The Novaconcept team comprises more than 50 experienced consultants with a range of expertise to guide you in developing your teams and leaders and in the transformation challenges facing your organization.
Right from the very beginning of our meeting, it immediately feels like I have entered a warm and trusting space. Despite his impressive résumé—Sûreté du Québec (Quebec police force) officer responsible for investigating organized crime in Quebec; security director for the Montreal Airport; associate commissioner of Quebec’s anti-corruption squad (UPAC) appointed by the Cabinet of Quebec; holder of a master’s degree in Public Administration; and Professional Certified Coach recognized by the International Coaching Federation (ICF)—Marcel still gives off an impression that he’s humble, accessible and a great listener. He is an authentic person who knows how to build trust, which is so important in coaching, without being judgmental. Our conversation flows easily and comfortably as he weaves in anecdotes using his natural sense of humour.
He immediately tells me that at his age, what he’d like most is to pay it forward. He wants to help clients benefit from his experience and expertise, his successes and failures, and to guide managers during the most challenging or stressful moments they could ever experience in their day-to-day—the moments when they often feel alone and in a dead end.
When I ask him what drove him to join Novaconcept’s team, he tells me what hooked him:
“In my first meeting with Annabelle Cadieux and Julie Charpentier, their enthusiasm and open approach appealed to me. Of course, Novaconcept’s values of respect and integrity made sense to me, but the creativity, innovation and boldness sealed the deal for me to embark on this wonderful adventure. In my practice, that’s what I do! I want to develop people’s boldness, foster disruption, and spur discussion and thinking to push them further. People need concrete tools to deal with daily challenges in the field. I realized that Novaconcept’s innovative approach to skills development, consulting and coaching effectively met that need.”
I then took the opportunity to follow up and ask him about the most common challenges he is seeing in organizations or with managers at the moment. If the beginning of his answer seems quite in tune with the times, his conclusion still surprises me. First, for Marcel, the status quo should always be the last solution to a problem. In his observations, managers too often tend to surround themselves with people similar to themselves and don’t try bringing in those of a different stripe. It’s normal not to want to rock the boat when someone is afraid of not being appreciated. But for Marcel, this sometimes reveals a lack of management courage: “Surrounding yourself with people different from you—who have different viewpoints—helps bring you the best possible ideas.”
Management courage goes even beyond that, according to Marcel. Good leaders should guide their employees to go above and beyond, thanks to constructive and relevant feedback and active and nonjudgmental listening. What’s more, today’s managers must prove themselves to be transparent, vulnerable, energetic, passionate, inspiring, creative and kind; in other words, simply human.
Still, it’s tough for managers to show their human side, as they rarely have the support they need, whether at work or in their personal lives, to truly allow themselves to be vulnerable and transparent. Marcel tells me that it isn’t strange that once he starts working with managers, they tell him it’s the first time that someone is listening to them when they’re talking about their issues. The tears are often shed during the initial meeting. From experience, Marcel knows the kind of pressure managers are under, and he always reacts with compassion and humanity while seeking the right way to upend the status quo.
For Marcel, that’s when he springs into action and when his work really starts. With over 30 years of management experience in the public and private sectors, more than 1,200 hours of coaching under his belt and various leadership training sessions delivered by him, he has met a fair number of managers from all walks of life. They have shared with him their pitfalls, worries, successes, failures and tremendous solitude they have felt in their role. Gathering this information keeps him on the cutting edge of what’s happening on the ground, which he generously shares with his clients.
Marcel uses a “shadow coaching” approach, which he describes as “a day in the life of…” and he can quickly “read” the person he’s coaching. Through his observations, curiosity and sometimes powerful questions, he enables managers to find their own solutions to what they are trying to resolve. As he says:
“I’m at an end-of-career blitz, and the extra value I can bring managers, by way of ideas, questions and feedback, might mean one less failure they have to deal with in their career. Everyone has the right to make mistakes and be supported to reach their full potential and flourish in a healthy work environment.”
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