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There's an
abundance of different business coaches these days
Although
business coaching has existed for many centuries, it has seen an explosion
in interest in the last 20 years or so. There are many hundreds of
business coaches approaching their work from a very wide variety of
backgrounds:
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Some have
business-related knowledge or skills, such as financial management,
marketing, SEO, or presentation skills, and they use coaching as a means
of imparting that to others.
-
Some like to
work strategically, helping their clients develop ambitious plans for the
future and then coaching them to stick to them.
-
A few have
acquired the rights to a particular personality profiling tool and use it
to help their clients understand themselves better.
-
Many have
simply got a wealth of relevant experience and seek to help their clients
avoid the same pitfalls and overcome the same hurdles as themselves.
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Some come from
professional backgrounds (eg lawyers and accountants), others from a
lengthy career in larger organisations where they have benefitted from
training programmes in particular skills, some have done courses in a
specific methodology.
A few will have
undertaken formal training in business coaching, whether it is run
privately by a company or through an academic institution, but the vast
majority have found themselves in the role without having had much
specialist preparation for it. This isn't surprising - it happens
all the time in management and leadership.
When clients
don't always follow through...
Sooner or
later, the business coach begins to find that clients aren't always
following through on their work together. Some just keep coming back
month after month and they appear to go round in circles. Others set
off with the best intentions but never quite make the change. And
many just drop off the radar screen, completing a few sessions, skipping
one or two, and then disappearing completely.
The
importance of attitude
At the heart of
most coaching needs (and the reason many clients don't follow through) is
an attitude problem. The entrepreneur who struggles to introduce
basic systems, the CEO who has a limited public profile, the manager who
finds it hard to lead, people with presentation nerves, those who can't
manage their time, the list is endless...
In most cases,
you can try to get them to DO different things, but at the end of the day
it is their attitude that has to be worked on.
That's where
this course comes from...
Working with
people's attitudes calls for considerable skill and understanding.
Doing so, though, can dramatically improve your success rate with them,
improve long-term relationships, generate referrals, and brings a host of
other benefits.
What this
isn't...
This is not an
'awareness raising' seminar - you know what you want to learn about
(Attitude and how to work on it with your clients).
It isn't a
package of simplistic 'models' made to look as if they are the definitive
answer to the world's problems! Nor is it full of clever
four-letter-acronyms dreamt up specially for the occasion.
This is not a
revamp of someone's early NLP materials.
It is designed
for intelligent professionals who want to know the background, the
state-of-the-art, the real science, to understand what they need to do,
and have the opportunity to practice it in different ways.
What
"working with attitude" is...
It's a day-long
programme carefully developed to enhance the skills and reputations of
experienced business coaches from a wide range of backgrounds.
It's a
practical programme, and yet it gives you enough relevant theory to
understand the depth of what you are doing and how to protect both
yourself and your client.
It's an
opportunity to significantly leverage your existing practice.
Who
developed it and who will lead it?
The
programme was originally created by me, Dr Graham Wilson, as an in-house
development initiative for coaches within a major petrochemical company.
The impact was excellent, and so I decided to prepare a public programme.
What got me
into working with attitude? Well, I have a PhD in behavioural
science, lengthy experience of consultancy in organisation development
across a broad range of industries, and a subsequent training in
psychodynamic psychotherapy. For over a decade, I have worked in
leadership development and the field of human potential. Today, I
have a strong portfolio of one-to-one coaching clients, specialising in
senior executives who want to achieve far more than they have already.
I supervise a small number of business coaches too.
But it was
one person who sparked my interest in attitude... He was the Sales
Director of a medium-sized company that wanted to achieve a substantial
change in culture. He blocked every decision at management meetings,
argued every change that was proposed, and rubbished most of the people
involved in the project. And he was clever - he always managed to
sound right, to imply the support of others, to pick on the weakest link
in complex issues. It was studying him and his attitudes that led me
to move from group behavioural dynamics to developing a psychotherapeutic
approach to working with successful leaders.
What will
you receive?
The course
assembles at 09:30 for coffee and pastries with an opportunity to network.
The group size is deliberately kept small with typically 6 to 8
participants.
We want you to
enjoy the day, to feel that you have had real value, and to maintain a
confidential environment to explore what is, after all, an extremely
personal aspect of our work.
We start at
10:00 and break for lunch around 12:30. In that time, you will have
learned a lot more about attitudes, how they impact on us, how they are
formed, and how they can be revealed. You will have explored some of
your own attitudes and the underlying beliefs to them, and helped others
to explore theirs too.
If this
triggers your thinking and you would like to discuss specific examples
within your own practice there will be opportunities to do so.
A sandwich
lunch gives you the chance to further network and understand more about
the other participants' professional practices.
At about 1:30
we reconvene, and learn about both simple and complex skills necessary to
help someone work on their attitudes. We explore more extreme
attitude difficulties, and what you can do to support people with them.
And, of course, we go on to put this into practice.
Again, any
specific examples that you want to explore from your own practice can be
incorporated.
We close the
day at around 4:30pm. But that isn't the end. You will receive
a comprehensive set of notes to take with you, receive a follow-up email
with links to a wide range of extra material to build on your knowledge,
and...
We will arrange
a 30 minute, telephone session, one-to-one roughly a week or so later to
see how you are getting on with the ideas we've shared and to explore any
problems you are having.
And how much
is this going to cost?
The full cost,
including the five hour course, refreshments, materials, and follow-up
telephone session is £299 plus VAT.
To book a place,
simply complete the form.
Why not give me a call to
see how we could structure a programme for your organisation?
For more
information, call me on 07785 222380 or email
gw@grahamwilson.org.
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