BROCHURE

Our personalized approach to enhancing presentation skills and stage readiness, designed for both individual presenters and organizations.

ResourcesStephanie JuddMarch 20, 2025storytellingComment

Can AI be an Effective Executive Coach?

Executive coaching is a soft skill. Yes, there are some technical frameworks you can be trained on, but at the end of the day, a good executive coach is proficient in what are generally considered soft skills: conversations, intuition, active listening, appreciative inquiry, etc. Soft skills are those less tangible skills that are more dependent on our ability to be human and interact with other humans than hard skills like accounting or even project management.

As AI takes more and more center stage in our collective awareness, and our ability to leverage and access AI-powered tools becomes commonplace, we have begun to wonder, Could AI be an effective executive coach?

ArticleKara DavidsonMarch 17, 2025AI, Coach, coaching, executive coach, chatgptComment

Make a Difficult Conversation Less Difficult

Nine times out of ten, feedback conversations turn into difficult conversations because we build them up in our heads to be way bigger and more complicated than they really have to be. Here’s some of the advice that Stephanie gave Sara. What else would you offer?

ArticleStephanie JuddFebruary 24, 2025manager check-ins, manager employee check-ins, manager conversations, LeadershipComment

Solve Your Time Management Problems

Maybe it’s cutesy to say that time management is an evergreen challenge… but it’s true. It ebbs and flows as our work lives and personal lives change. The busier we are, or the more important the task in front of us is, the harder it is to successfully and gracefully manage our time. And the crazy thing is, it’s in these moments of high stress and overwhelm where we most need to be able to trust and rely on our time management skills.

Depending on your situation, there are several ways you can better manage your time. Time management is an ongoing and continuous process of assessing, organizing, and executing.

ArticleKara DavidsonFebruary 3, 2025time management, Leadership, productivityComment

How to Leverage Inquiry to Influence

Questions don’t have to be either leading or random. You can ask questions thoughtfully, in a way that encourages open discussion, collaboration AND you can ask questions that move people to action.

Here are some suggestions for questions anyone can use at several key moments within a consultative conversation, from kicking off the conversation to forwarding the action.

ArticleKara DavidsonJanuary 13, 2025Leadership, coaching, consulting, consultative, inquiry, influence, powerful questionsComment

Maximize Your Draft Agenda

Around this time of year, people are planning large-scale and high-stakes gatherings, and they want to make sure the time and money invested in these events are well spent. Nine times out of ten, that means folks are putting pen to paper and coming up with an agenda. If you’re in the early stages of doing just that, here are some tips to make sure your agenda (and the resulting gathering) are designed with outcomes, engagement and a thoughtful flow in mind.

ArticleKara DavidsonNovember 12, 2024events, agenda, agenda template, meetings, meeting design, facilitationComment

Why We Care About Defining “Coach”

The definition of the term “coaching” matters because it’s the substance of the engagement. Inherent in the definition is an understanding of the desired outcome, and a notion of why an executive coach is the right partner to get you there.

At Wolf & Heron, we think of coaching the same way The International Coaching Federation (ICF) does. The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

ArticleKara DavidsonOctober 21, 2024influence, coach, coaching, define coach, one-on-one coach, one-on-one, coaching definition, definition of a coachComment

Find the Structure of Your Story

REFERENCE

A one-page reference basic story structure with some tips for how to work through mapping your story idea to the structure.

ResourcesStephanie JuddOctober 8, 2024storytellingComment

Where You Should Tell a Story in your Presentation

Presenters want to include stories in their presentation, but have no idea where the stories should go or what they should be about. Here are a few moments in your presentation where leveraging a story is particularly effective.

ArticleStephanie JuddSeptember 30, 2024influence, stories, presentations, storytelling, messaging, key messagesComment

Influential Storytelling Program

BROCHURE

Read our detailed brochure about our flagship and longest-running program for business leaders.

