One-to-one coaching
If you haven’t worked with a coach before, you need to be clear about what coaching is, what it isn’t, and what you’re hoping to get from it. It should be a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires and helps you to maximise your personal and professional potential.
It’s not just for senior executives. It’s a process that can be useful to people at any stage in their career – but especially at a time of change or challenge, at a moment of transition.
It’s a creative process, although that doesn’t mean there isn’t a structure. Typically, we’d offer a choice of coaches (and some advice on how to choose the right one for you). The first session would usually be a longer one, face-to-face. It might involve a psychometric or 360. It would definitely be all about setting objectives and expectations, agreeing how you will work with your coach. Subsequent sessions would be shorter and might well be virtual (phone, Skype, Zoom, whatever). The final session should be face-to-face if possible. There are usually six sessions in all but nothing’s set in stone – it’s your choice.
Coaching for directors and senior executives
Typical issues we’ve helped clients with include:
- Implementing business change and transitions, including restructuring
- Stakeholder engagement
- Relationship management
- Role transitions, preparing for promotion and first 100 days in a new role
- Personal impact and influencing with integrity
- Performance anxiety
- Developing resilience
- Managing top teams
- Developing potential
Clients at this level are usually involved in setting the direction of the organisation or of their area within it. Their success is dependent on engaging others to deliver. They will be:
- Board members
- Business leaders
- Senior managers
- Or transitioning into a senior role
The format is very flexible and depends on the needs of the individual. Sometimes a single session with our executive coach will be sufficient. But generally we will work with you over a period of six to nine months, designing the length and frequency of sessions to meet your specific needs. Sessions can be face-to-face, by phone (or Skype, Zoom, whatever) or a combination of the two.
Coaching for managers
Managers can struggle with a huge range of issues with which coaching can help them, including:
- Moving to a new role or grade
- Thinking about next career steps
- Developing team members and succession planning
- Presentation skills
- Grappling with a specific development need, eg, to:
- Developing better influencing skills
- Improving resilience
- Enhancing personal credibility
- Dealing with change
- Managing multiple priorities
- Managing upwards
- Motivating and engaging their team
- Managing remotely or in a matrix structure
- Delegating effectively
- Having courageous conversations and delivering bad news
- Struggling with work/life balance
- Carrying out an appraisal or recruitment process for the first time
- Managing performance issues, including tackling underperformance
The format can be flexible. Occasionally a one-off ‘ad hoc’ session is all that is required. More commonly, a coach would work with a manager over a series of 3 to 6 sessions focusing on particular development needs or business challenges. The series of meetings, their length, frequency and venue is mutually arranged with the coach. These sessions can be face-to-face or telephone-based or a combination of the two. We have coaches available across the UK (and, indeed, internationally).
Just-in-time coaching
- the advantages of a continuing coaching relationship, with
- the need to provide immediate support to deal with critical issues and key decisions.
This can take the form of a series of three flexible, 30-minute telephone sessions which can be used by the individual as and when required. This approach is extremely useful for those dealing with, eg:
- Challenging staff members / colleagues
- Multiple priorities
- Change and transition
- Organisational restructures
Sessions can be booked at relatively short notice, to help managers deal with situations as and when they arise or develop.
Coaching clinics
Set aside a room for the day and one of our coaches will come in and deliver up to six, 60-minute one-to-one coaching sessions. Make someone responsible for co-ordinating the sessions, so that people book in advance (and make the most of the time available). Set a limit, if you wish, to how many sessions one person can book over the course of the programme. Or don’t, as you prefer. Book just a couple of days. Or make it a regular thing (we’ve been doing monthly sessions with one of our clients for the last five years or so).
These popular sessions are particularly useful during times of change and transition and for managers or staff who are about to:
- Take part in a challenging appraisal
- Communicate a difficult message
- Make an important decision
- Influence upwards
- Deliver a presentation
How to choose a coach
HR and L&D professionals often have to set up coaching support for managers in the business. If you’re in that position, just give us a call to talk it through – we can take the hassle out of the process for you.
How to choose a coach – for yourself
If you’re looking for a coach you need to:
- Do your homework – understand what coaching is, what it isn’t and what the coaching process entails
- Reflect on your goals and objectives – be clear what you expect to accomplish by partnering with a coach
- Interview your prospective coaches – coaching is an important relationship, so look for a personal connection between you and the coach you choose
- Confirm their credibility – ask each coach about his or her experience, skills and qualifications
Be prepared to ask:
- What is your coaching experience (number of individuals coached, years of experience, types of coaching situations, etc)?
- Are you an accredited coach and a member of a Professional coaching body, eg, ICF?
- What type of coaching do you specialise in?
- What types of organisation do you work with most often? At what levels (executives, upper management, middle management, etc)?
- What are some of your coaching success stories (specific examples of clients who have succeeded as a result of coaching)?
