About

Remember on Schitt's Creek when Alexis intros herself to Patrick saying, "I am Alexis, David's sister and life coach so..."? It perfectly embodies the prevalent sentiment that life coaches are hacks. While anyone can call themselves a coach, those of us with ICF certification indicate that we've learned to listen skillfully, partner in finding our client's inner wisdom and never offer advice.

Bent Flyvbjerg developed a forecasting method to counteract his “Iron Law of Projects: over budget, over time, under benefits" (Flyvbjerg, 2017). His research shows .05% of projects escape the law. I wanted our WxW projects to be in that number, so I enrolled in Flyvberg's certification program to learn how to forecast to avoid it.

Managing a 12-person team in the field with a grab-bag of tools including a disjointed set of software and processes was slowing RR Move Co. down. WxW mapped their processes, analyzed software solutions and built a custom solution to get them on the move.

We knew rushing into action without a robust plan wasn't right, but we and our clients sometimes did it in the name of "progress." Flyvbjerg's think-slow moto galvanized us resist the siren song of, "we'll figure it out along the way!" and dedicate ourselves and motivate our clients to persevere through the slow-thinking process.

The Kolbe premise is that when we operate outside our action style, we deplete energy. We rely on this understanding of ourselves and our clients to find areas where we might be unknowingly wasting the resources we need to complete our idea. We now focus on understanding how we execute when we're free to be ourselves and augment where needed.

“A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It's not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that cause us suffering.” Before I tried BK's approach to meeting thoughts with curiosity, I struggled to consistently find a way to face my own suffering. The Work helps me and clients listen to all parts of ourselves without attaching to ingrained beliefs.

Bolte Talyor says she's "an advocate for whole brain thinking, ...not...for the right brain or the left brain." She taught us how to recognize which part of our brain was in charge at any given moment and tools, like the brain huddle, to make decisions about how we want to react.

As two people who love to interact with the materials world, we have tackled many remodeling projects together. When we ripped out drywall, found beams, and uncovered textures in my What by When office space, we didn't know we'd be joining forces as partners in the business just two years later.

We resonated w/ the notion of thinking deeply about how much is enough, what we truly want and how to balance time spent money w/ time spent doing what we want

I landed my first consulting project helping a commercial property owner negotiate their lease renewal with a large building-materials manufacturer. The renewal went off without a hitch and I made exactly enough money to buy the whatbywhen.com domain.

Two ideas about the Enneagram piqued my initial interest. 1) that eights can experience conflict as intimacy and 2) that nines don't have great access to their interior or their physical bodies. These two observations so described two people in my life, I dove in to glean the wisdom on offer in understanding the nine types.

Friend: "If you could take on any hobby, what would it be?" Me: "Drawing and I know exactly what I'd draw...my thrift store treasures!" That's how my year-long daily drawing project began, but it's result surprised me. Engaging my right brain everyday subtlety and powerfully stabilized me. The experience underpins my trust in the healing through creating.

When I staffed Kyle to his first project, I was unaware we were kindred spirits. But when I handed him a stack of barely-discernable product documents asking him to create a technical-decision maker presentation complete w/ graphics recommendations, his submission made an impression. In a couple days he had a client-worthy draft, an understanding of the technology and the seed of trust that's only grown in the 10 years since.

Email>Text>Call>Schedule>Visit. This chain of communication in five forms has delivered more results than some strategic planning sessions I've attended. Projects fall behind because decisions aren't made, reviews don't happen, or information isn't collected in time. This escalating path greatly improves the timely receipt of decisions and content.

Together with five partners, I set out to purchase the boutique consulting firm we ran. Negotiations stalled over the price pushing us into formal mediation proceedings. I'd heard people say, "trust the process" before, but this experience deeply engrained the idea. The judge who led it and attorneys who advocated for both sides guided us using tools we did not have.

The most doomed project I ever ran was as a new senior manager. In this role, I sat between the engagement lead and the team. This spelled disaster because the execution plan lived only our lead's brain, not in our project management process and software. While the plan was brilliant, it was only available when he was available, critically throttling our ability to scale. This experience planted The Brain-Baton seeds. Link here.

Getting blown about by the rise and fall of project-related doubts, setbacks and negative emotion can make resignation seductive. Sticking to the plan steadied our teams to keep executing the current plan until we logged an official decision to change the plan. It surprised me how often the original plan stuck and staying focused proved the better course.

A mentor explained to me four ways to make a decision. He said sometimes, 1) you decide alone 2) we discuss, and you decide 3) we discuss, and I decide 4) I decide alone. This clarity helped me recognize what was up to me and wasn't. When I felt compensation on a project was unfairly divided, I begrudgingly understood it was not my decision. This realization was one seed planted for starting my own business.

Landing on the right amount of project management is an art. Too much causes excessive admin that wastes time, too little leaves the team uncertain where to focus work efforts. A nimble approach focused on two core things 1) Deliverables and 2) Meetings displayed in a Gantt chart scales up and down. We remind ourselves nothing goes on a plan that's not a noun!

Coming ignorantly from smaller companies, I was surprised the managing partner at the consulting firm I joined repeated the mantra, "follow the process or fix the process". For him, if one person deviated from the documented process, it was broken or at least improvable. Seeing the results for our clients like Dell and Microsoft, I realized process made scale possible because 100s or even 1000s of people could consistently deliver through it.

"Don't sell me shoes, sell me comfortable feet." On first hearing Doug Hall's guidance, I grasped the concept but missed the difficulty. As a young copy writer, getting clients to describe benefits vs. features proved difficult. But it also differentiated our materials. I love Trader Joe's implementation, "I'm there when you run out of toilet paper, love Tissue." 😂