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The evidence

What the data actually looks like.

Six engagements that began with diagnosis and then acted on what it found. Below are anonymized excerpts from real reports: the scores, the divergences, the annualized costs and the programmes that came out of them.

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Every client name, personal name, assessment vendor and system name has been removed. Sector and headcount only.

Six engagements

Six-figure investments. Multi-million-dollar returns.

Every one of these started the same way: measure first, then build the programme against what the measurement found. None of them began with a solution already chosen.

Tap an engagement to see what we found and what we built.

EngagementSector · sizeWhat the assessment found, and what we builtEst. returnROI
Succession & talent pipeline
Distribution · 400
Simulations showed patchy strategic bench strength and long vacancies filled by costly external hires. We built a succession framework for critical roles, used simulation data to identify high-potentials, and added targeted development and talent dashboards.
$11M
25:1
Post-acquisition OD
Arch. / eng. · 250
Siloed teams and conflicting processes after an acquisition; simulations showed weak collaboration and cross-firm thinking. We built a unified operating model and governance, harmonized processes into a shared playbook, consolidated systems and ran a leadership programme with change champions.
$10.5M
15:1
Digital transformation & HRIS
Supply chain · 500
Fragmented workflows and unclear decision rights; simulations showed leaders strong at execution but weaker at change leadership. We built a digital roadmap aligned to business priorities, redesigned and digitized the HR processes, and developed leaders in communication and coaching.
$6M
20:1
Learning & development system
Construction · 300
Diagnostics showed unclear decision rights and low candour, and simulations revealed supervisors underusing coaching under pressure. We built a learning hub with role-based paths, 90-day onboarding with mentors, career paths and manager coaching.
$6M
20:1
Performance management system
Manufacturing · 500
Ad-hoc reviews, low manager confidence and no front-line support; simulations showed managers not using coaching techniques. We built a continuous performance framework with quarterly check-ins, embedded the tools in existing HR tech, and added manager enablement and leader dashboards.
$5.6M
16:1
Leadership development programme
Prof. services · 200
Senior retirements approaching against a thin bench; simulations showed gaps in strategic thinking and change leadership. We built a competency model tied to growth ambitions, a programme for senior leaders and high-potentials, workshops, 1:1 coaching and succession integration.
$2.9M
6:1
Six engagements
Six sectors
One repeatable method, applied to six different businesses.
~$42M
6–25:1

How to read these figures: returns are modelled three-year EBITDA recapture against a fixed engagement fee, on conservative capture and adoption assumptions. They are directional and context-dependent rather than audited. Client names, personal names and system names have been removed throughout.

Take the case studies with you.

All six engagements in full — the challenge, what the assessment found, exactly what we built against it, and the return. Written for a board pack, not a brochure.

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01
Inside Instrument One

The Alignment Check

What the organization looks like on paper. Excerpts from a completed engagement, anonymized. An industrial manufacturer: 105 employees, a whole-population assessment and fourteen in-depth interviews. By every conventional indicator, a healthy organization. It was nonetheless absorbing $725,000 a year in avoidable cost. A favourable benchmark is not evidence of an efficient organization.

Assessment data collected using SKOR. Analysis, costing and recommendations are AMC Services’ own.

Where executive belief and frontline experience diverge

Every item is answered twice: once by those who set direction, once by those who execute it. The divergence between the two is the finding. On this engagement it was widest on candour, recognition and the organization's appetite for new ideas.

Leaders scored the claim that new ideas are welcomed at 8.6. The people expected to generate those ideas scored it 6.7. Managers rated their own follow-through 1.9 points above their teams' assessment of it. Neither number is an opinion. Both are a cost.

What each divergence costs, per year

Each divergence is priced against this organization's own payroll and operating data, then ranked by magnitude. The largest single exposure was $163K; the smallest, $60K.

In aggregate: $725,000 a year, the carrying cost of a culture that outscored its sector and still failed to pull in one direction.

