Many organizations seek training as a mechanism to address complex problems in the workplace and in performance. While training may indeed comprise part of an overall plan for change, it is generally insufficient. If information alone were keeping us stuck, the information age would have solved our challenges by now. But motivation, system supports, models for change, skill development, management, and reinforcement are all necessary components of an overall strategy for performance improvement.

Gary Hollander Enterprises uses a comprehensive approach in consulting in the areas of teamwork, mission alignment, change management, and managing diversity. As principle consultant, Gary Hollander seeks to discover from a variety of sources the issues that put organizations at risk and keep customers or clients at bay. Too often these are related to a sense of disenfranchisement on the part of employees and disenchantment on the part of management. The situation is viewed as toxic, unwelcoming, or avoidant. The stakeholders appear mistrustful, defensive, or prone to conflict. Once the issues are uncovered, careful consultation with leadership builds communications, programs, processes to address the challenges, often creating a new, enriched culture along the way.

• Teamwork: Teams form and develop through processes that are at once dynamic and predictable. The stresses that work teams withstand affect their products, services, and plans. When work teams are overly stressed, team members may isolate, become confrontational, passively await a solution to arrive, or look to organizational leaders for a fix. Gary Hollander Enterprises assists clients' work teams move beyond understanding their current status to enhancing services and improving product quality through thoughtful and timely planning.
   
• Mission Alignment: When teams know organizational goals, given adequate resources, they will work to achieve them. However, some team members work at competing agendas or are unaware of resources. Too often in addressing these issues, organizations become punitive or passive; they implement rules or procedures in an effort to control behaviors. Sometimes they skirt the issues by hiring more staff or changing management. Gary Hollander Enterprises helps organizations redirect talent to get optimal results. Concrete plans for information exchange, motivational assessment, leadership and skill development, reinforcement schedules, and infrastructure supports become key to moving programs forward.
   
• Change Management: Gary Hollander Enterprises assumes that change is inevitable and constant. Organizations that are flexible and nimble while maintaining integrity capture opportunities and address threats in productive ways. Opinion leaders and cross sectional teams can be developed to assist organizations change, while a host of supports bring excitement and zest to new directions. Nominal incentives, organizational communication tools, leadership modeling, and small workplace huddles all play a role in making transitions enjoyable. Gary Hollander Enterprises aids organizations in understanding and applying change theory to diffuse innovations.
   
• Managing Diversity: Gary Hollander Enterprises bases its consultation, coaching, and training interventions on a philosophy that values diversity, teamwork, change, and mission alignment. At the center of this philosophy is an understanding that all of us together are more competent than any one of us individually, so every individual matters. Our resources are better managed, our services more effective when diverse perspectives contribute to their planning and execution. Thus, in addition to the altruistic sense that managing our diversity is the right thing to do, appreciating and utilizing diversity in an inclusive workplace makes sound business sense. Organizations that effectively manage diversity simultaneously attract the most qualified staff in a competitive workforce and gain important marketshare through better product of service delivery.

Consistent with this philosophy, Gary Hollander Enterprises believes that workers generally want to improve their skills and develop positive workplace attitudes. However, the predispositions that many of us hold are usually seen by us as functional or practical because they have worked in the past. Thus, we often want some bridges to new options in the form of cognitions and skills that will assist us in arriving at an expanded repertoire of attitudes and behaviors.

For some, undoing our predisposed approaches will be more difficult than for others. Some have had little experience with different approaches to working together, thereby contributing to situations where inaccurate or insufficient information is allowed to remain unchallenged by positive new experiences. For some, the appreciation of change may represent a loss: of perceived or actual privilege; of protective beliefs or value systems; and of teachings that were instilled by others whom we love or respect. And for others, the process of undoing biased perspectives will support the work they have already begun on their own.

Training

Given these potential challenges to creating expanded workplace understanding and skill development, Gary Hollander Enterprises holds that training and group facilitation are often essential, but not sufficient interventions in organizations seeking to improve. Training is most effective in the context of a social learning process in which key formal and informal opinion leaders model their commitment to change by engaging in active dialog about modifying corporate policies and individual practices to be congruent with an emerging leadership vision.

As competent practitioners of adult learning theory, Gary Hollander Enterprises associates engage participants in practical, user-friendly, outcome-based training. With engaging presentation styles and authentic regard for people, Gary Hollander Enterprises associates challenge and inspire. They view their role as assisting individuals in exploring the attitudes, values, and behaviors that limit effectiveness while encouraging appreciation for similarities and respect for differences. Participants in training programs engage experientially in the learning process. They are given a variety of didactic and interactive activities. Well-attuned to interpersonal dynamics, Gary Hollander Enterprises associates competently handle emotional content, create environments of safety, and support disclosure. Gary Hollander Enterprises associates have great comfort in working with people where they are and encouraging them to risk in areas where they desire to be challenged.

