I was recruited as part of a turnaround team under private equity. I was young and seduced by the money. Lots of really good people were recruited to the business. The promise was clear: fix this, make it work, get rewarded.

But the CEO and FD were awful for different reasons.

The CEO I didn’t respect. He was undisciplined, not intellectually strong, and his values weren’t evident. The FD was obsessed with making money. It wasn’t what was right that drove him; it was the numbers. He wasn’t a bad person, just singularly focused on financial data.

As a retailer, I know that to be successful you need a soul, a story, a reason to believe. These people didn’t understand that.

The non-retail FD kept wanting to cut ranges, reduce stock, limit choice. He didn’t understand the concept of range, or service, or proposition. Yes, the data says narrow the range. But how far is a matter of judgement, not science. He was driven by science alone.

Every day was a battle. There was no culture, so I had no support. I kept fighting my corner because I knew it was right.

Additionally, I had a long commute. We were working really hard. My energy was low. The fight took a lot out of me. It was very hard to stick to my own wisdom, but I did.

Eventually others joined who understood my fight. Fortunately, the business was sold relatively quickly and I was able to exit. It was a terrible time. I wouldn’t have lasted much longer because the fight drained me.

I never questioned myself. I knew I was right. But holding onto that truth when everything external screamed at me to let go was exhausting.

That experience taught me something critical: culture is very important to me. I’ve never chased the money again.

The Wisdom Under Pressure

Here’s what I learned in that turnaround: The noise doesn’t just distract you. It disconnects you.

I had the wisdom. I was a retailer. I knew you cannot reduce a proposition to a spreadsheet. Customer loyalty isn’t built on efficiency; it’s built on range, service, soul. I knew this.

But when you’re in a room with a FD who has the data, who has the PE backers, who has the authority to say ‘the numbers don’t lie,’ holding onto your truth requires something most people don’t talk about: immense energy.

It’s not that I doubted myself. It’s that the constant battle to defend what I knew wore me down. Every meeting was a fight. Every decision was contested. Every instinct I had was challenged by someone with a spreadsheet.

What kept me anchored was expertise and principle. I knew I was right. But knowing you’re right and having the stamina to hold that position under relentless pressure are two very different things.

When I exited, the feeling was relief. Not vindication. Not triumph. Just deep, bone-tired relief.

You Got Here Because You Know

Years later, working with senior leaders, I see this pattern everywhere. Leaders get to the top table because they innately know what to do. But even the most senior leaders lose touch with that.

The noise drowns out what they already know. Data. Stakeholder pressure. Board politics. Consultant reports. Competitor moves. Market volatility.

It all compounds into a cacophony that makes it nearly impossible to hear themselves.

I had a Head of Design come to me once. ‘We need to change our trend consultants,’ she said. I could see she was very uncomfortable with the decision.

‘Are they too high-end?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘They’re very good. They’re just French and glamorous, and we work in DIY.’

I paused. ‘So they are who we need. Just their style doesn’t suit some secondary but powerful stakeholders?’

She stopped. We looked at each other. The problem wasn’t the consultants. The problem was the presentation.

She went away much happier. She came up with different ways of sharing the content without having to fire a key agency that supported her work.

Here’s what would have happened if she’d made the wrong decision: we would have been dumbing down our range and style credentials. Just like every other DIY store. Firing them would have destroyed the very thing that made us different.

She knew that. She just couldn’t see it through the noise of stakeholder pressure.

I didn’t give her the answer. I created space for her to access what she already knew.

The Guide, Not the Oracle

I’ve spent 20 years in the global C-suite managing billion-pound P&Ls and leading transformations across nine sectors. I’ve made the difficult calls. I’ve vetoed projects Boards loved. I’ve fired toxic high-performers. I’ve walked away from strategic opportunities that would have destroyed us.

After concluding my executive tenure, I immersed myself in Eastern wisdom through travel and study. The truth? I’d lost myself in the noise too. That wasn’t just learning; it was reclamation. What I realised is what I already knew: power is in stillness, and it lives within.

That period of intentional research and reflection gave me clarity on something I’d always practised but never articulated: My job isn’t to tell leaders what to do. My job is to create the conditions where they can hear themselves again.

I don’t give answers. I ask questions. I create stillness. I hold space.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth most consultants won’t tell you: If I’m giving you the answer, you’re building dependency. If I’m helping you find your own answer, you’re building capability.

I’ve always believed this. In one role, I had ten heads of department reporting in. They ranged from Style and Design through to Supply Chain and everything in between. At the beginning, the team would ask why we had team meetings because each department had nothing to do with the other.

I explained that if they wanted to get ahead, this was a great opportunity to learn more about other functions. And I also wanted to demonstrate that I really trusted them to make the calls they needed to make. That they were not alone. Airing their difficulties and getting the perspective from someone who knows nothing of the technicalities was often beneficial.

I was the conductor of an orchestra, not the soloist.

Why the Answer Isn’t Out There

Every challenge you face, leaders have faced for millennia. The pressure to compromise principle for profit. The tension between short-term numbers and long-term sustainability. The battle between what data says and what wisdom knows.

These patterns are timeless. The contexts change. The technology evolves. But the fundamental dilemmas remain the same.

The wisdom to navigate them isn’t new. It’s not mine. It’s not external. It’s already within you.

You got to the senior table because you have pattern recognition that data doesn’t capture. You have instincts honed over decades of decisions. You have principles forged in the fire of experience.

But the noise is louder now than it’s ever been. Urgency Blindness makes it nearly impossible to separate signal from static. The pressure to move fast, decide quickly, react immediately creates a constant state of executive reactivity that disconnects you from your own clarity.

The data matters. It’s an essential ingredient. But data alone doesn’t create wisdom. You create the recipe. The data informs it. Your wisdom combines the ingredients into something coherent.

My role isn’t to be the expert with all the answers. My role is to create the stillness where your clarity emerges.

That’s what the SAILS Model does. It’s not my wisdom I’m selling you. It’s a framework to help you articulate what you already believe, to formalise the values you inherently possess so they can veto bad decisions driven by external pressure. The model is yours. The wisdom? That’s yours. It always has been.

The Fight to Hold Your Truth

When I think back to that PE turnaround, what strikes me now isn’t that I was right about the FD’s approach. It’s that holding my truth required so much energy that I nearly broke. The problem wasn’t my lack of wisdom. The problem was the environment that made it nearly impossible to access that wisdom under constant pressure. That’s why culture matters so much to me now. That’s why I never chased money again. That’s why I build high-trust spaces where truth can surface without the fight.

Because if leaders have to expend all their energy defending what they know, they have nothing left for strategic execution.

The answer isn’t out there. It’s not in the consultant’s deck. It’s not in the competitor analysis. It’s not in the data.

The answer is within you. It always has been. My job is to create the conditions where you can hear it again.

In a world chasing velocity at any cost, I’ve learned this: the greatest strategic impact is always forged in the stillness.