Past Engagements

I am proud of the futures I have helped co-create with my clients. Here are some of their comments and stories.

Being able to talk through how I approach the different roles I hold was very helpful. This has taken a ton of energy from me and I think I just needed permission to not over think it.

Brian is one of the best coaches I've ever experienced. He knows just what questions to ask, has a lot of empathy, is a great listener, super present, and is very selfless. I always appreciate his time and coaching.

We unlocked something that I hadn't recognized as a barrier and will be huge I think in terms of helping me to accomplish one of my goals.

Client Stories

My client "Karl", a senior IT exec at a large insurance company, wanted to focus on communicating succinctly. As we explored what this meant to him, and where the difficulty lied, he made an aside that he sometimes talks over other people and might need to spend some of our session on improving his listening skills. As he recanted a contentious meeting from yesterday, my questions focused on his listening actions. He agreed that he was listening in order to respond, not to understand, which led us to a healthy discussion about reflective listening and the absolute super-power of curiosity. Together, we realized that Karl is not succinct because his oratory is trying to drown-out ALL objections, without knowing which are even important.

Untangled Rules: Only those who are seen and understood can be convinced. Listen. Hear. Clarify. Offer. Solve.

My client "Bill", who runs the West Region for a top 10 retailer was known as a data-driven, strategic, and gifted senior executive who ruled the board room but was unable to connect with the associates in his stores. Since "retail is detail" he visited stores almost every day, leaving his folks feeling cold after every stop. As we were discussing the results from his Hogan assessment, Bill started telling me the story of how he grew up and the impact that his first job in retail had on his life trajectory from a poor urban upbringing to successful and fulfilled executive. We identified Gratitude as a potential mindset to unlock his executive presence during store visits. Over the next few sessions, we built and launched a repeatable store visit process based on Gratitude that began to draw people towards Bill when he walked into the store.

Untangled Rules: We thrive when we live our values daily.

"Andrew" is the General Counsel for a large privately held company that owns many popular websites. His boss, the COO, was receiving complaints from disenfranchised employees and questions from others on the CEO staff wondering what value Andrew actually provided to the company. I interviewed 15 people within the company to get a clear 360 degree understanding of Andrew's reputation -- it was ugly. Although I have the superpower of being direct and kind at the same time, Andrew was devastated. Andrew's embrace of humility let him accept the accountability for his reputation and get to work. Together, we built an action plan for Andrew to correct some employee equity issues that had persisted for too long, to dig deep into understanding some of the newer and more innovative businesses in the portfolio, and to build his presence with key members of the CEO staff. We also needed to make sure that as he began to show-up differently, people would notice. His employee engagement score skyrocketed during our time together. My follow-up interviews with many of the CEO staff at the end of our engagement confirmed that while the journey was not complete, they could all see that Andrew was back on the right path.

Untangled Rules: We can't fix what we can't see. Once we see it, we better own it.

"Dave", a sales VP at an industry leading SaaS company was a closing machine. Quarter after quarter, he was able to swoop-in and close deals so that his team achieved ever greater stretch targets. Until he wasn't. As a former college athlete, Dave leveraged his "light on talent but heavy on work" approach to accel through the corporate ranks, but he realized that he could not muscle his way through the addition of yet another sales territory into his portfolio. Through a 360 assessment we realized that Dave's team was begging for more empowerment and autonomy. Through our discussions, we realized that Dave's superpower was in asking powerful questions that led his clients to commit to buying from him. He had a well-designed, well-practiced process that almost always worked. We applied this insight as we designed a new management system for Dave to employ with his team, where they would get the empowerment and autonomy that they desired, without Dave sacrificing the accountability or results.

Untangled Rules: No one else is going to do your job and your job is to build the people.

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