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Executive coach
trainees paired with
non-profit leaders
(December
2006 Issue)
By Elinor Nelson
In what looks to be a win-win proposition, executive coach trainees
from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology's Executive
Coaching Graduate Certificate Program are providing three months
of free coaching to non-profit leaders. The collaboration has been
organized through the Social Innovation Forum, which supports non-profit
leaders and social innovators in the greater Boston area.
Lew Stern, Ph.D., director of the MSPP program and president of
Stern Consulting, says that executive coaching is a billion-dollar
industry, but is rarely provided to non-profit executives. The MSPP
trainees began providing the service over the summer and "it's going
great," Stern says. "There's such a sense of satisfaction in helping
non-profit leaders." The MSPP program is the only graduate program
in New England, he states, though there will soon be more. MSPP's
program spans 195 hours of study over two years and this year will
graduate 17 coaches, most of who came into the program with advanced
degrees.
"Executive coaching has two goals that are both important," Stern
says. "It helps to develop leaders to be better leaders and it helps
them lead to achieve results for the organization." The research
shows the coaching brings a six to one financial return, Stern adds,
yielding increased productivity and efficiency and customer and
employee retention.
The MSPP program approaches executive coaching from both the business
management and psychological principles vantage points. It teaches
the ins and outs of a business's operation, structure, marketing,
sales, roles, annual reports, finances, boards of directors and
applicable regulatory standards and bodies. It also teaches how
people are motivated, influenced, perceive, learn, communicate and
behave in groups. And, MSPP focuses on organizational development,
or "all the ways to evaluate and impact organizations" Stern says.
MSPP's coaching instruction reviews how to assess individuals using
information gleaned from the leader as well as her peers, superiors
and those who report to her. Students are taught to "listen, question,
advise, consult, provide feedback, build confidence and deal with
conflict," he said.
Students working with non-profit leaders at the practicum level
have master coach supervisors as well as peer supervision and will
also be evaluated by the client.
Susan Musinsky, M.A., director of the Social Innovation Forum,
has high hopes for this program. "A lot of times folks, particularly
in the non-profit sector, don't have someone externally pushing,
encouraging and supporting them to move forward and it can be expensive.
I hope some of the people in need of that support can access these
coaches and I hope they have the skill to move the individual or
organization forward," she says.
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