services
Coaching is an effective means of navigating inflection points
Whether you’re on a personal leadership journey or you’re leading a team through an organizational transition, coaching can help you harness the positive potential of inevitable changes
Individuals
Individual Coaching
Individual coaching sessions are in-depth tailored sessions that support you in clarifying your individual leadership goals and inner motivations, as well as in understanding personal/professional obstacles so that you can find your next best step as a leader.
You may have a specific challenge or goal that leads you to seek out a coach. Or maybe you’ve just noticed that your usual tools aren’t working, and the path to leveling-up isn’t clear. You may be a “lonely leader” looking for a restorative and sustaining space to mentally strategize with an experienced thought partner to impact business results. Or you may be a young or mid-level manager who simply yearns for guidance in purposefully channeling your abilities and executive potential.
Every client and their process is unique, but coaching is shaped by accountability, measuring tools for action, and a means for reporting on learning.
Personal Leadership Assessments
One of the hallmarks of leadership is self-awareness, and a formal assessment is one means of developing this dramatically and quickly. When we want to know how to take the next steps in professional growth, there is nothing quite like knowing where we already stand. There are a variety of feedback tools that can be employed to guide clients toward valuable insights and growth.
Qualitative 360-Degree Assessment
A 360-degree assessment solicits the confidential feedback of a select group of participants. We interview 9-12 people of the client’s choosing, from both their work setting (colleagues, clients, vendors) as well as their personal sphere (spouse or close friend). We provide a safe atmosphere for each person’s candid perspective and listen for themes that emerge during the process. We then provide a high-impact, attribution-blind report—which includes both strengths and areas that would benefit from development—and review the report in a one-on-one call with the client. Optionally, a powerful path is to conduct a team session where individual reports are shared.
This process also works well for organization-wide assessments, which allow for a business leader to survey perceptions of a wider community. These surveys provide useful insights into brand development and developing a company-wide strategic vision.
Meyers-Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI) Assessment
The MBTI is a tool to deepen self-awareness and help promote strong group dynamics and an appreciation for diverse approaches to life, work, and the managerial experience. The MBTI isn’t a test, and it isn’t meant to label or categorize. Instead, the assessment offers insight on one’s preferred approaches in four areas (introversion and extroversion; sensing and intuition; thinking and feeling; judging and perceiving). The assessment is not of intelligence or behavior; it’s intended to give you an additional tool to deepen your effectiveness as a manager and in relationships generally by providing a look at such things as what energizes you and how you prefer to make decisions.
Although there are many knock-offs and variations of the original MBTI, the real thing is a useful investment in personal insight. My MBTI licensing requires assessments results to be delivered and discussed in person; please contact me to arrange for a comprehensive overview. Covid has changed us all!
DiSC Report
A look at behavioral styles the assessment identifies as Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance. This assessment is particularly great for teams; the individualized report that is generated is not only useful for developing self-awareness, but it is also key for deepening an understanding of how to work better with others. It helps explain how the everyday things you do work in tandem (or in conflict) with the other members of the team. The DiSC assessment tool is a wonderful low-cost investment in building effectiveness on a team, preventing and resolving conflict at work, and getting cooperation from colleagues.
Groups & Organizations
Team Assessment
Any of the personal assessments or inventories can be applied to working with teams who are willing to engage in conversation about temperament preferences and working styles to better accomplish goals as a unit. Given in a workshop format, these assessments are often a fun, retreat-style approach to deepening goodwill and pulling together.
Organizational Assessment
One service we offer is an assessment of entire teams, with a goal to develop and recommend an organizational structure that allows for more synergistic (ack! that word!) collaboration among existing team members but still allows for growth. This involves a series of interviews with team members and other lead stakeholders from which we identify options for a stronger internal organization. Teams often fall prey to status quo bias, putting up with small pains and inefficiencies because they’ve simply gotten used to them. Research shows we are very likely to address a dramatic injury immediately—a broken leg—we will put up with small and daily aggravations—a paper cut. Businesses do the same thing, tolerating small moves that eventually pull them out of integrity. We call those “organizational hangnails,” which can accumulate and drag down morale and efficiency, A coach invited into the organization can help clarify and define the division of responsibilities among staff in order to seamlessly execute their mission. We can diagnose barriers that may impede performance and organizational effectiveness. Gently treating the “organizational hangnails” goes a long way toward cheering up an entire team!
Inflection Point Management
Unlike the “organizational hangnails,” some inflection points in business demand immediate attention. We work with directors within a team in advance of or following a merger, a shift in leadership, or a correction in the course of a mission. Leaders have enormous influence on the creation of emotional culture, especially during these transition points. We help with shoring up the leader’s confidence and strategy and support the team’s resilience and commitment.
“Snap” Coaching
A block of office hours scheduled in tandem with an organization’s point person, often from Human Resources. Designed to allow short-term, solutions-oriented conversations about topical issues (for instance, managing a tricky personnel conversation, framing a compensation discussion, transcending a conflict with a colleague or direct report, navigating diversity, inclusion, and belonging strategies), these sessions are offered as a benefit for employees by the organization.
“Philan-therapy”
One of the biggest challenges for institutions, regardless of size or funding source, is development.
Individual
Per hour/usually set up on a 3-month contract of weekly calls and meetings
Deal with everything from the pre-ask jitters to steadfast stewardship. Development and institutional advancement require a warm humanity and a dynamic, organized approach. Private sessions range from consultations about strategically approaching difficult prospects to role-playing the big “asks” more effectively. I’ll also help with setting up a supportive development office structure and creating successful, efficient teams.
Workshop: The Emotionally Intelligent Fundraiser
1.5 to 2 hours for 8-20 participants
The core objective of this workshop is to deepen the kind of self-awareness that creates comfort and nimble conversation when it comes to asking for money. Working with your team of development and advancement professionals, I create an understanding of compelling personal narratives and styles. The workshop is both personal and relaxed; we role-play and cut to the heart of the issues that allow us to more effectively approach prospects in a way that comfortably turns them into donors.
Emotional intelligence has four elements. It begins internally with self-awareness and self-management. Then it leads to the externally focused social awareness and relationship management. The world expects a fundraiser to be acutely savvy about relationships, but we often want to jump over the inward-facing aspects of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is especially worth our close attention as we develop skills in the philanthropic world; it will make us more effective at relationship management and—ultimately—fundraising.
Money may be just ink on paper. But there is a reason we label it “currency.” It’s electric. It has a charge. Money holds power and shame. It represents life energy. It is the stuff of dreams and nightmares. It is the mortgage and the groceries. Until we really face what money means to us, we cannot be really effective about how others relate to money and asking for their philanthropy.