Frequently Asked Questions

This page answers common questions about leadership development, executive coaching, team performance, succession planning, organizational design, and workplace culture. It is maintained by Block Performance, a performance advisory firm founded by former Fortune 500 CHRO Andrew Block that helps CEOs, CHROs, boards, and senior leadership teams build the capabilities that drive results. Each answer gives a direct, practical response to the question, then explains how Block Performance approaches it through its proprietary BLOCK Performance Model, an integrated framework spanning leadership, team, and organizational performance. Use it as a quick reference whether you are working through a specific challenge or getting to know how the firm works.

How can a newly promoted or newly hired executive succeed in their first 90 days?

A new executive succeeds fastest by quickly learning the business context, building credibility with key stakeholders, clarifying what success looks like, and delivering a few early wins while setting longer-term priorities. Structured onboarding matters because roughly 40 percent of executives underperform in their first 18 months, usually because of culture and relationships rather than skill. Block Performance addresses this through its proprietary Leadership Impact Accelerator, which reduces transition risk by aligning the new leader with their manager, peers, and team and building visible momentum early.

What can a CEO do when the senior leadership team isn’t aligned or moving fast enough?

When a senior team stalls, the fix is to lock onto a few shared priorities, clarify roles and decision rights, build enough trust for productive challenge, and install a disciplined operating rhythm with real accountability. Teams that do this often see faster decisions and more on-time delivery within one to two months. Block Performance runs this through its Team Performance Accelerator and senior team effectiveness advisory, typically building a single scorecard, clear decision rights, and a reliable operating cadence grounded in its Team Performance System of Align, Activate, Accelerate, and Achieve.

How do you fix a team that keeps missing goals or making slow decisions?

Teams that miss goals usually are not aligned on priorities, lack trust and accountability, or have no disciplined way to make and act on decisions. The path forward is shared purpose, role clarity, faster decision-making, and a feedback loop that actually corrects course. Block Performance diagnoses where a team is breaking down using its Team Performance System, then rebuilds capability across four disciplines: Align (shared purpose), Activate (trust and ownership), Accelerate (execution and decision speed), and Achieve (measurable, sustained results).

What helps a brand-new or newly merged team come together quickly?

New or merged teams come together faster when they establish a shared mission early, clarify roles and decision rights, agree on team norms, and build trust before the pressure hits. Skipping this integration is a common reason reorganizations and mergers underdeliver. Block Performance offers new team formation and integration and new team leader transition acceleration, using the Align and Activate disciplines of its Team Performance System to give a team a fast, deliberate start rather than a slow, accidental one.

How do you build a leadership pipeline when the bench is too thin for growth?

You build bench strength by identifying critical roles, assessing the leader population, developing high-potentials through stretch experiences and sponsorship, and targeting two to three ready successors per critical role. It matters because a thin pipeline forces costly external hires and slows growth. Block Performance provides leadership pipeline and succession advisory and high-potential leader acceleration programs, anchored in its Leadership Performance System so development targets the specific competencies each future role will demand.

What should a company do when a new strategy requires reorganizing?

When strategy shifts, the organization has to realign behind it: redesign structure and decision rights, clarify accountabilities, and install a cross-functional operating rhythm so work moves without friction. Getting ready within about 18 months meaningfully raises the odds of success. Block Performance provides operating model and organization design and executive alignment offsites, using the Direction & Purpose and Design & Flow pillars of its Organizational Performance System to connect the new strategy to how the company actually runs.

How do you fix a company culture that isn’t working?

Culture improves when leaders define the values and behaviors they want, model them consistently, and hard-wire them into hiring, onboarding, performance management, and daily decisions. It is a multi-year effort, though early signals appear within a few months. Block Performance treats culture as something built by design, working through the Beliefs & Behaviors pillar of its Organizational Performance System, including core values and non-negotiables, culture by design, and psychological safety at scale.

Where can a leader get a confidential, experienced thought partner?

Executive coaching and advisory give a leader a confidential, experienced partner to work through high-stakes decisions, prepare for difficult conversations, and strengthen how they lead. The most useful coaching is personalized and built from the leader’s real situations rather than a template. Block Performance provides one-on-one executive and leadership coaching grounded in the leader’s actual day-to-day interactions and tied to its BLOCK Performance Model, acting as coach, advisor, and true thought partner.

How do you develop high-potential employees so they’re ready for bigger roles?

