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John Crossan
COO at NDC | Culture Consultant, Coach and Mentor | FRSA
John Crossan is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at ndc, a consultancy specializing in executive coaching, leadership development, and culture consultancy.24 He joined ndc in this role in June 2023, bringing a wealth of experience to the team.3
Professional Background
John Crossan has extensive expertise in several key areas:
- Human Resources
- Talent Management
- Organizational Development
- Change Management1
As COO at ndc, John helps leaders build high-performing cultures that deliver exceptional results and enable their people to thrive.2 His approach combines strategic insights with practical implementation to drive organizational success.
Experience and Skills
John is recognized as a:
- Culture Consultant
- Coach
- Mentor2
He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), which indicates his commitment to social progress and development.2
Company Information
ndc, where John serves as COO, is a consultancy with a focus on:
- Executive coaching
- Leadership development
- Culture consultancy4
The company employs approximately 23 people and includes other key figures such as Martin Egan (Co-Founder) and Ics Varma (Founder).5
John Crossan's expertise in organizational culture, leadership, and talent management positions him well to contribute to ndc's mission of helping organizations develop effective leaders and build strong, performance-driven cultures.
Highlights
Culture Change at Old Trafford: Future Fit or Fit to Fail?
As a Leeds fan it feels odd to write about Manchester United. But as someone who works with organisational culture every day I’m fascinated by events at Old Trafford.
There used to be year-on-year success, but post-Alex Ferguson it’s been quite barren by Manchester United’s standards - most clubs would be happy with a few cup triumphs & a Europa League (it beats relegation).
There used to be an ever-present strength that seems lost. We saw it in the patterns of behaviour & performances of the players, manager & other leaders in the public eye. But given how well the machine worked, you sensed it ran right through the club.
Culture must have played a part.
As the new season starts, what might a Manchester United culture built under Sir Jim Ratcliffe & INEOS look like?
I’ve been looking for clues in the INEOS Compass, a tool that guides & embeds the values & patterns of behaviour that deliver success the INEOS way. It’s made of ‘Words We Like’ and ‘Words We Don’t Like’.
What’s words do INEOS like?
Lots. Some capture the Manchester United culture, or at least playing style, of old. Relentless. Doggedness. Tenacity. How will INEOS embed these traits? You’ll also find ‘If you can’t be good, be lucky’. Comment on that one if you have a view!
But to build a culture that reflects the Compass, Ratcliffe & INEOS will need to focus on the ‘Words we don’t like’ too.
These include Arrogance, Gloating, Moaners. Top players have been accused of these in recent seasons. It would be refreshing to see a club with this heritage lead in upping the level of sportsmanship & eradicating behaviour like crowding officials.
The performance & conduct of top players have a powerful impact on a club’s culture, but a football club is more than the men’s team. Culture is built, and impacts, throughout the organisation. Changing it is a systemic endeavour.
What will be required of the manager, leadership & other departments off the pitch? What infrastructure changes will support the culture & staff & fans’ experience of it?
And there’s the issue of the women’s team & it’s status. In a powerful cultural ‘symbol’ (a decision interpreted in terms of what the decision makers really value) the men’s team have been given priority use of the new women’s facilities while their own facilities are renovated.
This clashes with the club’s stated aspirations for equality & diversity, retention, on-field success & general promotion of women’s football. Some repair work (or smart comms) seem prudent.
We’ll see a very public culture change at one of the world’s biggest clubs. And we’ll get more insights into its progress than we would in a ‘normal’ organisation. What clues will we see on the outside that indicate progress on the inside?
INEOS have proved they can deliver cultures of success. What are their chances at Manchester United?
#ManchesterUnited #Football #Culture
Image from https://lnkd.in/d2z3ReVY
How have the critical moments in your life shaped how you live and lead? Yesterday I spoke with a wonderful CEO who I’ve been working with for a little over a year. This person is an incredible leader, loved by their colleagues and family and delivering great results. But they’ve been going through a tricky patch.
Things have been good in the business and with her team. Life has been good at home. But two years ago she noticed a creeping boredom in her work. We began working together when that boredom changed into a mixture of frustration, sadness and fear that was touching all areas of her life.
In her words…
“I’m not sure I’m doing what I’m meant to do. I’m not actually sure I’m being who I’m meant to be.”
This experience is pretty common, and not just in CEOs. You probably know friends and family who have felt this way. Perhaps it’s been true for you.
Fast forward a year and she’s in a very different place. She’s leading the same organsation and has the same family! But she’s got a renewed sense of alignment. She’s clearer on who she is, why she’s doing what she’s doing, and why that matters to her.
It’s been a seriously rich journey.
One of the things that stands out about yesterday’s conversation is how she described what she called the ‘Critical Moments’ in her life, and their impact on her.
She hadn’t noticed it all in real-time, but she talked about how she can see the ways that a series of major events and turning points in her life have shaped how she lives and leads. Some of them were ‘highs’, some were very hard.
Serious illness, the birth of her child, losing people close to her, letting friendships go. She can see the growth that came from them:
Changes in her fundamental beliefs…
More self-belief and resilience…
The ability to really commit…
Not needing to have all the answers…
Greater levels of empathy and compassion…
Being able to learn from mistakes (and allow others the same luxury)…
Way more (genuine) humility and vulnerability…
She can trace all of this back to these Critical Moments. And, right now, she can see how she’s going to use it to help her lead a significant change in her organisation.
Six months ago I gave her a gift, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Viktor Frankl. She now has one of his quotes on her desk at all times.
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
That’s her little reminder that people grow and change, and that some of the most profound change happens in response to experiences we might rationally want to avoid. And that if that is true, we can grow and change intentionally in response to the more everyday challenges we come up against.
What are your critical moments, and how have they shaped how you live and lead?
#Leadership #Purpose #Change
PPS. the picture is from this morning, the signpost made me think of this. Still haven’t found a place I prefer running than the #Yorkshire Coast.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.