Leadership Coaching in Transformational Times: How Deep Simplicity Can Show Us the Way
Guest Blogger: Alan Seale, PCC, CTPC
While many people might describe the state of things in today’s world as challenging, unpredictable, volatile, or unsettling, these times can also be transformational. It all depends on us. Where do we choose to place our energy and focus? What new approaches, practices, and paradigms will we create? How will we shift the mass consciousness to a new level of awareness? Bottom line: How can we show up to life, leadership, and coaching in ways that inspire transformation?
The first steps in answering these questions, at the most fundamental levels, are actually much simpler than we may think. As coaches, we know that often the most powerful questions are the simple ones—simple questions that cut through to the essence of things quickly. Simple does not always mean shallow, nor does deep and profound have to mean complicated and complex.
Deep simplicity is a key to transformational leadership and coaching. In today’s world, we can no longer afford complex models and structures that many people will never take the time to understand. We must provide simple, straightforward, practical, and duplicatable tools and models for transformation that people can put into practice immediately and see a shift in their perception and resulting action right away. Read more »
Your Coaching Brand: Low Cost Ways to Build It This Year
Guest Blogger: Pamela Wilson
One coach is pretty much like the other, right?
I mean, it doesn’t really matter which coach I work with. I can expect the same results, no matter who I talk to. You’ve seen one coach, you’ve seen them all!
If these statements are uncomfortable to read, it’s because you know how untrue they are.
Unfortunately, many of your potential customers think this way, and it’s your job to distinguish what your coaching offers in their minds. How can you do this?
Branding.
Branding isn’t just for corporations or consumer products. Branding helps establish your unique offer in the minds of your prospects. Branding is for everyone.
“But I Can’t Afford to Hire a Branding Expert!”
Branding your business doesn’t have to be expensive. There are some simple things you can do, and for most of them, you don’t need to hire outside help.
Your branding efforts should start with one important exercise: you must understand who your ideal customer is. Ask yourself:
1. What type of person do I enjoy working with?
2. Who can I get the best results for?
3. What type of customer is the most profitable for my business?
Read more about understanding your ideal customer, or target market, here.
Once you have a clear picture of who you’re trying to attract with your brand, you can make decisions about how to present your coaching offer using the powerful combination of a carefully-developed verbal and visual brand.
Your Words Attract or Repel: Use Them Carefully
What do you call your business, and how do you speak about what you offer? It all starts with your business name and tagline, which form crucial first impressions. Your tagline sets the tone, so craft it carefully. Use this short sentence to let prospects know who you enjoy working with, and what you do for them. Your copy writing style is another way to help your prospects understand your offerings. Be sure to use similar words to describe your coaching services as they use to describe their problems. For example:
If your perfect customer says: “I know I can be more than I currently am if I just discover what I’m best at.”
Your copy could say: “My coaching will help you to reach your full potential by uncovering what you can be the best at.”
If your perfect customer says: “I work too many hours and have no balance in my life. I want to live a life with meaning, and fulfill my dreams both at work and with my family.”
Your copy could say: “Working with me will help you fulfill your dreams of a balanced work and family life.”
Listen carefully to how your perfect customers speak about their frustrations and challenges: they’ll demonstrate the exact words to use to build your verbal brand.
Appearances Count: Your Visual Brand
You can establish your visual brand by making some targeted decisions very carefully, and then applying them consistently over time. It starts with your logo or business identity. These days, the most prominent place your business name is displayed might be at the top of your website.
To save money, talk to a designer about developing a “multi-purpose image” that can be used as your website header and repurposed in your email template and on your business cards. Let them know ahead of time all the places you plan to use the image so they can resize accordingly.
As you develop your visual brand, use the power of color to communicate it. Pick two main colors to represent your business, and apply them consistently in everything you do. Follow the lead of major corporations who use a reduced color palette to convey their brand.
Another great way to communicate your brand visually is through the use of fonts. Fonts add personality to your words, and choosing them carefully will round out your visual brand. Choose formal, classic serif fonts (the kind with little “feet”) if that’s the personality you’d like to convey. Use streamlined, modern sans-serif fonts (the kind with no “feet”) if you’d like a more contemporary brand.
Branding in Baby Steps
You know your coaching is different than anyone else’s, and so do I. But do your prospects?
Take baby steps this year toward establishing your coaching brand with the techniques outlined here. Use your verbal and visual brands together to help your prospects understand your unique offer. You’ll attract those perfect customers you’re looking for, and end the year with a stronger, better business.
