Pragmatic Thinking · The Game

How Do Your Leaders Really Decide?

Finance is more than balance sheets, and leadership is more than a plan. The Game brings the CFO mindset behind The Bottom Line into a three-minute decision experience: seven real trade-offs, on your people's own phones. Each person sees the instinct behind their choices. Your leadership sees how the organisation thinks.

Book a Conversation Try one decision

7Decisions

4Archetypes

<3Minutes

276Indaba players

The GameLive

Decision 3 of 7Cut or invest?CutInvest

WhatsAppYour result is in: FixerUncomfortably accurate.

Cut or invest?Train or enforce?Fix it now or build for later?Back the star or build the bench?Protect cash or chase growth?Cut or invest?Train or enforce?Fix it now or build for later?Back the star or build the bench?Protect cash or chase growth?Cut or invest?Train or enforce?Fix it now or build for later?Back the star or build the bench?Protect cash or chase growth?

No right answers, only prioritiesSeven decisionsUnder three minutesFour archetypesOne honest mirrorNo right answers, only prioritiesSeven decisionsUnder three minutesFour archetypesOne honest mirrorNo right answers, only prioritiesSeven decisionsUnder three minutesFour archetypesOne honest mirror

How It Lands

From a Hard Call to a Clear Conversation

One leader, one stand and one very good question. Choose a seat and watch it play out.

01
The Pressure
Budget season. The board wants growth, the numbers want cuts, and every option on the table is defensible. So which instinct is really driving the call?
02
The Stand
At the Finance Indaba, a QR code on a big screen. Seven decisions in under three minutes, on their own phone.
03
The Lightbulb
The result lands on WhatsApp in seconds: Fixer. Uncomfortably accurate. Then the real question: how would my team answer?
04
The Whole Team
Back at the office, the whole team plays the same seven decisions, written for their business, on their own phones.
05
The Eureka
The readout shows how the team decides under pressure, and where it pulls in different directions. That is where I come in.

Decision 1 of 7 · a taste

Budget season. The board wants growth, the numbers want cuts.

Every option on the table is defensible. Which way do you lean?

Why I Built It

Plans tell you what leaders intend. Decisions tell you who they are.

Every organisation has a strategy. The gap is rarely the plan. It is how leaders decide when the numbers turn and the pressure is on. That instinct shows up in budgets, in hiring and in what gets cut first, long before it shows up in a board pack.

The Game puts that instinct on the table. Seven real trade-offs, each one defensible, none of them a trick question. Each person sees the pattern behind their own choices. The leadership team sees the pattern in the room, and that is where the useful conversation starts.

From The Bottom Line

The Five CFO Levers™, Played Out by Your Leaders

In The Bottom Line, I ask what South Africa would look like if it were managed with the focus and discipline of a CFO. The Game asks the same question of your leadership team, one decision at a time.

The finance edition grew out of the same five levers. Every decision is a trade-off between them, and each archetype shows which lever a leader reaches for first when the pressure is on.

Learn more about The Bottom Line

1Plug the leaks
2Broaden the tax base in a fair way
3Restore fiscal credibility
4Strengthen cash flow discipline
5Invest for strategic growth

HR Indaba and Finance Indaba · October 2026

Two Rooms, Two Very Different Instincts

We ran The Game at both Indabas at the Sandton Convention Centre, with seven decisions and four archetypes written for each audience. This is how the two rooms answered.

Finance Indaba · 22 Oct199 players

Nearly half the finance room reached for the fix first.

Fixer48%

Grower20%

Builder18%

Realist15%

HR Indaba · 20 Oct77 players

Under pressure, HR leaders build systems before they back individuals.

Bench-Builder39%

Standard-Setter30%

Value-Unlocker29%

Talent-Spotter3%

276HR and finance leaders played across the two days

110asked to be contacted about bringing it into their own organisation

27people played both games, curious how finance and HR compare

Work With Me

Ways to Bring The Game Into Your Organisation

Every version is scoped to the decisions in front of you and written in your language. Nothing is priced off a standard package.

Speaking Engagements

Keynotes & Workshops

The audience plays in the minutes before I speak. I open with the results of the people in the room, and the five CFO Levers™ come to life on screen.

Invite Yusuf to Speak

Advisory & Consulting

Boards & Exco

Directors answer privately. The board sees where it agrees, and where it quietly does not, before the hard conversation begins.

Learn More

10 to 30 People

Leadership Team Sessions

The team plays together, then I take you through the group readout. Where you disagree becomes the agenda.

Book a Conversation

Hundreds of People

Organisation-Wide Rollouts

Teams and departments play over a few days. Leadership gets one combined view, and one for each group.

How an Engagement Works

Three Steps, One Honest Picture

Scoped to Your Decisions

We agree the trade-offs that matter in your business and write them in your language, then test the scoring so every archetype can be reached.

Your People Play

On their own phones, with nothing to download. Each person gets a result on WhatsApp within seconds, with email as the backup.

I Take You Through the Readout

We sit down with the group results and talk through what they mean for the decisions in front of you. Pragmatic, grounded in real-world finance, and always delivered with integrity.

A Mirror, Not a Test

The Game is a facilitated team exercise. Results are reported at group level, and it is not used for hiring, promotion or performance decisions.

Your organisation owns its data. Consent is built in, and group views only appear where enough people have played to keep individuals anonymous.

Meet Yusuf

Why Yusuf’s Perspective Matters

The Game is only as useful as the conversation that follows it. That conversation is where a CFO’s discipline, and a director’s view of the board table, earn their place.

CA(SA), Cert.Dir® Senior, project-based advisory for boards and finance teams.
Author of The Bottom Line A CFO’s Blueprint for South Africa’s Turnaround, with a foreword by Francois Pienaar.
Board & Financial Advisory Governance frameworks, audit and risk committee support, and CFO appointment specification.
Sector Depth Deepest in regulated insurance and financial services, extending to nonprofit and development finance.

Technology partnerInnovation by DesignThe Game is built, hosted and run by our technology partner. I bring the framework and the facilitation; they make sure every result reaches every player.Meet our technology partner

Let’s See How Your Team Decides

Book a conversation and play a round with me. We’ll look at where The Game fits in your organisation, and what a first session could look like.

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