Sitting with an Alumnus Interview with Georg Krause, AEHL 1996

Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do.

GK: Certainly. My name is Georg Krause, I was born in Leverkusen, Germany and at the age of 21, after my civil service as a paramedic, I went to France. What was meant to be a one-year sabbatical turned into two, and a season as porter at the NOGA Hilton in Cannes and that’s where I learned about EHL. I applied and started my studies at EHL in 1993.

Now at 54 years old, I live with my partner in crime here in Lausanne (and no, she’s not an alumni *laughs*) . With regards to work, I am a passionate, holistic coach with almost 20 years of experience coaching and training, committed to freeing people from any emotional challenges or blockages and provide helpful tools to get a better quality of life.

The methodology I apply is efficient, fast, and sustainable. They allow both personal and professional development, which helps to accelerate achievements of goals and increase performance. My expertise is stress management, resilience burnout prevention, communication, and coaching as a tool for leadership. B eing a deeply rooted EHL alumnus and since the creation of the mentoring program at EHL, I have also accompanied students during their time at school in terms of mindset, focus, and performance.

Lastly, I m a hypnotherapist and a certified trainer for Classic and New Code NLP, trained by J ohn Grinder, co-creator of NLP, Carmen B ostic St Clair, co-creator of New Code NLP, and Michael Carroll. I m one of the very few NLP New Code trainers in Europe allowed to train and certify this methodology.

With almost 20 years of experience in coaching, why did you decide to become an NLP New Code practitioner and trainer?

GK: One of my main drivers in life is to serve people. There were actually two personal experiences that shifted my approach to work and my vision of life, one in 2004 and another in 2007. The first one was a breakup with a woman whom I was deeply in love with (the classic, I know *laughs*), but I later recognized that I had lost myself in this relationship and I am thankful for this experience. And the second was a serious health issue, teaching me to listen more to myself instead of ignoring my true needs for the interest of my career.

So, I decided to work on myself, my values, my vision of my life, and my authenticity. When a friend of mine, also an alumnus by the way, recommended me to learn NLP to face my challenges, it instantly piqued my interest. We already had NLP at EHL as a part of the subject “communication”! Hence, I started it in 2005 and didn’t stop until I had my second certification in 2007. From there, I never stopped this amazing learning and evolving journey.

With these in hand, I decided not only to practise this approach on myself, but also with clients, and after years of practice I decided to become a trainer. I truly believe that this methodology of NLP New Code deserves to be spread, where self-application is one of the core ideas. How do you want to work with others when you don’t work on yourself? And this method provides you with the tools to do so.

What are your best tips to manage stress and build resilience in the workplace so that employees prevent burnout?

GK: If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting the same result. Hence you will probably continue to be stressed, and our brain works and functions in the same way it did for thousands of years with a fight-freeze-flight response. So, stress is the response we create within ourselves to an external or an internal trigger. From experience, there is no one-size-fits-all. What I recommend is: Do, see if it works for you, and if not, with your well-formed intention in mind, go a different way until you are where you want to be

Ah yes, a general self-care like getting enough sleep, eating healthy, staying physically active, etc. can do wonders. The challenge can sometimes be to keep up the habits. You have to identify your value conflicts, blockages, or fears that are often the reason for stress and start working on them. For example, mindful techniques, deep breathing meditation and yoga, etc.

What I always tell my clients is, when you’re in a state of stress, move! This doesn't mean that you need to run for 30 minutes, but move your body in some way, even if it’s walking around the block. Take deep breaths and change the state you’re in. By conscious breathing patterns you change your physiology, which changes your state. And by changing your state, you change your performance and outcome. Also, focus on positive relationships by improving your communication and doing active listening, thus strengthening your social environment. I'm working with my clients on their own mindset, as you cannot change others. And I never impose context, such as saying “do this and you will feel better”. What I do is invite people to choose and discover for themselves. Do the things you want to do, the way you think they are helpful for you and get yourself feedback from within yourself.

So, I'm working with my clients until they have a different perception of their challenges and, thus, the emotional state also changes.

How can coaching become a tool for leadership development?

GK: It’s a fantastic tool to provide decision-making skills. It equips leaders with personalised support and guidance. I coach them to help improve their skills and overcome their challenges and then achieve their goals easier. In addition, I provide them with tools that they can apply with their employees to improve their communication skills and flexibility. There is a generational paradigm shift taking place, and a manager should be able to face the challenges it brings along.

Therefore, I think that coaching can be a useful tool for leadership development. It allows to be more efficient in terms of time or stress management and to make decisions that are more aligned with the goals and values that the leader or person has. It's also about how to manage emotions and build resilience, maintaining focus and to improving the capacity of facing challenges. In the end, it’s all about growth and development. We all have something to improve in our own perception. And my job is to help getting there.

How has going to EHL helped build your coaching business?

GK: The EHL spirit! One of the amazing things about EHL is that it is a school for life. It creates a spirit of family, friendship, respect and hence trust. The alumni network is one of the things that was really helpful, especially when I came back to good old Lausanne in 2013. Thanks to old friends, the alumni chapters, and their events, I had the opportunity to talk about what I'm doing and increase the visibility of my services, as they were not known, and people then came to me and started asking me for support. And until recently I still was on the pitch playing Rugby with the ARE 1997 alumni team, where friends became brothers that I know now since I started EHL. I am deeply grateful and proud being part of EHL family.

How do you measure the success of a coaching engagement? Do you have any specific metrics or indicators that you use to assess progress and ensure that your clients are achieving goals?

GK: Very interesting question. What I ask my clients in the beginning is ‘What's the issue? Where are you now and where do you want to be? It starts with an analysis of the current situation, a dynamic evolution process and at the end a comparison between starting point and “arrival” line. Once the canvas of work is defined with the client, I adapt my working tools to the goals to be reached, at each step through the feedback of the client and through the observed behavioural changes, we can ensure that the defined goals are reached.

Some success can be measured. For example, I supported some students at EHL to have better selfmanagement and increase performance. Here, some mark improvements were objective. But the feedback I’ve received from these students was that they felt less stressed and more focused after applying the tools I provided. It's mostly very subjective scaling, where it is up to the client to determine his personal success.

Do you believe every working professional should consider coaching as a development tool?

GK: I certainly think so. Coaching provides ways and tools for accelerated personal growth. We are all individuals with our individual strengths, weaknesses, values, and beliefs, positive as well as negative. And certain methods can help to improve individual performance and get what we sometimes think we are not able to achieve. Everything can be learned, and this is where I think that coaching can be useful.

I’ll roughly translate a German saying: ‘’Roofs are best covered in good weather”. This means that, when you're in a good state of mind, things are easier set and implemented. Whenever there's someone thinking of getting a coach, just don't wait until you are feeling down or lost. It is always easier to work on yourself when you have the power for it, and having someone to support you to get things done faster and more efficiently can be real fun.