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

I appreciate Jason's excerpted blog post below. It is the reason the coaching approach I use, focused on using simple short questions, has been effective in cutting into the core of "what's important?" and "what really matters?" 

As Jason describes below, clients, in the fullness of time, evolve and embrace their deepest intuitions and calling in their life and work via an emotional process.  Short, clear coaching questions help clients think, reflect, and fully explore their inner realm, including hidden gems that help surface needed issues, again, in the fullness of time.  Result?  Results!  The ultimate goal is helping clients produce effective results and improved performance, and making sense.

via flickr.com

Excerpted:

February 2, 2011

Personal development is ...an emotional process, not an intellectual one, which means it unlocks unexpectedly. You’re just as likely to go from “understanding” a situation to “understanding” a situation—aka feeling it...—while sitting at dinner or walking out of a movie as you are while talking with your coach. (Unless your coach is really, really good.)

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...I was fired by a client once for refusing to use their overly structured format, which was fine with me. ...Five years of lists, accountability sessions, and train-the-coach programs, zero results.

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...I was fired by a client once for refusing to use their overly structured format, which was fine with me. That was five years ago, and I just got a call from them. Turns out, the coach they’ve had working with their executives hasn’t accomplished squat in the past five years. Nothing. Five years of lists, accountability sessions, and train-the-coaching programs, zero results.

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 You can’t unlock the future you before its time. Go live your life.

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....The only coaching that’s going to work for you now is coaching that is presented on the same emotionally charged level at which you’re living today.

That development plan you’ve got? If you’re overly analytical, nix it. Better: if you can tolerate some ambiguity in your world, create a development document that’s not a plan. Take off the milestones and dates. Just list the stuff you need to work on and look at it periodically. Then go live your life and don’t worry about it. You can’t unlock the future you before it’s time. Go live your life.

Be you now.

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"You will be able to do it."

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Peggy:  New coach, this coaching class FOR coaches fills a need. 

Susan is writing a check for the class at the PCAM conference, photo below.

Here's Nan, below (who wasn't at the emerging design PCAM conference lunch, but took notes on the teleclass group coaching design listed below in a photo.)  Nan's testimonials are about our ride back where I talked about the design of the class.

Above: Car notes by Nan for the January & February Teleclasses.

Below are quotes from the Saturday afternoon PCAM conference class - Coaching as a Business; by Diane Helbig; Diane heard the story. The value is: "You will be able to do it." 

• Not that "I'm going to teach it to you," or "I'll walk you through these processes," not, "here's the steps."

• Rather, when you are done with Deb's new group coaching course, you will be able to do it.

I'd also like to add the value that, with the group coaching, you will be able to tune it for your needs.

If you are interested, contact me at:  DebNystrom@Reveln.com.  I'll send you more information.  Your email will not be shared with anyone or added to any list.

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It only takes a spark, to get a fire going...

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Many thanks to Grace, pictured below.

What FUN to do this!

originally posted in draft form via debnystrom.posterous.com

Photos above:   These two snapshots are the current cover page and blogging comments for the private group blog for the January 2011 class.  Thanks to the groundbreakers in the mini-blogging Posterous workshop in January 2010.  Thank you Grace, breaking ground in the new 2011 January class by trying out Posterous mini-blogging and commenting on posts.

--Deb

Deb Nystrom, of Reveln Consulting blogs about innovation,  leadership, emerging trends, social media, business strategy, news, higher education and fun stuff.  You can learn more about her background & projects on the mothership at Reveln Consulting.

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

Excerpts:

When Job-Hunting: Dress for Success

 

Should you be judged by what you wear? Perhaps not, but the reality is, of course, that you are judged. Throughout the entire job-seeking process employers use short-cuts -- heuristics or rules of thumb -- to save time. With cover letters, it's the opening paragraph and a quick scan of your qualifications. With resumes, it is a quick scan of your accomplishments. With the job interview, it's how you're dressed that sets the tone of the interview.

...How do you find out what is the proper dress for a given job/company/industry? You can call the Human Resources office where you are interviewing and simply ask. Or, you could visit the company's office to retrieve an application or other company information and observe the attire current employees are wearing -- though make sure you are not there on a "casual day" and misinterpret the dress code.

Finally, do you need to run out and spend a lot of money on clothes for interviewing? No, but you should make sure you have at least two professional sets of attire.

Hints for Dress for Success for Men and Women
Attention to details is crucial, so here are some tips for both men and women. Make sure you have:

• clean and polished conservative dress shoes
• well-groomed hairstyle
• cleaned and trimmed fingernails
• minimal cologne or perfume
• no visible body piercing beyond conservative ear piercings for women
• well-brushed teeth and fresh breath
• no gum, candy, or other objects in your mouth
• minimal jewelry
• no body odor

Finally, check your attire in the rest room just before your interview for a final check of your appearance -- to make sure your tie is straight, your hair is combed, etc.

Go to Dress for Success for Women for specific tips for women.

Go to Dress for Success for Men for specific tips for men.

Other Dress for Success Resources

1. Books:
   • Quintessential Careers: Dress for Success Books -- all the best books for making a first great impression!
2. Web Sites:
   • SYMS Dress to Achieve -- a career site created to help college students and recent grads about the basics of proper job interview attire, as well as other helpful career tips to present yourself in the best possible light during job interviews. For both men and women. No cost to job-seekers.
3. Donations:
   • CareerGear -- a non-profit organization dedicated to helping low-income men and men struggling to get off public assistance to obtain and keep jobs by providing men with interview clothing, motivation and follow-up support that helps them get and keep jobs. Donations of suits (and more) accepted.
   • Dress for Success -- a non-profit organization established in 1996 that provides programs that help economically disadvantaged women acquire jobs, retain their new positions, and succeed in the mainstream workplace. Donations of suits, time, and financial support are all accepted!

Questions about some of the terminology used in this article? Get more information (definitions and links) on key college, career, and job-search terms by going to our Job-Seeker's Glossary of Job-Hunting Terms.

Dr. Randall S. Hansen is founder of Quintessential Careers, one of the oldest and most comprehensive career development sites on the Web, as well CEO of EmpoweringSites.com.