In this blog I explore how I work, being a confidante to CEOs, business owners and Managing Directors.

This came about by accident.  A client of mine was clearly struggling with his ambition and finding the people and the structures to make it a reality.

“It’s all going round and round in my head!”

He was full of great ideas.  He was also bursting with frustration.  My poor client was so busy being the kingpin in his business, he felt he had no “headspace” time to work through his opportunities.  One specific issue was that he felt his own role was unclear (he had a pretty acute case of Chief Cook and Bottle Washer Syndrome).  He also felt lonely in his position.  Not in a personal way, but in terms of the business.  There was no one to chew over ideas with.  No one to tell about his dreams.  No one to listen to him and really hear him.

That’s where I came in.  Executive Coaching is not simply working with people at the top of the tree.  It is a separate strand of coaching practice, in my view, with being a confidante at its heart.  It requires the coach to have strategic insight and awareness.  The process also requires a deep understanding of how a business needs to run, and how its leadership needs to behave.  It is holding up the mirror to the leader, even if that mirror is unpalatable.

This approach takes courage, on the part of both coach and coachee.  There is a strong bond of mutual honesty and transparency between coach and coachee, and particularly so at this level.  In a study a few years ago, 98% of the top earners in Harvard Business School’s alumni had coaches.  They had coaches to help their focus, maintain their clarity of purpose, and to help keep them honest to themselves, their values and their ambition.

So, I said, trying to sound casual, “I can help with that”.  The look of surprise on my client’s face was priceless – a mix of surprise (although I am not entirely sure why it would be a surprise given our coaching – a topic for another blog I suspect!), relief and delight.

Being a confidante

We set aside a whole morning, which in and of itself was a big deal for my client.  He had to delegate, turn off his phone, postpone prospecting meetings …he forced himself to prioritise his own needs for once.

We started off with a brain dump – getting all the relevant thoughts out of his head and onto sticky notes.  I know this wasn’t very sustainable, but it was effective and these days I use online alternatives anyhow … this is a tale from the “old normal”.

Once he cleared his head of the thoughts and associated noise, it was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.  After a break, he returned to looking at all his thoughts laid out in front of him, and he smiled.  In fact, he beamed.

He then proceeded to draft out a structure for his company and place the thoughts-stickies around the structure.  Most importantly, he created a role for himself.  That was when the smile became triumphant.

“That’s it!”

In this simple exercise, of listening, asking questions to prompt thoughts and answers, and challenging any assumptions that reared their heads, I had been able to help him find the clarity that had been eluding him.  He now had his CEO’s  Confidante.

And most importantly of all, he knew he was no longer alone in his role.  Whenever he has a strategic knot to untangle, he gets in touch, we speak, he solves his challenge.  No fancy programme, no retreats, no intensives.  Just the occasional check-in and coaching conversation, based on trust and understanding.

If you can identify with my client’s situation, and your head is full of thoughts and noise that you want to clear, I can indeed help with that.  Please get in touch and let’s set up an initial online “meeting” to chat over what’s bothering you … and see where that leads.

You will be so pleased you did.

Have you ever wondered how a “team turnaround” actually happens? I did too … until I enabled my first one.

In this blog I explore how I learned lessons that I have been able to apply to teams throughout my career as a change agent.

Starting at the beginning …

So how do team turnarounds happen?  Here’s how I started.  I was new in a leadership role, with a range of services to run, and the key one was … well … a bit “meh”, to be honest. It was performing adequately, but only adequately. I had inherited a management team who had worked for the same gent for years. The service had become too settled, too set in its ways. It also focused too much on its own standards, and not those of its customers.  It was a team turnaround waiting to happen … but I didn’t know that yet.

When I came into the office on that first day, I sat at a spare desk. “But there’s an office over here in the corner we cleared for you. It’s where [previous manager] used to sit”, the team said. They assumed … wanted, perhaps, that things would go on as they had. I explained that I was used to sitting in an open plan office and I would prefer to continue to do so.

