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Executive Coaching
(Australia and overseas)
In-person or online/phone;
"Sprint Coaching" available
(short 15-30 minute bursts at your desired frequency)
My coaching focus areas
Topics Covered in My Executive Coaching Practice
As a leader, you don't come with a manual on how to excel on so many of your responsibilities. You will usually rise through the ranks because of your expertise (accounting, engineering, operations, IT, risk, HR, sales, marketing, etc.). You often will find yourself thrust in a position in which you have no experience and no knowledge. This can include:
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Managing multiple layers of a multi-functional organisation
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Driving a culture of innovation and collaboration
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Managing an external array of stakeholders (ranging from shareholders, boards, analysts, customers, media)
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Monitoring the financial, operational, country, credit, political, interest rate, and market risk throughout the country
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Shaping a long term but flexible strategy -- often 7-10 years out
The majority of the leaders I have coached confess early in our relationship that "I have no idea of what I'm doing" -- otherwise known as the "Impostor Syndrome." I remind you that being confident in "not knowing," vulnerable and ready to learn are some of the most important required in this "Imagination Age -- artificial intelligence, post-COVID Age" requires. Otherwise, you are providing your organisation with "last year plus or minus 10%). See a reflection of the Imagination Age CEO in this article.
When you are searching for ways to make sense of a very confusing landscape and facing this doubt and anxiety, it is very helpful to work one-on-one with someone who has the experience in corporations and their complexity as well as the psychological understanding of what makes you an inspiring and effective leader--and how to deal with the stress you experience.
In this way, you have a confidential "sparring partner" with whom you can shape your own thinking -- away from the politics of the organisation.
My coaching is designed to suit your focus, location, time, frequency and Covid restrictions
Session Focus
Because of my strategy, operational, corporate management and psychotherapist background, I am able to cater for most purposes and executive might be seeking. Subjects may include:
- Change strategies for a habit, value or perspective that needs to be reinforced with accountability and feedback
- Challenge of the level at which you think, your strategy conceptualisation, your implementation skills, your team management and your own career and personal life perspectives
- Psychotherapeutic issues that are blocking your effectiveness (could include depression, anxiety, addiction, trauma, and many other challenges). See this page on psychotherapy.
- Emergency psychological issues that need an instantaneous response (see also Senior Executive Employment Assistance Program offering)
- Coaching in the context of a team-offsite that I facilitate either before or after the offsite to determine how you can better lead your teams (see Leadership issues)
- Career management including transition coaching
- Observation and then feedback on how you be more effective in day-to-day situations
- Preparation (covering style, content, audience) for important events such as Board meetings, media appearances, Annual General Meetings, all-organisation conferences, etc.
Online and in person
Many options are available and can change throughout the engagement to suit your preferences:
a) In-person
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Your office
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An area in Sydney that better suits you because you are working from home or other reasons
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My office in Little Bay -- so you can get away from the daily routine and enjoy the beach (20-minute drive from CBD/30 minutes by bus). See more information about Little Bay here.
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Another place of quiet and nature that would suit a deeper conversation and reflection
b) By phone or video conference -- the "COVID" - way
- often supported by on-line reflection diaries/email/text that can be shared in your own time
c) By email, text, video, or another on-line dialogue tool -- asynchronously
This is an option in which you reflect by writing, video, or text in your own time and then I respond in a dialogue of reflection with you
d) By telepathy
(This is not yet available and is under development. I will advise you when this is available)
Session Length
Sessions can vary from a sprint to a long, quiet reflection and everything in between, changing through the engagement to suit your needs:
High-frequency 15-30-minute sprint coaching sessions that you can use to check in to reflect on progress. Here, we focus on habit-forming behavioural change.
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Contrary to popular belief that it takes 21 days to change a habit, research shows that the time to change a habit ranges from 18 to 254 days.
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Increasing the frequency of feedback and having someone to whom you can be accountable enables you to make changes more effectively and more quickly
Planned hourly sessions. This is the classic one-hour coaching that is provided weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly -- or simply 1-2 times in review of any topic.
