Growing from founder to CEO: Executive coach Alisa Cohn on how to get better feedback

In Depth - Alisa Cohn

 I'm really excited to have, have you joining us and to have this conversation. Me too. Um, one place that I thought might be interesting to start is, is the topic of self-awareness. Um, and I think it's particularly tricky in the context of, of founders and CEOs. And I as you spend a lot of time thinking about self-awareness getting feedback growing at the rate that the company is growing and being able to operate in a way that is consistent with what the company needs at any given point in time, or kind of kind of LinkedIn.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: So I'd be interested to talk about, um, you know, if you're the CEO of a company, it could be a 10 person company or 500 person company. How do you think about understanding and figuring out what you're actually doing? Well, And in what ways you need to, to grow and, and what, what tends to be hard about that?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Um, well, I'll answer the first question first. So the best way to really get insight on what you're doing well, and what you need to improve on is 360 feedback. So as a coach, I do a lot of 360 feedback where I asked the folks around you, the folks around the executive what's working, what are her strongest strengths?

What are her development opportunities, weaknesses, blind spots, obstacles, and what specific behavioral suggestions you have to help her be a better leader. So that is like, where are the consumers of your leadership are the ones who are able to weigh in on how your leadership is landing because you, the CEO of the expert and your intention, and everybody around you is the expert on your impact.

So it's leading. You know, effectiveness is definitely in part about marrying intention with impact. So that's, so you get like an insight onto what's going on around you. And I guess I would say if you don't have a coach doing that?

with you and for you, um, it's just very helpful to set up the right relationships with the folks around you so they can offer up suggestions on a regular basis. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: And how you create, I'd love to come back to your role as a coach in terms of pulling this information out of, out of, in this case may be an executive team or something like that. But, but outside of that, to this sort of second point, if you are the CEO and you want to create the dynamic or the structure or rituals, or what have you to get that feedback, can you share more about how you go about doing that?

And I think. In any sort of potentially hierarchical relationship there there's challenges to that in terms of getting direct and, and clear feedback.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Definitely. And the challenges grow as the company grows and becomes more important. And maybe you become kind of more important in the eyes of the people who didn't used to know you. So the challenge is just get, did harder on that. So I think the way to think about that is to first of all, um, really proactively seek out suggestions on a regular basis.

So sometimes it's. What do I need to get better at? And people don't want to tell you, but if, if they are able to just offer a suggestion that can make people feel safer. And when you ask over and over and over again, you kind of communicate and signal I'm serious that I really want that. And that could be from your executive team.

It could be from folks one or two levels down. It could also be from people who have been with the company a long time. So they knew you when it was just 10 people. And so they have a different kind of relationship with you. And then the opportunity and the way to do that is to reward that behavior. It could be that they publicly say, you know, I got this, I got this feedback from Brett and I got this suggestion and I'm going to start doing that.

And I really appreciate that, Brett, that you shared that. And if, if the CEO will share that in a public forum and recognize that. Feedback is appreciated. Suggestions are appreciated and that we're all learning here. It does a lot of things. It helps people feel safer, giving feedback.

and suggestions. And also it showcases that we in this company are all learning together.

So then it creates an environment where people are expected to be learning. They don't have to know everything or be perfect to be great at their jobs. And that also creates a lot of good, well, it's a lot of good culture in that company where people are learning together. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: Looping back when you're running 360 feedback processes. And you mentioned this at a very high level. Obviously one of the things you do is sit down in this case may be virtually with, with folks on the executive team. When you get together with those people, let's say you're working with a CEO, it's a 200 person company, and you're talking to his or her VP of marketing.

What are you doing? What are the questions you're asking? What are you trying to learn in that time to be able to translate it into useful, useful feedback?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: So, first of all, I'm trying to establish rapport very quickly because I want to make sure they're able to tell me the uncomfortable things, um, or the things that they're not quite sure if they should bring up. So I really spend time trying to make people feel safe and letting the know this, that the feedback is confidential.

And that I'm not going to say who said what? So I'm going to give, um, the comments and the feedback?

back to the CEO, but I'm not going to say who said what? And that also, if there's any inklings or observations they have, it's a good time to share them all in service of the CEO being a better leader and ultimately the company being more successful.

So I really frame it like that. And then what I talk a lot about is, um, when they say, well, I think he's a great strategic thinker. Then what I want to do is say, well, what does that look like? What do you mean by that? And that, you know, strategic thinker is like, what are those actual actually examples that, um, it's a funny word.

So it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So my drilling down and asking specific questions about, does that mean that person's a longterm thinker? Does that person, that means, does that mean this person sees around corners? Does that mean the person is proactive, which sometimes that's what strategic thinking means to people.

And then once I get an understanding of like the, the clarity of what they're talking about, then we move to development opportunities and that's what I really dig in. So they might say. He's not collaborative enough. And so then I would say, that's great. What do you mean by that? Well, and that might be, he's always interrupting or he has one-on-ones with people and doesn't share the information with the rest of us who need to know it, those kinds of things.

And then I will ask sometimes about the specific questions that. Me and the CEO have decided are helpful. So for example, what's his communication style like or what, how does he influence others or do you think he's more external facing and more or more internal facing? And what does that balance look like?

And do you think it's the right balance, those kinds of questions. And then again, I kind of keep digging in for specifics. And then what I like to do at the end, especially is to ask for specific behavioral suggestions. Because again, if we're thinking about someone being more collaborative is just as a good example, what that looks like to everybody is very different.

So I want to get their specific sort of idea of what does collaboration look like in this case? It might be, he should let everybody know once he's made a decision, he should ask for everybody's opinion inside of the executive team before he makes a decision, that kind of thing. And then I feed all of that back to the CEO anonymously and we go through it and I want to say, really it's really important.

The CEO doesn't have to, and often doesn't take all the suggestions that come out of this process, but it's very helpful for that person to have a roadmap of what his direct reports and other folks around the company want to see from him as a consumer of his leadership. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: Uh, the two things that just sort of pop sort of popped into my head. One is how do you think about the, the truth in the feedback than anyone is giving and does it matter? And one of the things that I've found as I've kind of explored this topic over many years is that a lot of times someone's feedback is more a reflection of themself and sometimes their own, their own challenges or opportunities, more so than.

Sort of whatever that, whatever the actual piece of feedback about that person that they're, that they're giving. And so does that, does that matter or all feedback should be treated the same and it doesn't matter effectively maybe how, how reflective it is of reality.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: um, first of all, I totally agree with you. Very often feedback is a reflection of sort of the person's concerns or, you know, kind of their, their own, let's say issues and shortcomings. And, um, I think what's powerful there is That I don't ask one person. I ask eight people or 10 people or 12 people. And so themes definitely emerge from talking to a good sample size of people.

Then also somebody like just recently, somebody said to me, um, I can't get ahold of him when. And I said, okay, well, tell me more about that. Well, I tried to text him, I try to email him. I need him and he doesn't get back to me. I don't know why. And then I say, okay, that's great. So have you addressed that directly with him?

No, I haven't. I said, okay, how come is he not accessible? Like, are you concerned? Are you afraid? I just don't want to get into a confrontation. That's what he said to me. The, the stakeholders said to me, so I said, well, is that the way he is that when you bring something up to him, he gets, he get into a confrontation.

He said, no, I bet he would take it pretty well. I just feel a little uncomfortable. I say. Okay, great. Well, let me ask you to do this. If you want to take on like a challenge, I'm talking to the stakeholder here. If you want to take on a challenge, I would invite you to give this feedback to him directly and to see how that goes, if you feel safe doing so.

