From time to time your clients will hire, at significant expense, a new senior manager. It is not unusual for them to become unhappy with the new hire’s performance quite quickly.  They'll talk to you about it and when you ask them to explain you will find that their view is, in effect, based on what they see and hear and how they feel about what the new hire is spending their time doing.  It is not unusual for nothing more scientific than this to be used at the end of the probation period to make a decision that has serious consequences for both parties. Here are some suggestions if you are faced with this: Ask your client how they have agreed with the new employee what success looks like.  How is it to be measured?  Is this written down as objectives and regulalry reviewed? Ask your client if the employee can control all of these outcomes.  Do they control all the resources required?  Are reporting lines clear?  Is their an agreed job description? Ask your client if the process t

As you develop as a business coach you will start to wonder why most business owners grow their business to a certain size and then get stuck whilst a few are able to create scalable businesses that go on to employ many people. Opinions as to the reasons for this will differ from coach to coach but here are my thoughts: Some business owners do not have growth as an objective. They have no external shareholders to satisfy and are focused on their lifestyle. Some business owners would like to grow but do not see the return justifying the effort required. Some business owners have the ambition and drive but do not have the required capabilities, which might include emotional intelligence, self-awareness, credibility in the eyes of their staff, intelligence (or at least the ability to generalise from the specific), creativity, vision, communication, commercial nous, courage – and just being organised. Some business owners have the capabilities but don’t have the tools, such as understandin