Strategicwise Coaching

An Assessment: The Big Questions

Read the following questions. Pause a few seconds after each one. Perhaps one of these questions resonates with your mind; perhaps there is more than one. Check the ones that apply to you:

Questions regarding your executive performance

[ ] Do you find it difficult to get everything done that is expected of you?

[ ] Are you having difficulty dealing with a disgruntled or poor performing employee?

[ ] Do you use emotional intelligence in your communications with others?

[ ] Does an impending financial crisis immobilize you and your organization?

[ ] Do you have difficulty making tough decisions, especially regarding finances?

[ ] Are you being plagued by stress?

[ ] Do you see yourself not growing in your current position?

[ ] Do you believe that you can do anything?

[ ] Do you do everything or almost everything?

[ ] Do you think you are about to lose your job or have you lost it?

Questions regarding your personal life

[ ] Do you spend vacations with a cell phone glued to your ear and/or your eyes glued to a Blackberry or a PDA in the palm of your hand?

[ ] Are you achieving an effective balance between your personal and professional lives?

[ ] Is your marriage or significant relationship getting short shrift?

[ ] Do you need to create personal, professional and/or organizational visions and related goals?

[ ] Are you in need of taking the next step in your career, without hurting your organization?

[ ] Are you in limbo and need to know how you are going to make it through your transition?

[ ] Do you see yourself not growing in your current position?

[ ] Do you believe that the price of success is giving up your personal life?

[ ] Do you wonder where and how do you find the resilience to fulfill all your personal and professional roles?

[ ] Do you have things that you want to accomplish, but haven't been able?

Questions regarding the executive and the governing board

[ ] Are you finding it difficult to get the board to function better?

[ ] Is your board micromanaging instead of focusing on policy making?

[ ] Are you finding it difficult to get the board and/or staff to focus on the crucial issues facing your organization?

[ ] Are you finding it difficult to work effectively with board officers who are out of touch with your organization's vision?

[ ] Are you finding it difficult to get the board to focus on the fiduciary, strategic and policy generating actions that are key to good governance and management?

[ ] Are you ready to learn how you can work more effectively with your board and how you and your board can work as a leadership team?

Would you be interested in participating in a process that will help you solve any of these and other issues that effect you and your organization and create a strategic and wise road to follow, without walking away from everything you currently are doing?

If you identified with any of the above questions, there is an answer.

The Answer

If you are open to receiving emotional support, professional insight, guidance and wisdom, there is a process that you can employ, which will give you substantive results. The process is called executive coaching. It will require commitment on your part. If receiving this kind of assistance is important, then you should plan to set aside an hour a week for the next eight to twelve weeks, or an hour every other week for the next 12 to 20 weeks, where you will be given small, thought provoking assignments, nothing that you can't handle, and a unique opportunity to enter into a dialogue with an experienced, insightful and compassionate executive coach. Equally important, you will be able to say whatever you want and know that what you share will be kept in absolute confidence.

The End Product of Executive Coaching

If you participate in executive coaching, the outcomes ought to:

Show you how to manage your time effectively.
Assess your values and your strengths.
Identify what is most important in your life.
Empower you with the skills and tools to strategically help you manage your personal and professional lives.
Provide you with skills to jumpstart your organization and its governing board, if they are in limbo.
Re-center your energies on the joy of life and work.
Align your goals with your values.
Identify your mission and passions.
Help you initiate best practices.
Ignite the spark within you that will make greater use of your intellectual capital.
Guide you through the process of creating a meaningful personal-professional plan that is strategic and wise.

This, in turn, will create the structure that leads to your vision. 'Vision is a destination'.

The pay off to you and your organization is substantial. "Professional coaches aren't just for organizations in trouble. They can jumpstart successful boards and executives." (BoardSource, p.6, June/July 2002)

The benefits to you and your organization are profound. Executive coaching for chief executive officers and/or their very senior staff provides an opportunity to focus on strategic outcomes and on 'what matters most'—resolving the issues that impede their success and that of their organizations.

An executive coach helps clients discover the reality of their leadership skills and focuses attention on the relevant issues that affect the bottom line of their lives and that of their organizations.

Transition Coaching

There are two kinds of transitions that confront our real world. Both have high emotional and economic costs attached to them. First there is the transition that organizations/institutions face when their leadership, for whatever reason, leaves or retires. Second, there is the transition that an individual faces when she/he is suddenly told that they are not needed by an employer… a horrible shock.

