When guiding an executive new to a particular senior executive role, the executive coach's sweet spot, or where he or she can be most valuable, is through the beginning of the second wave of change.

Describes the convergent validity of different researchers and consulting practioners arriving at similar conclusions about the assumptions underlying the Three Waves of Change model of top executive transition services and products.

A new senior executive stymied by his or her first wave of attempts to change and improve the performance of the business has a number of tools available to conduct a deeper dive to identify organizational capability gaps and the root causes of resistance to change. This page introduces six examples of the tools and options for their use.

Diagnostic 1: Do we understand where we are in the business maturity life cycle and its implications?

Overview of the Wiznami version of the Business Maturity Life Cycle and its value as an initial "big picture" view of the business and the different overarching typical performance challenges businesses experience at each stage of the lifecycle. The Business Maturity Life Cycle provides a foundation for a common mental model of the business for the executive team before entering into other diagnostic processes of specific aspects of the business.

Diagnostic 2: To what degree are we (and should we be) a strategically-managed business?

If you need a business strategy (Disciplined Growth stage of the Business Maturity Lifecycle and beyond), is strategic planning an event or a living process? To what degree are we reasonably answering the essential questions of a thorough business strategy and sharing that strategy as a common mental model among the senior executive team which guides and informs our decision-making.

Diagnostic 3: To what degree are the assumptions underpinning the business (or brand or functional) strategy still valid?

Does the senior executive team share an explicit, common understand of the estimated probabilities of success or failure of each primary element of the business strategy and the circumstances that trigger shifting to "Plan B."

Diagnostic 4: To what degree do we have the required organizational capabilities to effectively implement our business or functional strategy?

An organizational capability assessment process (OCA) enables a newly promoted or hired executive to build a common mindset about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the business to its presenting opportunities and competitors. The page describes several important purposes a facilitated organizational capability assessment can serve.

Diagnostic 5: Making the Difficult People Decisions to Select and Confirm the Executive's Team

Underperformers and star performers are often easy to identify during Wave 1. The more difficult decisions are about the people who are in the middle of the bell curve who are good ("Tweeners'), but are they good enough to meet the demands to improve the business? Alternative approaches to assessing executives who are in the middle of the pack, particularly during the immersion stage, are overviewed.

Diagnostic 6: Stakeholder Analysis

Assessing the business goals, professional goals, challenges faced by anyone in the role, personality characteristics, and preferred style for being influenced of key members of the executive's key stakeholder group.

A representative client list that Dr. Gary Myszkowski and Wiznami® have worked with over the course of the past 30 years.

Advanced Executive Coaching:

October 29, 2013

A case study of the individual coaching and large group consulting interventions used by the new CEO and his executive team to manage the changes necessary to move the business along the Business Maturity Life Cycle from the Unbridled Rapid Growth stage of development to the Disciplined Growth stage under a very short timeline.

Case study of the journey Kerzner / Atlantis took to create a coaching culture among all executives, managers, and supervisors ultimately resulting in higher guest satisfaction.