What holds, what erodes, and where leadership and the frontline disagree

Holds
Follow-through

Commitments are honoured; the highest single result in the assessment, at 9.2.

Mutual support

Teams absorb one another's load; collaboration held above 8.5 throughout.

Erodes
Cross-functional flow

Information moving between teams scored 5.6, the weakest result recorded.

Leadership capacity

Each people leader forfeits 3.8 hours a week to rework and workarounds.

Divergences
Follow-through

Managers rate themselves 1.9 points above their teams.

New ideas

8.6 from leadership; 6.7 from those expected to supply them.

Strategic risk register, with exposure

Succession vacuum
$750K – $1.5M
No identified successor for two critical operating roles; emergency recruitment costed at $50K–$150K per role. High probability, critical impact.
Tribal knowledge dependency
$645K – $1.11M
Machine setup procedures undocumented and resident with individuals. A previous departure cost 6–8 weeks of recovery and an 8% scrap increase.
Leadership capacity
$525K – $780K
Senior leaders spending 50–60% of their time firefighting rather than on strategy; routine approvals delaying decisions by 24–48 hours.
Technology underutilization
$530K – $780K
The ERP acts as a drag rather than a tool: 4–6 hours weekly of manual entry per high-value employee, with staff maintaining shadow spreadsheets.

The convergence of these four risks was assessed at a 60–80% probability of a major operational disruption within 24 months without intervention. Total unweighted exposure: $3.6M–$6.1M.

Healthy is not the same as efficient. This organization was both healthy and expensive.

How the Alignment Check works Book a 30-minute scoping call
02
Inside Instrument Two

The AMC Leadership Simulation

Can these leaders build the business you just described? A group we worked with was tightening its operating model, expanding into a second country and moving to a more meritocratic performance culture. Their executives spent three hours with us defining the competencies that future state would require. Then we measured the entire senior leadership team against it — including the CEO, the CFO and the President.

What we actually measure

Decisions under pressure — not intentions on paper.

We don't ask leaders to describe themselves. We put them under pressure and watch what they decide. Every decision reveals two things at once: the competency a leader leans into when the stakes rise, and the competency they trade off to get there.

That trade-off is the data nobody else has. A leader who consistently trades transparency for speed is not a bad leader — but if the strategy depends on alignment across three regions, that trade is now a business risk, and it is visible before it costs anything.

One decision, two readings
Leans into
Making decisions quickly
Trades off
Communicating transparently
Repeated across a full simulation, the pattern of leans and trades is the leader's competency profile — measured on behaviour, not on self-report or interview performance.

Don't you want to know how your leaders are making decisions — and whether those are the right decisions for the goals and strategy you have set?

01

The competency profile these executives defined for their future business state.

Built in a three-hour session by that group's own executive team, for the business they were trying to become. This is one company's profile, not a template. Yours would be built the same way and would almost certainly look different.

Must-have · 5

Decides the next 12–24 months

  • Driven by organizational goals
  • Strategizing for the future
  • Adjusting to change
  • Communicating transparently
  • Mentoring others
Nice-to-have · 5

Real leverage, not decisive

  • Commitment to process
  • Valuing innovation
  • Making decisions quickly
  • Managing key relationships
  • Unyielding persistence
Neutral · 5

Not unimportant — just not deciding

  • Establishing a vision
  • Prioritizing others' feelings
  • Focusing on social values
  • Managing situations with tact
  • Persuading others

Naming the neutrals is deliberate. It stops a development budget being spent on competencies that will not move this business.

02

How the nine leaders actually matched that profile.

Every member of the senior leadership team measured against the competencies their own executives had just defined.

Broad alignment to the profile Selective alignment Strongly contextual — deep in some areas, narrow in others

Nine senior leaders, plotted by match score against the profile their own executives built. This spread is the finding. It is not a ranking and it is not a performance review — it shows that one-size-fits-all leadership training would have been the wrong investment for seven of the nine.

