BUILD ON PURPOSE.
Build an organization that builds your vision.
You're poised for growth, but you can't execute alone. Mountainside helps leaders build organizations capable of bringing your vision into reality.
TRUSTED BY LEADERS
You're fighting fires.
You spend too much of your time reacting to issues, but people aren't surfacing anything smoldering until it blows up. You're flying blind
People talk around the problem.
Disagreement feels like blame, so people soften the issue until no one can act on it. Resentment grows while the real constraint stays untouched.
High effort, low results.
Everyone works hard, but without clear, pointable outcomes. Capable people improve their pieces, but often at the cost of the bigger objective.
FLAGSHIP PARTNERSHIP
Build better judgment across the whole organization.
Custom-tailored programs built around your mission and the work already on your desk. Mountainside works directly with senior leaders, teaches the same product principles across the organization, and stays close while people apply them to real decisions.
- Direct coaching for the leaders carrying the largest trade-offs
- In-person intensives built around your structure and current work
- Weekly instruction with office hours for questions, practice, and feedback
WHAT CHANGES
Information reaches the people who can act on it.
Leaders communicate intent clearly enough for people to make sound decisions. Problems and trade-offs travel upward without being softened. Peers work through dependencies before the same disagreement spreads into five different rooms.
- Clear ownership for the full outcome
- Fewer decisions returning to one overloaded leader
- Hard problems raised while they are still solvable
- More consistent judgment across product and design
You already know where the work is getting stuck.
The first conversation is a chance to name the real constraint, look at who is carrying it, and decide whether Mountainside is the right partner for the work.
Enterprise partnerships typically begin at $75,000.
For heads of product and design
Most training starts with systems. We start with people.
We coach you, your leaders, and your whole product and design organization from the inside out: who people are first, then how they work. Decisions get made where the work happens, and you stop carrying every one yourself.
Trusted by leaders at
From your seat
Sound familiar?
- Every trade-off ends up on your desk.
- Your people are great at shipping. Strategy is where they stall.
- Disagreement feels like blame, so people talk around problems instead of solving them.
- You hear about the real issue after it’s gotten out of hand.
- You’ve tried training. Everyone nodded. Nothing changed.
From theirs
What your team would tell you, if they could
When we survey product and design teams, the problem is rarely skill. It’s focus.
- New priorities land before the last ones are finished.
- The week ends with nothing worth celebrating.
- Nobody is investing in their growth beyond shipping what’s requested.
- Designers don’t feel heard where decisions get made.
- They want to say no without damaging the relationship.
The real problem
It’s a communication problem, moving in three directions.
Down
Your vision and intent reach the front line intact.
Up
Problems and trade-offs reach you early and unfiltered.
Across
Peer teams settle a decision once, instead of re-arguing it in five rooms.
We work on all three, at every level of your org, at the same time.
How we work
Why our approach sticks
Traditional training pushes on systems and process. It never reaches the person running them, so nothing changes once the workshop ends.
We start with identity (who your people are), then purpose (what they’re working for), then skills, then systems.
Head, heart, and hands — in that order.
Our tools
Tools your team will actually use
The Motivation Equation
Values × Identity × Purpose = Motivation. When one is missing, so is the drive.
From Mandate to Meaning
Move work from “I have to” to “I’m called to.”
The Attunement Window
Listen with your head and your heart, so people feel understood before you respond.
Benevolent Disbelief
Assume neither of you has the full story yet.
The 3 C’s of Communication
Clarity, consistency, and connection add up to trust.
The Value Bridge
Connect what someone wants to what the organization needs, in specifics.
The 3 C’s of Stakeholders
Customer, Company, Cause. Stakeholder management is really blind-spot management.
The Energy Refill Menu
Energy, not time, is the real currency. Track it and restore it on purpose.
How it works
Measure. Coach. Train. Practice. Measure again.
- 01
Baseline
An anonymous survey of your product and design org.
- 02
Coaching at the top
You and your directs, 1:1.
- 03
Un-Method intensive
Product and design, together, in person.
- 04
Weekly practice
Live sessions and office hours, every week.
- 05
Baseline again
Same survey at the end. See what moved.
For organizations
Where to start
Start here
Team Baseline
Eight anonymous minutes for your team. A readout for you of what nobody says in meetings: where energy is going, what’s blocking the work, and who doesn’t feel heard.
Individual 1:1 Leadership Coaching
$18,000
You, for 3 months
For the leader who has become the place every trade-off goes to wait.
Inner Circle
$64,000
Up to 8 of your direct reports, with a feedback loop
Your directs turn your vision into daily decisions. This is where they learn to make the hard ones, and disagree out loud, without you.
Un-Method Classroom Intensives
$20,000
2 in-person sessions, up to 40 people
When the same decision keeps getting argued in five rooms, put everyone in one. They leave knowing who owns which risk.
Foundry for your organization
$80,000
12 weeks, up to 40 people
Most training ends when the workshop does. Twelve weeks of weekly practice is how it turns into habit.
Bundle all four and save about 12%. Most teams start with coaching for the leader, then bring the organization along. Half due when we start, half when we finish.
Who you’ll work with
Aaron & Katie Shields
A husband-and-wife team who bring two halves of the same work: leading people through hard decisions, and helping them connect while they do it.
Aaron Shields
Co-Founder & Executive Director
A recovering rocket scientist with 14+ years leading product teams across four continents. He has built enterprise products from zero to one and influenced more than $500M in revenue.
Katie Shields
Co-Founder & Connection Strategist
A business owner and homeschooling mom of seven, Katie brings together experts in personal and professional development to teach deep human connection, starting with who we are and what we value.
Client stories
What clients notice
Organization engagement
“The proposal was a perfect size and approach. It provided immediate value while laying the groundwork for a long-term partnership.”
Weekly practice
“It has been amazing to see the immediate impact these principles have made every single week.”
Applied the same day
“The Foundry program was life-changing for me. I learned strategies that I was able to apply the same day.”
Leading on your own?
Foundry is 12 weeks with people who are good at their jobs and tired of what it costs them. Capped at 20. $4,000, with half tied to a goal you set.
A flight simulator for your team’s hardest calls.
Every week, your people rehearse the trade-offs, pushback, and hard conversations they’ve been avoiding, so they’re ready when it counts.
Start a conversation
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