There's a good reason the Liberal Arts continue to be the thinking person's place for developing leaders. Witness, Peter Drucker's take on it, dubbed by John Agno as the first executive coach. --Deb

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Managers [should] draw on all the knowledge and insights of the humanities and the social sciences...   But they have to focus this knowledge on effectiveness and results.  ~ Peter Drucker

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TJ Wisner interviews me, Deb Nystrom, on questions to ask to choose a coach for yourself.

Connect, Clarify and Commit: listen to internet radio with Terry Wisner via Blog Talk Radio

via flickr.com

The three "Cs" are simple to remember, yet they are implemented so differently among coaches. 

Here are some basic questions to ask your coach candidates:

1. How does your background and training define the type of coaching you offer?
2. Why did you choose to become a coach?
3. What is your coaching philosophy?
4. Describe the results one of your clients has achieved through coaching.
5. What’s unique about you as a coach?
6. Describe your coaching process.
7. Will our sessions be in person or over the phone?
8. How frequently will we meet, for how long, and over what duration?
9. What do you charge?
10. Who is your ideal client?
11. How will I measure success in using you as my coach?
12. Where can I read more about your approach (if the coach uses a website and/or social media)?

Start with thinking about your relationships with mentors, sport coaches, teachers and friends.  Consider what relationships were most beneficial to your development and why.  Bring this thinking to your decision making when considering leveraging a coach to help you see deeply into your own strengths and capacity to help you maximize your best self.   

If you have thoughts about these questions and this approach, feel free to share them!   

Warm Regards,

--Deb

This is a helpful excerpt from the Wall Street journal that captures assessments as a foundational part of personal development, realizing your full potential and capacity.  Assessments are key for developing an evidence based approach in a professional coaching practice.  I've taken over 20 assessments myself, sometimes the same ones respeated over decades.  See if you agree with the assessments approach.  Thanks go to John Agno for the post on LinkedIn. 

Excerpted:

... coaches increasingly recognize that personality assessments can lead clients not only to greater self-insight but also to improved relationships.  The tests "can help get to the heart of the problem quickly," says Richard Levak, a Del Mar, Calif., psychologist, who uses them extensively in his practice.  "Too often psychologists operate on their intuition and clinical knowledge, but people are not often as they appear."

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When people take ...tests, their self-awareness goes up and they quickly figure out their strengths and weaknesses.  

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 A test might reveal that someone who appears jovial and self-effacing may actually be insecure and introverted—constantly working to play a role, he says.

via flickr.com

Consider what happens when an introvert comes home hoping to chill after a rough day at work—only to find his extrovert partner waiting to recap every moment of her day.  The introvert gets angry; the extrovert feels hurt.  The therapist or coach tells the extrovert that her spouse needs time alone; she tells the introvert that he needs to make an effort to come out and talk after he has decompressed. 

Introversion & extroversion are actually more complex and nuanced than described here, but the basic concepts still ring true.

What, exactly, is personality?

John D. Mayer, a psychologist and expert on personality testing at the University of New Hampshire, says it is "the system that organizes one's emotions, motives and capacities to think."  Personalities are partly innate, partly learned, he says; we can change them a bit, but it isn't easy.

The Myers-Briggs was developed in the 1940s by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katherine Cook Briggs, who despite little advanced training in psychology, immersed themselves in the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and designed the questionnaire based on Jung's personality types.

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 Self-awareness facilitates change.

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When people take personality tests, their self-awareness goes up and they quickly figure out their strengths and weaknesses.  Self-awareness facilitates change.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2011   via coachingtip.com

After taking over 20 assessments myself, I've vetted the ones I would want to offer to my clients.  My current suite of assessments that I offer to business, leadership and change coaching clients includes, but is not limited to:

• The iWam, the inventory for Work Attitude and Motivation
• The MBTI, basic, Step II and more
• The StrengthsFinder assessment
• A new change, competence and importance assessment for being a "finisher in a world of starters) through a colleague
  
• Through a colleague, the Profiles International Checkpoint 360, the PPI, a DISC personality style instrument, the Profiles XT performance & career match assessment.

and more.   What has been your experience with self-assessment and self-awareness tools?

--Deb

Well, well!  How refreshing!   I came across this useful anti-coach blog just in the nick of time, before I decend into the abyss of hundreds of coaches at a state-wide coaches conference next weekend, having picked up a coaching credential last year.

In all fairness, many of my new colleagues have been in other professions, have plenty of good life experience and have been very helpful to the variety of clients they assist.  From my own coaching vantage point, I sit somewhat too high at times, viewing clientele from the consulting perspective of organization development. Breathing in a bit of anti-coach humor with some reframing can help me dismount the high horse and return to terra firma. 

Here's a sample from a recent post.

Excerpts from 10 Great Things About Fear:

2.  It allows people to get what they want. I mean other people, not you.

4.  It helps you to escape hard stuff, like rejection and failure.

5.  It makes it possible for you to be easily manipulated. Then you can feel like someone owes you something.

10.  It gives swashbucklers, renegades and risk takers more and better opportunities.

See the full post here via theanticoach.net