A classic session could include feedback from one of the assessments I offer (see 2020 leadership 360's and other assessments in which I am accredited
One-day retreats where I work with you on long-term strategy, implementation tactics, team effectiveness and your own leadership. These days are designed to completely remove you from the day-to-day stress so that you can do some long-range strategic planning as well as a deep reflection on yourself and your leadership. More detail is available here.
Frequency
Coaching sessions can be held at many frequencies:
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One-day retreats are often held every six months or yearly. These are often held in conjunction with a team offsite, which I can facilitate in conjunction with the one-on-one retreat.
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One-hour coaching sessions are routinely held every fortnight or month, depending on the urgency of the topic -- as well as how much reinforcement the executive needs to adjust his leadership
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"Sprint" 15-30-minute coaches for changing routines and behaviours are often held weekly or as required as issues arise that need immediate attention
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Emergency coaching or psychotherapy calls ranging from 5 minutes to 3 hours will obviously be unpredictable in frequency. These may evolve into a regular coaching pattern after the issue has shown itself
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These frequencies and session lengths will adjust as executive's requirements change
On Call Coaching
especially during distress
Because I am a psychotherapist, I can also interchange the typical leadership-focused coaching sessions with more psychotherapeutic sessions. These would be focused on personal issues that are troubling the executive. These issues can include depression, anxiety, addiction, relationship challenges, career transitions, and interpersonal conflicts. My psychotherapy practice is described on this page, which lists all the issues with which I can assist executives.
Some executives choose to have a separate psychologist, psychiatrist or psychotherapist than their executive coach. Depending on the willingness of this mental health professional, I am quite willing to partner with the executive's mental health provider so that we can complement the career work with personal psychotherapy.
Sometimes it can be more helpful for the executive to work just with one professional on both corporate and personal challenges as they are intertwined. I understand the corporate environment intimately and the mental health challenges that occur. I can address the leadership, strategic and financial challenges as the context for the personal challenges, and vice versa.
There are many ways in which I can flexibly engage an organisation to provide executives with coaching. These are some possibilities
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Contracting for a set number of hours over a set time -- agreeing then on variance rates and cancellation rates
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Setting up a monthly retention rate that allows for unlimited telephone calls and sessions, which would be negotiated based on an estimated usage
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Working with multiple executives at the same time that gives me the ability to provide the organisation with common insights about the organisational culture, strategy and leadership. Cohort coaching could alternate between individual and group sessions. Cohorts could be high potential young executives, women in leadership, an executive team, and even a vertical slice through the organisation.
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Contracting with the organisation to provide Senior Executive Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), designed for confidential psychotherapeutic assistance -- assistance that is confidential. These sessions are provided as required and would obviously be unpredictable. See more description of this service on this link.
Why THIS Executive Coach?
With over 20 years of executive coaching and leadership development as well as twelve years of psychotherapy, I have been a sparring partner for executives at all levels, from middle management to the CEOs and Board Directors of complex organisations.
Have I ever held many of their positions? No, but I have been inside the CEO-suite of organisations like the Commonwealth Bank, QBE, and Cochlear. Within these organisations as an executive, I have advised systemically the executives of these organisations across the broad range of topics described above. I provided them with a context and map in which they could "co-discover" how they wanted to develop their own frameworks for strategy, culture, stakeholder management, accountability, and communication. At the same time, I gave them a safe place to reflect on how they want to show up in their lives, both at work and at home, which often included quite serious psychological issues blocking their way.
With the experience I have across strategic consulting (Booz & Co, a Stanford MBA (with a specialisation in strategy), complex planning and implementation (Sydney Olympics 1996-2000) and 20 years of coaching and leadership development, I have a rich contextual understanding of what makes great leaders -- and what blocks their path.
Through the CEO succession I have worked on and the development of leaders at all levels, I understand the qualities and actions that are sought and rewarded by boards, investors -- and most importantly, by the people of the organisation.
Every leader of the hundreds I have worked with has their own way of establishing their presence, their own psychological challenges, their own organisational context -- and a desire to leave their own legacy.
I am passionate about working with you so that you can find within yourself the own genuine voice and your own style of leadership. I am passionate about witnessing your own internal wisdom come to fruition as you arrive at your own insights and strategies given the questions, prompts and suggestions I offer.