I’m an Enterprise Coach and Mentor

An enterprise is an organization with a mission, and the ability to fulfill its mission. It can be a business, a government program, a sports team, or even a person. An enterprise can also be a project or undertaking, typically one that is difficult or risky.

Coaches make best use of the resources they have. Coaches ensure there is a clear, common objective, bring strategies and plays to achieve it, clarify roles and responsibilities, and promote good communication among team members. With good coaching, a team performs better than the sum of its parts. With mediocre coaching, the team performs as expected, and with poor or no coaching, it performs less than the sum of its parts.

So what’s with the bird? Ospreys see through clutter and find their prey below the surface of the water. I develop and apply models to provide insight into systems and unlock the value below the surface. And I too enjoy fishing for Pacific salmon, especially chinook and coho.

My dad was a coach. Coaching is literally in my blood. To this, I add expertise in change management, systems modeling, and enterprise design. I help people and enterprises clarify their objectives, sort out what needs to be done by whom and how to meet those objectives, and develop a plan to move them from where they are to where they want be.

I’ve benefited from the knowledge, experience and wisdom of many generous mentors throughout my life and career. I am indebted to them and have a responsibility to steward this knowledge. The purpose of my Substack is to pass on to you the knowledge they’ve entrusted in me and to add some of my own. I’ll publish case studies that illustrate management lessons and principles that I’ve learned and those passed down to me from my mentors.

I call my Substack “So let me get this straight” because that’s what I’d often say when I had a Popeye moment, that is “I’ve had all I can stand; I can’t stand no more.” There are many situations where adding resources or technology won’t help an enterprise because its underlying business model is obsolete. The enterprise is constrained by the practices and technologies of the past; it’s not designed for the present or the future. Good workers struggle to deliver results despite the organisation.

Rather than doing more of what we’ve always done and hoping for the best, we can use objectives to illuminate needs and drive transformation, at a tolerable pace. We can keep what works, drop what doesn’t, eliminate duplication, and add what’s missing.

I’m an Enterprise Coach and Mentor. That’s what I do (when I’m not fishing for salmon).

greg steer