Life and Work – In Sync

“Lorna has been instrumental in assisting me in taking me and my business to a new level. Her knowledge and experience in the development of leadership teams and the ability to address key human issues have been essential for my business success.

If you are a CEO interested in getting the best out of your people, then Lorna is your best asset to accomplishing your goal”

Calgary CEO and Queens Diamond Jubilee Recipient, Dean Koeller

We coach executives, leaders and their teams to be open and honest with themselves and each other. What doesn’t get talked out, gets acted out. When people act out their discontent or disagreements it snowballs over time in very destructive ways – procrastination, withholding information, destructive competition, ‘forgetting’, making mistakes just to name a few.

We all have blind spots. We don’t know what we don’t know. Our coaching, helps clients understand how their current challenges may be rooted in original ways of coping or communicating, or relating that historically may have served a useful purpose, but does not anymore. These unconscious relational patterns are the repetitive ways people engage with others – trusting everyone, or trusting no-one for example. Delegating everything or delegating nothing. Deciding too quickly, deciding too slowly. Taking too many risks, taking too few. When trust is low change is threatening. Not trusting one’s self and not trusting others closes people off to discovering their inner motivations or the impact they have on others and learning to think more clearly, use their feelings constructively and act in ways that supports them to get what they want most – competence, connection, contribution.

We help clients clear away the fog to their thinking and generate options they couldn’t see before. We emphasize the need to develop a feelings vocabulary and facilitate skillfulness in recognizing and working with their own emotions and those of others. Lastly, it is the behavior that many coaching programs emphasize, but we begin with the deeper conversation about the needs, hopes or concerns in the clients mind and heart. We think changes in behavior naturally occur when feelings, thoughts and beliefs have been uncovered and the client has support to examine and change what isn’t working for them in today’s reality. Client’s behavior changes more and the change feels easier and easier with awareness and new skills. Behaviors follows where the mind and heart lead.

Through Executive Coaching, clients are helped to discover the drivers that have a compulsiveness to them, dig deeper into their assumptions, investigate their long-held beliefs, and uncover new perspectives toward themselves, other people and situations. The inner world of feelings becomes friendlier and new possibilities, for even the most difficult situations, emerge.

Our Executive Coaching programs can be tailored to the clients motivations. Some want a short term commitment of a few months and many choose to stay for much longer knowing their desires for growth and development never stops. Being authentic and present in our lives and leadership is an ongoing and enlivening process. Discovering the hidden aspects of ‘who am I’ and ‘what do I want’ takes a client to places not easily uncovered on their own. We are all more than we think we are – in all the best possible ways as leaders and as human beings. Becoming who I truly am and making a positive difference is a life long process of being fully one’s self.

Our coaching goes much deeper than assessing the day-to-day actions of leaders and helping them stay accountable to the goals they’ve set. Deciding the goal is the easy bit. Understanding what stops them from achieving what they say they want – that requires a depth in the coaching experience that engages leaders in understanding the unique and mostly hidden story that drives their life.

Through this program, leaders will have the power to change whatever isn’t working well for them by becoming aware of the components of their story and doing a re-write going forward – personally and professionally. We help clients let go of the past, and in the present moment facilitate a new decision, anchor a new perspective, make sense of emotions, and go forward with confidence.

At The Change Institute, our work embodies a model of change called Transactional Analysis. For over 50 years leaders have used these concepts to understand themselves and others in ways that result in a successful bottom line, that doesn’t compromise creating great places to work. Supported by research in neurobiology and brain function, our work facilitates deep and permanent change in our clients as they fully engage in their own change process.

“There are no failures – just experiences and your reactions”

Tom Krause

Why get a Leadership Coach?

An organization’s success hinges on people being empowered, engaged, supported and motivated. Companies that invest in the personal development of their executive leaders, rising stars and senior managers reap the benefits in their bottom-line results.