Our Services

 

Different Challenges, Different Coaching

Middle managers have a different set of challenges than senior executives. So coaching for middle managers is not the same as coaching for the C-Suite. At Power in the Middle, we don’t start each meeting with the typical coaching question: “What do you want to focus on today?”

Rather than expecting the coachee to determine the direction, we base each one-on- one session on the challenges that the individual is encountering as s/he implements specific new skills and strategies. These Skills and strategies are determined by the organization’s needs, and are introduced in large group sessions and discussed in peer group coaching.

In today’s world, successful managers must be flexible in their thinking, open to viewing events from different perspectives, willing to experiment, and most important, comfortable with ambiguity. Most people don’t easily take on these mindset changes. When they are asked to stop doing and seeing things in familiar ways, they often respond with resistance rather than with enthusiasm.

Our individual coaching program provides the direction and support that managers need to make real changes in behavior—and mindset. It is this shift of mind that helps them see situations differently and create new patterns of action that have lasting positive impact on performance and results.

 

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Group Coaching Builds Relationships. Relationships Get the Work Done.

In any organization, results rely on relationships. Whatever your business or change strategy, its success depends on people working together effectively. The smarter and leaner you need to be to compete in a challenging economy, the more you rely on people to make your strategy work.

Research shows that good working relationshzips generate a host of benefits:

  • Improved engagement and investment in the company’s success
  • New ideas and innovation
  • Knowledge sharing and creation
  • Increased confidence
  • Improved decision-making
  • Greater flexibility and adaptability
  • Increased trust and willingness to address challenges
  • Sustained strong performance
  • Reduced turnover

Yet few organizations focus enough on developing this critical relationship capacity. You wouldn't expect your manufacturing, marketing, or information technology systems to be effective without detailed design, maintenance, and training. In fact, you know that every system in your business requires thoughtful architecture and construction to create and sustain success. Your human relationship system does, too—especially among your mid-levels.

With Power in the Middle’s Peer Group Coaching, your mid-level managers get to know each other. They get invested in each other’s success. They learn how to communicate and work together for better performance. And they learn how to coach each other through challenges, as well as how to coach their direct reports.

These new skills and deeper connections will help ensure sustainable improvements in team cohesion, conflict resolution, and productivity—long after the Power in the Middle program is done.

 

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Training That Wins Hearts and Minds

In successful organizations, leadership happens at many levels. Just as senior leaders need to be able to see the bigger picture, mid-level managers also need to understand their organization as a whole.

Power in the Middle trains and coaches mid-levels to see their organization as a system and to understand their own role within it. As a result, they become significantly more effective at executing on strategy, adapting to changing conditions, coordinating work across silos, and developing their teams to improve performance.

Unlike most training programs for mid-level managers that emphasize training, Power in the Middle, emphasizes the coaching. Our training is designed to be just the beginning: a way to establish common ground, introduce new ideas, and build enthusiasm. Instead of classes driven by PowerPoint, videos, or digital learning, we see training as an interactive activity that challenges managers, even makes them uncomfortable, and allows them to directly experience the immediacy, excitement, and necessity of your vision or strategy-- bringing it fully alive.

Then, the real work takes place in peer group and one-on- one coaching.

Through our customized focus, we enable your managers to find the need for change inside themselves; to understand it in their own minds and hearts. They come away knowing what is required of them and their teams, and why their full-out participation is so important. You get more than just surface buy-in. You get enthusiasm and deep commitment.