Chapter 12: The Next Step In Your Leadership

Before we dive into this month’s edition, we wanted to hit pause and celebrate!

Because let’s be real, in the hustle of solving hard problems, we often forget to soak in the wins and celebration is important for all of us to keep ourselves going.

And here is one win that lit us up!

A few weeks ago, we kicked off a sprint with a creative architecture firm  in Bombay — one that designs hospitality spaces. And it showed. Led by four incredible women (with 90% of the team also women), they didn’t just host us for a workshop — they welcomed us.

A sea-facing stay in South Bombay, all meals on the house (for two days, though our workshop was half a day!), window seats booked for travel, and even a post-workshop party invite. It was a reminder of why we call ourselves running mates, not consultants. Because this didn’t feel like a client engagement , it felt like joining a team that truly lives what they design.

In their words, “Spaces aren’t just about buildings they’re about how they make you feel.” And we felt it. No wonder we showed up with the best of our best selves.

Shruti summed it up perfectly later in our chat:
“Just another reason to work with more women founders.”

That’s ours, what’s your moment of celebration this month?

Pause. Acknowledge it.
Share it with your team. Celebrate the hell out of it!

Have you done that? Beautiful.

Let’s get into this month’s chapter—as you have already read in the subject line this chapter is to all the leaders who are deeply thinking about their next level of leadership.

The Problem?

Every growth stage organisation’s CXO I talk to, goes through this

You know your time is best spent with future clients, designing your next edge, and evolving strategy. In short, you know you want to focus on “GROWTH”

Instead?
– You’re stuck fighting fires
– Micromanaging decisions
– Repeating instructions

You desperately want your next line of leaders to step up.
But something’s not clicking.

And every night, the same questions keep circling in your head:

– Why is my team still so dependent on me?
– Why am I putting out every fire—Am I not supposed to be a CXO?
– How do I go from captain on the field,  to coach in the dugout?

You’re not alone.

One of India’s top law firm partner came to us with the same questions.
She knew something was off—she was spending far too much time in operational chaos.

And interestingly, she was curious:
“Can sports help solve this?”

We were all in.

In today’s newsletter, the key exploration is to dive deeper into this problem statement and how we helped this team overcome that.

The Discovery

After our initial diagnostic process, this is what we shared with her

She resonated with it deeply.

And we proposed Winning Together for their team—a two-day, sport-based stepback designed to spark exactly this kind of leadership transition.

We told her:
“It will take 2 days to set this team in that direction.”

She smiled politely.

But what we heard as part of the closing circle of the program surprised us.

“When you people told me that we would be able to address this challenge in 2 days, I stepped in with a fair bit of cynicism and questioned how this could happen in 2 days.” 

Maybe you are also already rolling your eyes reading this how is this possible?

(If you want to know, continue reading!)

Image1 : Synthesis of the existing challenge for the team 

So What did we do?

Let’s rewind to Day 0.
Yep, we started even before it began.

We got the team on a warm-up call where we laid the ground.

And made a bold declaration:
“We’re going to make this transition from Ver 1.0 to Ver 2.0 in 2 days.”

There were raised eyebrows.
– Some were surprised.
– Some were intimidated.
– Some… quietly doubtful.

And day 1 started.

Day 1 : Clear the past

The team landed at the Padukone-Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence.
There’s something about being in a space built for performance. It sets the tone.
If you’ve ever been there, you know—this place does half the work

 Image 2 : Team practising football drill in the CSE Football ground

We kicked off with our only framework for the whole 2 days:

The 3 Building Blocks of High Performance
(Yes—just one major framework. That’s all we need. Check out the image below)

Then, the work began.

Across Day 1, through games, discussions and competition, the team explored how these three building blocks showed up in their work.

It became clear quickly—this team had solid Clarity Of Winning & Rituals For Winning

But Culture For Winning ? 

There were silos between different individuals, communication was broken and individuals were playing for themselves, they were winning at the cost of team losing.

An Example:
The quality of work juniors delivered directly to partners was drastically higher than what they own immediate managers. That one difference? It was burning out the managers, which was making them put in additional hours.

And this was just the surface.

Throughout the day, we saw it:

Too much unsaid in the room.
No shift was possible unless the unsaid became said.
(This is true for almost 90% of the teams out there)

So we held a 2-hour circle, where they addressed the unsaid they hold with each other, in a structured manner. When we started, the first 5 minutes were deafening silence; no one wanted to look bad.

   Image 3 : Three building blocks of high performance for a team

But one human who couldn’t handle the silence jumped in and shared, and people slowly loosened up, leaned in and started stepping in.

In the circle :

– Conversation flowed
– Years of unsaid was out in the air
– The relationship between key leaders strengthened

Not everyone was done in those two hours—some conversations continued late into the night.

By the end of Day 1, something had shifted.
People had more clarity. Some felt lighter.
Others walked away anxious—because now they had to finish the conversations that had finally begun

  Image 4 : Unsaid to said circle of a team