Write the question before you hire anyone
A good question fits in one sentence, names the decision and has a date (sample).
Hard questions, split until they can be answered
Corrin Hale Consulting (sample) helps leadership teams with one question at a time: where to grow, why margins fell, who should decide. We draw the question as a tree, test the likeliest answers first and show you the working.
Sample tree: Northfield Pharmacy, 60 stores
Week 2 of 8
Why have margins fallen at a 60-store pharmacy chain?
Prices are lower
Loyalty-card discounts doubled in two years Confirmed
Prices were cut to match two new rivals Ruled out
Costs are higher
Supplier terms were renewed at 2019 prices Confirmed, tested first
Longer opening hours raised the wage bill Still to test
The mix has changed
More prescriptions, fewer retail sales Confirmed
Slow sellers hold the best shelf space Still to test
Confirmed Still to test Ruled out Tested first
Services, grouped by the question a board asks
Every engagement answers one question. These are the ones we are asked most, with their usual length and a fixed fee.
Services by the question a board asks
Example prices, before tax
What is the board asking?
Where should we grow?
Which customers, products and places to grow in over three to five years.
Whether to enter a new region or segment, and how: build, partner or buy.
Which businesses or product lines to keep, fix, fund or sell.
Why does it cost this much?
Where the margin goes, line by line, and the three changes worth making first.
Why orders arrive late or short, from purchase to delivery, and what to change.
Who should decide?
Structure, spans and roles for the next stage of the company.
Who decides what, who is asked, and what goes to the board.
Example prices, before tax. Each fee is fixed in the proposal before work starts.
How an engagement runs
Four steps, in this order, over eight to ten weeks. You see the tree at the end of week one and every week after.
1
Frame the question
Week 1
One sentence the board agrees on, the decision it serves and the date the answer is needed.
2
Split it into issues
Week 1
A tree with no gaps and no overlaps. Each branch has one consultant who owns it.
3
Test the likely answers first
Weeks 2 to 7
Interviews, your data and site visits, aimed at the hypotheses most likely to hold.
4
Recommend and hand over
Weeks 8 to 10
A short written answer, the evidence for each step and a plan your managers can run.
Start with a two-week diagnostic
Two consultants spend ten working days with your numbers and your managers. At the end you have the question framed, the first tree and a plain view on whether you need us for more.
- The question in one sentence, agreed with you
- The issue tree and the three hypotheses to test first
- What the data already says, and what it cannot say
- A fixed fee of $9,500 (Example prices)
Questions we have answered
Three recent questions, what turned out to be true, and what the client did with it. Clients are not named (sample).
The question
What held
What the client did
Why are deliveries late at a regional food wholesaler?
What held Pickers worked from yesterday’s order list, so urgent orders waited a day.
What the client did Re-planned picking twice a day and moved the fifty fastest lines next to the dock.
Should a bakery chain open in a second city?
What held Two thirds of the profit came from wholesale, not from the shops.
What the client did Opened a bakery for wholesale customers first, and kept shops as a later decision.
Who decides on prices in a family-owned distributor?
What held Prices were changed by eleven people, and none of them saw the margin.
What the client did Gave pricing to one team with a weekly margin report, and a limit above which the board decides.
Who you work with
A partner leads every engagement from the first call to the final answer, with two or three consultants on the tree.
Maren Corrin
Managing partner, strategy (sample)
David Hale
Partner, operations and cost (sample)
Ama Owusu
Partner, organisation design (sample)
Lukas Brandt
Principal, data and analysis (sample)
How we charge
Two-week diagnostic
Two consultants, ten working days
$9,500 fixed
Engagements
A fixed fee for one question, set in the proposal
from $18,000
Board adviser
A partner at your board and strategy meetings
from $4,000 a month
Workshops
A day with your leadership team on one question
$3,200 a day
Example prices, before tax. Travel outside Springfield at cost.
In every proposal
- The question, in one sentence you have agreed
- The first issue tree
- Who works on it, and for how many days
- A fixed fee and what it includes
- The date you will have the answer
Notes
Test the answer you expect first
Start with the hypothesis most likely to hold, or the cheapest to check (sample).
Recommendations your managers can run
A recommendation is finished when someone inside the company owns each step (sample).
The Springfield office
14 Exchange Place, 3rd floor, Springfield (sample)
Five minutes on foot from Central station
Office hours
Mon to Fri, 8:30 to 18:00
First calls
Mon to Thu, 9:00 to 17:00
Diagnostics start
Every other Monday
Opening times (sample).