The full fifteen-competency map
Spider map of fifteen leadership competencies in four orientations: strategic, people, outcome and communication. The people and communication orientations are shaded.

Fifteen competencies in four orientations. Mentoring and transparent communication, the two gaps, sit in the shaded orientations.

3 · Coverage against the five must-haves

Driven by organizational goalsStrong
Adjusting to changeStrong
Strategizing for the futureAdequate
Communicating transparentlyInconsistent
Mentoring othersThe clear gap

The message to the CEO was not a warning. This team had a strong business and execution core, and no leadership vacuum. The largest opportunity was to convert existing drive into developing other people — mentoring, transparency and management leverage — because the next phase depended on bench strength below the senior team.

What happened next

The gaps became the curriculum.

Two competencies carried the whole finding: mentoring and transparent communication. So the development programme was not a leadership course — it was built against those two gaps, for this team, in this business.

  1. Meet, establish trust, set intent.

  2. Foundations — why behaviour, not theory. One-to-one coaching follows, before the next workshop.

  3. Strategic orientation. One-to-one coaching follows, before the next workshop.

  4. People orientation. One-to-one coaching follows, before the next workshop.

  5. Outcome orientation. One-to-one coaching follows, before the next workshop.

  6. Communication orientation. One-to-one coaching follows, before the next workshop.

  7. Conclusion & future planning.

Individual coaching runs between every workshop. The group sessions build a shared language for leadership across the executive and management layers. The one-to-one work translates it into role-specific behaviour change — each leader has their own plan, targeting the competencies they should keep leaning into and the ones they need to grow. Nine leaders, nine different plans, one shared vocabulary.

Why this works when leadership training usually doesn't

We don't believe in out-of-the-box leadership programmes. An off-the-shelf curriculum assumes every leader needs the same thing, and the match data showed that was untrue here for seven of the nine. We let the data point at the areas that actually need work, and we build only those.

Group workshops create the shared language across the executive and management layers. Individual coaching does the behavioural work, one leader at a time. And because the competency profile came from the executives themselves, nobody had to be convinced the targets were the right ones.

The coaching behind the programme

Hear what people are saying about working with Mike

Partnering with Mike has been one of the best leadership decisions I have made as President. Across our partnership he helped us see what we were doing well and where we could grow, as a team and as individuals. Psychological safety developed, freeing everyone to speak their minds. Our leadership team still consults him months later, and we have retained him for a second cohort.

Jeremy NixonPresident, Brown & Beattie Ltd.

The coaching helped transform our talented leaders into major contributors who work effectively on their own and can manage teams of varying talents and performance levels. Our teams have learned to transfer their lower performers as well as accelerate their high performers.

Nick CoffeltVP Engineering, Americas · Aluma Systems

We knew it was critical to invest in our foremen and supervisors, the backbone of our organization — not just their leadership skills but them as individuals. We worked with Mike for two years. His unique style of weaving together the personal and professional lives of his clients was exactly what we wanted.

John AbelOwner & President, Navacon Construction

Pragmatic and genuinely insightful leadership sessions. Mike created a space where we could engage openly, helping us feel more comfortable and better informed, as individuals and as a leadership group.

Lili Vu-CampbellPartner, CORE Architects

Coaching testimonials are published with the named permission of each client, as they appear in Watkinson Coaching’s practice materials. Meet Mike →

Nine leaders. Nine different plans. One shared vocabulary.

How the Leadership Simulation works Book a 30-minute scoping call

All figures, scores and competency profiles above are from completed AMC engagements. Client names, individual names, assessment vendors and software systems have been removed to protect client confidentiality. Your own report is yours alone — findings go to you and your senior team, and nothing from an engagement appears anywhere without written permission.

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Agnes Watkinson Managing Principal agnes@amc-services.ca
Leslie Dibling Director of Organizational Development leslie@amc-services.ca