Coaching

Coaching is, of course, a type of consulting, generally to individuals, but sometimes to teams.  Objectives vary and yet should address enhancing performance, often through awareness and skill development.

My Approach: The Essential Work of Building Alliances

I have coached, mainly senior leaders (including board members and chairs) and high potentials, for over 30 years.  That is, before ‘executive coaching’ took off.  I contributed to drafting coaching material and yet demurred when it came to joining credentialing boards.  I have worked with (and continue to work with) a wide diversity of clients, demographically and by industry.

Types of Coaching

Types of coaching overlap but often fall into one or more of three basic types.  In each type, a client should consider how s/he will determine success and, using those criteria, select a coach based on both competence (75-80%) and chemistry (20-25%).  After all, a lack of competence or of fit will likely produce sub-optimal results and frustration.

Developmental Coaching. Most folks (including most coaches) mean this when they speak of coaching, namely short term (usually 6-9 months or so) with key, person specific developmental objectives such as listening better, improving prioritization, and increasing delegation or peer collaboration.  One or more diagnostics often form the basis of the engagement.  I’ve done this work many, many times, and respect the evolution of valuable client options now available in this coaching domain.

Role Support. Here, the work centers on working through varied, current, real work or ‘inbox’ challenges that appear in an executive or HIPO’s inbox.  Skill development results from working through current and ongoing professional challenges as they occur, e.g., performance management, personal workload, or team development.  Broader development occurs as a result of this work though not as its primary focus.  My education (e.g., organizational behavior Yale Ph.D., management masters at the LSE, and decades long faculty and senior fellow roles at Wharton) and extensive work experience (e.g., decades of consulting (often ongoing) and of executive education, multiple supervisory and managerial jobs, and partner in a national consulting firm) enables me to engage and to support a client practically (i.e., ‘what to do next’), in depth across a broad range of issues.

Thought Partner. Often executives, especially the most senior, value having someone to bounce ideas off without running the risk of being ‘handled’ or of igniting widespread organizational anxiety.  Topics include: What is confirmed best practice concerning succession?  How about in implementing large acquisitions, i.e., getting the value out?  Or in scaling up dramatically?  Or in laying people off?  Or advancing a relationship with one’s boss?  Or in managing consultants?  Or approaching DEI in a way that actually produces valuable change?  Is delegation the same as empowering?  How am I doing…really?  Again, my education (e.g., organizational behavior Yale Ph.D., management masters at the LSE, and decades long faculty and senior fellow roles at Wharton) and extensive work experience (e.g., decades of consulting (often ongoing) and of executive education, multiple supervisory and managerial jobs, and partner in a national consulting firm) enables me to engage and to support a client practically (i.e., ‘what to do next’), in depth across a broad range of issues.

Interested in exploring coaching?

Have questions? Want to explore an idea? Let’s start a conversation.

How does kayaking on white water rivers relate to your business? in this video, i explain how this metaphor helps our understanding of organizational change and how to navigate it so that we prosper.