Developing leadership capacity for business results

“The coach listened well, challenged hard and was full of excellent ideas. What more could a client ask for?”
Julie Baddeley
Non-Executive Director, BOC plc

Our Philosophy of Coaching
At Future Considerations we believe, and research has demonstrated, that leadership coaching can produce outstanding business results.  We derive enormous personal satisfaction from watching leaders grow and change, and from the sponsoring organisation getting hard business results.  We are committed to our coaching producing self-reliant, autonomous learners.  From our point of view, this means not just producing the contracted-for results, but also leaving ‘coachees’ with a different relationship to professional development and learning.  The foundations of our approach are distinct from many traditional business coaching methods.  While our coaches have training and exposure to traditional business-psychology, our methods are also informed by philosophy of language, systems thinking, and depth psychology.  We work with the whole person: not just thinking, but also emotions, body and purpose; not just work, but also the work-life interface; and, not just performance, but also the deeper drivers of performance.  We work not only with skills, but also on the skill-user.

Benefits of Coaching
Senior leaders frequently seek coaching for some of the following reasons:

• An increase in responsibility, or ambitions
• A new strategic challenge
• Leading a major change
• A difficult annual appraisal
• A new global role
• Difficult working relationships
• Persistent stress related issues

Structure of a Coaching Assignment
Our approach begins and ends in a highly structured manner.  Our principal ethical responsibilities are to the coachee (for confidentiality and integrity), and to the sponsoring business (for results and evaluation). During the middle, the coach works more with what ‘emerges’. The elements of the approach are:

ENGAGEMENT:  The business and the client (the “coachee”) meet the coach and assess their credentials and mutual fit.
CONTRACTING: The goal-setting process which involves not just the client but also their manager and perhaps HR. 
ASSESSMENT: Depending on the need and on the client’s wishes, we may conduct a qualitative survey of their performance, we may ‘shadow’ for a day, or for a few key meetings. This can also include psychometrics.
GENERATING:  Our coaches work flexibly.  Meetings can be shorter or longer; twice a week, or once a month.  They can be one on one, or the coach can facilitate coach and observe meetings. 
REVIEWING: The programme is constantly under review by the coach and client, assessing value and direction.  However, periodic formal reviews with the sponsoring organisation are held.  Formal (360-degree) feedback can be repeated if needs indicate.

Coaching Options
During the assignment, a number of different options can be selected:

• 360 degree feedback
• Facilitating one-to-one meetings with the client’s superior
• Observing the client leading his or her team
• Use of psychometrics such as the LDF (leadership development framework), the LPI (leadership practices inventory), or standard ones such as MBTI
• Facilitating an offsite meeting with the client’s team

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