Mahesh M. Thakur, High Tech Executive Advisor and Coach

An executive coach can help you elevate your awareness and your presence, which are both critical for a leader. Because with awareness you gain empathy. Empathy can open up your heart to listen, understand, and solve any people or systemic problem your org is facing. With your presence, you will inspire confidence in your team in every in-person and virtual meeting. An executive coach is an extraordinary partner to assist the leader in getting to their goals in an effective and informed way.

The data users need to be educated on the following Regardless of where the users are - they may be in Finance, R&D, Customer Support, or Engineering - all users should review and analyze data the same way. a. What tools to use b. Data versioning i.e. is the data a monthly view, and where is the cut off c. Process for refreshing their views. One thing that I have done in my career at Fortune 500 companies is analyze the touchpoints i.e. who is responsible for gathering, cleansing, categorizing, and reviewing. And ensure they all understand the points I stated above.

In my experience, a leadership development program is meant to advance the company's mission and help with its culture being adopted. The program designers need to dive into the current challenges between what the culture is intended to be and how it is being received. If need be, visit or revisit the company's values. Use that as a starting point for the program. The feedback about the organization's health, challenges, and where the org needs to be helps the program align with the company goals. Feedback is a gift that the program designers and the people delivering it should seek at every stage.

There is power in your network. My favorite term is COI i.e. Circle of Influence You have to make sure you have a high-quality network. And that means how much you can help them. How much value you can add? And how curious you remain when connecting with them.

I was presenting the navigation system for Electric Vehicles at a tradeshow in 2019. One thing that helped me was being proactive about the setup and how I would face the potential inquiries that came to my booth. I thought through how to make it easy for the people visiting to view the demo, then move further in line to ask questions to the next person, and then have a place to drop their cards. That made the visitors feel like they were getting all the attention they needed at the booth. We closed the day with over 100 visitors who felt they knew us, we knew them, followed by meetings scheduled with potential decision makers.

One of the things I have found in my experience is that it is all about adding value. Adding tremendous value. And for that, you have to be genuinely interested in the other party. Any relationship takes time and trust. But you have to start with the intent of adding tremendous value. That intent alone is so powerful that it will turn the relationship into a win-win partnership.