YOU – George Schofield

You are smart, interested in investing in yourself and your future, facing a level of complexity and speed of change for which you were not trained. This is no longer an era in which a formulaic X number of repeatable steps will yield dependable results. You would benefit from working with someone trained in new ways of thinking and acting. You like the idea of working with someone with whom you can move towards crafting a really smart action plan, someone who will help you hold yourself accountable for progress and incremental due dates. You like the idea of working with an experienced professional outside of your usual, familiar network.

Another set of eyes and ears is helpful, too.

Don’t Call Me Coach – by George Schofield

I’m leading a life that has lots of learning attached to it. Lots of success and a few failures along the way. I will have to act, write, and speak in ways that are consistent with what I need. Let’s start with our common notion of Coach.

I know for sure I don’t want to be called “Coach”. Here’s why.

“I used to be able to make a plan, stick to it, achieve my goal, and then happily start all over again. My company and my industry were solid. Now my profession is basically gone. I don’t just need skills training. I need a whole makeover from attitude to thinking to networking to something to look forward to. And it’s clear I can’t do it by myself.” Female Client, age 57

Maybe you are clear about what you want but not how to get there.

“I am relatively new to my job as a COO of a medium sized manufacturing company. My problem is that the company, especially including my own people, are stuck in But This Is The Way We’ve Always Done It. I can’t just fire everyone and I need to build a team quickly. Where to start for maximum progress in the smallest amount of time?” Business Leader Client, age 39

“I want to be married again someday. Politics – and the rhetoric of party differences – cost us our marriage and it was the focus of my non-work life. Where do I start?” Client, age 43

Or you could be concerned that what you want won’t be there anymore when you arrive.

“We want to retire in 20 years. We’ve picked out the place. It’s a perfect match for what we want. Will what we want in 20 years still be the same? How can we nail this down permanently?” Client Married Couple, late 40s

Or you aren’t at all clear about what you really want but want, impossibly, to have everything nailed down before you set foot on the path forward.

“All of my training and success until this point has involved having a detailed plan, preferably with spread sheets, and working like the dickens to make sure it happened. I get that this way of being isn’t going to work for me but I have no idea what to replace it with.” Client, age 37

Or you have been a great task animal and linear planner but are discovering the hard way that transformative thinking and adaptive planning are the new best practices.

“I tried coaching my kid, a recent college graduate. He’s having trouble finding a job. After 2 minutes he rolled his eyes and said “Dad. I don’t mean to be unkind but this is such old thinking and process. How about transformative thinking and adaptive planning?” I don’t even know what those are.” Client, age 55

“My parents built our retail business. They worked their butts off and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. It has always been their expectation and mine that at some early point they would retire to someplace sunny and I would take over running the business. We would all own the business and share in the profits but I would be in daily control, a true CEO. I’ve worked in the business continually since I was in high school except when I was away at college. Now they don’t want to retire nor cede control to me. They say in their mid-sixties that they are simply too young to retire. It’ time for me to be a real grownup and I can’t do it here. Where do I/We begin to straighten out this mess?” VP, Marketing and Marketing Communications, age 44

Or, once your mind is made up, you lose track of the right time to make decisions or take action because, after all, everything is settled isn’t it?

Or you are overwhelmed by the number of interrelated considerations you have to review to come to any sort of closure.

And you are having a hard time getting your arms around your piece of it.

Which of these are true of you? Or are other things true that dominate your thinking and action Regardless, something is changing that is bigger than all of us?

You aren’t just like everyone else. Regardless of your chronological age, there isn’t a finish line where you can stop working on your life forever because you have finally and permanently arrived “there”. In our work together, we’ll tailor our efforts, our scheduling, and our focus to your own evolving abilities, needs, and wants.