Your biggest risk isn’t lack of alignment. It’s the illusion of alignment.
Teams burn months nodding along in agreement while they’re really pulling in different directions. This pseudo-alignment is invisible – until it’s too late. We can help.
How are you supposed to thrive in uncertainty, navigate the unknown and adapt as reality shifts?It's a tough one. But that's the world we live in.And with the right methods, you have what it takes to:
Create executive clarity in the face of incoherence.
Build alignment without backing yourself into a corner.
Respond to ambiguity with confidence and agency.
Implement systems that reward truth-seeking, not theatrics.
Rewire the feedback loops that drive behaviour.
Use what's within your control to influence what's not.
In a funny old way, uncertainty is predictable – and we can help you harness that.
Why Crown & Reach?
With over 20 years of experience at the coalface, we've been in your shoes.Unlike ex-military consultancies and global behemoth consultancies, we've been leaders in normal organisations – ones that look a lot like yours. We understand the nuances of organisational politics. We understand the wider context. We understand the daily struggles, large and small.We’ve seen everyone nod along in the meetings... then stumble off in completely different directions. We've seen strong-in-the-deck strategies fall apart on contact with reality. We've seen business ideas that should be high ROI burn through millions with nothing to show.And we've learned how to avoid these costly nightmares:We've helped service companies figure out their first product.
We've helped product companies find their second product.
We've helped a huge organisation decide what to do with a failing startup they'd acquired.
We've helped a business to bring a failed multi-million-pound technology outsourcing project back in house.We've learned how to solve go-to-market challenges, nail product-market fit, and figure out paths to sustainable growth.The common theme? Everyone agreed that they were facing one hell of a thorny challenge. The well-trodden path just wasn't working, but failure was not an option. With hundreds of moving parts, the confusion felt destabilising.
How we work
At the root of our methods, you’ll find these core principles:A living strategy
You need to orient yourself towards the signals that matter. Stretch outward with real intelligence. Sense earlier, move smarter, learn from the edges. Fast. Like an octopus.
Organisations that can think and act at every point of contact will outmanoeuvre those that can’t.Antifragile prioritisation
Forget the impact/effort matrix. We help you make plans that give you the predictability you need, without sacrificing the flexibility you also need.Adaptive alignment
Being aligned doesn't have to mean everyone sees the world exactly the same way. Our methods help teams spot the areas of greatest uncertainty so that they can move forward with confidence, and realign swiftly when plans evolve.Distributed cognition
No more happy clappy workshops. No more shiny decks gathering dust. Once your teams can understand the unfolding strategy in real time, they can make high-agency decisions in the moment and bring you the signals you need from the frontline.
A survey of 2,000 CEOs found that 53% say their teams struggle to align on strategies promptly. Source
Most teams are stuck in this fog right now. Grasping for something stable to hold onto with outdated tools that were made for a different kind of world.Intuitively, you know the fog contains an opportunity to succeed where others fail. By heading into uncertainty on purpose, with eyes open, you can have ideas you’d never have thought of before – ideas your competition hasn’t thought of either.What if you could start to get more aligned in the space of just one conversation?
Book your free Alignment Diagnostic session
In this 30-minute confidential call with us, you’ll surface where uncertainty is blocking you from making progress.For instance, does it take weeks to realign teams when something changes (e.g. a new joiner)? Is AI is helping or harming your organisation? Is there a gap between goals and decisions – a chasm between vision and action?What you’ll get in 30 minutes:
A fast, brutal signal check on your strategy
Clues for where your team thinks it’s aligned but isn’t
A sharp suggestion for what to test next
Work with us
1-3 DAYS | 1-3 TEAMS
Lightning Alignment workshop
For diagnosing how aligned a team currently is around a piece of work – and how to get more aligned.You come away from this with an immediate, actionable diagnostic about the level of alignment and – critically – the next things the team can focus on to accelerate progress.It starts with a Strategic Signal Diagnostic, then our custom built Align-O-Matic diagnostic tool.
2 WEEKS | 1 TEAM
Strategic Signal Sprint package
For urgent priorities that a team needs to grasp fast – so they can take high-agency action.In just two weeks, we help leadership teams map their strategy at exactly the right level of granularity, drop deadweight projects, and install a faster signal-to-move loop.No decks, no noise, just traction.