Be prepared to answer:
- Have you had a coach before? If so, how did that work for you?
- Are you prepared to engage with the coaching process?
- What are your expectations for your coaching?
- What are your manager’s / the organisation’s expectations?
- What challenges would you like to address through coaching?
- What recent or current transitions are occurring that affect your role / organisation?
- How do you learn best?
- What characteristics are you looking for in a coach?
- What would you like to know?
Then decide:
- Which coach would challenge you most?
- Who has the most experience from which you can benefit?
- Who has the most compelling approach?
And try to avoid the three most common mistakes when choosing a coach:
- Assuming your coach needs to have experienced your particular challenges to be effective – that would be mentoring.
- Confusing industry experience with coaching usefulness – your coach should be helping you with your personal development, not business development.
- Prioritising logic over chemistry – no matter how good a coach is, and no matter how motivated you are, unless it ‘feels right’ you’re unlikely to work well together.
Coaching on a budget
We’ve always got a number of coaches going through our ICF credential programme. To secure their credential, they need to deliver at least 75 paid coaching hours. But they don’t have to be paid at market rates.
So, if you’re working to a budget, we can offer coaches who’ve successfully completed their training programme with us and are looking for delivery hours. Win-win!
Mini case studies
As a leading writer on the subject (Jenny Rogers) says,
‘Coaching is the art of facilitating another person’s learning, development, well-being and performance. Coaching raises self-awareness and identifies choices. Through coaching, people are able to find their own solutions, develop their own skills, and change their own attitudes and behaviours. The whole aim of coaching is to close gap between people’s potential and their current state.’
So it’s a process that can be useful to people at any stage in their career – but especially at a time of change, at a moment of transition. That might mean when you’re considering a change of direction, when you’ve made a change or, indeed, when change is happening around you and you’re not sure how to respond. But the common denominators are change and transformation – if you’re not prepared to change, don’t look for a coach! (Counselling, therapy, training, mentoring – all the things that coaching are not – might be more appropriate).
How does it work?
Perhaps some mini case studies would help:
Group Head, Financial Planning, Private Banking: A high-performing senior executive responsible for delivering the bank’s ‘wealth planning’ business strategy for growth and ensuring target levels of client profitability had coaching following a four-month leave of absence due to ill-health after life-threatening surgery. The focus was on supporting the transition back to full-time work and rebuilding professional confidence in a changing and challenging work environment. Over the three months she reasserted her authority, restructured the team and introduced a new model of financial modelling that would increase revenue by 20%.
CEO, Housing Corporation: The CEO led the organisation through transfer from obligations to the local authority, to operating as an independent agency with uncertain future funding. This necessary change was driven by the Executive team as the Board tended to have an operational rather than strategic focus. The coaching relationship focused on developing the strategy to build a proactive Board with strategic ambition and increased appetite for risk, moving into potentially new areas which were for-profit rather than government-funded. The outcome was a restructuring of the Board which enabled decisions on the generation of future revenue to be made a year ahead of schedule.
Executive Board Member Operations, Non-Departmental Government Body: A female member of the Executive Team, responsible for Operations Directorate, experienced a personality clash with a newly appointed male CEO. This affected her resilience and resulted in emotional outbursts and failure to deliver growth targets. Coaching enabled her to develop a better understanding of how to modify her behaviour and how to influence with integrity. This allowed her to build a more constructive working relationship with the CEO, and secure the autonomy required for effective delivery.
Senior Director, Head of Metals Trading for EMEA: A talented team leader with a strong track record for generating income was promoted to Head of Metals Trading for Europe when the organisation was taken over by a French Corporate and Investment Bank. He had little senior leadership experience. While his direct style worked well on the trading floor, it did not translate into influencing at a strategic level. The aim of the coaching was to enhance his reputation and credibility across the merged organisation and help him significantly increase revenue generation with an extended team. The process started with 360 feedback which confirmed his ability to work with teams to deliver results but highlighted his tendency to react emotionally and not take into account the wider political agenda when making decisions. At the end of the programme he noted that:
‘Staff within my team have commented that my behaviour has matured and I that have started to grow into my senior role. Elizabeth’s coaching helped me to think more about not just what I want to achieve, but how I come across and ensure others see my decisions are based on logic not emotions. I learnt to be more structured and thoughtful, to prioritise my battles/issues and to let go with my team, enabling them to deliver more effectively.’
What next?
Give us a call to talk us through your thoughts so far (perhaps have a look at the sample profiles of some of our coaches, here) and we’ll nominate a few potential coaches for you.
We can answer all your questions about logistics, costs, etc.
And when you’re ready, we’ll put you in touch with the coaches so that you can have those all-important ‘chemistry’ calls.
Then let us know what you’ve decided, who you’ve chosen, and we’ll send you an agreement – but until then, you’re not at all committed.
Any questions? Give us a call – we’re here to help!