Leader Interventions

Over the past few months, I’ve been spending some quality time with the team at MediaFuel, a digital marketing agency here in Indianapolis. The relationship has been two fold in that I’m aiding their team in the area of strategy, team alignment and leadership coaching while they are doing a brand refresh for Chris Arnold. They have an awesome team and you’ll be seeing the fruits of their labor later this summer as we reveal my “new look”.

Today, however, I wanted to float a concept which their team asked me. They said, “Chris, we know you have leaders like Jeff call you in to help all the time; however, have you ever been contacted directly by a team who has a challenging leader?” In essence, what they were asking me is if I ever do “leader interventions”. Wow, now that is a concept!

As I related to the team, candidly, the majority of the relationships I enter into are where I’m brought in by the leader and through the process a high percentage of these leaders recognize they have as much or more opportunity for improvement than their teams. I’ve simple served as a non-biased 3rd party to open up the lines of communication and provide open, authentic feedback to one another while maintaining respect for one another and the authority in place. So, the thought that there are teams out there that would love to engage me to aid in the process is a no-brainer. In fact, while I won’t get into details, I’ve actually been brought into clients in a similar manner.

While intriguing, I anticipate you’ve already arrived at a few obstacles in the process of implementing “leader interventions”. Here’s just a few I’ll list:

1) Simply calling it an intervention is going to set leaders on the defensive.
2) How does the team get you introduced to the leader?
3) For a team member or the team, this is a very high risk card to play. It could end very badly for someone associated with calling me in.
4) While I’m good, the reality is that you can’t coach people who don’t want to be coached. Thus, my entry point, doesn’t lend itself favorable to developing a trusting coaching experience.
5) The one everyone normally asks first, “how are you going to get paid?”

What I really like is the creativity around the idea. What I also really like is that I know there are team members out there that can totally relate to the experience we’re painting the picture. Your team believes your leaders need help and you just don’t know how to work through the issue.

So, here’s what I’d like to do. Help me, help you!!! If you’re a team member challenged with your leader, I’d like to schedule a no-cost, no-obligation, safe, confidential call and, potentially, a meeting to discuss your specific circumstance and how we might work together. While I haven’t decided the number yet, I will agree to take on a few clients “pro bono” to aid them in navigating these waters. The anticipation will be that if we agree to engage your leader, it will be done in such a manner that they will see value and desire to enter into a partnership covering the expense incurred to that point. On the other hand, if after the initial process, we agree that it’s not value added to proceed, I won’t charge you or your organization for my time.

If this is something you’d like to partner, please contact me to further discuss next steps.

As a side note, if you’re a leader reading this and it’s caused you to ponder whether or not your team may be having some of these thoughts, please contact me as well. We can assess your culture pretty quickly and know whether there is value in partnering.

Outside of “leader interventions”, as you know, we offer a tremendous value with business, leadership, and life coaching through one-on-one engagements and our Truth@Work advisory boards. We’d love to have an opportunity to serve you and aid with your having a great 2nd half of 2014.

Have a fantastic day!