COACHING
When you need space to think beyond the obvious
You may be very good at working things out.
You've built experience, learned to trust your judgement and probably spend a fair amount of your working life helping other people find their way through things.
The ways we think and respond become familiar for good reason. They've often served us well. But they don't necessarily help us see every situation clearly.
And when something isn't shifting, going over the same ground can become exhausting. Some of my clients arrive having carried a great deal on their own, with few places where they can speak freely about what is really going on.
Coaching gives you somewhere to put it down for a while, look at what's happening from a different position and see what you might have missed.
What brings you might be quite specific: a difficult relationship, an important decision, a change in role or circumstances, a loss of confidence, or a pattern you don't want to keep repeating.
Or there may simply be a sense that something is changing, or needs to.
You don't have to arrive with the answer. Or even, necessarily, the right question.
What we might work on
What we talk about depends on what is happening for you.
Work and life are rarely as separate as we sometimes pretend they are. Our conversations might take us into leadership and responsibility, relationships, confidence, identity, purpose, transition, the way you respond under pressure, or a question about what you want next.
We can look at the situation itself, but also at what it's asking of you and the effect it's having on you.
We may stay close to the thing that brought you to coaching. Or, as we look at it together, something else may become important.
I listen closely. Not only to what you're telling me, but to what seems to carry energy or emotion, where something changes as you talk, and the threads that keep appearing.
I'll tell you what I'm noticing. I may ask you to look at something from another position, question an assumption or stay with something a little longer than you might on your own. At times I'll challenge you.
And sometimes I'll wait.
There is no rush to make everything make sense.
“I write to thank you for helping us to achieve the mighty steps we have taken as a team.
Without your assistance, we would not have got there. I have also been delighted with the personal coaching, which has been good for me and the business – increasing my confidence, my leadership and my listening!”
Business Unit Director, IT Communications & Business Support, London
Looking at the whole situation
What happens in coaching doesn't begin and end with you.
We are affected by the people we work and live with, the environments we're in, what has happened before, what is expected of us and the systems we're part of. We affect them too.
So if you bring something that appears to be about confidence, we might become curious about where that confidence changes. With whom? In what circumstances? What happens there that doesn't happen elsewhere?
A difficulty may be yours to work with without being yours alone.
Looking at more of what is happening can change your understanding of the situation and give you more choice about how you respond.
What the work asks of you
The people I work best with tend to be thoughtful, experienced and curious.
You don't need to have yourself worked out. You do need to be willing to look.
That means being prepared to question your own assumptions as well as other people's, consider another perspective and follow something even when you're not quite sure where it will lead.
Coaching works best when we're both curious about what we're looking at.
I sometimes describe it as sitting on the same side of the table, pouring over something together. You bring your knowledge of yourself and your situation. I bring my attention, experience and a different pair of eyes.
My job is also to hold the process, so you don't have to.
How we work
There is no set programme.
At the beginning we'll talk about what has brought you to coaching and what you want from it. We'll return to that as we go, because what seems important at the outset can change once the work gets underway.
I usually work with people over several months. That gives us time for things to develop between sessions: conversations to be had, different responses to be tried, things to be noticed and brought back.
Sessions can take place online or in person. We can also work while walking.
Walking has been part of my life and coaching practice for many years. For some people, being on the move changes the conversation. There is something about walking that involves more than thinking. Body, senses, place, movement and attention all become part of the experience.
It isn't better coaching. It's another way we can work.
My practice has been informed by systemic and relational thinking, trauma-informed practice, attachment and parts work, emotional intelligence and somatic awareness. Assessments and 360 feedback can also be useful where they have a clear purpose.
The frameworks are scaffolding for the work, not the work itself.
When someone else has a stake in the coaching
Most coaching is agreed directly between you and me. You may pay for it yourself or the cost may be met by your own business. Either way, the coaching relationship is straightforwardly ours.
Sometimes other people have a meaningful stake in the work. An employer may be commissioning the coaching, for example, or there may be someone else whose perspective matters to what you are hoping to achieve.
When coaching is commissioned by an organisation, I like to involve the client and their sponsor in agreeing what the work is there to support. That conversation can tell us a great deal. Different perspectives emerge, expectations become clearer, and we begin with a shared understanding of what would make the coaching worthwhile.
We'll agree how the sponsor will be involved as the work progresses, what remains confidential between the client and me, and how we will know whether the coaching is making a difference.
Where another stakeholder is involved outside an organisational setting, we'll decide together whether and how their perspective might usefully be included.
Once the coaching begins, the space belongs to the client.
“Sandra helped me realise I could be an excellent leader whilst staying true to my natural style
I thought I needed to be more outgoing or charismatic to be a better leader. Working with Sandra helped me realise I could be an excellent leader whilst staying true to my natural style. The relationships that used to drain me now feel more manageable, and my team actually performs better since I stopped trying to control everything”
DC, Engineering Directory, Glasgow
Beginning
The first step is a conversation.
We'll talk about what is bringing you to coaching and what you're hoping for. You can ask me anything you want to know about how I work, and we'll get some sense of what it is like to talk together.
Thirty minutes. No charge and no obligation.