Depending on your answer, she’ll help you build on your strengths so you can pull yourself toward your goals, step by small step. She’ll also hold you accountable.

Although Kauffman is a psychologist, this is coaching, not therapy. Codirector of the new Institute of Coaching at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, she is working to solidify the growing body of evidence-based research supporting the relatively new field that is often defined by what it is not.

“Therapy helps you overcome the challenges of the past and coaching helps you very clearly identify your vision of the future,” she said. “Coaching is a process of change that revolves around strengths and potential, rather than feelings of pathology and pain.”

There are executive coaches who encourage leadership, wellness coaches who help people become more fit, and health coaches who focus on preventing disease or coping with illness. And there are life coaches who step in when people are stuck, at work or in relationships. Moving forward is the mantra, in tune with positive psychology, which Kauffman defines as “the study of what is right with us and what makes life worth living.”

Coaching has a new research home at McLean, funded by philanthropist and coach Ruth Ann Harnisch. A pilot program at a Massachusetts General Hospital primary care practice is testing whether its health coaches can deliver improvements in blood pressure or diabetes control. But the field is still without national agreement on accreditation. Insurance companies do not cover the cost of coaching, which can range from $50 for one-on-one consultations to $500 per hour for high-end executive coaching. Kauffman’s institute will not train or certify coaches but will make grants to researchers who will build on existing studies that investigate how coaching works to help people make changes in their lives.

“People need to know this isn’t just happy talk,” Kauffman said. “This is great science.”

At a time of year when change for the better tops many people’s to-do lists, coaching has intuitive appeal. Kauffman also said there’s a bottom-line case to be made: People who are flourishing in their lives, with high levels of well-being, cost the health-care system less, she said, citing research by Emory sociologist and positive psychology proponent Corey Keyes.

Susan DiGiovanni of Reading says coaching saved her life. Thunderstruck by a July recurrence of breast cancer, she turned to a wellness coach to navigate her way through a new life in which just getting out of bed to make a cup of tea was a struggle. She had superb medical care, but was emotionally, physically, spiritually, and mentally devastated by her Stage 4 diagnosis.

“I needed to find someone who could not only navigate the hospital system, but help me reach out to other opportunities, based on my own individual needs,” she said.

In September she met Margaret Moore, co-director with Kauffman of the Institute of Coaching and founder of Wellesley-based Wellcoaches, at a symposium on coaching and leadership in medicine. When they began working together, Moore asked DiGiovanni to write down 10 things that make her feel alive or give her purpose. Faith was her first one, so Moore suggested she start each day with 15 minutes of prayer and meditation. Family was next, followed by friends and being in nature. Going down the list, they found ways to connect with what helped her.

“We totally focused on her future and achieving her dream. I’m not talking about her cancer treatment, unless she wants to tell me about it,” Moore said. “We are working on how she’s building a new career, how she’s working with her teenage kids, how she’s moving into a new house.”

DiGiovanni says the process gave her inner healing. “Most people think of wellness coaching as, ‘Jog three miles, eat a lot of salad, take your vitamins, and do a yoga class.’ It’s so much deeper.”

At MGH Back Bay, nutrition and exercise may very well be prescribed, but not in such a top-down fashion, according to Dr. Edward Phillips, director and founder of Harvard’s Institute of Lifestyle Medicine as well as director of outpatient medical services at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Network. His interest is in motivating people to exercise and he sees coaching as an effective, efficient way to deliver health messages to patients at risk for serious medical conditions.

At the primary care office, he asks patients with high blood pressure if they are ready, willing, and able to make changes that could improve their health. If they say yes, he suggests simple changes they can make right away: walking 500 extra steps, drinking two extra glasses of water a day, or brushing their teeth earlier at night and not eating afterward. In a follow-up appointment or phone call, he asks if they would like to continue with a health coach. A pilot program will track blood pressure levels to see if coaching made a difference. Next on the coaching list will be monitoring blood sugar levels for people with type 2 diabetes or at risk for it.

“We’re helping people modify health behaviors that they want to change so they can make sustainable lifestyle changes,” he said.

Jamie Johnson, who coached high school and college sports teams and managed a wellness center for a heath insurer before coming to MGH Back Bay, works with patients in the 12-week pilot program. She assesses their eating habits, nutrition, stress, emotional well-being, and life satisfaction as well as their physical activity.

