How the work is done
Most of the value is inworking out what tochange first.
A new website, platform or AI tool only pays for itself when the position, the operating model and the customer promise can support it. So the first job is to find out which of those is actually holding the business back.
The first question
What has the business outgrown?
The objective
A company that is clearer to customers, easier to run, and able to launch its next move.
Not a design process.A way to find theleverage point first.
What gets examined first
Five views ofthe same business.
I start with the business as it is, not with a fixed process. These five areas are where the cause of a visible problem almost always turns out to be sitting.
01
Position and market
Can the market place what you do in one sentence — and is that position still true of the company you have become?
02
Acquisition and trust
Where does the route from first interest to signed decision lose people, and what has to be explained by a human that shouldn’t be?
03
Operations and service
Where does work stall, get duplicated, or depend on one person knowing how it really gets done?
04
Technology and data
What do the current systems genuinely enable, what do they block, and what can leadership actually see today?
05
Growth capability
What would have to be true before the business could launch a new product, service or channel without strain?
These five are read together, not separately. A conversion problem is often a position problem. An operations problem often turns out to be a data problem. The point of looking at all five is to find the one change that improves several of them at once.
How the change runs
Diagnose, decide, redesign,deliver and embed.
This is not a rigid method. It exists to stop a company committing budget to a solution before anyone has established what the problem actually is.
01
Diagnose
Understand the market, business, customers, operations and constraints.
02
Decide
Select the few changes that will create the strongest business effect.
03
Redesign
Shape the position, experience, service, workflows and platform together.
04
Deliver
Work with product, engineering and operations to implement the change.
05
Embed
Create standards, ownership, data and capability that continue after launch.
The order and pace depend on the company. What stays constant is the direction: commercial clarity first, operating capability second, new growth last.
The sequence
Where the workusually starts.
Step 1 · Clarify
Define the position and commercial priority.
- Category, audience and offer
- Customer perception and differentiation
- Commercial constraints and success conditions
Step 2 · Expose
Map how the business actually works.
- Acquisition and service journey
- Ownership, handoffs and workarounds
- Technology, data and decision gaps
Step 3 · Rebuild
Redesign the business-facing system.
- Brand and customer experience
- Operational workflows
- Platforms, automation and AI
Step 4 · Implement
Make the change operational.
- Cross-functional delivery
- Quality and adoption
- Roles, standards and governance
Step 5 · Extend
Build the next growth capability.
- New services or channels
- Platform or marketplace models
- Measurement and learning loops
Outcome
A company that is easier to understand and run.
Acquisition
Stronger acquisition
Operations
Lower operational friction
Technology
Better digital capability
The working view
The sequence is nota rigid methodology.
It is a way to prevent the organisation from investing in solutions before the leverage point is clear.
repeated effort · context loss · approvals
handoffs · productivity · exceptions · judgement
automation · governance · work design · adoption
capability · operating system · human boundary
retrieval · decisions · confirmation · reversal
new services · transformation catalyst · models
business models · accountability · adoption
The leverage question
Three roles for AI, in the order a business can actually adopt them.
AI is a productivity tool, an operating layer and a transformation catalyst.
AI in the model
AI is a productivity tool,an operating layer and atransformation catalyst.
The starting point is not “Where can we add AI?” It is “Where does the business repeatedly spend time, lose context or make decisions without the right information?”
01
Reduce repetitive work and accelerate research, content, analysis, delivery and quality assurance.
02
Connect data, workflows, decisions and human handoffs across the service.
03
Enable new products, services and business models that were previously too expensive or complex.
Bring the businessproblem, nota design brief.
The strongest work begins when leadership is ready to examine the position, operating model and technology together.