Business and Executive Coaching is a very challenging and yet very rewarding profession.  Helping business owners and senior members of staff to address important issues that may be preventing them to achieve the real success they deserve, is truly very satisfying.

This article highlights similarities and differences which can be found in different styles and/or types of coaching.   In my experience of delivering coaching to individuals, teams and groups, I have learnt to adopt the most appropriate form of coaching while maintaining the key proposition: helping business individuals to identify and address issues that prevent them from being highly successful and releasing their full potential.

Coaching

Different people associate the word coaching to a range of meanings; I will refer in this article to coaching as a process based on self-directed learning, addressed at business people, with the aim of addressing and solving issues around business performance, where the coach’s main role is asking questions. This way, the coach stimulates and facilitates the client’s thinking therefore helping her/him to address those issues that are preventing the achievement of her/his full potential.  Coaching methodologies differ from each other quite considerably and, while some of them are based on a fairly laid back approach, others carry articulate structures and measurability metrics that allow both Coach and Client to understand where the process is going and easily measure the results.

Irrespectively of the different type of coaching used, the key element, that ensures the expected outcome, is the commitment  of the client  to simply carry out the actions and tasks agreed during the session/s.

Coaching Individuals

Similarly to personal training for athletes,  we can say that coaching individuals in business is a very effective way of  ensuring a swift and powerful transformation in the client’s outcome.  By working regularly with a coach, the client is stimulated, stretched, supported and, at the same time, held  accountable to ensure that she/he will maintain focus and dedicate sufficient energy toward the achievement of her/his goals.  It is the coach’s responsibility to be fully dedicated and ensure that the client can achieve the best possible outcome in the shortest period of time.   Coaching individuals also offers full confidentiality; clients can disclose to the coach their deepest emotional issues that may affect their performance in business, without seemingly being directed related to business at all.

Coaching Teams

A simple and obvious definition of Team Coaching is: “helping a group of people  become and/or behave like a Team”.  A Team should have certain typical features like complementary skill-set among members, willing to work together as a whole and having agreed on a common working approach and methodology.  Team members may know each other socially to certain extent and they have to work together either virtually or in person.  As coaches, we need to ensure that we are helping the Team members define common goals and have an agreement about tasks and actions that each member will perform.  Eventual disagreements and conflicts must be addressed and promptly resolved to avoid long term negative repercussions.  Compared to Individual Coaching, the level of confidentiality toward each member is reduced although common rules about what should and can be disclosed and addressed are usually agreed at the beginning of each session.  The level of accountability among members of the team is ensured by the expectations from each member of the team to receive specific and prefixed results from all members.

Coaching Groups

Coaching a group of heterogeneous people is a great way of helping them address issues they would normally discuss during individual one-to-one sessions. Alongside coaching and several other benefits, working in a group offers the wealth of knowledge and experience from other members of the group.  Within a well selected group, is quite common to find out that somebody’s current challenge is part somebody else’s experience.  Each member of the group has his own agenda about what to achieve and the content of the coaching sessions is dictated by these specific needs.   I have developed a format for group coaching which ensures  that each member of the group can quickly get used to and learn to use coaching-based conversations (e.g. asking questions) when dealing with other members of the group.

Similarities in coaching Individuals, Teams and Groups

Building on what we described before, we can say that the 3 types of coaching all share the following similarities:

• Self directed learning during coaching conversations: asking questions and stimulating the clients’ thinking will  help them  achieve solutions that they will own, be motivated to achieve and proud for having achieved them.
• Dedication of the coach: in all cases, the coach’s role to ensure that  clients will achieve the best possible outcomes as per their own definition and expectations: e.g. the coach will/should not offer an opinion or judgement about what the outcome should be and whether it’s good or bad for the client.
• Commitment of the client: no result can be achieved unless the client commits to take action and carry out the tasks agreed during each session.
• Lasting results: achieving one or more goals could have a limited and short term meaning and so it is key that the coach helps clients to extend the learning process and the benefits of coaching to create a positive impact on other areas of the clients’ business and private life.

Differences between coaching Individuals, Teams and Groups

Withstanding the similarities described in the previous paragraph, we should bear in mind the following differences:

• The level of confidentiality: it can be expected to have total confidentiality when coached as part of an individual session; when coaching within a team session there are different areas of conversation that can be totally open but equally there may be areas of conflict that could cause resistance from some of the members of the team. When coaching a group is a good practice to ensure that all members of the group are bound by a comprehensive agreement that include a professionally written paragraph which ensures and enforces confidentiality.
• Duration of the sessions: individual coaching is usually arranged in fairly short sessions, usually ranging between 45 and 120 minutes although shorter or longer sessions can be possible.  Team and Group sessions  usually last between 2 and 7 hours depending on the size of the group and their specific needs.
• Frequency of the sessions: individual sessions are organised weekly or fortnightly, although some programs work over 3 or 4 weeks periods; Team or Group sessions usually operate on longer periods, 4-12 weeks between sessions.
• Delivery of the sessions: sessions for individuals can be delivered in person as well as over the telephone or other VoIP technologies.  In fact nearly 50% of all coaching delivered is over the phone.  Team and Group coaching is usually delivered in person while there can be short follow-up conference calls in between.

