A Day With Nathan

What can change in one day?

A day can be enough to change the way a leadership team understands a problem.

It can expose the conversation nobody wants to have.

It can reveal why intelligent people are pulling in different directions.

It can change the way a CEO approaches a decision.

It can identify the constraint that everyone has been working around without seeing.

It can turn an argument about strategy into an understanding of what is actually driving the disagreement.

And sometimes, it can make the people in the room significantly more effective at the jobs they already have.

• Clearer decisions
• Better alignment
• Stronger communication
• Fewer unproductive meetings
• More effective leadership
• Clearer accountability
• Better negotiation
• A different understanding of the real problem
• Action where people had previously been stuck

The day follows the problem

There is no standard presentation.

There is no eight-hour curriculum.

There is no box of leadership exercises.

Nathan starts with your situation and follows the problem.

That might mean working with the CEO.

It might mean challenging the leadership team.

It might mean speaking privately with key people.

It might mean examining a decision that has stalled.

It might mean working through a negotiation.

It might mean confronting an assumption everyone in the room has accepted.

The day is designed around what will create the most useful change.

A typical day might involve

• Briefing with the CEO or sponsor
• Working directly with the leadership team
• Examining the actual problem
• Identifying assumptions and blind spots
• Challenging the way the problem has been framed
• Working through the human dynamics affecting the outcome
• Testing decisions and proposed actions
• Creating clarity about what needs to happen next

Illustrative only — not a fixed agenda. The day is shaped by what will create the most useful change.

What people should leave with

The goal isn’t for everyone to have enjoyed the day.

The goal is for them to be more effective afterwards.

They should leave with a clearer understanding of:

• What is actually happening.
• What they were previously missing.
• What matters now.
• What they need to do differently.
• What conversation needs to happen next.

Sometimes the most valuable outcome is a decision.

Sometimes it is alignment.

Sometimes it is discovering that the strategy needs to change.

Sometimes it is helping a leader see the constraint they have been creating for themselves.

Sometimes it is simply getting intelligent people to stop solving different problems.

The economics of one difficult day

If a leadership team is misaligned for six months, the cost isn’t the day they spend with Nathan.

It is the decisions that don’t get made.

The opportunities that are missed.

The people who leave.

The capital that gets deployed in the wrong direction.

The negotiation that fails.

The acquisition that should not happen.

The acquisition that should happen but doesn’t.

The strategy that remains unchanged because nobody can see why it isn’t working.

A Day With Nathan is designed for situations where changing the effectiveness of the people involved can be worth considerably more than the cost of the engagement.

Bring me the difficult problem

• The leadership team is no longer pulling in the same direction.
• The CEO is struggling to get the organisation to execute.
• A major strategic decision has stalled.
• A board and management team are seeing the future differently.
• Two senior people are locked in a conflict nobody can resolve.
• A negotiation is going nowhere.
• A capital raise isn’t producing the outcome expected.
• A major partnership or acquisition is being considered.
• A founder is becoming the constraint on the business.
• A restructure is creating resistance.
• The company has a people problem nobody can quite explain.
• Everyone is busy, but the organisation isn’t moving.
• The obvious solution isn’t working.
• Intelligent people keep having the same argument.
• Something important is happening inside the organisation that nobody is saying out loud.

If the problem matters enough that getting it wrong is expensive, bring it to Nathan.

Bring Me the Problem →

Why Nathan?

Nathan has spent more than 25 years operating inside businesses, restructures, capital raises, technology companies, professional sport, manufacturing, finance and difficult international environments.

He has been involved in situations where the answer was not obvious, the stakes were high and there was no useful playbook.

His experience is not primarily theoretical.

He has had to make decisions, persuade people, build things, restructure things, negotiate, raise capital, change direction and deal with the consequences.

• Aston Resources — A$400m IPO and US$3bn merger
• Newcastle Knights & Jets — restructuring and privatisation
• Reddog Technology — built, scaled and exited
• Laikim PNG — strategy, technology and international growth
• TStreet — business pivots and capital raises

About · Track Record · Watch & Listen

Judgement in the room

If he can’t find and solve it, no one can.

If something is going wrong in one of our businesses and we cannot work out where it is, Nathan is the person I call. If he can’t find and solve it, no one can.

He’s able to solve problems that very few people can.

I hired Nathan because I wanted to build a successful business. What gives me confidence is knowing that when things become difficult, he’s able to solve problems that very few people can.

It’s like he can see around corners.

Working with Nathan, it’s like he can see around corners.

Nathan is the smartest guy I have ever met.