Coaching Credo....

Up until this very moment,
I've been the witness of great changes, outstanding transformation and surprising evolution. I've even seen a lighthouse turning into a rocket. I've felt the explosion of emotions that determine a becoming into life changing. I've heard the laughs and the joy of right directions and fulfilling lives. I've touched the fresh success attitude and the mature one.

Well, there's a lot of evidence, let's say, from the perspective of quantity and quality, to not consider Executive Coaching for me as the right think to do and the fulfilling part of my career.

The most extraordinary fact is that there are people, very good professionals, and they have a right sense of things, and they want more, they want it all. I step into the scene not as a film director, but much more as a co-star, colleague, or well trained career assistant, in order to create space, time, opportunities and flow for those people to move forward and further the way they know and understand their path.

I'm just enrich their power with an instrument of perspective, leaving them the option of using or not profiting of it.

I hand my client a gift, a mighty gift that is. And there, underneath all of the paper covering the box, there's a big, shiny magnifying glass. I encourage my birthday boy/girl to look through this magnifying glass and try the other eye also, or the eye of someone else, or even to use this magnifying lens to start a fire that burns the turning point to this not so resourceful route, except that it is just a familiar one.

I'm not the guide to his journey, but I can be there all the way to the end of it. I can be his connection with all of his resources that he never used before, resources that he was not seriously considering as such, or resources that he was not aware of their existence.

From now on,
The Coaching relationship has evolved to the point that is a very special one. There's a certain level of communication that benefits all the parties involved, including the Coach.
So, there's the TRUST. Trust comes with the brand, the process, the results...

*****

Of course, this is just a working progress!

The power of recruiting I

From a certain point of view, the process of Recruiting and Selection candidates for a job is one instrument that empower the Recruiter with an extraordinary set of powers, the most important of all being the power of  deciding the candidate's future. You match the need of the organization for the specialist and the interest of that specialist to work in this organization. You open the door to a successful career and to tremendous development opportunities. It is a feeling of a deep responsibility and a a great fulfillment, especially if the possibilities of following and contributing to development of the candidate exist.

That power is linked with a greater responsibility, to company, to candidate, and to himself/herself. To himself/herself meaning that you are in the position of choosing to be a professional at his best or to compromise. Of course, there are a number of Key Performance Indicators that flags you when a certain problem occurs in the process you use to get results.

You are so passionate about people, about getting to know a large amount of new, fresh people, about communicating and about psychology. You are so passionate, so you get others excited too. Excited to join.

This part of a leadership skill, to attract the right people for the job, project, mission, has from many years an interesting tendency to outsourcing, mainly by budgetary reasons, but the projects that are highly sensitive are still doing it the old fashion, without intermediary.

There are a lot of companies that use numerous sets of career assessments and tons of tests, specially designed to seek and catch the best candidate available, and there are many of them using a PC based interface. Another tendency nowadays is to replace the interview face-to-face by another modern instruments, like on-line communication.


...to be continued...

Things that stand (longer)

Oh, yeah... values... eternal preoccupation of the coaching nation. That only things that count in personal life and in all development plans.

So, what is wrong with the craving all the good, nice, delicious and beautiful things that seems to appear in all commercials from the TV program. Probably, nothing, but the sure fact is that abuse is never good. In that order of things, if TV is the only resource of our dreams, that's it, we're quite finished. The personal values set to be accessed by these commercials are evolving specially influenced by the targeted niche, so it's evolving to something tricky because it's not natural for all of the people watching TV.

But where can you take your basis for developing a good healthy conscious with moral principles and values for your life? You have to look and search somewhere, right?

That's for sure, but TV probably it's not the best of them. If you did go to one exotic trip that put a mark on your future lifestyle, it is probably natural to crave for this. But if you just take this thought from TV commercials or whatever, it is possible  not to be able to internalize that experience (actually it's not an experience) and make it constructive, but de-constructive.

Values do not change. Not necessarily. Maybe it's us that change our mind over time and tend to become more influenced in other external stimulus and other context. Eventually, we do access that fine tuning for our personality, but only if we become able to fight with all of the marketing weapons that bombard us full-time.

You have to consider only yourself, and that's a hard thing to do more and more. Only you can chose for you what is important, what can define you, what is the real you.

Do it!

Tips and Tricks - Mentoring without the Mentor

In business today, because of the technologies that carry all the information from one point of the Globe to another in matter of seconds, it is usual to search for Tips and Tricks. If you want to do something, at a certain point, you'll use a tip from someone to do your job faster, better, more efficient.

If there's something really funny about business, it's this chapter of tips and tricks. Who gives them? With what purpose? It is really doable? Is there another one better than this? Don't get me wrong! I love tips and tricks. They are a fast way to connect with experience and expertise in a mentoring methodology. They are a vital way of sharing the best practices of professionals from everywhere at the speed of light.

And all of this should work just fine, if only the proper context is set. A business question should always have an answer, and it better be a complete and fast one. When presented in Mentoring process, tips and tricks follow this requirement (the right context), but when used as a list of tips and tricks as in blogs (this one is not an exception), journals and their kind of mass media channels, there should be a perfect approach of subjects, contexts and beneficiary of this one. There's no problem with the kind of people just reading the news, and there it is a tips and tricks column. There could be a problem with some other people that try to use this useful information in not so proper manner or context. In that situation, there is no one to supervise and adjust the process, but the results, and if the results are bad, that's the problem.

So, tips and tricks are good. It's just the understanding of how to use them should be perfect, not just good.

Your Oscar movie! Coming soon!

