tagged 
NYU, SHRM, VisuaLeadership, leadership
NYU, SHRM, VisuaLeadership, leadership Entries in leadership (11)
Proud to be featured in the NYU SPS SHRM Chapter "HR Spotlight"
Friday, February 24, 2017 at 3:52PM 
As my students know from my many horror stories, I worked for way too many horrible bosses earlier in my career. Figuring that there had to be a better way to manage and lead people than through tyranny and abuse, I dove head-first into studying the world of management and leadership, and have since made it my personal mission to do my part to rid the world of bad bosses…thereby “Helping to make the world a better place…one leader at a time.”
So, in addition to running a leadership consulting, training, and coaching firm called BigBlueGumball, for the past seven years I’ve also been an adjunct professor at NYU in the HRMD Master’s program where I co-teach with Jeff Schwartzman a popular graduate course entitled “Leadership and Team Building.” One of our primary goals is to teach HR professionals how to put the “humanity” back into “Human” Resources; and one of the ways we do this is by providing our students with a variety of classic and cutting edge management and leadership tools, tips, and techniques designed to help them each to maximize their performance, their productivity, and their potential.
As we believe that “The true value of knowledge is not in its accumulation, but in its application,” and that “Wisdom is where Knowledge and Experience meet,” we try to set our students up for success by showing them how what we do in the classroom translates into the outside world, and encourage them to always look for ways to connect the three corners of the learning triangle between our class content, the external world, and their own lives – past, present, and future.
What makes our approach unique (and, we think, fun!) is our creative methodology called VisuaLeadership®, which is all about leveraging the power of visual imagery, mental models, metaphors, and storytelling to manage and lead ourselves and our people. For example, in one early classroom exercise, when we ask students to call out the first word that comes to mind when they hear the word "leadership," many immediately blurt out, "Vision!" And when we ask them to define what they mean by "vision" in the context of leadership, it tends to be all about a leader having a mental image of the future: a picture, that they see in their "mind's eye" of an idealized future state that is different from -- and better than -- the current reality. And, so, with that description in mind, equipping, empowering, and inspiring our students to turn their own visions into reality lies at the heart of what we do and how we do it.
The French novelist Marcel Proust famously wrote that “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” Similarly, our hope is that through our teaching, our students’ eyes will be opened to a whole new world of possibilities.
For more of Todd’s thoughts on “leadership and learning,” please check out his blog column on LinkedIn.
Leadership Lessons at Columbia University
Friday, February 24, 2017 at 1:59AM 
Just finished my third year of teaching a 3-day highlights version of my NYU "Leadership & Teambuilding" course for grad students in the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) theater program at Columbia University!
In addition to the excitement of being on this amazing Ivy League campus right in the heart of NYC (on 116th & Broadway), I really enjoyed working with these future Broadway stage managers to help them develop their leadership capabilities...while, at the same time, finally getting a chance to incorporate into my teaching numerous references to Shakespeare and Les Miz...as well as a wide array of showtunes!
BBG @ ICF-CT: Life Lessons in Leadership Coaching
Saturday, February 8, 2014 at 6:11PM Your Leadership Journey: Life Lessons in Leadership Coaching
Todd Cherches; Carol Shear (ICF-CT president); Steve Cherches
We all know that our life experiences shape us as individuals. Yet, how often do we make the time and take the time to reflect back on those experiences to gain a better understanding of who we are and how we are as leaders...and as coaches?
In this fun, fast-paced, and highly-interactive workshop, we led the Connecticut chapter of the International Coach Federation (ICF) on a journey of exploration from the past to the present...and into the future.
Among the key themes covered in this 90-minute workshop:
* Exploring the metaphor of the Leadership Journey;
* Discovering who we are as leaders based on how the life stories from our past shape our present;
* Envisioning how we can apply the journey metaphor and our own life lessons in a coaching context.
A Valentine's Message to Inwood House
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 12:36AM It was a Sunday afternoon in May of last year and I was reading the Business section of the New York Times when I came upon the Corner Office column wherein they interview a top business leader each week on their leadership insights.
Well long story, short, I was so inspired by that week's interview with Linda Lausell Bryant, the executive director of Inwood House -- a NYC-based organization that "Helps Teens Take Charge of Their Lives"-- that I did something I had never done before:
I sent her an email out of the blue saying, "How can we help!?"
As it turns out not only is Inwood House an amazing NYC-based organization, but they are our neighbors... located right here on the Upper East Side, less than a 5-minute walk from BigBlueGumball's home office!
So I am proud to say that over the past ten months we have had the pleasure of working with Linda and her brilliant and incredible team (some of the smartest, nicest, and most dedicated people we've ever had the pleasure of working with!), to help their staff develop their skills in the areas of management, leadership, communication, and innovation.
In addition to the pure satisfaction we receive from making a contribution to this amazing organization that is, literally, saving the lives of New York City teens, the following words of appreciation from Linda was, perhaps, the greatest gift of all:
"Meeting you and having the benefit of your brilliance and commitment to us is indeed one of the biggest blessings that came out of the New York Times article. In every interaction we have with you, we come away having learned something and ready to apply something. Thank you for your priceless partnership with us. We are thrilled to be your friends, your fans and your students!"
Humbled by these incredibly kind remarks, we would like to say thank you to Linda for what you do, for how you do it, and -- most of all -- for who you are.
We truly love working with you and your team, and thank you for this opportunity to make a difference, and to share in this wonderful partnership.
