Operating model consultant for who decides what, and the rhythm that makes the plan happen
Structures, meeting rhythms and decision rights, agreed by the people who have to live with them. Then we manage the change, train, coach, optimise and embed, until they become your new normal.
Matt RobertsCo-founder of ZOKRI
Meet Matt before you book
The person you'd be talking to, and how we think.
You're probably here because
Sound familiar?
- Every decision still ends up on my desk.
- We've got more meetings than ever and fewer decisions.
- The new leaders don't know what they're allowed to decide.
- We changed the org chart and nothing else changed.
- The plan is good. The machine that runs it isn't.
- We've grown, but we still run like a 30-person company.
- Customers wait while we work out who owns the problem.
- Everyone's busy, but nobody can say what's moved this quarter.
What you leave with
What do you want to leave with?
Every team wants something slightly different, and we agree it with you first. These are the things leadership teams most often ask for.
- An operating rhythmEach weekly, monthly and quarterly forum, with its purpose, inputs, outputs and attendees.
- Operations aligned with strategyTeams, targets and resources pointed at the plan, not at last year.
- A meeting cull listThe forums to stop, so the ones that matter get the time.
- Faster, closer decisionsA clear way of making decisions that empowers people closest to the work, so internal processes speed up and customers feel the difference.
- Evolution, not revolutionWe change the operating model in steps, with change management built in: test each change for 90 days, keep what works, and bring people with you.
The operating model, rebuilt for AI
Imagine the best chief of staff you've ever had, as AI.
AI has changed how a company can run. When your plans, goals, values and data are connected, AI can do much of the work that used to sit with a chief of staff: keeping everyone on the same page, spotting what's slipping, and coaching people in the moment.
- Connected dataEverything in one placeYour plans, goals, KPIs, decisions and meeting notes, instead of fifty spreadsheets and inboxes.
- A company brainOne source of truthIt knows your strategy, your priorities and who owns what, and can answer questions about them.
- Coaching that knows youAdvice that fitsCoaching for every manager that knows your plans and your values, so advice fits how you want the company to run.
Your chief of staff, as AI
- Prepares the weekly review
- Flags goals that are slipping
- Nudges owners before deadlines
- Answers "what did we decide?"
- Gets new joiners up to speed
We design the operating model with this built in, using the tools you already have: your LLM, Notion, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or our own AI Business OS if it fits better. AI does the admin. Your leaders make the calls.
Who runs it
The people in your room.
"Most operating models aren't designed. They build up, one meeting and one workaround at a time, until every decision ends up on the CEO's desk. We start with the decisions that keep escalating, agree who makes each one, and build the rhythm around that. Then we change it in steps, so people come with you."
Proof
Run by people who do this every week.
When we're the wrong choice. If you need job evaluation, grading or a redundancy process, you need an HR consultancy and an employment lawyer, not a facilitator.
Other ways to run it
Need a different shape?
After the plan
The plan is agreed. Now someone has to find the time.
10 of 15recent discovery interviews
Leadership teams know what needs fixing.
- They can name the broken process and the meeting that goes nowhere.
- What they can't find is the time to fix it.
- Some aren't sure they have the skills.
- In 10 of our last 15 interviews, someone said it almost word for word.
- Output under pressure
- Work harder
- No time to improve
- Capability erodes
- More fires
MIT's John Sterman and Nelson Repenning call it the capability trap.
- Under pressure, the sensible short-term move is to work harder.
- That leaves no time to improve the way work gets done.
- Capability erodes, the fires multiply, and firefighting starts to feel like diligence.
Source: Repenning and Sterman, California Management Review, 2001
It's hard to see from the inside.
- Managers see their own patch, but most plans fail at the handoffs between teams.
- In a study of nearly 8,000 managers, 84% could rely on their boss and their own team. Only 9% could always rely on colleagues in other functions.
- Naming the problem is political, because it usually points at a peer or a past decision.
- Most managers were promoted for doing the work, not for designing how it flows.
Source: Sull, Homkes and Sull, Harvard Business Review, 2015
- We run it with youYou run it, we coachQuarterly review
So we stay, then step back.
- At first we run the work alongside your people: mapping the process, testing a fix, measuring it and running the retrospective.
- Then your managers run the next cycle while we coach from the side.
- Then we step back to the quarterly review.
- Your people learn by doing the work with us, which sticks in a way a training day never does.
- We'd rather you stopped needing us by spring.
- People
- Operations
- Sales and marketing
- AI enablement
Fractional, until the role is hired or grown
Sometimes the gap is a missing person, not a missing skill.
- The plan needs someone to lead the people side, run operations, drive sales and marketing, or get AI working in the business.
- Hiring for that takes six months you don't have.
- One of us joins your team part-time, works from inside with your people and systems, and hands the role over when you've hired or grown someone into it.
Weekly check-in
Goal 2Your owner + oursProgressConfidence3 of 5We're your accountability partners.
- People find it harder to let a goal slide when someone outside the business turns up every week expecting to see it moved.
- A quarterly cadence, with a named owner on your side and one on ours for every goal.
- Weekly check-ins on progress and confidence, so a slipping goal shows up in week three rather than week twelve.
- What we learn, including what didn't work, is written down and shared across the team.
- We're measured on one thing, and it's results.
- Planning30 daysCarry on
Every engagement ends with a 30-day review and an option to carry on.
- However we run your planning, from a single in-person day to several weeks of interviews, async work, online sessions and workshops.
- The option is priced before we start, so nobody has to negotiate when energy is low.
- Most teams know by day 30 whether they want it.
Questions people ask first
Is this operating model design or organisational design?
Both. Organisational design covers structure and roles. Operating model design adds how decisions are made, how meetings run and how work flows between teams. We facilitate the design with the people who run it, then manage the change.
What does an operating model consultant do?
An operating model consultant helps a leadership team design how the company runs: who decides what, which forums meet and why, and how operations line up with the strategy. We facilitate the design with your leaders, so they run what they built.
Isn't this an HR job?
HR owns roles, grading and contracts. This is how the leadership team decides and meets, which HR can't design for them.
Does this mean a reorganisation?
Not necessarily. Most of the gain usually comes from decision rights and rhythm, not boxes on a chart.
What does it cost?
A fixed fee, agreed after a 30-minute call once we know the size of the group, how long you have and what has to be decided by the end.
Is it confidential?
Yes. Interviews are confidential, themes are shared without names, and we sign an NDA before seeing any data.
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Design how the company runs, with the people who run it.
Thirty minutes with Matt. Tell us what has to be decided, and afterwards we'll send you a short summary of the call: what we heard, and how we'd approach it.