What I do

Executive coaching – helping you become your best self
Team coaching – helping to get the best out of your team
Organizational effectiveness consulting – helping to improve the health and effectiveness of your organization.

I care deeply about helping create transformative changes for individuals and teams.

My Coaching Process

Coaching involves three steps:

Where are you today, really? We start with a detailed look at today’s reality – it’s hard to know where to go if you don’t have a clear view of your current state. Often this involves 360 interviews or other tools to understand what’s happening.
Where are you trying to go? I work with clients to craft bold yet achievable goals for themselves or their teams, and helping sustain those changes over time.
How will you know if you are getting there? I help clients build feedback mechanisms and practices to build momentum towards transformative change.

How I am Different

I have varied experience in multiple executive roles across different industry areas and harness these experiences to help bring real change. I understand the complexity of senior and emerging leadership roles having served in these roles myself. l also care about finding meaning in work.

You can get a sense of this from my clients feedback. Also take a look at Things to Expect and FAQs.

Schedule a free consultation.

What Clients Say

“Chris has worked with me and my leadership team on increasing our organizational alignment and team effectiveness. His assistance has greatly exceeded our expectations. We are now well on our way toward greater clarity in roles and responsibilities as well as exhibiting stronger leadership behaviors across all our directors. Chris is an outstanding coach, facilitator, and thought partner. He has strong insights combined with the ability to navigate complex, sticky issues toward resolution.”

Karen Poiani, CEO Island Conservation

“My coaching sessions with Chris McCrum added not only immediate value to my business in terms of forward growth, but provided immense long-term value as well. The work we did together was fundamental, and still guides many of my actions a year and a half later leading a business four times as large. Chris' training, life experience, and innate ability to understand complex situations and people clearly, results in an amazingly balanced coaching style; he is very thorough yet efficient during sessions. I am a stronger leader and communicator, and have developed better processes as a result of my work with Chris “

Martha Stoumen, winemwaker and founder, Martha Stoumen Wines

“Chris worked with me on personal and organizational change management. His style of asking questions, probing (with humor) about human interactions and landing on specific behaviors I could test worked well for me, and he helped me refine approaches to fit different situations and individual interactions. I continue to reflect on questions Chris asked me during our coaching sessions, and those reflections help me to more fully consider what sparks concern or excitement for others.“

Erin Hart, Chief Innovation Officer, Spitfire Communications

“Chris has brought tremendous value to our agency as we have sought to transform to a values-driven culture in service to our mission. His ability to put people at ease, create space for difficult conversations, and move people toward a larger vision than they previously possessed is remarkable. He leads with integrity, powerfully connects across ideas and disciplines, and relates to people with heart and intelligence. Chris has been a thought partner to me in seeking to create a thriving workplace true to our promise in community. I have greatly benefited from his efforts and so has the whole of our team.”

Chandra Alexandre, CEO, Community Action Marin

“Chris’s coaching set me on a path to achieve my near-term leadership goals. More than that, it demonstrated that being intentional and reflective will spur my continued improvement as a leader throughout my career.“

Andrew Hall, CFO, Borrego Solar

What to expect in an engagement

All engagements are different but here’s the typical arc of an individual coaching engagement:

Clients come to coaching wanting to work on one or more issues, perhaps because they have been recently promoted to a new leadership role or need to expand their suite of leadership skills.

In the first month of working together I will spend time (probably via two 90 minute sessions) understanding my client’s path and initial goals.

Within two or three months we will have developed an overarching aspirational goal for the coaching work (which sometimes goes beyond the client's original intended goals), along with 3-5 specific goals to achieve the aspirational goal. Often it is helpful to use a 360 interview process to help inform goal setting.

The next 3-4 months are spent working on those goals, understanding how to learn new habits and approaches, and identifying habits that are getting in the way of progress. In this period my coaching roles include: thought partner, accountability partner, surfacing obstacles, holding a mirror to reflect back what the client says, and helping them stretch into new habits.

We usually conclude the engagement after about 6-8 months of working together. Sometimes there is a tune up to see how things are going after a further 6 months or so. Coaching works best if coaching sessions are scheduled at regular intervals ie once every 2-3 weeks for 90 minutes.

Interested in learning more? Call Chris for a complimentary consultation at 415 786 4508.

Why people come to coaching

People come to coaching for many reasons. For example, someone may:

decide to set the bar higher for herself and/or her team, and desire help figuring out the path forward
have been recently promoted and desire additional support in the new role
want to expand their skills and perhaps shed some habits that are no longer helpful
realize that life passions and priorities are mismatched and want assistance realigning them

Ultimately what matters is that a change in one or more aspects of one’s work life may be most easily achieved with a coach’s support. Much of this connects to the idea of cultivating a growth mindset. See: https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/

FAQs

What is coaching, really?

Coaching is a guided process to help someone achieve important goals. It involves helping define these goals, which is often harder than it appears, and helping the client on their path to achieving these goals. This path involves understanding obstacles and ways to mitigate them, and becoming aware of changes in behavior and practice that will be necessary to bring these goals to life. This is different from consulting which is advising someone how to do something.

Coaching is a partnership and includes gaining insights into current habits and behaviors, learning new behaviors, and letting go of habits that are no longer helpful. The following article by Atul Gawande has interesting insights about the value of coaching: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/personal-best

What’s your coaching style? What is your training?

Clients often say that I ask questions that they haven’t been asked before and which don’t naturally come up in their work lives. I appreciate this because it’s hard to have good answers without good questions. I aim to be thoughtful, reflective and engaging. While I am serious in what I do, I try not to take myself or my coaching too seriously.

I was certified as a coach by the Hudson Institute located in Santa Barbara Ca. The Hudson founders (Frederic and Pamela Hudson) were deeply influenced in their thinking by the fields of human systems and psychology, and their approach is grounded in these fields.

How does your background Guide your coaching work?

My background in business and in the Foundation worlds involved many transitions in both roles and skills. This practical experience guides my work and helps me understand and empathize with transitions that clients are seeking to make. As I look back I realize the value that a good coach can play in working through key transitions.