Today, I'm connecting with Maxine Minter, executive coach, founder of Co Lab, and General Partner of Co Ventures. Coaching and mentoring leapfrogging someone’s career trajectory has been a key theme percolating our recent episodes, SO… recognising that having a coach is a privilege and perhaps more uncommon at the operator level in the ANZ ecosystem; this is a SPECIAL EPISODE to help open source some tips and tricks. For context, executive coaching helps you close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be as a leader. In this episode, Laura talks to Maxine Minter about her work coaching founders, CEOs, and COOs and how to become an exceptional, high-impact, high-performing startup operator. You’ll walk away as the CEO of your career with many tactical tools and exercises to help you run high-performing teams (or influence up, down and sideways).
Today, I'm connecting with Maxine Minter, executive coach, founder of Co Lab, and General Partner of Co Ventures. Coaching and mentoring leapfrogging someone’s career trajectory has been a key theme percolating our recent episodes, SO… recognising that having a coach is a privilege and perhaps more uncommon at the operator level in the ANZ ecosystem; this is a SPECIAL EPISODE to help open source some tips and tricks. For context, executive coaching helps you close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be as a leader. In this episode, Laura talks to Maxine Minter about her work coaching founders, CEOs, and COOs and how to become an exceptional, high-impact, high-performing startup operator. You’ll walk away as the CEO of your career with many tactical tools and exercises to help you run high-performing teams (or influence up, down and sideways).
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Connecting with Maxine Minter for a special episode of Calling Operator. Today we talk about executive coaching and what high performance looks like for operators with Maxine Minter; executive coach, founder at Co Lab and general partner at Co Ventures:
Laura: Maxine Minter, welcome to the podcast
Maxine: Thanks so much for having me on I'm so excited to do this
Laura: I'm so excited can you start by telling us a little bit about your career journey so far and what you're focused on right now
Maxine: I really started working professionally alongside studying when I was at university I'd done a bunch of jobs earlier in my life but at that point I was studying and I started building companies on the side as Short term cash solves weirdly enough I didn't think of myself as an [00:01:00] entrepreneur even that zeitgeist wasn't really around at this point which makes me feel really old to say that out loud but it's a fact so I built a bunch of companies alongside studying but then got to the end of my university and decided no I really want to commit to the thing that I studied which was law I had been working in law firms alongside studying as well and went full time on law I learned of myself over time I am a chronic side hustler I am like a polygamist when it comes to career You are going to be like Oh yeah I know I see it all day every day and so it probably lasted maybe a year and a half or so working full time in law firms And then I started to build on the side again I built a bunch of online services businesses along that trajectory I did one product business which was a biodegradable yoga mat business which was a rude awakening on how hard supply chains are after about 10 years of working in law firms I got to a point where I Looked up and around when I didn't really see a world around me I didn't see a leadership around me THAT I was inspired by I wanted to be like I could have wanted to emulate I just [00:02:00] didn't see that actually really loved being a lawyer which is a weird statement If you talk to a corporate lawyer most of them think of themselves as either recovering or somewhere on the quitting journey but I loved it For me It was I wanted a new mountain to climb And so at about 27 you got to the point where I was ready to step into My next mountain So I moved to the U S to start a company The theory was I would go over and see what inverted commas what the future looked like and then bring that business back to Australia which I guess in hindsight that kind of played out but not in the way that I thought it was going to So I got to the U S started a company and that was my first venture backed company which was a whole new concept to me when I moved to the U S so started it about a month in Built it through multiple rounds of funding got to work alongside some of the best VCs in the world in the U S And at the same time back to my chronic side hustling started angel investing on the side back in 2017 2018 it was actually kind of a novel concept that a woman Would be an angel [00:03:00] investor And so joined a community called the council awesome community that is all later stage investors early stage operators people kind of early in their journey operating or exited founders who are angel investing together So we all started angel investing I was writing tiny cheques just really learning about the craft and just loved it So when I got to a certain point in the journey of operating the company that I built got to a certain level of scale it wasn't going to be that breakout success put it on autopilot and moved over build my next thing after a couple of build journeys I've now built a bunch of companies one of which is a company called Co Lab which is an executive coaching business and also building a coaching practice of my own I started to scale up my investing So now I am the GP of a fund called Co Ventures We are a pre-seed-only fund focused on Australian founders but anywhere in the world and actually Australia's first solo GP who was a woman which is outrageous statement I hope it doesn't remain a statement for much longer I'm hoping more women and [00:04:00] people from all walks of life start their own funds But for now Just the solo out here flapping in the wind And so that's where I spend my time at the moment
Laura: Outrageous It is indeed And we're in it this is when we announce that this is actually a special episode on coaching and high performance for operators So to kick us off what's the core job of an executive coach
Maxine: I'm so glad we're doing this as well because I think it's really important interestingly I spent half of my time in the U S and half of my time in Australia and in the U S executive coaching it's ubiquitous for startup founders it's a completely non-controversial statement to say that high performers have an executive coach and are investing in their development It's a relatively new thing that the Australian and New Zealand ecosystem is coming to so it still feels a little bit like this semi open secret that most of the founders in the Australian ecosystem and a lot of the venture investors in the ANZ Ecosystem have coaches and so jazzed to be able to kind of open the kimono so to speak on What executive coaching is [00:05:00] and how it's useful executive coaching is a Service that someone provides and their job is to accelerate their Client the person who's being coached towards the goals whatever that is So for example myself as an executive coach I largely work with founders CEOs and COOs and the goal I'm accelerating them towards is being excellent leaders and excellent operators of fast-growth companies And there's many coaches that for example work at Co Lab who are focused on the goal of being excellent technical leaders Excellent product leaders maybe even focusing on the transition in a career how to do that really well making that progression up from a rising star in an organization to C suite to running high performing teams there are a whole bunch of different activities or goals that executive coaches will accelerate their clients towards but their job is to bring tools frameworks and a space for that client to do that work to accelerate them towards those goals
