An important part of executive coaching is to train their leaders with management coaching skills. This article invites managers and any person with a mentor role inside a company, to learn tools that will help them to develop coaching skills in order to help them dive into the human dimension of their employees, establish connection, discover their strengths and align these resources in a symbiotic way with the expectations of the organisation. 

In SUCCESSCHOICES the coaching training for the leadership level of a company  supports managers to learn the basic principles of managerial coaching that will help them develop their own expertise as coaches at work, like learning how to have a conversation asking good, open-ended questions that allow the people they are coaching to reflect on what they are doing and how they can do things differently in the future to improve performance.

Studies have shown that managers who find the time to coach their people, help them to become the ideal talents that the company needs.

Managers that invest more time coaching and helping their people to develop have better teamwork and get better results. They focus on discovering their people's potential and help them to unfold. They are educating their Team and creating leaders from inside the organisation. This promotes motivation, trust and reduces significantly the rotation rate. 
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In SUCCESSCHOICES the Executive coaching training programs may vary from one up to four modules or seminars. It depends on the availability and the needs of the organisation's leadership.

These are executive training programs designed to prepare individuals to facilitate formal coaching engagements inside their organisation. SUCCESSCHOICES methodology is unique to build solutions, it is goal oriented and uses the latest coaching techniques based on neuroscience studies. We teach leaders how to use a solutions-focused, outcome-driven approach to guide and develop others.​

Only for organizations we provide a coaching training program that can be designed into isolated seminars adapted to the needs and availability of their leadership. In other words, we deliver straight-to-the-point trainings, that also will be accredited as part of the certified life coach basic training program.

The participation in the coaching training program starts a personal process for self development that bring a new insights of life understanding to every participant. 

You are not your environment, but in the same way that the environment affects you, you also affect the environment and the people around you, through your actions, words and feelings. So how can you use your actions, words and feelings to affect positively your interaction with others? Have you lived a similar experience before? And if so, what did you do at that time to solve the problem? Discover in an executive coaching session, what is missing and what solutions would fit your work style.

But in the meantime, let's see  what happens, when you apply the following:

• Write a list of your duties and see how you have accomplish it. If you do your job quite well, give yourself a treat. Be aware of the importance of what you do and your time. Give yourself recognition. But if you are not sure about how you are doing in your job, take executive coaching
• Do one task at a time, work mono tasking and enjoy every time you finish a task. Realising that you have completed a bunch tasks on your list is very rewarding. Executive coaching can provide you good methods to reward and motivate yourself.
• Do not think about the reasons not to work.Think about the reasons to work and why you need it, why you got this job and recall the good feelings of the first day at work.
• If nothing works, start looking for a new position. Set a goal about what you want to get. Write all the details of your dream job and work on your resume, make a job hunting plan and observe your motivation after knowing that you may get another job in the near future, while working in the actual one. It is always positive and you may notice also more joy in your current situation. Executive coaching can help you to find that out.

• Showing understanding, respect and consideration for others in a daily basis will help you to develop long lasting work relationships based on human values.
• Avoid gossips. Executive coaching can teach you excellent techniques to coach your colleges and help them to be out of gossiping
• Develop empathy. Practice on a daily bases exercise to develop empathy like, put in the shoes of the other.
• Write a list of your tasks to achieve for the day, for the week, for the month and check everyday what you have achieve.
• Stick to your goals and set a deadline for your each one.
• Schedule your meetings with colleges, write everything down and make clear your responsibilities.
• Start working an hour earlier and don't work after hours. You avoid interruptions and you can concentrate much better
• Check and answer your mail just once a day. Don't spend the whole day checking emails.
• Be organised.
• Participate at least twice a month in free time activities with people at work, like bowling, eating dinner or doing sport. 
• Practice a minute meditation several times a day. This practice helps you to manage stress, doesn't take time and is more effective than a long meditation once a day. Learn easy and effective stress mental management exercises with executive coaching.

Do what makes sense to you and try little steps, one after the other. You will see that at the end of the day, it makes a big difference. The more you practice good habits, the more effective you will work and the better you will feel. Our brain learn with repetition and routines. Practice is the key. By the way, get to try your free executive coaching session with successchoices.

