Why I'm Writing Strive Better?
Exploring leadership capacity and human performance in private equity and other high-demand environments.
High-performance environments place extraordinary demands on the individuals who operate within them. Private equity may be among the most intense of these settings. Capital is deployed, value-creation plans are developed, and operating playbooks are implemented with ruthless precision.
Yet where private equity firms and the companies they back so often fall short is not in these systems themselves, but in something far less visible: our ability to access and apply the full strength of our innate human capacities.
THE CAPACITY TO:
choose wisely under pressure,
exercise sound judgment amid uncertainty,
distinguish between intensity and impact,
discern what is and isn’t within our control and direct our attention accordingly,
sustain performance over long stretches of time, and
pursue ambitious goals without losing the deeper foundations of a life well lived.
Over the past several years, my work as a coach and advisor has placed me in close conversation with leaders operating in these environments: private equity investors, operating partners, portfolio company CEOs, and the talent leaders responsible for building strong organizations.
A pattern has become increasingly clear.
The capacities described above aren’t developed in business school classes or leadership seminars. They are cultivated through practices, habits, and ways of thinking that look far more like self-mastery than training.
Talent teams certainly exist. Leadership development programs and consultants abound. But in practice, most attention remains focused on identifying and acquiring talent, both within private equity firms and across their portfolio companies.
And yet, while self-mastery may very well be the decisive factor in the quest for sustained performance, it is largely ignored or, worse, assumed to be a fixed individual trait that one either possesses or does not.
As a result, far less attention is given to systematically developing the human capacities leaders and individual contributors need to sustain performance when under scrutiny.
StriveBetter is a place to explore what may be the next frontier of value creation in private equity: human capacity development.
Through essays and reflections, I’ll be writing about leadership, striving, and the human capacities required to perform well in demanding environments — what research says about these capacities and the practices that help cultivate them. Many of these ideas emerge from my coaching work, from third-party research, and from ongoing research I’m conducting into the psychology and architecture of striving among high-achieving individuals.
My aim is not to offer productivity tactics, strategies for manufacturing outsized returns, or quick hacks designed to manifest success. None of those approaches works for long.
Instead, I hope to contribute to a deeper conversation about how ambitious professionals can develop the capacities that allow them to lead effectively, perform sustainably, and pursue success without losing sight of what ultimately matters: the opportunity to live a flourishing life.
Private equity may be one of the most outcome-oriented professions in the world, whether as an investor or an executive. Yet here we’ll resist the instinct to glorify unicorns and MOICs, and hang outcomes on the effectiveness of AI programs. Instead, we’ll focus on the underlying human capacities that make sustained performance possible — individual self-mastery and the leadership practices that are the foundation of thriving organizations.
If these questions resonate with you, you’re welcome to subscribe and join the conversation.
- Derek