ABOUT
UPSTREAM LEADERSHIP
SERVICES
RESULTS
STILL THE BOTTLENECK ?
ABOUT
UPSTREAM LEADERSHIP
SERVICES
RESULTS
STILL THE BOTTLENECK ?

Our Work Together

Let's move fast & fix things.

You're the bottleneck in your own business. That's a solvable problem. Bottleneck Rx gets delegation working. Pocket COO looks at the whole business. I also do custom engagements. Start with an Intro Call and we'll figure out what fits.

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Bottleneck Rx

Bottleneck Rx icon

Delegate work that stays delegated.
Build a team that can run without you.

Most delegation fails because it's treated like a single act, hand it off and hope.

Bottleneck Rx is an 8-week engagement built on a 5-step blueprint that fixes why your handoffs keep breaking, moves your top recurring responsibilities off your plate, and gets you to the point where everything you're doing is work only you can do.

How the 8 weeks run

Week 1, we build your hit list (every recurring responsibility on your plate that shouldn't be) map your team by Worketype so we know who can own what, and pick the first 2-3 handoffs to move.

Weeks 2 -7 are the build: weekly working sessions where we run each handoff through the five steps, document it as we go, troubleshoot what broke since the last call, and pull new items off the hit list as earlier ones stabilize.

Week 8, after a final assessment and handoff, the system is yours to run.

Every handoff runs through the same five steps:

Name the level of work. When delegation breaks, it breaks differently at each level, and until you name the level you can't diagnose why the work keeps coming back.

  • Match to the right person. Most failed handoffs are a mismatch between the level of the work and the person carrying it. This is where the Worketype map earns its keep.
  • Set the goalposts. Define what Done looks like, out loud, including the standards you've been carrying silently. Your team can't hit a target that lives in your head.
  • Set the decision boundaries. What they decide alone, what they loop you in on, what stays yours. Muddy decision rights are where the "quick questions" come from.
  • Supervise without swooping. When the work drifts, you adjust the goalposts, clarify the boundary, or coach the person. What you don't do is take the work back.

What you leave with:

✓ Your completed hit list, with a status on every item: done, in motion, or flagged for longer-term action.

✓ A documented worksheet for every handoff. The blueprint, in writing, that keeps the work from quietly routing back to you.

✓ Your Team Worketype map, so the next handoff, and the one after that, goes to the right person on the first try.

✓ A clear-eyed read of any problems that require hiring decisions. Better to know that in week eight than in year three.

Fire yourself as the Fixer-in-Chief. Stop doing everyone else's job and start doing yours.

Fee: $2,250/month for 2 months

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Pocket COO

Point the business at the right goals.
Get yourself out of the middle of it.

A focused 90-day engagement built around two things: clearing your plate down to the work only you can do, and getting the rest of the business running well without you in the middle of it.

Most businesses this size have never been looked at this way, all four angles at once.

How I look at your business

Four audits, each one feeding the others.

  • Goals Audit. Whether the goals exist, whether they're the right size for the business, and whether anyone could tell you, mid-quarter, if you're on track to hit them.
  • Team Audit. Maps every person on the team, including you, into one of four Worketypes, the kind of work each person is built to do well, and shows where the person and the seat don't match.
  • Traction Audit. Where the week actually goes against what the goals need: which decisions the goals are driving, which fires keep pulling people off the plan, and what your meetings settle versus what they recirculate.
  • Delegation Audit. Traces every item on your plate back to the reason it hasn't left yet, and there's always a reason: a Worketype mismatch, a fuzzy definition of done, a handoff with no real owner.

What you'll have after 90 days

✓ Team Map. Every person mapped by Worketype, including you: what each person is built for, where the challenge spots are. Until now you've probably been explaining the same missed handoffs with theories about effort or attitude. Most of them are mismatches between the person and the work and are things you can fix.

✓ Core Function Map. Your core functions outlined at the 10,000-foot level, with an honest read on how well each one runs without you in the middle of it. Until now, you've been finding this out one vacation at a time.

✓ The gap list. Everything the audits surfaced, in one place, prioritized. The biggest section is the hand-off list: every item on your plate that shouldn't be, with the reason it keeps coming back. You've been discovering these gaps one at a time, usually as fires. Here they are all at once, in order, with nothing left to be surprised by.

✓ Annual and quarterly goals, set properly, with the method you'll use to keep setting them. This is usually where founders find out that the list of things they want to build and the way the business currently runs can't both be true. Better to know that in week one of a quarter than in week thirteen.

That's what ninety days buys: a clear read on the whole business, and a ranked list of what to do about it. Continue into the next 90 days or graduate, your call.

Bring the business as it actually is, mess included. We'll figure out the right next step together.

Fee: $3,500/month for 90 days

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