And I tell you that Brett, because very often as the coach, I am definitely sort of the receptacle of a lot of concerns and issues and topics that actually they could raise to the CEO directly. But for many reasons, they don't going back to what we said earlier about sort of the hierarchy and part of, I think of my role in being in the system is to help people have more direct conversation and feel safer having the right conversations.

One-on-one

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: That makes, that makes a lot of sense. How often do you find that people then go and have that conversation?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: about half the time. So then it's like, Hmm, how come they didn't do it? The. You know, I think about that endlessly, like what also people will make commitments to me. Like, for example, I might say to that person, great. I'm glad you feel comfortable having that. Would you mind sending me a note when, when you know, I'm very into, like, when are we going to do what and who's going to do what by when, so I'll say great.

So when do you think you're able to do that? Oh, by next Friday. Okay, great. Do you mind sending me a note just to confirm that you had that conversation?

I'd really be curious about how it goes and most often people commit. And so, and I would say, I won't say most often, but I would say half the time, maybe it a little more than half the time they don't follow up on their commitments.

And I think that's endlessly interesting and also shows me how silly some people in that environment relate to commitments. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: So I want to talk about that specific idea in a second, I guess one sort of other question that's sort of, sort of something that I've noticed is. I've we've tried all sorts of different feedback mechanisms, 360 reviews written. I asked for feedback, et cetera, and I have found, um, what you do in terms of having a coach or an external person interview people.

The quality of the feedback is not incrementally better. It's massive. It's, it's, it's five times better. It's 10 times better. 

and and I'm curious. Do, do you think it's that there's something in terms of, uh, of a good interviewer is able to disarm someone and allow them to share more openly? Or if you agree that that the quality of feedback tends to be better, like what's the why behind.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Um, so first of all, I, I definitely agree with you. Um, I've had. Actually very, very, um, accessible CEOs who do ask for feedback and get feedback. They say to me, just like you said, this is so much more direct and even so much more actionable. And it's clearly, it's just better. It's better quality of feedback.

I do think I'll speak for myself. I was a journalism major in college, and I did a journalism a little bit after college. And I do think that I personally bring the skill of interviewing to the table and also the patients I'm endlessly fascinated with why. And I bring a lot of patients into, well, how come this and why that, and what does that look like?

And tell me more about that. And what's another example in a way, which I think people find like they people sense that I'm interested. Not that I'm grilling them. So speaking for myself, I think that that is a skill also. I make sure to make time in a busy day, any executive, like you is probably processing a number of different things, a lot of different things.

And. They want to make time for this input, but there's also a lot of other things calling it their attention. And when I come into a system to do 360 feedback, that's all I'm focused on. And so I sort of make sure that we have enough quality time to do it. And I think there is something about telling a third party, which is just different from telling you to your face. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: Yeah, I think, I think that last one is, is really interesting. I also wonder whether there's, there's something about to your point in terms of asking great questions or being in conversation with a third party about someone else that elicits a different type of feedback than even an anonymous survey or sort of 360 process where you're sitting down and writing.

Um, and maybe it also creates space like it, to your point you're you're on the calendar. You have a half an hour, an hour. I don't know how many people spend a true hour or more writing feedback for their. In this case, CEO. 

And so it kind of forces, I would assume it forces someone to, to just spend more time reflecting.

And my advice, because I've seen how transformative this is, is that more CEOs should be doing this type of thing and not just kind of a written, a written 360 or talking at the end of a one-on-one.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: oh, I definitely agree with that. I think there's something so powerful in the conversation and in the chemistry between the person asking and, and the person who's, um, who's weighing in. And I think that, um, the prompt questions in real time are very helpful for people to really examine. Yeah, what's going on.

I think the other benefit of, you know, when I'm a coach and I walk into, um, an organization and I talked to eight or 10 or 12 people, I get a really strong view of what's going on. It's not just about the CEO. It's like, what else is going on around here? And what is the culture like and what are people experiencing?

And what's in the way of getting work done and what's helping get work done. And I think that. It's just being in conversation about that is like very helpful for the whole company. And I, I guess I would also say somebody writing their feedback, even if it's verbatim comments and they're writing and they can write whatever they want.

They feel differently when they're able to share with another human being like this is what's really going on. And I think it leaves the stakeholder, assuming it's a relatively healthy situation. It leaves the stakeholder that the executive I'm talking to feeling also better themselves. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: One of the things you, you talked about a minute ago is, is, you know, you do this process and maybe, maybe you have somebody like a coach do it. Maybe you're doing some version and trying to get high quality feedback yourself. And, you know, you get all this feedback as a CEO. Um, how do you think about advising a CEO on what feedback to spend time focused on versus, you know, not now, or, or maybe they're, it's not valid feedback or not useful feedback?

Like what does that process look like?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Um, it's such a good question, because I think that CEOs are under the mistaken impression that they have to take all the feedback all the time and what I first, first of all, it's a slow process. It doesn't just like here do this. Okay, good, good job. It's like a slow process. First. I get a lot of feedback.

So it takes us some time to digest it together. And many CEOs, I won't say all, but many, maybe most have some sort of reaction, which is, you know, we first have to deal with the reaction, which is not fair and it's not true and you know, different kinds of, um, defensiveness or guardedness. And we have to deal with that But at some point they pretty quickly move to the topic at hand. And so we look at it together and then we process it together. And I think the most important thing I can do is I can ask the CEO. W, what do you like, what do you think does, what does this look like?

from your point of view? Can you see this?

Can you understand the impact they're having? Because you know, they have a certain experience of who the, of what is is going On and maybe the reality of the situation like, oh, they don't understand because I'm just trying to make sure that everyone, you know, does the same thing or they don't understand all the pressures on balancing.

That's absolutely true, but their perception in this case is reality and we have to deal with the reality of their perception. And so my question to the CEO is usually what do you think is going on? What do you think is concerning and that you need to really take a look at inside of all this feedback.

And then what are some areas that you recognize are maybe not the most important things? And, um, we can, we, uh, to your point, we can put them off until later, or you may never do them because you think they come from the, the less mature, uh, executives on your team. So we talk through all of that and then make a decision.

About what the CEO is going to move forward and start doing.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: On that point in area that I'm I'm endlessly fascinated with is how a CEO, founder, executive, et cetera, actually makes change. And I think. One of the challenges with feedback. And again, it could, we could talk, some of this stuff could be behavioral. Some of it could be very tactical, et cetera, but what winds up happening, I think more often than not is somebody says, thank you for the feedback.

And they genuinely mean it. They, they, in this case, they want to agree. They agree, they agree, and they want to action on it. But then you follow up in six months or 12 months and you see if there's been a meaningful change and the answer is in most cases. No. And I'm curious, sort of what, what you've noticed about that.

And maybe you think about the CEO's that have been able to change and evolve and take this feedback and grow, what are they doing? Because I often think it's difficult because a lot of the things that come up in this type of feedback amongst an executive team, or for a CEO is often quite deeply.

In the way that they behave or see the world. And so a lot of it is not, you know, the number one thing that would be so incredible is if they would, you know, respond to my email faster. So a lot of the media stuff is like deep, a deep part of the way that somebody behaves. And so it's very hard to change.

Or even if, even if you understand and agree with the feedback, the inertia of the week or day or year, you know, oftentimes I guess, keeps you from doing anything. It's like the difference between knowing that you need to change the way that you eat for your long-term health intellectually, knowing that, and then you follow up with what somebody's eating at a Wednesday at three o'clock in the afternoon.

