Category Archives: Coaching

“Executive Coach” and “Life Coach”: What do these terms mean to you?

Coaching

Currently, as I reflect on the niche I occupy (and want to occupy) as a coach I am pausing to reflect on the terms “Executive Coach” and “Life Coach”. Recently I took time to open up debate on a number of forums with the posting below and this week I am taking time to write about some of the issues that came up amongst the responses.

From time to time I am asked: “Are you an Executive Coach or a Life Coach?” It seems to me that this question implies that the two are mutually exclusive. At times I am told or infer that the term “Executive Coach “ commands more respect – maybe even a lot more respect amongst people asking this question, including fellow coaches. And because I do most of my coaching work with executives it could be easy for me to buy into this idea of “more than/less than” as part of my sales pitch.

At the same time, no matter how senior my clients, once we start to work together in coaching partnership I am working with a person and with the whole person. I work with them on issues that are central to their work progress, effectiveness and satisfaction. I work with them on some of their most intimate issues from their home lives. In this sense I could call myself a “Life Coach for Executives”. I have had some feedback that I am an “ontological coach”, coaching my clients in their chosen way of being in the world. I wonder, is this “Life Coaching for Executives” any less taxing than anything I might call “Executive Coaching”? I don’t think so: in working in this way I draw on everything that I am and all that I bring, if you like at all the “logical levels” identified by Robert Dilts.

As I work through all the questions (marketing and otherwise) that this brings up for me I would welcome your views, thoughts and insights. To start the ball rolling here are my top three questions:

· What do you see as the similarities and differences between “Life” and “Executive” coaching?
· What connotations do these terms have for you? And for your clients?
· What language do you use to do justice to “Life Coaching for Executives”?

One question that was in my mind was this: is the use of these terms subject to prejudice in the eyes of others? If you’re interested to know what I found you might want to read my next posting: “Executive” and “Life” Coaching: A Matter of Prejudice?

Searching for my coaching “genius”

Coaching

Working with Kathy Mallary to explore my target market as a coach I am grappling with a number of questions including the question: what is my genius? This comes up, too, in my work with my coach, Lynne Fairchild. These are some of the thoughts arising following a conversation with Lynne:



Perhaps my genius lies in the area of alignment:

  • When my clients are at odds with themselves, in inner conflict, trying to reconcile needs that seem at odds;
  • When clients at work are in some way out of alignment: when they experience the expectations placed on them as out of alignment with some aspect of themselves – their values, sense of self etc.; when they are successful in their work and yet yearning for more joy or noticing something calling them in another direction; when their self image is two steps behind their latest promotion; when “what is” and “what should be” seem worlds apart…
  • When something is out of alignment at home: when the dream of happy-ever-after romance is out of synch with the reality of daily life with their partner; when the cost of spending time with old friends, family or, or, or… seems too high; when the dream home comes with a nightmare mortgage payment…

These are areas in which I am perceptive and engaged.

This is not about career coaching in the traditional sense but about clients’ alignment to and embodiment of their inner wisdom. It is an “inside out” coaching which takes in all of Robert Dilts’ “logical levels” – clients’ “who am I?” (identity), values and beliefs, capabilities, behaviour, environment – in the wider context of family and organisation.

I notice I am drawn to work with talented people who want to bring their genius to bear in the world. These are people who recognise and want to respond to some kind of inner calling that takes them beyond their current situation to answer the question: what is it that is calling me? These are people who, in treading this path, have to engage with and move beyond their inner and outer constraints. These include the constraints of culture – “the way we do things round here”. This is a path for the courageous few: what M. Scott Peck describes as the road less travelled.

Travelling this road often takes people beyond the confines of the paradigms in which they are raised or within which they work in order to find their own answers. For these people it is not enough to be successful within the paradigm assigned to them – these are the people who see the limitations of our current cultural norms and who reach out in search of their own path. In this sense alignment comes from within and spreads outward – these are people who begin by finding their inner sense of alignment and move on to seek out and create opportunities to which they are fully aligned – organisations to work with, leadership approaches which match their heartfelt values, a place in the world which reflects their sense of purpose. In this sense my clients are often leaders whether or not they have a recognised “line management” or leadership role. They lead by example. They create culture as much as they sit within a culture – they are the shifters and shapers.