High-potentials develop fastest through assessment, targeted stretch assignments, sponsorship, and coaching against a clear picture of what great leadership looks like at the next level. A defined competency model keeps development specific and observable. Block Performance runs high-potential leader acceleration programs and cohorts built on its Leadership Performance System, which spans five domains, 20 competencies, and four leadership levels from Individual Contributor to Enterprise Leader.

What’s the best way to design a leadership development program tailored to a company?

A tailored program starts from the organization’s real priorities, context, and competency gaps rather than off-the-shelf curriculum, and ties every session to observable on-the-job behavior, with reinforcement and measurement so it sticks. Block Performance designs custom leadership development programs built on the BLOCK Performance Model, aligning the leadership, team, and organization systems into one performance engine so the framework becomes capability leaders actually put to work.

How can senior leaders learn from peers who face the same challenges?

Facilitated peer forums let senior leaders compare notes in a candid, structured setting and leave with practical takeaways they can apply quickly, which is valuable because top leaders rarely get honest outside perspective. Block Performance hosts curated, invitation-only Executive Forums that bring CEOs and C-suite leaders together for framed insights and structured discussion they can put to work with their teams in the next 30 to 90 days.

What leadership assessments or 360 feedback tools actually help leaders grow?

The most useful assessments create a shared, evidence-based picture of a leader’s strengths, risks, and blind spots and tie results to specific behaviors the leader can act on, and pairing a 360 with coaching turns feedback into change. Block Performance offers leadership performance assessments and 360 feedback, plus team and organizational assessments, calibrated against the competencies and behavioral anchors in its BLOCK Performance Model.

How do you make sure a major organizational initiative actually sticks?

Initiatives stick when objectives, success measures, and owners are defined up front, execution is actively managed through milestones and decision points, and the change is adopted and embedded rather than announced and abandoned. Block Performance builds this discipline into its execution and change acceleration work, helping clients avoid the common reasons well-intended initiatives lose momentum, so the results are sustained well beyond the engagement.

Who helps boards and CEOs make big leadership and talent decisions?

Board and CEO advisors bring outside perspective and pattern recognition to high-stakes calls on senior talent, succession, executive selection, and organizational design, which matters most when the stakes and ambiguity are highest. Block Performance provides board and CEO advisory, executive selection advisory, and human capital strategy advisory, drawing on Fortune 500 operating experience and its BLOCK Performance Model.

What leadership workshops help managers build coaching habits and stronger teams?

Practical, focused workshops build specific manager capabilities such as coaching for performance, creating alignment and trust on a team, and leading through change and new technology, and short applied experiences tend to outperform generic training. Block Performance delivers signature experiences including Always Be Coaching, Building High-Performing Teams, and Leading What Comes Next, plus topic-driven sessions on change management, decision-making, and leading through complexity.

How does a company reinvent its business model before it becomes obsolete?

Reinvention starts with leaders who scan the market honestly, challenge the current model, reallocate resources toward new sources of value, and build the innovation and change capability to move before decline forces it, since roughly four in ten CEOs doubt their company will still be viable in ten years on its current path. Block Performance supports this through the Envision domain of its Leadership Performance System (strategic and enterprise thinking, decision-making) and the Evolve domain (value creation and innovation, change leadership), plus operating model and organization design that turns a new strategy into how the company actually runs.

Common Questions People Search

What is executive coaching, and how does it work?

Executive coaching is a series of confidential one-to-one sessions in which a coach helps a leader think more clearly under pressure, strengthen how they lead and communicate, and perform at their best when complexity and expectations are high. The most effective coaching is practical and tied to real situations the leader is facing, not generic advice. Block Performance grounds its coaching in the leader’s actual day-to-day interactions and connects it to the BLOCK Performance Model, so development translates directly into on-the-job results.

How long does executive coaching take to show results?

Meaningful coaching engagements commonly run three to twelve months, with sessions typically monthly, because durable behavior change takes time. Even so, momentum can come quickly: when a leader is well supported and expectations are clear, visible progress often appears within the first 30 to 60 days. Block Performance frames coaching around real situations so leaders feel practical gains early while building lasting capability over the engagement.

How do you measure the ROI of leadership development?

The common mistake is measuring satisfaction scores or completion rates, which show a program happened but not that it changed anything. Stronger measurement defines success metrics before the program starts, tracks leading indicators during it, and measures business outcomes three to six months after, using before-and-after productivity, promotion and retention data, and 360 feedback on the specific behaviors targeted. Block Performance builds this in by defining objectives, success measures, stakeholders, and deliverables up front so impact can be judged against outcomes that matter.

