I caught myself mid-sentence yesterday with a client. “You need to…”
Stop.
That’s not my job. My job isn’t to tell founders what they need. It’s to help them see what they already know but haven’t admitted yet.
There’s this peculiar thing that happens in coaching. The more I think I have the answer, the less helpful I become. The moment I believe my framework will solve their problem, I’ve stopped listening to theirs.
Here’s what I’ve learned after years of working with mid-market founders: they don’t need another guru. They’ve read Collins. They know Lencioni. Some have even implemented pieces of Scaling Up.
What they need is someone to hold up a mirror without flinching.
The founder who keeps hiring the wrong people? They already know why. The CEO avoiding the difficult conversation with their co-founder? They’ve rehearsed it a hundred times in their head. The leadership team that can’t execute? They see the dysfunction every single day.
My frameworks don’t create clarity. Clarity creates the space for frameworks to work.
So I’ve stopped saying “you need to” and started asking “what do you already know that you’re pretending not to see?”
The answer is almost always there. Waiting. Ready.
All that’s left is the courage to look.
