Work with us
Four ways in, depending on where the pressure is.
Some clients need one honest conversation with one leader. Others need to change how an entire organisation talks about load, and most start somewhere in between.
One to one
Leadership coaching
For the leader who is carrying something they cannot say out loud in the building.
Most senior people run into a version of the same problem, which is that the higher they go, the fewer people they can be completely honest with. Coaching gives them one relationship where the performance can stop for an hour and the thinking can start.
It is not advice, and it is not a chat. It is a disciplined conversation held over time, in which you hear yourself say the things you have been carefully not saying.
Who it is for
Founders, chief executives, directors, newly promoted partners and capable people who are quietly deciding whether to stay.
What we work on
- The gap between how you think you are perceived and how you are actually experienced.
- The decision you keep deferring because either answer costs something.
- The anger, boredom or anxiety you have been managing rather than reading.
- The role you have outgrown, and the one you are frightened of wanting.
Clearer judgement, better boundaries and a plan you can hold on to when the pressure comes back.
Teams
Team and group coaching
For the team that is polite, busy and quietly not saying the thing.
Every team develops a way of being together that nobody actually chose: the conflict that never quite surfaces, the decision that keeps being remade, the person everyone has learned to work around. A group session makes that pattern visible and, more importantly, makes it discussable.
We use the group as the instrument, because several observation points produce a picture that one person, however senior, cannot produce alone.
Who it is for
Leadership teams, functional teams, founder teams and teams coming through a restructure or a change of leadership.
What we work on
- How the team really makes decisions, as opposed to how the agenda says it does.
- The conflict that is being avoided, and what that avoidance costs.
- The roles people have drifted into, and whether they still fit.
- What happens to the team when the pressure comes on.
A shared picture, a set of agreements and the ability to have the conversation without us in the room.
Organisation
Mindset consultancy
For the organisation that has tried wellbeing and found it wanting.
Most wellbeing programmes treat the symptom and leave the system exactly as it was. Yoga at lunchtime does not fix a role that cannot be done in the hours available, or a manager who is rewarded for extraction.
We work on the system instead, on how pressure is distributed, what leaders are rewarded for, and whether the organisation can hear bad news early enough to do anything with it.
Who it is for
HR directors, chief operating officers and chief executives with a people problem that is really an operating problem.
What we work on
- A diagnostic that uses conversations and observation, rather than another engagement survey.
- A programme designed around how your organisation actually works.
- Coaching and group work for the people carrying the most load.
- A small set of measures that tell you whether it is working.
Fewer avoidable exits, better absence and a leadership team that can talk about load without flinching.
In the room
Workshops and talks
For the room that needs to think differently for two hours.
We speak at leadership offsites, conferences and people-team events, without slides full of stock photographs, without listicles and without forcing anyone to role-play.
A good talk changes the quality of the conversation in the room, and ours usually do, because they name the thing everyone has been thinking since they arrived.
Who it is for
Leadership offsites, conferences, people teams, professional bodies and internal leadership programmes.
What we work on
- The quiet resignation: how to see it before it happens.
- Below the waterline: what is really driving the behaviour you can see.
- Presenteeism: the cost of staying, and why nobody budgets for it.
- The conversation you are avoiding, and how to have it.
Shared language, permission to speak plainly and something people can try on Monday.
How it starts
It starts with a conversation, not a pitch.
We would rather find out whether we can help than talk you into something you do not need.
A conversation
Thirty minutes, with no charge and no obligation. You describe what you are seeing, we ask the questions that tend to clarify it, and if we are not the right people for the job we will say so and point you somewhere better.
A short diagnostic
One to two weeks of conversations and observation rather than another survey, because we want to understand the system before we touch it.
A proposal
A clear scope, a fee and what we will measure, with no open-ended retainer and a proper definition of done.
The work
With a review halfway through and an honest conversation at the end, including about the things that did not change.
We quote after the first conversation. Coaching is usually priced per engagement and organisational work per phase. There is no charge for the initial call, and we do not take on work we do not think will help.
Before it costs you the people you can least replace.
If you are a senior leader or an HR director and you are worried about the pressure on your people, tell us what you are seeing. We will tell you honestly whether we can help, and what a sensible first step would look like.