Insights

Thinking on strategy, leadership, and Second Stage growth

Articles, frameworks, and resources from 25 years of advising private company owners and leadership teams. The goal is always the same: help leaders see their situations more clearly so they can act with more confidence.

Articles

Latest thinking

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Family Business

What Does a Family Business Consultant Do?

The advisor who works where the business and the family meet. What a family business consultant does, how they differ from other advisors, and when to bring one in.

Family Business

Family Business Succession Planning

Succession is built over years, not arranged in the last one. The leadership, ownership, and governance work that makes a family company ready to change hands.

Fractional CMO

What Is a Fractional CMO?

A senior marketing leader who runs your marketing part-time. What the role does, when a company needs one, and how it compares to the alternatives.

Second Stage

What Is a Second Stage Company?

Past startup, not yet a big company, and it got harder instead of easier. What the second stage is, and what it takes to move through it.

Second Stage

The Growth Stack: The Layer Your Operating System Can't Reach

You built the operating system and growth still feels stuck. The problem is usually the layer EOS was never designed to reach.

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About Dave's writing

Frameworks that
create self-recognition

Dave writes about the inflection points private companies navigate: strategy, leadership, the dynamics of family and closely-held businesses, and the particular challenges of the Second Stage. The goal is frameworks that create self-recognition and thinking that's useful the day you read it...and 3 years later.

Resources

Tools and frameworks

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Ebook

Haviland China: Strategic Lessons in Family Business Innovation and Succession

What 180 years of one family porcelain business reveals about holding innovation and tradition together across generations.

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The first conversation is a diagnostic, not a pitch. Dave will ask about what's working, what isn't,
and where you feel the friction. If there's a fit, you'll know it from that conversation.

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