A Day in the Life of an Executive Agenda Group Chair

Ask Bob Brill what a typical day looks like after nearly 20 years as an Executive Agenda (EA) Group Chair, and he'll probably hesitate before answering. Not because he doesn't know, but because the honest answer is that no two days are the same.

He currently mentors about 45 EA members, from department heads to newly-promoted CEOs, and every conversation takes a different path.
 

Underneath the variety of conversations is a disciplined process, one Bob has refined over nearly two decades of One-on-Ones, quarterly group meetings, and all the things in between.

 

Preparing for a One-on-One

Bob doesn't script his mentoring conversations.

But he doesn't wing them either. Before meeting with a member, he asks for a brief outline of what they'd like to focus on. He studies it, and just as importantly, he thinks about the pattern of that relationship over time. Are their challenges usually people-related? Organizational? Strategic?

 

"I do spend a good amount of time jotting some notes on how we can begin having that kind of conversation," Bob says. "The goal is to arrive ready to ask the right questions."

 

Bob is quick to point out that mentoring is not consulting. A consultant is paid for what they know and can tell a client.
 

Mentoring, in his opinion, is a mutual discovery process that helps a leader reconsider a situation and see options they hadn't considered.

Bob helps them be vulnerable in a safe place so they can learn and grow as a leader.
 

The Quarterly Rhythm

One-on-Ones happen around quarterly group meetings but also on a flexible, as-needed basis. The quarterly meetings follow a set rhythm that's planned nearly a year out.

Here's how it typically unfolds:
 

• End of the previous year
  All quarterly meeting dates and host locations are locked in. Meetings are almost always hosted by a member, often at their office or plant, sometimes with a facility tour or a guest speaker.
   
• About 30 days before the meeting
  Bob schedules One-on-Ones with each member in the group.
   
• 1 week before the meeting
  One-on-Ones wrap up, topics are confirmed with each member, and the agenda goes out to the full group so everyone arrives with time to think through what will be talked about.
   

Nearly all group agenda items originate from those individual One-on-Ones. As Bob puts it,

"Whatever I can do in a private session can be multiplied that many times over,"

once a member agrees to bring it to the full group, trading one perspective for a dozen or more and opening more options for the right solution.

 

The structure isn't just for the member with the issue on the table, either. Bob regularly asks the rest of the group what they took away from the discussion, a habit he picked up from his own years as an EA member, when hearing how a peer's problem applied to his own business was often the most valuable part of the meeting.
 

Between the Meetings

The quarterly cadence and the One-on-Ones are the visible structure, but Bob describes himself above all as a continuous learner, someone who believes,

"what you knew yesterday as a business leader may no longer be helpful today."

He reads widely and consistently: the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Deloitte research, and more. Bob doesn’t do this to find solutions from what he reads, but to stay current enough to relate and to recognize a pattern when a member brings up a challenge that echoes something broader in business.

 

It All Comes Down to a Feeling

When asked what success looks like across all of it, the prep, the One-on-Ones, the quarterly cadence, he doesn't point to a framework. He points to a feeling.

 

"It's really helping members in the moments that matter most to them personally or in their career, to become more effective, more confident in those matters that matter most."

 

That, more than any single day's schedule, is the job.

 

 

About the Authors/Executive Mentors

Bob Brill has been a Group Chair (Executive Mentor) for nearly 20 years and currently serves three Executive Agenda (EA) groups (EA 17, EA 34 and EA 39) comprised of executives and senior business leaders from diverse industries and business functions in the greater metro Milwaukee, Madison and Appleton/Green Bay areas in Wisconsin.

EA members in the groups hold management, senior leadership, and executive level roles in organizations ranging in size from middle-market to publically-owned global businesses. During his 35+ years of business experience, Bob has held senior executive and management positions at a number of insurance, services related and management consulting businesses. Bob holds a B.A. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and has taken post-graduate courses at UWM.