Polymath

How we work

Nothing here comes off the shelf.

There’s an arc for working with a company and an arc for working with an individual leader. Most engagements use both: we help the company change, and we coach its leaders through the change.

Transformation & team engagements

For technology and AI transformations, organizational change, and leadership team coaching.

  1. Listening tour & systems review

    We talk in confidence with the leadership team and a curated set of people around them, with enough structure to surface what they think. When the work involves technology, we also review the systems, the data, the vendors, and the projects already under way.

  2. Diagnostic & readout

    We come back with a written readout of what we found, across the organization and the technology: what is working, what isn’t, and where the company is and isn’t ready for AI. For leadership teams, we often add Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) and Collective Leadership Assessment (CLA) data to what we heard.

  3. Roadmap

    We design the work with you: what changes first, who leads it, what it will cost, and which parts we run ourselves, which we coach your people through, and which we oversee when an outside firm does them. It might be a transformation to run, fractional leadership, team coaching, workshops, an offsite, or several at once.

  4. Rollout

    We do the work on a set cadence, with scheduled check-ins with the CEO and board. Much of the effort goes to the people: training, communication, and the teams and managers who are uneasy about the change. We coach inside the noise.

  5. Recalibration & handoff

    Every quarter, we check the work against what we agreed and adjust. Each engagement has a clear end, and we hand the work to people inside the company who can keep it going. We are not interested in becoming permanent furniture; we are interested in the change you hired us to help you make.

What you can expect

You can expect straight talk and careful execution. When a plan, a vendor, or a hire isn’t working, we tell you early. We measure progress against the goals we set with you at the start.

We also spend time with the teams who will live with the change day to day. Their questions and worries shape how we roll it out.

Executive coaching engagements

For CEOs, founders, and senior executives working one-on-one with Nick or JT.

  1. Intro session

    We start with a short call to meet each other. We talk about what brought you here, what you’re looking to get out of coaching, and how we work.

  2. Sample session

    A free 50-minute real coaching session on something that matters to you, to see what coaching with us is like. By the end, you know whether we’re a fit.

  3. Discovery

    A long, deliberate session (three hours remote, five hours in person if we can swing it), built around pre-work and a designed alliance. We learn each other thoroughly and set the terms of how we’ll work.

  4. Design

    We co-design the engagement: cadence, primary focus areas, how we’ll measure whether the work is working. Some clients are working on a specific transition. Some are working on the next decade.

  5. Cadence

    Weekly or every other week, about 50 minutes. Homework lives between sessions as much as inside them. Text and voice between sessions are part of the engagement, and we expect you to use them. CoachClaw (when it’s live for you) keeps the through-line.

  6. Recalibration

    Quarterly, we step out of the work to look at the work. What’s changed, what’s landing, what isn’t, what we should stop doing. Coaching that doesn’t recalibrate quietly drifts off course.

What you can expect

We’re not the affirmation-and-manifestation kind of coaches. We believe that done well, coaching should change the shape of your life, and we work accordingly.

You can expect honest reflection, a push when you need one, and silence when you need to sit with a question. We follow up, we assign real homework, and if you blow off your own commitments, we explore why.