather than blaming the people who stopped using it.

Upside: Making the better way the normal way.

Trap: Improving it once and calling it fixed.

Not yet: You make one change stick; the next one does not yet start from a higher floor.

Advanced

Scope: Cross-functional. · Scaffolding: Each change raises the floor the next one starts from.

You improve how work gets done through changes that build on each other, so the team is not solving the same class of problem twice. You question long-held ways of working, keep what still serves the objective and rework what does not. When a change does not deliver, you say so without defensiveness and fold what you learned into the next attempt.

Upside: Building changes that compound instead of accumulate.

Trap: Mistaking activity and movement for improvement.

Not yet: You compound improvements across a team, not yet across a function.