The Serendipity of Career Paths, or How I Became a Coach

Posted March 4, 2020 by Dr Larvein Harverty

As a coach, I’m used to asking most of the questions, at least when I’m working with my clients. But I also end up having lots of mini-interviews, usually referred to as “good fit conversations,” in which I’m the one being asked the questions.

Since this is my first blog—which I’m writing to coincide with the launch of my new website—I thought I’d take the opportunity to answer some of the questions I’m asked most frequently when talking with prospective clients.

Question: How did you get into coaching?

Answer: Like many executives coaches who’ve been in this field for a long time, I had never even heard of executive coaching when I first entered the job market.

A few years into my mentoring role, however, I had the opportunity to get involved—on a part-time basis—in the Leadership Development Institute (LDI), a Network Associate of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL® ), by serving as a “feedback coach” to the corporate managers who attended LDI’s programs. Feedback sessions in LDI’s programs involved the review and analysis of various self-report and 360-degree assessments, and individual, face-to-face debriefs with the clients. At first I felt a little out of my element; how was I supposed to know, for example, how an electrical engineer newly promoted to a management position could be most effective? All the phrases these leaders were throwing around–influencing skills, optimizing efficiencies, matrixed organizations–were completely new to me. I was buying books like “The Vest-Pocket MBA” and “The Oxford Dictionary of Business and Management” and hoping I no one would reveal me as the imposter I felt myself to be.

Still, I was immediately captivated and energized by the work. After teaching the same psychology classes to 18-21 year old’s for five years, I was being given access to experienced, talented leaders from all over the globe, leaders who worked in different industries and functional areas and had diverse and fascinating personal and career histories, and I was getting paid to ask them questions! The deep satisfaction that came with that process—with helping already-successful professionals reach their most cherished goals while at the same time learning and growing myself—fueled a professional epiphany. Coaching and training leaders was what I wanted to do. So in 1999, when LDI gave me the opportunity to start an executive coaching line of business, I quit my tenure-track teaching job and made the leap. I have been grateful for that opportunity ever since. I believe that if I had taken a teaching job at any college other than Eckerd, I’d be a professor to this day. And because I would not have loved it like I love coaching, I’m sure I wouldn’t be doing a very good job. Because I know what it is to be truly professionally fulfilled, I’m truly passionate about helping my clients achieve that level of fulfillment for themselves.

Well, it appears that I had “space” in this first blog to answer only one question! In my next blog, I’ll share my thoughts on another question often posed to me by prospective clients: “What kind of coach are you?” If anyone has read this far and has additional questions you’d like me to answer, please let me know. And thanks so much for taking the time to read my first blog!

Attention as a Competitive Advantage

Posted February 21, 2020 by Larvein Hartverty

In the almost 10 years that I’ve been coaching and training leaders, I’ve noticed some interesting trends. One trend that’s become quite clear to me in the last several years is that my clients are becoming increasingly distracted. Because all my clients are in leadership roles, they experience multiple demands on their attention, with emails and meetings being the primary offenders. There are also plenty of potential targets for their discretionary attention, including on-line news and social media sites. It’s quite possible for most of us to sit at our computers all day, feel interested and engaged and active, and yet not actually produce anything of significant value. There are simply too many sources of distraction. As the economic psychologist Herbert Simon put it, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

I’m not generally one to predict the future, but I will go on record with this prediction: the future belongs to those who can most effectively and intentionally direct and sustain their attention.

In other words, it’s all about focus.

If you can’t focus your attention on the things most likely to move the needle for you—no matter what that needle is—your professional and personal outcomes will be left to chance.

If you want to get a promotion but spend all of your time reviewing your direct reports’ expense reports, you’re unlikely to be seen by senior leadership as someone who can catalyze a team.

If you want to build the capacity of your team through coaching and development but spend most of your day responding to emails, chances are you’re not going to become a leader of choice (which, by the way, is my own personal goal for most of my clients).

If you want to quit your job and start your own business but spend your evenings on Facebook and Instagram instead of talking to potential customers about your product or service, you’re probably still going to be drawing a paycheck at age 50. And perhaps, at some point after that, you’ll be staring down the barrel of age discrimination as you look for a new salaried position.

So given all the available opportunities to squander your limited time and attention, what can you do?

Starting in my next blog, I’ll discuss four practices I’m referring to as The Attention Strategies: Prioritization, Mindfulness, Self-Care and Accountability.

None of these are rocket science, and I’m certainly breaking no new ground in enumerating them, but if YOU are trying to be more intentional about the things to which devote your finite time and attention, I’ve seen these strategies make a big difference for my clients (and, in some cases, for myself as well) in focusing attention and resisting distraction.

And in case you, like me, often know the right thing to do but have difficulty choosing it, I’ll start with the strategies that require high levels of discipline and finish with a hack or two (what I’ll call low-discipline strategies) for those who want at least to move in the right direction.