ian rhett

how can i help?

Two kinds of people call me. Remote, mission-driven organizations that are operationally drowning: the vision is real, but the machine that ships it isn't there yet. And leaders at a crossroads who need a room to think out loud in. Here's what each looks like.

Layer 1 · for teams

Fractional COO / Integrator

Part-time, embedded operations leadership: the person who turns a vision into a functioning delivery machine. Scheduling, functional accountability, budgeting and forecasting, hiring, culture, process. The work that lets a founder face outward instead of drowning in the org chart.

The Circle of Chairs

It's a framework I built running an all-remote company, and it's still how I think about fixing distributed teams. A flat group where everyone has an opinion about everyone else sits, in effect, facing inward, with all those opinions pointed at each other, meetings about each other, consensus that never quite closes. So you turn the chairs around. Each chair faces outward, toward its own functional area, and a simple functionality matrix makes sure every base is covered and everyone knows whose base is whose. Opinions inward becomes accountability outward. The result is clearer chairs facing the actual work, and far fewer meetings about each other.

Eight chairs arranged in a circle, all facing inward toward the centre
opinions inward. A flat partnership; every chair with a vote on everyone.
The same eight chairs turned to face outward, each toward its own area
accountability outward. Each chair faces its own functional area.

Why I'm credible

I've done this for real. From 2006 to 2014 I helped build and then ran CivicActions, a fully distributed company from day one, sixteen years before the world went remote. I steered it through the Great Recession and two hard pivots, serving clients including Amnesty International and Save the Children. I've been the person who builds the connective tissue a company made of scattered humans needs. This offer is that job, made part-time and portable.

Layer 2 · for leaders

Coaching

For founders, executive directors, leaders (and interesting humans) at a crossroads. Career, money stories, the "what now" that keeps you up. I've sat where you're sitting; at forty-five I would have hired me at sixty.

Replacement Tapes

Here's the exercise I keep coming back to. In 2006, broke and stuck, I sat down and wrote out every story I told myself about money, the whole inherited script, and then rewrote each one into the story I actually wanted to live in. I've run it on my own tapes for twenty years, and I can show you the receipts. Most of us are running software we never chose. Coaching with me is, in part, learning to notice the tape that's playing and record a better one.

Not sure which chair you need?

Book the conversation; we'll figure it out together.

Let's talk.

Team or coaching, book the conversation and we'll figure out which chair you need.

Pick a time that works. A 30-minute intro.

Prefer email? ianrhett@gmail.com