Location: Annapolis, MD
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Fred Jones

I guide people to sort out what is becoming important and take courageous action

Fred has taken a deep interest in developing people and the organizations they lead for more than two decades. He centers his coaching on the real-work challenges leaders face, challenges that commonly come with shifting and difficult-to-reconcile priorities. Fred’s developmental orientation includes the mindset leaders bring to what they are trying to make happen. He tunes in specially to how leaders work with complexity, which occurs often as leaders partner across boundaries, need to work with divergent perspectives and lead systemic change. Coaching helps to surface how leaders frame what they are facing, along with their underlying assumptions. The process unlocks consideration of alternative ways of taking action. Fred specializes in supporting those developing leadership teams, including how that team moves forward together. He uses theater metaphors and practices to help leaders both show up as themselves, authentically, and adapt what they do within the range of contexts that they encounter.

What is an example of your work with clients?

My background in health care has lived on with clients in care delivery systems, insurance, and biotherapy and medical device development. Added to that are bigger and smaller players in the tech sector, manufacturing, professional services, higher education administration and network-centric non-profits enabling social change.

Who are your clients?

A former coaching client took on a new role, and looked to me as he began establishing himself on this bigger stage. With a member of his new leadership team, we built an approach to framing and working through strategic issues. The goal: productive conversations toward timely and quality decisions.
All of this has a larger context of historic patterns, those in which leaders tend to use their power to get their way over consideration of the greater good and through principled decision making. My ongoing work helps this senior leader and the team imagine and craft directional shifts in what lies beyond their control, while also watching themselves and how they are leading.

What has shaped your work?

First, by taking on challenges myself as a leader within organizations and letting them develop me. Secondly, by being around people who look far and wide while also reflecting deeply. I discovered that I stay vital by relentlessly experimenting, often drawing on insights and practices formed over decades (and longer) about the complexity of humans and our shared world.

What’s the rest of your life like?

I am a writer and reader, like being by the sea more than in it, enjoy baking bread almost as much as eating it, and joyfully chase rescue dogs around the house and yard. My wife and I love the theater, and while acting isn’t my thing, I have a flair for the dramatic. My spiritual sense has evolved greatly over a long time, leaving me with more wonder and curiosity than ever.

What methods do you use with your clients?

Methods vary based on how we are exploring the inner world and the outer world of challenges faced. It is important to do both. Methods to get at what’s going on “out there” are somewhat different from accessing what’s going on “in here”—whether “in here” means the dispositions and mindsets of individuals or a collective. I have researched and practiced around how people sense what’s possible for change, and selectively use visual tools that enable people to see more and inquire better than they might otherwise.

How do you work with your clients?

I work with whole people, but not in a therapeutic way. I always work to understand the particulars of client situations, but don’t serve as an advisor or pretend to be an expert on what you do. I use my experience and expertise to outline what I believe can be helpful and what may not be helpful, and if I don’t think I am well positioned to partner with you, I’ll tell you why.

What do you uniquely offer?

I have developed three platform-like approaches as a basis for coaching and workshops. Meanwhile Studio supports adults creating time and space to reflect and explore at key times in their lives. Leading on Stage uses theater metaphors to explore the tension between being yourself authentically and being responsive to context. Keeping It all together frames the necessary, inter-related routines for leadership effectiveness, and serves as a repeatable method for developing inexperienced leaders.