What benefits/ value will I and my organization gain from having an executive coach?
Clients have cited these as the most important outcomes of executive coaching.
- Having a confidential and trusted listener.
- Putting into clearer focus the essence of key challenges and issues.
- Sharpening one’s thought processes.
- Having someone ask on target, lazered questions about my thinking.
- The ability to talk and think creatively, spontaneously and confidentially.
- An ongoing assessment and sharpening of leadership skills.
- The ability to conceive new and, in some cases seemingly improbable goals and accomplish them.
What process do you typically use for individual executive coaching?
The process is adapted to specific needs and wishes of the client (person coached) and the organization. The essence of individual executive coaching includes:
Discovery of:
The most important characteristics of the client including:
- Strengths
- Values
- What personally drives and motivates the client
- Areas in which change/improvement is sought
The culture of the organization in which the client leads.
Feedback to the client and person to whom the client reports.
Setting goals to be achieved.
The coach during coaching exchanges:
- Intensely listening without judgment.
- Asking targeting and probing questions
- Giving observations and feedback
- Encouraging.
- Facilitating discovery of new ideas and solutions
- Recapping key thoughts
- Solidifying new action plans and timelines.
Keeping the client focused on the established goals and measuring progress towards those goals.
Providing a written report on:
- Progress made toward attainment of goals
- Work remaining to be accomplished.
- Recommendations
For more information please go to: A More Detailed Look at the Coaching Process
How is success measured?
It is essential to measure the success in reaching specific goals. There are several ways to accomplish this. Some possible options include:
- A targeted and tailored 360 Assessment
- The assessment of the person to whom the client reports.
- Achieving specific metrics.
Why would highly successful executives want to commit time with an executive coach?
Because of the value of having a trusted and confidential coach who will:
- Listen carefully without judging.
- Give them even greater confidence that they have put their best thinking and understanding of key ramifications into critical decisions.
- Provide honest feedback.
- Provide a way to continue to hone their substantial leadership skills and become aware of more opportunities to use their strengths.
What is the process used in executive team coaching?
A successful outcome requires tailoring the process to the needs of the leadership team and the organization. The highlights of some of the consistent elements include:
- The coach observing and assessing the team and its dynamics.
- The coach providing feedback to the team.
- The team setting the ground rules for discussions and decision making.
- The team establishing the goals to be achieved and how success will be measured.
- The coach introducing needed fundamentals to create greater trust, exceptional decision making and a higher level of team effectiveness and performance.
- Monthly coaching exchanges to facilitate progress and measure success towards reaching the goals.
- Making individual and team accountabilities clear.
Why would an executive team in a successful organization want to commit the time and effort to develop a higher level of trust and performance especially if things seem to be going well?
There may several different answers. The ones most cited by clients are:
- The talents and diverse thinking are channeled into open and trustful dialogue resulting in more robust discussions and better decisions.
- The executive team becomes the model for a high performance team which other leadership teams in the organization will follow.
- In this difficult business environment it is essential to have exceptional decision making and performance.
- We know if we have a higher level of openness and trust within the executive team, we can be even more successful in leading others and in meeting the organization’s goals.
- The executive team needs to lead the way in more clearly demonstrating a culture of accountability.