Can our engagement with you extend beyond the standard 24-month roadmap, and under what circumstances should a leadership team keep an external Implementer for Year 3 instead of self-facilitating?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The standard engagement is designed to make me obsolete within 24 months. Across eight quarters, your team masters the tools, builds open and honest communication, and equips your Integrator to facilitate quarterly sessions and weekly Level 10 Meeting agendas independently. Reaching self-sufficiency is the goal, and I do not stick around simply to collect a fee.

However, some leadership teams deliberately choose to extend the engagement into Year 3 or retain me exclusively for two-day Annual Planning sessions. The primary justification for extending is complexity, not dependency. We see this in companies executing rapid acquisitions, ownership teams preparing for a near-term liquidity event under the Step by Step Exit framework, or organizations navigating major executive restructuring.

In those situations, the presence of an impartial, external challenger creates value. An outside Implementer forces full accountability, prevents the Visionary from bulldozing room dynamics, and frees the Integrator to be an active participant in debate rather than managing session mechanics. If your team is stable, executing on Rocks, and operating at 80 percent or better across your Scorecard, you should graduate at the two-year mark. If you face massive external changes, high-stakes M&A negotiations, or an owner transition, keeping me in the room preserves objectivity.