Tag Archives: about your coach

Working with Dorothy – a collaborative partnership

Clients and testimonials, Coaching, , ,

Sometimes, though not always, the way a client sees you is so similar to the way you see yourself or to the person you aspire to be that, on reading it, you have a sense of “coming home” – of stepping just a little bit more fully into who you really are.  This was the sense I had on reading the testimonial below.

This testimonial comes from Dave Eccleston, who recently left his job as Head of Integrated Talent Management, Europe with Pitney Bowes to embark on a new chapter of self employment.  I particularly value it because Dave speaks from the perspective of commissioning client – the person who, within his business, was responsible for sourcing the support needed by his colleagues across the business.  I am grateful to Dave for his permission to share it here on my blog:

I first met Dorothy after a colleague recommended her as a potential executive coach for a senior leader.  I really appreciated the way she took time to explain her approach to coaching in the context of the opportunity being discussed.  Her style is friendly, engaging and warm coupled with an ability to ask searching questions to get to the heart of the situation to identify the value she can bring to a coaching assignment.  My experience of working with her has been that of a collaborative partnership.  Subsequently Dorothy coached a number of leaders at various levels within the organisation.

The feedback received from those she has coached consistently focused on the depth of the relationship forged with Dorothy, and on how hard she made them think about their situation and what they wanted for the future.  One senior leader commented that he had never in his career faced so many searching questions in such a short space of time which had been posed in such a friendly manner to clarify the need.

On a personal note, Dorothy has been very generous with her time in helping me think through a couple of career challenges.  For me, working with Dorothy is always stimulating and a pleasure.

I have no hesitation in recommending Dorothy as an executive coach. 

Dave Eccleston
Formerly Head of Integrated Talent Management, Europe
Pitney Bowes

Helping leaders who want to take some of the hard work out of achieving results

All articles, Coaching, Developing as a leader, ,
It’s still all change at 14 Albion Way.  The back of the house is changing dramatically as the kitchen window is replaced with doors.

This week Wills has been removing brick work so that on Wednesday night I slept with a hole in the back of the house.  It was covered with large sheets of board, which made me realise just how much insulation the bricks provide.

Yesterday (Thursday) morning the window came out leaving the kitchen exposed to the elements.  Leaving the house at 11am to conduct an assessment I dusted myself off – the dust is everywhere! – and walked away not knowing quite how much progress would be made during the day.  I was, though, confident that supper would be very simple!

I started this series of postings with the intention of celebrating so many people who have contributed to my life since I set up my own business in 2002.  Today I am celebrating Jason Stein at Heart of Business in the US.  Jason has been an extraordinary source of support this year as I explore how best to market my work.  I want to make it easy and simple for those people to find me who most value my help.  With Jason’s help I have come to the simple statement to describe my niche:  that I help leaders who want to take some of the hard work out of achieving results.  It’s so simple that I have been hesitating to put it out there.

I wonder, how does it land with you?

Honing my niche, one word at a time

Coaching

Recently I have been working with my coach, Kathy Mallary, to craft a brief statement that sums up my niche.  This is about helping my ideal clients to find me – and to find me with ease.  This implies stepping into the place within myself in which I am most truly myself, most powerful and authentic, able both to add most value to my clients and to be most truly me.

Of course, the idea that I might get to this statement in a single once-and-for-all hit is just that – an idea.  It’s an idea that has the power to stimulate pressure and stress.  So much power for such a tiny idea.  In practice, I find myself getting closer and closer.  At this stage I have a statement which is closer than anything I have ever attempted before, though one word is still up for debate.
My first version was this:  Leadership coach, unleashing innate leadership potential through powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships.  More recently, I changed the final word to conversations.  Is it relationships?  Is it conversations?  I am still debating.
Increasingly, I have no doubts about the territory of which these words are the map.  It’s been my experience that my relationship with myself has been the foundation for my relationships with others and indeed for the quality of my life as a whole.  And my relationships – whether with myself or with others – are a function of the conversations I have, the conversations I create.  Relationship… conversation…. relationship… conversation… it doesn’t seem to matter.  What does matter to me is that my work with others, as much as my work with myself, reflects this simple truth.
This is why I do not come from the school of crack-the-whip coaching.  I don’t believe that forcing ourselves to do things we think we ought produces the best outcomes over time.  Rather, I believe that we achieve our best outcomes when we understand ourselves (and each other) more deeply, so that we can collaborate within ourselves and with each other.  From this place of inner harmony it is easier for us to identify and connect with those things we most desire in our business and personal lives.  With this clarity the actions that will move us forward offer themselves one action at a time.
For me, this is the true foundation for our quality of life.   

