You can usually tell from the outside when something has stopped moving.
The meetings still happen. The minutes still get written. The action list still goes around. But the decision is no further along than it was three months ago.
I chair those conversations. My job is to get the group to a decision that holds. The people making it. The people affected by it. The people who have to live with it afterward. Those are the rooms I've been in.
Based in Toronto · Working across Canada
When people call me
You probably don't need a facilitator for a routine meeting. People tend to call when one of these is true:
The same decision keeps coming back. It's been on the agenda three times and it's still unresolved.
Whoever would chair it isn't neutral. The executive director has a view. The dean has a budget. The board chair is one of the parties.
The parties have real competing interests. Two departments. Two merging organizations. Members who are also competitors.
The outcome will be contested. People need to believe the process was fair, or they won't accept the result, however sound it is.
The room is going to be difficult. A hostile consultation. A decision someone will lose.
If what you need is a quick meeting run efficiently, you don't need me. If you need a decision that holds, you might.
What I actually do
Before. I talk to you, and usually to several people who'll be in the room. I want to know what's really being decided, who wants what, where it's gone wrong before, and what a good outcome would look like. Most of whether a session works is decided here.
The session. I design and chair it. I stay out of the substance and stay firmly in control of the process. I ask the questions that move people toward a decision rather than around it. When the room gets difficult, I don't flinch and I don't take a side.
After. You get a written record of what was decided, what wasn't, who owns what, and by when. Not minutes, a record specific enough that nobody can relitigate it in six weeks.
Who's in the room. I work best with ten people or fewer, and rarely take on more than fifteen. In most decisions only a handful of people genuinely hold influence, and past a certain size the room stops being a conversation. If what you need is broad input rather than a decision, that's a consultation, a different design, and I'll tell you so.
Where I’ve done this
Nine years as an independent fairness advisor and procurement advisor to Ontario's public sector, first with PPI Consulting and then with BDO Canada, ministries, municipalities, hospitals, universities, and school boards. More than forty competitive processes, over six billion in contract value. Everyone one of them open to formal challenge. Every one of them held.
A provincial ministry needed to understand how a reporting requirement was being applied across a group of large institutions that had each solved it differently. I went to every one of them, worked out what was actually happening and why it varied, and recommended a common approach for the province.
A ministry procurement drew almost no bidders. I interviewed chief executives across the sector to find out why, which meant getting direct competitors to be candid about a process that had failed them.
Five school board transportation consortia across Ontario, each procuring student transportation in a market where incumbent operators stood to lose routes they had held for years. Politically visible, and contested at every stage.
Consensus sessions where evaluation teams had to reach a position they could all defend, in processes where the losing party might not survive the outcome.
How I work
I'm neutral on the outcome and I drive the process. Those aren't in tension, the second is what makes the first useful.
A few things I hold to:
I name the decision that's actually being made, which is often not the one on the agenda.
I say where the risk is, plainly, without drama.
I let tension exist in the room without letting it stall things.
I don't manufacture consensus. If a group can't agree, the useful outcome is a clear account of what they disagree about and what would have to change.
I don't leave without a written record.
Engagements
Most work takes one of these shapes:
A single session. A board retreat, a strategic decision, a difficult conversation between parties. Includes preparation, the session, and the written record.
A process across several sessions. Strategic planning, a governance review, a decision that needs to move through stages.
A consultation. Structured engagement with members, staff, community, or stakeholders where the credibility of the process matters as much as the input.
Process review. Looking at how decisions get made in your organization and where they're breaking down.
Fees depend on scope. I'll tell you what something costs before you commit to it.
Getting in touch
If there's a decision your organization keeps circling and not landing, a short conversation will tell us both whether I can help.
That first conversation is to understand the situation. Nothing more.