The conflict between where you are and where you want to be has a structure. This book teaches you to see it — and gives you a systematic method for changing it.
The method is called the Evaporating Cloud, and the approach you'll learn here is the Perry Approach — a ten-phase process developed through years of practice with real conflicts in real organisations, from aviation to healthcare to manufacturing to union–management relations.
You won't find abstract theory here. Every concept in this book has been tested in rooms where people genuinely disagreed, where the stakes were real, and where getting it wrong had consequences. The exercises are designed for your conflicts — the ones you're living with right now.
What makes this approach different is where it starts. Most conflict methods ask you to negotiate, compromise, or find middle ground. The Perry Approach asks a different question: what assumptions are holding this conflict in place? Once you can name those assumptions and test them, conflicts that seemed permanent begin to dissolve.
How to Use This Book
This book works two ways. Choose the path that suits you — or use both.
Read freely. The full book is here, open and complete. Each chapter builds on the one before, but you can also dip in when you need a specific tool or insight. Work the exercises as you go — this is a practice manual, not a textbook to consume.
Take the guided course. The course version of Rising Above the Clouds wraps the same material with short video introductions, downloadable templates, chapter quizzes, and practical assignments designed to deepen your learning. It's structured to keep you moving and give you feedback along the way.
The guided course is included with Conflict Club Membership — the book, the course, and weekly live practice sessions, all in one.
Book Structure
The book follows a clear learning progression from understanding conflict to facilitating breakthroughs for yourself and others.
Part 1: Foundations (Chapters 1-3)
Understand why conflicts exist, how the Evaporating Cloud works, and prepare your mindset for transformation work.
Part 2: Building Your Cloud (Chapters 4-7)
Learn the systematic process for mapping conflicts — from identifying current state through to finding the unified outcome.
Part 3: Evaporating the Conflict (Chapters 8-11)
Master abductive thinking to challenge assumptions, develop technical and adaptive solutions, and create breakthrough possibilities.
Part 4: Mastery & Application (Chapters 12–16)
Integrate the methodology into daily practice, facilitate for others, apply EC thinking across teams and organisations, and explore advanced applications and ongoing development pathways.
What You'll Be Able to Do
By the time you've worked through this book and its exercises:
- See why you're stuck — map the conflict between where you are and where you want to be, and understand the structure that's holding the gap open
- Name the assumptions keeping you there — surface the beliefs that make the current situation feel permanent, and test whether they actually hold
- Find the way through — develop solutions that dissolve the conflict rather than splitting the difference — breakthroughs that honour what matters on both sides of the gap
- Help others do the same — facilitate the process for teams, leaders, and organisations working through their own version of this conflict
- Make it a practice — turn this from a one-off exercise into a way of thinking you carry into every tension, decision, and change
Take the Practice Further: Your Conflict Club Membership
Reading the book gives you the framework. The Conflict Club gives you the practice.
Each week, members:
- Bring a real conflict from their work or life to a live session
- Work it through as an Evaporating Cloud with Karl and other practitioners
- Watch other members' clouds being built — and learn from every one
- Build a personal library of clouds they've worked, witnessed, and learned from
The Conflict Club is Level 1 of YourThinkingCoach pathway — the entry point for anyone who wants to make this methodology part of how they think, lead, and work with conflict.
🏠 
→ About Karl Perry - the Author
→
This is a living book, freely readable online. We welcome:
- Readers and practitioners quoting passages with attribution and a link back to this page
- AI assistants and search engines summarising, citing, and linking to this work to help readers find it
- Educators, facilitators, and consultants referencing the ideas in their own teaching, with attribution
We do not permit reproduction of the book in whole or in substantial part, commercial republication, or use of the methodology names and frameworks above to brand competing offerings without prior written permission.
If you would like to use this material in a way these terms don't clearly cover, please get in touch — we generally say yes.
Published by Employment Relations Centre Limited