Focus Groups

Few people understand the challenges of leadership like other CEO’s. Confidential group discussions provide a place to openly share your questions and concerns. The groups give executives the chance to hear from accomplished and unbiased leaders from all over the country.

Purpose & Concept: Focus Groups are facilitated peer learning groups that meet to share ideas, successes, and challenges in a safe setting.  They also serve as a forum to analyze trends and current best practices in nonprofit leadership. The purpose: to share what is happening, discuss solutions, and receive feedback and ideas from others.

Membership & Structure

  • Meet monthly February thru November.

  • 2-hours via Zoom.

  • 10 - 12 participants who hold an executive position.

  • Peer coaching after each case study (with an option for a private peer call).

  • Included:  Private coaching session with Bruce, and personal Everything DiSC Work of Leaders assessment.

Program Model

We use a peer-learning model that splits each session into a topical exploration and individually shared case studies. The topic-of-the-month allows the group to define and explore any pertinent subject, relying on member sharing and skilled facilitation to gain focus.  Structured discussion topics (supported by advance reading materials) have included: growing an executive leadership team, crisis management, benefiting from challenging board members, Vision/Alignment/Execution leadership model, and intuition as a leadership skill.

In ten-month groups we also use a book to guide the discussion (see examples below*).

Case study reviews comprise at least half of each session.  Members bring their “cases” and use the group as consultants.

Case Format:

  • The Headline – short and enticing.

  • The Nutshell – a concise statement of the issue.

  • The Background – the players, how long it's been going on, what’s at stake.

  • What was tried?

  • Clarifying questions from the group.

  • Peer Consultation.

  • Review - What are you taking back – what will you try? Arrange a peer-coach check-in.

*Books utilized in past groups (for example): Drive, Daniel H. Pink; Rest, Alex Pang; The One Thing, Gary Keller; The Work of Leaders, Julie Straw et al; The Advantage, Patrick Lencioni; Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott; The Four Disciplines of Execution, McChesney, Covey, Huling; The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier; Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan; Whole Brain Living, Jean Bolte Taylor, Trust & Inspire, Stephen M.R. Covey.

2026 Focus Group

Space to Focus All Year - Convening Two Groups Monthly (CURRENTLY FULL)

  • Meeting February through November

  • Second week of the month

  • Thursday afternoon or Friday morning via Zoom

New Executive Directors Peer Coaching (sponsored by The Moran Company)

  • Six sessions, meeting January through November (2nd Thursday mornings); the topics rotate so you can begin any month

  • Designed for Execs in their first year in a new role

  • Pertinent topics selected plus case studies

*Contact for details

  “For leaders to get results they need three kinds of focus.  Inner focus attunes us to our intuitions, guiding values, and better decisions. Other focus smooths our connections to the people in our lives.  And outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world.  A leader tuned out of his internal world will be rudderless; one blind to the world of others will be clueless; those indifferent to the larger systems within which they operate will be blindsided.”

  Daniel Goleman, Focus – The Hidden Driver of Excellence, 2013