Laura: and we're going to really dive into what [00:06:00] that looks like for an operator today before we dive in there what are two pieces of advice from either a coach a mentor or a great manager that have 10X'd your own leadership journey
Maxine: gosh there's so many I have to say I'm a true believer that you can't be what you can't see And all of us are where we are because of the community and accelerants that are around us as an ecosystem I am such a beneficiary of excellence around me right And investments folks have made to teach me new things to give me the space to learn new things And I just don't think any of us could be excellent at that craft without that Partnership And so the advice the tidbits the support they've had from managers even from people I'm inspired by So they aren't necessarily talking directly to me but there's so much content out in the world these days that it's so easy to get that access For example this amazing podcast two bits that were really transformative for me One was this idea that as you step up into a leadership role You are measured by the output of the organization you [00:07:00] lead and the ones that you influence And so a recognition that you actually are stepping into an environment where you are no longer measured by how hard you work you're no longer measured by what you do You're measured by the impact that it unlocks in other people that might sound like duh obviously that's you as a leader but actually if you fully sit with that for a moment and think about the implications of that it means that you now are being measured by something you don't have direct control of You don't control other people you can only influence them So the conversion rate between your effort and your Expertise and your insight through to the action of someone else and their output is the thing that you're measured by so it means you suddenly have to start getting good at things like interpersonal influence at communication at knowing the right strategy and then bringing other people along for that journey that reduction in control And leverage of your impact completely changes the way that I think about the way that [00:08:00] I lead For example there were many many many things on my leadership journey and I've observed this dynamic for most of the clients I've ever worked for Many many things when you do exactly what you think you're supposed to do and it just doesn't work And it's infuriating The people that you're trying to lead just don't do the thing you're trying to achieve Or they don't learn the lesson you're trying to teach them Or they don't change the way that they're working And you are stuck with the reality that you have failed because they haven't been able to achieve the outcome it completely changes the way that you run your day to day the way that you think about the skills that you need to be excellent at So that's one The second piece that I have found to be transformational for me is that as a driven ambitious person one of the most productive things I can do is to rest and recover It is hard to digest as a statement and still something I'm learning how to do But I have now seen over and over again that that is true I track my time in [00:09:00] 15 minute increments Once a lawyer always a lawyer I schedule my day out from beginning to end Every single day I sit down and I plan out my day and at the end of every single day I close out my day Based on what did I do moving tasks to the next day Those kinds of things You've seen it intense And what that means is I track my time So I have analytics on where I'm spending my time what projects I'm spending my time on how those projects are progressing making sure I'm spending my time on the right stuff and I've been doing that now for six years or something In that range and what I've learned by doing that is I actually started to see that my previous behavior of just sending it for long periods of time was a long term unproductive activity because you could see the peaks and troughs I would build up over a three month period into intense periods of work and then I would get sick I would not be able to do much For probably a whole week and then I would build back again and kind of peak and trough and peak and trough Now the reality is as a leader if you do that again anchoring on that first [00:10:00] piece of advice is that for your team that is like whiplash You run this crazy sprint and then you just disappear for a week You block them on a whole bunch of stuff You're probably more irritable and unproductive for that week And so net that is a really unproductive long term activity versus if I just work out what my optimal consistent performance is with sufficient rest and recuperation periods in there that I can maintain that pace for an extended period of time that was a huge unlock in the way that I run my calendar I run my time And so now I can consistently deliver the same output I don't get sick in the same way I'm much happier I'm much more adjusted I do much better thinking and make better decisions because I'm not doing that peak and trough dynamic So rest and recovery do it It's really productive even if it doesn't feel like inverted commas most the right thing to do or you're producing anything
Laura: Yeah and I think a lot of people earlier on in their journey don't yet have the skill set to recognize it's happening Like even myself I know that you've said to me so many [00:11:00] times go slow to go fast And now I feel like I'm really honing that And it's an art
Maxine: It's such an art There's a destructive cycle that happens where the more tired you get the less effort you have to curate your day The less effort you have to enforce boundaries the less effort you have to do the strategic thinking to make sure you're spending your time in the most high leverage places And so a destructive cycle you'll often see is the more tired you get the more you just say yes to everything You're not focusing on the right thing So you're inundated with not high leverage stuff You get sucked back into the doing not the leading which makes you more tired and the cycle continues And so it's so productive actually just to pause have some recuperation time know how best to recharge your batteries know what the canaries look like The canaries in the coal mine that will tell you hey you're getting close to that destructive cycle So you don't get stuck in that cycle and you can pull back in an effective way
Laura: okay so we're going to get into coaching for operators to start off many [00:12:00] people have asked me this question and I'd love to know what is your definition of an operator
Maxine: I think an operator is anyone who is building an organization of people like a group of people that are doing something together for a particular impact be it a company a charity an association etc Essentially it's the builder of a system that has people operating it to achieve a certain outcome I was thinking about this actually are politicians operators Because they technically build systems for humans to operate within I think you're probably stretching the definition there because they're not necessarily building the system I feel like we've pre built democracy and kind of representative populaces already This is actually like the producer and the constructor of the system for humans to operate within
