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  <title><![CDATA[Spruce Crestpath]]></title>
  <link>https://spruce-crestpath.com/</link>
  <description><![CDATA[Spruce Crestpath is a Okazaki-based strategy consultancy led by Marcus Hale. Strategic planning, organisational design, and decision support for growing businesses.]]></description>
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    <title><![CDATA[Why Most Strategic Plans Fail Before They Are Finished]]></title>
    <link>https://spruce-crestpath.com/</link>
    <description><![CDATA[A strategic plan that sits in a shared drive and is never opened again is not a strategy. It is a document. The difference between the two is not the quality of the analysis. It is whether the people who have to execute it were genuinely involved in making it.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-07-14</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[The Org Chart Is Not the Organisation]]></title>
    <link>https://spruce-crestpath.com/</link>
    <description><![CDATA[Every organisation has two structures: the one on the chart and the one that actually determines how decisions get made. The gap between them is where most organisational problems live. Closing that gap is harder than redrawing boxes, but it is the only intervention that lasts.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-06-23</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[How to Run a Strategic Planning Process That Actually Works]]></title>
    <link>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/how-to-run-a-strategic-planning-process.html</link>
    <guid>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/how-to-run-a-strategic-planning-process.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[The strategic planning process has a reputation problem. Ask most senior leaders about the last one they went through and you will hear a version of the same story: a lot of meetings, a lot of slides, a document that was referenced once and then quietly shelved. That reputation is earned. But it is not inevitable. The difference between a planning process that produces a living strategy and one that produces a filing cabinet entry comes down to a small number of decisions made at the very beginning.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-07-01</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[Organisational Design for a Business That Has Outgrown Its Structure]]></title>
    <link>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/organisational-design-growing-business.html</link>
    <guid>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/organisational-design-growing-business.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[There is a specific kind of organisational pain that arrives somewhere between 40 and 100 people. The structure that worked when everyone knew everyone, when decisions happened in corridors and accountability was informal, stops working. Things fall through gaps. Decisions take longer. People are unclear about who owns what. The founders or senior leaders find themselves pulled into operational detail they should not be touching. This is not a management failure. It is a structural one, and it has a structural solution.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-06-10</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[How to Make Better Decisions When You Do Not Have All the Information]]></title>
    <link>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/how-to-make-better-decisions-under-uncertainty.html</link>
    <guid>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/how-to-make-better-decisions-under-uncertainty.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[Most significant business decisions are made with incomplete information. You do not know how the market will move, how competitors will respond, whether the hire will work out, or whether the new product will land. Waiting for certainty is not a strategy. It is a way of letting the decision get made by default. The question is not how to eliminate uncertainty but how to make good decisions in spite of it.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-05-19</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[When Does It Actually Make Sense to Hire a Strategy Consultant?]]></title>
    <link>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/when-to-hire-a-strategy-consultant.html</link>
    <guid>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/when-to-hire-a-strategy-consultant.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[I am going to try to answer this question honestly, which means acknowledging upfront that there are situations where hiring a strategy consultant is not the right answer. The cases where outside help adds genuine value are specific. The cases where it does not are also specific. Knowing the difference will save you money and, more importantly, time.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-04-28</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[Retained Advisory vs Project Consulting: Which One Do You Need?]]></title>
    <link>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/retained-advisory-vs-project-consulting.html</link>
    <guid>https://spruce-crestpath.com/notes/retained-advisory-vs-project-consulting.html</guid>
    <description><![CDATA[Most people who reach out to Spruce Crestpath have a specific project in mind: a strategic plan, an org redesign, a decision they need help thinking through. That is the right starting point for many engagements. But there is a second model, the retained advisory relationship, that suits a different kind of need. Understanding the difference will help you decide which one is actually useful for your situation.]]></description>
    <pubDate>2026-03-14</pubDate>
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