Making Change

Creating change in our lives is challenging. Dr. Stephen Covey, an internationally respected leadership authority and author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, suggests two practices to make change: follow your conscience and change your role. He states, “between stimulus (what happens to us) and response (what we do about it) is a space to choose, and what we do in that space ultimately determines our growth and happiness.”

Following your conscience, is listening to the small voice inside that tells us what we need. This is hard in a fast-paced world that rarely slows down for reflection. Sometimes ignoring that little voice (our conscience) just feels easier. But when we reach deep into the space to choose, and we intentionally slow down to listen, we can get a better sense of what needs repair. 

Simply sit in a quiet place and ask yourself a question, then pause to “hear” the answer. You can question your personal or professional life. What thoughts come to mind? You must think deeply and listen carefully. You can recognize the most important things doing this, because there is power in knowing and listening to that inner voice. It is important to develop an understanding of our deepest desires and motives so that we can decide what change is needed in our lives. Your conscience can give you the self-awareness, focus and conviction you need to make change.

Changing your role, is simply seeing the world through a different lens. Sometimes our role is changed by an external factor, such as a relationship change or job promotion. Other times we can change our role by examining our perception and making a mental shift to see ourselves or a situation differently.

This change in thinking will ultimately result in behavior changes, because as Dr. Covey points out, “better behaviors naturally flow out of the changed perspective.” You may find a higher level of understanding and self-discipline which will help you commit to something new for the long term.

There are sequential steps to growth and no one step can be skipped, so we must do the work. If you are not at peace in your daily life, then try listening to your conscience and thinking carefully about how you define your roles, then look to implement change where it benefits you the most.

At Bauman Consulting Group, we supply both individual and group coaching to help people achieve their personal and professional goals. Find out more at www.baumanconsultinggroup.com.

Top Secrets of Success from a Professional Coach

When we began our company 8 years ago, our goal was simply to help other people live better lives. We had some tools available to guide us, but it has really been the relationships we’ve had with clients over the years that have given us the most valuable insight into how people live fulfilling lives – lives where they are healthy and full of energy, feel a sense of purpose and happiness, achieve success at work while maintaining a full life at home, and develop meaningful relationships with others in their life. 

Most of our clients had heard of coaching before, but they were skeptical. They weren’t really sure what a coach would do. But what they all agreed upon, was that they needed a partner in this – someone to be a sounding board and to be their accountability partner. Many were wrestling with a single issue that they decided to get help with: a desired promotion, a desire to make a career change, a lack of work-life balance, or a desire to spend more time away from the office. They were surprised to learn that we didn’t believe in one definition of success. Instead, we spent time learning about what success was going to mean for them. They were also surprised to find that what they believed to be one single issue was actually connected with other issues in their lives. In fact, it became clear that there were 4 main areas that were impossible to disentangle as they all impacted one another. We call these the Four Core Components of Success: 1) Health, 2) Personal Fulfillment, 3) Business/Career, and 4) Relationships. 

This is why our coaching is focused on a blended approach – both life and business coaching. It’s all connected! If you’re not taking care of your health, you can bet you won’t feel very fulfilled, your career is likely going to suffer, and your relationships can take a hit. Not nurturing relationships in your life? Anticipate problems in the other areas. It’s a delicate, deliberate balancing act. 

In fact, every client we work with evaluates their life through the Four Core Components of Success. It’s through this analysis that they can identify the big picture or themes that are the root of the problem. And when we address big picture themes, we create success in multiple areas – not just the one that first brought them in.

But what is it about these four areas that makes them so powerful? They each play a key role in your well-being. When they are out of balance, they can leave you feeling unhappy or overstressed. Regardless of your definition of success, these four components are integral to accomplishing it.

Health: Successful individuals dedicate time to their health. This encompasses both your physical and mental health. They exercise in a way that they enjoy. They eat nutritious foods that fuel their bodies. They practice mindfulness and stress reduction techniques like meditation. They make time to play and have fun.

Personal Fulfillment: Successful individuals focus on their inner self. They can clearly articulate their purpose in life is and what they value – and they intentionally live their lives according to those. They spend time on self-improvement and development (both personally and professionally). They nurture their soul. They read books or take classes. They spend time in nature.

Business/Career: Successful people engage in meaningful work. Depending on your stage of life, this can mean going to work every day, writing the novel you’ve been dreaming about, or volunteering for an organization that is important to you. For some this may mean climbing the corporate ladder and landing that c-suite job of their dreams. For others, it means finding a job you enjoy that can support a flexible schedule which allows you to pursue other dreams. The key is that successful people find value and meaning in their work – it’s not simply a job or a paycheck. 

