Problem To Solve

As an organizational leader, one or more of these circumstances may personally apply.

• You are leading a business or function that is becoming increasingly complex, as your expanding set of “customers” and “stakeholders” become harder to define and engage.
• You sense opportunities to improve and grow the organization, which you don’t have time to assess and define.
• You can’t easily break out of frenetic daily activities to “think” and strategize.
• You don’t have someone with whom you can privately confer, without risk.
• You are new to a demanding position.
• …

These are just a few of the unfortunate – but real world – attributes of senior leadership.

Meanwhile, senior executives deal with two baseline constraints confronting leadership at most improvement-oriented organizations.  The first constraint is time, i.e., enough “hours in the day” to do what needs to be done.  Closely related, the second constraint is executive bandwidth to stay ahead of the curve and lead proactively.

What can help?

One option is an executive coach.  But traditional executive coaches typically lack domain knowledge about the business or organizational context.  Indeed, the executive coach deliberately avoids business issues to focus on the leader’s mindset and decision making.

A management consultant is another option.  But the job of the consultant is to solve a given business or organizational issue, often following an elaborate project plan.  A good consultant works closely with organizational leadership – but the focus is on the issue to be solved rather than partnering with any one individual.

Implied by all this is the need and opportunity to fill gaps at many organizations today – with an external resource who simultaneously serves an on-demand thought-and-do partner with organization, business, or function leaders, while resolving critical organizational issues.

Player-Coach Partnering Model

The Player-Coach Partner (PCP) can address the gap created by leadership accountability, isolation, and time and capacity constraints.  The PCP is an on-demand external resource who partners with the senior organizational leader – a part-time support role that integrates traditional executive coaching and business consulting, while applying domain knowledge and pragmatic tools that achieve targeted outcomes.

Much more than an advisor, the Player-Coach is a thought-and-do partner.  He or she is someone with whom the senior leader can think freely and ideate in a confidential, productive, and risk-free manner.  But also, the PCP is someone who rolls up the sleeves to complete tasks on a planned path to issue resolution.  The combination gets work done faster and more proactively than when the leader operates alone – while the leader learns and grows from the experiences.

The contractual basis of the Player-Coach relationship with the client is a clearly defined organizational outcome and timeframe, and a statement of work describing the collaborative plan to achieve specific objectives.  The Player-Coach can, for example, conduct interviews, internal assessments, external benchmarking, or other tasks.  The Player-Coach can facilitate sprint-based action teams which align diverse functions and stakeholders.  Meanwhile, the Player-Coach and senior leader stay on the same page via regular one-on-one “standup” meetings.

Throughout, the roll-up-the-sleeves and get-work-done partnership with the senior leader continues – and grows.

Senior leadership and the extended organization benefit in a variety of ways from the Player-Coach Partner model, including:

• Independent/outside perspective that accelerates and enhances decision-making
• “Innovation intermediary” who facilitates consensus and alignment among functions, partners, and stakeholders
• Customized application of advanced management techniques and tools, e.g., generative AI, Agile Innovation™, OKRs
• Access to specialized expertise who are part of the Player-Coach network
• Expansion of overall “burst” execution capacity to get work done.

…All provided on an as-needed basis, within budget and without additional fixed cost.

Examples of Player-Coaching in Action

Two examples help illustrate what the Player-Coach Partnering model looks like in practice.  One example occurred in the private sector, while the other was a public-private initiative.

A longstanding leader in advanced materials technology saw its position weakening at large data center accounts.  While its products were reliable and performed well, this business suffered from customer perception of becoming slow to innovate.  Needed was much tighter alignment between the company’s technology, engineering, manufacturing, and commercial functions.

A veteran manager at the company was assigned accountability to lead a highly visible two-year project. After reviewing several consulting firms, the senior leader engaged a Player-Coach for part-time support. Together, they formed a lean and tight tandem team who co-led multiple cross-functional teams along an agilely structured journey applying Agile Innovation™ ways of working.

Fueling insights along the way was task-based internal and external research, and the perspective of an independent outsider with a wide range of experiences in different industries and organizations.

Eventual results were threefold: A turnaround in customer perception around speed-to-innovate, the foundation for a more agile culture across this large global division, and the achievement of all project metrics during the two extensive phases of work.

The second example of Player-Coach Partnering was equally challenging and successful, but totally different.  The University City Science Center, one of the oldest research parks in the USA, recognized the opportunity to position itself as the champion of a new regional innovation ecosystem centered in Philadelphia.  A Player-Coach was engaged to support strategy development, stakeholder engagement, and design of initial programming.

The Player-Coach partnered with a member of the senior leadership team: the CTO, who combined technical expertise in life sciences with relationships at many universities and economic development organizations.  

Here again, the Player-Coach and client CTO formed a tight tandem to execute an agile learn-and-advance set of activities over two years, under the close oversight of the Science Center CEO and Board.  The PCP and CTO nimbly shared the work while interacting continuously.  

The eventual result was partner and stakeholder commitment to three major brick-and-mortar and networking programs which moved the Science Center to the forefront of a diverse and high-performing regional ecosystem.

Call To Action

Beyond success in complex organizational environments, these two examples feature hallmarks of Player-Coach Partnering: namely, shoulder-to-shoulder partnership, hands-on support, new insights from an independent and outside perspective, pragmatic methodologies and tools, and the intellectual capacity and “manual labor” to get the job done on time.

Your next steps could be considering the value of a Player-Coach Partner – a practical, low risk, and cost effective resource who can help drive strategy and execution at your business, organization, or regional consortium.

© OIC Innovation LLC 2024