And those two things are often kind of at odds with one another. And so if somebody wants to increase the chance that they're able to take this feedback and really implemented, really change and grow. As a CEO, what advice would you give them?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Yeah. Um, I'm going to answer the question as a coach, but I want to say that everyone can do this without a coach. So the first step is to say, okay, I accept. I give in. I accept. It's true. So a really good example is a CEO I worked with who, um, was extremely critical and never gave positive feedback. So that's a double bind because it's both people are feeling like they can never please him and there.

They never win. It's never going to be enough. And also there's no like pat on the back to make up for that. So that was, um, it made for a very difficult, uh, just a difficult working experience and didn't help make forward motion. So. A good example. That's a good example because actually to your point, it was pretty deeply rooted.

He had grown up in an environment where the, with a father who did not give him a lot of positive feedback, give him no positive feedback. It was very critical. And you know, we, we bring this with us into the workplace. So we identified this as an area and he really, he wanted to be a great CEO. He also recognized that this was something that was negative from his childhood.

He was bringing to the company. He didn't want to, he really wanted to make a change. So step one decide you want to make a change. And then step two is really set a goal. What does that change going to look like? So is it going to be that at the end of a number of months, people are going to experience you as someone who gives positive feedback.

Okay, great. So what's going to cause that, well, making sure you give positive feedback and then checking in with people to see if they've noticed what's changed. So how do you make sure you give positive feedback? Well, you can actually write it down. Like you can actually say to yourself. Okay. My goal for myself this week is to make sure everybody gets all the people around me, my executives, and maybe some other people are getting from me at least two or three words of praise per week.

So I'm running on a spreadsheet and make sure I follow that up. And. Do that. And then check in in a couple of weeks, like, Hey, I heard from Alyssa that I wasn't giving enough positive feedback. And it's really important to me that I give positive feedback and that we have an environment where people can, you know, enjoy each other and like work well together.

So I wanted to let you know, that's what I'm working on. Have you noticed a change now the first time you tell them that they may not have noticed a change, but now they're on the lookout for that kind of change. And so you keep doing it and you make sure you have a spreadsheet or your calendar or whatever is going to keep track of positive feedback.

You keep activating it over and over again. You check in with people and over a very short period of time, you'll be able to both change the reality and also the perception. And that's part of what change has to do with 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: What are. What are other examples that sort of come to mind? I assume maybe you find when you're doing this work with sort of high potential CEOs, that there's like a power law of feedback in the sense that there's a handful of things that come up. And so, you know, you've written about and thought a lot about this dimension of, of positive versus negative feedback or positive feedback versus criticism.

Are there other, are there other common opportunities for growth that come up that may be the way that you implement or action on it? Maybe it looks a little bit.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Um, I think so sometimes there's the two sides of the same coin. So it might be the person, um, maybe he never engages in conduct. And so that's an area that needs to be changed. He needs to be able to tell people, you know, like that this isn't good, or that he needs to be able to, um, hold people accountable and engage in difficult conversations, more readily, or on the other side of that might be a CEO who, um, can be overly direct and actually make people feel bad because she's telling them regularly again, back to sort of what, uh, what they're doing wrong all the time and not what they're doing.

Right. So it was kind of like two sides of that communication. Um, let me think of another one or two, maybe it's I think what also comes up is decision-making so needs everybody to weigh in before she makes decisions or, um, makes decisions on her own without consulting other people. It's sort of, uh, sort of the, the poll polls of the, of a container.

So, does that make sense in terms of the, um, of the areas that might be normal and regular for development? 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: Yeah. And then is your advice in terms of actually how to make change very similar or are there any sort of other tools that people can leverage?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Um, I think that it's similar, but a lot I'll talk about decision-making. So it might be that, um, she makes decisions without consulting others, and that leaves them both blindsided. And also it was kind of like, well, what am I doing here? Right. So it kind of demoralized. So then the, the thing to do there is very similar in terms of may set a goal.

So I'm going to, I, I'm committing to make sure that other people are involved in my decision making process. And then you really have to work with the other people and say, what should our decision making process be? And how should we decide. On different kinds of areas and who should be deciding and on areas that I should be deciding how much input should I get from you all?

And, and when that might be in the executive team meeting, it might be in one-on-ones. It might be only the people who are involved with that area need to weigh in, but one way or the other, make a decision with your executive team, how you're going to bring more people in and then activate that over and over, and then checking in with people to see if they've noticed your change is extremely powerful.

It's probably the most useful way to get people to change their perception. Because when I, as a coach, when I come to an organization, this did happen. Um, I worked with a company, a large company for about five or six years. And when I first showed up, the CEO told me a story about some executive in the.

He had done the certain thing five years later, that CEO was telling me the same story about that same executive, because unless you point out to people that they have changed, people don't see that you've changed. So I would say to all the CEOs out there, the best way to make sure that people are watching or observing the changes you're trying to make is to point them, to them, to ask them if they've noticed the change to ask for specific suggestions on how they can make this change more rapidly, more consistently, how it would, it would be better for that, for that person.

And then do that and then ask again, because that really cues and signals to people I'm trying to make these changes. And I want you to notice. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: How do you think identity fits into this process of gathering feedback, uh, prioritizing and actioning on it? And one of the things that I've been kind of endlessly interested in is that when you know, and you talked about this a few minutes ago, in terms of maybe the way that you received feedback or criticism, or what have you, as a child impacts the way that now you're the CEO of this company and you're receiving or.

Given criticism on an and when you look at the why behind, why the why behind people's behaviors, I tend to think that a lot of times it comes back to identity or how does this person perceive themselves? And so, like an example is, is I work with someone and, and I think that they, if you look at the quality of the meetings that they're taking on a weekly basis, there, it, it it's too variable and overall too low.

And when you kind of poke at it, I think the, the actual reason for that is that this person identifies as someone who is helpful to others, wants to do the right thing is a good person. And if I believe I'm a good person, I believe a good person is accessible, oftentimes says, yes. And that's actually why all these meetings that maybe this person shouldn't be taking shows up on their account.

And so what I noticed is that when I've given feedback about the quality of meetings, it, it's not, it's not actioned on, in a way that, okay, great. I'm going to go change because it's so deeply rooted in their own identity. And so I assume they would have to shift that our identity first for the behavior to shift, to sort of ultimately ultimately make that change.

But I'm curious how you think about identity in the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves and how that fits into the way that we grow and evolve in this case as a CEO,

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: um, it's, I think it's very astute actually. And, um, we all have identities. We bring into the workplace. And if I'm thinking about, um, a CEO who might have trouble, actually I did work with a CEO,

Who had trouble hiring. And so it was very strange because actually he was fantastic at raising money and he had a lot of conviction and a lot of passion, but for whatever reason, he had trouble hiring.

So, you know, coaching is really about having deep conversations and really sitting there and, and really finding out what's going on. And he had a lot of reasons, but really it turned out that his identity was not, had not caught up with being the CEO of a fast growing company. His identity was still, um, I wonder if I should leave my job and start this story.

Like really, he was still in that space in some ways, emotionally. And he was concerned about, he was fine, you know, telling the investors the story, but he was not fine telling human beings that they should leave their safe job and come and work for this little, you know, rickety ship that he had. And that's how he saw himself.

And that's how he saw the company. And so I do think that our identity plays into things quite a bit actually, but, um, I would also say that the way to resolve that is both outside in and inside out. So we can think our way into a new way of acting, but we can also act our way into a new way of thinking.