Pamela Wilson owns the Big Brand System, a site devoted to helping small businesses grow through strategic marketing and great design. Learn more about branding your coaching business with her free Marketing Toolkit.
The Human Reaction to Change
Guest Blogger: Paul McGinniss, PCC (ICF) MSHR
Director, Training & Delivery
North America NeuroLeadership Group
The old adage, “The only constant is change,” needs an update. Instead, it should read, “The only constant is resistance to change.” You can find numerous approaches to instituting, implementing, overcoming, incorporating, and enabling change. The challenge is: if you’re not taking into account the brains of the people upon which the change is “being instituted,” your initiative will likely experience a less than desired outcome. Sure, change is hard. But it is not solely about the difficulty of the change itself that’s makes it hard to implement. It’s about the common brain-based human reaction to change that poses a significant challenge.
Let’s explore.
The brain likes to maintain homeostasis to guard the body from threats. Change is a disruption to this state. The natural reaction to a disruption of homeostasis is for the limbic system to engage, creating the proverbial fight or flight response. Change can also be thought of as emotional pain. Ironically, the body reacts to emotional pain the same as if it were physical pain. When you introduce a change, your employees are fighting to avoid it as if their lives depended on it, which their brains literally think is the case. It’s no wonder they are not expressing your same enthusiasm about your initiative. You think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and they’re on DEFCON 2.
So what’s a leader to do?
Leverage what we are learning about the brain and apply it to your change initiative. How? Ask yourself, “What is change from a brain perspective?” Change in the brain is represented by new wiring. New wiring is created from insights which happen when we make a brand new connection in the brain. The brain loves insights. Insights release various brain chemicals associated with pleasure states. When was the last time you heard people talking about change as a pleasurable experience?
How can you apply this idea to a change initiative?
Normally, you are introducing change to get you from where you are to a more desired or preferred state. Rather than create the change and institute it (using various consultants, communication strategies, training programs …), here’s an idea: let the change process come from your employees. Engage them in the creation of the change initiative itself. Communicate your current reality and your desired outcomes and have them help you figure out how to achieve those outcomes. This is a major first step to a successful change initiative.
Here are a few more things you can do to improve your odds.
- Eliminate or reduce Status: Create project teams where all members know that their contributions are valued and they can participate as equals. Threats to a person’s status trigger the fight or flight response. Minimize status inequities and you minimize that response.
- Create Certainty: Let your employees know as much as possible as early as possible and throughout the process to remove uncertainty and reduce fear. If they are aware of what is happening and what to expect, their emotional or “animal brain” response will be decreased.
- Introduce Autonomy: Provide employees with options for how to achieve the desired outcome and implement change and you allow them greater control over their own fate. We all know it’s good to engage people in the process. Providing Autonomy takes that thinking a step further. Engaging people in the process and giving them choices allows them to make their own new connections and hardwiring which the brain loves!
- Communicate Relatedness: People need to know whether something is “friend or foe.” If your desired solution is not “friendly” to your employees, meaning it does not create a better world for them (or they don’t understand how it will), they will resist helping you achieve it.
- Ensure Fairness: If people think something is fair, they will work toward achieving it. If not you’re dead in the water.
By having your employees, themselves, create the change you need and by applying the above points (otherwise known as SCARF), your chances for successfully implementing a change are dramatically increased. Doesn’t sound like brain science? Well, actually, it is.
Your Brain On Change
Guest Blogger: Paul McGinniss, PCC (ICF) MSHR
Director, Training & Delivery – North America
NeuroLeadership Group
We all know change is hard but it is not often we think about why it is so hard. Recent findings from the field of neuroscience are helping to explain this phenomenon and offering ways to manage change more effectively. A quick search of the “organizational change” literature indicates 70-75% of all change efforts fail or deliver mediocre results. The goal of this article is to present several ideas for you to think about to improve your results: knowing how the brain itself changes, working in alignment with the brain’s own structure, and understanding the brain’s own goals and needs.
