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Picture this - you're at a networking event, meeting new people and having excellent conversations. You're speaking with someone you haven't met before, so naturally you ask them what they do for a living. They tell you they are an executive coach.
What do you say next?
At the last couple of networking events I attended, I met people who felt awkward when I told them my profession and work. There was that long pause when you know someone’s trying to think of what to say next. Has this ever happened to you?
To help those out that haven’t had the opportunity to work with a coach or aren’t familiar with the work we do, here are some thoughts on things that I’d love to talk to you about, and I believe you would too.
When you next meet a coach, here is what you can talk to them about:
Talk to me about working in the future. All of a coach’s work focuses on future plans and goals. It’s about potential, possibility and realization of goals. It’s energizing work.
Ask me about what leaders and business owners are thinking about. I have strategic and change based discussions about a number of leadership, talent and team themes every week. I have a good sense of what leaders are thinking about and where they see they have a need to focus.
Interested in how change happens? Change is permeated in ourselves, our work and our lives. Change is embedded in all my work. I am a change agent. I see many attributes of change, big and small. I have lots of change stories and nuggets of information to share.
Ask me about inspirational stories! I get the privilege to work with people who have accomplished and are working to accomplish some amazing things. I can’t tell you their names but I can tell you snippets of their stories.
The executive coaching profession can be viewed differently by people. The executive coaching work I do can be perceived as ranging from therapy through to training. Included in an executive coach’s skill set is coaching, facilitating, mentoring and leadership.
Image©PivotalCoaching Info Source: The Excelerator™ Essential Program
My personal definition of executive coaching is:
Executive coaching, also known as leadership development consulting, leverages a business’ and a leader's potential and desires in a structured approach to accomplish goals and outcomes that may not have been achieved through training, managing, facilitating or mentoring. An executive coach focuses on the future, uses a methodology to navigate the outcomes and works with a very robust toolbox.
We are in the profession because we care about people and want to help businesses and people be successful. We see helping people be successful as very important work.
Whether you call me an executive coach or a leadership development consultant, I am a professional who has a leading methodology - executive coaching - to realize great results. I take plans and help implement them.
If change, growth, leadership and success are things that interest you, we have lots to talk about.
A great conversation starter with me is:
“Tell me about the most interesting work you are doing right now.”
My goal in meeting new people is to learn as much as I can so when we talk, I hope I ask one question that really gets you thinking and keeps you thinking. Coaches have a reputation for asking great questions on very diverse subjects. Coaches are curious professionals.
If you don’t want to talk about my work, I am a skilled networker who can agilely talk about lots of other things. Let’s start with the weather and see where we go from there.
I look forward to our conversation and all the topics we can talk about.
About Lisa W. HaydonLisa W. Haydon is the President and Founder of Pivotal Coaching Inc. She left her comfortable corporate career several years ago to follow her passion of helping people realize their potential and companies to realize high performance. Lisa is a growth focused entrepreneur, leadership development consultant and certified executive coach. To her clients, she brings business experience with prestigious corporations and continuous education. Lisa’s work in business operations and B to B sales expertise allowed her to create a differentiated coaching model and client experience. Lisa and Pivotal Coaching are known for 1:1 and cohort Programs in leadership development and sales effectiveness.
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