Between your big idea and today’s work sits a gap.
Every organization we work with starts with an ambition: a transformation, a new operating model, disciplined growth in a fast-moving market. There is the future you have committed to, and there is the work actually happening on Monday morning. The distance between them is the say-do gap. After more than a decade of this work, the pattern is boringly consistent: the strategy is rarely what fails. The work itself is. Closing that gap is what August does.
From July 1
You named this yourselves. "Disciplined growth" is the C-suite's promise to investors. But delivering this promise will require new behaviors and ways of working. 100% certainty is a fantasy. WEX will need better cross-functional coordination, decisions that stick, and a clear vision that keeps teams aligned.
The Challenge
When we say the work is broken, this is what we mean.
The same symptoms run underneath almost every large organization. They are not signs of bad people; they are what talented, committed teams produce when the way of working itself quietly works against them. Not the strategy. Not the talent. Not the effort.
BureaucracyBloated teamsSlownessMeeting overloadDecision gridlockDeath by consensusFear of failureBurnoutAI theater
From July 1
Meeting overload and decision gridlock are closely connected: time is wasted revisiting and reopening decisions, and escalating to executives who have other priorities. And AI theater: ~85% of employees use AI weekly, but the line from usage to business impact is not yet drawn. We named a subtler cost too: AI can add to burnout, because unlimited execution creates more review and judgment work downstream.
What is the status quo costing you?
For an organization of ~5,000 employees and $2B revenue, the research says:
Click to add it up →
$0
$37M
Executive time spent on decisions, most of it poorly used
Ask leaders why the gap persists and three answers come back, over and over. They are not stupid ideas; they are well-intentioned, everywhere, and comforting. They are also why the gap stays open. Strategy, talent, and effort are essential; they are also no longer enough.
From July 1
You are already trying to tackle lie #3, including revising the performance scale to reward impact over effort and infusing it into senior-leader conversations. That is the mindset shift underneath a better way of working: the practices are what make it real day to day.
1
“We just need a better strategy to win.”
A sharper plan does not survive contact with a broken system. The how swallows the what.
2
“Superstar talent leads to superstar teamwork.”
Teamwork is a discipline, not a byproduct of collecting good people.
3
“Working harder leads to better results.”
Pushing harder through broken ways of working produces burnout, then turnover.
What We Believe
The most undervalued driver of performance is the quality of everyday teamwork.
Change does not happen at the individual or the org chart. It happens at the team, the atomic unit of change, because the team is where meaningful work actually gets done, and where culture is something people experience rather than read on a slide. Change how a team works and you change the thing people feel every day. That is the bet the rest of this rests on.
From July 1 · where WEX has momentum, and where the gaps are
Product and tech teams experience a common tension. In spite of a mission-based model, people still identify with their function ("I'm in risk") rather than the outcome they serve. Designing for learning is agreed in principle, but hard to live up to. Under intense pressure to deliver results there are few mechanisms to celebrate intelligent failures. And AI has a strong foundation at WEX, but still needs a clearer North Star.
How We Help
A better way to work rests on four capabilities.
Not principles on a poster. Each one shows up as a small, concrete practice a team actually uses.
01
Organizing for Impact
Roles, not souls. Teams of nine or fewer, a clear mission, and a living team charter, not a RACI that changes nothing.
02
Deciding in Uncertainty
Shift the question from "is this right?" to "is it safe enough to try?" The antidote to death by consensus.
03
Designing for Learning
Work in public. Ship the messy draft on a cadence and treat failure as information, not embarrassment.
AI
Partnering with AI, woven through all three, not bolted on. Not individuals with better tools in isolation; team intelligence, with AI in the room changing how a team decides and ships. The opposite of AI theater.
Our Capabilities
How we transform the way you work.
We help organizations build the conditions for teams to do their best work, and then sustain them. Start anywhere; we transform the whole system.
Teams
Example project
Coach 2–3 priority teams through a 90-day mission.
Culture
Example project
Turn your values into a ways-of-working playbook.
Systems
Example project
Redesign decision rights for one critical workflow.
Leaders
Example project
Design and facilitate a leadership alignment offsite.
AI
Embedded across every intervention. Connective tissue, not a separate workstream.
You can start anywhere. We'll help you transform the whole system.
What An Engagement Actually Looks Like
We don't train or roll out a framework. We embed.
