Who sits at the table, under what rules, and what it means for you
This is the second layer. The home page covers what you get and why it should be me. This page is for anyone already considering it who wants to know how it works inside the company, who it affects, and what it means for them personally.
If your owner sent you this link, go straight to part two. It's written for you, not about you.
Who sits at the table
When the leadership team writes the strategy with a consultant and then announces it to the company, or when a trainer works with the salespeople while the leadership team stays out of the room, the change is designed by someone other than the people expected to carry it through.
The fault isn't with the people. Everyone works hard for their own department rather than for the whole company, because nobody has brought them together around one system and one direction.
When I work with a company, the owner, the leadership team, middle management and the frontline sit at one table, at the same time, because each of them knows a different part of the company's reality, and the frontline hears the customer unfiltered. A choice made this way doesn't need announcing to anyone: everyone at the table already knows why it was made and what it means for them.
The final say stays yours, and nobody takes it from you. You give it only after you've heard everyone around the table, and you say it out loud in front of them, so nobody has to guess what you meant.
Decisions that no longer wait for your signature aren't power you've lost: you've handed those decision rights to someone who can use them under a rule you approved.
Your work isn't being audited, and your numbers won't come to the table as evidence of failure. What you know about the market, the competition and margin is essential input. Without it, the owner may be making decisions based on a view of the business that's two years out of date.
Anything about your area, you hear from me first, and the owner hears it at the same table as you, never earlier and never behind your back.
You know what in the proposed choice won't work in practice, and why, so you're at the table from the start, not just when the decision is announced as a done deal.
You're not a messenger delivering someone else's decision to your team; you're one of the people making it, and you leave the table knowing what you can decide on your own and what you no longer need to escalate. You say where work gets stuck today, and it's the process that gets fixed, not people.
You sit at that table, and I don't pass on who said what. What you hear from customers, why they left, what they compared and what was missing, can't be found in any report, and without it the whole choice rests on assumptions about the market.
How the table works
Before the table meets, I find out who's afraid to speak up, what's taboo, and whether anyone is allowed to tell the owner they're wrong. I structure the session around what I learn.
- Everyone writes down their own view before the discussion opens.
- The people closest to the customer speak first.
- We don't ask “do you agree?”; we ask what would have to be true for this to work.
- Disagreements get written down, not shouted down.
- The owner speaks last, and states the choice only after hearing everyone around the table.
- If they decide against the majority, they say why.
Five ground rules we sign before we start
I don't start without them. They aren't promises; they're the terms of working together.
- The owner and the managing director hear the conclusions at the same time, at one table. Nothing is agreed behind anyone's back.
- I don't pass on who said what in conversations inside the company. Otherwise people would stop telling me the truth.
- When something isn't working, we fix the process and the handover first, not the people.
- A finding about a specific person goes to that person first.
- A new meeting, spreadsheet or check only gets added when another one is scrapped.
I'm writing to the owner, and I don't start without their personal involvement. If you're the hired managing director running the company, the owner's involvement protects you; it doesn't go around you. And every decision that no longer waits for the owner's signature extends your mandate; it isn't an audit of you.
If there are several owners, if it's a family business, or if a bank or a successor has a say, everyone who can overturn the choice has to be there when it's made. A choice not approved by the person who can stop it isn't a choice. It's a proposal.
Practical questions
What people ask once they know they want it and need to weigh the risk.
Why a paid diagnosis first, and not a solution straight away?
Because treatment before diagnosis is malpractice. The trap a company is stuck in comes in several types, and each has a different way out. Anyone who sells you a solution before they've seen your company is selling their favourite method, not your way out.
These days you can analyse your numbers, website and competitors yourself in an evening. What you pay for in the diagnosis is what they won't tell you: what your people say in the corridor rather than in the meeting, why a customer left, and what they compared. People only say that to someone who doesn't pass on who said what. That's why it's the second of the five ground rules.
Won't it put the business model that pays the bills at risk?
