The Coaching on Call Story
Kaaren and Ruth met on various training course in the early 1990s and
did the same coaching training which led to meeting up regularly for
co-coaching - often over the course of long walks in the Surrey
countryside.
After one such expedition in October 2006, we were relaxing with
a glass of wine and the conversation turned to blue-sky musing how
marvellous it would be if everybody could have access to great
coaching. What a difference it would make to the world!
Evolution of Coaching
Pondering on how coaching was evolving, it seemed to us that as
executive coaching was becoming established, it was in danger
of becoming somewhat over-inflated - too expensive, exclusive, time
consuming and sometimes indulgent. 'Flabby' was the word, we
decided!
Moving on to how we wanted to see coaching develop, we
agreed that where it would really make a substantial difference was
with managers. They, after all, are the poor souls who are under
pressure from both sides - having to deliver on strategy on the one
hand and ensure day to day operations on the other.
It was great that managers were being increasingly
encouraged and trained to use coaching style and techniques
themselves, but where did they get good coaching just when they
needed it? Line managers are often away or too busy themselves to
offer support when really required. Having access to expert outside professionals would
give massive value in terms of management confidence and competence.
We could think of no existing coaching business model that
would be viable in extending coaching to large scale management
populations in a manageable, affordable way. Looking on the internet
for such providers, it became apparent that there was indeed a
significant gap in the market. Wouldn't it be great to be able to
offer practical coaching to managers to help them with their
day-to-day challenges. Such coaching would be fast, direct,
pragmatic and cut down to the core essentials so as to give all the
benefits without any of the frills and excesses that had emerged
within executive coaching.
Just in Time Coaching
Just then Ian walked into the room. Hearing the tail end of the
conversation, 'Just-in-time coaching', he said. Exactly! Coaching on
Call!!
But how on earth could we make it viable?
As luck would have it, Ian's background in process
engineering and IT made him perfectly suited to designing an
operating system that would enable just that.
So over the next year, Ian created the secure system while Kaaren
and Ruth went off to find a team of great coaches - who have loyally
supported and stayed with us ever since, their numbers growing to 70
by early 2009.
The bigger picture
With such a wealth of experience and resource in our coaches, our business has naturally developed to meet all the coaching needs of our clients in the UK and abroad, from executive & performance coaching, accredited coaching skills training and coaching supervision all the way through to designing their global coaching framework and helping them to develop a coaching culture.