Leading for Learning: How Managers Can Get Business Results through Developmental Coaching and Inspire Deep Employee Commitment

People do their best work when they are motivated. This may sound obvious, but while people managers instinctively agree with the centrality of motivation at work and its impact on employee engagement, their practices do not follow. With so much "real work" to do every day, how can managers also carve out time to learn, engage, build relationships, tap motivation, encourage development, and inspire?

The problem is a false dichotomy between the world of business and that of people development. What if managers were able to systematically transform everyday business issues into meaningful, developmental coaching opportunities with employees at the same time?

This proven coaching approach radically shifts conversations away from either-or propositions and uses an entirely different lens: transforming business challenges by connecting them directly to employee motivation to achieve the desired business result while dramatically increasing employee engagement.

And all this comes none too soon as leaders must rethink the way they lead given the modern realities of organizational life. Among them:

• A rapidly changing workplace and increasing uncertainty that requires a fundamental shift in the leader’s approach, including the distribution of authority and the expectation that employees take responsibility for their own learning

• Pervasive and persistent employee disengagement, characterized by employees who no longer accept the organization’s priorities at the expense of their own, where organizations that continue to dictate terms will find ongoing challenges with costly employee turnover and lack of engagement

During the past decade, the Developmental Coaching Model has been taught across the globe in nine languages and has been enthusiastically embraced by thousands of managers while dissolving the invisible barriers that block individual and organizational development and business success.

For more than 25 years, Lisa has been working at the intersection of individual, team and organizational transformation. As partner and co-founder of Ontos Global, she helps her executive clients become effective change agents through increased self-awareness, leadership presence, resiliency, and capacity to act wisely and decisively despite complex and uncertain times. Among her key roles at Ontos, Lisa is chief designer for all core executive leadership development programs. In addition, she is the author of the Developmental Coaching Model (DCM) presented in this book, and designer of the accompanying coaching workshop. Her current research in social boundary phenomenon – identifying what it takes to successfully cross (social) boundaries and transform organizations despite resistance -- has been presented to audiences on four continents.

Lisa’s consults across geographies and sectors, with mature organizations, as well as startups. Corporate clients include ITT, Xylem, GE, BP, Kaiser Permanante, Biogen, Ernst & Young, TATA, Heifer Project International, Honeywell, Pentair, and Mercury Systems, among many others. She has served as faculty of two, executive MBA programs at the Thunderbird School of Global Management and Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (Guadalajara, Mexico), and for many years represented ethical consulting as a National Trustee and Chapter President of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC-USA). Her doctoral studies at Fielding Graduate University, put on hold as she wrote this book, were preceded by significant, post-graduate programs centered on Gestalt psychology as applied to organizations. Lisa earned her Professional Certified Coach credential in 2010 from the International Coaching Federation.

Having lived abroad seven times and on three continents, her global perspective is core to her identity. She works in English, Spanish, and French, and speaks basic Russian. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

For more info, see www.ontosglobal.com.