data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAD/ACwAAAAAAQABAAACADs=

EXECUTION ARCHITECTURE

Name: UNLEARN Leadership
Address: Jacksonville

For PE operating partners and portfolio CEOs.

Your leaders agreed to the operating model.

What do they do when pressure hits?

Book a 20-minute call

Take the Five Traps Diagnostic

EXECUTION ARCHITECTURE

For PE operating partners and portfolio CEOs.

Your leaders agreed to the operating model.

What do they do when pressure hits?

Book a 20-minute call

Take the Five Traps Diagnostic

WHEN OPERATING PARTNERS CALL

Three moments bring operating partners here.

The first is a new platform in its first year, while the leadership team is still forming around the plan.

The second is a new CEO, while a new executive team decides how it will decide.

The third is a specific result that has fallen behind plan.

At a launch, the Retreat tests how the leadership team operates while its routines are taking shape.

Behind plan, it tests the team while the quarter is already under way.

WHAT IT COSTS TO LEAVE IT OUT

The plan wins agreement in the room.

Execution tests it outside.

That gap has a name and a price.

I call it the Invisible Tax: the EBITDA your plan loses to how the leadership team behaves under pressure.

This is a book illustration, not a measured company loss.

THE INVISIBLE TAX models the tax at 9% of EBITDA.

On $70M of EBITDA, that is $6.3M a year.

If that shortfall is still there at exit and a buyer pays 10 times EBITDA, it could cut enterprise value by about $63M.

THE FIVE TRAPS

Each trap begins as a strength.

Pressure pushes it past its useful range.

The Fear Trap: Diligence overextends into Control.

Every decision routes through one person who won’t let go.

The Expert Trap: Competence overextends into Certainty.

Your sharpest leader can no longer be told he’s wrong.

The Ego Trap: Ambition overextends into Competition.

Your best people compete with each other instead of the market.

The Silence Trap: Empathy overextends into Avoidance.

Bad news reaches you too late to act on it.

The Fog Trap: Flexibility overextends into Chaos.

Ask six leaders to name the one priority and you get six answers.

Two-column chart pairing five leadership strengths with the trap each becomes under pressure: Dilige

Under pressure, each strength on the left becomes the trap on the right.

WHAT HOLDS

The Four Components

A new leadership team arrives with strategy: the model, the value creation plan, the hundred-day deck, the board commitments.

What rarely arrives with it are four things.

A Single Overriding Priority is one objective for the quarter that outranks the rest of the list.

Decision Rights put one name on each decision, with authority to call it without asking permission.

An Operating Cadence is a fixed rhythm, the same hour every week.

Information Flow carries status up and down while the number can still move.

The traps never go away.

These four hold their shape when the traps push back.

The plan reaches results through four components, with the five traps pushing against each.

Every trap presses on the same path the plan has to travel.

HOW IT RUNS AND WHAT IT COSTS

On-site fees are fixed and include travel, and a keynote outside Florida gets its own fixed quote.

At a launch, start with the Executive Retreat or a keynote for the new team.

When a result is behind, start with the Review or the Retreat.

The Executive Retreat costs $25,000 and puts eight leaders, counting the CEO, on site for two days, with $2,500 for each leader above eight, up to ten.

Every participant completes the Five Traps Diagnostic beforehand and has one private interview during the two days, 60 minutes each for a team of eight.

The team takes the priority test and the Helium Stick, a live coordination exercise.

Then it rebuilds a real delayed decision or missed milestone.

At a launch without one, it rebuilds a recent decision behind the new plan, such as how its top priority was chosen.

An exercise becomes a finding only when company records back it up.

A written result of one to two pages follows in 10 business days, then a readout on site.

The 90-Day Intensive costs $75,000 and follows a Retreat when the evidence supports it.

It runs on three site visits of two to three days each and a weekly CEO call of up to 45 minutes.

