The difference in our Executive Coaching Services is a combination of:
- Organizational leadership, sales, marketing, distribution experience: our successful experience in a variety of poisitions in B2B and B2C enviornments provides us with varied relevant experiences and expertise to assist clients
- Cutting edge knowledge and training in human performance excellence, providing clients with unique and relevant tools to imorove individual and organizational performance and results
- Advanced specialized training in Corporate coaching: you get people trained in areas you deal with daily, with the specific tools and techniques to deal with them effectively
- Thousands of hours of successful coaching of business owners, President's,CEO's and senior managers and executives
- We specialize in helping small and medium sized businesses: we aren\t all things to all prople and we speak your language
- Our clients say we do a pretty good job of things for them
- We use the best combinations of tools, questions, coaching and focused training to improve individual and organizational capabilities, to produce the desired results.
- Lasting change: We only work with those who are committed to take action, and we create lasting behavioral changes for improved performance
The relationship between an executive and a coach is collaborative. The success of any coaching relationship is dependent on trust between coach and leader. Together, you and your coach will assess your situation, including strengths, weaknesses, and developmental opportunities. You will work with your coach to create developmental action plans.
After you execute the plans, you and your coach will review the results and define new action plans to further your growth. Throughout this process, the level of benefits you receive from using a coach is directly related to your willingness and ability to take an active role in every aspect of the coaching engagement.
How long will it take?Behavioral change takes time, and regular practice and reinforcement are critical to altering long-ingrained behavioral patterns. While brief coaching engagements seem to produce changes in behavior, these changes often fail to stick under day-to-day pressures.
We therefore ask clients to make an initial commitment to at least six months of coaching, with an understanding that the engagement may be extended or terminated early, if desired. This allows sufficient time for the coach to help the leader through a sustained, iterative process of testing new behavioral patterns across a wide variety of business circumstances and challenges.
What are the expectations of me as a leader? What are the expectations of the coach? Who else will be involved in this process?
Every coaching engagement includes the following activities:
- Agreement on specific coaching goals based on an assessment of the leader's strengths and weaknesses by him/herself as well as by colleagues who are best able to comment on his or her behaviors. In some cases, the client organization has already completed a leadership diagnostic; in other cases, we are asked to manage that process. We are open to using whatever leadership diagnostic tools the client organization uses in-house and/or recommending appropriate tools. We often complement quantitative diagnostics with a set of qualitative interviews that provide additional depth and richness to the assessment.
- Creation of a written development plan that includes agreed-upon goals, targeted outcomes, action steps, timeframes, and measures.
- Communication of the leader's goals with key stakeholders, and periodic feedback from this group. We usually seek input from six to eight of the leader's colleagues, including his or her manager, peers, and direct reports. As appropriate, we will also seek input from critical clients or customers.
- "Homework" assignments between coaching sessions: For example, the coach may recommend reading, assign practice of specific behaviors and reflection, or ask the leader to write down insights into what worked or didn't work in a given situation.
- Progress assessment at the end of the engagement (and also at the midpoint for yearlong assignments). Here, we solicit stakeholders' perceptions of change against goals.
- The coach may suggest additional activities based on the situation and the leader's goals and progress. These might include observing the leader in key meetings and/or helping him or her prepare for critical conversations or presentations as they arise.
How often will I meet with my coach?
Coaching sessions usually take place twice a month, particularly initially, either face-to-face or by phone. The frequency, duration, and type of meeting depend on the leader's needs and travel schedule. The initial months of an engagement generally require more time together than the later months.
How will we measure success?
We measure success based on the satisfaction of the leader and, more importantly, on the assessment of his or her stakeholders. Specifically, we gauge success based on the stakeholders' evaluation of how well the leader has progressed against his or her selected goals at the completion of a six-month engagement.
Ongoing quality assurance and a willingness to take accountability for results is key to our ability to produce consistently successful outcomes. We set a very high quality bar for coaching.
Because we engage multiple stakeholders, including the leader's boss and often the HR partner, the leader benefits from broad support and potential issues can be flagged early on.