Moving to any country can be very exiting, if you have a positive attitude. The best card to play here is the fact that you don't know anything about your future life. This allow you to build a filter in your awareness to see life through a better pair of glasses, you can start expecting good and positive things coming to you. If you are moving to Switzerland think about the beautiful Alps, the Lakes, the cities, the new job and expect to meet good people, helpful people. The more you focus on expecting to meet good people and live good experiences, the more you will filter your attention to these things. As a result, you will develop good resilience to help you facing the negative side of being a foreigner here. 

When you do not develop resilience, every new little challenge from the new environment may look like a tragedy, creating shock after shock while making you believe that living here is horrible. I experienced in my first year here, several  false heart attacks produced by anxiety and stress. 

Do not let your life get to this point and look for help. Do not consider local help to complain about how horrible your life is in their country. That would be a big mistake. Look for an expat who can really understand what you are living. 

Look for expatriates forums in the Internet to know about where to move, private vs public schools, language courses, expats communities, where to register and get your residence permit, where to get your swiss license, etc., All this information and more, can be found in English forums in the internet. Formal information in English about the Swiss system and Authorities can be found in www.ch.ch/en, http://www.movetoswitzerland.com, www.englishforum.ch, www.angloinfo.com, www.meetup.com

1.- Before you move to Switzerland, look for internet and telephone providers and fix an appointment to get that done before you move there, or at least, on the very same day when you are moving there. Check https://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential.html. It has a good service. But I had a very bad experience with Wasserwerkezug oder wwz.ch. It took them forever. We spent the first three weeks without Internet and telephone. After we got the Internet connexion, we realized that the transmission for down and upload files was so limited that you can not work with it. It was as if we were in the stone age of the Internet. So we changed to Swisscom and it was a huge difference. We felt, we came back to the present time again. Once you have got your Internet, everything will be much easier for you.

2.- Inquire in the English forums in Switzerland about foreigners friendly neighbourhoods. The people in the big cities like Zurich, Zug and Lucerne are very open minded and you will meet a lot of people speaking English in cafes, restaurants, shops and open places. There are many foreigners communities and groups that support each other and can help you with a lot of information and activities to do. 

I remember that my husband and I selected a list of several apartments in different neighbourhoods to check. The apartments were in Steinhausen and Rotkreux in Kanton Zug. They looked brand new and the rent was not so expensive, but not cheap either. After our first month of living in the new apartment, we experienced many not-foreigners-friendly situations. We moved after 10 months to a much better place and among expats. You may ask, but how could you know where to move? Let me tell you, you can find all the answers you are looking for nowadays in forums.

Don't get me wrong, we also met nice open minded people in our first place, but they were not a majority. My best neighbour was a Swiss lady named Ruth. She helped me a lot. I still keep in touch with her. She told me where to go, what to do and where to find what I needed. She was sad when we moved. I was very lucky and very thankful that I met her.

3.- As soon as you have moved, inquire how to get your Swiss license and your Ausländerausweiss (residence permit) in the Amt für Migration. In my case, I had to go to Zug, here is a link to help you with all the Info you need in English about the type of permits:
https://www.zg.ch/international/english/individuals/immigration/types-of-permit

4. If you have children, think about public schools vs private schools. If you are coming to Switzerland with the benefits of an expats contract, probably you will get covered the expenses of a private school for your children. That's perfect! If you have got a local contract, you may not get the private school included. It is very expensive in Switzerland. But if you can afford it, think about it. Otherwise, if you have a child in kindergarten age,  I recommend you to register him in a public school, in order for him to get adapted to the language and the culture. He will start having Swiss friends and making playdates with them will help him to be accepted and be integrated more easily. Public schools in Switzerland offer a good education and a lot of extra curricula activities. The richer the town is, the better resources in the school will be offered.