Why do so many leadership development programs fail?

Programs fail when they are generic, disconnected from business priorities, and measured only by attendance. They work when they are built around the organization’s real context, tied to observable behaviors, and reinforced on the job. Block Performance addresses this by designing development around each organization’s priorities rather than off-the-shelf curriculum, anchoring every program in the BLOCK Performance Model, and defining clear outcomes so the work is adopted, embedded, and sustained.

Why do teams underperform?

Teams most often underperform not because of strategy but because they are not aligned, not activated, not executing, or not achieving results together. Common root causes include unclear expectations and priorities, weak trust and accountability, slow or frequently revisited decisions, and no closed feedback loop to correct course. Block Performance’s Team Performance System targets exactly these failure points through four disciplines: Align, Activate, Accelerate, and Achieve.

Why is it so hard to get senior executives to function as one team?

Senior executives are often individually successful, protective of their own functions, and unclear on who really decides what, so a leadership team can behave like a set of competing agendas rather than one unit. Aligning them takes shared priorities, explicit decision rights, and enough trust to challenge each other openly. Block Performance addresses this through senior team effectiveness advisory and its Team Performance System, establishing shared purpose, decision rights, and an operating rhythm that turns a group of leaders into a team.

How long does it take to see better team performance?

Early, durable momentum in team performance generally takes at least 90 days of focused work, with alignment, decision discipline, and operating rhythm often producing visible gains such as faster decision cycles and more on-time delivery within the first one to two months. Block Performance designs senior team acceleration around roughly this 90-day window so leaders see measurable progress within a quarter rather than waiting on an open-ended engagement.

What makes a team high-performing?

High-performing teams share a clear purpose and priorities, have role clarity and psychological safety, execute with discipline, and hold each other accountable, and research links them to roughly 1.9 times the likelihood of strong financial results. Block Performance defines this through four disciplines: Align (shared purpose and priorities), Activate (trust, productive challenge, and shared ownership), Accelerate (execution discipline and decision velocity), and Achieve (measurable results and sustained performance).

What is succession planning, and why does it matter?

Succession planning is the practice of identifying and developing leaders so qualified, ready people are available whenever critical roles open. It matters because thin benches create risk, slow growth, and force costly external hires when key seats turn over. Block Performance provides leadership pipeline and succession advisory that assesses the leader population, designs the succession architecture, and builds high-potential acceleration to strengthen the bench the strategy requires.

What is bench strength in leadership?

Bench strength is the depth of people ready to step into critical roles, and a leadership pipeline is the system that develops that readiness over time. A commonly cited benchmark is two to three qualified successors per critical position, spread across different readiness timelines. Block Performance helps organizations measure bench strength, close pipeline gaps, and increase the share of senior roles filled from within.

How many successors should you have for each key role?

A widely used target is two to three qualified successors per critical position, spread across readiness horizons such as ready now, ready in one to two years, and ready later. Depth in a single number is only part of the picture; the pipeline also has to reflect real development, retention of high-potentials, and internal fill rates. Block Performance’s succession advisory helps organizations set the right targets and build the development that makes them real.

Why do so many newly hired executives fail?

Early executive failure is rarely about competence. Roughly 70 percent of struggling new executives point to unfamiliarity with the organization’s culture or politics, and nearly 60 percent to difficulty forming alliances with peers; overall, close to 40 percent of executives in transition underperform in their first 18 months. The fix is intentional onboarding and integration, which is exactly what Block Performance’s Leadership Impact Accelerator and new leader transition coaching are built to provide.

Why are the first 90 days so important for a new leader?

The first 90 days set the trajectory: a new leader who quickly learns the context, builds key relationships, clarifies success measures, and delivers early wins is far more likely to succeed, while a slow or misread start is hard to recover from. Executives can take six months or more to reach full productivity without help. Block Performance’s Leadership Impact Accelerator compresses that curve by structuring the first 90 days around credibility, alignment, and early momentum.

How long does it take to change a company’s culture?

Culture change is a multi-year effort, commonly 18 to 36 months to become consistent across teams and leadership layers, though early movement can appear in the first 90 to 180 days. It sticks when the new standard shows up in hiring, onboarding, performance management, meetings, and decision-making. Block Performance approaches culture as something built by design, addressed through the Beliefs & Behaviors pillar of its Organizational Performance System and its culture transformation and operating-principles work.