ResourcesStephanie JuddSeptember 18, 2024storytellingComment

How to Give Constructive Feedback

Giving constructive feedback is tough. Once a manager has mustered up the willingness to prepare for and deliver feedback, it requires attention, time and curiosity to work through. For many managers, these difficult conversations cause additional mental load because they are accompanied by fear and anxiety.

ArticleKara DavidsonSeptember 9, 2024influence, feedback, feedback conversations, difficult, difficult feedback, tough conversationsComment

Tool: Reflection - Prepare for a Difficult Feedback Conversation

TOOL

This Google Docs worksheet will help you prepare for a difficult feedback conversation with an employee.

This worksheet includes questions to help you process through the issue and behaviors and provides a template for a feedback conversation.

ResourcesKara DavidsonAugust 26, 2024leadership, meetings, feedback, feedback conversations, managers, tough feedbackComment

The W&H Way to Craft an Influential Story

Crafting an influential story is tough. Where do you start? What do you do along the way? How do you know if and when you’re ready to share your story? We thought it would be fun to try to lay out our process from beginning to end. During our Influential Storytelling program, we take participants through the entire process of crafting an influential story, but it’s something else to see it laid out on a page. Let’s see if we can do it!

ArticleKara DavidsonAugust 19, 2024influential storytelling, story, storytelling, influenceComment

Tool: Craft a Powerful Message Worksheet

TOOL

Before you jump to building a slide deck for your next presentation, take the time to craft your message and consider what’s most important.

The worksheet includes questions to help you consider the context, audience and messages that will help you design your presentation for success.

5 Tips for Planning an Interactive Session

We have identified some common mis-steps when it comes to planning interactive sessions, so we thought we’d bring them to you. If you’re looking to leave the presentation behind and design a more engaging session for your audience, here are 5 tips to consider.

ArticleStephanie JuddJuly 29, 2024interactive, breakout, conference, planning, interactive session, facilitationComment

Maximizing the Manager/Employee Check-In

Reference

This 4-page takeaway accompanies the workshop titled Maximizing the Manager/Employee Check-In, which helps people leaders think about ways to better utilize their one-on-one touch points with team members.

Case Study: Council for State & Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE)

CASE STUDY

The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) launched an annual cohort leadership development program (LEAD) in 2021. Because their members have diverse experience and goals, and work for a variety of organizations throughout the U.S., executive coaching would play an important role in tailoring the learning to each individual leader’s needs.

Download our case study to explore more about our partnership with CSTE over the years.

ResourcesStephanie JuddJuly 8, 2024case study, CSTE, coaching, leadership, managersComment

A Provocative Recommendation: Stop Presenting!

Presentations aren’t always the best idea. Unless a presenter is phenomenally dynamic and engaging in her own right, audience members are going to have to consciously choose to pay attention and process the information. This takes effort, and it’s almost guaranteed that more interesting distractions will find their way into the space. If the presenter is presenting information that is remotely complex, dry, or worse, poorly organized, the audience is surely checked out.

Most of the time, when working with clients, the belief is that “net new” information needs to be presented first, and the only opportunity for interactivity is in the application of that knowledge. This is simply not true.

ArticleStephanie JuddJuly 8, 2024workshop, breakout, presentation, engagement, inspireComment

Managing Time to Reduce Overwhelm

Reference

This takeaway accompanies the OneHour Workshop titled Managing Time to Reduce Overwhelm. This workshop helps people leaders prioritize, focus, and ultimately find more space to serve their team members.

ResourcesStephanie JuddJuly 3, 2024leadership, OneHour Workshop, time management, overwhelm, prioritization, focusComment

Scripts that Unlock Potential

As executive coaches, we’re trained in conversation strategies that can unlock our client’s potential. What’s interesting in our coaching conversations is that we’re often talking to leaders about how THEY can unlock the potential of their employees or team members.

Here are a few scripts that can get you started if you’re also trying to achieve the same thing.

ArticleStephanie JuddJune 17, 2024leadership, managers, potentialComment