Category: Focus News

Company news from Focus

The Focus Coaching System Explained

Post author By Danny Denhard
Post date 23 March 2023

Exec coaching is an essential area where managers become leaders, where founders go from operator to leader and where many find out they have a lot of work to take on.

What many c-suite execs are forgetting, exec coaching is for every c-suite member not just the CEO and COO.

Problem You’re Faced With: Many coaches follow the same ten points, they very rarely create bespoke systems, they very rarely are hyper personalised to you (as a lead, you will be bundled up with all other leads) and rarely take into consideration the nuance of your position and the business you are operating in.

Problem Addressed With The Focus Coaching System

This is why the new focus coaching system was created and built to apply for any c-suite member, any lead on their way to become a true leader and to take department heads from a manager to a business leader.

The coaching system was built from the ground up and proven to work across the c-suite to Department leads, from Founders and CEOs to COOs, CMOs to Product leads and the raising stars of organisations.

The Focus coaching system takes into consideration of the modern work environment, embracing in person, hybrid and fully remote coaching, so here is a run down of the system and why it is critically different:

The Focus Coaching System Explained

Built Differently: Proven system based on the foundations of sports coaching including sports drills and analysis of therapy and structuring around therapy sessions – this is to maximise your time and output
Workshops Not Chats: Coaching sessions are “workshops” (with drills) based training and 1-2-1 coaching – this is to ensure you are moving forward and have tangible outputs and is results orientated
Issues, Jams & Situations: We will workshop issues, and potential issues and revisit previous situations to improve your management skills and optimise decision making skills
Skills-Based Development: you will evolve in every session and adapt your training based on business needs and your personal profile
Manageable Time Slots For You: We are all busy, therefore the workshops are shaped around 1-hour workshop coaching sessions (typically based on 10+ sessions) to focus on your personal and professional development
No Wasted Time: Both hybrid and in person coaching, this is designed to help you maximise your time and have a personalised playbook to move your performance and the business performance forward
Homework! It is a homework based system, you have to be invested, homework is an essential part of your development and carrying on the training post workshops is critical in your investment and development
Partner Not Payment: The system is designed to be your long-term partner and support system not just a payment
IQ, EQ (emotional intelligence) & PQ (political intelligence) Based Coaching: IQ will be improved by traditional “hard skills” development, EQ will be developed on life skills (there is no such thing as soft skills) and PQ, improving how you operate and mature as a leader with your business
Yes, Hard Work: It will be hard work and I will hold you accountable at every step: You will receive clarifying questions, you will be challenged, you will receive kick back on answers and choices made
ROI Positive: You will see your investment returned from session #2
Proven Framework & Exercises: I provide proven frameworks and exercises to improve operational skills, improve situations you or your team are struggling with, helping to mature and up-skill you and those around you
Roll Out To Your Own Team: Coaching system you can then roll out to your team

Interested? Get in touch below:

coach @ focus.business or through

I need focus coaching

Tags business leader, coach, exec coaching, management

Focus News Podcast

Introducing The Fixing The Broken World Of Work Podcast

Post author By Danny Denhard
Post date 28 July 2021

Brand New Podcast From Focus:
Fixing The Broken World Of Work Podcast

I set myself an annual target, it’s a mission really, I challenge myself to speak to as many leaders as possible.

It has been something I have done for the last five years and it was something I undertook for personal development.

But when I created Focus, I wanted to open up the conversation, the plan was to invite leaders to write for leaders letters, to interview leaders on company culture, on the future of work, on leadership and on important topics such as well-being and mental health.

I wanted to help develop leaders and help to grow people who manage to managers to actual leaders and build a better generation of leaders through high-quality content packed with useful tips and takeaways while offering frameworks, coaching courses, management coaching and executive mentorship programmes.

My long term plan was to interview in person (yes, in real life) and ask for Q&A from the audience and build a network of leaders who would support the next generation.

Unfortunately due to covid, this has not been possible to build, so for the first step towards offering a way to fix the broken world of work, I took my conversations and recorded a podcast series “Fixing The Broken World Of Work”.

I am extremely proud of the first season, it is packed full of brilliant stories, tips and actionable advice for execs, managers who want to transition to leaders and those wanting to make positive change at work.

It is deliberately binge-able and be able to be downloaded all at once, with no waiting from week to week!

I want leaders on whatever stage of their journey to be inspired to listen, make numerous notes and share the podcast season with their teams and their managers around them.

It’s a podcast series that is deliberately different.

Tags company culture, company performance, leadership, podcast, working relationships

Focus News Leadership

20 Lessons In 20 Minutes From 20 Years Experience

Post author By Danny Denhard
Post date 2 June 2021

I was invited to speak at an online event, it was broad brush on what I would like to talk on.

As it was planned for a 20 minutes talk with a lot of Q&A, I created a 20:20:20 deck, 20 lessons in 20 minutes (around 20 slides) from my two decades of work.

The majority of lessons are those that I leverage through Focus but there are a few more specific Marketing and Growth lessons that go against the grain of “the standard” advice.