And I think that is actually to me, one of the real superpowers of a great CEO. Who has to adapt that quickly. They have to realize on the one hand, I don't want to do this and I'm concerned and get at the root of the problem, but that doesn't always solve the problem. They don't shifting their identity.

Doesn't always solve the problem sometimes. It's okay. I'm recognizing your point about taking too low quality meetings. I'm going to step back. I'm going to shift my filter about the kinds of meetings I'm taking and I'm really uncomfortable. I don't like it. It makes me uncomfortable, but I'm going to do it anyway.

As I, as I upgrade my identity in a certain, in a certain way to, in this case to maybe somebody who is really precious with his time as compared to trying to be very helpful. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: Are there, are there other examples of, of how you shift your identity through just sort of behaving in a new way that you might be able to explain.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Yes. I'm going to gather my thoughts for a second.

Um, well, I think there's, there's one on the topic of conflict, which I think would be a, that CEO's, who would say, who would not say they're uncomfortable with conflict, but always shy away from conflict. And their identity is probably based in their childhood about, we didn't talk about difficult things.

We kept them under the covers. And so it's like impolite and uncomfortable to have straight talk or have conflict. And so that identity is probably pretty rooted. And so that person has to practice having conflict, even though they really makes them quite uncomfortable. That's another example. I think another example is, um, you know, uh, uh, let's say a product CEO who grew up in the product space grew up maybe in the elegance of product and engineering and still sees herself that way.

And so. She doesn't want to sort of take on the mantle of authority or, or decisiveness. Um, and she wants to me to have a collaborative environment. We're all weighing in just like we used to when we were working together in the product and engineering world and that's our identity. And so she has the opportunity to be more decisive and declarative and maybe have conviction as the CEO, even though it makes her very uncomfortable. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: I'd be interested to hear how you think about how all of this fits into the culture and or needs of the country. In the sense that

a lot of feedback is culture or company dependent, right? You may have a culture that tends to be much more direct. 

You might have a culture that tends to be maybe much more gentle in the way that they think about feedback. And it, and it sort of gets into this broader question of, I tend to think that there isn't a particular CEO archetype that always thrives it's that the CEO has to be right fit to the company, just like the culture has to be right fit to the company.

And we, we like to tell ourselves stories that there's one type of great CEO, but the thing that I've always realized is that when you spend time with lots of different successful CEOs, people do things in all sorts of different ways. People have strengths that are very. And oftentimes those are the things that are, are needed for that specific company at that point in time, not just generally.

And so you think about, you know, you just think about a few CEOs that are super successful and each one of them is very, very different, right? Larry Page is very different than mark Benioff and I'd argue that both of them and maybe the companies are just expressions of themselves, um, were tremendously successful and their own skill set was right fit to the thing that the company was doing and the culture of the company.

And so as, as, as a CEO is collecting feedback or deciding how to behave, how does the culture or norms of the company fit into how that CEO should grow or what.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: I think that, uh, first of all, I totally agree with you that you can be a successful CEO with all different behaviors, all shapes and styles and sizes. You can be loud, you can be soft, you can be charismatic. You can be maybe more, um, I don't know, not, not as charismatic. Um, I think that a CEO who starts a company.

Is in some ways creating a culture that is a reflection of her or him, and then without necessarily being conscious of it, unless they've been very deliberate about those things, then them, the co-founders have been very deliberate about deciding what.

culture they want to have. Mostly though they just start and they hire a bunch of friends or people they know, and they get started.

And I think that very often they will unconsciously hire themselves. Like, um, there's a CEO I work with who, um, he was an indivi, he did individual sports and without knowing it, he hired a whole executive team, all of whom had done individual sports and not team sports. And so in some ways the culture was a reflection of that in terms of, they were more individuals than team oriented.

And I think that, um, Again, without always being aware of it, they hire people if they feel comfortable with and the culture kind of Springs up. Now, I think that very often the focus of the company, um, you know, like Salesforce and, and, and Google were very different, are obviously they're very different, you know, focused companies.

I think that probably the CEO feels a connection to a certain company, a certain style, a certain company in a certain product and service. And so it kind of makes sense that that whole thing will shape itself around the CEO. Um, but I think over time, the company adapts or the, the company has to grow and you as the CEO need to bring something different than what you had originally.

So I think that you might, if you're a quiet CEO, you might need to bring. So much stronger and, uh, extroverted communication skills. If you are the CEO, who's more, um, external focused at some point as the company's growing, they're growing pains, you're going to have to focus more internally. So I think that you, as the founder need to be self-aware enough to realize that the company requires something from you.

And that if you don't, I think the culture just, um, I think it just kind of, it grows around you and it's not always a good fit for the company you're trying to build, especially when you're starting. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: What are the warning signs, uh, or early indicators that someone might need to grow or change, and maybe, maybe it's different than their normal behavior. And to, to your point, it's totally makes sense that a company is basically going to be a reflection of the founder, particularly in the early days, for all the reasons that you outlined, which, which are normal, right.

We, who do we spend time with? We often spend time with people that are similar to ourselves on, and they're there depending on how you think about it. There's a lot of benefits. You tend to be more, um, intuitively aligned with people like you. And so you don't need to get into first principles arguments all the time.

And so th th there, there are definitely benefits to kind of creating a team. And then the team is effectively the company in your, in your image, images, a founder. But to your point, oftentimes as you really grow, there are off you often don't need to be the opposite of who you are in your. Sort of, um, steady state, but you need to grow in certain ways.

And, and outside of just capturing feedback, are there other early warning indications that, you know, maybe you're innately very hard charging for example. And that was very helpful in the way that the company in whatever the product that the company was doing, but that now you might need to sort of change or evolve in.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Yeah. Um, I think that, um, an ER, much of as an early warning, when people start to leave. And they talk about maybe it being the paste being too much. And the, and the hard charging being too much or hard, sharp, hard charging also sometimes goes along with goal shifting, and that can be crazy making people.

So either they're kind of communicating to their leaders and managers, this is too much, or they're actually starting to quit. Um, that's a good warning sign that we need to take a second. Look also, it's not direct feedback, but it's sort of, um, uh, culture surveys at a certain level in the company. I think early on cultural surveys, I have mixed feelings about them, but as you start to scale, I think it's super important to get a handle on what people are saying and how they're feeling.

And so that kind of snapshot can be very helpful to give you that indication. And then I think that. You know, very often the founder will have this kind of primal energy and intense energy and work all the time again, to your point about hard-charging. And when the founder, if the founder tries to get in.

tune with what's going on and really sort of be still a little bit and see what's going on, the founder will notice.

People don't seem to be as engaged as they used to, or they don't seem to have the same energy as they used to. And I wonder why, and then it would be really helpful for the founder of the CEO to go and talk to a few people and say, I'm feeling this, are you feeling, are you experienced this? Are you feeling this?

And then they can hopefully open up a dialogue about it again, that goes back to making sure that you've created a safe space for people to really tell you what's going. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: I guess to sort of put a bow on this, this sort of first section of, of, uh, topics, um, again, going back to sort of changing and evolving and growing as a CEO. I think one of the tricky things is that, you know, when you start a company and you go from zero to one and then one to 10 and things are working in the company, you can often be over confident or I guess, close minded to a certain extent in the sense that, Hey, I helped do this entire thing and it's working.

