Teams

Coaching, bespoke offsites, and custom trainings to support a high-functioning, unified leadership team.

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Co-founder Coaching

I work with teams of founders and executives who are committed to self-discovery and growth, and willing to do the work to communicate openly, build trust and take interpersonal risk, and get on the same page and stay there.

Whether you’re designing a new partnership or shoring up a years-long one, you sense that more openness, deeper trust, and smoother collaboration is possible. You want to spend less energy on the partnership itself so you can focus more on what you’re building together. We will develop a custom program to meet your needs based on the following steps:

  1. Create a safe space to uncover what’s really going on
  2. Develop new rules of engagement
  3. Build capacity for better collaboration, communication, and tools for repair
  4. Develop a game plan
  5. Practice and follow through

The engagement will consist of joint coaching sessions where we will work through tough issues as a team, as well as 1v1 sessions I’ll conduct with each partner at the outset and on an as needed basis.

Team Offsites

Customized, high-impact executive offsites and retreats that strengthen team unity, commitment, vision, and skills. We start with a deep-dive into org pain points, and individual and team goals for the offsite. I then work with the CEO, Head of People, and often a small number of executives to design the overall flow of the event and each individual session. We’ll then come up thoughtful pre-reading and pre-work to ensure that each participant, and the team overall, gets the most out of our time together. Common focus areas include:

  • Values and mission development and alignment
  • Strategic planning
  • Managing difficult conversations
  • Feedback best practices
  • Cross-functional collaboration
  • Coaching for managers
  • Culture analysis and setting
  • Team building & bonding

A good offsite is a mix of formal skill building, informal bonding, intentional sharing, alignment on key initiatives, and energizing conversations. It should also be a lot of fun. My goal is for your team to leave our time together more connected, more self-aware, more energized, and with more shared language and psychological safety than before. All of this should coalesce into new processes and insights, better decision making, and clear next steps for everyone involved.

Workshops

Customized 1/2-to-full day trainings to strengthen team dynamics, culture, effectiveness, and skills.

Focus areas include:

  • Feedback: How to deliver and receive effectively
  • Manager tools: Empathic listening & asking powerful questions
  • Building a culture of safety and trust
  • CliftonStrengths: Improving communication and managing conflict
  • Enneagram for teams: Deepening intra- and interpersonal awareness for enhanced performance.

We hired David to create and lead our company's first Executive Offsite and now we couldn't imagine running one without him. David worked closely with us to cater the two-day event to our goals, preserving our best practices and enhancing focus on our skill gaps. David is highly intuitive and engaging, and has a deep understanding of how to create safety for vulnerability and team cohesion. The result for us was a richly personalized event that increased trust, commitment, accountability and drive. His content was interactive, unique and paced right. We'll make sure David's leading every offsite we have.

Meghan, Head of People Ops, Los Angeles

David is an invaluable resource to our business and partnership. He's a patient and thoughtful listener who consistently brings a clear perspective and a wealth of startup experience to our strategic discussions. He helps us reflect on our partnership, focus on what's essential, and uncover problems we're missing. Working with David has made us a better company, and for that, we’re incredibly grateful.

Brian and Nate, Co-Founders, Boston