I'm an executive coach, a change management consultant, and an Instructor and Leadership Coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Information on these aspects of my work as well as my background is below, or see my resume for a snapshot of my experience, education and training.
As an executive coach I help individuals become more effective and fulfilled in their professional lives. I work primarily with leaders who are experiencing or anticipating a transition, ranging from new demands on their talents to a new position or role to an entirely new career.
My clients typically face either a vertical challenge that involves making a leap to the next level in their field or simply "upping their game" in some way, or a horizontal challenge that involves finding new sources of meaning and purpose in their work or even moving into a new field.
To learn more about my approach, see An Introduction to Our Coaching Engagement, which my clients read before we begin working together. Or explore my posts on coaching, particularly Coaching and the Cult of Done, Dan Oestreich Interviews Me, Coaching Is A Journey or In Defense of Normal (A Coaching Manifesto), as well as my post on Harvard Business Review's report on executive coaching.
I'd be happy to discuss your needs and whether I might be a helpful resource for you, so contact me to talk further.
As a change management consultant, I help organizations adapt to meet their evolving needs. I work primarily with startups and small companies that are growing rapidly or undergoing significant structural changes.
My services typically focus on an organization's management practices and culture, particularly those aspects related to communication and group dynamics. While I offer stand-alone workshops on feedback, interpersonal skills and related issues, I also partner with clients over the course of a long-term transition, providing consultation and support as needed.
I'd be happy to discuss your needs and whether I might be a helpful resource for you, so contact me to talk further.
Stanford Graduate School of Business
As an Instructor and Leadership Coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business since January 2007, I work with MBA students to help them develop their leadership and interpersonal skills. I provide individual coaching and lead teams in the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program, which I helped to launch in 2007, and I serve as an Instructor in the Leadership Labs. Several times each year I facilitate T-groups in Stanford's Interpersonal Dynamics course, the school's most popular elective (known to most students as "Touchy Feely.")
Previously I developed classes for Taking Stock & Moving Forward, an elective course for Second Year students that I helped to launch in 2009, and I continue to lead student groups in the course. For three years (2008-10) I served as a Master Coach in the former Leadership Coaching & Mentoring course, before it was integrated with the Leadership Fellows program.
My return to Stanford as one of the school's first in-house executive coaches is one manifestation of the GSB's new curriculum, championed by Dean Garth Saloner, which emphasizes leadership development and experiential learning as critical elements of management education.
Coaching and Consulting
I launched my coaching and consulting practice in 2006 after a 15-year career in management, during which I took two years off to earn an MBA at Stanford. I initially became interested in coaching and change management work during my first job as a leader after business school. In that role I relied heavily on the support of an executive coach--Mary Ann Huckabay, one of my best professors at Stanford--who helped me make the most of my strengths and better understand my shortcomings.
My approach to coaching and change management has been shaped by many influences, but prominent among them are the writings of Peter Drucker, the opportunity to work with Prof. Carole Robin at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and Stanford's Interpersonal Dynamics course, noted above, which helps participants understand their impact on others and improve their interpersonal effectiveness. I'm a graduate of Stanford's Facilitation Training Program and have served as a teaching assistant to Dr. David Bradford in his High Performance Leadership class. I'm also indebted to Joe Murphy of Geodesic Consulting, who was an invaluable source of guidance, support and training.
Leadership and Management
Before becoming a coach I helped launch three new organizations, two of which continue to thrive today. (The third was a very enlightening failure.)
From 2005 through 2006 I served as the first Executive Director of AttentionTrust, an organization that sought to help people make effective use of our personal "attention data,"i.e. all the records and metadata that reflect what we pay attention to (and by extension, what we're interested in and what we value.) AttentionTrust's mission was of profound importance, and if you're interested in learning more, one place to start is Wikipedia's entry on the "attention economy." Throughout 2005 I also worked with Beaconfire Consulting as Senior Consultant. Beaconfire provides a range of technology services to large national and international nonprofits, and I was involved with several strategy projects as well as the company's sales and business development efforts.
From 2001 through 2005, I served as the first Executive Director of the Nonprofit Technology Network, (NTEN). With the support of hundreds of people throughout the nonprofit sector, I helped take NTEN from a business plan with some startup funding and grew it into an international association of nearly 400 organizations. Among other programs, NTEN hosts the annual Nonprofit Technology Conference, the largest gathering of its kind in the world. Before I joined NTEN in 2001, I earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where I focused on organizational development, entrepreneurship and technology.
From 1994 through 1998 I was the first person to serve as Associate Director at Compass Community Services in San Francisco. While at Compass I helped the agency double in size and raised over $1 million to support its social service programs. In 1992 I was the first staff member hired to establish the Homeless Children's Network (HCN), and I helped the new organization achieve sustainability by acting as Services Coordinator through 1994. At both Compass and HCN, I managed the development of client-services databases, a significant step in each organization's ability to measure the effectiveness of their programs.
Personal
I'm married to Amy Wright, a recovering corporate attorney-turned-law school librarian who I first met in 1983 at Cumberland Valley High School. We've lived in San Francisco since 1990, and in 2007 we moved to the Inner Richmond neighborhood. I'm passionate about music (particularly jazz, but I love punk, blues and bluegrass as well), hiking throughout the Bay Area, and visiting Point Reyes whenever possible. In addition to my MBA from Stanford, I received a BA in History, magna cum laude, from Brown University.
