In short, I solve people puzzles.

I negotiate sustained working relationships that are relaxed and struggle free. I turnaround all kinds of partnerships so that co-workers and children of all ages smile again and feel nurtured. We replace fighting with problem solving and more caring connections. We replace avoidance with meaningful contact. First, my clients gain perspective and see possibilities. Then with more positive attitudes and behaviors they really become smart. Sales, teamwork, leadership, parenting, and  productivity improve.

• As a Family Event Coach or family therapist, I assure joy before and during your journey.
• As Marriage Counselor I maximize your emotional intelligence and the offer you are to one another.
• As a Divorce Coach, I save your dignity and reduce your legal fees (click here).
• As Child Specialist or Parenting Coordinator I can team with your divorce attorneys.
• As Executive Coach I can work closely with your business attorney.
• As an Executive coach/Family Business Coach, I facilitate leadership skills and help plan succession from generation to generation and assist siblings to work as effective partners.
• As a meeting facilitator, I also build successful group dialogue and responsive community.

What We Do at Work

Executive Perspective provides perspective, performance enhancement and conflict resolution through leadership and life strategy coaching, custom designed to build or restore successful working relationships. We offer Sales, Management or Career Counseling or Reinvention and Meeting Facilitation. Shel Miller, executive and family business coach, provides individual workplace consultation at your office re work and/or family or integration of work and family demands.

Replace Reactivity with Responding.

Even your youngest child will benefit from a family business consultant helping you calmly resolve sibling or succession issues facing an aging parent/executive at work. Child, Adult, Business and Family Developmental transitions or changes are always intertwined and mutually impacting on one another.

Whatever the official role — Executive Coach, Family Therapist or Event Coach, Family Business Consultant, Marital Counselor, Divorce Coach, Child Specialist, Communications Expert, Process Coach, Psychologist, Attorney’s Consultant for Collaborative Practice, or Parenting Coordinator post litigation — contact Shel Miller, Ph.D. in the Boston area, whenever you need a neutral, non-judgmental expert facilitator or sounding board to provide perspective through the amazing power of dialogue.

One can solve people puzzles efficiently and effectively in many different roles.

Our tasks include keeping family and other businesses aware of the problems families and teams face at times, and how difficult it is for other professional advisers to understand a leader’s or manager’s apparent willingness to disregard what they all see as obvious!

• Guaranteed Effective Leadership Coaching for CEOs and Family Business
• Mediation for Winning Solutions
• Counseling for Couples — both Pre-Marital and Marital Counseling
• Discernment Counseling
• Family Coaching
• Post Marital including both Divorce Coaching and Parent Coordination
• Consultations re Integrating Work and Family
• Stress Management
• Joy Facilitation
• Meeting Facilitation
• Sales and Marketing Consultation
• Small Business Coaching for Owners & Sales Staff
• Video Feedback for Performance Enhancement
• Custom Designed Brief Interventions for Assuring Joy in Planning Milestone Events In addition to the Family Event Coaching (FEC) programs listed (click here)

Executive Perspective

provides coaching for corporate and family business leaders so they may achieve the results they want: winning solutions. We create successful leaders in the midst of potential dissension. They develop honest, respectful, and effective relationships. We promote clarity, team work, and innovative perspective even under competitive pressure.

Often in business situations we come upon people whom are difficult with whom to communicate. It may be an unhappy customer or employee or perhaps even “the boss.” Here are suggested ways with which to manage such situations. Can you add to the below suggestions?

Do not just hear the complaint, listen to it. According to Ken Blanchard of Blanchard Training and Development, it is important to let individuals vent their feelings. Being judgmental or defensive is wrong. You might instead say things such as ‘Please tell me more about it’ or ‘Will you please be more specific?’This will let them know you are paying attention and will extract useful information that will help you deal with the situation more effectively.  Let the other person help resolve the dispute. Listen and see if the upset party has a solution to offer. Do not offer to satisfy the problem too soon. Try to let them decide what should be done. Often, it is less than what you would have probably proposed.

Do more than simply appease. There are people who just want someone to listen to them. They may be used to arguing with people and not being heard. In retailing situations, research has shown that more than 80 percent of upset customers will respond you have already done what it takes to make them satisfied. But, it never hurts to ask “Is there anything else we can do to win your favor back?”

“Anyone can become angry – that is easy; but to be angry with the correct person, and to the correct degree, and at the correct time, and for the correct purpose, and in the correct manner – that is not with everyone’s power and it is not easy.” – Aristotle

Thanks and acknowledgement for these Tips go to Mike Johnson, Ken Blanchard, and Randy Coe

A Family Plan

Reminders from Azriela Jaffe :

“Just because you have a solid business plan doesn’t mean you can count on domestic harmony. You also need a solid family plan. Where is that money going to come from, and what family contribution and sacrifices will be necessary to come up with the cash?”

“The family plan puts your business plan into a family context and reminds the entrepreneur that there really isn’t any such thing as “my” business when you’re married.”

“The most domineering and competitive entrepreneurs will reveal candidly, if they choose to let their guard down, that their marriages provide an oasis, a place to rest from the weariness of competition, and a sacred place to ‘let their hair down.’” So be sure you take prudent action to keep it that way!

Ask the Right Questions

Continues Ms. Jaffe: Nearly every entrepreneur fails to think through all of the questions related to family issues before launching the new enterprise. We don’t know the questions to ask. We haven’t traveled this route before, so we are naive. We are also so excited about the business opportunity we are considering, we rush forward without taking the time necessary for thorough discussion and careful consideration of whether our marriage and family is up for the sacrifices that self-employment will demand. We’d rather not splash cold water on our fantasies, or, as happens frequently, we believe we’ve got a narrow time frame available to seize the opportunity that presents itself, so we tell ourselves to go for it now, and that we’ll deal with any unforeseen consequences later.

Problems Identified With Entrepreneurs

Some problems which can be aided by the use of mentors or coaches.

1. Handling the wrong tasks. “If you look at how most entrepreneurs spend their time,” says Sandy Vilas of coach U in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, “you will find that they are doing stuff on a daily basis that often does not support the mission of the company.”
   “What are they doing entering checks into (an accounting software program) on a daily basis, for example, when that should be the job of a bookkeeper?”The key for entrepreneurs is to stick to what they do best and delegate the rest of the load but not abdicate it. If a business owner is great at sales,says Vilas, he or she should be doing administrative tasks.
2. Playing the Lone Ranger. “They think they have to be experts at everything and then they have to do everything on their own because their parents told them if they wanted the job done right, they had to do it themselves. They need to be able to delegate, let go, and trust.”
3. Allowing life to get to complex. Entrepreneurs sometimes just need “to simply and yet diversify their lives. It is not all about just working longer and making more or just working smarter,” says Vilas. “Someone living a balanced life, with interests outside the business as well, can be more effective at running the business.”

A recent survey of 500 influential Americans by Ernst & Young indicated that an entrepreneurial perspective toward business leadership and organizational structure will characterize the 21st century. 78% of respondents also thought that most Americans would have entrepreneurial pursuits during their lifetime.

Creative work arrangements and more emphasis on personal fulfillment will be more important in the future. The 19th century was characterized as the Industrial Age, the 20th as the corporate age, and the 21st as the entrepreneurial age.