And so let's just keep doing. How do you help somebody figure out that they actually do need to change in some way? And it's sort of the classic. What got you here? Won't get you there, I guess would be sort of the idea, but I think it's really magnified Ian specifically in startups, because it's so hard to get a company to go from zero to something that's really working.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Yeah, 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: And so it would be normal to think that you're particularly great. And you're a genius and wow, this company is growing 10 times this year. There's something very peculiar about sort of fast-growing venture backed technology companies. Um, in that it, in, in, in that it's so hard to do the thing. And once the thing is really growing, um, one is that it's very easy to be overconfident.

And two is I always come back to the idea that. It's hard to know if something is working because of something you're doing or in spite of something you're doing. And in most companies that are not sort of venture backed fast growing technology companies, it's a little bit easier to diagnose, but in software businesses, when something's working, it can often be in spite of the way that a CEO in this case is behaving, right.

They may be exceptionally critical and have their team and put people down and the company is still growing exceptionally well. And they will tell themselves I should keep behaving the way that I'm behaving because the company is growing like crazy, but they don't realize that the company is growing in spite of the way that they're behaving, not because of the way that they're behaving.

And so in sort of that set of ideas, I'm curious if anything comes to mind or if a CEO doesn't immediately get that they need to change, what is the journey that they need to go on or. What is the transformation that needs to happen, such that they realize that, Hey, maybe there is an opportunity here to do something better or grow or change.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Yeah, a few tools come to mind. So when I start with a CEO, I will often say, you know, sort of what's the end game here. And I would say most often they do not say the end game is to cash out and be rich. They say the end game is to build a legacy or the end game is, um, to create a wealth for all the employees here or to like the mission of the company is to make life better in a certain way to make everyone's life better in a certain way.

So if there are things going on with the company that are, that, you know, like you said, that the company is successful, despite these issues with the CEO, what I help them do is to think about the three to five year, uh, sort of vision or the 10 year vision of what, of who they want to be. And what the end game is and shifting it not to, oh, you have problems here, but into, well, you said you wanted this and you said, this is the kind of person you want to be.

How do you need to show up differently today to achieve that five-year vision of who you want to be to run this company and what you want this company to be, or that 10 year vision of who you want to be and what you, what you want this company to be. So that takes it into a different realm, a more reflective realm.

And if it's the kind of person who. You know, reflective and, and wants to have that conversation, then that's very enticing and opens up different pathways for people. Um, the second thing is I love it. I always ask my CEO and founder CEOs to go talk to other founders because that's where the wisdom is, you know, and they're, they could be peer founders that could be, you know, a number of years ahead of them, obviously even, you know, older and more successful.

And I think they learned so much from that exposure and it helps them think differently about their current state, because they can help the, the, you know, the, the peers and the mentors can help show them where the pitfalls may be a year or two or three down the road. And obviously when founders talk to other founders, that's in some ways the most convincing, but Brett, the last thing I would say is that sometimes until there's a fall.

That person is gonna have this sort of overconfidence or hubris or whatever you want to call it for a while. But if it's built on, um, if it's built on a ground where, what got you here, won't get you there. Ultimately there will be a fall. My job is to try to intervene before there's a fall to help the founders see that they need to make those changes before there becomes a massive problem in the company.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: So switching gears slightly. One of the interesting things that I would assume that you experienced is that you spend a lot of time sitting down with CEOs and they're interested in potentially working with you in some way. Um, and you know, I assume you're asking them questions about what's going on. Do you find that what the, the content of those conversations and what's top of mind and what CEOs are struggling with tends to be more similar, or is it sort of a lot of, you know, snowflakes that tend to be quite unique?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Hm. I think that it's different flavors of similar situations. So when someone typically, when I'm talking with somebody for the first time, I guess it would fall into two camps. It's mostly this, something going on, like as in I'm having some issues inside of the company, I'm concerned about some things we're not getting the results we want or something like that.

Sometimes it is. I'm a first time founder and I don't know what I don't know. Or sometimes I'm a second time founder and I don't think I did it right the first time. But if I think about, um, especially the, the first bucket. My experience is that it's most often a people problem that they are, um, not dealing with and it's causing some issues.

So like our product roadmap is we're behind in our product roadmap. Okay, great. Okay, great. What happened? What's going on? And then I'll understand that it's like the product leader has probably been, is probably, um, the role has outgrown the existing product leader and they haven't had that conversation or feels like, um, there was a lack of that in general.

We're getting a lack of results around here. Okay, great. Who's running the cadence of your goals process in your executive team process. Almost no one or somebody who's just sort of came into plug the hole. Oh, okay. So it looks like we're missing a person we're missing a skillset inside of the company.

So those are the kinds of things that I tend to identify in the first conversation I have with people. And actually when I first talk with somebody, just to let you know, I try to do a little piece of coaching in that first conversation so we can test each other's styles, but also because I'm really interested in what's going on around here.

And can we take a step forward in just a half an hour or 45 minutes? And can I myself get down to the place where I can actually make a difference for somebody in a first 30 or 45 minute discussion?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: What does that look like? Or can you tell us a story about like, when you felt that maybe you really clicked and that sort of little taste of coaching resonated and then maybe when there was like organ rejection and it was clear there, there, this wasn't going to work.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: it's a good question. Um, I would say just last week, uh, I had a conversation initial conversation with, um, a first time CEO. So she had incredible pedigree and McKinsey background and large company background. And her company was CR it was a remote team, which is not unusual these days. And her company had grown very quickly, much more quickly than she had anticipated.

And now they were at around 60 people. Again, it felt to her like overnight, and I said, great, let's do a little like what what's going on because there's a reason you, you called me. So we did a little piece of coaching and the coaching was, I don't feel like I'm showing up well, for the team. So I said, okay.

Tell me more about that. Um, what Do you mean by showing up? So we talked about was how she doesn't always feel herself like an executive because she's so busy herself putting out fires and being a doer. She's not, you, know, showcase herself as an executive, as a leader. Okay. So what's the impact of that?

Well, the impact of that is that people are, uh, in some ways not engaged and in some ways also confused. There's a lot of new people, we're all remote. We don't know how to engage with each other. And so things are breaking down because of confusion. Okay. So they need more communication from you? Yes. So tell me about the regular, all hands.

You have our executive team meetings you have. oh, I don't really have regular all hands. Oh, okay. Great. So we quickly set up for her a cadence of all hands and executive team meetings. And then there's still this issue of, I'm not sure how I'm sure. I don't feel like I'm showing up as an executive. Okay.

So I helped her think about how do you put five or 10 minutes in before at least those meetings, and maybe before other key meetings where you step away from your to-dos and you remind yourself of what, however, that's going to help you make a way to remind yourself that you're the CEO. And they're all looking to you for leadership, not for this task list that you're working on, but specifically for leadership.

And then how will that change the way you show up and the way you communicate. So she loved that. We talked about specific phrases she could use, and that whole thing took about 35 minutes. So is that a good example of something that works?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: Yeah, for sure.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Okay, good. So, oh, sorry. I thought you were gonna ask me something.

It didn't, that didn't work so well. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: what I, 

was going to ask.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: yeah, so I had a conversation just even, I think it was even just last year and, um, You know, again, it's the same thing for me, you know, so great. So let's take a little step forward on some piece of coaching. And we talked about, um, in this case it was hiring. So he was saying, it's not working in the hiring process.

The music's not working we're behind on our hiring. Okay, great. So every time I asked him a question, his answer was, um, uh, like, like I would say, um, well, how have you thought about your pool? Oh, our pool is great. We have everybody working on this. We have two recruiters working on this. We've all points bulletin.

Okay, great. So have you talked to your HR person to think through how you could make some changes here? Our HR person comes from, you know, this great background and she's doing a great job and she's doing the best she can. And he was just this feeling. I can't remember the whole conversation, but it was this feeling of.

