For a long time my job was to advise. Diagnose the process, map the stakeholders, recommend the priorities, train the teams. Good work, and useful. Then I spent years on the other side of the table: starting and running more than five companies, including two mergers and acquisitions; building social ventures such as PotHoleRaja and GridMats; and working with civic bodies and government departments to get things done in public.
I have come back to consulting with a different lens. This article is the summary. Three companion pieces go deeper into each part: running companies, social ventures and working with government.
What running companies taught me
Constraints decide strategy. In a boardroom presentation, the constraint is usually capability. In a company you run, it is cash, time and the attention of a few key people. A plan that ignores payment cycles, hiring lead times or the founder’s calendar is not a plan.
Decisions matter more than analysis. You rarely get complete information. What separates good operators is knowing which decisions are reversible, making those quickly, and slowing down only for the few that are not.
Integration is where deals succeed or fail. Going through mergers and acquisitions taught me that the signing is the easy part. Value is created or lost in the months after, in how people, customers, systems and culture come together.
What social ventures taught me
Impact has to be visible to be supported. PotHoleRaja works because every fixed pothole is a before-and-after that anyone can see. More than 40,000 potholes across 30+ cities later, visibility is still what brings in the next partner.
People join when they have a role. Over 25,000 volunteers took part not because they were asked to care, but because they were given something specific to do.
Viability is not optional. A mission without a working model stalls. GridMats grew from the same insight into a patented, commercial product, because impact that pays for itself can scale.
What government taught me
Process is the product. In public systems, approvals, documentation and audit trails are not bureaucracy to route around; they are how decisions survive transfers, audits and elections.
Pilots persuade better than proposals. A small, visible success that an official can point to moves faster than the best-written policy note.
Shared credit moves programs. The public-private-people partnerships that worked were the ones where every party, including the department, could claim part of the success.
What this changes about consulting
These experiences have changed how I think consulting should be done. Six things are different now.
- Every recommendation comes with an execution path and a cash view. Not just what to do, but who does it, what it costs, when it pays back, and what has to stop to make room for it.
- The stakeholder map goes beyond the org chart. Regulators, communities, partners, unions and investors shape outcomes as much as internal teams do.
- Pilots come before programs. A working pilot in the real workflow earns more commitment than a perfect slide deck.
- Adoption is designed, not assumed. Roles, incentives, training in the flow of work and visible progress are part of the design from day one.
- Fewer reports, more working sessions. Leaders make better decisions in the room with the evidence than reading a document afterwards.
- AI goes where it removes friction. Start with the work, then apply AI to the decisions and hand-offs that slow it down.
Five questions to ask any consultant, including us
- Have you been accountable for executing something like this, not just recommending it?
- What will we be able to see working within 90 days?
- What does this cost in cash and in leadership attention, and when does it pay back?
- Who outside our organization has to say yes for this to work?
- What will you transfer to our people so we do not need you next time?
That is the standard I hold GroundReality to: advice shaped by having carried the accountability, and measured by what works on the ground.
