Mr. Anderton,
I had thought about using an executive coach for a long time, it just took me a while to pull the trigger. Investing the time in process, in investigating and selecting a coach, and then setting up the meetings, was something I knew I needed to do, but didn’t feel I had to time for.
Before your coaching, I knew how broken our communication system was, but hearing everybody talk about it and bringing it out in the open revealed just how much that was impacting the company. I also realized how reactionary we were performing. We were simply reacting to problems, not managing them.
The way you handled the presentation, your style, really drew everyone into the conversation. You got everyone to feel invested in the outcome, and you made people feel at home, like they could participate in the meeting. The informality of it, when you were writing on the boards and going around the room asking everyone to participate, you did it in such a way that no one felt intimidated.
When I first saw the topics that you wanted to discuss in our workshop, in terms of the purpose, the personality, the plan, and the priority, I thought it would be touchy feely. It reminded me of stuff I did while I was working on my MBA, it seemed kind of corny. However, the actual results of the workshop felt very relevant, and that created an enthusiasm for the future that I had never seen in the employees before.
I liked that enthusiasm it created. I liked the way it focused our thoughts. Everybody had thoughts about what was wrong, I know I did, but we weren’t able to articulate them. Your workshop allowed everybody to focus their thoughts and come to an agreement on what was wrong. I also liked the aspect of creating an action plan and giving concrete tasks to be done.
Overall, that day exceeded my expectations. I knew a little about this coaching and strategic planning, but this went further than I expected. The investment my employees had in the process, and that enthusiasm and energy it created were more than I expected. I thought I knew what I was going to get out of it, but then I got calls from employees thanking me for having this, telling me how great it was and how excited they were to be a part of it.
I would recommend your services to someone in the construction industry. You have the experience and the style to reach construction company employees in a way that a lot of other coaches I looked at don’t. You never sounded like some generic consultant guy.
Thank you,