Dr. Cathy Greenberg and I talked about Executive Coaching plus training and how that can benefit you and your team.

We know the skills that we talk about on this show can help propel you, your team, and your organization, to be in the top 10%. Often, it’s just doing a few things differently, which we call micro-initiatives. Doing a few things differently, maybe a little bit more, can be difference of someone moving into the top 10%.

As we talk about coaching, some of the research that has been around for quite a while shows that when we do training alone, you get about a 22% bump in productivity. But if you add training along with individual executive coaching, a person’s productivity can be enhanced by as much as 88%. It just makes sense that it’s more useful if you have someone there to help you integrate, talk about the information, how you can use the information going forward, and what obstacles you might have?

Dr. Cathy Greenberg: As we progress through today’s show we want to give you as much information on what executive coaching really is about, some updates for where it is going in this new decade; as you know the International Coach Federation is changing its entire regional structure. It is going to what we would call a content based approach where executive coaches will meet based on specific regional affinities that they have. I’m on the board of the International Coach Federation of Southern Arizona. Relly, I know you have relationships with the ICF in California.

One of the things that we know is that certification continues to change. In fact there are different coach certifications: there is ACC, PCC and MCC, but the new BCC, which is Board Certified Coach, is a national certification. Many people need to know about that, so if you go to the ICF.com website you can learn about the different accreditation models: ACC, PCC, MCC and you can also learn about where you need to go to get your BCC. Most people will do that through a totally separate entity, and that is something you can also learn about by going to any of the coach training programs. As Relly said, he and I teach at the College of Executive Coaching. If you go to the College of Executive Coaching, CEC.com, it will also give you some referential information on where you can go for board certified coach.

Relly, let’s talk a little bit about something you like to call: Visitors, Complaintants and Customers.

Dr. Relly Nadler: I don’t know, Cathy, if you have heard this, but this is borrowed from when I was a psychologist and I was in private practice. One of my last orientations was called solution focused therapy. It really is very similar and created at the same time as appreciative inquiry: really looking at strengths. Some of the people there came up with this configuration. Who do you want in front of you? The same thing, I think, applies to coaching. So, when I teach coaching classes we talk about it.

A “visitor” is someone who comes to you for coaching but someone else typically sent them. It could be their manager, could be the HR Manager. They are polite, but they are a visitor. They are not invested in much. They are the least committed; you have a visitor there. As a coach, and the same things as a manager, you want to turn a visitor into being more committed.

The next level of commitment is someone who has a complaint. Hence they are called a “complaintent.” But it is typically not about themselves, it is always somebody else. There is more energy with a complaintent: it’s their boss, it’s their co-worker, its disorganization. It’s not them, it’s always somebody else. They have a complaint but from an investment/engagement level there is more energy there.

What you want is a “customer”. A customer wants to buy something. They are committed. They are the true thinking partner. As a coach, and the same thing goes for manager who are trying to be coaches or using a coaching philosophy; how do you get them to be interested in buying something? Now maybe it is just one part of the problem, it’s 80% somebody else–their boss. Could you get them to be a customer about the 20% that they think they contribute? It is their attitude and their set point aspects. They want to make the situation the whole thing. So part of that is, what can you help them be a customer about? Those are the goals, the aspects that are going to help them. That can be very challenging if someone is a visitor.

That’s that aspect. Cathy, just before we move on, I just want to say a word about the certification aspects, because I think that is important for organizations that are looking for coaches. Many organizations these days want someone to be certified. So you have the MCC – Master Certified Coach who has about 2,500 hours in coaching. You have the PCC who has about 800-1,000 hours in coaching. Then you have the ACC which is the entry level. I’m seeing it more, I wonder if you are, different organizations are asking about certification. I think it’s really important for people to be certified.

So Cathy, tell me a little bit about some of the coaching engagements that you have had and I tell you some that I have had so that people get an idea of what the coaching process is like, the time frames and some of the key aspects.

Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Well, you know, executive coaching can be done at the individual level obviously, it can be done at the team level or group level, and it can also be done as a self-enabling process. One of the things that I like to do in my work, is teach the peer-peer coaching process. As an executive coach I like to make sure that we find the right people in an organization to take on that responsibility; people who are going to be committed to the success of others, people who will be non-judgmental and who can take on that role of helping to peer coach.

One of my favorite tools to use in a peer-peer coaching process is the GOOD Model, which is something that I know Jeff Auerbach uses in his work and teaches at the College of Executive Coaching. That stands for:

• G: What are your goals?
• O: What are your objectives?
• O: What are the obstacles that you may come across in reaching those objectives and goals:
• D: What are the direct actions you can take as a result of today in your understanding so that you can begin to achieve those goals?

Very simple, right? Very down-to-earth.

Dr. Relly Nadler: Just so I understand Cathy, and our listeners do also: when you are coaching someone you will give them some tools, and what you are calling peer coaching means that they will do it with a peer or with a direct report or both?

Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Exactly. What I like to do in my executive coaching, whether it’s an individual coaching with a senior executive or a group or team, is to always enable them to continue the coaching process. While I may be the coach advocate for them, I like them to become a coach advocate for themselves and for the people that they are responsible for. But one of the things I love to do in organizations beyond the individual and group coaching is transfer coaching strategies, and give people opportunities to learn all they can about coaching tools that make them a more effective executive. Now they are practicing more nonjudgmental behavior which gives them improved empathy, which gives them improved opportunities for decision making, and also, hopefully reduces their stress.

One of the things I was saying is tools; like the GOOD Model, tools that we have at the Xcel Institute website, tools that you have at TrueNorthLeadership.com and some of the tools I have at h2cleadership.com. Also, certainl,y the iApps that we both have; your Leadership Keys and my Your Happiness Now.

The idea here is that whenever I do an engagement I always try to enable, and spread the wealth so that whomever I am touching can touch others in a positive way as well.

Dr. Relly Nadler: So Cathy, that is really good to hear because I in a similar way, have graduated in my coaching to the more people I can get involved and the more people in the room, typically the better. So, yes the one-on-one coaching and executive coaching, but then some sessions, and typically if I am seeing someone in person, it’s every couple of weeks. If it is on the phone it may be a little bit more regular, a shorter amount of time; but could I get at least one or two sessions with their team.

So, I will be typically coaching the individual and I’ll say, let’s meet with your team. We will talk, there are a variety of tools around team formation, we bring in tools like Myers-Briggs and learn how the team can focus more. I bring in the EQi Assessment, one of our sweet assessment tools. Maybe the team takes that and we look at what some of the key competencies are that the team needs. What is good about this is it gives the leader support for what they are working on, but it is also accountability. So the team now becomes a support in accountability. The other aspect in getting more people involved, and I think this is what we both do in organizations; is when the team leader can talk about their development plan to the team. The team leader can talk about the feedback they may have gotten out of the 360° feedback. They can talk about the two or three things that they are going to focus on.

One, their mouths drop open typically if they do it in a good way. I’ll coach them about that. I have been in situations where during a break, and going to the restroom after a team meeting, one of the people said, “I can’t believe what the president just said.” That just blew them out of the water; how vulnerable they are being about what they are working on. The secondary gain is each of those team members in the room are for one, impressed, but they say, I wonder if I should be working on some of my stuff? Which then the obvious answer is, yes.

The leader really becomes an incredible role model and catalyst; getting more people involved the better it is.

Dr. Cathy Greenberg: One of the things that I would like to talk about Relly, is the idea of coaching successes with examples of coaching engagement where we have both seen some increases in a company’s capacity and also in the application of leading-edge tools.

I’ll kick off that conversation with one of our regular listeners who is a very dynamic individual who is an active user of the EQi, the Emotional Quotient Inventory, and that is Ed Nottingham at one of the largest transportation client organizations in the world, and that would be FedEx. I think Ed does a superb job of using the EQi with his executives. I think he does a fabulous job of staying in the know on executive coaching and helping the community by sharing his knowledge very openly. It’s always a pleasure to hear from Ed.

