Coaching
What is Coaching?
Coaching is a process of asking questions, listening, and acting as a critical and supportive sounding board with a view to helping the client to become more effective.
Here are three definitions which accord with my approach:
Unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance (Whitmore 1996)
The coach helps the client increase their effectiveness in areas of life and work chosen by themselves, to goals and standards defined by them (Hayes 2006)
A collaborative solution-focused, results-orientated and systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, self-directed learning and personal growth of the coachee. (Grant 2000)
My Coaching Approach
My approach starts with the assumption that you, the client, are resourceful and my role as your coach is to surface and release this. Coaching is a partnership of equals, working together on your agenda. The coaching process creates the space to explore how you can make changes, where you can get support, challenges perceived assumptions and increases self-awareness; it can also be very enjoyable. The coaching involves asking questions, listening, generating future options, planning transitions and reflecting on action to make this happen. Coaching is about change and is time limited and action oriented.
The focus is on you and your work within a complex system, and addresses you as a whole person (with a past present and future at work and at home) dealing with issues now. Our work together is completely confidential and my practice is in line with the Code of Ethics and Good Practice of the Association for Coaching.
Coaching offer
I do most of my coaching through face to face two hour sessions for clients within London. After an initial session to check that we can work together, people then commit to a further 3 to 5 sessions, with the offer of telephone support between sessions.
I also offer coaching by telephone for clients outside London, including clients in other countries. These sessions are for one hour and after the first session clients commit to a further set of sessions.
My coaching is focussed, and geared to action for change.
The type of coaching I offer is Executive Coaching which is coaching for individuals in their work situations, to identify where to make changes and how to make those changes happen. You work with me to develop your potential, increase self-awareness and identify ways to become a more effective leader and/or manager. My clients are senior managers and clinicians interested in personal and leadership development, skills for working in complex organisations (in particular working in partnership and working in politically sensitive environments) and career planning and change.
Two years ago I joined Mirus, which had just been set up to offer Coaching for Social Change. We provide high quality low cost coaching for social activists and social entrepreneurs – see www.miruscoaching.org for further details.
Recent Coaching Clients have achieved the following through coaching:
- Confidence to take on a more senior role: playing to their strengths
- Mapped out how to get the best from life and work over the next year
- Developed and sustained leadership skills
- Improved effectiveness in managing change
- Prioritised workload: what was essential, what could be delegated, what was ‘good enough’
- Improved impact on situations and developed strategies for being more effective with others
- Managed ‘the boss’ – shaping expectations and getting useful feedback
- Worked in partnership to make changes: understanding accountabilities
- Success in working with General Practice to improve Practice Based Commissioning
I also worked with a consortium of two Voluntary Organisations and a University Business School to design and facilitate a course to introduce a coaching approach and coaching skills for business mentors. The aim of the course was to enable the business mentors to work with trafficked women to support them to set up businesses.
