Common Goal Consulting

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Common Goal Consulting For founders & CEOs of growing businesses
Build stronger leaders, accountability+people structure
Clear people decisions.

We were reviewing pulse survey results with a client. The score sat well into negative territory and the written feedbac...
02/09/2026

We were reviewing pulse survey results with a client. The score sat well into negative territory and the written feedback that came with it was consistent, direct, and actually quite difficult to read.

What stuck with us after this survey, was this. The employee Net Promoter Score itself wasn't the problem. By the time that number existed, everyone already knew what it would be. The survey didn't uncover anything new, it just gave people permission to finally say what they'd been carrying for months, not sure who to tell. Honestly. Openly.

That's the value of checking in with your people properly and regularly. Not catching a crisis after it's already broken the team, but tracking the changes early enough to still do something about it, while it's still a conversation and not an emergency.

If you don't have a clear way of hearing what your team really thinks, book a discovery call and ask us about our People Insight Surveys, link in the comments.

Two thoughts come up in almost every first conversation CGC has with a founder or Managing Director considering structur...
26/08/2026

Two thoughts come up in almost every first conversation CGC has with a founder or Managing Director considering structured people support.

"We're probably not big enough to need this yet", and "We'll sort the people stuff once things settle down a bit."

However, we find the businesses that benefit most from structured people support are typically between 20 and 60 people. Not 200. The complexity hits well before the headcount suggests it should. Also - things do not tend to settle down at this stage of growth. The next quarter brings a new hire, a restructure, a performance issue, or a pay conversation that needs handling. The settling moment rarely arrives on its own.

Most of the businesses CGC works with did not start with a People Plan. They started with a single conversation about a specific situation. That is usually enough to clarify whether the support is useful. If this is support you think you are ready for, reach out to understand how we might be able to support. https://dash.commongoalconsulting.com.au/widget/bookings/cgc-15min-discovery-call

Founders and Managing Directors running 30 to 60 person teams often tell us the capability gap that costs them the most ...
25/08/2026

Founders and Managing Directors running 30 to 60 person teams often tell us the capability gap that costs them the most is not technical.

The manager who handles a performance conversation differently every time. The leader who gives feedback when things are bad but not when things are good. The senior team where accountability means something different depending on who you ask.

Leadership consistency is a structure and rhythm problem. When leaders have clear expectations, a consistent framework for how people's decisions are made, and a regular operating rhythm to work within, their capability lifts without additional training spend.

Structure creates the conditions where existing capability can actually land.

If leadership consistency is a pressure point, let's talk it through. commongoalconsulting.com.au

CEOs tell us some version of this every week: more time spent managing the people management than actually driving the b...
19/08/2026

CEOs tell us some version of this every week: more time spent managing the people management than actually driving the business forward

Monday: a manager escalates a performance issue they've been sitting on for six weeks, asking what to do now.
Tuesday: a pay query turns into a two-hour conversation, because the employee didn't understand the rationale and felt it was inconsistent with how others were treated.
Wednesday: a team conflict two leaders couldn't resolve between them.
Thursday: a resignation that came out of nowhere but probably shouldn't have. A loss the business didn't need to take.
Friday: an employee raises that a colleague was unkind to them in the kitchen that morning. By the end of the day, she says: 'I spend more time managing the people management than actually leading the business.'

A clear system for how people issues are handled, escalated, and resolved is what changes this pattern. When that system is in place, managers handle what's theirs to handle. When it isn't, everything finds its way to the top.

If you're finding too much still lands on your desk, book a Discovery Call. I'd be happy to help you work through whether it's a people problem or a structure problem.
https://dash.commongoalconsulting.com.au/widget/bookings/cgc-15min-discovery-call

Many CEOS and founders with 20 to 60 employees are not looking for a full-time HR hire. But they know they need to be do...
28/07/2026

Many CEOS and founders with 20 to 60 employees are not looking for a full-time HR hire. But they know they need to be doing more to focus on their people and their culture.

The cost can be hard to justify. The complexity is not quite at that level. You need someone to do the day-to-day, but also bring a strategic lens so you can identify the gaps - does that unicorn exist? And lets be honest, the wrong hire at this stage simply just creates more work than it solves.

What they are actually looking for is someone senior enough to give proper oversight of the people function, available enough to be useful when something comes up at an operational HR level, and structured enough to move things forward without creating another layer of management.

That is a different thing to an in-house HR hire. And it is a different thing to a one-off consultant brought in to fix a specific problem.