Closed door. So every time I asked a question, there was no interest in, um, pursuing that or thinking about that or reflecting on that. And also it, I kind of had the feeling of, we've already thought of that. We've already thought of that. So I have to say, it's not like, oh, this person wasn't reflective, but I do know that for whatever reason, my style wasn't landing with this person and it wasn't opening up a partnership.

And what's really important in coaching is to have a partnership where we can have an easy dialogue back and forth and that, um, you know, we're, we're both, we're both, co-creating a situation and that just didn't feel possible in this situation for whatever reason. And again, I just want to say, like, I would say, oh, he was so closed, but maybe, maybe it wasn't maybe the chemistry wasn't there.

Maybe there, maybe he's not a close person, but it felt like a closed door to me. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: One of the things that you mentioned as you were sort of talking about a couple of these stories, and I think this comes up all the time and it's something you've also spent a bunch of time on, which is, um, the, the, the, the event, the job of the CEO in terms of getting the right people on the bus 

and figuring out who at any given point in time should stay and who should leave.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Yeah. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: And, you know, the, the, the common, the sort of common advice is that people don't fire fast enough. Um, and I also think that like, managing talent is one of those tricky things. For whatever reason requires you to screw up profoundly before you're able to take that advice again, like I, I'm always interested in, there's a difference between somebody intellectually understanding a piece of advice and actually implementing it.

And so I think people understand intellectually the concept of, uh, it is natural to let someone go too late and yet, unless they do that many times, they often won't be able to make that change. And I'd be interested in what you've learned or what advice you tend to give CEOs around how to sort of develop that.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: um, Brett, that is a very hard problem. And you're absolutely right that people know, first of all, most CEOs come late to the saying, um, about firing fast and also, about, um, as soon as I fire the person, I, as soon as, you know, you should fire someone it's a year too late and actually surprisingly CEOs themselves come late to that, you know, expression. I think that the way to help people get over that and to take action more quickly. And by the way, it is a very difficult situation, especially if, if you're a founder and you've grown up with these people and you've gone to their weddings or they've come to your weddings or, you know, you've really been in the trenches with them and they got you to here.

They're the people who got you to here. It adds a whole other layer of difficulty. Um, and the 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: I would just say the other thing I've been, I've been intrigued by as there's also as a C as a first time CEO of which many of the best CEOs are first-time founder CEO. You also, you're doing a tremendous amount of learning on the job. And so I think it would be natural to then give people the benefit of the doubt that they have to do a lot of learning on the job.

And it can often lead to you giving people a pass, because a lot of times people don't think that the world's greatest CEO and then they're like, well, this my head of marketing is, is not where I need them, but, but let's, let's sort of develop them and, and support them. And so you have this odd sort of duality of you're on your own growth journey relative to sort of maybe someone else on your exams.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: it's so true. I talked to, uh, two found to cook two co-founders one time, and they both were really emphatic. Like we are growing and learning so much. We don't know What we're doing. We have to give grace to the people around us to give them the leeway also to figure it out, which is to your point. That's a very common thought.

Um, I look at that? differently. I think you have so much to learn. You want to surround yourself with the people who have a lot to teach you. Now, the other way I approach this is, um, as much as possible I'm into facts and data as much as possible. So what is this role? Right? So in like the, like the head of product, for example, it used to be, you had one product and your head of product was great at managing the product managers for this one product.

But now you have five products and this head of product doesn't have the skills, or even maybe like the vision or the operational skills, and maybe the sort of understanding of how these things all fit together to be the head of product for these five products together. So let's step back. What do we actually need in this person?

We need them to be able to manage multiple priorities, be able to be a peer with your increasingly senior executive team. We need them to, um, be able to manage people and manage operationally in a, in a shifting, shifting priority situation. That's those are some examples of the things that you actually need in this role.

Okay, great. So does your existing person have those skills? And if you're being honest and unemotional, the answer is no, this person doesn't have those skills, then it's the hardest. Discussion about how emotionally you're going to get to the right place, um, to fire someone who actual, or, or to make a change in the role at least to, to change that person who actually means well and is doing their best, but is not ultimately able to perform that function.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: What is that? What is a good conversation look like between a CEO? And in that case, the product leader.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: I think the conversation starts with feedback, so it's not like. I think it's important to recognize that your job as CEO is to make sure this person is getting that feedback sooner rather than later, as in, you know, the years go by and now we're running three products that I'm noticing that you're having trouble shifting priorities, maybe even this head of product, you're playing favorites of the folks who used to know very well.

And you seem to, um, really to, to appreciate them more and you need to make room for the rest of the people on the team. Also, we're missing some, um, we're missing some deliverables here. So that's kind of the first conversation that might go on for a little while. And then the conversation is I'm really alarmed, um, because I can just see that we're going to continue to get better.

And what I need you to do is to improve your skills in, um, being more of a peer of the executive team and having more conviction over your point of view. Also managing your team in a more comprehensive way and having a more built out strategy for how all these products fit together. So I really need you to take seriously the fact that those changes need to get made.

And I'd love to know how you want to do that. So do you want to get a mentor? Do you want to go to training? Do you want to just step back and kind of create your own plan one way or the other? I just want you to know that I need you to make those changes. So that is the direct conversation that you have before.

What I would call the pre firing conversation. If we're, if we're going to talk about firing, there's a difference between layering and firing, of course, but if we're going to unfortunately, terminate this person, then the conversation looks like, listen, we've had a lot of discussions about the way things are going.

I really need you to recognize that the way it's working is not working. And either, either you need to figure out a way to get this whole situation back on track, or I'm sorry to say, we're going to have to part ways. And I, you know, I can talk with you about that a little bit, but ultimately that's where I'm headed and I need you to know that.

So then when you have to have the costs again, assuming it's going to be a termination conversation, when you have to have the termination conversation, you know, for a fact that you've given this person every chance that you've given this person a lot of feedback. Um, and now it's time to just say, listen, I just don't think it's working.

You haven't been meeting your goals. You haven't been building your team. Your team is still confused. The folks on the executive team, your peers still don't see you in the way that they should and are negotiating you with you in the way that you should. It's time for us to part ways. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: How often do you find when you're working with a CEO and they're questioning someone on their leadership team, the person is actually able to turn the corner and throw.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Um, not, not very often. I think that, um, some, uh, some people are able to turn the corner and thrive. I think mostly what's helpful is to find the right role. We're talking about a person who means well is trying, but the job has outstripped their skills. And if you can find the right role for that person, where actually they can do just as great a job as they did three years.

Then, then they do great. They fly there. It's a relief to everybody and they're very, um, productive. I think if you keep that person in the same role And they've demonstrated that they are not growing, it's hard to make that call. It's hard to turn that corner because, um, I guess my, my point of view, what I see is that people who want to turn the corner, they aggressively seek out self study mentors.

They really get uncomfortable with change. They find their own coach, those kinds of things. Um, at the same time, if it's also, if it's, um, this is a different topic we haven't really covered, but if it's like, so-called cultural, like you get your work done, but you break a lot of glass and that's a problem here with us.

So I need you to be more collaborative that I find regularly can be changed with sincere.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: And the other, the other category of things is just harder for people to, to action on.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: I think if people, if someone's not a fit for role and the role keeps increasing and they're not able to step into those bigger shoes, my experience is it's because they don't have either the willingness or ability to do what I think it takes, which is like self study. So again, like actively, um, reading books and talking to mentors and adjusting your style and being humble enough to say to even your team.

