Using A Personal Coach To Meet Life’s Challenges

By Kaaren Valenta

According to Fortune magazine, the hottest thing in management today is the executive coach – part boss, part consultant, part therapist. Who are these people, the magazine asked in a February 21 article, and what do they do?

Chuck Berke knows. The Sandy Hook resident, a licensed marriage and family therapist, has been a personal and professional coach for several years, helping not only corporate executives but anyone who needs some help to master life’s challenges and welcome new opportunities.

“I am a confidential partner who listens, provides observations and guidance, and collaborates on creating and attaining goals,” he said.

Mr Berke said one of his clients is a certified public accountant (CPA) in Baltimore, Md.

“Every year when tax time comes around he is extremely stressed. I started talking with him in the fall about how he could get ready for it – just like an athlete in training,” Mr Berke said.

In previous years the CPA always had become bogged down during tax season and had panicked, hiring someone to help do the tax returns even though he always wound up spending time correcting them afterwards. He lost sleep and skipped his usual exercise workouts.

“After we talked he decided to do the returns himself and hired a really good office administrator to take the burden off him,” Mr Berke said. “It turned out to be his wife. He set up a ‘date night’ for them so their lives wouldn’t be all business.  And this time he didn’t give up the workouts or the rest. He was refreshed and actually got more done.

“Even though the tax season was always a grind, [the CPA] said this tax season was by far the best for him,” Mr Berke said.

Coaching is most valuable for individuals who are willing to grow and who recognize there is a gap between where they are now and where they want to be, he said.

“They are usually self-motivated and willing to experiment by moving out of their ‘comfort zone.’ With a coach, clients set higher goals, take bolder actions, make better personal and business decisions, and have more energy and enjoyment.”

In many corporations, young executives find mentors – usually older executives – who provide feedback and help them on their career path. During the past decade, however, professional coaching has come into the picture. Some executives now request a professional coach as part of their compensation package. Other times corporations bring in coaches to help the management team.

“An executive might be sharp as a whip, enormously successful, but have problems with interpersonal relationships – a need to be more flexible,” Mr Berke, 48, said. “It’s an employees’ market in this economy; turnover is expensive, and the corporation doesn’t want to lose employees unnecessarily. A coach might be brought in to work on the executive’s softer skills – to help the executive become more flexible.”

Some employees need help with structure and follow-through, and a coach can help here, too. “It might be as simple as telling them to get the junk off their desk or their files organized,” Mr Berke said.

In many ways, using a coach can resemble a brainstorming session.

“One important thing to note is that in coaching, the client sets the agenda, not the coach,” Mr Berke said. “The coach is always willing to help with that aspect of the work as well, but his basic function is to provide vision, support, and accountability in a gentle fashion. One of my clients describes our relationship this way: ‘It’s like having my own personal sheepdog for my life.’”

People use a coach for many reasons – to balance work and family, to simplify their lives, to start a business, to reduce stress, to create better relationships, to identify and meet unfulfilled needs, to successfully complete transitions, to maintain or increase success in business.

Coaching is accomplished through two formats: face-to-face meeting or telephone sessions, called telecoaching, or a combination of both.

“Telecoaching is personalized, powerful, practical, and convenient,” Mr Berke said. “My clients contract for three or four coaching sessions per month with additional support offered between sessions through ‘spot’ coaching, e-mail, and fax transmissions.”

For Chuck Berke, becoming a coach was a logical extension of his roles as a therapist and executive director of Fairfield Community Services, a mental health agency much like the Family Counseling Center in Newtown.

“I’ve always been fascinated with what motivates people’s behavior,” he explained. “That’s why I went into counseling. You can’t understand a person until you understand the context from which they come.

“I’m also interested in what is called larger systems,” he said. “Families are systems. Corporations and municipalities are larger systems.”

A native of Stratford, Chuck Berke earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from the University of Maryland, and went into broadcasting, working in radio and later as a weatherman for a television station in Texas. He then operated his own business  in northern Virginia for more than six years. Finally he returned to Connecticut, entered Fairfield University as a fulltime student to earn a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, and supported himself while he was in school by taking a job selling hardware to hardware stores. He and his wife, Peggy, a director at Cendant Mobility in Danbury, married 10 years ago. They lived in the Northbrook condominiums in Monroe until they bought a home on Cobblers Mill Road in Sandy Hook last year.

“Two years ago I attended a national conference of marriage and family therapists and took a seminar from Pat Williams on how to apply what I do as a therapist to becoming a coach,” he said. “I later saw an ad in a journal and decided to take the training course. It was all done by teleconferencing.”

Like the CPA in Baltimore, Mr Berke’s clients are located in many parts of the country – North Carolina, Rhode Island, Illinois.

“They found me by referral mostly,” he said. “I refer people to other coaches, too. I even have my own coach. Anyone who is looking for a personal coach should interview one to see if there is a fit. You might have to talk to several to find the one that is right for you.”

Typically a client would speak with a coach several times a month, each time for 45 minutes to an hour. The cost might vary from $250 to $500 a month based on an hourly rate of about $100. Before the sessions begin, clients fill out worksheets that help them formulate ideas about their life purpose, business mission, and what they want as their legacy. They begin to set goals for their personal and professional lives, and draft a personal vision.

While coaches come from many walks of life, Chuck Berke feels he has an advantage in being a therapist. “It’s a logical fit, and it’s a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s very exciting.”

“Just the very act of talking to someone for an hour is very powerful,” Mr Berke said. “People who use a coach really want change. It helps them reclaim the passion in their lives.”

Chuck Berke maintains an office in Monroe at 605 Main Street, Suite B2. He can be reached at 268-4301.