The Y in SYSTEM
The Capacity Code
If your week is the problem right now, start with the Capacity Code. It's the Y in SYSTEM, and the assessment takes five minutes.
SYSTEM
Your business still runs through you.
SYSTEM is the method I use to redesign founder-led businesses, so they can grow without everything landing on the founder's desk.
- 6
- Pillars. One business.
- 90
- Day cycles
The question
If you disappeared for a week, what would break first?
I've asked nearly every founder I've worked with.
Most of them laugh. Then they go quiet.
Almost none of them can name it.
From the outside the business looks strong. Inside, every important decision still waits for you, and growth has added weight to your desk instead of taking it off.
You've probably tried to fix this already.
The consultant
Reviewed the operation and left you a report.
Changed the business. Left you exactly as you were.
The coach
Worked on your habits and your mindset.
Changed you. Left the business exactly as it was built.
What's missing
Your business was designed around you at an earlier stage. Nobody has redesigned it since.
A real client story
From 70 hours a week to 35.
- 7035Hours a week, six months later
- 104Days client turnaround
- 80%Of operational decisions came off his desk
Before
He'd built a training consultancy that took off fast, with new clients arriving and a strong reputation behind it. Behind the scenes every approval and every complaint landed on him, and his days ran from a 6am strategy call to an 8pm client handover.
The breaking point
It came to a head at 9.47pm on a Friday. He was still answering customer escalations while his daughter's birthday cake sat half-cut on the kitchen counter.
What we changed
We rebuilt how sales and delivery ran, and gave his team clear rules on which decisions were theirs. Client turnaround dropped from ten days to four. Around 80% of the operational decisions came off his desk.
Six months later
His hours had halved. He rang me from his first family holiday in five years.
Six pillars. One business.
A business thrives when its six pillars work with each other. When they pull against each other, you feel it as friction, and you're usually the one absorbing it.
- FoundationS
Strategy
Sets the direction, so your team knows what moves the business forward and what doesn't.
- FoundationY
Yourself
The leader who carries it, and where most founder-led businesses are quietly stuck. That's where the Capacity Code works.
- StructureS
Scaling Engine
Growth that costs less every round, with sales that no longer need you to close every deal.
- StructureT
Technology
Tools that support work you've already designed. Bought before the work is clear, they just speed up the mess.
- StructureE
Empowerment
A team that owns decisions, because the structure finally tells them which ones are theirs.
- StructureM
Maximise
Get everything you can from what you already have before you add more.
Strategy and You come first, every time. The order of the other four comes out of that work, and where you plan to take the business.
Diagnose first. Then design.
No responsible doctor prescribes treatment before examining the patient. I work the same way.
- 01
Diagnose
An honest assessment of where your business sits across all six pillars.
- 02
Sequence
We set the order your business actually needs, not a fixed program.
- 03
Build in 90-day cycles
Check what's working and adjust at the end of each one. You build it with me, so it's yours when the work is done.
The method comes from my background as a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, applied to the way a business is designed.
A business that doesn't need you in the room.
Decisions move without waiting for you. Growth stops adding weight to your desk, and the business holds steady while you take a fortnight off.
I tell every client the same thing. You should create a business that's sellable. Not for you to necessarily sell, just one that doesn't require you in its operation.
SYSTEM starts with you.
Redesign the business
The CEO Circle
If you're ready to redesign the business itself, the CEO Circle is where that work happens. Founders work through SYSTEM together with me, in pods of no more than six.