Coherence Co
SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES
For leaders whose patch is harder to run than it should be
Your strategy is clear, and yet the day to day isn’t delivering it.Decisions keep coming back to you. What gets agreed in a meeting becomes undone afterwards.
Customers end up chasing what they were promised.The problem is rarely the people. It’s how the place is set up to run, starting with who decides what.It’s hard to redesign the place while you are running it. That’s where Coherence Co comes in.
When good people have to work around how things are done, something isn't right.
What the work is
Most organisations treat leadership, systems and culture as three separate problems. The first is handled by HR or a coach. The second by a new process or new software. The third by a culture programme. The results do not compound, because the three are not being read as one. Systems here means how the organisation is set up: who decides what, and how the parts connect.Coherence Co reads them as one. Leadership behaviour, system design and culture are one connected operating field. When they reinforce each other consistently, coherence is the result.When they pull in different directions, the place is harder to run than it should be.
Leadership → Systems → Culture = Coherence
The work goes as deep as your situation needs: adjustment, improvement, change or transformation.Coherence does not arrive by default. It has to be designed in.
How Coherence Co works with you
Coherence Co advises. You stay in charge and run the work. It starts with a discovery that shows what is causing the problem and where to start. From there the work runs 90 days at a time. The changes are designed with you, and Michaela stays alongside while you and your team put them into practice.The shape of the engagement is determined in the first conversation, not before.Christchurch-based · Working in person and online.
About
Built on twenty years of senior leadership inside complex organisations.
Now advising leaders navigating them.
Senior leadership produces a particular kind of judgement when it's lived from the inside, not studied from the outside. Michaela Rees has been accountable for leading change where delivery mattered and the margin for error was real.That experience lets her see what is actually happening in an organisation, and say it plainly.Track record
General Manager in a large public organisation through significant change
Delivery for three Cricket World Cups and more than 100 international events at New Zealand Cricket
Set teams up to redesign their own work, including taking one process from 700 steps to 25
The South Island's first mahinga kai partnership model between a rūnanga and a local council, later taken up elsewhere in the region
Setting up a New Zealand council’s Long Term Plan (its 10-year plan) and Annual Plan.
Michaela founded Coherence Co and is the lead adviser you work with. More about Michaela at michaelarees.com.
Moving organisations from overload and reaction to
clearer decisions, steadier leadership and reliable delivery.
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Services
Most organisations treat leadership, systems and culture as separate problems. A leadership programme here. A governance review there. A culture survey somewhere else. What’s actually causing the problem stays as it was.Coherence is what you get when all three pull the same way.Below are the four services Coherence Co offers. Choose the one closest to your situation.
Recurring Problem Review
A 90-minute session for the problem that keeps coming back
Change Leadership
When you’re carrying a big change and want an adviser who has led one from the inside
System Design
When good people are working hard and still getting the same results
Strategy Deployment
When the strategy is signed off and the day to day isn’t delivering it
Recurring Problem Review
One 90-minute session. A written finding. A concrete first move.
For the problem that keeps coming back.
Does this describe your situation?You have a problem in your function that keeps coming back. You have tried to fix it more than once. Each time you thought it was resolved. Each time it came back, in a slightly different form.The problem looks like a people issue, so you work with the people. It comes back. It looks like a process issue, so you redesign the process. It comes back. The frustration is not that you have not acted. It is that nothing you try makes it stop.That is because what is producing the problem sits underneath the part you can see. The Recurring Problem Review names that condition and gives you one concrete move to test it.
Price NZ$495 + GST
What you get
A 90-minute session with Michaela, online via Microsoft Teams
A written finding within 24 hours. One page, three parts (set out below)
A 20-minute follow-up within 30 days
If you commission a full engagement within 30 days, the NZ$495 is credited to it.
How the review worksThe session runs across three domains: leadership, systems and culture.Recurring problems usually come from a condition in one of these, sometimes more than one. The session finds which one, and names what is keeping the pattern in place.The condition is usually specific. For example: authority boundaries that were never made explicit; governance meetings that produce discussion rather than decisions; honesty that has become unsafe to speak.The written finding has three parts. Pattern: the problem as you are living it, named clearly. Condition: what is actually producing it, and why earlier attempts have not held. First move: one concrete action you can take in the next two weeks, without executive sign-off or organisational change.If at the end of the session you do not have a named condition and a concrete first move, there is no fee.If the problem turns out to be systemic and needs a full engagement, that is said plainly in the written finding.
Change Leadership
When you’re carrying a big change and want an adviser who has led one from the inside.
Does this describe your situation?
A function or service is not performing
A reform, a merger, a significant piece of change
You need senior capability for a defined piece of change work.
Coherence Co advises. You lead the change. It starts with a discovery, then runs 90 days at a time, with Michaela alongside while you and your team put the changes into practice.Michaela has led large-scale change inside a council and run complex programmes at a national sporting organisation. She knows the deadline, the scrutiny and the pressure of keeping the place going while it changes.
System Design
When good people are working hard and the results stay the same.
What system design is
System design is not software. It sits between your intent (your purpose, strategy and policies) and the processes people run every day. It is how the place is set up to deliver: who decides what, who owns what and how the parts connect. When it is sound, intent flows through to action. Some call it operating model design. It is the same work.The cause is rarely the people. It’s how the place is set up to run.
Does this describe your situation?Decisions keep coming back to you.
Work bounces between teams, and customers end up chasing.
The place has outgrown how it’s set up, after a new strategy, growth or a merger.How the work runs
Coherence Co advises. You stay in charge and run the work. It starts with a discovery that names what’s causing the problem and where to focus first. From there it runs 90 days at a time, and Michaela stays alongside while you and your team put the changes into practice.
Strategy Deployment
When the strategy is signed off and the day to day isn't delivering it.
Does this describe your situation?Your strategy was signed off months ago, and nothing has really shifted.Each part of the organisation is delivering it in its own way, and the work isn’t connecting up between teams.Your customers aren’t getting what the strategy promised them.What Coherence Co does
Coherence Co works on how the strategy moves through the organisation, so each part delivers its piece and the whole connects. It starts with a discovery, then runs 90 days at a time.
What changes:
The strategy changes how the work gets done for your customers
Each part of the organisation has what it needs to deliver its piece
Leadership meetings keep the strategy at the centre of decisions
When the next strategy comes, your leadership team can land it themselves.
Why this is differentMost engagements that look like this are something else: a strategy refresh that only changes the words, a restructure that redraws reporting lines, or a leadership programme that works on behaviour alone.Coherence Co works on how the place is set up to deliver the strategy, with you in charge.
Contact
If any of this describes your organisation, the first step is a short conversation. It surfaces what is going on and where the work needs to focus.Because the practice works with a limited number of clients at any one time, that conversation is also where genuine fit is established.From there, the next step is clear: a short engagement, a 90-day cycle or a broader conversation about what the organisation needs.
Privacy: Your information will only be used to respond to your enquiry and will not be shared with third parties.
Coherence Co is the trading name of Coherence Co Advisory Limited,
registered in New Zealand. GST registered.
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