Laura: and then often you call founders great operators as well So I think that's sometimes where the confusion lies
Maxine: Absolutely Yeah I mean founders I think are building that system of humans for people to operate especially between pre seed and seed they often [00:13:00] are one of the core operators That builds those human systems as well as operate within them and then over time as the team grows you might have people who are operators but actually at a very early stage if it's three people in an organization two founders and an employee there's very little operators and a lot more the people that are delivering the work They're coding they are selling
Laura: we've said before the cog's in the engine what traits do world class high performers have in common what skills set them apart
Maxine: one that universally I've seen across the board is just being a learning machine Like the ability to work your way through large contexts of information large complex problems and just constantly level up another is that perfect balance between being humble and being confident I reject the premise that you can't be confident and humble at the same time Some people think of it like humble and arrogance is you can only do one or the other I actually think that mostly arrogance is actually a [00:14:00] deep fear So it's the version of confidence that is a deep belief in your ability to learn and grow Another way of saying this is someone with a really high growth mindset So a deep belief in your ability with enough time and effort you can learn anything It's a question of effort and degree whether you're willing to chase that opportunity also someone who can lead with curiosity right Someone who is eminently curious and wanting to explore new places That as a skill set and honing that skill set over time I think it's really valuable And the last one for me I would say this is more clarified over the last few years if you and I had had this conversation five to seven years ago I'm not sure I would have named this as a behavior of a high performer but it is a deep skillset around being Anti fragile and brave what I mean by anti fragile is the ability to step into a hard circumstance and grow as a result So it kind of references the learning machine piece but I think it's something different is that the ability to know something is going to be really [00:15:00] scary risky and the bravery to do it anyway especially in fast growth startups and in fast growth companies there's just so many things you have no idea how they're going to turn out and the bravery to step in and try them and work it out as you go along I think those collection of traits and skills that folks hone over time I have observed make for someone to be a really really high performer
Laura: we're going to use high performers as our muse here because obviously we're trying to be the best operators that we can be how do you help high performers recognize what their blind spots are or maybe even their limiting beliefs
Maxine: There's a concept called the Johari window which is the things that we know about ourselves that other people also know about ourselves that Johari window the name of the game is to expand it over time And the reason that it's valuable to expand Is it means we have better understanding of our team members of what we need how we can be useful have better maximization of our skills We also have greater comprehension for our team members on how they can [00:16:00] get the most out of us and how they can get their needs met have in interaction with us and deep self awareness Maybe actually another skill that I see in really high performers a deep self awareness So they know how to maximize Their opportunity They know how to maximize their skill sets by truly understanding what they are one of the key places I recommend people start is doing everything that they can to expand that Johari window over time that looks like doing the work to understand yourself Spending time to reflect on where can they be excellent spending time on what their genius zone is spending time on where they get really high levels of motivation because to do anything hard do anything Big and impactful It takes an enormous amount of hard work There's just no avoiding that There's no shortcuts to it So if you get energized by a certain kind of work you are more likely to spend more time doing that thing than someone who isn't energized by it And so building the self awareness of the things that build energy for you the [00:17:00] things that build motivation and constantly iterating your way to doing more of those things and less of the things that drain your energy allows you to spend more time on target and produce more value both for yourself and the organizations that you work for building your self awareness and tactical tools there are journaling being curious about yourself understanding how to use emotions understanding first what emotions are and how they're useful to you and how you could use them to hone your instincts what they feel like in your body And then as a corollary to that how best to see them in other people and understand them in other people and use that kind of high EQ as an effective tool the other side of that Johari window is what other people know about you And so doing things like 360s so you can learn what other people see and how you are being perceived and how effective you're being you know communicating your needs communicating your wants communicating how people can understand when you're thriving how people can understand when you are Disengaged when you're demotivated there's often guidance that they give to executives who are running 50 [00:18:00] plus team members 50 plus people in a team and higher especially when they've got executive teams that it is so much easier to run a high performing team If your executives understand themselves because then you don't have to be a water diviner trying to work out what they think or feel or need they know so they can just communicate it to you and you are more likely to build a really excellent environment for them to be successful And so doing the work for both you to communicate what you need to others but also understanding what other people see I think a really really productive place to get started there are so many places that you can invest to accelerate someone's growth but that one in particular touches on a whole bunch of points in relation to how you work the pace at which you work the strategy with which you work making sure you're spending high leverage time on some of the most important stuff
Laura: And just for clarity in case anyone's not heard of a 360 what is a 360
Maxine: Oh yeah so a 360 is often both a survey and a set of qualitative [00:19:00] research that you do with all of the people around you in an organization hence the word 360 So for founders it can look like your board your co founders if you've got them and your executive team for operators it probably looks like your boss and the people that report to you and your peers horizontally So essentially how you're perceived and how you're experienced from perspectives all around you as I said it's done either With just a survey so a lot of Lattice and Culture Amp they do a 360 element where there's just a survey but not the qualitative stuff Or you can do the more fully featured one and actually do qualitative conversations to help build out and flesh out certain perspectives
