Multicoach: Helping successful women manage their complex lives.

A quarterly newsletter that helps businesses, clinicians and professional women be more effective by cultivating possibilities.

Most of us long to live a life that is more open to new possibilities, yet we systematically constrain ourselves by operating out of a fixed set of assumptions, beliefs and attitudes. Often, those ideas about how we must live perpetuate the very things we wish would change. The flip side, of course, is that our beliefs and assumptions can help us get unlocked.

I recently met with a colleague whose experience nicely illustrates how powerfully assumptions color our choices. This man and his wife, both in midlife, each had longstanding mental health practices in Chicago. Every time they went on vacation to the East Coast, they would fantasize about moving there; each time, they would short- circuit the possibility with the refrain, "We can't leave the businesses that we've worked so hard to build." This story repeated itself a number of times until one day while on vacation when they missed a ferry and had some time to kill, during which time they saw an ad for a lovely, oceanside Bed and Breakfast for sale. The Bed and Breakfast opened their minds to the real possibility of having an alternative to the life they had been living. They are moving in June-and living out a possibility that until recently they had always foreclosed upon.

Not only does possibility coexist with limitations, I think that limits create a boundary that affords the opportunity for possibility. This may seem like a contradiction. Here is how I think it works. We all know the phrase, "good fences make good neighbors." The examples are myriad. Families with good boundaries create a psychological environment in which family members can flourish. Employers who genuinely respect their employees' need for a personal life have happier, more productive employees. Parents who use predictable and reasonable limits raise children who are much healthier than children who are allowed to run wild.

Thus, orienting ourselves toward possibility doesn't mean throwing out limits. It means using limits constructively to create opportunities for possibility to arise.

MARKETING DEMYSTIFIED FOR CLINICIANS: PART 1

by Sarah B. Warren, Ph.D.

(A version of this article was published in Mentor Coach News, April 2002, a publication of the Mentor Coach Program.)

Many clinicians conjure up images of marketing that are hard to relate to: at worst, the slick used car salesman, at best, a different breed of person. I confess to being someone who was slow to warm up to the idea of marketing. I come from an academic family in New England, and I'm pretty reserved by nature. I am not a natural marketer. However, I've discovered that there are various creative ways around obstacles to marketing-- that even introverts who are reluctant to toot their own horns can let people know what they do well. Once we demystify marketing, it's possible to build a successful practice and have fun along the way.

If you're anxious about marketing, you tend to avoid it. The problem is that if you can't imagine yourself marketing your services, it's hard to expand or diversify your practice. If you're uncomfortable, it can be difficult to start up a coaching or consulting practice, or develop a new kind of clinical practice.

And, you offer a valuable service. If people don't know about what you do, they're deprived of the benefits of your services.

There are several key things that I have learned both through marketing my own diverse practice and coaching other clinicians.

Letting People Know What Problems You Solve

It boils down to letting people know what problems you can help them solve. When I ran a coaching group for clinicians this winter, they were so relieved to learn to think this way.

I'll use a clinical example to break that down:
As a clinician in clinical practice, you might be able to help an anxious person become less anxious.

1. The problem is anxiety.
2. The solution is rendered through psychotherapy.
3. Your audience, the people who need to know that you offer that solution, is your potential referral sources such as colleagues and physicians.

Clinicians tend to be good at talking to other clinicians. In order to communicate to a wider audience about the problems you can help them solve, you need to use non-clinical language. For instance, perhaps you know a lot from your clinical practice about angry clients, and you'd like to coach small business owners. Here's how you might translate your clinical knowledge into a solution for small business owners.

1. The problem is managing difficult employees.
2. The solution is delivered through coaching the business owner.
3. The audience for your message is small business owners (or people who know small business owners, which is most of us).

Marketing is Easier than You Might Think

Once you reduce your anxieties about marketing and understand how simple it can be to communicate with people about what you do, marketing becomes much more natural and effortless.

Dr. Warren offers seminars and telegroups for clinicians on practice transformation. To learn more, click here: Workshops & Telegroups

CREATING WORKPLACE POSSIBILITIES THROUGH ADDRESSING SUBSTANCE ABUSE

by Sarah B. Warren, Ph.D.

