StakeholderCentered Coaching

How Successful Leaders Get Even BetterClients have determined the average ROI of our coaching

engagements is between $320K — $2.2M annually.

How Successful Leaders GetEven Better: Stakeholder

Centered Coaching

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Question: Who do you think would find it harder to change behavior?

A leader who has some significant weaknesses and is not performing at a high level? Or a leader who is highly successful in almost every aspect of his or her job?

Surprisingly, the correct answer is that the most successful people often have the most difficulty changing their behavior.Ironically, it’s their very success that holds them back.

Here’s Why:

Successful people tend to hold 3 types of beliefs about themselves.

While these beliefs are at the root of their achievements to date, they can also stand in the way of making changes that will lead to further success in the future. Here’s how...

I AM SUCCESSFUL

I CHOOSE TO SUCCEED

I WILL SUCCEED

EXECUTIVE COACHING

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Belief #1 I Am Successful

“Successful peoplenot only believe

that they can manufacture

success; they believeit’s practically

their due.”

–Marshall Goldsmith

The good news for successful people is that they have a lot of self-confidence.

They tend to have an overall positive self-image and see themselves as “winners” in the game of life. They have the courage to apply their ability and strengths because of their past success, and they usually make great leaders because their confidence is contagious. The challenge with believing “I am successful’’ is the tendency for leaders to “believe their own press.” They may overrate their own performance and have difficulty accepting feedback that is inconsistent with their successful self-image. In the extreme case, a person who believes strongly in his or her success will become arrogant. They may be unwilling to hear feedback from others and therefore cut themselves off from constructive feedback.

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Belief #2 I Choose To Succeed

“One of the greatestmistakes of

successful peopleis the assumption, ‘I behave this way,

and I achieve results. Therefore, I must be achieving

results because I behave this way.”’

–Marshall Goldsmith

Successful people tend to be highly self-reliant. They resist being told what to do, even by people they respect. They do what they do out of a sense of personal commitment and high standards, and they have a strong sense of “ownership” about the outcomes. The good news is that when these leaders commit to doing something, they do it. They are truly as good as their word.

But because successful people believe strongly that they have earned or caused their own success, they can develop a strong resistance to change.

Some of them become superstitious, saying in effect, “I’ve been successful up to now. If I change, I may not be as successful.”

Others have such a strong need for control that change of any type - even positive change - may feel threatening to them. Still others feel deep inside that they must be true to the “real me” rather than changing.

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Belief #3 I Will Succeed

“Successful peoplebelieve that they

can make desirable things happen.

They believe that through sheer

force of personality,talent, or brain power, they can

steer a situation in their direction.”

–Marshall Goldsmith

Successful people are almost unflappably optimistic. It’s a key reason they are successful. They are resilient in the face of setbacks and persist even against difficult odds. They believe that they - not external forces - control their destiny.

The ability to never quit on what they choose to accomplish is a major reason that they and others see them as successful.However, highly successful people face a number of challenges when they are called upon to change. At times, they may over-commit and drown in a sea of opportunity. At other times, they may take a “win at all cost” attitude that can leave the people around them feeling like losers in a battle they didn’t even know they were fighting.

Successful people also have a hard time letting go of failure, so if they perceive that they are not meeting their goals in changing or improving their behavior, they may become excessively discouraged. For all of these reasons, successful people often find it more difficult to find the courage, humility and self-discipline needed to make a behavioral change.

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Most people who reacha leadership role in an

organization are successful people. They

have qualities, experiences, and skills

that enable them to succeed in most aspectsof their role. Therefore, when we talk about the

beliefs of successful people we are talking

about most of the peoplein your organization.

Stakeholder Centered Coaching is designed specifically to help successful people achieve their development goals. The process, pioneered by renowned leadership expert Marshall Goldsmith, relies on three core principles.

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A Note...

The true leverage points in behavioral change are the people who are interdependent with and work with the leader every day. Our approach is to turn these stakeholders into the true coaches of the leader who is improving.

The people who interact with the leader every day are the “experts” in how the leader’s behavior can improve. We take a systems perspective by including stakeholders actively in the coaching process in order to increase the likelihood that the leader’s behavior improvement becomes habitual.

