What if everyone was on the same page?
More clarity, more cohesion,
more getting on with it,
more progress.
Get in touch
Taking technology to market is hard enough, but even with all the pressures coming from the outside – from customers and partners and competitors and the endless change brought over the horizon as the world turns – what holds us back is most often the problems we create all by ourselves.
We let so many things get in our way.
We dance around reality, avoid the difficult conversations and hedge our bets, hoping or wishing that everything will somehow sort itself out on its own.
It doesn’t work like that.
And the longer we leave it, the greater the impact on our team, our customers and our bottom line.
We need to stop the dance and get out of our own way.
The cure is to find your focus, set structure and get everyone pulling together.
Leaders ask questions
Take the initiative, Get in touchABOUT ME
I help entrepreneurial leadership teams in B2B technology businesses take the initiative, build the team and the business they want, and skip to market.
I’ve been doing this work since 2001 – with a 3 year detour when I crossed the table and ran a listed technology business.
I’ve published leadership nudges every day since February 2015 at ShearingLayers.com. A 7am, 150 word reminder of things we know but tend to forget in the moment – primarily about focus, teams and making decisions.
Here, my weekly Get Out Of Your Own Way newsletter offers more practical insights on the profession of leadership and the pursuit of skippiness.
Away from the office, I run or bike most days and make occasional big trips by bicycle.
What’s it like working with me?
What kind of team gets the most from working this way?
Curious and collaborative.
Curious, because dealing with reality is a stronger bet than trusting to wishes. Curious, because deeper understanding means firmer foundations. Curious, because triangulating different perspectives with new data is a path to insight. Curious, because you can’t help yourself and neither can I.
Collaborative, because nobody is as smart as everybody. Collaborative, because buy-in comes for free when you’re inside the creative process. Collaborative, because it’s a team sport. Collaborative, because teams can do bigger things together than they could ever do apart.
What you’ll get from me
Direct. Neutral. Objective, with opinions. No vested interests. Preparation. Examples. Ideas. Research. Models. A thinking buddy. Follow though. Accountability. Perspective. Stories.
Talk it through, work it out, travel together.
The point of this kind of work isn’t simply to define problems and find answers. It’s not about writing reports. If that was true, you wouldn’t be here.
I believe nobody is as smart as everybody. I also believe that lack of buy-in undermines execution and sucks the life out of any attempt to make things happen.
Both of those beliefs point towards bringing the talents of your team to the table. To improve understanding and thinking power, to get automatic buy-in to the plays you create together, and to set things up for follow-through.
I work directly with you (no substitutes) and your core team and may ask you to pull in other voices that are closer to the customer.
Iterative, with meaning
We’re going to get on with it, but finding our way to the centre of your gravity tends to be iterative. Not taking the years that got you here, but not once-and-done in-the-room either. And certainly not phoney-smile, taboo-avoiding easy answers that nobody buys.
Expect early progress, but expect to spend more time pulling your thinking together until your centre is solid and certain.
What I’m not.
A coach. Not the kind that manoeuvres you with questions until you find the answer yourself. I start with questions but we’ll soon get into debate. I have opinions and a point of view – the process benefits from thinking out loud, having room to reflect and the discipline to dig into the why as well as the what of the thing.
That consultant. The kind that uses a cookie cutter. You and your team will do the heavy lifting. My job is giving you context so you stay on course and commit to the effort, and keeping you focused so you follow through on making decisions and dealing with the blockers that are holding you back.
An enabler. If you already have all the answers – and all you want is someone to agree and then convince your team with a rubber stamp – I’m not your guy.