As a coach with longstanding experience and expert in business transformation, what does coaching mean to you?
First of all, coaching is creating a safe space in which I discover and examine new perspectives with my clients. The aim is to feel the power of a change perspective and to gradually integrate it into action.
Do you work with a specific coaching approach?
With my clients, I try to look at the current challenges and understand the root causes and the patterns without persisting with the problems of the past. My background has shaped me to think systemically with a view to the whole. In addition, my work is characterised by a solution-focused approach where I work in a resource-oriented way with my clients. This means looking towards the client's future situation and using their existing skills, strategies and ideas to define steps in that direction rather than focusing too much on the problem.
How have your personal experiences informed this approach?
In a professional context, whether in my work with family businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises or with international corporations, I have repeatedly found that looking at the desired future and working out the first small steps towards it has often been a real breakthrough. This helped me especially at decisive turning points in my life, such as when I left the corporate world and founded my own consulting company. Here, I experienced how an attractive vision of the future can release incredible personal resources.
For me very personally, the solution-focused view is a kind of superpower which often helps to find the turning point in everyday conflicts Ð for example as a father of two children, as a husband or in conflicting relationship constellations.
What characterises your work as a credentialled ICF Master Certified Coach?
I do not think any credential, no matter how high, automatically makes you a good coach. But of course, I was happy when I got my MCC credential because it not only reflects my professional experience as a coach but was also an intense learning opportunity where I got to know other wonderful coaches. A major distinction that sets MCCs apart is their ability to be curious beyond the first issue that the client brings up. But also, their discovery questions evoke awareness and facilitate the client's growth at the human level rather than the surface level of the problem. The MCC level is the highest standard you can achieve by the International Coaching Federation.
You mentioned your consulting company where you work as an organisational change consultant and leadership expert. What key success factors do you see for companies to master the future?
I believe that the future belongs to companies that are adaptable and changeable. A prerequisite for this is vitality in the company. This develops from the ability of employees and managers to approach each other and to relate to each other well. Communication and behaviour therefore do not take place in a vacuum but meet with resonance and reverberation.
Resonance seems to be a key element in your consulting approach. What does resonance have to do with business transformation?
Whether transformation succeeds is determined in particular by how people communicate with each other, act and commit to common goals. And resonance means emotional connection. If rationality and emotion are in good balance, a first step towards change has been taken: listening actively instead of passively, transparency instead of secrecy, openness instead of self-centeredness, trust instead of reservation and curiosity instead of indifference form the basis for people to identify with their organisation and engage in change.
Is it possible to ensure resonance?
Resonance is not a sure-fire success. It can also not be created with a ready-made kit or a certificate of guarantee. Instead, at Goldfarb we create structures to transform the quality of cooperation. We design the context and conditions in which resonant relationships can develop and become established.
What difference becomes visible in an organisation when structures to transform the quality of cooperation have been created?
Resonance will be evident on four levels:
Firstly, such an organisation enables people to get in touch with themselves on an individual level. Self-efficacy can be experienced, which is meaningful. Potentials and abilities can unfold from there.
Secondly, their actions create a quality of relationship in the team and in the leadership context that is characterised by openness, clarity, appreciation and courage.
Moreover, their corporate architecture is characterised by connectable structures and processes. These provide a framework for meaningful action in which the corporate purpose can be experienced.
Finally, the purpose speaks to both members of the organisation and its customers, with marketable products and a visible contribution to society.
How can coaching support such a business transformation?
In my experience it is crucial to look always at the organisation, the team and the individual as a systemic whole with mutual interdependencies. Change must involve all levels. One key learning for me is that change starts with oneself. Here, coaching can have a huge impact and should always be an integral part of any business transformation - whether for the newly appointed board member in their 100-day programme, for those responsible for change projects reflecting on their own behaviour patterns or for those exploring their own personal questioning with a protected framework.
