Team

Three questions you should ask every coaching organization about their team:
 

1. What are your written criteria for hiring coaches?
2. What is your selection process for vetting candidates?
3. How do you develop their talents even further once they join your company?

Every coach on our team is passionate about increasing relationship literacy in the business world. Every coach trained in the Maraia Method® has sufficient subject matter expertise about relationship building to change how you think about networking, selling and relationship building.  [Note: Our coaches are so passionate about coaching they even do pro bono coaching for non profits in their spare time!] 

In addition to our coaching credentials, we devote significant resources to recruiting talented coaches, creating forums for sharing knowledge amongst ourselves and creating teams that deliver exceptional client value. Another trait of our team that is somewhat unusual is this:  We genuinely like, respect and enjoy working together.  

Before we began recruiting coaches we had to answer this question: How do you tell a great coach from a good one?   Good coaches do the job you hired them to do and add value to your efforts.  However, great coaches take you to the outer edges of your comfort zone and help you expand your comfort zone.  They create value by showing you unexpected ways to grow your practice. Working with a great coach leads to transformation. A great coach inspires you to keep growing and doing the inner work needed to expand your comfort zone.  That is perhaps the trait of Maraia trained coaches that we are most proud of:  Every coach is willing to do their own 'inner work' or candid introspection that is needed to move beyond their comfort zone.  After all, you can't really ask someone else to operate at the edge of their comfort zone if you aren't willing to do the same. Great coaches are also passionate about their work and care deeply for the people they serve.  That describes our team perfectly. Regardless of whether you're paired with Chris, Cindy, Cleat or Greg you'll get someone who gets enormous satisfaction from helping YOU succeed! Great coaches have a way of helping their clients make serendipity happen.  

We've been hiring and training coaches in the Maraia Method®  since 1998 and have made our share of mistakes along the way.  Fortunately, we've learned from every one of our hiring mistakes (another defining trait about us) and we have now assembled an elite team of coaches that are first rate.  

We've also developed a hiring process that is very effective at finding the very best coaches. We start with a demanding set of hiring standards. There are many coaches now working for competitors who first applied to our organization and were summarily rejected on the basis of insufficient coaching experience, lack of subject matter knowledge and/or lack of knowledge about law firm and professional service firm cultures.  

We also employ a rigorous and proprietary interviewing and hiring process that involves simulations and performance-based exercises designed to weed out unsuitable coaches. Our hiring process is so rigorous (and our feedback to interviewees so detailed) that many interviewees report they’ve learned more from our simulated coaching calls (which are part of the interview process) than from their coach certification program. We have even shared elements of our unique (and proprietary) hiring process with our clients when they want to hire internal coaches.  

We're not content to sit on our lead.  We're always looking for ways to improve our critical business processes and the quality of our coaching. We have monthly Coaches Development Forums within our organization that are designed to share what we're learning in the field so we can all sharpen our skills and deliver greater value to our clients.  We could go on and on about how we use the Maraia Method® within our own organization to develop skills but we won't.  Hopefully, you get the idea.