And in the example we were talking about, just say to your team, how can I help You set priorities? And then doing more of that. I think that that is a certain, if you're not doing that, and then your role is as stripping you, it's harder to do that when you're already feeling like you're failing. And, you know, by the way, Brett, I think when they have that conversation, finally, it often comes as a relief.

As in this person knew they weren't performing and they knew they were making their weren't meeting their goals and they know that they're uncomfortable with their team. So some, hopefully you can find another role with them real for them in the company, if they're productive, but everybody's working around them.

It's super uncomfortable. I think it's really a relief when you make a change with this kind of person.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: You touched on a related idea, which is the idea of effectively layering someone. And I think it's such an interesting area because it comes up all of the time and it seems exceptionally hard to implement in the sense that you have somebody that was fantastic. They are unable to scale to whatever you need them to do in this new role.

You would love them to stay and now report. So the classic example would be you have a head of marketing or a marketing lead early on. It's a 20 person company. Now you're a hundred people and you have to hire a VP of marketing CMO, whatever term you want to use. You would love that person, that marketing lead to stay work underneath this person and continue to be an amazing contributor.

That is very, very, very hard to do, particularly if that person wants that top job. And then oftentimes they can be demotivated. And I think more often than not, they end up leaving sometimes in a positive way and sometimes in a negative way. But if you were to give someone a playbook on, on that would enable them to increase the probability that that person would stay and be highly productive.

What are sort of the contents of the playbook?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Yeah. I think it does start with communication early and it's sorta like, you're beginning to see, you know, that this is we're going to need to bring in, um, let's say a more seasoned head of marketing and you know that this person's probably going to want that role. Hopefully, you know, your people are, or that leader knows their people.

Um, and so I think it starts with a conversation which is, let's talk about your career aspirations in general, by the way. I think that inside of startups, people don't, let's say from the CEO to the leaders In the manager, Don't do enough, sitting down with the people and talking about their career aspirations, which helps you get to know your people helps you get to know where they want to go and then helps you proactively tell them, by the way, if that's where you want to go, I'd like you to see you build these skills, these kinds of skills.

So hopefully you're having some of those conversations and that's part of the playbook. And then ultimately it's like, okay, well we need this person now. You're not ready yet. And, um, hopefully you've built a good relationship with that person and you understand what.

their career aspirations are and you know, they're gonna be disappointed, but you could also say, listen, I'm back to facts and data.

We need somebody who scaled before we need somebody. Who's going to bring us to where we want to go. And so what I want to do is go and find the leader. Who's going to be able to lead us there and also is going to be a great people leader for you. So you can continue to build your skills here. I hope you stay with us.

And ultimately you're probably going to go someplace else at some point in your life. I hope this person's going to help you build your skills to get that role in the. And again, to be very clear about the specific skills that you're looking for with this person, so that they understand they haven't met that mark, and then also help them put together their own career development plan, either self study or with, you know, their own manager or with, um, a mentor to help them accelerate their own learning, get where they're going.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: In

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: But I will say, can I tell you one more thing, Brett, just, just last week I had a conversation with someone who had got very interested in this topic myself. So he had gotten layered with a, a very well-known Silicon valley company. And I said, um, tell me about that. Tell me, you know, were you upset that you got layered?

He said, no, we had a leader who left. It was very difficult. It's a very difficult situation because all of us were then reporting to the CEO and, um, W we, we did not know how to navigate together. Somebody kind of did a power play and it was really chaotic and difficult. And ultimately when they brought in this leader, I was relieved.

He is a fantastic leader. He's always got our back. He makes me feel like I'm learning and I could not be happier. So I think that there's there. We, we think about the sad stories with Larry, but sometimes it's like such a relief. Oh, thank God. I have this great leader who just came in.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: And do you think that's just more of a reflection of this person? Just general outlook in the way that they think about these things, or was it done in a certain way that we sort of made this more positive outcome?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: that's a great question. I think it was done in a fairly chaotic way. And um, I think this person, I do think that this person's outlook was. That was a difficult time. And this leader came in and my life got much better. So I'm pro layering. So I agree with you. It has to do with this person's outlook, but my understanding is that everybody stayed and that this leader is really fantastic.

So I think my, you know, my playbook, if you do nothing else, CEO, please bring in a great leader because everybody's going to want to stay when they see the value that that person brings. And when they feel themselves cared for and nourished and developed, they're going to think, well, I have a great gig here. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: What about the advice for the incoming exec that is now inheriting a person or a team, maybe someone or multiple people who wanted their job, what advice would you give them to increase the chances that, that, that there's a healthy.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Yep. First of all, meet with everybody individually and have a conversation with them about just recognizing, you know, I just came in, I'm sure a number of you were hoping for this job. And so I want to find out from you in an open way, what's working here. What's not working here, you know, sort of, there's a set of questions you can ask, which has to do with, um, finding out what's working here.

What's not working here. What are you hoping I do? What are you concerned? I will do and hope I don't do. And who are the people around here who get the most done? Right? Those kinds of questions really help this person both get integrated, but also build a relationship with. The direct reports. And then also tell me about you.

Tell me about your career aspirations. Tell me about where you want to go. Tell me what you think you're great at. How can I help you be really successful? What are you looking for in a leader when you have those kinds of questions? Initially, it makes people feel, oh, you're here to hear me and see me. And that already builds affinity and rapport.

And then what's very helpful for any new leader is to come in and find a way to get quick wins. So quick wins have quick and wins. So quick has to do with sometimes superficial and optics. Like we never used to have a team meeting. I'm crying, I'm coming in and creating a team meeting. Oh, that's so satisfying.

That's great. That's sort of quick. And the win has to do with when, in the eyes of the stakeholders. If you come in and say, I'm going to change the entire system of something. No, one's going, you know, that might be right for the company. Like, that's great. We need the system changed, but the people around you don't like change.

So that's not going to be a win in their eyes initially. Instead it might be. I understand there's some questions about the system. I'm not gonna make any changes, but I do want to hear from you, what, what do you want to tell us and what kinds of changes need to get made? And that would be a quick win because all you're doing is kind of going on a listening tour and also beginning the process of fixing something which has been broken for a long time. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: Switching gears slightly. We talked a little bit about some of the questions and rituals that can be really powerful tools for CEOs. And I was interested in kind of expanding a little bit there with you and, and interested in when you think about the very best and most talented CEOs and most effective CEOs that you've had the chance to work with or study, what are the types of things that they are doing on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis?

The rituals, the habits, the questions that they're asking that that may be, tend to be somewhat similar across this group of.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: um, I would say they are definitely having some sort of cadence of one-on-ones and team meetings that, um, both help people make help, make people feel seen and heard, and also have the right kind of straight talk discussion. Also help their people develop and also create a sense of comradery and, um, progress amongst the team.

So again, in, in, in, um, in both team meetings and also in one-on-ones having a regular operational cadence that accomplishes a set of.

those things, that's one thing that comes to mind. Um, I would also add. Celebrating wins is super important. I think that a startup is such a long it's a long and grueling road.

People don't know if they're making progress and it's very important. And I think the best CEOs I've seen are able to step back and help the team celebrate whether it's an anniversary or a specific milestone, some progress along the way. And that brings me to another one I've seen very effective. Um, leaders will communicate like a weekly blog or a weekly video to sort of share.

This is what's on my mind. And that ritual helps you get to know the CEO and feel a connection to him or her. And it makes people, again, everything that is done in a consistent way makes people feel safe because they can count on something. They feel like they're in a container and that's like a regular ritual that I think CEOs do.

