What Our Clients Say
“When I contacted Inspired Executives, I was in the final phase of my career and at an unprecedented low level of energy that had caused serious health problems, which had begun to affect my performance.
I have come from humble environments and have been working all my life since I was 12. My mother died when I was 1 year old; my childhood and adolescence were challenging. The only way for me to get a high school diploma was to study while I served in the army. Immediately following, I acquired my graduation in economics in evening studies, and I switched to the financial services industry.
In my professional career, I was very successful. With my move to headquarters, I was increasingly looking to compete with graduates who were significantly younger than I, but I remained very committed, and dedicated myself to my work and the organization. In addition, I had to fight with numerous challenges, including a bullying boss. I have been very disadvantaged and have been fighting for a promotion for many years.
When I coached with Annette, we analyzed my situation thoroughly and what had brought me there. In our sessions – in person and by phone – we have not only identified my next steps and prepared for critical discussions, we have also worked on reducing my stress level and rebuilding my resilience.
After only a few coaching sessions, I felt much safer and my self-esteem began to grow. This made it possible for me to make hard decisions and stand in for myself. Finally, with the support of Annette, I have found a way to get out of the company life into early retirement.
I recommend Annette’s coaching and consulting services to all who are in a desperate situation where they want to get out of. Annette’s approach is pragmatic, always solution-oriented, empathic, and focused on the process and goals of her clients. Annette’s humor is contagious, and I appreciate her great experience, her inexhaustible patience, and her sensitivity. Annette wants all of her clients to succeed, and so do I.
Klauke has successfully been collaborating with Inspired Executives since Fall 2014. The interaction with the Inspired Executives team, Annette Czernik and Oliver Florschuetz, has proven to be a critical success factor in our organizational change process. Together with our two consultants, the HR team led a brainstorming session that resulted in a strategic HR roadmap for the coming years. Annette’s primary focus is on personnel development, and in this capacity she supported some managers through 1:1 leadership coaching processes. Oliver’s priority is on organizational development, and he mainly acts as trainer and expert for team dynamics, up-skilling Klauke’s team leaders. In various workshops facilitated by Inspired Executives, Klauke’s management board reflected on their roles and responsibilities, discussed and agreed on Klauke’s competency model, prepared action plans as relates to the results of our employee engagement survey, and looked into the best ways to implement and drive change and resolve conflict. As their clients, we have always benefitted from Annette’s and Oliver’s flexibility, their deep knowledge and expertise with regard to change management, and their pragmatic and solution-oriented approach. Through their external perspective and their longstanding experience, both consultants also strongly contributed to enhancing the consulting skills of the HR team.
Based on my positive experience and results of my first coaching process with Annette about three years ago, and the fact that new challenges were right ahead of me, I decided to contact my Coach Annette again.
]This time, I was up against multiple problems – most importantly to rebalance my personal situation and to lead my professional career into the right direction. That comprised continuing to fulfill my role as head of finance successfully, and to find ways to manage my transition, engaging my new boss, and to first and foremost resolve arising organizational conflicts. On top of that, I decided to relocate back to Frankfurt and get an appropriate job within the enterprise; because permanently commuting between two locations had led to more stress and less life balance. Three simultaneous challenges and a lot of uncertainty – too much without coaching.
In this situation the coaching-method Annette used was just the right approach for me:
The combination of her systematic deep dive questions, her extensive experience in the international financial services industry and her profound coaching expertise, coupled with the application of the Energy Leadership™ assessment, activated a self-reflection-process, heightened my energy level, and provided me insight into (self-)motivation strategies. Her humor was contagious, we laughed a lot together.
We started the coaching process with an analysis of the status quo from different angles. Once, I had identified my key developmental areas, we focused on Energy Leadership™ and efficient stress reduction. The outcome was that I was better able to successfully manage critical situations and changes from a fearless perspective and with a win-win mindset. “No pain, no gain” also applies for coaching … . I gained so much insight for my time invested; and those positive results and the boost in my professional career confirm the strategy.
I highly recommend Annette’s coaching services, and thank her very much for her support.
When I moved out of a secure job in the financial services industry to pursue a dream and build my own business as the owner of a brasserie, I was not entirely aware of what the implications would be, both personally and professionally. Gastronomy is a high-risk and very volatile sector that I wanted and needed to get familiar with fast. I was not only self-employed for the first time, but also being the manager of others was a premiere for me.
There were a lot of new tasks, responsibilities and demands within a very short period of time that I needed to cope with. In essence, I faced a tremendous amount of uncertainty, instability, and stress with my start-up venture when I was introduced to Annette.
During our coaching process, I established new procedures, structures and routines that were pragmatic, specific, tangible and easy to put into practice. I learned how to identify weaknesses in my business model and areas of conflict with my staff and how to manage them appropriately. My skills relating to making decisions and having fierce conversations have grown exponentially. I also came to know techniques that help me manage my stress levels more consciously.
Through Annette’s coaching and supervision, I gained more confidence in my new role, clarity as to where I want to go, as well as freedom and room for creativity. Now I know how to optimally handle my energy, to set the right priorities and to be more consequent. I feel that my business is in good shape and protected. While working together, I turned into an entrepreneur and have whole-heartedly embraced that new role in my life.
Annette’s vast experience in the business world, her exceptional sensitivity, her inexhaustible patience, and humor as well as her profound methodological skill-set have supported my transformation into a successful manager. I highly recommend her coaching and consulting services to anyone who wants a fresh start or who is ready for change.
My professional career has developed so quickly over the last couple of years: I felt it’s time for a pit stop and a review of what I’ve achieved, identify possible adjustments of the direction, plan the way forward and identify gaps in my leadership skills. Annette posed the right questions to start my self-reflection process. Her questions are challenging and sometimes even caused some discomfort. I came to realize, however, that they were necessary to help reconfirm that I was on the right track. Reflecting on the past and reviewing the current situation has laid a solid foundation for the future development of my professional career. Annette’s tools and techniques support me in listening to the needs of my team and growing my leadership skills – I’ve gained more self-confidence to empower my team. I’m very thankful for Annette’s support and can highly recommend her coaching services to anyone who want to give their careers a boost.
As the founders of MANUFIN, the manufactory of Financial Analysis, we were united in our wish, after 20 years of very different professional careers in the consumer goods industry and the banking and investment sector, to build something new of our own. Despite or because of our friendship, it was extremely important for us to establish professional structures and processes right from the start. With Annette’s help, we examined our personal styles and strengths, worked out similarities and created awareness for possible areas of conflict. In addition, she supported us in focusing on key priorities, helped establish clear processes and insisted on compliance with defined timelines. And if it was not good times, she guaranteed the restoration of our spiritual balance by offering small, home-baked treats. We are very thankful for Annette’s support and sincerely recommend her work.
Career Development was my primary reason for beginning a coaching. However, what I discovered is that I was in a better place than I thought, though my work/life balance was off and I was not spending enough time on the relationships with my direct reports. It proved very valuable go through a self-reflection process, define and (re-)focus on key priorities. For this journey, the Energy Leadership assessment made a real difference for me.
The definition of stuck was me. I was at a turning point in my career with no real plans for what to do next. It was crisis time, and big time! As I began to look at this mass of decision and choice that I needed to make, my coach helped me identify where I was successful as a leader, my key strengths and putting into place a strategic plan for my professional life. What surprised and pleased me was Annette’s provocative, sassy style and the fact that she is relentless in getting me to move forward. What’s more, Annette’s reminding me of where I had come from, where my barriers are, helping me to identify them and pointing out the progresses I had made with regards to the way I see myself have been of great help in working the issue which seems to be a core point – self esteem.