“We have 90 offices with 30,000 employees and more than €50 billion assets under management.” I interrupt the ambitious young real estate consultant’s presentation to ask: “Is this the first slide you will be showing in the major pitch you have been preparing?”
Why should anyone be coached by you?
„All of us are destined to shine like children do“. These words by Nelson Mandela came to me, shortly after an executive coaching session with a division manager from the finance industry. We had talked about our inner shares and related attitudes (child-attitude, parent-attitude and adult-attitude). We also discussed which attitude is the most useful in maintaining your self-efficacy in today’s challenging environment. While transaction analysis is all about the integration of these three shares, in coaching we use the power of the inner adult to set and achieve our goals, whilst being generous, brave and open to gain experience.
Narcissus, the young man from Greek mythology, fell in love with his own reflection in a pond and ultimately drowned in his attempt to get too close to his own image. Leaders with narcissistic tendencies fit perfectly into both the modern business world and also the political system. Donald Trump or Silvio Berlusconi are perfect examples for this phenomenon in the political domain while business leaders like Elon Musk (Tesla) or Thomas Middelhoff (Arcandor) are prominent cases for the business world.
Executives often fall - after several years in the same position - internally sidelined and wait there for too long (for different reasons) before actively seeking the confrontation with their employer. The result: Most executives come to the conclusion that they should have tackled this issue much earlier.
The US-American Dan Buettner is an extreme sportsman, adventurer and author of National Geographic. On his expeditions to various parts of the world he had become aware of a phenomenon that he first reported in 2005: the "Blues Zones". These are geographical regions which are characterized by a significantly higher life expectancy than in the rest of the world. One of these "Blue Zones" is the Okinawa archipelago, which belongs to Japan today. Japan's southernmost prefecture consists of 363 islands, on which a total of 1.3 million people are living. 900 of these inhabitants are 100 years and older, which is an unusually high life expectancy even for Japanese conditions. The average life expectancy for men there is 86 years while German or US-American men on average only become 78 years old.
Leaving our comfort zone often requires accepting a certain loss of control going alongside with the feeling of fear. This is nothing that executives particularly fancy – however it is key to success in today’s world.
There I was sitting. Already 25 minutes in the anteroom of the CEO, waiting. Not that I had been warned in advance that my conversation partner would be extremely busy. But of course I had shown up perfectly in time for the clearing conversation for one of his top managers from the first management level, responsible for 16.000 employees in more than 20 locations.
Originally I had suggested a meeting among the three of us. So, we could start coaching process with the same basis. But this suggestion was crushed by the CEO’s secretary weeks ago. He wanted to speak with me alone, the matter was critical.
Networking
She was standing in the back of the room thinking to herself "Why am I doing this? I could be at home on my couch relaxing and watching my favorite TV show..." Instead she was struggling to take the next two steps into the room, locate herself at one of the tables and start a conversation with someone she didn't know. Ah, here comes the waiter with a tray of wine glasses - a secure haven at least for a few moments since the relationship and the mutual expectations are clear - a glass of wine in exchange for a warm ‘thank you’.
A booming industry provides an encouraging ground for new entrepreneurs - be it through start-ups, spin-offs or management buy-outs. So does the real estate industry. However, not all of these start-up’s and spin-offs become equally successful - despite the fertile environment they incubate in. This is rarely a result of overconfidence of the new leaders, lack of market access or bad deals, but rather a lack of investment in the partnering on the top of the company - the newly found leadership team.
