Featured Coach of the Month ... Jan Rybeck

Helping a Client Hear Her Own "Voice" Loud and Clear

By Lee, one of Jan's clients

Prior to my coaching experience, I would have described myself as someone who was “swaying in the wind.” I think I even used those words in my initial meeting with Jan to describe the lack of structure in my life, and more specifically with regard to my work situation at the time. Through the coaching experience and the WORK I put into my development throughout the time I was working with Jan, inside and outside of the sessions, I began to build a solid foundation and structure for myself … in the end, the result was that I learned to hear my “voice.” 

 

Who Is Jan Rybeck?

Jan's approach to Leadership and Executive Coaching reaches for what's possible while anchoring change in real life experience and work practice. A member of the Society of Organizational Learning's Coaches Community of Practice, Jan's coaching work integrates a systems approach that considers the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational dynamics in creating innovative, pragmatic, results driven coaching partnerships. She received her MSW from Boston University, professional coach training from New Ventures West, and CMC from the Institute of Management Consultants. She has received a Certificate of Distinction in teaching from Harvard University, served on the faculty of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services Management Certificate Program, worked with hundreds of leaders in government, not for profit, and private agencies, and continues to provide coaching through both her private practice and as part of larger organizational development projects. Jan, her husband and three kids are recent immigrants from Boston and though they have yet to get lost on the beltway, they admit to being more than a little baffled by what Montgomery County Schools considers a "snow day."

 

I turned to coaching when I had hit pretty close to an all time low in my professional career which basically bled into my personal life and made for a pretty miserable and very difficult time for me and all of those who came in contact with me … friends, family, significant other, co-workers, etc. The impact was so significant, in fact, that while I was currently working with a therapist that I had worked with for approximately seven years, I realized I needed another venue to gain the tools needed to deal with the work difficulties.

From the first coaching session, I felt very positive and empowered. Jan provided direct focus in facilitating my ability to dig inside myself and define my goals, enabling me to better understand where I was at and where I wanted to be. Because the coaching was active, structured, and quite formally goals/results oriented, it felt very different from therapy. In some ways it was like a tunnel. As with a tunnel, it offered me another route to get where I wanted to go, one that I might not have seen otherwise. Ultimately, when I got off track from the intent of where I wanted to end up based on the goals we defined, the boundaries of the tunnel kept me on track to be able to reach that light at the end. I would like to note, however, that while it was structured and focused almost like tunnel-vision, the coaching experience also allowed for a holistic approach to issues that arose in my life. When something in another area not related to work came up, we established how the tools I was developing for work could be directly applied to that situation as well.

Jan was excellent at asking the right questions and I was able to bounce off and discuss my thoughts about goals with her. I remember the latter being difficult for me as initially I didn’t have a clear idea of what it was that I truly wanted to achieve. Her questions served to guide me to look inside and actually get in touch with how I really wanted my work experience to look, as well as facilitating the development of personal tools needed to achieve those results.

One of the concepts that Jan and I worked on was to help me develop the ability to hear my own “voice.” My homework was to define in as many situations as possible, “Lee’s Way” with regard to the situation and what type of outcome I wanted to see. That concept has changed my life. I can honestly say that being able to assess a situation and feel empowered enough to have confidence in “the way Lee would do it”, and that it is so “the right way for Lee TO do it to get the best result,” is pretty powerful stuff. I would say that it was the first time I had consciously experienced the ability to feel and get in touch with the power within myself.

My coaching experience gave me a priceless gift: I was able to finally hear and act from Lee’s voice. I can truly say that the coaching afforded me the first opportunity in my life where I genuinely felt consciously empowered. My confidence level has increased to the point where people at work have noticed a large shift in how I manage my group and how I interact with others within my division. For example, at work, prior to the coaching experience, I recall simply going along with management’s requests to present in meetings and provide data they requested of me and my group while, quite honestly, I was not being very proactive in my role as a manager. The main reason for that was due to the lack of confidence I had in myself at the time. Currently, as I was recently told by my direct manager, I have proven the ability to take charge of an entire very high profile project within my division, successfully managing every detail from the high level of leading meetings of 20 people in all of the operational areas to the details of the eight people who report to me. To succeed with this project I had to both lead and manage; building my competencies with big picture thinking and follow through with detail. This was a stretch in that I had to work with individuals from all operational areas with in the company (a large national firm) as well as my direct reports. The project was a success and with my own “voice,” my own style of communicating and working with others, I found ways to presence myself and prove myself to be a manager who gets things done efficiently and effectively. Interestingly, once I had the work issues under control, I decided to continue the coaching sessions to broaden the perspective to all aspects of my life.

Coaching is powerfully effective at facilitating one’s movement towards his or her goals in an area where they may feel a lack of direction. It does take a concerted effort to dedicate time and energy to the sessions and homework … but it is so worth it and will certainly reap many benefits in the end. Imagine getting rid of the ambiguity of things and actually having some clarity on where you are, where you’re going, where you actually want to be … and even some ideas on how to get there. It is an amazing experience.

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You Could Be Our Next Featured Coach!

We want to hear your compelling coaching stories. To join ICF Metro DC's Coaching Awareness Project -- an initiative to gather stories that bear witness to the power and value of coaching -- take a current testimonial, capture a new story yourself or invite a client to document his or her experience in a way that uses specific examples to convey the compelling impact of your coaching.

Story contributors will be eligible for consideration as the chapter's Featured Coach of the Month. Winners, selected by the chapter's membership committee, will be announced in News & Notes, and have their story featured on the page on this Web site and on Big Tent's Mid-Atlantic People Professionals Community Web site.

Don't delay! Submit your contribution to the Coaching Awareness Project team at CAP@icfmetrodc.com. If you need help putting your story together, feel free to contact the team.

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