Of course, by sitting among the team I could find out much more about the team and the service. I was open about this. And I was not snooping, eavesdropping or secretly judging. I explained to the team that I needed to learn about their service, so I needed to hear it all. The good, the bad, the jokes and the moans (including that I was too noisy in the office). And so I listened. For a month, I listened.

In that month I learned so much. I learned how the service ticked, what made it tick, who made it tick … and who didn’t. I also learned how little they measured, or at least how little attention they paid to the things they did measure. They measured performance statistics which did not resonate with the leadership team and the staff, but which they had to report to industry leaders elsewhere in the country. No one felt they had a stake in improvement. That meant no one felt they needed to improve. No one, except “Peter”.

“Peter” had looked at me sideways when I joined. He sized me up. He answered my questions, and then asked me questions of his own. And he listened, and watched me listen. Then one day, “Peter” came to talk to me. He told me he was frustrated with the lack of modernisation in the service, and the lack of focus on the industry targets was driving him mad.

As I spent a bit more time with the team, it was clear there was one person who had effectively been in charge, said he didn’t want to be in charge, but who took every opportunity to oppose progress. Let’s call him “Tony”. At the other end of the spectrum of opinion was “Peter”, who became increasingly passionate and heated in team meetings about how average the service was, and how great it could be. I could see that the team was polarising, and that my listening and watching had to turn into action.

I had drafted a routemap and it pulled on “Peter’s” ideas. It was clearly not something for me to impose. So I introduced it to the team, setting out the ideas I felt could work. After I finished speaking, I asked them what I had missed.

In that one meeting, the service moved onto its new track. Team members shared opinions and ambitions which they had not felt able to express before.  It soon became clear that there was a continuum, with all of the team together at one end, and then there was “Tony”, alone in his stance at the other.

A tough conversation had to be had, so I booked the meeting room and had The Chat with “Tony”. He was actually really unhappy, and wanted to move on, so we negotiated a helpful exit package, and he left. We held open recruitment for a lead for the team to work with me – and we selected “Peter” unanimously.

The team turnaround starts to happen

The new roadmap meeting had enabled me to show the team that they did not exist to keep the service going, but that they existed to keep the service growing for its customers. By revisiting and re-affirming the service’s purpose, the team then built a shared vision for the first time. No one had involved the team in setting the strategic direction up until that time. We soon changed that, and they began to grow into their new leadership roles, relishing new challenges and new opportunities as they re-aligned staff and teams at the front line, to better serve the customers.

That meeting also achieved an important development – engaging the team in measuring the performance indicators, because they mattered to the team, because the results mattered to their customers.

How the team turned around

After that, our progress was a shared rise to being a high performing team. I supported and reminded, and occasionally reaffirmed a few boundaries, and the team did all the rest. Each leader had their own performance targets – ones they had devised and agreed. I encouraged each leader to work with their own teams to own and meet the targets. The whole service came together, the team leaders presented their agreed aims and progress, and I was able to support them as their facilitator.

For the first time, the whole service was operating as one, agreeing their direction, acknowledging their successes and challenges as one. They were – WE were – all a high-performing team. A team turnaround completed as a shared endeavour.

How did we know that we had a team turnaround on our hands?

Two simple measures:

1. Customer feedback via regular surveys improved hugely, reflecting the modernisation of the front-line spaces, which the teams organised around customer requirements in ways that “Peter” had set out only a few months previously.
2. And remember those industry performance measures? “Peter” came to my desk one day with a copy of the latest performance statistics document. We had, together, moved the service from an average performance to one of the best performing services in the industry.

Through the hard work by “Peter”, his team and whole service, they remain one of the top performers in the UK, with other services coming to visit them to see how they do what they do so well.

I hope this case study helps you understand how a team turnaround happens, without too much angst and actually with a huge amount of team buy-in and ownership.  There is no secret sauce.  It is perfectly possible, and actually pretty straightforward, if you have three key ingredients: the right people; the shared vision; and the appetite to put in the hard work to make it happen. As a leader, it is my view that it is your responsibility to nurture all three ingredients. Do that, and you will be on your way.