Three Core Principles of Stakeholder Centered Coaching:

Place the Attention and Focus On Stakeholders

Emphasize Feedforward

Change Behavior and Perception In Parallel

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Stakeholder Centered Executive Coaching Works For Successful People

EXECUTIVE COACHING

Place the Attention and FocusOn Your Stakeholders

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Emphasize FeedForward

Most coaching and leadership development has focused on feedback as the key to improvement. Well timed, constructive feedback can in fact be extremely valuable. However, the Stakeholder Centered Coaching process breaks with this reliance on feedback by placing significantly more emphasis on what we call “FeedForward”.

Stated simply, “FeedForward” means suggestions for the future.

An analogy for the FeedForward process is the windshield of a car.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, looking over the steering wheel, we see two things. In the top center of our field of vision is a rear view mirror. This is akin to feedback. It allows us to look behind us, where we have already traveled.

The rest of our field of vision is directed through the windshield to what is in front of us. This view is akin to FeedForward. The windshield is not only much bigger than the rear view mirror - reflecting the much greater emphasis we place on FeedForward than on feedback - but more importantly, it is looking ahead to the future, which is the only place where a leader can make changes.

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Change behavior and perception in parallel Marshall Goldsmith was once asked, “What is harder to change: behavior or others’ perceptions of behavior?”

Goldsmith replied without hesitation, that perceptions are much harder to change.

Why would that be?

As hard as it is to change behavior, getting other people to notice and credit those changes is much, much harder. Human beings are “wired” to see what we expect to see. Our perceptions are incredibly resilient, and in order to notice change, we usually have to be consciously looking for it.

Further, let’s face it, most of us are wrapped up in our own lives, work, relationships, beliefs, likes/dislikes, etc. We really don’t pay close attention to other people’s daily behavior unless something causes us to do so.

Most coaching processes that don’t involve stakeholders expect the people around a leader to just notice the change without any prompting. That rarely happens. Stakeholder Centered Coaching asks the leader to tell stakeholders what he/she is trying to change, ask them to pay attention and provide both feedback and FeedForward.

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Perceived Change

% O

f Lea

ders

Sho

win

g Ch

ange

Results from 11,000 business leaders in 6 multinational companies on 4 continents. "Leadership is a Contact Sport" by Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan, Strategy & Business.

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3

0% 0% 1% 4% 9% 31% 55%

LESS EFECTIVE NO CHANGE MORE EFFECTIVE

95% OF LEADERS WHO INVOLVED STAKEHOLDERS IMPROVED

THEIR EFFECTIVENESS

The efficacy of the Stakeholder Centered Coaching approach has been clearly demonstrated. A comprehensive study among over 11,000 business leaders in eight multinational companies on four continents concluded that 95% of leaders who consistently applied the Stakeholder Centered Coaching process measurably improved their leadership effectiveness.1

What other coaching process can make that kind of claim?

What other coaching process even attempts to measure results?

Stakeholder CenteredCoaching Works

1Goldsmith, M. and Morgan, H., “Leadership is a Contact Sport”, Strategy + Business, September, 2004 8

rd&partners believes that coaching and leadership development should be viewed as business processes.

Like other business initiatives, they should be aligned to business and strategic goals, managed with a structured process, and measured for results.

In fact, our clients have determined that the bottom line ROI of our coaching engagements averages between $320K — $2.2M annually.

Engaging a leader’s stakeholders in the development process enables the leader him/ herself, the manager, and the organization to assess progress and to ensure the value of the resources — especially time — invested in the coaching process.

Further, rd&partners guarantees results. We only get paid in full if positive, measurable change is observed by stakeholders.

Try it for yourself

Now that you know why Stakeholder Centered Coaching works, and how Stakeholder Centered Coaching works, why not try it for yourself?

It will work for your organization. We guarantee it.

GUARANTEED RESULTS WITH A PROVEN ROI

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Rob Denker, Ph.D, MBA Sue Matson, MBA

Toll Free: 888-600-7457

As the Managing Principal of rd&partners,

Rob helps leaders consistently see tangible,

real-world benefits, by working with them

in a straightforward, honest and practical

way to make behavioral changes that are

directly linked to organization's strategic

initiatives, and their own effectiveness as

a leader.

As a business leader, consultant and

coach, Sue has focused throughout her

career on helping individual leaders and

teams grow in ways that create concrete

business results. She views coaching as

a measurable business process that

should deliver tangible results and ROI.

www.rdpusa.com

Master Certi�ed Coaches A�liated WithThe Marshall Goldsmith Group

EXECUTIVE COACHING