Coaching The Elephant

The old riding proverb warns against swapping horses on unstable ground mid-crossing. This article applies it to leadership decisions, through three situations: the MBA graduate under pressure to change jobs, the impatient CEO who learns to pause and analyse, and the change leader balancing conviction with the resistance of the team around them.

Telling people to speak up is not enough; organizations have to build the conditions that make it normal. Using the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster as a warning, this article sets out six practical steps for creating psychological safety at work, from leadership modelling vulnerability to normalizing failure, and looks at how Toyota, Pixar and others put them into practice.

An accomplished sports coach knows that winning takes more than individual talent. Drawing on years of working alongside elite team coaches, this article examines three skills corporate leaders can borrow: interpersonal skills such as communication, impartiality and cultivating enjoyment, intrapersonal skills like positive self-talk, and the right operational distance from the team.

Empathy is an overlooked engine of business growth. Through the story of Albert Cramer, who sent Warsteiner employees out to see the market through the eyes of outlet owners and drinkers rather than commissioning research, this article shows how understanding the people you serve turns raw data into insight, and insight into a decade of double-digit growth.

Sustainable, high-performing teams share three characteristics: culture alignment, positivity and productivity. This article maps four cultural models shaped by hierarchy and rapport - Troops, Believers, Virtuous and Friends - and four team environments produced by the positivity-productivity mix, from Dead Zones and Rat Race to genuinely high-performance teams.

Once you have gained your university diploma, your next immediate concern is finding an interesting professional challenge or, in some cases, to start your own business. Because the world has become so "flat" and competitive, once you have found your dream job, you must settle in quickly and create ongoing career progress as of day one. 

The fine art of listening involves more than just hearing what someone is saying; it involves actively engaging with them and truly understanding their perspective. This blog will explore the importance of listening, the benefits of being a good listener, and some strategies for improving your listening skills.

In a recent panel discussion on workplace productivity, a vigorous debate emerged regarding the impact of psychological safety versus pressure in achieving high productivity. This article aims to clarify several misconceptions, one being that psychological safety and pressure cannot walk hand in hand and would not be conducive to optimizing productivity.

In a complex and ever-changing world, business and organizational leaders' need for sound decisions are more critical than ever before. In internal control processes, the four-eyes principle is often used with the understanding that two pairs of eyes see more than one pair. In my opinion, the same holds true in decision making.

Daniel Goleman, renowned for his work on emotional intelligence, highlights the importance of versatile leadership. His research indicates that leaders who get the best results don't rely on just one leadership style; they adapt their approach to various business situations.

Is traditional leadership keeping your team from reaching its full potential? In this episode, we follow Alex, a mid-level automotive manager in Irvine, California, who believed authority meant strict control and long hours. While his approach produced discipline, it also drained his team's creativity and morale. Join us as we explore Alex's journey through executive coaching, where he learns to t...

In this episode, we meet Maxime ("Max"), a Silicon Valley tech veteran whose promising data-analytics startup hit a wall. Stuck in a rigid mindset and fighting a product-market disconnect, Max was on the brink of giving up. Discover how a pivotal coaching intervention—and three transformative questions—helped him dismantle his old assumptions, break free from outdated mental models, and pivot towa...

Managing group climate is no longer a decision according to the leader's preferences. Nowadays, many organizations in different fields measure the satisfaction of their members with team assessments. In a previous blog, we explored the primary dimension of high-performance leadership: productivity. This blog will address the second dimension: group climate or cohesion.

Organizations frequently solicit leadership and team coaches to help improve three aspects of high-performance leadership. This article focuses on the first of these three: Productivity. Two following audio blogs delve deeper into the other two dimensions: Team Environment and Individual Development.

Visionary business leaders who want to align their company's mission with the stakeholders' interests, i.e., shareholders, employees, clients, suppliers, community, and/or environment, often encounter fierce resistance from within their organization. The change itself does not so much fuel the resistance as the people's fear of loss.

Not every sadness is a disorder. Sometimes what looks like breaking down is the heart trying to make sense of love, loss, and change. This piece is an invitation to listen more deeply before we label ourselves or others.

Procrastination isn’t about laziness—it’s fear wearing a mask, and we’ve all been there: staring at a looming task while finding every excuse to avoid it. This article dives into the emotional roots of procrastination, showing how it affects even the most capable leaders. The key to breaking free? Start small. A single sentence, a five-minute timer, or one manageable step can shatter the inertia a...

One of the recurring goals in coaching sessions is to live a happier life. My clients sometimes doubt if happiness exists or if it is a utopia, impossible to attain. The truth is that it exists and is measured all over the world.

Curiosity is one of the most powerful tools to help us grow, develop relationships with others, adapt to change, and create innovative solutions. While the literature suggests that we are born with some natural level of curiosity, our life experiences and, paradoxically, our education can make us less curious. The good news perspective is that curiosity is a mental muscle that can be trained like...

Learning occurs in stages. It takes patience and time to acquire new skills. Gaining proficiency takes practice. The Learning Matrix, also called the Four Stages of Competence, is a four-stage model that can help to understand the different steps involved in learning and where an individual is in his learning journey.

On a flight from Paris to Tbilisi, a 77-year-old former Wharton professor shared a lifetime of insight in one sentence: learning matters more than grades, money, status, or achievement. This article explores why capable leaders drift from care into control — and how the discipline of focusing on "the horse you can hold" changes leadership after midlife.v

In team coaching, I have learned that my presence begins before I ask a question. It begins in how I enter the room, how I manage my own urgency, and how I notice what is happening beneath the conversation. This article is a reflection on what I watch for in the room, and how that helps a team begin to see itself.

A joyful dinner in Paros begins with music, laughter, and napkins in the air.
But when people on the quay start watching, the energy in the room begins to change.
What starts as spontaneous fun slowly becomes a performance.
This essay reflects on the roles we play, the audiences we respond to, and the moment we remember to live again.

Windmillingness is the constant motion leaders create when they confuse activity with impact.
By filling every silence, solving every problem, and carrying too much of the team’s thinking, they can unintentionally create dependency. I know this pattern because, for years, I mistook my own movement for momentum. Only later did I understand what all that activity was preventing in my team and in mys...

Children learn not only from what adults deliberately teach them, but also from hearing how adults reason through real situations.
In enterprise families, young people cannot be expected to develop judgment if they are excluded from the conversations in which judgment is formed.
Preparing the next generation may begin by allowing them to remain at the table, listen, question and gradually learn ho...