Unleashing innate leadership potential through powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships

Coaching, Developing as a leader, , ,

As Christmas approaches, I am looking forward to taking a break.  My conversations with clients about diaries have almost gone past the stage in which the question “shall we meet before or after Christmas?” is asked.

There are many things I shall look back on in 2010 – and many things I am looking forward to in 2011.  This includes looking back on the work I have done this year to clarify my offering to clients.  My aim has been to make it increasingly easy for those people and organisations to find me to whom I am best suited to contribute.

Most recently I have been preparing an update of my profile on LinkedIn.  This is what I have included – so far:

Dorothy Nesbit

Leadership Coach, unleashing innate leadership potential through powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships.

Summary

Are you a successful senior leader who’s striving to fulfil your potential? Do you want dramatically to increase your contribution to your organisation?

It’s lonely at the top. Everyone looks to you for the answers and your actions are under scrutiny from every direction. At times, wracked with self doubt, you are your own worst critic. Wearing the “mask” of leadership, trying to keep up with your own view of what it takes to be a great leader – it’s hard work and exhausting.

A passionate leadership coach, I love to team up with talented and successful executives to liberate their innate potential and achieve more with less effort. My clients build powerful and authentic relationships with themselves and with others as a springboard for increasing their contribution to their organisation.

If you recognise the need to adjust your approach and you need help with the “how”, I’m your coach.

My signature coaching approach will leave you:

• With clarity and confidence about the role you want to play;
• Equipped to play your role with growing ease, authenticity and self-mastery;
• Inspired and motivated to deliver improved business outcomes.

My approach is uniquely effective because I grow and develop powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships, unleashing and cultivating innate leadership potential.

I wonder, as you read this description, what do you learn about the people with whom I most enjoy working in coaching partnership?





Peeling away the layers of my “genius”

Coaching,

Recently I wrote about the challenge (one that we all face) of living from my genius.  There is a paradox in this, for we always bring our genius – it’s who we are.  At the same time, if we are unaware of our genius, we are at risk of living in first gear, a pale shadow of our true selves.  If your “job purpose” is to live from your genius, it really helps to know what it is.

This week, I took away a big “aha!” from my Genius Jam teleconference with colleagues who, like me, are working with Kathy Mallary to examine and improve our marketing and the way we attract and serve our true clients.  My big “aha!” (which also had the familiarity of the known – so it was actually a ‘small, big “aha!'”) has helped me understand my genius a little better.

I already understood that a key question for me is “am I living authentically?” When I am, I know that I am having conversations with people (I call these “real conversations”) in which I speak my truth knowing that it doesn’t matter what their response is. Looking back through the filing cabinet of my experiences I know that these conversations give me what I need to move forward and especially to know, do I want to hang out with this person or not?

Today I realise that it is when I am having these conversations that I am stepping into and living from my power. Even as I write I feel the full power of this – or should I say empowerment.  It is not a “power over” anyone else. Rather, it is an invitation to people to live powerfully with me in the world – you could say it is an invitation to “power with”. This concept is pretty key to my understanding of nonviolent communication (ref. Marshall Rosenberg) so there’s no surprise that both are compelling to me.

There’s something about this insight which is both new and not new.  And still, it’s enough to help me to sink a little deeper into my true genius.  If you like, it’s enough to help me embody my true genius – just that little bit more.

