Scaling up deeply humane consulting

In 2020, more than just COVID was happening in the life of Openfields (a consultancy for clients committed to imagination and justice): it was also the year when founder Grady Powell had to decide the future of the company he founded 6 years earlier.

As with any successful company, new decision points arrive regularly. Grady realized that this latest one sounded a bit like this: “Is it time for Openfields to grow beyond me?”

It’s not that Grady had been working alone; he already led a team of gifted consultants and analysts. But the question was one every founder must face at some point: will this company be limited by me by accident, or will I intentionally design my vision and approach into the company itself, so it can grow well beyond me?

So we worked together, to:

• Reposition Grady into his Best Work, after years of accumulating leadership hats

• Capture the Openfields identity in far more specificity and breadth

• Redesign the earliest client stages, to make handoffs easier

• Keep tabs on team insights and health