Relationships: Successful people nurture the relationships in their lives – family, friends, co-workers. They regularly spend quality time with these important people in their life and they foster deep connections. They nurture friendships and have a deep sense of community. They have love in their life and companionship.  

Take a moment to reflect on your own life now. What do the Four Core Components of Success look like for you? Could you stand to make some changes? If you would like to learn about how having a coach could benefit you on your path to success, be sure to reach out to us here. We’re ready to help you put your Four Core Components of Success in balance.

Leading Growth with an Assessment

Agency leaders are often tasked with working to develop staff throughout the organization. Often times leaders tend to focus on two types of staff – the shining stars that we see headed for success within the organization or the struggling supernova who need to drastically improve or move on to another company. As a result of the time and attention placed on this task, leaders are often quite skilled at identifying the strengths and areas for improvement in our own staff. However, when we have achieved leadership status within an organization a fatal flaw often presents itself. Leaders tend to believe that they don’t need to improve any more. They view themselves as having arrived or achieved what they set out to do. What’s the point of more personal and professional development when you’re at the top? 

The truth is that we can all continue to improve and develop. The better our leaders become, the better the staff can become, and the better the agency can be. When we partner with clients, we often hear leaders say, “I’ve worked on so much over the years, I’m not sure what to work on now.” Our response is always simple – “You need to take an assessment.” It’s impossible to make a good plan without data to drive it. Taking an assessment will give you the data you need to draft an improvement plan.

Leaders have often taken a great number of assessments over the years and are apprehensive to return to that route. They feel as though they’ve already gained all the information they can from that process, but assessments remain a valuable tool. Assessments are great at giving us information about a person at a particular point in time. Yes, you may have taken an assessment as part of an employee development protocol several years ago – but you’ve likely changed a lot over the years. You’ve probably completed a great deal of development work. Perhaps you’re not even in the same position anymore. You may have a completely different work environment. All of these (and there are many more!) are reasons why you should go back to step one and complete an assessment.

There are many different assessments on the market that you can consider to inform your developmental path. Each serve different purposes and provide different types of information – and some are definitely better than others. There are four assessments that we recommend to our clients who are looking to start this process: the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Everything DiSC, the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0), and the CliftonStrengths. These assessments provide a diverse array of information – which is why we suggest that our clients take any and all of these assessments. The more data you have the better – so invest in as many of these as you can in order to develop your growth plan. If you have taken one of these in the past, but it’s been more than 2 years since you’ve completed it, it’s worth investing in another assessment. If nothing else, it can confirm your earlier results and provide you with more confidence in the outcomes.

 ·      Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) – The MBTI is perhaps the world’s most well-known personality assessment. The tool can be completed online or in-person and provides a typing which places you into one of 16 different personality types. The results of the tool provide insights into the way that you interact with others, increased self-awareness of each personality type’s strengths and challenges, and ideas for adapting your behavior in response to other personalities in the room that can assist you with achieving greater success. 

·      Everything DiSC – The Everything DiSC is another personality assessment designed to help individuals better understand themselves and better learn to adapt their behaviors with others. This online questionnaire classifies individuals into four quadrants: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. The information is then utilized to explore strengths and areas of growth. 

·      Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0) – The EQ-i 2.0 is the world’s leading assessment tool for evaluating emotional and social intelligence. The assessment contains 133 items which converge to provide insight into 15 competencies and 5 composite areas. The EQ-i 2.0 provides you with a picture of how you operate emotionally – something that research now demonstrates is a greater predictor of success than traditional intelligence.  

·      CliftonStrengths – CliftonStrengths (formally the Clifton StrengthsFinder) is an online talent assessment. This assessment evaluates your natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving and categorizes them into 34 CliftonStrengths themes. The results are utilized to identify what you naturally do best, how to develop and leverage your greatest talents into strengths, and how to maximize your potential. 

Don’t stop at just completing the assessments. Once you are armed with this data, it’s time to put this information to work for you. You can incorporate these findings in a detailed personal or professional development plan for yourself. Partnering with a coach through this process can assist you in your growth development journey. A coach can assist you in interpreting your results, shed light on blind spots that you may not be conscious to you, guide you in setting goals related to your development, and act as an accountability partner as you take the action steps towards your goal. 

Personal Branding

Personal branding has become a topic that many individuals in business have come to dread. It’s one additional topic to put someone on the spot and require them to have a flawless answer. It’s the 21stCentury’s “elevator pitch”. But personal branding is nothing to be feared, and spending some time developing and finessing your personal brand can pay dividends in the long run.

