The answer is simple - I like working with people and I like to see them grow - personally as well as professionally. I get as much of a buzz as my clients do out of progress, growth, self awareness and success - both financial and non-financial. And you can see what some of my clients say about me here.
How I started coaching
As you will from my About Me page or my LinkedIn profile, I had a 26 year career with Price Waterhouse then PwC from 1980 to 2005 in various audit, taxation and practice management roles. I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1983. Apart from incidental coaching and mentoring as part of my leadership and management roles at PwC, I had never seen myself as a coach as I am now.
Then, in 2005, I agreed to an amicable redundancy from my role as National Operations Director at PwC and was offered a 12 month career transition or outplacement program through global career transition company DBM (now part of Lee Hecht Harrison) , which I did in 2006. In that year, I also completed a Graduate Certificate in Financial Planning but decided that was not a long term career option for me. I went to close my career transition program with DBM at the end of 2006 - when, to my surprise, they offered me a role as an independent contractor career transition consultant. So, in early 2007, I commenced my coaching career which essentially turned into a portfolio career!
What I have done to improve my knowledge and skills
Before I commenced as an independent consultant with DBM, I completed a three day induction course with them before being allocated clients who were in turn undertaking their own career transition programs after retrenchment from corporate organisations. My learning therefor in the early days was therefore vicarious through my clients.
But, I realised I needed to do more to accelerate my knowledge and skills as I wasn;t 20 any more - closer to 50! So, I set myself a pathway of learning and accreditation to bring me "quickly up to speed", commencing with a coaching course which gave me membership of the International Coaching Federation and then followed by learning and accreditation in a range of psychometric instruments which you will see at the Assessments page.
The formal learning was only part of it though. What was just as important was the informal learning, or social learning, which came about through my clients, attending networking functions and a new medium for learning through social media - Linked, Twitter, YouTube etc. Much of this was a result of proactivity, a desire to learn, an investment of time and a general inquisitiveness to be relevant for the future. I also wrote a blog post about this aspect "A new learning model for a social media age"
My Values Are Important
One of the psychometric accreditations I undertook was the Hogan Assessments, which has an assessment called the Motives Values Preferences Inventory, and effectively measures one's values. My top 3 values from this report are:
- Altruistic: A desire to serve others, improve society, and help the less fortunate (96th percentile)
- Commerce: A desire for increased income, profits, and business opportunities.= (79th percentile)
- Recognition: A desire to be known, seen, visible, and famous (64th percentile)
What I do with clients
Firstly, It depends on the client's situation and needs.
However, with every client, I listen, I question, I probe, I support, I challenge, I strategise and I maintain momentum. What I can't do as a coach is run my clients life, career or business - so I hopefully also provide the necessary tools, techniques, motivation and perspective for them to be more effective between meeting or talking with me.