The affluent owner The owner of a highly successful mid-sized company felt she was having difficulty being understood by her employees. She decided to hire a personal coach to show her ways she could better relate to them.

She was surprised when the owner, in asking about their weekend plans, talked about how she was going to spend time on her new boat touring some remote islands and inlets in the Great Lakes.

After one of the staff meetings the coach had a debrief session with the owner. “It would definitely help them listen to your points if you were to talk more on the level of someone less affluent, after all, most of your employees earn less than double the minimum wage.

Over the weekend the owner took the coach’s words to heart. At the Monday morning staff meeting she started out by saying, “My husband and I ruffed it this weekend on our boat. We stopped at a yacht club where the pool was small, the breakfast buffet only served assorted donuts. Also to conserve gas we didn’t turn on the air conditioning until night.”

Labels: Anecdote, Coaching, Communication, Meetings

  ¶ 9/19/2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  10 ways to coach by example

• Envision good performance and communicate your vision.


• Don't just nod your head; listen to your direct reports.


• Don’t ask employees to do something you are not willing to do yourself.


• Treat everyone with fairness.


• Recognize and reward exceptional performance.


• Never assume; always ask.


• Say please and thank you.


• Under-promise and over-deliver.


• Leave the frown behind when you enter the office door.


• Keep your sense of humor in good repair.

Labels: Coaching, Leadership

  ¶ 8/12/2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  How 3M coaches employees Coaching employees is a challenge for any leader. Gene Nichols at 3M Medical in St. Paul wanted to find a way to initiate a successful coaching program using existing tools.

A case study is now available (click here) to show how Gene successfully did it.

Labels: Assessments, Case_Study, Coaching

  ¶ 4/21/2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  Get ready for Leap Day This year we get an extra day. How are you going to spend it?

For “S” Corps, LLCs, and sole proprietorships, in fact everyone except “C” Corps, February 29 is an extra day to build sales, profits, for a new strategy. For many it will be a day of extra accomplishments for the year. Unfortunately for others it will be a day that will be whittled away with lost opportunity.

Here are some recommendations for spending your Leap Day:

1. Catch up on customer and prospect calls. Devote the day to calling customers and networking partners that you have not talked to in a long time. It is also a good day to stop procrastinating and finally make those phone calls to your prospects.


2. Rejuvenate yourself. Forget about sales, balance sheets, websites, and other aspects of your work and spend the day at a spa, indoor swim club, or some other relaxing venue. Face it, you don't normally take time for yourself and you have no sales comparison to February 29 of last year so what if you got to lose.


3. Donate some time for charity. Spend the day volunteering at a hospital, soup kitchen, or some other program. Imagine the excitement they will have for you when you walk in the front door and say, “I’m here to help in any way I can.” This may sound like a waste of time when it comes to your business, you'll be surprised how invigorated you will be next Monday morning.


4. Seclude yourself for strategy. Head to the library or some other peaceful location for you can spend some time examining your business strategy. What is working and what isn't? Ditch those things that are not providing a return on your financial or time investment and set some measurable and attainable goals for the balance of 2008.

Labels: Coaching, Strategy, Time_management

  ¶ 2/28/2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  Success at any age Age isn't always a factor in your success or failure. Consider these famous examples:

• Actor George Bums won his first Oscar at age 80.


• Golda Meir was 71 when she became prime minister of Israel.
  At age 96, playwright George Bernard Shaw broke his leg when he fell out of a tree he was trimming in his backyard.


• Painter Grandma Moses didn't start painting until she was 80 years old. She completed more than 1.500 paintings after that: 25 percent of those were produced when she was past 100.


• Michelangelo was 71 when he painted the Sistine Chapel.
  Physician and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer was still performing operations in his African hospital at 89.


• Doe Counsilman, at 58, became the oldest person ever to swim the English Channel.
  S. I. Hayakawa retired as president of San Francisco State University at 70. He was then was elected to the U.S. Senate.


• Casey Stengel didn't retire from managing the New York Mets until he was 75.

Excerpt: Glenn Van Ekeren. The Speaker's Sourcebook. Prentice Hall. New York, NY

Labels: Attitude, Coaching, Motivation

  ¶ 2/03/2008 0 Comments Links to this post

  The Phenomena of Coaching Coaching continues to have a growing impact in the workplace. One recent study shows thereturn on investment averages more than $100,000. In one case, research by MetrixGlobal,coaching showed a 529% return on investment at a Fortune 500 company before taking into account significant intangibles and soft dollars.

According to The Hay Group, an International Human Resources firm, as many as 40% of allFortune 500 companies are now using professional coaches to varying degrees. Once reservedfor top-level executives, coaching programs are now hitting all levels of management. As theC-level executives quickly learned, technical and trade skills carry less importance thaninterpersonal skills and emotional excellence. Effectively coached executives at the upper levelsrealize that these interpersonal skills and self-mastery have a huge payback even with middle andentry level executives.

Today, the highest ROI is coming from organizations that take an all-inclusive approach to coaching. These firms are seeing an increase in camaraderie and teamwork as there executives experience coaching at the same time.

Researchers at MetrixGlobal found that three quarters of respondents indicated a significant are very significant impact on at least one of the business measurements coaching programs sought to improve.

Nine ways coaching programs typically provide improvement

There are nine improvement areas generally identified by those that have taken part in professional coaching programs. Read what they are by clicking here.

You may also want to learn more about programs such as Max Impact’s Catapult®. Success from the program can be staggering. Catapult® uses a unique blend of assessments and individualized goals to achieve results in excess of expectations. For example, a Sales Vice President was able to Catapult® his company’s sales from a double digit decrease to double digit increase by using the interpersonal skills he learned to extract untapped potential from his salespeople.

Labels: Coaching, Survey

  ¶ 12/02/2007 0 Comments Links to this post