Name the constraint.
In writing.
In ninety seconds.
Most consultants want a six-week discovery before they tell you anything. Catalyst Works starts differently. Type a sentence. Get a diagnosis.
Describe what is stuck in your business in one sentence.
You will hear back from diagnose@catalystworks.consulting within 24 hours with three reframes specific to what you typed.
Five lenses. One constraint.
The thing the others miss.
Every Signal Session runs through the same five-lens protocol. Most diagnostics surface one lens at a time. The constraint is what survives all five.
Throughput
Where in the system does work slow down? Most operators think they have a capacity problem. Almost none of them do. They have a flow problem. Throughput shows where the line waits.
Theory of Constraints Read the lensFriction
What is costing the team energy that the customer never sees? Friction is invisible in the P&L and visible in turnover. Three friction signals per session, named with examples.
Operations + culture Read the lensDecision
Where do decisions stall? Where does authority sit far from information? Owner-led firms hit a ceiling here long before a market ceiling. The lens names which decision is stuck.
Org design Read the lensInformation
What does the team know that leadership does not? What does leadership measure that nobody else can act on? Information asymmetry is the constraint that compounds the fastest.
Systems thinking Read the lensInference
Where does the business reason from the wrong evidence? Most stalled growth is an inference error. The lens surfaces the wrong assumption keeping the right strategy off the table.
Decision science Read the lensWhat survives all five.
In a Signal Session, the diagnosis is what the five lenses agree on. Specific. Cross-functional. Actionable. Written down before you leave the call.
Book a Signal Session →One page. In writing.
Within 24 hours.
Most consulting engagements end with a deck nobody reads. A Signal Session ends with a one-page document your leadership team can act on by Friday.
Yours to keep, share, or use to prove or disprove the diagnosis with the people who matter.
See the full offerConstraint statement
"Your throughput is bounded by an information bottleneck at the operations-to-finance handoff. Capacity, capital, and demand are not the issue."
Three friction signals
- Operations has visibility into job-level margin in real time. Finance does not see margin until month-close. Decisions get made on stale numbers.
- Three top performers in the last 18 months left for "more strategic" roles. The strategic work exists. It is buried under reporting overhead.
- The CRM and the accounting system disagree on three of the top ten clients. Nobody owns reconciliation. Each function trusts its own number.
One concrete action before Friday
A diagnostic partner.
Not a vendor.
Boubacar built Catalyst Works after twenty years across four continents. A decade in HR leadership at GE spanning the US, MENA, and West Africa. A $500K executive development program in Mauritius. A communications consulting firm in Guinea.
The pattern showed up across every operation he ran. The growth ceiling is rarely where the operator thinks it is. It is one constraint, compounding quietly, hidden behind activity.
Catalyst Works exists because most consulting starts with prescriptions. Diagnosis comes first.
I trusted people when they were too afraid to tell me the truth. Believed the performance instead of pressing for honesty.
The biggest constraint in most SMBs is not strategy. It is that the founder cannot get straight answers from the people closest to them.
Performance replaces truth. Loyalty replaces honesty. Strategy work that does not fix that loop is wasted. The Signal Session below names the loop in your business.
Ninety minutes. One constraint.
Five hundred dollars short of $1,000.
No pitch inside the session. No proposal at the end. The work is the pitch. The deliverable is the deliverable.
A 90-minute structured leadership interview using the Catalyst Works five-lens diagnostic protocol.
- One named constraint statement, written, specific, cross-functional
- Three friction signals with implications
- One concrete action before Friday
- 1-page written summary delivered within 24 hours
- No pitch, no proposal, no sales material inside the session
If after 90 minutes I cannot name a constraint specific enough for you to act on by Friday, you do not pay. The work is the pitch. The deliverable is the proof.
$497 charged at booking. Refund in full if I do not name a constraint you can act on. No discovery call. No proposal. The session is the work.
What survives the five lenses looks like this.
Professional Services Firm
Residential Trade Contractor
Healthcare SMB
Composite outcomes from Signal Session engagements. Industry and figures anonymized; constraint mechanics preserved.
Find out which AI tools touch your customer data.
Most SMBs between 5 and 200 employees have 12 to 20 AI tools touching their business. Most owners can name three.
Read about AI governance for SMBs → Professional ServicesThe 90-minute AI data exposure diagnostic.
Built specifically for professional services firms. CPA, legal, advisory, consulting. Find out what your AI tools can actually reach.
See the AI data audit →