Most founders treat business stress as a personality flaw. If you worked harder or planned better, the pit in your stomach would go away. But it wouldn’t. Because that feeling is not a flaw, it is data. It is your nervous system flagging an operational reality you have not yet named.
Field Notes is a three-hour working session that borrows from the toolkit of a General Counsel and Risk Professional and applies it directly to the reality of running a small business. This is not a brainstorming session or coaching call. We are here to look at what is actually happening in your business with the precision of a compliance audit and the perspective of a neutral observer.
By the time you leave, you will have a documented risk inventory, a prioritized action map, and a set of early warning protocols for the issues that keep you up at night. Named risks are manageable. Unnamed risks run you.
Field Notes Workshop
Lessons from the Weeds: Operational Risk Management for Founders
April 11, 2026 | 9AM-12PM | The Pioneer Collective, Tacoma, WA
About the Workshop
What we cover in three hours:
Module 1: The Container
Establishing the operating rules and a confidentiality framework for the group. What is shared in this room stays here.
Module 2: The Asset
Defining your values, your goals, and the concept of Enoughness. You cannot assess risk if you do not know what you are protecting.
Module 3: The Risk Map
A guided walkthrough of 16 operational risk categories across governance, strategy, operations, and finance. Finally give a name to that thing that makes your stomach drop.
Module 4: The Field Chart
Establishing the operating rules and a confidentiality framework for the group. What is shared in this room stays here.
Module 5: The Watchtower
Building your If/Then Protocol. For each red flag identified, you will write the specific action you will take when it appears. A plan, not a reaction.
Closing: The Departure
Establishing the operating rules and a confidentiality framework for the group. What is shared in this room stays here.
Your Facilitator
Morgan Bobadilla, Esq.
Morgan is a former Director and General Counsel with 10+ years experience managing complex legal, operational, and strategic risk for global manufacturing and workforce solutions firms. She has held the role of General Counsel at Toray Composite Materials America Inc. where she advised the Executive Team on enterprise risks, international transactions, regulatory compliance, and employment law.
She founded Understory Advising PLLC to bring that same quality of strategic legal oversight to small and mid-sized businesses that have always deserved it but have never been able to access it at the same price point traditional law firms require.
Field Notes is built on the actual tools Morgan used as a practicing General Counsel. The workbook, the risk framework, and the IF/THEN protocol are professional instruments adapted for the founder context. This is not a personal development workshop with a legal veneer.
Ready to invest?
$550/person
Group Rate
Contact for groups of 3+
Capacity
12 participant maximum
Includes the Field Notes Participant Workbook, all session materials, and post-workshop resource kit. Registration is confirmed upon receipt of payment. Cancellations made more than 7 days before the session will receive a full credit toward a future workshop. No refunds within 7 days of event.
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This workshop is built for founders and operators who:
Are the bottleneck: Every significant decision still runs through you and you are not sure how to change that.
Feel the gap between revenue and relief: The bank account does not reflect the effort. You cannot tell if it’s a cash flow problem, a pricing problem, or something structural.
Are operating on instinct: You have not formally reviewed your contracts, vendor agreements, or policies in over a year.
Are carrying it alone: You have people in around you but the psychological weight of the business still lives entirely in your head.
Know something is about to break: You cannot name it yet. This is exactly what this session is for.
This workshop is not for you if you are looking for motivation, networking, or a keynote. There are plenty of those. Come ready to work.
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A compass, not a to do list.
The Field Notes Participants Workbook: A complete reference covering all 16 risk categories, a concepts and terms glossary, the Signal Flare list, and your completed Field Chart.
A documented risk inventory: Your five highest-priority risks, their root causes, and their red flags, written down and ranked.
Your IF/THEN Protocol: Specific, pre-determined responses to your most critical warning signs so you’re not making it up under pressure.
The Signal Flare List: 20 specific scenarios that require outside expertise, and exactly which specialists to call for each one.
Post Workshop Resource Kit: Additional reference materials and a clear path forward if the terrain turns out to need more than a workbook.