Case study № 02
Name withheldClosing the gap between the 100-day plan and the year-two reality.
Anchor client B · PE-backed industrial · $140M AUD revenue · 410 employees · regional Victoria
The situation
Year two of sponsor ownership. EBITDA tracking 18% behind the original investment thesis. Three external advisory firms had been engaged to diagnose the gap; each returned a strategy recommendation. The new chair had begun to lose patience with the executive team.
The instrumentation
Two quarters of Fractions of Friction instrumentation across the full leadership cadence (n=24) with monthly node check across the operating tier (n=92). Cognitive Profile administered to the executive team and the operating tier leaders. Quarterly review co-presented with the sponsor.
What the instrument found
Node 01
The strategy was correct. The 100-day plan was correct. The thesis was correct.
Node 02
The friction loading on the operating cadence had risen 17% between close and the end of year one — concentrated in three weekly meeting series that had become governance theatre.
Node 03
Two senior operating leaders had cognitive orientations strongly mismatched to the cadence the new chair had installed. They were not the problem. The cadence was.
The named move
The cadence was rebuilt around the measured friction nodes. Two of the three meeting series were retired. The third was rebuilt with a different question architecture.
The result
0pts
of an 18-point EBITDA gap closed in two quarters
- EBITDA gap to the original thesis closed by 11 of the 18 points inside two quarters. The remaining seven were attributed to one market headwind that no instrument was going to fix.
- The sponsor extended the engagement to cover the lead-up to exit.
We had four advisors telling us this was a strategy problem. The instrument told us, in numbers, that it was a cadence problem. We changed the cadence. The strategy worked.
The next move
Book a Friction Read.
Scott runs every one of those calls. No deck. No sales process. The proof is on the call.