The Zero-Defect CEO

Sit in on any top-level meeting at Merix, and it's true: someone always challenges Coleman. Quite by design, though. If no one else takes aim, Stepp does. "I can make it safe for others to do it," she reasons. Staged as that may sound, it reaches into the core of what Stepp defines as a coach's role: eliminating anything that blocks her client from accurately seeing, and solving, the company's problems. By treating Coleman's ideas no differently from anybody else's, Stepp is diffusing the politics. Ideally. "I usually get some of the criticism later, hearing it through people who are not afraid," says Coleman. "I'm always surprised when it happens. I'll ask, 'Why didn't they tell me to go suck eggs on that issue?' "

Chances are, it had nothing to do with the availability of eggs. But the plausibility of so many other reasons, from simmering animosities to simple misunderstandings, makes it apparent why so much of Stepp's effort centers on meetings. Merix's five-member executive team holds six meetings a year, half of them daylong and on-site, and the others two-day affairs away from the office. Stepp not only attends those sessions but also runs them: setting the agenda, facilitating the discussion, helping members understand one another's communication styles. Coleman, Stepp says, can then "sit back and be a participant," focusing where she should as the chairman, CEO, and president of a $160-million company: on fixing problems. Specifically, the ones Stepp has placed on the agenda after interviewing each executive beforehand.

"Is this really the most important thing for us to work on?" Stepp will ask when the group wanders. She doesn't restrict herself to verbal cues. "Kay will give me a look that says, 'Debi, you're cutting off conversation,' " says Coleman.

While the executive-team members scribble on flip charts, Stepp distills the decisions the group makes into actions that someone will take, ones ranging from exercising on the treadmill three times a week ("To be accountable to our shareholders and employees, we have to take care of ourselves," notes Terri Timberman, vice-president of human resources), to making a $1-million investment in new technology. Before the next session, she'll sit down with each person on the team and go through the list of actions--organizational changes, policy moves, the pact to start "the 4 o'clock," a daily meeting--to see what has been accomplished. Everything, usually. In the past "we were making lists but not getting anything done," says Coleman. "There's a neatness to this process, but it's also about really creating focus and trying to be clear about priorities."

Clearly, one of Coleman's own priorities is to avoid the kind of "nit-picking and infighting" she endured at Apple, where she started in 1981. Stepp offers all the team members "a candid and straightforward opportunity for learning" by helping them understand different communication styles. "I'm very theatrical," says Coleman. "The others have embraced that. They would be upset if I came in and talked in a monotone." Upset, but not crushed. To get Coleman's attention, Howell says, he's learned to pound on a table or raise his voice a decibel. "Debi has learned to listen to me," he says. Howell also has become all too aware that when he talks he tends to take shortcuts, forgetting that the group needs to hear more of his thinking. "I've learned by working with Kay that I need to bring the team along on the journey," he says. "It was a revelation, rather like a club upside the head."

Stepp's bluntest weapon is her ability to be "very present" and "listen totally." To make sure she understands correctly, she'll repeat what someone has said, asking, Is this what you're saying? Trying to bring people around, she'll sometimes prompt them by using greater detail: In my earlier conversation with you, she'll say, you mentioned this event. She'll explore alternatives, trade-offs, underlying assumptions.

Stephen M. R. Covey, the son of the best-selling self-help author, is executive vice-president of Franklin Covey Co., one of the four companies at which Stepp serves on the board. (See "The Making of a Business Coach," below.) He claims that his "whole thought process has been improved" by Stepp. When presenting his first budget, in January 1995, he recalls, "I had jumped into what we were going to do and why. She asked some great questions about the assumptions we made." He goes on, "She's not trying to do the job of management. She's trying to help by making management aware of the choices being made."

Stepp takes pains to keep her distance. If the Merix group is brainstorming, she'll start her own contributions with, "In my personal experience..." or, "I have observed...." While conveying empathy, she's careful to guard her standing as a detached outsider with no hidden agenda. That enables her to point out problems that are "immediately available for solving," as she says.

Stepp's questioning pushes the management team to serve Coleman in the same way. "Kay helps us remember that we are officers of the company," says Howell, noting the natural tendency of managers to view problems solely through the lens of their own function, be it finance or marketing. "We really try to understand as if we were the CEO, so that the information is less distorted when it gets to Debi. Then she has less work to do to understand and interpret it and take action." Stepp describes her sole agenda in a similar way: "To share the best information I have in a way that helps Debi improve her effectiveness."

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