The room behind the decision
I work with leaders and business owners when there is something important to think through.
Usually, by the time someone comes to see me, they have been thinking about something for a while. It may be a decision they can’t quite settle. Something happening in the business.
A change they know they need to make. Sometimes they aren’t entirely sure what the question is yet. That’s fine.
We start with what is there and talk. I’ve spent more than two decades working with people who carry a great deal of responsibility. What I’ve come to understand is that having good people around you doesn’t necessarily mean you have somewhere you can think completely freely.
That’s the space I try to create.
Some things need to be
thought through properly.
The decisions people bring to me are often complicated in ways that aren’t immediately visible.
Succession is a good example. On paper, it might look like a question about who takes over. In reality, there may be a family involved, a business that has taken decades to build, people whose futures depend on it, and a founder trying to work out what their own next chapter looks like.
The same is true of many leadership decisions. What looks relatively simple from the outside can feel very different when you’re the person who has to make the call. It helps to have somewhere to talk about it honestly.
Why I do this work
I've noticed something over the years.
As people’s responsibilities grow, their conversations tend to change. There are more people around them, but fewer conversations in which they can say exactly what they think without having to consider what that conversation might set in motion.
That can make important decisions surprisingly lonely.
My role is to be someone outside the immediate situation.
I don’t have a stake in the answer and I’m not there to push you towards one.
I'm there to listen carefully, understand what is actually going on and help you look at it from angles that may be difficult to see when you’re living inside it.
Sometimes the conversation confirms what you already knew.
Sometimes it takes us somewhere neither of us expected.
Both can be useful.
What we might talk about
I work with people around leadership and the decisions that come with it.
That can include succession in a family business, a period of significant growth or change, stepping into a new leadership role, or working out where a business goes from here.At other times, the starting point is simply a decision that has become difficult to make.
I don’t separate these things too rigidly because life doesn’t tend to separate them either. Business decisions involve people. Leadership decisions can become personal. Questions about succession can very quickly become questions about family, identity and legacy.
We work with whatever is actually there.
