Individual Leadership Development

• Leadership and Performance Enhancement Coaching
• Conflict Resolution (Mediation)
• Position Change or Transition Consultation
• Senior Level Advisory Consulting

Why Coaching?

Constantly changing business conditions have elevated and altered the typical standards for success. Strategies and tactics that leaders have used in the past are becoming obsolete, but companies continue to value their human capital and need to foster change and growth in order to stay competitive. That means all leaders must develop new skills, build upon their strengths and realize their full potential. How can your company develop leadership skills that are critical for the future success of your organization?

A Primary Tool is Executive Coaching!

Executive Coaching is designed to accelerate the growth of high potential executives and to improve the effectiveness of managers whose performance has faltered. This powerful program provides a mirror to assist executives in clearly examining their values, skills, mission and relationships. Once the analysis and diagnosis are completed, a target plan is developed that focuses on creating and maintaining top performers and putting derailed employees on the right track.

Who Can Benefit?

• High potential managers who need additional development
• employees with an excellent performance history who have temporarily slipped
• competent technical managers who need to improve interpersonal skills
• executives who are questioning their future career direction
• High-potential individuals who need to create leadership skills for the future
• Managers who will be terminated if they don't improve their performance
• Executives who are beginning a new, difficult or sensitive assignment

For Example:

... A talented executive falters on the job, usually because of how he or she is going about doing their jobs as opposed to not knowing what they are doing. (Example: the technically brilliant Director of Engineering who alienates people because of his perfectionist, dictatorial, control-oriented approach to working with other professionals.)

... A high potential manager who has been promoted up the organization but does not intuitively grasp how he or she needs to do his or her job differently. (Example: The highly competent, focused and aggressive manager who is promoted to an officer level position and is unaware of the need to broaden his/her perspective by taking a company-wide officer's view of what is going on, and the need to develop, rather than compete, with those around and below him/her in the organization.)

... An executive or manager with a successful history within the company who is not able to make changes in style necessary to keep up with the changes dictated by new corporate structures, re-engineering or evolving cultures and norms.  (Example: An executive who has achieved considerable success with command/control and micro-management styles and is not sure how to deal with empowerment; consequently feels overwhelmed by an increased span of control.)

Examples of Cases for Development

Executives and managers experiencing the specific behavioral issues listed below are excellent candidates for coaching.  Do you recognize these behavioral issues?

• Performance deficiencies
• Behavioral issues
• Conflict resolution
• Career direction issues
• Interpersonal relationship issues
• Leadership development issues or needs
• "Isolation" issues
• Diversity issues

Why Coaching Works

• For executives to be able to change their behavior, they must be aware of how they currently perform. They must have an accurate view of their behavior and its impact.
• For executives to be motivated to change their behavior, they must be exposed to information and/or feedback that says their behavior is not having the desired impact. It must create cognitive dissonance. The dissonance must be of sufficient intensity that it disrupts their current way of viewing themselves and the external world, leaving them open to considering other ways of thinking, feeling and acting.
• For executives to be willing to change their behavior, they must believe something important is at stake if they keep doing what it is that they have done in the past, important goals will not be realized.

So that executives are able, motivated and willing to change their behavior, coaches provide:

1. A setting in which they can step back and look at themselves and the feedback in an open direct manner. They must feel safe in making themselves vulnerable and not worry about experiencing negative consequences should they lower their guard to take the risks necessary for learning.
2. An objective view to the feedback and development of a plan of action that is constructive and responsive to the feedback.
3. An opportunity to put the action plan into practice and receive feedback concerning the new "experimental" behavior with practice spread over a significant period of time so that the executive or manager gains confidence with the new behavior and begins to integrate it into his or her managerial repertoire.

Without Coaching, The Usual Strategies Have Been Less Than Satisfactory

• Truce (overlook the issue)
• "Mandate" to change (without support or process)
• Uncomfortable Accommodation
• Shuffled to another part of the company (your problem now!)
• Separation from the company

Tools for Coaching

• Assessments
• Feedback
• Consulting
• Support Systems - Management, HR and teams as appropriate
• Coaching dialogue in a "safe" setting
• Process - Developmental strategies coached, practiced and reworked
• Relational commitment (A little magic!)

The Strategic Advantages Guarantee: It Will Always Work!

• Coaching faces people and issues head-on. Sharpens the focus!
• The conditions surrounding the organization, team, and individual will change – Change is accelerated!
• Improvement toward desired outcomes is highly likely using an integrated approach involving management, H.R. the candidate, and the team.
• Coaching establishes baselines, performance expectations, and documents the concerns and developmental activities.
• Relevant data will be collected that enables management to make more accurate and timely decisions.

In short, intervention helps – doing nothing gets you what you already have, puts you at risk, or worse.

Strategic Advantages Helps You Measure Your Investment

Executive coaching, as any other developmental process, requires a significant investment of intellectual, professional and emotional energy, time and financial resources. Whether advising and developing high performing senior executives or younger high-potentials, or stabilizing and improving performance for under-performing or derailed individuals, coaching suggests a risk. Decision makers may question the relative worth of investing in seemingly uncertain outcomes. Why go down this path when we just "hope" it will work? Two answers are clear!

Answer #1

We guarantee that it will always work! The previous section outlines five high impact benefits that will occur, regardless of anyone's judgment of expected outcomes. If the only outcome were better focused data for managerial decision making, it would be a winner. Review this list - you are likely to agree.

Answer #2

• A middle to senior level salaried employee's turnover can cost an organization 1.5 times their full compensation. In the case of a $100,000 employee who cost $30,000 in benefits, this equals at least $195,000.
• Harder to measure and yet significant is lower productivity within existing employees who never approach their potential and often disrupt the work of many others around them.
• Historically, coaching engagements have a high rate of exceeding the "guarantee" list, producing originally desired results. Outcomes fall into three groups:

  -  Those whose behavior and productivity demonstrate strong improvement following a development plan. This is a clear coaching success.
  -  Those who improve for themselves and many others as they find a better fit in the organization. Fit may be everything... Combining the right person with the right skills, working with the right people in the right environment. Coaching helps management and H.R. manage people into effectiveness.
  -  Situations where the candidate can't move forward. These result in continued stagnation or often leaving the company.

With at least two-thirds of coaching engagements resulting in one of the first two outcomes, the company clearly saves money. Turnover (for any reason) is averted and productivity for the candidate and those around him or her rises. The organization saves money at the rate of hundreds of thousands while investing a small fraction of savings into dramatic benefits over time.

Insert your own figures. Look at turnover, loss in productivity, disruption around a potential candidate, etc. Again, coaching interventions help by saving you money - doing nothing gets you what you have, puts you at risk, or costs a lot more than your coaching investment. The financial return is clear and compelling.