I started out thinking that I was going to be a clinical psychologist, a clinician.  I got a PhD in educational and counseling psychology, and, in fact, did clinical work in the 1970’s.  At the same time I was doing organizational work and doing coaching and consulting with leaders and potential leaders, and found that work in organizational systems was much more stimulating and much more fitting to my style and interests and energy.

After several years, I stopped doing any work in the clinical arena and primarily focused–with the mindset of understanding individual differences, human development, developmental psychology, interpersonal relationships, team dynamics, organizational dynamics, all areas I learned as a psychologist–as a consultant and coach in organizations on an international basis.  That’s primarily what I’ve done in the last 37 years.

As I was doing that, the field was really emerging.  There was very little in the field when I started in ’76, and came back to Massachusetts, Boston, after going to grad school and working in Minnesota.  I found that most people didn’t even know how you could apply, for example, psychological principles in organizational settings, so I ran the first workshop for the Mass Psych Center on applying psychology in organizational settings.

There were very few people involved in this space.  My mentor was Harry Levinson, one of the grandfathers of organizational psychology and emotional health within the workplace.  My father-in-law at the time was a business executive and owner and he mentored me from the business side.  Meanwhile, I taught courses in graduate programs in business and organizational psychology and behavior.

Then I found that, every step I went, there were missing frameworks for professionals to learn.  I was a cofounder of the New England Society of Applied Psychology, because there was no group to come together and share best practices in this region.  I was a cofounder of the Graduate School Alliance for Executive Coaching because there were no standards for the education, training and certification of executive coaches on an international basis.  I cofounded The Executive Coaching Forum to develop our competency model and a handbook of standards for all players in the coaching partnership–the executive, the boss, the HR professional and the coach. The Handbook is available online in its fifth edition.

Then there’s the Institute of Coaching at Harvard. I’ve been a senior advisor since the founding of that, to help drive their mission to build the discipline of coaching from research to practice, supporting research that can be applied within the practice of all coaching, including personal life coaching, wellness coaching and leadership and organizational coaching.