When to Know It’s Time to Bring in a Consultant. Five signs your business is ready for outside insight that drives real change.
You’re not imagining it
If you’re feeling stuck in the weeds, juggling too many priorities, or seeing bold ideas stall before they take shape, this is the read for you. In this article, we unpack the five common signals CEOs face when it's time to bring in outside support, and how to find the kind of consultant that delivers clarity, traction, and outcomes that stick.
Running a business is rarely a question of effort. Most leaders are driven, resourceful, and deeply invested in the success of what they’re building. But as your business grows, so do the layers. Priorities compete, clarity fades, and what once felt aligned can begin to feel off track.
That shift doesn’t always look dramatic. It might show up as stalled growth, rising frustration, or decisions that keep circling without resolution. You can sense potential but it’s just beyond reach, and the path forward feels uncertain or increasingly complex.
This is where the value of an external perspective becomes clear. The right consultant doesn’t arrive with a generic playbook. They are willing to listen, in order to help you uncover what’s no longer serving you, and refocus your strategy around what really matters, and provide practical, embedded support that feels like an extension of your team.
If you’re a CEO, and asking whether now is the time, that question itself may be the starting point. The signs are often there, but what matters next is knowing what to look for in a consultant or framework, and being ready to act when you find it.
You’re too Bogged Down in the Weeds to be Able to Steer the Ship
For purpose-led organisations, complexity can creep in quietly. What starts as fast decision-making under pressure can turn into a messy tangle of “workarounds”, layered with unnecessary processes, and blurred priorities. The deeper you get the more that operational noise begins to drown out strategic clarity, and before you know it projects lose focus, meetings multiply, and momentum slows. What once felt clear now feels clouded, and it’s difficult to identify what’s blocking growth.
You’re not alone in this. Many CEOs shared that what once helped them succeed, staying across everything, starts becoming a barrier to growth. When you are inside the eye of a storm, it is nearly impossible to see what is holding you back, let alone shift it. The question you begin asking yourself is Where do you even begin? especially when every part of the business feels like a priority.
This isn’t a question of capability, it’s about perspective. In our experience, CEOs need time to intentionally create distance from the day-to-day to reconnect with their organisation's purpose. Responses from a recent survey that we conducted confirmed that when internal constraints limit this kind of reflection, external support becomes crucial. But space doesn’t happen on its own and this is where a good consultant can help.
At Three6, we use a strategic diagnostic framework adapted from the EY Impact Model, built around five core dimensions: purpose, strategy, execution, and measurement with culture and behaviours added in, recognising that it sustains any change we help create. This diagnostic lens helps cut through the noise and pinpoints where momentum is stuck.
Sometimes, the most strategic move isn’t to push forward but to pause, create space, and rest with intention.
There is a Gap between Vision and Execution
Ambition is the spark that drives businesses forward but without structure, it's like driving a car without a map. Eventually, things fall flat, and projects end up where they shouldn’t be, back on the whiteboard or housed in different email threads. Without a clear pathway, there’s no structure behind the ambition, and decision-making becomes reactive instead of intentional.
More often than not this usually sits with the CEO who is always thinking ten steps ahead, but is surrounded by a team who only has visibility on one. Your business is moving but everyone is going in different directions, and while priorities feel urgent, they are not always aligned. In one of our surveys, this gap between vision and execution was one of the most commonly cited reasons that CEO’s gave to bring in consultants.
From what we’ve seen the gap between vision and execution is one of the most common and costly challenges for SMEs. Those with clearly defined and well-communicated strategies outperform those without. It’s not about overthinking every move but rather just giving a team a shared sense of direction and ownership. As some of our respondents noted, the most effective consultants “helped them get clear quickly” and translate big purpose ideas into action.
When a business has clear ambition but no pathway, it’s often a signal that they may have outgrown their current ways of working. It’s not a failure but simply a signal that is prompting the business to move to the next stage. Consulting is most often sought when internal constraints make transformation difficult to lead from within, and when that’s the case, the right consultant can co-design a pathway tailored to suit your needs.
It’s about cutting through complexity, activating strategy, and turning purpose-driven goals into focused, achievable action, without adding to the workload.
Internal Constraints Causes Friction in Driving the Desired Transformation
When your team is already stretched thin, adding new tasks or initiatives can be a recipe for burnout. You may have several ideas on how to grow, innovate or optmise your operations but the reality is that there aren’t enough hours in the day. As a result team alignment suffers, decision fatigue sets in, and teams end up operating in survival mode, trying to get through the day, rather than working toward the purpose driven goals of your company.
