Businesses are faced with a large number of retirees, a lack of viable successors, diminishing leadership development budgets, and leadership development practices often focused on training rather than individualized accelerated development options, such as executive coaching. Its an expensive leadership development option, however, with costs often as high as $30,000 for a six-month coaching engagement.

A corporate crisis of any kind puts a strain on customer relationships. When these innovative approaches are implemented as part of a customer retention plan, they can significantly solidify credibility and relationships.

HPI - Up Close and Personal By Patricia S. Radakovich, CPLP, CPT Human performance improvement (HPI) is typically applied to business. Practice what you preach First, you should ask yourself if you practice what you preach.

When I think about the people I most admire, I realize that many of them model coachability in ways that make them seem wise. That being coachable (a learner) might make us seem wise (someone who knows).

DL: Yes, as long as the person coached is engaging in what Tom Peters referred to as The pursuit of excellence. If the person is no longer committed to excellence, then the game is effectively over.

My new book, Getting Naked: A Business Fable About the Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty, details that approach and calls for consultants to shed many of the behaviors and attitudes typical of the consulting industry. The three fears At its core, naked service boils down to the ability of a consultant to be vulnerable - to embrace uncommon levels of humility, selflessness, and transparency for the good of a client.

At its heart, coaching is about change. And as most organizational learning professionals know, goals for learning and change go hand in hand.

However disorienting and maddening the pace and rules of our contemporary work life may be, lets understand a few things: Theres no turning back, it doesnt have to be bad, and there are things you can do to set yourself up for success even in the face of multiple challenges. You are now in the business of managing relationships.

In a world where its often who you know not what you know that matters, organizations and employees suffer. Employees who receive preferential treatment are never forced to experience the cultural learning curve while those not on the receiving end are not afforded opportunities to flourish and often experience stagnation.

You know that moment when a boss appears to be bearing down on you, nitpicking, or just plain in your business? Perhaps youve risen in your career to the point of managing others, and are wondering if youve turned into that type of boss.

Of all the steps up the business ladder, the move from seasoned professional to frontline management is the most difficult, according to an Equation Research survey that asked HR and learning professionals which career transition is most difficult for employees. Id always suspected the jump to frontline management was the most difficult, but I would not have guessed by that margin.

As a training and development professional, you probably have been asked this question more than once: What is the difference between management and leadership? My perspective on this might differ from yours or from what you have heard or read in leadership books.

A quick look at the literature on leadership theories shows how this field has been under constant change--from trait theories of leadership, where leaders were defined based on their exhibited traits, to contingency and situational leadership theories, where leaders success was attributed to the interplay of their personal qualities with the organizational context, and finally to servant-leadership or post-heroic leadership theories being proposed now in which a leader is seen as one who carries forward the people to help them achieve what they want to achieve....

It doesnt take charisma to create a highly motivating work environment. In fact, charisma is not all it is cracked up to be.

Do you ever think about lemons? In my work as a consultant, trainer, and coach, I think about lemons everyday.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team underscores the effectiveness of storytelling in communicating a message. Backed by a strong suite of venture capitalists, the problem with DecisionTech was not cash.

According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, annual spending on executive coaching among U.S. organizations has exceeded $1 billion annually. It has yet to be demonstrated conclusively what qualifies an executive coach or what makes one approach to executive coaching better than another.

Analysis confirms that effective coaches have employees who are confident that the organization will achieve its strategic goals. Alternatively, ineffective coaches have employees who are twice as likely to think about quitting their jobs.

Im on my way to Philadelphia and wondering if I remembered to let the dog in before I left. Like most people, leaving my house to go to work involves steps and passages, lists and projections, chores and ideas.

The survey results indicate that the popularity of coaching in the last few years represents the beginning of continued growth for the field, and many organizations expect to spend more on coaching in the next few years. In fact, while coaching is offered in a small percentage of organizations, those who have programs use coaching for multiple layers of management, and plan to allocate even more resources in the future.