How we chose the name for our consultancy in less than three hours
The shift in decision-making process that got us unblocked
It was a sunny day in September 2023. To kick off our new consultancy, we spent a day meeting at an inspiring location surrounded by trees. We were full of excitement. After discussing our intentions, concerns, boundaries, and dreams, we started brainstorming possible names. But that wasn’t as easy as we thought.
We had a few possible names on the wall and tried to see if our winner was among them. For over an hour, we debated whether “Oxygen of Change” or “Oxygen for Change” would be better. Then one of us said, “What about Oxygen for Impact?” Argh. We were blocked.
Apparently, putting four decision-making experts in a room does not guarantee a quick decision 😉
Picking a name is consequential. Everyone wants to get it right since it will become part of our identity for a long time, and changing it later can be costly and painful. We were looking for a name that all of us could agree with, but we were also in a hurry since we were hosting a leadership roundtable a few weeks later.
We realized we needed a different approach to getting unblocked. And it worked! The next day, we found our name in under three hours.
Read on to learn about how we did it.
1. Improv check-in
On the first day, we had dismissed each other’s ideas. We battled with each other: “No, that won’t work because… “ or “I like that, but…” That needed to change. Jurriaan remembered what he learned at an improv course: whatever happens, always build on what you have and say “Yes, and…”
So, on the second day, we started by building a story together. We took turns saying a sentence, and the next person built on the previous one.
“Once upon a time,” … “a horse was walking in the forest” … “then something happened that nobody expected” … “it heard a noise” … “and when it looked up, it saw” … “a giant airplane” … “that crashed in front of it.”
This exercise put us in a collaborative mindset. It was also great fun! Now, we were ready for the real work.
2. Word storming
To get into the space of our work and warm our associative brains up, we performed a “word storm.” We each took turns speaking, quickly saying words without holding back, just letting our thoughts flow around topics of our fields of work: “Shift, Oxygen, Transformation, Resonance, Resilience, Rhythm, What, Doubt, Cycle, Bike, Impact, Ongoing, Circle, Easiness, Friction, Tension, Teamwork, Waterline, Performance, etc.” We captured them on a Trello board and sorted them into categories: “Qualities,” “Change,” “Future of Work,” “Results,” and “Other.”
Now, we had a rich field to work from for generating actual company names!
3. Name storming
Everyone took a piece of paper and divided it into columns. In the first column, everyone listed some name ideas. Then, we gave our paper to the person next to us. In the second column, everyone riffed off the ideas in the first column and wrote new ideas — all in silence. In the next round, we wrote into the third column, and so on.
We built on each other’s ideas without discussing or judging them. After six rounds, everyone circled name ideas they thought were worth considering — as many as they liked across the four sheets.
Do you notice how Unblock came to life here? The many “flow”-related names ultimately lead to “unblock.”
4. Narrowing down the selection
We wrote the circled name ideas onto stickies and hung them on the wall. At this point, we had about 35 candidates.
We took turns removing one name we were not excited about. The others could react to a name being removed by making a sound, expressing how they felt when the name was scratched off.
Several names were removed without any sounds. But when Koen removed “Unblock,” the rest of us simultaneously exclaimed, “Oooof,” “Nooo!” and “Ouch.” He placed it back on the list of candidates.
These names didn’t make it:
5. Getting real with embodied pitches
Now, we still had about 20 names left. Juliane suggested we “try on the names” and discover how they felt to us. As a process, we would pitch a name we liked to the others with a short speech.
Here are some of the pitches:
- “People find it hard to get started, so they postpone making the change they need. So… WhatIfNow?”
- “When things flow, they are smooth, fast, and effortless. Your workplace can be like that. Let us help you lead your organization to flow. Lead to Flow.”
- “Why do our clients hire us? Because they’re working on something meaningful and got stuck. Blocked. What do they fundamentally want from us? To get unblocked. Unblock.”
We removed any names that no one offered to pitch for.
6. Visualizing Preferences
After the pitches, six names remained. Nelia suggested using dot voting to see which ones we liked most. A “dot” was for “I’m excited,” and a “x” for “I’m not a fan”
There were three clear winners: Resonate, Whatifnow, and Unblock. At least two team members liked these, and no single member strongly disliked them.
7. Research & final decision making
We had to leave around midday, so we scheduled a Zoom call for later in the day to see if we could make a final decision. This allowed us to take a break and reflect. Jurriaan researched the viability of the names based on two criteria. 1. Are there other similar companies with the same name? 2. Are there good domain names available?
We discussed “Resonate,” but we dropped it because of another consultancy with the same name and similar services. So, “Unblock” was next. “Is it safe enough to try?” Everyone consented. We had found our name!
Takeaways
Here are a few things we noticed that could be useful if you’re facing a complex, high-stakes group decision:
- Be explicit about the decision rights and -process. We realized picking a name we all loved, consensus, wouldn’t be possible. So, we decided to use consent, choosing a name nobody objected to.
- Don’t be afraid to ‘press pause’ if the group is stuck. We were glad we didn’t force a decision at the end of the first day.
- Debating and wordsmithing got us stuck. We got unblocked while doing mostly silent, individual exercises — while building on each other.
- The “make a noise if you object” and “pitch it to me” exercises were ways to ‘feel’ which decision would be right. Sometimes, you’ll discover new information by getting out of your head and into your body.
- The explicit criteria we agreed on up-front made choosing among the several final options easier.
Unblocked!
“Unblock” has now become part of our language, work, and identity. We’ve grown to love the name and are happy our clients resonate with it. It describes what they long for — to get unblocked — and what we do: Unblock!
If you are using some ideas from this article to name a new project, initiative, or venture, please let us know how it went. And if you have a good story of how you picked your company name, also let us know!
