The method

The thinking behind the course, in the open.

This course has not run yet, so there are no participant results to show. What we can show is how the method is built, so you can judge it before you register.

Module 1

The seven bottlenecks.

A bottleneck is what you can observe: a repeated pattern in how the business behaves. You usually notice the bottleneck first, and trace it back to its cause afterwards. If two or three of the signs below sound like your Tuesday, that is your bottleneck.

1

Centralized Authority

Nothing of consequence moves without you. Every approval waits for your sign-off, and your team is expected to endorse your calls.

2

Verification Intervention

You cannot leave delivered work alone. You redo it, check in repeatedly while it is under way, or quietly take it back.

3

Escalation Avoidance

Your team brings you the problem instead of the solution, and your approval has become the real finish line on every task.

4

Handoff Failure

Work you hand off comes back wrong, the same way more than once, because expectations were never written down.

5

Coordination Collapse

What used to work informally stops working as you grow, and nothing formal ever replaced the old habit of talking it out.

6

Personal Client Trust

A client or key relationship only wants you, and the relationship exists only in your head and your inbox.

7

Capability Gap

The person you would hand it to is not ready yet. This is the one bottleneck that is not, on its own, proof that you are the dependency.

Module 1

The four causes behind them.

Every bottleneck traces back to one of four things an owner tells themselves in the moment they stay in the middle of something they should have released. Each needs a different fix.

"I don't know how"

A real skill gap. Fixed with targeted training in the specific missing competency.

"I'm afraid of..."

A felt fear. Reduced by structured, low-stakes practice with a safety net.

"This is how I've always done it"

A habit that runs on autopilot. Interrupted by a structural change that routes the decision elsewhere.

"It'll be faster if I just do it now"

A timing miscalculation. Fixed by forcing the upfront cost to happen on a schedule.

Module 1

The Diagnosis, Design, Activation system.

You fix one bottleneck at a time with three steps. Diagnosis: state the bottleneck and its cause in one clear sentence. Design: decide what must stop going through you, what rule or system replaces you, and who owns it now. Activation: hand it over and pull back.

  • No exceptions: if you break the system once, people learn it is optional.
  • The owner does not step in, even if results dip at first. The exception is a Capability Gap, where the fix is training, coaching or a hiring decision.
  • Use feedback, not control: if the system fails, fix the system, not the person.

Module 1

Six roles an owner passes through.

Each move is marked by a specific hire, not by a feeling that you have grown. Most owners stop at Chief or Tactician and never fully step into strategic leadership. Knowing which roles are still yours shows what to release.

1

Specialist

You do the work, and you are paid for your skill.

2

Operator

You hand whole projects to others, but stay deeply involved.

3

Chief

You manage people and day-to-day activity. This is the first stage where the Harry Trap becomes a real risk.

4

Tactician

You hire for specific functions and design how the business runs.

5

Strategist

Operations, delivery and finance run without you. You set direction and decide trade-offs.

6

Architect

You hand a business to real leadership, govern it through a board, and then do it again.

Modules 2 and 3

From direction to a 90-day schedule.

Each method produces something the next one needs. By the end you have a signed, dated commitment built from your own numbers.

Personal North Star

What the business must give you, what you protect, what you will not do, and how you will know you have arrived.

Ideal Dream Client

You rank your real clients by what they leave in the business after cost to serve, then look for the pattern at the top.

Value Statement

You compare what you believe you deliver with what your best clients say matters, and with what actually changed for them.

Strategic Roadmap

Where the business is headed and how it must operate to get there, with standards it will not compromise.

Decision Flywheel

Observe, define, test a small action, measure, and modify. You run it once on one recurring problem and keep the method.

Backward plan

You halve time and distance back from your destination to find your next checkpoint, and define the actual thing you will build.

Operating Principles

Standing rules in the form "when this happens, we do this, because" so your team can decide without you.

Lead Domino

The one priority that makes several others easier or unnecessary, traced to its smallest first action.

90-Day Schedule

Priorities, what you will not work on, binary success criteria and first actions, signed and dated.

Principles

How the programme thinks about running a business.

  • The owner manages seats, such as head of finance or head of delivery, not named individuals. If the person in a seat cannot do the job, the seat is filled by someone who can.
  • Transfer ownership of outcomes, not tasks. A responsibility with no owner is still yours.
  • Transition is removal, not addition. You stop being the previous role.
  • Fix one problem at a time, and fix the system rather than the person.
  • Every module takes one problem, fixes it and gives you a method you can repeat.

Sources

Where the ideas come from.

The frameworks above are original to this programme. Where a concept comes from someone else, we credit it. These are the sources referenced in Modules 1 to 3. The full programme bibliography covers further works used in later modules.

  • Gerber, M. E. (1995). The E-Myth Revisited. HarperCollins. The "Harry Trap" concept (management by abdication rather than delegation) is taken from this book. Module 1
  • Koch, R. (1997). The 80/20 Principle. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Module 1
  • Shewhart, W. and Deming, W. E. The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. Grounds the Decision Flywheel. Module 3
  • Boyd, J. R. The OODA Loop. The Decision Flywheel is an original extension inspired by Boyd's framework. See Osinga, F. P. B. (2006). Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd. Routledge. Module 3
  • Park, J., Lu, F., and Hedgcock, W. (2017). Relative effects of forward and backward planning on goal pursuit. Psychological Science, 28(11), 1620-1630. Module 3
  • Hrebiniak, L. G. (2005/2013). Making Strategy Work: Leading Effective Execution and Change. Module 3
  • Anthony, R. N. (1965). Planning and Control Systems: A Framework for Analysis. Harvard Business School. Grounds the strategic versus tactical classification. Module 3
  • Gollwitzer, P. M., and Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119. Grounds the format of Operating Principles. Module 3
  • Keller, G., and Papasan, J. (2013). The ONE Thing. Bard Press. The Focusing Question. Module 3
  • Whitehead, L. (1983). Domino "chain reaction". American Journal of Physics, 51(2), 182. Module 3

Participant results

Coming after the first course.

When participants have completed the programme and agree to share their experience, their stories and outcomes will appear on this page. Until then, we would rather show you the method than invent proof.

Register your interest