Case Study · Frontier Economics · Economic consultancy · Performance management
In a consultancy built around projects, performance conversations are the easiest to defer. Frontier Economics Managers and Directors now have them proactively and effectively.
Frontier then extended the work beyond the consultants to its Business Management Team, the people who run the firm, building one standard of management across both halves of the business.Performance, team after team
60+
managers and leaders developed across both the consulting practice and the business management team
9.3/10
how Frontier's business management team rated their Performance Partners
6
cohorts of managers, Associate Directors and Directors, run from 2024
Executive Summary
- Sector
- Economic consultancy
- Buyer
- People & Talent leadership
The Brief
Equip the managers, Associate Directors and Directors of a project-based economics consultancy to run a new, more structured performance process well, so the conversations a rotation model makes easy to postpone actually happen. Then build management capability across the rest of the firm, including the team that runs it.
The Outcome
Around fifty of Frontier's managers, Associate Directors and Directors equipped to lead performance the way a consultancy needs. The partnership then grew beyond the consultants to Frontier's Business Management Team, where the work was rated 9.3 out of 10 and the team's Manager Strength Index rose by 6%.
01 / The recognition
Frontier saw the pattern every project-based consultancy knows, and chose to get ahead of it.
Frontier Economics runs on projects. Teams form around a piece of work, deliver it, and dissolve into the next. It is how the best economic advice gets made, and it is also what can let a performance conversation slip. When a team is about to disband anyway, the harder conversation can wait for the next project, and the one after that. Frontier recognised this early, and decided to build the capability to have those conversations well, before the cost of not having them could compound.
Frontier Economics has advised governments, regulators and the world's largest firms on competition, regulation and economic strategy since 1999. Its work is delivered by expert teams that assemble around a brief and move on when it is done. That model is a strength. It also means a manager and a team member may only work together for the length of a single project.
That rhythm has a cost the firm understood well. When a team reshapes, the thread of someone's development can reshape with it, so feedback that would have helped early can surface late, at a formal review, about something already months old. And in a consultancy there is a quieter pull: when a colleague is finding their feet, the easy thing is to carry the work and move on to the next project rather than have the conversation. Frontier wanted to make the conversation the easier choice.
Frontier wanted performance to be managed as deliberately as the economics. So they introduced a new, more structured performance management process, and brought 10X in to make sure their managers could actually use it: to give feedback early, to intervene before a small issue became a pattern, and to hold a fair, clear review when one was needed.
The aim was never to catch people out. It was to give Frontier's managers the confidence and the skill to have honest, supportive conversations, the kind that help good people get better, and that a project-based firm can otherwise leave unsaid.
How Frontier framed the work
When Frontier set out the work, they named the challenge with unusual candour.
“In a project-based consultancy, performance issues can quietly go unaddressed. People rotate onto the next project, and the difficult conversation, the one the situation really calls for, becomes the one that waits for the next team, and the one after that.”
02 / Built for a consultancy
Not a generic management course dropped into a consultancy. A programme built for how Frontier actually works.
Frontier did not need management theory. They needed performance management that fitted a firm where teams form around projects and reshape constantly. So the work was built around Frontier's reality. The feedback practice was about project teams that change shape. The early intervention work was about spotting a pattern across projects, not only within one. The formal review work was about being fair when a manager has only seen part of someone's year. It was grounded in how Frontier actually works, shaped by what their HR team and their own managers told us, and built around the situations a Frontier manager, Associate Director or Director faces day to day.
Who was in the programme
Six cohorts. Every level that manages at Frontier, from Manager to Director.
Managers
The day-to-day project leads holding performance conversations with the people in their teams
Associate Directors
Senior project leaders setting the standard for how performance is handled below them
Directors
Coaching their managers and Associate Directors through the new process, and modelling it themselves
Specialists stepping up
Economists, competition policy specialists and associate principals moving into management
The Directors had their own cohorts, focused on coaching their managers and Associate Directors through the new process, so the change was led from the top, not only trained at the bottom.
