I am not the type to admit I need help because I feel and I know I can do just about anything I set my mind to. My name is Louis Effa and I work with the Department of Transportation Maritime Administration as Assistant Chief Information Officer with a forty members staff.

When the agency's leadership decided to provide us senior managers with leadership coaching, I was, like so many of my peers, skeptical of the benefits, uninterested, and frankly unavailable and unwilling to spend an hour of coaching each week.

Carol Kerr was assigned to me as my personal coach. I expressed my feelings about the program during the first telephone conversation we had, and she vowed to help in anyway she could. I also remember her insisting that she was there to help me but I have to be willing to be helped. In the course of my career, I have attended various leadership seminars, some as long as one month. I didn't think there was much for me to learn anew.

Henry Ford once said (I think it was him) "If you stop learning. You stop leading". I was willing to give it a try.

Through her experience and professionalism, Carol Kerr not only changed my perspective and views of personal coaching, but also affected my life, and that of my staff and family. The changes are noticeable to me and the people around me. While it will take more than this note of thanks and appreciation to tell about what Carol did for me, I would like to give you an example of a situation I was in and how she helped.

As the Assistant Chief Information Officer for Information Technology (IT), the forty members' staff I lead provide IT support services to my organization. Having assumed this role for less than six months, customer satisfaction remained low. I was struggling with ways to make the team more productive and efficient. I thought about training in customer service, bringing in new team members or outsourcing the services all together. Through Carol’s coaching, I realized there was a disconnect between my expectations, what I valued and that of the team. Carol worked with me in finding out from the team what was important to them, suggestions on how we could improve services and what they needed from me to make it happened. Our one hour weekly staff meeting ended after four hours. We  eliminated processes, improved and implemented new ones. Morale among the team members is at the highest since I took over; there is better communication with our customers. We are even working on our first customer satisfaction survey.

Carol Kerr did more for me than this example. There are so many things I cannot cover on this thank you note. Just last Sunday, Carol, I asked the youth in my Sunday School class to write a letter from God to themselves--something you had mentioned in passing during one of our sessions. As they volunteered to share their letters with the rest of the class, the room was filled with emotions, "trouble makers" were not so troublesome anymore, the atmosphere completely changed, everyone realizing how much improvement they need to do in there lives.

Improvements I certainly hope to continue to achieve. I enjoyed our sessions and hope you much success as you continue to make it your business to help others. The youths told me that God will not sign His letters to them "Sincerely" but "With Love" and so it is.

With Love!

Louis Effa