Read the situation. Recognize leverage. Engineer possibilities.
For leaders and teams in businesses, nonprofits, public agencies, universities, and community organizations. Explore a deliberate way to move through constraints and create conditions for what comes next.
The Art of Stratagems
for Organizations
For Organizations & Teams
Your people may have more knowledge, resources, and possibilities than the current situation allows them to see or use.
The Art of Stratagems helps leaders and teams examine what stands in the way, recognize overlooked resources, and consider how conditions can change.
Our working definition is the science and art of outmaneuvering constraints and engineering possibilities. The aim is to make the impossible possible by creating a clearer path toward a specific outcome.
The work belongs in organizations of many kinds: businesses, nonprofits, public agencies, universities, and community organizations. We begin with your people, your situation, and what you want to make possible.
Organizational offerings are being developed. Start a conversation about your organization’s needs.
What Your Team Can Work Toward
The work begins with a situation that matters to your organization. Together, participants can practice:
Recognizing constraints and assumptions shaping the situation.
Identifying resources, relationships, and knowledge that may be overlooked.
Considering what conditions can change before acting.
Choosing a deliberate move toward a defined outcome.
Explaining the intended advantage and how to evaluate what happens.
The goal is a clearer reading of the situation and a next move your team can discuss, practice, and assess. The scope is shaped around your organization’s needs.
What Is a Stratagem?
A stratagem is a deliberate move that uses available resources, changes conditions, or improves your position toward a specific outcome.
For an organization, that may mean recognizing knowledge already held by staff, changing a process that blocks progress, or arranging support before taking a difficult step.
A maneuver is the action. A stratagem connects that action to the resources, conditions, and advantage involved.
The Art of Stratagems helps teams examine how to outmaneuver constraints and engineer possibilities within their own situation.
When Your Team Needs a Different Move
PROGRESS HAS STALLED
Your team is working hard, but progress keeps stalling. Examine the constraint and what could change before asking people to do more.
CONSTRAINTS + CONDITIONS
KNOWLEDGE GOES UNSEEN
People hold knowledge that current roles and assumptions may overlook. Recognize those resources and consider how they can support the work.
KNOWLEDGE + RESOURCES
CHANGE NEEDS A PATH
LEVERAGE + ACTION
A new direction needs a practical next step. Identify available leverage, shape the conditions, and choose a move the team can evaluate.
Why The Art of Stratagems?
When the familiar approach stops working, a team needs space to examine the situation differently.
Your organization may be trying to move through a constraint, recognize knowledge that is going unused, or find a path toward a possibility that feels out of reach.
The Art of Stratagems brings those questions into a facilitated conversation. Participants examine what is shaping the situation, consider the resources available, and practice choosing an intentional move.
The emphasis is on both outmaneuvering constraints and engineering possibilities. What can change around the action so the desired outcome has a better chance of becoming possible?
Tell us what your team is working through. We can discuss the focus and scope of an organizational learning experience.
How This Relates to Our Coaching
The Art of Stratagems is the central practice for our organizational work.
Across Infamous Mothers, stratagems are embedded in coaching, workshops, retreats, organizational offerings, and everyday life.
The I.N.F.A.M³.O.U.S. Method℠ and its Wheel provide the framework for our coaching. They help women reflect on what needs attention and hold discipline and sustainability together.
Organizational work begins with your team’s situation and desired outcome. We examine available resources, constraints, and conditions, then consider deliberate moves that fit that context.
We are continuing to develop how these practices connect. A detailed mapping between the Wheel and particular maneuvers has not been finalized.
You do not need prior experience with Infamous Mothers to discuss bringing this work to your organization.
Bring a Real Situation Into the Room
Start with the people you want to support, the situation they are navigating, and what you want to make possible.
We can discuss a facilitated learning experience centered on The Art of Stratagems. The focus is shaped around your organization’s needs; format, timing, and scope are established through that conversation.
Participants can work toward a clearer account of the constraint, a better view of available resources, and a deliberate next move they can explain and evaluate.
Our standalone workshop is Coming Soon. Its curriculum and launch date are still being developed.
