Services Individual Coaching for Leaders: Why: Leaders face challenges that often cannot be discussed with people in the organization. An external coach can help the client explore challenging and sensitive issues in a neutral environment. Coaching can assist with transition to new leadership roles, completion of roles, recovery from mistakes, working with difficult staff members, planning major changes, dealing with the stress of changes, pacing leadership work at a rate the organization can absorb and managing personal life balance. How: A reliable approach is a six month engagement with regularly scheduled meetings and clearly established goals. It is important to keep the appointments as some of the best work occurs when the client is least expecting it. Just because there isn’t a hot issue doesn’t mean there’s no work to do. How to get started: Answer the questions on the “Getting started” page and then call or send an email for a conversation to see if Sam can provide relevance of methods and experience, time availability and personal fit. Good rapport between us is essential. Leadership Team Coaching:  Why: Leadership teams are often confronted with changing membership, circumstances and challenges that do not fit existing leadership patterns and practices. Coaching can assist the team in recognizing existing patterns, assessing their appropriateness for the new situation and generating methods and relationships to move forward.  As an outside agent, the coach can ask questions and encourage consideration of issues that are presently unheard or overlooked. Accountability for change can be developed jointly by the team and the coach. How: During periods of stress or change, monthly or quarterly meetings help sustain change and build leadership strategies. Intense situations may require more frequent meetings. Alternatives are leadership retreats for one or more days and coach participation in regular leadership meetings held in the course of work.  The coach’s job in the latter situation is to listen for the unasked question that might make major shifts in thinking or progress. How to get started:  Answer the questions on the “Getting started” page and send your responses to Sam.  A follow up telephone call will be scheduled to explore appropriate steps. Intergroup Conflict Resolution: Why: Today’s organizations must work with a variety of organization partners.  No one organization is self-sufficient. Coaching can assist in understanding differing organization habits and cultures and support effective dialog to build on common interests and move above and beyond differences. How: The typical approach is to begin with interviews with the affected people. An agenda to address the issue is developed with senior leaders and the coach then acts as a facilitator for inter-group dialog. How to get started: Consider what senior most person is required from each organization. Partnership between Presidents, for example, is essential for conflict resolution work. Answer the questions on the “Getting Started” page and then arrange with Sam for a preliminary interview. Learning Forums: Why: Regardless of the depth of experience of staff members, it is quite natural to become too accustomed to current patterns or ways of working. There is much to learn in today’s world. When organizations take time to reflect on their situations they see more clearly. New options become available, competence re-emerges. How: Information is gathering in conversations with staff members and issue stakeholders. A process is created to maximize reflection, discovery and commitment to new action. Learning forums can last a half day or several days. They can involve a handful of people or hundreds. How to get started: Start a conversation in the organization about what people are observing and what they are finding missing. Identify a few people to act as a planning team for a learning forum. Then get in touch with Sam to explore options. Emotional Intelligence Coaching: What: Emotional Intelligence (EQ to distinguish it from academic intelligence or IQ) has become an important component of leadership awareness and development. Failure to be aware of our thinking patters, reactions and behaviors has ended many careers. How: Awareness is generated by use of a statistically valid assessment taken and reviewed initially by individuals, and then, if appropriate, combined for group consideration. Individual coaching and group coaching help make sense of the assessment and apply client learning to leadership challenges. How to get started: Make an appointment with Sam to set up an on-line EQ assessment. Once the results are available, four to six coaching session will be arranged. Organization Change and Process Consultation: Why: Organizations, like any other structures, can become outdated in vision, culture, processes or structure. When an organization no longer fits its surroundings and stakeholder needs, it’s life is vulnerable. How: Meetings can be designed and facilitated to inaugurate intentional change. The work may involve a few people or an entire organization system. It is also essential to plan and support implementation of change to sustain the new benefits. How to get started: If you are looking for this kind of support, you probably already know something needs to change or that something seems to be missing. Write down what you know and who is affected by or could help with this issue.  Then write a few thoughts about the implications of NOT addressing the issue.  If there are no implications, there may not be enough “energy” to change anything.   Now answer the questions in Getting Started and get in touch. Helping organizations make major changes for the better is one of the most exciting and energizing activities leaders can undertake. Observational Skills Development: Why: Because the issues facing leaders and organizations today are more complex than simple language can manage. Metaphor and image invite us to think in more complete ways. If leaders can’t see themselves and their worlds clearly, they cannot act wisely. An awful lot of the time, we see what we expect to see and draw inaccurate conclusions. Observational Skills are needed to distinguish what we think is happening from what is really happening. Huge savings of time, effort and money are possible for the keen observer. How: By stopping long enough to notice what we notice and by recovering the “observer within us”. Because of Sam’s experience in photography and poetry, Sam helps individuals and groups think below the surface. Sam asks, “What is the next right answer?”, or, “What are we missing?”, or, “What’s the next level of questioning?, or “What else wants to be noticed here?” Deep insights and understanding can be found through the metaphors offered in poetry and the images of photography. How to get started: Begin paying attention to things you have never noticed before. Take a walk through the organization and simply watch and listen. Walk outside and inside. Ask people if you can sit in on their conversations just to listen. Pay attention to how quickly you form firm conclusions about people and issues. Then gather fresh observational data to see how close your conclusions are to what actually happened. If you need a partner in learning to observe, call Sam for an appointment. top