Here is the 20:20:20 deck, which you can download at the bottom of the post and I have broken down the advice below for slightly more context.

Tags company culture, company strategy, deck, rethink strategy, strategy

Focus News hybrid office

The Future State Of Work Podcast

Post author By Danny Denhard
Post date 8 May 2021

This week Nick and I discussed the future state of work, obviously, this is very topical with the return to the office and the chatter around how Basecamp has changed their policy and saw backlash, how Google are not giving clear communication to their employees and how the likes of Twitter, IBM and Slack are suggesting you can work from wherever you like vs having to be in one HQ or a satellite office.

With so much of this discussion being relevant to Focus, I wanted to share this specific episode for you to read and share with your executive team.

On the podcast we discuss:

The hybrid office and why it is the future
The relationship with Company culture and why hybrid is going to be a gift and a challenge for so many HR teams and poor managers
How company performance is going to thrive or drop depending on how good your management skills are
Why company strategy, is essential to making work work, and hybrid being a driver for positive change in strategy

The future can be hard to predict, however, Nick and I have broken down what and how as much as possible for businesses of all sizes.

This podcast helps you understand how you can overcome some challenges, how to be smarter with hybrid, what your options might be and how to learn from big companies like Salesforces approach to feedback loops and maybe on the other side, Coinbase and their move to close their HQ.

https://twitter.com/dannydenhard/status/1390313103703920645?s=20

If podcasts are not your thing, happily read the full transcript below.

Useful Focus Resources:

If you would like to subscribe to the podcast

Subscribe On Your Favourite Podcast App:

Apple // Spotify // Google Podcast // Audible // Amazon Music // Deezer // ListenNotes // Mixcloud // PocketCasts //
Simplecast // Breaker //
Or copy and paste this RSS into your podcast player

Tags company culture, company performance, company strategy, hybrid, hybrid office

Focus News

Announcing The Future State Of Podcast

Post author By Danny Denhard
Post date 1 May 2021

The Future State of podcast is a series of conversations between Nick Walter, the CEO of an extended reality* company Vortic and I.

Nick and I have known each other for over ten years and often have numerous phone calls and long message threads about the state of an industry and how we think and how we would tackle that industry moving forward.

Nick and I have worked in bootstrapped businesses, successful startups and large organisations we have a good perspective on what’s happening and where the industry is and potentially should go.

The Podcast Explained

Nick and I deep dive into important and up-and-coming business areas, we discuss the current state of that particular business area, we debate what the important areas are, the opportunity in the market and then we provide our hot takes and the future state of that industry.

The podcast is weekly and typically goes live on Thursday’s.

Research & Insights Driven

We take a number of hours each week to research and talk to business minds within the space to be able to tackle rich and immersive topics.

The Future State podcast was built to provide more than just what is happening in the news or what you can read with a quick Google search, we break down each episode with our full notes not just show notes and we share our notes and insights via email so you never have to take too many notes and never miss an episode.

Why Listen?

Nick and I don’t hold back on opinions and potential actions so it’s not just another bland business podcast without personality or qualified opinion.

The First Three Episodes Cover:

The future state of brand endorsements and brand partnerships.
Why Anthony Joshua and Revolut might just be another Instagram deal
The future state of football.
Why the business side of the European Super League is so important and overlooked
The future state of conferences
Why large conferences might have died and why going niche might just be the answer for the organisers, the attendees and the speakers.

Sign Up & Get Insights & The Podcast Delivered To You

Or visit thefuturestate.co.uk and read (and listen) to the full industry breakdown.

Listen To The First Three Episodes:

https://pca.st/gmewhqhn

Subscribe on your Podcast app of choice: Apple // Spotify // Amazon Music // Listen Notes // Mixcloud // Deezer // Simplecast // or via RSS.

*What is XR

Tags business leader, business performance, leadership, management, podcast

Focus News

Manager Coaching Courses

Post author By Danny Denhard
Post date 25 April 2021

As Focus mission is to fix the broken world of work, we have spoken to a large number of “leaders” and managers about what is broken in their workplace and how we can collaborate on fixing fundamentals to complex problems that they are facing as a business or as a leadership team.

Our dedicated weekly Focus newsletter, leaders letters, helps people with a senior title evolve and become leaders or improve their leadership skills.

The Elephant In The Room

Let’s address the elephant in the room, managers and above rarely receive or seek out management coaching or training.

This is a big problem…

for managers
for teams
and importantly for their businesses.

Why is this a big problem? Your personal development will slow, your career will likely stagnate and your business performance will only hit a certain level.

Managers of all levels and experience require constant improvement, yes you can learn on the job, however, typically you do not improve any of your core skills or arguably, more importantly, your core weaknesses.

How can you improve any baseline numbers or hit targets or KPI’s when you are failing to improve yourself?

Professional Business Requires Coaching

Sports and business have many parallels, the difference is in almost all professional sports you have dedicated coaches, you receive coaching daily for your professional career and the majority of the team you are coached on improving your weaknesses and improving your core skills and then applying this in a team and squad environment.

