Private Group Sessions

The Cadence Room

A private working session for the leaders your firm most wants to invest in. Five to ten people. Closed door. Each person leaves knowing where they actually are in their leadership, the one constraint holding them back, and the first practice to change it.

A sealed personal report envelope, addressed by name, on a boardroom table

Participant reports · Sealed · Confidential

Not a speech — a working session

Most leadership events are watched. This one is worked. Built on the framework from CEO Cadence, the room moves through the Four Movements — Awareness, Clarity, Commitment, Cadence — with each person privately mapping their own position as the session unfolds. The conversation that follows isn't about leadership in general; it's about the patterns in this room, among the specific people at the table.

Firms host a Cadence Room in one of two ways: as a development session for their own partners and senior team, or as a private event for a hand-picked group of their best clients — the kind of gesture a dinner or a golf day can't match.

How the room runs

Your firm opens the room. A few words from your managing partner or host — this is your event, and it stays yours.
The framework, made personal. The Four Movements, drawn from the book — not as theory, but as a map each person reads themselves onto as we go.
The private position. Each attendee completes their own leadership position assessment. It is theirs alone — sealed, never collected, never discussed unless they choose to.
The pattern conversation. We work the room's anonymous, combined picture — where this group of leaders clusters, what it costs, and what the leaders who move forward do differently.
The first practice. Everyone leaves with one concrete practice matched to their own position — chosen privately, started that week.

The room's first rule, said out loud

What stays private: everything with your name on it

Individual results are never shared — not with the host firm, not with the table. I prepare each participant's report in confidence, seal it, and hand it to its owner. The group conversation works only with the room's combined, anonymous picture.

This isn't a courtesy; it's the design. Senior people don't do honest self-assessment with an audience — so the room never asks them to. The honesty happens between each leader, their sealed report, and the private conversation afterward, if they choose to have one.

What every attendee takes away

A copy of CEO Cadence — presented in the room that day, or mailed as a follow-up, with a thank-you card from your firm inside each book.
Their sealed personal report — where they are in their leadership, in their own numbers, belonging to them alone.
The models on one card — the Four Movements and the framework's key ideas, on good stock, desk-worthy.
A first practice — one concrete change matched to their position, started that week.
A quiet next step — an invitation to a private 30-minute conversation about their report, taken up only if they choose. Nothing is sold in the room.

And your firm gets the credit, twice — once in the room, and again every time a book is opened, because each copy carries a thank-you card from your firm. You also receive a themes report — the patterns in the room, never any individual's results — and first right to make it an annual tradition. Before anyone gathers, I prepare for the ten people who will actually be there — their sectors, their roles, the pressures those seats carry — so the session speaks to this room, not to an average one.

Who hosts a Cadence Room

Professional firms

Accounting, law, and advisory firms — for partners and senior associates, or as a private event for their best clients.

Wealth & banking

Private banking and wealth teams hosting the business owners and executives they serve.

Organizations

Executive teams and boards working the framework together — a shared map of where each leader stands.

Sessions run at your offices or a venue you choose, anywhere in Ontario. Hosting is deliberately simple — the split below is the whole of it. I run a small number of rooms each quarter, alongside a coaching practice limited to twelve clients a year.

Your firm provides

The room & the welcome

The invitations and guest list · a quiet, closed room seating up to ten around a table · a screen or projector with a standard laptop connection · refreshments to your firm's own standard · access to the room 45 minutes ahead for setup.

I bring

Everything in it

The session itself, prepared for your ten specific guests · all materials — assessments, sealed report envelopes, model cards, invitation cards · the books, each carrying your firm's thank-you card, presented that day or mailed after · the themes report and every follow-up afterward.

Canadian leadership thinking, built here — a framework written from decades inside Canadian organizations, for the people leading them.

Two formats

The Cadence Briefing

90 minutes

The Four Movements framework, a personal position assessment for every attendee, and a facilitated working conversation on the patterns in the room.

The Cadence Workshop

Half-day

Everything in the Briefing — plus working each person's one constraint into a first plan, and a printed personal summary each attendee takes with them.

Your host: David Johnston — MBA, Certified Executive Coach (Royal Roads University), Certified Health Executive — coaches senior leaders across healthcare, government, engineering and industrial sectors, and is the author of CEO Cadence (Fall 2026). The Cadence Room brings the book's framework off the page and into a working conversation with the leaders in your world.