Laura: thank you that's really helpful something else you said there was around genius zones could you walk us through how someone can identify their zone of genius if it's not obvious to them And Potentially how they can align that with market demand because it's fair enough knowing that you're good at something but if the market doesn't need it then how do you pivot to make that relevant [00:20:00]
Maxine: I think something to really internalize as an operator especially if you're in the mid level of your career you're a senior leader In the organization maybe your head of maybe you've been progressed to chief level is to really internalize You are the CEO of your career You are a one person product that you are selling to a bunch of customers both your employers maybe advisor relationships that you're building around you and also the team that you serve And so really focusing in on the implications of that As the CEO of your career with this one person product that you're selling you can be really helpful to think about the same kind of market analysis that you would do as a product in market What unique capabilities do you have What do you do really well in strategy talk What are your unique skill sets and capabilities that you can deliver into the market that are unique to you And so a genius zone for the definition here and maybe you have ranted and raved about this on the [00:21:00] podcast already but at the risk of repeating ourselves A genius zone is the thing that you are uniquely capable of doing in the world and generates value in the world it is actually the same analysis that you would do in an organization What are the unique strategic capabilities of an organization and how do they generate value in the market And so on the internal bit working out your genius zone the journey that can be required here is first of all be curious about the moments when you see people express real gratitude and excitement for the work that you are doing.When it's s really clear that your customer in inverted commas so the people that you work with are getting an enormous amount of value And it seems to be outsized value relative to what they get from other people So heat seek things like really positive feedback celebration of the work that you're doing You can use that as an identification that you're delivering work there That is an outsized opportunity for the customer that you're selling to So that's what you're good at the stuff that is in that category that doesn't build joy for you that's your zone of competence The stuff that you're good at but it doesn't [00:22:00] light you up The zone of genius is the stuff that you are highly competent at but also builds a lot of energy for you that's the point when it's introspective it's the building of the self awareness to identify what does it feel like To be motivated by something versus what does it feel like to be drained by something this is an area of the development I noticed for a lot of leaders and especially you know we came out of an era of management science that was heavily informed by the military and mechanization right Humans as machines reality of machines at least up until now let's see what happens with AGI The reality of machines up until now is they don't feel anything So all of our thinking and our research wasn't really about how you felt about it It's like what you did in the system that you built over the last 20 years there's been this proliferation of research into emotions and instinct and decision making informed by those things There's a really wonderful book called emotional by Leonard Mlodinow and it is Just an excellent summary of the current [00:23:00] research we have on how to use emotion strategically what they are you know the benefit of them And so really starting to get a sense of it feels like elevation My heart rate increases my pupils dilate I feel tingly all over my body when I'm really motivated by something So heat seeking those moments And where they interact with true value being delivered in the world and then catch them and start compounding on them as fast as possible ideally you start to iterate your way into what your genius zone is And then there's the external market assessment piece right Where is that useful And there's a reality sadly in a capitalist system where some things that are folks genius zones are not heavily remunerated In this system and there are other things that are in folks genius zones that are heavily remunerated and so seeking an ecosystem or a circumstance where the things that light you up can generate sufficient economic outputs for you that you can spend as much time in your genius [00:24:00] zone as possible and you'd be amazed if you do this activity actually over a period of time and this can take you know it took me about five years Constant iteration moving closer and closer to the thing that had me in my genius zone more and more to get to this outcome but you'd be amazed by actually if you keep an open mind on where you might feel those spikes and continually iterate your way towards it as the CEO of your own career how it feels to work day in day out
Laura: And a really tactical level does that look like journaling again
Maxine: Yeah journaling can be really helpful I find measuring your time and actually scoring your energy on a day to day basis One of the very tactical activities I often do with clients especially when they come me and they're like I just don't have energy for the thing that I'm doing I feel exhausted I feel burnt out I feel Like I don't have motivation towards the thing is to work out where are they losing energy so it's called an energy audit You just track your time day to day And at the end of every day you give yourself a score from one to 10 10 being like I might be physically tired [00:25:00] but my soul is on fire I am so happy And one being I just want to lie Face down on the ground I'm going to lie here for seven hours and do that over the course of two to four weeks And you'll get a pretty good sense what kind of activities you're doing that drain you and what kind of activities you're doing that build you up also when in the day It's more optimized to do certain kinds of work the reality is is even for the most lucky person that is spending the most time at work in their genius zone and not spending a hundred percent of their time at work in that genius zone that is just stuff you've got to do I have only met a very small number of people where having very difficult performance conversations is a genius zone for them Most people don't like it Rightfully so I think it's a feature for the species that we don't like hurting each other And it can be painful productively painful but painful to receive constructive feedback it means that for a lot of people that don't enjoy doing that but the reality is it's part of the job It's unlikely to be a place that you find an emotional [00:26:00] spike Whereas strategizing thinking big picture planning in the long term for more people that is an area that builds them energy and can be a genius zone for them and they can spend more time there
Laura: So I'd love to know from your experience what are the most common challenges operators face in early stage and high growth startups