If your child is in primary school age, he or she may experience something a bit different about integration and social acceptance in Swiss public schools. Public schools in the city presents more foreigners than public schools in the suburbs where people are more conservative and not so foreigners friendly.  An option to improve integration is to register your child in the same extra curricula activities where the local children of his class go. For example, Fuss-ball Club, Turnen Vereign (Sport), Pfadi (Scouts Groups) , Ballett, Judo, Kung Fu, tennis, you name it. Manage for your child one up to two play dates per week with locals and be consistent, don't interrupt this routine. During the season holidays try to book at least one playdate before the classes start. So your child won't be excluded and will feel continuity in his relationship with his classmates. I have tried everything to help my children to feel happy here. Adaptation and integration is relative, but keeping integrity and identity is more important for a child in an foreign environment. Support your children no matter what. That is the best you can do. I have a happy child in a public school and a happy child in a private school.

5.- Get to start building your network with expats and locals. I have got very nice Swiss friends and you will get to know very nice Swiss people too. The more you focus on expecting to meet good people and live good experiences, the more you will filter your attention to these things. Keep being open and start learning to speak German. There are Swiss and German people here, who are looking for an interchange of conversation in different languages. So you get to speak German and they get to improve their English. Here are some Links that can help you:
https://www.spontacts.com/sprachen
http://www.meetup.com/de-DE/Let-s-talk-auf-DEUTSCH/
http://www.americanswelcome-expats.ch/community.php
http://forum.world.st/Stammtisch-Bern-Termin-td132223.html
Deutschen Stammtisch in Bern

I hope these tips can give you an idea about where and how to start your life here in Switzerland.

As I said at the beginning of this blog, developing a positive inner attitude will help you emotionally to enjoy this first phase of starting a new life here. But if you focus on every little challenge the new environment has to offer, it will only bring more stress and anxiety. Prepare from inside out and develop a life strategy to enjoy your new life and your new job in Switzerland. 

Take life coaching in Switzerland to cope with anxiety and manage stress. One session of life coaching will give you support not only during the adaptation phase but it will also provide you with easy and effective exercises to develop resilience and a positive attitude that will  help you to be able to count  the good things around you again. Check out my life coaching in Zurich,  Zug,  Lucerne or any other city in Switzerland

​SUCCESS CHOICES is much more than life coaching in Switzerland.  SUCCESSCHOICES understand where you are and will go along with you to help you discover your new environment and   will support you in your new life and work. 

From the moment a client decides to take a life coaching or an executive coaching session, he already has some expectations about the session and about the coach. 

In my experience I have had to learn how to answer to some questions that are important to develop trust and connection in a life coaching or executive coaching session with my clients. These experiences may help other coaches to see that they are not alone in these awkward moments that we can use to give us the chance to learn from our clients, their questions and their challenges. But before I continue with this topic, I want to say that every coach may have his/her own answers that fits them better. The following answers just work better for me. There are neither right nor wrong answers. There are only honest Inputs with value that bring trust and connection, in order to let the coaching session happen. Here they are:

1.- What is Coaching?
Answer: Coaching is a conversation between a client and a coach about an important theme or situation that the client wants to solve, a change the client wants to make, or a goal to achieve. In this conversation the coach listen and ask questions to identify skills, personal strengths, success strategies and other helpful tools of the client that he/she might not be aware of.

2.- So, are you an expert and do you give any advice?
Answer: The client is the real expert in his/her life and I do not give any advice. The coach and the client will work together to find out the solution and success strategies that have worked good for the client before. These strategies are with in. They will work with practical methods to find clarity, to focus on what the client wants to achieve and they will set together all the resources they have found out to develop an inner attitude that supports the client all the way long to his goal. 

3.- Are you a psychiatrist, a psychologist? What is the difference between them and a coach?
Answer: Neither a psychiatrist nor a psychologist. I am a certified coach in different areas.
A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who specializes in mental health and can prescribe medications to help a treatment. They work with patients. Therapy can take years.
A psychologist is not able to write prescriptions, but helps people with emotional and psychological difficulties. The psychologist may work with patients and clients. Therapy can take years.
A life coach and an  executive coach work mostly with sane people who might be having trouble in a personal situation or simply want to make a big change in their lives or in their career. So they need a solution that fits and work for them. The solution lies with the client, not with the coach. The coach helps the client to rediscover his resources in order to solve a problem or reach a goal. Therapy takes from one to three sessions, sometimes longer, but it never lasts years.

