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| Execu-Coach Associates PO Box 595609 Dallas, Texas 75359 Phone: 214-515-0632 |
Performance Coaching for Executives and Entrepreneurs       
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Executive Coaching and MentoringExecutive leadership and top management are tough, often lonely jobs. To remain competitive and effective, today's leaders must capitalize on every available resource. Increasingly they turn to executive coaching and mentoring for assistance. Thousands of companies and professional partnerships now consider coaching and mentoring an absolute essential for key players and emerging leaders. Executive coaches and mentors help you multiply your strengths, sharpen your skills, strengthen your focus, and expand your total impact. Coaching and mentoring are also exceptional settings in which to chart career transitions, clarify personal goals and values, and develop strategies for maintaining a healthy life balance. Elsewhere on this site we provide a fuller discussion of the benefits of having a personal coach. Companies often provide coaching and mentoring routinely as part of a general leadership development program. Or coaching may be used to help leaders master challenging new assignments. Coaching and mentoring are especially worthwhile for people making significant moves in their careers, such as becoming a manager of managers, moving into senior management for the first time, assuming oversight of a new functional area, or advancing to C-level responsibilities (CEO, CFO, COO, etc.) Coaching and mentoring are not just for people in corporate management systems, however. Sole proprietors, entrepreneurs, and small business owners frequently recognize the benefit of having a personal coach for themselves. To help these smaller businesses, who may not be in a position to afford the fees of large consulting houses, we can complement executive coaching with business coaching, consulting on strategic and organizational issues, and facilitation services. Personal Coach? Or Personal Mentor?Which serves you best? A personal coach? Or a personal mentor? The answer depends on your specific needs and circumstances. While coaching and mentoring have much in common, they each serve a distinct purpose. Coaching is usually a rather short-term process (typically three to a year in duration) and focused on enhancing job-related skills. Just as golfers go to coaches to improve their swing or a tennis players go to coaches to strengthen their backhand, leaders turn to executive coaches to strengthen essential skills. Mentoring, by contrast, tends to focus on broader issues, including many that may be only indirectly related to job performance. Mentoring is as much about imparting wisdom and perspective as it is about imparting skills. Mentoring relationships tend to be less structured than coaching relationships and to extend over a longer period of time. Many mentoring relationships include an element of coaching. And executive coaches often double as mentors to the men and women whom they assist. Thus, in actual practice the distinction between coaching and mentoring is somewhat blurred, and in many circles the two terms are used interchangeably. Coaching and Mentoring By Phone or InternetWhile face-to-face coaching has certain advantages, Execu-Coach Associates also provides effective coaching and mentoring by telephone and email. Some coaches routinely do as much as 80% of their coaching this way. It's cost effective, saves travel time, and allows for optimal flexibility in scheduling. Whenever possible, we prefer to conduct the initial coaching or mentoring sessions in person. This gives both you and the coach or mentor an opportunity to build rapport more quickly. Nevertheless, where distance or schedules preclude face-to-face conversation, we can work by phone or email right from the start. Training Internal Coaches and MentorsPersonal coaching has proven itself so valuable that many companies now want their managers to function as coaches and mentors within the organization. These "internal coaches" often have a solid mastery of their business or industry, but limited experience in the skills that make for good coaching and mentoring. Using accelerated learning techniques, Execu-Coach Associates can provide a comprehensive program to develop both basic and advanced skills for your internal coaches and mentors. If your organization does not have an internal coaching program, Execu-Coach Associates can help you design one and implement it. We can also help you screen your management team to identify men and women whose personalities and communication style make them especially strong candidates to become internal coaches or mentors. |
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Execu-Coach Associates
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