Senior-led management consultancy for UK SMEs & mid-market firms
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RCT RCT Consultancy Senior-led, on the ground
Brief the Practice
Services

Five areas of practice.

Practical, senior, and quietly disciplined.

The work RCT is most often asked to do for UK SMEs and mid-market firms. Each one delivered by a senior consultant on the ground — not a deck, a framework, or a junior team.

01Practice

Operating Cadence Install

The most-requested engagement at RCT. We design and install the running rhythm that turns a business from founder-dependent to leadership-team-run: weekly 1:1s with proper agendas, monthly business reviews with the right numbers in the right format, quarterly resets that actually re-set, and decision logs that survive the meeting they were made in.

The engagement runs for 60 to 120 days. We design the cadence in the first fortnight, run it ourselves alongside your team for the middle stretch, and then hand it back so your leadership team owns it. Where the work needs a cadence that survives beyond the engagement, we typically recommend the HeyRamp platform, which handles the 1:1 and review rhythm without adding admin.

  • Weekly 1:1s
  • Monthly reviews
  • Quarterly resets
  • Decision logs
  • KPI cadence
  • Handover built in
02Practice

Leadership Team Performance

Senior facilitation, honest assessment, and the operating habits a leadership team needs to function as a team rather than a group of individuals reporting to the founder. We work with the team that exists, not the one in a deck — surfacing the role-clarity, decision rights, and conversations that aren’t happening, then installing the discipline that means they do.

Engagements typically run 90 days with weekly working sessions, monthly on-site days, and structured 1:1s with each team member. The outcome is a leadership team that can run the business without the founder sitting in every meeting.

  • Role clarity
  • Decision rights
  • Healthy conflict
  • Meeting discipline
  • Goal alignment
  • Confidential 1:1s
03Practice

Function-Level Diagnostic

A focused, senior look at one function — commercial, finance, operations, delivery, people — that surfaces what’s actually slowing the business and gives the function owner a prioritised plan to fix it. Two to four weeks of senior attention, honest findings, and concrete recommendations.

Often a Function-Level Diagnostic is the right first engagement: it answers the question of whether the issue is really in this function, or somewhere else entirely. Most diagnostics convert into a focused installation engagement with the function owner; some recommend doing nothing at all, and we’ll tell you so.

  • Commercial & sales
  • Finance & FP&A
  • Operations & delivery
  • People & HR
  • Customer success
  • Tech & product ops
04Practice

Capability & Capacity Review

A calm, evidenced view on whether your management layer is the one you need for the next stage of the business. Capability is mapped against what the next 12 to 24 months actually demand; capacity is mapped against what each leader is realistically carrying today. The output is a written view, kept confidential, that informs promotion decisions, hiring briefs, succession planning, and honest conversations with the leaders involved.

Typically runs three to five weeks with private 1:1s, structured manager observations, and a senior partner’s assessment. Always delivered before any commercial decision is committed to.

  • Leadership capability
  • Capacity mapping
  • Succession planning
  • Hiring briefs
  • Span of control
  • Promotion readiness
05Practice

Owner-Operator Coaching

A retained, senior sounding board for the founder, owner-CEO, or managing director who carries too much of the business in their head. Private, monthly, confidential — no group sessions, no peer board, no curriculum. The agenda is yours and we keep the conversation focused on the decisions actually in front of you.

Most engagements run as a monthly retainer with two scheduled sessions and ad-hoc access in between. Used well, it’s the cheapest piece of senior advice an owner can buy — and one of the easiest to discontinue when the value stops.

  • Monthly retained
  • Confidential
  • Strategic sounding board
  • Senior peer
  • Decision support
Engagement Formats

Match the shape to the decision.

Three formats. Most clients start small.

Most engagements begin with a short diagnostic. We’d rather scope the problem honestly than sell a long programme that doesn’t fit.

2–4 weeks

Diagnostic Sprint

A focused engagement to frame the actual problem and recommend what should happen next. Honest, fast, and sometimes ends with us telling you to do nothing.

60–120 days

Installation Engagement

The core RCT engagement. Senior consultant on the ground with your leadership team to install operating cadence, sharpen the team, or fix a function — with handover built in.

Monthly retained

Senior Advisory Retainer

A monthly retainer with senior-partner access for owner-operators and leadership teams who want a confidential sounding board on call between engagements.

A 90-Day Engagement

What it actually looks like.

Quiet, weekly, and visible from the first fortnight.

The shape most Installation Engagements take. Adjusted to fit the brief, but the rhythm tends to hold across most clients.

i
Weeks 1–2

Diagnose — understand the operating reality

1:1s with each member of the leadership team, a sweep of the actual numbers, calendars and decisions, and a clear written view of what’s in the way. We finish week two with an honest framing of the brief.

ii
Weeks 3–4

Frame — agree the cadence and the outcomes

Scoped objectives, a designed cadence on paper, decision rights drafted, and the first iteration of the meeting rhythm tested with the team. By the end of week four the cadence is running, not just designed.

iii
Weeks 5–10

Install — run the cadence alongside the team

The senior consultant is on the ground with the leadership team week-by-week. Weekly 1:1s, monthly reviews, on-site days, and the practical work of making the new cadence stick. This is the middle, and it’s where the value compounds.

iv
Weeks 11–12

Hand Back — the cadence is yours

Structured handover, capability transfer, a written record of what was installed and why, and a final review with the leadership team. We step out; the cadence keeps running. A 90-day post-engagement check-in is included as standard.

Specialisms

Where the practice tends to specialise.

Not a vertical list — a shape of management challenge.

Our specialism is the operating model of UK SMEs and mid-market firms, not any single sector. That said, certain patterns recur often enough to be worth naming.

Owner-led trading businesses
Founder-CEO succession planning
Professional services firms
B2B services scale-ups
Family-owned mid-market firms
Pre-investment operational tightening
Post-acquisition integration
First-100-day support for new CEOs
Technology and software businesses
UK manufacturing and engineering
Health and social care operators
Leadership team off-cycle re-sets
Ready to Brief Us

Tell us what you’re trying to decide.

A first conversation usually clarifies the brief on its own.

We’ll tell you honestly whether RCT is the right team and what shape the engagement should take.

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