Maxine: both personally as a coach and then also for Co Lab as a business we work very closely So the majority of our clients are CEOs founders and executive teams of fast growth companies in a handful of circumstances We work with folks that are moving into that layer so they are like senior operators in organizations first time founders and the folks that are in that progression in their career So operators some really common ones are getting comfortable with stepping up into leading and moving away from doing and this can be a real challenge because we're so used to being measured as I mentioned earlier in the call measured on our output In fact often [00:27:00] what has got you to being a senior level operator is just the sheer volume of output you're able to produce So it can be a real shift in mindset to recognize okay now I'm not actually just being measured on my volume I'm being measured on the output of other people So that transition is one that we end up spending a lot of time on the next very common place is feeling comfortable in a position of power and understanding what power is understanding the fundamentals of leadership so that you can use them strategically a really common one Is our mental model of who we are and how we're perceived doesn't necessarily adjust at the pace that the circumstance around us adjusts This is especially the case in a fast growth startup you see this very often where for the CEO say or as an operator you know someone who has progressed to a senior position in the organization in their mind they're just Maxine who's an operator just doing a thing trying to get through a day sprinting as fast [00:28:00] as you can and she's just trying to survive But actually the way that she is perceived across the organization is as the head of product Or the head of operations a senior voice who when she says do you do and that transition can be a real adjustment to first of all feel comfortable in that place so that you can effectively use the opportunity you have there For the betterment of the organization and also even the betterment of the ecosystem that you're in Something that folks in the U S have normalized and I see do a much better job than folks in the ANZ ecosystem is feel comfortable in their role And from that place know that they have things that they can give back into the ecosystem Expertise knowledge Reps support et cetera I hear this a lot from operators is who am I to go on a podcast and talk about the things that I've learned who am I to be an advisor to a company Who am I to be an angel investor I am just Maxine the operator that's trying to keep my head above water and [00:29:00] trying to survive with this company And actually the answer is You are an excellent person to be a very visible role model on one way not necessarily the way because there's no the way but one way to be in that role Because what that will do is shortcut everyone who is aspiring to be in that role and give them some data points to build in to the way that they want to do something And so being comfortable in a position of power and negotiating your relationship with power I would say this is especially the case for women or people that have been raised as women is There is a relationship with power or a version of power that we don't want any part of And so because of that we just kind of reject the premise overall We use other methodologies to garner influence and to garner impact in the organization Things like likability things drawing people towards us as opposed to exercising some of the positional opportunity that we have getting comfortable with power is a really common one Delegating [00:30:00] leveraging yourself building teams Yeah it's such a learning journey to get comfortable with that step out of control that is required to build a high leverage organization being 100 percent responsibility but not 100 percent in control Ooh terrifying Right you need to develop that skill in order to be able to train and scale organizations below you So being able to delegate effectively get scale on your time work out what the right strategy is for your org Also especially for operators it's working out how to both horizontally and vertically influence where you don't necessarily control the org For example you're the head of operations and you're trying to influence your head of product for a certain output that you need for your operational team to be effective You're the head of engineering and you're trying to influence sales or you're the head of sales and you're trying to influence engineering You don't formally control them So you can't decree certain activities to be done but [00:31:00] working out how to effectively horizontally and vertically influence super important And through that another place we spend a lot of time is how to work out Quality decision making in an organization especially in rapid scale There's this messy inflection point that happens at about 50 people And if not effectively solved can drag on like 50 to 250 people And it's that you have poor communication and poor decision making infrastructure in your organization it fosters politics and gossip and misalignment and slow execution and it's messy as anything So that one is another one that we spend a lot of time with operators and first time founders developing those skills so that they can spot them and clean up the system of the organization so that it operates much more effectively for the benefit of everyone in it
Laura: that was going to be My next question how can operators manage their development as that company's growing at such a speed we often talk about being comfortable around sitting in the messiness how do we [00:32:00] know for how long and what I think the actual issue is knowing what good looks like
Maxine: I think the first thing to say is humans sadly Musk is trying to work on this but sadly you can't just download your next skill set and then turn it on You're great That's not how that works I think one piece here is knowing that this is coming for you And knowing what good looks like So you can start on your development journey to get there some tactical tips here Develop relationships around you for people that have seen the reps before find advisors find mentors get a coach You don't have to resolve this problem when a lot of them have been solved in the past in previous reps So find people that have seen one or two stages ahead of you who can help you see around that corner and start the development journey so that you are up and running in time For the volume of the change that you're going to need It seems like a fairly obvious statement in hindsight but my observation both for myself and from the clients I've coached It's something that we can often [00:33:00] forget which is we do it for our organization right We predict hey sales is going to be an X by the end of the year so we need Y in terms of operational support We need Y in terms of team that could deliver on that We need Z in terms of product that is ready to meet that demand But we don't do that same thinking when it comes to ourselves the more time we can spend predicting okay the organization is going to need these things which means I want to skill up on my delegation skills because I want to step up into a leadership role or I want to skill up on my interpersonal influence or communication skills because I know I'm going to be in a more visible leadership role in the organization and I want to be able to use those skills So that's number one tactically identifying what other development journeys that you need to be on and investing in the resources around you to get there One of the challenges I see most frequently and especially in the ANZ ecosystem is like great I know what I have to do I'm just gonna have to move heaven and earth to do it No you can be shortcut to these some of these outcomes [00:34:00] by wrapping yourself in the right resources As opposed to necessarily going on your own learning journey where you have to relearn all of these challenges and something I would name here for my coaching practice but also for Co Lab we work with a very