Drifted
but delivering
—
Reset
™
Daylight™
the gap diagnostic
Twenty-five questions · about eight minutes
How far apart have they drifted?
What you scoped. What you rely on. What you pay for.
And whether any of it's actually landing.
When an advisor relationship is healthy, those three describe the same thing. Most problems live in the space between them, and that space opens quietly, over years, without anyone deciding it should.
Completing this diagnostic won't tell you to change firms. In most outcomes, it says the opposite. It will surface where the gaps are and let you think about the relationship in a new light.
Before you start
Daylight reads one advisor relationship at a time.
If more than one firm supports your program — a medical consultant, a pharmacy consultant, a global partner, a retirement advisor — pick the single relationship you want to look at and answer only about that one. Answering about your advisors in general produces a blurred read that isn't useful for any of them.
Answer based on what actually happens, not what the agreement says should happen. Where those two differ is exactly what this is built to find.
By advisor we mean the broker, consultant, or advisory firm you engage for professional counsel — the people you turn to for judgment, not the ones who administer or underwrite. It won't read well against a carrier, a vendor, or an administrator, where these questions mean something different.
Answer for one specific advisor relationship, as it is rather than as it's meant to be. Your answers are anonymous. When you finish, we keep an unnamed record of the pattern — no name, no company, no email — so we can build benchmarks across organizations. Your PDF is built on your own device. If you'd like us to know who you are, there's a place to tell us at the end; that's entirely optional.
First, one question
Which best describes your seat?
Role is the only thing collected about you. No names. It lets a team report show whether views track distance from the work, which they usually do.
One more thing
What kind of relationship is this?
It shapes nothing about the questions — everyone gets the same twenty-five. It helps us compare patterns across organizations, and it’s a useful moment to settle which relationship you’re answering about.
Your read
Substance ↑
Aligned
and delivering
—
Steward
and delivering
—
Steward
Drifted
and thin
—
Decide
and thin
—
Decide
Aligned
but thin
—
Strengthen
but thin
—
Strengthen
Structure →
Where you sit
The findings
Each reading below shows how much attention it needs, and the paragraph beneath explains what produced it.
Questions worth putting to your advisor
Not a script. Five openings suited to what this read found — for a conversation rather than an audit.
Take this with you
The full read as a PDF — the findings, the questions above, and the record of your answers. Built on your own device.
Or keep reading. Below: what usually comes next for a read like yours, how we think about relationships like this, and what working with us would involve.
This is a read, not a verdict, and it reflects one seat in a two-sided relationship. The strongest use of it is comparative: have two or three colleagues answer independently and compare where you disagree.
Most of what looks like a firm problem is a drift problem.
Relationships come apart quietly. What was scoped stops describing what's relied upon, the fee stops tracking the work, and nobody notices until renewal. Nobody did anything wrong — that's what makes it hard to see.
So we start from what's actually good for you, which usually isn't leaving. Sometimes it is. When it is, we run the search around fit with the people who'll actually do the work — not an RFP scorecard. That holds whether we're helping you reset what you have or run the search.
We can say that plainly because we're not paid either way. We place nothing and take no commissions.
If you’d like to keep this going
Pick whichever fits — none of them commits you to anything. We’re collecting these anonymously across organizations — when there’s enough to say something useful about how wide these gaps typically run, we’ll send it to whoever asked. And if the read surfaced something you want to think through, we’re glad to talk it over.
If you were wondering what that involves
A reset is a matter of weeks, not months. We look at what's actually being delivered against what was contracted, bring both sides to the same description of it, and end with a scope and fee that match. Most of the work is ours.
A selection takes two to four months, and the part that matters happens before any RFP goes out — defining what fit means for you, so the process tests for that rather than for credentials. We stay independent throughout and place nothing.
Stewardship is the standing cadence that keeps either of those from unwinding. A couple of conversations a year.
The four levels
Every reading in this report uses the same scale, so they can be compared directly. The level is the finding; the paragraph beneath each one explains what produced it.
- No concern
- This part of the relationship is working. It still needs maintaining — alignment decays when nothing is assigned to hold it — but nothing here calls for action.
- Worth watching
- Early separation. Usually not a problem yet, and cheap to close while it is small. It becomes expensive at a renewal, at a team change, or the first time someone asks why something stopped arriving.
- Needs a conversation
- Real distance has opened. This is solvable, and rarely by changing firms — but it will not close on its own, and it will keep widening until someone names it out loud.
- Needs work now
- The written relationship and the working relationship have separated far enough that neither side could describe the arrangement the same way. Worth addressing before the next renewal rather than during it.
Your answers
The record of what you said, in the order you were asked. This is what produced the read above.
This report is yours. If it surfaced something you want to think through, we're glad to talk it over — no pitch, and no obligation.
Strategic Fit • Relationship Reset • StewardshipHelping organizations build, strengthen, and steward the relationships that matter most.
™
Strategic Fit • Relationship Reset • StewardshipHelping organizations build, strengthen, and steward the relationships that matter most.
Daylight™ and Docent™ are trademarks of Docent PG, LLC. Registration pending for both. Question set, scoring logic and interpretive language © 2026 Docent PG, LLC.