5M Keystone
Level Two
For East African organisations developing heads of function and business unit leaders.
Five monthly full-day sessions, two peer clinics, and a live diagnosis of the leader's own unit running underneath all of it.
The situation
Your heads of function run their operations competently. Yet if you asked them today what is structurally wrong with the unit they own, many would struggle to give a clear answer.
This is the natural result of promoting leaders for delivery and judging them on delivery month after month. They spend their careers answering whether the numbers came in, and institutional diagnosis is a different skill altogether.
In Stitch In Time, I call this organisational reality distortion: the distance between the organisation its dashboards describe and the one its people experience. A leader at this level needs a structured, objective way to examine their function, alongside peers who face the same complexities.
When the metrics move away from reality
- Single points of failure. A major function depends entirely on one person whose departure would cause a crisis.
- Succession on paper. Succession plans are based on hope, with few verified facts behind them.
- Activity without output. Workstreams stay staffed and busy while failing to deliver what they exist to produce.
- Reports that stay green. Indicators stay green because warnings are filtered out before they reach the top.
- Misplaced power. The organisation chart shows where authority sits, while real influence operates elsewhere.
- Executive fatigue. Senior talent spends its days managing friction and unproductive motion.
The 5M Stitch Scan
In the weeks after the first session, each participant runs the 5M Stitch Scan in their unit. It assesses forty indicators, eight for each governance domain, on a scale of one to five.
The scan runs in parallel. The head of function scores the unit from their own perspective, and a representative group of their mid-level staff scores it anonymously. The gap between the two becomes the raw material for the rest of the programme, so leaders spend five months diagnosing and repairing their own live operations.
Programme structure
| Session | Domain | The diagnostic work | The instrument built |
|---|---|---|---|
| One | Core Load | Scope the function's true operating capacity and map the distortion gap. | A documented limit for what the function can sustainably produce before quality and people break down. |
| Two | Talent Flow | Analyse single points of failure, succession depth and the hidden cost of tolerated vacancies. | A verified capability map showing where each person can move next and how soon. |
| Three | Everyday Work | Audit workstreams that absorb headcount and attention but return little strategic value. | A matrix that prices every routine against five institutional anchors, to retire or consolidate wasteful work. |
| Four | Signals and Risk | Map the function's early warning indicators against a past operational failure. | A schematic tracing how information travels from the ground to the executive table, showing where warnings are diluted. |
| Five | Power and Mandate | Review delegation boundaries, escalation blockers and points of contested authority. | A written agreement setting out decision rules, shared mandates and escalation thresholds. |
Each session is a full day, once a month. The two clinics run for three hours each, after the second and fourth sessions.
Five questions for every unit
- Core Load. How much of our current performance is financed by an invisible overdraft on our most critical people and systems?
- Talent Flow. Are we building a lasting internal bench, or acting as an expensive finishing school for competitors?
- Everyday Work. What share of what our people did this week was genuinely connected to what this unit exists to produce?
- Signals and Risk. Is the information reaching our table the raw signal from the source, or the polished version that survived the hierarchy?
- Power and Mandate. For every decision that can materially affect this unit, are we clear on who owns it, and do they have the information and mandate to act?
Peer clinics
After the second and fourth sessions, participants present their emerging findings to six peers and a master facilitator in a three-hour clinic.
Senior leaders face unplanned board updates, regulatory demands and operational crises. A participant who misses a live session for an emergency can use a recorded executive briefing and a one-to-one makeup clinic with a facilitator, so their progress continues.
Fitted to your sector
The governance domains stay fixed. The language, diagnostic instruments and benchmarks are fitted to your industry.
| Sector | Focus of assignments | Session Three value anchors |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial and industrial | Plant uptime and line efficiency, rework hours and material waste, cost per ton and safety | The paying client; unit cost, waste and downtime; plant safety, continuity and compliance |
| Telecom and corporate | Cost to serve and subscriber churn, core talent attrition, regulatory and network exposure | The subscriber or account; cost to serve and cost of churn; network integrity and regulatory risk |
| Development and donor-funded | Grant deliverables and compliance, burn rates and budget use, programme continuity and safeguarding | The beneficiary and promised outcomes; burn rate and cost per beneficiary; safeguarding, donor compliance and audit readiness |
Outcomes and assessment
Each participant compiles a Strategic Governance Review and Blueprint of eight to twelve pages for their business unit. It closes with a forward-looking roadmap, presented to their direct supervisor, whether that is the CEO, CFO, COO or CHRO. The roadmap sets out:
- The operational gaps the 5M Stitch Scan revealed.
- The structural causes behind those gaps.
- A concrete, costed plan to protect the unit over the next financial year.
Graduation
The pass mark is 65 per cent, assessed by the 5M Leadership team on evidence, structural judgment, clarity and actionability. All five diagnostic assignments must be submitted, and one revision of the blueprint is permitted within thirty days.
All diagnostic reports are treated as confidential. They are tools for improving the unit, and they say nothing about a leader's personal worth.
What your organisation receives
- The finished Strategic Governance Review and Blueprint for each enrolled unit.
- A private executive report on each participant, covering diagnostic capability, leadership maturity and succession readiness.
- A cohort report on the systemic risks, blind spots and trends found across your departments.
- A recommendation on which leaders are ready for Level Three.
Investment and logistics
| In-person private cohort | Live online private cohort | Open cohort | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fee per participant | KSh 165,000 | KSh 120,000 | KSh 165,000 in person KSh 120,000 online |
| Cohort size | Four to twenty leaders | Four to twenty leaders | One to three leaders in a multi-employer cohort |
| Time | Five full days and two three-hour clinics | Five full days and two three-hour clinics | Five days and two clinics over five months |
| Scheduling | Morning, afternoon or split-day sessions | Morning, afternoon or split-day sessions | A fixed, published timetable |
Fees exclude VAT. The open cohort suits smaller teams.
How to enrol
Leaders who already run a whole function, manage other supervisors and own a significant budget may be assessed for direct entry without completing Level One.
Start with a thirty-minute conversation
We will map your current structure, identify which heads of function are ready for Level Two, and align the diagnostic assignments with your coming financial priorities. You then receive a cohort plan with confirmed dates.