FAQ Line Diagnostic

The engagement typically runs three to five weeks from intake to debrief, depending on how quickly interviews can be scheduled across you, your direct report, and their team. The analytical work and report are completed within a few days of the final interview.

Five, at minimum: you, your direct report, and three of your direct report's own direct reports. Additional interviews are available at a per-person rate if their team is larger.

You and your direct report are both interviewed. For their team, if there are more than three direct reports, which additional people to include is determined together during the Design & Scope phase.

Yes. The diagnostic is available in English and Spanish.

No. The diagnostic is designed for any manager whose direct report leads a team of their own, regardless of where that manager sits in the organization. The pricing is the same regardless of organizational level.

The diagnostic is conducted exclusively via video call. All interviews, sessions, and the final debrief take place remotely.

Confidentiality parameters are established in writing before interviews begin — every participant reads and signs a participation agreement that explains how their responses will be used. Findings from your direct report's own team are combined into shared patterns and never attributed to a specific person. Your own interview and your direct report's interview inform the diagnosis directly and are presented as professional conclusions — not transcribed statements.

For your direct report's own team, no — the report does not attribute findings to specific individuals. Your own account and your direct report's account aren't anonymized from each other the same way, since the diagnosis is built around your specific working relationship — but neither of you receives a transcript or direct quotations of what the other said. What you each receive is my independent analytical judgment.

No. Each interview is confidential. Your direct report's team members are not told what their colleagues said, and the findings report does not attribute observations to specific individuals.

No. Transcripts are used exclusively for analysis and are not shared with you, your direct report, other interviewees, or anyone else.

The report is an analytical document — not a summary of what people said. It covers three sections: findings on your direct report's downward leadership, how your own leadership may be contributing to what you're seeing, and a root cause synthesis identifying points of leverage.

The report identifies specific, evidence-based points of leverage — concrete conditions that could be changed — rather than a general roadmap. It doesn't attempt to weigh how much each factor is contributing relative to the others, since the evidence doesn't support that level of precision; what it can tell you is where the leverage plausibly exists.

The written report is followed by a one-on-one debrief session with you — 60 to 90 minutes. This is not a presentation of the report. It is a strategic conversation that the report makes possible.

The diagnostic engagement ends at the report and debrief. Implementation is your responsibility to execute. That said, managers who are also coaching clients may explore implementation challenges as part of their ongoing coaching work — that falls within the scope of coaching, not the diagnostic.

Surveys and 360s produce scores and competency profiles, and they always leave the person commissioning the process outside the evaluation. This diagnostic does something different: it uses direct, individual conversations to surface what's actually driving the gap, and it examines your own contribution as the manager, not just your direct report's. In a confidential conversation with an independent professional, people say what they actually think — including, sometimes, about you.

A diagnostic is only as good as what people are willing to disclose. People calibrate what they say based on who is asking. In any process organized by or reporting back to leadership — including internal HR initiatives or AI-powered tools — they will communicate a managed version of their experience. An independent external professional changes those conditions.

Management consultants typically diagnose strategy, process, or structure — and most stay involved through implementation. OD firms often work at the group level through facilitated sessions and workshops. This diagnostic does neither. It investigates the specific conditions shaping how you and your direct report are working together, delivers a written findings report, and ends there.

The core engagement — covering the intake session, five individual interviews, transcript analysis, written findings report, and one-on-one debrief — is $10,000. Additional interviews with your direct report's team beyond three are $1,500 each. The initial discovery call is complimentary.

You participate in a structured intake session of 60 to 90 minutes, your own individual interview of 60 to 75 minutes, and a debrief session of 60 to 90 minutes. You're also responsible for introducing the diagnostic to your direct report and coordinating interview scheduling with their team.

Each interviewee reads and signs a participation agreement, then participates in a single confidential video interview of 45 to 75 minutes depending on their role. No preparation is required.

Minimally. All interviews are conducted remotely via video call. The total time commitment for your direct report's team members is under an hour each.

No. Unlike the Leadership Team Diagnostic, this engagement doesn't include reconvening your direct report's team as a group. Doing so would risk exposing who said what, undermining the confidentiality that made candid interviews possible. You receive the full findings directly, and you decide what to share with your direct report.