Portfolio Company Performance Diagnostics
Assess the management team before the plan depends on it.
A sponsor can read every number a portfolio company produces and still not see how its management team decides. The Portfolio Company Diagnostic examines that. It compares what the operating documents prescribe, meaning the delegation of authority, approval limits, budget and hiring policies, and board materials, with what the team does in practice, and it profiles the quality of the decisions the value creation plan depends on. Divergence between the two is itself a finding, and closing it is where the value creation plan has room to gain.
Portfolio Company Diagnostic
A fixed fee assessment of one portfolio company’s management team, run inside the first hundred days after close. Before close, the same examination is scoped as a focused review inside the diligence window. It draws on the Baldrige Excellence Framework for leadership, strategy, measurement and analysis, operations, and results, reads workforce capacity where an add on is in view, and runs in about 30 days at the enterprise fee because the calendar is compressed. The decision quality profile comes with it. It also examines how the management team actually decides through a survey and structured interviews. Conclusions require converging evidence across documents, data, and interviews.
You receive a findings report tied to specific evidence, a decision quality profile of the management team, and a prioritized roadmap with a named owner for each item, built to sit inside the value creation plan. The fee is fixed at engagement, half at signing and half at delivery of the findings report.
Retained Advisory
A sponsor who wants an advisor with an examiner’s discipline and no stake in the deal can retain Mel K Meier, DBA to work alongside portfolio company boards. The service includes quarterly meeting attendance, review of board pre read materials, on call advice between meetings, and an annual decision quality pulse of the management team.
It is structured as a twelve month retainer, on one company or across a platform, and it is built to follow the first diagnostic.
The work is built so a sponsor can start with one diagnostic on one company and extend the method across the platform, so that what is learned at one company can be tested at the next add-on. A diagnostic run while performance is strong reads cleaner and gives the operating partner a baseline the hundred day plan can be measured against.
How it runs, in about 30 days
- Week 1. Scope, a confidentiality agreement or the sponsor’s own NDA, and the operating documents.
- Week 2. A survey of the management team, reported only where the count protects each executive’s anonymity, and the document review.
- Week 3. Structured interviews with the management team.
- Week 4. The findings report and a briefing for the operating partner and the deal team.
The diagnostic is $18,000, fixed at engagement, half at signing and half at delivery. Retained advisory is quoted per portfolio.
The diagnostic helps sponsors and operating partners see how a portfolio company is governed and how it performs, with a clear read on decision quality before the hundred day plan is written.
Questions the diagnostic answers for a deal team
- Who makes the pricing, hiring, and capital decisions in practice, and whether that matches the operating documents.
- Where the value creation plan depends on one person.
- Which decisions are made against criteria agreed in advance and which are made in the room.
- Whether information reaching the board changed a decision in the past year.
- How the team responds when evidence runs against the plan.
- Where the management team and the sponsor hold different readings of the same goal.
- What an add-on would ask of a team that is already at capacity.
Scoped to the question you need answered
The full diagnostic covers the whole management team in about 30 days for $18,000. When a sponsor needs one question answered, the same examination is scoped to that question and priced to it. Common scopes are a pre-close read on the management team inside the diligence window, a hundred day baseline for the value creation plan, add-on readiness before the next acquisition, and a single question such as pricing authority, key person dependence, or how the board uses the information it receives. A focused review runs about two weeks at $9,500. Every scope comes with a one page statement of what will be examined, what the deal team receives, and the date it arrives. Expedited delivery is available at a 25 percent premium, which brings the full diagnostic to 15 business days and a focused review to 7.
What it asks of management
The diagnostic asks for an anonymous survey of the management team, a set of operating documents the company already has, and one structured interview with each senior leader. Nothing is built for the diagnostic, and interviews are scheduled around the business.
What you receive
A findings report of 20 to 30 pages, with a summary for the deal team, what was examined and how the evidence was weighed, a decision quality profile of the management team, findings tied to documents, data, and interviews, where the value creation plan depends on one person or an unwritten practice, a roadmap with a named owner for each item built to sit inside the hundred day plan, and an appendix with the survey results in aggregate, the document list, and the interview schedule. The decision quality profile is the firm’s own instrument, not a Baldrige score. It is a table that reads each decision area two ways, what the operating documents say and what the team does in practice, with a rating of how closely the two match. A briefing for the operating partner and the deal team closes the engagement.
Who sees the report
The report goes to the sponsor. How it is shared with management is agreed at scoping, before any interview. The diagnostic is introduced to the team as an examination of how decisions are made, not of individuals. Interview comments are not attributed and survey responses are reported only in aggregate. Findings describe decision areas by role, so a key person dependence is reported as the role the plan rests on, not as a judgment of the individual. Pre-close, the diagnostic runs inside the diligence window with the seller’s consent, using the documents in the data room and interviews with the leaders the seller makes available; the survey is added after close.
How it differs from other assessments
It is not a personality test, an executive search screen, or operational due diligence. It is not deal sourcing, financial modeling, or underwriting either. Those remain with the deal team and its financial, commercial, and legal advisors, and this diagnostic is built to sit alongside them. Individual leadership assessments tell a sponsor who the leaders are. This diagnostic shows how the team decides together, which is what the value creation plan runs on. The two are complementary.
Confidentiality and independence
A confidentiality agreement is signed before any document is shared. Survey responses are anonymous and reported only in aggregate. The firm takes no board seat, no equity, and no search or placement fee, and it sells no software. It does not work for two parties with competing interests in the same company.
Who does the work
Every diagnostic is conducted personally by Mel K Meier, DBA. She has examined more than 50 organizations since 2007, independently and through multiple examiner cycles with the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence, a state program built on the Baldrige framework, and was appointed Master Examiner in 2023. That work spans franchise chains, restaurants, real estate, healthcare, and outdoor and recreation companies. Her doctorate is in financial and economic management, and her research applies prospect theory to how leaders decide under pressure.
Not sure which company to start with?
Start with the company that closed most recently, because a decision quality baseline taken at the start of the hundred days is the one the plan can be measured against. One company. One fixed fee. Half at signing. A management team survey, an operating document review, and a straight briefing on what the evidence shows about how the team decides.
Questions sponsors ask
What is a portfolio company performance diagnostic?
An independent assessment of how a portfolio company’s management team decides and operates, measured against the Baldrige Excellence Framework and against the company’s own operating documents. It is designed for companies that are performing well, because the most useful examination is the one that runs while there is still room to shape the plan.
When in the hold period should it run?
Inside the first hundred days as the baseline for the value creation plan. Before close, a focused review reads the management team inside the diligence window with the seller’s consent. It can also run ahead of an add-on acquisition, where a second reading of the deal can give the platform team a reference point other than the thesis.
How is this different from operational due diligence?
Operational due diligence measures what the company does. This diagnostic measures how the people running it decide, which the numbers alone do not show. The two are complementary, and this one is a fixed $18,000 line item.
Is iB Consulting USA an investment bank?
No. iB stands for iBehavioral. iB Consulting USA is the advisory practice of iBehavioral, Inc., an applied social science firm. It does not raise capital, broker transactions, or provide securities advice. It does not source deals, build financial models, underwrite transactions, or take a board seat. The work is independent organizational diagnostics, assessment, and risk identification, and it sits alongside the financial, commercial, and legal diligence the sponsor already runs.