Leadership roles can be lonely. You may be the only person in your role in the company. A coach is a confidant — someone who helps you overcome challenges, grow as an individual, and who challenges you to improve yourself and your plans.
I wanted to take what I’d learned and developed across years of managing individuals, managers and directors, and share it more widely. I’ve been inspired along the way by Trillion Dollar Coach, on Bill Campbell, and by Michael Bungay Stanier’s writing on coaching.
Who it’s for
There’s no bad time to have a coach, but the natural moments are transitions — into a manager, into a manager of managers, and into business-unit leadership. I work with:
- Senior leadership teams working through a transition or transformation
- Staff and Principal individual contributors growing their influence and scope
- Senior Managers through to executive leaders stepping into bigger roles
My approach
We have two ears and one mouth. I try to use them in that ratio.
I think of myself as a sports-coach and mentor type of coach. I have a foot in both technology and business leadership, so I can help non-technologists understand technology and their technical colleagues — and help technologists understand the people and business side of the organisation.
Staying curious is the discipline that matters most: resisting the urge to jump to advice, and asking the question that helps you find your own answer.
I’m working towards my Red Team Coaching certification — a set of tools and processes for continuously improving management systems and business plans, so they can thrive in a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous and hyperconnected environment.
What to expect
Coaching runs as weekly 1:1s of 45–60 minutes. Each working session is supported by one to four hours of preparation, so our time together is focused and useful. A favourite exercise of mine is Dr Gary Klein’s premortem analysis, alongside a number of tools from Red Team Thinking.
Influences & reading
A few of the books and podcasts that shape how I coach:
- Trillion Dollar Coach — Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg & Alan Eagle
- The Coaching Habit and The Advice Trap — Michael Bungay Stanier
- The Thinking Leader podcast
- WorkLife with Adam Grant podcast