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Gary Hollander is a licensed mental health professional, trained to help people learn new skills and make significant behavior changes. As a professional coach, I am here to offer my skills in the areas of communication, problem-solving, and behavior change. I do this through a coaching service, in which clients come to me for help in making decisions and implementing them, in order to achieve goals that they decide for themselves.

In addition to being a Coach, I am also a licensed psychologist in Wisconsin, with training and experience in diagnosing and treating emotional and psychological problems. Although there are some similarities between Coaching and psychotherapy, I will not conduct psychotherapy with my coaching clients. These are different activities, and it is important to understand the differences between them. Although both Coaching and psychotherapy use knowledge of human behavior, motivation, behavioral change, and interactive counseling techniques, there are major differences in the goals, focus, and level of professional responsibility.

The client sets the agenda for coaching, and successes depend on their willingness to define and take risks and try new approaches. Clients can expect their coach to be honest and direct, asking straightforward questions and using challenging techniques to help them move forward. Clients are expected to evaluate their own progress, and if the coaching is not working as they wish, they should immediately inform their coach so both can take steps to correct the problem. Like any human endeavor, coaching can involve feelings of distress and frustration which accompany the process of change. Coaching does not offer any guarantee of success.

Mechanics of Coaching

Generally coaching today is conducted in person, on the phone, or online. Coaching sessions are scheduled from 30 to 90 minutes in length, with the norm being 45 minutes. The coaching relationship begins with a variety of activities to assess with a client if a beneficial match exists for client and coach. These activities include a free 30-minute phone session, a client-centered life assessment, and an Emotional Intelligence Inventory, with feedback on the latter two.

Once the general direction of coaching is established, clients create with the coach the relationship they need to benefit them most. After this, coaching sessions are generally scheduled for a four week period, usually consisting of two to four sessions during that time. Activities are planned for periods of time between coaching. During each session, progress is monitored and successes are celebrated. But setbacks are also used to develop winning strategies for the next period of progress. At the end of each four week period, the coaching process is also examined and fine tuned to achieve maximum results. Termination of the coaching process is also planned.

When clients are coached by phone, they usually call the coach at the designated time. When the coaching is face to face, it may occur at either the client's office or at Gary Hollander Enterprises. Some clients may choose to also participate in an online forum with other people who are being coached and who share some common goals. These clients benefit from "boosters" of motivation, acknowledgement, strategizing, and reinforcement by the coach and their peers between coaching sessions.

Payment Procedure

The coach is paid in advance of each series of coaching sessions. The first coaching session will begin after an agreement is signed and faxed to the Coach and the first payment is received by credit card (Visa or Master Card), check or money order. Services must be paid for in advance, or they will not be provided. Services requested by the Client, in addition to coaching calls, will be billed at a prorated hourly rate (agreed in advance) and will be paid within 30 days of service. Fees for coaching forums online will be negotiated prior to admission to the secured forum area. Any changes to this procedure must be mutually agreed upon in writing. Payments may be made online by clicking here.

Feedback

If, at any time, you feel that your needs are not being met or you are not getting what you want out of the coaching or training group, please tell me, so we can discuss your needs and adjust your coaching program, as needed. We will continue to work on the goals that you define unless you want to stop, which we will do whenever you ask.

Session Time

Coaching is scheduled at the mutual convenience of the Coach and the Client. The day and time for the next call may be scheduled at the close of each coaching session or, with advanced notice, may be arranged a month at a time.

Call Procedure

The Client will call the Coach at the pre-arranged time and telephone number as scheduled, and pays the telephone charges for the call. For group coaching calls and classes, the Coach will pay for the teleconference line, and the Clients will pay for the call into the conference line.

Differences between coaching and counseling

Psychotherapy and counseling, on the other hand, are most often considered health care services. Their primary focus is to identify, diagnose, and treat disorders. The goals include alleviating symptoms, understanding the underlying dynamics which create symptoms, changing the behaviors which are the result of these disorders, and helping patients to cope with their psychological problems. It is often reimbursable through health insurance policies (while coaching is not).

Psychotherapy patients are often emotionally vulnerable. This vulnerability is increased by the expectation that they will discuss very intimate personal information and will expose feelings about themselves that they are understandably sensitive about. The past life experiences of psychotherapy patients have often made trust difficult to achieve. These factors give psychotherapists greatly disproportionate power that creates a responsibility to protect the safety of their clients. The coaching relationship is designed to avoid this power differential.

Because of these differences, the roles of coach and psychotherapist are often in potential conflict, so I believe that it is ethically inappropriate, under most circumstances, for me to play both roles with a client. If I am their coach, I will not be their therapist. This means that if either of us recognizes that clients have a problem that would benefit from psychotherapy, I will refer or direct clients to appropriate resources. In some situations, I may urge that clients enter psychotherapy and that I have access to their psychotherapist, as a condition of my continuing as their Coach.

