I’d like to share the story of a company president I once worked with. As all of my client relationships are confidential, I’ll stick to the highlights:
He was leading a family-owned manufacturing company that had been in business for over 50 years. Their industry was consolidating—larger companies were acquiring smaller ones to gain market share. He knew change was coming, but he wasn’t sure what it would look like or how to navigate it.
His first instinct was to say, “We need to be more innovative.” But what does that actually mean? Many of my clients use “We want to be innovative” as shorthand for:
• “We don’t know how to do new things,”
• “We’ve forgotten how to listen to our customers,” or
• “We know we need to take risks, but we don’t have a framework to guide our decisions.”
For this organization, it was a little of all three. And when we first started working together, that lack of clarity felt like a huge weight on his shoulders. He wasn’t just trying to figure out what the company should do—he was also questioning if he was the right person to lead them through it.
Starting the Conversation
When we began working together, we met weekly. He’d bring a topic to the table—sometimes it was a challenge with his team, other times it was a vague idea he couldn’t quite pin down. Occasionally, he’d admit he had no idea what to talk about, so I’d ask simple questions like, “What’s keeping you up at night?” or “What’s been exciting you lately?”
It turned out the big question he was grappling with wasn’t just about innovation. It was about how to bring people along through change. His company wasn’t a blank slate—it was steeped in history, traditions, and people with strong opinions.
There were factions within the organization. Some were clinging to the past, worried about what might be lost. Others were eager to leap into the future but weren’t sure how to get there. And he was in the middle, trying to make sense of these competing perspectives while charting a new path forward.
“It’s isolating, but it’s more than that. The thinking partner brings a new set of eyes when you feel stuck or a bit paralyzed. Everyone else is too close to the day-to-day to see things differently.”
Making Space for Clarity
Leadership can be lonely, and he admitted as much:
“It’s isolating, but it’s more than that. The thinking partner brings a new set of eyes when you feel stuck or a bit paralyzed. Everyone else is too close to the day-to-day to see things differently.”
So, we created space for him to think. Most of our sessions were face-to-face in a quiet room with a whiteboard. We’d sketch out ideas, map challenges, and talk through what he was experiencing. It wasn’t about jumping to solutions—it was about untangling the complexity of his situation so he could see things more clearly.
A lot of our conversations came back to storytelling. He realized that what his team—and the board—needed wasn’t just facts. They needed a narrative that tied everything together, something that made the path forward feel both logical and inspiring.
Crafting the Story
He reflected on this process later:
“You made me connect facts into a story. It’s easy to spit out facts and expect people to follow, but telling a story where the outcome feels obvious [to me]? That’s hard.”
We spent time on that story—drawing it out, testing it, and refining it. The goal wasn’t just to create a plan; it was to craft a narrative that could align his team, win over the board, and serve as a personal guide for his decisions.
Over time, this story evolved into a flexible framework—a way to approach decisions, identify opportunities, and navigate uncertainty. It wasn’t a rigid script. It was something he could adapt as new challenges arose.
“The process of thought expansion and then narrowing the possibilities was invaluable. You helped me realize that ambiguity isn’t a barrier—it’s an invitation to explore.”
Moving Forward
Eventually, we started meeting less often—bi-weekly instead of weekly. He didn’t need as much hands-on support anymore. He’d found clarity and language that resonated.
When I asked him to reflect on the experience, he said something that stuck with me:
“The process of thought expansion and then narrowing the possibilities was invaluable. You helped me realize that ambiguity isn’t a barrier—it’s an invitation to explore.”
For him, the partnership wasn’t just about solving a specific problem. It was about breaking through the isolation of leadership, finding clarity, and building a story that inspired action.
The Bottom Line
Being a thinking partner isn’t about handing over answers. It’s about creating a space where leaders can wrestle with ambiguity, connect the dots, and discover their own way forward.
For this president, the partnership meant moving from feeling stuck and unsure to crafting a story that could guide his company through change. And for me, it’s those transformations that make this work so meaningful.