The Executive Coach in the Corporate Forest: A Business Fable

Chapter 14:Cutting Through the Thicket

J.C. and Jane Smithfield had covered a lot of ground during the discovery phase, and so when J.C. met with her for the third time in her office at III-Tech, he had her fill out an instrument he called the “Balance Beam.” It was a graph that asked clients to rate aspects of their lives on a scale that ranged from 0 to 100 percent. The bar graph looked straight, like a solid beam of wood, if someone were very balanced, or it looked warped with dips and rises in an imbalanced life. Jane’s was more warped than straight. Her scores were typically high in career, money, and environment, but low in friends and family, fun and recreation, and significant others. J.C. wasn’t surprised. Jane was a no-nonsense woman ...