Reading on the firm
The positions we hold.
Forty-eight of them, arranged by the part of the work they belong to. Each sets out a position this firm already holds, in enough detail that you could disagree with it specifically. None cites a client, a fee or a result. The market observations sit on the articles page.
Method
9 articles
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Bastion GlobalLens 05 · 1 min read
Recording the decision, not only the outcome
Firms keep excellent records of what happened and almost none of why they chose it.
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Bastion GlobalLens 01 · 1 min read
Why the diagnosis comes first
A plan written before a measurement is a guess with a budget attached.
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Bastion GlobalLens 01 · 1 min read
What evidence intake collects, and what it refuses
The first week of a diagnosis is spent gathering things the business already has and has never read together.
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Bastion GlobalLens 02 · 1 min read
Keep, reform, retire
Three verdicts, and the work is in being willing to give the third one.
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Bastion GlobalLens 05 · 1 min read
Giving a number an owner
A KPI without a definition, a source and a corrective action is a decoration.
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Bastion GlobalLens 01 · 1 min read
Scoring an opportunity before you fund it
Most improvement lists are ordered by which item the room argued about last.
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Bastion GlobalLens 02 · 1 min read
Retiring things that still appear to work
The hardest part of a reformation is giving up practices that are not yet failing visibly.
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Bastion GlobalLens 01 · 1 min read
A validation plan needs a date on it
Without a horizon, a test becomes a permanent condition and nobody notices.
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Bastion GlobalLens 01 · 1 min read
What a scored baseline actually contains
A number on its own is a verdict. A baseline has to show its working.
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The four surfaces
11 articles
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Bastion GlobalLens 02 · 1 min read
A position is something someone else can repeat
If it only works when you say it, it is a script rather than a position.
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Bastion GlobalLens 04 · 1 min read
Discovery that survives the seller leaving
If your best seller leaves and the quality of discovery leaves with them, you never had a process.
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Bastion GlobalLens 04 · 1 min read
Follow-up fails because it depends on memory
The cadence is the deliverable. Without it, follow-up is a personality trait.
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Bastion GlobalLens 03 · 1 min read
Objections are a design input
An objection handled well in the room is a defect that will arrive again tomorrow.
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Bastion GlobalLens 02 · 1 min read
An offer ladder needs rungs a buyer can refuse
A ladder with one usable rung is a price, presented as a choice.
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Bastion GlobalLens 02 · 1 min read
Proof, laid out against the doubt it answers
Before you can demonstrate anything you have to know what you are actually able to demonstrate.
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Bastion GlobalLens 04 · 1 min read
Writing the proposal for the reader who was not in the room
A document that arrives after the decision is made is a receipt.
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Bastion GlobalLens 04 · 1 min read
What a first conversation is for
If the buyer has already done the research, running discovery at them reads as not listening.
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Bastion GlobalLens 03 · 1 min read
The journey does not end at the close
Onboarding, delivery, retention, referral and reactivation are the second half of the same object.
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Bastion GlobalLens 03 · 1 min read
The journey is one object, not two departments
Most buyer journeys are two processes with a handover in the middle, and the handover is where information dies.
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Bastion GlobalLens 02 · 1 min read
The offer is the part most often mis-built
Positioning gets the attention. The offer is where more deals are lost.
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The operating rule
9 articles
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Bastion Global1 min read
A co-seat is scoped to a seat, not to a department
Shared assistants serve everyone generically and nobody well.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Four classes, decided before anything is built
What a system can reach should be a design decision, not a discovery.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Recording beats approving
A system that asks permission for everything teaches everyone to click yes.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Six decisions an agent should not take alone
Governing an automated system is about consequence, not confidence.
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Bastion Global1 min read
The transition is a zone, not a handover
Treating it as a single moment is why opportunities cool between qualification and close.
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Bastion Global1 min read
What an approval has to contain
If the only artifact is a yes, you have consent without content.
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Bastion Global1 min read
What ready has to mean
A machine can mark work finished. The definition of finished is the governance.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Where the machine stops
One allocation rule decides which work is automated, and it is a boundary rather than a ratio.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Why the entry sale is not given to the best people
It looks like under-serving the buyer. It is the opposite.
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Evidence
6 articles
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Bastion Global1 min read
Keeping a register of what you are allowed to say
Claims leak into a business one deck at a time, and nobody owns the total.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Permission is part of the evidence
A result you are not cleared to name is not proof you can spend.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Choosing the weaker word on purpose
Hypothesis, working thesis, position, finding. The word states how much weight the sentence can take.
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Bastion Global1 min read
What a claim has to carry before we publish it
Five things, and a claim that is missing any of them does not reach a page.
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Bastion Global1 min read
An unverifiable claim is discounted below zero
A buyer who cannot check a claim does not ignore it. They price in the possibility that you are overstating.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Why there are no client results on this site
Real engagements exist. Naming them before the permission check would break the rule we ask clients to hold us to.
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Presence and capacity
6 articles
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Bastion Global1 min read
A site that answers, rather than captures
Most enquiry forms are a toll gate in front of information the buyer needed to decide.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Something reads your site before your buyer does
A summary is being written about your business, and most firms have never read it.
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Bastion Global1 min read
A CRM configured as memory
Most systems are configured to produce a forecast, and they forget everything else.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Production capacity is not a strategy
An engine pointed at the wrong thing produces more of the wrong thing, faster.
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Bastion Global1 min read
What survives being summarized
Your buyer may never read your sentences. Something else will read them and paraphrase.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Write the answer, not the keyword
What reads your site is looking for a question it can resolve, and it resolves it once.
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The firm
7 articles
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Bastion Global1 min read
Why the engagement names are provisional
The names are under review. The functions they describe are not.
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Bastion Global1 min read
The engagements we decline
Sometimes the reply is that we are not the right firm, and that is a real reply rather than a posture.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Sold separately, bought together
Strategy without execution decays into a document. Execution without a strategic reason gets switched out.
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Bastion Global1 min read
The exit is written before you commit
The time to agree how an engagement ends is while both parties still want it to work.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Three rooms, and they are not the same conversation
Owner-operators, private capital and portfolio owners buy different things for different reasons.
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Bastion Global1 min read
Two lines, one doctrine
Consulting designs the commercial system. AI Systems runs it. The split exists to stop a familiar failure.
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Bastion Global1 min read
What a proposal has to state before it is signed
Scope, fee, limitations and the exit. The last two are the ones usually missing.
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Disagree with one of these?
That is a better first conversation than most. Say which and why.
Sent straight to the two people who answer it. No autoresponder sequence, no call center.