“My clients want to change their lives and they create the agenda for how we conduct our coaching sessions,” she said. “It’s all about what they want to do. I help people identify their values and what their strengths are.”

Phyllis Cohen, who from time to time has been coached by Kauffman, said she passes on lessons about identifying strengths through her own job as a career counselor. “I’m able to help them feel more positive about what they have to offer the world of work and about how they can handle their lives and job search in a different way.”

Building on strengths is the hallmark of positive psychology, which Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania says can provide the “scientific and theoretical backbone” to coaching, whose lack of standards concerns him.

“One need not be a licensed psychologist, or even a psychologist, to practice positive psychology or to practice coaching,” Seligman, often called the father of positive psychology, wrote in the journal Australian Psychologist.

Dr. Steven Berglas, a former McLean psychiatrist now an executive coach in California, worries that untrained coaches will not recognize mental illness when they see it. “With people who are in [serious psychological] trouble, I get them a shrink. Otherwise, I say I can’t help you.”

Dr. Peter Metz, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at University of Massachusetts Medical School, said there is room for both therapy and coaching to work together. Children and adults diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, for example, do well with psychiatric treatment as well as coaching on how to use their strengths to meet specific challenges. Coaching “can definitely have a psychotherapeutic benefit. It can help people feel better and do better, which is the goal of therapy.”

Before embarking on a coaching relationship, he said, a mental health assessment may be in order. Medications or psychotherapy can complement and enhance the impact and effectiveness of the coaching.

“If you have pneumonia, you need an antibiotic. If you have depression you’ve got to get treatment,” Metz said. “It’s not an either/or; it’s a both/and.”

Coaches do refer people to get the help they need, said Moore, who through the McLean Institute and Wellcoaches is working on national standards for coach training and certification. “When that kind of stuff comes up - a marriage problem, an eating disorder, anything that verges on depression - coaches will say, ‘This is beyond my scope and it looks like this would need attention for you to get where you want to go.’ ”

Kauffman agrees. “Therapy is something very sacred and powerful. Coaching is something else. Coaching is a different process of change.”

New Decade and New Year

Today, Monday January 4, is not only the start of a new business year but a new decade as well.  Whether you’re a top producer or on the bottom of your company’s sales board, whether you’re an old sales pro or fresh out of school, you start today, this year, this decade with the opportunity to create a completely new future.

Maybe 2009 wasn’t what you wanted it to be–that is certainly the case for a great many of us.

Maybe the 21st century hasn’t lived up to your expectations yet.

Put all of that behind you now.

The Timing is Right for Actualizing the Possible
I’m not a mystic, but there are times when there seems to be a shift in the universe, where what was, no longer has to be, and where the possible really can become the actual.

Of course, we preach turning the possible into the actual all the time, irrespective of the day, the year, the decade.  And it is true, we can turn the possible into the actual at anytime.  But the turn of the decade seems to present a unique opportunity, one where change seems to come a little easier and where the impact of change seems more dramatic.  It’s a natural time for new beginnings.

The Change You Want Won’t Happen by Accident
Even though this is the year to turn your possibilities into actualities; it isn’t going to happen unless you make it happen.  Thomas Jefferson observed about his own life that “the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”

You too can have luck smile upon you by doing what Jefferson did his entire life–make your own luck.  Jefferson was born into a family where he had money and status.  He could have just sat back and drifted along with few worries.  Instead, he saw possibilities for a new nation that would give citizens more freedom than nation had ever been known.  He, like many of his contemporaries, wanted to turn that possibility into reality.  He invested his time, money, and energy, willing to risk everything he had–including his life–in order turn the possibility into actuality.  And his willingness to invest all he had resulted in changing his future from one of a soft, lazy gentleman of means to one of the most important figures in history.

Like Jefferson, you must be willing to make the commitment and the short-term sacrifice to turn your possibilities into reality.  Fortunately for us, we aren’t risking our life, just our time, energy, and at bit of our resources.  Nevertheless, turning our possibilities into reality can be just as life changing for us as fathering a new nation was for Jefferson.

