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Steve Lishansky    

Strategic Advisor, Executive Coach & Strategy Partner for C-Suite Executives

Steve Lishansky is the CEO (Chief Executive Optimizer) of Optimize International, the company he founded in 1992 for fostering the development of top leaders and high performing organizations in the US and internationally. Optimize International was one of the first firms in the world focused on accelerating leadership development through incorporating high level executive coaching and the strategic alignment of senior management teams. Steve is recognized by clients and peers as a leader in the fields of executive coaching, leadership development, high-value relationship skills, and facilitating organizational alignment, performance, and results. Steve is also the founder and Executive Director of the Executive Coaching Institute (ECI), the first coach training organization dedicated to elevating leadership results by educating top-level executives and coaches in the principle-based, highly effective work he pioneered

Since starting his speaking, coaching and facilitation company in 1992, after a distinguished 20 year career founding and running companies, Steve has worked with senior leaders and their organizations producing results through: executive coaching; consulting; delivering customized educational programs and keynotes; and facilitating executive meetings, retreats and strategic planning sessions. His specialties include working with senior executives, top leaders, and designated future leaders in:

Optimizing the value of key business relationships - utilizing effective inter-personal communications and influence skills for increasing the clarity, value, impact and results with clients, stakeholders and employees, leading to high level alignment, high value relationships, and consistency in bringing out the best in their people Mastering the dynamics of effective leadership: producing high-impact, sustainable results with their people and organizations through bringing forth the authenticity that is at the heart of effective presence, communications, and results. This is the quality of leadership that builds optimal results through creating greater clarity, focus and impact with and for their people. Optimizing overall team and organizational results - developing the coaching, mentoring and leadership skills that maximize leaders' leverage with their people, their people's effectiveness with each other, and high level strategic alignment of senior executive teams - all in the service of enhancing focus and impact as well as accelerating critical results A brief listing of the types of services Steve offers, and clients he has worked with include:

Executive coaching with senior leaders at MetLife, New England Financial, State Street Corporation, State Farm Insurance, Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan, Freddie Mac, Glaxo Smith Kline, Johnson and Johnson, Novartis, Eastern Bank, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cisco, Canadian Tire, Ketchum, CDM (Camp Dresser & McKee), Arby's (the corporate franchisor), Home Market Foods, and AMC Networks (division of Cablevision)

Facilitating senior executive groups to produce high-level strategic alignment that generates exceptionally effective team and organizational focus, and much greater impact in accelerating critical results at organizations as diverse as: EMC, New England Financial Information Services, Agfa, Harvard Clinical Research Institute, Johnson and Johnson, Novo Nordisk, Booz Allen Hamilton, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, Parexel International, State Street Global Advisors' IT Group, Freddie Mac, Eastern Bank, NASA, Canadian Tire Corporation, Home Market Foods, The Coast Guard Foundation, and The Federal Aviation Administration

Designing and running educational programs on leadership and leading change for top executives at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Keane Consulting, Novartis, Johnson and Johnson, The US Department of Labor, OSHA, Fleet/BankBoston, SunAmerica Securities, MetLife, CDM (Camp Dresser McKee), New England Financial Information Services, Parexel International, and Tri-Gen Energy Corporation

Customizing his Optimizing the Value of Key Business RelationshipsTM programs to transform and reorient the culture at New England Financial Information Services, Fidelity Investments Systems Group, MetLife, State Street Global Advisors' IT Group, Oakley, CDM (Camp Dresser McKee), Accenture, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Johnson and Johnson, PHCS' IT Group, Arbys, Washington Association of School Business Officers, and AMS (American Management Systems)

Speaking to numerous executive groups on leadership, organizational effectiveness, building high value relationships, executive coaching and development, and building sustainable corporate cultures that thrive on innovation and change

Steve is one of the first Master Certified Coaches with the International Coach Federation (ICF), and a past President of their largest chapter, ICF-New England. He is also the Past-President of the New England chapter of the National Speakers Association, and the designer of the personal transformation program Vision to Reality, as well as the interpersonal mastery program Optimizing the Value of Key Business RelationshipsTM (formerly Building High Value RelationshipsTM). His book on transformational leadership and communications - Getting to What is Most Important - The 7 Essentials for Optimizing the Effectiveness of Leaders and Their Organizations - will be published in 2012.

Speech Topics


Becoming an Indispensable Partner - Keys to Creating High Value Relationships

The Becoming an Indispensable Partner™ Program (BaIP) provides a practical, principle-based roadmap to building the skills of beginning, maintaining, and growing relationships that produce meaningful action, measurable results, and maximum value – which are critically important keys to success for every leader, manager and relationship manager. BaIP assists managers and leaders in dramatically increasing their success in developing powerful, sustainable, long-term, high-value business relationships with their people. Managers and leaders often find there are challenging relationships, or relationships with unfulfilled potential that they need to move, change or affect. Understanding and applying BaIP skills can turn around a difficult relationship, revive a sagging relationship, and take any relationship – even an exceptionally good one – to new heights of collaboration, value, impact, and results. Skillfulness with OKBR principles leads to:

  • Faster engagement and a higher level of rapport with all the key people you need to influence
  • Capability to shift others’ attention and focus to what matters most
  • Ability to quickly facilitate what is most important, meaningful and valuable to the other person – the key to gaining their trust, attention, engagement and commitment
  • Building partnerships that align around the mutual best interests of your people and organization
  • Avoiding acting on requests that ultimately do not lead to high value results, including the ability to decline requests in ways that actually enhance the relationship

Whether dealing with new relationships or long-standing ones, BaIP skills allow managers and leaders to maximize their impact, collaboration and value with their people and clients. The ability to facilitate and bring forth what is most important in your relationships and engagements leads to agreements, action and results of great meani

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