Leadership work that survives the return to the desk
Most development is enjoyed, rated highly, and gone in a fortnight. We design against that — the manager is in the room, the practice happens between sessions, and we measure twice on the same instrument.
Four things we do, and the honesty to say when none of them is the answer
We are nineteen practitioners in one Edinburgh office — organisational psychologists, accredited coaches and a statistician who builds the measurement. We work with executive teams, leadership cohorts, individuals, and occasionally with the finding that the culture is fine and the operating model is not.
We declined four engagements in 2025. Two because the chief executive was the problem and would not be in the room, one because the brief asked for MBTI, and one because the diagnostic said the money belonged somewhere else.
Executive teams
Six sessions with the team that already exists, on the decisions it is actually avoiding.
Read more →Leadership development
Cohort programmes for first-time and senior leaders, with the manager in the room at the start and the end.
Read more →Coaching
One-to-one work with senior leaders. Chemistry sessions are free, and about one in five does not proceed.
Read more →Culture & change
Diagnostic first, and sometimes the finding is that the culture is fine and the operating model is not.
Read more →What clients say when we ask them afterwards
They surfaced in session two a disagreement we had been avoiding for eighteen months, using our own words read back to us. It was the most uncomfortable ninety minutes I have spent at work and it changed how the board runs.
We asked them to drop the manager sessions because the diary was impossible. They said they would rather not run the programme. We kept it, attendance was 94%, and it is the reason it stuck when the last two programmes did not.
Recent clients, named with their permission. The engagements themselves stay confidential.
Ready to work differently?
We partner with organisations that want the awkward finding rather than the reassuring one: the disagreement nobody will name, the programme that reverts on contact with the line manager, the reporting rate that is a form problem and not a culture problem.
Every engagement starts with a diagnostic and ends with a report that names what did not move.
What we have been writing
Why we will not run MBTI for you
It is asked for by name more than any other instrument. Its test–retest reliability is the reason we say no, and what we offer instead.
Read the piece →
Cohort programmes fail on return, not in the room
Every client who has asked us to cut manager contracting has asked for the same reason, and it is a good reason. Here is why we hold the line anyway.
Read the piece →- 2014
- Founded in Edinburgh
- 19
- Practitioners, all accredited
- 1 in 5
- Chemistry pairs that do not proceed
- 4
- Engagements declined in 2025
Start with the diagnostic, not the programme
Six weeks of interviews and a baseline measure, and a written finding — including the finding that the problem is structural and a development programme will not touch it. We have delivered that one twice.