large percentage of the founders and investors in the Australian and New Zealand ecosystem and it's kind of like a semi open secret but still a secret that everyone has these coaches It frequently happens that there are some CEO offsites And they all get together and they all share with each other Oh actually I have a coach you have a coach you have a coach Oh my God I work with the same coach but we don't really talk about it or normalize that as an ecosystem yet I think that's changing right So I think one of those things is just invest in having the right resources around you to close that gap I think the second is fostering the skill set of you have an internal locus of control You have a ability to control how you show up in these circumstances And so really holding on to that reality and thinking about in every single one of these [00:35:00] circumstances what can I do to control my circumstances here What are the levers that I can control And one of them is making predictions on where you think the company is going to be over time and thinking about how you might rise to the occasion for each of those opportunities Startups are these really incredible places where you can accelerate your career sometimes even decades by effectively predicting what the inverted commas market is going to need Developing those skills and stepping in at the right time to be able to lean into that And the other part is giving yourself permission as you said to just sit in the mess recognize that hey there are things that are messy along this journey and you're not going to be able to solve and polish every single item as you're growing and giving yourself permission to be on that learning journey at all times This is where I think the being a learning machine and the humbleness and confidence that you don't know everything yet But you back yourself to be able to figure it out the more you can embody that reality give yourself the permission and the bravery to step into environments and say look I just believe I'm going to be able to figure this out and close that gap The [00:36:00] more you will be given opportunities to do that and to really accelerate your career you know in astronomical speed
Laura: I absolutely love the predicting when you say it it seems so obvious but such a great way for you to have confidence in yourself as well
Maxine: Yeah I think it's such a productive thing The number of people I meet both kind of operators in organizations but also sometimes even CEOs and founder level where their mental model is that they don't have any control in their circumstance They're kind of constructing a almost like a victim orientation and all it requires is just a nudge to be like Hey there's a whole bunch of things that you can control There's a whole bunch of things here that you are in the position to be able to plan for things like predicting where the market is going to be and building skill sets ahead of where that puck is going to be an organization just flies if you can normalize that culture because then everyone is pre building the train tracks before they need them And so they're getting to Much higher degrees of mastery when the company needs them to be at that stage And they have a higher [00:37:00] probability of pacing with the organization because organizations generally grow much faster than humans can
Laura: do you think it's helpful here to touch on how these challenges change as you become CEO or C suite of quite a fast growing organization we've just spoken about operators and first time founders but what about maybe two three times founders
Maxine: the reality is is that every single person in your organization is on their own learning journey And they will be forever Like God willing we're all on learning journeys all the way until the end And so I think recognizing that your boss and if you're still in the earliest stages of your career your boss's boss all the way up to the board members that sit Across your organization Everyone is on their own learning journey one place that we see folks reach out to us for coaching when they are CEO of call it like a 500 or maybe 250 plus organization all the way through to thousand person organizations listed on stock exchanges like that level of sophistication is deeper complexity of [00:38:00] the same challenges So deeper complexity of the comfort of being in a position of power and how to utilize that power strategically and in a way that aligns to Who they are and who they want to be greater complexity on hiring managing and leading high performing executive teams You know for example it can often happen in a fast growth startup that you have a first time founder or even a serial founder who what they have built in the past And their professional experiences is all in startups and they're building this rocket ship And so they hire in a whole bunch of very seasoned very intelligent fast paced executives to surround them And they have often a crisis of confidence a moment where they have deep imposter syndrome whether they would name it that or they would describe an experience which is you know I just find myself not speaking up I find myself not leading this team deferring abdicating key functions to those executives and just letting them run it without necessary oversight it all [00:39:00] comes from a place where they fear that they have nothing of value to add That they're not comfortable in that position of being a leader of that person you will see that same dynamic pop up for operators in the first couple of times that they're leading and delegating to folks And I can go all the way up to the CEO It look s slightly different Like big directional pivots from new leaders coming in friction between the CEO or the heads of and their hired executives the C suite and the hired executives that they're bringing in but the place that we spend time with them is the same Also as an operator I'm sure some of the folks that are listening to this will have experienced the circumstance where the CEO just doesn't understand How much power they have in the organization And so they throw away comments diving down into the detail in places where it's hard for them to you know productively interject suggesting Oh we do this thing Then they changed their mind the next day not fully understanding the impact they have on the overall organization It's a different symptom of a similar [00:40:00] cause of not truly understanding where they sit then there's all the kind of tactical stuff Effective delegation effective setting our team up for success by having clear goals for them and clear directions for them to be executing against not necessarily investing in the development of our team through having effective one on ones knowing how to performance manage them maybe trending more to try to be liked as a CEO as opposed to an effective CEO all of these things they happen For folks that are serial operators c-suite as much as they happen for operators for folks that are operating you can actually see this happening with your CEOs and identify it or your COOs or CPOs CTOs and you can adjust and suggest hey Would it be helpful to connect with a coach or would it be helpful to connect with an advisor to help them see around that corner to better steward the company for success
