Roll up Your Sleeves and Plunge
To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows.
It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death.
Jean Anouilh, 1910 – 1987
French playwright
Maximize Potential
Tony’s entrepreneurial experience and personal support has been invaluable to me over the past three years. He understands the ups and downs that come with running a company of any size and combines a sympathetic ear with a kick in the butt (when necessary) to help other top-level executives maximize their potential–both at the office and at home.
CEO Executive Coaching Fees
The Conference Board has published an update to its survey of executive coaching fees. According to the survey, “the most commonly stated fee [for executive coaching of CEOs and their direct reports] is greater than $500 per hour. I found this a bit odd, not because of the price level but because the top executive coaches I know do not charge by the hour but for a term of service. This was confirmed later in the Conference Board report.
Executive coaching engagements are typically six months or one year in duration, according to the survey, and fees range from $13,000 to $30,000 for six months.
My experience is consistent with those figures.
Readers may also find it interesting that executive coaching is common and growing not just in the US but in Europe and Asia. Rates are the same in Europe as in the US and have risen significantly around the world.
Click here for the complete Conference Board 2008 Executive Coaching Fee Survey.
The Conference Board has released its 2010 report. See my comments here.
Spidertown by Abraham Rodriguez, Jr.
Spidertown
by Abraham Rodriguez, Jr.
Ever wonder, as I have, what it is like to come of age in the South Bronx? To be a citizen of the world’s greatest nation, a short ride from Trump Tower, commuting distance from a million high paying jobs yet to be in reasonable fear for your life night and day, to have (more…)
The Traveling Pennies Exercise a/k/a Three Coins Method
My executive coaching clients often ask how to translate their new insights into regular practice so that the benefit of the coaching is integrated into their lives. This is crucial since the adult executives I coach have well established and largely successful habits that are expressed automatically.
How do we make new strategies and methods just as habitual? One of my favorite techniques is the traveling pennies.
Is there a practice you and your coach have developed that you want to make a part of your life? Perhaps you choose to center three times per day, express gratitude more often, or ask a clarifying question before responding to an inquiry. Here’s how to “operationalize” your good intentions.
Each morning for the next few weeks place (more…)
Space for Coaching
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.
–Viktor Frankl (1905 – 1997)
in Man’s Search For Meaning
Silicon ‘Hood
Experiencing would views different from my own is a fascinating and capacity-building exercise for me as an executive coach. Effective coaching requires me to respect and distinguish the discourses1 that determine and limit my CEO clients’ potential space for action. One way I build this skill is by reading novels and listening to interviews with people from cultures and careers that I would not (more…)
Insight into business & technology
As the venture capitalist responsible for developing Hidden Footprints, I was fortunate to find a CEO as capable as Tony. His skill & experience as an entrepreneur combine with raw intelligence to learn enough about the technology to find applications well beyond those originally contemplated.
His insight into business & technology is well informed, incisive, creative and generally invaluable.
Bring the Love
Chris Peterson, Ph.D. reports that the character strength that distinguishes the best leaders at West Point is the capacity to love and be loved.
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Jane Dutton’s work shows that “high quality connections,” which she acknowledges can be understood as love, are the difference between low performing and high performing workplaces.
Soon after I began my work doing one-to-one executive coaching with CEOs I noticed a particular sensation that was present after most of my meetings with clients. I experienced a distinct flavor of (more…)
The Chance of a Lifetime in Every Hour
A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us.
Rev. Maltbie Babcock
Do Less & Accomplish More
The amount of work I delegate today is far greater than ever. Leaving my people alone has resulted in key increases in our business.
Hire slow, fire fast, and communicate clear expectations of results.
I have been working with Tony as my executive coach since September of 2005.
–Leo Tucker, CEO
The Washington Group
006 Roadwork for Enduring Results • PODCAST
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I developed this talk for the initial meeting of executive coaching groups to prepare them for the slow, sometimes difficult aspects of their work. I have used it many times to great effect when launching teams into other long-term projects. Some of my coaching clients have even adapted it for their own presentations.
Click below for the video with (more…)
Sick of Stress
One of my favorite radio programs and podcasts is the non-denominational, non-doctrinaire Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. Krista interviews deep thinkers with important ideas about the essential human experiences of awe, eternity, and community. Every show leads me to reflect deeply and, very often, to live a happier, more involved life. I consider it one of the most nurturing practices of my continual development as an executive coach.
A recent guest was Esther Sternberg, Ph.D., an expert on immunology and stress. She relates the remarkable history of stress’s role in health and healing. It seems that every culture has always known that emotional and physical stressors contribute to (more…)
Root Causing
I often use the story below at the beginning of executive coaching engagements, particularly when coaching groups. These executives, especially my CEO executive coaching clients, have achieved a great deal by demanding and producing rapid results. Many results, however, require extraordinary diligence and patience. This “Bamboo Story” is a useful metaphor for individuals and teams out to produce significant and enduring new opportunities. [A free, single-page version of this executive coaching story is available by clicking here.]
A certain remarkable species of bamboo is cultivated in Asia. The root system is so complex that the farmer must water, fertilize, and weed for five years before the first shoot emerges from the ground. Imagine how this farmer must look to her neighbors: “Hey, how is your dirt crop coming along?” Season after season she sees others harvesting, eating, and selling their produce, while she labors for no visible result.
Once the root system is fully developed the first shoots emerge and the plants grow as high as 90 feet in a few weeks. The bamboo grows so quickly you can hear the rustle as the leaves spread. As anyone who has tried to remove a stand of bamboo knows, good luck stopping such growth once strong roots are established.
How do you tend to your root system?
Click here to download free, printable poster of this story.
This IS your life, happening right now.
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin.
At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
–Attributed to Alfred D. Souza
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