No. The whole approach depends on protecting it. Today's model keeps running and paying the bills, you test new choices alongside it as small bets, and they're scaled only once the money confirms them.
And you don't judge a new choice by the metrics of the existing business: in the first months you measure what you've learned and how many customers have bought it. Otherwise your own company kills it before it has a chance to grow.
Will I have to change my CRM, accounting system or online shop?
No. Nothing you've invested in gets thrown out. We build the rules and the system on top of what you already have; where a number is missing, we add a report, not a new program. If we scrap anything, it'll be a meeting or a spreadsheet, not software.
How much of my time will it take?
My two days a month on site, with your leadership team at the table on those days; in between, you run by the rules you've agreed. And ground rule number five applies from day one: a new meeting only gets added when another one is scrapped.
How long will we work together?
The first phase has three parts:
- the diagnosis,
- the first visible result,
- and then the build, until the system is established and holds on its own.
After that the role continues, and two days a month drop to one. Each further step has a name, and evidence that tells you when it's been achieved. Every quarter you decide whether there's a next step you want; I won't offer you a step without evidence.
How will you know it's working?
You'll see two things yourself, and from month three you measure them every month: whether the company is winning on value instead of discounts, which shows in your prices, your margin and whether customers stay. And how many decisions happen without you.
Why are there no client names here?
I've advised companies since 2015, and I don't publish client names or numbers without their consent. What you can check: the business register, LinkedIn, and a conversation with me. The best proof will come from your own company anyway.
How I'm different, in full
On the home page it's a table. Here's the full explanation of each row.
What exactly do you do?
I'm a fractional Chief Strategy Officer (F-CSO). My work starts with a diagnosis and continues while you and the people who'll carry it make the choice about how the company wins. It ends when you can see that choice in how the company decides, works together, resolves conflicts, sells and delivers value on a Monday. The title doesn't matter; what matters is whether a year from now you're winning on value, and what that does to your margin and profit.
How are you different from a consultant?
My work doesn't end with handing over a project. I lead the build with the people who'll live in it: you and your team make the decisions, and I lead the process until they're embedded in everyday practice. What I leave behind shouldn't be a document, but a company that decides even when I'm not at the table.
How are you different from an interim manager?
An interim manager takes over and decides for you; when they leave, the decision-making leaves with them. That's the right call when operations are in crisis. I don't take over the running of the company.
How are you different from sales training?
Training teaches your people how to sell, and it ends on Friday. I start from the other side: how your customer buys, who at the customer has to say yes, and where the decision usually gets stuck. Only then do we build the system for how your team sells. In that order, not the other way round.
I'm not a sales trainer. Training is the last step, not the first, and it's delivered by trainers I've personally vetted: they don't train their favourite method, they train your system.
And the training doesn't end on Friday: what your people learned goes into your sales system and supports them when they're working on real deals. You'll see the difference on Monday.
How are you different from a coach or a leadership programme?
A coach develops one person; a leadership programme develops a group of managers. I do neither. I don't motivate your people. I help you make a choice so clear that you can repeat it and prove it through your decisions. Motivation is a by-product, not the service. I work on company culture and decision-making only where they decide whether the strategic choice reaches everyday work and the customer. When the problem is one person, you need a coach, and I'll tell you so.
Who isn't this for?
- A company where the owner doesn't want to be personally involved. I don't start without you.
- A company in an acute cash crisis: that's a job for a crisis manager.
- An owner who wants a view and direction they've already settled confirmed, rather than a diagnosis.
- A company that wants to try something without a priority, people or budget behind it.
- A company that expects its advisor never to challenge anyone: I'd be charging for strategy theatre, and I don't do that.
I won't tell you what you want to hear. I'll tell you how I see it.
The practical questions, whether you'll have to change your CRM, how much time it takes, how long we'll work together and how you'll know it's working, are answered further up this page.
The rest, what you get and why it should be me, is on the home page.