Executive Coaching

We work with executives to develop the political, strategic and interpersonal skills that will make them most successful. Using a short-term dynamic model, we agree upon behavioral solutions that address a client's most pressing situations. The result of this process is a successful, charismatic leader.

Here are some examples of the various issues resolved though our processes. Click on any of the following for the full story.

We taught a naïve vice president to be more politically aware of the complicated interactions within his executive management group.

We taught a young, brash, CIO to present her subordinates' accomplishments with more subtlety.

We helped a manager with an erratic, temperamental disposition become balanced within his team.

We humanized an executive who was perceived as cold and distant.

We gave a female VP who choked and went blank during presentations the tools to be lucid and persuasive.

We enabled a young, high-potential ethnic male to place his own culture in perspective when dealing in a corporate environment.

We taught a naïve vice president to be more politically aware of the complicated interactions within his executive management group.

This man in his early thirties had had a meteoric rise to the top level of a large corporation. Two mindsets were getting in his way. The first was that since he had always been the boy wonder, he believed he was special and thus not bound by the same rules as other people. The second was that blunt statements of fact were all that should be necessary within any hard charging business group, and that any couching of information was lying. He nevertheless admitted that he was being discounted and ignored by his peers at policy meetings. We took the following tack with him.

First, all boy wonders need to replace that early glitter with increasingly more substantive accomplishments or they can fade quickly (and also that a thirty year-old is no longer a boy). Second, courtesy and good communication are necessary to be effective, and bluntness isn't the only road to truth. He had a flash of insight when he started to listen to how carefully and collectedly his peers spoke. He decided to adjust his style and, as a result, his communication with his peers became much more productive. << Back to the top.

We taught a young, brash, CIO to present her subordinates' accomplishments with more subtlety.

This woman was too blunt and pushy in praising her subordinates. Not only did it sound like bragging, and to some extent self-aggrandizement, but it also made her listeners cringe. We taught her the art of contextual praise where, within the body of a discussion of a current project, she could smile at the person who had done a good job and then give some specific, substantive praise regarding how that person had excelled. She then was taught to move on to more general comments. Subsequently, the praise was heard without embarrassment and she was perceived as a gracious leader.
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We helped a manager with an erratic, temperamental disposition become balanced within his team.

On a given day this manager was outgoing and helpful and seemed to want to be everyone's friend. At other times he could be cold, autocratic and difficult. Our most difficult task was to help him see that his uneven temperament was damaging his team. At first it seemed a daunting task. His point of view was that it was his team's job to adjust to him as he had adjusted to the personal quirks of his own managers in the past. Eventually, however, he came to see the issue was his own level of maturity, and that he had an obligation as a leader to adopt a more balanced managerial style. We taught him to be more consistent with his team members, who then learned to trust him. The morale of the entire team improved.
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We humanized an executive who was perceived as cold and distant.

In this case we worked with pictures, movies and videos to help this executive understand how chilling his demeanor was. He had great difficulty in differentiating among facial expressions. For example, he would see a shy face as angry and a happy face as annoyed. We asked him to start noticing peoples' facial expressions, combined with their body language, and to balance his perceptions in these areas with their conversational content. We also encouraged him to verify his perceptions and evaluations of people and situations with other people he trusted. By developing these skills he began to recognize the effect that his cold manner and aloof expressions had on other people. He realized that even small adjustments on his part greatly improved his interactions with others.
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We gave a female VP who choked and went blank during presentations the tools to be lucid and persuasive.

We worked here with biofeedback techniques centered around breath control and visualization. She was unusual in that she felt no nervousness during the beginning part of her presentation, but began to go blank and choke in the middle. By taking advantage of her initial burst of energy, we reworked her formats and had her use the middle of her presentations for question and answer sessions, which she was able to do without stress. She then put more content in the closure cycle when her nervousness had passed. As a result, she was able to give consistent and engaging presentations.
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We enabled a young, high-potential ethnic male to place his own culture in perspective when dealing in a corporate environment.

This situation is quite common in the United States particularly among 1st and 2nd generation immigrants coming from strong social and family-based cultures. Our main task was to help him see that he was not betraying his heritage by acting in a more diplomatic, negotiative, collegial way within his organization. We also encouraged him to improve his accent, grammar and vocabulary to help him be more persuasive with his colleagues. It was interesting to us to realize through working with him that he felt unaccented English to be a denial of who he was by birth. He began to get some perspective on this when he admitted that he preferred hearing his own native language spoken with the correct accent.
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