Mentoring of Chief Executive
The Situation
The Founder / Chief Executive of a medium sized UK charity was facing significant pains that were coming from the expansion of the charity’s activities. The main issue was the upcoming relocation of the charity’s centre of operations to a new location 150 miles away, resulting in the need to build new landlord and donor relationships and recruit new staff with niche skills. The second major issue was the need to work with the Chairman to drive cohesion and a common direction on the Board which had been expanded with the appointment of additional new trustees.
The Task
The task was to mentor the very busy CEO to understand and review priorities, implementation plans, issues and risks, and to identify risk mitigation actions, and to suggest ideas that I could bring to the table based on my extensive external experience. The second task was to work with the CEO to try to get under the skin of why the trustees might not be working as a cohesive team, thinking about goals and personalities, and the tools that the CEO had at her disposal to address the situation.
The Action / Approach
The mentoring took place for ten days across an elapsed time of six months. It started with the CEO articulating her vision for the charity, the journey it had been on and the future journey on which she wanted to take it. We did a detailed SWOT and capability analysis together to understand the skills and styles that had brought success to date, and potential additional skills and changes to styles that would be necessary to underpin the future journey. We did a detailed review of the relocation plans and progress, identifying issues that needed to be addressed quickly. One was that the CEO needed to build a stronger personal network in the county where the charity was relocating to, and I was able to help in that through introducing contacts in my own personal network. Another was the need to build public awareness around the benefits of the relocation. A third area was to do a deep dive into the perceived motivations of each trustee, and assess how the CEO could harness those motivations to a common agenda.
The Result
The Charity has gone from strength to strength, and the CEO is fully energised around its ongoing growth and the service it provides. The relocation went well, without impacting the ongoing service delivery, and the fact that we had spent time identifying and mitigating potential risks was a contributor to this success. The trustees are supportive and working as a cohesive team.