Summary

Coaching is a powerful tool that helps individuals, teams and groups to define and achieve lasting goals for themselves and their businesses.  The choice of being coached as an individual or part of a team or group can depend from a number of factors, some of which can be out of your control; the most important thing to agree is that, whatever you expect to achieve through coaching, can and will indeed be achieved. The one key element which may determine the outcome of any type of coaching program, is the willingness of the client to follow through, to take action and actually do what he/she has agreed to do; no action = no results.

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Courtesy and Copyright © Duncan Grisby

The first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about the word champion is sport: being a champion, the first in your discipline or category, can be applied to other areas of life as well as in business. This article will analyse some aspects of finding your own inner champion.  Most champions have natural talents which they develop and expand in sport, as well as in business. Personal performance can be improved and enhanced by strong commitment; in most cases the expert help from a coach can boost your performance as he/she knows how to get the best of your skills and talent, helping you to find your inner champion.

Back in 2007 the exiting committee of the Cambridge University Kickboxing Society (CUKBS) invited me for a meeting to establish whether I was prepared to be their coach.  We had a short meeting a city’s café and and the president for the society for 2006-07 synthesised in a short sentence the whole essence of their request: “we want to win Varsity versus Oxford”.  My instinctive answer was: “yes sure, as long as you guys are prepared to work for hard it…”

It was not an easy task but earlier this year CUKBS managed to finally celebrate their victory in the 2010 Varsity match.  How did I know that we could win?  I was and am confident of my teaching and coaching skills, not only about how to punch and kick but how to enhance mental skills that are essential to be a winner. “more then 50% of the fight is won by the coach” states Luca Senatore local successful entrepreneur and student of mine with a short professional kickboxing career among his achievements.

Kickboxing is a complex discipline: physical performance and endurance are as essential as in any other sport but technique and strategy play a very strong role when you are in a ring in front of somebody whose only mission at that instant is beating you up.   As a coach I can notice from the corner things that the fighter simply does not.   My vision is obviously from a different angle but, more importantly, I have a calmer and detached point of view and I can evaluate and take decisions that are essential to help fighters adjusting their techniques and tactic to the circumstances developing before them.

Winning and becoming a champion, in kickboxing as well as in business, is the combination of a number of factors: it is about mental attitude, self discipline, motivation and determination.  It’s about saying “I can do it and I will do it”.  When working with executive clients I always remind them that their personal performance can be improved and enhanced by consciously working on it.  Experience demonstrates at the same time that the following simple steps are more often easier said than done for the average individual:

• being aware of what you want to achieve
• identifying what you need to do for it
• plan carefully what actions need to be done
• execute these actions and constantly compare results with expectation
• adjust the plan if anything drifts

As it happens many things get in the way and focus fades… what yesterday was a strong plan gets disturbed by unlimited interferences in today’s super busy, always online life.   An Executive Coach, very much like a kickboxing coach helps you to formulate and keep connected to your plan, accountable toward your actions, you level of progress and always available to discuss issues that could be pivotal for your development and performance for you being the champion you want to be.

Some people think that champions are born and perhaps in some cases it can be true.   In my experience champions can be made, starting from a willing and determined individual:

• if you want to excel in kickboxing you should approach an experienced coach that can help you to find your inner champion;
• if you want to excel in your work and career in senior management you should approach an experienced Executive Coach;

In both cases you could ask me for expert help

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Over the last two years I have been coaching a number of business owners that reached a point in their business when things were OK, they were working in the business that started months or years earlier and, like many others, started asking themselves what to do next.  Some of them lost some of their initial enthusiasm because of a number of different reasons; others wanted or needed to move their business to the next level and they were lacking the necessary skills or inspiration.

This is what I define the Now What? Situation, affecting at some point most business owners. The Now What? Situation can have serious repercussions for those that fail to react or, better, prevent it and take the necessary steps at the right time.

Starting a business in the UK is relatively easy, compared to other areas of Europe where I have direct experience, thanks to the minimum bureaucracy involved.  Most individuals with an idea for a service or a product to sell can start trading in a fast and straightforward way.

“Small businesses are over a quarter of all enterprises in the UK: over 520 thousand enterprises in 2009 were Sole Proprietors.  That represented a small decrease of 0.4% compared to 2008, in favour of Corporate Business, representing 58.2% of total enterprises (2.15 million)” (source  Statistics.Gov.Uk)

When the proposition is interesting and many customers are buying into the business then growth can be significant and soon the person with the initial idea and passion is no longer a service provider or product seller: he/she is an entrepreneur.  At the beginning things are exciting, there is a honey moon period that can last sometimes many months or even years. At the end of the bootstrap time there is a need to face a transition period that often catches the entrepreneur unprepared.

