What I offer is custom-made for each client. Typical components include vision and goals clarification, implementation, additional consulting services drawn from my years in business or in conjunction with my colleagues, follow-up, and on-going support as needed.
Here’s what you can expect:
Coaching takes a person from where they are, to where (and who) they want to be. As your coach, I ask tough questions. I become your “thinking partner”, committed a ally, sounding board, and cheerleader. I help brainstorm new ideas and ensure accountability. Occasionally, I even offer advice (otherwise known as consulting).
My many clients have had varying stories of success. For instance, there’s the corporate refugee who found contentment opening a store and becoming her own boss for the first time. Or the technologically-minded photographer who went from years of being in the red to his first year of being in the black, in the process creating a new paradigm for the services he offered his clients, and redefining his company’s market niche.
There’s the client who translated her US facilities management experience from higher education to the pharmaceutical industry. Job dissatisfaction, insufficient recognition for her skills and abilities, and self-doubt had kept her locked in struggle and low-satisfaction roles. She wanted to be a “player”, increase her autonomy, gain recognition for her exceptional capabilities, and establish a path for the remainder of her career. We used in-person co-active coaching, customized exercises and experiential workshops to identify and resolve key financial issues, increase visibility in the original higher ed position, clarify key career goals, and ultimately obtain an executive role in a global pharmaceutical that more fully utilizes her leadership skills.
I present both pre-packaged programs, as well as “bespoke” [r programs developed for a particular team. Both types of workshops can be held in person or, where cost-effective and appropriate, by phone.
Bespoke Programs
A sample bespoke program was for a US healthcare organization whose priorities had grown unclear amidst rapid growth. The team lacked cohesiveness. The founder wanted increased commitment to the organization’s founding values and principles. Her vision for the workshop included helping new team members learn the organization’s history, and enabling all team members to identify lessons learned in their three years of working together.
During a series of half-day “on-site retreats”, we identified top-of-list tasks necessary to achieve the next stage of expansion, and clarified the organization’s historical roots. Once the management team all had the same information, it became clear that the rest of the organization also had gaps in historical awareness. The team created a program that conveyed where the organization came from, the values it was built upon, and where it is headed.
We also gathered feedback from the management team around a series of matrices - e.g. inclusivity, organization and structure, openness to change and new ideas from within - which formed the basis for new initiatives and an action plan to be implemented over the next quarter.
Pre-Packaged Workshops
Dimensions of Leading I’ve used this brief, experiential look at leadership using dance as a metaphor for leading and following. It is one of my most popular workshops, ideal for groups in academic as well as business settings. Dimensions of Leading stimulates conversation and new learning, and works well across cultures - some of my most enthusiastic participants have been in China and Poland, where it was offered in translation.
Power at Work I once offered this three-day experiential investigation into power and spirituality in the workplace at a management college. It was a catalyst for tutors and staff to bridge the differences in their roles and forge new understandings. It was from participant feedback at this session that Dimensions of Leading, one of my most popular workshops, was born.
My executive retreats reflect my overall approach to leadership development. They are experiential, reflective, and paced by the individual participant and group with which I work. Below is an example. I also create customized retreats on request.
Catalysts for Change Busy executives find it difficult to make time for reflection, continual growth, and development. Catalysts for Change is a five-day experiential retreat for senior-level international executives to explore issues of power, leadership, and vision with like-minded peers. We video-tape role-playing of current work challenges, then “sculpt” what change might look like, having done various exploratory exercises to expand participant’s thinking about their options. We complete with a visioning exercise to identify “next steps”.
The first time I offered this retreat, I had a few participants who were experienced facilitators. One told me four months later that rather than “disintegration on re-entry” as he and his colleagues termed their oft-repeated experience, he found the impact of our work together growing stronger, to the point that it was remarked upon by colleagues and family.
Attendance at Catalysts for Change is by invitation only.