CEO Coaching
How Should
AI Transform Your Business?
We have created a unique staged coaching programme specifically for CEOs who need to make decisions about how AI fits into their business, and want to make them based on a true picture of how their organisation works, not necessarily the one on the org chart.
7
Stages
1:1 or 2:1
Format
Virtual
Delivery
The Problem
Every organisation runs on an operating model but only part of it is written down. The rest lives in how decisions actually get made, which relationships carry work across teams, which workarounds have quietly become permanent, and which arrangements the business depends on that nobody designed.
AI doesn’t work on the model in your process documents. It works on the one that actually exists, and it amplifies whatever it finds there. That’s true whether your organisation is thriving or under strain, either way, you can’t redesign a building you’ve never seen.
This programme is about seeing your structure clearly, then deciding deliberately what to do with what you find.
How It Works
The programme runs in seven phases, each building on the last, applied directly to your own organisation rather than taught in the abstract. Three phases of understanding come before any conversation about direction, a vision phase comes before any planning, and near-term action is tested against that vision before long-term design begins. You lead the work inside your organisation between sessions; the coach brings the frames, the questions and the challenge, not the diagnostic or the design. What you build through the programme is yours, and so is the capability to do it again once the coaching ends.
It can run with you alone, or with you and an operating partner (COO, chief of staff, head of operations) in every session, and for organisations short on time we offer an apprenticeship option so someone on your team can carry the execution detail in parallel. Phases can be compressed, but the order can’t be split: understanding before vision, vision before planning, near-term moves before long-term design.
The Seven Stages
Build one accurate, honest picture of how your organisation actually operates today. That starts with what’s already written down: org charts, process documents, metrics, goals and incentives, the tools you use.
Why? By making your true operating model visible, the decisions that follow can be made on how the business actually works, not how it’s assumed to.
Locate two or three specific patterns shaping how your organisation performs, including ones that are working well and quietly carrying weight. Every organisation has them: growth that has outpaced structure, informal infrastructure the business depends on, changes that were made and didn’t hold.
Why? Don’t waste time fixing something that isn’t broken and don’t protect something that is quietly costing you. This is all about deciding deliberately, what needs to change and what needs to stay.
Look at the AI investment or pressure your organisation is currently navigating, and work out exactly what it would touch: which strengths AI would bolster, which patterns it would harden, and where an investment built for the model on paper would actually land on the one you’re running.
Why? AI amplifies the operating model you actually have, not the one on paper. Commit without seeing that clearly and you either scale a problem you didn’t know existed, or miss the place AI would have helped most.
Set a shared, high-level vision of what the operating model could become, built around three principles: human-centric, AI-enabled, and continuously adaptive. Directional at this stage, not yet detailed.
Why? Without clear direction, near-term moves and long-term design can end up pulling in different directions. This gives you something every later decision can be tested against.
Design contained, sequenced moves that can start immediately: aligning one incentive, formalising one piece of informal infrastructure, moving a decision to where it’s actually made, plus any quick AI or automation wins available now. Each is tested against the vision as well as present need.
Why? Near-term moves are the most visible thing your organisation will actually see. Testing each one against the vision stops you creating debt the vision will later have to unwind, and shows people change is deliberate, not reactive.
Deepen the vision from Phase 4 into a fully worked design, now that direction is agreed and the first moves are underway.
Why? This is where the vision stops being a statement and becomes something you can actually build toward, grounded in your own organisation rather than generic best practice.
Build the rhythm for keeping the model moving deliberately after the coaching ends, without slipping back into business as usual.
Why? There’s no longer a stable state to return to. The design is intended to keep moving, so the job becomes keeping it moving deliberately instead of reactively.
OUTCOMES
What You Leave With
Practical outputs, not just theory.
Confidence in your next AI decision
a clear, evidenced view of which commitments to make now and which to hold, so you're not investing on assumption or industry hype
Protection against costly mistakes
an accurate picture of how your organisation really works, so AI amplifies your strengths instead of scaling a problem you didn't know you had
A vision you can defend to your board and your organisation
A vision you can defend to your board and your organisation
The capability to keep doing this yourself
a rhythm for adapting the model on an ongoing basis, without needing to bring in outside help every time conditions change
Meet Your Coach
Sarah Heffron
Operating Model Strategist
Sarah helps CEOs see how their organisation actually works, then decide, deliberately, what it genuinely means to redesign it for AI. Twenty years leading operating model and transformation work at global scale.
Ready To Lead Your Organisation’s AI Journey?
Book a call with us to discuss how we can help you lead your organisation’s AI journey.