Refuelling aircraft in Mid-air by Pradip Shroff
Coaching Challenge: The Founder, CEO is chasing accelerated growth quarter after quarter. He finds it difficult to focus during meetings, and easily gets irritated on colleagues.
My case report on how I coached him to remain on top of his job and simultaneously helped him to reenergise his physical and mental health. Pradip Shroff CEO Coach, Mumbai India.
Case Background
Jash, Founder and CEO of STAR Company called me. He was given my contact by a well-wisher who has known me for my work as executive coaching to several CEOs. Jash mentioned that he is looking for an executive coach who can help him in the high growth phase of STAR. We fixed an appointment for the following week.
I reached STAR’s office 15 minutes before the appointment. The receptionist told me that Jash has not yet arrived and asked me to wait. I waited for 45 minutes before Jash arrived. Jash apologized for the delay, and we met immediately.
Jash started the meeting. He said, “We have received our second $ 100 million funding recently from PECo., a private equity company. PECo. has suggested that I engage an Executive coach as it will help me a lot in leading STAR in the growth phase.”
Jash and his friends started STAR 5 years ago. Jash did his engineering from a premier institute in India. He worked for a high growth biopharmaceuticals company for a few years. Motivated by Prime Minister Modi’s call for “Make in India”, the three friends decided to quit their jobs and start a business on their own. They liked the business models of Uber and Airbnb. They soon spotted an opportunity for a B to B business with a similar model. PECo. funded their dream, and STAR grew very quickly. In 3 years they were already at $ 75 Million in sales. Their dream is to become a Unicorn company.
Jash said, “I have heard a lot from my friend about your work as an executive coach.” I said “I am grateful to my clients who all have become good friends. They have benefited from my coaching. They like my passion for coaching and the way I connect with them like a friend who is genuine”.
I explained the coaching contract shall include 8 sessions with him. We will request that Srikant, a partner from PECo. to act as his sponsor. We will have three meetings with the sponsor—one at the start, the second, when we are halfway and the last meeting to close the assignment. I also informed him that I would carry out a conversational 360 after one or two sessions and provide validation feedback at the end of the seventh session. Jash agreed to go ahead with the governance (accountability) and structure of the contract.
As we closed the meeting, Jash apologized once again and said that even his wife scolded him as he had started late from his home.
Contracting for the coaching itself: establishing the intent of the coaching sessions
Personal and Professional story.
We had the first joint meeting with the sponsor (Srikant). Srikant set out his expectations of his role and what he was willing to execute as part of the agreed plan. He reaffirmed that building a team is important, and integral to the coaching agenda, which was to help Jash to become more effective in the role of CEO.
After Srikant left the meeting, Jash and I sat down to start our first session. I have learnt from my experience that a person’s current behaviour is not only due to current environment. Past environment and experiences that the person has gone through do affect current behaviour. I find that knowing past stories of achievements help me in subsequent sessions in using elements of appreciative inquiry. I hence prefer understanding the person holistically. I asked Jash to describe his school and college days, what were his hobbies, what was he good at and who were his friends.
Jash was brilliant in his studies. He was usually got top rank in the class. He was highly disciplined. He would go from home to school and back to home after studies. He used to read a lot on general knowledge. He liked music and loved old Bollywood songs. He liked history, English, astronomy, chemistry. He, however, scored high marks in Maths and Science also. His parents suggested, and he pursued engineering at one of the top engineering institutes in India.
Jash feels that due to his success in exams, he could not pursue his passion. The environment in the family was clear that he has to become an engineer. He feels that if he failed in any exams it could have allowed him to pursue his passion for music and writing.
I could see that Jash had some dissatisfaction. I decided that it will be useful to see his Holistic health profile and understand his current level of satisfaction with various factors. The profile indicated that he was least happy with his health and physical comforts. He was most happy with his career and spouse.
I probed about his health concerns. Jash enjoys listening to music and reading at night. He goes to bed at 2 am and gets up around 8-30 am. He is usually late to come to the office and works till 9 pm in the office. He has asthma, excess weight. He does not do any exercise.
He further mentioned that he is not able to focus during long meetings. He is not able to listen patiently. He gets irritated when things do not happen the way he wants. He also considers himself as mature and rebellious.
Jash did not want his colleagues to get any hint on his health. He wanted them to only look at issues of business growth. The business should go on while he reenergises myself. Jash wanted to “Refuel aircraft in mid-air”.
Health First.
We agreed that he would have to work on improving his health while continue leading the business. I felt that he is likely to ignore his health and may cause further harm to his health. We will have to focus on his health, and this will require the involvement of his wife. I closed the meeting by asking him to share his holistic health profile with his wife. I also suggested that he should consider engaging a yoga teacher and start yoga. He also agreed to consult his doctor for advice.
Jash was very cheerful in the next meeting. He, however, came almost one hour late and attributed it to heavy traffic. He reported that he had shared his Holistic profile with his wife. They both agreed that he must take positive steps for his health. Jash was happy with the simple tool. He had asked his wife to fill it up. This revealed that she wanted him to devote more time with her.
We discussed various ideas to improve his health. Jash agreed to look for a yoga teacher and go for an evening walk with his wife. Jash said that he would find it difficult to go to bed early. He has been doing this for so many years.
