Jesse Hopps
Work with Jesse
For leaders who need thousands of people to work differently.
Most of those people report to someone else. Part of the job is technical: someone already knows the answer and it needs doing well. Part of it needs people to change how they work. I help most with the second part, and the first conversation is about telling the two apart.
When it fits
- You're accountable for a big change and nobody agrees what the hard part is.
- You want an outside read before you commit the company to it.
- You can't tell if people have to adopt an answer or change how they work.
- A big ambition has to turn into one project people can test.
- Your leadership team needs pushing from someone with nothing to gain.
When it doesn't
- You already know the answer and the job is getting it done.
- You want a training program run well.
- You want a framework rolled out before anyone looks at what's going on.
- It's a long way from anything I have worked on.
- You want to keep renting the capability instead of owning it.
What you get
Most useful when the answer isn't obvious and the stakes are real.
See it differently
Tell the symptoms apart from what is causing them.
Cut it down
Get a huge transformation ambition down to the few things that matter.
Push on an assumption
Find where the obvious approach is creating resistance, or making people lean on you.
Build a proof case
Turn a big ambition into something you can test inside a quarter.
Prepare the hard conversation
Work out how to put a difficult idea to a CEO, a board, your BU leaders or your own team.
Find the right people
Where it helps, I'll introduce you to people in the Consortium who have been through it. No promises about any particular person.
The conversation
The first conversation is about working out what you've got, not about me presenting.
What the first call covers
- What result are you accountable for?
- What must become different?
- Which part of this is technical?
- Which part is adaptive?
- Where is execution slowing down?
- What have you already tried?
- What evidence would change this?
What you decide together
- Is this mostly a technical challenge?
- Then good execution is probably the answer, and I'll say so.
- Is there an adaptive challenge under it?
- Then I might be useful, and we can talk about how.
- Is there a better person or resource?
- Then I'll point you there.
When there is work to do, it aims at the same thing: engineering the conditions for adaptation to happen naturally, without triggering resistance. It can lead to work, and I'll say so when it does.
What happens next
Where it can go from here.
Often the first conversation is enough on its own. I give you a read on it, point you at something that already answers it, or introduce you to someone who has been through a version of it, where that makes sense.
Sometimes one of the routes below fits. And sometimes I'm not the right person, and I say so.
Before you write, the three pieces closest to how I think
- Adoption is not adaptation
- Lasting impact, and what it's made of
- TransformationOS, where the pattern is written down
Not required reading. They just save a step.
The routes
Four ways in.
The Consortium
If you run commercial excellence, strategy or transformation in a big company, start with your peers. No vendors, no pitch, and it is free.
Visit the ConsortiumFellowship™
For a Consortium member with a big mandate. It goes deeper: turn the challenge into a proof case, then turn that into something your own people can run.
Learn about FellowshipExecutive Coaching
One-to-one with me, on the challenge you own: what you're dealing with, how to frame it, and the hard conversations with your leadership team. I take on very few executives at a time, and only when I'm sure I can help.
Request a conversationTransformation Partnership
My team and I do the design and delivery work with you and your teams: cohorts, coaching on live projects, and your own coaches built up along the way. I don't coach every project, and you wouldn't want me to.
See how that works
Tell me what you're working on.
One email is enough. Tell me what you're responsible for, what has to be different, how fast it has to move, and where it's getting stuck. You'll get one of three answers back: this is a fit, this isn't, or here's who you should talk to instead.
Keep names, numbers and anything internal out of the first note. The shape of it is enough to start.
Speaking or media instead? That route is here.