We're trusted CEO and C-Suite advisors.
The C-Suite is a highly challenging place. Leading an enterprise is challenging. The problems that arise are challenging. Your stakeholders and colleagues can be challenging. You likely challenge yourself to excel. At Workplace Psychology, we specialize in helping CEOs and other C-Suite executives meet the challenges of enterprise leadership. We do this via penetrating dialogue - a conversational process that can be challenging in itself! But it's also a deeply supportive process, because we understand the sorts of challenges leaders face in all their complexity and uncertainty. We offer an array of C-Suite Advisement services, including CEO Coaching Advice, Business Partner Coaching, and Leadership Team Building. Joel Mausner PhD (our Founding Principal) has consulted to the C-Suite and CEOs for nearly 20 years.
It can be lonely at the top.
But not if ...
Chief Executive Officer Advice
“It’s lonely at the top” – it’s a very old saying because it’s so true. Where do chief executives go when they need someone to talk to? Who do you fully trust to share your concerns with openly? With whom can you unburden yourself in complete candor? And whom can you rely upon to truly understand the difficulties (and stress) of the issues that keep you up at night? No doubt you are an effective leader already, but where can you turn to enhance your skills and grow your confidence to handle the thorniest issues you face? The challenges you confront as a chief executive can be intensely demanding, even daunting at times. And that intensity is only increasing as the pace of change escalates around us. In a world that is increasingly characterized by VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) how do you sustain your balance and clarity to chart a solid course for your enterprise? Would it help to meet with a trusted advisor? - an impartial experienced "sounding board", someone with whom you can vet concerns and ideas in a safe environment, brainstorming approaches and solutions with feedback from an alternate perspective? If some or most of the issues that trouble you are on the people side of your leadership role (not just the business technicalities), we can likely help.
Here is a brief sample of issues that we've helped chief executives manage with greater wisdom and a firmer sense of command:
building a more collaborative and accountable leadership team
regulating conflicts on the leadership team more constructively
hiring and firing key senior executives in ways that contain risks
negotiating politically fraught dynamics with a board of directors
negotiating emotionally fraught dynamics in a partnership group
becoming a more compelling champion of organizational vision
developing stronger presence as an organizational ambassador
challenging the organization to change in strategically vital ways
Workplace Psychology offers leadership advice and executive coaching specifically tailored to CEOs. We can meet with you at our offices in New York City or in White Plains NY, or if you prefer, we can meet on-site at your premises. (We can also conduct our meetings via telephone or video chat.)
“Until my retirement in 2017 (as executive director of a large non-profit), I worked with Dr. Joel Mausner as my leadership coach and trusted advisor for 10 years. His perspective and advice was a great help to me - e.g., in re-structuring the organization, understanding how to develop and best utilize my management team, and scripting how to handle difficult conversations. His coaching questions and insights helped me to articulate and focus my priorities. I always came away from our meetings with enhanced clarity and firmer purpose! Thank you Joel for your years of providing a knowledgeable listening ear.”
Two heads can be better than one.
But only if ...
Business Partner Coaching
Complementing our CEO services, Workplace Psychology also offers Business Partnership Coaching.
The emotional dynamics of a partnership group (or dyad) can have enormous impact (for good or ill) on the culture and success of an enterprise (not to mention the well-being of the partners). A well-functioning partnership can be a thing of beauty: two (or more) heads can indeed be better than one. This is especially true if the partners bring complementary skill sets, and they engage in open dialogue about key issues, particularly about vital disagreements. Conversely however, a troubled partnership can be a recipe for disaster, or at any rate, for destructive conflict and ongoing anguish. Sometimes the conflict is flagrant and intense, marked by heated arguments. Or sometimes the conflict simmers under the surface, marked by a lack of open communication. And quite frequently there is a mixture of both. In any event, the impact is detrimental and can become toxic.
As specialists in interpersonal and group dynamics, we are highly adept at assessing the root causes of partnership dysfunction, and in brokering the difficult conversations required to successfully mend (or dissolve) the arrangement. Partners in conflict often interpret their difficulties in terms of the other's personality problems. This can be the case of course, but in our experience, personality issues are rarely at the root of the difficulties. Rather, there are usually substantive differences in business perspective, or differences in key value priorities, as well as some differences in personality styles. We help the partners in conflict to de-personalize their differences, minimize their distortions of each other, and to re-open channels of clear communication. This allows them to dialogue at the heart of the matter, and to resolve their differences (or dissolve their partnership) on the basis of mutually endorsed facts and with mutual understanding of their divergent value priorities.
“I am the former owner of a media company that was sold to a larger media company in 2016. During a difficult moment in the process, when my business partners and management team weren’t seeing eye-to-eye, Joel proved instrumental in helping us to get on the same page. He not only helped us to communicate through conflict, he brought us to substantive agreements within just a few meetings, which transformed our ability to work together as teammates and partners going forward. We literally couldn’t have succeeded without this!”
Teams are more than sums of parts.
But only when ...
Leadership Team Building
Workplace Psychology specializes in developing high-performing synergistic C-Suite teams. We begin by helping the management group understand the basic ingredients of working together effectively. This is usually accomplished in a single-day team-building workshop. Then (assuming commitment is present) we help CEOs and their C-Suite associates make the difficult but rewarding transition from good to great - that is, from being a mere coordinating group to a truly collaborative team. This involves a more demanding process, which typically requires many months and involves several elements: team assessment, individual coaching, and further training workshops or action-learning projects on targeted issues. All this usually culminates in a multi-day team-building retreat, with debriefing and follow-up as indicated.
The aim and outcome of this demanding process is a high-performing leadership team. Members of such a team don't just communicate relevant knowledge and coordinate functional overlaps across enterprise silos. They also collaborate on initiatives that help to consolidate the overall purpose of the enterprise. That is, all members of the C-Suite take collective responsibility for supporting the CEO in leading the whole enterprise (while still driving success for the specific units they lead). A leadership team such as this has synergistic effects which cascade across the organization: it is a well-aligned and well-engaged team, which fosters a well-engaged and well-aligned enterprise. Such a team imbues the organization with key cultural values - such as collaboration, accountability, innovation, and the pursuit of excellence. And most importantly, this is the sort of C-Suite that enables the sort of enterprise agility that is increasingly essential in a rapidly changing world.
Workplace Psychology offers customized team development programs (as well as one-off team-building workshops) that are specifically tailored for the C-Suite.
“As the new CEO of a rapidly growing supply-chain company, I knew we were in some trouble. We were growing too fast to keep up with market demand, customers were complaining and staff morale was suffering. One key problem was clear: how silo-based we were. We needed more flexibility and therefore teamwork, starting from the top. And for that, we had to change the mindset of our otherwise talented management group. Workplace Psychology taught our leaders how to truly collaborate - both strategically and tactically - in ways we couldn’t imagine before! As our leadership teamwork improved, we achieved new operating efficiencies, and our customer’s supply chains moved smoothly again.”