Big plans. Public commitments. No room to drift.
Diagram: plan, ownership, decision, rhythm, delivered.
Operational execution for the initiatives that decide your year. I find the gaps that slow delivery down, then close them in the work, with your team.
The work holds. Your team owns it.
The pattern
You already know what it feels like.
The strategy was fine when you approved it, and it's still fine now. And you committed to it. Maybe to a board, maybe to your CEO, your customers or your own leadership team. Maybe just to the number you put your name on.
This is an execution problem, not a strategy problem.
It rarely comes apart loudly.
Someone raises a risk in week three and it gets noted. A commitment gets made that nobody actually owns. A handoff happens between two teams who each think the other has it.
Everyone's working hard. Nobody's doing anything wrong. Six months in, the thing you committed to is three months behind, and nobody can tell you exactly when that happened.
Drift shows up in five places. In my experience, most teams are losing two or three of them right now.
Everyone's waiting on a decision nobody's sure they own.
Read: The Decision That Belonged to Three PeopleNo name, no date, nowhere to track it. Everyone assumes it's handled.
Read: The Five Places Commitments FailBy the time you hear it, the fix is bigger than it had to be.
Read: What the Leader Couldn't SeeOne reasonable request at a time. Nobody can say no.
Read: The Seventh YesFull calendar. Everyone aligned. Plan hasn't moved.
Read: The Meeting That Decided NothingGood people lose good plans this way. Almost always, it's the system, not them.
Moved the boxes. Reporting lines aren't decision rights.
Dashboards tell you the plan is behind. Not which decision didn't get made.
Can watch drift with real precision and has no authority to stop it.
Holds about five weeks. Alignment is a state, not a system.
The most common response, and the one that makes it worse.
None of those are bad instincts. They treat it as a structure problem, a visibility problem, or a communication problem.
It's how decisions get made and carried through.
30%
Only about 30% of transformations succeed, meaning performance improves and actually stays improved. McKinsey has tracked this for years and calls it the number that hasn't budged. That isn't luck or talent. It's whether certain things are true before you start.
McKinsey, tracked across studies
88%
of transformations fall short of the ambitions they launched with.
Bain, 2024
48%
Fewer than half of digital initiatives meet the outcomes they were funded to deliver.
Gartner, 2024
1 in 6
Even in large IT programs, the most-studied project category, one in six runs 200% over cost and 70% over schedule. The research points at decision quality, not technology.
Flyvbjerg & Budzier, HBR, 2011
Which puts the useful question in front of you: which gaps do you have, and do you find out this quarter or next year?
Getting an outside person doesn't fix dysfunction. Adding a body doesn't make your people better. I work inside the initiative you can't afford to lose, with the team you already have. I assess where it's breaking, install the structure and the language that make execution hold, and coach the people running it until they don't need me in the room.
Strategy consultants stop when the plan is approved.
Execution doesn't speed up because people try harder. It speeds up when decisions have owners, when the rhythm forces them to land, and when commitments carry enough structure to survive the quarter. That's what gets installed.
The structures that make decisions land and hold, instead of coming back for another airing.
One owner per decision. Approvers where needed, no shared ambiguity.
What your leaders need to run those systems themselves.
Commitments that survive the quarter. Owner, date, tracker. Otherwise, it isn't a commitment.
In the real meetings on the real initiative. Not in a room afterward, hoping it survives a real quarter.
A rhythm that decides. Meetings produce decisions, not updates.
Your initiative lands. Your team is better at running the next one because of how this one got done.
How the work runs
Four minutes on your own, and you get an honest read before you commit to anything.
Take the Execution Drift DiagnosticThen the Execution Review, a conversation about what your diagnostic turned up.
It starts with a full Drift Report on your organization. We close the gaps inside the work itself. Your team holds the pen.
Drift Report
Sample
| 01 Decision Velocity | 2.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| 02 Accountability Clarity | 4.1 | |
| 03 Information Flow | 1.9 | |
| 04 Priority Drift | 3.7 | |
| 05 Operating Rhythm | 2.8 |
Scored 1-5. Higher means holding.
Below 2.5 drifting · 2.5-3.5 watch · above 3.5 holding.