In the third session, he reported that he has started looking for a yoga teacher. He did not find anyone available at his time. He has not started doing any exercise so far. We discussed at length various options and finally agreed to play table tennis during lunch break in the office and evening walk with wife.
Psychometric test and 360
In the second session, I explained that to help him see his leadership style, we would use a psychometric assessment from Thomas assessment. We will connect the findings with the conversation 360 feedback collected by me. I asked Jash to connect me with his business partners, subordinates, and his wife so that I could interview them.
Jash completed the Thomas assessment, and I talked to six respondents that he had connected me with.
Dissatisfaction among business partners
In the third session, after we reviewed progress on action taken for his health, Jash talked about a peer group feedback that he had taken and shared with his cofounders. This was done by them to determine the bonus for each of the partners. I probed further to understand their views, on each other. The business partners felt that they did not get their due credit as cofounders. For them Jash was taking all credit and was in the limelight with media. This unhappy feeling was also known to PECo. partner Srikant. Srikant had told them that they could resolve the issue among themselves or else he would like to bring a CEO from outside.
At this point, I felt that continued conflict at the top must be handled immediately to avoid any damage to the future business. Jash agreed that he should directly deal with the situation. If required. Jash and I discussed that conflict cannot be resolved if they see it as a “fight”. We reframed this by looking at this situation as managing expectations and differing views. Jash and I brainstormed on ideas to dissolve the conflict and he finally agreed on:
Proactively calling for a meeting of all partners every week and discuss business issues and work out a consensus solution.
All future interviews with press and media will be jointly handled by all of them. Jash will involve them in responding to the questions.
I then discussed his Thomas assessment report and my conversational 360 reports. Whilst we did not have time for deeper analysis, I asked Jash to reflect on all the reports discussed and write down what actions he would like to take. I asked him to put his thoughts into four buckets.
What I will continue.
What I will Stop
What I will Start and
What I modify.
And at the start of our next session, we discussed the data he had added to the “Start X Stop” buckets and then filtered through them to identify actions that will yield the highest ROI for his efforts.
Creating a detailed and accountable Action Plan
By the end, he had identified for himself that he would need to focus on the execution of the task, work on his communication skill and his time management.
He wrote down the following:
“I will Think, Plan and Act, develop process, skills and communication to deliver what I promise all the time.“
We then discussed and worked out what his detailed action plan would be, and to sign it off with the Sponsor.
Action Plan as an effective Leader
Communication skill – Listen for Facts and feelings > Pause > Respond to solve the issue.
Practice communication skill in effectively accomplishing a task.
Action Plan for Cofounders
Work to achieve seamless communication, Increase shared information.
Develop a better bond with them. Increase the frequency of meeting.
Take time to go outside normal day to day work to discuss certain strategic projects and their progress.
Action Plan for Colleagues
Manage execution with Focused review meetings
Periodic reviews with direct reportees on metrics and KPIs
Always make sure decisions are taken and solutions are designed with the alignment of my colleagues
Conduct regular sessions with the team at large, document things and share agendas and other useful material
Give complete attention during meetings and try to absorb everything said and discussed by my colleagues.
Action Plan for Personal health
Engage yoga teacher or join a Gym
Play Table Tennis during lunch break
Monitor weight
Action Plan for Self and Personal Development: Maintain Journal and receive feedback
Note down Happy stories, Critical incidences of communication
Reflect, Review, and Refresh all-important interactions
Periodically ask for feedback from peers, subordinates, seniors, clients
Sign off with Sponsor.
We had a short meeting with Srikant, and he signed off the action plan. Jash did not want any of his health issues discussed with Srikant. We hence kept his action plan on his heath on a low key.
Actions are taken, and Results validated.
We continuously reviewed his action implementation in the remaining sessions. Jash worked on all the actions that we planned, and I completed the validation feedback interviews at the end of our seventh session. The key findings we confirmed were:
Doing regular exercises. Health has improved. Back pain has gone.
No more emotional outburst or getting angry on others.
He is empathetic. He is trying to understand others’ views and adjust.
Increased frequency of communications with cofounders. Excellent coordination among all three.
Excellent improvement in time management for self. Keeps all the commitments, all meetings start on time. Well organized.
Meeting agenda circulated in advance. Well prepared for the meeting. Communication solution focussed.
Proactively asks for feedback and works on them.
In the concluding meeting, Srikant conformed that he as observed significant changes in Jash. Before our meeting, Srikant himself had called on a few executives and confirmed his assessment. He observed that Jash had managed his temper well. He is now cool and does not have an emotional outburst. All cofounders are well aligned to the business, and past dissatisfaction has gone. Business is doing well.
My own reflections:
Jash did not talk about his health issues in the first place. Using Holistic health profile showed up his health concern.
It was a good idea to involve his wife at the start of the coaching. Clearly, Jash was a lot more cheerful session after session.
Dissatisfaction among business partners surfaced in good time before our session. Jash could immediately take corrective action and win their confidence.
I built a trust bond with Jash in the very first meeting by sharing that I was also an engineer from the same institute and was a top ranker.
My empathetic listening, summarizing the discussions and challenges where required, kept the journey moving positively.
I was able to grasp his situation and could function like a catalyst that accelerated the chain of thoughts.
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”.