M.D. Douyon Essays on business, culture, and the space between.

M.D. Douyon

Essays on business, culture, and the space between.

Latest Articles

The Ledger and the Ring: What Couples Merging Finances Know That Boardrooms Forget
Advisory Practice

The Ledger and the Ring: What Couples Merging Finances Know That Boardrooms Forget

When two households combine their finances, the hardest conversations—about debt, habits, and expectations—happen early, at the kitchen table, before anything is signed. Family firms merging operations or generations would do well to steal the playbook. The most consequential negotiations in American business are still conducted over dinner.
The Promises No One Signed: Why Your Real Obligations Live Outside the Contract
Advisory Practice

The Promises No One Signed: Why Your Real Obligations Live Outside the Contract

Most of what a company owes its clients and employees was never written into an agreement. A 'handshake audit' forces founders to inventory those informal commitments before they harden into disputes.
Before You Scale, Write It Down: The Case for the Family Firm Constitution
Advisory Practice

Before You Scale, Write It Down: The Case for the Family Firm Constitution

Mid-sized and family-owned companies are quietly adopting a two-page constitution that settles decision rights, escalation, and values in plain English. The real work isn't the document — it's the arguments it forces before the ink dries.
Where the Deal Actually Happens: Notes From America's Vanishing Third Places
Workplace Culture

Where the Deal Actually Happens: Notes From America's Vanishing Third Places

The diner counter, the barbershop, the coworking lounge — these informal venues are where American business culture is actually transmitted and trust is quietly built. As they disappear, we should ask what part of commerce disappears with them.
When the Voice Leaves the Room: Succession at the One-Desk Firm
Advisory Practice

When the Voice Leaves the Room: Succession at the One-Desk Firm

Most succession planning focuses on equity, tax structure, and title changes. But at boutique professional firms, the hardest asset to transfer is the founder's point of view — the sentences, judgments, and client instincts that made the practice worth buying in the first place.
The First Hour Is Not Free: Rethinking the Introductory Call
Workplace Culture

The First Hour Is Not Free: Rethinking the Introductory Call

The free introductory call has become an unwritten rule of American professional life, and it is quietly devaluing expertise on both sides of the table. A look at why 'let's hop on a call' costs more than anyone admits — and a practical ladder for charging for the first conversation.
Prose Before Pixels: The Memo Discipline Spreading Through Middle-Market America
Advisory Practice

Prose Before Pixels: The Memo Discipline Spreading Through Middle-Market America

Across mid-sized American companies, the slide deck is quietly losing its seat at the executive table to a two-page narrative memo. This essay examines why dense prose produces denser thinking—and offers a practical anatomy for writing one that actually gets read.
The Ledger in the Drawer: Institutional Memory and the Family Firm Advantage
Workplace Culture

The Ledger in the Drawer: Institutional Memory and the Family Firm Advantage

America's family-owned businesses—the third-generation distributors, the downtown hardware stores—keep records that private equity dashboards cannot capture. This essay argues their handwritten ledgers and dinner-table decision logs constitute a genuine competitive asset, and distills what any modern company can borrow.
Warm Introductions, Cold Realities: How American Consulting Work Actually Gets Won
Advisory Practice

Warm Introductions, Cold Realities: How American Consulting Work Actually Gets Won

Most independent professionals pour their energy into funnels and cold outreach while the real deals move through hallways they've never walked. A look at the referral economy — and why neglecting your peers is the most expensive mistake a solo practitioner can make.
The Essay Is the New Business Card: Why Small Firms Win the Argument
Workplace Culture

The Essay Is the New Business Card: Why Small Firms Win the Argument

Client trust is migrating from institutional letterheads to individual conviction. Solo consultants who publish specific, opinionated essays are out-arguing big agencies — and the personal domain has become the most credible address on the internet.
Format Is Strategy: A Field Guide to Choosing How Your Company Thinks
Workplace Culture

Format Is Strategy: A Field Guide to Choosing How Your Company Thinks

Most organizations never ask whether a meeting, an email, or an essay is the right container for a decision—and the format they default to quietly determines the quality of the thinking inside it. A taxonomy of corporate communication failures, and rules of thumb for fixing them.
Prose as Collateral: The Case for Writing Your Way Into Higher Fees
Advisory Practice

Prose as Collateral: The Case for Writing Your Way Into Higher Fees

Clients rarely see your analysis before they hire you. What they see is your writing—and they price accordingly. Clear prose is the cheapest, most underrated trust signal in advisory work.
The Quiet Restructuring: Five Cultural Forces Rewiring How Americans Work
Workplace Culture

The Quiet Restructuring: Five Cultural Forces Rewiring How Americans Work

Beneath the headlines about layoffs and office politics, deeper cultural currents are redrawing the American workplace. Five shifts leaders should understand now—before they show up in the org chart.
Advisory Practice

The Uncomfortable Invoice: What Clients Pay For When They Pay for Candor

The most valuable thing a consultant delivers is often the sentence nobody in the room wants to hear. This essay considers why candor is commercially difficult, professionally necessary, and the only durable basis for trust.