Joni Carley, Author at Joni Carley ~ Page 4 of 5

What’s up with your Work?

Could you use a well-credentialed, private sounding board whose only agenda is to make sure you get what you want?
Need a great transition with a promotion, job switch, or taking off on your own?
Does team coherence seem like an oxymoron in your world?
Would you benefit from objective perspective on chronic problems you’re facing?
Are you launching something new or ready to ramp up what’s going on now?
Can you imagine the difference it could make if you had dedicated counsel for staying at your winning edge?

Can’t get this poem off my mind today…

We have come to be danced
not the pretty dance
not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
but the claw our way back into the belly
of the sacred, sensual animal dance
the unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
the holding the precious moment in the palms
of our hands and feet dance

We have come to be danced
not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
but the wring the sadness from our skin dance
the blow the chip off our shoulder dance
the slap the apology from our posture dance

We have come to be danced
not the monkey see, monkey do dance
one, two dance like you
one two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
tearing scabs & scars open dance
the rub the rhythm raw against our souls dance

WE have come to be danced
not the nice invisible, self conscious shuffle
but the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
the strip us from our casings, return our wings
sharpen our claws & tongues dance
the shed dead cells and slip into
the luminous skin of love dance

We have come to be danced
not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
but the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath & beat dance
the shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
the mother may I?
yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
the Olly Olly Oxen Free Free Free dance
the everyone can come to our heaven dance

We have come to be danced
where the kingdom’s collide
in the cathedral of flesh
to burn back into the light
to unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
to root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
WE HAVE COME

The Time of Your Life

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“In the time of your life, live – so that in good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away.

Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man’s guilt is not yours, nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle… and have no regret. In the time of your life, live – so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”

– William Saroyan, 1939

5 Ways to Get the Most from Executive Coaching Programs

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Here’s how to best capitalize on executive coaching programs:

Make sure that you screen for the best match between your organization and the gazillion executive coaching companies in the marketplace.
Make sure you’re discerning between great marketing and truly transformational coaching.
Make sure the executive coaching consultant is relying on metrics that matter. If s/he isn’t measuring culture and consciousness development along with tangible achievements, you aren’t getting an accurate picture of your executive coaching results. And, if they aren’t measuring those things, you’re not likely progressing adequately in those domains and that’s a waste of executive coaching fees.
Make sure you have plenty of soak time for integrating the takeaways from executive leadership development.
Make sure that either personal executive consulting or executive leadership programs are addressing the yin and the yang of executive leadership development, i.e. the hard and the soft data, core competencies and culture, as well as the continuum between bottom line financial health and contribution to greater good.

Why Consult?

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Just like Executives and Business Owners, Olympians use consultants to problem-solve. But unlike most business and civic leaders, Olympians invest in winning edge-focused coaching. Makes sense – top tier athletes don’t coach just to get over broken ankles, even if they’re recuperating from one. They coach for breakthroughs and transformation.

Likewise, top tier leaders don’t just coach to put out fires, they coach to sharpen and maintain their edge – to break through the status quo. I’ve recently shifted from calling my services “coaching” because “counsel” seems more appropriate. To me “counsel” embraces everything that coaches do but offers a greater depth of service.

Whether you’re squarely in the driver’s seat, changing vehicles, or ready for a radical sabbatical away from the steering wheel, good consulting can have a major impact on your effectiveness and efficiency for increasing:
profits, stakeholder loyalty, innovation, leadership and organizational capacity, excellence, vitality, work/life balance and team coherence.

Executive Leadership Development

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The field of Executive Leadership Development is crowded and conflicted. Not only are there more “experts” out there than ever before, touting more theories than we’ll ever need, but there is a new paradigm of leadership emerging. The old profit-at-any-cost way of doing business is losing ground to concepts like “values-driven leadership” because that old standard is setting new benchmarks on the scale of failure.

And, the old “go-it-alone” mentality about leadership is morphing because studies are making it clearer and clearer that using coaches and consultants typically yields between 150% and 689% return on investment. Executive coaching and consulting options have exploded, making executive development a maze of conflicting choices. So how do you sort through it all to find the right match for your leadership development needs?

The data is clear that building values into your leadership infrastructure creates a solid foundation for reaching and staying at the top of your game. Finding coaches and consultants who know how to capitalize on values is the most effective way to not only develop as a professional but to also develop your entire organization to be more profitable, have higher retention rates, more innovation, and optimum stakeholder loyalty.

Executive development is a lot like athletic development. More and more successful leaders are finding out what Olympians have always known: you don’t hire a coach or consultant because you’re weak. Quite the contrary. Just like Olympians don’t hire coaches to fix broken ankles, [business leaders] are realizing that there’s nothing like ongoing coaching to keep you on the cutting edge.

No matter how good the method, there is no standard executive training that can address any one leader’s unique situation. Coaching for executive development isn’t just about teaching or training – it’s about maintaining the same kind of “leaderful” edge that Olympic winners do. Even after reaching the gold, Olympians go right back to work with their coaches because a winning mindset is always expanding its frontiers.

Good coaches know exceptional development, executive or athletic, isn’t an endgame; it’s more an evolutionary process – more like a carrot and stick than a destination. Good leaders coach to problem solve or to reach specific goals but great leaders never stop developing their vision and never stop improving their games.

Great leaders build dynamic cultures based on a full spectrum of values ranging from strong financials to strong corporate citizenship. Hiring an executive coach who understands the value of values is an efficient and cost-effective way to stay at the leading edge.