We need to make better decisions.

Bearing began with a simple question: how could we help the live-events industry make better decisions?

Our founder, Dr Claire Drakeley, had spent over 2 decades creating and running live events. She understood the pressure of bringing people, plans and partners together in environments where conditions can change quickly and where even experienced people may need to act without complete information or certainty.

Claire could see that organisations often had procedures, risk assessments and experienced teams, yet still struggled when reality departed from the plan. She wanted to understand why and how people could be better supported to make sound decisions in those moments.

That question became the focus of her doctoral research in mid 2021 and was honed through multiple conversations with industry practitioners, venues and agencies. The research led to the development of practical frameworks to support and enable the industry, and a diagnostic approach that examined decision-making at multiple levels: from the individual making an immediate judgement call, to the teams coordinating a response and the leaders responsible for safety and organisational readiness.

Then came the conversation that helped turn the research into something bigger.

Sitting in a café, over the obligatory start-up coffee and croissant, we began exploring how these ideas could influence the live-events industry. Not as another theoretical model or compliance exercise, but as something organisations could use with impact. We wanted to translate rigorous research and practical experience into tools, training, diagnostics and simulations that would work in the complexity of real life.

That conversation became Bearing.

Today, Bearing helps organisations understand how decisions are made across their people, teams and systems. We diagnose hidden gaps, develop judgement and shared ways of working, simulate challenging situations and help organisations evaluate what they have learned.

Our work began in live events, where decisions are visible, time-sensitive and often consequential. But the need extends far beyond one industry. Wherever people must respond to uncertainty, coordinate under pressure or decide what happens when the plan is no longer enough, Decision Readiness matters.

Bearing exists to help people make better decisions, under pressure, in the moments that matter.

The gap between planning and deciding.

Planning is a documented, reviewable, collective activity. Deciding is none of those things. It happens once, quickly, often by one person with partial information and no opportunity to consult the plan they helped write.

Most training in this sector improves the plan. Bearing improves the deciding, and does it with frameworks that are teachable, transferable and evidenced in practice.