Copenhagen · Independent · Since 1998
Strategy lands.
Culture is where
it either sticks —
or quietly dies.
Most organisations have been through at least one transformation. The strategy was sound. The rollout was extensive. And yet — somewhere between what was decided at the top and what gets practised on the ground — the new ways of working never fully took hold.
That gap has a name. It’s Wave 3. And it’s where McKay Consulting works.
AI is making this more urgent, not less. New capabilities arrive faster than most organisations can absorb them. The question isn’t access to AI. It’s whether your culture can actually use it.
01 — The Problem
You’ve done the transformation. Twice.
And it still hasn’t landed.
The strategy was McKinsey-grade. The implementation was full-scale. The training ran for months. Eighteen months later, teams are still working the old way. The new frameworks are on the wall, not in the work.
This isn’t a failure of strategy or execution. It’s a structural gap — what happens after Wave 2 finishes and the consultants leave, when new behaviours are supposed to become lived practice, but there’s no one inside the organisation whose job it is to make that happen.
That’s the problem McKay Consulting was built to solve.
Read the Wave 3 essay →
You might recognise this
The transformation programme is officially complete — but teams default to the old operating model the moment pressure arrives.
Senior leaders have the vision. Middle leadership has the decks. Nobody can make either actionable in the actual daily work.
Your organisation has frameworks for everything — SAFe, OKRs, design thinking — and a product culture that hasn’t really shifted.
You’ve run AI pilots. Some teams are excited. Most are waiting to be told what to do with it. The tools are there — the operating model to use them isn’t.
02 — Selected Work
Work that went beyond the workshop
The helper you’re looking for
isn’t a consultancy. It’s a person
who has been where you are.
I’ve spent 25 years cycling between independent practice and senior corporate roles — not because I couldn’t choose one, but because each time I went back inside, I was testing something: whether the methods I’d developed actually worked under real pressure, in real organisations, with real stakes.
They do. That’s what the cases above reflect.
“The work is deliberately kept small and senior-led. One trusted partner throughout — not a team of consultants delivering a programme from the outside.”
The Five Mindsets framework — which underpins all the work — wasn’t built in a workshop. It was built across 25 years of going inside organisations and finding out what actually helps people think better together.
04 — Engagements
Choose where to start
Every engagement is senior-led, hands-on, and deliberately scoped. There’s no associate team in the background. The work stays small so it stays real.
The Framing Call
An honest hour with someone who has been inside organisations like yours — at the leadership level, not as an advisor. No pitch, no new model. Just a clear read of what’s actually going on and where to move first.
Learn more & book →Product Model Maturity Assessment
A structured half-day for the full leadership team. Individual culture assessments compared across the group. A shared picture of exactly where to focus, including AI readiness from a product culture perspective.
Learn more & book →Five Mindsets Sprint
One live challenge. Five phases. From in-field customer empathy to working prototype — at a pace that fits your organisation. Used at LEGO, PayPal, Novo Nordisk, Ørsted, and others.
Learn more & book →Free · 10 Minutes · Instant Results
Map your product culture before we talk
14 dimensions grounded in Silicon Valley practice and leading product thinking. Where you stand today — and where to focus first.
Take the free assessment →14 Dimensions Covered
05 — Thinking
Ideas worth reading before we meet
Wave 3 Transformation: The Missing Leadership Layer
Across large-scale transformations — digital, product, AI, operating model — a three-wave pattern appears with striking consistency. Wave 1 creates permission. Wave 2 builds containers. Wave 3 is where value is either realised — or quietly lost.
How Wicked Problems May Be the Breakthrough Your Transformation Needs
The problem you chose to solve is often more important than how you solve it.
Customer-Centricity Is Not a Workshop. It’s a Power Shift.
Real customer-centricity means letting what you find in the field override what you assumed in the boardroom.
My AI Operating Model: An Authentic Field Report
Not a prediction. Not a framework. A practitioner’s account of how AI has changed the daily texture of the work.
Why Most Product Operating Models Fail in Large Enterprises
The model isn’t the problem. The culture that can’t carry it is.
If any of this felt
uncomfortably
familiar —
that’s a good start.
No pitch. No new framework layered on top of the old ones. Just an honest conversation about what’s actually going on in your organisation — and where to move first.