So I went to class. The instructors were nice and worked well together. This is the first time they are having a class on this topic so they spent much of the time in lecture format which I liked. Every 20 minutes or so they asked if we had any questions. I asked three questions in class. I made sure to give time for others to ask their questions and to jump in, but when there was dead silence I said screw this and jumped in.
1.) What does the label "high potential" refer to? (A phrase they had used in describing some of the people companies assign to them to work with.)
2.) Are there any trends you two notice in terms of the type of companies or organizations that hire coaches for their executives? (The answer to this I have to say was generic...something like "companies that are innovative." Duh.)
and finally since as usual no one was asking anything I piped up again and said the following (tell me if you think this is obnoxious):
3.) I was surprised to see in your resource list no reference to Peter Drucker's work or The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University, or to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Howard Gardner's The Good Work project. Do you utilize any of their work in your practice?
The response I received was this:
1. One instructor said she read Drucker, but that CEOs aren't interested in you going in there with expert upon expert reference and so she may just throw in one of his quotes here or there. (Personally I think this response is again common sense..and a bit lame. This instructor though also seemed to be a little dismissive of academics in general throughout the call.) Given that Drucker is one of the main people quoted about management and leadership (some go so far as to say he "invented management") I don't know how one doesn't include his work at all on a reference list about leadership and management or how one just dismisses him.
2. I don't know who the other people are you referred to. I will look them up tonight. (Great...how reassuring. Why am I teaching my instructor about these basic things?) Hmm...maybe that isn't fair. Maybe these are just basic seeming to me. Plus Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a professor of mine in college. And out of personal interest I went and found information about his work with Gardner at Harvard and read about it many years ago.
3. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the "flow guy." I think that is the best pronunication of his name I have heard so far.
That's it. That's all I received as responses. I'm not mad though. I just feel like...okay..well..whatever.
We also didn't speak about Oliver Wyman (formerly Mercer Delta) or much about Change Management beyond one instructor mentioning the phrase, but I think that is way too detailed or possibly advanced for this call.
Then another peer asked a question which made all of us laugh. And by the very nature of the question I realized people don't have experience with this topic at all (although this person used to work for the one of the most renowned investment banks in NYC) and I realized something my coach told me a few weeks ago. This class tonight was taught to the lowest denominator. And tonight at least I had more understanding on the topic than that.
So immediately after class I drafted an email to one of the instructors who had offered to send us some of her sample bios and sent it off to her.
And now in terms of last night's class I'm done. Personally I don't care what anyone says. If others in class are going to sit and be quiet I'm not going to let that stop me from asking the questions I have. One of my partners told me many weeks ago that I have "expectations" because I "paid $6000 for this course." DAMN STRAIGHT I have expectations. I've learned real fast though that I have to let those "die" as a friend of mine said to me recently. I think she was right.
I rewarded myself after class by going for a walk and getting some mango gelato from Bombolini.
I rewarded myself after class by going for a walk and getting some mango gelato from Bombolini.
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