Writing about authenticity

Coaching

It’s Friday evening and I’m having supper with Morton Patterson at the Spice of Life – a rare treat.  We are talking about business matters and I tell Morton about the work I am doing with Kathy Mallary to refine and improve my marketing.


Morton asks me where I’ve got to with that.  I tell him about the work I’m doing on referrals – mapping the processes by which I can act to increase the likelihood that people (my clients, colleagues and others) will refer people to me who are well qualified as potential clients.  I also tell him about some of the messages that I am beginning to define for my marketing – most recently what Kathy calls my unique selling point (or USP).


It’s no surprise to me when Morton asks what I see as my USP and I am happy to tell him:  my approach is uniquely effective because I cultivate leadership potential with compassion and rigour, nurturing authenticity, ease and high performance.  He’s quick to ask me where authenticity shows up on my blog, telling me:  “You behave authentically, everything about you demonstrates that;  it is in your e-mails, your manner and communication but your writing does not convey that clearly”.  As I ponder, I realise that my emphasis has been on modelling authenticity in my writing rather than on writing about authenticity.


I make a note to write more on this topic and find myself pondering the questions that need to be asked.  What is authenticity?  What is it not?  What role does authenticity play in leadership?  How does behaving with authenticity change the experience of the leader?  And of those s/he leads?  What are the benefits of authenticity?  What are the challenges?  How do you connect with, nurture and develop your authentic self?


These are the questions I thought of.  What questions would you add?

PS  You’ll find Morton at www.mortonpatterson.com.  Do take a look when you have a moment.

Dorothy Nesbit: About the Author

Coaching

I am thrilled to be writing an article for Coaching at Work magazine, which will be published just in time for International Coaching Week, in February next year.

As part of writing, I have been looking at what other authors say about themselves and in how many words.  Thirty looks like the limit.  I thought I’d share my first attempt with you here on the blog.  How does it land with you?

Dorothy Nesbit, executive coach, cultivates leadership potential with a trademark rigour and compassion, nurturing authenticity, ease and outstanding performance. She is a certified NLP Coach and practitioner of Nonviolent Communication.

http://www.learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk/
http://dorothynesbit.blogspot.com/

Completing my coaching with Lynne

Coaching, ,

Monday, 25th October 2010.  We didn’t set out to do it this way when we scheduled our last appointment and still, later, my coach, Lynne Fairchild, realises this date is exactly five years from the day we first spoke.

During those five years, Lynne and I have spoken three times a month and our coaching has covered every area of my life.  Since I started running my own business in 2002 and started working with Lynne in 2005 she has been a significant source of support for me as I explore what it means to own and run a business – and to have a life in which work and non-work are in some kind of balance.

This year I have chosen to work with Kathy Mallary, who specialises in helping coaches to market their businesses, and this has provided an impetus to draw my work with Lynne to a close.  I am full of gratitude as I think of the work we have done together.  During this time, I have become increasingly self assured, understanding my aims and values and taking steps torwards leading an ever more authentic life.  I have also discovered just how much I enjoy working in a committed coaching relationship and this has served me well with my clients, too:  a number of clients have worked with me over time and I look forward to more and more such relationships.

As an aside, Lynne and I have not (yet) met face to face because of the geographical distance between us.  I am based in London and Lynne is based in the US.  I hear eminent coaches in the UK talk about how coaching is most effective when it’s carried out face to face and I wonder – I confess – if consciously or unconsciously they say this to protect their businesses from the exchange rates which – when it comes to telephone coaching – favour coaches abroad.  In our final (“completion”) session Lynne gives recognition to my willingness to go deep in our work together and without holding back.  It seems to me that working by phone has supported this depth rather than detracted from it.

What do you say when you say goodbye after five years of working together?  In truth, after five years of working together much of what needs to be said has been said already.  We have acknowledged each other so many times.  We know that our deep mutual regard will outlive our coaching relationship.  We know that the completion of our coaching is the beginning of our post-coaching relationship.  I know that I feel confident – no, glad – to continue to refer people to Lynne.

