Breakthrough Coaching

The Breakthrough Coaching Process enables leaders who are faced with critical business challenges to utilize their strengths and experiences to achieve specific business results. The Breakthrough Process takes a systems approach, combining the use of assessments and dialogue to help individual leaders understand their motivations, key aspects of their personalities, and how they deal with conflict…with a clear-eyed view of their business challenges and the stakeholders who must be included and involved with them.

The process uses three web-based questionnaires in addition to a combination of planning tools such as:

• The Prometheus ‘Fast Time’ Strategy Process
• Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats Analysis (SWOT)
• Stakeholder Involvement Planning
• The Breakthrough Strategy

This unique and powerful combination provides participants with the information needed to quickly achieve desired results.

The Questionnaires:

Motivational Appraisal of Personal Potential (MAPP™)

MAPP™ is a robust 21st century instrument used by an individual to support growth in a personal and/or professional environment by clearly identifying unique potential. Motivational Appraisal of Personal Potential helps to identify personal motivations in several categories, including temperament, aptitude and learning style. The results can guide individuals on a career or personal path, or validate one they are already on. The assessment identifies characteristics that help to indicate a strong motivation to do, or avoid doing, certain things. For example, an individual may be capable of something, but if she / he hates it, and if it were a significant part of her / his daily responsibilities, it might undermine strengths and become a liability.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®)

The questionnaire is the most widely used personality inventory in the world and provides an accurate picture of an individual’s “personality type”.

The MBTI® measures personality in four major dimensions:

• Extraversion – Introversion (describes where people prefer to focus their attention and get their energy — from the outer world of people and activity, or their inner world of ideas and experiences)
• Sensing – Intuition (describes how people prefer to take in information — focused on what is real and actual, or on patterns and meanings in data)
• Thinking – Feeling (describes how people prefer to make decisions — based on logical analysis, or guided by concern for their impact on others)
• Judging – Perceiving (describes how people prefer to deal with the outer world —in a planned orderly way, or in a flexible spontaneous way)

Combinations of scores on these dimensions result in a variety of distinct personality types. Understanding characteristics unique to each type provides insight about how a person interacts with others and the world around him / her.

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)

The TKI provides data on individual preferred modes of resolving conflict: avoiding, competing, accommodating, compromising, and collaborating.

The TKI is used widely in business and industry to help people explore the dynamics of effective conflict resolution. Data from the survey will help participants to enhance their conflict resolution skills and to learn what types of conflict resolution are likely to be most effective in transition situations.

The Planning Tools:

Prometheus ‘Fast Time’ Strategy Process

The Prometheus Process is a mindset and a methodology for rapid, decisive strategic action. Its essence is simple: think strategically…focus sharply…move quickly. The Prometheus Process allows you to create and execute a uniquely encompassing strategy — one that carries you from concept to end game.

Prometheus helps you choose the right things — your internal and external centers of gravity — against which to put your energy. It shows you graphically why the normal serial approach to implementation has such a low probability of success, and it provides you with concepts and tools to move to parallel operations with their high probabilities of success and accompanying low risk. Finally, it shows you how to recognize and deal with the points of diminishing return in your products and business concepts.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats Analysis (SWOT)

SWOT Analysis is an effective methodology of identifying your strengths and weaknesses, and examining the opportunities and threats you face. Often, carrying out an analysis using the SWOT framework will be enough to reveal changes, which may need to be made.

It is a technique that can be used by organizations, teams, and individuals as a way of analyzing the things in the environment – both internal and external – that can help or hinder the achievement of objectives. A SWOT Analysis has two main components:

• Internal Issues – Strengths and Weaknesses
• External Issues – Opportunities and Threats

Stakeholder Involvement Planning (SIP)

It is critically important to understand who is affected or can be affected by your plans. These are your Stakeholders. It is important to understand who they are, why they matter, and what their level of support is, so that you can plan how to involve them to achieve your results.

A ‘Stakeholder Involvement Matrix’ can be constructed, which will enable you to see graphically where each of your key stakeholders is in relation to your plans. Strategies are then developed to:

• Convert – Neutralize or move people toward your position; show them the benefits
• Capitalize – Call in your favors; ask someone to lobby on your behalf
• Insulate – Limit any potential damage a non-supporter could do
• Promote– Increase their visibility; tie your benefits to their business issues

The Breakthrough Strategy*

Business emergencies, crises, and other “disasters” often liberate teams from the restraints of the institutionalized barriers to performance improvement. These events evoke powerful and emotional responses that cannot be matched by any of the structured programs and technologies most commonly used in organizations and teams.

If we consider that the heightened performance seen in emergencies and crises usually occurs almost spontaneously, without the benefit of extensive management planning, we can only imagine the possibilities for greater performance if the galvanizing forces of the crises were combined with purposeful actions. It is clear that what we regard as "normal" levels of operation are only a fraction of what the organization is really capable of achieving. The Breakthrough Strategy can help you achieve and sustain very high levels of productivity.

Adapted from ‘The Breakthrough Strategy’, by Robert Schaffer

At the completion of these activities, the combination of insights from the questionnaires and business tools will be combined to create a powerful and focused plan of action.

Your Personal Action Plan (PACT) will:

• Identify at least three behaviors that you will be developing and / or modifying
• Identify developmental activities that will target those behaviors
• Define within what time frame the learning activity will occur
• Determine what resources and supports you will require
• Clearly define the strategies and actions needed to achieve Breakthrough Business Results, and the measurements to track success