Strategic Framing
& Decision Architecture
Define the real problem, examine assumptions, align stakeholders, and create a structure for execution.
Strategic advisory for consequential decisions
See What Shapes
the Decision.
Where Power, Judgment, and Strategy Converge.
We help leaders read the situation clearly, understand the interests and influence at work, and turn consequential choices into executable commitments.
Human Behavior
What drives people,
their judgment, and their choices.
Power Dynamics
Who influences the decision,
and how interests converge or conflict.
Economic Reality
What is at stake, and
what the outcome makes possible.
Three dimensions. One clearer decision.
For CEOs, founders, executive teams, private equity leaders, sales & commercial leaders, and enterprise cohorts
When the stakes are clear.
And the situation is not.
The Courtier Framework
Five Lenses for
Consequential Decisions.
A disciplined approach to understanding what is happening, who it affects, and what comes next.
Our Advisory Services
From Insight
to Advantage.
Three integrated advisory services to help leaders navigate complex decisions and achieve meaningful outcomes.
Discuss Your Situation →Strategic Framing
Transaction &
Value Creation Advisory
Apply our framework to M&A, capital allocation, growth initiatives, and other high-stakes decisions.
Executive &
Stakeholder Dynamics
Understand and address the human and organizational dynamics that shape outcomes.
When to bring us in
The decision beneath
the business problem.
Consequential moments demand a clear reading of the economics, the people, and the authority required to act.
The strategy is agreed.
The choices remain unresolved.
Growth priorities compete for the same resources. The executive team supports the ambition, but has not settled what to stop, who decides, or which trade-offs it will accept.
The investment thesis is sound.
Execution is meeting resistance.
An acquisition or value creation plan depends on changes that management interprets differently. Integration decisions stall between sponsor priorities and operating realities.
Authority is defined.
Influence tells a different story.
Formal decision rights leave critical dependencies unresolved. People who must execute the decision have different incentives, concerns, or expectations.
Interest is evident.
The buying decision is not advancing.
A promising opportunity stalls. The team has a relationship and a proposal, but lacks a clear view of the buyer’s priorities, internal influence, decision criteria, or consequences of delay.
Apply Strategic Framing to understand how the customer will reach a decision and what evidence supports the next commitment.
Explore the commercial application →The Framework in Practice
Illustrative situationBefore calling it resistance,
understand what is being protected.
A sponsor acquires a complementary business. The integration plan calls for shared systems and centralized purchasing. Milestones slip. The initial explanation: management is resisting change.
What if the obstacle is an unresolved operating decision?
01 / Examine the evidence
Delay is a symptom. Establish its cause.
Review which milestones have slipped and what approvals they depend on. In this illustration, the operating team has raised unresolved customer-service and supplier-continuity concerns.
Implication for the decision
Separate objections supported by operating evidence from preferences for the status quo.
The reframed decision
Which integration sequence captures purchasing benefits while protecting customer continuity, and who has authority to approve the trade-offs?
The practical output is a staged decision plan: named owners, explicit service safeguards, approval deadlines, and evidence for proceeding. The example connects the five lenses to an explicit decision and a practical execution structure.
The Work Product
Clarity you can
put to work.
A Courtier Decision Brief brings the situation, competing interests, available choices, and execution commitments into one disciplined record.
Explore a worked example of an acquisition integration decision, including the evidence required before proceeding.
Read the Sample Decision Brief ↗Illustrative work product · Acquisition integrationIntegration sequence
& operating continuity
The decision
Which integration sequence captures purchasing benefits while protecting customer continuity?
The proposed course
Open the complete brief →A staged integration, subject to verified service safeguards and explicit approval rights.
From inquiry to execution
A defined decision.
A practical engagement.
The scope follows the situation, with clear outputs and an agreed decision to resolve.
- 01
Establish the decision
Clarify the stakes, time horizon, participants, and evidence required.