Even the worlds best and greatest athletes are coached seek help and receive coaching every day!
This should be no different for business professionals.

This very rarely happens in the work setting, the only time this happens is when executives are recommended a coach or a startup is maturing and the investment team seeks out a coach for a founder or the founding team.

Career Stagnation Is Your Problem

Almost every career stagnates at one place or another, this can be more many reasons, the most common; you stop wanting to progress and seek out help, seek out improving your weaknesses or seek out a mentor or a professional coach.

Step up and develop your career!

Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

Put on your own oxygen mask is a famous business quote that translates to look after yourself first, this could not be truer notably when it comes to actually helping your team or business improve, if you are not improving yourself, how are you improving others?

Invest In You

One of the big takeaways in talking to leaders is they end up not using their training budget or “wasting it conferences”.

Stop wasting your annual training budget on conferences you learn small and disposable pieces of information or fail to attend because you are too busy.

Get Focus: Professional Management Coaching

Focus offers a tailored package that has been built for managers across all levels, whether you are a:

A newly promoted manager
A Head of Team or Head of Department
A Director who is lacking confidence or delivery is slipping away
A VP who is too busy juggling meeting requests and sitting in back to back meetings to develop themselves or their team
A C-suite member who has become detached from their discipline or lost their influence over their team.

We work together with you, we then:

Build a tailored package to your specific situation
Build a growth plan together
Build your skills, session by session
Build out your confidence and communications skills
Build out a set of templates for you to use and roll out internally

The Packages

The Focus 1-2-1 Coaching Packages can be brought in blocks or per session.

Each coaching session is 60 minutes and virtual. Each session is one to one, with homework to improve your skills and actions to tackle and roll out after every session.

No Timewasting! To ensure we are compatible and you want to be coached, we arrange a quick 15-minute session to run your situation and see if we would be a good fit.

The packages can be paid for directly from your business or if you are looking to pay for this yourself this can be set up. This enables you to invest in yourself or your company to invest in your long term success.

Get in touch below to start your coaching with Focus.

Start coaching today

Tags business performance, company culture, company performance, good manager, manager, performance

Focus News

Are You Creating The Right Company Culture?

Post author By Danny Denhard
Post date 15 April 2021

Let me ask you a couple of questions…

Have you held a recent Zoom or Teams call where there was an atmosphere?

Did it feel like tension was controlling the call?

Did a seemingly trivial question create a ripple throughout your business?

If the answer to those questions is yes: you’re not alone. In today’s chaotic workplace, the feeling of a business – the company’s interactions and behaviours – have never been as important.

If the answer is no: believe me, think again.
I’m willing to bet you have experienced these situations.

Maybe you’re just not seeing it or know what is happening within your business. You could be too disconnected from the business – running through obstacles versus tackling them.

These are the feeling of a business.

And these feelings, or senses, are just a layer of what Company Culture is. Often high performing businesses have a healthy and guiding company culture where everyone can add value.

Company Culture is co-created, not dictated by the leadership.

But Company Culture is more than the feeling.

It includes the vibe, the connections between colleagues, the frictions, the unexplainable that makes the teams click.

It includes unwritten expectations, cross-functional collaboration, the reduction of egos, and work pride.

Company Culture has several important components.

It encompasses…

The environment you set
The workplace (including remote working spaces)
The connections between the teams
The chemistry your colleagues have
The acceptable and unacceptable behaviours

The workplace is now more than ‘the place we all use to perform our work tasks’.

There is an updated version that must include working from home and remotely.

We need to know work can happen anywhere, that we are still the same company with the same objectives, and we can grow personally and professionally.

The way we work is shifting.

The world is shifting, and so too is the workplace.

In this move towards a successful hybrid workplace, the right Company Culture becomes an unfair advantage for those who have embraced Emotional Intelligence (EQ) as much as IQ.

So take it! It will help you hire the best employees, retain your best performers and develop an award-winning business.

Here is a list of actions you can take to make your workplace and Company Culture work for the next three to five years:

Co-create guiding principles that everyone signs up to; these will act as pillars and guide your decision making
Create a company compass to help guide every decision, especially when you’re unavailable
Enable personal development plans and have direct and actionable steps to take to let your team know how to be successful
Build psychological safety by connecting colleagues
Develop your employees’ EQ as much as IQ – the more compassion you build, the better
Have an updated knowledge centre to keep everyone up to date on the what and the why
Build a hybrid workplace where you book in and book out of the office – knowing where and when people will be working helps reduce stress and improve trust
If there are issues, create ‘power half hours’ to clear the air and remove stumbling blocks. Healthy debate leads to more open and honest conversation, reduces problems and reconnects people
Leverage asynchronous communications – be more deliberate in written communications vs having too many face-to-face or online meetings
Build separate spaces for collaboration, for heads down (concentration), and to eat together

This article was supplied to The Business Clubhouse magazine supporting Hitting The Wall Podcast I appeared on.

Listen To The Supporting Podcast:

https://anchor.fm/ash-taylor3/episodes/A-conversation-with-Danny-Denhard-of-Focus-esq7sl