What can executive coaching help me to change?

So long as you are realistic and pragmatic about what you want you can change any thing that you want and a good coach will help you to make the changes quicker and more effectively.

There are a number of areas in particular where working with a coach will see you well rewarded.

1. Coaching for behaviour change - behaviour change is difficult without a coach that gets beneath the surface of issues. A typical coaching assignment involves my helping you to improve your confidence or self esteem so as to help you to achieve your career objectives, sometimes following a particularly challenging time professionally and/or personally.

2. Coaching for leadership capability/skills development – typical coaching assignments in this area are addressing your planning and communication skills, most notably developing and sharing your vision and strategic priorities, influencing key stakeholder(s), talent management, negotiating, assertiveness and delegation, so as to achieve business goals. For example, I worked with a director to help develop his listening, questioning and debating skills, to improve his effectiveness with his team and clients, following a 360 degree feedback performance review.

3. Coaching for the client’s agenda - for example, right now you may be experiencing work anxieties due to increased work pressures. I worked with a HR Business Partner recently who was experiencing unwanted physiological symptoms as a result of work and life pressures. I am also coaching an individual who I have helped identify his three key career priorities and am helping him to achieve these.

4. Coaching for development or through a transition – for example, perhaps you are new in post and want support though a number of challenges within your new role, specifically confidence and skills dealing with stakeholder management issues in your new role and prioritising a heavy workload.

5. Coaching for performance – for example, do you want coaching to achieve your business development and sales performance targets? Do you want to improve your performance in a number of areas including business planning, influencing and your own coaching skills?

6. Career coaching – for example, are you in an organisation that is restructuring and want to know your career options within/outside of the business? Are you a senior manager returning to work following maternity leave?

6. Team coaching – I have worked with senior management teams and Boards to change key business processes and/or to improve their performance. Some of my clients have used this approach to provide participants with coaching skills transfer as well as to address both team and individual development issues. For example, I worked with a number of senior managers in the NHS in this way. I use a transformational coaching model and process that involves my facilitation of a coach, an issue holder and shadow coaches. I am currently coaching two teams aspiring to be a ‘high productivity team’ using our own ‘High Productivity Team Model’.

7. Stress management – are you struggling with stress management issues? For example, I recently worked with an individual that was highly stressed in their role, experiencing personal problems, to help them feel calmer, address their personal issues and improve their productivity.

8.  Are you a director, MD or CEO who wants a  confidential coach resource to help you to achieve your vision,  goals and objectives? For example, I recently provided coaching to a Managing Director in the run up to his retirement, covering an international company merger and succession plan. I am currently working with a Finance Director and Assistant Chief Executive to provide her with support through a number of sensitive organisational matters.

If you have found this blog to be useful please let a comment and if you want to work with a coach please get in touch via http://www.westofenglandcoachingandcounselling.co.uk/

What does a good executive coaching approach look like?

The purpose of one to one coaching and group/team coaching is to help you and your colleagues to set and achieve your specific goals and improve your performance and that of your team/organisation through changing and improving your thinking, behaviour and actions.

Individual executive coaching gets to the root of those performance issues that lie deep within your belief and value system. Coaching enables behaviour change so that a specific performance issue is resolved and sustained.

My aim is to develop long term relationships with you so all engagements start with a discussion about how I can help you to achieve your targets, designed so as to build trust and let you decide whether you would like to work with me.  From this initial discussion, we develop specific objectives for the coaching and if you want we complete an organisational impact tracking document.

Coaching is a partnership that will help your directors and managers achieve results in their professional and personal lives.   Through the process of coaching, participants learn more about themselves and their goals, improve their performance at work and can enhance the quality of their daily life.

The biggest benefit of professional, structured coaching is that it speeds up the process of moving the team or individual from where they are now to where they want to go. Another benefit often cited by my clients is that it helps them to think differently and more positively so as to resolve a particular issue or to move forward on their career ambitions.

As your Personal Development Coach, you have the opportunity to benefit from a directive (direct feedback and advising) or non-directive style of coaching (ask not tell) whichever best helps you to reach your goals.  The coaching process will have you/your directors and managers more focused and aware of your/their choices, and through this help you/them to achieve goals more quickly.  The process will concentrate on where you are today, what you want to achieve and what you will do to reach your desired outcome.

Prior to the first coaching session, I have a preparatory discussion with the individual/team during which the coaching process will be explained in relation to your needs and situation and you will agree scope and parameters i.e. those areas of focus for the coaching.

This may be followed by an assessment of your strengths and development needs using interviews and an assessment tool.

