Every plan leaves something out.
I find what yours overlooked, missed or got wrong. Before the dam breaks.
For CEOs, general managers and boards of not-for-profits.
Leading teams since 2005 · 8 sectors · Melbourne
- Team A hands the case to Team B.Nobody owns the handover.
- Report to the board each quarter.Nobody asks what it says.
- Add one more coordinator.That is a salary for the workaround.
An example. Not a real client.
The plan is never the problem. The problem is what the plan leaves out.
See the casesI see
- the client details saved in a notepad or a spreadsheet.Sensitive information, kept outside the system built to protect it.
- the missing security that leaves the whole organisation at risk.One gap. Everybody exposed.
- the marketing that can leave as much as 30% more results on the table.The opportunity is there. Nobody is looking at it.
- the behaviour everyone works around, quietly wearing down the organisation from within.It burns out the people you can least afford to lose, and the system lets it carry on.
My specialty is diagnosing and fixing problems like these.
A dam does not break on the day it breaks.
It breaks months earlier, quietly, in the two steps that nobody checked. That is where I look.What the plan says. What I see.
Five gaps. Every one was visible before anything broke.
- Team A hands the case to Team B.Nobody owns the handover.
- Report to the board each quarter.The report arrives. Nobody asks what it says.
- Target: 95% closed on time.It counts what is easy to count.
- Add one more coordinator.That is a salary for the workaround.
- Staff will follow the new process.Nobody asked the tired person at step four.
Before you hire, restructure or buy the new system.
That is when a plan gets its most expensive fix.
A new role, a new structure or new software can carry the same gap into a bigger budget. Hiring a person does not fix an information problem. It gives the workaround a salary.
I look first. I sit beside the people doing the work, not across a table from them, and I have run whole departments myself. So the fix you pay for is the one the plan was missing.
Four moves, in this order
I do this beside the people doing the work. That is where the gaps are.
Read the plan
I read what it says. Then I list what it assumes.
You getThe assumptions nobody wrote down.Walk the ground
I sit where the work happens. I read the room before the requirements.
You getThe places where the plan and the real work differ.Name the gap
I say what the plan missed, plainly, to the person who wrote it. Once, early.
You getA gap with a name, while it is still small.Close it
I only build systems I would have to live inside. I design for the tired person at step four.
You getA fix that people keep using. The dam holds.
A first look.
It costs you one message.
- Tell me what is leaking.One message is enough. If you ticked signs in the free guide, tell me which ones.
- I reply myself within two working days, with what I would look at first.If a call helps, it takes about 30 minutes and costs nothing. If I am not the right person, I will say so and point you at somebody better suited.
- If it is worth going further, I tell you what I would do next and what it involves.Nothing starts until you say yes.
A systems review.
Half a day with whoever runs your operations. Then a written map of where the work leaks.
Fixed price, agreed before I start. You get the scope and the price in writing before any paid work.
Andrew Power. Leading teams since 2005.
Mostly in not-for-profits, across eight sectors, from health and education to sport and local government. I have run whole departments inside multi-million-dollar organisations and helped small not-for-profits grow into national ones.
A very safe pair of hands.