— The shape of working with us —
What follows is honest about what an engagement is, and what it is not. Read it as you would a letter from a colleague — not a promise, but a description.
Return home— Six small commitments —
No decks. The output is something you can read in twenty minutes and re-read at home.
The person who scopes the work writes the work. There is no handoff to junior staff.
When we interview, identifying detail is removed before anything is circulated to the sponsor.
We describe the question carefully and surface the views around it. The judgement is yours.
Briefs land on the day they were promised. Memos arrive ahead of the meeting they were written for.
The fee for each engagement is published. Scope changes are agreed in writing before they begin.
— In greater detail —
Between the two partners, Bridgewell carries more than thirty years of operating experience inside Swiss mid-sized firms — manufacturing, professional services, family-owned enterprises. We have read a great many businesses and watched them weigh a great many decisions. That reading is what the briefs draw on.
Every engagement begins with a one-page letter of understanding. The sponsor knows the question, the deliverable, the fee, and the date the work will arrive. Internally, we hold a weekly read-through to make sure nothing is overrun. None of this is showy, and that is the point.
We work on encrypted local storage in Switzerland. Stakeholder conversations are not recorded. Drafts are kept in plain text until they are ready, then formatted on paper. The technology is deliberately undramatic so that the work itself can be read on its own terms.
When you write, one of the partners answers — usually within a working day. Phone calls during office hours are answered by a person, not a system. If we are away, we say so before the engagement starts. A small practice is one where you know who you are speaking to.
We do not claim a track record of outcomes, because the decisions that follow our work belong to the leaders who make them. What we will say is that most sponsors return — and several of the longest-running brief series are now in their fourth year. That is the measure we trust.
— Side by side —
A general comparison with the consultancy approach most leaders are already familiar with. Neither is right or wrong — they suit different questions.
— What is unusual about us —
An executive brief is a single page. The discipline of fitting a question onto one page is, in our experience, the discipline of understanding it.
In the onboarding companion, we attend a leader's meetings without participating. Many things are easier to notice from a chair at the side.
We hold a small list on purpose. A practice that takes on too much cannot give any single piece of work the time it deserves.
We do not take commissions from third parties under any arrangement. The fee the sponsor pays is the only money in the engagement.
— Quiet milestones —
We avoid the language of awards. These are honest figures from the practice's records.
11
Years of practice
~ 380
Briefs written
74 %
Sponsors who return
19
Cantons we have written from
— If any of this fits —
A first conversation usually settles whether the kind of work we do suits the question on your desk.
Arrange a conversation