These are people who are able both to live their lives and to step back and examine the lives they are living – to take a meta-perspective in life;

These are the people who, by making choices at a meta-level, can pursue a path with conviction and continue to pursue that path even when the terrain is rough and challenging;

These are the people who chose a way of being in the world and in this way bring greater meaning to their lives;

These are the people who, from their sense of conviction and by pursuing a path, develop a mastery in time of their chosen way of being in the world.

Having worked over the years with many people in leadership positions I wonder if my true clients are leaders who are on this journey, whether leadership is a subset of this area of alignment, if…, if…, if… This question remains open – at least for now.



Coachability at the Bolshoi ballet

Coaching

What does it take to be “coachable“? This is the essential question Seth Godin explores in his blog posting of the same name. Follow the link to find out more, including the role that coachability used to play – maybe still plays – in auditions at the Bolshoi Ballet.

For whom is the answer to this question important? As I ponder I imagine that this is an important question for us all. For the coach, it is a question we need to be able to answer when we meet people who want us to support them, so that we can best serve our clients and ourselves by knowing when to say yes and when to say no. For the people who come to us as potential clients it is a question worth being able to answer, for who would want to pay for coaching if they are not also open to the learning that might come with it?

Godin highlights the many roles and relationships in which coaching takes place and as I write I find myself pondering the family as the “advanced school of human relationships”. For the family highlights one aspect of coaching – perhaps above all other: that it is a mutually consensual relationship. Consent in coaching is given based on perceptions of trust, skill, wisdom, insight – the list goes on. Family relationships also depend on mutual consent. No doubt I am drawn to reflect on this at a time when I am recognising the challenges I find in my relationship with my sister.

What then, if you find that your potential client is not coachable? And what if you find that no amount of dialogue with your sibling or other family member opens up trust and mutual consent? I find it worth remembering that we cannot change the others, we can only change ourselves. If the client is not coachable without radical change, if the relationship with a family member is far from working, then it helps to recognise the limits of our power and influence.

As a coach, this might mean saying “no, I’m not here to ‘sell’ you something you don’t want”. In the family this might mean saying “no, I’m not here to force you relate in ways that don’t work for you”. It might also mean saying, “given I’m offering you something that doesn’t work for you and you want something that doesn’t work for me, I’m choosing to invest my energy elsewhere”. As harsh as this may seem, it can also be the ultimate act of love for self and for other.

Learning for Life (Consulting): the research and development team

Coaching

Back from a week’s “staycation”, I am pleased to be pursuing an agenda of business development which supports my need to deliver outstanding value to my clients. Marketing is inherently a dialogue, so that I have been shaping the remit for a “Research and Development Team” for Learning for Life (Consulting) which I share here.

Maybe you will be amongst the people I invite to join this team. Maybe this is an idea you can adapt and pursue to support your own busines and career plans:

Purpose of the R&D Team

The R&D Team exists to support the development of Learning for Life (Consulting) as a successful business which maximises its contribution to its clients and sustains me, Dorothy Nesbit, in the role of Director.

About the R&D Team

Team members reflect those relationships (friends, family, colleagues and clients) and interests (leadership, coaching, NLP, NVC, Skilled Facilitator Approach etc.) which are most important to me in my life as well as in the role of Director of Learning for Life (Consulting).

Members of the R&D Team are all people who are able to recognise and sponsor in me that I am naturally creative, resourceful and whole and people who have an emotional investment in:

  • My learning, well-being and success;
  • The progress, performance and success of Learning for Life (Consulting) Ltd; and
  • The contribution Learning for Life (Consulting) Ltd has to make to its clients.

Membership of the R&D Team is by invitation and is offered on a voluntary (unpaid) basis.

Principles and values

The R&D Team is rooted in a fundamental principle: that it meets the needs of team members to contribute as well as my needs to invite your contribution. I invite you to contribute willingly and joyfully when it meets your needs to do so and to know when it doesn’t meet your needs to contribute. As the owner of the team I recognise that there will be times when you feel moved to contribute or have particular expertise to offer and other times when you don’t have time, an interest or expertise in a particular area. I support this.

It’s my aim, as leader of the R&D Team to embody the principles and values I aspire to in my life and in my work with clients. You will find a statement of my personal mission statement and my values on my blog under the heading Coaching: about your coach.

