Published November 2025 | Available now on Amazon and Leanpub
The Problem Nobody Names
Your transformation initiatives keep failing. Not because you lack frameworks—but because you’re applying the wrong intervention to the actual condition.
While competitors cycle through Agile, SAFe, ADKAR, and OKRs hoping something sticks, you’ll diagnose precisely and intervene strategically.
“Walker’s approach helps you pinpoint exactly what kind of turbulence you’re facing, and then gives you practical, short-cycle levers to get back to flow rapidly. I’d argue it’s not a framework at all, just good advice.” — Nigel Thurlow, Co-Creator of The Flow System®, Toyota Alumni, Forbes Noted Author
Why Diagnosis Changes Everything
Leaders rarely fail due to a lack of frameworks. They falter when the pace of change overtakes coherence and direction. Missed deadlines, team exhaustion, and delivery decay—identical symptoms demand opposite treatments depending on the underlying condition.
Is it complexity requiring learning cycles? Insecurity requiring psychological safety first? Rapid change requiring buffering and resilience? Contradiction requiring forced ranking? Anxiety requiring agility and quick feedback?
Most transformation work skips diagnosis entirely. It grabs a familiar tool and hopes. That’s why 60% of teams misdiagnose their condition on first attempt. And why applying “more agility” to an insecure team accelerates the exit of your best people.
This book teaches you to diagnose first, then act. The CIRCA-CLEAR framework provides a diagnostic engine and five matched intervention levers. Not to replace your OKRs, Team Topologies, SAFe, ADKAR, or Lean Change—but to decide which parts of those frameworks actually solve the problem you’re facing.
What You’ll Master
5-minute diagnostics revealing which turbulence condition is dominant (no prior framework knowledge required)
Single-lever experiments in reversible 2-4 week cadences with explicit rollback triggers so you know what’s working before scaling
Leading indicators (ThroughFlow + Human Pulse) that predict problems 2-4 weeks before traditional metrics do. The early warning system that tells you when conditions shift, and interventions need adjustment
Framework augmentation—making your existing OKRs, SAFe, ADKAR, Lean Change, and Team Topologies deliver as intended by matching them to actual conditions
Pattern recognition tables for accurate diagnosis in 2-3 days, showing the observable signals that distinguish Complex from Insecure, or Rapid from Contradictory
18-month roadmap for building distributed capability across your leadership team so transformations persist through leadership changes—building capability, not consultant dependency
ThroughFlow: Your First Predictor
Track completed work ÷ (completed work + rework) weekly. It’s not elegant, but it works. Quality decay shows 2-4 weeks before traditional metrics do. When ThroughFlow drops, the condition is changing. When it stays flat while WIP rises, complexity is hiding.
Human Pulse: Your Second Predictor
Three simple weekly questions about clarity, pace, and psychological safety. Not a survey—a weekly signal. It’s your advance warning system for when people are about to leave or stop contributing.
These two metrics replace comprehensive dashboards. They’re predictive. They can’t be gamed. They signal when interventions are working or when condition shifts require tactical changes.
What’s Inside
Part I: Understanding Turbulence The five conditions (Complex, Insecure, Rapid, Contradictory, Anxious) are explained through observable patterns. You’ll recognise them immediately in your own organisation.
Part II: The 5-Minute Diagnostic You’ll complete this before reading theory. Most teams misdiagnose the first attempt—that’s the learning point. You’ll understand why your initial diagnosis was incomplete, and the framework will click immediately.
Part III: The Five Levers Clarity, Learning, Empathy, Agility, Resilience. Each lever has specific “when to apply” and “when not to apply” guardrails. Intervention playbooks with 2-4 week testing cycles.
Part IV: Integration Patterns How CIRCA-CLEAR sits above OKRs, Team Topologies, SAFe, ADKAR, and Lean Change Management. You’re not replacing your existing tools. You’re deciding which elements to activate in specific conditions.
Part V: Implementation Roadmaps 18-month pathways for building diagnostic precision across your leadership team. Week-by-week implementation detail. Failure modes and recovery patterns. Resource requirements and readiness checklists.
Appendices: Ready-to-Run Tools 5-minute entry diagnostic. Pattern recognition tables. Experiment templates. ThroughFlow and Human Pulse tracking. Framework integration guides.
Foreword by Giles Lindsay, author of Clearly Agile and The Adaptive Leader: “Leaders rarely fail due to a lack of frameworks. They falter when the pace of change overtakes coherence and direction.”
Who This Is Written For
CxOs needing evidence-based decisions, not more frameworks
You’ll find executive summaries, strategic implications framed around decision cost, and clear delegation guidance. Core sections take 15-20 minutes to read. Implementation unfolds over 2-4 weeks. You’ll know what requires your personal attention versus what you can empower teams to own.
Transformation leaders seeking replicable, testable playbooks
Week-by-week implementation detail. Failure modes and recovery patterns. Specific resource requirements and readiness checklists. Pattern recognition tables and diagnostic templates are ready to print and use with your teams. You’ll understand when to DIY and when hiring external support changes outcomes.
Consultants and coaches wanting frameworks that augment rather than replace
Communication patterns for difficult conversations. Engagement scoping guidance. Honest assessment of when CIRCA-CLEAR is the right tool and when it’s not. Frameworks for positioning yourself as a peer advisor rather than an expert.
The Philosophy Behind This
Diagnosis without treatment is a more articulate autopsy. Treatment without diagnosis is malpractice.
This book rests on 30 years of guiding complex transformations across financial services, retail, technology, and government. Bank of England, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, UK Government departments, and 200+ additional implementations. The patterns repeat. The conditions are identifiable. The right levers work reliably when matched to the right condition.
You’ll find uncomfortable honesty here about what works and what doesn’t. About when frameworks fail. About the real cost of transformation in time, energy, and political capital. About why some conditions require you to slow down to speed up.
And you’ll find battle-tested diagnostics with clear governance and measurement standards. Operating system thinking applied to transformation. Condition-aware, evidence-based, reversible.
“If your world feels like whitewater instead of open ocean, this might be worth your time.” — Nigel Thurlow
Three Reading Paths
Practice-First: Complete the 5-minute diagnostic before reading theory. Attempt pattern matching. Discover why you misdiagnosed. Theory clicks immediately because you’ve lived the struggle first.
Theory-First: Work sequentially from fundamentals through application. Build the mental model before attempting diagnosis.
Crisis Mode: Jump to playbooks for your specific condition. Return to theory later when you have breathing room.
All three paths work. Pick the one that matches how you learn best.
Ready to Operationalise Change Systematically?
Your competitive advantage starts with condition-aware diagnosis and single-lever discipline. Knowing which lever to pull—and when.
👉 Get the book → Leanpub | Amazon
18-month implementation roadmap | Pattern recognition tables | ThroughFlow + Human Pulse tracking | Framework integration guides | Foreword by Giles Lindsay