I can't remember the first time I watched a movie, but I can remember about the feeling of fascination that I had and the mind blowing ideas generated by this window to creativity that made me enter into that specific world. When it was a fictional adventurous bed-time story, I was riding, fighting, conquering, helping, and I was doing all of the super-heroes inspirational actions. When a drama came by, I imagined myself living in the neighborhood and watching how their life is going by.

After a while, I discovered that movies are various in forms and messages and this variety made me much more opened to things that catch attention rather than being a critique to this art as a whole. I understood how to balance interests and feelings when on watching  movies. From time to time, feeling good was healthier than cruising thorough ideas.

Actually, the reason I started  to work as corporate fellow is that Dallas series and his JR Ewing style, the cubic glass buildings and very business oriented life. He was a machine!

Nowadays, movies are all around. It's easy to push the remote button and to find something to enjoy. And it's (still) easier to search on the net the specific title and to start the popcorn machine. Many people I know want to loose their TV reflexes to more healthier, constructive ones: sports, reading, conversation. But the access to movie remains a quick option for a cheap (not so really!) form of entertainment.

Much more important is the movie/soap opera that you watch every day of your life, the one that you're living in day by day, the one that you're producing and directing every single morning when you open your eyes.

Is the one that have your character as a hero, as an extraordinary ordinary guy? The one that you prepared for this role for about... your entire life? Are you even there?

Snapshot this and make a decision about you and your character. Become friends with each other, it is possible to act only this episode, but it's also possible to be a life time character. Go to the editor's spotlight and power yourself to master your movie to the Oscar level, maybe to invent your own trophy and win it.

Make it the best movie that ever existed, with Oscar and everything! With huge Box Office results every day!

I love the Oscar! I'll surely win it!

Corporate, My middle name is Corporate

A perfect office look, or maybe an interesting creative outfit for Casual Friday.  A focused look and a scrutinizing attitude. An outstanding sales pitch and a clear vision of the business. A person married with his company, that always has something interesting to do outside his office space. Always busy, but always with exciting hobbies. But, most of all, a professional with great successes. That's most of the time the portrait of the Corporate Fellows.

This is an army perfectly trained to react and to predict accurately the market's movements. A special force division with a precise mission: to conquer the world, to crush the enemies and to make a profit, BIG MONEY. And the Commanding Officer of the Army is a perfect politician, a strategist, and an action-oriented General, with broad experience and heavy name in the business.

It's easy to recognize this picture when you open the news media when you walk out of the door when you imagine your career. Because of the success that usually follows those guys and because of the resonant framework set by the school.

Let's face it! It's a very nice way of living your life. And can become easy to do it. There are people to learn from when it's about the corporate world. People with great achievements and a great record. Usually, it is a process, uncovered by experience and knowledge, to become a Corporate Fellow, a successful one, that is, but it's doable.

An interesting aspect of this subject can be this one: Part of them are people that migrated to personal business with their own projects or start-ups. And this happened after a legendary professional life in their industry. It's not a trend to notice it, but it can be really easy to verify on most of the countries.

The main reason would be probably the need to do something that is to be born in a much personal area. Something that uncovers a value that was second pointed out in a To Do list of personal life. The importance of doing the right thing at the right moment would be another facet of this choice.
The model set by a career path usually is linked with this corporate world, that makes possible the most of the professional manifestation in that field.

It doesn't mean it is the only way...

For further reading:  Corporate, My middle name was Corporate

Let's Get Professional

It's interesting enough to know that everything it's teachable if already done by someone else. That's what NLP is strongly affirming. If so, there's a good chance for interested ones to realize their impossible, a.k.a. their dreams and hopes, as defined by personal development literature.

There's a common knowledge that says: To become an expert you have to spend 10.000 quality hours in that domain. First, is that Expertise the no. 1 interest in order to use that important personal resources - personal time and energy? Why? That means you have to have very good reasons and implications, detailed and structured, preferably written. Second, Action is required, constant analysis and supervision on every single task for consciously react to improve yourself as professional. That means plenty of sacrifices.

But, how can you quantify those 10.000 hours when it's about the quality aspect of the work you do. Could this be altered by Training Sessions, By Coaching Sessions or by the presence and influence of other Experts? Knowledge and attitude can significantly prove a certain level of expertise, and the association with other professionals and experts could lead to a simpler professional path, but the critical aspect of the process of becoming an expert in the process itself that rule the right combination of experience, intensity, and knowledge that makes an expert.

But, if all of this can be reduced to hours of training and intensity of preparation, that expert guy can become a very lonely fellow. The studies show that the profile of an expert has an odd quality - introverted -, that one that makes the process valid. This is possible because this guy will know everything that is to know about his domain. And he will know it by heart and he will become able to push his domain further, to uncharted territory.

So, a question is raising up: Sales Expert, what is that? A professional Communicator? An outstanding Negotiator? A results delivery guy? All of this, of course, and much more. But how is he/she relating to the concept of expert-defined already? How the introverted salespeople can study by himself to become an expert, as long as this is a paradox, a salesman should be where clients are. And the final question: Could be Sales a domain with Experts? 

Different industries can put a finger on their top Sales People they have and can characterize with ease those as Experts. And they are. The question here is if Sales Experts can be considered as those other experts in other areas. If you switch the service or product of a salesperson, you could assist to an interesting reinventing process; reconfiguring the sales process to the domain and product, but this will be a new professionalization process.

Of course, there's no simple conclusion to all of this. There are a lot of people that think of the sales people that they are not actually working citizens, despite tons of legislation and taxation forms saying different things. And there are those who admire this ability and the persons that embody it. It is probably a problem of perception, sales people will always say that it is a profession and an art what they do, others will still consider it just a function in their business.




“What would you take it with you from this session?”