Your membership of this team is based on your willingness to contribute and your generosity in contributing. In return, I invite you to make use of any ideas, learning etc. that you experience as a result of your membership of this R&D team. Please acknowledge this team as the source of ideas where appropriate. I also request that you maintain confidentiality in terms of the content of the team’s work and its discussions.

How can you contribute as a member of the R&D Team?

As a member of the R&D Team you will receive regular communication from me about my current areas of focus. This will be via [LinkedIn? Ning? To be decided].

In addition, I will make requests of you when I would value your input, taking care to be as specific as I can be in the contributions I request of you. These requests will be guided by the need and designed to meet that need in ways which are most likely to contribute to me and to Learning for Life (Consulting) without being onerous for members of the R&D Team. This implies ongoing learning about what works and what doesn’t work. Contributions might include:

  • Invitations to online discussions with other members of the group;
  • Invitations to review plans and other documents and make comments;
  • Invitations to take part in research;
  • Invitations to hold one to one discussions or group meetings.

How might you benefit from being a member of the R&D Team?

I am keen for your membership of the R&D Team to be of benefit to you and curious about what benefits will accrue to you as a result of your membership of this team. At the same time, I hope that joining the team will be of benefit to you as much as it is of benefit to me.

I am guessing that benefits to team members will fall under the following broad headings:

  • Staying in contact: Whether or not you join this team, I value my relationship with you. I hope your membership of the R&D team will be one of the ways we stay connected;
  • Contributing to me and my progress – with ease: You have already contributed to me and that’s why you are a member of this team. I hope that being a member of the R&D team makes it easy to make the contribute you like in ways which really support me;
  • Your creativity and learning: I’m guessing that belonging to an R&D team like this may stimulate all sorts of learning and ideas for you, both in relation to the way the team works and in relation to the content of the work we do together.

To niche or not to niche?

Coaching,

Frankly, my journey as a coach has been one of deep personal exploration for me, as well as for my clients, so that my first eight years as Director of Learning for Life (Consulting) has been as much about my own journey as it has been about the lives and work of my clients. It has been a time of examining my values and making adjustments to increasingly live and work in line with my values. It has been a time of examining old beliefs, letting go of some in favour of new beliefs which support me as someone who is authentic, resourceful and whole. Many times it has brought me to new thresholds which are waiting to be crossed if I am to be true to myself and to make my contribution in the world.

This year, a few well-targeted questions from the wonderful coach Hilary Cochrane made me put aside plans I had made and to reconfigure the year ahead, signing up with Kathy Mallary in the US to examine my marketing at the same time as signing up with Carolyn Free Pearce as my coaching supervisor and continuing my work with my coach of five years, Lynne Fairchild. What a great team!

Even with this superb team, the work that awaits me is well and truly my own and I have quickly started to bump up against and explore some of my own limitations as I examine the mother of all marketing questions: what is my niche? It’s one thing, for example, to say working with senior leaders and I say it with ease. At the same time, which leaders? And what is it about those leaders that marks me out as a coach (and which, come to speak of it, attracts people who are not leaders to seek me out)?

In recent days I have reached out to others to invite them to share their own experiences of identifying their own niche, sharing my question (‘to niche, or not to niche?’) with a number of groups to which I belong. I have been grateful for the depth and variety of answers which help me to test my own thinking.

At the same time, questions from each member of my team are bringing me right back home. What if, asked Kathy last week, your true genius is in the area of wholeness and integration? I recognise this immediately, recognising how much I have sought in my own life to reconcile the irreconcilable and how often I work with clients to go beyond inner conflict to help them understand and respond to underlying needs. Today, Carolyn has thrown in the question of authenticity and integrity and this, too, resonates with me, recognising as I do my own path to authentic self-expression as well as my conviction that my clients will give their best performance as well as achieve their deepest satisfaction when they are able to be themselves. As a coach I enjoy working in deep partnership with my clients and over long periods in ways which many coaches are not.

Somehow, none of this is new and all of this is new. As I wonder what it means to have these themes of wholeness, integration and authenticity as a point of departure for my niche (rather than leadership and emotional intelligence) I recognise both that I am coming home and that I am treading a new and uncertain path. It is a path which requires faith – the trust and conviction that if I share my strengths my true clients will find me.

To write this posting is to step over the threshold and go public, even whilst recognising that I am only just beginning to answer the question: what is my niche? In my own way and in my own professional sphere, this is my ‘coming out’.

