News & Insight

Join the 2020 Women on Boards/New York Chapter to discuss this year's strategic question:

"What will it take for the U.S. to become a global leader in the advancement of women to company boards?"

With over 20 years’ experience developing top leaders, Dr. Robert Patraw spearheads WJM’s High Impact Executive Coaching practice – a concentrated approach to development that involves fast and deep emersion followed by “field testing” of learned skills. Bob’s program is designed for critical situations where an executive is looking to change a core behavior over a short period of time, and to sustain that change over the long-term.

In this process, Bob and one additional WJM coach collaborate to provide an intensive offsite experience to the client receiving coaching. Various assessment instruments, 360° feedback, role playing and scenario planning are used to dramatically increase the executive’s self-awareness and rapidly empower him or her to enact the behavioral shifts desired by the sponsoring organization. Following the offsite, the leader receives ongoing coaching for several months to sustain gains, continue new behaviors and develop additional skills.

Tim Morin, CEO of WJM Associates and WJM Faculty member Helen Materazzi will be presenting at the 2014 GSC SHRM Annual Conference in Atlantic City on Monday, October 20 at 10:15am.

Over the past 17 years, WJM Associates has provided pre-employment and developmental assessments for thousands of professionals. This experience has convinced us that the Hogan Assessment Systems’ suite of products is among the most robust and valid for the entire life-cycle of an employee, including pre-employment selection, high-potential identification, development and derailment.

Dr. Chrys Kasapis has been coaching WJM’s clients for the past 15 years and is a member of our Advisory Board. She consistently receives positive reviews from leaders regarding her intelligence and tact in providing feedback and helping identify solid strategies for development.

Chrys was drawn to coaching by the opportunity to immediately impact the personal effectiveness of already highly-functioning people. She still recalls the first time she witnessed the transformation of a leader by her guided self-awareness process. Chrys has an uncanny knack for identifying personality traits and behaviors that enhance and diminish an individual’s capacity to lead. Relating these personal attributes to a systems perspective allows her to guide clients regarding how they function within a team and within the organization as a whole.

Sally*, the keynote speaker, told a personal story that hit a nerve. Everyone cringed. It wasn’t even on her main topic. But this is what I walked away thinking about, and am pondering still.

Sally told us a story about a manager (I’ll call him Bert) whose special talent was “demotivation.” This particular manager displayed truly impressive skills in his ability to discourage, deject, even emotionally eviscerate, his own employees. Bert was consistent, thorough, and reliable in his techniques, leaving a trail of comatose bodies and vacant office chairs in his wake.

I have been thinking about this for a while and watching….parent behavior in the pick up line at school. There are so many interesting behaviors that translate directly into the workplace setting and how we interact as leaders.

I was recently speaking to some senior leaders about motiving their teams. One executive brought up a topic, the motivational power of which I think is underestimated by team leaders: Manners. Yes, it might sound trite, but the workplace is comprised of people; people with emotions and motivational needs. And the team members model themselves after the leader.

Hear WJM’s Scott Gingold talk to WCBS’s Joe Connolly about why companies hire WJM Associates to provide coaching to their top talent:

Click here! (30 seconds)

Named to Fortune magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Women, Diane Gulyas served 36 years at E. I. du Pont de Nemours (DuPont), one of the world’s largest chemical companies. Her roles included President of the $4 billion Performance Polymers, President of the $3 billion Electronics and Communications, and President of $1 billion Advanced Fibers units. She also served as Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, a role in which she was responsible for corporate branding and marketing communications, market research, e-business and marketing/sales capability worldwide.

As an executive coach, I have worked with hundreds of people in all types of organizations. Each person has their own story, of course – a unique narrative that includes their skills, experience, strengths, weaknesses, and relationships. While every engagement is different, these people all have one thing in common; their boss always plays a central role in the story. That’s why my first coaching question is “what does your boss really want from you?

Now, some of my clients have great bosses, so they discuss the relationship briefly and move on. However, a lot of clients don’t work for a great boss. They’re not clear about her views, or don’t understand what she really wants… and all of this is impacting their performance, engagement, and happiness. I was seeing this dynamic so often in my work that I decided to write What Your Boss Really Wants From You (Berrett-Koehler, 2014).

Online personality tests are used extensively for employee selection and development at all levels. To gain maximum value from such an investment, it helps to be aware of some of the potential pitfalls of these tools.

When they work as intended, these instruments are quick and relatively inexpensive and can generate useful insights into how people are likely to behave, including task related work style, emotional resilience and approach to dealing with people.

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