03 / The work
Three conversations, built in order: intervene early, give feedback that lands, and review fairly.
10X did not arrive with these three conversations ready-made. We built the programme from the ground up, starting with Frontier's own reality.
How we grounded the programme
Before designing anything, we grounded the work in how Frontier actually runs performance. First we consulted Frontier's HR team on the new, structured performance management process they were introducing, so the programme was built to enable that process rather than sit alongside it. Then we ran Team Voice interviews with a selection of managers, our way of gathering ground-level intelligence and data before any programme, to understand how performance management really played out across Frontier's project teams. What those conversations surfaced shaped every workshop that followed.
The three conversations the programme built
01
Early intervention
Naming a concern while it is still small, when it is still a conversation and not yet a problem. For a firm where teams disband, this is the habit that stops an issue rotating quietly onward to the next project team.
02
Effective feedback
Giving feedback that is honest, specific and supportive, and choosing the right moment to give it. Frontier's managers practised the conversations they had been most likely to put off.
03
Plans and fair review
When a structured response is needed, doing it well and fairly: clear expectations, a real plan, and a review the person can trust. The process Frontier introduced, made usable by the managers running it.
The rhythm: apply, then troubleshoot
Each skills workshop was followed by a week back in the real job to try the conversation for real, and then a troubleshoot session where managers brought the live situation they were dealing with and worked it through with the Performance Partner and with each other. The programme was never content to be absorbed; it was a habit to be practised, with help on hand when the conversation got hard.
One reframe did the heaviest lifting. A performance plan is a development plan, not the first step towards an exit. Framed that way, as one leader on the programme put it, the fear of failing is immediately erased.
Frontier's embedded Performance Partner
One Performance Partner inside Frontier, not a trainer who turned up, delivered and left.
An embedded 10X Performance Partner ran the work across both strands: the performance management roll-out for the consultants and, later, the development programme for the business management team. Reachable between workshops, working on the real conversations Frontier's managers were facing rather than adding theory to their workload. Every Prime workshop was followed by an Elevate session, where managers brought the live situations they were dealing with and worked them through with the Partner and with each other.
04 / In the room
Frontier's managers started having the conversations they used to put off.
The clearest signal came from Frontier's managers themselves: more confidence to start a difficult conversation, and more skill once they were in it.
“Excellent session on the topic of performance management. It was great to get into the depths of how to hold more difficult conversations with confidence and when the right time is to have them.”
What Frontier's managers came to work on was practical and live: getting comfortable giving difficult feedback, working through real performance questions with their own teams, and bringing consistency to how performance is handled across the firm.
What changed in the work
The proof showed up in the troubleshoot sessions, where managers brought the real conversations they were now having.
01
One manager ran the full early-intervention sequence the programme had set out: an honest first conversation, a check-in two weeks later, then aligning with the mentor and the other project lead, all before a small concern could harden into a formal one.
02
Another, who would once have waited for the review cycle, opened a development plan that same week, using the firm's new template.
03
One held a conversation they had been putting off for months. The person they spoke to, given time to reflect, came back and said it had been far more supportive than they had expected.
04
One cohort valued the practice enough to run the exercises again themselves, between sessions, with no one from 10X in the room.
These are the conversations that, in a project-based firm, are the easiest to leave for the next team. At Frontier, the managers were having them.
05 / Beyond the consultants
The work that began with the consultants grew into a management programme for the team that runs the firm.
A consultancy is not only its consultants. Frontier is also run by a Business Management Team, the people in marketing, technology, HR, operations, sales and finance who keep the firm working. Having built performance management capability across the consulting practice, Frontier extended the partnership to develop these managers too.
The brief was a full management development programme, built for what it means to lead a business function inside a consultancy. Across 2025 and into 2026, the fourteen-strong team worked through inclusive and adaptable leadership, cross-functional collaboration, coaching and developing talent, strategic thinking, and managing conflict, the management foundations a fee-earning firm often builds for its consultants first.