That's the finish line. If you need me in the room for it to work, I built the wrong thing.
Sometimes the read comes back clean. That's a good answer, and I'll say so.
Where your team stands
Not sure which of the five drifts is live on your team right now? The Execution Drift Diagnostic gives you a first read in about four minutes. Take the Execution Drift Diagnostic
Who you're working with
Companies commit to something big, then lose it to how the place actually runs. Not to bad strategy. Not to bad people. To decisions that take too long, commitments nobody owns, and problems that surface after they're already expensive.
I've spent my career in operations leadership, mostly at Fortune 100 scale, leading organizations of hundreds of people. At that size, the chronic problems between people, teams, and programs are real, and they're what quietly holds back the goals and numbers your name is on. Before all of it, I served as a non-commissioned officer in the Marine Corps. That's where my standard for execution was set.
Most people selling into this studied it or built a course about it. I was accountable for it.
What Becomes Yours
This is what the full engagement leaves behind.
Scored against the five drifts from your team's real work, not opinion or a survey.
Your decision rights and operating rhythm, written down in one document your team owns.
Ready-to-run agendas, decision language and commitment forms for the meetings you actually run.
The run-it-yourself guide, written in your team's own words, not a consultant's.
Measures whether decisions are landing, so drift gets caught early if it returns.
Fit
Built for leadership teams past the point where effort alone moves the plan forward, where the constraint is coordination and follow-through, not strategy or headcount.
Built for mid-market and enterprise leadership teams: divisions, business units, or companies large enough that alignment doesn't happen by proximity alone.
Working together
After the diagnostic comes the Execution Review, a conversation about what you are carrying. Most of those conversations land on one of these three.
You want senior outside eyes on the initiative in front of your team, without committing to a full engagement.
The Execution Review is a conversation. This is one working session with you and your leadership team on that initiative, and you leave with a written read and no obligation to go further. If it is holding, that is what I will tell you.
Talk it throughOne initiative you can't afford to lose.
You end up with clear ownership, a rhythm that forces decisions to land, and a leadership team running both without you in the room. I install it with your team. I do not run it for you.
Talk it throughYou want an experienced operator alongside you as the work continues, not only when something breaks.
This is ongoing support for you and your leadership team. I am in the room at the moments that decide things, and your team runs it the rest of the time. The discipline gets built into how they work rather than into a document.
Talk it throughFrom people who worked with me
"Having worked closely with Mike in a high-stakes, fast-paced environment, I can confidently say he is a standout leader in operational strategy and execution.
He has an exceptional ability to guide teams through complex challenges, ensuring they develop practical solutions that deliver measurable results.
Mike's strategic mindset, combined with his ability to empower those around him, consistently led to improvements in operational efficiency and risk mitigation. Whether it was resolving critical program disruptions or negotiating high-value agreements, his leadership always drove meaningful outcomes.
Mike brings a thoughtful, collaborative approach to every challenge, ensuring that the organizations he partners with are not just solving immediate problems but building long-term capabilities. For any company seeking to strengthen execution or scale operations, Mike offers the expertise and strategic guidance to achieve sustainable success."
"Working with Mike on a large-scale international program revealed his exceptional ability to guide teams through complex challenges.
He helped them think strategically and develop their own solutions. Whether it was navigating international regulations or managing high-stakes negotiations, Mike provided clear direction and empowered teams to tackle these challenges confidently.
Mike's strength lies in his ability to create clarity and alignment in complex environments. Rather than simply managing tasks, he fosters strategic thinking and ownership, enabling teams to build processes and skills that deliver lasting value. For any organization seeking to strengthen execution or team capabilities, Mike offers insightful guidance and a collaborative approach that leads to measurable improvements."
That's your advantage. Build it, invest in it, protect your most important initiatives.
The Execution Drift Diagnostic takes four minutes and scores you against the five. You'll see which ones your answers point to.
Then, if it's worth it, a thirty-minute Execution Review to talk through what it turned up and where I'd expect it to hit the initiative you're carrying.
It's you and me. Bring a couple of your leaders if you like. Nothing to prepare: I'll have your diagnostic results in front of me.
Availability Currently accepting engagementsTiming discussed on the Execution Review