Transformation Pathways
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Coaching
The Guidance
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Workshops
The Practice
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Stratagems
The Playbook
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Retreats
The Active Rest
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Organizations
The Team
Bring Infamous Mothers into your everyday life.
Carry the conversation beyond the room. Explore Dr. Sagashus’s books, the Covet Journal, and the Books, Bullets & Babies deck for reflection and conversation in your own life.
Featured In
These reflections come from women in our coaching community. They speak to Dr. Sagashus’s facilitation, the space she creates, and the practice of working toward a next step. They are shared here as context for her approach.
Skill
“She facilitated the hell out of that session.”
Processes
“I took steps forward in my processes around my goals and felt seen and heard.”
Accountability
“I realize that up until now, I've been neglecting the work to be successful.”
Sisterhood
"Me and the women in my cohort are friends for life."
The Art of Stratagems draws on Dr. Sagashus’s lived experience, literary research, writing, and work with women.
Her memoir, A Pot to P*ss In, explores how stories, assumptions, and circumstances shape what people believe is possible.
“It is a call to step into the fullness of our power—not just for our own benefit but for the impact we are meant to make in the world.”
That inquiry informs this work: what knowledge has been overlooked, what conditions can change, and what deliberate move could create a different possibility?
Why Dr. Sagashus?
Dr. Sagashus brings a Ph.D. in literature, authorship, the experience of raising six children, and years of building Infamous Mothers into the same conversation.
Her work examines how people read situations, how stories shape assumptions, and how knowledge gained through lived experience can become a resource for action.
She has worked with executives, universities, nonprofits, and communities. Her facilitation makes room for people to examine the situation they know, consider a different possibility, and explain a deliberate next move.
FAQs
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The Art of Stratagems is the science and art of outmaneuvering constraints and engineering possibilities. For organizations, the work centers a real situation, available resources, conditions that could change, and a deliberate move toward a specific outcome. Organizational offerings are being developed.
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Your team can examine the assumptions and constraints shaping a situation, recognize knowledge and resources that may be overlooked, and consider what conditions can change. Participants work toward a next move they can explain and evaluate. The focus and scope are shaped around your organization’s needs.
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Leaders and teams in businesses, nonprofits, public agencies, universities, and community organizations. Start with the situation your people are navigating and what you want to make possible; we can discuss whether this work fits.
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The aim is a clearer understanding of the situation, a better view of available resources, and a deliberate next move toward an agreed outcome. We can discuss how your team would recognize progress and evaluate what happens within the scope of the work.
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Organizational offerings are being developed. Contact us to discuss your team, the situation, and the outcome you have in mind; format, timing, and scope can be considered through that conversation. The standalone Art of Stratagems workshop is Coming Soon, with curriculum and launch details still unsettled.
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The Method and its Wheel provide the framework for our coaching. Stratagems are a practice embedded across Infamous Mothers offerings, including organizational work. This page centers The Art of Stratagems and your organization’s situation; a detailed mapping between the Wheel and particular maneuvers has not been finalized.
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The Suite was created and is led by Dr. Sagashus Levingston, founder of Infamous Mothers, author, speaker, and builder of unapologetic movements. Dr. Levingston brings a PhD, years of research, and lived experience as “the unimagined talent” to every room she enters.
Help Shape What’s Possible.
We’re seeking three organizations to pilot this work with us in 2027. Bring a real organizational challenge. Together, we’ll apply the I.N.F.A.M³.O.U.S. Method℠ and The Art of Stratagems to examine constraints, recognize resources, and develop deliberate moves toward your desired outcome.
Companies, nonprofits, schools, universities, public agencies, and community organizations are welcome. Pilot scope, timing, investment, and feedback expectations will be discussed with each organization.
What Pilot Partners Can Expect
We’ll work together to define the challenge, identify participants, and agree on the scope and schedule. Your organization will participate in the assessment and workshop, test agreed-upon next steps, and share feedback about the experience and its usefulness. That feedback will help us refine the offering.
Detailed participation, follow-up, and feedback expectations will be outlined in your pilot proposal and agreement.
“It is a call to step into the fullness of our power—not just for our own benefit but for the impact we are meant to make in the world.”
— Dr. Sagashus Levingston, A Pot to P*ss In