Being a CEO is a little like being a skydiver. Until you actually are a CEO, or until you jump out of the plane, you do not really know what it is like. No matter how many board members, vice presidents and employees an organization has, there is only one CEO. This can make the job of CEO the loneliest one you will ever have.

At CEO Resources Inc., all of our Senior Advisors have been CEOs; often of companies they either founded or owned. They know what it is like to be the person everyone is looking to for decisions, guidance, paychecks and the enhancement of shareholder value.

A CEO Coach can help you identify and achieve your personal and/or professional goals. By providing open and honest feedback, your Coach may be the only truly objective sounding board you have. Unlike your board, your family or your employees, the CEO Coach has no personal agenda in your organization other than helping to optimize your performance as an executive and as a person while maintaining a work/life balance.

All Coaching relationships are highly individualized based upon your needs, requirements and specific objectives. You and your Coach will set the objectives, milestones and agenda. Your Coach will help keep you focused and on course.

A combination consultant, mentor and confidant, a CEO Coach is there to help with the daily challenges of being an executive. Our Coaches have helped executives:

• Deal with role transitions during periods of rapid growth or decline of corporate fortunes
• Address leadership issues
• Master time-management challenges
• Discover the most effective management style for the given situation
• Manage complex relationships with Board Members
• Overcome financial obstacles
• Sustain performance during periods of personal misfortune or tragedy
• Plan to sell their businesses
• And so much more

If you are not focused on where your company ends up, it may not matter how it gets there. If, on the other hand, you would prefer to have all of the members of your organization pulling efficiently towards a common goal, then formal, strategic planning should not be put off any longer. Knowing where you want to go is the first step in determining how you will get there. It is widely believed that the most important role of the CEO is defining a vision for his or her company and aligning the people of the company behind that vision.

Simply put, strategic planning is the process by which the guiding members of your organization, with input from all constituencies, envision the future and develop the necessary strategies and tactics to achieve that future. The CEO Resources Inc. Strategic Planning Method™ compels organizations to develop a consensual vision of the future. Our process also provides an appropriate forum and a facilitated structure for resolving conflicts and making committed, consensus decisions.

Good planning will eliminate the paralysis and inefficiency caused when your people or departments work at cross purposes. Your plan will assure proper resource allocation so your critical activities are staffed and supported.

Our planning process will involve, at some level, virtually every member of your organization and critical constituencies such as the board, customers, resources and professionals. We will guide you in the collection of data on sales and sales trends, customer satisfaction and trends, competitors and their predicted moves, technology trends, supplier trends and your company’s core competencies. This highly participatory process will improve team work among the planning team members.

We have developed this method based upon our own planning experiences, the good and the not-so-useful. We have found that people own what they help build. Once your managers have helped you to build this plan they will be willing and able to use it to focus more clearly on organizational outcomes and priorities.

Your plan will be a living, breathing tool for helping you move your business towards achieving the goals you have for it. This will be one plan that will not just sit on the shelf.

We are all aware of the dissipating impact on CEO performance of silo-management models. When team members can traverse the silos and work inter-departmentally, it permits the CEO to focus on appropriate strategic and financial goals.

The CEO Resources Team Building Series is a series of four Team Building Sessions designed specifically for the CEO’s direct reports and customized to address the needs of each client situation. Ideally, the four sessions are conducted over an eighteen month period of time at six month intervals. Each session focuses on different aspects of the three pillars of Team Building: Revelation, Confrontation and Resolution.

During the sessions we will use a variety of activities and tools to reveal the differences among team members and the obstacles to working together as a high performing team. Team Members will also be asked to confront those differences rather than sweeping them under the rug as they most often do in a fast paced, day-to-day work environment. Finally, we will work together to resolve their understanding of those differences in an effort to create a well functioning team.

While we are teaching your managers to be a high functioning team, we are simultaneously providing them with team building skills, techniques and tools to use with their own teams when they return to the office.

All Team Building sessions are held off-site over a two day period with an overnight stay. Typically, our clients find Friday/Saturday combinations to be the most convenient, but we are willing to work with you to find the most appropriate time for your organization.

As CEO you know you need a board of directors that will be able to help you, coach you, challenge you to grow and then hold you accountable for the results.

At CEO Resources, Inc. we have the methods and resources to help you achieve this goal regardless of the state or stage of your current board of directors or advisors.

All of our methods and tools are based upon modules consistent with those of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). They are designed to be customized to your particular situation. The result will be a high performing board geared to best meet the needs of your company or organization.

Most CEOs who are without a board tell us they would have one if they knew where to start. They are unclear about why they want to have a board, who should serve on it, how to find those people, what form of compensation, if any, members would expect and how to run an effective board meeting. In short, they just do not know where to start. At CEO Resources we have those answers and something better; a documented process to coach you each step of the way.

At no cost or obligation to you, we will meet with you for a confidential discussion of your board’s situation, the opportunities and impediments for creating a value added board. We will also provide you with guidance, which you may elect to ask us to assist you in implementing.

From time to time all boards find themselves at developmental junctures. A Blue Ribbon Commission of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) has recently reported increasing numbers of boards are finding it desirable to periodically engage in board self-evaluation and public companies are required to do so. Our method for this process provides an opportunity for all directors to express their thoughts, opinions and desires with regard to the functioning of the board in a confidential, non-confrontational environment.

Similarly, our method for Individual Director Assessment is designed to provide individual directors with feedback on how they can maximize their contributions to the board. In many cases, boards who participate in the assessment activities quickly identify key areas for development and often conclude that additional training in board practices would aid in enhancing the value the board can bring to its members as well as to the organization. Presented in time-efficient modules, all CEO Resources Board Development Modules provide high payback in improved board effectiveness.

The 2005, National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Governance Survey reports, in part, that “board members rank themselves least effective in the area of board education”. In addition to being an experienced director, the past Program Chair and President of NACD’s New England Chapter, Tom Sherwin was one of the first 100 people to receive the National Association of Corporate Directors Institute’s Certificate of Director Education and is a board member himself. He can help your board.

Whether it is planning for the succession of all C-level executives; the COO succeeding the CEO; the son/daughter succeeding the family patriarch/matriarch, or an outsider candidate succeeding the executive director, managing partner or any other combination, every succession engagement at CEO Resources is considered unique, challenging and intensely personal for everyone involved.  We employ our well-honed processes, making sure every constituency is heard, engaged and on-board to support to the successor’s entry into office.  At the same time, attention is paid to the role of the incumbent as he or she prepares for the next stage.