I install one priority with three to five measures, a weekly 60-minute Business Plan Review, written decision rights, a 15-minute daily stand-up for the people who need daily coordination, a safe way to call Red and the Hot Wash, a short, blame-free review after a miss.

Each new routine replaces a named existing meeting or report.

An internal Steward and two alternates run it after I leave, with a monthly Hold Score to the CEO and the Operating Partner.

The Portfolio Execution Risk Review costs $8,500, covers one company by video and takes about four weeks.

I read the plan, board materials, leadership reporting and the records of work that slipped, and I interview up to six people, including the Operating Partner and the CEO, in 45-minute video calls.

You get a short report on the risks the evidence supports and a 30-minute call to walk through it.

A keynote costs $10,000 in Florida and runs 60 to 90 minutes for a board, an investment committee, a group of operating partners or one leadership team.

WHO IT FITS

The work fits a PE-backed company with $50 million to $500 million in revenue at one of the three moments above.

The Operating Partner is the main buyer, and the CEO’s cooperation is required.

It does not fit a company in bankruptcy or under lender control.

It does not fit a buyer who wants a set conclusion or a verdict on one person.

It does not fit a team with no authority to change how it runs.

If the evidence points to the plan, the resources or the market, I say so.

WHY AN OUTSIDER

Everything I install is in the book, and some leaders build it from there.

Built from inside, it runs on the leader’s willpower, and pressure spends willpower first.

The Intensive has a defined ninety-day schedule and a fixed fee.

The pressure behaviors that break a team hide from the people running them, and someone outside the pattern can see them.

Pressure cancels the weekly review first, so I hold that line while your Steward and two alternates learn to run it without me.

WHO DOES THE WORK

I’m Julius Csizmazia, author of THE INVISIBLE TAX: Execution Architecture.

I run the Retreat in the room, install the Intensive with the CEO and hand it to an internal Steward and two alternates.

One person does the work, start to finish.

My corporate career ran through AT&T, Comcast and Wall Street.

I studied biology at Yale and hold an MS in Management from National-Louis University.

I’m based in Jacksonville, Florida, and I work on site wherever the leadership team sits.

Author photo: Julius Csizmazia holding THE INVISIBLE TAX: Execution Architecture.

Julius Csizmazia. THE INVISIBLE TAX: Execution Architecture.

THE BOOK IN 78 SECONDS

Under pressure, a leadership team’s best strengths turn into traps: Fear, Expert, Ego, Silence and Fog.

THE INVISIBLE TAX: Execution Architecture shows how to build the structure that holds when pressure returns.

Available in Kindle, paperback and hardcover on Amazon.

THE CALL

The call takes twenty minutes, by video or phone.

Tell me which moment you’re in and what the plan has to deliver.

I’ll tell you whether this work fits.

If it doesn’t, I’ll say so on the call.

BOOK A 20-MINUTE CALL →

You can also start on your own.

The Five Traps Diagnostic runs on this site, and the report reaches your inbox as a PDF.

TAKE THE FIVE TRAPS DIAGNOSTIC →

CONTACT

UNLEARN Leadership

Jacksonville, FL

EXECUTION ARCHITECTURE

EXECUTION ARCHITECTURE

WHEN OPERATING PARTNERS CALL

Three moments bring operating partners here.

WHAT IT COSTS TO LEAVE IT OUT

The plan wins agreement in the room.

THE FIVE TRAPS

Each trap begins as a strength.

WHAT HOLDS

The Four Components

HOW IT RUNS AND WHAT IT COSTS

On-site fees are fixed and include travel, and a keynote outside Florida gets its own fixed quote.

WHO IT FITS

WHY AN OUTSIDER

Everything I install is in the book, and some leaders build it from there.

WHO DOES THE WORK

I’m Julius Csizmazia, author of THE INVISIBLE TAX: Execution Architecture.

THE BOOK IN 78 SECONDS

THE CALL

The call takes twenty minutes, by video or phone.

CONTACT

REACH JULIUS

UNLEARN Leadership

This site uses cookies.