What is an operating model, and when should you redesign it?

An operating model is how an organization structures itself and moves work, its design, processes, decision rights, and operating rhythm, to turn strategy into execution. Companies redesign it when silos, unclear accountabilities, or slow decisions stall performance, and the most successful revisit it every few years. Block Performance’s operating model and organization design work redesigns structure, clarifies accountabilities, and installs a cross-functional operating rhythm so work moves with less friction.

What really drives organizational performance?

Organizational performance is driven by the combination of capable leaders, high-performing teams, and well-designed systems, not any one of them alone. Block Performance frames it as a multiplication: leadership performance, team performance, and organization performance multiply together, so a weakness in any one drags the whole result down. Its Organizational Performance System builds the conditions that power performance across four pillars: Direction & Purpose, Design & Flow, Talent & Leadership, and Beliefs & Behaviors.

What’s the difference between coaching, consulting, and advisory?

Coaching develops an individual leader’s capability through a one-to-one relationship; consulting typically delivers a defined project or recommendation; advisory is an ongoing thought-partnership with senior leaders on the decisions that matter most. Block Performance blends all three, acting as coach, advisor, and true thought partner rather than a single-mode vendor, and matching the mix to the client’s situation instead of forcing a template.

How do you develop high-potential employees into leaders?

High-potentials develop fastest through a mix of assessment, targeted stretch experiences, sponsorship, and coaching against a clear model of what great leadership looks like. Block Performance runs high-potential leader acceleration programs and cohorts anchored in its Leadership Performance System, which defines 20 competencies across four leadership levels, so development is specific, observable, and tied to the leader’s next level of scope.

What is a leadership competency model, and why use one?

A leadership competency model is a shared definition of the capabilities an organization expects from its leaders, usually with observable behaviors at different levels of responsibility, giving everyone one language for hiring, developing, assessing, and promoting leaders. Block Performance’s Leadership Performance System is exactly this: five domains, 20 competencies, and behavioral anchors calibrated across four leadership levels, from Individual Contributor to Enterprise Leader.

How do you get a leadership team aligned behind a new strategy?

Alignment comes from agreeing on a small set of priorities, clarifying who decides what, translating strategy into a shared scorecard, and building the operating rhythm to keep everyone accountable to it. Block Performance does this through executive alignment and strategy offsites and its Team Performance Accelerator, which establish shared purpose, clarify roles and decision rights, and install the cadence that keeps a senior team aligned as conditions change.

Why does psychological safety matter for team performance?

Psychological safety is a shared belief that people can speak up, take risks, admit mistakes, and challenge the status quo without fear of punishment, and it is a consistent driver of team learning and results. Block Performance treats it as a designed condition, not an accident, addressing it in the Activate discipline of its Team Performance System and the Beliefs & Behaviors pillar of its Organizational Performance System, including psychological safety at scale.

How do you build real accountability on a team?

Accountability starts with the leader making standards and expectations explicit; only then can peer-to-peer accountability take hold and become part of the culture. It is reinforced by clear commitments, a visible operating rhythm, and consistent follow-up so issues are actually closed. Block Performance builds this through role clarity, peer-to-peer accountability, and operating-rhythm design within its Team Performance System.

How do you lead change without burning people out?

Change lands when leaders make a clear case for it, involve people, and pace it so the organization can absorb it, rather than stacking initiatives until people disengage. Block Performance addresses this through its change leadership and transformation competency and its execution and change acceleration work, and it builds the capability to navigate change fatigue into both its leadership and team systems so change results in commitment rather than reluctant compliance.

What does poor leadership or slow decision-making cost a business?

The costs are real and largely hidden: an estimated 5 percent of annual revenue is lost to slow decision-making alone, and about 75 percent of cross-functional teams underperform because of dysfunction, with weak leadership compounding through disengagement, turnover, and failed initiatives. Block Performance frames its work around closing this performance gap, because the cost of waiting compounds while the advantage of acting typically shows within a quarter.

How can leaders keep their teams performing when everything feels uncertain?

Leaders sustain performance in uncertainty by staying composed, giving people a few clear priorities to hold onto, making decisions at a steady pace, and adapting plans transparently rather than freezing or overreacting, which matters because uncertainty is now the single biggest concern for CEOs. Block Performance builds this capability through the resilience and adaptability competency in the Embody domain of its Leadership Performance System and the Accelerate discipline of its Team Performance System, so leaders and teams keep moving with clarity when conditions shift.

