Four men as serious about their business as you are about yours
Five men who own and run businesses, meeting twice a month with a whiteboard and me, to work through whatever each of them is actually stuck on.
You have been moderating yourself in every room you are in, for years, and you probably stopped noticing. Ambition in front of your team sounds like pressure and they start worrying about workload. Full intensity at home reads as not being present. So you turn it down, everywhere, all week.
Nobody here needs protecting from your ambition
None of them works for you, buys from you or lives with you. So you can say the whole thing at full size, and watch what four men do with it.
You stop being the most driven man in the room
Probably for the first time in years. It is quietly humbling and it makes you faster.
Nothing leaves the room
That is not there to make it comfortable. It is what makes the rest possible, because you cannot go flat out somewhere you have to be careful.
Ask anyone who has done a HYROX why they went quicker on the day than they ever did in training. It was not the programming. It was the man beside them.
Five in the circle, not thirty. Your challenge gets its own hour, everyone knows what you are carrying, and somebody asks you next month what happened. Nobody trains properly for a race they have not entered. That is what the twelve months is.
What you turn up to
You set the targets. Four men doing the same make sure you hit them.
Every fortnight, you tell the circle where you’ve got to with what you set out to do. Every month, you put whatever’s pressing on the board, and the five of you work it through. Every few months, the full hour is yours, on the biggest thing you’re taking on.
We walk, whatever the weather
All five of you and me, outdoors. You change who you walk beside so you speak to everyone. Saying the hard thing is easier when nobody is looking at your face.
Coffee is waiting
It is ordered ahead and delivered to the room, so nobody loses twenty minutes to a queue. The walk loosens the thinking, the room finishes it.
One man, the full hour
The biggest thing he is taking on goes up and stays there until it has a shape and something he can do on Monday. The full hour comes round to each man roughly every five months.
Then two men, half an hour each
Whatever is pressing, and whatever is keeping things moving. Half an hour gets somewhere when four men already know your business.
A fortnight later, online
The first half hour is all five of you saying where you have got to with what you set out to do. Then two men take half an hour each on the board.
Just you and me
Ninety minutes with the whiteboard, for whatever you are not ready to say in front of the other four yet.
Every man is on the board every month. The full hour is yours roughly every five months.
In person at the Shire Retreat, Milton Keynes. Online between sessions. Members come from across Milton Keynes and the surrounding area.
Everything you commit to goes on the board
In your handwriting, with your initials next to it, in front of four other men. Next session it gets checked. Not by me, by them.
“Not yet, and here is why” counts. Saying why is the rep.
A business does not stop for a bad quarter
Your company goes through seasons. Good months, thin months, the quarter where three things go wrong at once. You do not get to sit those out, and neither does this.
So we walk in the rain. We walk in January. If it is coming down hard we take the shorter loop and get wetter, and the session happens exactly as it would have done.
You do not miss a meeting. That is not strictness for its own sake. It is the only way four other men can rely on you being there.
Small enough that you cannot hide in the middle
Nine things you do not have today
An honest read on how you are doing
No appraisal since the day you started, and the accounts lag a year. Four other owners is the first real calibration most men get.
Four more businesses to learn from
You have run one company, through one downturn, from one seat. Everything you believe about pricing and hiring comes from a sample of one.
Somebody going at it as hard as you
Staff want security, customers want service, your family wants you off the phone. Name one man you spoke to this week who wanted nothing from you.
Men who will tell you when you are wrong
Being the most capable person in your own building is comfortable and it has made you slower. Nobody has properly disagreed with you in years.
Somewhere the bigger plan is taken seriously
You had one and stopped saying it out loud, because saying it invites the question of why it has not happened. Here it gets said, then tested against what it would take.
Men who understand what it took
Best month in the firm’s history and nobody to tell. Not the staff, who would ask about pay. Not at home. Four men know exactly what that month cost you.
An explanation of your own instincts
Every member does CliftonStrengths on joining. Why you keep hiring the same man, and why some decisions stall for months.
A year of watching men unlike you
Four owners built completely differently. That does more for handling the difficult person on your team than any course.
And one built exactly like you
You hear your own reasoning come out of another man’s mouth, and see what it is doing to his business, with none of your defensiveness in the way.
What happens at the whiteboard
You start talking about the challenge, however it comes out. As you talk I write it up on the whiteboard, so the things that matter are out of your head and where you can see them. Then the real work starts.
Find the connections
Most of what looks like six separate challenges turns out to be two.
Find what is missing
The information or the numbers you have been deciding without.
Find your blind spots
Where your own way of leading is sitting inside the challenge, causing part of it.
Get to the real cause
Not the version at the top, which is usually a symptom.
Work out what will hold
Which solutions survive all of the above, and which quietly will not.
By then I know how you are wired, so the questions are aimed at the way you think. The other four must ask you a question before they offer an opinion. That is a rule of the room.
Near each other, on purpose
Meeting twice a month for a year is long enough that these stop being four men you meet and start being four men you know. Which is when the useful part starts.
One of them rings you on a Tuesday because he has just been offered something and wants a view before the end of the day. One passes you a name worth having, a bookkeeper who is actually any good or a solicitor who answers the phone. None of that happens if the five of you are scattered across the country and the only contact is a booked session.
What the room asks of you
Five obligations, and they are the reason it works. Every man signs up to the same ones.
