North Star Alignment Sprint · Direction before acceleration

When growth outpaces alignment, direction becomes the work.

Accelerating before a leadership team shares direction only multiplies the divergence. The North Star Alignment Sprint helps founder-led teams agree on what they are building, what deserves focus now and how they will decide together — before they accelerate.

Discuss your leadership challenge Apply for a Founding Engagement

Four senior leaders in a focused working conversation around a table.

Two weeks to prepare.

Two days to align.

Ninety days to activate and recalibrate.

When alignment becomes necessary

Growth created a leadership team. It did not automatically create shared direction.

01Important decisions keep returning to the founder.
02Multiple priorities compete without clear trade-offs, so effort is spread thin.
03Leaders appear aligned in the room, then interpret the direction differently in the work.
04Delegation is increasing, but decision principles are not always explicit.
05The company has more opportunities than it can intelligently pursue.
06AI has expanded what your team can execute faster than leadership has aligned on what deserves to be pursued.

The problem is often not a lack of intelligence or ambition.

It is that growth has outpaced alignment.

Who this is for

Built for a specific moment in a company’s growth.

Built for founder-led B2B companies — typically 30–150 employees, sometimes smaller at a consequential inflection point — with up to eight leadership participants under the current offer.

Probably not the right intervention if the challenge is purely operational, or if the organisation wants someone else to write its strategy for it.

Why this differs

Most strategy processes begin with the organisation. We begin one layer deeper.

Organisations don’t make choices. People do — together.

Your North Star starts with the humans making the choices.

Before leaders are asked to align on company direction, each person has already reflected on what they value, what they see, what they are trying to protect and what future they are trying to create.

That changes the quality of the room.

The offsite is not used to begin reflection from zero. It is used to surface meaningful differences, build trust and shared understanding, and make consequential choices together.

01Align the humans.02Clarify the direction.03Make the choices.

We don’t simply help leadership teams agree on their next move. We help them develop the foundations and capabilities to navigate whatever comes next.

A traditional offsite often ends in temporary agreement that fades when the next hard decision arrives. In practice, the difference here is what the team takes back into the work: explicit decision principles, clear ownership and a rhythm for noticing drift.

The process is designed to strengthen the conditions that let that hold — trust, respect, constructive challenge and the confidence for leaders to act independently within a shared direction. It cannot guarantee a cultural shift; it gives the team a deliberate way to practise one.

The question is not whether a company can move faster. It is whether the leadership team is aligned on where faster should lead.

How it works

The North Star Alignment Sprint.

Prepare. Align. Activate. Recalibrate.

Not a one-off offsite. Not a year-long transformation programme.

For leadership teams that need shared direction without signing up for a year-long transformation programme.

Prepare

Two weeks

Each leader has a confidential 45-minute one-to-one video conversation with Carlo. It does two things: introduces the personal Your North Star experience — why each leader’s own perspective, values and direction matter before the team comes together — and explores how they see the business: what works, where decisions or progress get stuck, and where direction or assumptions may differ.

Each leader then completes guided private reflection in the Your North Star app. Carlo prepares the offsite from these conversations and your existing strategic material.

Reflections remain private; participants choose what they share. This is not a psychological assessment or a performance evaluation.

Align

Two days

individual understanding
→shared understanding
→shared purpose
→Company North Star
→strategic priorities
→trade-offs
→decision principles
→ownership
→90-day direction

Day one moves from the humans behind the organisation toward shared purpose, Human Advantage, identity and future direction. Day two moves from direction toward strategic choices, explicit trade-offs, ownership and the 90-day path.

The process is intentionally designed to strengthen not only strategic alignment, but also trust, mutual understanding and the quality of how the leadership team works together.

The offsite is the centre of the process — not the whole of it.

Activate

90 days

Your North Star synthesises the work into usable strategic assets. The leadership team then begins living the choices.

— YNS executive synthesis
— structured 90-day navigation

Each participant also retains private access to their personal Your North Star and GPS for 12 months, supporting continued reflection and navigation beyond the offsite.

Recalibrate

Around days 30 and 90

— 90-minute recalibration around day 30
— 90-minute recalibration around day 90

Are we moving in the direction we chose?

What has changed?

Where are we drifting?

What deserves our attention now?

Discuss your leadership challenge

The platform beneath the process

Reflection before the room. Navigation after it.

The Sprint combines facilitated human work with the Your North Star platform. Leaders prepare privately before coming together, while the digital layer helps keep direction accessible as priorities and circumstances change.

Technology supports the process. It does not replace the conversation.

Fictional Your North Star Life Book showing an individual identity statement and personal values. — Prepare
Private reflection and North Star preparation before the team comes together.

Fictional Your North Star decision alignment screen assessing a leadership decision against North Star, Values and Human Advantage. — Activate
Use your North Star to navigate consequential decisions as circumstances change.

Each participant keeps private access to their personal Your North Star + GPS for 12 months — separate from the shared Company North Star.

Product illustrations use a fictional profile.

What the team leaves with

Assets, not only insights.

Company North Star

A shared articulation of what the organisation is trying to build, why it matters and where it intends to go.

Strategic priorities & trade-offs

A small number of explicit priorities, including clarity about what the organisation will not pursue now.

Decision principles

Shared principles that help leaders make coherent decisions without repeatedly reopening the same underlying questions.

90-Day Navigation Plan

Concrete priorities, ownership and near-term movement.

Shared leadership understanding

A richer understanding of the humans making the decisions, including important differences in perspective, motivation and working style.

Recalibration rhythm

A practical way to notice drift, learn from reality and adjust without losing the underlying direction.

Strategic clarity before specialist execution.

