Comments for Catalyst Leadership Coaching

Comment on Olympic Failure? by Alex Dashkevich

Alex Dashkevich — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:20:20 +0000

I think your quotes are nice inspiration in life in general. But when it comes to competitive sports, especially at such a high level, a more appropriate quote might be

“Second Place is the first loser”.

Nobody wants to settle for silver. But don’t worry - it looks like teh US Gymnasts picked themselves up nicely in the individual events. Maybe they just don’t value teamwork?

Comment on Olympic Failure? by Randy Goruk

Randy Goruk — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:52:14 +0000

With the Silver Medal hanging around their necks, the US women’s gymnastic team and coaching staff should be proud of their accomplishment - and this quote comes to mind for me;

Learn from the past
Enjoy the present
Build for the future

Leopold O. Walder

Comment on Getting Back On Track by John Agno

John Agno — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:26:13 +0000

Yes, the most important knowledge is self-knowledge. Self assessments, including 360-degree feedback, are a good place to begin the process of self knowledge but to get to that place of self-awareness, where there is great leverage, requires the help of a professional coach or mentor.

The purpose of any performance management system should be to guide the individual employee and groups toward desired outcomes, provide reinforcement and supply corrective feedback for making adjustments.

The 360-degree feedback report gives participants a fair and well-rounded impression of how others view their work. When the person who is rated agrees to share the results of this multi-rater assessment with management, the supervisor gets an overall perspective about the individual’s skills/abilities in order to facilitate process improvement, remove barriers to success and acquire needed resources. Feedback is provided from multiple sources (raters) including self, boss, peers, direct reports, and, in some cases, customers and suppliers.

Why use Multi-Rater assessments in Executive Coaching?

Allows the person being coached to gain perspectives from others in an objective, non-threatening, confidential manner.
Provides the individual with data for self-reflection and self-awareness.
Assists in identifying individual development needs and action items.
Helps surface patterns of behavior, especially when used in conjunction with other assessment tools during the coaching process.
Provides a platform for dialogue between the outside coach and the executive.

Comment on Encourage Wellness to Reduce Health Care Costs by kitty

kitty — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 23:00:45 +0000

Short answer: NNS or Number Needed to Screen. While providing incentive to exersize and not smoke is great, this company actually forces people to have tests; tests which aren’t even recommended by USPSTF which is a main guideline-setting authority in the US, and which comprises many doctors and epidemiologists who evaluate evidence and check if benefits of a test outweight the risk. But we are talking cost-savings here, not evidence of benefit. And because of NNS this isn’t one and the same.

With many tests, including those this company does, you need to test thousands, even tens of thousands, to prevent one case of advanced desease. Tests are not perfect. Tests have false positives. After many years of yearly testing, the probability of at least one false positive is very high. Many tests have an issue with “overdiagnosis” i.e. they find early desease which may just never cause any problem if remains undetected. But often, it is not possible to say if the desease will progress, so everyone is treated. Not only can treatment cause serious side-effects, all these screening, false positive evaluation and treatment is expensive.

Take for example the blood tests this company does. Aside from an obvious question “do you really want your employer to know about your health risks, even genetic problems?” let’s say the blood will show that some slim, active woman (I choose a woman on purpose) has high LDL. The woman is already active, already eats right and exercises, but because of her bad genes - and most cases of high cholesterol are indeed genetic - there is no way she can get the cholesterol down without drugs. But her employer wants her to get her cholesterol down. Since she is in her 40s, slim and healthy, her absolute risk of having a heart attack in 10 years is under 1%. Now, there really is very little if any evidence that statins do any good for primary prevention in women, but for argument say let’s assume that it would reduce her risk of a heart attack by 30%. Sounds impressive right? But then her absolute risk of heart attack is only 1%, so reducing this risk by 30% means reducing it from 1% to .7%. Less impressive than 30% reduction, right? How many people like this woman do you need to treat for 10 years to prevent one heart attack? I’ll let you figure it out. Do you think it’ll save money?

Prevention saves money? Really? BTW - New England Journal of Medicine reviewed available studies and concluded that it is not the case. Of course, if the company starts laying off people with risk factors, they’ll save money. Is that what you want your employer to do? Or do you want your employer and not your doctor to tell you when to take prescription drugs?

Comment on Career Guide for Gen Y by Daniel Pink

Daniel Pink — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:25:38 +0000

Kim –

Glad you enjoyed the Johnny Bunko book. Thanks for picking up a copy. Never thought of that Scrooged connectiion!

Cheers,
Dan

BTW, feel free to join the Johnny Bunko Facebook group or to write a review on Amazon.com.

Comment on Where to Get Noticed by Women’s Words Weekly - July 13-19, 2008 at Women On Business

Women’s Words Weekly - July 13-19, 2008 at Women On Business — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 03:43:56 +0000

[…] Freedman at Catalyst Leadership Coaching tells us Where to Get Noticed where she shares an article to help you with your networking efforts from Jill Lublin, author of […]

Comment on Where to Get Noticed by Nikki Leigh

Nikki Leigh — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:36:30 +0000

Thank you so much for posting the first part of this article. You are so right that people need to get noticed and learning where to get noticed is a definite step in the right direction Looking forward to visiting you again for Part Two

Nikki Leigh
http://www.nikkileigh.com

Comment on Change by Marty

Marty — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:08:36 +0000

I’ll add my favorite to the list:

“People don’t mind change. They just don’t like to be changed.”

Comment on How To Be a More Successful Leader by Christine

Christine — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:04:05 +0000

Fans of Marshall will love the program below. It really brings his book to life and show’s how to inject the tips of his book into your career and your life

http://www.linkageinc.com/disl/preview_demo.aspx?a=126a3d66-fd79-4570-890b-d10cd34ca3c9

Comment on Building on Strengths by Christine

Christine — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:00:55 +0000

For those of you who have never seen Marcus, here is a clip of him in action.

http://www.linkageinc.com/disl/preview_demo.aspx?a=b819baa7-60a6-4911-a322-c303972641d0