# SCAR Advantage: full context

> We find the decision costing an organisation the most money and get it made and acted on in 30 days.

Practice: SCAR Advantage™, a decision intervention practice.
People: David Maclean (Founder), Mike Jansen (Practice Partner).
Location: Cape Town, South Africa. Engagements globally.
Site: https://scaradvantage.com/

## What the practice does

A routine sign-off that always returns to the same person. Work that waits for the next meeting. An agreed action that still needs chasing. These patterns can become part of the working week. Repetition alone is not evidence of a problem: the practice establishes whether the waiting is necessary and what it costs.

An approval added after a bad deal can remain after the problem has passed. SCAR Advantage calls that leftover a scar, and calls what it costs now decision drag. The client brings one observable example; together they select one live, costly, owned decision to get made and acted on inside thirty days. If there is no worthwhile change to make, the practice says so before commitment.

## What a client gets

1. The cost of an observable approval or waiting pattern is established, then one live, owned decision is selected. It must be costly, owned by one named person and measurable.
2. Inside thirty days, that decision is cleared, made and acted on, worked in the client's own business with the people who own it.
3. The movement is proved on the numbers at Day 30 and confirmed by finance at Day 90.

The method used to surface and clear decision drag is proprietary and is not published. It is discussed inside an engagement.

## The 30-Day Decisive Loop™

The four-week form of the work, run inside the client's real decision. No simulation and no case study. The engagement closes at Day 30 with a board-ready impact report, and finance confirms financial impact at Day 90.

## The four measures

We measure time to decide and time to complete the action. A business can score well on the first and still lose millions on the second. Both are read.

| Measure | Measured | What it captures |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Decision speed | Day 30 | Clock one. Days from trigger to an owned call |
| Execution speed | Day 30 | Clock two. Days from the call to the agreed action being completed |
| Escalation | Day 30 | How often it goes up a level when it belongs at a lower level |
| Financial impact | Day 90 | What was done, when, what it cost and what it saves, confirmed by finance |

Baselined at intake with the client finance function.

## Who it is for

Primary: mergers and acquisitions, private equity, business rescue.
Secondary: founder-led businesses and family offices.
Verified client examples are published for each primary arena, with company names withheld under NDA.

## People

David Maclean, Founder. More than two decades working inside organisations where important decisions were known long before they were made. Author of UNPLAN: Stop Optimising and Start Progressing. Associate faculty at Henley Business School. Author of the forthcoming white paper Organisational Kintsugi (expected 2026).

Mike Jansen, Practice Partner. Three decades rescuing complex programmes and organisational change initiatives. Works with executives on the leadership reflex shaping a decision so the team can replace it deliberately.

## Engagement

Start at https://scaradvantage.com/contact. The client does not need to diagnose a stuck decision or work out the cause first. Bring one example from the working week: a recurring sign-off, work waiting for a meeting, or an agreed action that needs chasing.