Coaching
AI coaching for the leader who has to make the decisions
Most senior leaders are being asked to set a direction on AI without having had the time to understand it properly. Reading about it does not fix that, and neither does a vendor demonstration. This is one to one work with a coach who has actually implemented AI in a business, aimed at closing your own knowledge gap and turning it into a plan you can put in front of a board.
How it works
- One to one, or a small cohort of leaders working the same problem
- Online wherever you are, or in person in Ho Chi Minh City
- Built on two and a half years of running AI inside our own business
- Ends with a strategy you can implement, not a reading list
The problem this solves
A chief executive can delegate the technology. What cannot be delegated is the judgement: which parts of the business AI should touch first, what to stop doing, what to say to the workforce, and how much to spend before there is proof. Those are leadership decisions and they land on one desk.
The gap is rarely intelligence and almost always exposure. Leaders have read the headlines and sat through the pitches, and have had no safe place to ask the basic questions or to test a plan with someone who has done it. That is what this is.
Why us rather than a consultant with a deck
We have been running AI inside our own business for two and a half years. Not piloting it: using it daily across research, drafting, analysis and client work, including the parts that did not work and had to be abandoned.
That matters because the useful guidance is rarely about capability. It is about what breaks, what people quietly refuse to adopt, what costs more than it saves, and what a realistic first ninety days looks like. Advice from someone who has only advised tends to be optimistic in exactly the places it should not be.
What we work on
Sessions are shaped around what the leader actually has to decide, not a fixed syllabus. In practice the ground covered is usually some version of the following.
- The landscape, in plain terms. What these systems do, where they are genuinely capable, and where the confident answer is wrong.
- The tools available to you, and which ones are worth your organisation paying for. Most are not.
- Where AI changes the economics of your business specifically, rather than in general.
- A first plan: what to try, in what order, with what budget and what stop conditions.
- How to scale what works from one team to the rest of the business, which is where most AI programmes quietly stall.
- What to say to your people, and when. The communication decision is usually left too late.
How it runs
Most engagements are one to one. Some clients prefer a small cohort of three or four leaders who share a business and can be honest with each other, which works well when the constraint is alignment at the top rather than knowledge.
Sessions are conversations rather than workshops, so they work as well remotely as they do in a room. We coach leaders wherever they are: online across the region and beyond, or in person in Ho Chi Minh City, in Vietnamese or English. Scheduling is built around the leader rather than a course calendar, because a chief executive who has to defer a session should be able to.
What a first engagement usually looks like
Nothing here is fixed, and a leader who arrives with a specific decision to make will skip most of it. The shape below is what happens when someone starts from the beginning.
- A first conversation to establish what you actually have to decide, and by when. No charge, and it is the point at which we say if we are not the right people.
- A session on the landscape, aimed squarely at your sector and your economics rather than at AI in general. Most leaders find this is where the fog clears.
- A working session on your own business: where the tools would genuinely help, where they would not, and what a first attempt would cost.
- A plan drafted by you, challenged by us. It names what you are trying, the budget, who owns it, and the point at which you would stop.
- Sessions alongside implementation, as often as the pace needs. Some leaders want fortnightly contact through the first quarter; others want to come back only when they hit something.
Who this is not for
It is not technical training. If the need is for engineers to build with these tools, we are the wrong provider and will say so in the first conversation.
It is also not a good fit for a leader who wants a recommendation delivered to them. The whole point is that the judgement ends up with you, and that takes participation. If what you want is a strategy document produced by somebody else, a consultancy will serve you better and we will tell you that rather than take the work.
Where it usually leads
A leader who has worked out what they want to do next generally finds the constraint has moved: they now know the direction, and the organisation cannot yet execute it. That is a capability problem rather than a strategy one.
At that point the work moves from the individual to the cohort, which is what AI in Practice is for. Neither depends on the other, and plenty of leaders take the coaching and stop there.
Once a leader knows what they want to do, the constraint moves to whether the organisation can execute it. That is a cohort programme rather than a coaching one: AI in Practice, at three levels, with the agendas published.
Common questions
Who is AI coaching for?
Business leaders who have to make decisions about AI and have not had time to understand it properly. Typically chief executives, managing directors, and functional heads with a budget. It assumes no technical background and is not aimed at technical teams.
Is it one to one or a group?
Usually one to one. It also runs for a small cohort of three or four leaders from the same business, which works better where the real constraint is that the leadership team is not aligned rather than that any one of them lacks knowledge.
Do you coach leaders outside Vietnam?
Yes. The sessions are conversations rather than workshops, so they work as well remotely as in a room, and we coach leaders across the region and beyond. In person is available in Ho Chi Minh City. Delivery is in Vietnamese or English and many engagements mix online and in person.
What makes this different from AI consulting?
Consulting produces a recommendation you then have to carry. Coaching builds the judgement so the decisions are yours and you can keep making them after the engagement ends. We also work from two and a half years of running AI inside our own business rather than from research alone.
How long does an engagement last?
It is scoped around what the leader needs to decide. Some engagements are a handful of sessions to get to a first plan; others run alongside an implementation over several months. We agree the shape before starting rather than selling a fixed package.
How is this different from executive coaching?
Executive coaching works on how you lead. This works on a subject you have to form a view about, with someone who has implemented it. The coaching skills are the same and the two often run together, but you would not send a leader to an executive coach to work out an AI investment case.
We already have an AI vendor. Does this still help?
Usually more, not less. A vendor has an interest in what you buy from them. The value of an independent coach is being able to ask whether the tool is the right one, what it will actually replace, and what happens if you stop paying for it, without the answer being commercially loaded.
Do you need access to our systems or data?
No. The work is about decisions rather than implementation, so it runs on what you already know about your business. Where a session touches something confidential, that stays in the room on the same basis as any coaching engagement.
We have already started with AI. Is it too late to be useful?
That is the more common starting point. Most organisations have tools in use and no agreed position behind them, so the first work is usually taking stock of what is already happening rather than starting from nothing. Adoption without direction is the normal condition, not a failure.
How quickly can we start?
The first conversation is usually within a week or two, and it is free. It establishes what you are trying to decide and whether we are the right people. Nothing is committed until after that.
What does AI coaching cost?
It is priced per engagement, because a few sessions to reach a first plan and a coaching relationship running alongside an implementation are not the same piece of work. Tell us what you are trying to decide and we will scope it and give you a number before you commit to anything.
Tell us the situation, not the service
Describe what you are dealing with. If we can help, we will explain how.