 Unlocking the Power of Leadership and Connection In partnership with Growth Faculty, we are delighted to bring you the Design Love In live virtual event with Marcus Buckingham. Bestselling author Marcus Buckingham shows how the most powerful force in business is right in front of you as a leader, waiting to be unleashed. Think about the last time you said, "I love that." Maybe it was about a product that exceeded expectations, a service experience that built instant loyalty, or a moment when your work brought out the best in you. That reaction isn't just emotional - it's electric. In the workplace, it fuels engagement, strengthens performance, and drives lasting success. Yet most leaders don't acknowledge it, let alone try to measure or make use of it. In this session, leading researcher on human excellence and uniqueness, Marcus Buckingham, reveals how love - the deep connection that makes people feel seen, valued, and uplifted - isn't a soft feeling but a practical, measurable force. He shows how leaders, as experience makers, can intentionally 'design love in’ to everything we do: our interactions with team members, our company policies and practices, the products and services and experiences we create for those we lead and serve. When we do this, it not only generates positive feelings toward us and our products, it energizes our teams and organizations, strengthens the connections between us as humans, and creates a better world. Love - it's the most powerful force in business. This session will help you learn how you as a leader can unleash it. How the world's best leaders unleash the most powerful force in business. By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
Tuesday, March 24, 2026 - 7-8 pm in MB, 6-7pm in SK NON-MEMBER: $295* | MEMBER: $0*  *Prices quoted in USD. How can you develop your leadership?
To find out how to develop your leadership to grow more easily, quickly and profitability, AND enjoy the ride, try our complimentary Agile Growth Checklist. This self-service questionnaire takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. You'll receive the checklist with your responses immediately. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a compiled report highlighting areas to improve. Complete section 1 to check your company’s leadership processes. Or complete all 7 sections to find out how your company is doing in each of the 7 areas needed to produce more rapid, profitable and sustainable growth. This report is complementary and involves no obligation. The following video refers to the previous 5 Minute Growth Tip video: “Are your leaders high-performing?”.
To get a running start on your Quarterly Coaching Reviews, contact me to get the guide we use with clients. Or complete the form on this page.
In my recent 5 Minute Growth Tip, "Are your leaders high-performing?", I discussed the five key elements for developing executive team members: Job Scorecards, Quarterly Coaching Reviews, Personal Assessments, Quarterly Development Plans, and Weekly One-On-Ones. While job scorecards are a critical starting point in order to set clear expectations, the Quarterly Coaching Review is the foundational habit that kick-starts the development process. The goal of the quarterly coaching review is to catch up, align, and connect with your leader to determine the important priorities they need to work on in the coming quarter, both for the business and for their own self-development. It is about ditching evaluations and focusing on "executing and developing the important". We call these coaching reviews rather than performance reviews because we now know, through recent research, that traditional performance appraisals are not motivating. What is motivating is clarity of expectations, having opportunities to use one’s strengths, being recognized for excellent performance and being challenged to grow. Assuming job scorecards are in place and the leader is in the right role for their strengths, this new understanding requires a shift in focus for reviews: from intermittent evaluation to regularly acknowledging progress and supporting development. And it puts reviews in their proper place, as mere preparation for coaching throughout the quarter. To make these reviews effective, follow a structured rhythm. There are four key steps to a successful Quarterly Coaching Review:
Let’s discuss each one. And feel free to contact me by email or on my website [link to contact me form page] to access the Quarterly Coaching Review guide I use with clients. 1. Preparation and Personal Connection A successful quarterly coaching review starts before the meeting begins. Both the CEO and the leader should independently use the leader’s job scorecard to rate performance for the quarter, referring to targets, actual results, and priorities in your results tracking system. Once the meeting starts, begin with a 10-minute personal catch-up. Ask about their personal and professional highs and lows over the last 90 days. This is also the time to check in on their well-being by asking how the team can support them or how communication is flowing between you. This connection strengthens the relationship and sets a supportive tone for the conversation. 2. Reviewing Business Priorities Next, spend about 20 minutes reviewing the specific quarterly priorities the leader is accountable for in the next quarter. These should be the quarterly non-negotiable priorities that contribute directly to resolving the company’s #1 Addressable Challenge for the year in the executive team’s one page strategic plan. Review the ultimate outcomes they want to achieve and have them come with any constraints or barriers that are in their way. By discussing these early, you can align on the resources they need, such as money, people, or time, to ensure they are set up for success before the quarter gets into full swing. 3. Reviewing Performance Ratings This is often the most insightful part of the review. Spend time comparing your respective ratings from the job scorecard across core values, metrics, responsibilities, and competencies. Rather than reviewing every item, focus on the differences. If you rated a leader a "2" on a core value and they rated themselves a "4," discuss what is behind those different perspectives. This conversation often exposes blind spots, helping the leader realize where they may be falling short of expectations despite their best efforts. These gaps highlight the most critical areas for their professional growth. 4. Setting Development Priorities The final step is to translate those insights into action. Devote the last part of the meeting to setting 1 or 2 top self-development priorities for the next quarter. These priorities should address the development opportunities identified in the job scorecard during your rating comparison. Just like business priorities, each development goal should be documented in your results tracking system, along with an action plan that outlines how the leader will go about developing in that area. Before wrapping up, ask the leader for feedback on your own performance as their manager. Asking "What is one area I could improve in?" demonstrates that growth is a shared value and further encourages a high-performance culture.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.