One firm, one standard of management. The same partner and the same method now reach both the people who deliver Frontier's work and the people who run the firm.
One room, every function
The business team had never really learned together. The programme put marketing next to technology, operations next to people and HR, sales next to administration, in one room. They worked on real cross-team friction, and the tools travelled between them: a habit one leader shared, agreeing who signs a piece of work off before it starts, was picked up by managers in completely different functions. A simple model gave them a shared language, the idea that collaboration rests on trust, shared goals and clear roles, and the team agreed that trust was the most fragile and the most valuable of the three.
Marketing & Communications
People & HR
Technology
Operations, Sales & Administration
14 managers, one room
The fourteen-strong Business Management Team, by the part of the firm each person runs. Every dot is one manager; the programme is the first time they led together.
What changed in the work
01
One leader now agrees who will sign a piece of work off before starting it, and plans for that person's time. Since I started doing that, they told the group, it has been so much better.
02
One who helps staff the firm's projects began questioning the first name that came to mind, and started giving overlooked colleagues the work that fitted them: a tangible difference, as they put it.
03
Asked to protect time for strategy rather than only firefighting, the team blocked it out there and then, in their own diaries.
04
One found the coaching habit, holding back the answer and letting the other person find it, crossing over from work into life outside it.
What the business team said
“Good level of interaction throughout rather than just sitting and listening, which really helps me take in what we're discussing. It's also nice to interact with people I might not often speak to. The content was very interesting and useful.”
“Holding the space for someone you're coaching and not jumping in with advice was a game-changer. I've already started applying that with the people I manage.”
“I liked how it gave me space to really think about how I work and lead, with suggestions on how to improve. The energy in the room was great. It was a brilliant space to share without judgement.”
“It helped me think more out of the box about how other people perceive me. Psychological safety is something I'd not considered before, and I'm making a conscious effort to introduce it into my thinking.”
“Leadership is not static. It needs to adapt over time and situations, changing with the people you're working with. The facilitator was great at getting everyone involved and keeping the energy up, even in a virtual classroom.”
“I really liked the step-back approach to issues and the guidance to use other people's knowledge. The facilitator was engaging on a human level, making you feel like you could talk openly straight away.”
“The session was clear, informative and to the point. It gave great insight into how we can motivate individuals beyond the monetary incentive. It was easy to understand the resources available and how to start using the platform straight away.”
“It's interactive and doesn't feel dragged out. Just the right amount of input from everyone without being overly forced or uncomfortable. It's made me think carefully about my leadership style and whether it's working.”
Measured on the Manager Strength Index
months
Frontier's business management team was measured on the Manager Strength Index, and over a two-month period the team's overall Manager Strength Index rose by 6%: measured movement, not just a good day in the room.
How Frontier's business team rated it
Rated 8.9 out of 10 across the workshops, with ten of the fourteen sessions scoring 9 or higher, and the Performance Partners rated 9.3.
Each dot is one of the fourteen sessions, placed by how Frontier's business management team rated it. 10 of the fourteen landed at 9 or above; the shaded band marks the 9-to-10 zone and the dashed line the programme average of 8.9.
Where it leaves Frontier
Frontier now develops its managers the same way on both sides of the firm: those who deliver the work, and those who run it.
What began as a performance management roll-out for the consultants has become the way Frontier builds management capability across the business. The performance process is no longer a document people were asked to follow; it is a set of conversations its managers know how to have. And the firm's business management team now leads to the same standard the consultants were held to.
06 / Start here
If you run a consultancy, a law firm, an agency or any project-based business where the performance conversation is the easiest one to defer, or you have invested in your fee-earners and want the same management strength across the team that runs the firm, we should talk.
Every partnership between 10X and a client is entirely bespoke and unique. Book a no-obligation call with one of our Development Experts to scope how we could support you and your situation.