20 COACHES ' CORNER SUMMER ' 18
Coaches’ Corner:
COACHING COMPANIES TO SUCCESS:
PARADATA SYSTEMS INC. AND SUBSERVEO INC. WITH SHANNON SUSKO
AS THE founder and CEO of two successful fintech companies— Paradata Systems Inc. and Subserveo Inc.— leadership coach Shannon Susko knows a thing or two about developing high-growth companies. She understands that growing a company can be a chaotic process— and a leader will do almost anything to meet his or her targets during the early stages.“ For high-growth companies, when a crisis hits, it’ s easy to throw discipline out the window and just get the work done,” says Susko.
In her work as a CEO and leadership coach since 2011, Susko helps leaders of companies with revenue between $ 20 million and $ 100 million avoid making big mistakes that can derail them during that crucial period. For Susko, the most important thing in working with clients is to map out an execution system for their strategy— a three-year plan for the company aligned to its 10-to-30-year goal.
In her recent book, 3HAG Way— or in layperson’ s terms, the“ Three-Year Highly Achievable Goal Way”— Susko explains how CEOs can map out their“ swim lanes,” i. e., their 12 quarters of strategicgrowth plans, so the entire organization recognizes where the company is going.“ I make sure that my clients’ outcomes are clear and simple so the team can make good decisions aligned with their clear and simple strategy,” she says.
Why the three-year time frame?“ Three years is so close that you can reach out and touch it,” says Susko.“ It makes everything real. If you put your 3HAG out there and map out your strategic execution for the next twelve quarters— including your people plan and fiscal aspects— there is no question that you will achieve your goal. That was my experience as a CEO and now as a CEO Coach.”
Even though Susko’ s second company, Subserveo Inc., was started in 2008 during the Great Recession, she was still able to meet her goal of selling the company in a three-year time frame— three years and three months to be precise. The acquisition was recognized by The M & A Advisor as one of the top three midmarket deals on Wall Street that year— a victory Susko attributes directly to the Scaling Up framework Verne Harish describes in his book by the same name and the 3HAG mapping strategy.
After the company’ s sale, Susko had dreamed of a quiet retirement in her beautiful hometown of Whistler, British Columbia, but her drive to help other CEOs who were desperate to grow their own companies won out.“ I want to impact CEOs, their teams, their families, and their communities by helping them grow their companies and reach their goals.” she says.
One of her most important pieces of advice to them is to understand that as part of the scaling-up process, they need to step back to the sidelines and become a coach of their own team, she says. She urges them to tell themselves,“ Today, I’ m the coach sitting in the stands, coaching the leadership team on the sidelines that is coaching their own team on the field. Winning the game is the desired outcome.” That’ s not always easy advice to follow, but for those who do, she says, the payoff can be dramatic.
MEET SHANNON SUSKO
IT ' S ONLY A DRY
Shannon has more than twenty
PIECE years of experience OF BREAD building and leading high-growth technology
YET companies
TO in
SOME the financial
IT services industry. She co-founded, served as Chief Executive Officer, and led the
MEANS SO MUCH. sale of two companies in less than six years: Subserveo, Inc. and Paradata Systems Inc. She was recognized as one of Canada ' s Top 40 under 40 in 2000, and was awarded the Sarah Kirke Award for Canada ' s Leading Women Entrepreneurs in 2006. She currently serves as a corporate director, as well as a leadership coach, helping CEOs and top executives in a variety of industries keep their companies on the path to growth and predictable profit. www. shannonsusko. com