1.    Figure Out Where You Want to Go: Unless you know where you are going, you’re just drifting aimlessly–maybe you’ll drift somewhere you want to be, maybe you won’t.  Set specific, measurable goals.  At a minimum set goals for:

a.    Gross sales dollars
b.    Number of new client’s
c.    Number of sales
d.    Monthly and annual income
2.    Figure Out Where You Need Help: Examine your strengths and weaknesses, then figure out where you need specific help.  Is you weakness prospecting?  Maybe it’s building a relationship based on trust?  Possibly it’s in the area of persuasion.  Maybe you have several areas of concern.  If so, which area if improved would have the most immediate and/or dramatic impact on your career?

3.    Get Help NOW: Now that you know where you need help, it’s time to put your time, energy, and money on the line–acquire the help.  Whether it’s a book, CD, webinar, seminar, or sales coach, don’t hesitate, get it and get it now.  Yes, you’ll have to work, you may well have to spend some of your hard earned cash, and you’ll have to change your behavior which is always hard to do.  In other words, it probably won’t be comfortable and there won’t be a guaranteed result.
Once you’ve overcome one area of weakness, start on another.  Although we never get to the point where we have perfected our sales skills, over time we will continue to get better and better.

4.    Eradicate Your Failure Demon: Many of us have to deal with more than just weaknesses that limit our potential for success; we also must deal with a personal demon that is actively blocking us from success.  That demon can come in many forms.  It may be one that whispers “you can’t” or “that’s going to be hard, leave it until tomorrow.”  Once you believe the demon that you can’t, you can’t; once he convinces you to leave it until tomorrow, tomorrow will never come.

The “you can’t” and “leave it until tomorrow” demons haunt many of us, but even more common is the “you don’t deserve it” demon.  The “you don’t deserve it” demon takes our history and turns it into a bat to bludgeon us with.  Because we failed in the past, because we didn’t do this or that, because we don’t believe we’re good enough, because we don’t believe we’ve worked hard enough, because, because, because whatever, we don’t deserve to succeed.  The “you don’t deserve it” demon is incredibly powerful.  It can defeat the best training, the best product offering, the strongest success commitment.  It wears on us and influences us to unconsciously sabotage our potential success.

If we want to succeed, we must defeat our failure demon, for, if we leave it to continue working on our psyche, we have little chance of success.  We must recognize our demon and then recognize that its argument is false–we can if we want to, we don’t have to put off until tomorrow what should be done today, and we do deserve success.  We must give ourselves permission to succeed–and then be ever mindful not to let our personal demon creep back in.

5.    Don’t Settle for Failure: The above steps are critical but they’re still not enough.  You have to make the commitment to succeed.  Yes, you have to know where you’re going and you certainly have to improve your skills.  In addition you have to eradicate your failure demon.  But you still haven’t done enough.  You have to commit yourself to succeeding–to putting in the time and the effort, to seeing enough prospects, making enough presentations, signing enough contracts.  You have to be willing to not quit until you’ve met your goals.

Too many of us are willing to settle toward the end of the month for just getting close. We convince ourselves that we’ll make it up next month.  Of course, we don’t.  We just keep settling and the next thing you know; we need a miracle to meet our goals. Settling is just another word for failure.

Now is the time to make your possibility into your reality.  Take the steps necessary, commit yourself to improving your skills, eradicate your failure demon, and refuse to settle, and you’ll find that a new year and a new decade can create a new life for you and your family.

Many busy professionals put off success coaching because they’re afraid of the time commitment. They fear weekly one-hour appointments stretching on indefinitely. Because of that fear, they miss out on the benefits of feedback from a professional coach on life, work and success issues.

Laser coaching removes the fear of long-term commitment. With laser coaching, clients hone down their concerns to one bite-sized piece that can be addressed in a single hour. Client and coach work intensively for one hour on that specific issue, and emerge with an action plan. No further sessions are necessary. Additional laser coaching on different topics can always be added without ongoing commitment.

Laser coaching works best in the following situations:

Situation #1: The client can narrowly define the behavior or obstacle and is clear about its impact. Because laser coaching has only one hour, there’s no time to dig into the past or uncover cause and effect. The client should come prepared with a clearly defined problem and objective. For example, a client who is fearful about pulling together a major presentation could meet with a coach to devise strategies for organizing and presenting the material, along with positive reinforcement techniques.

Situation #2: The problem involves interpersonal relationships such as a problem boss or a difficult colleague. Laser coaching can help develop skills for dealing with difficult people that manage conflict successfully. It deals with the here-and-now, not untangling long-standing patterns.