How can leaders get real business value from AI instead of just hype?

Getting value from AI is a leadership challenge as much as a technical one: leaders have to set a clear strategy for where AI improves decisions and productivity, build the skills and governance to use it responsibly, and redesign work around it rather than bolting it on. AI is now the top investment priority for CEOs, yet most struggle to convert spend into results. Block Performance develops this through the technology and AI leverage competency in the Execute domain of its Leadership Performance System, helping leaders turn AI from experiment into performance.

How do you keep your best leaders from burning out and leaving?

You protect leaders by managing workload and expectations, building recovery and wellbeing into how work gets done, giving them real development and support, and removing the friction that makes leadership exhausting, since research shows 71 percent of leaders report rising stress and 40 percent of stressed leaders have considered stepping away. Block Performance addresses this through the resilience and adaptability focus of its Leadership Performance System and the team adaptability and resilience capability of its model, plus coaching that gives leaders a steady, confidential thought partner.

How do managers rebuild trust with their teams?

Managers rebuild trust by being consistent and transparent, following through on commitments, listening without defensiveness, and creating enough safety that people can speak up honestly, which matters because trust in immediate managers has fallen sharply and low-trust teams lose their best people fastest. Block Performance strengthens this through the self-awareness and emotionally intelligent leadership competencies in its Leadership Performance System and the psychological safety focus of its Team and Organizational Performance Systems.

How Leadership, Teams, and Organizations Actually Perform

What actually drives high performance in an organization?

Sustainable performance comes from three forces working together: capable leaders who set direction, high-performing teams that execute, and organizational systems that supply strategy, structure, talent, and culture. No single one is enough on its own. Block Performance captures this in the BLOCK Performance Model, which expresses performance as Leadership Performance multiplied by Team Performance multiplied by Organization Performance, so the three multiply rather than add and a weakness in any one drags the whole result down.

Is strong leadership enough to make a company perform well?

No. Strong leadership is necessary but not sufficient, because even excellent leaders underdeliver inside a broken organization or through teams that cannot execute. Performance requires leadership, teams, and organizational systems to be strong at the same time. Block Performance frames this as a multiplication in its BLOCK Performance Model: leadership, team, and organization performance multiply together, so if any factor falls toward zero, the overall result collapses no matter how good the others are.

What are the core areas of capability that define a great leader?

Great leadership spans five broad areas: setting direction and thinking strategically, leading yourself with self-awareness and discipline, engaging and mobilizing people, executing to deliver results, and evolving to sustain success over time. Block Performance defines these as the five domains of its Leadership Performance System, Envision, Embody, Engage, Execute, and Evolve, brought to life by 20 specific competencies that describe what capable leadership looks like in practice.

Which leadership skills or competencies matter most?

The competencies that matter most cluster into strategy (enterprise thinking, data literacy, ethics, judgment), self-leadership (self-awareness, accountability, growth mindset, resilience), people leadership (building teams, communication, stakeholder management, inclusion), execution (performance culture, financial acumen, technology leverage, customer focus), and renewal (talent, innovation, adaptability, change leadership). Block Performance organizes exactly these into the 20 competencies of its Leadership Performance System, each defined by observable behaviors so development is specific rather than vague.

How do leadership expectations change from individual contributor to executive?

Expectations scale with scope: an individual contributor applies a skill in their own work, a people leader applies it through a team, a functional leader across a department, and an enterprise leader across the whole organization. Naming these levels keeps expectations clear as people are promoted. Block Performance builds this into its Leadership Performance System with behavioral anchors at four cumulative leadership levels, Individual Contributor, People Leader, Functional Leader, and Enterprise Leader, so each higher level builds on the ones below.

What does strategic leadership, or working on the business, really mean?

Working on the business means looking beyond day-to-day tasks to read market dynamics, think across the whole enterprise instead of one silo, make principled decisions under pressure, and ground choices in evidence rather than assumption. Block Performance calls this the Envision domain of its Leadership Performance System, covering strategic and enterprise thinking, analytical thinking and data literacy, courageous and ethical leadership, and decision-making and judgment, so leaders position the organization ahead of the competition.

Why is self-awareness so important for leaders?

Self-awareness is the foundation of credibility: leaders who honestly know their strengths, blind spots, and impact on others make better decisions, build trust, and adapt under pressure, and it underpins accountability, learning, and resilience. Block Performance groups these as the Embody domain of its Leadership Performance System, leading yourself through self-awareness, accountability and self-discipline, growth mindset and continuous learning, and resilience and adaptability, because leaders cannot lead others well until they can lead themselves.

