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A recent Financial Times report on Business Education quoted the UK-Based Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.  In its 2005 Training and Development Survey, the IPD said that almost nine out of ten respondents used coaching, citing a desire to improve individual performance, tackle underperformance and improve productivity.  Our company provides coaching services in France and Belgium, in English and French.  To develop new behaviours or competencies, Managers usually want to work with an experienced coach.  Our approach is to help the manager build on his or her talents and strengths.   In today's organization, which has to learn continually, every leader must be able to reflect knowledgeably about how to make the most of what they are naturally good at doing.  It is amazing how many managers put down to "luck" systematically good results which in fact stem from their talents.  However, a leader  should also know how to surround him or herself with people who have talents that compensate for his or her weaknesses.   We can help a manager to reflect on his or her professional practice in such a way that s/he will get even better results.  All of our coaches in Europe teach at MBA level in French and/or English and know the North American models of management and leadership.

The purpose of our coaching sessions and management development programmes, is to help executives detect cultural nuances, accelerate strategic plans and understand the creative potential and different decision-making styles of their new teams.  We are involved in cross-cultural coaching, especially in helping expatriate managers get rapidly up to speed in French organizational cultures.  

1. Effective communication in France

The key concepts to establish an effective communication network are:

• hierarchical and social relationships
• the importance of reciprocity in good communication
• non-verbal communication
• a communications model for awareness, understanding, commitment and action
• active listening
• giving and receiving feedback : one approach to coaching others
• holding effective meetings
• obstacles to communication such as "information overload"

The difference between power, authority and influence in the U.K. and France.  The use of influencing strategies :

• role-based management vs. classical hierarchical authority
• the psychological contract
• motivation
• recognition and reward strategies
• introductory confirming strategy
• persuasion
• how to put in place a regular, systematic communications framework

3. Building relationships inside and outside the work place in France:

• knowing yourself and others
• understanding the French elite schools system  
• Emotional Intelligence competencies : what they are and how to develop them
• win-win-win collaboration
• network building, operating and maintenance
• problem solving in groups 

• the importance of oral communication in France
• sensemaking in France
• setting SMART objectives in a French environment
• working with the unions and the works council
• achievement of objectives : the control loop model
• internal and external focus
• vision and values
• hierarchy of challenges : wicked challenges and tame challenges
• decision-making and decision traps
• a set of tools for systematic problem solving
• the 8 stage planning approach to project management
• the importance of team roles

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French and American Management Cultures

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http://www.wmbridges.com

The site of William Bridges. Not only did Bridges more or less invent the concept of Transition Management in organizations, he is also one of the best writers of English alive today.

http://www.positivepsychology.org

There are more than thirty words in the English vocabulary to describe differents types of depression, neurosis and psychosis.  However there are very few words to describe the state of being well.  This is a link to a site where you will learn how Martin EP Seligman, Ph.D., conducts research on Positive Psychology, learned helplessness, depression, and on optimism and pessimism. At this website, you can take the VIA Inventory of Strengths questionnaire that measures positive traits. 

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