Manifesto / The Short Version
Eight things we won't shut up about.
Read these before you hire us. If any of them make you wince, we are probably the right shop. If all of them make you wince, we are definitely the right shop and we should talk.
- 01
Innovation theater is a crime against time.
We have all sat in the workshop where the facilitator hands out sharpies and calls it transformation. We refuse to contribute to that. If our session doesn't change at least one decision, we failed and we'll tell you.
- 02
A good deck is a bad strategy.
Slides are a medium for agreement, not thinking. We optimize for the thinking. The output is occasionally a deck, because that is the artifact your org will actually read. But the deck is the receipt, not the work.
- 03
Future-visioning is a verb.
We don't believe in 'the future.' We believe in several futures, all rude to each other, and a company's job is to pick the one it wants to be governed by and move toward it on purpose. Most strategy is just drift with a timeline.
- 04
Constraints are the point.
Unlimited budget, unlimited timeline, unlimited org support: those are the conditions under which nothing interesting ever gets made. We work best when something is missing. Usually it's time.
- 05
We are not neutral.
Every consultant who claims neutrality is either lying or useless. We have opinions about your category, your product, and the slide you just showed us. You can disagree. That's what the session is for.
- 06
The client in the room is a placeholder.
You are not actually the decision-maker; you're the proxy for a meeting that happens without us. We design our deliverables for the meeting we are not invited to.
- 07
Irreverence is a professional standard.
Humor is compression. A joke that lands is a thesis your team will remember three months later. A slide that tries to be serious about quarterly goals is, somehow, funnier, and forgotten faster.
- 08
We will tell you no.
Not as a negotiating tactic. As a service. A consultant who can't turn down work is a consultant who does bad work. Ask our clients. Well, ask some of them.
That's it. That's the manifesto. If you want a longer one, you are looking for a different kind of agency.