Consulting Services
Executive Coaching - Individuals
"Dianne has a combination of intellectual horsepower, expertise and experience. As articulate and knowledgeable as she is, she is very unassuming in how she deals with people so she gains trust very quickly."
Chief Administrative Officer, manufacturing firm
"If I feel like I'm being listened to I can hear any criticism. Dianne listens very deeply, which makes me feel I can be open to her feedback, even when she is telling me something I don't necessarily want to hear."
Creative Director, media production company
Dianne Argyris coaches executives in private 1:1 sessions. The coaching is always based on analyses of behavior patterns that she has directly observed, so that her feedback enables clients to see their impact objectively. This approach has proven successful in helping executives to modify behavior rapidly and shift their underlying assumptions and mindsets.
(All identifying names and details in these cases below have been changed to protect confidentiality.)
Founder vs. CEO
A CEO had difficulty communicating with the company's founder. Dianne interviewed both and observed several meetings between them.
She presented her analysis of the observed communication patterns and was subsequently asked to facilitate the next quarter's worth of meetings between them so they could start changing their communication patterns. Their working relationship improved to the point where they were able to work together to successfully sell the company.
Clashing Executives - 1
A COO of a financial services company and her direct report, an SVP of Strategy were frustrated with each other.
Dianne observed private and public interactions between the COO and SVP, providing in-depth regular feedback about things they were doing and saying - of which they were mostly unaware - that were creating the negative dynamic. She also offered a series of recommendations for different behaviors, and helped to facilitate these behaviors in real time with the executives.
Eventually, the COO and SVP were able to collaborate successfully on a number of difficult deals and complex personnel issues. Several years later when it came time for the SVP to move on, he had a seamless exit and the COO served as a primary reference for him.
Clashing Executives - 2
Two EVPs of a software company whose functions needed to work interdependently were constantly in conflict. The CEO, their boss, asked Dianne to work with the executives to resolve their issues so the CEO could avoid reassigning one of them.
Dianne debriefed with both executives after observing their antagonism in meetings. She built a picture of repeated misunderstandings and assumptions they made about each other, presented it to them and worked with them over several months to help alter their behaviors with each other. Both stayed in their positions and successfully managed the interdependence of their functions.
Clashing Executives - 3
A key senior member of a non-profit organization confided to Dianne that he felt deeply undervalued by his Executive Director (ED) and was contemplating leaving the company. With the senior member's permission, she consulted with the ED and learned that while the ED felt strong support for and wanted to retain the senior member, he was frustrated with the senior member's unresponsive behavior toward the ED's expressed concerns.
Dianne mediated several intensive meetings between the two parties, resulting in improvement in the communication between the senior member and her ED. The senior member was retained. The ED commented that Dianne's coaching boosted his working relationship with his entire senior team.
Don't Take a Strength for Granted
A senior executive hired Dianne to help him be less intimidating to his direct reports and his larger team. She observed him in individual meetings and compared it with observations of his behavior in group meetings. She noticed that in his 1:1 meetings he was patient and facilitative of his people's thoughts, and was rarely accused of being intimidating. In groups, however, he often cut people off, showed his impatience, and tended to shut down participation rather than encourage it. Dianne was able to demonstrate to him the sharp differences in the way he handled people in these different contexts. She worked with him to help him transfer the strengths of patience and facilitation skills he used in the individual meetings to the group meetings.
Once this strength was identified, the executive began to see himself as a facilitator as well as a driver. The conversations in his group meetings opened up significantly and the feedback about intimidation was greatly diminished.
Upping the Ante in Human Resources
A Chief Administrative Officer assumed the management of a Human Resources department in a company undergoing rapid change. Though a sophisticated executive, he was not well versed in HR and sought outside help to understand and evaluate the function.
Given her extensive experience working in and consulting to Human Resource organizations, Dianne was able to assist the CAO in formulating goals and transition plans for the organization. She helped the CAO shift the department's direction from an old-fashioned "back room" transactional model to one in which HR could provide strategic and business-based advice to their executive clients.