4.- How many sessions do you work with a client?
Answer: In life coaching a therapy may lasts from 1 up to 3 sessions. In executive coaching I have worked with clients from 1 up to 3 sessions, or up to 16 sessions when a client is job-hunting. We work together until the client finds one or more job opportunities.

5.- How much does a coaching session cost with you?
Answer: The first session is free and after that it cost 80 CHF per hour.

6.- Where have you learned coaching?
Answer: In the las six years I have been learning coaching in USA, Switzerland and in Germany with different coaching schools and I have had the opportunity to compare different coaching methods. There are some methods more effective than others and that is the case of the Integrated Solution Focused Psychology -ISOP- or the Integrierte Lösungsorientierte Psychologie -ILP- from Dr. Dietmar Friedmann. He founded the ILP Schule in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. I have been learning every year a new method from Dr. Friedman. His methods involve Coaching and Psychotherapy and they work in term of a short therapy. SUCCESSCHOICES offers the basic and the professional level of life coaching training in English in Zug, Switzerland.

I was having a walk with my family the other day and enjoying the good weather in a sunny day around the lake Zug. After a while we went for a coffee in Metalli and we noticed a big group of people at the table behind us. They were talking about spirituality in a very open and profound way. Most of the people's opinions were very wise and their topic really cached my attention, because they were also giving support to each other in personal questions and some of them asked for advice.  Even though I was really interested in this group, I did not dare to talk or to ask them about the nature of the group. I supposed they were doing a kind of group coaching in Zug in an spontaneous way by drinking coffee. I just enjoyed the way they discussed about it. After we finished our coffee we left and I never heard from this group again. 

I think Zug is a great small city where you can find people from different cultures interested in doing fun stuffs at the lake or in the "Altstadt".  It is very common to see in summer different groups of people at the lake in Zug. I saw a group sitting on the grass forming a circle and they were talking about the different phases of love's life, but more specifically, aspects about their love lives. That is interesting, I thought. I would have liked to sit with them. But in a serious group like this I cannot come and just ask "What are you doing? May I join you?" They were doing group coaching in Zug too.

I have also seen a meditation group sitting on the grass under a tree at the lake in Zug and also other different groups of people enjoying the summer at this park. But they were not doing any coaching, they were just enjoying. This inspires me to bring a group of people to work in some coaching themes like emotional intelligence, mindfulness, law of attraction and other interesting coaching topics at the lake, in the fresh air, under a tree.

So now you know, that if you see me with a group of people at the park at the lake Zug, I will be working in an spontaneous use of coaching in Zug, sharpening the perception of the world, creating and living better states of mind and better lives, so come and join us!

According to the BFS, the total number of expats living in Switzerland by the end of 2013 rose to 1.9 million. Every year thousands of international executives come to work to Switzerland and experience the interesting mixed business culture due to Its diverse population like the  French, Italian and German speakers.

May be you are an expat executive that just have arrived. New expats executives might find very peculiar situations in their business environments while interacting with colleges. My clients have had similar impressions in their first weeks of work. They have found a little bit of resistance while they were proposing new ideas to be implemented in short term. Most of the times the expat executive might think this resistance could be on a personal level. But it is not. Everything  that influences the way the people  have been doing things in the company so far, takes a reaction of resistance every where not only here. Just give them time. Do not forget, that you are the new one who does not know how the things has been working all these years. 

Do not try to innovate the very first day and do not show that you are a better or smarter executive than the locals. Before you expose any idea to be implemented, get to identify the most influential people in the division  in other to get their support for implementing changes. 

Do not speed up. Try to learn about them while working with them and learn about their tempo. Speeding the things up is not a good way to start new work relations with your Swiss colleges either. They take their time to do their tasks.

When you are addressing to your colleges in a day to day business relation, it is the rule to address them very formal using their last name and their titles until they instruct otherwise. In some american companies and specially in business environments with young executives you may see they address to each other using their first name.

