Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Matt Spielman, Managing Partner & Founder at Inflection Point Partners:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Inflection Point Partners?
A: We exist to energize lives one career at a time. Inflection Point Partners is a professional services firm that partners with senior executives to ensure they operate at their desired levels – and find more enjoyment in their day-to-day lives.
We work with people who want to elevate their performance. That can mean in their existing roles or in roles they are poised to assume.
For each scenario, we co-create a Game Plan that outlines mutually developed goals, specifically what our executives want and need to accomplish, and why these objectives are important. We then detail the critical action steps required, the how, to achieve them. Whenever possible, we include specific milestones. This plan serves as a vehicle to measure how we are pacing against what we set out to accomplish. It’s the GPS to get our clients to their desired destinations, in as little time as possible, avoiding the greatest amount of traffic.
While partnerships tend to focus on activity in the workplace, it’s too limiting to think that executives work in a vacuum. Lots of factors influence how we feel and how we perform: Family, health, personal and life goals, financial concerns and myriad other elements have profound effects. Inflection Point Partners’ approach takes our clients’ lives as a whole into context. All of our practitioners are former senior operating executives. Our backgrounds promote a deeper understanding of what our clients are experiencing – and therefore, will be most beneficial to them and their success.
Recommended: Q: Matt, tell us more about your background. What were you doing before Inflection Point Partners?
A: When starting Inflection Point Partners, I looked to incorporate two decades of operating experience into our approach, process and our laser-focus on performance. I had the benefit of working in both young companies as well as more mature organizations, primarily in sales, business development and marketing functions. I helped capitalize and build three VC-backed organizations that were acquired. I had an impactful and meaningful tenure at Viacom/MTV Networks in what I call the “pre-iPhone-to-post iPad” era–more changed in the media landscape during those six years than in the previous thirty. That experience positioned me to lead a large team at a digital media agency within the Publicis Groupe.
While I knew years ago – when I started working with an executive coach – that I wanted to transition to working with executives and their teams, I saw how essential it was to have first-hand experience. When I partner with an executive to prepare for a board meeting, for example, I understand the task at hand because I have prepared for board meetings that were critical to my companies’ futures.
I also draw on my experience as an athlete, because it taught me the importance of delivering against expectations. I played baseball at a high level, but there were always players in college who could take my position if I didn’t make the plays or hit the ball. Later, as a salesperson, I didn’t generate revenue unless I hit my sales figures. I learned early on that having the right capabilities and skill set is necessary, but not sufficient. In the end, it has to be about results. I bring up performance quite a bit when I talk about our work. Our approach and process go well beyond a developmental exercise: The strides our executives make is of paramount importance. We hold ourselves to this standard and write our agreements to let clients stop with no penalty.
Q: What has been your biggest learning since you started Inflection Point Partners?
A: Successful people ask for help, because they look for every edge they can get. There is more demand for executive coaching than I anticipated when launching Inflection Point Partners. That could be because seven to ten years ago, executive coaches might have been brought in to work in a more remedial fashion. But today it’s a completely different story. Now the focus is on the highest performers. Organizations allocate time, attention and financial resources to their most impactful employees. And we have seen firsthand that it’s these high-performing executives who derive the most value and achieve the greatest results from coaching engagement. Frankly, when starting the firm, I thought I would need to evangelize the merits of coaching. I regularly speak with conviction about the value of the practice more because I want to and less because I need to. The desire to have a trusted, independent, trained, experienced partner solely dedicated to executives’ success does the talking for me and our firm.
Q: What are your areas of practice?
A: Inflection Point Partners works to keep it simple, so we primarily focus on three areas. The first is career coaching for executives who find themselves in transition. The second is what we have been talking mostly about, more traditional executive coaching, where we partner with executives to grow, develop, and perform at a high level in their positions and in their careers. And third, we have a dedicated practice focused on teams. Team diagnostics. Team performance. We address the central questions: How is my team performing? And what specifically can we do to improve how we operate and deliver results? One-on-one executive coaching is unquestionably effective, but approaches that includes the leader’s team greatly increase the speed at which we achieve our goals.
Q: Matt, you mentioned career coaching. I know several executives who are trying to figure out their careers? How big of a focus is this for you and your team?
A: Career coaching is a big part of what we do. About half of our clients finds themselves at an inflection point in their careers. Some are between jobs. Others want something more or something different, and they’re considering making a leap. We also have clients who are nearing retirement, but feel they have another chapter ahead that they need to prepare for.
We have developed a highly effective methodology for working with executives entertaining a transition. At a high level, the process focuses on what the person may want to do next, what needs have to be met, and how we can help them achieve their goals. Once we have developed two or three hypotheses, we co-create an Action Plan designed to propel the executive toward their desired destination. We have captured some of this in the article, The Life You’ve Imagined.
Our jobs occupy 50% or more of our waking hours. They impact who we are, how we feel and how we provide for ourselves and our family. So, what we do for a living warrants a meaningful amount of attention. If we can help people move into roles they are passionate about—something that gives them energy rather than drains it—that is the most rewarding part of our mission.
In addition, Inflection Point Partners has a partnership with the Career & Professional Development (CPD) group at Harvard Business School. I allocate time serving as a career coach to the students in the MBA program as well as Harvard Business School alumni. I write articles, conduct webinars and lead workshops focused on career strategy.
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Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: More of the same, but with an important shift. Right now, our primary objective is to make sure our executives continue to shine. That’s our fuel. Our success depends on theirs, and it manifests itself in many forms. It can come from identifying what clients want to do next, from helping them secure new positions, or from enabling them to excel in their current roles. The results we see energize us, and we know what’s at stake: our partners’ careers, how they feel about themselves, and how they relate to the world around them.
Having said that, when I think about the impact we have been able to have, it’s natural to want more. That’s why we have begun to shift from working predominantly on a one-to-one basis to adding more one-to-many opportunities. I have been speaking to audiences, writing articles, and appearing in the media about this lately. I have also packaged our intellectual property into a program that can be delivered to our clients and deployed at an organizational level. It’s an exciting challenge, trying to scale a firm built on intimate “one-to-one” relationships, and apply our approach in a “one-to-many” format. But we’re up for it, and the potential benefit to our clients is worth the effort.
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