Transtion with Me, Step by Step - Day 02

Transition with Me, Step by Step
By Nahid Casazza – Day Two

So, I completed my brainstormed list of 20 proudest moments. I did this quickly – and although I’m not going to share all of them, I’ll share a few – so you can get a feel for how quickly this can be done:

1. VRAM project at KTC
2. YOSS project at Yoh, including the presentation in front of the owner and the award for personnel development
3. The presentation at KTC where I spontaneously came up with the Tosh issue to explain to a client why we had to keep our part numbers separate
4. Managing to take an entire month off and then come back and bring the business back last year
5. The ICF presidency – coach week plus leadership
6. The models I created (the game, the stages of change, the hierarchy of obstacles, VOPA, etc.)
7. The articles I write in short time periods – some of them pretty good

Notice that some of the proudest moments are tangible projects, others are things I am able to do well, consistently. Notice that I didn’t get into a lot of detail – it’s important that I know what it was about each of these things that made me feel especially good about it, but in my initial list – I’m writing as little as possible – just enough to jog my memory. Although you can’t see it here, I also included compliments/acknowledgments people gave me that meant a lot to me, because they were reflections of what I did well that I believed and felt good about.

Now – when I’m done with the list – what do I do? Remember that there are several stages in this transition process, and the results of this exercise can be used in many of the stages. But in stage one we are using it to identify our strengths. So what I did is look for the themes that came up over and over again in my list of 20 accomplishments. I came up with seven themes, and every single one of my accomplishments touched on at least one of the seven; usually they touched on several:

1. Pulling something together in an extremely short period of time (2-3 weeks for projects that are often in the planning stages for several months to a year, a couple of hours for writing projects that would normally take days or weeks)
2. Remembering / Depth of Knowledge – patterns and how things fit together, so that I can easily bring up pertinent knowledge and examples when an issue comes up during a presentation or conversations. This also applies to coaching.
3. Presenting / Facilitation – not showy at all, but the ability to bring clarity to a concept, and to generate open discussion about it.
4. Coming up with Models that make complicated concepts easy to get
5. Writing summaries, notes, programs, presentations, and articles
6. Ongoing personal development (my own – which has then increased my knowledge in this field)
7. Leading groups / group projects

How do you come up with your themes? I came up with mine by asking myself – “what got this item on the proudest moments list?” The items on the proudest moments list are really just examples of different ways your strengths show up – so my goal is to find the strength underneath, and the way to get there is to ask – what made me proud of this moment? For example, in number one, (the VRAM project) I am proud that I took something that would normally require several months and did it in three weeks – and it was done in a way that made it sustainable. This was also reflected in about five other of my examples, and also came up in some of my writing and content related accomplishments. So, the theme showed up over and over again.

Once I’ve identified a short list of themes – I take a closer look at my themes to see what my strengths are. In my case the themes all talk about something specific that I can do well, so I just say those are my seven strengths. In your case, it might be more complicated, and sometimes you need to get someone to go through your list and analyze it with you.

Once you have identified your strengths – your next step is to map it to your overall goal. So, remember I said I wanted to work in leadership? If I look at my strengths (leading groups, presenting, creating models, writing), what makes most sense for me is to create a hybrid program for small groups that includes models that I have developed, and incorporates some teaching into the coaching.

Although there are still many “leadership” companies that have their own models and I still have the competitive issue to deal with, it’s always best to play to your own strengths. The other thing that works here is that I can be quick when it comes to building programs – so I wont get so lost in spending a year to come up with the perfect model. So maybe there will be a way for me to differentiate myself based on that.

However, now it’s time to STOP strategizing, and review. The five phases are:

1. Internal Discovery
2. External Discovery
3. Target Needs Identification
4. Strategy
5. Execution

I, like many people, could get lost in internal discovery for a very long time, and you’ll notice that my mind jumped to problem solving and wanting to create the ideal program. But now it’s time to set what I’ve learned on the table and move to phase two – external discovery. This means talking to people.

In external discovery, my job is to talk to others who have done what I am planning to do and hear their stories. I’m NOT going to ask them to help me get into what they do, I’m NOT going to ask them what they think I should do. This is not about me – it’s about learning from people who are several steps ahead of me on their journey. And, by hearing their stories, getting some feel for what I might be getting myself into.

Usually, I recommend talking to five people and having no more than five questions. The way to go about this is to start with the things I worry the most about, and come up with questions for them related to this. So, here goes (raw fear) – this is what I worry about:

1. Nobody is going to hire me
2. I have no idea how to start the conversation
3. I don’t know how to get into a corporation
4. I don’t know how to make myself different than others / don’t know what the competition is doing/ not sure how people are pricing themselves
5. Don’t know what pitfalls I might not know about

Those are my biggest fears (at this point – more may come up later). Now, I simply translate these fears into questions I can ask people about THEIR journeys. Here is my list of questions:

1. How did you get hired into your first leadership coaching assignment? After that how did you build your client base?
2. How do you start your conversation with prospective customers?
3. How have you managed to get into corporations?
4. How have you differentiated yourself from other leadership coaches? Have you run into competition and how have you handled it / how does it impact you?
5. Where do you generally price yourself and / or where do you notice most companies pricing themselves?
6. As you built your leadership coaching practice, what surprised you and tripped you up?

In the Aspyrre step by step program, you find at least five people, ask no more than five questions, and ask to talk to each of them on the telephone for 20 minutes. We even have a step by step process to go through if you can’t find people to talk to. Luckily, I am a member of the coach federation, so I know some coaches who are in leadership. Also, I will ask everyone I talk to if they know of other leadership coaches who might be willing to talk to me. If I’m respectful of their time, it usually isn’t a problem to find and talk to enough people.

So this is my commitment. I will not do this in just one day, but I will commit to having it done in two weeks. Five “informational conversations” with five established leadership coaches, to hear their stories, and document what I’ve learned.

You can do this too – let’s get started!