Protect what you love,
fix what you don't
For founders and leaders of independent businesses, who want to grow and still feel like themselves.
You can't always get perspective on something you're holding in your own hands.
When you're so close to a business, it's hard to see it clearly. The big picture and the small stuff can blur together, and you're often too close to tell which is which.
And when there's something you need to do, there's usually more behind it than is immediately obvious.
Sometimes it's a problem that keeps you up at night, sometimes it's just new and unknown, and sometimes it's unclear enough to really make you hesitate.
What's underneath it all usually comes back to people. When you get that right, the business moves.
Something's a little off
The strategy's right, the team's good.
Still, there's something not quite right under the surface.
You can feel it yet you can't put your finger on it, and what you've tried so far hasn't shifted it.
You need to find the right problem, so you can fix it.
Growing pains
You're growing, and it's exciting.
There's also a niggle that the culture you built is at risk.
You want to keep building and still feel like you.
You need to define what really matters, to protect it.
Not pulling together
People aren't taking hold of what they could own and lead, and you're not always sure why.
Or perhaps there's under-performance, or tension. Either way, it's holding the business back.
You need the truth and the real cause, to unstick it.
Can't put it down
You care deeply, and too much still comes through you.
Work that should sit with others is on your plate, and you've no room to change it.
You need perspective, to find your way through.
Sweating the right small stuff takes care of the big stuff.
What changes
CLARITY
Clear-eyed, deep understanding
TRUTH
What's been hidden, out in the open
SOUL INTACT
Growth that still feels like you
MOMENTUM
Things moving again, and a plan
TIME
Your time back, for the work you really need to do
How your people feel and behave is your brand. It's what your customers feel, too.
That's leading from the inside out.
Ways to work together
Strategic Advisory & Fractional Leadership
Retained or project support for founders and leadership teams.
Executive Mentoring
Discreet, one-on-one support for founders, leaders, and rising leaders.
Workshops & Talks
Working with a team in the room, or speaking to one. Resolving friction or finding rhythm.
The experience behind the advice
I spent more than twenty years in brand and comms, leading people and learning what makes them tick.
Most recently about a hundred and sixty of them, through a few challenging restructures and an acquisition, with all the human impact that comes with those.
I once led a piece of culture change that only clicked when I went looking for the real problem, rather than fixing the one everyone assumed we had. Within three months, the bad feedback had halved and the good had doubled.
I keep client specifics confidential. It's the patterns that carry, and the same human dynamics turn up in every sector.
I'm just endlessly nosy about why people do what they do. And it explains almost everything.