In order to understand why change is hard, it helps to understand how the brain itself changes. Your brain is predisposed to hardwire as much as it can in order to preserve precious and limited energy and processing power and to stay on alert for (physical and social) threats to your survival. The brain creates this hardwiring by moving new connections or maps out of working memory and into the deeper processing regions of the brain so they become part of the automatic fabric of your beliefs and behaviors. The primary drivers to change the wiring in your brain are: time – frequent quick visits to the new wiring; attention – focusing on embedding the new wiring during those quick visits; repetition – doing so often using numerous modalities or approaches while paying close attention to the new wiring; and positive feedback – looking to acknowledge and reward yourself for doing the work to create a reward connection and enlist the help of powerful and desired biochemical agents.
A second component to facilitating change is to understand the brain’s own structure and then to work with it. The brain’s primary organizing principle is to use its predictive ability to avoid threats and keep us safe. The brain likes to be able to predict things in order to maintain a sense of certainty and safety. Change, from the brain’s perspective, is filled with uncertainty and, therefore, a significant threat. The change (a.k.a. threat) will trigger the brain’s limbic system and a “fight or flight” response to the change will be initiated. Believing and communicating, “Change is good,” simply flies in the face of how change is perceived and processed by the brain.
A third component to facilitating change is to understand the brain’s own goals and needs. When you know what the brain wants (and doesn’t want) and when you work with that, your change efforts will be tend to be more successful. Failing to take into account what the brain desires and working against its needs will create frustration, resistance, and failure (or at best compliance). What does the brain want? Neuroscience is indicating we are very social beings with significant primary social needs or drivers (which can also be thought of as social triggers or threats) including the need for Status, Certainty (as previously mentioned), Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. Change can be a significant threat to all of these needs.
Don’t join the 75% Club. Find ways to address these social drivers and help facilitate a successful change initiative.
ICF-NE Schedule: 2011-2012
Are you a bit of a planner?
Do you like to have your schedule worked out way in advance?
Well then you’re in for a little treat because you’ve just found the link to
ICF-NE’s entire schedule for the 2011-2012 season!
Click on the button below to download the pdf of the
ICF-NE schedule for 2011-2012:
Lessons from a Bird
Guest Blogger: Anne Barry Jolles
One early morning last week there was a knock at my door. My next door neighbor, said, “There is a parakeet in your driveway.”
What? I live in the Northeast and we don’t have any birds like parakeets living around here, at least not on this side of the bird cage bars. Curious about that, I walked to the end of my drive and there stood a beautiful yellow, blue and green parakeet.
It was obvious that this bird was used to humans because we could get very close and the bird kept pecking away looking for food. With no discussion, we animal lovers immediately decided that we should try and catch the little birdie before the hawks, which are so numerous in this area, found it. As parents we had visions of some child quite upset because someone opened the cage and their beloved pet escaped.
How would you have felt?
When we got too close to the bird, it panicked and flew up to a tree. After a quick phone call to my vet, I decided, with their encouragement, to go out later and if the bird was still there, I would try again to catch it. I went back to work and hours later walked to the end of my drive to get my mail and there sits the bird pecking away and looking up at me nonchalantly. This time I was equipped with a cage. I held my finger out, like the vet suggested, hoping the bird would jump on board. No luck. Then I threw down some seed in a path that led right up to my cage hoping he would jump in quite relieved to be “home” again. No luck. As I did all this, I chatted with the bird quietly and sidled up closer and finally tried to grab it. It flew away again. Well, I reasoned, I tried to be the great pet rescuer. I decided that I had done as much as I could and sort of forgot about the bird who looked down at me from the telephone wire. Read more »
Coach Turned Speaker: 5 Factors to Consider When Adding Speaking to Your Business Model
Guest Blogger: Kathleen Burns Kingsbury
Admit it. Coaches love education. We love to connect with our clients, find out what makes them tick and learn how to help them achieve greatness. There is nothing like the feeling of a client “getting it” for the first time. Now imagine that same feeling but being on stage and impacting 100 or 200 people at a time. If this excites you, then adding professional speaking to your coaching business may make good business sense.
Based on my experience as a paid professional speaker as well as certified coach, I recommend you consider these 5 factors when adding speaking to your service mix:
1. Identify a niche and stick with it! This is the biggest mistake new speakers make. They want to be all things to all people and fail to carve out a niche. In today’s marketplace, corporations and organizations are not interested in generalists. They want experts who happen to speak well. So be that expert!
2. Leave your ego at the door. Speaking is not about you, it is about the audience. As a coach you are familiar with taking cues from your clients and the same client-centric approach is vital if you are going to succeed as a professional speaker. The highest paid and most respected speakers spend hours and hours thinking about the audience and delivering a presentation tailored to their needs. So if you think speaking is a great way to get attention and have the focus on you, think again.