You turn up
Twice a month, for twelve months. Not when it suits, and not only when the weather is good.
You bring something real
Not the summary. The thing you have been going round in the car.
You do what you said, or say why not
The first half hour of every online session is exactly this.
You ask before you advise
Nobody offers a view until he has asked a question. House rule, and I enforce it.
You keep it in the room
All of it. That is what makes the rest possible.
Four men who will hold you to what you said, and never repeat a word of it outside the room.
“Will I be the one who is behind?”
Almost everybody wonders it. Almost nobody says it.
Circles are not built by size of business. They are built by whether five men are stuck on challenges they can usefully think about together. Nine staff and a partnership falling apart is more use to twenty-four staff and no successor than any matching turnover would be.
You will be ahead of the others on some things and behind on others. That is the arrangement, and it is the only way to find out where you actually are.
John Obidipe
John Obidipe runs at.theboard. He has spent more than fifteen years in organisational consulting and executive coaching, is Gallup-certified in CliftonStrengths, and has coached leaders inside Toyota, Convatec and the University of Oxford as well as owners running firms of £500k to £5m. Every member takes CliftonStrengths when he joins.
I will not tell you how to run your business. What I will do is bring what I have seen work and fail in other companies, large and small, and then find the answer with you rather than hand you one.
There is no good reason to solve something with one mind when you can put six on it.
Men who own and run the business
- You own it and run it day to day
- Turnover £500,000 to £5 million
- Five to twenty-five staff
- Still doing the work yourself
- Going at it, not coasting
- Looking for men to sell to
- Looking for a speaker or a conference
- Want somebody to tell you what to do
- Would not say the real thing in front of four others
- Would coast for a month and let the others carry it
The hour is free and open to anybody. A place in a circle is not. I build these rather than fill them, because in a circle of five, one man coasting costs the other four their year.
Month thirteen, away
Twelve months of this should not simply stop. The first week after the year is done, the five of you go away together.
Your twelve boards, on the wall
Every commitment you made and every tick, printed and up in the room. It is the only record of the year that exists.
Each man’s year, out loud
What he said in session one and what actually happened. Twenty minutes each, and the only time the circle looks backwards.
Another twelve months, or not
Decided in the room, face to face, rather than by email in month eleven.
Priced separately and at cost, because I make nothing on it. Named at joining so it is part of the shape of the year rather than something sprung on you in month eleven.
Three ways to go further than the circle
The circle is the spine of it. These are open to members only, and none of them is pushed at you.
One to one with me, fortnightly
Instead of the ninety minutes every two months. For a year where a great deal is happening at once.
Coaching your second in command
Six sessions over three months with the man who could run things when you are not there.
A day with your whole team
All of them in a room with the whiteboard, working the decisions that currently reach your desk by default.
Three sessions, then you decide
Membership runs for twelve months, because a circle men drift in and out of stops being a circle.
But you cannot tell from one hour whether these four are the right four. So your first three sessions, roughly six weeks, are yours to walk away from. Say so and we stop, with nothing to pay for the rest and no conversation about why.
What membership includes
The fee is discussed on the call, because it depends on which circle you join and when. Founding members hold their rate for as long as they stay.
What owners ask before they join
Is there a men’s business group in Milton Keynes?
Yes. at.theboard is a circle of five male owner-managers in Milton Keynes who meet in person every month at the Shire Retreat and online a fortnight later, for twelve months. It is a business peer group for owners who want to be pushed on their numbers and their decisions, rather than a social or wellbeing group.
Who is it for?
Men who own and run a business in or near Milton Keynes, usually with £500k to £5m turnover and five or more staff, who are still doing a lot of the work themselves and want four other owners holding them to what they say they will do.
How often does the circle meet?
Twice a month. One in-person half day at the Shire Retreat: a sixty-minute walk, coffee, then the whiteboard, where one man takes a full hour and two men take half an hour each. A fortnight later, ninety minutes online. Each member also has ninety minutes one to one with John every two months. That comes to about six hours a month.
How long do I commit for?
Twelve months. The circle stays the same five men for the year, because the value comes from people who know your business well enough to notice when you are coasting.
How is this different from a networking group?
Networking groups in Milton Keynes meet weekly or fortnightly to pass referrals. at.theboard has no referral target and no selling in the room. Five owners work on each other’s real decisions, and every commitment is written on the whiteboard with a name and a date.
How does it compare with Vistage or The Alternative Board?
Both are established peer advisory options. Vistage groups usually have twelve to sixteen members meeting for a day each month, and The Alternative Board runs monthly advisory boards in Milton Keynes. at.theboard is smaller, five men, with every member on the whiteboard every month, a walk built into each session, and a fixed twelve-month circle.
How do I join?
Start with a free hour at the whiteboard with John on whatever is live in your business. The free hour is open to anyone. A place in a circle is not, because one man coasting costs the other four their year. The first circle is being selected now.
How at.theboard compares with the other options in Milton Keynes
An hour at the whiteboard. Free.
It goes on the whiteboard
Whatever is genuinely live this week, in your words, not the tidy version.
You leave with something to do
We stay with it until it has a shape and something you can act on Monday.
No pitch afterwards
Free whether you join or not. No follow-up sequence.
I say what I think as we go rather than saving it up for the end. That includes telling you if what you have is a process problem rather than a judgement one, in which case I will say so and send you off to fix the process. That happens, and it costs me the work, which is fine.