The Focus Block · The method
The Focus Block method
Ninety days to your next milestone, with a method that gets you there.
You reach a big goal through steady progress, week after week. The Focus Block gives you ten sessions over 90 days, a method that works one step at a time, and an experienced partner who keeps you on course.
Who it is for
- CEOs and management teams with a goal three to five years out and a team to move
- Leaders stepping into a new role, a new market or the next stage of the company
- Board members who want the strategy to reach every desk in the company
- Individuals with a big personal goal and the will to reach it
What keeps a big goal on track
A plan works when people act on it together and adjust it as the market moves.
Teams that share one picture of the goal make every effort count toward it.
One method for all change work
Every engagement uses the same method, from one prepared decision in Your Next Move to the Focus Block and a seat on the board. It plans backwards from the big goal: broad strokes far out, full detail for the next move.
The method
From the big goal to the next move
- 1
Vision and drivers
The long-term picture, and the beliefs, values and motivators behind it.
Long term - 2
Big goal and milestones
The dream outcome three to five years out, and the three to five milestones that matter most.
3 to 5 years - 3
The next 30 to 90 days
Full detail for the next move: who does what, by when.
Now - 4
Monitor and adjust
Each session: where we stand, what changes, what comes next.
Every session
What you learn flows back into the next 30 to 90 days.
Zooming in
Broad strokes far out, full detail for the next move
↻Monitor and adjust: every session feeds back into the plan.
My work is alignment
What is the big goal, and does everyone see the same one? How do we get there, and does every action serve it? Then, session by session: where do we stand, what needs to change, and what is the next step?
Board directors, executives and employees build the plan together, which makes it their work. I know enough of every function to see where they pull apart. My work is bringing them back to the same goal.
Six principles
One goal everyone shares
The whole team sees the same picture of the goal, and every action serves it.
Start from the goal
We work backwards from where you want to be, and plan forward only as far as the next move.
Detail belongs to the next move
Far-out steps stay in broad strokes. The next 30 to 90 days get owners and dates.
Move with the environment
Markets, people and timing change. The plan moves with them, and the goal stays in sight.
Change the target when the evidence says so
When the evidence shows a goal is out of reach, we correct it early and keep moving.
Someone keeps you on course
Between sessions, a fixed rhythm brings you back to the goal.
Great technology rarely sells itself
Companies with great technology often struggle at the same two points: winning clients and winning investors. I have seen this pattern since my first years at work, and it is why I went deep into sales, marketing and PR around financing rounds and B2B sales.
Funding alone leaves the problem in place. Growing companies with investors and paying customers face the same hurdle when they scale.
One step shows the next
I have worked through this story many times: as a C-level executive, with advisory boards, and now in the Focus Block. It usually runs the same way.
The team wants more B2B clients or the next investors on board, and nobody has written down how many or by when. We start there: three to five new clients this year, or closing the round by a date. Different target groups, same problem.
That brings the first stumbling block into view. The first meetings go well, and then nobody follows up. Without follow-up, no client signs and no investor commits.
Once follow-up runs, the next question appears: what does the company really offer? The team describes what it built, while clients and investors pay for a result. Every step shows the next one.
Scale-ups
In a survey of 338 scaleup CEOs, 73% named access to markets as one of their top three challenges. The skills they work on most: sales and business development (59%) and brand building (47%).
Investors
When growth companies failed to raise capital in 2021, investors in 63% of those conversations saw a major skills gap in sales and marketing and decided not to invest.
Research
A study of failed European university spin-offs traced the failures to weak market development and missing marketing experience in the team. A small financial base was rarely the main cause.
From my reading list
“Technical specifications alone did not sell a chip.”
Tae Kim, The Nvidia Way, on Jensen Huang
“Many entrepreneurs … focus on technical info, which investors and consumers simply can’t relate to.”
Alejandro Cremades, The Art of Startup Fundraising
If this sounds familiar, you are in good company. It is one of the most common patterns in companies with strong technology, and one of the most rewarding to fix.
I know the pattern from my own running too. Over 17 marathons the lesson stayed the same: the race is the big goal, the training plan gets the detail, and when an injury shows the plan was too ambitious, the plan changes and the goal stays.
Where the method comes from
The method has grown over 36 years: ten years at commercial school and the University of Graz, then 26 years in leadership roles.
It started at commercial school, where I first planned backwards from a goal. At the University of Graz I joined evolaris as a project assistant on its first EU project, with the University of St. Gallen and Harvard. My first years at work were in M&A at Agrana, Atos Origin, Österreichische Post and One.
Since then I have held C-level and advisory board roles in seven drug-development and medtech companies, among them Nabriva Therapeutics, Themis Bioscience, Yaqrit and OncoOne, and built plans this way with their management teams and boards. Martial arts and marathon training taught me to move with the environment and to keep going when it gets hard.
How the Focus Block works
- Ten sessions over 90 days.
- After the first session, you book your dates for the next 90 days: one session every one to four weeks, depending on your goal.
- Every session ends with the next step, its owner and its date.
- You pay one fixed price in advance. Paying up front builds the commitment in from the first day.
- Beyond the questions a coach asks: 26 years in leadership roles, direct words when it matters, and a specialist when the goal needs one.
- When the change has to reach the whole team, we take it into the organisation as a project.
Start with the first step
Your Next Move
Your next move, decided
Clarity on where you want to go, and on what you do first.
- Before
- Your onboarding letter and preparation sheet within 24 hours of booking. You send your answers back two days before the session.
- Session
- 60 minutes on Zoom.
- Afterwards
- Within 24 hours, a written de-brief with my core observations, the recommendation with the most impact and your next step, plus the recording and the transcript.
- Price
- EUR 500, one fixed price for all three steps. English or German.
First conversation · free
A first conversation
To find out whether we are a fit.
- Where
- Fifteen minutes on Zoom or Teams.
- When
- One to three weeks out, Monday to Friday.
- Preparation
- Nothing to prepare. If you like, share a line on the booking page about your goal.