The Sprint helps leadership teams agree on direction, priorities and trade-offs before specialist strategy, technology or implementation work begins.

The result is not a technology roadmap or transformation programme. It is a clearer leadership brief for whatever comes next — and for the advisors, partners and teams who help you get there.

At day 90

A team practising its direction — not a finished transformation.

Preparation helps people arrive ready to decide. The offsite is where the team chooses direction, priorities, trade-offs and decision principles. The 90 days turn those choices into leadership behaviour — with each important decision paired with the evidence that would justify reconsidering it.

These are the intended outcomes of the process, not proven results. The founding engagements are under way; there are no published client case studies yet.

Making decisions against shared principles — and noticing when they don’t
Reviewing 90-day priorities against what actually happened
Revisiting key choices when the evidence agreed in advance says they should be
Raising disagreement earlier, with trust, respect and constructive challenge
Leaders acting independently within a shared direction

Beyond the first 90 days

Direction is not a one-off decision.

Teams that want continued support after the initial Sprint can move into a North Star Navigation Partnership.

The purpose is to keep strategic direction alive as priorities, people and circumstances change. It may include periodic strategic recalibration, review of 90-day priorities and deeper annual North Star work.

Available following a North Star Alignment Sprint.

Discuss ongoing navigation →

The engagement

Included in every engagement.

Selective sharing protocol: Participants retain control over what private reflection is brought into the shared room.
Existing strategy integration: Relevant existing strategy, mission, purpose and planning material is incorporated rather than automatically replaced.
YNS executive synthesis: Your North Star turns the work into clear, usable outputs after the room. The leadership team is not left with photographs of flipcharts and a documentation task.
Pre / post Alignment Pulse: A simple structured signal of how leadership alignment changes through the process.
12 months private Your North Star + GPS access: Each participant retains their own private YNS environment for continued reflection and navigation after the offsite.

Investment

Founding Engagements.

First three leadership teams

€15,000

US$17,000

Fixed list price

Covers the complete defined Sprint for up to eight participants — preparation, the two-day offsite, synthesis and 90 days of activation and recalibration — not only the two days in the room.

Pricing shown in EUR and USD. Applicable taxes and agreed external expenses are additional, subject to the approved commercial terms.

Standard investment after the first three engagements

€25,000 / US$28,000

The first-three pricing is genuine founding pricing while the first case studies and proof base are being built.

The Sprint is founder-led and Your North Star works with a limited number of leadership teams at any one time.

Our Value Guarantee

A meaningful engagement should create meaningful value.

If the full leadership team completes the agreed preparation and participates in the full two-day offsite, and you genuinely believe afterwards that it created no meaningful value in clarity, alignment or strategic direction, tell us within seven calendar days of the offsite.

We will refund 100% of the professional fee.

Applies at founding and standard rates. Approved third-party expenses such as travel, accommodation, venue and catering are excluded.

Completion commitment

If agreed strategic deliverables remain materially incomplete after the offsite, request support within 30 calendar days of the offsite. We provide one additional 90-minute digital working session and one revision round, at no additional professional fee.

Who leads the work

Led by someone who understands both strategy and the humans behind it.

Carlo Crevels designs and leads every engagement — from the first intake through the offsite and the 90-day recalibrations.

Carlo Crevels

Founder, Your North Star

Strategic structure · direction · leadership · method

Carlo brings 16 years of international leadership experience at Hilti, across countries and cultures. He founded Your North Star around a question that became increasingly important to him personally and professionally: what actually deserves our attention before we accelerate?

Carlo on LinkedIn →

Around 16 years international leadership · Multi-country & cross-cultural teams · Strategy and organisational leadership · Founder & entrepreneurial experience

More about Carlo →LinkedIn →

What happens next

A considered decision, on both sides.

01
Your enquiry
A short conversation request or a full application. Carlo reads each one personally and replies within 5 business days.
02
Fit conversation
An open conversation about your team and moment — including whether this is the right intervention at all.
03
Proposal
If it is a fit, a written proposal with scope, timing and the agreed terms.
04
Mutual decision
Both sides decide whether to proceed. Nothing is committed until then.

Questions

Before you get in touch.

Do we need to have a strategy already?+

No. Existing strategy is integrated where useful, but the process does not require starting from scratch or discarding work already done.

Is this strategy consulting?+

Not in the traditional sense.

Your North Star does not disappear, write a strategy for the company and return with a report.

The leadership team creates the direction and makes the choices. Your North Star structures, challenges, facilitates and synthesises the process.

Is this a two-day workshop?+

No.

The two-day offsite is the centre of the engagement, but the process begins with individual clarity and continues through synthesis and 90-day recalibration.

How much time does each participant need before the offsite?+

Each participant completes a 45-minute intake plus selected Your North Star reflection during a two-week preparation window.

The reflection may be completed intensively or spread across the two weeks.

Where does the offsite take place?+

Where practical, we recommend The Hague, Netherlands: stepping away from the day-to-day environment creates space for focused conversation, reflection and shared time together.

The Sprint can also be delivered elsewhere in Europe, the US or another agreed location.

What happens to private individual reflections?+

They remain private.

Participants choose which relevant insights they want to bring into the shared conversation.

Do we need to be an AI-focused company?+

No.

AI is one important strategic context, not the purpose of the engagement.

The core questions are what matters, what the organisation is building and what deserves attention.

What if we do not feel the process created value?+

The Value Guarantee applies at both founding and standard rates, as described above.

What happens after 90 days?+

You can continue independently, or with the optional Navigation Partnership described above.

Direction before acceleration

Is this the right moment for your leadership team?

Start with a conversation about what your leadership team is navigating. If you are already ready to explore an engagement in depth, apply directly.