Relationships · Universal Upgrade Process
At eleven o’clock at night, the loudest sound in most homes is an argument nobody meant to have.
It is not the sign of a bad relationship. It is the sign of a leak in a process, and a leak can be measured. Twenty-two questions, about six minutes, no charge.
Why we are writing to you
Why we are writing to you about your relationships
Most advice about relationships is about feelings. This page is about process, which is a less romantic word and a more useful one.
Every improvement a person makes, in any department of life, runs the same five steps. You establish where you actually are. You decide what you actually want. You look at the genuine alternatives. You commit to one of them. You carry it out for long enough to count. We call the steps Baseline, Desires, Options, Decisions and Implementation, and a couple who has put a recurring quarrel to rest has run all five, whether or not they could name one.
A couple who has the same quarrel every Tuesday has a leak in one of them.
The leak is seldom where people look for it. Most of us are convinced the trouble lies in Implementation, because that is the step where the effort shows. In our experience the trouble began upstream: a Baseline nobody measured, or a Desire nobody said out loud. By the time it reaches Implementation it has been through three steps of compounding, and most of the effort spent there is rework.
Upgrade IQ is an instrument for finding the leak. It asks 22 questions about how you run the five steps. It does not ask how you feel about your partner, how you were raised, or what your attachment style is. It takes about six minutes. It costs nothing. When it is finished you have a timestamped score and the name of the step where your effort goes to waste.
We are writing to you about relationships first because it is where a leak costs the most. A leak in a business plan costs money. A leak in a relationship costs evenings, and there are only so many of those.
You will notice we make no promise to save your marriage, mend your friendship or improve your family dinners. We do not know your family. We know the process, and we can tell you where yours leaks. What you do about it is, properly, your business.
The framework
The five steps, as they happen between two people
Every upgrade you have ever made to a relationship went through these five steps. Here is what a leak looks like at each one.
- 01
Baseline
Where you actually are, measured rather than assumed. Between two people this is the hardest step, because both are certain they already know. The leak: an argument about what happened, conducted by two people who never agreed on what is happening.
- 02
Desires
What you actually want, said plainly enough to be disagreed with. Most couples state the grievance and leave the wish implied. The leak: a partner asked to guess, guessing wrong, and being marked down for it.
- 03
Options
The genuine alternatives, costed honestly. There are always more than two, and the two that arrive first are usually give in and dig in. The leak: a false choice, made quickly and regretted slowly.
- 04
Decisions
Commitment by criteria, not by exhaustion. A decision made because everyone is tired is not a decision; it is a truce. The leak: agreements nobody remembers agreeing to.
- 05
Implementation
Execution that survives an ordinary Wednesday. This is where effort is most visible and least to blame. The leak: trying harder at a plan that went wrong three steps ago.
What we have noticed
Seven things we have noticed about relationships that improve
We have watched a great many people try to upgrade a relationship. Some succeed. The ones who do have habits in common, and none of the habits is charm.
- They measure before they mend. A couple who wants to argue less begins by counting the arguments, for a week, without trying to prevent one. The number is usually lower than they feared and more regular than they knew. That is a Baseline, and everything downstream of it is easier.
- They say the wish, not only the grievance. “You never plan anything” is a grievance. “I would like one evening a month that I did not have to arrange” is a Desire. The second can be granted. The first can only be denied.
- They write the options down. Not because writing is magic, but because a list of three is harder to argue with than a feeling of two. The third option is very often the one they take.
- They decide once. A decision that has to be re-made every week was never made. People who improve set a criterion in advance — “if it has not happened by the first of the month, we do the other thing” — and let the criterion do the arguing.
- They give a change ninety days. Most changes are given up before they have had time to work, at about the point where the novelty has worn off and the benefit has not yet arrived. Ninety days is not a magic number. It is simply long enough to tell a bad idea from a good one that is still new.
