Each of the people below worked with us on one of the three engagements. Their notes have been lightly edited for length and, where they asked, for the names of their companies. We have kept their words otherwise as written.
Return to the homepage"The note ran to four pages. I read it on a Friday evening, slept on it, and read it again on Saturday morning. By Monday the chair and I had agreed to change three things about how the board meets. The change has held for the last year."
"My investors stopped writing to me with one-off questions. That was the result I was hoping for and the one I doubted I would get. The monthly note template is now part of how we run the company; the consultant left after three weeks and we have not needed them back."
"The two facilitated sessions did more for the management team than any off-site in three years. The structure has stuck — we are now in month seven of the new operating review and the format has changed very little from what was set up. If anything I would have liked one more session, but I understand the discipline of leaving."
"What I appreciated most was the silence. No nudging emails, no portal to log in to. A first call, a brief, three weeks of careful reading, and then a document. The document said two things I had been quietly thinking and one thing I had not. It was the third one that mattered."
"The interviews were the right length. Not too short, not too long. I had been worried our investors would feel taken away from their own work, and they did not. Two of them wrote back to me afterwards to say they hoped we would do something like this every year."
"I would say only one thing in the way of criticism, which is that I would have liked the draft a week earlier than we received it. The final document was excellent — clear, careful, properly indexed. We are using it as the brief for our next general meeting."
The situation. An industrial group's board had grown from four members to nine in eighteen months. The board pack had ballooned to over two hundred pages. Directors arrived underprepared.
What we did. A four-week Board Governance Review. Read three quarters of board papers. Interviewed all nine directors and the company secretary. Wrote a four-page note with five options for the chair.
The result. The board adopted a structured agenda template and a sixty-page cap on the pack. Director self-assessed preparation improved over the following two quarters.
"It was the cap on length that did the work."
The situation. A software founder with seven investors was receiving roughly two ad-hoc requests per week for one-off updates. Time spent on these had grown to a working day per month.
What we did. A two-week Cadence engagement. Interviewed six of the seven investors at the founder's request. Wrote a framework for monthly notes, quarterly calls and off-cycle escalations.
The result. Ad-hoc requests dropped to roughly one a month within the first quarter. Investors reported feeling better informed in their next portfolio review meeting.
"They stopped writing because they had what they needed."
The situation. A mid-sized logistics business held weekly leadership calls but had no monthly review of indicators. Strategic items were being squeezed out by operating ones.
What we did. A six-week Operating Review Setup. Defined a meeting format with twelve indicators, a one-page pre-read, and a thirty-minute slot for strategic items. Facilitated the first two sessions.
The result. Seven months on, the format is unchanged. The chief executive reports more time on strategy and noticeably fewer ad-hoc operating escalations.
"The strategic thirty minutes is the part we protect most."
We read every email carefully. A short note is enough to begin a conversation.