Early-career professionals・Business Communication

The Move Book

Name: The Move Book
Availability: InStock
Author: Naoto Azuma

So — does it get them moving?

A Story About the 13 Tools You Need to Make Your Ideas Land at Work

View on Amazon

Minami Endo used to ask "did you check that?" Then, "did you compare the numbers?" Then, "is that a winning move?" This year, a senior colleague hands her a harder question: "So — does it get them moving?"

Minami's reports are thorough. Her logic holds up. And somehow, meeting after meeting, nothing gets decided. Watching a colleague's flawless, well-researched proposal move exactly no one on her very first day, Minami learns the lesson that will define her second year at Kurashi Design: being correct and being heard are two completely different skills.

This book isn't a presentation-templates guide. It's about learning to close the gap between "technically right" and "actually persuasive" — one real meeting, one real pitch, one real piece of pushback at a time.

The Move Book follows Minami through a year in Kurashi Design's Product Planning department — from her first fumbled status report to a boardroom presentation where an unplanned, pointed question threatens to derail everything she's built. Chapter by chapter, she collects thirteen tools for getting a listener to actually act — not just nod along — and stores each one on a card in a notebook she starts calling, half as a joke, The Move Book.

Inside the Story

At Kurashi Design, Minami works alongside Ren Miyake, a steady, numbers-first colleague who never lets a claim go unchecked, and crosses paths with Sota Kirishima, a college friend in Sales whose confidence outruns his listener-awareness more than once. Her guide through all of it is Haruka, a senior colleague who never lectures — just leaves one question behind and walks away. Series readers will recognize Minami from the start, but no prior book is required to follow this one.

Chapter 1, "So, What Are You Actually Trying to Say?" — Ten minutes of thorough, honest reporting, and the only response is a gentle "...so what's your point?"
Chapter 12, "An Apology Alone Isn't Enough" — A defect, a client's trust on the line, and a lesson that being right isn't the same as being heard
Chapter 16, "The Board Meeting. Something Goes Wrong." — Her rehearsed opening lands perfectly. Then an executive asks the one question she didn't prepare for

What's Inside

A Prologue plus seventeen chapters (plus a short bonus quiz), each built around one real communication tool: objective-setting, audience analysis, the pyramid principle, storyline design, visual design, delivery skills, and more
A Move Book card at the end of every chapter, distilling that chapter's tool into one clear, reusable rule
"How This Plays in the Real World" in nearly every chapter — connecting that tool to actual meetings, client calls, and job interviews
"If You Were the New Hire?" — short prompts for applying select chapters' tools to a situation of your own
A complete, standalone story. One year, one notebook, one real ending — no series commitment required

Built for Monday Morning

Every tool in this book is one you can use in your next meeting — not a simplified version, not business-school jargon for its own sake. Setting an objective before you speak. Reading a room's cognition, opinion, and emotion separately. Structuring a pyramid so your conclusion comes first. Reading these through a story means they're already yours the next time a report falls flat, a pitch stalls at "not bad," or a question you didn't prepare for lands in the middle of your presentation.

Who It's For

For early-career professionals — new hires and anyone in their first few years at work — who can already build a correct, well-researched case and are ready to learn the separate skill of making that case actually land. Just as useful for anyone who's ever left a meeting wondering why a good idea went nowhere.

Checking the facts. Comparing the numbers. Building the winning move. And now: does it get them moving? By the last page, Minami has an answer — and a notebook ready to hand to the next person who needs one. A companion to The Hibari Gazette, The Decision Deck, and The Playbook, but a complete story on its own — no previous reading required.

Prologue

Assigned to Product Planning

Part One: It's Not Enough to Be Right

1. So, What Are You Actually Trying to Say? (Objective-Setting)
2. Knowing, Thinking, and Feeling Are Different (The Listener's 3 Lenses)
3. What Do You Load Into Thirty Seconds? (Message Requirements)
4. You Said Everything — So Which Part Mattered? (Pyramid Structure)
5. Same Data, Opposite Conclusions (Deduction & Induction)
6. Before You Reach for a Discount (The Problem-Solving Sequence)

Part Two: Read the Room, Then Change the Delivery

7. "Not Bad" Was the Worst Thing She Could've Said (The Two Storyline Principles)
8. Same Pitch, Different Room (Segmenting Your Listeners)
9. The More You Add, the Less It Says (Three Rules of Visual Design)
10. What Earns Its Place on One Slide (Slide Building Blocks)
11. Same Slides, Completely Different Impact (Five Elements of Delivery)

Part Three: Move More Than One Room at Once

12. An Apology Alone Isn't Enough (Principle, Payoff, and Feeling)
13. Moving a Room That Agrees in Principle, Objects in Practice (Segmentation + Storyline, Combined)
14. The Passion Came Through. The Point Didn't.
Opening-Line Quiz
15. Decide the Last Line Before the First (Opening, Body, Close)
16. The Board Meeting. Something Goes Wrong.
17. The Move Book, Passed Forward