…. We all know - by all the main metrics - that deal volumes and value have decreased significantly over the last, say, 18 months. Buyers and sellers both appear more reluctant to transact due to uncertain valuations, costly debt and economic sluggishness.

…. How do we get important things done in growth companies? Take the examples of Sales and Operations which are at the core of most businesses.

…. Managers in growth companies expect to work hard and it is desirable that things run reasonably ‘hot’ because that forces teams to ignore trivial issues. But frequently that can tip over into unhelpful over-loading where we see the following phenomena:

…. Pretty much all the companies Catalysis gets to work with are going through a transition - or several transitions at once.

…. Imagine the following scenario. A year ago, the board decided to make a senior appointment to add capacity and capability to the senior team. Head-hunters were appointed, candidates screened, references taken, and an appointment made.

…. Some months ago, I argued that formal value creation methodologies – created to address the problems of a less favourable investing environment – could be self-defeating unless balanced by greater attention to how teams and organisations build value in practice (which Catalysis refers to as value enablement.

…. You’ve heard of shrinkflation in consumer products like chocolate bars, drinks and even toilet paper: smaller portions at the same or higher cost. Have you ever considered that the same might be happening with companies being backed by private equity, albeit for different reasons?

…. I suggested recently that private equity investors are involved in building ‘value machines’ built from four components: partnership; governance; expectations; team & organisation strategy.

…. It is often helpful to give labels to new concepts which otherwise stay fuzzy. The problem with fuzzy concepts is that they are hard to visualise, communicate and work on.

…. To have the highest probability of success in enabling value, the investor or Chair probably need to check whether all five contributions are likely to be provided by the people involved in post-deal planning and strategy setting. If there is a gap, it needs to be filled somehow.

Data on the characteristics and dynamics of small and mid-sized companies can be a bit thin. So, on International Women’s Day, we thought it might be interesting to share analysis from across two Catalysis databases.…

Imagine the following scenario. As chief executive of a growth company, you have been working for months preparing a fund-raising process or sale to private equity. During the beauty parade of investors, almost all went out of their way to express…

Half the second founder-entrepreneurs we get to interview seem to start the description of their background by explaining that they didn’t thrive at school, were focused instead on sport or their social life, and so started work in mundane or improbable jobs. Recent examples of this include…

You’re probably not great at hiring great talent despite being thoughtful, experienced and keen on improvement (these being characteristics of the people who seem to gravitate towards working with Catalysis). I’m pretty confident in stating that because (a) hiring people is almost certainly…

Over the years, the Catalysis team has observed that the two most frequent issues we need to help our investor clients identify and deal with are:

1. At company level, misalignment between strategic ambitions and the capability of teams and organisations to…