3. Work on your platform skills. Great speakers make presenting to an audience look easy. This conversational and relaxed presence on stage takes a lot of hard work. The best way to sell speaking and increase this revenue stream is to be really good on the platform. Toastmasters International is a great way of learning the craft of presenting if you are new to the field. Also consider joining the National Speaking Association, which has local chapter right here, in New England.
4. Learn to ask for money. Speaking is a profession and it is important that if you add this service to your business mix that you get paid for your trouble. Yes, some people speak to market their coaching practice and get referrals. While this is fine way to market your business, it is different than being a paid professional speaker. Professional speakers educate more than self-promote and share their area of expertise with the audience. If you have trouble asking for money, then you need to work your money mindset. A good money coach or wealth psychology expert can help you remove roadblocks to your financial success so consider investing in one.
5. Get support. Being a professional speaker can be lonely. You are on the road, often traveling alone and developing your materials in isolation. Make sure you reach out and get support from other speakers in the field. The National Speakers Association is a great place to meet other speakers who support you in turning your area of expertise into a viable business and keeping you company along the way.
Kathleen Burns Kingsbury, LHMC, CPCC, is wealth psychology expert and the founder of KBK Wealth Connection, a company dedicated to helping professionals live more financially and emotionally conscious lives. She is the author of the Creating Wealth from the Inside Out Workbook and Audio Program, also available on Amazon. Kingsbury is currently writing a book on Women and Wealth. For more information, visit her website and blog at www.kbkwealthconnection.com.
Meet Kathleen Burns Kingsbury
& other key business experts at
ICFNE’s Business Development Expo,
Monday, September 19, 2011!!
Hall of Fame: Thank You!
Guest Blogger: Chrissy Carew
ICF-NE Hall of Fame, 2011
Dear ICF NE Members,
I want to personally thank everyone for the incredible honor and for all the volunteers for putting on such a memorable and magical Awards Gala. It is obvious that a lot of heart, soul and muscle brought this all together.
It was such a thrill to see so many wonderful coaches I had not seen in many years. It was also a special treat to meet new members.
I want acknowledge Ted Gorski for his extraordinary leadership as President and his unswerving dedication to the coaching community. Ted’s passionate vision to create a Hall of Fame and the Special Awards celebration propelled him to make it a beautiful reality. This is a huge piece of Ted’s legacy that will be replicated all over the world!
Your generous feelings of love, gratitude and celebration will stay with me forever.
I am deeply touched by all of you.
With Love and Gratitude,
Chrissy Carew
And the winners are…
The inaugural ICF-NE Gratitude Awards Gala was held on Monday, March 13th at Bentley University. It was a very successful event with almost 100 people in attendance. Here is a review of the 2011 Award Winners:
2011 Leonard Coach of the Year Awards:
Business Coach of the Year: Kate Hyland Mercer
Career Coach of the Year: Dawn Quesnel
Executive Coach of the Year: Stephen Carr
Life Coach of the Year: Stephanie Marisca
Spirit of Hope Award: Laurie Geary
Board of Directors Award: Ed Drozda
2011 ICF-NE Inaugural Hall of Fame Inductees:
Wendy Capland
Chrissy Carew
Cheryl Richardson
Thank you to all of the volunteers who made this special event possible!
Dawn Quesnel
Mike Bruny
Ed Drozda
Mari Ryan
Eli St. George Godfrey
Anne Jolles
Lindsay Welch
And the nominees are…
FINAL VOTES ARE IN!
Voting for Coach of the Year has ended.
Winners will be announced at the Gala
on Monday, June 13!
The nominees for the 2011 Gratitude Awards Gala Coach of the Year are…
Business Coach of the Year
Kate Hyland Mercer, Business Concepts
Empowering entrepreneurs to build bold, fulfilling businesses, Kate helps them keep more of the money they make. She offers a program called ‘Courage to Launch’ which helps new prospective entrepreneurs to move forward with their business idea, and offers a Mastermind Group for Women.
Suzan Czajkowski, MyCommCoach
As a Social Media Marketing and Communication Coach, Suzan helps business owners design and implement a social media marketing strategy that fits their business needs. Through coaching and training, she helps her clients learn to use the right tools to convey the right message effectively and efficiently.
