Coaching Cohorts

The secret sauce to building communication mastery at scale.

After months of connecting through screens, it was a gift to finally gather in person with this year’s CAE LDP cohort and strengthen how we communicate as leaders.

I often coach individual leaders to prepare for a meeting, talk, or interview, but what I most cherish is working with an entire cohort of individuals to build their skills together. This allows me to scale my impact across the entire group. The saying “a high tide lifts all boats” applies here, as participants can benefit from the cohort approach in ways my individual clients cannot.

Today, let me explain why that’s the case. For each approach, I offer a case study from my clients over the past few months.

1. Excellence breeds excellence – When a team faces the same task, such as presenting their project to the firm’s senior leaders, they feel the pressure to perform well. But they also find comfort in knowing they are not alone. Observing the unique approaches others take sparks creativity and drives better results.

• Case study: Four junior faculty members at Stanford’s School of Medicine were invited to give 15-minute “micro-talks” about their research at the Dean’s annual retreat. I worked individually with each speaker, then brought all four together for a final dress rehearsal about a week before the retreat. These scholars, from diverse fields within the school, engaged in content discussions among themselves while I focused on delivery skills. This group of relative strangers within a large faculty was given the opportunity to bond.

2. Cross-pollination – If designed so that speakers can see me coaching their peers, it multiplies my impact. I can coach one on visuals, another on transitions, and a third on body language.

All benefit not only from the coaching they receive but from what they observe. I call this “learning on both sides of the microscope.”

• Case study: 25 high-potential leaders from CAE worked with me virtually and in person over a five-month period, culminating in five teams delivering recommendations for CAE’s C-suite based on research projects they conducted in strategic areas for the firm. I worked with all these teams via Zoom as they prepared for their presentations. Then, in the final 48 hours, they gathered in person and benefited from watching me coach a “buddy team,” further strengthening their presentation and communication skills through observation.

3. Mutual coaching – Even when I’m not around, my coaching influence continues, because the speakers can reinforce my language and advice. This is when I witness the true impact of my work on scale.

• Case study: I collaborated with a team of scientists from Virta Health during a half-day offsite focused on storytelling with data. In the following months, the group continued to coach each other using the same methods and language I provided.

Early moments with this year’s One Mind Accelerator cohort, turning conversations into ideas worth capturing via whiteboard.

The work I do is often proprietary, which prevents me from sharing the results of my coaching. Here are four examples with playlists on YouTube that I can share.

• One Mind Music Festival & Science Symposium features five scientists designated as rising stars in their fields, sharing their innovative approaches to vexing mental health issues.

• The DISCOVERY Soulful Speaker Series, produced five times in the past two years, gave a platform to founders within the Rugged Elegance Foundation’s portfolio to share their unique work.

• Schmidt Science Fellows 2025 Interdisciplinary Summit brought four speakers from vastly different disciplines together to deliver 7-minute, slide-free talks about their groundbreaking work.

• Frontiers in Medicine serves as the premier donor engagement event for Stanford Medicine. For more than a decade, I’ve helped three faculty members distill their complex research into a ten-minute talk easily accessible to an educated lay audience.

And while parents are not supposed to have favorites, I have to close today’s Comm Matters with a jewel that I co-founded at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. I was able to return last week to see the fifteenth year of this unique program, as MBA students craft and deliver talks under ten minutes about how they aspire to change lives, organizations, and the world (LOW). This YouTube library of over 350 talks has millions of YouTube viewers. I’m proud of the legacy this program has provided for speakers, coaches, and audience members.

Talk of the Week

Today’s Talk of the week features just one of these LOWKeynote talks by Bani Maini presenting about a deeply personal journey from the aftermath of a near-fatal trauma to a place of profound inner peace. While standing amidst the beauty of Italy, she found herself trapped in an “endless tunnel” of emptiness. I urge you to continue watching to discover how she shifted her perspective.

JD’s Recommendations: What I’m Reading, Hearing, and Viewing

• Reading: During the opening of the One Mind Accelerator, I met Laura Delano and picked up her book Unshrunk, a challenging but worthwhile read on psychiatric treatment resistance.

• Hearing: A powerful conversation between Chip Conley and Pam King on how a near-death experience reshaped Chip’s perspective on purpose, aging, and the wisdom we carry into life’s transitions.

• Viewing: Through the DISCOVERY series, Dr. Sará King pauses at Gorée Island’s “Door of No Return,” a powerful moment that quietly holds themes of remembrance, resilience, and possibility.

Thanks for joining me in today’s Comm Matters. I’m always open to topics you’d like to see me cover in future posts. Drop your suggestions in the comments below.

All the best,

jds