The Three Projects that Defined My Year
For the past few years, I’ve adopted the practice of choosing a one word theme that sets my intention for the year ahead.
2023: Elevate
2024: Embodiment
2025: Leadership
Leadership is a tricky word for me.
As someone who has had a complicated relationship with goals - and who has spent several years unpacking the conditioning and attachments that have been both a source of drive and suffering - leadership can be a little, shall we say, triggering.
When I chose the word leadership, I did not mean the ego-petting version of leadership. The kind that, despite what we may tell ourselves, is often defined by the validated feeling that comes with being in a position of power over others, even if (or especially if) that power is used for good.
The leadership I had in mind came from a different realization entirely: my ability to create value and impact for the businesses I serve is naturally constrained as a business of one.
The power of collective action is far greater than anything a single person can accomplish alone.
So as I entered 2025, the question on my mind was this:
How can I better inspire, influence, and organize the deep well of talent within my clients’ teams to achieve outcomes bigger than anything I could deliver on my own?
How do I step out of the position of doing most of the work with my own hands and instead work through the hands of many?
The answer to that question prompted a fundamental shift in how I work with clients.
After years of intentionally remaining in a more advisory posture, I took on three Fractional Chief Operating Officer roles this past year - each at a different level of engagement.
These projects reflect three distinct ways I work with clients today: as an outside advisor, a strategic leader, or an embedded operator. The difference is not philosophy or capability, but proximity - how closely I am woven into the day-to-day work versus leading through others.
What I learned is this: meeting clients where they are is always the right move. And tailoring how I engage with a business based on its exact needs and stage of growth is not a liability or a source of confusion.
It is a competitive advantage.
Project 1: Building a Standard Operating Model at Scale
Client: Investment-backed accounting and finance firm
Project: Standardize the company’s delivery model
My Role: Outside Advisor
I often work with clients as an outside advisor, valued for a third-party perspective unburdened by internal politics or assumptions. Someone who can see the truth clearly and say it plainly.
Typically, my work begins by creating space outside the day-to-day operations of the business: time to pause, assess, and plan before acting.
I learned quickly that approach wasn’t going to work here.
This was a nine-figure firm barreling toward an exit. It was full steam ahead, and the only way to rewire the engine was to jump onto a fast-moving train and fix it while it was already racing down the track.
Before I arrived, the company had grown through a series of mergers and acquisitions. Multiple firms now operated under a single brand.
On paper.
In practice, the business still functioned as separate and disjointed entities. The challenge was deceptively simple and operationally complex:
How do you take multiple distinct operating models and create one standardized practice across industries, time zones, and continents?
The answer was not to invent something entirely new.
Instead, we surfaced the best practices already embedded inside the organization and aligned leaders around a shared operating reality. By identifying core commonalities, defining acceptable points of variation, and building agreement across functions, we created a standardized delivery model that could be documented, scaled, and consistently executed across the business.
At face value, this project resembled work I have done many times before: find order in chaos, design systems that support a clearer vision, document and train teams to operate differently.
What made this engagement different was how the work happened.
I had to convene departments that were not accustomed to working together. I partnered closely with internal IT resources to build new systems. I trained internal champions who could support and enable their teams long after I stepped away. And I aligned our work with multiple restructuring efforts happening in parallel.
Even as an outside advisor, I became deeply embedded within the leadership team.
I was the integrator. The connective tissue. The grease keeping the wheels moving.
By the end of the engagement, the client saw capabilities in me that I had not yet fully seen in myself. They pushed me into new territory and trusted me with work I had never done before.
The capstone of our work was a facilitated strategic reset with the leadership team. I surfaced deeply held - but largely unspoken - expectations about the company’s growth trajectory from investors, board members, and the C-suite. I highlighted alignment, named divergence, and synthesized years of latent tension into three clear growth paths, each with its own risks, constraints, and decision points.
Given the scale and stakes of the business, that deck was likely the single most impactful deliverable I have ever produced.
And it came not from new tools or frameworks, but from applying the same ones I use in every engagement - just differently.