For an organization/institution facing the loss of its leadership, the transition process must be out in the open, structured and organized. The process must be planned strategically and wisely. Begin, as Steven Covey writes, with the end in mind. Make sure there is a shared vision; one that melds with that of the rest of the leadership. Bequeath to this new leader a series of binders that clearly outline how the place is run, from A to Z. Then assign her/him a mentor, one who ideally is a professional coach. Chances are this process is going to be a challenge. A good executive coach with experience in helping with transitions will help facilitate a smooth transition.

On the other hand, the situation is different if an individual is told they are no longer needed by an organization/institution. One feels shock and abandonment at the same time. Whether you are given adequate time to deal with the fallout from such a catastrophe, or you are handed a file box and immediately are told to take your personal items with you, the end result is a feeling of emptiness, disbelief, anger, sadness and loss of direction. To be lost in a forest of the unemployed is a creepy nightmare fraught with apprehension and opportunity, especially in economically difficult times.

As an individual, who at age 40 +, has had their position evaporate/eliminated for whatever reason, the most important task in front of you is to take the bull by the horns and steer it out of the china shop. Get help as soon as possible. Do not delay or the situation will, in a most insidious way, fester. It will haunt you, and indirectly your family, friends and colleagues.

Since you have been forced into making a professional transition, do not allow yourself to drown in self pity and anxiety. Help is available from the resources in your community. These may be services offered by the state unemployment service such as a ‘Career Center’ or private programs such as ‘The Five O’clock Club’ or programs offered by NGOs and nonprofit organizations such as Jewish Vocational Service’s Success Team. Others probably exist; look for them. The other resource is to retain an executive coach who does transition coaching. Transition coaching focuses the individual on moving from her/his former or even present status as an employed individual through a thorough analysis of skills and interests as well as the process of building strong personal and professional networks. The transition coach stays focused on the individual until they find employment.

Transition coaches have considerable experience working with senior staff and CEOs in transition. They shape this experience into a process that exudes support, structure, focus, self-exploration, goal setting, and wise personal strategic planning. The coach helps the client to identify the important resources, ask the right questions, and provide the necessary support.

With nine years of coaching individuals in transition, I also provide coaching in all aspects of career development including resume building, interview guidance, letter writing and network building. My program includes a series of surveys that help identify ones strengths, one on one coaching as well as a follow-up by phone and internet. I also offer a group coaching program that offers the additional support through the group’s members. The advantage of this is that participants are paired with each other and make a commitment to check on how each other is accomplishing the tasks they said they would do during the week. This program meets weekly for eight weeks. Individuals who choose the group process must commit to participate for at least six weeks.

My objective is to help clients discover who they are, what they have to share with others, realize what matters most, identify the most efficacious route to attain it, and move them forward in a supportive way until they reach that goal. I know that clients have worthwhile and relevant talents, skills and interests that just need support and cultivation. It is difficult to make the transition by oneself. I am dedicated to being in the service of my clients in a way that is relevant to each of them. This is a responsibility that I take seriously. It is part of my personal mission ‘to repair the world’. I am in the service of my clients. While I am not supremely masterful at how I help clients, I am masterful in my coaching practice.

Fees for individual transition coaching are as listed in Fees. Individual financial needs are accommodated when possible. Group coaching fees are based on the number of individuals participating in the group and are calculated on all individuals participating the entire eight weeks. No credit is given for missed weeks. Here too, individual financial needs are accommodated when possible.

For further information and a free exploratory coaching session, call me at 617-834-2612. If I am not available, leave a message and I will get back to you. Or send an email to aclickstein@strategicwise.com. I look forward to meeting you.

My Philosophy

I believe that to accomplish personal and professional goals, clients must shift their mind from seeing themselves as separate to seeing how they are connected to the world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or something to seeing how their own actions often create the problems they experience. I believe that a commitment to observing and learning about oneself is the foundation to personal and professional growth. This can best be achieved through thoughtful help, which focuses on the key issues affecting the direction of one's life.

I also believe that clients need to create a personal mission; or if they already have one, they need to redefine it. With this new understanding, they can move on to sharpening their vision and setting goals with measurable objectives. All my clients are asked to evaluate the impact that I have made on them and their organizations. I encourage you to read some of their comments in References.

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Strategicwise
Arnold Clickstein
Executive & Transition Coach
32 Pickering Street
Winchester, Massachusetts 01890
617.834.2612
aclickstein@strategicwise.com
www.strategicwise.com