The Zero-Defect CEO

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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."

Kay's steps: The Making of a Business Coach

ACTIVE CLIENTS: Helps Adolph J. Ferro, CEO and president of Epitope Inc., maker of an FDA-approved oral test for HIV, manage the shift from research and development to manufacturing and marketing; works with James M. Hurd, CEO and president of Planar Systems Inc., an $80-million maker of flat-panel displays, on strategic planning; helps Deborah Coleman, CEO, president, and chairman of $160-million Merix Corp., develop her management team; meets monthly with Katherine Keene, CEO of SAIF Corp., a nonprofit publicly owned workers' comp carrier, for coaching on organizational issues; helps A. G. "Bud" Lindstrand, CEO of ODS Health Plans, a $300-million health-insurance company, develop his board.

DIRECTORSHIPS: Chairman, $39-million Wholesome & Hearty Foods Inc.; founding director and investor, Bank of the Northwest; director, Franklin Covey Co.; director, $4.3-billion Standard Insurance Co.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: Portland Community College, director of public relations, 1971­1976. Portland General Electric; human-resources specialist, 1979; assistant to the president, 1979­1980; vice-president of human resources and administration, 1980­1985; vice-president of marketing and customer operations, 1985­1987; president of the energy-services division, 1987­1989; president and chief operating officer, 1989­1992

EDUCATION: B.A., Stanford University, 1967; M.A., University of Portland, 1978

Careers: Help Strangers Nail Bliss, Earn Big $$$--Be a Coach PotatoI

It's lucky Kay Stepp wandered into business coaching when she did. These days it's hard to imagine that she'd get very far.

Oh, sure, her rarefied corporate experience at a big utility would electrify prospective clients at first. But sooner or later, they'd begin to wonder: How come she's not officially certified as a coach? Why hasn't she taken any teleclasses in, say, 1990s marketing? And what's she got against the phone that leads her to insist on meeting face-to-face? Quite frankly, she'd seem a trifle too casual for someone breaking into "one of the truly great professions of the 20th century," as Sandy Vilas dubs it.

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