Managing your mailing lists

Coaching

Have you noticed how many more organisations are harvesting e-mails from websites and using them to send unsolicited mail? Most days at the moment I spend time unsubscribing from a newsletter that I didn’t elect to join.

MAPS have some clear guidelines for managing e-mail list which are worth reviewing if you are sending out a newsletter or any other kind of e-mail circulation. You’ll find these guidelines at http://www.mail-abuse.com/an_listmgntgdlines.html. MAPS is a major anti-spam blacklist service.

What is a ‘coaching culture’?

Coaching, ,

Sometimes my colleagues ask the most stimulating questions via discussion groups and this one (on the Coaching at Work group on LinkedIn) intrigued me: what is a ‘coaching culture’?

Amongst the many environments I have worked and played in, I think first and foremost of my experience as a member of a number of resource teams with ITS (http://www.itsnlp.com/). In this context, I was a volunteer working with other volunteers to support our trainers in delivering various trainings in neurolinguistic programming (or NLP). As volunteers we were all interested in furthering our learning as well as supporting the learning of others. You could call this a ‘coaching culture’.

What was the culture in this environment? This was an environment in which team members embraced each other fully, understanding that we are all learners. Anyone seeking support for their learning would be welcomed by other members of the team. Whenever there was friction or misunderstandings feedback was given openly and directly, and both parties understood that they might have something to learn from this exchange of feedback. And when team members had a ‘gripe’ with another member of the team it was typically well understood that this was a signal to the ‘griper’ that he or she might have something to learn. Team members tended to view each other – and programme participants – as resourceful, whole and able to learn (even if they hadn’t learnt yet!). There were high levels of trust and flexibility.

What about work in this environment? Whilst there was considerable flexibility and a willingness to cut each other some slack, we still worked to high standards across a whole range of tasks, from sorting the stationery cupboard to supporting participants. Over the life of a team (twenty days over five four-day modules) we got to know each others’ strengths and to work to them as well as to our own. Work was a joyful experience.

How might this translate into the workplace? Correspondents on the Coaching At Work group highlight that organisations aspiring to a ‘coaching culture’ at work might have many definitions of this phrase and as I write I wonder how many definitions would fall well short of the ‘ITS experience’. How many organisations would welcome the level of intimacy involved in working together in this way?

I also wonder which is chicken and which is egg. For, on the surface, it seems to me that the culture of the resource teams was only possible because team members were chosen with great care. At the same time, I think of Douglas McGregor’s famous ‘XY Theory’ which proposed that managers tend to adopt one of two fundamentally different approaches to managing their people. Is it possible that, over time, an organisation in which leaders believe in the importance of learning (who engage in their own learning and support the learning of others) will, over time, attract precisely those employees who wish to work in a ‘coaching culture’?

Measuring the return on your investment in coaching

Coaching,

When it comes to learning and development – be it through training, coaching or some other activity – businesses struggle to assess the return they get from their investment. And many professionals offering learning and development services don’t know how to help clients to measure the return on their investment either.

For professionals (trainers, coaches, consultants etc.) part of the problem is that they are already sold on the benefits so that their focus is on providing the services they feel so passionate about. At the same time, even for the most commercially-focused service provider, measuring ROI is a complex area.

With this in mind, I was interested to read the posting below by Jane Massy, CEO of abdi (www.abdi.eu.com) in response to a posting on the Training Journal Daily Digest. abdi describe themselves as the experts in evaluating learning and development. I reproduce Jane’s response with her permission:

It’s always interesting to read these discussion and I’d like to add a few thoughts from our side and hopefully dispel a few myths! My comments are based on the experience of carrying out and/or supporting L&D professionals in the evaluation of about £2bn of investment in workplace learning and development and nearly two decades of calculating business impact and value!

Firstly, any ROI (based on the traditional formula of dividing the money value of net benefits by full costs) can only be derived from the data about business metric improvements. Some of these business metrics will be convertible into money, and can be used in the calculation and some won’t (what are called ‘intangibles’). Furthermore, there is no way to show direct cause and effect in these human capital (and in fact in any) type of investments – it simply isn’t possible.