The following video refers to the previous 5 Minute Growth Tip videos: “Are your leaders high-performing?” and “The Strength of Talent by Mike Goldman”
For the Quarterly Coaching Review process I recommend to clients, see my next 5 Minute Growth Tip.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.
Step 1: Defining Excellence with Job Scorecards
The first step was removing the ambiguity. You can’t hold someone to a high bar if they don't know where the bar is. I guided Roger to create a comprehensive Job Scorecard for each of his leaders. We didn't just list tasks; we documented core values and behaviours, specific results and targets, areas of accountability, and behavioral competencies. Roger found determining the exact metrics and targets challenging at first. However, he leveraged MSP industry benchmarks to define what "average" vs. "outstanding" looked like. This gave him the confidence to hold his team to a rigorous, data-backed standard of excellence. Step 2: Uncovering Reality through Quarterly Coaching Reviews With the scorecards in hand, Roger implemented Quarterly Coaching Reviews. These weren't standard HR "performance reviews"; they were reality checks designed to surface blind spots. In one instance, a review revealed a significant gap: a leader believed they were performing well, but Roger’s rating on one of their responsibilities was lower because the leader was "winging it" rather than following documented processes. This lack of structure was creating friction and inefficiencies whenever their work touched other departments. Step 3: Identifying Potential with Personal Assessments To understand why certain leaders were struggling despite having clear scorecards, Roger turned to Personal Assessments. Specifically, he used the Working Genius tool to map out the natural strengths and frustrations of his team. One of his leaders, who managed a large team, discovered they had a "weakness" in Galvanizing, the ability to rally, inspire, and push a team toward a goal. In the fast-paced MSP world, Galvanizing is essential. This assessment was an "Aha!" moment for Roger; it explained why this leader struggled to get their team on board with changes. It moved the problem from a personality clash to a specific competency gap that could be managed or supported. Step 4: Building Skills via Quarterly Development Plans Once the gaps were identified (like "winging it" or a lack of "Galvanizing"), Roger used Quarterly Development Plans to bridge them. These weren't generic management courses; they were "live" and value-creating business projects. For the leader who was struggling with process, their development plan for the quarter was to document and refine their department’s main work process. By making this their primary learning objective, Roger ensured they were growing their skills while simultaneously solving a major pain point for the company. The growth was practical, measurable, and directly tied to the company's success. Step 5: Sustaining Growth through Weekly One-On-Ones The final, and perhaps most difficult, piece was the Weekly One-On-One. In a technical environment, it’s easy to let these meetings become "tactical status updates" or cancel them when things get busy. Roger's challenge was consistency.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.
In his book, he breaks down why most hiring and performance management fail: we aren't clear enough about what "success" actually looks like. The scorecard is the foundation for everything else we do.
Quarterly Performance Assessments Mike’s book focuses more on what we call an executive team talent assessment process. This is an exercise where executive team members share their performance assessments of their team members in order to gather the perspectives of their peers to round out their assessments, get input on actions to take with each team member, and hold each other accountable for developing their people (I’ll go over this process in a future 5 Minute Growth Tip on building a healthy culture). However, a key input to that process is the leader completing an individual assessment, ie. review, with each of their team members. Just as executive team talent assessments are best done quarterly, so are quarterly coaching reviews. Quarterly Development Plans Mike insists that assessments are meaningless without a concrete plan that translates insights into action. He argues that a development plan should focus strictly on the one or two "critical" behaviors or skills that will have the biggest impact, moving away from "death by a thousand goals." Crucially, Mike believes that true growth occurs through high-impact, on-the-job experiences rather than passive classroom learning, which reinforces why we use 90-day Quarterly Development Plans to turn leadership growth into tactical, measurable priorities that keeps your leaders focused on their growth. The Power of the One-on-One Remember how I insisted that Weekly One-on-Ones should be "sacred" and focused on the person, not just the leaders’ targets and priorities? Mike reinforces this by highlighting that the strongest companies have leaders who actually coach their people rather than just managing their tasks. His work reinforces the idea that these 20-30 minute sessions are the primary engine for engagement and loyalty. Other Practices for Building an A-Player Executive Team While The Strength of Talent focuses heavily on the development of your existing team, Mike also covers the following.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.
The following video builds on the last 5 Minute Growth Tip video: “Are your leaders high-performing?”
In the next 5 Minute Growth Tip, I’ll share the story of one of the clients we’ve helped get their leaders to be high-performing.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.
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