Leading like an owner by Pradip Shroff
The coaching context
Shyam, CEO of a Large Construction Company (LCC), called his VP HR. “Ranjeet, the new project at Kurla is a challenging project. We have tough deadlines and tight cost budgets to work on. Ketan is a brilliant engineer with MBA in Finance. What do you think if we ask him to head Kurla project?”.
Ranjeet replied, “Shyam, Ketan is good at working with details and good on follow up. This is a very prestigious project for us. The location head will, though, be required to work like an owner.”
Shyam said, “I am willing to give him the resources and freedom required”.
Ranjeet responded, “We will also need to give him the support of an executive coach. This will help Ketan transform himself from functioning like a manager to lead like an owner”.
Shyam promptly gave a green signal to find a suitable coach for Ketan.
Ranjeet went to his office and called David, his classmate from XLRI. Ranjeet asked him to suggest a suitable executive coach. David knew me from my previous work with his company and gave my contact details to Ranjeet.
Ranjeet and I met. He explained the Kurla Project. He said that Ketan is one of our best managers. He is meticulous in his details. He has engineering and finance degrees. He is good at technology and good at number crunching. We want him to lead the Kurla project, in which:
The leader will need to take charge and show passion like an owner/ CEO.
He should find solutions to problems and find the resources required.
He has to be an out of box thinker and find new ways to deal with crisis.
He has to meet targets in a challenging environment.
We want to hire an executive coach to help him transform and become an entrepreneur leader.
I explained my background as an Engineer, who has been a CEO for several years and now working as a CEO Coach. I shared my previous work with David. Ranjeet and I agreed to my contract of 8 sessions. Ranjeet introduced me to Shyam and Ketan. We agreed to meet after two weeks.
Clarifying the coaching goal with stakeholders and client:
I met Ketan and Shyam together to get Shyam’s perspective. Shyam explained about the Kurla project. He repeated more or less what Ranjeet had told me in my initial meeting. Shyam said that he would like to give him freedom so that Ketan can function like a CEO. Ketan can take full charge of the project and complete it within our cost and ahead of our scheduled date of completion.
Ketan and I moved to Ketan’s office. Ketan had kept a clean desk for the meeting. At my request, he talked about his personal and professional journey. Ketan was a rank holder in his civil engineering. He did his MBA with a major in finance. He worked with a fiancé company, an automobile company and a construction company before joining LCC. He has been with LCC for five years. Ketan said - I do not do a task unless I am sure. I tend to be “blunt and demanding” in my communication. This does hurt feelings, but in a construction company, that is the only way to deal with people.
Coaching for clarification: What does it mean to Lead like an Owner?
Ketan and I agreed that,
We would identify the set of behaviours of entrepreneurs who have successfully built businesses.
We would develop a set of attributes relevant to Ketan in his job.
We would then practice using them to help Ketan become a champion.
To begin with, Ketan agreed to read stories of owners who have built a successful business. Learning from their experiences would be useful in our work. Ketan asked for my suggestion. I told him to read the book: “Take me home” by Rashmi Bansal. I asked Ketan to read each story and make a bullet-point summary of the key attributes for success.
I then explained to Ketan that we would also work to understand and uncover his strengths. I would use psychometric tests, carry out a conversational based 360 and use my own judgment to help him arrive at his strengths. The job also required him to work in challenging environments. I hence asked Ketan to take a “Sources of Pressure test” and VIA 24 Character strengths test.
Ketan had just received the book from Amazon when we met for the next session. He agreed to complete reading the book so that we can discuss his learning in the next session.
Meanwhile, we discussed the result of the VIA 24 Strength test, Sources of Pressure test and Conversational 360 interviews report. His Top 5 Strengths were: Perseverance, Love, Honesty, Curiosity and Zest. His bottom 5 strengths were: Perspective, Social intelligence, Leadership, Bravery and Humor. Managing stress from the Organizational role was his major source of pressure. His subordinates considered him a good boss who would listen to them. He was a good follower who will carry out his duties well. He was a good planner and lacked execution. He did not take a holistic view. He would come back with a problem and blame other functions for delays. In my discussions, he revealed that he is uncomfortable with surprises. He gets disturbed when people come back with new reasons for delaying the execution. He gets angry while communicating.
I asked him to look at all his strengths and see how he can use them consciously to resolve the problems that he faces in his job. I asked him to start a journal and note down three “Happy Stories” every day and the strengths he used for each of his happy stories.
Ketan was excited at our next meeting. He had read all the stories from “Take me home”. He summarized “How and What do Owners think and act” from each story in an excel sheet. We then shortlisted attributes that Ketan felt would be most relevant to meet the expectation of Shyam.
a) Owners think big. Always take stretched goals.
b) Owners do not constrain their plan by resources. They find new ways to reach their goals.
c) Owners are willing to take uncharted territories.
d) Owners work hard with full vigour and energy.
e) Owners don’t give up. They learn from every failure and move forward to achieve their goal.
Ketan was thrilled to look at the summary on the whiteboard. He said, “Now I have understood the meaning of - Lead like an Owner.”