In a rare but laudable move for a business publication, Chief Executive, an E-zine for CEOs, devoted the lead article of the March 2002 issue to alcohol and drugs problems at the top of layers of business, stating that "alcoholism is a stealthy liability that pervades corporate America and puts some of its brightest leaders at risk." (See www.chiefexecutive.net/mag/176/index.html.)

Unaddressed substance abuse limits the potential not only of the substance abuser, but of his or her coworkers and staff, and, if the substance abuser is in a position of top leadership, the entire business. The stakes are high: a company's reputation can be damaged and its performance hindered; there is risk of liability exposure from various sources: a bad decision could result in a negligence lawsuit, or inappropriate behavior could result in a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Terminating a high level person who is impaired by substance abuse may seem like the most logical option. However, the more valuable the person, the more difficult and costly it will be to replace her or him.

There are other reasons to avoid termination: First, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers are expected to provide a "reasonable accommodation" for disabilities; alcoholism is considered a disability under the ADA, and offering treatment tends to be considered a reasonable accommodation. (We recommend that even small businesses that are not covered under the ADA act as if they were.) Second, there is an opportunity to help someone turn his or her life around, or even literally save a life. Finally, recovering alcoholics are often extremely productive once they are able to rededicate themselves to their work.

Executive Intervention entails hiring a qualified professional to meet with key decision-makers about their concerns in order to make an assessment of options for the business. If there is evidence of impaired performance (which is essential to proceeding with Intervention at that time), an Executive Intervention may be conducted under the guidance of the professional consultant. If there is not yet is evidence of impaired performance, the consultant may advise waiting to intervene until there is clear performance documentation. At the Executive Intervention, the executive is presented with the option of entering a substance abuse treatment program.

Denial is endemic to substance abuse; and people in leadership positions have extra reasons to want to deny a substance abuse problem. However, denial is not an impenetrable wall; there are chinks in the wall. Further, the possibility of losing one's position, even one's career, is a very powerful incentive.

Intervention was developed precisely in order to reach through the denial and help the substance abuser accept the need for professional attention.

A well-conducted Intervention opens up possibilities for all: the business, the executive, and his or her family.

We provide Executive Intervention services, and also have connections to Executive Interventionists across the country. To inquire please email DrWarren@mulitcoach.org or call (312) 595-1691.

The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life
by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, published in 2000 by Harvard Business School Press.

This is an inspiring book by Rosamund Zander, a psychotherapist, coach and business consultant, and Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and business consultant. They illustrate how open pathways to possibility for both individuals and businesses.

An ongoing telegroup on Marketing and Transforming a Clinical Practice is being offered on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. A couple of spaces remain open as of this writing.

Dr. Warren will be offering a coaching demonstration with Tom Horne on August 1, 2002 at 8 a.m for the Evanston, IL Chamber of Commerce.

At the American Psychological Association annual convention in Chicago, Dr. Warren will be presenting on an Illinois Psychological Association panel on psychological consulting in the workplace. The panel will take place on August 22, 2002 at 9 a.m.

Dr. Warren will be offering a half-day seminar on developing a psychological consulting practice with senior consulting psychologist Dr. Mallory Starr in Washington, DC. The seminar will take place Friday July 12, 2002 at 10 a.m. This seminar is sponsored by the DC Psychological Association. To learn more, please contact the DC Psychological Association at (202) 336-5559. To register, click here (link will open in new window): Registration

Sarah Warren hails originally from Boston. She earned a Bachelor's degree in Social Sciences at University of Michigan and her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Northwestern University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at University of Chicago. She has held clinical and administrative positions at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital and the University of Chicago. She is a graduate of the Mentor Coach Program �.

In addition to coaching successful professionals, she enjoys offering executive and business coaching. Interventions for executives in crisis, psychotherapy, expert witness services, employment psychological assessments, and business consulting. She has also been coaching mental health professionals on career transition as well as diversifying and marketing their practices. In all of these capacities she has had the opportunity to work with bright, energetic and ambitious people in various fields, including law, academia, medicine, and business. Coaching allows her to use her personal and professional experience to help others who face similar challenges.

Dr. Warren is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and has been in private practice in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois since 1989.

Sarah B. Warren, Ph.D. & Associates, P.C.
480 N. McClurg Court, Suite 513
Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: (312) 595-1691
Fax: (312) 595-1492
Email: DrWarren@multicoach.org
Web: www.multicoach.org

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