Training programs and framework rollouts fade the moment the workshop ends. We embed instead, and our best partnerships follow one arc: prove it with a few real teams, embed it until it's the default, scale it by pull, then reinvent the operating model.
Phase 01 · Pilot
First 90 days
Prove it with a few real teams
Two or three pilot teams take on missions that matter, each backed by a senior sponsor. A coach in the room, not a workshop. The goal: a visible win others want to copy.
Scope2–3 pilot teams
Phase 02 · Embed
Months 3–9
Make the new way the default
The practices become how the pilot teams actually work. We start certifying your first internal coaches, so the capability begins living inside your walls, not ours.
Scope addsInternal coaches & facilitators
Phase 03 · Scale
Months 9–18
Spread by pull, not mandate
Demand pulls the work outward to more teams and regions. A champion network carries it further than any consultant could, and the vocabulary becomes your own.
Scope addsMore teams · regions · champion network
Phase 04 · Transform
Year 2 and beyond
Reinvent the operating model
Parallel workstreams across Teams, Leaders, Systems, and Culture align leadership, HR, and governance so the new way sustains itself. Then we hand off and leave you independent.
Running in parallelTeams · Leaders · Systems · Culture
And the language becomes yours: SLAM at PepsiCo, FEED at Colgate, PACE at McCain, Responsive at Chanel and Talbots, Everyday Change at Estée Lauder.
Where this could start for WEX
Start where the energy is: one or two real teams, with AI in the room.
We would not roll this out. We would charter a couple of missions that already matter, coach them in the flow of real work, and let the results pull the rest of the organization in, the same pattern that turned four teams into a movement at McCain. HR is our partner in making it durable.
From July 1
We surfaced two possible areas of opportunity. Senior leaders get convened, but not yet catalyzed as decision-makers; activating that next layer down could be the focus of an initial cohort. And Kaylyn's hypothesis matches our model: if HR gets the operating model right internally first, it is far better positioned to shepherd the business. The HR Leadership Team's operating ethos, as you described it, maps closely to how we work.
The Proof
What happens when teams operate inside a better system.
PepsiCo
Five pilot teams became the way of working across roughly 60 markets. Published by Harvard, and featured by Amy Edmondson in HBR's "Agility Hacks."
Colgate
A 200-year-old company scaled to 100+ teams and 150+ internal coaches, with third-party-validated gains in risk-taking and responsiveness.
McCain
Four pilot teams in fall 2024 grew to 22 PACE teams and 556+ practitioners across five regions. One 14-week sprint identified tens of millions in potential CAPEX savings.
From July 1 · the closest analog
McCain is the shape of your opportunity: the right principles, a need for cross-functional speed, and decisions that had to stay made, which maps onto your enterprise-priorities program. The endgame, senior leaders naming their own PACE missions in their annual plans, is exactly the durability of direction WEX is after.
The model travels across industries, scales, and cultures.
In Their Words
What our clients have to say.
“Slides about empowerment are nice, but we needed something broader and more pragmatic. August provided an extremely practical toolkit and hands-on coaching that helped us drive meaningful change in our day-to-day work.”
Head of Supply Chain
“Without August, we would lack the ability to compete at our best in a fast-paced environment.”
President & CMO
“The transformation that August has seeded within our organization is such a big gift. Our people and teams need this new way of working if we want to achieve our mission.”
VP, Patient and Employee Experience
“Thanks to August for pushing our thinking beyond our preconceived notions of what is possible.”
Global Head of Change
“It was a perfect recipe. You truly took a human-centered design approach to improve decision-making. You brought deep, deep expertise in decision-making practices and localized it to our specific needs. It came together in such a way that it enabled us to be truly effective.”
Global Head of Culture, Diversity & Belonging
“August was instrumental in helping us set the foundation for a more inclusive team.”
Sr. Director, Inclusion & Belonging
Picking Up Where The Roux Left Off
Let's find the one team at WEX worth starting with.
A short, no-obligation diagnostic: where you are, where you're trying to go, and the fastest door into new ways of working, with AI in the room from day one.
From July 1 · next steps
We're sending this alongside the McCain and PepsiCo deep dives. In return, help us map the room: who else should be in this conversation, and which upcoming gatherings or offsites could be a place to bring new ways of working to life.
Where do we begin?
Let's talk about your teams, WEX · aug.co
Every engagement includes 100 complimentary copies of Teams That Meet the Moment by Karina Mangu-Ward.