Laura: you kind of hit me in the feels there It's just remembering that they're still human and supporting them to help them see their [00:41:00] weaknesses maybe or putting them in touch with a coach that could do that work with them that probably is a nice segway for us to talk about us approaching company planning and strategy season at the time of recording we're gearing up to the end of the year We're in September and one of my guests Emily Robinson GM of operations at Kic who I know that you worked with at Linktree she named you the queen of offsites So queen of Offsites I'd love to know what role offsites and you also mentioned 360s before what role can they play in this strategy and planning process and people strategy
Maxine: so we've talked a little bit about 360s right Closing that Johari window or rather opening that Johari window building more Understanding of where your growth area is where you're being effective at impacting or creating the impact you intend to create and where maybe you're missing the mark I find off sites a really really productive place for the team to spend [00:42:00] time to come together and do a couple of things One is build trust trust is the lubricant for any high performing team It is impossible to perform effectively if you don't trust each other I think the sports analogy here I would bring in is you will see a team thrive when they trust each other because they can pass the ball to where they know the person is going to be as opposed to constantly passing the ball backwards and passing where they think the person is going to be because that's where they currently are so really deeply trusting each other changes the pace and the effectiveness of handoff of activities between each other So offsite's a really really productive place to build trust with each other get to know each other it's actually in the same category as rest and recuperation It might not feel high productivity to just go and have a meal with each other chat about your lives share what your journey has been to date to deeply understand each other because we can't trust someone we don't know neurologically nearly [00:43:00] impossible for us to do that And so offsite is a place for building trust so that your team is more high performing in the long term Second is in person offsites can give us a great catalyst for all together to look at the forest for the trees especially in fast growth companies You're just so in it you're just executing day in day out It's the only thing you can do to try and keep pace So it's really easy to not spend enough time as a team to pull all the way out and look at the field and work out okay what is the next stages of the strategy Where can we be highest leverage highest strategy On the way that we chase this goal often when we have those conversations we actually need to have some tough trade offs We have a finite amount of time We have a finite amount of resources and they can only be allocated to certain things And so sometimes we need a space where we can hash out the details of how a plan might come together make those trade offs to the extent we've had to push on each other quite hard make sure that the relationship is still solid before stepping [00:44:00] back onto the field and executing against it the last one is to my point before we need to build the skill based train tracks before we can run a train along them So it's also a really productive place to do some of that team level development So all of us are on the same page for certain skill sets It's really helpful to have common languages for certain things for example doing a personality test So we can all talk about some of the ways that we spike and some of the maybe less productive tendencies we have under a common language You can shortcut us to that outcome doing some of that development work maybe doing some of that strategizing can be a really productive thing to do at offsites The last thing I would say in the HIP that I see be most effective I often see CEOs or heads of people or CPOs chief people officers being the ones tasked with running an offsite they do all of the planning and they're actually kind of the moderator on the day What that means is they're not actually getting out to see the forest for the trees [00:45:00] They're operating because again the definition of an operator is the person or the people that are building the system for others to operate within if they're the ones building the system for others to operate within you're actually losing that perspective on the day Of the offsite and these are not cheap right Taking usually your most senior team offline so that they can all focus on the big picture Build trust build skills It's not a cheap thing to do so if one of you if completely focused on the execution it's actually a very expensive miss From what I have found you also miss the opportunity for that person to build relationships and trust in the same way because they're deep in execution And so my nudge for folks is if you've got administrative teams or more junior operational teams and or third parties engage those people to be able to do off sites and operationalize the off sites for you as opposed to you as the CEO you as the COO you as the people leader in the day to day building it
Laura: And are you saying that's a point where you may bring in a [00:46:00] coach to help you deliver
Maxine: as Emily suggested I have done a lot of Linktree's offsites to curate that container and to help them run that process And so coaches can be a really excellent way to get that leverage And there are services so Co Lab for example does do offsite creation for clients So creating the entire container you know the programming doing all of that planning But we do that for quite a few clients
Laura: How are you thinking about accelerating startup leaders and coaches through the Co Labh network
Maxine: Co Lab our goal is to be an accelerant and to build A community where startup leaders or leaders of fast growth companies can come and find the best executive coach for them If for anyone on the call who has previously tried to find an executive coach without support it can be a fairly opaque process Usually what happens is someone will say they work with a coach and you get referred to them That doesn't necessarily mean that coach is going to be the best for you It might seem like an obvious [00:47:00] thing to say but an executive coach and a coach for an athlete is the same thing You are honing certain skill sets to help you be excellent at your craft And there is not a high performing athlete on the face of this planet not a single athlete went to the Olympic Games with no coach the same thing for executives And so the great thing is that we have built a community of coaches and we have done that vetting of those coaches to really understand where they spike where they can be most useful and finding the perfect coach for you as opposed to the coach that you're mate worked with And they referred it to you in terms of accelerating the startup ecosystem being able to pair really high performing CEOs COOs Founders and executives with their best executive coach You just get to see them take flight which is I've got to say one of the biggest privileges in the world on the coaching side for a lot of these executive coaches we work with the best executive coaches in the world Most of these executive coaches are what I would call that third mountain they've had operating careers they have had leadership [00:48:00] careers and they are looking to kind of give back by coaching and accelerating the next generation and they have been doing it for long enough that we can talk to enough of their clients We know where they spike and we can see where their impact is for a lot of these coaches they're not actually looking to build big businesses around coaching They're just looking to have high impact on the community that they care about And so we work with them so that they don't essentially have to search out clients and be matched to clients They just have a really high signal matching process With clients And so overall it creates this dynamic where both people both the client or the CEO or the executive is getting to work in their genius zone with the best coach for what they're looking to work on And the coach is being able to just work in their genius zone which is accelerating these kinds of operators and CEOs