2-6 MONTHS | 1-3 TEAMS
Right First Time package
A bespoke engagement for when the stakes are sky-high.Lots has already been invested into trying to get something off the ground. There’s a towering heap of sunk costs. Countless stakeholders are involved – some with totally opposite perspectives. Good strategies keeps getting derailed by misunderstandings.Maybe you’re facing the second (or third) attempt to bring something new to market. Maybe it’s the tricky second-product problem, and you need to roll out a whole other value chain. Maybe you’re refactoring or redesigning something big and important.You’ve been doing everything “right” according to best practice. So why isn’t it working?Together, we'll co-create a custom plan to work closely with you over a period of months to help you crack it. You'll execute faster, get more control over timelines, and avoid wasted effort.
4 HOURS | 1 PERSON | FROM £149
Master Multiverse Mapping Course
Want to dip a toe in the water before you commit?Try one of our most powerful tools for yourself with our online course. We offer a fully self-paced option as well as a hands-on option.Find out more: Master Multiverse Mapping
30 MINS | 1 PERSON | FREE
Book your free Alignment Diagnostic session
In this confidential 30-minute call with us, you’ll surface where uncertainty is blocking you from making progress.For instance, does it take weeks to realign teams when something changes (e.g. a new joiner)? Is AI is helping or harming your organisation? Is there a gap between goals and decisions – a chasm between vision and action?You’ll come away with 1-2 high-leverage next steps to regain clarity and momentum.
Or email us: [email protected]
Tentacles – the Crown & Reach Podcast
With over 100 episodes, our podcast is the best bad podcast out there. By which we mean: raw, unfiltered, unedited conversations. We talk about strategy, sense-making, and the blurry edges between work and all the other stuff. Because sometimes feeling your way through the fog – with limbs outstretched – is the only way to move forward.Listen nowOr search “Tentacles” wherever you normally get your podcasts.
The Reach - our newsletter
Join over 2,500 readers who get The Reach, our email newsletter, over on Substack.You can expect feature-length pieces that will tickle your brain in a mostly pleasing manner.
A few highlights:
We need to talk about AirBnB (including a new 2x2 to visualise product risks)
Tumbling into the Vision Chasm (Part 1 of a series on strategy without a vision)
OKRs sound good but they don’t work (it’s not your fault)
Fear-driven development (The Time Machine exercise to understand perceived risks)
Signals > Stories > Options (our simplest powerful exercise)
How to do discovery and delivery at the same time … with Pivot Triggers
Stop polishing 💩 products with this one weird trick (inviting you to do a “Hard Test”)
Master Multiverse Mapping Course
Want to dip a toe in the water before you commit?Try one of our most powerful tools for yourself with our online course. We offer a fully self-paced option as well as a hands-on option.Find out more: Master Multiverse Mapping
About us
Crown & Reach is a boutique consultancy. We specialise in helping leaders feel their way through the murky waters of strategy and operations in an uncertain world.We offer consulting, training and coaching. Based in the UK, we work with clients remotely and in person.
More than 30,000 people have our methods in their back pocket, courtesy of the Innovation Tactics Pip Deck, authored by Tom Kerwin.Grab your copy
Tom Kerwin
Tom is a self-confessed technique fetishist who never stops looking for opportunities to get better results by doing things differently. While studying engineering at Cambridge University he realised he was really much more interested in finding market opportunities, although an understanding of code has come in handy for collaborating effectively with developers. Early in his career he founded and successfully exited two startups. Then he moved into helping organisations set up their research, design and innovation practices from scratch. He then moved into management and focused on growing and developing teams.
Corissa Nunn
Corissa has a sixth sense for cracks in the plan. She doesn't shout about it, but she just knows when a strategy's on shaky ground or a person’s in the wrong role. It's uncanny how often she's right. Perhaps her background in linguistics makes her a natural at translating corporate language, reading between the lines and spotting what's being said a little too carefully. She's transformed messaging strategy for multiple startups, turning confusion into clarity, and clarity into sales. Along the way she's influenced founder strategy, helped leaders hold steady through acquisitions, and coached teams to take them from reactive people-pleasers to proactive influencers.