Executive Coach, Psychologist, Confidante, & Strategic Partner
High Achievers & Their Organizations
Where Psychology Builds Business
HIGH ACHIEVER PERSONALITY & INTELLECT
The High Achiever personality comes from striving for excellence and an outsized sense of personal responsibility. High Achievers often question whether they are getting it right or doing enough. My clients are “good people”—with high integrity and a sense of humility that belies their accomplishments. They are lifelong learners and tend to be open-minded because their curiosity outstrips the need to be right. Somehow, in the midst of being serious, we have a lot of fun because most of them have a wicked sense of humor that is either dry or completely unexpected.
Over the years, I’ve found a subtle theme among the High Achievers who work well with me, and it’s a variable most of them aren’t aware of. They are intellectually different from the average person. They connect the dots quickly, synthesize information from multiple knowledge domains, and tend to hate irrelevant detail. Most of them wonder why there are no critical thinkers left in the world. All of these leaders prefer to think independently and question surface-level answers.
Having a High-Achieving personality that combines intelligence with a standard of excellence translates into success that also brings frustration and sometimes self-doubt. Integrating all the facets helps us fully show up for ourselves and increases our confidence in how we show up for others.
INTEGRATED PSYCHOLOGY & BUSINESS
Traditionally, business strategy has been separated from human strategy. This has never made sense to me. I’m aware that my lens causes me to hone in on human variables, but logically, I get confused by the historical separation of people strategy from business strategy. On the personal side, our strengths, struggles, and narratives show up in our leadership decisions. At an organizational level, the most costly business decisions rise from defunct ideas, broken relationships, human incompetence, or poor judgment. And yes, sometimes things go wrong even when you’ve brought your best strategy to the table.
Most of us have experienced or witnessed partnerships, hires, or acquisitions fall short due to incomplete human due diligence. Conversely, we’ve also been in rooms where the right people or team dynamics bring oxygen into an idea, amplify it, and turn it into profit. I am equally aware and passionate about the fact that successful leaders carry at least part, and sometimes all, of their identity in the success of the organization they lead. For these High Achievers, there is a thin or absent line between their personal value and professional success. Integrating both domains of thought into problem-solving and growth initiatives helps us avoid the blind spots that arise when we focus on either domain alone.
You Don’t Have to Lead Alone.
THERE IS NO SHORTCUT TO EXCELLENCE
Executive Summary
1. Who: High Achievers (High Achiever Personality) who are founders, senior executives, entrepreneurs, or business owners. I work with them, their organizations, and ecosystems.
2. What: Relationally-based, non-prescriptive partnership and practical problem-solving. We synthesize variables across business, psych, tech, and health domains, for both low-stakes and high-consequence scenarios.
3. How: Straightforward, down-to-earth; mutual respect, mutual ideation, and mutual trust. Hopefully fun too.
4. You’ll hate it if: Horrible fit if you want fast, simplistic answers or a transactional approach; great fit if you think independently and play the long game.
5. Length of Relationship: As long as it is mutually beneficial. My clients are builders, so they continuously iterate and grow, resulting in relationships that often span several years. The engagement is co-created based on trust, needs, and preferences.
6. The brief application for the Strategy & Fit Call allows us to assess fit, answer questions, and respect your time.
The Man In The Arena
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. –Theodore Roosevelt
We sat around the table, trying to get to the bottom of some operational issues hindering organizational growth. Part of the problem was that people thought they were speaking the same language, but they weren’t. One of my dominant strengths is that I am a translator. I saw the gaps in understanding, and I forced clarity. I was a little concerned about being tedious, but I knew that if we didn’t understand the premise of each other’s assumptions, the rest of the time would be wasted. Somehow, it started to feel like fun.
It became a fun challenge because what they thought was clearly an easy task on the front end, was obviously not. One of the men watching got into it. I remember him saying, “Wait, I want to play.” Once we figured out the communication conundrum, we moved on to discussing and planning.
We Put Chocolate In the Center of the Table
It wasn’t just about the chocolate. It was about taking the edge off. Most of these men had been in combat, the police force or both. They’ve seen hard, and they were smart enough to understand that real problem-solving and alignment can be hard. So the chocolate was a tangible way of adding play, of grounding. We were going to relax around the table, talk about hard stuff, eat some chocolate, and get the job done.
The team and I did that for a while – spent each Friday afternoon getting some mileage. We stopped when it was a good pausing point, or when the chocolate was gone, then reconvened the next week.
The Importance of Judging People - Human Due Diligence
Integrated Excellence
The Pleasure & The Pain
You already know this. Assessing problems from a single angle yields incomplete, and often inaccurate, assumptions. It lowers the ROI on our effort. Most outcomes in business and life result from a series of interactions and dependencies rather than dichotomous taxonomies and linear correlations. But sometimes it’s easier to focus on only one area of excellence when we’re tired.
The upside is that when we understand that variables intersect, we don’t have to improve everything to achieve growth. The layers build on each other, creating multiple positive feedback loops, and over time, upleveling the entire system.
Personal excellence = identity, peace, wellness, fulfillment. What we don’t need is pressure to try harder or to have more self-discipline.
Interpersonal excellence = trusting your judgment, dealing with other people
Organizational excellence = awareness of cascades, tough decisions when there are often no “right” answers
The hardest part of pursuing integrated excellence as smart people with high-achieving personalities is that we think we should be able to get it right. We trust our intellect to solve problems, and it feels like a personal failure when part of our system fails.
Need a Fast Reference to Navigate Humans?
A lot of smart people don’t talk about the conundrums of dealing with themselves and others because it makes them feel stupid. They are not alone. Concise, actionable advice is formatted with an extended table of contents for quick reference with no end-to-end reading commitment.
Content Highlights
- Increase confidence and personal excellence.
- Teach people how to take you seriously.
- Assess people’s motivation to pull the best out of them.
- Protect yourself and your organization from difficult people.
- Scripts for setting boundaries, apologizing, and other awkwardness.
Articles
High Achiever Comments
“It’s legit shit. Not foofy-fluffy. You have this way of combining psychology and business into tactical solutions that I can actually use.”
—D. L.
“I have been very protective of keeping you in the budget. The value you bring to our company is not lost on me.”
–(Confidential)
“Comparing other coaches to Dr. Tricia is like comparing McDonald’s with Morton’s Steakhouse.”
—A. T.
“I can’t imagine where I’d be personally or professionally without her.”
—P. N.
“Dr. Groff is that rare individual who not only understands how to help you achieve success, but she also understands the very real human emotions that color the process. She is intelligent in kind. Dr. Groff is the best there is to illuminate your path forward. Look no further.”
–Penny C