Arete Coach: The Art & Science of Executive Coaching

Arete Coach 1112 Vistage: Pioneers of Chair Facilitated Peer Executive Groups, 65 Year Anniversary

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Feb 6, 2023

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INSIGHT

Power of Peer Groups

The strength of a leader grows from the strengths of their peer group.
Effective peer groups require mutual contribution and trust to enhance leadership capabilities.

INSIGHT

Truthful Advisors Empower Leaders

True leaders surround themselves with honest, discerning advisors who speak the brutal truth.
This tradition from ancient viziers to privy councils embodies confidentiality and courage in counsel.

ANECDOTE

Bob Nors Founding Tech Peer Groups

Bob Nors launched Tech in 1957 to create peer executive groups for CEOs leveraging psychology and group dynamics.
He established clear group norms focused on trust, confidentiality, and monthly full-day peer meetings with expert speakers.

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This is episode 1,112 of the Arete Coach Podcast with host Severin Sorensen with another episode that explores the art and science of executive coaching. In this episode, we explore the power of peers and professionally facilitated peer executive groups, and in particular, we deep dive into the Vistage model as it celebrates its 65th year anniversary.

In addition to reviewing the historical research on the environment that cultivated TEC-Vistage, the founding of the company and its early history, this episode includes remarks and input from dozens of Vistage chairs and stakeholders passed and present.

In this episode, we explore the important role of the ancient vizier, advisor, privy councils and their parallels to the modern Chair role played in professionally facilitated executive peer groups. In a Vistage Group, a Chair is an executive coach, who is at times a coach, mentor, and facilitator of the peer executive group.

Vistage differentiates itself from other business focused self-help groups by providing professional facilitation by an executive coach called the Chair, who has had significant prior business experience and deep training in coaching skills and executive peer group facilitation. The Vistage Chair role is to facilitate the peer group discussions, asking questions to draw out the expertise of the group members experiences and ideas, and periodically provide expert advice and guidance to the members when asked, while fostering a culture of trust, confidentiality, and open communication among the members.

The goal of the chair in this model is to help members gain new perspectives, solve problems, and make better decisions by sharing their experiences and learning from one another. This and much more is explored in this episode of the Arete Coach Podcast.

The Arete Coach Podcast seeks to explore the art and science of executive coaching. You can find out more about this podcast at aretecoach.io.

This session was recorded on January 28th, 2023 via Zoom video. This session also includes dozens of interview callouts from current and former Vistage chairs and stakeholders from Arete Coach podcast recorded since April of 2020.