Consultation. A decision is stuck. And more and more hangs on it.
An offer is due to change. A price is up for debate. A role is open. Two paths both look plausible.
We talk for an hour. Then I work the decision through on my own, and at the end you have the Decision Letter.
THE SITUATION
The decision is known. It’s stuck. Know the loss but not the cause? Then the Forensic.
ON THE TABLE
A decision is on the table and has been stuck for weeks.
THE DECISION BEFORE
Is there another one in front of it that has to fall first?
WHAT IT COSTS TO LEAVE IT OPEN
Every week costs more coordination. Everything that hangs on the decision waits.
Some questions grow with every round. Another workshop, another team discussion, a third option: all of it drags things out. Then another argument rarely helps. It takes a judgement from outside.
“We actually know what we’d have to do.” Then the answer is there. What’s open is who says it.
“Both paths have good arguments.” Then a longer list won’t help. The criterion that weighs more decides.
“We’ve been talking about it for weeks.” Then the question is rarely the problem any more. The problem is everything that now hangs on it.
Four checks.
I start with the decision, before the options. As on a building site: first it is settled what gets built, then you compare what with. Solutions often get compared before anyone has settled what is actually being decided.
The decision. What is really on the table, for whom, by when?
The criteria. What is it measured against: money, time, risk, dependence? And which weighs more?
The consequences. What gets easier, what harder, what is ruled out afterwards?
The order. Does this decision have to fall now, or is there another one before it?
Often another decision comes before the decision. That one falls first.
The path.
First the fit call, twenty minutes. We settle whether the question is concrete enough, and what the Consultation costs.
Then the first conversation, about an hour. Beforehand, you send me the question in a few sentences. Whatever it takes, numbers, documents or an account, you show me in the conversation. No presentation, no long inventory, no moderation. I ask, separate and test until the real decision is on the table.
Afterwards I withdraw and work the decision through, along the four checks. The result is the Decision Letter.
The Decision Letter.
An opinion isn’t yet a decision. A decision changes what gets done afterwards.
At the end comes the Decision Letter. In it:
The decision.
The reasoning.
The criteria that carry it.
The risks that remain.
What no longer needs discussing.
What happens next.
The letter ends the rounds. The time they took goes back to the business.
What gets built afterwards: Rebuild and Direction Mandate
The Consultation fits when the question is concrete enough that something can be decided at the end: an offer, a price, a partnership, a supplier, a role, an investment, a relaunch, the next growth step.
It doesn’t fit when the cause is still open, several areas are affected at once, or nobody knows where the problem sits. Then it takes a Report. That is what the Forensic is for.
Let’s bring the decision to a close.
Fit call, first conversation, Decision Letter. A Consultation is in the four-figure range; we settle the exact price in the fit call.