Situation #3: The problem is part of a larger issue that can be broken into smaller related pieces. For example, a client who fears public speaking may choose to deal with that fear over a series of laser coaching sessions spread out at her convenience as budget permits. One session might deal with techniques for speaking to a small group, while another session might cover body language and gestures. By breaking a big topic into smaller pieces, it’s possible to make progress without a long-term coaching commitment.

Situation #4: The client has one or two concerns but is otherwise confident about his/her life and career. If a client only needs help with one or two defined concerns, laser coaching makes sense as a time-efficient and cost-effective way to get results.

Situation #5: A client wants to check out a coach before making a long-term commitment. Starting with one or two laser coaching sessions is a great way to make sure you and the coach are a good fit.

By making coaching a defined project with a beginning, objective and clear end, laser coaching as a technique appeals to many busy professionals. Most importantly, laser coaching makes success coaching accessible to more people than ever before, helping professionals become more confident, productive and fulfilled.

Coaching has come a long way since the days when companies engaged coaches to help fix toxic behavior at the top. Today, most coaches are hired to help develop high performers, and having one is almost a badge of honor. That can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, who wouldn’t want a coach? On the other, the experience may inadvertently result in overdependence on your coach - a situation that can in itself be toxic. But though coaches in our survey worried openly about the number of charlatans operating in the field, they were evenly divided about whether certification is necessary to ensure that coaches have the necessary skills to deal with such difficult issues as executive dependency, depression, and anxiety, which are more predominant than commonly thought. Surprisingly, perhaps, training as a psychologist ranked second from the bottom in the credentials that coaches deem necessary to be a good executive coach. Experience coaching in a similar setting emerged as the main qualification that coaches say companies should look for when hiring an executive coach.

Other important findings of the survey are that there is considerable overlap between coaching and consulting, and coaching and therapy, suggesting that coaching is a new area that still borrows a lot from other fields. What makes coaching different from therapy, though, and more like consulting is that coaching is a three-way relationship among the executive, the organization and the coach. That raises thorny questions of confidentiality. Despite the seduction of doing so, you may not want to turn your coach into a therapist as there may be unwanted organizational repercussions.

So where is coaching headed? Most of the respondents to our survey replied that the field is still in its adolescence and that it will only continue to grow in the long term, despite the economic downturn. To keep the field growing, however, coaches will increasingly need to provide hard quantitative data about their added value. To date, very little exists. That’s disconcerting when you think that it costs on average $500 an hour to engage a coach, about the price of a top-notch psychiatrist in Manhattan. Not small potatoes

To read the article What Can Coaches Do For You? visit hbr.org. Complete results from the coaches survey are available at coachingreport.hbr.org.

The Edmond Sun

EDMOND — We recognize great leadership and seek it. We appreciate great leadership and need it more than ever. Great leaders are rare and we struggle to find them. Today we face a shortage of exemplary leaders in all walks of life. This calls for the training, preparation and inspiration of the next generation for leadership. This must begin in elementary school. Leadership development should be a part of curriculum. Our task is not just teaching management skills but effective leadership. Greatness is up to the individual.

The financial debacle exposed failings of many CEOs in varied industries. Without vision, many abandoned responsibilities and ethics, driven by personal gain. Scandal among elected officials is too commonplace. These few have affected confidence in leaders in general and have a chilling effect on those seeking public office for the right reasons.

Our president works to project confidence and integrity. He inspires hope. Whether he can resolve the economic crisis is unknown. However, like Roosevelt before in such times, President Obama is a visionary, knowing optimism is key to holding off despair. While Roosevelt’s policies failed to completely resolve the Great Depression, he did inspire hope at a critical moment when people needed that most. Regardless of political persuasion or disagreement, leadership that instills confidence helps avert panic and hopelessness. We should be grateful for that at least. Together let’s establish a new age of reason by instilling the qualities we expect of the greatest in the hearts of our youth.

Are great leaders born or made? This is debatable. The right qualities, with life experiences, mold most into leaders in time. Some, like the soldier assuming responsibility in combat, are self made. Defining leadership is elusive. Webster’s says it is: “guidance; capacity to guide; stepping in front.” This misses the human essence of leadership, which is a unique and complex combination of experience, vision, ethics, empathy, integrity, values, conviction and courage. There are effective leaders who will become great leaders. We have to train graduates for effective leadership, trusting they will aspire to greatness.

