SERVICES

The idea of using coaching for professional development sprang from the success of coaching in the world of sports. Executive coaches work with leaders who want to perform even more effectively. Coaches help manage work transitions, develop the career, and increase organizational influence and supervisory skills. Executive coaching is in an individual learning process, conceived as a joint endeavor between the coach and the client, in service of the professional development of the client. It provides the opportunity for the client to stand back and reflect on work situations and behaviors so as to understand them better and get new insights on increasing their impact on their teams and organization.

 

          An executive coaching process can serve several purposes:

 

• Identity coaching to support an executive whose professional or personal circumstances have changed

 

• Cognitive behavioral coaching, grounded in a rigorous assessment of the leader’s style and strengths including the use of psychometric, 360 and shadowing, to build and develop leadership capacity

 

• Management coaching to accelerate the development of specific competencies for high-potentials

 

• Sustainability and networking coaching to reflect on leading complex adaptive systems across multiple geographies

 

The following process below is indicative

 

Typical executive coaching process:

 

1. Psychometric tests – month 1

 

Coach reviews pre-existing psychometric tests, 360s, annual evaluations and other written

assessments provided by client.

 

Client takes additional assessments as needed.

 

2)     Stakeholders’ interviews – month 1

 

Coach conducts 20-minute one-on-one interviews with a panel of stakeholders to measure

client’s perceived strengths, development themes and impact. The list of interviewees is created jointly by coach, supervisor and HR support.

 

1. Awareness report – months 2

 

Coach produces a report describing client’s key leadership strengths and developmental areas as perceived by others. It highlights gaps between client’s strengths, intentions and impact. It is the foundation of the feedback session described below and is for client’s eyes only.

 

1. Feedback and development meeting - Client / Coach – month 2

 

This session, based on the awareness report, allows client to articulate his key learnings and

insights on ways he can better leverage his leadership strengths and address perception gaps. It leads to the first draft of a leadership development plan and will be refined in the subsequent days.

 

1. Alignment sessions with the key stakeholders – Client / coach / supervisor and HR support – month 2/3

 

The purpose of this meeting is to get everyone aligned on the content of the leadership development plan. We review progress accomplished so far, what and how long it will take to achieve the leadership goals presented in the plan. We agree on next steps accordingly.

 

1. On-going coaching: Coach / Client monthly – month 2/3 onwards

 

The coaching sessions consist in debriefing progress of the leadership development plan and

reflecting on learnings and ways forward.

 

1. Pulse-check phone interviews – month 6/7

 

At the end of the coaching program, these focused 20-minute one-on-one phone interviews involve 6 to 8 major stakeholders to measure the effectiveness of the coaching.

 

Career coaching, also called transition coaching, is focused on equipping clients with resources to change their current professional circumstances, either within their current organisation or outside of it.

 

The following process below is indicative

 

Typical career coaching process

 

Phase 1

 

 

 

 

Phase 2

 

     

 

 

Supervision happens when a coach (supervisor) gives a space to another coach to discuss actual client coaching situations in a confidential manner so that the supervise can move to a higher level of practice. I offer it as a one-on-one format.

 

Supervision is a joint endeavor, in service of the supervise. It provides the opportunity for the supervise to stand back and reflect on the coaching they are providing to their clients so as to understand them better and what might best help them.  At the heart of the exploration sits the coach-client relationship. There are cognitive behavioral foundations to supervision and as a result I encourage my supervises to share tapes or transcripts of coaching session so that we can discuss behaviors and their impact. We also reflect on the psychological closeness between the coach and the client and their positive and more problematic consequences.  Finally, we consider the wider context in which both the client and the coach work together and how it impacts the delivery and results of the intervention.

Coaching as a managerial skill

 

I offer modular workshops to teach managerial coaching behaviors from the mid-manager to the senior executive team level.

The coaching behaviors that I focus on are derived from the 3-year research project that I conducted in 2015-2018 to explore what coaching behaviors are considered effective by the recipients of coaching, including:

 

• Empathy
• Feedback
• Influence
• Creativity

 

Each topic is covered in a half-day and can be taught independently of each other in a one-day workshop. The following schedule is indicative. Covering all four topics will take 2 ½ days.

 

Setting the stage

 

08:30am          Welcome – why a training on coaching skills

09:00am          Foundations of coaching

10:00am          Break

10:15am          Outcomes of coaching

12:00pm          Lunch

 

Interactive Discussion

1:00pm            Brainstorming about (empathy / feedback / influence / creativity)

2:00pm            Preparation for the video simulation – rules of engagement

 

Experimenting

2:15pm            Video Simulation Round 1

3:00pm            Break

3:15pm            Video Simulation Round 2

 

Practicing

4:00pm            Evaluation and next steps

 

4:30pm            End

 

 

I offer one-day workshops to teach mentoring skills at the senior-manager level. The following agenda is indicative:

Setting the stage

08:30 am         Welcome – why a training on mentoring

09:00 am         The four cornerstones of mentoring

10:00 am         Break

10:15 am         Best practices in the mentoring process

12:00 pm         Lunch -Interactive Discussion

1:00  pm          Brainstorming in two groups

2:00  pm          Preparation for the video simulation – rules of engagement experimenting

2:15  pm          Video Simulation Round 1

3:00  pm          Break

3:15  pm          Video Simulation Round 2 Practicing

4:00  pm          Evaluation and next steps

4:30  pm          End

 

This one-day workshop includes a group of 16 managers to senior-executive level teams in your organisation and composed of 12 women and 4 men. It starts with the examination of one set of statistics examining the influence of women in the organization (for example, gender balance at different levels in the organization). It is designed to generate inquiries about the causes and consequences of gender unbalance and to generate creative solutions.

 

8:30 to 9:30 AM          GETTING READY                                                            

9:30 to 10:30 AM        CO-CREATING POWERFUL INQUIRIES                      

10:30 to 10:45 AM      TEA BREAK                                                                               

10:45 to 11:30 AM      CO-CREATING POWERFUL INQUIRIES                      

11:30 AM to 12 PM      KICKING OFF THE SOLUTION FOCUSED APPROACH

12:00 PM to 1:00 PM   LUNCH BREAK                                                               

1:00 PM to 3:00 PM     SOLUTIONS AND INQUIRIES                                                 

3:00 PM to 3:15 PM     TEA BREAK                                                                               

3:15 PM to 4:00 PM     TOWARDS RENEWAL                                                   

4:00 PM to 4:30 PM     CLOSING CIRCLE                     

Formative feedback is likely to improve performance, which has encouraged executive coaches to seek accreditation and supervision. However, many coaches do not consider their clients as suitable providers of formative feedback, due, in part, to a lack of shared knowledge about effective behaviors. The study I conducted between 2015 and 2018 addressed the issue by developing a client behavioral feedback instrument for the executive coach. Click on the video below to learn more about some of the key findings of the research.