Laura: And tactically how could say a head of managing the people function that wants to get their founder/CEO a coach how could they come through the network to help support that [00:49:00] facilitation
Maxine: the first suggestion I would have is make sure that your say the CEO or the senior leader that you're supporting actually knows what coaching is just closing that information gap can be super helpful I recognize it can be a little bit daunting to have a conversation with your CEO or your senior leader you know Hey I think you should get an executive coach So sometimes just the education piece is Effective If you have a high trust enough relationship with the executive then you know just suggesting Hey I listened to this podcast or I was talking to another founder and they were talking about their executive coach They do these things I wonder if it would be useful to bring into our organization The other thing I have noticed is you know founders finally are starting to talk to each other about the executive coaches that they've worked with And so it can be really helpful to connect them with another founder who's worked with an executive coach the last suggestion is come and talk to Co Lab We do our matching process is free for the clients going through it And so even just talking to our team we have [00:50:00] coaches who do the matching process right They are the ones they understand how to finesse goals how to work with someone on what they want to get out of coaching and give them a bunch of options And there's no commitment all the way through It can be a really effective way just to learn a little bit more about coaching and how it can be high impact So that's the last suggestion I would make Just connect them to us
Laura: to round out this section I would love to hear a story around an operator that you've worked with that you're just so impressed by their growth and journey
Maxine: the incredible thing about being an executive coach and the very humbling element of it is you just get to see humans do incredible things all day every day it is such a privilege to be a fly on the wall watching these people produce the incredible outcomes that they produce and go up these learning curves that they zoom up who immediately jumps to mind Obviously we take confidentiality very seriously and so this will be de-identified there's a woman I've worked with for a couple of years now and [00:51:00] we originally started working together because she was one of the first employees of a YC company In fact maybe she was the first employee just like an incredible operator right Her brain she lives and breathes operations She just thinks in systems She scaled with the organization I want to say to series a and ran the operational functions and then they got post series a and the founders rightfully identified that she wasn't who they needed in the COO seat So she got layered and it hurt She did not enjoy that experience And she recognized she had a development journey she needed to go on So that's when we kicked off our partnership We started working together her CEO and her founding team funded an executive coach for her And so she was effectively able to advocate for a coach And so she and I started working together talking about what are the skills she needed to be a really effective COO How could we coach her into being a really effective COO And we talked a lot about how she [00:52:00] might make that progression We started tactically developing the skills on how to lead more effectively how to get more out of her team how to construct teams below her How to influence horizontally how to develop core strategies across the organization so that she could be an evangelist and actual leader of key strategic direction that the business would go on That was a few years ago maybe two years ago Just recently they decided to move on their COO and she stepped up to being the COO of their organization because she was running a more effective org than the then CEO So she is now back in the seat of COO She is running a large now multi country multi lingual operational org This particular company Operations is really complex because they work with physical products So she's manufacturing she's having to zoom up learning curves and she's just flying She just sees a problem eats a problem and it's such a privilege to get to see her in full [00:53:00] flight in that way and get to see her really thriving in her role with all of the tools that she's done the work to develop over the last few years being able to utilize them day to day and really get the most out of them she is the one that pops to mind when I just am so inspired by her grit Her ability to push through that really uncomfortable moment when she hasn't got the outcome she wanted make the investment in her development and now she has reaped the rewards I couldn't be more stoked to be her partner in it
Laura: That's such a wonderful example the grit that would have taken from the layering piece Wow feel good moment So we're running out of time so I'm going to get onto our last question and we're gonna look ahead to the future and I'd love to hear your views on what trends will shape the future for tech operators
Maxine: I have so many hot takes here but given time and I think given this audience AI is fundamentally changing the way that we build organizations We are in an era where [00:54:00] you have Chronicle AI who is a kind of code co pilot They only have a handful of employees and we'll say they have like 15 employees and hundreds of millions in revenue because they have so many AI agents kind of operating day to day So I think for me for this audience if I'm going to help you see around that corner One of the things that I would really encourage folks to start thinking about is never has there ever been an era where learning to lead and learning to build systems both human and organizational systems for fast growth organizations being so imperative Automation is coming through thick and fast and there will be a really exciting opportunity to scale up impact really quickly If you can quickly get your arms around delegation skills you can quickly get your arms around building human and system structures for scale because it will just be incredible at the pace at which these products are being built And then the last thing is making sure that you are [00:55:00] spending time keeping your finger on the pulse of what's happening in this particular technological evolution because being able to surf that wave we saw it in mobile we saw it in cloud we saw it even further back in the internet it accelerates people's careers just In the blink of an eye And so being able to surf that web would really encourage folks on this call to be ahead of that curve and learn as much as they can and implement this technology into their organizations as fast as they can
Laura: Well, Maxine thank you so much for being my first special episode guest I know how busy you are So this time is very much appreciated. Where can people find you
Maxine: I am thanks to you very active on LinkedIn on email and just around the Australian and the U S ecosystem but the easiest place to get me is LinkedIn so hit me up