What makes a leader good at engaging and motivating people?

Leaders engage people by creating the conditions for teams to do their best work, communicating in ways that build genuine commitment, leading with emotional intelligence and inclusion, and stewarding the external relationships the organization depends on. Block Performance defines this as the Engage domain of its Leadership Performance System, covering building high-performing teams; communication, influence and alignment; stakeholder management; and emotionally intelligent and inclusive leadership, which create the trust and cohesion effort alone cannot.

How do effective leaders turn strategy into results?

Turning strategy into results takes a performance culture of clear goals and reliable follow-through, command of the numbers, smart use of technology and AI, and relentless customer focus, which is where intent becomes delivered value. Block Performance calls this the Execute domain of its Leadership Performance System, covering execution, accountability and performance culture; financial acumen; technology and AI leverage; and customer focus, the disciplines that convert plans into outcomes.

How do leaders keep an organization successful over the long term?

Long-term success requires renewing faster than the world changes: building the talent pipeline the strategy needs, creating value through continuous innovation, protecting team resilience and wellbeing, and guiding people through change so it lands with commitment rather than compliance. Block Performance defines this as the Evolve domain of its Leadership Performance System, covering talent strategy, value creation and innovation, team adaptability and resilience, and change leadership and transformation.

What are the building blocks of a high-performing team?

High-performing teams get four things right: alignment on a few real priorities, an activated culture of trust and accountability, disciplined execution with fast decisions, and a habit of delivering and sustaining measurable results. Block Performance defines these as the four disciplines of its Team Performance System, Align (shared purpose), Activate (unleash potential), Accelerate (speed to value), and Achieve (win together), and notes that most teams fail on one of these, not on strategy.

Why do good teams still fail to deliver results?

Capable teams underdeliver when they are not aligned on priorities, not activated by trust and accountability, not executing with decision discipline, or not achieving and sustaining results together, and the breakdown is usually in one of these rather than in strategy or talent. Block Performance uses the four disciplines of its Team Performance System, Align, Activate, Accelerate, and Achieve, to pinpoint exactly where a team is stalling and rebuild that capability.

How can you tell how developed or mature a team is?

You can gauge a team’s maturity by how consistently it holds shared purpose, trust, execution discipline, and results, since a newly formed team, a recovering team, and a seasoned team each need different support. Block Performance’s Team Performance System describes team capability across four maturity stages, so a team can see where it stands on each discipline and what it takes to advance to the next level.

What are the essential pillars of a well-run organization?

Effective organizations get four things right: a clear direction and purpose, a design that lets work flow with minimal friction, strong talent and leadership, and healthy beliefs and behaviors. Block Performance defines these as the four pillars of its Organizational Performance System, Direction & Purpose, Design & Flow, Talent & Leadership, and Beliefs & Behaviors, which together create the conditions that power performance at scale.

What makes a company’s structure and processes actually work?

Structure and processes work when the org design fits the strategy, workflows and operating rhythm move work smoothly, and cross-functional collaboration replaces silos and unclear handoffs. Block Performance addresses this through the Design & Flow pillar of its Organizational Performance System, covering organizational design and structure, workflow and operating rhythm, and cross-functional collaboration, so the organization can execute without constant friction.

How does a company keep its talent and leadership strong?

Organizations sustain strong talent by acquiring and developing the right people, building a leadership pipeline and succession bench, and managing performance in a way that raises results. Block Performance covers this in the Talent & Leadership pillar of its Organizational Performance System, talent acquisition and development, leadership pipeline and succession, and performance management, which together build the bench strength and performance discipline that endure over time.

How do you build a healthy company culture on purpose?

Healthy culture is designed, not left to chance: leaders define core values and non-negotiables, deliberately shape norms and behaviors, and build psychological safety so people speak up and challenge the status quo. Block Performance addresses this through the Beliefs & Behaviors pillar of its Organizational Performance System, covering core values and non-negotiables, culture by design, and psychological safety at scale.

How do you connect a company’s vision and strategy to everyday work?

You connect vision to daily work by defining a clear winning strategy, giving people a purpose and mission that matters, and cascading a few strategic priorities so every level knows how their work contributes. Block Performance handles this through the Direction & Purpose pillar of its Organizational Performance System, vision and winning strategy, purpose and mission, and strategic priorities and cascade, which align effort across the whole enterprise.