Dr. Relly Nadler: Let me just say a word about that; Ed is a psychologist and also a certified executive coach. So what he has done, just like we are saying that we do in other organizations, is he is helping managers use coaching skills. He has a series of classes/manager as coach, using a lot of your tools, my tools and other ones that he finds. He is adept at networking and bringing in the best tools. So these managers, they are not going to be certified coaches per se, not like you and I or he is, but they are going to use some of the best tools to develop their people. He has done a phenomenal job with that.

I know Cathy, that there are other folks that we know, I’ll just mention one thing, then bring it back to you. One of the things that I think in the progression of coaching is when we do our own coaching and training of folks; we want to be able to leave behind trained people; so there is kind of a train the trainer. I was just at an organization where I trained about 30 people over about 7 days to become EI coaches. Now, they are not going to hang out a shingle, but internally they are the internal subject matter experts. They have a certificate and a lot of training using these tools so they become a resource in the organization.

I know you have a lot of examples of that also.

Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Yes, you know, I’m very fortunate to work with some brilliant internal coaches. Ed Nottingham is an example of an internal coach. Rod Ettinger is a certified executive coach and he is also Head of Talent Management at Quaker Chemical. He manages a global network of individuals who become coaches as external executive coaches in the practical sense to work with Quaker Chemical around the world. Rob is just a super organizational development and executive coach in his own right. Another one is Bill Lombardo who has one pretty much every award from Chief Learning Officer for his work at Bankers Life and Casualty and specifically at Bankers Learning Network.

These are individuals who obviously go above and beyond in their role as internal executive and development professionals. Coaching is just one aspect of what they do. I’m very pleased to say that one of the internal executive development practitioners that I have known for many years, Matt McGuire at Cancer Treatment Centers of America, who works with another dear friend of mine, Johanna Dillon, recently became the Chief Executive Officer at one of the CTCA hospitals. When you practice good leadership and you coach others on great leadership, you don’t know where you are going to wind up in this business. It can take you just about anywhere. Of course you know Gary Burnison, who is the CEO of Korn/Ferry, has a series of books out. His most recent book is solely focused on executive development and executive coaching practices that anyone can use. Of course he is supported by a tremendous mind over there, Ana Dutra.

When we look at leadership development and executive coaching, there are so many fine examples of success. I would love to hear from our audience, I would love for them to send us an email at XcelInstitute.com and tell us about some of the success they are having. I know you and I love to hear about them and the more we learn about them the more we can share with others their successes.

Dr. Relly Nadler: If they go to the Xcel Institute, like we said there are a lot of tools that you can use, you can get on the mailing list, you can hear about the teleseminars and the trainings if you want to bring Cathy and I in to do more executive coaching and help you develop a coaching network, like we are talking about what some of these superb leaders have done.

Cathy, one of the things that is so interesting, and I’m sure you see it, the further someone moves up in the organization, usually the less feedback that they have, but the more influence they have. One of the most powerful tools that we use is the 360° assessment. Often some of these executives at top levels know they are doing really well, but many of them are using this self-actualization; one of the key aspects of the EQi of subscale, because they want to get better. Not only do they want to get better, but like we mentioned earlier, they want their team to get better.

I found the most successful engagements I have had is usually when the person is at the top level or on the senior team and they are really committed. You really want a sponsor. Sometimes some organizations say they want to do executive coaching but the say, “can you work with those folks below us? We don’t have the time for that.” Certainly that happens, but it’s not the most successful of engagements because when the coaching works or the training that you and I do works, they always end up saying, especially if it’s more of the training, “wow, this is great stuff, these are great tools. Are our leaders doing this?” That question always comes up. I want to be able to say, yes, they are very committed. Often I say, well, not yet. So the higher up in the organization you can get the more input and changes you are going to be able to bring about.

Listen to more information about training + coaching and how it can set you up to be in the top 10%. What are more of the tools that Cathy and Relly use? Listen to the complete recording of our discussion, without commercials, above.

Thank you,

Relly