Leadership cohesion when time is not a resource
When the top team changes, the next demand does not wait for it.
Independent organisational psychology for C-suite teams through CEO succession, ownership change, integration and restructuring. A confidential read of whether the team is aligned enough for what is coming, and what to settle first.
For the people who answer for the team
Chairs, private-equity operating partners and CHROs who need to know whether an executive team in transition will hold together under its next real test.
Anchored to a date
Every assessment is measured against a named demand, such as an integration milestone, a board review or a refinancing, and the time left before it lands.
Confidential by design
Executives answer privately. Nobody, including the consultant, sees an individual’s answers. Results appear only once enough of the team has responded.
The method
CREST, in three phases
Cohesion & Realignment for Executive Stability in Transitions: a structured way to rebuild a leadership team’s alignment after a CEO change or an acquisition, before the next demand arrives.
Phase 1 · Weeks 1–3
Diagnostic Assessment
Scoping with the sponsor and the CEO, then the confidential team assessment and a read-out that leads with where the team disagrees.
Phase 2 · Months 2–5
Realignment Intervention
Working sessions with the team and with the CEO, aimed at what the read-out showed and paced to the time left before the demand.
Phase 3 · Months 6–12
Sustainability & Recalibration
The team is measured again, the earlier results kept intact, so it can see what has moved and what has not, and correct course itself.
What is looked at
Six areas, in two groups. Structural areas can usually be settled by deliberate work in weeks. Relational ones take longer. Knowing which is which shapes what a team does with the time it has.
Structure
Usually settled in weeks, with deliberate work
Direction and priorities
Whether everyone is working to the same short list, and knows which priority wins a trade-off.
Roles and interfaces
Whether remits are clear where executives’ work meets, and have been renegotiated since the change.
Decision rights
Whether it is clear who decides what, and whether decisions stay decided.
Cadence and timing
Whether the operating rhythm matches the pace of what is coming.
Relationships
Takes longer, and is harder to direct
Information flow
Whether bad news and partial information reach the team early enough to act on.
Challenge and voice
Whether disagreement is said in the room, and whether it changes anything.
A team split evenly between “decision rights are clear” and “they are not” can average the same as a team that mildly agrees things are adequate. Those are different situations, and they need different conversations.
So where the team disagrees is reported as a finding in its own right, not averaged away. How the assessment works
Most work starts with a conversation
Usually with the chair, the investor or the CHRO, about the team, the change it has been through, and what it needs to be ready for.