How an engagement works

The path is agreed
before it starts.

Most seats run one to two days a week on a monthly retainer. The first ninety days are dated, with owners, and ninety days is the minimum, not the length. The engagement ends with your team running it without us. You will know the number before the work starts, and the number will hold.

Start a conversationThe seats we take
Before day one

Thirty minutes, an NDA, and a shared vision.

The first ninety days

Ninety days, dated, with owners.

Days 1–30
Assessment and the roadmap. The first days are interviews, until we are sure we share the vision. By day thirty you have the roadmap to get there, broken out by each person's part, with the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats on each part. Half of that is the internal view. It also carries the levers to pull when a risk shows up, the offshoots worth taking and the ones to ignore, and the risks marked along the path.
Days 31–60
The agreed path. Milestones, owners, and dates we set together, then execution in the seat with the cadence running.
Days 61–90
Compounding. The cadence runs and the muscle starts moving to your team. The roadmap stays a living document. We sign off on it together in regular meetings: progress, blockers, accelerants, and whether we still share the same vision.

Ninety days is the minimum, not the length. It takes that long to learn the lay of the land, the priorities that are real and not just on paper, and the limits. After that, the seat runs as long as the plan needs an operator in it.

A normal week

What two days in the seat look like.

In the seat, most of the time goes to clarifying the vision, removing friction, setting objectives, and following through with each team member to make sure they were met. Where there is variance, we reset the timing against what we expected and what happened. The next week we meet again with the goal and the result side by side, and we repeat it.

Between the days, the work is strategy. Whether the vision needs clarifying further. Whether the timing still holds. The days away are for working the problem without friction. The days in the office are for working the friction that stalled or redirected where we are going.

"When I'm not in operational mode, I'm in strategic mode. I don't have an off button."
John Wyatt

What it costs

You will know the number before the work starts.

Most seats run one to two days a week on a monthly retainer. Project work is scoped and priced fixed. Either way the number is agreed before day one, and it holds. There is no rate sheet on this site because the shape of the seat sets the number, and we would rather scope it with you than guess at it on a web page. Ask in the first conversation and we will tell you straight.

How it ends

Stay only as long as the work requires.

The question we ask about everything we put in place: who owns this on the Tuesday after we leave, and who notices if they stop. When every answer has a name, the engagement is finished.

What we won't do

The firm has edges.

No dictated direction. No headcount theater. No badge-buying. No pretending to be bankers, attorneys, or a fund. No conflicts: we don't sit in the same seat at a competitor while we're in yours. The full list is on the services page.

The first conversation is thirty minutes and costs nothing.

Start a conversation