W. Warner Burke
Tel 212.678.3831
burke1@
exchange.tc.columbia.edu


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Coaching for Organizational Change

W. Warner Burke is the Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Society, and the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. He is the author, coauthor, or coeditor of 14 books, including Organizational Development: A Process of Learning.

Coaching Approach

As a coach, Warner Burke works with people in leadership positions who are trying to manage or bring about organizational change. He helps leaders make sense of the strategic implications of change in a way that enables them to deal more effectively with the pressures they are under.

The first step for Warner is to help the client understand the priorities of the demands he or she faces. From an examination of the external environment, Warner guides the leader in a process of thinking about the mission and strategy, then to the culture and leadership. On an individual level, he starts with goals, then moves on to roles and responsibilities, and finally to procedures and relationships until the leader understands the context of his or her position in line with objectives and strategies.

Warner tries to establish a personal relationship with each client. He relies on his training in therapeutic techniques to listen carefully, ask questions, confront and push with expertise, thereby moving the leader to try something different. Fundamentally, he focuses on the person, not the role or job.