Introductory Call

Want to explore if I can be of help at this stage of your journey? Book a free Introductory Call, and we’ll explore if I could help and how. This could be followed by a trial session to tackle a specific challenge you are facing.

Feeling overwhelmed in your role in a world of challenges and change?
Needing to grow your team with the “right” people in a market where finding and attracting people with current knowledge is challenging?
Been through one or more layoffs and dealing with a team that has lost trust and motivation at a time where priorities are high and resources are tight?
I’m happy to consider engagements as a coach or advisor for teams or individuals. I also do workshops and speaking engagements.

These are challenges I’m very familiar with and have been able to help navigate to success.

Thank you for considering an introductory call to explore collaborating to address challenges and enhance your leadership journey. This call will be a chance to discuss your goals, challenges, and the potential benefits of collaborating on your journey. I’m eager to explore how we can collaborate to get past challenges, achieve your objectives and drive impactful change.

Book an Introductory Call: Calendly.com/C_D/Intro

About CD

I’m CD (Chris Dolezalek),
an Executive & Organizational Effectiveness Coach trained in the CoActive method. I’ve guided sports teams to national and world championships and organizations on challenging transformative journeys from startups to billion-dollar success.

I’ve been fortunate to work with amazing teams and individuals in 11 companies that have disrupted various industries and survived. 3 filed for IPO and 3 were acquired. 7 achieved valuations of over $1B. I have 9 years’ experience of leadership coaching, 3 as a schoolteacher and 12 coaching sports. I’ve helped over 35 individual contributors who eventually made it to VP or C-Level positions. As a servant leader focused on coaching, I’ve coached for over 10,000 hours. When I talk about my journey, it’s sometimes met with skepticism given how high the odds are against a startup surviving let alone succeeding. So, I put together an Against All Odds note to dive into that.

I honed non-verbal communication skills as a horse whisperer. Two near-death- experiences also gave me a new perspective.I have many years experience overcoming challenges, finding solutions and achieving success and fulfillment in a variety of arenas. As a result, I’m often asked to offer, suggest or provide solutions. However, life has also taught me that every individual and current set of circumstances differ. I use Questio ns to explore existing habits and rituals and shine light on possibilities to address challenges and evoking atomic incremental improvements.

I also help clients discover inner voices that can hold them back or propel them – see Saboteur and Allies. This can involve my intruding, interrupting and asking you to challenge currently held beliefs and practices. I have found transformation is best evoked when the choices, insights, actions and approaches come from and are owned by you and resonate with you, your family, your team, your life, and your situation.

Possible Approaches:

Fulfillment: Discover, pursue what truly matters, aligning actions with core values and passions, fostering a sense of purpose and fulfillment with what you do at work and at home.
Balance: Explore various perspectives to make deliberate, empowering decisions to achieve balance in your life.
Process: Examine and process deeply held emotions, heavy concerns or crises that seem existential.
Positive Intelligence: Strengthen the mind’s positive regions to improve mental fitness, enabling individuals and teams to overcome self-sabotage and achieve peak performance.

Employee Engagement: (Re)ignite employee passion aligned with company goals (e.g. after a RIF).
Overcoming Challenges: Help navigate challenges and discover alternate approaches that lead to success.
Leadership Effectiveness: Address silo-thinking, establish first team, multiplier and learning org mentality.
Improve Team Performance: Uncover and resolve issues to create high-performing, autonomous teams.
Streamline Org. Processes: Analyze workflows, identify bottlenecks, and explore improvement options.
Grow Stronger Teams: Improve hiring, on-boarding and growth-centric development practices.

I experience fulfillment helping individuals and teams discover strengths and achieve extraordinary results.

I look forward to helping you and your team achieve deliberate, incremental progress toward a positive, balanced, fulfilling, and forward-moving experience, enhancing overall performance and well-being.

Chris Dolezalek (a.k.a. “CD”)

Further Context to Inform Introductory Call Decision

P.S. For further context before considering an introductory call, the following may be of relevance (especially if you’re a leader of a disruptive technology company). To share my work-journey of going through tough times and coming out better and stronger in the end, I created the list below. Each of these companies went through existential crises (most to the point of paying out the last payroll they could afford) before turning things around.
As Andy Grove said: “Bad companies are destroyed by crises. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.”

My Work Journey and Successful Companies I Helped Beat the Odds

Startup Fail succeed - Introductory Call Context

Softlab, GmbH – $8.2B

Joined as an early-stage startup. I was architect for the World’s 1st Integrated Software Development Environment which began my journey of learning what makes software teams succeed. Initial acquisition by BMW was at a $300M valuation or $8.2B in today’s dollars.

Cooperative Solutions

Joined as an early-stage startup. Most funded tech startup in Silicon Valley at that time. Acquired by Bachman Information Systems for an undisclosed amount.

Informix, Inc – $1.7B

Joined as a mature company. It was acquired by IBM for $1B or $1.7B in today’s dollars.

BroadVision, Inc. – $26B valuation (or $47B in 2024 dollars)

Joined as an early-stage startup. Reached profitability before filing for IPO as the second fastest growing company on Nasdaq during dot com. It achieved a $26B valuation (or $47B in 2024 dollars) before I left my VP, Engineering role to teach K-8.

Intuit, Inc. – Current Valuation $175B.

Joined as a mature company. I started as an individual contributor. As Director, Eng. Led internal startup to build QuickBooks Online.

Yahoo – $125B.

Joined as a mature company. Lead world’s largest casual gaming platform. Yahoo’s peak valuation was over $125B.

IMVU (now Together Labs)

Joined as a mid-stage startup. Aka “The Lean Startup” Still going and being coached/advised by myself. It has raised a total of $77.6 million in funding. The Lean Startup is a methodology for creating and managing startups by using continuous innovation to build products. Held Key-Note talks on Lean Startup Methodology.

Twitch – Current Valuation $45B.

Joined early-stage as EVP, Eng. Acquired by Amazon. Current Valuation $45B.

Pure Storage – $16B

Joined as a mid-stage startup Pre-IPO. Filed IPO. Current Valuation $16B.

Prosper Marketplace

Joined late-stage startup as EVP, Eng Pre-IPO. Filed for IPO, still pending.
Changed Rituals that saved the company, As of 2024, Prosper Marketplace has originated over $25 billion in loans.