The model has to travel
Not just the motion, but the system carrying it.
Who we helpExpansion
The model that worked for one team rarely survives being copied across the next.
A working commercial motion gets multiplied across new territories, segments or teams. The operating model that carried the first one quietly stops travelling to the next.
Stage read
The model has to travel, not just the motion.
Enablement turns reactive
Support arrives after drift instead of preventing it.
The numbers stop meaning one thing
The same metric describes different realities per team.
Local exceptions become the norm
Each market keeps a variation nobody agreed centrally.
Onboarding lags the hiring plan
New teams start selling before the system reaches them.
Copies under one number
The motion was copied. The system carrying it was not.
Each new team rebuilds its own version. The shared dashboard keeps reporting a single number for several different realities.
The symptom is reported at the surface. The cause sits underneath it.
The same metric means different things
Each team builds its own version of a stage or a territory boundary.
Surface · what gets reportedThe motion was copied, the system was not
A new team gets the people and the target but not the operating model.
Structure · what produces itEnablement arrives after the drift
Support responds to divergence instead of preventing it.
System · where it breaksOne dashboard reporting several realities
The number stops describing anything a leader can act on.
Consequence · what it costsCause and consequence rarely surface in the same place.
What it looks for here
Compare the model across teams before local drift becomes normal.
The diagnostic tests all six dysfunction families without assuming which one carries the expansion loss. It compares local and central decision rights, market-entry roles, pricing, channels, handoffs, reporting and enablement, then checks whether the operating model was explicit or only appeared consistent while one team carried it.
- Commercial operations and enablement
- Regional and segment leaders
- Pricing and partner owners
- Pipeline definitions
- Territory rules and approval paths
- Governance cadence
A working model being copied across teams changes how the strain presents.
What the next stage demands
The operating model has to travel, not just the target.
A second team gets the people and the number. What the next stage demands is that it also gets the system that made the first team work.
The model made explicit
What made the first team succeed was rarely the artefact. It was a set of decisions nobody wrote down, and only written decisions travel.
Definitions that hold across teams
When each team builds its own version of a stage or a territory boundary, one dashboard starts reporting several realities.
Enablement before divergence
Support that arrives after teams have drifted is correcting; support designed into the launch is preventing. The cost difference is large.
A single reading of performance
Comparability across teams is what makes a number actionable. Without it, leadership is comparing artefacts rather than results.
What happens next
Three ways in, depending on what the evidence already says.
Executive Workshop
Three hours with the people who can change the system. One condition named, in writing, before any evidence is gathered.
Explore the Workshop →Diagnosis
Interviews, the records you already produce and your own rates. What is breaking, what it costs, what to change first.
Explore the Diagnosis →Strain Check
Ten questions, two minutes. A first read on which part of your commercial system is carrying the most strain.
Take the Strain Check → FAQ
Before you assume the second team just needs more time.
Our first team is already profitable, shouldn't we just copy exactly what they do?
Copy the outcome, not the artifact. What made the first team work was rarely the specific script or spreadsheet, it was a set of decisions that were never written down, so a literal copy usually carries over the surface and misses the reason it worked.
We are just opening one new region, is that really worth a diagnostic?
One region is exactly when the pattern is easiest to inspect before it becomes normal elsewhere. Once the same gap has been copied into additional teams, every correction has to travel through more local processes and ownership decisions.
How disruptive is this while we are actively hiring into the new team?
Interviews are scheduled around your team's calendar and do not pause hiring. Most clients prefer to know what is actually being copied before more people are trained into it.
Should we start with Diagnosis or go straight to Operation?
If the first team's model is already known to work and the question is how to carry it cleanly into the next one, Operation is often the faster path. Diagnosis is the better start when it is not yet clear whether the original model is even worth copying as is.
Get started
One team's model, repeated across the company. A number shows where the copy leaks.
Use 30 minutes to define the operating question, test what evidence exists and decide whether Kihon has a role at all. No scope is proposed before that is clear.
Discuss the operating problem