Career Coach of the Year
Dawn Quesnel, Career Life Balance
Early in her career, Dawn helped bring the first coaching studio to Boston, started a radio show to educate the public about coaching certification and served on ICF-NE Board of Directors. She specializes in coaching marketing, advertising, and creative entrepreneurs to reduce the amount of time they transition between jobs by 50%. Her propriety method, the BRIDGE, has been featured on ABC-TV, Fox News, WBZ-TV, and is published in the book 101 Ways To Enhance Your Career. Dawn trained with CTI, CCI and IPEC-Energy Leadership.
Deborah Busser, Essex Partners
Deb brings over 20 years of corporate leadership experience in talent development and acquisition, employee relations, and marketing to partner with senior executives in exploring new corporate roles, entrepreneurship, consulting, and board leadership. A seasoned career coach, she has also served as an executive coach and mentor, facilitating leadership development programs and delivering coach training programs within the US, UK, Israel, Ireland, and Cyprus.
Life Coach of the Year
Anne Barry Jolles, Anne Jolles
Author & illustrator of two books – Keeping Your Sanity while Loving, Letting Go of Your Teen and Rise and Shine Anytime – Anne conducts workshops on increasing happiness, resiliency, productivity, and energy. She conducts a 5-week webinar, appeared on numerous TV cable and radio shows and has been keynote speaker at numerous events.
Helen Kosinski, Better Than Ever Coaching
An ICF Certified Coach, Helen Kosinski is principal of Better Than Ever Coaching. She has an M.B.A. from Boston University, is a Coach U Certified Graduate, earned her ACC from the ICF, is a certified Equine Guided Educator, and successfully completed Adventure and Retreat Training. She loves partnering with people interested in creating better lives and having fun in the process!
Grace Durfee, Balance With Grace
As a Professional Certified Coach and Professional Mentor Coach, Grace Durfee, PCC, PMC, helps busy professionals, career changers, and solopreneurs achieve professional success while enjoying more balanced lives. She is a Coach U faculty member, an ICF assessor, a Past-President of ICF-New England, a Reiki Master Teacher, and a Team Northrup member. She is the author of Success with Grace and Balance with Grace: Celebrate the Kaleidoscope of Life.
Stephanie Marisca, Empowerment Coaching
As a lead coach trainer with iPEC, Stephanie shares her talent and knowledge with future coaches. She is a certified Transformational Presence Coach through Alan Seale’s Center for Transformational Presence. She is also certified in the Genos Emotional Intelligence Assessment Scale, Energy Leadership Master Index and DiSC Assessment.
Executive Coach of the Year
Dave McKeon, Game On, LLC
Dave is a PCC-certified coach, a seasoned business executive and executive coach, and the managing partner at Game On LCC. He has personally guided strategic business planning efforts, served on various boards, led professional organizations, and chaired nationally recognized conferences. He has appeared in Time, Leader Magazine, INC Magazine and Fast Company.
Karen Burke, Mobius Coaching
A PCC-certified coach, Karen is a Business Leadership Coach for Women in Business and coaches executives in large and small companies. Her specialty is helping them think big and create a vision that dramatically shifts their leadership approach and business acumen to run their business and find personal balance. She is a mentor coach for Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC) and a faculty member of the Abel Business Institute.
Stephen Carr, Stephen Carr Associates
With 30 years of experience working and coaching executives and senior leaders, Stephen Carr, PCC brings a practical, systems approach to his coaching with a keen focus on helping his clients achieve sustainable change in behavior and results. He has been a leader in the New England coaching community as a board member and past president, presenter and teacher. Stephen is a certified PaperRoom Coach and Facilitator and is the co-creator and co-leader of the PaperRoom System Licensing Program, an ICF accredited program.
Lauran Star, Excellence Consulting Group
Lauran created LEIPTM Leadership Emotional Intelligence Proficiency, a highly specialized leadership assessment tool developed to increase her clients’ goal attainment. She is a certified speaker through National Speakers Association, licensed and certified in Emotional Intelligence, DISC and several 360 assessment tools. Lauran conducts Women’s Mastermind Group Coaching Programs as well as Executive Women’s Coaching Programs.
Susan Gallant, SMGallant
Susan’s coaching practice is focused on enhancing self-awareness, empowering positive change, supporting skill building, and adding velocity to the client’s development as a leader. She works with the client’s energy fields in tandem with a Leadership 360 profile. She conducts workshops that explore beliefs, assumptions, and the use of energy.
