HEX will soon be four years old.
To coin a well-used metaphor, it’s been a roller coaster. Owning a business, nurturing it, developing it, is a labour of love. From those early sleepless nights to achieving some big milestones, it’s never felt easy. It’s often felt challenging. It’s sometimes felt surprisingly easy. Mainly, it’s just been brilliant.
Over those four years, HEX has evolved. And I’ve evolved with it.
In the early days, I said yes to everything. I was building my reputation. Developing my skills. Honing my craft. Learning what I was good at, what gave me energy.
I didn’t enjoy it all. I had to kiss a few frogs (metaphorically speaking).
Then, a couple of years ago, things started to feel different.
I found myself doing work I consistently enjoyed.
Clients and potential clients were coming to me, rather than me chasing them.
Relationships deepened, and I began to work at a different level within organisations.
HEX is still a people partner to its clients. We still deliver brilliant leadership development programmes. We still provide robust HR consultancy services. We still support organisations to develop their cultures, and turbocharge their performance.
But mainly, they’re delivered by my fantastic team, with my sponsorship and oversight. I ensure our work is high quality, aligned to our values, and delivers what clients need.
Increasingly, I find myself somewhere different. In deeper relationships with CEOs and CPOs. This is less about programme, less about project, and more about ongoing conversations.
I’m their people partner.
It’s not traditional coaching. It’s not consultancy either. It’s more than this. And it’s greater than the sum of its parts.
What a CEO needs
CEOs aren’t short of advice. They have boards, NEDs, consultants, and leadership teams all offering a view. What they’re short of is somewhere to think out loud without fear or judgement.
A coach is there to support development. A consultant is there to solve a problem. Both are valuable. But sometimes a CEO needs more than this.
Perhaps a sounding board. Someone to challenge their plans. Someone who deeply understands their experience but has no stake in the outcome (and certainly no agenda of their own).
Why it’s different
Coaching relies on the premise that the answers to everything are within us. A good coach doesn’t advise, doesn’t bring too much of their own perspective. They provide challenge, questions, prompts that bring solutions out of their clients.
This forms a big part of my work.
But CEOs are often time poor. They don’t have the luxury of space for ideas to percolate naturally. This is why often, traditional coaching is not right for them. The answers are in them, but they don’t want to wait to bring them out.
A thinking partner is more than this. It’s not prescriptive. Sometimes the conversation is just two people working through a problem out loud, with one of them experienced enough to ask the right question at the right moment or give a different perspective.
We talk about everything. Strategy. People. Performance.
Sometimes, I’ll admit, I’m pretty prescriptive. I’ll tell a CEO what I think they should consider doing. It comes with caveats. But I know my judgement is good. I trust my ability to enable a good CEO to get even better.
CPOs need something else
With CPOs, the dynamic is different. They’re often navigating several conflicting stakeholders. Managing up to the CEO and board, the priorities of peers, and driving the people agenda for the whole organisation. It’s a particular kind of pressure. They’re expected to be both strategic partner and conscience of the business.
Despite the dynamic, CPOs benefit from a thinking partner who understands all this. Someone who can sit in a commercial conversation and a people conversation in equal measure.
Personal learning
I love all my work, but I think it’s this area that I find most energising. It’s also often the hardest, because there’s no structure to lean on. Every conversation I have is different.
It’s where I add the most value. Where my years of experience in the c-suite and of working alongside CEOs and other executives come together into something truly impactful.
It’s also taught me what leaders at the top actually need. This isn’t always what they’re offered. Less content. Fewer frameworks. More space. More challenge. More honesty.
The HEX story continues
The broader HEX team will keep delivering the impactful leadership development programmes and HR consultancy work we always have. The only change will be that we continue to improve.
Higher quality. Bigger impact.
Me personally, I’m leaning more into this kind of relationship.
Deeper connection. Better conversation. Braver challenge.
It turns out this is what I was always building toward.
If you’re curious what this looks like in practice, let’s have a conversation.