A specific set of objectives and means to evaluate are developed and agreed with you. This will include specific behaviours that you want to change to achieve the objective. I listen and contribute observations and questions, with the aim of clarifying your positions and options and moving you into a position to prepare yourself well for the actual coaching sessions.

I recommend that your line manager assists in providing input to your objectives to be achieved with coaching support. At the end of this session you will be asked to sign up to a coaching contract.

The length of the actual coaching sessions will depend on the amount to be covered and can be agreed with you following the preparatory discussions.

The actual coaching session will often follow the GROW format [Goal, Reality, Options, Will].

Additional psychological techniques and tools will be used where required to help you to change your thinking and behaviour. For example, certain successfully proven Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques can be used to help change thinking and behaviour quickly and effectively.

During coaching a clear action plan detailing the way forward with dates for review, will be developed with the you along with homework tasks. By following the GROW format, the coaching process encourages you to generate your own ideas and solutions, take responsibility for forward action and to make your own decisions.

I will help you to discover and clarify precisely what you want to achieve, encourage you to learn more about yourself, work with you to achieve your own solutions and importantly to hold you responsible and accountable.

I provide appropriate collateral and book references as we work together which will help you to further develop yourself.

If you would like to learn more about this then please get in touch via www.westofenglandcoachingandcounselling.co.uk

What is effective executive coaching?

Do you want to know more about what effective executive coaching is?

Effective executive coaching is a process involving skillful and precise goal setting, rapport building, questioning, listening, challenging and observation along with the application of relevant, appropriate and effective tools and techniques.

Effective executive coaching encourages your learning, invites creative options development and develops your motivation to act and to deliver high performance.

Traditionally used in a sports setting, we are now accustomed to life and executive coaching.

Effective executive coaching is a niche within coaching where the coach works with you at work, building on your successes to achieve new objectives aligned with organisational targets or personal needs that will usually positively impact work performance.

An effective executive coach facilitates you to see options for becoming more effective. The coach applies a wide variety of thinking and behavioural techniques, models and methods to assist you to develop and achieve a set of objectives to improve your professional performance results and personal satisfaction, within a formally agreed coaching agreement.

 “One to one performance coaching is the way for both organisations and individuals to significantly impact the bottom line” Fortune Magazine

“Coaching is the art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of another” Industrial Society

Coaching is not mentoring or training or psychotherapy.

If you want to achieve changes and would like to discuss these with an effective executive coach then please get in touch via www.westofenglandcoachingandcounselling.co.uk.

What can executive coaching give you?

Do you want to be as successful as possible in your work life?

Independent coaching is increasingly recognised as key to management development in all organisations from the CE or MD to management grades. 

It is acknowledged by senior management in many successful organisations that the organisation will thrive if they offer some form of coaching to their key people.

Evidence shows that there are a number of principle benefits of effective corporate coaching

1. Coaching will improve your performance and results.

An example of some well-known research conducted that shows effective coaching does improve performance and results is given here:

Research of Olivero, Bane, Kopelman

“Executive coaching as a transfer training tool: Effects on productivity in a public agency”

•          The authors studied the impact on 31 leaders and managers in a US city health agency

•          In phase one of this project all managers participated in a three-day classroom style training   workshop that included a variety of interactive activities focused on their work roles. The participants rated the training workshop very highly on all quantitative and qualitative measures.

•          In phase two, the managers participated in an 8 week one on one coaching that detailed coaching processes tailored to the agency context. The post training coaching included goal setting, collaborative problem solving, practise, feedback, supervisory involvement, evaluation of end results and a public presentation. The managers met with their coaches for one hour each week over a two-month period.

The authors found that while their training intervention with managers increased manager productivity by 22%, adding a one to one (8 week) coaching intervention after the training pushed the productivity to 88%.

2. Coaching is learning on the fast track because it is one to one and tailored to the individual’s specific objectives that are aligned to those of the organisation.

3. Professional coaching of senior people gives good gearing, in that these people affect many others. They also learn something about how to coach by receiving coaching and so make better use of resources and improve the way they spend their time. A life skill that individuals can use to increase their and other’s satisfaction.

4. An experienced coach will improve the individual’s motivation and self-belief that will in turn impact that of the individual’s team. It is often the only time that an individual will experience dedicated one to one guidance and support to help them move forward.

5. The coaching ethos is about change and being responsible for one’s performance and results. In future the demand for change and flexibility will increase in response to the market and global competition. Only the flexible and resilient will survive.

My clients all share one key criterion that I require – they are all successful already and want to build on their success.

If you want to get more from your work life, do get in touch via http://www.westofenglandcoachingandcounselling.co.uk/