Coaching for action: On the way to “Leading Like an Owner”
Ketan then decided to take two Challenging goals. One in the professional life and one in his personal life. Ketan decided to use his strengths – Perseverance, Zest, Curiosity and good planning.
Ketan said, “I will leave No stone unturned to achieve my goals”.
Ketan decided
1) I will complete Phase 1 of the construction by my next birthday. This means three months ahead of the original schedule. At this time, even some of the project design work was not complete and not approved by authorities.
2) I will improve my lipid profile and blood sugar within the next four months.
I asked Ketan, “Do you recall observations made by Shyam in the first meeting that Ketan is good at planning and needs to do a better job in execution.?”
Ketan replied, “Yes, I do remember. My concerns are that in our business, delay in execution is due to a variety of reasons.”
“You are good at planning.”
Ketan smiled.
“What can you do, during planning, to minimize these delays”?
“How can I predict and plan for surprises”?
“Can you develop a system to predict surprises?”
“We have a system to record delays and reasons after a task is completed. That is our data bank of surprises. We scan through it every time we make a new plan. But we still fall short of time commitment.”
“Good, you have historical data. Can you develop some techniques and tools to anticipate future surprises?”
“I can bring together my engineers and have a brainstorming, do some kind of a scenario planning and identify potential “roadblocks”. This will at least reduce the occurrences of surprises and increase my chances of completion on time.”
Ketan developed a step-by-step Framework for planning and execution
List down all activities required to complete the task
Brainstorm and identify likely obstacles (predictable surprises),
Acquire resources required.
Determine measurement, milestones and frequency of review.
Ketan used his project planning skills and made a PERT chart (Program Evaluation and Review Technique).
Ketan selected a total of nine engineers consisting of site engineers, design engineers, and purchase engineers for a brainstorming session. Each engineer was asked to challenge the plan and list potential reasons for its failure. “What is that we have missed out in this plan that will delay completion”. Everyone wrote down their reasons without consulting each other. They then shared their reasons and brainstormed as a group for some more reasons.
The outcome of brainstorming was used to develop a potential solution. Resources identified to minimize its impact of predictable surprises on execution.
Ketan set up a weekly review meeting to monitor progress and adjust the resources for next week so that plan is accomplished week after week.
Ketan had a regular weekly review meeting with a standard agenda.
a) What did we plan to accomplish in the last week?
b) What did we accomplish?
c) Appreciate and recognize when accomplishment exceeded the plan. Reviewed the plan for next week and agreed to a revised plan to remain ahead of schedule.
d) When an activity planned was not accomplished, identified “unidentified obstacle”—brainstormed with the team to learn from it.
e) Made a revised plan for the next week to come back to the plan as agreed earlier.
Ketan shared several examples in subsequent sessions on new challenges and unplanned surprises. However, he was able to find solutions to recover the lost time. He got personally involved in chasing delays from external stakeholders to cut out any procedural delays.
Confirming Coaching Outcome
Ketan completed Phase 1 one week before his birthday and celebrated the success with his team.
Ketan followed a similar process for the management of his health. He consulted a doctor and made a plan for daily exercises and diet. He listed reasons for missing out on his exercises – unplanned visit by a guest, rain, “tired”, late from office, out of station etc. He made a backup plan so that any shortfall in exercise was made up. He put up a chart in his bedroom and asked his wife to write down food intake every day on the chart. Suffice is to say that Ketan followed up on his exercise regime. His LDL and Triglyceride, and fasting blood sugars came down within three months.
I also did a validation by conversing with six of Ketan’s peers and subordinates. Some of the comments were:
“Ketan has a strong urge to achieve best”,
“Ketan’s approach is now “Karna hi Hai” (Must complete)
“I see a passionate Ketan.”
“Ketan managed crisis very well with cool temper.”
“Ketan involved us in detailed planning so that we were well prepared.”
Shyam and Ranjeet also both confirmed in the final meeting that Ketan has now taken full charge of his work. We see that he has moved from being a Project manager to an independent Project leader. Ketan was promoted as General Manager of the next project.
My Reflections.
Shyam was very supportive and was very keen developing Ketan as a future General Manager. He was clear in his assessment of Ketan and expectations.
Ketan was very excited after reading the book. He felt he now knows what is required of him.
My challenge to identify surprises and make him accountable for the entire project cycle during planning itself was very useful in increasing confidence of Ketan.
Creating a clear structure, focusing on his strengths and competencies, and being resourceful across our eight sessions enabled Ketan to observe and own his own successes like an owner within LCC.
Sustaining a pragmatic coaching space for Ketan to internalize and clarify for himself what ‘Lead like an Owner’ means before rushing into taking action at both the personal and professional level.
Connect with Pradip Shroff on Linkedin
Pradip is a certified CEO Coach based in Mumbai, India. In last 9 years as CEO Coach, He has completed 55 Senior level Executive coaching assignments. He has done 4 Leadership Team coaching Programs. He has guided 30 Coach Interns of PG program in Executive coaching.
Pradip Shroff brings over 40 years of business experience, with 25 years at CEO level. He brings a strong business acumen and strategic thinking. He is very analytical and innovative in developing solutions. Pradip uses his corporate experience in his coaching assignment. He is a Case author in CFI's book "Are you ready for the corner office”.