There are obviously substantial differences in running a business with you as the only decision maker compared to a company with partners, managers and staff.  Some key points to be addresses during the transition from the micro business and a larger operation are issues like:

• How to grow: by recruiting staff or subcontracting?
• When the decision is about recruiting how can you guarantee to look for the right kind of staff?
• Can activities like admin, invoicing, book keeping and customer service be subcontracted to virtual assistants or other service companies?
• Many people have no formal management experience: what is the best way of managing staff in order to maximise their skills and performance?
• Does the business model need changing? If so how to plan and execute the change plan?
• How to best implementing sales, pricing and positioning strategies?

Coaching can help virtually all business owners involved in a Now What? Situation.

The coaching approach offers a resourceful set of tools, a self directed learning approach that allows to build on the exact current situation, explore alternatives and pin down what needs to be done, establishing and instilling an accountability process.

When coaching a business owner it is very important recognising two key aspects:

• Each individual person or business is unique in its way of being, operating and approaching the market: patterns and templates can be applied but a blank page approach is always easier to start with.
• There will be strong emotional feelings about the business as it was initially started and resistance about how it should be changed for the future.

A business owner, working over a period of three or six months, assisted by a professional coach can be helped to define the exact path about how to move the business to the next level.  In short it is about changing a Now What? Situation into a Now I Know What should be done and I am doing it.

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There are many misconceptions about what a business coach is and can do for your business: I am convinced that this is mainly because coaching is still an unregulated profession and literally any cowboy can call himself coach and start trading.

Business owners that have been exposed to these lesser professional coaches often report very different experiences to the basic underlying concept that coaching (business or otherwise) should be about.  Coaching is a self reflecting learning experience where the coach brings a structure and helps you to think better and facilitate your decision process while, at the same time, keeping you accountable for the actions you are committing to.

I was recently having a conversation with a business owner in the Cambridge area: in the past he worked with a business coach that belongs to an international franchise and he was trying to understand how I work, compared to them.  The best analogy I could use in explaining my totally different coaching technique was to define it as a blank page approach to coaching.

So I first listed what I don’t do:

• Supply reading material;
• Use predefined strategies for sales, marketing, customer services and other business management activities;
• Suggest what to do;
• Consult in any way;

Then I listed what I can do for you as a business owner:

• Ask questions like: “how can I help you” and “what would you like to achieve”;
• Helping you to define and refine important goals for your business;
• Bring a well proven structure to help your thinking and decision process;
• Being an objective sounding board that while understands how to run a business helps you with questions that are allowing you to get to your own solutions;
• Keep you accountable toward your goals and the actions that you define from time to time.

The blank page approach to coaching is about arriving in front of you with nothing more than a notepad and a pen, asking questions, taking notes and helping you to move from a current situation of uncertainty, dilemma, lack or clarity or direction into a constructive process that culminates with a concise, specific and clear list of actions that tackle essential activities for you to move toward your business goals and achieving them.

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Procrastination is a common issue that I encounter when working with solopreneurs and people running small businesses.  Procrastination can be defined as “putting off a pending task because of laziness, lack of interest” or different prioritization about what should be done.  Without a precise and well defined mechanism of accountability we choose tasks we like and keep delaying the ones we like less, and this can become a dangerous habit.  The effects of procrastination on many of my clients to date was initially to affect their performance at work then, increasingly, it was producing stress and other related diseases that eventually affected the physical health of some of them.

When clients are complaining to me about how procrastination is affecting their performance and ultimately their well being I am some times attempted to tell them to just get on with the pending tasks they are procrastinating.  That would be logical and easy but then, as a coach, I must (and I do) use a questioning methodology that is helping the clients’ thinking process and it helps them to see a way forward and commit toward the necessary actions.

Here are some of the questions that I use in these situations:

• Is the completion of this pending task affecting other activities?
• How often do you think about this pending task?
• Is the completion of this pending task affecting other people?
• How would you feel if you could tick this pending task off your list?
• Do you feel guilty when you think about this pending task?
• Is something stopping you from completing this pending task?
• How much time per day/week do you spend thinking about this pending task?
• Would you behave differently if you promised to complete this pending task to a colleague, client or supplier?
• How can I help your thinking toward the best outcome for you?

The questions above are not in random order: there is no logical priority in using one before the other and I never needed to use more than 2 or 3 of them to move the client toward a commitment of completion by the following session.  I would usually choose the questions following the content of the conversation that led to the procrastination topic.

Next time you are procrastinating try reading the above questions and see whether they can help you complete your pending task(s) by tackling procrastination head on.

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