There is a specific kind of meeting that happens in organizations every quarter. The agenda says strategy. The conversation is about execution. Everyone leaves with a longer to-do list and the same unresolved question they brought in. This is not a time management problem. It is a diagnostic one. Read more →
A team of eight can operate on shared understanding. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing, decisions happen in hallways, and the org chart is mostly decorative. A team of thirty cannot operate this way. The transition between the two is where most organizational problems are born.
Most organizations have more frameworks than they use. The strategy offsite produces a prioritization matrix. The consultant engagement produces a decision tree. Both go into a shared drive folder and are never opened again. The problem is not the frameworks. It is how they were built.
The retained advisory format gets described in a lot of ways. Thinking partner. Fractional strategist. Outside perspective. These descriptions are all accurate and none of them is specific enough to tell a founder whether it is what they need. This article tries to be more specific.
A lot of founders and executives put off reaching out to a consultant because they are not sure what to say or what the conversation will involve. This article describes what a first conversation at Clever Moontrail actually looks like, so that uncertainty is not the reason you do not make the call.