Q: How hard was it to re-focus with such a short time off the medal podium and the next event?

A: I had about five coaches on my rear in the warm-down pool making me re-focus so I didn't have a choice.

Pro-active: An emerging leader is on your radar, you don't want to lose them to the competition while "that position" opens up, you need to send culture message: "We invest in our leaders", and/or you know what got them here won't get them there... some "tweaking" of business behavior is in order

Incentive: Your culture is about the people; this year a few select leaders will not only receive a "job well done" merit raise but the career-impacting investment of a coaching engagement a individualized road map to even greater success.

Re-active: A leader's business behavior is hurting them and costing you with undesired turnover, disengaged direct reports, HR complaints, office conflict, low productivity; it has become a corrective measure you hope to keep the employee.

"People change when they hurt enough that they have to; learn enough that they want to, and receive enough that they are able to."

~ John Maxwell

"If you are selected for coaching, the attitude, as they say, is gratitude.... You have after all, just been handed a customized map of the road to success. And fortunate you are ... in the employ that values you despite your flaws and actually — mirable dictum — wants to invest in you."

~ Harvard Management Update

HBR Report

Read the January 2009 Harvard Business Review report The Realities of Executive Coaching by Diane Coutu and Carol Kauffman.

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Summary

Executive coaching is a confidential, individually-tailored engagement designed to meet the needs both of the executive being coached and the organization paying for the service. A coach meets behind closed doors with an executive, and together they create personalized goals and explore specific ways to achieve them. But what exactly happens behind those closed doors? Most of what we hear about coaching is anecdote and conjecture. To obtain a more complete understand of coaching, Harvard Business Review created a 23-item survey sent out to 245 coaches, of whom 140 responded during the allotted time period.

HBR Report

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