- 02
Examine the situation
Apply the five lenses to assumptions, stakeholder positions, and feasible choices.
- 03
Structure the commitment
Document the choice, accountable owners, next actions, and review conditions.
The Courtier Perspective
Where judgment becomes
a strategic discipline.
Consequential decisions rarely turn on economics alone. They are shaped by what people believe, what they have at stake, and who has the authority or influence to act.
Courtier Advisors is a strategic advisory firm built around this intersection. Strategic Framing & Decision Architecture is our core methodology, applied across leadership decisions, transactions, value creation, and stakeholder dynamics. We make assumptions explicit, examine interests and influence, and connect judgment to accountable action.
Bring clarity to your next decision →Strategic Framing / Commercial Application
Understand the decision
behind the opportunity.
For sales and commercial teams navigating complex buying decisions, stakeholder conversations, pricing changes, and strategic accounts.
Five lenses. A clearer view of the buyer.
Explore how the Courtier Framework applies to a live opportunity.
01 Reality
Distinguish observable buyer evidence from seller assumptions. What has the customer confirmed about the problem, evaluation process, timing, and next step?
02 Interests
Understand what each stakeholder wants to achieve, fears losing, or needs to protect. Treat inferred motives as hypotheses to test through respectful questions.
03 Power
Identify budget authority, internal advocates, approval dependencies, and people who can delay or prevent a decision. Verify influence rather than inferring it from title alone.
04 Framing
Examine how the buyer defines the problem and compares alternatives. Test whether the proposed solution addresses the customer’s decision criteria, including the option to maintain the status quo.
05 Consequence
Explore the implications of buying, delaying, or doing nothing. Establish a mutually agreed next step with a named owner, required evidence, and a date.
Enterprise Cohorts
A shared discipline.
Applied to live decisions.
Facilitated cohorts give leadership and commercial teams a structured way to apply Strategic Framing to current business situations. For sales teams, the work centers on selected opportunities, account decisions, and customer conversations.
Participants examine evidence, test interpretations, and develop practical work products. Scope, participants, cadence, and review measures are agreed around the enterprise’s priorities.
Discuss an Enterprise Cohort ↗Commercial work products
Know whose decision it is.
Record stakeholders, verified priorities, influence, approval rights, and unresolved questions.
Separate evidence from expectation.
Assess buyer-confirmed needs, decision criteria, competing alternatives, and gaps in the commercial case.
Make the next step explicit.
Define the action, accountable owner, evidence needed, and mutually agreed date for progressing the decision.
Review focus: evidence quality, stakeholder coverage, unresolved decision dependencies, and completion of agreed next steps.
Founder Perspective
Todd Vandegrift
Founder · Courtier Advisors
Understanding a decision begins with understanding the people under pressure to make it.
Todd brings more than 25 years of experience in sales and business development, including 15 years in leadership, alongside capital advisory and M&A advisory work through EdgeWork Capital.
His work as a private investigator from 2010 to 2012 deepened his interest in human behavior, particularly how people respond to stress, uncertainty, and consequential situations. That experience informs Courtier’s attention to the relationship between stated positions, underlying interests, and observable behavior.
His professional development includes certification in Interviewing and Interrogation through Reid and Associates, and study through the Human Givens program focused on understanding human anxiety.
These experiences inform Courtier’s approach to strategic judgment: examine the evidence, understand the people involved, and connect the decision to its commercial and organizational consequences.
Begin a conversation with Todd →Perspectives on Decision-Making
Before the decision,
question the frame.
Three questions worth asking when the stakes are high.
Enterprise Cohort Inquiry
Start with the team.
And the decisions ahead.
Contact Todd to discuss your team’s priorities and a suitable cohort scope. Include your organization, the people who would participate, the business decisions you want to address, and your preferred timing.
Begin a Conversation
What decision is
in front of you?
An acquisition. A stalled initiative. A consequential leadership choice.
Begin with the decision, what is at stake, and what remains unresolved.