Executive Team Coaching
Topic: Discover and experience valuable and goal-oriented communication!
"I am meeting five executives...
... during the short Warm-Up we are talking about "the power of language".
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INPUT: Values are the basis for all decisions and the foundation of all actions. Our values determine what is important to us & appears correct. Values can be experienced and shape our lives.
Every participant has done their preliminary work and developed their own hierarchy of values (based on a template).
In our coaching session, the participants present their three top values to each other and tell where they have observed these values in their lives, in their everyday work and leadership. Together they discover the impact these values have on their decision-making process and communication, and therefore also on their leadership behavior.
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A manager shares:
"Justice is my highest value - when I overdo it however, I tend to be narrow-minded and quick to judge. Now I also understand why I get so upset when management has made a decision that I think is unfair. I want to pay attention to that in the future and not let myself get upset so easily."
The other junior executives not only listen, but also practice giving short feedback according to the 3W rule:
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To confirm the result, we go into a short final round:
"I learned a lot about myself. This helps me to better reflect on my reactions as a manager and gives me much more clarity.”
"I didn't know that values shape you so much - in the future I would like to learn to better assess my employees based on their behavior and decisions, to know what is important and correct for them at the moment"
"It was really fun - I would like to use the Feedback in my everyday life."
Subject: Alignment towards a common goal
Kick-off Workshop IT Team
​A team of four developers and a Product Manager (Product Owner) starts with a new, exciting task.
In the workshop, we first work out the important topics for the day. Everyone contributes their thoughts, ideas and questions.
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Together we create an agenda:
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What are our tasks?
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Where do our competencies and responsibilities end, where do they begin?
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Which agile framework do we work with - Scrum or Kanban or something completely different?
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In which language do we program and which programs do we use?
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What else do we need to get off to a successful start?
To ensure that every team member has the same understanding, we start by defining the tasks, competencies and responsibilities.
During the conversation, the team makes an interesting discovery: everyone actually thought they understood "it", only to then realize that a clear, common definition of the tasks uncovered many misunderstandings and generated security.
INPUT: Scrum or Kanban - I give an overview of both agile frameworks. This is the basis for deciding how the team would like to work in the future.
​Dependencies to other teams are also clarified.
Finally, we check what else needs to be done before we can start. We determine who does what & how it will be tracked and by when things should be done.
After an intensive day at work, the team feels ready for the new tasks and is motivated to start. We make an appointment for a retrospective in six weeks.
Theme: So many roles - how are you supposed to keep track of them?
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Executive Individual Coaching
​I am meeting with a manager of an international non-profit organization:
“I really want to avoid overstraining myself again and maneuvering into a burnout. I want to regain an overview of my many roles in order to decide what I can do differently in the future!"
Together we work out the different roles & areas of life, put them on PostIts and assign them to each other on a free space. We understand how the individual roles relate to each other and influence each other. The first eye opener after the visualization is: "That's not so unmanageable!" - the customer gained confidence for her situation and worked out the first "quick wins" for herself:
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"I don't always have to do everything myself! I just want to get something going!”
Relieved and full of ideas, we will take a closer look at the individual roles in the next few sessions. It is exciting, how things will develop further...
Executive Training
Theme: Fit and confident for employee interviews
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What does a mirror have to do with a successful appraisal interview? Read more….
Twelve leaders from the automotive supplier industry come together for training in their employer's training rooms.
After a funny warm-up, we develop helpful principles in the personal preparation for an interview with employees.
"I lack the appreciation here, and you again didn't listen to me at all. You didn't understand what I actually wanted to say!”. Many managers are familiar with such or similar statements from their everyday work.
In order to effectively deal with this problem, the executives get to know the conversation technique of mirroring (according to Carl Rogers) and practice it immediately with real conversation sequences.
Managers also talk about many misunderstandings that keep arising between them and employees. In order to be able to deal with it better in the future, they learn that messages can always be statements on different levels. Misunderstandings arise above all when the "sender" communicates on a different level than the "receiver" hears (Friedemann Schulz von Thun).
The four-hour workshop flies by for the participants.
Statements of participants from the final round:
"I learned a simple way to make a conversation better."
"Short & to the point!"
"Lots of positive input!"
“I liked that everyone could actively participate.”
Team Supervision
Topic: Mastering the daily challenges
I am meeting with a team of six persons in my office space.
Since we are getting together for the first time, we take our time for an intensive introduction.
To do this, I use photo cards and ask the question: "Which of these pictures best represents what the situation in your everyday work looks like at the moment?"
This results in an interesting discussion about what is currently moving the individual team members.
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Then we collect possible topics for today's supervision.
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A colleague shares a hot topic from her everyday life. I lead the reflective exchange about it and thus invite the entire team to a shared learning experience.
So that none of the good thoughts are lost, I visualize them on the flipchart. At the end, the entire board is full of helpful ideas.
“My focus topic got a face today. At first it was like a fog. Now I know that I can ensure that I have everything under control so that I can keep track of things,” says the colleague whose topic was being worked on.
The other team members are also happy that they took the time “away from everyday life” to move forward together.
Organizational development
Theme:Optimization of the way of working in the organization
In the beautiful Conference house "Hof Birkensee" I meet a team of 12 employees from a broad-based organization.
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Each of the employees has diverse and different work priorities. It always seems to be “fundamentally too much” for everyone. Not all internal and external expectations can be met, which puts additional pressure on individuals.
After the welcome round, we enter into an analysis phase of the processes in the organization. To do this, the team creates a map of the tasks and cooperation.
The tasks are recorded on PostIts. Cooperation with others is represented by connecting lines that are green (=good), orange (=medium) and red (=not good).
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This creates a colorful picture and first conclusions for further assignments are drawn:
- the cooperation is going well: we have many green lines
- there are a lot of "treasures" - good things, we should keep
- there are challenges that need to be addressed
- we must learn to "not do" things
- we should make room for “creativity”
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In the second half of the day we work out STEPs for "Working Effectively" and I present an agile way of working that incorporates aspects from Scrum & Kanban:
In the final phase, concrete TODOs are formulated and visualized. For each TODO there is a person responsible and a time limit for completion.
In the evening we look back on a jam-packed day, which gave the team many new impulses to optimize their own working methods.
The work can begin!