Strategic Sparring
Some decisions you cannot discusswith anyone inside the company.
The greater the responsibility, the fewer people around you are free of their own interest in the outcome. Sparring is the place where you think a decision through in peace, before you commit to it.
What sparring is
A counterpart who thinks with you, without deciding with you. Someone who tests your assumptions, asks the right questions and makes visible the blind spots nobody sees in their own affairs.
Sparring is not coaching for a weakness. It is a tool for people who are good at what they do and want to be better at it. Experienced people at the top also need a counterpart who genuinely challenges them.
What it is not
Not an expert opinion
I do not hand you a finished answer to adopt. I help you reach your own, and in case of doubt that one lasts longer.
Not a method you have to fit
No fixed format your question is pressed into. We start from your situation, not from my toolbox.
Not an advisory board
Everyone in your network holds an interest of their own. I hold none. This is not feedback shaped by interest, it is a neutral view from outside.
When sparring fits
When a decision weighs more than it appears to.
A course is about to be set
A decision on direction, with consequences for the company, for the people and for your own position. You want to test it before you take it.
Instinct and figures disagree
The data says one thing, your experience says another. You need someone who takes both seriously, instead of weighting one side too early.
Everyone agrees, nobody objects
The higher the position, the more rarely you receive honest disagreement. You want to be examined, not confirmed.
You are deciding under uncertainty
There is no clean answer, and waiting is a decision as well. You want to find the most sensible way through an unclear situation.
How working together unfolds
Clear to follow, without a fixed format.
01
The initial conversation
In a confidential conversation we look at what the matter is really about, and whether I am the right person for it. That alone brings order into the question.
02
Thinking it through together
We work on what is ahead of you: a decision, a direction, a situation that has locked itself. One session or several, depending on the weight of it. Confidential, outside your company, without minutes.
03
Your way from there
You leave with a considered basis and take your own way from there. Whether this turns into working together over time is for you to determine.
Who stands behind this
My background is in mathematics and IT, and today I work with people who carry responsibility. I look at the pattern rather than the single symptom, and that double perspective is how I approach the work: I take the plain logic of a decision seriously, and equally what it sets in motion in the person and in the system around them.
MORE ABOUT MY PATHCommon questions
What is the difference between sparring and consulting?
A consultant delivers an answer or a written assessment. Sparring delivers neither. I think alongside you, test your assumptions and ask the questions nobody around you asks. The decision remains entirely yours.
Do I need a clearly defined problem?
A decision ahead of you, or a question that keeps returning, is enough. It often turns out during the conversation that the real decision is a different one from the one you arrived with.
How is confidentiality handled?
Everything we discuss stays between us. We work outside your company, there are no minutes and no recording. I use no references unless you explicitly agree to it.
I have an advisory board and a good network. Why sparring as well?
Everyone in your network holds an interest of their own, and the closer someone stands to you, the more their response is shaped by it. An advisory board holds a mandate and carries responsibility for the company, and that mandate necessarily shapes how it thinks. Someone without an agenda and without a mandate thinks with you from a different position, not from a better one.
How often, and for how long?
You decide that after the first conversation. Sometimes a single session is enough to put a decision in order. Sometimes working together over several weeks makes sense. There is no fixed package you would have to fit into.
Let us talk before you commit.
This is not a non-committal introduction, it is the first real step. In a confidential conversation we sort out together what your decision is actually about. Whether this turns into working together is something you decide afterwards. There is no charge for this conversation.
For people in positions of responsibility · confidential
Arrange a confidential initial conversation