EZRA

I recently co-hosted EZRA's Insights Over Dinner alongside Melanie Steinbach, a room full of senior HR, talent, and learning leaders who came ready to share and exchange ideas. The theme that hit hardest: succession planning isn’t an HR process. It’s a performance system, but most organizations are still treating it like the former. At Chipotle Mexican Grill, we don’t have the luxury of getting this wrong. With close to one restaurant opening a day, you can’t hire your way to readiness. You have to build it. The jump from General Manager to Field Leader to Team Director isn’t a gradual progression. It’s a step change in scope, complexity, and decision-making. The managers who make that jump successfully are the ones who got coached toward the next role. It’s not enough just to be trained for the current role. Thank you EZRA for creating the space for conversations like this one.  

Being coached and knowing how to coach are two completely different skills. Most organizations are investing in the first, but coaching behaviors aren't reaching the rest of the org. Foundations changes that. A 3-month program that moves your leaders from managing output to developing people through 1:1 coaching, practice with Cai, and skills they can immediately use with their teams. Leaders who have insightful, caring conversations with their teams lead best. Great leaders develop people. Foundations teaches them how. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dMrSJtgj

Last week we celebrated the graduation of Senior Leadership Academy Cohort 3 at Chewy 🎉 Over the last few months, this group leaned fully into the experience, challenging ideas, debating trade-offs, and building strong connections across the business. Their final ALP presentations to our CHRO Heather Smedstad and CEO Sumit Singh pushed on an important question: What needs to change in how Directors operate as Chewy continues to scale and evolve? Really proud of this cohort and grateful to everyone who invested time, perspective, and support into the experience along the way. Thank you… 💙 To our participants for showing up fully throughout the experience. 💙 To the Talent Development team for bringing this cohort to life - Blair Bekker, MBA, Jake Slodkowski, Jessica Law, Bruno Garcia Calderon, Jan Beasley, MBA. 💙 To our partners at DX Learning and Alex Draper for your continued partnership and expertise. 💙 And to our partners at EZRA for supporting our leaders through executive coaching. Excited to see the impact this group continues to have across Chewy and for the continued evolution of the Senior Leadership Academy. 🐾 #Chewy #LeadershipDevelopment #SLA #CARE #Culture #Growth #ExecutiveDevelopment

“AI can automate tasks, but it absolutely cannot automate a relationship." That line landed in the room at EZRA's VIP Leadership Event at 100 Shoreditch this week — and it captures everything I believe about where we're heading. I was invited to keynote on The Human Advantage in an AI World, and the calibre of conversation from the senior leaders in that room was exceptional. Here's what I shared: → 86% of employers expect AI to transform their business by 2030 — yet in EZRA's own research, not a single organisation placed itself at the highest AI maturity level. The ambition is there. The execution gap is wide open. → Boston Consulting Group (BCG)'s 10-20-70 Rule still holds: 70% of AI success comes down to people and processes. Tech is the easy part. Culture, trust and leadership buy-in are the real work. → EZRA's 'Leading with Intelligence' research points to four capabilities that matter now: Curiosity, Discernment, Humility and Connection. These aren't soft skills — they're the competitive skills. → The paradox of personalisation: AI should handle the screening, the scheduling, the first-draft comms. Humans must own the coaching conversations, the ethical judgement, and the trust that retains great people. My message to every leader in the room: invest in your people — competitors can't buy that. Human ingenuity + AI intelligence = your unfair advantage. Huge thanks to Sinead Keenan, Jordan Rodger, Panos Malakoudis, PCC, Emily Eastwood, Janoi Watson and the whole EZRA team for creating exactly the kind of space where leaders learn alongside their peers. #FutureOfWork #LeadershipDevelopment #AIStrategy #HumanAdvantage #PeopleStrategy #Coaching #AIAdoption #WorkforcePlanning #LeadershipFutureReadiness #KeynoteSpeaker

Leaders want to lead through AI, but most haven't had the structure or support to do it with confidence. That's what our partnership with General Assembly is built around. Together, as part of the LHH ecosystem, we pair hands-on AI training with 1:1 coaching that turns knowledge into lasting leadership behavior. Are your leaders ready to lead the AI evolution? Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/ghVKF52D

Are you a "know-it-all" or a "learn-it-all"? The leaders who adapt aren't the most certain. They're often the most curious and humble enough to say "I don't know" when they don't have all the answers. In our latest EZRA Asks episode, Melanie Steinbach explores the leadership traits that hold up when everything is changing: https://lnkd.in/eCpSfYeH

Keep it alive or send it to the archive? Human-only coaching. 🤝 Josh Newman suggests "human-first." Has a coach himself, but he also uses AI to stay on track between sessions. Leslie Caputo shares how AI coaching is incredible for building technical, task-oriented skills, while human coaching is where the transformative work happens. So maybe we send "human-only" coaching to the archive, because... Human + AI coaching = Two tools with very different jobs, but better together Missed our live webinar "The Human Edge in an AI World"? Watch on-demand here: https://lnkd.in/eDhGAQyT

I used to think strong leaders didn't need coaching. Then I watched my team struggle through a major transition, and realised I was struggling too. That moment changed everything for me. It changed how I thought about leadership, about growth, and about what people actually need to do their best work.  It's also the reason I started EZRA Today is the last day of International Coaching Week, and I've been thinking a lot about the coaches who make this work real. I'm lucky enough to spend time with many of our coaches. What strikes me every time is the depth of empathy they bring to every conversation. Coaching is deeply human work, and the ripple effects of a single session can reach far further than anyone in the room ever knows. The biggest proof of that? The number of EZRAnauts, so moved by what coaching can unlock, that have gone on to become coaches themselves through our Academy program. When the people building the product want to do the work themselves, you know something real is happening. To every coach in the EZRA community, and beyond: thank you. You're not just developing professionals. You're changing people. Kelly Griffith, Sonal Maisuria, Melissa Fanaro, Jennifer Fickeler, Ph.D., PCC, Darya Belsner, Ifalase McGowan, Thomas Wright MA, PCC, Marion GAMEL, Panos Malakoudis, PCC, International Coaching Federation 💛