Focused Executive Review
Leadership is aligned. What happens when everyone leaves the room?
Before your next decision, see what the available evidence supports, and what has to be resolved for the commitment to hold.
Bring senior judgement to one consequential commitment in an Executive Review. Together with Waheeda Görlitz, founder of MANREAU, you test your reading of the situation against the available evidence, consider alternative explanations and identify where another perspective is needed.
Your executive brief names the issues that matter most and gives you a basis for deciding what to clarify, renegotiate or investigate before you commit further resources.
Three conversations totaling 90 minutes, plus sharing the most relevant information, in the format that works for you. Involving your team is your choice, not a requirement.
Begin with a 15-minute confidential conversation to establish fit.
Your situation
Leadership is aligned. The commitment may not be holding.
For CEOs, CFOs and executive sponsors preparing a consequential decision or examining whether an existing commitment is holding. You may recognize these signs:
- Priorities stay unchanged after the decision.
- Resources remain contested.
- The same decisions keep returning.
- Functions interpret the agreement differently.
- Reports stay green while little changes in how people work.
- Or you sense that something is not holding, but cannot yet name it.
You can also use the review before a decision is made, to examine what a credible commitment would require.
Before releasing further resources, authorizing the next phase or reaffirming the mandate, examine whether the commitment can hold when priorities collide.
Your outcome
See what needs attention before you commit further.
You receive an executive brief that sets out:
- What the available evidence indicates supports or weakens the commitment.
- Alternative explanations, unresolved questions and where further evidence is needed.
- Up to three issues for leadership attention before the next decision.
Use the findings to judge what needs clarification, renegotiation, additional support or further investigation.
The review distinguishes supported findings, interpretations and unanswered questions. Its conclusions are limited to your account and the information provided. It is not an assessment of the whole organization or a forecast of success. Other stakeholders’ understanding and intentions remain unverified unless their perspectives are included.
If further perspectives are required, we agree on the scope, participants and terms of engagement before taking the next step.
See What The Review Could Reveal
Hypothetical case
The commitment. Improve the profit earned from sales through revised pricing, with discounts, freight concessions and service costs reflected in the result.
What the available evidence indicates. In this hypothetical review, the decision record calls for improved profitability, but the sales incentive plan still rewards revenue growth alone. Selected deal records include discounts and free expedited shipping. These conditions may work against the commitment; the information provided does not establish their total effect on profit.
Alternative explanations and uncertainty. The concessions may protect profitable customer relationships, reflect contractual obligations or result from incentives that favor revenue over profit. The review has not established which explanation applies, whether revised incentives are planned or how other stakeholders understand the commitment.
Three issues for leadership attention. Examine whether sales incentives support the profit commitment; clarify who can authorize discounts and service concessions, and on what basis; agree how Finance will distinguish pricing gains from changes in volume, mix and cost, and confirm Booked Value.
This example shows how the brief distinguishes evidence, interpretation and unanswered questions. Your brief follows the agreed question and the evidence available.
The review focus
One commitment. Examined closely.
Through your account and available information, the review examines how the commitment was formed, what was agreed, and what authority, resources and operating conditions it depends on.
The review does not check whether the program is on plan. It examines whether the commitment behind the plan can hold when priorities collide.
The review draws on structured methods and diagnostic instruments, including TEMPER, to examine the conditions behind the commitment.
Which question is closest to yours?
“We were aligned in the room. What prevents that alignment from becoming a commitment that holds outside it?”
Examine whether different interpretations, competing priorities, unclear authority or limited capacity are undermining follow-through, even though everyone supported the direction.
“Have we negotiated the mandate, or only agreed on an ambition and left the difficult choices unresolved?”
Examine whether the people essential to delivery have worked through what each must contribute, which trade-offs they must accept, and who decides when priorities collide.
These are examples, not a fixed choice. We agree the precise question for your situation.
Your reviewer
Who will do your review
Waheeda Görlitz has spent more than twenty years working on transformation from different perspectives: as an external advisor, an internal transformation leader and an entrepreneur.
Her focus is how leadership decisions are formed and whether they become commitments that hold. She has worked with business-unit leaders and board members to shape decisions, negotiate commitments and set the conditions for coherent action: who owns a decision, what resources support it, and what it requires from each function.
She has led and supported the international rollout of transformations across Europe, the United States, China and India, with particular depth in the DACH region. Her clients range from family-owned companies and SMEs to large corporations, in retail and consumer businesses, manufacturing, high-tech and telecommunications.
Having worked with sales, supply chain, HR, finance and IT, she understands how functions can interpret the same decision differently. Those differences can shape a decision before it is made and weaken commitment afterwards. Your review examines what they mean for your situation.
Your time and input
Three conversations. 90 minutes together.
01Introduction · 15 minutes
Describe the commitment and the decision ahead. Together, we sharpen the question the review should answer, so the review is focused on the decision you need to make.
02Tell the story in your own words
Explain how the commitment or proposed decision came about, what is happening now and what concerns you. We agree in the introduction how to share it.
What to cover
- What has been agreed, or is about to be decided?
- What is happening now?
- What concerns you?
- What information or example helps explain your concern?
03Private discussion · 30 minutes
We test your reading of the situation, clarify what the evidence supports and examine other possible explanations. What you share in confidence is used only as we agree.
04Findings and next decision · 45 minutes
We work through your executive brief and challenge the findings. You leave with up to three priority issues and a clearer basis for deciding what to clarify, renegotiate or investigate next.
The Focused Executive Review examines one consequential commitment and gives you an initial executive brief to inform your next decision.
An In-Depth Executive Review provides a broader examination involving additional evidence and stakeholder perspectives. It requires more time; scope, participation and timing are agreed individually before proceeding.
Your timeline
Scope, fixed fee and delivery date are agreed before the review begins. We set the timeline around your next decision and your availability, as far as possible. This is a standalone engagement; no follow-on work is required.
Begin With Your Situation
What Was Agreed? What Is Happening Instead?
A few sentences are enough to begin. The introductory conversation does not commit you to a paid review.