My only purpose is to make you better and happier at work

The workplace can be tough at times. You are misunderstood, you wish people could see your potential, you are eager to move up the corporate ladder, but you feel stuck. Stuck in your daily or weekly to-do lists. Your project that faces obstacles, hurdles and delays.

If you could only talk to an outsider, who is not part of your daily office surroundings. Someone who supports you and does not ask you to justify who you are and what your motivation is. Someone who is your private and personal advisor, someone who only cares about you, someone who does not have anything other on his agenda than to make you become better and happier in your job.

And that's me. And this is what I do for you to realise your potential.
By Björn Schigt Coaching & Development Leadership December 14, 2019

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MY ONLY PURPOSE IS TO MAKE YOU BETTER & HAPPIER AT WORK

The workplace can be tough at times. You are misunderstood, you wish people could see your potential, you are eager to move up the corporate ladder, but you feel stuck. Stuck in your daily or weekly to-do lists. Your project that faces obstacles, hurdles and delays.

You long for the weekend and holidays to take time off and recharge your batteries. You enjoy time with friends and family, but your job is on your mind. You are thinking about how to deal with impasses, that guy who is not moving as fast as you’d like, or how you can stop your project Steering Committee challenging you all the time. Why can’t they see that you are working your ass off and that you do what you can?

It is surely not about your competencies, otherwise you would not be in your position. People believe in you, but still things don’t go as you want them to go. You receive hints about how to bring people on board, how to delegate more, how to take things less personal, how to deal with office politics.

If you could only talk to an outsider, who is not part of your daily office surroundings. Someone who supports you and does not ask you to justify who you are and what your motivation is. Someone who is your private and personal advisor, someone who only cares about you, someone who does not have anything other on his agenda than to make you become better and happier in your job.

And that’s me. And this is what I do for you to realise your potential.

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3 objectives that i set for myself that help you

My sole goal is that you use your powers for your purpose, that you can use your potential to develop in to what you want to become, and to realise your potential for your purpose – which is your performance.

This means that I focus on helping you to internalise (= making it part of your nature) the following 3 pillars:

  1. Long-term performance excellence: I support you in meeting the high objective standards of your discipline. With my long and intensive business career, before I changed to coaching and advising, I am fully aware of what is expected in business.
  2. Self-correction: I support you to learn to observe when you are performing well and when you are not. And how you will make any necessary adjustments independently of me. I want to avoid of becoming indispensable; instead I work to build the competences in you.
  3. Self-generation: You can always improve, and I support you to continually find ways on your own to do so. I support you to practice more, or to watch others perform, or to learn an activity that will strengthen you in a new way that improves your competence.
5 Principles we adhere to to achieve the 3 Objectives

Coaching or advising is more than just spending an 1-2 hours every second week talking about what happened at work and how it impacted you or how you impacted others. I work with 5 principles to ensure that we go beyond the routine of isolated reflection:

  1. Relationship is the 1st principle and the most important one.  The relationship must be one in which there is mutual respect, trust, and mutual freedom of expression.
  2. The 2nd principle is that coaching must be pragmatic. Its central tenet is that what’s ‘‘true’’ is what works. Practical outcomes replace theoretical constructs. Our program is outcome-based and I will relentless correct and coach, based on our feedback-loops.
  3. The 3rd principle is mutual learning. We both engage in learning, which means that we will continuously learn how to stay committed to improving your competencies.
  4. The 4th principle is that you are always and already in the middle of your life. I ensure that my interventions fit in with your structure of interpretation, as you have your views, commitments, possibilities, and immediate concerns. I recognise that it’s likely that you already have your own way of doing things, and given the stability and momentum of habit, I adapt my coaching to fit you.
  5. The 5th principle is that techniques don’t work. With techniques, I mean routines; I will not use routines or mechanical ways to support you as it would mean that I am not engaged with your personal circumstances, your potential and your limitations. We will work what is best for you personally.
My commitment

In order to support you in becoming better and happier in your job, I need to practice what I preach:

  1. Self-development: I put a lot of emphasis on life-long learning. In my profession, the human being & behaviour is the focal point and although my training and experience so far equips me with many ways to support you, I will keep on developing myself. Either by participating in specialised courses with a high degree of experiential training, or studying professional and scientific literature.
  2. Self-awareness: I believe that a coach needs a coach too. My coach supports me in self-reflection, supervises me and holds a mirror so that I can acknowledge my strengths and weaknesses, and continuously improve my coaching around them. Nobody is flawless and we all follow the same path, so in order to understand others, I need to understand myself.
your 5 things TO GET BETTER AND HAPPIER in your job

You need to climb that rock that is front of you, you ascend to your summit. I am only there to support you in learning how to be safe, tell you where to find the right climbing ropes, remind you to drink enough water and take nutrition, when to set up the base camp and hand you the flag when you have ascended to your summit.

What you need to do, is to:

  1. Commit yourself to change: change won’t happen if you don’t want it.
  2. Be vulnerable and open up: trust your self that you can deal with change.
  3. Believe in your self and your mindset: whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
  4. Allow your self to break the routines: get out of your comfort zone.
  5. Be courageous and disciplined: go and try something new, and keep on trying until you have successfully mastered it and be happy.
ascend to your summit

Do you recognise your self? Are you ready to get better and happier? Contact me so that you can Ascend to your Summit!

Go to STRATZR.com and find out more about me, or contact me directly on bjorn.schigt@stratzr.com or +41 7977 40 692.

Björn Schigt / About Author
Björn Schigt, based in Kilchberg (Zurich), is passionate about leadership development in an intercultural context and helping executives and managers of international organisations to be successful and satisfied in their current & future roles and responsibilities. He enjoys assessing and developing leadership potential by using structured and client-serving approaches. Björn is an expert on empathic leadership and has written The Chief Empathy Officer: how CEOs perceive their responsibility for establishing psychological safety in the management team, and he has developed the Psychological Safety Excellence Assessment for Empathic Leadership.

During his 17 years as an executive and consultant in leadership, commercial strategy and operational roles for global industry leaders such as Holcim, CRH and Hilti, among other roles, Björn led Commercial Excellence for Europe, was Commercial Director in Azerbaijan, assisting the Executive Committee in M&A, regional strategies and turnarounds, and consulted Leadership Teams in Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia-Pacific, and North America on M&A, commercial & strategic initiatives.

Björn holds three Master Degrees from respectively HEC Paris/Oxford University (M.Sc Consulting & Coaching for Change), Rotterdam School of Management (M.Sc BA), and CEMS (Master International Management). His executive education focused on corporate finance (LBS), marketing metrics (Wharton), data & analytics (HBS), and leadership development (IMD). Additionally, Björn is a certified coach by Erickson International, Marshall Goldsmith, Global Coaching Group, New Ventures West and is a certified assessor for Hogan Assessments.

In his free time, Björn enjoys outdoor sports, in particular, cycling in the Swiss Alps, renovation work, reading and watching F1 and cycling. Björn has lived in 7 countries, worked in 50+, and is fluent in English, German and Dutch.
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