Questions we actually get
Working with us, the book, speaking and reading groups, and the Five Passes. If yours is not here, a discovery call is thirty minutes and carries no obligation.
Working with us
Do you use a framework or methodology?
No, and that is deliberate. Methods written for another organisation stop working when they arrive; what does travel is the intent behind a method, the conditions it needs and the practice of using it. If you want a certified rollout of somebody’s branded operating model, we are not your people. If you want your own organisation to work better on its own terms, we are.
How quickly will we see something real?
Weeks, not quarters. We start on one live problem with visible stakes, and the early test is concrete: has a decision moved closer to the people who can see the work, and did it survive the first time somebody with the power to reverse it disagreed? If nothing observable has shifted in the first month, that is a conversation about stopping, and we will raise it before you do.
Who do you typically work with?
Leaders of complex organisations: UK central government departments, national institutions, and private-sector firms whose delivery has outgrown their structure. The common thread is not sector. It is a leadership team that can admit the org chart is not how the work actually happens.
What does it cost?
Engagements are shaped around the problem: from a single workshop or coaching arrangement to senior consultancy over months. We agree the shape and price on the discovery call, and the discovery call itself is free and carries no obligation. If the call shows you can handle the problem without us, we will say so.
Where does the book fit in?
The book is the full argument behind the practice, and the cheapest way to test whether our way of thinking fits your organisation. Read the first chapter, see whether it describes the place you work, and start the conversation from there.
The book
What does omnicomplexity mean?
It means treating complexity as the normal condition of an organisation, everywhere and all the time, not a phase you occasionally pass through. There is no simpler, ordered version of your organisation waiting underneath the mess. What looks like order is something people actively keep going, and that effort has a real cost.
Is this a framework?
No. As the book puts it, “It is not a framework and there is nothing to score.” What it offers instead is a set of ways to look at your own organisation, quick tests you can run yourself, and a practice that works without any expert in the room. Nothing to install, nothing to certify, nothing to roll out.
When is the book out?
Coming in 2026. Priority readers get the first chapter now and hear launch news first. If you would like both, leave your email on the book page and chapter one is there to read straight away.
What formats will it come in?
A print edition and a Kindle edition. Buy links go live on the book page the day it lands; until then the first chapter is the way to read it early.
Who is the book for?
For leaders in complex organisations who want to understand why change so often stalls and what to do differently. The research behind it is real and cited, the stories are true, and the book is clear about what would prove its argument wrong.
Speaking and reading groups
Can Chris speak at our event?
Yes. Chris speaks to leadership and practitioner audiences on how change really happens in complex organisations: why programmes stall, what more control and reporting actually cost, and what carried the pandemic rebuild at Registers of Scotland. Tell us the room, the date and roughly what it is wrestling with, and we will come back on whether a keynote or a half-day fits best.
What speaking formats do you offer?
A keynote of forty to sixty minutes for a conference or an internal leadership day, or a working half-day for a leadership team or a practitioner track. The keynote carries the story and the argument and leaves the room with one move; the half-day works through the room’s own live situations, so each person leaves with a move and a date on it.
How does a reading group work?
A reading-group bundle is for a leadership team that shares a real problem. Your directors read the same book, then sit down with the author for a ninety-minute working session on one live situation you bring: a change that keeps stalling, a rule that slows your teams down, a team working against a plan that no longer fits. You leave with moves owned by the people in the room, and your team can run the Five Passes on their own situations between sessions. Tell us who is in the room and the situation you are carrying, and we will come back with how a group would work for you.
The Five Passes
What are the Five Passes?
The Five Passes is a solo practice from the book for working through a real situation you are stuck in right now. It is five questions you put to that situation from the inside, as someone who has to act in it rather than judge it from outside. They are not steps and the order does not matter: you start with whichever question pulls hardest and finish on one move that is yours to make this week.
Is it a diagnostic or something to score?
No. There is nothing to score, no stages, no levels, and no quadrant you end up sorted into. It does not tell you what kind of situation you are in and then hand you the fix that fits the kind, because that would quietly take the decision out of your hands. It is not a diagram to fill in and not a workshop you have to book. It is five ways to think differently about how you affect your own work.
How do I get the card?
Read and print the five passes from the Five Passes page, where they are set out in full, free. The card itself ships as Sheet 4 of the reading-group kit, four sheets for running the book with people you actually work with. Leave your email on that page and we will send the kit as soon as it is ready, along with launch news for the book and nothing else.
Still have a question?
Thirty minutes, free, no pitch. If we are not the right help, we will say so and point you somewhere better.
Book a call with Chris