When coaching individuals and teams, I draw upon the International Coaching Federation (ICF)-approved training at Georgetown University and the stakeholder-centered techniques of Marshall Goldsmith to complete the following six steps:
- Expectations & Agreement – As a starting point, I meet with a leader and any relevant colleagues (e.g., a supervisor, board chair, benefactor) to build a shared set of expectations around the process and overall measures of success.
- Feedback – Using interviews and/or surveys, I collect feedback from 10 – 20 stakeholders (e.g., supervisor, peers, direct reports, customers) to assess a leader’s or team’s strengths, challenges, best practices, blind spots and opportunities to improve.
- Analysis & Goal-Setting – I summarize the feedback and work with the leader or team to extract key insights and define one to three goals to pursue through our work.
- Action-Planning – The leader will follow-up with the stakeholders to gather ideas, and we supplement those ideas from the leadership research and interviews I’ve completed over the last 20 years. Finally, we establish a set of action steps for the duration of our work together.
- Follow-up – We touch base periodically (e.g., biweekly) to assess progress, review ongoing feedback from colleagues, and brainstorm additional action steps to achieve the leaders goals.
- Assess Results – We will administer short pulse surveys at our mid-point and conclusion to stakeholders to gather quantitative results around the coaching experience.
I facilitate everything from small teams (i.e., eight to 10 people) to extended leadership groups of 50+ people. Because many team gatherings generate more good feelings than great results, I insist on working with a leader and team to systematically:
- Identify the outcomes/actions they expect from any session,
- Explore lessons learned from previous sessions (e.g., what works and what does not),
- Surface sensitive issues that have gone unaddressed for too long, and
- Review a draft agenda to confirm expectations, agenda and content.
Based on these inputs, I take a disciplined – and still fun, down-to-earth approach – to facilitating sessions around:
- building teamwork and trust (e.g., annual retreats)
- launching new teams
- developing strategic plans
- reviewing past performance
- solving problems through design-thinking and innovation
Whether you need a program that lasts one hour, one day, one week or one year, I develop highly interactive, practical sessions that translate theory into action. Our training emphasizes four phases:
- Education – sharing the latest research, tools and techniques
- Experimentation – testing new methods in the classroom and in the workplace
- Evaluation – gathering feedback from colleagues to determine what works and what can be improved
- Evolution – reflecting on your experience to continuously improve your performance as a leader
If you know you have a leadership problem, but don’t know where to start, contact me to discuss strategies and programs to achieve your organization’s goals.
I have developed interventions for small teams and for entire organizations that focus on getting leaders to adopt a shared approach to engaging their people and producing results.
Tom is an engaging, motivational speaker who ensures that any audience – whether 20 or 2,000 – gains key insights from the latest, cutting-edge research around effective leaders and walks away with concrete actions they can take to improve their leadership, their lives and the lives of their colleagues.
