About Us
'Tactics make the steps from which operational leaps are assembled; strategy points out the path'.
A A Svechin
Our Approach...
What is strategy?
Unhelpfully, the field of strategy is cluttered and confused by myriad different definitions and even more opinions about how it should be designed and implemented. All too often, what is called strategy simply isn't!
To us, strategy is a shared framework which sets out what needs to be done to bring about a particular desired condition over an extended period of time. Strategy is about how an organisation can best influence its environment in order to create the most favourable possible conditions. In order to fully understand the nature and extent of the problem, it should therefore be unconstrained by limitations of resources.
The challenge for implementation includes finding creative ways in which activity can be coordinated and conducted to encourage or influence such change, taking into account practical as well as resource constraints.
Our respective natural inclination and excitement for strategy and planning first came together when we formed the Plans Team at the UK’s first response military headquarters. In parallel with our routine work at the apex of the political / military campaign planning structure, we also designed and developed a fresh approach to thinking about strategy. Now enshrined into NATO military thinking, our framework broke the traditional mould of linear, predictive, and suffocating strategy development, promoting responsiveness and flexibility, delegated activity, and creative thinking.
In the years since, we have further honed our strategic approach in a wide range of senior public and private sector roles. It works. And it is now available to benefit your organisation as a unique methodology suitable for all business models, whether large, small, for-profit or not. As far from a templated solution as it is possible to get, we are confident that it's the only framework of its kind available in the consultancy sector.
Our process ensures that leaders and managers have a coherent and workable strategy that does not confine further thought or action, is precisely tailored to circumstances, and maximises full potential – all balanced against the recognition that every organisation is part of a dynamic system where change and unpredictability is to be embraced rather than ignored. Strategy and process are no longer dirty words!
We are really excited to bring this approach to the market…
…and we do other stuff, too! Talk to us to discuss how we can bring our passion to your organisation.
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Jason and Andrew
'The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak'.
Hans Hoffmann
'We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them'
Albert Einstein
'The core of strategy work is always the same; discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors'.
Richard Rumelt
'Like a human being, a company has to have an internal communication mechanism, a ‘nervous system’, to coordinate its actions'
Bill Gates
'Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite; its starting point'.
Henry Mintzberg
What makes Aperture different?
Every organisation exists within an operating environment. We view that environment as a dynamic system with many different components, each of which inter-acts with all the others. In order to change the system, some or all of these components need to be influenced to behave in a particular way. The sum of that behaviour creates change in the system over time. If that sounds complicated, it really isn't, its really a very simple way of managing complexity.
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Designing strategy is all about understanding the components of the system that is required to change . Implementing strategy is about improving that knowledge; learning through targeted engagement about how that system is responding to influence and adjusting activity. We do not apply a sterile, linear template; our approach is built on analysis of, interaction with, and learning from the environment in which we are operating.
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Aperture's approach to strategy is different because...
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...we analyse our client's long term objectives within the context of its wider operating environment - the system in which it exists and operates. We do not make distinctions between our client's 'internal' and 'external' environment but treat the whole system as inter-dependent, complex, and adaptive.
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...we believe that it is impossible - or at least unrealistic - to expect strategy to predict outcomes. Situations change because of numerous influences working in different places, at different times, and for different reasons, but cumulatively having an overall effect.
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...it is iterative. We expect to have to adjust activities planned in support of a strategy framework as conditions change. In that respect we have a learning approach to the implementation of strategy, which has to be sufficiently rigorous to frame suitable activity, but also flexible enough to allow activity to be tested and adjusted as appropriate.
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...for us, strategy focuses on required effect. Activity is planned, conducted, and adjusted during implementation. Design and implementation are intrinsically linked.
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...our attitude to strategy captures and enables rather than stifles leadership intuition. But it also promotes initiative in creating a collaborative, learning organisation and developing responsibility for delivery. People understand better what effect is to be achieved, and that their behaviour makes a significant contribution to that effect.
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...we focus on the way we want the system to look and behave as a result of our strategic intervention. Our desired 'endstate' therefore describes the system as we want to see it, rather than setting aspirational and often meaningless internal goals and objectives or relying on an esoteric mission statement.
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..our approach is suitable for and scaleable across a wide spectrum of international and domestic clients and problem sets, including the public and private sectors, small and medium sized commercial enterprises, multi-nationals, not-for-profit, and everything in between.
...we view work on all our service lines through the lens of strategy, thus providing focus and context.
Some are born to be strategists, some are educated in strategy, and some have strategy thrust upon them...
After Shakespeare
'In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward; you pick a general direction and implement like hell'
Jack Welch