In the run up to our completion I think of our work as like planting a tree.  I know that the tree is planted and has taken firm roots.  I know that there are things outside of our work together that have contributed to the well-being of this metaphorical tree.  I know it will continue to grow long after our work is completed.  And for this I am, quite simply, deeply grateful.  

Being the change: the challenge of owning my “genius”

Coaching, ,

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?”
Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.  There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;  it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson
A Return to Love

On Monday I wrote about the challenges of being the change you want to see in the world.  I didn’t expect to return so soon to this subject to highlight another challenge – the challenge of owning my “genius”.  I take this term genius from Gay Hendricks’ book The Big Leap, a book which invites readers to step beyond their “zone of excellence” and embrace their true genius.

Marianne Williamson’s famous passage, from her book A Return to Love which quotes in turn from the book A Course In Miracles from the Foundation for Inner Peace, points squarely to this challenge and to its implications.  Society’s call to modesty often holds us back and at the same time to hold back is to embrace the law of unintended consequences.  As a coach with a passion to help people to embrace and inhabit their full potential I feel the challenge of choosing between society’s call and my own authenticity in modelling to my clients what I yearn for them to be able to do for themselves.

Today, Kathy Mallary, my coach (with special skills in the area of marketing for coaches) has been holding my feet to the fire, challenging me not only to write a statement of my genius (using the questions Gay Hendricks offers in his book) but also to place myself firmly in the centre.  This is what I came up with (how does it land with you?):

 My Genius




I’m at my best when I’m growing and developing powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships with myself and between myself and others.

When I’m at my best, the exact thing I’m doing is seeing beyond my current limitations to be present to my full potential so that I can develop a trust or knowing that I have a place in the world – a place of true belonging, a place in which my true self is truly a gift to the world. I am also identifying and taking meaningful practical actions towards living in and from my place of true belonging.

When I’m doing this, the thing I most love about it is seeing things falling into place (my own sense of self, new insights into my true path etc.) and experiencing – seeing and feeling – the sense of peace and harmony that comes from this: within myself, within others, and in the relationships between myself and others. This is life within nature’s true and harmonious laws – no “forcing” needed. As I blossom everyone and everything around me also blossoms.

Dorothy Nesbit
October 2010

PS  Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

If you want things to change, start by accepting the way things are

Coaching,

It’s Monday evening and I am on the “Genius Jam” call with my fellow coaches and members of Kathy Mallary’s Empowerment Club.  The club’s focus is our marketing.  Monday’s call, though, is about something wider – how are we contributing to our own progress and success?

I am curious when Kathy says to one of my colleagues:  “If you want things to change, you need to start by accepting the way things are”.  The fact that this resonates with me tells me I need to sit up and listen.

I sit and listen.  One of my colleagues likes to work with women at a time when they realise that, in order to move forward, they need to step fully into being who they truly are.  I recognise how much this applies to men and women alike.  So much of our education shapes us to seek out other’s expectations of us and to try to meet them.  This process continues in the workplace.  Lurking beneath this way of thinking is the idea that we have to be someone else – someone other than who we are – if we are to succeed.  This is an “I am not OK” or “I am not enough” position.

Along the way, many of us also feel the need to be authentic in our lives, so that we can feel torn between two worlds.  The mythical “midlife crisis” denotes the time when we can no longer sustain a way of being that keeps us so alienated from ourselves, or even a way of being in which we show one face to the world whilst also nurturing our true selves behind closed doors.  Sooner or later we want to “come out”.  This is not to say that the choice to come out in this way leads us through a door and straight to an authentic self.  For many – most?  all? – people, this is a step-by-step process of learning and discovery.

So, I ask myself, why did Kathy’s assertion resonate so strongly today with me?  I choose to see it as an important marker.  Of course, if you want to plan a journey from A to B you need to know where A is as well as B (though this is clearly true).  This is one reason why, if you want things to change you have to accept the way things are.  More than this, though, I ask myself, am I accepting myself as I truly am?

Our call finishes at 8pm so I cut myself some slack and decide to sleep on it.  No doubt this is a question to which I shall return.