“Through coaching I gained significantly more self-awareness as a leader and as a whole person, understanding and embracing both the contribution I make as an individual to my family, to the company and to society. Coaching supported me in leading through the current socio-economic crisis and helped me analyze and understand a number of sensitive or difficult work and personal situations. I feel more self-confident and better equipped to face similar situations in the future. I learned that its more important to ask the right questions than provide the right answers, especially in difficult conversations. Coaching added techniques to my personal toolbox to help me better focus, analyze faster, drive crisper thinking and overall, be a better leader.”
“Merry has a wonderful way of making you reach inside yourself to produce the best for yourself, your team and your business…. My relationships are more satisfying. I have developed new personal interests, enjoy greater respect and have reached a new level of personal fulfillment.”
“Merry Marcus has helped me grow more as a leader and an executive in the 6-7 months of coaching than I could have in 6-7 years on my own. She helped me develop an executive presence specifically with client executives, but also coached me to start showing up as an equal with internal leadership. I learned how to achieve more by being calm and the importance of focusing on things that increase, not decrease my energy. Coaching with Break Through taught me to be a better leader and therefore deliver better business results AND personnel related results. Merry is not only an amazing coach but more importantly she is a great listener. THANK YOU MERRY!”
“Break Through Consulting brings structure and a proven methodology to their coaching framework – a big differentiator from my perspective.”
“I always felt energized after our calls and used your coaching directly in different situations with family, peers, teams and or clients. Initially I had doubts that coaching can work over the phone, but this concern quickly disappeared. Reflecting on the results, I can say I am extremely proud of what I have learned and applied successfully. I was able to grow my self-awareness as a leader, develop stronger emotional regulation, take immediate actions and was able to realize changes in my relations with my peers, team members and clients. Your coaching helped me to understand the impacts of the workload on our people and helped me embrace being truly human.”
“I’ve recommended Break Through Consulting to a number of personal and professional contacts, as a premier partner in gaining self-awareness, unlocking potential, and breaking down barriers to success”
“By focusing on the whole of me – not just my work self – Break Through Consulting helped me understand that “professional performance” is really life performance. The coaching process gave me the tools I needed to integrate being a top performer with being caring and ‘present‘ for my family. I practice these tactics regularly to help me raise my performance at work and to be much more connected and satisfied at home. Merry was brilliant in never judging me, always advocating on my behalf, which allowed me to open up more in my dialog with her. It’s a technique and perspective that I am now working to implement with my own team. I am far more balanced and successful today, personally and professionally, than I was before coaching with Merry.”
“I worked with Break Through Consulting to design an onboarding program for our experienced hires at Tyco. The pilot program has produced both qualitative and quantitative results that indicate a strong return on investment. I am thrilled!”
“I highly recommend coaching with Break Through Consulting for your executives. Accenture is a long-term satisfied client. Merry Marcus is focused and experienced. She is intent on clarifying the goals from the start of the executive coaching assignment and delivers results!”
“Merry was instrumental in my professional & personal growth as I transitioned to a headquarters role. She helped me recognize that over-reliance on my technical & quantitative skills could be a career derailer. Merry’s coaching was invaluable in helping me exercise discipline, self-observe, pace myself and manage communications to create resonance with my audiences. As I made progress developing my executive presence & savvy, she also made sure that I was holding true to my personal values. Merry has been more than a professional coach to me–she has truly been a mentor.”
“I would recommend engaging in a coaching relationship with Break Through Consulting to anyone looking to improve his or her effectiveness as a business executive. Merry takes a holistic approach. She helps you understand the kind of person you are, what keeps you motivated, how to leverage your strengths, how to build new strengths by identifying and adopting traits you admire in others and how to stay focused on adding value and staying relevant in leadership settings.”
“I never believed that coaching programs would be of any benefit to me. However, Merry “read” me quickly and was able to immediately provide value. Coaching supported a higher level of impact on the executive board and my leadership growth. I learned to be a better listener, ask better questions and work more collaboratively. In addition, coaching assessments revealed a set of “unspoken” expectations the leadership team had for my group. Uncovering these has allowed us to take action to deliver results. Coaching helped me increase my visibility at industry and company events in a way that was comfortable and genuine for me. My coach supported me in developing succession and development plans for my team. Coaching was one factor that contributed to my group exceeding all service, profitability and expense management objectives.”
“Working with a Break Through Consulting coach was one of the best professional development experiences I’ve ever had. My coach helped pull to the forefront the high impact considerations of self-awareness, leadership style and executive persona that have become invaluable in achieving my professional and personal goals. I am better equipped to be an authentic leader and develop cohesive teams that win in the marketplace. As a woman and senior manager being groomed for partner, coaching helped me communicate and position myself for partnership.”
“Merry asked all the right questions, was able to quickly uncover the more basic issues I was wrestling with and, just as quickly, helped me learn how to help myself address them. She peeled the onion back to my basic interests, motivators and strengths as a business professional and worked to leverage those throughout our coaching relationship. Ultimately, she helped me build upon my existing capabilities and successes and understand how to adapt my style to a changing and evolving leadership team.”
“Coaching with Break Through Consulting had a huge impact. It supported me and my team in turning around the Communications division – preserving 200 jobs and saving the company $1 million a month.”
“Coaching absolutely contributed to my success in turning around the Commercial division. Coming from Sales and Marketing I had no operations experience whatsoever and was promoted into the GM role 2 years earlier than planned. In addition, I was given 2 divisions to manage – one of which was losing $1 million a month. My condition for taking on this extremely difficult challenge was that I would have an executive coach to support me. What was most valuable was Merry’s own experience in P&L management and running a business. Merry worked with me to manage myself through the learning process so that I was learning the skills I needed as GM and simultaneously making decisions to turn the suffering business around.”
“Merry was very good at asking questions to shine the light where I might not normally see. She made me stretch. I did not want to play politics. I just wanted to do my job. Merry helped me see that politics was part of my job and supported me in creating action plans around this.”
“Coaching helped me approach work/life issues and figure out how to take back some time for myself and not have it look like it’s because I am a woman. Personally, the quality of my life and the quality of my work life was raised immensely. I no longer feel like a victim being pulled in two opposing directions.”
“As a leader, I am much more thoughtful and well rounded. I understand better how my words and actions are perceived by others.”
“Merry is very good, very professional and a terrific listener. I can really mow people over. Merry stood her ground and was not timid and didn’t back off. She’s honest, diplomatic and can really ‘cut to the chase’.”
“Coaching with Merry produced results for me on 3 levels. . . bottom-line business results, in my style as a business leader and for me personally. I certainly recommend coaching with Merry Marcus.”
“My boss and I agree that coaching supported a $15 million better budget allocation due to my improved ability to communicate at the CFO level.”
“Coaching with Merry supported me as a business leader, improving the focus and overall morale of my team which was demonstrated through improved retention.”
“Merry helped me realize the importance of the ‘soft issues’ to my team and how success here, breeds success in ‘hard’ business results.”
“Personally, Break Through Consulting created a space I never created for myself. Time to focus on me, my career and what actions will truly get me to my goals.”