Work With Me
Most organisations already possess capable leadership, experienced advisers and well-developed strategies. Yet there are moments when progress begins to slow despite continued effort. Decisions become harder to make, communication becomes increasingly fragmented and strategic direction gradually loses coherence. These situations rarely arise because organisations lack intelligence or commitment. More often, they reflect invisible organisational dynamics that conventional approaches struggle to recognise because they operate beneath what is formally visible.
Sub-Surface Strategy™ begins where many traditional approaches end. Rather than concentrating solely on structures, processes or plans, it examines the underlying forces that shape organisational judgement, shared meaning and strategic coherence. Understanding these invisible dynamics changes not only the answers leaders reach, but the questions they begin asking. Better decisions become possible because organisations are understood more completely.
My work is particularly concerned with what happens when an important decision, strategy or leadership narrative travels through an organisation. Something can be perfectly clear at its source and yet become progressively different as it encounters different histories, assumptions, relationships and interpretations. A strategy can remain unchanged in language while becoming several things in practice.
For that reason, I do not begin with a predetermined consulting programme or standardised process. I begin with the question that matters and examine what may lie beneath it. Each engagement develops according to the situation, allowing the work to remain rigorous while responding precisely to what the leader is facing.
Who I Work With
I work with founders, chief executives, presidents, managing directors and senior leaders whose decisions carry consequences beyond their immediate function. They may be leading a transformation, entering a new phase of growth, changing direction, or communicating a decision whose implications extend across the organisation.
These leaders are often not looking for someone to tell them what to do. They are looking for a more precise understanding of what their organisation is actually encountering beneath the visible situation.
The work is particularly relevant when a strategic question cannot be understood by examining formal structures, stated intentions or visible behaviour alone. The deeper question is often what is shaping the organisation beneath what can be seen.
The Moments That Matter
The most valuable strategic conversations often begin when experienced leaders recognise that something has changed, but cannot yet explain precisely what it means. Strategy may remain sound while execution becomes less predictable, communication increases while understanding fragments, or decisions produce consequences that were not anticipated.
These moments occur during growth, succession, restructuring, acquisition, international expansion, transformation or significant organisational change. They can also arise when a new strategy or leadership narrative needs to travel through an organisation without losing its underlying meaning.
It is during such moments that Sub-Surface Strategy™ becomes particularly relevant. The work examines the organisational conditions beneath visible symptoms before they become embedded in behaviour and direction.
How the Engagement Begins
Every engagement begins with conversation rather than recommendation. We explore the organisation’s context, the strategic question and what has made the issue important now. The purpose is not to diagnose immediately, but to understand whether a deeper examination is warranted.
For some leaders, the starting point may be a strategic decision or organisational change. For others, it may be a leadership narrative that needs to travel across functions, geographies or levels of the organisation while retaining its intended meaning.
Where a narrative is central to the question, the work can begin with a Narrative Stress Test. The narrative is examined for where interpretation could diverge, meaning could fragment, or strategic judgement could change as it travels.
The Narrative Stress Test
A leadership narrative can be completely coherent at its source and still become something different as it moves through an organisation. The words may remain unchanged while their meaning shifts according to different histories, pressures, assumptions and realities.
The Narrative Stress Test deliberately examines these possibilities. I take the narrative that matters to the leader and subject it to different organisational conditions, looking for potential points of divergence, fragmentation, drift and invisible friction.
The purpose is not to ask employees what they think or produce a conventional organisational diagnosis. It is to reveal where a seemingly coherent narrative may be vulnerable before those vulnerabilities become visible through execution.
Working Together
The work is conducted primarily with the leader. I do not begin by interviewing large numbers of employees, conducting organisation-wide surveys or running workshops. The central question is the question that matters to leadership, and the engagement remains focused on understanding it more deeply.
We examine what is known, what is assumed, what may be missing and what the organisation’s existing realities could do to what leadership intends. Where appropriate, a narrative can then be refined and subjected to another round of examination.
Every organisation presents a different strategic landscape, so no two engagements are identical. The principles remain consistent, while the questions and depth of examination develop according to the situation.
A Long-Term Strategic Partnership
Not every question requires a long-term relationship. Sometimes a leader needs a particular decision, narrative or situation examined with unusual depth. Sometimes that examination reveals a larger strategic question that deserves continued attention.
Where there is a genuine strategic fit, the work can develop into an ongoing advisory relationship. Familiarity with the organisation allows conversations to become more precise and recurring patterns to become easier to recognise.
The purpose is not to become an external management function, but to provide an independent strategic perspective over time. The relationship becomes a continuing lens through which leadership can interpret complexity, strengthen coherence and decide how the organisation should evolve.