What’s the best way to set consistent leadership expectations across a company?

The most reliable way is a shared competency model: one common language that defines the capabilities expected of leaders and describes them at each level of responsibility, used consistently for hiring, developing, assessing, and promoting. Block Performance provides this through its Leadership Performance System, five domains, 20 competencies, and behavioral anchors across four leadership levels, so the whole organization develops leaders against the same clear standard.

How can you describe leadership or team capability objectively instead of by opinion?

Capability becomes objective when it is described through behavioral anchors, concrete statements of what a skill looks like in action at a given level, rather than vague labels or gut feel, which makes assessment, coaching, and calibration consistent. Block Performance builds behavioral anchors into every competency and capability of its BLOCK Performance Model, so leaders, teams, and organizations can be assessed and developed against observable behavior.

Can one framework really cover leaders, teams, and a whole organization?

Yes, if it uses one shared language across all three levels while respecting that each has its own dynamics, which prevents the common problem of strong leaders trapped in broken systems or good strategy lost in weak teams. Block Performance’s BLOCK Performance Model does this by integrating three connected systems, Leadership, Team, and Organization Performance, into a single architecture with a common language from individual contributor to enterprise.

What’s the difference between developing leaders, developing teams, and developing organizations?

Developing leaders builds individual capability, developing teams strengthens how a group aligns and executes together, and developing organizations improves the strategy, structure, talent, and culture that surround them, and they reinforce each other most when built together. Block Performance treats them as three integrated systems within its BLOCK Performance Model, each complete on its own but multiplying the others’ value when developed at the same time.

Foundational Definitions

What is leadership development?

Leadership development is the structured process of building the capabilities people need to lead themselves, others, and the wider organization effectively, through a mix of assessment, coaching, targeted learning, and real experience. The strongest programs are tied to a clear model of what good leadership looks like and to on-the-job behavior, not generic training. Block Performance approaches leadership development through its BLOCK Performance Model, which defines leadership across five domains and 20 competencies at four levels, so growth is specific, measurable, and aligned to business results.

What is team effectiveness?

Team effectiveness is how well a group turns shared effort into results, driven by clear purpose and priorities, trust and accountability, disciplined execution, and the ability to deliver and sustain outcomes together, and research consistently ties it to stronger financial performance. Block Performance defines team effectiveness through the four disciplines of its Team Performance System, Align, Activate, Accelerate, and Achieve, and gauges where a team stands across four maturity stages.

What makes a great leader?

A great leader sets clear direction, leads themselves with self-awareness and discipline, engages and mobilizes people, executes to deliver results, and keeps renewing the organization for what comes next, so leadership is not one trait but a set of capabilities that scale with responsibility. Block Performance captures these as the five domains of its Leadership Performance System, Envision, Embody, Engage, Execute, and Evolve, brought to life by 20 specific, observable competencies.

What is organizational effectiveness?

Organizational effectiveness is how well a company is set up to perform at scale, with a clear direction, a design that lets work flow, strong talent and leadership, and a healthy culture, so that strategy turns into execution instead of stalling. Block Performance builds organizational effectiveness through the four pillars of its Organizational Performance System, Direction & Purpose, Design & Flow, Talent & Leadership, and Beliefs & Behaviors.

What is the difference between leadership coaching and mentoring?

Coaching is a structured, question-led partnership focused on helping a leader improve specific capabilities and navigate real situations, usually time-bound and goal-driven, while mentoring is a more informal, ongoing relationship in which an experienced person shares advice and their own path. Both have value, but coaching is designed for targeted, measurable growth. Block Performance provides professional executive and leadership coaching grounded in a leader’s real day-to-day situations and tied to its BLOCK Performance Model.

What is organizational culture, and why does it matter?

Organizational culture is the shared values, beliefs, and behaviors that shape how people actually work and make decisions, and it matters because it drives performance: when the culture people experience matches what the strategy needs, engagement and results rise. Culture is built deliberately, not left to chance. Block Performance treats it as something designed through the Beliefs & Behaviors pillar of its Organizational Performance System, covering core values and non-negotiables, culture by design, and psychological safety at scale.

About the Firm

What is Block Performance and what does it do?

