“If there was something you wanted to change in the working part of your life, what would it be?”. Coaching is a service we provide to people who want to change something at work, perhaps their performance, their image or their situation. For example:
- Darren is a Country Director in Asia who wants to be recognised for leading creative projects rather than for headcount reduction.
- Alison is a director frustrated at the sexist behaviour of her colleagues in board meetings
- Ria is a Finance Manager from Trinidad who wants promotion and has been told she needs to develop her influencing skills
- Zak has his third new boss in five years and wondering if it is time to move on.
- Pierre has two years to make his mark, and this means mobilising the leadership team to address a few big challenges.
While it is often a person’s boss who proposes getting them a coach, we’ve found the person has to want to be coached, and right at the start we get to the bottom of what the boss is really after. Is it a performance question? What is the boss’s feedback?
Untangling the question. Our starting point is getting the “what you want to change question” untangled and clearly expressed. This leads to a defined objective as the basis for a series of coaching conversations.
Answering the question. In subsequent conversations a client stretches both into their inner world (articulating their purpose or "deep intent") and into their outer world (putting energy behind their intent, deciding who to influence, experimenting with their behaviour, consolidating new habits). We challenge and support them to step up to the line.
Feedback on a person’s impact is core to the coaching. We can gather feedback from colleagues. We can show you how you come across to us and highlight any gaps between what you are “thinking and feeling” vs “saying and doing”. We often use instruments like Firo-B and Myers Briggs.
There is no fixed formula. Usually we work face to face but sometimes over the telephone. It can be one-off, or an agreed programme of 3-6 sessions of 90 minutes, typically 2-4 weeks apart with homework in between.
We also train people to develop their skills as coaches.