Subject: The Oklahoman
From: "Merilee:::Kern Communications" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:18:15 -0700

http://www.newsok.com/business-coaches-aim-for-big-league/article/3315500

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Business coaches aim for big league
Growing industry helps companies improve
Comments 0
BY PAULA BURKES
Published: October 26, 2008
There once was an executive whose business was tanking. Meanwhile, he was having problems with his teenage son, and he and his wife were on the brink of divorce. Then a business coach helped him turn around his professional and personal life. 

Business coach Mary Tucker sits with her Guatemalan business partner Maria Cristina Crespo. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MARY TUCKER 
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"He'd quit listening to his subordinates or his wife," said John McKee, Los Angeles-based author and founder of www.BusinessSuccessCoach.net. "He was so certain he'd seen it all and knew it all, that he'd shut off after a few sentences, and had no idea he wasn't listening." McKee saw the executive's problem when he shadowed him in meetings. 

Business coaching is quickly becoming a hot career. In the past 10 years, the number of professionals worldwide has doubled to some 30,000, McKee said. Though no formal training is required, most complete a certification program, typically online-based, with an association or university. Coaching on average costs $200 to $250 an hour, McKee said. 

"It's really about balance and getting comfortable with the fact that life is rarely balanced," said Mary Tucker, international coach and founder of Oklahoma City-based Cultivate Your Life. 

Walking in their shoes
Tucker is all too familiar with reinventing oneself, including setting goals and overcoming fear and self-doubt. Once a single mom to five young daughters, Tucker went from being a housewife to a 32-year-old college student, to a graduate, to a professional, to an executive. 
After a long career in advertising and newspaper publishing, she recently became a coach, training through a two-year distance-learning program with John F. Kennedy University in San Diego. 

Along with local clients, Tucker in January will begin coaching in Guatemala. The opportunity came through a Guatemalan classmate and attorney she teamed with at an on-site class at JFK. 

The pair signed agreements with eight Guatemalan companies, including a sugar mill, a law firm and bakery/cafe. 

"They love all things America and, at that level, are fluent in English," Tucker said. 

Along with the Guatemalan alliance, they liked Tucker's coaching method, she said, which includes working with the behavior of the executive team as a whole, and one-hour individual sessions.