I now coach leaders to achieve results, and I work with teams to help them improve from within. If you are facing challenges in your team, and want to discuss how I could help, please get in touch, and let’s have a conversation

#teamturnaround #teamcoaching #teamengagement #leadership

If you want to know about my company’s services, it’s now even easier – with our shiny new website!

For some years, I had had websites which did the job and I am grateful for the support in their development (and continued hosting) to Artisan Internet. However, the time had come to integrate the Astrid Davies Consulting website with other aligned sites such as Aspire4Business. Therefore, who better to turn to, to help me redesign the site than Jayne Caudle?   She is the developer behind the successful Aspire4Business suite of sites.

The impact? An immediate increase in bot activity!  Pedro the Peruvian bot, my lonely regular interaction on my old site, has competition.

Actually, in all seriousness, the new site has already yielded two expressions of interest in my company’s services.  In addition, those of my contacts who have had a look have come back with a range of positives, mostly that they love the clean look, unmistakable branding and the clear way the company’s services are set out.

Interestingly, a few of my contacts have commented that the site helped them find out much more about what we all do here at ADCL.  It tells them with and for whom we work.  It also tells them how we do it. In other words, the website is explaining my company’s offer.  Whether you fancy executive coaching, leadership and career mentoring, leadership development, profiling or the fast-growing Future Leaders Breakfast networking product, we can clearly help.

The point really is – the website and service clarity is new, but the quality and commitment to your leadership journey are still as high as ever.

It’s not just about the site, tho’

There’s a wider message here. New shiny packaging can attract and sell.  It will get your attention. It will hopefully intrigue you and invite you to think how you can use the product or service in that shiny packaging. However, the product or service HAS to be good quality and reliably sound. You have to be able to see how you could use that quality. You have to understand the benefits you could see, for yourself and your business. Some of that can come from that shiny packaging being clear. A lot of your ability to see the benefits, however, has to come from you knowing what you want and need.

Knowing what you want and need is crucial for your business success – but it isn’t always easy.  And that’s the key.  Asking for help, or simply kicking ideas around with a trusted confidante, can help you to order your thoughts, and clarify your priorities.

So if you would find it helpful, to have a chat about what is troubling you in your business, please get in touch.

100% confidential. 100% free for your initial chat. Zero obligation. 100% focused on helping you to help yourself.

Shiny new website, same high quality support.

Image: courtesy of rawpixel via Unsplash

I am often asked what sort of coaching I offer. This question is most often asked by potential corporate clients, looking to procure a leadership development coach to work with their top team and tick a box regarding the quality of service on offer. There’s lots of different sorts / types / styles – Situational, Co-active, with NLP, Outcome-focused, GROW, CLEAR – and that’s before you get to the contexts for coaching – Business, Life, Sports, Career, Developmental, Breakthrough … it’s a busy field.

However, there are quite a few times this question is asked, when people aren’t in the least bit interested my professional definitions.  That’s just too esoteric. In fact, what they want to know is how their sessions would run.  They want to know what it would be like to be coached.  Even more, they want to know whether they would enjoy it. Essentially, they are asking me whether it’s a good idea for them. They ask from a position of uncertainty (sometimes even mild distrust). It’s so tricky to answer, because it’s all a matter of taste. It’s also, very importantly, a matter of the coach’s skill. That’s what has motivated me to write this article, because it can be tough to explain this to clients without either waffling or looking a really smug smart-a*se.

OK, maybe it’s easier for some, but for me, it’s really difficult. I can sell stuff to people with ease – made a success of this in Birmingham’s Pallisades and London’s Oxford Street in another life. Trick is, selling a good product is much more difficult when it’s yourself, or at least it is for me. So I thought it would be sensible to set out my approach, so that I can point people to a blog, and save us all the awkwardness!

My coaching journey (the short version!)