Project 2: Helping a Founder Scale Impact Beyond Himself
Client: Rapidly growing facilitation firm
Project: Scaling a founder-led business beyond the CEO
My Role: Strategic Leader
While I was helping the accounting and finance firm prepare for exit, another client approached me from the opposite end of the growth spectrum.
An expert facilitator, renowned in his field, had grown his business to seven figures through his reputation of brilliance, insane work and travel schedule, and the dedication of a small but mighty team.
The problem was not demand.
The problem was sustainability.
Burnout was setting in. Mistakes were becoming more frequent. Systems held together with duct tape were starting to fray.
He wanted to grow his firm’s impact without continuing to sacrifice himself or his team in the process.
He knew what was broken.
He did not know how to fix it.
We started with the BE Lean Signature Scalability Assessment. First, we defined the ideal future-state business model. From there, we assessed profitability, process, and people.
The output was a clear diagnosis of the biggest constraints holding the business back, paired with specific recommendations and a three-phase growth plan complete with timelines and success criteria.
But strategy without execution creates exactly zero value.
One of the most significant constraints was the absence of dedicated operational leadership. To address that, I partnered with Smooth Operator to identify and place a right-fit Operations Manager who could own day-to-day execution, implement systems, and proactively solve problems.
My role shifted from consultant to strategic leader: translating the growth plan into concrete priorities, projects, and decisions, while ensuring that every structure we built aligned with long-term goals.
This engagement led to the creation of a new service model at BE Lean - pairing the executional strength of an Operations Manager with the strategic leadership of a Fractional COO.
It is more sustainable for my clients. And it allows me to focus my time where I deliver the most leverage.
While our formal work together has come to a close, it is deeply rewarding to see this client continuing along the path we designed and hitting milestones that once felt out of reach.
Project 3: Operational Leadership for the Next Phase of Growth
Client: College marketing agency
Project: Operational excellence as a foundation for growth
My Role: Embedded Operator
Late last year, I was guiding a long-term client in the college marketing space through a company-wide restructure.
Over four years of working together, we had increased revenue by 5x and tripled the size of the team. The business had entered a new phase of growth, and the organizational structure needed to catch up.
As I walked the CEO through a draft of the new org chart, I pointed to an empty box at the top, recently vacated by a departing Operations Manager.
“You need someone to lead operations,” I said. “At this stage, you need a COO. How do you want to fill this role?”
She paused.
Then said, “Brad, isn’t that you?”
Before founding BE Lean, I served as COO of a $5M company in the energy efficiency space. To this day, it remains the best job I have ever had.
Throughout my consulting career, I had intentionally avoided stepping back into an embedded operator role. I was mindful of the risk of over-dependence and the increased time commitment that comes with being deeply embedded.
But after four years of trust, shared wins, and alignment in values, this situation felt different.
So I said yes.
One year later, I am still amazed by what we accomplished together. We completed more than 20 innovation and improvement initiatives using the same innovation framework I bring to all of my clients. Operations are smoother, stronger, and more resilient than they have ever been.
That foundation has positioned the company to pursue ambitious growth next year.
But the moment that mattered most came during the end-of-year retreat, when we asked the team to reflect on how the year had felt for them.
Here is some of what they shared:
“I’m not a systems person, but the more I used our database, the more I realized how powerful it is.”
“Our processes improved so much this year. I’m excited to build even more templates and refinements next year.”
“I was nervous about the re-org at first, but it helped me understand my role and feel more supported.”
This was a room full of creatives at a brand marketing agency.
If you are an operator, you know exactly how meaningful that is.
What This Year Taught Me
At the end of the day, the specific delivery model matters far less than the outcome.
What matters is helping entrepreneurs feel like the inside of their business finally matches the image they project to the outside world. Helping them close the gap between where they are and the vision that feels just out of reach.
In a world increasingly dominated by productized offerings and one-size-fits-all advice, I am more convinced than ever that flexibility is a strength.
Whether I am doing the work for you, doing it with you, or advising you so that you can do it yourself, my commitment is the same:
Operational clarity. Sustainable growth. And businesses that work as well on the inside as they look on the outside.
That is what this year taught me.
And I cannot wait to see what comes next.
If this way of working resonates, I’m always open to a conversation about what kind of support might actually be useful at this stage of growth – whether for you or someone you know. Please reach out.