What Leadership Groups
Say About Our Work
We let the documents speak for themselves. These are the assessments of the organisations that have worked with us.
Back to HomeEngagements in Their Own Words
"The Annual Reference Volume gave our leadership group something we had never had before — a single document that a new board member could read in an afternoon and actually understand how we work. The drafting process itself was useful; it forced some conversations that had been avoided."
"We engaged Almanac Bureau for three consecutive quarters of the Quarterly Editorial Pack. The pace of the conversations and the quality of the pack improved noticeably by the second quarter, once they understood our rhythm. The facilitated review is genuinely more productive than what we were doing before."
"I asked them to draft a note on how we should communicate a structural change to the wider team. They asked the right questions and came back with something that was ready to send with very minor edits. The price was reasonable for what it saved in internal drafting time."
"We had tried twice to produce an annual reference document internally and neither attempt was finished. Almanac Bureau produced one in six weeks. The format is clean enough that our regional directors refer to it regularly — I didn't expect it to become a working document so quickly."
"The operating note engagement took less time than I expected. Two conversations, a draft, and a final version within two weeks. What I appreciated was that they did not try to turn it into a larger engagement — they produced what was asked and stopped there."
"What made the Quarterly Editorial Pack worth continuing was the post-meeting summary. Having a written record of what was agreed — not what was discussed, but what was actually decided — reduced the amount of follow-up clarification we needed between quarterly meetings considerably."
Three Engagements in Detail
A regional distributor rebuilding its leadership structure
A mid-sized distribution firm in the Klang Valley had grown from a family-run business into a 200-person operation over eight years. Four of the seven leadership group members were new to their roles within the previous eighteen months. No written account of how the company made decisions or structured its work existed in any accessible form.
We conducted six interviews over three weeks, covering each function lead and the two founding directors. We gathered existing artefacts — organograms, budget presentations, board memos — and used them to anchor the narrative rather than replace it. Two comment rounds with the principals refined the volume.
A 38-page Annual Reference Volume was delivered in five weeks. The company used it as the foundation document for an internal induction programme for new leadership group members — a use that was not anticipated at the time of engagement but which the document format supported well.
"We finally had something to give to the new heads of department that told them the real story of how the place works."
A professional services firm establishing a regular review practice
A 60-person accounting and advisory firm had a quarterly partners meeting that consistently ran over time and ended without clear decisions. The meeting had no pre-read material and no post-meeting record. Partners left with different interpretations of what had been agreed on staffing and pricing matters.
We designed a four-quarter engagement. In the first quarter, we gathered updates, produced the editorial pack, and facilitated the meeting. We also introduced a post-meeting summary template. From the second quarter onward, the pack included a running record of prior agreements and their status.
By the third quarter, the partners meeting ran within its allotted time and the post-meeting summary was circulated within two working days. Four unresolved decisions from previous quarters had been formally closed. The firm renewed for a fifth quarter.
"The running record of what we had agreed and what was still open changed the meeting entirely. People came prepared to close things rather than re-open them."
Framing an internal reorganisation for a public-facing team
A government-linked entity in Putrajaya was restructuring its customer engagement function, merging two teams under a single head. Leadership needed to communicate the change internally without triggering concern among staff about job security, while also being honest about the rationale for the merger.
Two structured conversations with the CEO and the new function head. We tested several framings of the change and settled on one that emphasised the operational logic rather than the financial driver. One draft and one comment round produced the final note.
The note was circulated to staff and followed by a Q&A session. The HR team reported that the questions received were substantive rather than anxious — indicating that the communication had landed on the intended terms. Total engagement time: eleven days.
"The questions we got from staff were about how the new structure would work — not whether their jobs were at risk. That told us the note had done its job."
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