Business Coaching

This year really is not starting how we had all hoped it would. Despite these frustrating setbacks, many of us still have goals for 2022 and we shouldn’t shy away even if we are stuck inside for a while. 

With that in mind, I want to remind you of SMARTER goals which I learned after attending a nonfiction writers’ workshop in 2019. Many of us are familiar with SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. SMART goals operate well in an organization where project manag…

"Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade?" ~Benjamin Franklin

When it comes to formal evaluations of organizational employees, I think we have it all wrong. We take a look at what their weaknesses are and where they can improve. We look at what they are doing wrong, and what they are doing that is not in alignment with how we would do it and what we expect from ourselves.

In other words, we look for where they are weak.

Imagine what would happen if we…

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."
~John F. Kennedy

The above quote and title of this post is from a speech that John F. Kennedy, our 35th President never delivered.

"He was scheduled to deliver a speech in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He never spoke these words. He was assassinated on his way to the event and died before he spoke these words."

When I saw this speech, I grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and sat down to read it. It was the message I wanted to deliver to…

I’ve been in business as a leadership and team coach for over 17 years. Because of this, people come to me frequently for advice. I love to be of service this way, and I do remind them I do not have all the answers and the advice I give them may not work in their specific situation and just maybe, it might be the worst advice they get.

Again, I don’t have the answers for another person’s life. What works for me may not work for another.

This Thrive Global article talks about The Worst Career A…

I’ve been teaching awareness of biases as a part of my leadership programs and coaching. There are more than 150 identified unconscious biases that are common. This number makes the task of acknowledging them and then addressing them a big one. These biases influence decisions that are made at all levels in organizations. 

A few of these unconscious biases that directly impact the workplace include:  

Affinity bias: The tendency to warm up to people like ourselves. It is shown that people hire…

Here’s why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen very well. I never interrupt; I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another’s conversations constantly. It’s like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street.

For instance, if we met at a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a …

I value words. I think they are important and because of this I am always looking up the meaning of them in the dictionary or looking for the right word to use in the thesaurus and here’s what I found about the word value: noun: value; plural noun: values

1. 
the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something. "your support is of great value" synonyms:

worth, usefulness, advantage, benefit, gain, profit, good, help, merit, helpfulness, avail; More i…

Several years ago I was one of 11 invited to contribute to the book Scrappy Women in Business: Living Proof that Bending the Rules isn’t Breaking the Law. The purpose of the book was to tell the stories about how we got to where we were in our careers. It was a great reflection on all the different paths my own career took over the years which was not a very straight path.

I call my career a portfolio career because it was a range of investments I made in me, investing in something new until I …

"Networking puts eyes and ears in places where you yourself can't look and can't listen." ~Max Messmer

A client of mine was laid off after 15 years with the same company. One of her first realizations was that she wished she had networked more during that time to stay in contact with people she met in her industry and to make new contacts. This would have proved invaluable to her when she started to look for new work.

What is it about networking that's not working for you? I'm talking about t…

“The opposite of NET working is NOT working.” – A Very Smart Person

I once coached an executive in a company whose job was eliminated suddenly and without warning. After we worked on her surprise, anger, and fear of the circumstance, it was time to begin to focus on networking. When I broached the subject her response was, “Pat, I have no other network than the people I work with.”

She had stopped networking outside of the organization and neglected to plan for the time that she might need to…