You need to decide where to go next.
The next strategic move is unclear. You need to weigh your options against your goals, your responsibilities, and what you want this next chapter to be.
Private executive work for men
Everything needs your attention. One decision could shape your next decade.
Every day brings decisions. But one is weighing on you more than the rest.
It could change the direction of your company, the future of your team, your marriage, or your family. It could determine how you spend the next decade and whether the life you’re building is one you want to live.
You need to consider the people affected, understand what matters to you, and make a call you can stand behind. That takes a clear view of the situation and an honest look at what is influencing you.
When the stakes are high
The cost of a poorly handled decision can last for years.
A major change can affect your company, your relationships, your finances, and how you live. You need to understand the tradeoffs, consider the people involved, and recognize what pressure may be keeping you from seeing.
The decision reaches into your closest relationships.
A change in your marriage or family may need attention. A business decision may affect the people closest to you. You need honest conversations about what is changing and what each person needs.
You’ve been under pressure for too long.
Stress is affecting your energy, patience, and ability to think clearly. You need relief and a more sustainable way to handle what comes next.
How the cost compounds
What once drove your success can quietly become the cage.
Pressure produces the result.
You become the person everything depends on.
Rest, relationships, and perspective thin out.
Your energy and range narrow.
Big choices begin to feel impossible.
More pressure is required to keep performing.
The more you rely on pressure, the harder it becomes to see another way forward.
The Caged King Assessment
Find out where you are losing power.
The Caged King Assessment looks across Purpose, Partnership, and Presence to show where pressure is costing you the most, which answers are shaping the result, and where one change could make the biggest difference now.
Take the Caged King Assessment- 26 questions
- About 5 minutes
- Free
- Personalized results immediately
Why familiar fixes stop working
You cannot solve a deeper pattern with a better surface tactic.
More discipline
You already know how to push. More force usually strengthens the pattern that brought you here.
A new role
A different company or title can create movement without changing what you carry into it.
Another leadership framework
New language does not help if the old pressure still decides how you lead.
A vacation or sabbatical
Rest can restore capacity. It does not automatically change what consumes it.
The question is not whether these things can help. It is whether they reach what is actually running you.
The real work
This moment demands more of you.
You may be facing the biggest opportunity of your career or a decision that will shape the next decade of your life. Meeting it well may require strengths and resources you haven’t yet drawn on.
The real work is discovering and developing that capacity. More clarity about what matters. More range in how you respond. More primal power to face hard truths and shape what comes next.
When the man at the center changes
The shift begins with the leader. It does not end there.
When a leader has more range, the effects can move through decisions, relationships, execution, and the entire organization. The work is personal. The impact is not.
Novanta
2×
Revenue, stock price, and market cap during the two-year engagement. Revenue went from $300M to $600M.
StreamSets
3×
Valuation at exit: $200M to $600M, acquired by Software AG
Lyft B2B
50×
Annual recurring revenue grew from roughly $5 million to $250 million in the year Jim coached the division’s leader. The division went on to exceed $1 billion by year three.
Figures describe each company during the period of the engagement. Company results depend on many factors.
Featured Case Study: Novanta
From command-and-control to collaborative excellence
When the COO stepped into the CEO role at Novanta, he inherited a deeply entrenched command-and-control culture. The previous CEO had been the singular decision-maker, and the entire organization stayed in reactive mode to his directives.
Critical business unit challenges weren’t being surfaced. Quarterly Business Reviews had devolved into adversarial sessions. Leadership morale was suffering as people focused on impression management rather than problem-solving.
The intervention wasn’t a new strategy deck. It was a deep examination of the leadership shadows running the culture, and a deliberate change in how power moved through the organization, starting with how the leader operated.
- Revenue went from $300M to $600M during the engagement
- Stock price and market capitalization doubled over the same two years
- Executive team shifted from silos to genuine collaboration
- Critical problems surfaced and were resolved rather than hidden
- QBRs transformed from adversarial interrogations into problem-solving sessions
How it moved at Novanta
Command-and-control at the top
A singular decision-maker, with the organization in reactive mode.
Problems not surfaced
Critical business unit challenges stayed hidden and QBRs turned adversarial.
Impression management and silos
Leaders focused on how they appeared rather than on solving problems, and the executive team worked in silos.
How the leader operated changed
The work examined the patterns running the culture and changed how power moved through the organization.
Leadership and execution moved differently
Problems surfaced and were resolved, the executive team collaborated, and quarterly reviews became problem-solving sessions.
20+Years consulting executives
30+Leadership teams worked with
From startups to Fortune 500 companiesRange of client organizations
The private work
Keep your edge. Change what powers it.
This is private work for men who still have consequential decisions to make and no longer want pressure to make those decisions for them.
Find where you are trapped
Name the places where pressure, obligation, or old success has narrowed your choices.
Meet what is running you
See the unseen forces shaping how you lead, relate, decide, and recover.
Expand your range
Use truth, intensity, boundaries, rest, and relationship without losing your edge.
Lead the next chapter
Make the role, money, legacy, and life decisions from clarity rather than exhaustion or obligation.
Live group executive briefing
Your next decision could change everything.
Your company. Your marriage. The future you’ve spent years building.
The pressure is real. So is the cost of getting it wrong.
The Caged King Executive Briefing is for senior male executives and founders facing a decision they can no longer put off. We’ll examine how to recognize what is influencing your judgment, face what you’ve been avoiding, and find options your usual approach may be keeping you from seeing.
You’re registered.
Before you come, take the Caged King Assessment.
In about five minutes, you’ll identify where pressure is costing you across purpose, partnership, and presence. Your results will help you connect the briefing to the decisions and challenges you’re facing now.
Take the Caged King AssessmentAlready completed it? Bring your results to the briefing.
A group briefing. No one is required to disclose personal details.
What we will examine
- What being a “man on the verge” really demands. Separate what needs action now from what pressure is pushing you to do.
- Who and what you need to consider. Account for your business, your family, and the people affected without making yourself responsible for everyone’s happiness.
- What you may be avoiding. Recognize where fear, guilt, control, or the need for approval could be narrowing your choices.
- Where your familiar tools fall short. Understand why insight and discipline may leave the underlying pattern intact.
- What you want to be able to stand behind. Consider the long-term consequences, your own needs, and the difficult conversations your decision requires.
45 minutes · Live on Zoom · Free
A private conversation
Make this chapter count.
If you know the current way cannot continue, bring the question you can no longer avoid. We will look directly at what is holding you back and whether this is the right work for what comes next.
Request a private conversation