For those new to the concept of personal branding, it can be helpful to begin by thinking about corporate brands. What do you think of when you hear Starbucks? What about Nationwide? Target? You might think of colors, of jingles, or of experiences you have had there. Maybe you have an emotional reaction. Whatever it is that comes to mind – your view of the company – is the brand of the company. It’s what you think and feel when that company comes to mind. Company’s work hard to build their brands and to maintain their brand – they want you to feel a certain way and think certain things when their name comes to mind.

Personal branding is no different. Jeff Bezos gave a great definition of personal branding that really put it into perspective. He said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” The reality is that we all have a brand. Everyone that you interact with has an opinion about you. You may as well take the opportunity to control that brand so that it works for (rather than against) you. 

There are many misconceptions about controlling your brand. It’s not about being narcissistic. It is not all about being on social media. And it’s not something that’s just for millennials or Gen Z. Personal branding can be the key to your career success.

Take a moment to think about your coworkers or a boss you’ve had in your career. What adjectives you would use to describe them? Smart? Lazy? Ambitious? Competent? Imagine you were in the position of selecting a new boss for your office out of your co-workers. Who would you pick and why? Typically, we select people because of their brand (how we feel about them) rather than their paper credentials. When you identified the co-worker that you would select as the new boss, you likely weren’t thinking, “Well, Bill has the highest education level among us, so he’s the perfect fit.” You likely thought something more along the lines of, “Ruby is really fair. She’s a hard worker and gets along with everyone here in the office. We can count on her to be reliable and not play favorites. She’s the best option.” And this is why your personal brand is so important. These are the views that shape your promotions, your opportunities, and your experience in your career. How you are viewed matters.

Now that you’ve agreed that personal branding is important, let’s talk about how to develop your own personal brand. Our five-step process to creating your personal brand will set you on the path to the career that you want. 

1. Define:The first step to crafting your personal brand is to define what it is you want your brand to be. What do you want others to say about you when you are not in the room? Be specific. Start with a list. You likely have manythings that you would like people to say, but it’s unlikely that all of that will come to mind. Narrow the list down to the key items. What are the 4-5 things you’d like to be the priorities? I.0f you are struggling to meet your core list, you can always try assessment tools like the MBTI or the EQ-i 2 to get the ball rolling on seeing what traits you possess. 

2. Gap Analysis:You know what you’d like people to say, but are you really demonstrating these traits? You’d like to be viewed as hard working, but are you really a hard worker all the time? Maybe you’d like to be seen as a great public speaker, but how often do you actually find yourself engaging in public speaking opportunities? Evaluate the key items you’ve listed and determine how you currently measure up. Then think about whether or not people would actually say these items about you. You may find it helpful to ask a friend or trusted colleague to list five things they think of when they think of you. See how closely their list matches with yours.

3.  Vision:Now you have a good sense of where you currently are and where you’d like your brand to go in the future. It’s time to craft a vision. How will you create this personal brand? If you want to be seen as outgoing, what opportunities do you have to demonstrate that to others? You’d like to be seen as an expert, how do you put yourself in that position? People will only describe you in ways that they see you acting. So if you want to be viewed as hard working, people need to seeyou working hard! If you’d like to be viewed as a leader, you’d better be leading where people can see it! This isn’t about being a bragger or boasting about yourself. It’s about ensuring that the traits you want identified can actually be seen. If you are only funny when relaxing with your close friends, no one else but your close friends will know that you are funny! If you don’t speak up in meetings, no one but you knows that you have great ideas! Develop your plan so that you know how you will show others the great traits you have to demonstrate.

4.  Create:It is time to put your plan in action. View your work and personal life through the lens of your brand. Is your plan making a difference? Are people beginning to describe you in the ways that you could like them to? Maybe you need to adjust your plan. Or maybe the plan you created is working perfectly. The key is to make sure you are monitoring the results and adjusting as needed. This is where you may find that your social media presence, your daily work tasks, and your interactions with others begin to pay dividends. Figure out what works in your situation, and go with it!

5.  Evolve:Our brands change over time. This depends on the stage of life that you are in as well as the stage of career you are in. The brand you needed to develop as a 22-year old trying to get your first job out of college is different from the brand you need as a 55-year old hoping to become the boss of the company. You need to be seen in different lights for different jobs, different roles, and at different stages in your career. Trying to define yourself as an expert when you are a rookie in the field is not likely to work well for you. But that may be more attainable for you after you’ve worked in the field for a decade or two. You’ll want to check in with your brand every 3-5 years and decide if it’s time for your brand to evolve to a new stage or if you’re still on track with your current brand. Don’t be afraid to take the next step. That’s how you move up!