- They distinguish effort from rework. When a great deal of work produces very little change, they do not conclude that they must work harder. They conclude that something upstream was wrong, and they go back to look. This is the single habit that separates people who improve from people who merely try.
- They keep a record. A score today means little. A score next to the one from six months ago means a great deal. The people who improve can show you the difference, because they kept the earlier number.
None of these habits requires a new personality. They require knowing which step is leaking, which is the one thing the assessment is built to tell you.
A case history
The pause that changed the conversation
Maya and Eli kept solving the wrong problem. Each disagreement became a debate about who remembered the details correctly, while the real issue — feeling unheard — never entered the room.
Their upgrade was small. Before defending a position, each of them would name the outcome they wanted from the conversation. One sentence changed the pattern from winning the argument to improving the relationship.
Notice where the leak was. Not in Implementation, where they had been spending their effort, but in Desires, where neither had said what they were actually after. Once the wish was on the table the arguments did not disappear. They became shorter, and they began to end somewhere.
We tell this story not because it is dramatic. It is not. We tell it because it is typical: the leak that costs a couple the most is almost never the one they are working hardest on. It is the one three steps upstream, which nobody has looked at because everybody was busy.
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.
Albert Einstein
The instrument
What the assessment measures, and what it does not
The assessment measures process. It puts 22 statements to you about how you run the five steps: whether you gather evidence before you act, whether you rank what you want, whether you cost your alternatives, how you commit, and what becomes of your plans after the first month. You answer each on a five-point scale, from never true of you to consistently true. There is no right answer, and no score appears while you are answering, so there is nothing to play to.
From your answers it produces two numbers and a diagnosis. The first number is your Raw Upgrade IQ: what your abilities would add up to if the five steps were independent of one another. They are not. The second is your Effective Upgrade IQ: what actually survives once a weakness at one step has taxed every step after it. The gap between the two is the price of your leak, and the diagnosis names the step where it starts.
Now for what it does not do.
It does not measure your partner. Only one person answers, and the result describes that person’s process. If you both take it you will each have a number, and you may find that the two explain a good deal about each other. But the instrument has no opinion about anyone who did not sit down and answer it.
It does not measure compatibility, love, attachment or temperament. There are instruments for those. This is not one of them, and we would rather tell you so now than have you find out later.
It does not tell you what to want. Desires is a step in the process; the content of that step is yours.
It is only as honest as your answers, and the questions are easy to flatter. People who answer as they would like to be tend to score high and improve little. People who answer as they are score lower and improve a great deal. Answer as you are.
It is not a verdict. It is a measurement with a timestamp, and the proper use of a measurement is to take another one later and compare. A score that has moved is worth more than any score on its own.
Before you begin
Questions people ask before they begin
Must I be in a relationship to take it?
No. The questions are about how you run the five steps, and you run them with friends, parents, children and colleagues as much as with a partner. Choose Relationships because that is where you want to look, not because of your circumstances.
Should we take it together?
Separately, and then compare. Two people answering one screen produce a negotiated answer, which measures the negotiation rather than either person.
What happens to my answers?
They produce your score, and your score is sent to you by email. We ask for an address and nothing else: no phone number, and no series of follow-ups. Your result stays private unless you choose to share the card, which shows only your strongest step.
How long is it really?
Twenty-two questions. Most people finish in about six minutes. There is no timer, and nothing is gained by hurrying.
Will I be sold something?
There is a paid tier for people who want the full sequence and a re-measurement cadence. You will see it once, after your result. The assessment itself is free and stays free.
Free · 22 questions · About six minutes
Find the step where your relationships leak effort. Then fix that one.
You already know which conversations repeat. What you may not know is which of the five steps they leak from, and effort applied to the wrong step is the most expensive effort there is. Six minutes will tell you where to apply it.
P.S. If you are reading this at eleven o’clock at night, after one of those arguments, take the assessment in the morning. The score will not change, but you will read it more kindly.
One email to send your result. No phone number, no drip campaign.