A Personal Manual
Sixteen years of building Edge Impact distilled into what I actually need to remember. Not a consulting framework. A note to myself for the next time I'm about to make a decision I've made badly before. This document exists to interrupt that forgetting.
Before the warnings and the traps, what created the success in the first place. It's easy to focus on what went wrong and forget that something fundamental went right.
"When I feel uncertain about a senior hire, that uncertainty is information. It's not inexperience with the domain. It's my pattern recognition detecting something I can't articulate yet."
We were early and rigorous, building expertise in LCA, EPDs, and carbon transparency before the market existed. We were the friendly consultancy, and that was commercially decisive, not soft. Site visits compounded into institutional knowledge that competitors couldn't replicate. Chile worked because the expansion pattern was right: values-aligned local leader, existing relationships, ring-fenced resources, realistic timeline.
And waiting for the right senior hire always paid off. Every successful hire came from patience. Every failure came from urgency overriding discomfort. This is so consistent it should be treated as a law.
The pattern is specific: a new capability area where I lack direct expertise, time pressure to fill the role, a strong recommendation from a trusted contact, personal discomfort during evaluation that I rationalise as unfamiliarity. I hire anyway. It fails within 18 months. Every time.
The discomfort is diagnostic. When I feel uncertain about a senior hire, that uncertainty is information, not inexperience with the domain. The cost of a wrong senior hire is 12-24 months of recovery. The cost of a delayed hire is almost always less. The rule: if I'm not fully convinced, I don't hire. Regardless of urgency. Regardless of who recommends them.
Once I've decided someone needs to go, every week of delay makes it worse for everyone. Delay feels like kindness, giving them more time, more chances. It's not. It's cowardice dressed up as compassion. The person being exited usually knows something is wrong. Ambiguity extends their suffering.
Meanwhile, high performers watch and calibrate: if underperformance is tolerated, standards are negotiable. Exit terms should be generous. The goal is for them to leave as an advocate rather than a critic. But generous terms don't require slow timelines. Be decisive, be fair, be quick.
Complementary skills aren't enough. Direction has to be shared. It's easy to assume alignment because you agree on values and vision. The test is specific decisions under pressure. How do you handle a major bet that one believes in and the other doesn't? When do you want to exit?
The warning sign I missed for too long: the tit-for-tat dynamic. That's not collaboration, it's score-keeping. If strategic disagreement persists after two serious attempts to resolve it, one partner should exit or the initiative shouldn't proceed.
The "friendly consultancy" reputation wasn't built through values statements or culture decks. It was built through repeated behaviour and visible symbols. Teams calibrate to what leaders actually do. The implication is uncomfortable: culture problems are leadership problems.
The symbols matter more than I initially understood. The office environment, the rituals, the small policies: they communicate priorities continuously. When "professionalisation" removes distinctive elements without understanding why they existed, something essential is lost.
For years I resisted independent directors. It felt like unnecessary overhead. I was wrong. The value isn't governance compliance. It's breaking pattern blindness. When you're inside a business for years, you stop seeing clearly. Experienced independents have seen the patterns you're encountering for the first time.
The key word is "genuine." Directors appointed through shareholder relationships aren't independent in any meaningful sense. What matters is whether they'll tell you what you don't want to hear, and whether you'll listen. The board repeatedly recommended I delegate more. I didn't listen until consequences became unavoidable. That's on me, not them.
This is the trap that nearly broke me, and it's insidious because it looks like success right up until it doesn't. At peak overreach, I simultaneously held CEO, CFO, board director, industry president, technical expert, and half a dozen other roles. I celebrated the "yes culture." The board recommended delegation. I didn't listen.
Overreaching consequences take years to materialise. Leadership effectiveness degrades gradually under overload, invisible to you until it's severe. The rule: don't accept new responsibilities without a capable owner already in place. If I'm in more than 15 internal meetings per week, I'm compensating for structural problems. Fix the structure, not the schedule.
Speed and competitive tension are the only real leverage in deals. Every day of extended process erodes your position. I tried to optimise for everything: price, team outcomes, brand preservation, future structure. Multiple attempts over multiple years, starting at premium valuation, ending in distressed terms.
What I got wrong: I believed exclusivity could be traded for better terms. It can't. I interpreted collaborative buyer language as genuine partnership. It wasn't. I treated near-completion as equivalent to completion. It isn't. If they think I've got nowhere else to go, I don't have a deal. I've got a begging bowl.
Sponsoring events puts your logo in front of people. Speaking at events positions you as the expert they should hire. These are not equivalent. One is wallpaper; the other is differentiation. I wish I'd understood this earlier.
The hierarchy of what actually works: speaking to relevant decision-maker audiences, direct relationship time, published thinking that takes clear positions others avoid, industry governance roles that signal peer credibility. Digital presence is table stakes, not differentiation. Event sponsorship is lowest value.
Pattern recognition from building, not just advising. If you're navigating the decisions I've made badly before, hiring under pressure, scaling beyond your operating range, negotiating without leverage, these principles are the foundation of how I contribute.
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