As much as she may think of herself as "small potatoes" and her company, Executive Solutions, as "a nice little operation," Kay Stepp isn't at all casual about choosing her clients. One CEO got the heave-ho in the time it took for Stepp to deduce that he wasn't serious. "He just wanted someone to spout off to," she says. "He wanted to end meetings by saying, 'I've got to meet with my coach now.' I guess he thought it made him sound progressive." Not to Stepp, it didn't. "There's no payoff for me in that," she says.
Besides, her schedule is crowded enough. She's actively working with five clients, meaning that some weeks she's barely got time to think about, for instance, what kind of process one CEO should design to assess the company's management skills. And there are always board meetings, at which she's in a decidedly different role. "I'm available to offer advice, but I'm part of the system," she says. "I'm also in the position of evaluating a CEO's performance."
Not that she treats those she coaches more delicately than the CEOs she works with as a board member. During a one-on-one meeting at which Coleman focused on implementing a wellness program, Stepp made it clear there were more important things. "Having a coach is like having a base camp when you are trying to scale high peaks," says Coleman. "You keep coming back down to assess the route, to get refocused on what's most important." Stepp wanted Coleman to focus on managing a return to revenue growth. Merix has suffered through several quarters of disappointing numbers, boosting the perception on Wall Street that it's still a captive of five customers, including Tektronix, the high-tech giant from which it spun off in 1994. In May of that year, Merix went public at $9 a share; by May 1996, Merix had hit a high of 39 1/8. It has been mostly sinking since, settling around the midteens.
"Everything is trial by fire," says Coleman. "Business changes at warp speed, and you can't just download a Web site that has what you need to know."
Not that she would be likely to do so. Last year, when the Merix board reviewed her performance, Coleman, who has her assistant print out her E-mail, says she "hated the fact that they got me for not being a wired CEO. I'm a Luddite."
Abundant feedback has also made Coleman hyperaware of the fact that she loses her temper too much, retreats into her office too frequently, and tends to meet with people one-on-one when she should bring in a larger group. "You have to be open to understanding your limitations. If you are, a coach can make much more of a difference than an M.B.A.," says Coleman, who earned her M.B.A. at Stanford.
Either way, there's required reading. Stepp clips articles for Coleman--most recently, a Fortune story about using a "balanced scorecard" to measure financial performance and a story about board policies and procedures from Directors & Boards magazine. "It's a side service I offer," says Stepp. "I know Debi doesn't have time." It also shows that Stepp is "tuned in to the challenging issues Merix is facing." In any way she can be, in fact. If Coleman needs to talk, she can call Stepp at any time. She'll be there.
For now, she will. For the next few years she'll continue to work out of her paperless home office, which she shares with Lucy, a yellow Labrador: correspondence and accounting at night, reading on weekends. Her fee arrangements with clients differ--Merix pays her a retainer--but she claims her annual income is comparable with what she made in her last year at PGE: about $250,000. "Not bad for a woman and her dog," she notes.
She and Lucy won't be splitting it with anyone else, either. Stepp doesn't want to "worry about having to find work for others." And she's not going to lose sleep over "the risk that because it's popular, there will be unqualified people" selling themselves as coaches. (For more, see "Help Strangers Nail Bliss, Earn Big $$$ --Be a Coach Potato," below.) "I don't have any illusions that the people I work with will need me forever," she says. "I wouldn't think of myself as successful if there was a growing dependency." She fully expects to take on fewer clients in two or three years, taking time off to travel with her husband, Garry. "I know I'll want to back off," she says. "I'm choosy about how I spend my time. I've got my priorities."
Casting coach: Why, and Where, to Find One
James M. Hurd was one of the lucky ones: his employees let him know he needed a coach. Following a tradition that dates back to his 1983 founding of Planar Systems, Hurd met last January with workers in groups of 25, sharing the company's goals and hearing their concerns. By the time he was finished, Hurd was exhausted. He hadn't anticipated that it would take him all month, now that Planar had 600 employees. "The old systems just don't work anymore," says the CEO of the $80-million maker of flat-panel displays based in Beaverton, Oreg. "It's my job to change things, but this business has become too complex for me to be the change agent alone."
That sort of realization--of needing to be vigilant about destroying old systems and building new ones--is partly what sends company builders in search of an outsider who can help them find a new way to leverage their skills. Prompted by physical, emotional, or financial stresses, it can happen at any level of growth. What also drives CEOs to consult coaches is simply knowing too much about what can go wrong. Well aware of how large companies he's worked with--and for--have suffered for their arrogance, Hurd says, he's come to view company structure "as just another part of the business, not its foundation. Like suppliers, it's something you change if conditions warrant."
Not without help, though--which is now relatively easy to find. Some industry groups will match you with a coach, by either phone or computer. (See Resources below.) Hurd asked around and interviewed candidates. He ultimately chose Kay Stepp, whom he refers to as his "business partner." "She had a good sense of the complexity of the situation," says Hurd. "She knew it had to be customized, and she wasn't expecting to handle it in a two-day seminar."