We often confuse managers with leaders. Leaders inspire us to things unseen or paths not taken. Good managers do not necessarily make good leaders. However, good leaders are inherently good managers. Businesses focus on training managers, assuming they are creating leaders. Leadership training enables managers with the tools to grow into leaders.

No textbook can create the qualities of leadership. No rules or axioms alone suffice. Only the stories of proven leaders bring leadership to life. Understanding their journeys is formative to leadership development. Winston Churchill wrote, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” Hard to teach, this is best revealed in context of actual decisions. The trials of life can teach and inspire. Failure and perseverance contribute as much in shaping a leader as success. Styles of leaders vary — some try to lead by fear, others delegation, inspiration or command with the same outcome. Yet, style alone is not enough. Followers develop lasting perspectives of those they willingly chose to follow. Respect is earned.

Abraham Lincoln is a remarkable study in leadership. Self taught with little formal education, ungainly and disheveled, he was no image of a leader. Scholars note despite this people rallied to him when he spoke because they sensed integrity of conviction in his voice. His actions reinforced he was working for them. He was genuine. He found strength in spirituality. It took one term of his presidency to earn the confidence of a nation. At the most trying time he emerged a leader of integrity, empathy, strength and vision shaped by his own humble and tragic journey.

Many reach the highest positions without ever understanding the tenant of service, not self. Emphasizing leadership as a basic course is vital in helping students recognize the responsibility of service. To aspire to lead is a noble endeavor few chose for the right reasons. We cannot assume leaders are born. Teaching students to embrace leadership as an achievable quality is the foundation for future leaders in society

“Like The Da Vinci Code?” Jinda teases.

“You could say that this is The Da Vinci Code for leadership. The authors say leadership has two principal parts: the leadership code, and the differentiators. The code represents about 60-70% of what makes an effective leader. It represents the fundamentals or essence of leadership. The differentiators may vary by strategy, vision and individual job requirements. Mastering the code becomes the foundation on which effective leadership is established.”

“What is the code, then?”

I explain the five codes that effective leaders must live by:

1. Leaders must invest in themselves to be personally proficient. Effective leaders manage their physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual selves well. They learn constantly and deepen their insights about themselves. They are capable of quick, bold actions, as well as great patience. This is especially true in tough economic times when people look to their leaders for hope and confidence.

2. Good leaders know how to be strategists and can answer the question “Where are we going?” They test their big ideas pragmatically, and they work with others to find the path from the present to the desired future.

3. Effective leaders are executors. They ask: “How will we ensure that we reach our goal?” They understand how to make change happen, assign accountability, delegate appropriately, and make sure that teams work well together.

4. They are talent managers and engage people to get things done now, in a manner that generates intense personal, professional and organisational loyalty.

5. Finally, they are human-capital developers who build the next generation of leaders with the skills, knowledge, behaviours and attitudes for future strategic success.

“Do all leaders need to exhibit all of these abilities in equal measure?” Jinda asks.

“The authors say all effective leaders must be personally proficient. They must have integrity, they must be trustworthy, and willing to learn. In addition, most people tend to have a predisposition or strength in one of the other areas.

“For example, many frontline leaders have to be skilled executors and talent managers to get things done. But as they reach more senior levels, they must become proficient in all of the areas.”

“How do you evaluate leaders in Thailand according to the code?”

“I classify them in three groups: private-sector, public-sector, and political leaders.

“Private-sector leaders in Thailand are quite strong on self-investment, strategy and vision. They are executors and talent managers. But they’re not that good at human-capital development. There may be two causes: the shortage of strong human capital, and the fact that the leaders are too caught up in their own jobs.

“Public-sector leaders are good executors. But they are not so good at vision, engaging with talent, or developing future leaders and themselves. To give you an example, last year I offered an executive coaching service by waiving a fee of 900,000 baht to coach four senior officers in one ministry. After several meetings, they declined my offer. They said that even though they were interested in it, they did not have time.

“For political leaders, I think the majority are good executors. They are high achievers, but again, many are weak at vision, self-development, engaging with talent, and the worst part, developing future leaders. The majority invest heavily in relationship building and networking.”

“What else have you learned from this book?”

“I haven’t finished it yet. But the authors do propose several practical examples that you can apply in the real world. They also provide several tools and checklists to assess your current level on each rule.”

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