Team Coaching with Lisa Walsh & Gary Nowak on Coffee House Coaching

team coaching with Lisa Walsh and Gary Nowak

Work with teams and individual clients is a confidential process. Rarely is there an occasion for a coach to share by demonstration how they do what they do.   What can be shared is a conversation on team coaching featured on this podcast hosted by Gary Nowak. In it, you will hear from me and my colleague Lisa Walsh. You can witness the different stages of a team as we form, do a little storm, and …

Leverage Your “I” For Better Team Collaboration

I in Team Accelus Blog

There is no “I” in team. But every individual in every team needs to have awareness of their “I” in order to be a strong and contributing team member. “I” in this case is knowing your strengths, weaknesses, preferences and your common stress responses as you work in a team. It sounds like: Teammate 1: I am good at seeing the big picture and can lose sight of the details. I prefer working more of …

Perception & The Power of Feedback

perception & feedback

Early in my career, I had no clue that at least one of my colleagues perceived me very differently than the warm, caring and friendly colleague I considered myself to be.  Out of the blue, and not part of a performance review, a colleague shared that I gave the impression of being an “ice maiden.”   Shocked by his feedback, and still trying to reconcile the vast difference between his perception and the one in my …

Managing Stressful Situations

Man stressing at work desk

The drop or churning in your stomach, the sweaty palms, the flushing of the face. Full-on signs that something or someone has just sent you on a path of worry, frustration, fear, or panic. While not always appreciated, our bodies send us instantaneous signals of our state of being. The trouble with these reactions is that they served us well when we needed to outrun the saber tooth tiger, but most of us are not …

Why is Communication so Challenging? 

The Latin base of communication is communicare, which means to share. To share something, you must hold or know it, and recognize that sharing will benefit you and the other party.  It then needs to be presented in a way that others will want to partake or engage. If the other party is not interested or does not know why they should be, the message will fall on deaf ears. This gives us three distinct …

Who wouldn’t want to be a Learner?

People especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.   This short definition of the Learner® talent theme from the Clifton Strengths® Assessment summarizes how those with Learner in their dominant strengths address the acquisition of knowledge. Second in frequency in the Top 5 strengths of the population, Learner is surpassed only by Achiever. …

Leaders, Can You Identify Your Blind Spots?

  Driver’s education provides hand-on experience maneuvering a vehicle on roads and through traffic. Warnings about blind spots are given in training, yet the reality of their existence is hard to fathom. “How could you not see another large vehicle to your side?” Yep, we all know that feeling of “oh my gosh…a near miss!” That is the blind spot. Newer model cars include a blind spot detection system that activates to warn the driver …

Self-Assurance, Last on the List of Strengths…Really?!

  Imagine awakening each morning with a deep knowing – confidence in your ability to manage your own life – that you possess an inner compass that affirms the decisions you make throughout the day are the right ones. That would be a reassuring feeling, wouldn’t it? Why Does Self-Assurance Rank Last on the List? Self-Assurance® is the talent theme described above and identified by the Clifton Strengths Assessment®. The assessment identifies 34 distinct talent …

Magic Happens When You Capitalize on Everyone’s Talents

team, table, talent

Need a solution to a problem? Find someone on your team with the talent theme of Restorative™. The short definition of this theme is: People especially talented in the Restorative theme are adept at dealing with problems. They are good at figuring out what is wrong and resolving it.* Not only are they adept at solving problems – they can get energy from it! The talent theme of Restorative ranks #9 of the 34 themes, …

3 Key Coaching Skills for Leaders (and How to Implement Them)

“Coaching conversations” are all the rage for leaders, especially when providing feedback on performance. Case in point: in 2013 Deloitte replaced “performance review” with coaching conversations that focus on an employee’s learning and performance. Major organizations are implementing “coaching conversations” Many other major organizations have followed suit, including Microsoft, Google, Accenture and Adobe. These are large organizations with “large” resources making it easy for them to implement, right? Not so fast. This is something you …

Significance: A Rare and Powerful Leadership Talent.

Significance | CliftonStrengths

Significance. The word conjures up an impression of importance. “It was a significant milestone in his life” or “She played a significant role in the product launch.” Not a bad thing indeed. Significance and the CliftonStrengths® Assessment Until Significance™ shows up in the top 5 or 10 talent themes of someone who has taken the CliftonStrengths® assessment. People especially talented in the Significance theme want to make a big impact. They are independent and sort …

A Rant on Leadership Coaching

leadership coaching | coaching

The topic was risk and its importance to the process of building or creating something. Whether as an entrepreneur or intrapreneur, uncertainty would be part of the formula. As the attendees weighed in with the ways in which they had taken risks, a handful of the 30 or so in attendance shared that the risk they had taken was to leave a six-figure career to become a leadership coach. Leaving the six-figure career was not …