leadership
leadership
Coaching
for Engineers
Internal Change = External Results
The path to leadership is not what you think.
Your team needs to perform better. You’re going slow, not meeting requirements, delivering poor quality, working with strained relationships, and on the list may go...
However your problems look on the surface, there is a place you still need to look. Inside of you.
Here’s the secret: for improvements to work, an internal shift must match every change you make externally. If you're unwilling to change yourself, you won't be able to make organizational changes.
To successfully create change for your team, you must understand how to influence the team's behavior and change yourself simultaneously. This is no easy task.
You - The Internal Domain of Change
To change yourself, you have everything you need. You just need to get through the parts of you that block the way. The engineering mindset is very active and analytical.
One common block engineers face solving people problems is over-thinking. We think we need to eliminate that thinking to get it out of the way. Wrong. Trying to stop a part of us that serves us so well won’t work. Your mind and ability to think got you this far, right?
The more effective approach is to go through thinking and bring it along as we go deeper inside to learn more about ourselves.
I know this because I am an over-thinker, too. My physics degree and engineering career saw to it. My curiosity about how people work steered my attention toward people management and earning my Master's in Organizational Leadership. I began a rigorous study of people and systems. That’s when I saw the mirror we all are to our external reality.
Team - The External Domain of Change
To influence the team’s behavior, you need a framework. If you don’t know your framework, your unconscious has made one up and you’re using it without conscious attention. You will be more effective if you use it consciously.
Think of your team's purpose as the foundation. People, Processes, and Technology are the pillars to deliver your purpose, your products and/or services, to your customers (internal and external).
You can implement or change metrics, policies, and structures in any of these pillars to influence change. Tracking bug count is a Technology metric. Doing a re-org is a change to your People structure. Starting a daily standup is a new Process policy.
Whatever your purpose, you want to deliver on it with speed, quality, and predictability. Take this 15-question survey to gauge your team's effectiveness in these three areas, and begin to plot a course to improve.
See more about the External Domain of Change.
The Next Step Toward Change
I help people create change in their world by starting with themselves. Click the button below to book a 30-minute call, and I’ll reveal with you what internal change you need to create the external change you seek.
The External and Internal mirror one another. When you align them, change happens quickly and effectively. With a guide who understands how this works on your side, you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish.
Adam, CTO & Co-Founder
I am a better leader now. I was confused and frustrated. Josh gave me space to surface and confront the self-defeating behaviors I didn't know were there. His gentle yet structured approach allows me to make habitual leadership improvements. My team has noticed.
testimonials
Charlie, Founder & CTO
Working with Josh, I gained skills to help me through new and unique managerial challenges - first as a new manager, then as Founder & CTO of my own VC-funded company.
Logan, Principal Engineer
Josh is like my engineering therapist. Working through technical and organizational problems, I am better able to discover new perspectives and use them to define myself as a leader within my organization.
I wrote my first code as a curious kid on an Apple II Plus in the early 80's. In 1994, I started my career as an engineer. Curiosity about how people work steered me into engineering management over 15 years ago. I have been a leadership coach for the past five years. I have a bachelors in Physics, a Masters in Organizational Leadership, and over 20 years of study in humanistic psychology, based primarily on the work of Virginia Satir, a pioneer in human systems thinking. I have attended and facilitated over 400 days of personal growth, career development, and leadership trainings around the world. In my career I have held multiple leadership roles in technology startups. I am an Agile Leadership Journey Guide and have trained extensively with Crafted Leadership. I am excited to share the tools of discovery that I have used to help others, and myself.
It's better to talk to someone who gets the engineering mindset.
