June has felt like a bit of a transitional month at work, focussing on delivery of current engagements while also planning ahead for my Autumn 2024 commitments.
I’ve finished up a couple of interesting consultancy projects. I completed the leadership team design, job specs and transition planning for an LA-based digital marketing agency. I’ve also worked with UK agencies on leadership team design, exit strategies (M&A) and developing ambitious growth plans.
I have also been planning for the last two months of this phase of a current fractional COO engagement. It’s been interesting to look back at the engagement goals and see the impact I’ve had in the first five months. That process of reflection also gave me a reminder that I needed to pull back from some detail I’d gotten into and focus more on setting up the leadership team for success.
Having to think about my Autumn work commitments has forced me into some thinking about the different types of work I do and making some firm decisions. When I began my journey as an independent COO in January 2023, I threw myself into lots of different opportunities.
The passage of time, a lot of learning about independent working has helped and a personal retrospective exercise has helped me re-focus on priorities for the next phase. I’m also making a conscious effort to say no to some opportunities that come my way that don’t fit with my priorities, which isn’t something I’ve really done so far.
I really enjoy fractional work as being an active leader in a business. The satisfaction from seeing change and delivering results is valuable to me. But this way of working is quite mentally intense with a deeper sense of involvement than consulting. The context switching between fractional work and other clients can be pretty full-on sometimes too.
So I’ve got a few changes in mind for September onwards about how I deliver as a fractional COO that will address some of these challenges.
I enjoy the flexibility and diversity of consultancy work, so I’ll continue to take on projects when they seem interesting and I have the capacity to take them on. As part of this I’m developing a deeper relationship with a group of like-minded consultants, so I’m hoping to be able to share more about this in the Autumn.
The coaching side of my work is something I’m going to be focussing on more in late 2024 and 2025. By the end of September I’ll have completed my ICF coaching qualification and will be launching the new coaching proposition that I’ve been testing this year. More on that in September’s monthnotes.
Away from my work, things have been busy too. My parents came to visit for a weekend which was nice, we’ve visited three universities with our youngest son, our eldest came back from uni for a bit before heading off to Malaysia for four weeks and we celebrated two family birthdays.
We also enjoyed a night at the London Stadium for a spectacular Foo Fighters gig last week. It’s not my usual kind of music, but it was an amazing experience which I really enjoyed. Our ears were still ringing when we got up at 5am the next morning to head off on the train to a university in the Midlands.
Music this month…
Been going proper 90s old school this month. This is a solid two hours of old school house that I loved.
Podcasts this month…
Been hard to avoid politics this month given the general election and impending change in government, so I’ve been listening to The Rest is Politics, Political Currency and the R4 Today Election podcasts a lot.
Reading this month…
My birthday meant lots of new books to read. I’ve made a start on Rory Stewart’s Politics on the Edge. So far I’ve found it a pretty insightful glimpse into the ineffectiveness of our government here in the UK.
Running this month…
59.6 miles.
Cycling this month…
106.7 miles.