Coaching World Issue 8: November 2013 | Page 28

Commitment Conversations: How Coaching Transcends the Pitfalls of Promise-making Micki McMillan, M.Ed., MCC Micki is the CEO and a founding partner of Blue Mesa Group, an Executive Coaching firm. She also serves as co-director for Blue Mesa’s Transformational Coaching Program, an ACTP designed for Leadership and Organizational Coaches and based in Fort Collins, Colo. Micki brings years of experience as a corporate leader, Executive Coach and teacher to her work in regions around the globe, including Asia, Australia, North America and Europe. She has also shared her expertise as a speaker at several international conferences, including those hosted by the Association for Quality and Participation, Business Roundtable, Women In Technology and The Leadership Investment (formerly Women’s Vision Foundation). Maria, the senior vice president of sales at a large organization, arrived at her coaching session feeling hopeless, with a prepared letter of resignation in her briefcase. Six months into her new position, she had not achieved the results she confidently estimated during her hiring process. Maria said that her peers and her direct report, the assistant vice president of sales, were the source of her unhappiness and inability to achieve promised results. The assistant vice president had also applied for the senior position and, according to Maria, he seemed to resent Maria’s appointment. Her peers, she said, would just ignore her. When asked for more sp V6