Inflection Point Leadership

Most change doesn’t fail at the plan.

It stalls in the experience the plan creates. Inflection Point Leadership helps organizations design for change, develop the leaders who carry it, and align the teams at the top. Every engagement runs on one method, the Shift Leadership Framework™, with diagnostics that show what is actually stalling the shift.

Change is the event. Shift is the work.

See how we help
An Our Shift Journey report, with invented data: each person affected by one change, plotted on the nine Transition Personas
Where each person sits on one change, from an Our Shift Journey report (invented data). We don’t just describe the shift. We measure it.
How IPL helps

Three kinds of engagement.
One method.

Every engagement is customized, and every one uses the Shift Leadership Framework™ and the Shift Diagnostics, so the move you make fits what is actually stalling the shift.

Activating Organizational Shift

Organization design and transformation

Aligning organization design, processes and capabilities with where the business is headed.

Best for major transformations, mergers and integrations, operating model changes, and enterprise-wide culture work.

  • Organization effectiveness assessment
  • Organization architecture and redesign
  • Change readiness assessment
  • Transformation measurement
  • Executive change coaching
Growing What’s Next Leaders

Leadership development, coaching and succession

Building your leadership pipeline, and the development experiences that get leaders there.

Best for organizations taking on new strategic priorities, navigating leadership transitions, or developing leaders from within.

  • Executive coaching
  • Leadership development program design and delivery
  • Talent and succession planning
  • High-potential development
Leading What’s Next Together

Leadership team effectiveness

Aligning leadership teams for cohesion and performance when the pressure is on.

Best for senior teams facing a strategic pivot, a CEO transition, settling in after a restructure, or a post-merger integration.

Explore our consulting services

95% of clients hire IPL for more than one engagement (since 2019)

HealthcarePharmaMedical devicesManufacturingFinancial servicesMediaHigh-growth consumer brandsNot-for-profits
Logos of organizations IPL has worked with

“A thoughtful, proven and flexible approach for opening a human-level conversation about change.”

Renetta McCann, Chief Inclusion Experience Officer, Publicis Groupe
From Change Management to Shift Leadership

Why “managed well” still feels like chaos.

Change now overlaps. Timelines compress, and the next shift arrives before the last one has settled. A sound plan can still produce fatigue, volatility and regression, because people don’t respond only to plans. They respond to the experience those plans create. When that experience runs into friction, most leaders reach for a familiar move:

“We need to communicate more.” “We need to move faster.” “We need more accountability.” “We need better process.”

Those moves are rarely wrong. They’re rarely precise enough. The friction comes from a specific layer of people’s experience, and responding at the wrong layer adds to it. That’s the gap Shift Leadership was built to close.

Explore the Shift Leadership Framework™ →
Shift Leadership
The Shift Diagnostics Suite

We don’t just describe the shift. We measure it.

Six diagnostics, one system: from where your strategy is headed, to how one change is landing, to how each person is navigating all of it.

The organization
Shift CompassWhere we’re headed“What are we aiming at?” Strategy-FitHow we operate“Are we built for it?” Condition-StrengthSet up to succeed“Can we execute?”
A live change
Our Shift JourneyLeading the shift“How is it landing?”
The individual
My Shift AtlasEvery shift you’re in“How am I navigating all of it?” Shift-Maker Profile NewWho makes shift happen“Who’s making change happen?”

Strategy → readiness → a change in flight → the individual

Explore the Shift Diagnostics →
Shift Leadership tools and programs

Put the method in your people’s hands.

From one leader’s field guide to an enterprise rollout, all built on one framework.

When Shift Gets Real Now online

A Field Guide for Individuals, now on Shift Fieldcraft, licensed in seat blocks for your people.

See the Field Guide →

Workshops, keynotes and open sessions

Workshops and keynotes for your teams, and Leading What’s Next open sessions for leading your own shifts.

See the programs →

Practitioner Certification

For change leaders, HR partners and coaches.

About certification →

Consulting or coaching firm? We license the Field Guide to firms that want to bring it to the people they work with.

Talk to us about partnering →
Who you’ll work with

The people who make shift happen.

Behind our methodology are people who genuinely love this work, and the people we do it with.

Brad Smith

Brad Smith

Co-Founder and Principal

Architect of the Shift Leadership Framework™ and the Shift Diagnostics, and the voice of the Field Notes in When Shift Gets Real.

Kristy Braden

Kristy Braden

Co-Founder and Principal

Two decades leading organizational effectiveness and leadership development, inside organizations and alongside them.

Both co-founders led from inside organizations before founding IPL in 2019. Affiliate senior consultants join engagements for individual leadership coaching.

Meet the team →
Where to start

Three ways in. Pick the one that fits today.

2See how Shift Leadership worksThe four layers, the five moves, and the tools built on them.Explore Shift Leadership → 3Get a tool you can use right nowA free guide to try with your team this week.Get the free guide →