Wondering when our coaching services might be needed to provide insight and guide individual development?
Below are some of the more common scenarios that inspire organizations or individuals to hire us for coaching.
New skills needed as a result of promotion: New roles entail new responsibilities—and often require skills that were less critical to success in earlier roles. Our coaching process focuses on broadening skill-sets necessary for improved communication, conflict management, and directing and monitoring work.
Difficulty adapting to a new organizational culture: Moving to a new organization often requires adapting to different policies, making sense of unspoken rules, and understanding unfamiliar communication networks. Too often, people apply the same style that worked in the previous organization and are blindsided by unexpected reactions. We help individuals effectively negotiate this initial adjustment phase.
Unrealistic expectations of others: Bright, talented, ambitious people often put unreasonable pressure on themselves and others. They expect others to keep up with their quick analysis, brief communication and fast pace, and team members perceive them as impatient, irritable or mad. Organizations hire us when turnover, low morale or other complaints arise.
Failure to build a team with strong talent: Talented individuals can also get caught up in an "over-functioning/under-functioning" paradigm where their talents, judgment and efforts compensate for either real or perceived weaknesses in other members of their team. In doing so, they unwittingly foster dependency and limit the development of others. To keep talented team members from growing frustrated and leaving the organization, we coach the individual on acquiring the skills and habits of delegating, coaching, and developing the people on their team.
Failure to deal effectively with the politics of the organization: Failure to recognize and effectively address the underlying interpersonal dynamics of the organization can result in significant blind spots. We help individuals learn how to build consensus, get things done, and promote their objectively good ideas so they gain acceptance from others.
Overly task focused: Individuals who focus too strongly on results may pay insufficient attention to softer people issues. In the short term, through sheer force of will, they may be able to drive results. In the long term, team dissatisfaction, turnover and complaints are likely to become significant obstacles. We coach individuals on more effective ways to get results by working with people.
Underdeveloped interpersonal skills: Behaviors that limit effectiveness and upward potential in otherwise talented individuals often include issues with specific interpersonal skills. We help individuals develop skills in the areas of communication (both speaking and listening), assertiveness, social self-confidence, self-control and conflict management.
Difficulty letting go of strong habits: Most people have tendencies to react and behave in certain ways, often regardless of the circumstances. For people who have been successful, these automatic behaviors have been a match to the people, tasks and problems they’ve had to deal with so far. The risk is when the situation changes and the individual either fails to recognize the need to change his or her behavior or is not able to let go of strong habits. We coach individuals on recognizing their strong habits and exploring new approaches.
Career transition: Individuals seeking job and/or organization changes, either by choice or circumstances, often benefit from clarifying issues, motivations and goals in a vocational coaching process. We offer outplacement and career counseling services tailored to the individuals specific situation, needs and interests.