As the CEO, you can see where the business needs to go, but you feel like you are being held back by a team that’s already running at full tilt. According to our recent survey, this is exactly when many organisations start seeking outside support, not because they lack ambition, but because internal constraints make it hard to drive transformation.
Hiring more people isn’t always the solution, and asking more of people doesn’t feel right nor is it sustainable. What we’ve consistently heard is that it’s not just a resourcing issue, it’s about clarity, structure, and enabling teams to focus on what matters most. High performing teams aren’t the ones who are working overtime and constantly doing more, but those who are clearly aligned, and supported to deliver with the organisation’s purpose in mind. Without alignment, even the best teams burn out, as their energy is spent doing the wrong things.
A stretched team is a clear signal that it’s time to bring in a consultant. An outside body that can step in to relieve the pressure without applying more. Because your team is your greatest asset but they can only move the business forward if they're supported with the right tools, clarity and momentum, not just more tasks.
Your Transformation Goals Get Caught Amongst the Weeds of Running an Organisation
Momentum matters in business, and even more so in purpose-driven organisations. When a promising idea becomes stagnant or starts to linger, it often signals something deeper. It can look like procrastination at the surface, but looking under the hood, it can also be competing priorities, unclear decision-making pathways, or a lack of capacity. The idea may seem great in theory, but in reality, the conditions for it to grow and succeed are simply not there.
You’re not indecisive or lacking vision. However, what you are is surrounded by a growing business, a stretched team, and limited resources to shift ideas into action without risking something else falling to the bottom of the to do list.
In our experience, stalled ideas aren’t usually strategy issues, they’re clarity issues. The business may be aligned in vision but not fully as a team, which can lead to delayed decision making as there is no clear ownership of tasks. We have seen that when teams don’t know how to prioritise or when leaders hesitate to commit, execution stalls.
Many organisations turn to consultants at exactly this point, when they recognise the need for transformation, but they can’t get there alone.
A consultant that is willing to listen can help in this situation by giving a trusted outside perspective, and to tailor their approach to help you move forward with confidence. They aren’t there to take over but rather to help you see what’s creating obstacles, whether it’s a decision, a process or a resourcing gap.
You’ve Lost Touch with Your Purpose
Gone are the days when things felt shiny and new, when you felt excited about your goals and ambitions. Now, it just feels like you're stuck in the weeds, consumed by daily demands and gradually losing sight of your business's deeper purpose. When this isn’t embedded into the work you do, the truth is, it shows. Not only can employees begin to disengage but customers can also feel disconnected, leading to slow growth. It’s important to align your purpose with your strategy, not just as a must-do and because it feels good, but to build a resilient and thriving company that doesn’t easily get knocked off track.
As the owner of an organisation this can become particularly frustrating, who’s deeply connected with that original vision. It’s not that you’ve forgotten it but that it’s harder to thread it through each part of the business. The purpose isn’t gone but it’s no longer showing in the way people work, lead or deliver.
Many CEOs we work with face this same challenge, but it hasn’t disappeared, it’s just buried beneath competing priorities, rapid change or internal friction. The focus on the day to day delivery, can often overshadow the “why” behind the business.
Our mission is to work with purpose driven organisations and get them closer to their desired purpose, however time and time again we’ve seen that when they lose sight of this, it isn’t usually about sentimentality but about strategy. If a team can’t see how their work connects to something bigger, engagement and morale drops. This then leaks into the delivery of a customer's experience of your service which in turn can lead to dissatisfaction and weakened trust.
Whether it's redefining your customer experience to better serve your community, or aligning your team around a shared vision, a consultant makes sure that purpose is deeply integrated into the way you operate. And as several leaders told us, the consultants that truly make a difference feel like “an extension of our team”, helping to reignite clarity, without imposing a fixed formula. It’s not about starting from scratch, it’s about making small, intentional shifts so the structure you’ve built reflects the purpose it was built for.
Is it Time to Get a Business Transformation Consultant?
Bringing in a consultant isn’t a sign that something’s broken. It’s a sign that you’re ready to move forward with clarity and intention. Not all consultants work this way. We don’t drop in with a cookie-cutter strategy or off-the-shelf fix. We co-design a clear pathway with you and your team, one that builds momentum, lifts capability, and sustains the change long after we leave.
Whether you’re stuck in operational noise, struggling to scale, or simply need space to re-centre your team around what matters, the right support creates momentum. And it’s not about adding more. It’s about making the next move the right one. That’s why we created a free diagnostic tool to help you assess your organisation’s readiness, uncover the barriers to clarity, and understand where the right kind of support could shift the needle. It only takes a few minutes but it could save you months of friction.
Get clear. Get moving. And get closer to your purpose.