WHATS MY TAKE?
My core interest is what happens on a day-to-day basis, back in the office, every-day leadership. What triggers unhelpful behaviour, how to keep to a course in tough times, max working with stakeholders, when to hold and when to twist.
Coaching and development programmes can be fantastic, but not when they are treated as the end game. Leadership life goes on, long after the coach has left the building. I also notice how jaded people become on a new latest change programme and I notice how they sub-consciously resist taking full responsibility when the programme is imposed on them. It also seems hard for senior leadership to trust that people can find the right way for themselves to do their best work.
In my 20 years as a coach, since I transitioned from international stockbroking, I have also noticed that people look to leaders for answers in place of taking action themselves. This has two problems 1) the leaders often don’t know the answers and 2) why is it all the leaders responsibility to make the organisation successful? that just can’t continue to be the case. It’s got to be more spread out with individuals having a sense of personal leadership.
Coaching helps leaders to tap into their own innovation, creativity and genius, rather than play the short-term popularity game. How to detach from having to know the answers, or needing to, at the cost of bringing it out of your people, you can’t be all it, you need your people to be brilliant too.
MY BACKGROUND
Raised by entrepreneurial parents, I left school at 17 and started in the world of business, property and corporate finance. In 1993 I relocated to Hong Kong, working as a equities broker with UBS covering the subcontinent market, Indonesia and the Philippines. I was one of the first people to advise the Governor of the State Bank of Nepal on opening their markets to foreign investors. The then Minister of Finance of India, Manmohan Singh, was seen carrying a copy of my economic report on foreign investment in Nepal, entitled, ‘Not Yeti But Soon’.
Leaving Hong Kong the week after the handover in 1997, I returned to the UK to work on the UBS London Asian desk. In 1998 I left to set up my coaching business.
I taught for 5 years on the faculty of Coach University, also teaching the top coaching diploma for the Institute of Leadership and Management. In 2005 I became one of 9 Master Certified Coaches in the UK. I write for Coaching At Work on the business of coaching, speak about the industry at conferences and meetings and have another business helping coaches be more profitable.
I work at the top of organisations and businesses and across many sectors: Public education sector, IT, private equity, universities, global media, government, mutual society, insurance, wealth management, global toys, global pharma, aeronautics, publishing and national health.