That's exactly why we created our People Partner Plans. Essentials, Growth, or Embedded - depending on your business needs.

They're designed for growing businesses that need senior people support without committing to a full-time hire. Implementation focus without the project-only limitation. Available across the year for proactive support, not just when something breaks.

If that sounds like something your business would be a fit for, reach out for a chat:
https://dash.commongoalconsulting.com.au/widget/bookings/cgc-15min-discovery-call

What a structured new financial year looks like for a 40-person business.By the end of July:- The leadership team has al...
22/07/2026

What a structured new financial year looks like for a 40-person business.

By the end of July:
- The leadership team has already agreed on the strategic pillars and people priorities for the next 12 months.
- Performance expectations are set and communicated before they become urgent.
- The remuneration review is complete, not still pending. Award increases have been processed with a clear communication plan, not a last-minute payroll run.
- Managers have a plan on how to handle the situations that kept escalating last year, because there is now a clear pathway and agreed-upon standards.
- The founder or CEO is still across the big calls. But they are not the first call for every difficult conversation.

Most growth-stage businesses are not operating this way yet. That gap is exactly what CGC is built to close. If this is where you want to be by the end of this financial year, send me a message, and we can talk through it.

How confident are you that your people structure has kept pace with your growth?It still surprises me how often I hear l...
17/07/2026

How confident are you that your people structure has kept pace with your growth?

It still surprises me how often I hear leaders say to me, "I've been meaning to sit down and get the people structure right. There just always seems to be something more urgent."

My response to this is always - your unresolved people structure is costing you. What I see underneath that is usually the same picture. Staff numbers have grown. Managers are handling situations inconsistently. A pay review has been deferred. Reporting lines no longer reflect how the business actually runs. Expectations are unclear.

Nothing is broken, and the business keeps operating. But the quiet accumulation of deferred decisions, inconsistent management, and a founder still carrying more than she should, has a cost. It just tends to be gradual enough that it's easy to keep deferring.

The new financial year is a natural point to stop. Because the cost of another year running the same way is rarely worth it.

If you know you need to focus on your people structure this year, reach out, and I can send you some details on how the CGC People Plans work, what's included, how the engagement runs, and how we can help bring some structure to your year.

There is a cost to founders and CEOs who stay on the safety net for the business. I get it - I'm a business owner as wel...
14/07/2026

There is a cost to founders and CEOs who stay on the safety net for the business. I get it - I'm a business owner as well.

But the reality is that the cost doesn't show up on a spreadsheet, nor in a conversation. It is the quiet accumulation of situations that came back to the founder instead of being resolved one level down by the leaders.

It seems easy to step in and take action yourself. Each situation feels manageable. Reasonable to weigh in on. And most of the time, it is.

But over time, the pattern means the leadership layer isn't really operating independently. It's operating with the founder as the backstop.

It happens in most growing businesses, and the gap tends to widen gradually. And it tends to become most visible exactly when the business needs the founder to be focused on growth, not on people escalations.

The shift away from it isn't usually about holding firm or delegating more. It's about building the structure that allows independent decision-making and ownership in the first place.

"CGC's support as our external HR consultants has been invaluable. Their guidance has provided confidence, clarity, and ...
10/07/2026

"CGC's support as our external HR consultants has been invaluable. Their guidance has provided confidence, clarity, and practical solutions, often in complex or sensitive situations. I genuinely value the partnership and the consistent, high-quality support they provide" - HR Partner

If this sounds like the kind of support your business needs, we're always open to a conversation.

commongoalconsulting.com.au

Sat in a leadership team meeting this week where three of the five managers had no idea what the other two were accounta...
09/07/2026

Sat in a leadership team meeting this week where three of the five managers had no idea what the other two were accountable for.

Everyone was polite about it. Nobody said it out loud. And the question quietly forms...what are the actual rules here?

Most businesses reach this point somewhere between 25 and 50 staff. The instinct is often to name it as a consistency problem. Or a capability problem. Or, occasionally, a personality problem or leadership capability issue.

But the reality almost always is that it is an accountability structure that was never made explicit.

When managers don't have clear standards for how situations should be handled in this business, they default to instinct and personal style. That produces variation. And variation, even when each individual decision is reasonable, erodes trust in the leadership layer over time.

Getting this right doesn't require more management training. It requires clarity on what good looks like, who owns what, and what the expected standard is before a situation tests it.

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