Exec Coaching

You’ve succeeded in bringing your company to where it is today. That’s truly worthy of kudos. No joke.

Nevertheless, are there signals that suggest you may need to be operating more effectively?

I’ve been there. I ran my startup – until I couldn’t, and had to hire a CEO to scale it. Happily, while at the side of this capable CEO, I learned a great deal about what I didn’t know – about practical management methods, and about how to be an effective leader. Together we succeeded; Acquia – the company I co-founded with @Dries – exited as a unicorn.

Nevertheless, I wish I’d had a coach to help me while I was still CEO. Great leaders are not natural-born; they learn to be so. So now my mission is to be the person I did not have. To be the trusted, multi-faceted coach to help you learn how to scale your company, you team, and yourself. I commit to have your back. I’ve got you.

Here’s what I can bring to the table for you:

Leadership coaching

You probably already have much of what makes a great leader; it’s what has gotten you to where you are. But if you do have a good leadership foundation, you already know that one of the key elements is your own self-awareness. And if so, you’re already looking inward to find places you can work on in yourself to be a better leader.

As your leadership coach, I’ll help you tease out those places you want to improve, and work with you to effect the leadership changes you need to make. Often this work is deeply personal. In order to help you in the best way possible, I’ve invested in myself, to learn to be a better coach via the training from industry-leading Presence Based Coaching, and actively have my own coaching coach/mentor. (ICF certification is in my plans.)

Kaiser LVI 360

I have found the Kaiser Leadership 360 Leadership Versatility Index to be an incredible tool. It’s a novel, and very powerful way to dial in when and how you are being collaborative vs. authoritative, strategic vs. tactical.. For each area, it seeks feedback from your 360 group at which things you do too-much of, which you do too-little of, and which you execute “just right”. Because I find it so helpful, I’ve become a certified provider, and welcome the opportunity to help you use this effectively.

Execution coaching via OKRs

We can also work on operating structures. OKRs – Objectives & Key Results – are a common, and compelling way for your team to set, align on, track & achieve ambitious goals. Well-set OKRs plainly show the actual impact your team is having. (Note: Earlier we used a similar, more cumbersome technique at Acquia, which has since switched to OKRs.)

But, contrary to appearances, OKRs are not simple. It takes skill to adopt & successfully use OKRs as your management system.

I often see new clients using OKRs when I arrive. But existing Objectives are often merely a task list, ineffective at reaching mission-critical goals. And Key Results are often simply KPIs as lagging indicators, not leading metrics that reveal what activities will successfully impact those KPIs.

I’ve worked with many companies, and learned both how to set OKRs well, and get teams executing on them effectively. Over 2-3 calendar quarters, we can get you and your entire leadership team into a great operating cadence using OKRs.

How I work myself out of a job with you

The leadership coaching aspect of working with me will probably look like this:

• Discovery. 2 hours to create a foundation of trust, and make sure we’re (also) working on what you want.
• Kaiser LVI360 kickoff. The people around you want you to succeed. Let’s find out what they think you do well, what you do too-little, and too-much of. Note: This takes about 6-8 weeks.
• How to make change in yourself. The things that have worked for you before are easy to fall back on, but may now be holding you back. We’ll make sure you know how to make real changes in you.
• Specific areas. We’ll look at how how strategic vs. operational you are, how authoritative vs. collaborative you are, how to coach your team, and whatever other areas we find you need to adjust.

If I’ve done my job well, you’ll be leading your team with maturity and effectiveness without me. My goal is to help you get to that point in 6-12 months, depending on how many things you want to tackle.

The OKR coaching looks like this:

• Vision, mission, values. If these aren’t already explicitly stated, and stable, nothing matters until these are clear.
• Annual objectives. We’ll spend time with your executive team to be sure these are clear to all.
• Quarterly OKR setting. Next, we’ll work with your leadership team to write well-stated objectives (harder than it looks), and ways to measure the impact on your company.
• Put them in a system. I strongly feel these should be maintained in an OKR-specific platform. We can look at what you’d like to use.
• Bi-weekly check-in meetings. I’ll sit in on your leadership’s meetings to assure everyone is executing as OKRs are best used. Typically, I need to do this with a company for 2 quarters before the behaviors settle in with your team.

These work. Let’s work together.