The following scenarios are drawn from our coach-instructors’ real client interactions.

Workshop: “The International Language of Trust”

Invited to engage an audience of 40 staff and their expatriate family members at an international development organization, a Fountain coach-instructor presented an engaging hour-long session that equipped participants to analyze the elements of a trusting relationship and take action in their own lives to build trustworthiness in themselves and others.  In this interactive discussion, participants explored the contours of trust through a simple and practical framework, then considered the extent of their own options for influencing another person’s calculation of trustworthiness.

Strategic Planning Session: “Gathering Wisdom for Visioning”

A Fountain coach-instructor designed and implemented a half-day strategic planning segment of a larger staff retreat for 100 members of an international development organization staff that resulted in high levels of participant engagement, enthusiasm, and esprit de corps.  Through individual reflection and small-group discussion, participants identified key trends emerging in their substantive portfolios, then collaborated to assemble and present imaginative mock-magazines heralding the organization’s successes five years hence.  The format enabled a large group to contribute meaningfully to the generation of major themes that emerged in the organization’s subsequent five-year strategic plan.

Staff Retreat: “MBTI for Self-Awareness and Team Communication”

Fountain coach-instructors designed a one-day retreat for a small creative arts company that incorporated the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) as a tool for participant self-discovery and for shared language about interpersonal differences that sometimes had impeded the staff’s effectiveness.  Through a series of engaging and imaginative activities that modeled aspects of their actual weekly experiences on the job, participants noticed their natural tendencies and connected this self-awareness to increased options for behavioral choice for the sake of stronger communication.  These insights became a touchpoint of discussion during individual 1-on-1 coaching that the entire staff received over the subsequent months.

Workshop Series: “Listening for Callings & Exploring Transitions”

Meeting over six weeks in the context of an Episcopal church congregation, a Fountain coach-instructor gathered 10 people who were seeking tools, companionship, and mutual support in responding to or generating life transitions and callings.  Together, participants in the workshop series explored life callings and the impact they have on self, work, life, and faith.  Participants examined strengths and values within the framework of stages of transition, and they practiced active listening and powerful questioning skills to serve as witnesses to each other’s experiences of calling.  Two full-day outdoor excursions fostered immersion in the physical wilderness as an application of the metaphoric wandering of life change.

Leadership Development Program: “Bridges”

At a time when a federal agency that lacked a comprehensive approach to succession management was seeking to improve the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of its senior grades, a Fountain coach-instructor collaborated with agency staff and contractors to design and deliver a cohort-model leadership development program for mid-career staff — a level where demographics indicated greater diversity existed than at more senior levels.  Dubbed “Bridges,” the selective-admission program comprised assessment using the Hogan suite of tools, two residential seminar weeks devoted to leadership topics, and group oral history projects across an 8-month timeframe.  Participants encountered senior executives as part of the group projects and in presentations to the seminars, helping bridge an identified gap in personal connections between the just-promoted level and senior ranks.  Participants benefited from 1-on-1 coaching, seldom previously made available at this low a level in the organization.  The Bridges project was one justification for an agency-wide award that the Fountain coach-instructor received for advancing diversity and inclusion.

Download our two-page brochure describing these real client stories and others here.