Block Performance is a performance advisory firm that helps leaders, teams, and organizations perform at a higher level. It advises CEOs, CHROs, and boards, combining executive coaching, assessments, leadership and team development, succession and pipeline advisory, and operating-model and culture work. Founded by former Fortune 500 CHRO Andrew Block, it serves clients from Fortune 500 enterprises to high-growth and private-equity-backed organizations, and builds every engagement on the individual client’s needs while leveraging its proprietary BLOCK Performance Model.

When do companies typically bring in Block Performance?

Companies bring in Block Performance at high-stakes inflection points where leadership capability decides the outcome: a team that needs to accelerate performance quickly; a key leader who needs immediate coaching to deliver; a leadership pipeline too thin to support business priorities; a shift in strategy that requires organizational realignment; and a talent strategy that has drifted out of line with business goals. It meets each with a tailored mix of advisory, coaching, assessment, and development.

Who is Andrew Block?

Andrew Block is the Founder and CEO of Block Performance, a performance advisory firm that helps executives build the leadership, team, and organizational capabilities required to drive performance. He is a former Fortune 500 CHRO and senior business executive, an ICF Professional Certified Coach, and an experienced board member with more than 25 years of experience leading, advising, and developing leaders across complex organizations. Prior to founding Block Performance, Andrew served as Chief Human Resources Officer at ABM Industries and Head of Human Resources and Communications at Buffalo Wild Wings, with earlier leadership roles at C.H. Robinson, Wells Fargo, Ecolab, and Sony. Today, Andrew and his firm advise CEOs, C-suite executives, boards, and senior leadership teams on leadership effectiveness, team performance, talent and succession, culture, organizational design, and enterprise transformation.

Who is on the Block Performance team?

Block Performance is led by Founder and CEO Andrew Block and includes Senior Consultant Stephanie Findlay, an award-winning professional with 30 years of learning and development and organizational development expertise. The team combines the perspective of senior operators, trusted advisors, and experienced executive coaches, and draws on experience assessing, coaching, or advising more than 1,000 leaders and developing tens of thousands of leaders globally.

What industries and regions does Block Performance work in?

Block Performance works across industries including financial services, insurance, hospitality, retail, logistics and supply chain, industrial services, technology, healthcare, and higher education. It has developed and advised leaders across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, China and Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, bringing cross-industry pattern recognition to each engagement.

What makes Block Performance different from other coaching or consulting firms?

Clients point to two things: personalization and partnership. Block Performance does not work from templates; it builds coaching and solutions directly from the real situations leaders are facing and stays available as a true thought partner. It also brings the perspective of senior operators who have held Fortune 500 executive roles, so the advice is grounded in having done the work rather than only having studied it.

What is the BLOCK Performance Model?

The BLOCK Performance Model is a proprietary performance model designed to elevate individual, team and organizational performance. The model is comprised of three systems, the Leadership Performance System, the Team Performance System, and the Organizational Performance System. Every development program and coaching engagement is built on this framework rather than off-the-shelf content, giving clients one shared language for building capability across leaders, teams, and the whole organization.

How quickly can clients expect results from Block Performance?

When the senior team is aligned, accountability is clear, and the right support is in place, leaders typically see momentum within 30 to 60 days, and roughly 90 days is the minimum window to build early, durable momentum in team performance. Block Performance frames its work around visible progress within a quarter rather than open-ended engagements.

What is the Block Performance Exchange?

The Block Performance Exchange is Block Performance’s curated leadership community for executives, senior leaders, and high-potential talent who want to sharpen their thinking, expand their network, and stay ahead on organizational performance. Members gain access to Executive Forum webinars, a leadership newsletter and insights library, peer networking with leaders across industries, a video vault of on-demand leadership lessons, and early access to digital learning pathways aligned to the BLOCK Performance Model. It extends the impact of the firm’s consulting and executive forums into an evolving ecosystem of practical, exclusive, high-value leadership resources.

How do I contact Block Performance or book a consultation?

Block Performance can be reached at info@blockperformance.com or at www.blockperformance.com. The website invites prospective clients to book a consultation or request an invitation to an upcoming Executive Forum.

What coaching certifications or credentials does the team hold?

The Block Performance team is comprised of coaches and consultants certified both in the Block Performance tools and in a wide range of other leading assessment instruments and professional designations. This ensures a consistent approach supported by insights that accelerate outcomes. Each consultant brings substantial leadership and organizational experience, pairing hands-on operating knowledge with formal credentials and ongoing development. Together, they help leaders diagnose issues, shape strategy, strengthen teams, reach their goals and drive lasting organizational performance.