FutureCourse is a mission-centric, vision-inspired, “for-impact” organization that works to unlock leadership potential and career sustainability/growth/momentum, especially in women and other minorities. While many organizations are focusing on women who have made it to the top, FutureCourse aims at those who are developing, and often struggling, as emerging leaders. They target what McKinsey/LeanIN has called the “broken rung.” “For every 100 men promoted to management, only 72 white women will be promoted, only 68 women of color, and only 58 Latina women.” This setback shapes the rest of a woman’s career journey, often becoming the initial trigger that eventually ends a meaningful career.

FutureCourse provides a full continuum of services from multi-year group leadership programs.

Most importantly, FutureCourse created PowerUP Coaching to provide a research-based, interactive approach to fuel career confidence and growth, ultimately igniting individual talent and contribution to grow the bottom line.

PowerUP is modeled after exercise science and personal training, using the predictive power of research to diagnose typical hurdles and prepare professionals, especially women and minorities, to overcome these challenges and set their future course.

“PowerUP uses career science to provide personal training for professional muscles.”

As the leader of FutureCourse and the PowerUP program, Marita Decker can be described in a few ways. She has an insatiable drive to help organizations unlock the power of their female talent and reap the benefits that women bring to work. She is a steadfast leader, unstoppable at helping individual women to love their work; seamlessly available to take calls, unpack issues, ask insightful questions and spark confidence to keep going.  Alongside being personal and empathic, her approach is clear and direct to fit within the practical reality of work and drive measurable, impactful results.

She defines life as “AND” – it’s not about choosing this specific work or something else, it’s not a choice of work or family; it’s about crafting a series of “ANDs” so that one can do the requirements of their job AND the side project that brings them joy AND the community work that harnesses their talent AND the family that fills their heart. It’s about having the confidence to believe one’s contribution will make the world a better place and supporting oneself to make that happen.

Inspiring and Empowering

Marita has genuine admiration for the grit of other female business owners and entrepreneurs. “We are kindred spirits, and I am here to share what I’ve learned and help. I frequently offer PowerUP assessments and training at no cost to boost their fearlessness and resilience. With each session, their stories fuel my own. This is very rewarding synergy.”

Marita’s life mission is to help women excel and thrive in their work. “I answer every call that comes my way, creating a community of women to achieve and stay at work. Sure, I know the research, but I empower women through personal connection and empathy.”

She greets each morning and pushes herself to ‘walk the talk.’ She faces her personal confidence dips and blindspots and uses the PowerUP techniques to keep going. “I’m my own leadership development experiment, working every day to get better, and do better to have greater impact. With grit and grace, I make progress.”

Cracking the Code

FutureCourse’s PowerUP assessments are game-changers in leadership development and career coaching. Learning from elite athletes, they used exercise science to create career science and bring personal training to the workplace. Rather than focus on role-based skills and competencies, FutureCourse develops the strength and muscles that cut across roles and stages of a career. And with their research-based design, organizations can be sure they are targeting high-impact areas. They have uncovered the most predictable hurdles in career effectiveness, and they have harnessed best practice strategies to build readiness to excel beyond the norms.

 “Like athletic personal training, we uncover an individual’s core strength and provide tweaks and techniques to amplify achievement. “

Whether it’s baseline confidence, or communication, resilience, strategic mindedness or executive presence, they bring a research based, personalized approach to optimize career talent and longevity. And our approach is full circle; participant assessments provide aggregated, anonymous data to help shape behaviors of managers and leaders in optimizing talent. Imagine learning that informs performance that informs learning. That’s the synergy we were hoping for.”

PowerUP is cracking the code on career engagement and sustainability, especially for women and other minorities. It all revolves around confidence.  At the core of career effectiveness, FutureCourse uncovered approximately 30 mindsets and behaviors that boost or block confidence at work. PowerUP assessments help women understand themselves on these booster-blocker scales, focusing on specific, potential, personal derailers and behavioral shifts to increase impact and gain success. For example, some realize they overthink decisions and dwell on the negative, which is a constant drain with no real upside.  Others begin to understand the cost of perfectionism, not just the emotional drain, but the actual organizational cost that eats away time and decreases margins. Gaining a new perspective on old behaviors begins a mindset shift toward greater confidence, contribution, and impact. “Over time we’ve learned that even small tweaks in the right areas can make a big difference. It’s like personal training for your professional muscles – knowing just the right angle or move can make all the difference.”

In aiming to heal the “broken rung,” we know that true and lasting impact takes the collaboration of many. “This is my invitation to leaders, coaches, educators and others to use our research to amplify the women and other minorities in your organizations. We are working on a series of books to launch soon, and we continually update the research, assessments and resources on our website to help you help others. My hope is that we rally to PowerUP together.”