advisor · coach · mentor
Get your leadership team working from the same picture.
When plans keep stalling, it's rarely the plan. It's people working from different pictures of the business, and avoiding the conversations that would fix it. I work with CEOs, owners and leadership teams in New Zealand to get clear on direction, get onto the same picture, and talk straight about what matters.
what I do
Two ways in
Pick the one that sounds like you.
For CEOs and leadership teams
You can be isolated at the top. I'm the person the CEO can think out loud with. Then I work live, in the room, to get the leadership team from five different views of the business to one they all own.
More on thisFor business owners
For privately held businesses with one or two owners. Owners first, then the team, then the plan. Then back a year later, because the world won't sit still.
More on thiswhy plans stall
Strategy, picture, or the team?
Sometimes the strategy needs work. More often, it's the picture. Managers aren't resisting the plan. They're still running the business in their heads the way it was a few years ago, and measured against that, the new plan doesn't add up. So it stalls, and it looks like a people problem.
Then there's the team. A plan only holds when the leadership team puts the real issues on the table, in the room, not in the car park afterwards. No elephants allowed!
And the picture doesn't stay put. Alignment used to last years. Now markets move, AI changes what's worth doing, and it drifts in months. So we come back about a year later and recalibrate.
meet ben
Twenty years in the room
I've been working with business owners for twenty years now. Since 2011 that's included coaching CEOs and facilitating leadership teams, first at AltusQ, where I ran the Auckland practice. I also spent six and a half years running New Zealand Leaders, a community of business leaders and the experts who support them. I'm law and commerce trained, with a couple of years at a London law firm, and I've run my own businesses since 2003, so I know your side of the table.
I'm dyslexic, and I count it as a strength. I see the shape of a situation before the detail. That's why I work live, in the room, and why you won't get a forty-page report from me. I work well with owners and leaders with ADHD and dyslexia, because we think the same way.
“Get everyone onto the same picture first, and the plan holds.”
good questions
Straight answers
Why doesn't our strategy get implemented?
Usually because the people doing it are working from a different picture of the business than the people who wrote it.
Read the answerWhy do strategic plans fail?
Rarely because the strategy is bad. Mostly because the people meant to deliver it are working from a different picture of the business than the people who wrote it.
Read the answerHow do you align a leadership team?
Start one on one, before anyone is in the room. That's where you hear what's really going on.
Read the answerwriting
Worth a read
I write for New Zealand leaders and business owners. Mostly about the problems we all have and don't yet have words for.
Genetically Engineered for a Fast-Changing World
How does a leadership team stay aligned when the route keeps changing?
Business used to be a track race. Now it's orienteering, and everyone needs to be reading the same map.
Read itLeaders: When Are You Coaching, Mentoring or Consulting?
What's the difference between coaching, mentoring and consulting?
Five tools in one leader's toolbox, and why AI makes knowing the difference matter more.
Read itElephants Are Big, But Hard to See
Why do leadership teams avoid the real conversation, and what happens when they stop?
When a business outgrows some of its people, and why avoiding that conversation isn't kind.
Read itNot My Monkey (Not My Circus?)
and why the leader who rescues everyone might be the reason they keep needing rescuing!
The monkeys that jump onto a leader's shoulder, and why rescuing your team keeps them needing rescue.
Read itThree Degrees Off: How to Run a Strategy Day That Doesn't Drift
and why a strategy day is only as good as the corrections that follow it!
Why strategic plans fail a degree at a time, and how to run a strategy day people act on afterwards.
Read itLearn, Unlearn, Relearn
Why do good strategies stall when a leadership team's thinking is out of date?
The picture in each leader's head, and why unlearning is a team sport.
Read itCrashing Through Brick Walls
Why does a growing business stall, and how do you get through it?
Why growth stalls at predictable points, and what it takes to get through.
Read itA Weird Menagerie of Misfits
Why do so many business owners have ADHD or dyslexia, and what does it mean for how they lead?
Dyslexia, ADHD and the owners who think differently: the superpowers and the shadow side.
Read itLet's talk
Start with a coffee. Tell me what's going on and I'll tell you straight whether I can help. If I can't, I'll say so.