Why use Business & Leadership Coaching? How I work.
What is the single most important benefit coaching brings to leaders owners and their teams?
My favourite quote about what I do as a business coach for my clients is from Johann Gottfried von Herder.
He says:
“Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us that needs to be ignited. Fortunate is the one who has the person with spark around them to ignite their fuel.”
Coaching makes you a more effective decision – maker as there is an accountability – another set of eyes and ears. It forces you to look at your goals and to make sure that everything done in the business is moving you towards achieving those goals. You make time for the really important activities – which leads to success.
What is coaching?
Coaching is a process which brings about change for the better. Transformation, innovation, progress, solution, improvement, evolution – all these words which can be used to describe change.
All businesses experience change as a constant. By working with a coach that change is a managed process. Leadership is about change.
I am a leadership coach and that means I work with business owners and key people in the business to support change. This means growing the business, but it is also about change in all its forms. It could refer to a change in personal effectiveness, for example, managing time more effectively or improving work-life balance. It could mean improving profit or something more intangible such as improving team dynamics in your firm. Coaching is a highly motivational experience, which empowers you to realise your maximum potential with dramatic results.
What is coaching not?
Coaching is not telling or advising.
Working with a coach ensures that you are clear on your goals, directing your activity to achieving them, taking responsibility for your performance and checking in with a supportive person who will ignite your fuel, stretch and challenge you.
Coaching ensures that you raise your awareness and take responsibility for your actions to ensure success. You have a regular check-in and that means you have to focus on what has gone well and what can’t be learnt if things did not go to plan.
It is highly motivational and has a massive impact on business results.
Having someone to discuss ideas, explore issues from different perspectives and to ask questions helps you really focus on what is important.
How does coaching work?
Here is an analogy. A tennis coach would not get a very good result helping a budding tennis star by constantly asking.
- Are you watching the ball?
- Why aren’t you watching the ball?
The player would be defensive, angry or unaware of the errors he/she is making. A skilled coach would ask other questions to make the player really take notice of what is going on – such as:
- Which way is the ball spinning as it comes towards you?
- How high is it each time it crosses the net?
- Does it spin faster or slower after it bounces?
- How far away is your opponent when you first see it spinning?
This way the coach has made the player become compelled the player to watch the ball and the action with heightened awareness. It requires a higher order response – requires focus/awareness. Answers are descriptive not judgmental. Provides opportunity for a feedback loop for the coach.
This is what working with a coach is like. The questions force you to become aware and to take responsibility which drives up business performance. It makes you a better leader. It enables you to learn more about running a business as well as having your own set of technical and/or creative skills.
It’s fun, tough, stimulating, thought-provoking and very effective at helping business owners to raise their game and to achieve more in their business.
Using the wide range of experience, skills and knowledge gained working in management in a variety of sectors including manufacturing, retail, commercial and education (in both small limited companies to massive PLCs) I set up my own business training and coaching company in 2012. I specialise in management training and business & executive coaching, supporting managers and leaders to develop their skills and coaching business owners to grow their businesses. I work with whole-staff groups or 1:1 with business owners/managers, or the board of directors. I support business owners and leaders to develop improvement of systems and processes and to deploy coaching skills to improve performance.
My success relies on building excellent working relationships with people in my network and delivering a high standard of customer service. I am a values-driven, heart-centred coach with a very wide range of skills and expertise. My purpose is to change lives through the skills of coaching.