Free Power Hour
For the past ten years, I have offered power hours, which is an hour with a person (usually a business leader or senior c-suiter), a company or an institution where I help and support.
I have ran power hours for:
Creators
CEOs and founders
Startups
Known Marketplaces
For SMBs
For leadership teams at a school
& for large businesses
Sometimes it is a sanity check, other times the time is used as a lunch and learn for their teams, others use it an AMA and then for some, it becomes a coaching session. It is more clinic (clinics are similar to office hours at a VC firm with their portfolio companies) than therapy but I’m always happy to support.
I am opening this up a little further to readers and visitors of my site and wider than I have before, so if you would like a power hour with me, please complete the form below or DM me on LinkedIn.
So get in touch and let me know how you’d like to collaborate and where you might need help, a sanity check or an AMA with your team/department.
My 6 Must Watch And Listens From The Last Week
Here are six incredible listens and watches to help you understand how decisions are made in large business and with elite professionals.
>> Etsy Scale & Ensuring Human+ (So human have to be behind AI product creations Creativity.
My main takeaway is being deliberate in your choices and ensuring you can build your marketplace with long term thinking in mind and adapt to tech changes.
>> Masters Of Scale - Kat Cole’s approach to leadership and why she joined AG1.
My main takeaway is Kat is very personable and extremely thoughtful and driven, if you want to be leading from the front you have to get deep under the skin and understand the true operating model.
>> YouTube creator sensation Cleo Abram on what made Nike almost ban record-breaking sneakers (hint there’s a flow chart and must be on general sale to be included in the Olympics
My main takeaway is tech is always going to help improve times of athletes but unless they are the elite level athletes its likely not going to win too many races and Olympic and governing bodies will review tech and innovation quickly (for safety and fair use).
>> Rory Sutherland delivers one of his best talks about making time to rethink the question and apply behaviour sciences to make better decisions .
My main takeaway is thinking about the question and what humans want will place us in front of creating better solutions, it’s then a choice (as I said in brand is in 2024/2025) not just optimising to the financial leader’s spreadsheet.
>> How 7-Eleven is repositioned itself and building a better shopping experience
My main takeaway is many can learn from building an experience from international stores and building more relevant shopping experiences.
>> Acquired’s long form interview with Howard Schultz on Starbucks history, strategic moves & why being wrong made Starbucks right
My main takeaway is even when you are a listed company with millions in sales even larger brands will treat you badly (Coca Cola in this instance) and their competitors will leap at the chance to collaborate. I have experienced this a number of times and it rarely ends badly…
HVE - High Value Employee(s)
Why High Value Employees (HVE) Need To Be Identified, Supported & Have Individual Plans Of Action
Imagine this ↓
Your best-performing member of the department comes to you and suggests they are unhappy and have been applying for external roles.
Your first thought was likely FFS, your second was to try and talk to them and hopefully listen to their points.
Your next action is likely to convince them to stay…
If this comes as a shock, there are likely three things that it could be or that are happening:
You are busy and missing the signs from this employee
The subculture or company culture has shifted and the employee doesn’t feel connected
orThe company is not moving in a direction that connects with said employees.
Most department leads do not identify who is your HVE (your high value employee(s)). They have an idea but do not actively treat the identified employee as such. They definitely do not have a plan of action for these individuals.
Yes, you can identify them and treat them well and they will look to progress their career elsewhere but many do not actively check-in, you miss their signals from their performance dropping, being continually frustrated in meetings and hearing what they are saying from their silence, you or they actively miss 1-2-1’s,
In some organisations, they train department leads and executive teams to identify and actively discuss key person risk - when someone is that important it creates a business risk for them to become unhappy and leave the business. If you were to take a step back, would your HVE be a key person to leave the business and create a risk to the business?
Do you have a handful of HVE’s or a high-value employee who you need to connect with and work through how they like to work, how you could support them further or know when to get out of their way?
A coachable moment for the week ahead is to review your team (try not to make it a 9-box exercise), identify your HVE and work out a plan of action for them or the HVE’s.
Remember: It is also great to support them in moving on, often high value employees need to leave and it’s ok as their line manager to support them in reshuffling your org and creating the most effective org design.
If you enjoyed this post why not read more of my blog posts here, if you are interested in more actionable coaching blog content read here