It is also important to understand that Coaching is a professional relationship. While it may feel at times like a close personal relationship, it is not one that should extend beyond professional boundaries during our work together. Considerable experience shows that when boundaries blur, the hard-won benefits gained from the coaching relationship are endangered.

Confidentiality

As a licensed psychologist, I protect the confidentiality of the communications with my clients, including my coaching clients. I will only release information about our work to others with written permission, or if I am required to do so by a court order. There are some situations in which I am legally obligated to breach your confidentiality in order to protect others from harm, including:

• if I have information that indicates that a child or elderly or disabled person is being abused, I must report that to the appropriate state agency; and,
• if a client is an imminent risk to him/herself or makes threats of imminent violence against another person, I am required to take protective actions.
  

These situations rarely occur in coaching practices, but if such a situation does occur, I will make every effort to discuss it with you before taking any action.

Some sessions are conducted in groups, including teleconference groups. Clients agree to maintain the confidentiality of all information communicated to them by other coaching clients and by the coach. We also understand that progress is often enhanced when clients discuss their coaching relationship with trusted colleagues and friends. You can have these discussions, but you are expected to be very careful not to share any information which would allow others in the group to be identified. One way to decide how and what to discuss is to think about how you would feel if someone else in the group were discussing you.

As you are probably aware, it is impossible to completely protect the confidentiality of information which is transmitted electronically. This is particularly true of E-mail and information stored on computers connected to the internet (unless you use encryption and other forms of security protection), and if you use a cordless or cell phone, someone with a scanner could hear you talk.

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Counseling is not easily described in general statements. Counseling varies depending on the personalities or patterns of the counselor and the client, and the particular distresses the client is experiencing. There are many different methods that may be used to deal with the problems that the client hopes to address. Counseling is not like a medical doctor visit. Instead, it calls for a very active effort on the client's part. In order for the counseling to be most successful, the client will have to work on things that are addressed in counseling both during sessions and at home.

Counseling can have benefits and risks. Since counseling often involves discussing unpleasant aspects of one's life, the client may experience uncomfortable feelings like sadness, guilt, anger, frustration, loneliness, and helplessness. On the other hand, counseling has also been shown to have many benefits. Counseling often leads to better relationships, solutions to specific problems, and significant reductions in feelings of distress. But there are no guarantees of what the client will experience.

The first few sessions will involve an evaluation of the client's needs. By the end of the evaluation, the counselor will be able to offer the client some first impressions of what the work will include and a treatment plan to follow, if the client decides to continue with counseling. One should evaluate this information along with his or her own opinions of whether there is adequate safety in the counseling relationship. Counseling involves a large commitment of time, money, and energy, so the client should be very careful about the counselor selection.

As a counselor, I approach the counseling relationship as a very important and special one. Therefore, I take very few clients at a time - generally no more than five or six. This arrangement allows me to focus clearly and deeply on the issues at play in the client's life. However, I also anticipate that the client will work diligently on the issues that bring them into counseling. Further, this counseling relationship is based on my never forgetting the client's goodness and strength. Through the relationship, we craft a process where clients can hold onto the truth about themselves as well: that they are intelligent, good, lovable, powerful people who have been hurt, but who have all the necessary attributes to heal.

In couple's counseling, the approach is similar but several important distinctions are made. I do not typically counsel a couple when I have already started counseling one of the individuals in the partnership. I view the counseling as having three facets: each individual and the relationship in which the pair is enacting their patterns of behavior. Since each person is likely bringing predisposed perspectives and roles into the relationship, those must be examined and challenged. Then the habits in the relationship itself must be reconsidered. Finally, the individuals move on to redesigning the relationship in ways that are successful for them.

Family work takes many different forms, ranging from parent sessions in which the young people visit to family "reunions" in which adult children and their parents construct adult relationships that honor their history but address their adult needs. Counseling young people is also quite varied, from play therapy to bibliotherapy; however, I always see young people in the context of family work.

If you have any specific questions about my procedures as a counselor, we can discuss them via email or a phone call. You can contact me through this website. If I am not the best person to work with you, I will be happy to help you set up a meeting with another mental health professional for another option.

Counseling Sessions

I normally conduct an evaluation that will last from 2 to 4 sessions. During this time, we can both decide if I am the best person to provide the services you need in order to meet your treatment goals. If counseling is begun, I will usually schedule one 50-minute session (one appointment hour of 50 minutes duration) per week at a time we agree on, although some sessions may be longer or more frequent. Most often I anticipate that clients will work with me for a total of eight to 10 sessions and determine if adequate progress, or "symptom relief," has been accomplished. If it has, clients generally terminate the counseling relationship, take a "furlough" from counseling so that they can integrate gains and check in later, or arrange for further sessions to address deeper issues that may have prompted the more recent feelings of distress.

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