Testimonials
Ms. Heft is a rare talent. I have interacted with many coaches over the years but never met anyone as empathetic and as good at connecting as Ms. Heft. She delivered a great program to our team members. It was very insightful. It instilled a lot of positive, mind-bending concepts, and gave us many useful tools to positively deal with tough challenges. She also includes a lot of practical advice on managing conflicts, brain-science, and emotions in an easy to understand way. The program is laid out well, with easy to use principles of behavior science on the job. After we ran this 7-month program with our first group, we repeated it with two more groups with great results. We recently completed our annual review cycle and you wouldn’t believe how many team members referenced their time with Ms. Heft as the best thing that happened to them last year.
President and CEO of Environmental Works Inc.
We had the pleasure of working with Dr. Heft through the course and scope of a leadership development program that was launched to support high-potential executives within our organization. Laura served as an executive coach to program participants, working one-on-one with many of our top leaders, over a nine-month period and during a time of intense organizational uncertainty, ambiguity, and change.
Laura’s approach, style and expertise had a direct impact on the success of the program and contributed to exceptional growth in program participants, resulting in high-retention rates of the leaders who worked with her and movement into higher-level leadership roles as organizational changes unfolded. Throughout the program, Laura help those she worked with chart clear goals, identify and remove perceived and real barriers, increase self-awareness, and improve mental clarity and resilience.
One of the most impressive elements of the coaching Laura provided was her ability to incorporate brain-based science to help leaders understand their emotions and ultimately the way their feelings impact their behavior and decision-making. This was well-received by participants and different from what they’d experienced in the past, leading to rich insights on the part of participants and a positive experience that left leaders asking for more of what she delivered.
I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Heft during a major change in which our company being acquired. Despite the challenging situation, she worked closely with employees by customizing a path to achieve their unique goals balanced with the company’s objectives. She helped the team identify and remove perceived and real barriers that were getting in the way of their success. She also customized her coaching process by helping team members better understand how they are wired, the impact of brain science on their thinking, emotions, and ultimately on their decisions and behavior. This approach was well-received and was different from what they’d experienced in the past. Overall, Dr. Heft’s coaching made a tremendous impact on participants and enabled us to navigate the transition successfully.
Ms. Heft is an expert in her field. She clearly knows her research and has applied it well to the multiple projects she was engaged to consult on. Despite her deep knowledge, she doesn’t come across as overly academic. In fact, she has a practical style and approach that is wonderfully accessible to the employees she collaborated with. She tackled some big challenges with a sense of optimism and enthusiasm, and has delivered on all of the projects we leveraged her for. She is particularly adept at overcoming obstacles and empowering the people she works with by giving them the confidence and tools needed to succeed.
The program took me outside of my normal comfort zone to a place of growth that has had a far greater impact than on my career than just my leadership abilities. I really enjoyed the safe space created in her program to see where I stood, where I had opportunities to learn, and then was held accountable to try something new. Her teaching pushed me to implement several changes that have a lasting lifelong impact where I continue to learn and aspire to new challenges daily.