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A working session to find out what's actually driving an organizational problem
What this is
A single, focused, diagnostic conversation where we examine the organizational problem together and look for the structural forces actually generating it: the roles, decision rights, incentives, constraints, and patterns that produce the behavior and outcomes you're seeing.
You bring the situation. I bring the questions that surface what the cause of the problem actually is.
What you walk away with
Not a plan for how to solve the problem. Clarity on what you're really looking at, and what it would take to know for certain, so if you do spend money solving it, you're solving the right thing.
Sometimes what surfaces is something you already half-suspected. That's often the real value — the difference between a hunch and something you can act on and defend to your board or your team.
You'll get a short written follow-up after the session: a few lines naming what appears to be driving the problem, and what's still an open question.
What happens after
Sometimes this is enough on its own. Sometimes it points toward something bigger or different — coaching, a full team diagnostic, or a conversation with someone else entirely. That's a decision for after the session, not something built into it.
About Session Recording: I may use an AI assistant during our call strictly to help generate your follow-up notes; no audio or transcript is stored or shared afterward. Please do not record the session or use an AI note-taker on your end. Keeping the session unrecorded on your side protects the candid, private nature of our work together.
Scope questions
The following scope answers describe what a Diagnostic Conversation is and isn't designed to address.
What kind of problems are a good fit?
The problem feels bigger or more tangled than it first appeared.
You've already made a real attempt to fix something and it didn't hold. The issue is still there, or it moved somewhere else.
You can describe the problem, but you can't confidently explain why it's still happening. You know what's going wrong. What you don't have is a clear, tested answer for what's actually driving it. It's fine to arrive with a working theory. Most people do. What matters is whether you're open to that theory being wrong.
You're the person close to the problem, and with enough standing to act on what the conversation surfaces.
What kind of problems are not a good fit?
You haven't tried to address it yet. There's nothing to diagnose against until a real attempt has been made and hasn't worked.
You already have a clear, specific explanation for why it's happening, you're confident it's correct, and you're not open to it being tested — you just haven't acted on it yet, or the fix hasn't been implemented. That's not a diagnosis problem, that's an execution problem.
The real question is whether to keep or let go of a specific person. That's a decision, not a diagnosis, and this isn't the right format for it.
The problem sits mainly in the details of a specialized field — a technical, legal, or clinical judgment call. The Diagnostic Conversation is designed for organizational behavior and structural problems, not for evaluating specialized expertise.
What if we get into the conversation and it turns out the problem isn't the right fit after all?
That can happen, even with a clear presenting problem going in. If it becomes clear partway through that the problem is not good fit for this type of diagnostic, I'll say so directly rather than filling the remaining time with something I don't trust. You'll still walk away with a clear read on why, and what would actually be needed to get the answer, which is sometimes the most useful thing a session like this can surface.
You are also welcome to use the remaining time differently — working through next steps, concerns about taking them, what's in the way.
What if it turns out my situation is bigger than one conversation can address?
Sometimes that becomes clear. If what's actually going on involves a whole leadership team, or a manager's full reporting line, one conversation with one person usually isn't enough to diagnose it properly. That needs multiple perspectives, which is what the Leadership Team Diagnostic and Leadership Line Diagnostic are built for. If that's the case, I'll tell you directly, and we can review what the options are.
75 minutes - $550
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