Coaching

How We Approach Coaching

We consider coaching to be quite different from our standard consulting arrangement. In coaching, we usually focus on personal improvement. We will partner with you in assessing your strengths and improvement areas, then craft a series of goals or targets to get you to where you want to be.

These are your goals. We're there simply to serve as a coach and partner to "get you there". We also help in adjusting and improving the goals based on your growth and changes in your landscape of challenge.

We'll use terms like partner, guide and coach to define our relationship. All work together to describe our shared goal - your growth and learning.

The First Step

The coaching engagement begins with a free, 1 hour assessment. We prefer a face-to-face discussion, but can effectively conduct the meeting by phone as well. We will sit down and discuss your goals and thinking behind acquiring a coach.

In our experience, there are usually 2-3 key drivers that have led you to this action. We will explore them and look for deeper root causes and fundamental improvement or challenge areas. We will also look for a match to our coaching skills. If there is one, great. If not, we will recommend other coaching resources.

Beyond key drivers, we also determine if there is a personality & style match between us. Coaching is very much about personality synchronization, comfort and trust. We need to determine if there is that level of match as well.

Finally, we will discuss next steps and put together a Coaching Plan that will cover our next actions or steps.

Coaching Plan

Our jointly crafted coaching plan is the core of the engagement. In it we will document our rules of engagement including:

	Focus areas for the coaching
	Key goals we want to achieve, interim milestones for each and overall targets
	Format of coaching (in person, email, phone or a combination of all three)
	Time-frame for coaching (how often we meet and for how long)
	Overall length of coaching plan and cost agreement

Coaching Can Take the Form Of...

There are many aspects of software management and team leadership that are simply "not taught". Effectiveness comes by hard fought battles and experience; from successes, mistakes and long term learning. We've developed deep and pragmatic experience and welcome the opportunity to share it.

Oft times, you simply need a "sounding board" and another perspective to help you arrive at a solution or a particular direction. Areas that can be covered might include:

	Team reorganization, fine tuning and personnel actions
	Critical project start-ups
	Personal growth and guidance to achieve the "next level"
	Project retrospectives and team or effort resets
	Where to focus your time for outstanding results
	Career re-balancing, focusing on work vs. life balance

Personalization

Keep in mind that each coaching engagement is a very personal interaction. Typically the goals are in areas of weakness, exposure or improvement, where there is high intent to change and / or improve quickly. There are no hard and fast rules, other than our combined energy in accelerating towards your goals.

To that end, each engagement is personalized to your needs. This isn't a time for cookie cutter solutions or canned classes. We'll work together to create a unique program that maximizes your growth and focuses your energy.

For more information or questions regarding our coaching practice please email - info@rgalen.com

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