What is possible is to build a chain of impact through collecting data throughout each of the (Kirkpatrick/Phillips) levels. Data in the chain of impact includes engagement, learning, performance change and business impact data. Understanding each of the results as well as their relationship is essential to confirm the chain of impact. Our experience is that most L&D and HR people don’t actually understand the nature of these data items, don’t analyse them and don’t explore the relationships between the data items at different levels.

All investments need to be planned with this chain of impact outcomes in mind. Investing without measurable documented outcomes agreed at all levels and deciding to see if it was worth it without this advance planning is both unprofessional and also inefficient and ineffective. Part of planning is establishing baseline data and planning for isolation as well as forecasting costs.

You can isolate for the influence of other factors and you should definitely do so if you wish to calculate the ROI – otherwise you will look like a fool and your report will not be credible in front of the senior management/board who will have a clear idea of what influences business metric improvements and will want to know you have taken these into account when doing your calculation. I recommend you read Jack Phillips’ Return on Investment. If you want a copy, e-mail me and I’ll happily arrange for one to be sent to you free of charge!

I would add that the ‘me’ in that last sentence is Jane – you can reach her at jane@abdi.eu.com.

Coaching: switching on a light

Clients and testimonials, Coaching, , ,

The ability to step back and observe ourselves is one that is highlighted by a variety of thinkers. Eckhart Tolle, for example, in his book A New Earth, highlights this ability as one which enables us to go beyond ego to connect with our authentic self. It is this ability that enables leaders to develop self mastery and the ability to act for the greater good.

Often the most significant outcome from coaching is the development of this inner observer. I am grateful to John Woodford, my client at MunichRe, for sharing this testimonial to coaching and to the inner observer:

What did I learn from our coaching? Working in partnership with Dorothy helped me to recognise my habitual behaviours and to become more self-aware: are they the behaviours I want to take forward? Our coaching helped me to develop a greater understanding of the impact I have on those around me and to develop greater empathy and understanding – for myself and others.

Perhaps the greatest learning for me has been to learn to stand outside of myself and look at me. Learning to observe myself in this way has given me new information which I can use to choose my responses and to get better outcomes. This is helping me to be more effective in managing my relationships with others and opening up new possibilities – perhaps to speak publicly, to build my profile, to be more confident and to have more gravitas.

What have been the benefits from coaching? My learning has had great application around the office. Recently, for example, I met someone for the first time. When I found their behaviour very strange, I become curious rather than reacting immediately. Coaching has helped me in managing people, hearing, listening and questioning and also in developing these skills in my staff so the whole team is getting better at understanding what people want. As a service organisation this has value.

What – and how – did Dorothy contribute? Dorothy asked lots of questions which were really tough and made me think very hard. She listened to my answers and followed up with a very sharp and targeted question. Sometimes the questions were much broader and these were the tough ones. If you like, she made me think and opened my mind – this switched on a light for me.

She was also very warm and made me feel very much at ease. She was a good listener and I valued her empathy. She was also very flexible. Our sessions were held at a time and a place that were convenient to me and the duration was just right – I never felt under pressure to cut our sessions short. After a while our fortnightly sessions turned into monthly sessions, evolving naturally into something that met the need.

Would I work with Dorothy again? I felt I got to a point where I had got the best value. Still I have lots to learn and will take it up in the future when I am ready for the next phase.

John Woodford
MunichRe

Executive Coaching: future trends

Coaching

As International Coaching Week draws to a close I take one last look at the recent research by DBM in partnership with the Human Capital Institute (copy available via inquiries@dbm.com). This time, I look at the survey’s prediction of future trends.

The survey’s 472 respondents highlight three areas in which they plan to increase their investment:

  • Grooming high potential employees;
  • Helping capable executives achieve higher performance; and
  • Enhancing team effectiveness.

Respondents expect to decrease their use of coaching for:

  • Addressing derailing behaviours; and
  • Guiding career decisions.

I wonder, as I look at these categories, if one of the implications of these findings is that organisations will fund Executive Coaching when it serves the needs of the organisation, whilst individual Executives will fund coaching in support of their own needs. It has certainly been my experience that my executive clients come to me privately as well as via their organisation.

There is one implication of these findings which may well be worth teasing out and examining – is it seen to be true that the ‘derailing behaviours’ referred to are not those of high potential employees or capable executives? Over the years, I have often encountered senior executives who demonstrate behaviours that are tolerated because of their otherwise high levels of performance. Where do these sit in this picture?