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"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Organisational repair
In 2025 we published From harm to healing: rebuilding trust in Britain’s publicly funded institutions. The research made a single argument: when institutions cause harm, the people responsible for that harm cannot also be responsible for the response to it. The result is a cycle of denial that compounds the original damage and destroys trust in the process.
That finding did not stay in the public sector.
Formal processes can close an incident. They rarely close the effects. Long after resolution, organisations remain in an integrity deficit; people become cautious, risk goes unspoken, decisions tighten, coordination slows, and the goodwill that drives performance quietly depletes. Leaders consistently believe they are further along in recovery than they actually are.
That gap between where an organisation believes it is and where it actually is, that is what we call the “integrity gap”, and it is precisely where the next governance failure, the next senior exit, and the next crisis is quietly being built.
We close the integrity gap through our services, powered by our proprietary diagnostic instruments, Organisational Repair Index® (ORI®) and Board ORI®.
Where either assessment reveals damage, we offer a structured, restorative repair service using the WayFinders® Method.
Measuring organisational integrity
The ORI® is our proprietary diagnostic, developed to measure the damage that serious events leave on organisational integrity. It collects quantitative and qualitative data across nine factors of damage, triangulated with internal indicators and external factors; surfacing precisely where trust has broken, where people no longer feel safe to speak, and what is compounding the damage.
It is not an HR tool. It combines people data with delivery and risk signals, and is designed to be triangulated with operational evidence. Within five to ten working days, the commissioning leader / team receives a clear, written report that identifies priority areas and offers recommendations that directly shape the repair intervention that follows.
No ongoing commitment is required and there is no obligation to proceed to repair.
Measuring board integrity
The most serious governance problems rarely show up in a governance review. They live in the relational conditions of the boardroom; whether members trust each other enough to say what they actually think, whether the executive is delivering an honest picture, whether challenge is real and decisions hold once taken.
The Board ORI® is a focused assessment of board integrity, designed for Chairs, senior independent directors, and governance advisers who need an evidenced, independent baseline. It measures precisely where those conditions are intact and where they have broken down, producing a clear, board-ready report that identifies what closing that gap requires.
Every service we offer leads, in its own way, to the same destination: repair.
Our Services
Advisory: repairing integrity
Some organisations know something is wrong before they know what it is. A leader who needs an honest, independent read of the situation before they can decide what to do next. A board that needs to understand what they are carrying. A crisis that has officially concluded but does not feel concluded.
Legally informed and restorative in method, our repair advisory service performed by Founder, Leah Brown FRSA, gives leaders the clarity to act. It can stand alone, or it can be the first step into a diagnostic assessment or a full repair intervention.
Private sector: £5,000 per day.
Public sector and third sector: £2,500 per day.
Minimum two days, maximum five.
ORI® integrity assessment
After a serious event, leaders are often working with an incomplete picture of what has been damaged inside their organisation. The ORI® gives them an accurate one.
The ORI® collects quantitative and qualitative data across nine factors of damage, triangulated with internal indicators and external factors. The findings are delivered as a clear, board-ready report. The report identifies precisely where trust has broken, where people no longer feel safe to speak, what is compounding the damage, and what repair requires. It does not end with a diagnosis. It ends with a roadmap.
No ongoing commitment is required. Where the findings show repair is needed, the same team delivers it.
Pilot: £5,000 +VAT.
Full deployment, private sector: £25,000 +VAT.
Full deployment, public sector and third sector: £20,000 +VAT .
Board ORI® integrity assessment
The most serious governance problems rarely show up in a governance review. They live in the relational conditions of the boardroom; whether members trust each other enough to say what they actually think, whether the executive is delivering an honest picture, whether challenge is real and decisions hold once taken.
The Board ORI® is a focused assessment of board integrity. It measures precisely where those conditions are intact and where they have broken down, and what closing that gap requires. It is designed for Chairs, senior independent directors, and governance advisers who need an evidenced, independent baseline before they can act.
Where the assessment shows repair is needed, the same team delivers it.
Pilot: £10,000 +VAT private sector; £5,000 +VAT public sector and third sector.
Pricing from 1 September 2025: £35,000 +VAT.
Repair intervention using the WayFinders® Method
The repair intervention is where the findings become action.
Grounded in restorative principles and shaped directly by what the ORI® / Board ORI® or advisory work has identified, the WayFinders® Method is a structured, sequenced process. Working directly with those responsible and those affected, we create the conditions for them to name what happened, address the impact, and agree the concrete actions that demonstrate genuine repair.
When the repair work is complete, we hand back to internal leads or specialist partners for longer-term recovery. Clients can request the data be reassessed at any point to see whether things have improved.
Scope and cost are engagement-specific, determined by what the diagnostic or advisory work reveals. Always time-boxed.
The WayFinders Group measures and repairs the integrity of large organisations damaged by serious events, restoring reputations, trust, and goodwill.
If you are an individual who has experienced the damage caused by an institution rather than an organisation seeking repair, The Work of Repair on Substack is written for you.
If you are a survivor seeking support, you may be interested in the work of our charity, Address The Harm (CIO) (pending). More information available here.
Case study
Problem
A national organisation faced complete operational breakdown across two teams. Poor leadership had created fractured relationships, unclear role responsibilities, and deep resentment that paralysed decision-making. Team members couldn’t work together effectively. Critical organisational work was stalled. Trust had completely broken down —attempts to “manage through it” had failed, and the organisation needed systematic repair to restore function.
Actions taken
We were asked to repair the damage. We applied the WayFinders Method as follows:
Acknowledge: Conducted confidential 1:1 interviews with all team members across both teams to surface the full extent of damage. Created safe space for people to name what had been broken without fear of reprisal. Leadership acknowledged specific failures in communication, decision-making, and role clarity that had created the breakdown.
Apology: Facilitated structured accountability sessions where leadership took responsibility for poor management practices. Team members received meaningful apologies—not legal statements, but human words acknowledging the impact of fractured relationships and no trust on their work and wellbeing.
Accountability: Established clear role responsibilities and decision-making protocols. Created visible cadences for communication and conflict resolution. Implemented weekly check-ins with measurable indicators for the leader to implement over a defined period.
Amends: Team members participated in redesigning working practices and governance structures. Leadership made concrete changes: new meeting protocols, transparent decision-making processes, and regular team effectiveness reviews. Built internal capability for ongoing repair.
Outcomes
The repair process revealed that the leader’s management approach was fundamentally incompatible with the organisation’s needs. Through the intervention, the leader gained clarity and chose to leave the organisation—allowing both teams and leadership to move forward. Both teams restored to full operational function. Decision-making speed increased. Team cohesion improved.
The organisation regained capacity to focus on accretive work rather than internal conflict, with capability to address breakdowns in trust early before it compounds.
Partners
Charting new territory in organisational healing.
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Contact
- For more information email
- admin@thewayfindersgroup.com
- +44 (0)20 8058 3920
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BroadStairs WayFinders Ltd, 42A High Street, Broadstairs CT10 1JT #14366054
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