Foundations for a 100-day plan
A 600-person industrial company. Decision-making theme addressed in the first all-hands.
Read the case →Organizational insight · for high-stakes decisions
Map what really matters.
The depth of one-to-one interviews. The reach of large-scale surveys. One open question — structured reflection, decision-ready insight.
Used where the cost of being wrong is substantial
Before a major decision, the questions that matter most are rarely the ones in the financial model.
Is the organization ready to execute? Where is the real resistance? What do people need to move forward? Cicuno answers these questions — quickly, rigorously, and at scale.
Where Cicuno is used
Four situations.
One pattern.
The moments when organizational readiness decides the outcome.
01
Transactions
Organizational DD in the weeks before signing. People-risk in the IC memo, revised integration assumptions in the bid.
02
New CEO · 100-day plan
Walk into the first leadership meetings already knowing what the organization is thinking.
03
Post-merger integration
A diagnostic baseline in week one. A measurable shift at six months — evidence the board can rely on.
04
Business transformation
A readiness signal before go-live. Evidence to delay — or proceed — with confidence.
Approach
One question.
Every voice.
Traditional surveys tell you what you asked. Interviews tell you what a few people said. Neither gives you a complete, structured picture of organizational reality.
01
One open question
Context-specific. No forced-choice batteries. No fixed categories.
02
Every voice, anonymously
Respondents surface what they see as critical — unprompted, at scale, in days.
03
Structured output
Consensus, influence, sentiment, and proposed actions — mapped and decision-ready.
Case 01 · Private Equity
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Organizational due diligence on a 400-person target.
A Nordic mid-market PE firm evaluating a services acquisition had completed financial and commercial DD — but had no structured view of organizational readiness or where execution risk actually lived.
"We have done financial and commercial DD for years. This was the first time we had an equally structured view of the organization before signing. It changed how we thought about the first hundred days."Read the full case →
More situations,
same pattern.
A merger on paper, a split in practice
A 350-person services merger. Resignation pattern surfaced where HR metrics looked fine.
Read the case →
Six weeks of delay, zero adoption failure
A 900-person retailer, eighteen months into a digital program. Go-live decision delayed on evidence.
Read the case →Theoretical foundation
Built on
established research.
Cicuno combines insight from three complementary research traditions in psychology and organizational development.
01
Ben Shalit
Appraisal & motivation
Behavior under pressure depends on how individuals appraise their situation: Do I understand what is happening? Can I influence it? Is it worth engaging?
Cicuno maps perceived relevance, control, and engagement — measuring the organization's psychological energy for change.
02
Aaron Antonovsky
Sense of coherence
Resilience and coping are explained through three components: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness.
Cicuno strengthens organizational coherence by increasing clarity, surfacing influence, and connecting dissatisfaction to constructive proposals.
03
Rensis Likert
Participative management
Participative management systems outperform authoritarian ones because they create trust, ownership, and coordinated action.
Respondents define the critical issues themselves and propose actions. Participation becomes a performance mechanism — not a symbolic gesture.
“Sustainable performance emerges when organizations create environments that are comprehensible, manageable, meaningful, and participatory — and when this reality is continuously mapped and acted upon.”