The Board’s Role in Strengthening Trust During Leadership Succession

successful succession planning

Effective boards recognize they have only one employee. When a Board focuses on its governance role, it delegates operational responsibility to the organization’s CEO or Executive Director (or whatever the first-chair title is). When a Board prudently trusts its CEO/ED, overall efficacy increases. When trust erodes, something eventually fails that then becomes extremely difficult, if not […]

Succession Planning and the Organizational Life Cycle

organizational life cycle

The motion of a swinging pendulum can be fascinating to watch. If designed to do so, a swinging pendulum can create beautiful, symmetrical designs of calm and order. However, a swinging pendulum can also result in disarray and destruction. It depends on the degrees of awareness and intentionality in those who put the pendulum in […]

Succession Planning and Knowing What You Mean

succession planning

Welcome to the first in a series of blogs on successful succession planning. This one starts it off with some thoughts on the language of succession planning and how it shapes our mindsets around the purpose and process. All of which significantly influences the success of a succession plan. (This is not an exhaustive approach, […]

Executive Coaching Skills are Transferable

executive coach fishing

The Hook As the adage wisely states, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” To better understand how what you receive from executive coaching can transfer to other areas of your life, let’s explore two dimensions that make […]

5 1/2 Powerful Questions Used by Executive Coaches

executive coach questions

The essence of executive coaching is to raise awareness and deepen one’s sense of response-ability. Quite often we become preoccupied with the issues right in front of us – the tree instead of the forest (which is how we sometimes find ourselves “barking up the wrong tree”, even if it’s just in our own head), […]

Making The Most Of Each Coaching Session

woman writes down notes on her coaching session

You just completed a coaching session with your executive coach. Now, how do you make the most of this investment in yourself? Reflect on Your Coaching Session The first 15 minutes after a coaching session are critical elements to maximizing your personal investment. A most beneficial means of integrating the insights gained is to immediately […]

Raising Awareness and Response-ability: The Purpose of Executive Coaching

executive coach tells basketball player to grip ball

How do you get better at something? Some people emphasize practicing as a means of getting better. This can help, but what if you keep practicing the wrong thing, or the right thing in the wrong way? Then you merely get better at something less than helpful, maybe even harmful. It’s not “Practice makes perfect,” […]

Helping Others Connect Their Motivations

A close up of an engine's drive belts illustrates how helping others define their motivations shows what drives them.

What personally motivates each individual on your team is complexly unique to them, and that’s a good thing. Just as diversity on a team with a common purpose serves the organization more effectively, diversity of motivations can connect various components for greater momentum. Let’s take a look at helping others identify their personal motives. Purpose […]

Identifying Your Own Personal Motives

diver with personal motives to explore a ship

The question, “Why do we do what we do?” could lead to existential angst, if you chose to see it that way. Or it could be the beginning of a productive dive into understanding your own personal motivation. The deeper the dive, the more you and your team will find to help with productivity and […]

Strong Links for Effective Training

A metal chain provides a metaphor for effective training in the workspace.

One of the most effective and useful ways to foster a healthy work environment is to know your business well. And by knowing your business, we mean knowing what your greatest strengths are in a deep and meaningful way. In the business world and within your organization, you need to utilize your strongest links to […]