Triggers

I've attempted many "dumb" things in my life that did not turn out well, some business and personal decisions were monumental disasters.  However, the only thing I ever attempted that was a total failure was "retirement".  It nearly made me deathly ill.  Thankfully, my "failed" retirement led to discovering my true vocation.  The year was 1989.

For 20 years previous to this failure, I owned a small consulting company focused on saving floundering business operations.  The core issues, the "real" problems, were never the technical or financial symptoms everyone focused on.  They were issues that would not yield to traditional Command & Control management practices.  They were "organizational system" issues where the Culture limited creativity, innovation, risk-taking and Great Work.  The organization's Working Environments were very high stress characterized by distrust, dissonance and disengagement.

In 1967, as a fast-track executive in my early 30's, I developed some health issues that were largely stress related.  The drug-based medical model for "managing stress" made no sense to me.  It considered stress to be external, something the environment did to me, and thus I was a helpless Victim!  My research concluded that stress is an "inside job".  From that perspective, I began developing personal methodologies for transforming stress so I could live "a low-stress, fulfilling life adventure of our own design".

I also believed that so-called "high stress jobs" did NOT require a high stress Working Environment.  From that perspective, I discovered organizational systems that lowered stress within the organization actually increased initiative, creativity, innovation and productivity!  The relationship between the organization's Working Environment and its Culture became a life-long area of observation and study.

As I moved into Consulting (1969), I developed a number of leadership concepts that were very successful in creating organizational systems where the Culture supported creativity, innovation, risk-taking and Great Work.  At the time, what we were doing did not seem to me to be "special".  We just did what was logical and sensible to create a working environment where everyone was enthusiastically committed to the organization's vision, value, purpose and priorities.

Year by year, my leadership concepts evolved.  I did well enough to provide six kids with all of the college education they wanted.  When the last kid was launched in 1989, I sold the business and moved to Colorado.  I was tired and ready to play, so I thought.

I retired to Basalt, CO, near Aspen, with the intention of skiing all winter and horseback trail riding all summer.  In the very first year, I became irritable, depressed and bored.  Boredom is lethal!  For me, life within the Aspen environment had no meaning!  Within months I realized I had to create a new "fulfilling life adventure of my own design".  I had to restore meaning to my life.

In the fall of 1990, at the age of 56, I persuaded the Aspen Skiing Company to hire me as a Ski Instructor, not because I was a good skier (which I definitely was not!) but because I could relate to the guest.  Clients had fun skiing with me.  My business card said "A little learning happens when you are having fun".

Within four years, I had a large, regular following of clients who returned every year.  I did not provide just ski instructions; I provided "vacation insurance".  They knew every day we were together on the mountain would be a memorable adventure.  They wanted a "fun experience," not a ski lesson.

On the ski slopes, my job was to guide the guests in transcending their fears by creating a new belief about themselves and their abilities.  While fear is understandable, it is not logical, it is experientially emotional.  So it does not yield to logical, but experiential emotions.  What I learned about coaching fears has been extremely valuable in our Coaching practice.

When I was not skiing, I was training.  By the end of my second season I passed the Professional Ski Instructors Association (PSIA) certification exam that finally gained me acceptance among my younger, more athletic peers.  This peer acceptance really paid off the next year.  (I was over 60 before I could ski the "steep and deep, the crud and the bumps").

In 1993, the older and more senior ski instructor tried to organize a union.  (The Ski Petrol employees organized a union many years earlier).  I openly worked with management to create a conversation between management and ALL ski instructors.  If the neglected wounds of many years were to be healed, management would have to become curious and really (learn to) listen.

The Ski School had over 1200 ski instructors working on four different mountains.  The anger and resentment  was pandemic!  It appeared the union organizers would have no difficulty winning an organizing election.  I worked with the Aspen Ski Company management for several months.  We organized committees representing the instructors from each mountain who meet weekly for ten weeks.  They completely restructured the organization from the bottom, up!  When the employees returned in November for the new ski season, there was a new beginning. The anger and resentment were melting.  By the end of the season, they were largely history.

In this engagement, I used the various concepts I'd developed over my consulting career and are part of the Authentic Leadership model.  I realized how much I missed the excitement and importance of that work.

However, for the first three summers, I put on a hard hat and "Carhartts" and worked as a road construction foreman or a maintenance supervisor.  It was enlightening, rewarding and humbling to again work with skilled tradesmen.  These "salt-of-the-earth" workers have much to teach us "executive types".  This is another experience that has influenced the Authentic Leadership model.

In the early 1990's, I discovered the emerging profession of Executive Coaching.  I was an early student of Thomas Leonard and completed the Coaches Training Institute Co-Active Coach Certification requirements.  I was one of the first to complete the advanced Organizational Relationship Systems Coaching concepts where the focus is on the executive team dynamics.

To my great surprise, much of what I had been doing before "retirement" was embedded in the Core Competencies of Executive Coaching!  If I was half as smart as I think I am, I'd have written the book: "The Manager as a Coach" in the early 1980's.

I became acquainted with my first Executive Coaching Clients as their Ski Instructor.  Some of those clients are still with me today!  One day I realized the "ordinary" leadership concepts I'd developed in the 70's and 80's were "extraordinary!"   

As my Executive Leadership Coaching practice grew, I organized these leadership concepts in to a model I now call "Authentic Leadership".  (It has had several incarnations).  These early clients enjoyed being part of this evolving, research and development experience.

Being a Ski Instructor is the best job I ever had!  By 2000, my Executive Leadership Coaching ideas were gaining traction.  I had to choose between sharing an exciting mountain experience with a wide variety of interesting clients or sharing an exciting leadership development experience with an equally wide variety of interesting leaders.  It was a difficult choice.

There is a season for everything.  While I enjoyed my life as a Skiing Professional, at 66 it was not as much fun as it used to be, especially on sub-zero days!  However, I have kept my Instructor's License and currently teach a few days each winter to keep my "addiction" for the sport under control.

For the next eight years, I refined and expanded the Authentic Leadership model to where it is quite robust.  I studied advanced Organizational Relationship Systems coaching methods.  I'm one of 700 Master Certified Coaches (MCC) in the world, as recognized by the International Coach Federation, the profession's credentialing body.

"Retirement," is not an option, I made that mistake once already.  About twelve years ago my wife became enthusiastic about coaching and completed all of the formal training I have.  We are a powerful "Elder Team".  For us, executive leadership development is a labor of love.  It is our life's passion and purpose.