A different way to think about your business

Most businesses don't have a single problem, they have a collection of things that aren't working quite as well as they should.

A process that takes longer than it needs to.
A decision that keeps coming back.
Information that sits with one person.
A system that doesn't quite support the way the business works.
People creating workarounds to keep things moving.
Leaders spending too much time following up.
Teams working hard, but not always in the same direction.
Partnerships that aren’t well aligned.

None of these things necessarily look significant on their own, but over time, they can create friction across the business.

And that's where I started to look differently at business transformation.

After more than twenty-five years working across different industries, companies and leadership environments, I've seen many different approaches to improving how businesses operate. I've worked inside companies, alongside them and as a partner to them. 

I've seen strong strategies struggle because execution was weak, talented people working within systems that made good work unnecessarily difficult and technology introduced before the problem it was supposed to solve was properly understood. And I’ve also seen businesses become significantly stronger when leaders were willing to stop, look at what was actually happening and question whether the way the business was operating still made sense.

That thinking became the foundation for Hidden Friction™.

Hidden Friction™ is the underlying drag that exists between how a company needs to operate and how it actually operates. It can sit within processes, systems, technology, information, decisions, leadership, behaviours, relationships or the connections between them.

Often, people simply adapt to it by finding another way, creating their own spreadsheet, sending another email, following up again, becoming the person everyone goes to or working around the system. And because the business continues to operate, the friction can become normal.

The problem is that what becomes normal isn't necessarily what works well.

That led me to a bigger question; What if improving a business starts with understanding how it actually operates before deciding what needs to change?

That question became RISSE®.

RISSE® is a way of helping companies understand how they operate, identify where friction exists, make intentional decisions about what needs to change and continually improve the way the business works.

It moves through five operating phases:

REVEAL understands what is actually happening.
INSIGHT determines what it means and where attention is needed.
SYSTEMISE designs how the business should operate.
SHOW UP embeds that way of working through people, behaviour, leadership and accountability.
EXECUTE turns consistency into measurable outcomes.

The important part is that these aren't five separate initiatives, they are connected because you can't meaningfully redesign something you don't understand. You can't improve a workflow without understanding what it is supposed to achieve or introduce technology simply because it exists and expect it to solve an operating problem. And you can't create lasting change without the people, leadership, accountability and behaviours needed to make it stick.

That's why RISSE® isn't another business improvement programme designed to give companies more things to do. It's about understanding the way the business already operates, identifying what is creating unnecessary friction and then intentionally improving it.

Every company already has an operating system, the question is whether it has been intentionally designed or simply evolved over time.

Companies achieve better outcomes when they operate intentionally rather than reactively.

That's what RISSE® is designed to help leaders do.