Our Services

These are the common areas where we help organisations but most issues don’t categorise easily. Get in touch to discuss where you need a helping hand.

Capacity Building

Everyone wants to grow their business and influence, whatever your sector, whatever your product and whatever your motivation. If you are doing a good thing, providing a good service or just good at your job, you want to do more of it.

But growing beyond the first stage of operation, or moving between critical stages, will always be an anxious time. You can’t do it all yourself, you need help across a range of areas and you have to marshall scarce resources.

We offer people based, on site, board room level analysis of your leadership structures and capabilities to move to the next stage.

Capacity Building Approach

Leadership development and strategic planning
Resource optimization and capability assessment
Growth strategy and implementation support

Mediation

Every organisation relies on its people. Whenever people are involved there are different views and approaches. The vast majority of board room level and leadership problems are people problems. With people problems you need a hand from a trusted friend.

Mediation can be a formal process with legal and financial consequences for the parties involved or just a good cost-effective and more human way of dealing with a problem between people without reaching for the rule books or rushing to the courts.

A trained mediator can help identify how to find solutions. Again, decades of experience in negotiations, industrial relations and generally getting things sorted can provide useful advice for situations that can easily distract or even overwhelm leadership groups.

Mediation Approach

Cost-effective conflict resolution
Expert negotiations and relationship management
Confidential and sensitive handling of complex situations

Facilitation

Facilitation goes beyond just setting up meetings and discussions. Busy leaderships with multiple agendas can find it hard to see a path into the future that is best for the organisation as a whole.

That strategic discussion needs marshalling and prompting and the occasional firm steer if your awayday or strategy day is to be productive. Our facilitation analysis can help in other ways too.

If your board meetings and operations meetings keep getting bogged down in the same stuff, we can help break that log jam and find a better way of doing things. At its most basic, facilitation might come down to some informal analysis, coaching or advice to be offered in a key area or in response to a particular difficult situation.

Facilitation, literally, making it easier for you and your organisation.

Facilitation Approach

Strategic planning and vision sessions
Board meeting effectiveness improvement
Team alignment and decision-making workshops
Change management and transition support

What Our Clients Say

The opinions of those we have worked with over the years reflect our commitment to trust and experience

“Ian supported our process of governance review to help shape the future progress of the organisation. His work identified a number of key areas where the business was being held back by bottlenecks and gave us insight from his extensive experience with similar organisations as to how to solve them. His ongoing support meant we were able to manage those changes smoothly and he was an invaluable source of advice as we executed our growth strategy over a number of years.”
Claire Mack – CEO, Scottish Renewables
“Ian McKay exemplifies the qualities of an exceptional independent chair. He was the Scottish Police Negotiating Board chair for 8 years and his balanced judgment, unwavering integrity, and ability to foster collaboration among diverse perspectives have been instrumental in guiding our discussions toward meaningful outcomes. Ian’s leadership inspires trust and confidence, ensuring that every voice is heard while maintaining focus on strategic priorities. His expertise and dedication set a high standard for effective governance.”
David Kennedy – General Secretary,
Scottish Police Federation
“Ian McKay is an outstanding business leader who always has his finger on the pulse of business – particularly in Scotland. He has been an invaluable source of advice to me and other IoD members for many years and we would unreservedly commend him to anyone seeking to understand the way the business community works.”
Simon Walker – Director General IoD
“Ian McKay has a unique set of skills derived from extensive board room experience and from a strong background of negotiation and mediation. I have witnessed his ability to bring conflicted parties closer together and to find pragmatic solutions in difficult circumstances. He targets realistic outcomes and is sensitive to both context and due process. Ian is a valuable asset in situations of change or conflict. As a consequence, he has my strong recommendation.”
Chris Walton, Chairman Lothian Buses 2011-2014
“Ian has been a non executive director on my board for the last three years. As a chairman, you are looking for a range of skills to improve the workings of the board and to help to build a team that can take the business forward.
Whilst it is relatively easy to find professional skills i.e. Finance Director, IT Director etc. or even non execs with a sector knowledge, it is very difficult to find senior directors with high levels of Emotional Intelligence. The ability to spot friction within a board and to suggest and be part of the solution, is in my view, highly prized and the most difficult skill to acquire.
Ian has these EI skills in abundance and actively brings them into play at our board meetings. This is especially helpful in stressful situations when clear thinking is required. “When all else are losing their heads”, its hugely beneficial to have someone who is deeply grounded.”
John McCoach, Chairman, Document
Outsourcing Group
“Ian has been known to me over many years as a dedicated, thorough and thoughtful friend and colleague. Experienced in research and analysis, in cooperative working and in looking at issues and problems from both sides of the table. He has experience of working with both big and small organisations, public and private, and with employers and managers and employees.”
Baroness Margaret Prosser