Your Agenda

Giant Leaders begins with you. It’s not about us and cookie cutter approaches to tackle issues and challenges you face. The Giant Leaders coaching process is tailored to address your agenda according to your expectations for success.

We have found business leaders often face challenges in at least four distinct areas. Many have discovered that an experienced executive coach provides the added perspective and insight certain to maximize decision making.

Do you find yourself dealing with any of these issues?

• Dilemmas – I am trying to decide whether to sell my business; extract from a partnership; scale the business; or choose among two or more great opportunities.
• Alignments – I need to slow down; re-integrate my personal and work lives; or figure out how my faith fits into my work and overall calling.
• Transitions – It is finally time to pursue my real dream or it is time for something more meaningful and significant. I need to accelerate my exit strategy; hand over the company to the next generation; transition out of day-to-day operations; or figure out how to include other passions into my life.
• Upgrades – I’m considered a leader at what I do but I sense a need to polish my executive skill set; fill a skill gap needed for my new position; develop as a leader in order to be able to advance professionally; or recharge my passion for what I’m doing

A deeper look. Can you relate?

Dilemmas – Dissecting the challenges

I am thinking of selling my company…

• But there are a myriad of options to be considered in thinking that through. Should I go the IPO route? What about selling to a private company vs. a public one? If I sell to a public company, what will happen to the culture we have worked so hard to construct here? What might my role be after the sale, and do I want to stay during an earn-out period – if it is offered to me? Am I ready to give up control of what I have built? If I don’t sell now, where will I find the capital to expand? Is there any reason to explore the venture capital route?

I have a tangled mess with some business partners…

• Like most entrepreneurs, I have a half dozen companies and structures that I direct my energy and work through. However, I have become entangled with partners who are not helpful and quite frankly are destructive to the success of the business and my personal goals. Should I initiate a sell or should I buy them out and if so how can I do that without over risking my financial portfolio or causing a community earthquake?

I need to scale my business…

• We have tremendous momentum in our company and it is time to scale to the next level. However, the path to expansion could take us a number of directions. I don’t want to over extend but we don’t have the luxury of staying as we are. Is it possible to scale in phases? Do I scale then let my infrastructure catch up or do I build out my internal systems then go and find more customers? Or do I do them in parallel fashion? And when it comes to scaling, what is the best method to pay for the expansion?

Alignments – Recalibrating priorities

I need to slow down…

• How do I keep all the plates spinning? Family expectations, work challenges and simply keeping up with the daily issues of life. Who has time for it all?
• I don’t have time to read or reflect anymore. I finally went on a vacation but worked half the time. Everyday is a race. Some days I think I am winning in one area only to realize that I totally washed out in another.
• Is it possible to travel as much as I need to and still meet my family’s needs? Is there a way to regulate the pace? I could do this when I was young and single but not any more.

I need to re-align my family priorities…

• Somewhere along the way I began giving too much to my work and not enough to my family. My kids are at the age that if I don’t make some kind of realignment now, I think I will regret it forever.
• My career is going fine and I know my company is not going to initiate a shift for my benefit. I know in my gut I must do something. But what exactly should I do and how do I go about it?

I need to get my faith and work more tightly harnessed…

• My faith and my work never seem to be in step. They seem like arch enemies or at least secret competitors. Is it possible to find meaning and fulfillment in both?
• I feel alone in my struggle. I can’t talk to my boss, my pastor, my spouse, or even friends. They can’t identify with the specifics of my world. At worst I feel schizophrenic. At best I’m torn. If only I could find someone who understands and appreciates both the business and faith aspects of life.

Transitions – Navigating change

I need to walk toward the deep dream of doing something different…

• I have enjoyed a very exciting and successful career. I have had the opportunity to make more money than I ever dreamed possible.
• Sometimes I look in the mirror I think it is a time to strike out and do something totally different.
• For years I have dreamed of retiring early and investing my skills and resources into another venture with more personal pull. I still have some gas in my tank and have been thinking maybe it is time to make a transition. But what would the path of transition look like?

I need to figure out how to roll other passions into my life…

• I have a successful career and I want to continue down the same path. But lately I have these ideas that are pulling on me. I can’t figure out where they fit. Certainly they don’t really fit on the “platform” of my current profession. Are these just distractions? Am I supposed to start some other business or non-profit? How can I roll them into my life so that it all feels like one integrated purpose?

I need to transition the reins of the company to the next generation leader…

• I am the second generational leader and I am working to understand what leadership succession should look like as it moves to the third generation.
• Do I transition the company to my son or do I find a ‘buffer’ leader to hold things together till my son is ready? If my son takes over now he has less experience but more energy and ambition. If we do it later he might get bored waiting for control of the wheel.
• Our board structure is quite messy and probably needs to be cleaned up. It seemed like a good idea at the time to have the board made up of family members, but they really don’t contribute much to the business any more, and some of them don’t get along. Sometimes the company gets caught in the crossfire of bad relationships.

I need an exit strategy but I just got in…

• I started a business and it’s doing well. Down the road, I’ll need to find a partner or an exit strategy so that this business can thrive. I’m not the guy to drive this thing for another twenty years.

I need to transition out of day to day operations…

• My business has experience excellent growth.  We are no longer a mom and pop operation. The small cozy business I founded no longer exists. It has been almost 20 years since we launched and today we find ourselves with hundreds of employees and dozens of locations. I am a great founder but an average CEO and everyone knows it. I need a new leader to run the company which will mean a new role for me. I am not sure how to get there from here.

Upgrades – Refreshing skill sets

I need a re-boot of my passion, direction and energy…

• Quite frankly, I don’t know where I am going. I am very good at what I do and always have been.  For some reason I don’t know if I really want to keep doing it. I’ve always been goal oriented and now that I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, I am not sure what’s next.
• Others in my life have no idea what I am really thinking about work. I’m on auto pilot going through the motions. I’ve lost my passion for the job. Who would have ever thought I would catch myself staring out the window in the middle of the day? I work for a good company and wonderful people. My customers are the best. Why do I feel the way I do? 

I need to upgrade my executive polish and skill-set…

• I am competent and good at what I do. I’m recognized as a leader in our industry. However, I have felt like I could use some kind of fine tuning or overhaul. My career moved so fast that I never really received the training needed for a top executive. Where do I go to get what I need?  What does that look like for a person like me?

I have a gap in my executive skill set…

• I’m a high potential leader with a lot of capability. But there’s something in my leadership style that’s getting in the way of my progression. I need to figure out how to neutralize my weaknesses and maximize my strengths. I’m ready to do what it takes to take my career to the next level.

I need to become a better delegator and leader builder…

• Something has to change. I feel like the proverbial ‘one armed paper hanger’. The business has simply grown beyond my command and control leadership model. What we have now is very complex, with lots of moving parts. If I drop the ball we could really be in trouble as an organization. I need to move from a hub-and-spoke kind of leader, where the entire decision making comes through me, to more of a high performance team. The hub-and-spoke design worked okay when the company was small but I just can’t run fast enough to keep up with the velocity. I know where I need to go in theory, but…

I am over my head and need some quick tutoring…

• I just received a huge promotion. I have more responsibility than I ever dreamed I would have in my career. But going forward I don’t feel like I have the executive finesse that is necessary to play at the level of my new title. If I go to my boss and tell him I need a little help I am afraid he will think he made a mistake. I don’t need a total overhaul – just a little fine tuning in certain areas.