decided this?
this year
Activity: ongoing
Owner: —
Reversed in the ████████.
together.”
Veto
Something's
not quite right.
Every organisation thinks its problem is unique. It almost never is.
A weed is just a plant nobody named.
Most organisational dysfunction works the same way. Visible to everyone, named by no one — so it survives.
A decision that never quite gets made. A veto that arrives in the corridor after the meeting ends. A room that agrees out loud and disagrees everywhere else. People live with these for years because they have no word for them. You can't point at what you can't name.
Dandylion is a diagnostic practice. We identify the pattern, give it a name, and hand you the evidence it's there. What you do next is your decision. Seeing it clearly is the work.
The taproot is the point. Not the flower, not the seeds — the single deep root everything else grows out of. We go under the visible problems to the one thing feeding them.
The pattern library.
Showing 7 of 40 · working cards, not slides
Corridor Veto
The meeting makes the decision. The corridor quietly unmakes it.
Ghost Decision
Everyone is acting on a decision nobody can locate.
Politeness Filter
Disagreement is softened as it travels upward until leaders hear a version of reality nobody below them believes.
Zombie Project
A project that has lost its purpose keeps consuming time and budget because stopping it would need someone to own the ending.
Reorg Reflex
A problem in direction, decisions, trust or delivery is answered by redrawing reporting lines.
Consultation Theatre
Feedback is invited after the only decision that matters has already been made.
Accountability Fog
Everyone owns a part. Nobody owns whether the whole thing works.
+ 33 more
The full library is the evidence base. Each pattern earns its place by being found in the wild, with the record to prove it.
Recognise one in your own organisation? That's the point of naming them. Browse the full library →
Let's Get Wellington Moving.
A decade. Three governing partners. Hundreds of millions committed. Almost nothing built — then the whole thing was disestablished. Everyone has a theory. We ran the diagnosis against the library instead. The failures are named, dated and evidenced.
Read the full diagnosis →- PatternCount
- Ghost Decision ×7
- Corridor Veto ×4
- Consultation Theatre ×5
- Reorg Reflex ×3
- Accountability Fog throughout
How it works
We find what’s producing the problem — then show you where to intervene.
This isn’t a culture survey or a generic maturity assessment. We take a defined organisational problem, trace how it is being produced and test the explanation against the evidence.
Frame
We agree on the question the diagnosis needs to answer. A decision that won’t hold. A programme that keeps stalling. A leadership team pulling in different directions. This gives the investigation a clear boundary.
Trace
We follow the real work: the decisions, handovers, meetings and points where progress stalls or changes direction. We examine the record and speak to the people closest to what is happening.
Diagnose
We compare what people say with what the record shows and identify the mechanism repeatedly producing the problem. If it matches a documented pattern, we name it. If it doesn’t, we don’t force it.
Recommend.
You get the diagnosis, the evidence behind it and the move most likely to address the cause: where to start, who needs to own it and what should change if it works. We show the consequence of leaving it alone — and quantify it only where the evidence supports a number.
Decision and governance records · meeting artefacts · role accountabilities · timelines · operating data · confidential conversations · observation of live work
The State of Play
We publish the diagnoses. That's the evidence base.
Every named pattern earns its place by being found in the wild — in public organisations, with the record to prove it. The writing is the practice working out loud.
- JUL 2026The LGWM diagnosis: ten years, nothing moved→
- JUN 2026Why the manager layer is where engagement dies→
- MAY 2026Published values, lived experience, and the zero between them→
Something's wrong and you can't name it.
That's the whole job. Bring us the organisation — we'll tell you what it is.
Start a diagnosis →