How do we deliver our engagement?
Our consulting engagements will always be led in person by, or with the close oversight of, one of our managing partners. In support of our formal Consulting Agreement we will provide an outline project plan describing how we propose to structure our services and deliverables during the engagement, based on listening carefully to your requirements and intentions. This sets the tone and conditions for our engagement partnership.
Our approach is to harvest your ideas, insights, and perspectives and through continual consultation, to facilitate and refine their development in accordance with the project's objectives. Full collaboration is essential to our way of working - your product, our process. For the duration of our engagement we look upon ourselves as part of your team, albeit one which offers fresh perspectives and insights about how to frame the problem statement.
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Our approach sets great store by spending time on understanding and analysing the problem set as a system. Every operating environment can be described as a system which includes your organisation and your external stakeholders. There are always a surprising range of other actors, usually unknown or overlooked but who may seek to influence your interaction with the system unconsciously, sub-consciously, or deliberately at some stage. Understanding these potentially complex interactions is key to our engagement and assisting you to illuminate this landscape is one of our key strengths.
Once we have developed an initial map of the system of which you are part, we will seek to define your view of how you wish it to behave following the intervention of your strategy. We will then analyse the key drivers that do most to influence the character and behaviour of the system. This process provides the fundamental building blocks of your strategy, around which the strategy framework will be constructed. Finally, we will help to build an initial package of activities that will kick-off implementation. Our iterative approach thereafter provides a process through which to monitor effect and identify appropriate adjustments to activities in pursuit of desired strategic change.
At all times you and your team are placed at the centre of the development process, facilitated but not dominated by by our experience of what constitutes meaningful and effective strategy.
'We tend to think that...people are producing results because management wants results, but the essence of a high-quality organisation is people producing results because they want the results. ...if people are really enjoying, they’ll innovate, they’ll take risks, they’ll have trust with one another because they are really committed to what they’re doing and it’s fun'
Peter Senge
'Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication'
Leonardo da Vinci
How do we package our services?
Our core offering is supporting the design and implementation of strategy using our unique, iterative, and intuitive framework of process and analysis. Clearly, the requirements for each of our clients are different, and it may be that we simply support the production of a strategy without assisting with implementation, or even the other way around. But to get best effect from our approach, we recommend a package of support to both strategy development and its execution; the two areas are not distinct, they are inseparable, and the most fundamental mistake in the field of strategy is to disconnect them. Our process specifically provides for adjustment of activity during execution, and therefore we seek continued engagement from strategy formulation through execution.
Our supporting services are all delivered through the lens of our client's strategy. We can provide stand-alone organisational design, development, and change, project and risk management, training and mentoring, and special projects or package elements together to suit requirements. All these fields of interest are mutually supporting, and are usually offered as separate disciplines. We prefer to take an integrated approach in order to achieve best effect and value.
'However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results'.
Winston Churchill
The Aperture Strategy Team...

Jason Poole, Managing Partner
Jason’s career in the Royal Navy spanned 38 years. He started as a Mine Clearance Diver and moved on to Anti-Air Warfare Officer with service in the tanker and Gulf wars, Falkland’s, Caribbean, Baltic and Far East. In 2003 he was selected for Staff College completing a Masters in Defence Studies – this focused his career towards Joint Operational and strategic planning with subsequent appointments in the UK’s Joint Forces rapid deployment HQ, Navy HQ and Defence Intelligence. His career then progressed into policy and diplomacy with service aboard in the Pentagon and UK embassies in Washington, Tripoli and Tunis, as well as the Foreign Office and Cabinet Office. His last appointment, before leaving the RN in 2019, was to drive MOD policy for the Middle East and North Africa, for which he was honoured with an OBE. Since leaving the Service, Jason has consulted on Middle East issues and supported a Tech Start-Up as CEO.
jason.poole@aperture-strategy.co.uk.
0044 (0) 7949 029 596

Andrew Firth, Managing Partner
Andrew retired from the British Army in 2009 after 23 years commissioned service. He completed a considerable number of diverse operational deployments from Northern Ireland and the Former Yugoslavia to Georgia and Sierra Leone before attending the prestigious United States Army School of Advanced Military Studies where he took a Masters Degree in Strategy and Operational Art. During his later military career Andrew held a number of senior planning roles in the UK Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office, focused mainly on government strategy and policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since leaving the Army, Andrew has worked in consulting roles to governments, international organisations, and large corporations in the Middle East and Africa. He Chairs the Governing Board at a local special educational needs school and his favourite pastime is lamenting the parlous state of Welsh rugby to whomever may be listening.
andrew.firth@aperture-strategy.co.uk.
0044 (0) 7944 625 453