How I work · Stage 1 of 3
Discovery
Where you are, honestly. Where you want to be. Get it out of your head before you organise it.
Everyone wants to start with the plan. I start with the truth, because plans built on a flattering picture of the present are the ones that quietly fail. Discovery is two questions and a lot of listening. What’s your current story, and what’s the future story you’re trying to tell?
This is the same whether the thing is a business, a product or a person. A company describes its operations the way it wishes they ran. A founder describes the product they meant to build. A person describes the career they think they should have. Discovery is getting underneath that, kindly, until we’re looking at the real thing.
The questions in this stage
Now
Where is your business, product or career right now? What’s your current story?
Specifics, not hopes. What actually happened last month. What the data says. What people say when the boss isn't in the room. I would rather hear an ugly true version than a tidy false one.
Future
Where do you want it to be? What’s the future story you’re trying to tell?
Vivid beats grand. Not 'market leader' but 'a normal Tuesday three years from now looks like this'. Permission to want things here. The how gets its turn later.
How it runs
For a business, I get in the work. I sit with each department, read the numbers, watch how a job actually moves through the place. I use AI to go wider and deeper than one person could, reading more of your business than you would expect in the time. For a person, it’s a proper conversation about where things stand and a deep dive into what you actually want, which is often different from what you first say.
Discovery ends when we can both describe the now and the future in a few honest sentences and neither of us winces. That usually takes less time than people fear and more honesty than they expect.