Situation six
We're at a big change, and I don't know how to approach it.
Growth, headcount, a merger, a founder stepping back. The pivotal high-impact things, where the decision is usually clear and the walk is not.
In your words
Is this you?
“I hired friends and family and didn't realize they could never be friends or family again.”
“We've grown to a point where the titles and scenarios I gave or promised don't align with the needs of the org, or my own, but I want to be noble.”
“We are considering calling this a layoff rather than a firing. I hate to end the relationship on a lie, but it does seem as though it might be more kind.”
“I quickly promoted her to fill a gap and meet revenue goals, though she wasn't fully ready, and I've been kicking myself ever since.”
“Your first hire is doing the job you were best at, and you are now doing the parts you are worst at.”
The diagnosis
What's usually going on
The decision is rarely the hard part. You usually know what has to happen. What you do not know is how to do it without one of three costs:
- Breaking the person. They were loyal, early, and good enough at the time. None of that is their fault and all of it is about to be pointed at them.
- Breaking the room. Everyone else is watching how you treat the person who was here first. That is the actual message, and it outlives the decision by years.
- Breaking yourself. Founders delay these for months, take the hit personally, and then do it badly under pressure, which produces exactly the thing the delay was meant to avoid.
The named case
You hired a Head of Marketing. The company grew to where it needs a CMO with experience at that scale. The job is how to demote without it landing as a demotion, or as a loss of faith, in the person, or in you.
That is the engagement in one example. It is not a template; it is the shape.
The category
The hard call, made well
This whole category, Recovery and Transition, is about making the hard decisions, and taking the tough actions, in a way that feels good, is sustainable, and has a legitimate lasting positive effect on everything involved.
There are two of these because there are two directions. This one is internal and cultural, a change you chose, walked through the people it affects. The other is external, a vendor, a stack, a relationship that has gone wrong and needs auditing before it needs firing.
Scope
What this is not
- Not HR. I'm not your employment lawyer and you should have one for this.
- Not me delivering the news. You deliver it. If I deliver it, the message is that you wouldn't.
- Not an org design project. Three weeks, one change, walked properly.
How to buy it
Two ways in
lead option
Rapid Result: First sales hire, when and who
$1,0003–8 hours
What happens
The most common version of this change, at the smallest size. Whether to hire, when, what shape, and what has to be true first.
Two other Rapid Results land here regularly: What advisor model is right for you? and Should you raise?
The price
A ceiling. Credits in full against The Transition.
full engagement
The Transition
$10,0003 weeks · 8 sessions · 16 hours in the room
What happens
Week 1
The honest read
Two three-hour blocks. What the org needs, what you promised, and the exact size of the gap between them.
Week 2
The walk
Who is affected, in what order, told what, by whom. Scripted where scripts help. Rehearsed where they don't.
Week 3
It happens
You do it. I'm reachable through all of it, and we debrief each one before the next.
What I need from you
The org as it really is, including the promises you made that are not written anywhere. Those are usually the load-bearing ones.
What you get
What you get, every time, in three parts:
- Everything you need to understand it.
- The models and the methods to see it through without me.
- The other routes, and why they aren't taken, shouldn't be taken, or can't be taken yet.
The Landing
The Landing. Thirty days after we finish, we talk for an hour. At sixty days, thirty minutes. At ninety, thirty minutes. Three dates, booked before we start, inside the price. Then it is over.
This is the landing, not the residency. It exists because the month after an engagement ends is when the thing either takes or doesn't, and that is the worst possible moment for me to be unreachable and the worst possible moment to be selling you something.
The price
Half at signature, half on delivery.
Not sure
If you're not sure
Readiness, $1,000, credits in.
Peter on this page
(coming)
On camera
“You already know what has to happen. What you do not know is how to do it without breaking the person, breaking the room, or breaking yourself. That is the actual job.”
Start with a call.
Up to ninety minutes on one real problem, and you set the length. If it was worth something, pay what it was worth. If it was not, we shake hands and you owe me nothing.