W w when they do it, it works very effective. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: What about questions that CEOs should be asking themselves on a regular basis?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: In terms of being able to reflect more. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: Yeah. Or just, um, see around corners or grow in a certain way. Are there sort of touchstones or specific questions that they should reflect?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Um, if I think about seeing around corners, um, what some of the CEOs I work with, they have a practice of what am I missing or if I what's the counterexample, like what's the, what's the sort of counterfactual to what I think is going to happen. And I think that's a very powerful tool to sort of say, like, what if I'm missing something here and, and to mind that, um, I'm very, I'm very encouraging of all my CEOs to reflect?

and that has to do with how you show updated.

So reflection, like day reflection of what energized me the most today. What has, um, what has depressed me or, or drained me this much today? What am I thinking and feeling and what should I do now? I think helps you shift in the middle of your day and maybe do that hard thing that you've been putting off or take maybe a bolder step than you might.

So I think resetting yourself by doing some journal journal prompts, uh, either in the morning or the middle of the day or the end of the day is very helpful. Um, I also think this is not exactly a question they should ask themselves, but a practice I think is very important is really thinking about how using your time, um, CEO's just getting bombarded every, all the executives, everybody, these days gets bombarded with different things.

And I think the more success, the more you batch your time and protect your time and make sure that you have pretty strict rules about having thinking time during the day so that you can attack those difficult problems and see around corners and plan strategy and do some thinking and musing. I think it's just really important to set up that time for yourself for two or three hours in a day in a given week, maybe twice, if you can, so that you can get that important stuff done because you will never finish your email.

You'll always get more email for all of us. And also those half hour meetings in the middle of the day, like half hour here and then half hour break, half hour here, half hour break. Um, they don't give you time to do the things you need. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: As we sort of get into the last part of our conversation, I'm interested. What do you think CEO's can learn from your own practice of coaching and our. The things that you do or ways that you work with CEOs or leaders that they could leverage effectively sort of leverage those tools, those same tools that you're using on them that might be valuable for them to use with the folks that they're working most closely with.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: The one that comes to mind the most is being curious. So I'm always interested in, well, why did you do that? Or what were you thinking when you did that? Or what were you feeling right before that happened or right before you did that? And I. I don't say the CEO's have to get into that level of detail necessarily with their executives or with their employees, but regularly, um, CEOs, don't our executives overall, don't ask those deeper questions of what were you thinking or why did you do that in a safe way?

And sometimes I will say to a CEO, well, why don't you do that? And he'll say, oh, she must've been thinking this, or she must've been thinking that, but they don't really know because they didn't really ask. So I think asking with curiosity and actually going as deep as you can with curiosity is a very powerful tool for everybody to use, to be more effective with people. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: And why do you think people don't do that innately?

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: I've asked myself that question many times, um,

I'm not sure if I have a good answer, but I think that sometimes people will say, um, it makes them uncomfortable to, to check in with people and to ask those kinds of questions, which I can understand I could be, I myself could be overly director intrusive sometimes. Um, or it's it's like there's. So I think that CEOs and other executives are busy solving problems.

And so they think they know, and they can be overly filled with the things they think they know. And, um, therefore give up the power of not knowing. And when you don't know, you can then go out and find out and you have to surprising answers. People give you surprising answers when you really ask and ask questions and listen to the answers.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: I thought maybe we could wrap up, I I'd love you to share what are some of the things you've learned from leaders that you've worked with. And, and obviously I think a lot of what we explore in our conversation are probably expressions of things that you've figured out along the way from learn from working with so many folks.

But are there any, any specific leaders or, or concrete ideas, best practices, things that maybe you've changed your mind about on because of interfacing or interacting with these folks? That that might be interesting to.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: oh, yes. Um, I worked with an executive at a large company, um, EMC a long time ago, and she was the president of a division and there was a lot of, uh, just a problem problems, problems everywhere. Like the project, that major project they were working on was really off track and we had a coaching call. And she out of this coaching call, she decided to do it, write a daily blog, a daily blog.

And I thought that was a good idea. I was sure it was a great idea, but it was a good idea. And she wrote a daily blog and it was incredible how much that galvanized the team because of really her shows. And she wrote really genuinely about her struggles and her concerns. And also she would give kudos in the daily blog and people would wait for the daily blog to come out and comment on it.

And I saw how powerful that consistent communication. And, um, that changed that I knew that I knew that, but like wow. To see it that way and to see how important that was, the consistency that was incredibly, um, that was very eye-opening for me, I would say. And then I would add, um, I just, I interviewed for my book, Susie Bettys, who's the founder and former CEO of Poo-Pourri.

And I also recently interviewed for my podcast, um, Sadie Lincoln, who's the founder CEO of bar three. And they're both incredible examples of fearless conviction on following intuition and kind of doing it their own way. They're both built really big businesses, bootstrapped with no investment. And I feel like I've changed my mind a lot on tuning into that inner voice, even more and using intuition to, um, to guide.

And I, I wanna, I encourage leaders. Even more so to tune into that intuition and, and find ways to balance the intuition with facts and data. Okay. I want you to moment one more. I'd like to.

mention one more leader. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: of course.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Um, I'd also like to mention you bears you're Lee, who's the former CEO of best buy. And I feel like I've really been inspired by his way of balancing empathy and humanity and caring and also straight talk.

And I've had a lot of conversations about that and I found that really, again, it just solidified my conviction that you can do it. And he's a great example of that. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: What, what is he, what is he doing? Or what has that looked like? Look like, because I think a lot of people innately feel like those two things are opposing for.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Right. I think what that looks like is he, um, first of all, he's genuine. He's down to earth. He's a very approachable and he's, um, very, he's very gregarious and, and great with all the people in all parts of the organization. Again, he's the former CEO of best buy, but I, when I talk with him, he focuses on making sure people really see his personality, really see his persona and feel a connection with him and that if things go wrong, which they do the conversations to have don't come from anger.

They come from a place of learning. Now, ultimately it is true that like straight talk and accountability have to happen, but his whole. His whole persona is about learning together and discussing things that go wrong with a sense of learning and curiosity. And I think when you come from that place, you can then deliver hard messages with less bite 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: One of the other things that you just mentioned is sort of this, following this advice to follow your own intuition. And I think that that sort of, for me falls into the category of, of advice that like intellectually makes sense, but is maybe harder to follow or, uh, is harder to do well in the sense, in the sense of being at some sort of equilibrium, right?

Like not just doing whatever you feel like doing or whatever feels, right. And also knowing when your, when you should sort of follow your conviction or intuition, maybe even when you struggled to articulate it or there's not specific data. And so how does someone figure out how to use their intuition in, in sort of the most powerful.

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: well, I think it goes back to actually what you were asking before. Like what tools, what question should CEOs ask themselves and what tools do they have? And I think setting aside time to journal even five to 10 minutes a day helps you tune into your inner voice and helps you tune into your intuition, which tells you things which are going on around you doesn't mean you should make every decision based on intuition.

Doesn't mean you should not take into account facts. But I think that is an element that we, in the busy-ness of day in the busy-ness of day to day, we sort of push aside and I think proactively making time for that either through journaling or also, I just spoke to, um, a CEO three days ago, who said, I meditate one hour a day religiously, and I never would have predicted this, but answers to questions.

I've been really struggling with come to me in my morning meditation. So one way or the other it has to do with stillness and letting that voice have some space and then also marrying it with the, with what you're seeing around you. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 1: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us. This was great. 

In Depth - Alisa Cohn - _Track 2: Thank you, Brett. I really enjoy.