In an executive environment mixed with executives of other cultures like Italian, Spanisch, Portuguese, people from Latin America and from India working together in a German Swiss environment. you will notice  the differences in emotional behavior within the groups. Openness  in the communication like saying the things direct without any anesthesia might be ok for the German and German Swiss executives, while at the same time, expats from other cultural groups have to stay focused and control their emotions.

Very important aspects of executive business environment in Switzerland are for example, emphasis on their level of educational degrees achieved, organizational rank and achievements. Trust in multicultural blended business environments is not one of the strengths here. People like dealing only with people they know, and often expect long-term commitments from their associates. Negotiations can be prolonged by the trust-building process, and the Swiss eye for detail and respect for procedure. ​It’s a merit-based business environment, but trust is still important to negotiations. ​

Executive coaching for expats specialized in multicultural coaching  is a fundamental tool to succeed in your career. This is what executive coaching in successchoices can do for you:

• It helps you to be proactive in developing multicultural intelligence, creating more awareness about the variety of behaviors and way of thinking.
• It also helps you to cultivate cultural curiosity in order to learn from one another, develop empathy and respect in blended cultural scenarios.
• Executive coaching can offer you new perspectives and the chance to focus your skills on new challenges and work situations with greater pressures as you climb in your executive career 
• An executive coach will  also give you support in developing skills in areas like conflict management or team motivation.
• It helps you to find your own personal executive and leadership style after your own personality type. 
• It helps you to identify your strengths and points to be improved in your own leadership and executive skills and style

Getting a new job abroad as an executive in a transnational company is a great career opportunity. On one hand it looks very good for the one who got this change. But, on the other hand, it could mean drastically changes in his/her personal life. The complexity of the situation gets bigger if this executive has a family. 

In many cases the spouse/partner and children follows the head of the family leaving their lives, job, friends and relatives behind. They have to adapt to the new situation and start a learning process to find themselves in a new country. The relocation companies may help with the organization of this new life, but nobody prepares them for the cultural shock, they will experience once they start interacting with the new environment at work, at school and just out there. 

Expat's spouses are quite brave and support their spouses and children no matter what. It means, no matter even themselves. They start with being in charge of the moving overseas, help their families with the transition, if they are lucky they get a relocation company, look for the house, register the children in an International school, look for a good expats insurance, etc., and after everything is done, they probably take care of themselves..…

No wonder that they get a kind of lost feeling when they finally get time for themselves. They might feel lonely and they start trying to do something else besides being there for the others. Then some questions like, can I work in Switzerland? Do I have to learn the language? Is my diploma valid for working? Who takes care of the children if I work or if I study/learn something? Who can help? How can I earn money too?  That on top of feeling alone, lost, and unfulfilled do not help to give a step ahead. It creates an unhealthy state of being that needs to be broken in other to feel free to unfold and thrive here in Switzerland.

Please get away from the people who have had negative experiences in Switzerland and feel unhappy and frustrated all the time. Get away from them for your own sake! You do not need them. You have the opportunity to make and live your own experience. Look for people who has got what you are looking for and ask them, how they got until this point.. Many of them will help you and other not, but it doesn't matter. You go on getting to know more people and making your network bigger and bigger. So get in Toastmasters, help in a social club, do a course on something you like, learn the language.  You will also get to know a lot! Life and personal coaching is essential at this point, so you can discover what you like and your own strategies to get what you want. Many expatriate healthcare insurances covers many life and executive coaching sessions. It differs from your expats insurance. Otherwise, you have to cover it yourselft, it is very affordable anyway and many coaches offers the first session for free. Book your free coaching session with successchoices.

Living in a new city or in a new country can be very exiting and full of new experiences to enrich your life in a fulfilling way. There are all these new exciting things to do in a new county, like learning a new language, getting to know the locals and their culture, looking for what to do, working, studying, doing a course, finding information about the do's and dont's, getting to know new people and get to start your own networking.  It really means the start of a new life. So how great it this? 

​It is time to be your own hero!