Organisational Partnership · for senior leaders

Your organisation already has a philosophy.

It’s just rarely written down. You’ll find it in what gets measured, who gets trusted, what counts as evidence, and what happens when a principle gets inconvenient.

We help you examine it, and stay with you while it changes. Start with the words in the drawers.

Talk to us about your team How it works

Your organisation’s name, for the nameplate

Bring the assumptions into view.

Every drawer holds two cards: what two people in the same organisation mean by the same word.

Trust.

A director

“Show me you’ll deliver, and I’ll trust you.”

Filed underchecking

A new manager

“Trust me first, so I can deliver.”

Filed underlatitude

Over time, your leaders learn to examine these tensions themselves: where they come from, and what might change.

A good time to call us

When the usual answers are no longer enough.

The usual answersThe questions underneath

~~Another restructure.~~Perhaps your organisation has outgrown the assumptions it was built on.
~~A new strategy document.~~Perhaps your leaders agree on the strategy, but disagree about what good judgement looks like.
~~Another engagement survey.~~Perhaps you want them to care as much as you do, but only about the same things.
~~One more away day.~~Perhaps the way things work here is stopping people from developing.

These are worth examining before the next strategy document gets written. Start with the one that sounds like yours

At a glance

Who it’s for: Senior leaders and leadership teams
Formats: Individual, small group and team
Starting point: Everyone begins with The Ground
Terms: Scope, rhythm and fee agreed with you

Why it matters

The way an organisation works shapes what people feel able to do.

It can grow their judgement, or teach them to wait for permission.

Lab notebook · specimen no. 1

Size: ×1.0
Stage: Tadpole
It can: swim

Two ways to help it grow. Try both.

Essay · 6 min read Are You Building an Energetic Frog or a Fat F***ing Tadpole? Why size alone isn’t transformation. Read the essay

The starting point

Begin with The Ground.

Everyone starts here. It gives your people a shared language for how they see, know and value things, and for disagreeing well.

Ontology

What you believe about how the world, and the people in it, work. Machines or living things? Fixed, or always changing?

Epistemology

How you decide what to believe. Numbers, experience, the people you trust, the feeling in your stomach.

Axiology

What you think is worth pursuing, and what you’d give up for it.

What we mean by syntropic

Does today’s success make tomorrow’s easier?

That’s the syntropic test: whether what you achieve now leaves people more able to contribute next time, or less.

People need some real influence over what they’re asked to take responsibility for.

Three questions about your own team. Nobody’s watching.

01Does solving a problem leave the team better able to handle the next one?

Not yet Sometimes Yes

02Can people question an established practice?

Not yet Sometimes Yes

03Is there room to try something nobody could have specified in advance?

Not yet Sometimes Yes

Planting notes

Answer all three, and we’ll tell you which one to bring to your next leadership meeting.

We bring philosophical ideas into these conversations and explore what they mean for how you work.

How we work together

Kept alive, not taken apart.

In 1829 a London doctor, Nathaniel Ward, found a fern growing in a sealed jar. His glass cases went on to carry living plants safely across oceans. An organisation is more like the fern than a machine: you tend the conditions, not the parts.

Three ways in. Try each one.

Private conversations with one leader about the questions they carry, kept up over months rather than squeezed into an away day.

Small groups, often from different corners of the organisation, reading and thinking together over time. They tend to grow towards each other.

A leadership team examining a question it faces together, including the assumptions behind each person’s view, and the climate that creates for everyone else.

Over months we come to know your people, your history and your habits of mind. That’s what makes the conversations worth having. Most of it happens online, with time together in person when it helps. The case travels. What’s inside stays alive.

Terms of partnership

Scope: agreed with you
Meeting rhythm: agreed with you
Fee: agreed with you

Scope, rhythm and fee are agreed with you, so everyone knows what’s included.

Only us. John and David, personally. No associates.
The work comes first. We’ll tell you what we see, not what’s comfortable.
Built to last. A long relationship, not a transaction.
Straight answers. If we’re the wrong fit, we’ll say so.

Syntropise

You

Talk to us about the terms

From the cabinet

Try these with your team.

Five objects live in this room. Bring one to your next leadership meeting.

Agenda

Leadership team · any Tuesday

Any other business

Provenance

Our work spans elite sport, energy, technology and education.

Notes left on the board

What leaders wrote.

Questions

A fair question.

Why make time for philosophy when things are moving so quickly?

When things move fast, the assumptions behind a good decision stop holding, and speed carries them further before anyone checks.

AI can help your leaders examine their values and weigh their priorities. What it can

AI can supply analysis. It can’t tell your leaders what’s worth pursuing, or take responsibility for the call.

rsquo;t do is take on their responsibility for deciding, and for acting on what they decide.

Philosophy gives them a way to check the thinking.

Most leaders find they enjoy it more than they expected.

Private viewings by appointment

Ring for a curator.

Whichever door you came in by, you’re in the right place.

Tell us what’s on your mind, or what you’ve been reading. The first conversation costs nothing, and you don’t need to prepare a thing.

Or write to hello@syntropise.com