How I work
Three formats. One rule behind all of them.
Whatever we build must survive my exit. Your people build it in your context, at a pace they can sustain. You pay once, and the capability remains in the organisation.
Which format you start with depends on one question: do you already know what the problem is?
Leader shadowing
One month in your calendar. I watch you lead, then tell you what I observed.
- What it is
- Roughly 16 hours of observation spread over a month — two hours here, two hours there — across the different types of meetings you actually run. Then we sit down to review the patterns: what you do, what it triggers and what it costs you.
- Who it’s for
- A leader seeking an outside perspective on one specific issue: their own management style or a problem that keeps returning in a different form. It is also a natural starting point if someone recommended me and you want to see how I work before involving the wider organisation.
- What it is not
- It is not an assessment or an audit. Nothing goes to HR or on your record. I observe, we talk, and then you decide what happens next.
- What you get
- You receive a detailed walkthrough of the patterns, behaviours and consequences I observed. I deliver it in conversation, with a written summary available on request.
Format: fixed package covering one month.
Team diagnostic
Two to three weeks with the team, followed by a report that you own.
- What it is
- I spend two to three weeks with the team — in meetings, handovers and the tools they use — and then document my observations, the areas requiring attention, the risks I would not leave unattended and what I would do about each.
- What it is not
- This is not the three-day assessment offered by large firms: a round of interviews followed by a summary on Friday. The report is based on observing people at work, so it describes what actually happens rather than what everyone believes happens.
- Who it’s for
- A director or head who senses that something is wrong — the transformation has stalled, delivery keeps slipping and escalations arrive daily — but cannot yet identify the cause. Very often, the organisation is dealing with the consequences of an earlier change that failed to take hold.
- What you get
- You receive the full written report, a session to work through it and one concrete change you can test immediately, whether or not we continue working together. The report is yours: act on it, set it aside or give it to someone else.
Format: fixed price for the engagement, not a day rate.
Embedded partnership
Weeks or months spent building the change with your people, not instead of them.
- What it is
- We act on what the diagnostic reveals by building the processes, feedback loops and habits that make problems visible early. Your people do the building. I provide intensive support at the start, then deliberately step back as they take ownership.
- Who it’s for
- A director who has completed the diagnostic, or a client who already knows how I work. Usually, this is someone who has been through at least one transformation that left nothing behind and does not intend to fund another.
- Conditions
- You appoint a partner on your side with a real mandate to make decisions. Without that person, the work becomes another document, and I will not accept a contract on those terms.
- What you get
- A working system, a team that can run and repair it, and a clear exit based on criteria agreed before we start — so nobody has to guess when the work is complete.
Format: individually scoped engagement or monthly retainer.
Advisory day
One day, one question and minimal risk for both sides. Useful when you want to test the working relationship before committing to a longer engagement.
Format: single-day rate.
What I actually look at
Every diagnostic examines the same six dimensions. It is not a maturity score, but a description of how work moves, where it stalls and what that costs you. Each observation includes its underlying assumption, so you can challenge my reasoning rather than only my conclusion.
Clear purpose
Everyone understands why they are doing the work and what would change if it succeeded. When this is clear, motivation and quality follow. When it is missing, no amount of process design can compensate.
Shared ownership
People feel responsible for the whole, not just their part of it; they contribute ideas and influence decisions. This is difficult to achieve without a clear purpose. Its absence sounds like “I assigned it to…” where you would expect “I picked this up.”
User focus
Work happens with users in the room rather than being based on assumptions about them. Teams that work this way are forgiven for an imperfect product because users would rather help improve it than go elsewhere.
Flow
Once work starts, it keeps moving and spends most of its time being worked on rather than waiting. Predictability is the goal: it removes the need to make work urgent. Too much emphasis on predictability, however, quietly kills innovation — so I monitor that as well.
Feedback loops
I look for distinct cycles at the operational, tactical and strategic levels, each of which processes what comes back. Most organisations have the meetings; fewer have the loops.
Backlog clarity
A user and a developer can open the same backlog and both understand what is happening. It sounds small, but it removes an entire category of follow-up meetings.
When the work is about speed, I measure quality and team health alongside it. Otherwise, you discover too late that you gained speed at the expense of the other two.
Five things I check before I say yes
I ask these questions during the first call. They are not a sales ritual; each one is a condition the work needs in order to last. I would rather find out in thirty minutes than in month three.
Who owns this?
If you cannot name one person, that is the answer. Shared ownership of a problem means that nobody wakes up individually responsible for it.
What mandate do they have?
Can that person change how work happens, or can they only escalate it? Work without a mandate ends up as a report in a drawer.
Are you ready to look at your own part in it?
If the brief is “fix the team” and the leadership layer is out of scope, we stop here — politely, but firmly.
How will we know it is working?
Success criteria are agreed before the work starts, not negotiated afterwards. If you cannot define them yet, we begin with the diagnostic.
When do we stop?
We agree exit criteria on day one. I am working towards the point when you no longer need me — that is the product, not a risk.
And then?
If the answers hold, you receive a written proposal within 48 hours covering what I heard, what I propose, what will change, one price and one decision date.
What you are actually paying for
You are not paying for my presence in your building. You are paying for two things: an outside view of your system that you cannot get from within it, and a change that continues once I am gone.
People often no longer believe that the second part is possible, usually with good reason. It works here because the change is led internally from day one. If something breaks six months later, it will be because someone internally let it go — not because the consultant left and took the method with them.
There are no discounts. A lower price means a smaller scope.