Bring me the thing.
The important one. The stuck one. The half-formed one. The thing you suspect could change everything if you could only see it clearly.
I work with founders, CEOs and leadership teams at consequential moments. I tend to see the thing underneath the thing.
What is the room not saying?
2014: accidentally drew a diagram seen by hundreds of millions. Since then: thousands of conversations helping people see what they could not quite see alone.
The Magic Wand Session
One important thing. One concentrated conversation.
Bring the business problem, opportunity, decision, proposition, transition or slightly crazy idea you cannot quite get your hands around. For 90 minutes, we pull it apart, find the thing underneath it and work out the smallest useful move.
You leave with the thing named, the noise reduced and the next move clearer.
No deck. No programme. No theatre.
Book a Magic Wand Session£1,000 · 90 minutes · one consequential thing
Some things are bigger than 90 minutes. I also work in rooms, weeks and seasons.
See the deeper ways I work →The words I work with
Twelve words. Hover any one.
people cry. people belly laugh. someone, eventually, says the thing.
that, usually, is where the work starts.
What actually happens in the room
Someone laughs first.
Usually because the truth has arrived sideways.
Then someone cries.
Not because it is sad. Because the room is finally honest.
Then the work can begin.
Not ready to bring me in yet?
Think it through with my digital twin first.
Free. Anonymous. No account. Trained on everything I have written. Bring the half-formed thing and think out loud for as long as you like. It will tell you when you actually need the real me.
Think with Marc's twin →The centrepiece
The four questions
I keep coming back to.
What is alive. What is true. What is useful. What is possible. Almost every stuck organisation has one of them gone quiet.
Four questions. Five meeting points.
Most organisations get stuck because one of the four has gone quiet, or because two of them have stopped speaking to each other. Hover a question. Tap a meeting point.
a wand. in a boardroom. it works more often than it should.
The unit of change is a conversation.
Almost always one nobody wanted to start.
Choose a door
Why are you here?
Six doors. Walk through the one that fits.
The Edge Walker
For leaders standing at the door of a decision nobody wants to name.
What are you not crossing because the old room is familiar?
Step throughPut the wand on the decision →The Soul Finder
For organisations that have scaled, hardened, or quietly forgotten why they started.
What did this organisation lose on the way to becoming successful?
Step throughPut the wand on what got lost →The Pattern Spotter
For leaders drowning in information and short on the one or two distinctions that would change things.
What still gives direction when the map fails?
Step throughPut the wand on the noise →The Firestarter
For places, teams or communities that need courage, momentum and a different kind of energy.
What small thing could change the whole system if it was properly nurtured?
Step throughPut the wand on the possibility →Marc is one of those rare people who genuinely changes the direction of your life without ever forcing it. He sees something in you before you can see it in yourself, and then creates the space for you to grow into it. There is a depth to how Marc works that is hard to explain until you experience it. It is not just strategic, it is human. If you get the chance to work with Marc, take it.
John M. Sweeney, Founder, Suspended Coffees. TEDx speaker.
Three small stories
2014, a blog post
I drew the Ikigai diagram on a quiet afternoon. It now sits on a few hundred million screens. It taught me that the things that travel are the ones that name what people already feel.
Years in rooms
Founders, boards, leadership teams at the moment the old map runs out. The work, almost always, is to make it safe enough for the sentence everyone is avoiding.
An island, a community
Over a decade helping a small island use its smallness as an advantage. It taught me that you do not need scale to matter. You need honesty, and somewhere to put it.
Bring me the thing you are not saying yet.
If it matters enough to keep circling, give it 90 minutes.
£1,000 · 90 minutes · one consequential thing
Occasional letters on the soul of organisations. No noise.