You might find it a bit strange that someone with a Ph. D. in Physics might become a business coach, so I thought I’d share my story… After receiving my degree, I was initially hired by IBM to work in their facility in East Fishkill, NY. My career in chip Failure Analysis was going fine until IBM decided that all of us working in the Analytical Lab needed to sell our services to offset the cost of the expensive equipment we were using. So, instead of going to conferences to learn new techniques, I was asked to sit at the company booth and sell. (NOT what I had in mind…) So, I started passing out my resume.
Intel called and offered me a great job in the Bay Area, so we moved our entire family across the country to begin again. A few years after I started at Intel, the organization I was in rolled out Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” to the entire organization (1500 people). The class was transformational for me, personally. I went right up to the instructor at the end of the week-long class and asked if I could become part of the team of facilitators. So, more than 20 years ago, I became a certified facilitator of the “7 Habits”.
Over the years, as I built relationships with the folks at the Franklin-Covey Company, I was introduced to and became certified in other courses having to do with personal or organizational effectiveness: “5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity” and “Leading at the Speed of Trust”. I also helped implement “4 Disciplines of Execution” several times to different organizations within Intel. I was even asked to travel to other Intel sites around the world to teach these courses.
Along the way, as a lifetime learner, I added my own flavor to the materials as I taught. As a senior engineering manager (teaching was never my primary job), I was expected to not only take classes as part of my own career development, but also teach at least three classes every year, so these became part of my regular activities. I especially enjoyed watching the lights go on in my students as they began to understand the power of the material contained in these classes.
As I contemplated retirement from corporate life, I began to wonder if I could continue to enjoy the interaction with students after I left Intel. I contacted Franklin-Covey and they assured me that I could continue to teach these materials on my own (as long as I paid them for the use of the materials). So, back in June 2016, I gave up my corporate life and shortly thereafter registered Business Culture Advantage as my company.
Next time I’ll cover how I help my clients…
