Working Together
Every situation is different.
The work typically begins the same way.
The goal is to understand how the organization is actually operating, determine what is making progress harder to achieve, and decide what needs to change.
Making Sense of Complex Situations
Complex organizational problems rarely have a single cause. Align, Engage, and Enable provide a practical way to understand what is happening, make deliberate choices about what to do and what not to do, and determine what needs to change.
Align, Engage, and Enable are a continual practice for clarifying direction and choices, surfacing what is getting in the way, and shaping the organization so progress is possible. Each informs the others as circumstances change and new understanding emerges.
Are We Working on the Right Things?
Alignment begins with clarity about what matters, what choices have been made, and what the organization is actually asking people to accomplish.
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What are we trying to accomplish?
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What choices have we made?
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What are we choosing not to do?
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What priorities and tradeoffs need to be clear?
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Are those choices understood consistently across the organization?
The goal is to create enough clarity that people understand the choices that have been made and can align their work accordingly.
Create Clarity Around
Direction and Choices
Organizations can expend enormous effort without being clear about what they are actually trying to accomplish or the choices required to get there.
This often involves:
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clarifying the direction the organization is trying to pursue
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distinguishing true obligations from choices
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making priorities and tradeoffs explicit
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identifying what the organization will not pursue
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ensuring those choices are understood across the organization
Clear choices give people a basis for making decisions and aligning their work without continually looking upward for direction.
See How the Organization Is Actually Operating
Understanding what is getting in the way requires looking beyond how the organization is designed to work or how leaders believe it is working.
This often involves:
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listening to people closest to the work
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surfacing different perspectives and assumptions
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identifying where decisions, work, or information are getting stuck
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looking for workarounds and other ways people are compensating
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making visible gaps between expectations and experience
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identifying what is already working and should be preserved
The goal is not to collect every perspective or reach consensus but rather to develop a clearer picture of what is actually happening so leadership can make better choices about what needs to change.
Shape the Conditions for Progress
Once we understand what is getting in the way, we can determine what needs to change so progress becomes easier to sustain.
This often involves:
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removing constraints that make work unnecessarily difficult
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strengthening management systems and decision processes
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building capability where it is needed
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reallocating resources to support the choices that have been made
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simplifying work and reducing unnecessary demands
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reducing dependence on workarounds, individual heroics, and constant intervention
The goal is not to eliminate necessary effort or difficulty but to reduce the unnecessary struggle created by an operating environment that makes progress harder than it needs to be.
How We Can Help
Every situation is different. The work begins with the problem you're trying to solve, not a predetermined solution. These are some of the ways that work can take shape.
Organizational Assessment - Help us understand what's actually happening.
Build a clearer picture of how the organization is actually operating, where progress is getting stuck, and what may be creating the problems leaders are experiencing.
May include: Executive/Senior leader interviews • Organizational Conditions diagnostic • Employee listening sessions • Capacity assessment • Findings and recommendations
Strategy Development - Help us make the choices that will guide what we do.
Help leadership respond to changing circumstances by making clear choices about where to focus, what not to pursue, and what those choices require of the organization.
May include: Strategy development sessions • Strategic choice structuring • Stakeholder and market insight • Scenario exploration • Strategy translation
Leadership and Organizational Alignment - Help us make decisions that hold across the organization.
Help leaders create greater consistency around direction, decisions, priorities, and tradeoffs across organizational levels and boundaries.
May include: Leadership alignment sessions • Executive team facilitation • Decision rights and governance • Leadership operating practices • Executive retreats
Organizational Performance - Help us make progress more consistently.
Identify and address the conditions making execution harder than it needs to be, particularly where work depends on workarounds, individual heroics, or constant intervention.
May include: Operational flow analysis • Management systems • Capacity analysis • Performance reviews • Operating cadence • Performance measures and dashboards
Executive Advisory - Ongoing thought partner as circumstances change.
Some situations do not fit neatly into a project. Executive advisory provides an ongoing relationship for leaders who need a trusted outside perspective as they navigate changing circumstances, make consequential choices, and shape the organization around them.
May include: Regular executive advisory sessions • Decision support • Organizational problem solving • Strategy review • Facilitation at critical moments