A career coach often helps clients to figure out what they’d like their brand to be to best serve their career goals. Together a coach can work with you to formulate a plan to put that brand in place, and ensure that the strategies you develop work for you. Partner with a career coach at Bauman Consulting Group and begin your personal branding journey today!

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

What is it Like to Have a ProfessionalCoach?

This article was originally posted on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/whats-it-like-to-have-a-professional-coach_us_596e5916e4b05561da5a5b2f

You may have heard about coaching. Perhaps you’ve seen someone in a TV sitcom with a coach. Or maybe you’ve heard coaches are some sort of therapist. But what is a coach, really? What’s it like to have a coach, and why would you want one? Throw out that mental image. I’m going to tell you all about the coaching process and what it’s really like.

Before you hire a coach, you need to be clear on what exactly a coach is. A coach is not a therapist, counselor, or mental health professional; a coach is not there to provide mental health care of any kind. Coaches are there to support adults as they work to improve their lives - personally or professionally. A coach does not view you as needing to be “fixed.” A coach views you as a fully capable, competent, and whole individual who would like some support. A coach is trained to be an expert in coaching. This means they have received education in how to support you; this doesn’t mean that they have all the answers. Coaching facilitates collaborative growth - both the coach and the client improve!

[Related: he Difference Between A Coach And A Mentor: Which Is Right For You?]

So why would you want to hire a coach? There are so many reasons why you may want support from a coach, such as:

• Strategic thinking

• Decision making

• Problem solving

• Building/improving relationships

• Work-life balance

• Managing life transitions

• Developing self-confidence

• Increasing self-awareness

• Stress management

• Career navigation

• Personal branding

• Time management

• Networking

• Building and maintaining motivation

• Intentional living

• Uncovering strengths and weaknesses

• Authentic leadership

The first step in hiring a coach is finding one that is a good fit for you. Most coaches will do a free consultation with you so you can see if you like their style and have a connection. You want a good relationship with your coach, so you should shop around until you find the right one for you. Some coaches meet with you in person while others utilize technology for communication such as telephone, video conferencing, or email. You’ll also decide how frequently you want to meet with your coach. Some meet weekly, every other week, or even monthly. And the price of a coach can vary just as much as their approach. A good coach will set up an arrangement specially for you - rather than offering a single option.

After you decide on the coach that you want to hire, the coach will give you a welcome packet which serves two functions. First, it gives you the run down on the costs, boundaries, and procedures for coaching. Second, it collects information about you. For instance, it will ask you questions about why you want a coach, what things you’d like to improve in your life, and what you’d like to accomplish. This gives the coach a starting point to work from.

Next, your coach may have you complete some assessments. These are often optional and vary based upon what your interests/needs are. For example,  I often have my clients take the Myers Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI) or the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0) in order to help them to learn more about themselves. By taking these assessments that stimulate their introspection, they have the opportunity to really stretch themselves. They grow and achieve more than they thought possible. Assessments are also really helpful when clients come to coaching with dilemma’s such as “I know I hate my job, but I have no idea what else I want to do,” or “I’m in college and need to make a career plan, but I don’t know where to begin.”

Once your coach feels that she has sufficient information to guide the process, you’ll spend some time talking about your goals. They may have changed a bit now that you have more information about yourself. You and your coach will examine these goals from many angles and fully explore why you want to accomplish this goal, how it will impact your life, and what you’ll need to be successful.

When you’re ready to take the next step, your coach will work with you on developing strategies or action plans to accomplish your goals. Expect to have fieldwork. You’ll never be told to do anything. A coach may ask you to do something, but you always have the ability to say no. Often, clients generate their own action steps.

Along the way you’ll have regular check ins with your coach to problem solve, celebrate accomplishments, and continue to create action. Overtime, you may reevaluate your process with your coach. New goals may emerge. Old goals may be accomplished. It’s a flexible process that permits you the opportunity to evolve as a person in your own way and at your own pace.

[Related: Want to Get Ahead in Your Career? Consider Hiring a Professional Coach]

Often times, clients will gradually reduce the number of sessions with their coach. Some clients like to continue to have quarterly or biannual sessions with the coach to just check in and make sure they are staying on track.

Coaching is a process that is customized to you and your needs. It consistently provides a partner that delivers an outside perspective on your unique situation, connections to valuable resources, someone to hold you accountable to your commitments, a person to challenge you to go further, and a support system to count on.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides leadership and management consulting and coaching with a focus on women in business.

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