Insights from Proverbs: Ask Questions
Proverbs 20:5 says, “A plan in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding draws it out.” How does that translate into wisdom for everyday life? Let’s look at an example of this principle in action. Just last Thursday, I met with the CEO and leadership team of a $50M company. This was my first meeting with this group. The CEO was polite and kind, but I could sense that he had his arms crossed in his mind and carried a “show me something” attitude. I walked in, introduced myself, and started handing 3×5 cards out to the team while explaining, “You know, most consultants make a terrible mistake: they start by trying to tell you what they know. That’s well-meaning but really wrong-headed. I’d like to take a different approach and start by asking some questions and hearing your perspective.” [Read more…]
When Companies Need More Than Coaching
We pride ourselves on being coaches with a broad understanding of business and leadership (obviously). Beneath that broad knowledge, however, many of our coaches have deep understanding of and experience in specific fields. While we are, first and foremost, a coaching firm, we’ve found that occasionally our clients require that deep expertise in finance, HR, or sales. [Read more…]
Jim Wiginton Awarded DBA
We are proud to announce that Jim Wiginton, founder of Broad Insights and current coach, was recently named a Doctor of Business Administration by the Paris School of Business. His dissertation is a case study of Broad Insights entitled “A Survey of Business Coaching Impacts on Companies and Their Leaders.” In this work, Jim explores the definition of business coaching, as well as the issues surrounding the field, and publishes the results of his survey of Broad Insights’ clients. [Read more…]
Lessons in Professional Development
Our coaches recently attended the annual conference of the Professional Business Coaches Alliance, a high-value event hosted and attended by top coaches from across the United States. While we can’t share a lot of what we learned—although our clients have probably already seen it in action!—the conference did get us thinking about the power of professional development. Everyone can benefit from professional development. All of our coaches are educated and experienced businesspeople, and we still believe continuing development is vital for them. Here is why professional development is valuable. [Read more…]
Announcing: The Executive Effectiveness Retreat
In February, we had the pleasure of hosting our first Executive Effectiveness Retreat. We gathered a handful of leaders at The Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards and spent two days diving deep on leadership. Led by Jim Wiginton—Broad Insights founder, award-winning coach, and decades-long leader—executives learned together, completed exercises, analyzed case studies, and role-played difficult conversations. In a special session, attendees were treated to personalized and insightful profiles of their personalities and patterns of behavior. Armed with this insight, several attendees had breakthroughs about how they function and relate to those around them. [Read more…]
Insight From Proverbs: Accepting Correction
When we talk about insights, I love the book of Proverbs. Solomon asked for wisdom and this is a record of his wise sayings to his adult son. Proverbs 17:10 says, “A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.” [Read more…]
How’s Your Backpack?
One of the things we talk about a lot at Broad Insights is the backpack everyone carries. Everyone has a backpack on. It’s invisible, and we certainly do our best to hide it from other people. But in that backpack, we’re carrying the burdens of life, the responsibilities we have. For instance, my wife and I have aging parents. They’re becoming weaker and in poorer health, so we’re more and more preoccupied with that. We’ve also been blessed with 5 children, so we’re still in parenting mode. Everyone has relationships to maintain, and perhaps even some fraying ones to improve. You have family concerns too, I’m sure, on various levels. [Read more…]
Are Your Customers Delighted?
I think the best coaches help business owners assess what customers are thinking. There are objective and subjective ways to do that. Someone once said, “It isn’t what you don’t know that hurts you, it’s what you ‘know’ that isn’t true.” [Versions of this quote have been attributed to a variety of smart people.] We find that some business owners believe certain things about their customers, but they have a distorted view because they haven’t provided a safe environment for their customers to say what they really think. [Read more…]
4 Areas On Which Every Business Owner Must Focus
Running a business is complex, but, from my experience, there are 4 things that business owners should be thinking about. It’s not easy, but it’s relatively simple. [Read more…](864)761-4141