Best to start at the very beginning, as the song says. I trained as a coach over 20 years ago, specifically trained to coach and facilitate group coaching and meetings at Board level. I was trained in the corporate basic GROW model, and NLP techniques. In those days, certification wasn’t as easy as now, so I simply used my skills in coaching and mentoring peers, reports, management and politicians for the next two decades in public service in the UK. This invaluable practice reinforced a key element of my initial learning: everyone is different.  Consequently, they will need to be coached differently too.

Fast-forward to the mid 20-teens, and I am facing a hip replacement, domestic relocation and redundancy. Oh and I am turning 50. What else to do but … start a business, using my coaching and mentoring expertise?! Suddenly I am meeting people from totally different walks of life, few of whom have come across even the concept of coaching, let alone which sort they’d prefer. I find myself with a growing client base, happily, and there are some similarities, for sure. Lots of young professionals looking to expand their career, lots of perfectionists looking to avoid burn out, lots of Board level executives looking to move away from their current workloads and develop the next phase of their careers. Despite those similarities, every single one of them is an individual, and therefore requires … deserves … a different coaching approach.

The nuts and bolts of my coaching

The key element, which underpins every coaching session, is that I listen. Really listen. Not sit there, nodding and rehearsing my own To Do list (yep, I really have seen that done). I listen to what the client is saying (and what they’re not). I also “listen” to what their body language tells me, what their silences tell me, what their eyes tell me. Observing how the client likes to take on information, how they like to explain things to me, how they like things done.

Once I know all that, I can start to ask my questions. Purposeful, insightful questionning is another cornerstone of quality coaching. My questions will often hit home faster (and harder) because of the time I have invested in checking them as the coaching conversation has progressed. The questions should not be “leading”, because coaching is about the client’s agenda, not the coach’s. Good ways to frame this are using the “4 bums on a rugby post” approach (ask me about that one!). The questions should only be “closed” when I am checking facts. The questions should make it easy for the client to see their perspective from a different perspective … but very often, the questions will stop clients in their tracks, purely because that different perspective is one which either they haven’t considered, or one that they have been avoiding. And there’s the rub – the words that are left unspoken, the gaps in the story.

And then …

This takes me to another key element of my coaching style … silence. This will make some people, who think they know me, laugh out loud as I am a chatty soul. That’s the point, ‘though. For me to hold client’s silences, keep their headspace clear for their thoughts, protect them in a safe quiet space to allow reflection and analysis of the issues, is a massive responsibility, an acknowledged duty … and largely the point of my role. If I were to talk through their silences, it would make it difficult to think about the different perspectives raised by the questionning. It would also make it difficult for the client to be able to think about a way forward.

And then …

That, in turn, brings me to another vital part of my coaching sessions … the plan. I am an inveterate planner. Always a woman with a plan! Why? Because it helps formulate all the different busy thoughts into a way to move forward on a particular project. And that’s the same for clients. I encourage clients to focus on what they want (their Goal), work out what’s working for them and what’s not (their Reality), understand what they could do, no-holds-barred (their Options) and then devise a brief list of tasks to move them towards their Goal (their what-they-Will-do list). That’s the GROW basic. I also tack on Tactics (how they will turn that action list to their advantage) and Habits (what clients need to change, to make their new Goal and associated changes stick). That’s why I actually use the GROWTH model. Tried, tested, proven.

The privilege of coaching

As you can see, so much of coaching with me depends on the client, and also on the coach. A coach has a massively-responsible role, helping a client to identify, nurture and achieve their dreams. It’s a huge privilege and one which I relish. It’s also great to hear from clients what they take from coaching sessions. Sometimes it’s structure in the maelstrom, sometimes it’s emptying their heads, sometimes it’s simply having a plan.

Some of the points in this piece may have triggered thoughts for you, and made you think you might like to find out more about coaching. Great idea. It may even have made you think that coaching with me would be helpful. Brilliant idea! Please get in touch – I would love to hear your reaction to this piece – and how you think I might be able to help you. Just don’t ask me how I will do it!