QUESTION: Can Coaching Really Produce a Breakthrough?

Dear Merry,

I am a Human Resources Business Partner for a technology company. I am curious about the potential impact of executive coaching. Can we really expect a breakthrough as a result of coaching?



RESPONSE: Exposing Limiting Beliefs Produces Breakthroughs

Dear Executive,

I am glad you asked this question. Coaching can mean a lot of different things to different coaches and coaching companies. So your question is a fair one to pose to any coaching company with whom you might choose to work.

At Break Through Consulting we are particularly focused on business coaching for senior executives that produces a breakthrough in leadership performance. The breakthrough can potentially happen on two levels - personally and professionally. So we work on these 2 levels simultaneously - a personal/private agenda (confidential) and a business/public agenda (published action plan). What we find is that breakthroughs on the personal level result in quantum leaps in leadership and business performance.

Very often people have "closed doors for themselves very early on in life - meaning they have limited what they believe is possible based on some past event, memory or fear (real or imagined). Our coaching practice focuses on what is hugely important to the coachee - their top goals and passions. We look at what is limiting their achievement and support them in developing the possibilities that could unleash their full potential personally and professionally. In this work, there is generally a breakthrough on a personal level that allows for a breakthrough in business results.

A few things to note:
" We All Have Limiting Beliefs: A coachee who is a senior-level leader recently talked to me about feeling his career could not advance because he had not completed college. I shared with him that a CEO I was working with was feeling out of his league because although he had his Ph.D., the company that had newly acquired him had leaders whose degrees came from Ivy League schools. His degree was not from the Ivy League. We all have limiting beliefs; we pick the reasons and areas where we limit ourselves based on past experiences.
" Coaching Supports Exposure of Limiting Beliefs: Through coaching we've been successful in supporting people to let go of their self-limiting beliefs. Sometimes that's through taking action and sometimes it simply requires exposing the limiting belief for what it is, so that we can see the world through a different lens.
" We Are All the Same: What we find at Break Through Consulting is that people come to coaching feeling as if they are the only one with their particular issue. Our experience is that though our individual stories may be different, we have exactly the same challenges and habits to self-limit.

In our practice we find that even people at the highest levels of success have these limiting beliefs and fears. Though coaching can't undo the experiences that caused them to take root, by bringing them into the light and acknowledging how they limit our possibilities we can unleash new levels of energy and creativity for life and work.

Dare to Deliver!
Merry

Merry Marcus
President
www.breakthroughconsulting.com