From The Blog

The Bumpy Road to Collaboration

 I wrote this narrative with a humorous flare for leaders who, like myself, passionately love collaboration yet consistently botch it up. I took an original and innovative approach with the hope that you’ll be able to read it at night without falling asleep. Who knows – by morning you might even be transformed!

Using a real-life dynamic that unfolded between me and one of my colleagues – playfully illustrated with a series of full-color cartoons – I illuminate how our hot buttons are our true obstacles to collaboration. I’ll explore concepts such as:  being at the mercy (stuck in a box), being one’s worst self when triggered, the perils of viewing the world through a narrow ego-filter; and the various defenses that block successful teaming. The topic is heavy but the approach is light and accessible!

To help you move from concepts to actions, I also provide practical steps to overcome obstacles and embrace a path of transformation: choosing to act outside of the box, embracing learning, accepting imperfections, initiating difficult conversations, engaging with a sense humor, honoring your highest goals, and, if nothing else works, having faith to ask the universe for help!

Closing the loop on my own story, I demonstrate that, even though the road is bumpy, at any moment, we can re-establish authentic, productive collaboration.

book

iBooks Amazon
Create Space Bulk Order

How to use the book?
1- Relax, enjoy the text and the illustrations, and play with the Hot Button Chart at the end of the book. Clarifying your hot buttons and learning to transform them can be simple, easy and fun.

2- Use the workbook as a springboard to kick off a constructive conversation with your partner, friends or team members. Download for free!

3- If the conversation doesn’t go well, or not as well as you’d like, contact me! As a coach, lecturer and consultant, I can help facilitate a more in depth process for your particular needs.




Services

Speaking Engagements

I am available to speak about the Bumpy Road to Collaboration. I can facilitate a group discussion, exploring the ego’s obstacles to collaboration, hot buttons and team purpose. I will customize a one-hour to half-day workshop to meet the particular needs of your group. Contact me!

The Workbook

The workbook is an adjunct pamphlet to be used with the book. It is a place where you can assess your collaboration skills and start your reflections on your own. After reading the book and study your pamphlet, if you want to take deeper stock of your collaboration skills and explore the roots of your counter-productive reactions, contact me for further guidance.

Learning as Leadership

I’m a senior executive coach, culture change partner, facilitator and founding member at Learning as Leadership. Learning as Leadership offers in-depth and transformative leadership programs. Contact me if you’d like to explore this approach for you and your team. Visit the LAL website to read more about the methodology.
Features

Free Downloads





Workbook_cover-1

2016 Poster Thumb    



Please enter your name and e-mail and click the Submit button to receive your download of the Bumpy Road Workbook and/or the 2016 Poster.  This will also automatically add you to my newsletter mailing list.

Download the Workbook and 2016 Poster Now!

Testimonials

Testimonials

Carole was my coach in the several years leading up to my promotion to tenure at Harvard Business School (a highly stressful, crazy-making time!); we now co-facilitate workshops on leadership development for women executives. Carole’s support and guidance gave me the wherewithal to continually resist my fears and insecurities by staying focused on my research and teaching goals. Her highly intuitive, deeply intellectual grasp of the issues people face as they struggle to lead authentically enables Carole to practice what she teaches: Hold people to high standards with compassion.

Carole is a truly gifted coach who has had a profound impact on my professional and personal life. Her capacity to listen, help me see patterns and glean insights, and translate those into practical plans and experiments has been transformative (which isn’t to say that I am finished!). Carole’s coaching has always felt like a deep collaboration, reflected in her ongoing commitment to my learning and growth and her unique blend of caring, candor, and humor. I feel very fortunate to have crossed paths with her. Carole and her LAL colleagues – through their coaching and the seminars – live a commitment to helping others fulfill their potential that is deep, authentic, and inspiring.

I have watched Carole Levy in action as a group facilitator. I was so impressed with the delightful ways that she connected the challenges participants might face to her own experiences as a means of reassuring them that what she asked was well worth their effort.

Over the years, Carole has become one of the most influential and supportive individuals of my career. As an executive coach, she has helped me develop (and face) some of the most challenging areas which restricted my growth as a leader. In the process, I have developed a deep and lasting friendship with Carole, and a trust that extends well beyond that of a hired consultant. The impact that Carole has had on my life and career is substantial. To this end, I highly recommend Carole to anyone who is seeking a coach to aid in their professional development.

About

carole-portrait

My passion is to empower leaders to fulfill their life purpose in a lighthearted way.

Coaching, teaching and consulting are ways for me to deeply connect with others and to be of service. Writing is a powerful tool I use to know myself better, explore and express the nuances of the human psyche, and to share my thoughts with others. Drawing is another indispensable tool which helps activate my creativity and humor.

Bonjour! I’m an executive coach, facilitator, consultant, writer, mother, wife and cartoonist. I bring all of this and a French accent to the table when I work with leaders, teams and organizations.

My primary focus is on collaboration. When we work with others, we can’t escape reality. We remain frustrated, frightened and highly challenged until we learn to integrate our personal values and develop mature relationships with others. In my experience, the main obstacle to creating authentic collaboration is the ego. We all have developed within ourselves this intimate companion that tends to limit and distort our experience of reality under the guise of protecting us. The more we explore the ego, the more we understand our past history, as well as what our strengths and weaknesses are. Consequently, we become more centered and openhearted in the present moment. With greater self-awareness we can co-create healthier and more sustainable environments.

Fulfilling my passion by learning to work with others has taken me on a bumpy road. After completing a master’s degree in Classical Literature at the Sorbonne in Paris, I lost my motivation. I was stuck, and alone. I didn’t know what direction my work would take, even though I knew that I wanted to contribute to society and help to alter narrow mentalities.

In September of 1990, my encounter with the Learning as Leadership (LAL) methodology was instrumental in getting me unstuck. I learned to address and befriend the limiting beliefs of my ego:

  1. The certitude that I was less worthy than others.
  2. The debilitating fear of failing and being judged.
  3. The false power of being right.
  4. The exhausting urge to prove I was extra-ordinary.

My longing for creative expression -drawing, acting and writing- became my field for practice. The Bumpy Road to Collaboration, and my blog are the fruits of a persistent effort to overcome my self-limiting beliefs and grow as a thought leader.

In September of 2001, I moved from Paris, France to join the LAL team in San Francisco, CA and pursue my passion within Corporate America! While working with for-profit organizations, I reconnected with my youthful enthusiasm for social justice and began to specialize in non-profit organizations.

My journey of collaboration has been filled with significant learning bumps and remarkable accomplishments. My most recent challenge has been to integrate working with LAL, while at the same time developing my own company. It has been a surprising and rewarding process of integration.

In September of 2014, I created Authentic Collaboration Consulting (AC2) with my husband Jean-Pierre Guilhaume. AC2 is a company dedicated to providing leadership development services to mission-driven organizations. After almost three decades in the field of human development, Jean-Pierre and I want to bring our unique experience to leaders dedicated to implementing a sustaining culture within their organization. Today, our main clients are foundations and non-profits.

Life is inevitably bumpy and glorious. I teach what I have to learn. As fallible as I am, I am lightheartedly committed to human edification. So welcome to my community of deeply committed, yet lighthearted learners!

Professional Bio