What can a business owner use instead of a CEO peer group?

From the room · Uwe Dockhorn, Strategic Advisor

The short answer: one person to think a single decision through with, someone with no stake in how it lands, for as long as it takes you to see it clearly. A peer group gives you many views on many topics. One person gives one decision the whole hour.

Both have their place. The real question is which one the decision on your desk needs right now.

What does a CEO peer group give you, and what doesn't it?

Peer groups are good at what they are built for. Vistage runs peer groups for CEOs of companies above five million dollars. EO is built for founders and business owners to share insights, experiences and vulnerability. YPO is a global network of chief executives with confidential forums. Plenty of owners will tell you one of these rooms changed how they lead.

What a group is not built for is one owner's one decision, held long enough to get to the bottom of it. The time is shared, the agenda is shared, and everyone around the table has a crossroads of their own. And the people in the room like you, which is exactly why they cheer.

In a public talk about selling his software company, Jason Eckenroth described both sides of it. His forum:

"I'm in a CEO forum full of other entrepreneurs and they were like Jason, you got this!"

And later in the same talk:

"My wife is asleep upstairs and my mind is so clouded and all my self-confidence around this decision has evaporated."

The encouragement was real. The decision still went home with him.

Do I need a peer group, or one person to think a decision through with?

Ask yourself what you want to walk out with.

When you want to hear how ten other owners handled something similar, a group is the right room.

When you want to stop carrying one specific decision on your own, one person is.

Owners at the edge of their field often find that other people's experience does not transfer. A founder running several companies told me in my research: "When you're looking for these experts, these resources, you look around and realize, oh, nobody's done this that I can find."

Why can't my partner, my CFO or my spouse be that person?

They can be a lot of things for you. What they cannot be is the person with nothing riding on the answer. Each of them has a stake in how your decision lands, and that is what makes them loyal. It is also why the half-finished thought, the one you are not sure of yet, rarely gets said out loud at home or in the office.

What does one person to think with look like in practice?

In my own work it is one hour, one owner, one decision. The rule I hold to: One owner. One decision. No advice allowed.

No advice, because the answer is usually already there. It needs room to be said, heard and looked at, without anyone flinching or steering. So the hour is yours, and the decision stays yours. What changes is that you stop carrying it alone. Shoulders drop.

It is where my work comes from: protecting the space owners need when a big decision shouldn't be carried alone. The short film on my site shows why: uwedockhorn.com/my-story

How do I choose?

Three honest questions:

1. Is there one decision you keep taking home with you?
2. Would you say all of it out loud to the people around your table?
3. Right now, do you need more ideas, or more room?

When the answers are yes, no and room, a peer group is probably not the missing piece.

Questions owners ask

Can I keep my peer group and do this as well?
Yes. Some owners use both: the group for breadth, one person for the one decision that will not settle.

Is this coaching?
Not in the usual sense. It starts with the decision in front of you, and it can grow into a steady way of working: a clear picture of where your business stands, a room every other week for the decisions as they come, and a look at the whole each quarter.

Is it confidential?
Yes. Nothing you say leaves the hour, and nothing appears anywhere without your yes.

How long does it take?
The first hour is about one decision. Owners who want more keep the room going every other week, so each new decision has somewhere to go before it gets heavy.

Where to start

My research conversations study exactly this: fifteen minutes, five questions, no pitch, held in confidence. The first dispatch, The Decision You Carry Alone, follows four leaders through it in their own words. When you are carrying a decision like that now, you can book a conversation and read the dispatch at uwedockhorn.com/research

Every owner quoted here said yes first, or spoke in public; names and details are changed unless they asked to be named.