Company leadership
Time for the conversations at the start, a clear picture of where you want the business to go and the final say on the plan. That might be the owner or another leader who makes the decisions.
How we work
How an engagement works, and who’s involved.
The five steps stay the same in every engagement, so everyone in the business knows what’s coming and what’s asked of them. What we find in those steps is specific to yours.
Before anything starts
It starts with a 30-minute conversation.
You tell us what’s going on, in your own words. We ask questions, tell you plainly whether we think we can help and say where we’d start.
If it’s a good match, you get a written proposal with the scope and the price before any work begins. If it isn’t, we’ll say so and point you to someone better suited.
The five steps
Five steps, and what happens in each one.
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1
Listen
We talk with company leadership and the team leaders one at a time, in plain language. Each conversation takes about 30 to 45 minutes, and the only preparation is to talk like you’re explaining the business to a new hire.
- Who takes part
- Company leadership and the team leaders, each on their own.
- You get
- Notes in each person’s own words.
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2
Map
We write down how the business runs today, messy parts included. We follow a typical job from a customer’s first call to payment: who does each step, how they know it’s their turn, what they use and who gets the final say. We walk through the everyday routines with the people who run them.
- Who takes part
- Company leadership, the team leaders and the people who run each routine.
- You get
- A current-state map.
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3
Find
We look for where work waits, gets done twice, depends on one person or has no owner at all, and we work out why.
- Who takes part
- Mostly us, with questions back to the team when something doesn’t add up.
- You get
- Findings, each labeled with how we know it.
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4
Prioritize
Company leadership designs how the business should run, starting from a blank page: the roles it needs, who owns each piece of work and who decides what. We ask the questions and write it down, then work backward from that picture to today and pick the few changes worth making first.
- Who takes part
- Company leadership, whether that’s the owner or another decision maker, building on what everyone else told us.
- You get
- An ideal-state design and the Org Blueprint, a chart of the roles the business needs.
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5
Act
We turn the priorities into a plan the business can run without a consultant. Where it helps, coaching gives new leaders and the people who run the business one-on-one time to think out loud, decide and follow through.
- Who takes part
- Everyone with a named role in the plan.
- You get
- A written plan, a named owner for every role and a first step the team can take that week.
Who does what
What we ask of each person in the business.
Leaders and managers
Walk us through how your team’s work really moves, and tell us what you can and can’t decide today. The new roles are built on what you tell us.
The team
Show us the routines you run and where they get stuck. Plain answers are best, and “it depends” or “nobody owns that” tells us a lot.
What people tell us
How we treat what people tell us.
We write down what people say in their own words, and we don’t fill gaps with guesses. If nobody knows who does something, that goes in the map as it is, because it’s often the most useful finding.
We hear each person on their own, and when two people describe a step differently, we record both without deciding who’s right.
Every finding is labeled with how we know it, so you can weigh it:
- Observed
- Seen directly in data, workflow, documents or behavior.
- Reported
- Stated by someone in the business; not automatically verified.
- Interpreted
- MBC’s reading of what the evidence means.
- Recommended
- A proposed action based on the evidence and tradeoffs.
Questions
Questions people ask before an engagement starts.
- Who is this for?
- A business that has outgrown how it’s organized and needs help, in any industry. The first call can come from company leadership, whether that’s the owner or another leader who makes the decisions.
- Do you only work with leadership?
- No. Company leadership, whether that’s the owner or another decision maker, decides to start and has the final say on the plan. The work itself happens with the managers and the people who run the routines every day, because they know where it gets stuck.
- How long does it take?
- Each conversation in the first step takes about 30 to 45 minutes. The whole engagement depends on the size of the business and what we find, and you’ll see the scope in writing before anything starts.
- What does it cost?
- The price depends on the scope, and it’s in the written proposal you get after the first conversation. Nothing starts until you’ve agreed to it.
- Will you make us buy new software?
- Tools are one of the last things we address. We start by looking at what you already use, from pen and paper to old software, and we don’t change things that don’t need changing. If what you have is enough, we’ll say so.
- Is this IT support?
- No. Tools aren’t the focus. If we find a problem with the tools you use and there’s a simple fix within our scope, we’ll suggest it. For anything beyond that, we’ll recommend an IT professional.
- What do we have at the end?
- You will leave every engagement with a written plan, a named owner for every role, and a first step you can take that week.
Let’s figure out what’s in the way.
Start with a 30-minute conversation. If it’s a good match, a written proposal comes next.